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“Dogcatcher! Step aside!”
I swiveled, or tried to. The woven restraint held me in place, though. I could barely bend enough to see who was on the other end of the net.
What I saw when I finally finished the contortion made me snort out disbelief. The tattooed man hanging out the window of the minivan was rough and wild enough to fit into our current neighborhood. He was also a shifter, if my nose didn’t betray me...and my nose never betrayed me. There was no way he brought home a government paycheck. Dogcatcher, my ass.
It was almost as if he’d heard my silent rejoinder because my captor grinned, the smile making him appear oddly boyish. “Cool it, Fido,” he warned as I attempted to bite my way out of my trap.
I stopped gnawing, not because he told me to but because the net was plastic and unbiteable. There had to be another way of escaping, one that didn’t involve shifting in plain sight.
Above the tattooed guy’s head, I could just barely make out a woman Willa’s age at the wheel. Maybe she....
A horn beeped behind us, one long, drawn-out complaint. Then a cascade of agreement from other horns. The minivan was stopping traffic.
And it was stopping me from locating Kale. Which was when I remembered the obvious. I was Alpha. I should be able to slap down whoever I wanted.
So I snarled, attempting to imbue the vocalization with an alpha order. It should have worked too. Even here outside the heart of my territory, I was still a highly dominant wolf.
Only, my snarl had no impact. The not-really dogcatcher just laughed at me. “Nice try, Fido. Now tuck in your legs.”
His command had the bite mine lacked. My feet folded into my belly without my permission just as the tattooed shifter twisted the handle and scooped me all the way off the pavement. Then I, Alpha of the Whelan pack, was being driven down the street tangled in plastic netting that cut through my fur and into my skin.
I struggled both physically and mentally. Was it coincidence that two alpha commands in a row had fallen flat? Could my weakness be due to the fact I’d yet to jump through all of the Guardian-mandated hoops?
Unfortunately, my contortions weren’t getting me out of the net or closer to the truth. So I gave up. Relaxed both my brain and my muscles while biding my time.
“Good dog,” the not-really-dogcatcher praised me as the van turned down the same alley I’d parked in. The space was tight and my hip bumped up against bricks. Then, abruptly, I was on the ground only twenty feet away from Natalie’s car.
My captor had dropped me so he could get out of the van. Which meant I had perhaps ten seconds to disentangle myself from the net and dart to my pile of clothing in search of weapons. Or perhaps I’d be better off diving into Natalie’s car naked and high-tailing it away from there. Either way, the first item on my agenda was a shift. I’d just have to hope that no unwitting humans started down the alley while I shed my fur.
I was peeling the net away from my head with flexible fingers when shoes settled on either side of my knees and a female voice observed: “I told Ryder his sense of humor was an acquired taste.”
Her words almost sounded like an apology, and no wonder. Few female shifters were dominant, which made the dogcatcher’s chauffeur the weak link in this takedown.
So I tried again with my most deeply imbedded weapon. “Restrain Ryder,” I barked, flinging the net away from me and whirling into the gap where the woman had been one moment earlier.
Only...she was still there. Was standing her ground while shaking her head slowly, the faintest smile on her lips.
Momentum prevented me from stopping before our noses touched. Despite the contact, she didn’t recoil and I didn’t either. Still, when she spoke, I had to force my muscles not to jerk me out of the path of her words.
“Irony is underestimating me because I’m a woman,” she murmured.
Which is when I realized that the darkest dominance I’d smelled when first shifting in this alley hadn’t come from Ryder. It had emanated from her.
***
BEFORE I COULD TAKE offensive action, though, my phone rang. Some sort of fast and upbeat tune I was too old to understand. Caitlyn was calling.
I eyed the two shifters who’d literally scooped me off the street. “I don’t suppose you’d let me take that?”
“By all means.” The woman nodded. “Be my guest.”
The tattooed guy—Ryder—just stood there with his arms crossed and muscles bulging. The air was electric with alpha energy not my own.
And...I turned away from them. Cold air prickled against my back as I stalked twenty feet to my pile of clothes and retrieved my cell phone. I left the knives hidden, but shuffled my feet until I could feel the hilt of one.
If I needed a blade, I knew where to find it.
By this point, the phone had stopped ringing. But the moment I swiped it awake, another call came in. From a stranger. No fancy ringtone and no name on the display screen....
“As fascinating as it is to watch you check your messages,” the woman said from the other side of the alley, “perhaps we can discuss business. I’m Lupe and this is Ryder and we’re....”
I stopped listening. Because a text had come through from the same number as the second call, the one not from a pack mate. A text with an image that hit me like the punch I’d expected from Lupe and Ryder when I turned my back.
Kale. The photo was taken from a distance, my favorite kid surrounded by trees in a wooded area like yet unlike our pack hunting grounds. He appeared to be alone, but the bend of his spine wasn’t quite right.
And whoever had sent the image was close enough to be the cause of that crumpled posture.
“Who are you?” I typed. “How did you get this number?”
The phone rang. This time, I ignored the other shifters and accepted the call.
“This is Rune.” His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him. “Caitlyn gave me your number. I’ve found the child, but he smells like fae.”
Rune. Air rushed back into my lungs even as my brain started moving. “Where are you? I’ll come get him.”
I scooped up clothes and knives and tossed them into Natalie’s car, not bothering to pull on so much as a t-shirt. Swiped the key off the tire and turned it in the ignition.
Old Nellie refused to start.