Amber's Ace (11 page)

Chapter One

“Brick.”

Summer repeated her mate’s name three times, each utterance a little louder. Hard to compete with the noise level rising from the soft rag rug she’d braided and knotted herself during her pregnancy, while enduring all the jokes the Tao pack—and the occasional member of the Goldspark feline clan—flung at her about “rug rats.”

Brick lay flat on his back, the rug bunched beneath him on the polished, hardwood floor of the log cabin he’d turned into a luxurious forest lodge during his ten years of banishment from Los Lobos and the Black Hills Wolves. Clay and Autumn, their young pup and cub, sprawled across his muscular chest, having crazy fun practicing roaring and howling—and generally wrestling and roughhousing—with their dad. With every squeak and growl, the little ones got more insanely hysterical, their laughter so wild they shifted in and out of their animal forms like blinking neon signs.

Bending down, Summer snatched up her squirming pup and plopped him naked into his playpen. The pen couldn’t hold either of her mischievous offspring, but she needed to grab her mate’s attention. He remained, as always, enthralled with their tiny family pack. Although he’d always protect them with his life, all hell could break loose around them before he’d forego the pleasure of playing with his kids. Touchy-feely as his pack and her clan could be at times, she’d never seen an adult male who doted on his babies the way her mate did.

“We’ve got a situation, Brick.”

“What?” her wolf asked, his smile contented and lazy. Life was good for them now. The clamoring voices of his packmates and the unwanted visions of their deaths no longer haunted him, befuddling his mind. It’d take an exploding stack of dynamite to move him from his zone of comfort at the center of his little family. He tickled the padded paws and soft underbelly of the small kitten cub trying to climb his torso to nip at his solid chin until Autumn shrieked.

Unfortunately, Summer was about to let loose just such a bombshell on him.

“My Uncle Cal’s got your brother in his jail in Shady Heart.”

“My
what?
Your what?” Brick scrambled to his feet, clutching the cub to his heart and nuzzling the top of her furry head before releasing her into the pen with her sibling. He stared at Summer, his brandy-bright eyes wide with shock. “My
brother
? In the Shady Heart jail?”

“Yeah, Chance Northridge, Cal said. I didn’t even know you had a brother. Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Jesus.” He brushed a hand through his dark, coffee-colored hair. “I haven’t seen or heard from Chance in more than ten years. Bastard fled Los Lobos before I did. Left us to rot there. Didn’t care what the hell happened, what insane cruelty Magnum could devise.”

“Yeah, well. Looks like he needs you now. It appears he’s back. Or in Shady Heart, anyway. The jail to be precise. Cal, um,
suggests,
you come spring him ASAP. He says to bring cash. A lot of cash.”

“Holy Hunter’s Moon. Chance has always been hotheaded and reckless. Goddess only knows what kind of trouble he got up to in Shady Heart.”

Her uncle’s town, the stronghold of the feline shifter clan to which as half cougar and half skinwalker she’d once belonged, beckoned shifter adventure-seekers and tourists and a few feckless humans to its mecca of mischief and more sordid delights. Especially those indulgent pleasures available in and around Calhoun Bartholomew Seven’s Graymarket Trading Company Saloon and Casino. Like Los Lobos, Shady Heart couldn’t be found on any map. Unlike Los Lobos, its rumored existence spread through a certain class, and Cal encouraged them to empty their wallets to fill the cats’ coffers.

Brick should know. Before they’d mated, he’d occasionally sampled the decadence Shady Heart had to offer during the ten years when he’d been banished from the Black Hills Wolves pack for challenging the crazed former Alpha, Magnum Tao. Brick had been a beaten and bloodied eighteen-year-old when the giant Werebear Gee, Los Lobos’ historian and keeper of its secrets, had taken pity on him, scraping him off the floor of Gee’s Bar and bringing him out here to what was then a deserted cabin in the glade deep within the woods between Los Lobos territory and Goldspark land. An isolated lone wolf with little interest in anything aside from his beautifully intricate carvings, he’d lived without companionship, rattling around the cabin he’d rebuilt and renovated, until Summer had befriended him in her raven form. Now the place of his former exile from Los Lobos was home, glowing with the warmth of family.

“You have any other siblings I should know about?” she asked her mate.

“Well.” Brick hesitated and then pressed his hands to his temples, closing his eyes, as if in the throes of a sudden, agonizing headache. He dragged in a deep breath, expelling it in a whoosh.

“Are you all right, baby?” She tensed with concern.

“Yeah.” Brick turned toward the mantelpiece and slanted the painting above it to one side to reveal a wall safe. “I may. Haven’t seen any of them in years. Have no idea if they’re alive or dead.”

“Maybe they’ll start coming home now. Like Chance.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know what happened to them. They just…randomly vanished.”

Summer bit her lip, but remained silent. It was totally unlike her mate to act so uncaring, but she’d never heard him mention any family before. He’d once been plagued by hearing the whispers of packmates in his head, along with visions of their deaths. Were the disappearances of his siblings related? The mystery nagged at her, but first they had to deal with Chance.

Brick twirled the combination lock counterclockwise and back and then reached inside to draw out the strongbox containing his last month’s take from his thriving carving company. Happily, thanks to the cats and tourists in Shady Heart and the wolves in Los Lobos, all clamoring for his unique work, his business flourished. Summer’s friend Brenna couldn’t keep her Shady Heart boutique stocked with Brick’s signature pieces, and with the influx of hundreds of new customers drawn from her web site, Brick could barely keep up with the demand. Back orders alone ensured their prosperity. Good thing, since Summer’s Uncle Cal, the Shady Heart alpha, was likely to hold him up big time before he’d release Chance to Brick’s custody.

“This should be interesting,” he muttered.

“You have no idea how much I want to go with you,” Summer said, lifting her chin in the direction of their scrappy young, now happily mewling, yipping, and wrestling with each other in the playpen. “I’m on mommy patrol, though. No time to find a sitter.”

“Not to worry. I’ll get Chance out. You can meet him in Los Lobos.”

“Wait. You’re not going to bring him home, Brick? We’ve got plenty of room in the cabin. He can have the guest room.”

He shook his head, his scruffy hair tumbling over his brow, almost kissing his broad shoulders. “Not on your life, baby. I’m not letting Chance within an inch of my offspring. Besides, if he’s planning on making a permanent move, Drew and Ryker will have to clear him first.”

“What’ll you do with him then? You can’t leave him in Shady Heart. From what Cal said, he’ll just get locked up again.”

“Nah, I’ll drag him back to Los Lobos, get him settled at The Den, and let the bear deal with him. Drew and Gee and Ryker can read him the riot act. Sounds like he can use their brand of lecture. ”

***

Chance gripped the metal bars and shook the cage he’d been tossed into, drunk, bleeding, only semi-conscious. The horrendous hangover beat against the bones of his skull, the squishy gray matter pounding in agony.
That’ll teach me.
Except it rarely did teach him. For more than ten years, he’d attempted, uselessly, to drown his sorrows and forget the mate he’d left behind. He might as well have tried to plunge a silver stake into his shriveled heart.

Picking up the tin cup resting on the floor of the cell, he strummed it across the bars, raising a clattering racket as if he were in a B prison movie. Instead of the guard he’d expected to see, the Goldspark clan alpha appeared in his line of sight. Calhoun Bartholomew Seven held the town of Shady Heart and the territory surrounding with an iron fist. To what did he owe this honor, he wondered? Eyeballs throbbing in pain, Chance squinted at the panther shifter.

“Let me the fuck outta here, you damned cat.”

“Not a chance, wolf.” The corners of Cal’s implacable mouth quirked upward, as if the pun amused him. “You’ve caused enough damn damage in my town and my saloon for me to own your hairy ass for the next twenty decades.”

Chance pushed the tin mug between the bars. “This is cruel and unusual punishment, even for a cat. I’m dying of thirst in here. How about some hair of the dog, at least?”

“The puns just keep coming.” Cal shook his head. “You don’t seem to get it, badass. You haven’t shown you can hold your liquor. I’m cutting you off. No way I’d give you more, even if you could pay for it. Your wallet looks to be a mite on the thin side.”

A growl of protest bubbled up from deep in Chance’s chest. A solid enough bank account from his gambling and speculative ventures cushioned him, but carrying a wad of cash into Shady Heart would have been a total chump’s move. No fuckin’ way he’d tell the cat alpha he had the dough.

He settled for a disgruntled throat clearing. The noise emanating from his thorax didn’t seem to impress Cal in the slightest. “What are you going to do with me, then?”

“You’re a wolf problem, boyo. I wash my hands of you. Well, once your brother pays me sufficient funds to cover your bail and all the property damage and havoc you wreaked last night.”

“My
brother
?”

“Yeah, Brick Northridge, right? Booked you as Chance Northridge and that’s what it says on your driver’s license. Jesus. You don’t even remember the conversation we had an hour ago?”

Chance shut his eyes. Not how he wanted the reunion with Brick to go. He hadn’t seen his baby brother in more than ten years. He needed to grovel for forgiveness for fleeing Los Lobos and its insane Alpha, Magnum Tao, and leaving poor, addled Brick to survive on his own. Had Brick figured out anything yet about the clamoring voices he heard in his head? Over the years, Chance had pondered Brick’s “affliction” long and hard, finally reaching an unsettling conclusion. He’d have to find a way to explain his theory to his brother, if Brick would listen.

Even if things had changed for Brick with Magnum’s son, Drew, the new Alpha in charge, and Los Lobos turning around and rebuilding from the dilapidated hellhole it used to be…Chance had still fucked up his homecoming big time. He stank like a sewer filled with dead vermin and swamp gas. Blood spattered his torn clothes. Hell knew how much money it’d cost Brick to spring him. Money his brother might not even have. Thankfully, “Lucky Chance,” could pay him back. His success at the card tables of Vegas and A.C. and his flourishing construction and solar energy business ensured he wouldn’t have to beg scraps from Brick’s table.

“Can’t I work something out with you, cat?”

“No. You should thank your sweet ass Brick’s mated to my niece, doing well, and lets me spoil the cutest pair of young you’ll ever hope to see. Or I’d leave your stinkin’ mangy wolf hide to rot in here forever.”

Brick is mated to a cat? Holy fuckin’ shit.
I’m an uncle?
To kittens?
Half kittens? What the fuck?

He’d definitely been away too long but he’d never been able to return before. Not with Magnum in charge and the threats he’d made hanging over Chance’s head. And Julie…. Goddess. His eyes stung. Sweet Mother of the Moon. How would he live? How would he stand it? His bold, beautiful Julie compelled by Magnum to mate another male. His eyes might bleed if he saw her with the guy day after day. Witnessed her conjugal bliss with another. Watched her radiant glow of satisfaction after rising from another male’s bed. Or, even worse, her despair from a loveless and unhappy marriage.

A bolt of pain tore through him, so intense it rivaled the agony of his hangover. He wanted to be happy for her. He did. He told himself he wanted nothing so much as her contentment, but wave after wave of desperate anguish washed over him until he thought he’d drown in misery, like he had so many times before. Torment drove him time after time to reach for the bottle to momentarily blot out the oppressive torture of knowing Julie walked the earth and he could never have her.

Yes, Los Lobos might have changed, but had the circumstances driving them apart? Would he be forced to watch his Julie living in peaceful domesticity with her male? Maybe with a houseful of brats? His legs buckled and gave way. He slid to his knees, his hands still gripping the bars of his cell.

Why the fuck had he returned? Had the pull of family, of pack become too strong to ignore any longer? Jesus. How fuckin’ pathetic was he? He was a grown man, damn it. He’d lived life as a lone wolf among humans a good long time now and had done okay for himself. Better than okay. As a successful builder and developer directing and juggling his human crews, and a damn lucky poker player, he didn’t need the embrace of any staggering, decimated pack. If he stayed in Los Lobos, seeing Julie on a daily basis would rip his fuckin’ heart out.

What would he do to ease the pain? Get blitzed on rotgut bourbon and tear up Shady Heart night after night? What had seemed like such a good idea yesterday…now so fuckin’ lame. Not to mention the others he’d left behind. He hung his head in shame.

“One more thing, wolf,” Cal continued pitilessly. “You harm a single hair on those little ones’ pelts, or let my baby niece and nephew see you in this condition…and there’ll be fuckin’ hell to pay. You can count on that.”

***

“I have to piss and puke.”

“Not in my truck you don’t.” Brick slammed on the brakes and brought the vehicle to a screeching halt. Chance shoved open the door and barreled out, tumbling to his knees in one not-quite-fluid motion. Which was fine. Because he had enough fluids to deal with. He collapsed, retching, in the thick grass on the side of the graveled road. He’d have laughed if he wasn’t so sick. The rutted, unpaved byway winding around the mountain from Shady Heart to Los Lobos gave the overgrown path a title it didn’t deserve. Chance could do something about the seedy neglect, though. Would do something…with the new Alpha’s okay. He had skills, after all. He’d learned a lot in the ten years of his absence, and he could provide jobs to other wolves, put them to work. He hadn’t returned completely empty-handed, even if nothing but air currently filled his pockets.