Dark Wolf Returning (12 page)

He shot his brother a dark look. “Different situations.”

“Are they? If I had to bet, I’d say Cian’s afraid of putting the girl in a dangerous situation, though no one knows what that
is. But he’s no doubt trying to protect her.”

“Then maybe you should give the guy a break,” he shot back.

“I will,” Eric muttered, “just as soon as he’s manned up.”

Despite his foul mood, Eli couldn’t help but bark out a gritty laugh. “I have a feeling Hennessey would have your damn balls if he heard you say that.”

Though frustration still burned in his hard gaze, Eric’s lips
twitched with a grin. “He could
try
.”

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Elise said, “I hate to break this up, but Wyatt will be home soon. Do you guys want to stay for dinner?”

“Chelsea’s making lasagna,” Eric said, pushing away from the sink, “but why don’t you guys come over and join us? I know she’d love to have you over.”

“That would be fun,” she said with a smile.

Eric’s
gray gaze returned to his. “Eli?”

Thinking that Carla might come along with his sister and Wyatt, he moved back to his feet and said, “Yeah, I can make it. I just need to head over to the cabin and grab a shower.”

“I’ll head out with you, then,” Eric said. “I need a smoke.”

They hugged Elise goodbye, leaving her to get ready, then walked out onto the front porch. He started to tell
Eric he’d see him later, when his brother said, “I have one more question before you run off.”

He sighed, propping his shoulder against one of the wooden posts that supported the porch’s roof, and watched as Eric lit the cigarette he’d taken from the pack in his pocket. He’d have wagered every penny to his name that Eric’s question was about Carla, his suspicions confirmed when his brother
looked him in the eye and asked, “Is she the reason you’ve stayed away? I mean, once you heard that Dad and the League were dead and realized you could come back home? Is she the reason why you didn’t?”

“Yeah,” he rasped, taking the easy way out with that oversimplified response.

Eric’s pale gaze searched his with piercing intensity. “And do you love her?”

A hollow laugh punched
from his chest, and he started to shove his hands in his pockets, before realizing he still had the dishtowel wrapped around his shredded knuckles.

Exhaling a silvery stream of smoke, Eric frowned. “That’s not an answer, man.”

He rubbed his good hand over his mouth, then gave another heavy sigh. “I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about her ever since she walked back into my life
and punched me in the mouth.”

His brother laughed. “That sounds like Carla.”

Lips twitching with a wry smile, he said, “Yeah, she’s definitely got a temper on her.”

“So you gonna answer the question?” Eric pressed, taking another deep drag on his cigarette.

Eli shifted his gaze over Eric’s shoulder, staring out at the forest, the heavy tree limbs swaying like giant beasts in
the wind, and struggled to put his thoughts in some kind of order that made sense. A few moments later, he drew in a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, and gave his brother the truth. “Yeah, I love her,” he said in a low voice that thrummed with emotion. “I loved her when I left, and despite all the bullshit I started to tell myself over the years, trying to stay away, I never stopped loving
her.” Looking away from the sky, he took another deep breath as he settled his gaze back on Eric. “Somehow, I love her even more now. So much that it’s scaring the hell out of me.”

Eric’s dark brows were drawn with concern. “Because you’re worried you’ll lose her?”

“I’m worried about all of it,” he admitted gruffly, scrubbing his hand down his face. “Her safety is part of it. I hate
the danger she puts herself in, like she’s got some kind of death wish. But then there’s the fact that she keeps claiming to want her freedom. Not to mention the strong chance that she might never be able to forgive me for leaving her or learn to love me back. That she might get tired of it all and walk away for good.”
Destroying our bond and leaving me with...nothing.

With a sharp exhale,
his brother said, “I get what you’re saying, Eli. I really do. But you need to stop and take a long hard look at what Carla’s capable of. She’s not like our mother was. She’s not...fragile.”

He frowned, thinking the topic of his mother was the
last
thing he wanted to come up right now.

“And secondly,” Eric was saying, “do you know what I remember most from when we were younger?”

He shook his head, eyeing his brother with a careful gaze.

Jerking his chin toward him, Eric said, “The way you never gave up, man, no matter what you were up against.”

“This is different,” he grunted.

“Oh, yeah?” Eric murmured, lifting his brows with a challenging look. “How?”

Grimacing, he crossed his arms back over his chest and said, “I can’t
make
her forgive me, Eric. I
can’t force her to give me a second chance.”

“And have you asked for one? For a second chance?”

He rubbed the back of his neck and cursed, realizing that all he’d actually told her was that he was sorry for hurting her...and that he wanted in her bed. He’d never really gotten around to explaining what he wanted
after
that, but then, she hadn’t exactly given him the opportunity to.

“Eli, if you want her, let her know. Be honest with her. You’ll never know what could have been if you aren’t, and you’ll end up regretting it till the day you die.”

“I just don’t kn...” He trailed off when he suddenly caught sight of a worried-looking Sayre running back into the Alley, her pale face flushed with color and her blue-gray eyes wide with panic.

“Jeremy!” she shouted,
cupping her hands around her mouth as she stood just off to the side of Elise and Wyatt’s porch.

Eric tossed his cigarette aside and raced down the steps with Eli right behind him. “Sayre, what’s going on?” his brother asked the girl.

She turned toward them, grabbing Eric’s arm as she started talking in a rush. “There’s been a...a...damn it, I don’t know what to call it.”

“Just
take a deep breath and tell us what happened,” Eric said, while the hairs on the back of Eli’s neck lifted as something inside him twisted with fear.

“A woman,” Sayre panted, her knuckles turning white as she gripped Eric’s arm even tighter. “A Whiteclaw female...she escaped from Hawkley and came to us for help. But she wasn’t alone. She was followed here by one of their soldiers.”

“Jesus,” Eric hissed. “Is she all right? Is everyone okay?”

“She’ll be fine. Jillian is with her in the woods. Everyone’s fine. But that man...he tried to kill her...and Carla...
Ohmygod
, she was so amazing!”

Eli’s head jerked back as if he’d just been clipped on the chin. “Carla? What the hell was she doing there?”

“She must have shown up just before I did. I think we were both
looking for Jillian, and Carla saved her. She saved them both,” Sayre told them, her big eyes shining with shock as she looked from one to the other. “She put herself between them and that maniac—”

“She
what?
” Eli roared, making the young witch flinch.

“She saved the woman and Jillian. The woman was clinging to my sister for help, and he would have killed them both, but she saved them.
It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. I would have helped her, but by the time I realized what was happening, he was already going down.”

“Sayre,” he croaked, a cold sweat breaking out over his face, “where is the man now?”

She brought her wide eyes back to his, and blinked up at him. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?”

Voice soft with awe, she nodded and said, “Carla killed him.”

Chapter 8

T
hey’d brought the woman, who appeared to be in her early thirties and was named Rachel, back to Jeremy and Jillian’s cabin. All the Runners were gathered in the couple’s living room, along with Eli’s men, ready to hear the full story.

Sayre had offered the woman a damp washcloth, which she was using to wipe the dirt and smears of blood from her bruised, tear-streaked
face as she sat in a chair that’d been placed in front of the empty fireplace. Her eyes were wide with apprehension, moving from one person to another. She looked overwhelmed and more than a little frightened, but there was also a fierce sense of determination in her dark gaze that made Eli think she just might be the real deal, instead of a spy sent to infiltrate their ranks.

Of course,
that didn’t make him feel any calmer about what Carla had done.

Eli had managed to plant himself right at the little Bloodrunner’s side the moment she’d entered the cabin, and he was still seething with fury. The Whiteclaw she’d taken down had been a goddamn behemoth. At least six-six, with probably more than a hundred pounds on her. He didn’t know what the hell she’d been thinking.

While everyone was still getting situated, he kept his narrowed gaze focused on the woman as he spoke to Carla. “Do you have any idea what that asshole could have done to you?”

He’d kept his voice low, barely above a whisper, but knew she’d heard him from the stiffening of her posture. Then she asked, “Does it matter? Fighting him was a risk I was willing to take. Do you honestly think I would
have just left Jillian there to deal with him herself?”

“She’s powerful. She could have handled it.”

“She’s also
pregnant,
you ass. And like family to me. I would
never
turn my back on someone I cared about, no matter how dangerous the situation was.”

He ground his back teeth together, ready to grab her arm and drag her to someplace private where they could talk. Yeah, it was a
caveman move, but he was desperate enough to use it.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” said a deep voice on his other side, “I wouldn’t try it.”

He turned his head and found Wyatt watching him with a hard, steady gaze. Before he could tell the Runner to mind his own damn business, Wyatt said, “The two of you need to sort this out later. Right now, we need to hear what this woman has to say.”

He jerked his chin in agreement, knowing it was the right move, but still too pissed off to be civil about it. A few moments later, the room finally settled down, quieting, and he realized Rachel’s dark gaze was focused intently on Carla. The woman lowered the washcloth to her lap, her fingers clenched around the damp cotton, and swallowed hard before saying, “You’re the female Runner, aren’t
you?”

From the corner of his eye, Eli watched Carla give the woman a wary nod.

Tears glistened in Rachel’s eyes as she whispered a heartfelt, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

At Carla’s uncertain look, the woman lifted her chin and said, “You gave me the courage to fight back and escape. We all—the other women and I—we all heard about the half-human female who bested the Whiteclaw
soldiers in Hawkley and got away. It...you...what you did, it inspired us.”

“Oh, um, that’s...wonderful,” Carla managed to get out, though he could tell by the huskiness of her voice that she’d been floored by what the woman had just said.

Sitting beside his wife, Torrance, on the arm of one of the leather sofas, Mason said, “Rachel, what is it that you want? Is there someplace you’re
trying to reach?”

Strands of short black hair stuck to her battered face as she shook her head, her watery gaze shifting to the tall Runner. “I...I want to stay here. I’m seeking sanctuary,” she told him. “And I’m not the only one. There are others. They just...they don’t know how to get away.”

“But you did?”

More tears spilled over her pale cheeks as she shook her head again. “I
would have brought them with me, but I...I didn’t have a plan. I just saw the opportunity, and I took it. I knew that if I didn’t, I might never get another one.”

“How do we know you’re for real?”

“Eric, don’t,” Chelsea murmured at his brother’s side, grasping his hand in hers. Eli had only spoken to his brother’s human life mate a few times, but he liked her. She was a beautiful woman,
but more than that, she was...real. And as head over heels in love with his brother as Pallaton was with his sister.

“No, it’s okay,” Rachel murmured, taking a deep breath. “I understand why you would be concerned, given everything that my pack has done. But I can prove that I’m for real. I can...I can give you information.”

Brody spoke up for the first time from his position against
the far wall, between his wife and his Bloodrunning partner, Cian. “What kind of information?”

The woman wet her lips, then said, “I know where they’ve stored the drugs. The ones they take to make them stronger and mask their scents.”

In a soft, lilting burr, Cian asked, “And why would you help us?”

A shudder worked its way through her narrow frame, making Eli wonder just what this
woman had lived through with her pack. She cleared her throat, her gaze lowered to her lap as she scraped out, “Because of Roy’s greed. It’s...it’s like a sickness. His arrogance is spreading, and the men are...they’re out of control.” Pulling in another deep, ragged breath, she lifted her head and locked her shattered gaze with Carla’s, as if seeking strength as she quietly added, “They...they
do whatever they want, to the ones like me. With the way things are now, any female who is unmated is considered...fair game.”

“Christ,”
Jeremy muttered, dropping his chin on top of Jillian’s head, his arms wrapped around her waist as they stood together with her back to his front.

Sayre, who was staying close to the woman’s side in case she was needed, said, “The man who was chasing
you. Who was he?”

“My cousin,” she whispered thickly, turning her head to look at Sayre. “And a bastard.”

“Will they come looking for him?” Carla asked, no doubt wondering what kind of fallout they might be facing from the kill that she’d made. Everyone in the room knew that it’d been justified, considering the Lycan had been ready to kill whoever got in his way—but Eli knew Carla would
blame herself if anyone ended up hurt because of what she’d done.

Answering Carla’s question, Rachel said, “I...I don’t think so. He worked for Roy, monitoring the pack’s stock of drugs, along with a few other Lycans. That’s how I know where they’re stored.” Her shoulders shook as she explained, “When he drinks, he talks. Or...I mean, he
did
. But he’s not so important that they would waste
time trying to find him. Not with everything else they have going on.”

“These stocks you mentioned,” Mason said, drawing her attention back to him. “What can you tell us about them?”

“They’re running low on the drugs they use on the girls—the human ones. But they have a large supply of the stuff that the soldiers take, because Roy bought so much when it was first created.”

Recalling
how Carla had mentioned the Fed who was working to destroy the labs where the gang-rape drugs were being produced, Eli assumed that was why they were running low. But the fact that they still had a strong supply of the “super soldier” drugs was troubling.

“And what about the drug that Sebastian took?” Eric asked.

She looked confused. “Which one is that?”

Eli had heard about the
drug that Sebastian Claymore had taken the day he’d kidnapped Elise and Carla. It had enabled the Lycan to shift more of his body during the daytime than was normal, as well as increased his size and strength. At the time, Sebastian had claimed to be working on an additional drug that would allow him to completely day-shift, and either drug could prove catastrophic for the Silvercrest if they were
produced in mass quantities.

With his arm around Elise’s shoulders, Wyatt answered the woman’s question. “It’s a drug that allowed him to shift more completely during the day. Not a complete shift, but enough that it was noticeable.”

She shook her head. “I don’t even know about that one.”

“That’s good,” Brody rumbled. “Hopefully his personal supply was limited.”

“Rachel,” Eli
murmured, drawing her attention to where he stood. “Could you draw a map that leads to the exact location where the drugs are stored?”

Nodding, she said, “Yes. I just need a pen and paper.”

“I’ll get it,” Sayre murmured, heading out of the room, and Eli looked over at his men, who were standing together against the far wall, where they’d been quietly listening. Their expressions were
hard with outrage, and each one jerked their chin in assent to his silent question. He nodded, then looked round at the Runners. “We’re heading out.”

Carla’s slender fingers bit into his arm. “Now?” she asked, staring up at him with wide eyes as he turned his head to look at her. “Where the hell are you going?”

“If we’re going to make full use of the intel, then we’ve got to move quickly,
before they shift the drugs to a new location.”

Her slender brows knitted together. “Then we’ll make a plan.”

“There’s no time,” he argued. “It might take them a while to realize that Rachel and her cousin are missing, but once they do, we’ve lost our window of opportunity. We’ve got to go now, before they can move their stock.”

Determination hardened her gaze. “Then I’m going with
you.”

Over my dead body,
he thought, hating that he had to pull his arm from her grip, now that she was finally touching him. But it’d be a cold day in hell before he ever let her set foot anywhere near that godforsaken town again. She’d been lucky to make it out alive the first time, and there wasn’t going to be a second one.

Wondering just how angry he was about to make her, he said,
“That’s not gonna happen, Reyes. The guys and I are going in alone.”

“The hell you are,” Eric muttered, while the other Runners seconded him.

Looking around the room, Eli frowned. “This isn’t personal. It’s basic logic. The guys and I are trained for this kind of op, and we’re used to pulling them off alone. Mixing things up at this point is only going to make it more dangerous.”

His brother’s scowl deepened. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to let you and your men fight our battles for us, Eli. That’s not how this works.”

“We’re not trying to fight anyone’s battles,” he growled, hating that they were having this argument in front of a roomful of people. “I understand what you’re saying, but the reason the guys and I are here is so that the Runners don’t have to do everything
on their own anymore. So don’t be a stubborn jackass about this. Just stand down and let us get this done before it’s too late.”

Eric cursed under his breath, his metallic gray eyes molten with frustration. But he didn’t shove another argument back in Eli’s face. Instead, he exhaled a rough breath, and muttered, “Don’t think I’ll let you pull this shit again. This is your one pass. You get
in, you get out, and then you get the hell back here.”

Eli nodded at his brother, then cut his gaze back to Carla. She stared up at him with a dazed look on her pale face, as if she was still trying to figure out how this had happened. Fighting the urge to reach out and yank her into his arms, he turned away from her and told Rachel he’d be back for the map, then followed his guys out of
the cabin.

* * *

Carla stared at the front door, after Eli and his men had left, and blinked like someone coming out of a long, deep sleep. She felt like she’d been hit over the head, her thoughts disordered, her pulse roaring in her ears like an engine that’d been revved too high.

No matter how hard she’d been trying to put him from her mind, avoiding him as she worked herself
into exhaustion, her dreams had been plagued by his irresistible presence. Deliciously raw, erotic dreams of the night they’d bonded. Of their hot, sweat-misted skin sliding together as he’d kissed and licked every inch of her he could reach, while rubbing his hard, heavy erection between her thighs, against the slick cushion of her sex. His dark voice whispering things so intimate and wicked, she’d
been ready to come before he’d even started to push inside her. He’d been so big, so broad and long, she’d barely been able to take him. But she’d wanted to. She’d wanted to take...and take...until he’d emptied himself into her. Until she’d taken everything he had to give. All the hunger and passion and emotion burning inside him.

Emotion she’d so foolishly hoped was love.

Only, she’d
been wrong. He hadn’t loved her, and she’d had to accept that. But that didn’t mean she didn’t care about him. That she wasn’t worried for his safety, especially when
she
was the one who’d brought him to the Alley.

Unable to just stand there and let him leave her, she hurried from the room, aware of the curious way the others were watching her, and ran after him. From the height of the porch,
she looked across the glade, watching as he and Kyle climbed the porch steps of the cabin they were staying in, while the other three mercs went into the other one. She knew they would be collecting their gear, and she started running as fast as she could, determined to reach Eli before he could leave the privacy of his room. The things she needed to say to him were preferably done without an
audience.

Without even bothering to knock, she let herself into the cabin and hurried across the living room, down the hallway. She had no idea which room he was using, but she tracked his mouthwatering scent to the second doorway on the left. Opening the door, she quickly stepped into the room and pressed her back against the door as it closed, then reached back and flipped the lock. He
was standing by a dresser that sat against the far wall, the dishtowel that had been wrapped around his battered knuckles earlier nowhere to be seen as he checked the clip on a heavy handgun—but his attention was no longer focused on the weapon. He’d looked up the second she’d opened the door, his narrowed gaze now locked in hard and tight on her own.

Pulling her lower lip through her teeth,
she took a deep, shuddering breath and said, “Are you sure about this? About what you’re doing?”