Dual Embrace: 3 (Shadowpeak Wolves) (32 page)

Rye frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I couldn’t smell him.”

Laney frowned. “You didn’t hear him outside either. What’s going on, Dusty?”

Dusty took a deep breath. “My wolf is gone.”

“What?” Cooper spoke first as everyone stared at her in shock.

“My wolf, she’s umm, sleeping, I think. I can’t rouse her.”

“When did this happen?” Cooper asked.

She focused her eyes on the wall in front of her, not wanting to look at anyone. “Ahh, I tried to change after I got out of the hospital.”

“So after you were injured?” Cooper queried.

“Yes. Why?”

He tapped his fingers against his thigh. “What does your doctor say?”

She forced down the urge to fidget. “I haven’t asked him. I missed my first two checkups but I’ve got another in three days.” More like she’d ignored the appointments, not wanting to hear what he had to say.

Cooper grabbed his phone. “Call your surgeon. Now.”

“I don’t know the number.”

He rose, returning with a card in his hand. She took it from him, dialing the number with a shaking hand.

Ten minutes later she hung up the phone in amazement.

“Well?” Brynn asked.

“He said that he didn’t want me changing with the plate in my leg. If I did the plate could ruin my leg irreparably. So he injected a little disc under my skin. It slowly releases a drug that keeps my wolf asleep. When they remove the plate, they’ll take the disc out and my wolf will gradually wake up.”

She held her tears back through sheer force of will. “He said he explained all of this, but I can’t have been listening, I was kind of out of it.”

Glancing up, she found everyone staring at her in sympathy. She glared at them.

“What?” she snapped.

Brynn laughed. “Better watch the wind doesn’t change, hellcat.” Everyone turned to stare at him, frowning, taking their attention from her. Which had been his intention, of course. She sent him a small smile and once everyone had turned back to her, he winked.

“So Dusty’s wolf can’t distinguish this guy’s scent, which means we’ll have to get the information we want another way.” Rye’s voice was cold, dark. Dusty stared at him and nodded. She was the pack interrogator. It would be up to her to get this guy to talk, with Rye and Marcus’ help.

“He must have been the one to set the bomb at the bookstore,” she said slowly. “The question is, why? Who is he? And why didn’t he or whoever he’s working with kill Jesse and Liam instead of simply tranquilizing them?”

“Well, only one way to get an answer.”

Dusty nodded at Rye’s words and stood.

“Yep.”

Dusty limped into the small storage shed they were using as a temporary jail. When Zachary had been alive, they’d used his basement as a holding cell. But no one suggested taking their prisoner there.

She nodded at Josiah, who was standing guard outside the shed. Inside, Marcus lounged back on a plastic chair. He looked up as Rye and Dusty entered, his expression calm.

Rising, he offered her the chair, which she took gratefully. Her leg was stiff and sore. Cain had made her take some pain pills but they hadn’t kicked in yet.

Dusty smiled at the prisoner as he raised his head to look at her. She was playing the friendly, helpless female today. It was her turn to play good cop. Damn it. She much preferred bad cop.

Their prisoner sat on the dirty floor, his arms and legs chained up in silver, which had to be making him feel as weak as a kitten. Silver would drain him, ensuring there was no way he could break free.

Not that he was putting up any resistance. He stared at her from broken eyes.

“What’s your name?” she asked softly.

He shook his head. “Why should I tell you?”

She raised a brow. “What? It’s some big secret? You know, these accommodations aren’t bad. You have four walls, a window, even a light. We have a coffin, about five feet long, that we like to put our really recalcitrant prisoners in. No windows, silver joins and a small hole for you to breathe out of. Would you prefer that?”

Okay, so good cop had just flown the coop. But this guy had punched her, choked her and tried to blow her up.

She studied him closely. His clothes were cheap and he hadn’t had a decent haircut in a while. His hair was unkempt and greasy. And yet he might have been handsome were it not for the defeated, weak feel to him. He was too pasty, too thin.

“What does it matter? You’ll just kill me anyway. Once I tell you I’m as good as dead.”

“And if you don’t tell us what we want to know, you’ll spend your last hours in a lot of pain,” Rye growled.

“Look, I didn’t want to do any of this but I had no other choice, they gave me no choice.” Sweat gathered on his forehead, dripping down his face.

His gaze flitted between Rye and Marcus, trying to decide who the bigger threat was. Licking his lips, he tried to straighten up.

“You can’t do this. I have rights. I don’t belong to this pack.”

“Thank God,” Marcus said fervently. “You’re trespassing on our land. You tried to blow up our Alpha’s mate. Do you really think we’re interested in your rights?”

The prisoner gulped audibly.

“They made me do it.”

“Who?” Dusty asked. “Who made you do it?”

He shook his head.

“Enough of this.” Marcus stepped forward. Pulling the prisoner up until the chains were taut, he held him by the neck, choking him.

“Do you know who you almost killed? Who you’ve been terrorizing? Do you?” He shook the other werewolf easily, slamming his head back against the wooden wall with a loud crack.

“My sister,” he whispered in a deadly voice. “Now you tell us what we want to know or I’m going to make sure every inch of your body is in pain.”

He dropped the prisoner, who gasped for breath, whimpering. Cowering, he looked up at Marcus warily.

“If I-if I tell you what I know, will you do something for me?”

Marcus growled, showing his teeth. The man shook.

“It’s not for me, it’s my mate. She’s innocent.”

“What about her?” Dusty asked.

“They’re holding her. That’s how they got me to do this. They said they’d kill her if I didn’t do what they said.”

“And what do you want from us?” Rye asked coldly.

“I want you to find her, protect her. You can kill me. Just save her. She doesn’t deserve this, any of this.”

Rye was silent for a long moment. “All right, you have our word we will try to find her and if we do, we won’t hurt her.”

Chains rattled as their prisoner relaxed a little and nodded.

“All right, so what’s your name?” Dusty asked

“Dan Edwards.”

“And what pack are you from, Dan?”

“Highmoon.”

“Highmoon?” Dusty asked in surprise. “Texas? You don’t have an accent.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t lived in Texas for a long time. I’ve been moving around for the last few years.”

“You’ve been living without a pack?” Marcus asked in disbelief. Most werewolves needed the pack to keep them grounded.

“There were four of us. My mate, Hanna, myself, my father and my cousin.”

Dusty frowned. “So where are your father and cousin?”

“Dead,” he said dully. Dusty took a breath.

“What are you doing here? Did your pack send you?”

Dusty hoped not. The last thing they needed was a fight with one of the largest packs in the States.

He shook his head. “No, no, they’ve probably forgotten I even exist. I didn’t exactly leave in the best circumstances.”

“And why was that?”

“My father is—was—addicted to gambling. He couldn’t help himself—he’d get in too deep then do anything he could to get himself out. Our pack grew sick of it. They kicked him out after he was caught stealing. From our Alpha. My cousin and I left with him.” Edwards shrugged. “We were lazy, I guess. We preferred to earn a living playing poker and fleecing others than working.”

“You’re con men,” Dusty said, trying not to show her disgust.

“Yeah.”

“And your wife?” Rye asked, obviously wondering what they’d gotten themselves into.

Edwards’ head rose, his eyes strangely fierce. “She’s got nothing to do with it. I met her about a year ago. Hanna’s really just a kid. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. She never knew what we were doing.”

Dusty was skeptical that she’d had no idea, but he seemed determined to protect her.

“How’d you get the ability to set up a bomb? Not a normal hobby.”

His eyes dropped. “I was always good at that sort of thing. My father had a human friend, older guy. He was crooked. Years ago he was dishonorably discharged from the armed forces. He taught me.”

“So you were behind the bombing at the bookstore?”

He nodded.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because they made me. They killed my father and Al, my cousin, when I resisted. And they said Hanna would be next unless I did what they said.”

He may have been spineless scum, but he obviously loved his mate.

“Who did this?”

His eyes were miserable as he gazed up at her. “I don’t know. They were masked. Always.”

“Well, how did they get hold of you?” she asked impatiently.

“My father. He got in too deep with these guys. They were bookies and he owed them money. I got a call from him, asking me to come and get him. When I got to the address he gave me, they’d beaten him really badly. He was tied up to a chair in this large warehouse and they were there. Three of them. They’re wolves, I know that, but they all had masks on and I didn’t recognize any scents.”

“Where was this?”

“Over in Sioux City.”

“That’s Reefton territory. Why would Ian’s wolves want to hurt Laney?” Dusty pondered. The Reefton Alpha wasn’t a friend. But he wasn’t an enemy either. The Reefton pack was small and kept to themselves.

Edwards shook his head. “I don’t know that they were Reefton wolves. They seemed to want to get out of the city quickly and they didn’t act like they knew the place that well.”

Rye growled. “If Ian let his werewolves leave their estate more often they’d have noticed other wolves in their territory.”

“What happened then?” Marcus asked.

“Dad had told them about my skills. They said if I did a job for them that all of Dad’s debts would be waived. I agreed. I mean, they were going to kill him otherwise. Then they told me what the job was. That I had to bomb this bookstore. I thought it was for insurance. I never realized someone was going to be in it.”

He stared guiltily at his feet. “No one died.” He raised his head in supplication. Dusty frowned, knowing without looking that Rye and Marcus had similar expressions of disgust and anger on their faces.

“Only out of sheer luck,” she snarled.

He swallowed. “After the bomb blast, they called me. I heard them torturing my father. They killed him while I was on the phone. They said I hadn’t done the job they wanted. And if I didn’t meet them and do as they wanted that they would kill Hanna. I panicked. I raced back to the motel where Hanna and my cousin were. I grabbed them and ran. It took them less than a week to find us. We fought, but in the end they killed my cousin and took Hanna. I was beaten severely. But I wasn’t worried about myself. I was terrified for Hanna.

“They had her and I couldn’t find her anywhere. When they called me, they told me that I had to do something for them or they would kill my mate. My orders were to assassinate your Alpha’s mate. If I failed, Hanna would die. I had no choice,” he pleaded desperately.

Disgust and pity warred inside her for this weak-willed creature.

“They told me where to meet them. They blindfolded me and took me to this cabin in the woods. Hanna was there. I was so relieved that she was still alive that I promised I would do whatever they asked as long as they didn’t hurt her. They told me I had a month or Hanna was dead. I don’t know why they didn’t just kill your Alpha’s mate themselves. I guess in case they were caught. I never once saw any of their faces.”

“What happened next?” Rye asked.

“Well, I knew I didn’t have a chance of getting onto pack grounds. So I waited for an opportunity. I couldn’t really hang out that much in Landon because I ran the risk of running into one of your pack. I guess the threats kept most of you from coming to town, so I was eventually able to move around more and gather up some useful information. I heard about the new bookstore and I started watching it.”

“You were the one who shot at me and Cassie,” Dusty said.

He visibly swallowed. “You were in that car? I didn’t know. I thought it was the target’s car. Security around her had tightened so much that I didn’t know how I was going to get to her. I couldn’t believe my luck when her car pulled up.”

“How did you know that today was a setup? That Laney was still in the house?” Dusty asked.