Rogue Wolf (13 page)

Her wolf had been rubbing along the inside of her skin, angling toward Salvatore, but even she paused at the question. “No.” She sighed. “When I was—when I was fourteen, I was a pretty powerful young wolf. I had a lot of attitude issues and my parents were barely strong enough to face me down and it took both of them rather than either. It wasn’t that I wanted to face off with them and challenge everything they did, but I had this anger and need to be right. It wouldn’t stop.”

“Normal in a young dominant beginning to recognize their power.” He made it sound so simple. Ryan had done the same thing, explaining to her that while what she felt wasn’t wrong, she couldn’t keep lashing out based on it either.

“I know, and I know it now. I didn’t then. I just knew being told what to do, being ordered, pissed me off. These wolves, most of them, they’re content to follow. I wasn’t. I didn’t realize how much until…” She trailed off, was she really going to bring up something so personal?

“Until?” Salvatore prompted.

“Until the first time I went into heat.” She made a face. Heats, thank God, weren’t as overpowering to them as to their pure animal counterparts. They didn’t help, either. Clearing her throat, she said, “I was fourteen and I was randy as hell. All I could think about was sex.”

“Your father ordered you to stay away from the boys and you rebelled.” The lack of any censure or amusement at her expense in his voice eased her embarrassment.

“Yeah, you could say that. There was a guy, he was a nice wolf and he was damn good looking and all I could think about was climbing on him and riding for all I was worth. It consumed me, and my mother tried to talk me down and we ended up fighting. If my father hadn’t come home, I’d have torn through my mother and out of the house.” She used to be ashamed of the memory, but she was too mature and too aware of the world to let it cripple her. “When the heat passed, I was pretty humiliated and really apologetic.”

“When Luciana had her first heat, my father would have done the same with her had he been alive. As it was, it fell to me. Thankfully, my mother, she knew what to do. She surrounded Luciana with powerful females and they could keep her in check.” The wistfulness in his voice brushed aside her discomfort. “It is our way.”

“Might have been ours too, except—” Did it matter to tell him one of the ugly secrets of the past? Did it endanger the packs? Toman was dead. His actions were still felt on the old scars in Willow Bend, scars she had to admit Mason addressed with every action he took. Her mouth twisted. Loyalty came in all shapes and sizes. Hers—hers was no different. “Except the Alpha at the time objected to any Alpha potentials in his pack.”

“He took advantage to control you through sex?”

Margo jerked the wheel at the question, so far from left field. “No. Eww.” She might have thrown up in her mouth at the very idea. Toman had been as fit as any wolf, but still—ugh. “He was mated. His mate still lives in Willow Bend actually and, no—he found creative ways to remove potential obstacles. My parents did not want me to be perceived as such an obstacle, so they kept my strength a secret.”

“Any Alpha worth the title would have known, would have embraced your strength, given it direction and a chance to flourish.” Something dangerous moved beneath those silky words. Power swept through the car, and the hair on her arms and neck stood up. “What did your Alpha do?”

“Nothing.” She straightened so she could take the wheel with both hands, then dropped her right hand to his leg. He covered her hand with his, trapping her fingers against the corded steel of his thigh.

“What
did
he do?” The repeated question flooded the car with his scent. Power crackled over her and she wanted to tell him everything so he’d calm. Hell, she’d tell him what happened to her. It harmed no one for him to know her history.

Still, he needed to dial that shit down. “No growling in the vehicle, Mr. Italian Badass. It’s bad for the leather seats.”

The vocalized thrum cut off immediately. His dark eyebrows knitted together in a hard frown and he blinked at her, shock rippling through his expression. From badass to stunned in nothing flat.

She laughed and then gave his leg a light squeeze. “Better.”

With one stroke of his thumb along the side of her hand, her humor drifted away. Her system revved at the casual caress, and she swallowed a sigh. 

“Tell me what happened that your Alpha did
nothing.
” Though he didn’t add the please, she wanted to maintain the détente so she went with it.

“I mean he did nothing. Ryan—he’s an attorney and the father of Mason’s mate Alexis. You didn’t meet them, but Ryan is also a very good friend of my father’s. They conspired for lack of a better term, to send me to a boarding school in New York. It’s in Hudson River territory, but the Alpha there was a good guy and he owed Ryan a favor and granted the permission. So after I’d been accepted, they told Toman about it and Toman was happy to see me go.” Oddly, the ease with which Toman dismissed her once upon a time had stung. No longer. She cleared her throat.

“So they let you leave your pack. Did you spend time with the Hudson River pack?”

“Nope.” She made a face. “I was invited once or twice, and when I really needed a good run, I would call their Alpha to have someone pick me up from the school for a long weekend. It was usually one of their Hunters. They’d get me somewhere safe, I’d shift, and run for the three days and then they’d take me back.”

He continued to stroke the side of her hand, his expression troubled. “What about holidays? Certainly you went home for those.”

“During my freshman year, yes. Freshman is ninth year?” At his nod, she continued. “But it was harder going home even after just a couple of months away. Yes, I had teachers and we had a house mother who checked on us, enforced the rules, and generally got after us if we were out of line, but I don’t know if I can describe the feeling of freedom I had there versus being at home.”

Salvatore stretched his legs before responding. The flex of muscle beneath her fingers sent electricity tingling through her. “Were the other students human or wolf?”

“Humans. Though one wolf began attending there when I was in my final year and she was a first year. She was from Hudson River, and as a favor because they’d shown me such kindness, I looked out for her.”

A smile curved his mouth and she dragged her attention from the firmness of his lips to the road. “You were more comfortable because no one could challenge you there, you were the one who took care of the others. You could protect them.”

“Yeah, I can’t argue with that.” She kept in touch with several of them, though she didn’t generally share the information with others of their kind. She’d even attended the ten-year anniversary of graduation four—no five years before. Their fifteen-year anniversary of graduation approached, but chances were she’d be too busy with the missing wolves—“Fuck.”

“What?”

She hit the steering wheel with a growl. “Missing wolves. That was what I wanted to talk to you about this morning before we left.” Instead of talking business, she was sharing high school swoon and poor woe-is-me stories. Disgusted, she tugged her hand from his grip only to have him take her hand back and thread their fingers together.

“Mine,” he said, preemptory challenge in his tone. “You put it on my leg, so I’m keeping your hand while we talk. We’re not fighting. This is better.”

Her teeth came together in a click when she snapped her mouth shut. Clearing her throat, she said. “Fine. But if I need it for driving you have to give it back.”

“I shall be happy to loan you the use of your hand in that circumstance.” The dry tease earned a reluctant chuckle from her and she shook her head. “Missing wolves?” He prompted.

“Yeah, we’ve—I wasn’t going to involve you in this because I thought the issues unrelated. But we have had a rash of missing wolves from different packs. Just packed up and moved, no word to their Alphas, no discernible traces of where they went or why. Credit cards are canceled, bank accounts cleared out and even their vehicles are sold and phones are turned off. It’s like they were there one day and fell off the grid next.” She could share that much, it didn’t hurt the packs though considering Salvatore’s opinions of the local Alphas maybe it did.

Fuck it
, he was involved now whether she liked it or not.

“By a rash of—how many are we discussing?” Yes, he’d scented the troubling direction immediately.

“Before I picked you up, I had a count of about a dozen. We started a headcount across the territories. Both packs and Lones…” Julian’s phone call still rattled her. “We’re looking at about thirty unaccounted for. I had to text one of the other Enforcers all the addresses for my Lones so they can check on them.” It should be her, but between favors for Mason pulled her north, then the investigation into the missing wolves and Cynthia’s phone call had kept her out of her own territory for nearly ten weeks. Her wolves were way overdue for a check in. Was she there, however? No, she was with Salvatore.

The guilt stabbed at her. Not guilt for her absence, but rather discomfort at having nearly forgotten the responsibility because he was so damn distracting.

“Is it possible they’re being hunted?” A fair question.

“Anything’s possible, but no trace of bodies? And could a hunter clean out their bank accounts?” She sucked on her upper lip. The Hudson River pack had an issue with a murderer in their midst, but there were more wolves missing than the victims attributed to him. The others came from Sutter Butte, possibly from Delta Crescent and so far Willow Bend seemed solid, but for how long? An Enforcer had been dispatched to the Yukon, but their Alpha wasn’t the friendliest.

“Fair point.” He stroked the back of her hand, the light caress grounding her worries. “So why do you think this involves me?” Too casual a question.

“You’re too smart for that question,” she said. “The last sighting for Luciana and Rayne was in Knoxville, near his brother’s. When the Enforcer got there, neither Luciana nor Rayne were there, and his brother was also gone. The house was cleaned out like no one ever lived there. It had been bleached.” Which killed scent markers.

“Bank accounts cleared out?” Salvatore went stiff.

She nodded once. “His brother had a live in girlfriend, human. She’s gone too.”

Silence wrapped around the Alpha, his stillness unnerving and, if not for the pulse she could feel in his hand…she’d have what? Margo concentrated on keeping her breathing even. The deadly interlude dragged onward as seconds became minutes.

Unwilling to maintain the heavy pall, she said. “We don’t know if the disappearances are related—”

“You wouldn’t be rushing if you didn’t worry they were involved. Do you think Luciana is involved? Or is now one of the missing?”

The question was a trap. She had no right answer for him, so she went with honesty. “Luciana was already one of the missing. She’s your missing. We’re tracking Rayne to find her for you. If Rayne was with his brother, then he may have some clues as to what happened to the wolves.”

“Or he may be a victim as well.” Cold. Empty. Desolate. Everything in the iciness of his tone promised brutal violence.

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” If Salvatore lost his shit, she would not be able to contain him. They’d need the other Alphas, which could very well lead to war.
Or more Enforcers.
At least one would be in Knoxville when they arrived. Two Enforcers against an Alpha mad with grief or worse...

Vengeance?

“Margo.” The compulsion to pull over and crawl into his lap struck her as the best idea she’d come up with all day, and for that reason alone she fought it. Yet the death grip on her hand told her he was more upset than even his scent betrayed. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid.”
Lie
.

“Of course you’re not, because you also don’t need comforting.”

With the constant petting of his thumb against her hand and the strength of his fingers interlaced with hers, she could hardly not notice the reassurance. “I’m not the one who needs comforting at the moment.” The moment she spoke the words she tasted the truth in them. “We don’t know what’s happened, Salvatore. All we know is they were there, and now we have another missing wolf. It could be as simple as his brother is trying to help hide them from the Enforcers. The best way to do that would be to vanish.”

“Exactly as all the others have?” Skepticism added a dangerous note to the question.

“Maybe.” She shrugged. He needed her to be calm, rational and in control. Oddly, it helped her do her job so she embraced the need and went with it. “Until we get there and investigate it, supposition is like trying to guess the lottery numbers. A lot of stress without any reward.”

“Perhaps.” The distant note and lack of play worried her more than his temper. At least the flare of power and fury had dropped to tolerable levels.

“How much sleep did you get last night?”

“Enough.”

Not one to ever take being dismissed, she curved her hand so she could return the occasional squeeze he gave her. “How much?”

“How much sleep did you get in the woods?” Another hazardous question with few correct answers.

“Not nearly enough. Such is life when I’m working.” She’d managed three whole hours after leaving Mason before returning to the house. In truth, she’d actually looked forward to a bed, but knowing Salvatore was there and how close she’d come to climbing him like a pole? No, staying away had been the better decision.

Maybe.

“So it is with me.”

“Nice dodge.” She cut a glance to her right and sighed. “Salvatore, it’s just you and me here, and you wanted us to establish some rules. So here’s one—you can get some sleep. We have another ten, maybe twelve, hours depending on how much traffic we hit before we’re going to be able to take a break. I plan on driving straight through so we can get there as fast as possible.”

“When will you sleep, Margo?” At least it wasn’t a no.

“Tonight I’ll find a hotel after we get to Knoxville and checked Barrows’ brother’s place.”