Wild Embrace (29 page)

“I'd go mad if I wasn't looking out for my kids.” Ruby moaned as Garnet sat down and began to massage her feet. “Did I ever tell you you're my favorite sister?”

“You can never tell me enough.” Kissing her older sister's belly with the easy skin privileges that existed between siblings, Garnet said, “Talk to me about Eloise. Any connection to Russ?”

It turned out that Russ had been Eloise's senior adviser—the man who was meant to guide her through her studies. It also meant he'd held a certain power over her.

Deciding she now had enough to go to Eloise, Garnet left her tardy nephew with a pat on his mother's straining belly and tracked down the young woman to her room in the section reserved for junior soldiers. “Russ was your adviser,” she said bluntly when Eloise opened the door.

Face paling under the warm tone of her skin, Eloise nodded jerkily. “That's why I was by his room,” she said without prompting. “I was going to see him about—”

“About what?” Garnet prompted when a look of pure panic flashed across Eloise's features, her hand tightening to bone whiteness on the edge of the door.

“I swear I didn't hurt him,” the younger woman said in a pleading tone, her wolf rising to turn her eyes a tawny golden brown. “I wouldn't.”

Going with gut instinct, Garnet leaned in to cup Eloise's cheeks. “Talk to me, sweetheart.” As lieutenant, she had to be tough, but she also had to be flexible. SnowDancer wasn't a pack that ran on fear—it ran on respect and affection and loyalty.

Shuffling closer when Garnet lowered her hands, like a pup seeking contact, Eloise all but whispered her next words. “He was blocking
me from progressing to a graduate degree, even though I'd met all the requirements.” She bit down hard on her lower lip. “He said I needed to do another year of undergraduate papers.”

Garnet wrapped an arm around the girl. “I see.” Technically, Russ couldn't have stopped Eloise, but his words would've held weight with the SnowDancer education board.

All SnowDancer pups had an automatic right to education up to and including an undergraduate degree—or comparable courses outside the tertiary system. Anyone who wanted a graduate education or further training could also get it on the pack so long as they then worked for the pack for a certain number of years, ranging from three to five. However, to access the graduate fund, students had to keep up their grades throughout and report regularly to their advisers, which advisers then in turn apprised the board.

“He only did it out of spite,” Eloise rasped, her eyelashes wet and clumped together. “I solved an equation he couldn't. I didn't mean to show him up. I just thought that was what I was supposed to do, so I did it.” She hiccuped and sniffed, rubbing at her tears with the sleeves of her sweater—which she'd pulled over her hands like a child. “I could tell he was mad, but I never thought he'd be vindictive. He was meant to be my teacher, my support.”

Garnet felt sick, her wolf standing at tense attention inside her. Wrapping Eloise in both arms and rubbing her cheek against the younger woman's, she said, “Why didn't you come to me?” If her packmates didn't feel like they could talk to her about such situations, then she had a serious problem on her hands. Protecting the vulnerable was her job and her responsibility.

The idea that she might've failed rocked her very sense of self.

Eloise cuddled into her, tall and strong and suddenly as needy as a hurt pup. “I put myself in your diary for next week,” she said. “But
I wanted to talk to Russ one more time, try to figure things out on my own. I'm old enough.” That last was said with a mutinous edge that made Garnet's stomach stop twisting.

A young wolf flexing her claws was normal. It said good things about Garnet's leadership that Eloise had the confidence to stand up against a much older packmate. “Good,” she said. “You
are
old enough to start to fight your own battles—but I'm glad to see you're also sensible enough to go to a senior packmate when the situation is beyond your ability to handle.”

Straightening, Eloise scowled, the fierce SnowDancer soldier in her rising back to the surface now that she'd been reassured her dominant wasn't angry with her. “I was planning to tell Russ that I was going to you—I thought he'd back off then because we both knew he was wrong. All my grades prove it.”

The younger woman's scowl faded as quickly as it had formed, her throat moving as she swallowed. “And even though he was being nasty, I didn't want to get him in trouble. He never showed it, but I could tell he was hurting from losing Athena.”

Proud of this child of the pack and dead certain she'd had nothing to do with Russ's death, Garnet cut to the heart of the matter. “Where were you between seven and ten this morning?” Lorenzo hadn't yet confirmed time of death, but Garnet was certain that whatever had happened had occurred soon after Shane's arrival in Russ's quarters.

No way the two men had sat around chatting for hours.

Eloise's eyes widened before she began to pink up until even the dark cinnamon brown of her skin couldn't hide it. “Don't tell anyone,” she whispered after glancing around to make sure no one else was close enough to listen in, “but I was with Chase. We slept in.”

“Ah.” At eighteen, Chase was younger than Eloise by three years.
He was also a strong wolf unlikely to be intimidated by Eloise's own strength. “I won't breathe a word.”

“I'm not embarrassed or anything.” Eloise's continuing blush was adorable, the way she was twisting her hands together even more so. “He's younger but he's . . . wow!” A sound that reminded Garnet of how, at the same age, she'd sighed over a certain green-eyed wolf. “I just want it to be private and secret between the two of us for a while.”

“I understand, sweetheart.” Packmates were wonderful and Garnet would never want to live away from a busy, active den, but it was also nice to have a little private time to become a couple before several hundred curious wolves started poking their noses in. “Stay right here.”

Walking a short distance away, she made a couple of calls. Thanks to the weather, Chase hadn't driven out to the technical college he attended five days a week, instead choosing to study in the den. SnowDancer had an excellent remote-access system they'd set up in conjunction with multiple schools for exactly such circumstances.

Coming on the line when she located him, he confirmed that Eloise had been with him at the time of the murder. To his credit, he also immediately asked after his girlfriend. “Is she okay? I wanted to stay with her, but she kicked me out.” Raw frustration and worry in every word. “Said she was fine, but I could tell she wasn't.”

So young, Garnet thought affectionately. “Here's a tip, Chase. Sometimes you have to fight to look after a woman as strong as Eloise.”

“I'm on my way. I can catch up on this lesson tonight.”

Hanging up, Garnet asked Eloise about her part-time job.

The young soldier answered without hesitation. “The den maintenance team needed a few bodies for manual labor. Cleaning out ducts, that kind of thing. It's low-stress, plus”—her eyes grew
brighter—“I get to watch the engineers work on the behind-the-scenes systems.”

“Did you work often with Shane?”

Shaking her head, Eloise said, “Only a couple of times.” Her face turned solemn. “He was so nice. I dropped one of his special tools and it went to pieces, but he didn't get angry, just showed me how to fix it.”

That was Garnet's impression of Shane, too: calm and patient, no violent temper. “And his knife collection? Did he invite you to look at it?”

“No, I asked. I was just curious.” Eloise lifted up both shoulders. “One of my friends had seen it, said it was interesting.”

Garnet caught no hint of subterfuge in any of Eloise's answers; she let the young woman go with the admonition that she wasn't to share any details of what she'd seen at the scene.

“I won't,” Eloise promised. “Not even with Chase.”

Ten minutes later, Revel told Garnet that Mitchell had no connection to either Russ or Shane; he'd just tagged along to see the knives because he'd had some free time to kill. “I'd bet my place in the pack that he wasn't lying,” Revel said. “I got the impression he was more interested in Athena's art than in the knives.”

Garnet continued to investigate, managed to unearth a couple of packmates who'd seen Eloise and Chase sneak into his room—she'd known the two couldn't have fooled everyone. Sometimes, though, even wolves could be circumspect. Not often, but now and then.

Walking to the main den entrance after confirming the young couple's whereabouts, Garnet poked out her head. Her den had been dug out of the side of a mountain, similarly to the main SnowDancer den; it was solid stone and quite safe. It was also naturally soundproof, so it wasn't until she opened the door a crack and looked outside that she saw the night darkness beyond, mature trees bent over like saplings by a merciless wind.

The rain that hit her face felt like a thousand needles digging into her flesh.

Ice chilled her blood.

Everyone should've come in the instant the weather turned from irritating but bearable to deadly—her people weren't stupid and neither was Kenji. But according to the roster on the opposite wall, no one had made it back. No one.

About to hit
the emergency callback alarm that would blast out a high-pitched noise that was uncomfortable for wolf ears but highly effective in making them pay attention, she spied a couple of wet wolf bodies. Pulling the heavy door fully open, she let in the rain and the wind so her packmates could whip through the opening.

When the two sentries looked back at her, their gray pelts plastered to their bodies, she said, “Did you see Kenji or Pia?” The roster confirmed they were the only ones still out there; she'd have been alerted if anyone unauthorized had headed out, or if someone hadn't made it home.

Both wolves shook their heads, one of them sneezing midway. Lifting a paw to his muzzle, he rubbed.

“Go,” she said to the bedraggled pair. “Get dry. They must be on their way back in.”

The two went to the door instead and poked out their noses. She tapped them both firmly on those noses, to their yelps and offended looks. “Don't even think about going back out to look for them. Then I'll have four people to worry about instead of two. Go get dry.
Now
.”

Giving in, they padded off down the corridor, their paws leaving muddy prints on the stone and their bodies dripping. It'd be gone
soon enough. One of the maternal females' favorite punishments was to make miscreant kids and juveniles clean anything that could be cleaned. Since this was a wolf den with plenty of mischievous pups, dirt was rarely allowed to linger more than ten or fifteen minutes.

She looked back out into the rain, her pulse in her mouth. Kenji was familiar with this area and he was one hell of a tough wolf, but it wasn't his own region. It was possible he'd become turned around in the vicious weather. As for Pia, she was a smart, experienced senior soldier. If she wasn't back, there was a problem.

“Jem, I just saw Josephine and Roan. They only now come in?” Revel stepped up beside her, his eyes on the storm and his slender body humming with barely contained tension. “Something's wrong with Pia,” he said without waiting for a response from her. “I've had this growing bad feeling over the past half hour. Couldn't stand it anymore, came to check she'd returned.”

Garnet had serious respect for the twin bond—she'd seen it in action with the twins among her own siblings. Steele would probably know the instant Ruby went into labor despite the fact that they were in different dens at the moment.

Not that she'd needed Revel's statement; her own instincts were screaming at her. “I think we'd better go out, look for her and Kenji.” Unlike the exhausted Roan and Josephine, Garnet and Revel were fresh, would be better able to weather the storm.

Her blood roared in her ears, her mouth dry as she began to tug up her sweater, then thought to hell with it and decided to go straight into the shift. She could always get more clothes; she didn't want to delay a second. And much as she liked Revel's fiery twin, it was Kenji at the forefront of her mind. He
had
to be okay.

He was so dominant in her thoughts that when she caught a flash of white the split second before she would've gone into the shift, she
thought she was imagining things. But no, it was Kenji's T-shirt that had caught her eye. He had a limp wolf in his arms, and he looked like he was about a second away from collapse. Garnet and Revel took off into the rain at the same instant, heading straight for him.

Revel gathered his sister's wolf form into his arms, while Garnet wrapped an arm around Kenji's waist, pulled one of his own arms over her shoulders, and all but dragged him to the den. “Close the door!” she yelled to a couple of juveniles who'd come over with mops, clearly on cleanup patrol.

“Yes, sir!” They hurried to shut out the driving rain.

Garnet, meanwhile, was struggling to keep Kenji going. “Where are you hurt?”

“Just exhausted,” he said, his voice a little slurred. “Carried Pia all the way.”

And he'd done it in what had felt like a gale-force wind. No wonder his body was searching for a place to collapse and rest. “You sure you're not hurt?” She'd never seen him this wiped out.

“Cut on face, but that's it.” It came out mumbled.

Since her quarters were closer than the infirmary, she dragged him there and propped him up against the nearest wall. And saw that the “cut” on his face was more like a gash; it was bleeding all down his cheek. The wound on his stomach, on the other hand, had stained his torn T-shirt a pinkish red in the time it had taken her to get him to her room. “Kenji!”

Following her gaze, he looked down, blinked. “Huh. Can't feel that.” Then he slid down the wall to collapse into a sitting position on the floor.

Garnet bit back her fear, quickly checked his pulse while trying to put pressure on his stomach wound. Blood continued to pulse out, slow but steady. Skin chilled and water dripping into her eyes,
she managed to dig out her phone with one hand, called the infirmary. “Kenji's got bleeding wounds,” she told Lorenzo's assistant, Gavin. “I need medical help.”

To her surprise, it was Lorenzo who entered her quarters only minutes later.

“Pia?” she asked as the healer put down his medical kit and knelt in front of Kenji.

“Heavy bruising, broken leg.” The front of Lorenzo's shirt was damp, no doubt from his examination of Pia. “The break's a clean one—Gavin can easily set it. I've made sure she has no internal injuries.”

Pushing up Kenji's T-shirt to expose the muscled and bloody plane of his abdomen, he asked Garnet to hold up the sodden material while he shone a light on the wound, then scanned it with a handheld device. “This isn't as bad as it looks,” he murmured in his native Spanish before switching back to English. “A deep gouge, no impact on his internal organs.”

Garnet felt no relief at Lorenzo's words, not with Kenji slumped bleeding in front of her. Tangling her hand with Kenji's to reassure her wolf of the steady beat of his life, she faced Lorenzo's profile. “Then why is he out?” Kenji was a lieutenant, with the attendant strength. If it was a simple scratch, he'd have shrugged it off, kept going.

Ignoring the snarl in her tone with the ease of long experience dealing with scared and worried wolves, the healer checked the back of Kenji's head. “Knot, just as I suspected.”

Ice cracked through Garnet's veins. “You knew he hit his head?”

“Pia regained consciousness just as Rev got her to the infirmary.” Lorenzo continued to work, using his healing abilities on Kenji's head wound. “She shifted, said Kenji saw her fall into a gully, came down to bring her up—he asked her to shift so she'd be easier to carry.”

Garnet hated seeing Kenji so still. Kenji was never still. Kenji
was wicked smiles and color and infuriating flirtation. “Did he fall in the gully while going down to get her?”

Lorenzo shook his head, the silver in his hair glinting under the light. “He slid down part of the way after skidding on the mud. There were rocks on the slope, according to Pia.” Frowning, he shifted position slightly so he could better access Kenji's head wound. “I'm guessing he whacked his head on one. Stomach injury probably happened when he pushed through the damaged trees at the bottom of the gully—Pia crashed straight into them. The sharp end of a broken branch could've raked Kenji's stomach while he was trying to get to her.”

Unfettered respect on his face, in his voice, as he added, “Kenji might look like a pretty rock star but he's pure wolf. That gully is some distance away, never mind how steep it is, and the storm's brutal.”

Kenji's eyes flickered on those words.

Fingers tightening around his, Garnet blew out a breath. “I'm going to strangle all four of them.” Her voice threatened to shake. “They should've been back well before the weather got this bad.” At a certain point, there was no need for security; nature provided its own deterrent.

“Don't blame them.” Lorenzo removed his hand from the back of Kenji's head. “I was watching the satellite feed—it turned vicious with very little warning. They came in as fast as they could.”

“Yeah, Garnet,” Kenji mumbled, his long, talented fingers curling around hers. “Don't be mad.”

Relief a crushing weight on her, she lifted their linked hands to press a kiss to his knuckles. His smile was faint, shaky, before his eyes closed again. “Lorenzo?”

“He's fine, in a natural sleep. Let me deal with these cuts.” Lorenzo did so using his abilities as well as medical equipment,
until both the gouge on Kenji's stomach and the cut on his cheek were covered by delicate new skin. “A little rest and he'll be up and running.”

Garnet's brain started functioning properly again now that she knew Kenji was safe. Frowning, she said, “Why is Shane still out?” It had only taken Lorenzo ten minutes to stabilize Kenji.

“He got a real whack on the head—Kenji's was just a glancing blow by comparison.”

Hand yet linked with Kenji's, Garnet considered Lorenzo's words. “Hit with something heavy?”

“I'd say so. You find anything?”

“No, but there was a coffee table there with a solid edge.” A little distant for Shane to have hit it as he went down, but that was the only possible source of a head injury that Garnet could think of in Russ's living area.

Lorenzo twisted his mouth, shook his head. “I can't rule out the coffee table, but my gut says it was a blow from above.” Picking up one of his medical instruments, he raised it over his own head, brought it down as if on the back of another skull. “Like that.”

“Can you model it to confirm your hunch?” She knew the healer had the software.

“I'm no expert at it, but I'm fairly certain my compatriot in Kenji's sector is. I'll send her the details, have her put it together.” He touched Garnet's hair with the gentle hand of a healer, but his tone was that of a packmate who had the authority to overrule her in certain circumstances. “Russ is dead, Shane is unconscious, and it's too dangerous outside for anyone to even think about sneaking up on the den. You can take a breath.”

“Athena,” she began.

“I gave her a sedative—she's high-strung at the best of times,
so sleep will do her good.” His eyes turned to steel. “As it'll do you. An emotionally exhausted lieutenant is no good for the den.”

Woman and wolf, both parts of her knew he was right. She could all but feel the strain pounding in her temples. “Thanks, Lorenzo.”

A tug of a loose tendril of her hair before the healer left. It wasn't until a minute later that she realized she should've asked him to help her shift Kenji.

“Kenji!” she snapped, putting every ounce of her considerable dominance in her voice.

Of course it didn't have the same effect on him as it would've had on someone more submissive. Kenji Tanaka had always gone his own way.

Lines formed on his forehead, though his eyes remained closed. “What?” It was a growly rumble.

Shivering from the auditory caress, she said, “Shift.” He'd be much easier to dry off—plus she wouldn't have to worry about stripping him of his drenched clothes.

And thinking of Kenji naked was not good for her blood pressure. “I'll rub you dry,” she cajoled when he stayed stubbornly in human form.
“Kenji.”

He growled at her, the bad-tempered growl of a wolf who just wanted to sleep.

“Fine,” she said, though she wanted to hold him close and never let him go. “Stay in your wet clothes. Look like a drowned rat.”

The world fractured into a shower of astonishing light and then there was a handsome black timber wolf lying in front of her. A very wet wolf who sneezed before putting his head down on his paws. Getting up, Garnet found a large, absorbent towel. Rubbing Kenji down with one hand, she called Revel with the other. “Pia doing okay? Why was she unconscious?”

“Just the broken leg—pain put her out,” Revel answered. “She's pretty pissed about the entire situation, says she knew that gully was there but got messed up in the rain.” A short pause, his tone holding a deep vein of affection when he came back on the line. “Sorry, Pia says she isn't pissed. She's fucking pissed.”

Garnet's wolf huffed in laughter inside her. “That's definitely Pia.”

“Yeah.” He sounded distracted. “Damn it, Pia, stop fidgeting and let Gavin do his job.” A growl rolled down the line. “Shit, sorry, Jem. My sister's being a pa— Pia,
for the love of God
, behave or I'll get Grace on the comm.”

The threat to bring in their deeply submissive younger sister wouldn't have made sense to anyone who hadn't grown up in a SnowDancer den—and thus didn't know that submissives could become ferally protective when one of their people was hurt. And since Grace knew full well her sister would never harm a hair on her head, she'd take shameless advantage and force Pia to rest and to heal.

“I'm calling Grace right now unless you start acting like a woman with a fucking broken leg,” Revel threatened.

Garnet raised an eyebrow at the feminine response she picked up through the receiver. “Is my Spanish rusty or did she just call you a—”

“Your Spanish isn't rusty.” Revel's tone was still more wolf than man. “Our mother has threatened to wash out Pia's mouth with soap more than once.” Another small pause before he said, “How's Kenji? Pain-in-the-ass here is worried about him.”

“Clean bill of health.” Thank God. “Just needs some sleep.”

“It's been a long day. We should all get some rest,” Revel replied. “We can pick up the investigation in the morning—Shane might be awake by then.”

“Agreed.” Hanging up with a quick good night, she began to rub Kenji down in earnest. He protested grumpily when she rubbed too hard on his ears. “Sorry, princess.”

A growl, a clawed paw swiping at her—only he wasn't really swiping. He was just pretending. Smiling, she finished with the towel. “You need a blow-dry.”