Wild Fire (Wilding Pack Wolves 5) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (20 page)

Every once in a while, she clutched at his hand, which was always holding hers, squeezing it as if she had suddenly lost her balance. The van didn’t have the greatest shock absorbers, and the road was rougher than he would’ve expected for Seattle streets, but that wasn’t what was causing her to lurch—it was whatever was going on inside the spell. Daniel sat across from them, next to several other wolves armed with tactical gear and weapons. Grace and the other white wolves—Noah and Kaden and Owen—were meeting them at the rendezvous point.

Daniel had a laptop out—he consulted periodically with Skylar about their destination, which so far hadn’t changed. He was also tapping away, doing some kind of work on the laptop, sending worried looks to Zoe that only served to tighten Troy’s already knotted up stomach.

“Any changes?” Daniel asked Skylar for the third time in ten minutes.

“No changes,” she said softly, her eyes closed, also deep in the spell with Zoe.

Troy didn’t like her going on the mission. He didn’t like her trapped in the spell. There wasn’t much of this he
did
like, but he couldn’t let that show. His secret hope was that this whole event—stopping the Wolf Hunter and recovering her grandfather—would be the thing that convinced her to embrace her white wolf. To see that it had a
purpose.

He just prayed it wouldn’t get her killed.

Even though the logical part of his brain knew her superhealing made her freaking hard to kill—he’d seen that demonstrated more than once now—that didn’t mean she was indestructible. A bullet to the brain would destroy the woman he loved just like anyone else.

Daniel scowled at his laptop. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly, just to himself.

Troy leaned forward, bracing his elbow on one knee to get closer. He didn’t want to disturb Skylar and Zoe in their trance—he was still holding her hand, in case she needed him.

“What have you got?” Troy asked.

“You know how I said the building was owned by Serafin Genetics?” Daniel asked, flicking a quick look to Zoe, but she was still deep in the spell.

“Yeah?”

“Well, it turns out that Serafin Genetics was bought about a year ago by Emergent Technologies.” That perked up the ears of the wolves around them—most of them were Riverwise security, the guys who had volunteered to stay behind and guard Mama River’s estate when the rest of the wolves vacated the premises. The Wolf Hunter obviously knew where the estate was—he just had no reason to come there until the mayor had shown up at Mama River’s door, seeking forgiveness and refuge. Troy still wasn’t convinced that guy was worth saving, except for the fact that saving him might save Zoe.

“Should I know what Emergent Technologies is?” Troy asked.

“Not unless you’re in the military or the military subcontracting business.” Daniel shook his head. Troy knew Daniel was in the Army—at least he had been, until he was kidnapped and experimented on by the same military he used to work for. Lately, he’d taken a leave to work with Riverwise and keep the Wilding pack safe… not unlike what Troy was doing. “Emergent Technologies hit it big about five years ago for their innovative security software. It had a special algorithm that made their smart systems more secure. Emergent’s a relatively young company, but it didn’t have a public IPO because of the sensitive nature of their technology. Their tech quickly swept through US military systems, although the details are classified. They recently expanded to commercial uses, but they still have lots of deep contacts in the military on the Top Secret contracting side of things.”

By this time, Troy’s eyebrows had hiked up. “So, if the Wolf Hunter is connected to this Emergent Technologies company, maybe that’s how he manages to have all this private military doing his damn dirty work?”

Daniel nodded. “A bunch of private security coming and going at Emergent Technologies wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow. And just recently, after Emergent bought Serafin Genetics, they moved into the same building.”

“And that’s where we’re headed?” Troy verified.

“Yeah. And get this…” Daniel looked up from his laptop. “The CEO of Emergent? He’s super reclusive. Doesn’t splash his face all over the web, ostensibly because he’s in security. There are no pictures of him anywhere. But guess what his name is?”

Troy just shook his head. “Do not tell me his last name is Wilding.”

“No…
Hunter.
Declan Hunter.”

Groans of disbelief passed through the van. “You are fucking kidding me,” Troy said.

“Not even a little bit.” Daniel leaned back, consulting his laptop again. “Declan Hunter is apparently some kind of boy wonder. Grew up in the foster system, changed his name when he emancipated out, but he was already working on the technology behind Emergent—the software that would one day help him scrabble up from a nothing dropout kid into an overnight billionaire. A reclusive, faceless, billionaire… with access to military technology and a genetics lab.”

“Fuck.”
But it made sense. Someone like that could get away with all kinds of shit.

“He’s our guy.” Daniel looked up. “Zoe said something about him having access to the same data she did. Do you know what data she’s talking about?”

“Yeah,” Troy said. “It’s the data Grace recovered from Agent Smith when she was kidnapped by him. It has all the information about the experiments on shifters.” He shook his head slowly. “This just gets worse and worse. I can see why she was so adamant about getting the mayor out of this guy’s hands.”

Daniel nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hunter had access to Agent Smith’s data straight up through his military contacts or if he was able to hack his way in. Either way, he has way too many resources to take advantage of that. I don’t like it one bit. “

“So what’s our plan here? Are we actually going to bust into Emergent Technology’s high-rise in the middle of downtown?” Troy asked. “I mean, shouldn’t we call the police or something?”

“We could,” Daniel said, leaning back and biting his lip. “Especially with the mayor involved. I’m sure they’d be willing to bust out the SWAT team. The only problem is, we’re much more likely to get the mayor out alive than they are. And with the magic we have on tap with the white wolves, we’re more likely to do it without other people getting hurt.”

“What about the rest of Riverwise?” Troy asked. “Are they going to be able to help?”

“They should be meeting us at the rendezvous point a few blocks away.” Daniel checked the laptop again. “We’re almost there.” Then he glanced at the girls.

Zoe was frowning even more, and her hand was slippery with sweat. It made Troy’s stomach clench even more. “Can we bring them out of this?” he asked Daniel.

“Are we still on target, Sky?” Daniel asked.

She opened her eyes. “He hasn’t moved in the last half hour.”

“I think if he knew we were coming, he would’ve bugged out by now,” Daniel said.

As the van pulled to a stop, Skylar waved her hand around Zoe’s face. She slowly blinked her eyes open, but she still looked dazed. Troy braced her as people started piling out of the van. By the time they stepped out themselves, she seemed a little more steady.

They were definitely downtown, but not in one of the better districts—in fact, this part looked like it’d seen much better days. Several other vans and trucks were gathered in the empty and crumbling parking lot behind what looked like a Mega Mart gone bad. Troy recognized the three River brothers—Jaxson, Jace, and Jared—and they had a pack of at least twenty wolves with them. There was another pack standing slightly separate from them, headed by a younger wolf who had the distinctive black hair and dark blue eyes of the Wilding pack.

Troy gestured to him and asked Zoe, “Is that one of your relatives?”

“That’s Marco Wilding and his downtown pack.”

“Ah.” She meant
gang,
and Troy remembered seeing Marco in the news when the Wolf Hunter had kidnapped kids out of downtown. Marco and his new mate were going straight with a new toy company that benefited shifters… which was far better than anything Troy had ever seen come out of the gangs before, so he was pretty impressed.

“Well, we certainly have enough people,” he remarked.

“I hope you’re right about that.” Daniel was waving over Grace, who had stepped out of her own stretch limo, which looked seriously out of place here. Owen, Noah, and Kaden formed a small tough-looking trio that stood out even amongst the other bulked up Riverwise security guys.

Skylar was staying close to Zoe, and it made Troy nervous—hopefully they wouldn’t need the women involved in this anymore, now that they’d narrowed down the Wolf Hunter’s location. Troy was up for doing his part, but he was trained as a firefighter, not an assault team member.

Kaden strode over with Owen and Noah and stood next to Daniel—with Zoe and Grace in the mix, all six of the white wolves were here. Between them, they had an impressive amount of magical firepower that probably dwarfed the ammunitions that the Riverwise crew and Marco’s gang had brought along.

“Riverwise has about twenty wolves we can count on for this,” Kaden said gesturing to the River brothers hanging back behind him. “The Wilding pack wolves are in for another thirty. So what’s your plan with this?”

Daniel was apparently in the lead. “Time is against us. We need to move fast before the Wolf Hunter realizes we’re coming for him. Apparently, he’s keyed into this magical network so that could be happening anytime. His name is Declan Hunter, by the way.” That was met with groans from Owen and Noah. “He’s the CEO of Emergent Technologies. We have reason to believe he’s using Agent Smith’s data and Serafin Genetics’ facilities to cook up some serums that will be seriously destructive for all shifters. And the mayor is key to his plans because he’s the original white wolf—you know, the one related to all of us.”

That sobered everyone pretty quickly.

“Is the mayor all right?” Grace asked, her thin hands nervously twisting. One of the River brothers—her mate Jared, if Troy was guessing correctly—was watching her intently, but keeping his distance and holding back while they made the plan.

“As far as we can tell,” Zoe said. “His magical signature is strong.”

“And he’s in very close proximity to the Wolf Hunter,” Skylar added.

“Grace, you need to stay out of this,” Daniel said, which Troy was very glad to hear. He expected all the women would stay behind. “You’re way too valuable as our openly-shifter candidate for the House of Representatives. We need you to be down here, talking to the press when they arrive. And I’m sure they’re going to arrive before we’re done with this.”

“The police as well,” Kaden said. “Or are we calling them in?” He held his hands out. “Just to be clear, I’m good either way.”

Daniel nodded. “If we call in the police, we’re going lose our element of surprise. I know you’re one of them, Kaden, so you should know they’re not all shifter friendly. If just one of them is in the pocket of this hate group, or one of the Wolf Hunter’s minions, we can’t take the chance they’ll give him a heads up.”

“Roger that,” Kaden said. As far as Troy knew, he wasn’t part of the police force anymore—he’d been with Riverwise for a couple of months.

“Unfortunately,” Daniel said, grimacing as he glanced at Skylar, “we’ll need Skylar and Zoe to guide us in.”

“What?”
Troy asked, hardly believing his ears. “What the hell you talking about, Daniel? They’ve no business in there.”

Daniel glared at him. “I don’t like it, either.”

“But you’re right, Daniel.” Skylar cocked her hip to the side and planted her hand on it. “Sorry, boys, but I’m a witch. Ya’ll should get used to the fact that I can pretty much kill all of you with a touch of my little pinkie.”

Owen snorted, and Noah looked like he was working pretty hard to keep his laugh inside. Kaden just smiled. All of which was really hilarious… except that Zoe wasn’t a witch.

“That’s fine if you want to take the witch in for firepower back up,” Troy said, angrily. “I’m the last one to object to bringing in more magic, being the only one here who doesn’t have magical powers to contribute, other than my dazzling ability to shoot a gun and not kill myself. Maybe. But Zoe doesn’t need to go in there.”

He felt her hand grip his upper arm. “Yes, I do,” she said softly.

He turned to her, and the serious expression on her face stabbed through him. “Zo, you don’t need to do this. They can find him once they get inside the building. It’s not that big of a place.”

She gave him a soft look like she appreciated his concern, but there was no way in hell he was talking her out of it. “It’s a fifty-story skyscraper. If Skylar and I can give intel real-time on the way in, we’re much more likely to get the mayor out alive… and everyone else, too. The one who needs to stay behind is
you.”

His jaw dropped open. “Because I’m just a
wolf,
right? Useless in this particular situation.”

She cringed. “I didn’t mean—”

He cut her off with a swipe of his hand in front of her face.
“Oh no.
I don’t care what you say, sweetness, I’m going in. No way in hell am I letting you do this without me. So just put that thought right out of your head.”

“All right, Troy’s in,” Daniel said, matter-of-factly. “I assume the rest of you jokers are too?” There were nods all around—Kaden, Noah, and Owen. Daniel looked to Grace. “You good with staying behind?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

“Good. Kaden, let Jaxson know we need his and Marco’s forces working together to get us in. Skylar and Zoe will be guiding with the rest of us five providing cover. We also need someone to either hack security—I’m thinking maybe Jared could get on this—or do something to keep the alarms from tripping too quickly. The police will get called eventually, but if we can slow them down, that would be great. You’ve got ten minutes to pull that together—otherwise, we’re going in without it. There’s a dock in back that looks like a weak point in their security, so we’ll use that as a point of entry. But then we’ll need the Riverwise and Wilding packs to hold that line and keep out any additional security reinforcements, as well as the police, who’re just going to fuck this up when they arrive. To be clear, make sure everyone knows we’re going in fully loaded with witch-level magic to rescue the mayor. Anyone who gets in the way is likely to get cooked. Am I understood?”