The dark-gray wolf growled, and everybody froze.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Leaning back in his seat, Marcus rubbed at his aching eyes. He’d spent most of the day on Rhett’s computer, watching many of the vile videos on snm.com with Ryan and Tao, searching for any familiar faces in the hope that it might speed up the process of identifying the sadistic bastards who’d uploaded them. It had taken everything Marcus had to shut off his emotions and observe each one of the vids with clinical detachment.
Unfortunately the faces had been cleverly concealed. They had come to realize that the jackals’ kills all appeared to happen in the same place: a dark, square room that was empty except for a bloodstained mattress. However, they had no idea where it was.
Rhett had quickly discovered that the IP address of the site had in fact been masked—and it had been done exceptionally well. Both he and Donovan were working on it, in addition to attempting to trace the IP addresses of the others—in particular, the person responsible for uploading the video of Roni. Unfortunately, said person had done it anonymously, but it wouldn’t keep him hidden forever. They’d track him down somehow.
Marcus was glad Roni wasn’t with him. She wouldn’t have been able to detach herself from the victims’ plight, not when she herself had been through something very similar. However, as much as he was glad she hadn’t been around, he’d also sort of . . . missed her.
People who didn’t know Roni well would never believe it, but she was good company. She was entertaining, though he was sure she didn’t mean to be. She was outspoken and direct, which he liked and could appreciate. And although she was wounded in her own little way, she hadn’t let it destroy her confidence or hold her back; she kept on going, and he could respect that. He respected her.
His wolf, too, had missed her company and was pushing at Marcus to find her. Marcus would have been happy to oblige—particularly since he was aching to be inside her again, and particularly since he had a very important question for her regarding the video evidence—but the multiple calls he’d made to her cell phone had all gone straight to voicemail. She hadn’t returned his calls or text messages.
He’d considered contacting Shaya to check that Roni was okay, but it seemed wrong to go around Roni like that. She wasn’t a child that needed monitoring, and she wouldn’t appreciate being treated like one. He was well aware that Roni enjoyed having space, and he’d need to respect that.
“What the fuck is wrong with these people?” Tao was referring to a clip of four jackals physically assaulting a bound and gagged juvenile bear shifter. “How could someone truly be that sick?”
“We’re looking at evil—pure and simple.” That came from Ryan.
“You need a break?” Tao asked the enforcer. Ryan simply scowled at him before returning his attention to the computer screen. Tao exchanged a worried look with Marcus. Neither of them had wanted Ryan to join them. Their fellow enforcer had once been taken by a rival pack, kept prisoner, and tortured for information on the Phoenix Pack. The kidnappers had learned squat, because Ryan hadn’t broke, no matter what they did to him.
Marcus didn’t even want to think of the things they’d done to him.
Ryan never talked about it, and nobody ever brought it up. But the wolf had enough scars to hint at some of what had happened. If watching these clips brought back memories, he certainly wasn’t showing it. But then, Ryan was pretty detached in many ways.
When the clip ended, Tao turned to Marcus. “I heard you marked Roni.”
“Yep.”
“I knew you wanted her badly, but I hadn’t expected you to mark her. I heard Nick went postal.” Tao smiled at the idea.
Marcus returned the smile. “I honestly thought the vein in his temple would pop.” He twisted his mouth. “But I can’t say I blame him. My rep isn’t pretty.”
“Yep, it seems it’s come back to bite you in the ass. I was a little wary of her in the beginning. She just seems so . . . aloof and standoffish. But then I realized she’s only like that with people who don’t matter to her. I can relate to that.”
True. Tao wasn’t interested in expanding his world beyond the people he cared about, but with those people he could be considerate, protective, and loyal. For him, everybody outside of his pack, particularly humans with their ignorance and prejudice, was no concern of his.
“She earned my loyalty when she saved Kye,” said Tao, a tinge of self-condemnation in his voice.
“Tao, it wasn’t your fault that you passed out. Nobody thinks less of you for it. Hell, Roni and Shaya passed out too. It just took you a little longer to come around.”
“It still pisses me off.”
Marcus went to say more, but then his cell phone rang. Taking it from his jeans’ pocket, he saw that the caller was Shaya. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Please tell me you’re not busy.”
Marcus straightened in his seat. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Roni shifted into her wolf form yesterday a few hours after she got home, and . . . well . . . we can’t get her to change back.”
“I’ll be right there.” He ended the call.
Tao, obviously having overheard the conversation, said, “We’ve got this; go see your girl.”
A short time later, Marcus was striding through Nick and Shaya’s lodge. In the living area, he found the Alpha pair, along with Derren, Eli, and the enforcers, having a tense conversation. “Where is she?”
Nick jumped to his feet. “What are you doing here?”
Shaya quickly explained, “I called him.”
Nick spun to face her. “You called him?”
“He might be able to do something.”
“How do you figure that?”