And when her phone dinged with the answering text, she grinned a feline smile as she lifted it to her face. Boobs always did the trick with that wily wolf.
She was so prepared for some witty, dirty banter from Kade, she didn’t understand the words of the text on her glowing cell phone screen. It wasn’t from Kade. It was from Leah.
Gun.
Kade’s gone.
Blood everywhere.
Dead wolf.
“W-what?” she murmured aloud. Heart beating against her ribs, she connected a call to Leah.
She picked up on the first ring, but Trina could barely hear her between the sobbing.
“Just came home—sob—everything smells like pennies—the grass is wet—blood on the sawdust—Trina!— there’s blood on the sawdust! And a big wolf. He’s been mauled. He’s just staring back at me—sob—there’s something in the woods—sob—I can feel something awful out there—sob—it’s talking to my wolf—sob—I don’t know what to do!”
Trina was already running for the door. “Leah, Leah, stop! Breathe, girl. The dead wolf. Tell me it’s not Kade,” she demanded as her shoes hit the parking lot pavement at a sprint.
“I don’t know.”
“Leah!”
“I don’t know! It’s gray and cream like Kade’s but the blood smells different. It’s totally torn up. It’s hard to tell anything.” A long snarl ripped through the phone. “Trina—Trina—snarl—I think I’m going to be sick.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re about to Change. Where’s Ethan?”
“On a job out in Stevensville. He isn’t picking up or answering my texts. Where are you?” Another growl rattled through the phone and then a groan of pain. “Trina. Trina? Are you close? I don’t feel good.”
“Don’t Change! Leah, listen to me!” Trina threw her leg over the seat of her bike and revved the engine. “I’m headed to you. Don’t you disappear into those woods. We don’t know what’s out there! You can’t Change alone right now.”
There was a grunt of pain, and then the phone clicked and went dead.
“Leah? Leah? Fuck!” she yelled, yanking on her helmet.
Trina blasted out of the parking lot like a rocket. Her bike was deafening against her sensitive eardrums as she zoomed onto the main road. She only had a month of riding under her belt, but fuck it. If Trina crashed, she was a shifter. She would survive…probably.
Please don’t be Kade, please don’t be Kade, please don’t be Kade!
There was an old work truck in front of her, going way too slow. The wind whipped against her face as she hit the throttle and pulled to the center stripe. A semi was coming from the other way, no room to pass. Shit. She eased off and rode the tailgate for a few seconds before she muttered, “Fuck it,” and hit the throttle again. She whipped her sportster onto the rumble strips and then passed the truck on the shoulder. He was cussing out the window when she rode by, but she didn’t care. Leah was out in those woods with something bad, and Kade…Kade… Tears of frustration burned her eyes, but Trina had no time for weakness right now. She was a cat of action.
It was all she could do not to reach for her phone and bring in every allied shifter in the known territory down on Leah’s land and snuff out whatever had hunted Kade… Kade…Kade…oh, God. With every fiber of her being, Trina knew she wouldn’t be okay if the dead wolf was him. That’s what this awful empty feeling was in the pit of her stomach, right?
Was it another broken bond? Oh, God, Oh, God…
She took the turn onto Leah’s dirt road driveway and spewed dust as she steadied out. The fine hairs on her arms stood straight up as she felt the darkness in the woods that Leah had described. A snarl rippled through her body. The cougar wanted out. The animal inside of her wanted to defend herself. She wanted to survive whatever was happening here.
There was evil in these woods.
Heart in her throat, she slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in front of Leah and Ethan’s mansion. It was cloudy today, and the place looked haunted, empty. Trina cut the engine and froze, listening for any movement, any heartbeats. There was one, hammering as hard as hers, racing hers.
Trina dismounted and sniffed the air. Pennies, just like Leah said. Blood. Lots of it.
Under the porch, Leah whined. Big ol’ werewolf hiding under a house? Yeah, whatever was in the woods was bad.
Trina set her helmet on the seat of her Harley and fought back the urge to Change. The monster in the woods was calling to her like a damn siren.
“Come on,” she murmured as she passed the place Leah had dug out under the porch. A massive black werewolf with silver eyes slunk out from under the house and scanned the woods before she loped beside Trina, her ears and tail down, her attention on the woods.
For comfort, Trina rested her hand on the back of the wolf.
Trina would’ve left Leah under that house if it had made her feel safe, but right now she was selfish. She couldn’t look at the dead wolf alone. If it was Kade, she was about to break, so she would put that burden on Leah and ask for forgiveness later.
The scent of blood thickened the air and made it hard to breathe. The wolf had fallen right at the entrance to the woodshop. She could see the mangled body from a distance but couldn’t tell…couldn’t tell…
Trina jogged, then ran. She skidded to a stop right beside the enormous wolf and dropped to her knees as she searched the body. Gray fur, cream tips, just like Kade…but this wasn’t Kade. Gold-green eyes stared back at her. The eyes of Mick, Second of the Wulfe Clan.
“It’s not him,” she chanted in a thick whisper. “It’s not him.”
Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she reached out to Leah for comfort but Leah wasn’t close. She was pacing back and forth, her tail tucked. Back and forth, back and forth, putting herself between Trina and the haunted woods.
There was a Glock beside her. She leaned closer and sniffed. Discharged. And the blood splatters leading out from the shop weren’t Mick’s.
Stupid fucking wolf. He’d come here to murder Kade, but he’d failed.
That meant the monster in the woods was Kade.
He was hurt. And an injured predator with nothing to lose was the most dangerous of all.
The Wulfe Clan had done this. They’d snapped the man she loved. They’d hurt him.
Rage shaking her hands, Trina pulled her cell from her back pocket and called Darius.
“What?” he answered.
“Mick failed.”
There was silence on the other end so she said, “Did you hear me, you cowardly fuck? I said Mick failed. Your Second is dead, and now you’ve got one helluva monster to deal with. And I’m not talking about Kade. I’m talking about me. I know what you did. Kade fucked with your Clan’s rankings, didn’t he? He beat you, and you’re nursing your injuries and your pride, so you sent an assassin. You won’t be able to find a hole deep enough to hide from me, so we can do this one of two ways. You can grow some fucking balls and meet us face to face, or we can hunt you down and kill you sniveling wolves while you run away with your fucking tails tucked.”
“Careful, kitty. I think you’ve forgotten who you’re talking to—”
“No, Darius, I know exactly who the fuck I’m talking to! Coward. Murderer. You’ve been a growing thorn in this town for years. I’ve watched. I’ve waited. I’ve sat back observing you, because that’s what cougars do. We hunt patiently. And you just kept fucking up. And then you got it in your head you were going to murder my mate on our own territory? You’ve lost your fuckin’ mind.”
“Time and place, bitch.”
“No bitches here, Darius. I’m a lion. I think it’s you who forgets who the fuck you’re talking to. Three nights from now works for me, the edge of Blackwood Crow territory.”
Darius huffed a breath. “Little girl, you have no idea what you’ve just done.”