: Chapter 3

Jaxson

Savannah Caine turned on her heel and strode back toward the sheriff’s cruiser. Her bittersweet orange hair swayed back and forth hypnotically, and the way her long, pale legs disappeared into her high cutoff jean shorts amplified the alluring effect.

Heat raced up my neck, and I drank deeply of her lingering scent.

The red-haired woman with a tattoo on her left shoulder.

There was no doubt that Savannah was the woman the seer had sent me to find. The fortune teller’s words still burned in my mind: Your adversaries hunt her, too. If you do not stop them, she will be dead before the full moon rises, and with her, the future of your pack.

I looked up at the moon-mother shining high overhead. Five days before full, and they’d nearly gotten to her before I had.

She was lucky. The abductors had attacked seven people so far. Forty-eight hours ago, I’d seen what happened to one of those who resisted. Utter carnage.

Yet Savannah had survived. Although she was Magica—a person who had magic in their veins—the woman obviously had no idea what she was or how to use her magic, or that werewolves were real. But despite all odds, she’d managed to kill one of the wolves that ambushed her without using weapons or spells.

It was damned impressive. We were very difficult to kill.

Unfortunately, Savannah had slain only one of her attackers. The woman she’d described was still out there—a wounded she-wolf, judging by her scent.

Hopefully, Regina would catch her. My second in command was one of the best trackers in our pack. She’d slipped out of the truck to chase our prey while I’d distracted the cop and the woman. If we couldn’t catch the she-wolf, there’d be blood. Savannah was wolf-marked now, and the she-wolf would hunt her until one of them was dead.

I motioned to the sheriff. He sauntered over and stuck out his hand. “Seems I’m lucky the DNR had people in the area tonight. This is one hell of a mess.”

Rather than return the smile, I locked him in place with a cold stare. He froze like a deer caught in the headlights. His subconscious knew that I was in charge here, and that I could snap his arm like a twig.

I shook his hand for appearances. “The DNR will handle things from here, Sheriff. The woman ran over a wolf, that’s all. The attack at the Lakeside Taphouse was an animal attack, too. Neither incident needs further investigation.”

I let my alpha presence drown him into compliance. It wasn’t mind control, just the force of raw, uncontestable authority. More than anything, most people just wanted to be told what to do, and this man would believe anything to make the monsters go away.

The befuddled sheriff nodded. “Of course, that’s what I was thinking. Just an animal attack.”

“And Sheriff, bury the report. We don’t want the locals going around town with guns half-cocked, looking for stray wolves.”

He shook my hand vigorously. “Of course. Happy to help. Can’t have people around here all riled up. It’s still the height of tourist season.”

The man would do exactly what I’d told him to. He barely had a choice.

I released his hand. “Most importantly, make sure that woman gets home safely.”

He rubbed his palm. “Of course.”

The sheriff climbed in his SUV and started the engine. He switched off his flashers, did a U-turn, and headed back toward town. Savannah watched me suspiciously from the passenger-side window.

The red-haired woman with a tattoo on her left shoulder.

Why had the fortune teller sent me to her? How would she help me bring these killers to justice?

I picked up my phone and called Billy, my top enforcer and brother-in-law. “The county sheriff is headed your way. Follow him discreetly with your vehicle. A woman survived the attack, and he’s dropping her off at home. Take two teams and stake out the place overnight. She’s the first break we’ve gotten, and I’m betting that they’ll come for her again. Make sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

I hung up and shoved my phone in my pocket, then headed toward the battered wolf lying on the asphalt. He’d been wolfborn like me. The wolf was our true form, and we shifted back at death. Not all shifters were like that. I knelt and examined the corpse.

Dane. I thought I had recognized the scent. I’d exiled him from the Dockside pack for inciting violence after my sister’s death.

We needed to ditch the body and destroy the evidence. If we didn’t, we were going to be fucked. Another former pack member had already been implicated in one of the earlier abductions, though he’d never been found. Rumors were flying, and the Order of Magica—the body that governed all supernatural species—had threatened to revoke our pack’s extralegal status unless we brought an end to the abductions. If this got out, we could lose our independence. It would be the end of pack law.

I stood and wiped my hands. Dane had been a cancer, and now he was roadkill. His actions had threatened our pack, and I had no pity for the bastard.

Regina stepped out of the woods, still half-dressed from shifting. Some shifters transformed clothes and all, but as wolfborn, Regina and I could not. We did it the real way—the original way—with snapping bones and growing claws.

From the expression on her face, she’d come up short. I asked anyway. “Any luck?”

She pulled her shirt back over her head. “None. I followed the she-wolf’s trail to that crappy restaurant, but there were too many smells to track her closely. I’m betting she grabbed their car. Sorry.”

“Did she smell like someone from our pack?”

Regina’s eyes dilated in surprise. “No. Why?”

I nodded to the dead wolf lying on the side of the road. She crouched down and turned its head to the side. “Fuck, it’s Dane.”

I grimaced. “I know. Tell no one.”

She stiffened. “He’s got family in the pack. Surely they deserve to know.”

“He’s not part of our pack. I kicked him and his associates out to keep the peace in Magic Side. He’s a rogue wolf, Regina. His family carries that burden already. They don’t deserve the shame of being linked to these abductions as well. We can’t have the pack implicated in this—not even our exiles. We could lose everything.”

She fought back a pained expression and submitted. We had to do what was best for the reputation of his family and that of the pack.

Regina stood and looked around. “What do we do with the body?”

I grabbed the huge wolf by the scruff of the neck and heaved the corpse into the bed of our truck. “We’ll bury him and say nothing.”

She winced. “Should the Dockside alpha really be burying bodies in the backwoods of Wisconsin in the middle of the night?”

From some, that would have been insubordination, but she was doing her best to remind me that I wasn’t my father’s enforcer anymore. I was the alpha now—the master of our pack.

I wiped my hands on my pants and circled the truck. “I trust our team to a point, but someone might slip up. We can’t risk anyone knowing that former Magic Side wolves were involved in this.”

Regina shook her head as she opened the passenger door. “You did your father’s dirty work, Jaxson. And your sister’s. You need to find someone to do yours.”

I grinned as I hopped in the cab. “You offering? Fine, you get to steal us a shovel.”

With a snort, she buckled in. “Do we need to worry about the woman talking? How much does the dirty wolf killer know?”

Even if he’d been a bastard, Dane had been part of our pack once. Loyalty ran deep, and I was sure the pack would want justice. Once pack, always pack.

I started the engine. “The woman knows nothing—she doesn’t even know she’s got magic in her veins. Let’s keep it that way.”

“Do you think they’ll come after her again?”

“I’m counting on it. The abductors targeted her for a reason. On top of that, she killed one wolf and can ID the other who attacked her. She’s as good as dead if we can’t protect her.”

Regina cocked her head to the side. “Shouldn’t we get her back to Magic Side? We have a safehouse, you know. We could prosecute her under pack law once this is over.”

I growled, and she averted her eyes. “In an ideal world, yes. But right now, we don’t have any clues to work from. We don’t know why the abductions are happening or where the rogue wolves have set up their base of operations—if they even have one. The best chance we have of tracking them down is capturing one and getting it to talk. So we stay here and wait for the she-wolf to come back.”

My second nodded. “You want to use the redhead as bait.”

The dark, empty highway stretched ahead of us. Somewhere down the road, a small-town girl was heading home, completely ignorant of the monsters lurking in every shadow.

Savannah was going to lead me to answers, one way or another.

I tightened my jaw. “I’m going to find out who’s behind these abductions and bring them down by whatever means necessary—even if I have to lure them with that woman.”