When he pulled me toward him, sat me on the edge of his desk like it was the most natural thing in the world, I felt the quick jolt of lust through our bond. It was thrilling and wonderful. I felt my wolf preen.
“Got a lot of ground to cover. So,” he said, his hand on my bare knee under the hem of the sundress I’d worn today. “Where do you want to start?”
“Start anywhere. But you know how this ends, right? Somebody close to you is behind it.”
We both knew it was going to end badly for someone in our pack. Someone he should have been able to trust.
“We’re bringin’ you in closer to the fire,” he said, standing, breath hot on my cheek. “Sure you can handle it?”
I wanted to lie, but the truth caught me off guard. “I’m the Luna of this pack now, Bronc. It’s my job to shoulder whatever comes along right beside you.”
A flicker of warmth reached his eyes. “You amaze me, Little Wolf.”
I loved how connected we were. The bond pulled me closer to him. We were more one than two since his claiming bite. His emotions were mine; mine were his. It made life easier and more complicated all at once. I had to be so careful to shield what I didn’t want him to carry. But I knew we were stronger together.
He went serious again. Serious and warm, the way he knew would keep me grounded. “I appreciate how hard you work. Youwill unravel the mystery surrounding who is doing this and how bad it is,” he said. “I’ve got no doubt.” The way I heard it, he meant more than the ledgers. “We’ll bring in Wrecker to do more snooping, see what else he can turn up on Skeeter. Not goin’ easy on that one. We know there’s somethin’ off, even if we don’t know who’s pullin’ his strings. The guy has been pack for 20 years. Need to get to the bottom of that.” He paused like he was studying me, as if I were the real puzzle here, like I’d finally give something away. “Too much for one day?”
The question was real, not rhetorical. I shook my head, and the whole room seemed to swirl with the energy I felt pooling in my chest. Energy I wasn’t ready to give a name to.
Bronc nodded, accepting more than just my answer. Then his lips were on mine. He didn’t even pretend to let me breathe before he pulled me deeper into the kiss. It ended as quick as it started, a last tangle of his voice and his touch. “Meet me out front in ten. Lunch at Ma’s, then back at it. We won’t stop until it’s settled.”
I didn’t trust myself to say much more than, “Okay,” as he straightened to his full height, and grabbed his cut then cast another long look back. A glance that stayed with me, even after he left.
I found Bronc outside, leaning against his bike, all confidence and cool and ready to take on the entire world if he had to. When he saw me with the stack of ledgers tucked under one arm, he gave the saddlebag an extra tug to be sure it was secure.
I looked back over my shoulder. Arsenal was watching Skeeter, Bronc was watching me, and I was watching it all unravel.
Pearl’s Bar and Grill buzzed with life, music and banter and TVs fighting for dominance. I was lost in Bronc’s steady plans for the pack and us, for the best ways to stay ahead and keep us safe. Then a familiar voice came crashing through it all. I looked up at the TV in time to see my father’s panicked expression. My jaw dropped, along with my burger, as I read the closed-caption plea for my mother’s life. He wore a stricken look on his face. Hiswords knocked the air from my lungs, and I went cold, shivering through the sweat on my skin.
“Bronc,” I said, and I felt my voice collapse on itself, felt the shock register long before my hands caught up and went still.
He looked up from his burger, and the urgency he saw on the screen froze him in place.
“This was an organized kidnapping,” the reporter said, and her words ricocheted around the room, then around my head. Bronc heard the entire story before I could catch my breath, before I could explain why every muscle in my body felt torn between panic and disbelief. “The kidnappers haven’t yet made contact, but Mrs. Bettencourt is believed to be in serious danger,” the voice continued. “Her family begs anyone with information to please come forward.”
“Oh my God,” I said. I didn’t hear my own voice until I saw Bronc start to move closer. His whole body went protective, like he knew I was about to shatter. “Holy shit, holy shit.”
I watched as my dad’s plea streamed by in yellow letters on the screen, a closed caption confession that meant more to me than he thought it did. “Please, whoever has taken my precious wife Renda. Please return her to me. I’ll pay you any amount of money. Just let me know what you want.” I read it once, twice, again, and my body started shaking.
Bronc grabbed the remote from the nearest table and turned up the volume. His hands were on me an instant later, and the place went silent as he pulled me in.
“He took her,” I said, my words spilling over each other, a jumbled panic. “He took her to get to me. I know he did. He’ll kill her, Bronc. He’ll kill her, and it’s all because of me.”
We were close enough to feel each other’s heat, but I was cold. I wrapped my arms around myself and felt the tremors work through me. He kept his eyes on mine, the same as he’d done with the ledgers, and it scared me that they were more worried thancalm this time. “Juliet,” he said, and I’d never heard him speak so quietly. “Darlin’, breathe. We’ll figure it out.”
“No,” I said. “I know him. I know how this ends.” My voice caught on the way I thought it would end, the way I couldn’t let it end. “You heard it. He won’t even make the call. He’s putting it on me. Again.”
He took in the fear, took in all of it, pulled me so close that my pulse thudded back to normal with his own heartbeat. He made the edges of my shock less sharp, held me still while my mind reeled. When the fear passed for a moment, when the anger took its place, he let go just enough for me to see that he was letting me in, not pushing me away.
“Harrison took her,” I said, sure as I’d ever been of anything in my life. “I know he did. He took her to draw me out. I bet my life on it.”
“Ma,” he said, lifting his chin to her as she watched from the bar. “Need you to get Arsenal and the others to the compound. Now.”
“I won’t let anything happen,” he said. His voice was sure, the kind that no one ever questioned, least of all me. He tilted my chin up to face him, and I saw the Alpha in his eyes. Saw the strength that everyone in the pack leaned on, and felt it settle back in my body, keeping me together. “We’ll get her back, Juliet. Swear to you we will.”
The room stopped spinning when he spoke. The world stopped crumbling. We both felt the shift. My breath caught on what it meant, on everything I couldn’t quite say. I stared at him, half terrified and half relieved. “How?” I asked. It was a small word, smaller than I meant it to be, but it held the room in place; it kept us there together; it let me take in his certainty the same way I took in my next lungful of air. “This is my fault.”
“Juliet. Stop that talk. There is nothing about this that is your fault.” Bronc was fighting to keep his control now. “The one and only reason that Harrison Hastings is even in your life in the firstplace is because those people, your mother and father, sold you out to him. So as bad as I hate that this has happened, if he has your mother, the fault rests solely on the shoulders of your father and her. Not on you.”
