“How about I go over and visit with your mother for a few minutes?” He didn’t sound like he thought that was a brilliant plan, but that was because he was smart. “Then if we need to kill more time, I’ll have her show me around the immediate area?”
That should be fine but I didn’t want to push our luck.
“Let’s just have you walk back to the house slowly depending on how my calls go.” I hated to hide them away but I wasn’t sure what was going on. “The wards are still strong and nothing seems to have been testing them, but this idiot is making decisions like a cartoon villain.”
He was still just following us around through the middle of nowhere as I went around in circles around the pack land.
“Maybe he’s just not bright?” Dorian shrugged when I laughed. “Not every bad guy is smart.”
“Okay, I agree with that but at the very least he’s making confusing decisions.” There was nothing subtle about following me as I made four right turns just to end up where I started a few minutes before. “Maybe he got lost and is following us to be able to get to Emeric?”
Dorian’s hum as he looked back at the SUV said he thought that was questionable too. “Nothing Emeric said explains why anyone would want him. We’ve got to be missing something.”
“I haven’t had to deal with the level of insanity before, so I’m slightly out of my depth.” My uncle had made sure I understood the magic of the pack and the practical running of our businesses but I don’t think he’d dealt with anything like this either. “The worst thing my uncle ran into when he was Alpha was a small problem with someone acting like the mob who was trying to move in and set up shop.”
A few phone calls and a late-night visit from what’d probably seemed like a monster had fixed that problem quickly.
“That’s a story I’m going to want to hear at some point.” Still halfway around in the seat, he glared. “Once we’re not being followed by someone on a cell phone. He’s not even using a handsfree device. He’s got the phone in his hands and he’s so distracted he’s swaying in the lane.”
I had a feeling he would always amaze me when it came to what he would get angry about.
“This area isn’t very populated, so he shouldn’t run into anyone.” I’d mostly been taking backroads to keep us away from town until I knew what I was going to do, but it would serve several purposes. “Can you read his license plate?”
“No.” Dorian started grumbling to himself about remembering his glasses as I told the car to call Jessen. “Oh, I can zoom in with my phone.”
He was brilliant and I was a steady driver, so we made a perfect pair as the car connected with Jessen. “I didn’t do it, Alpha.”
For fuck’s sake.
“My mate is listening. Pretend we’re a functional pack and you can tattle on someone later.” My mother was at fault in some way, but I didn’t have the time to figure out what she’d done. “Dorian is going to read you off a license plate and I’d like you to see what you can find.”
“Yes, Alpha.” Jessen had contacts for everything but I knew my mate was going to have question when he raised one eyebrow.
“Ready?” His tone was pure professional teacher but his gaze was skeptical mate.
“Yes, Alpha Mate.” Jessen’s respectful tone shocked my mate into forgetting he had questions for me. “Ready.”
“Here you go.” Reading off the license plate, Dorian gave him all the information we had so far. “I was also able to get a fairly good picture of him and he’s got brown hair and looks frustrated.”
Frustrated?
“Thank you, Alpha Mate. One second.” Furious typing was going on in the background as Dorian glanced back over at me. He gave me a reprieve because the phone was connected but I knew the list of questions he had was growing longer by the second.
Jessen’s response didn’t help either.
“It’s a rental that’s connected to someone named Nickle Mann. So yeah, probably a really bad alias.” Jessen chuckled as Dorian sighed. “Yeah, there’s nothing for the money man online but he was a moron and attached his phone to the car. One second…yep…real name seems to be…not English…really not English, Alpha. I’ll forward this to you but I’m not even going to attempt to figure out what some of these letters are.”
Well, that was unexpected…and it had Dorian frowning at me even deeper.
“You got that information very quickly.” It seemed like he’d run out of patience. “It’s amazing what you can find out online.”
“I…is there anything else you need, Alpha?”
Jessen panicked too easily.
“Yes. I can’t take the chance of dragging this moron through town, so I’m going to head toward the pack.” He was just too stubborn to make better choices…he hadn’t even tried to run me off the road. “I need everyone who’s not working somewhere else right now to be in the woods along the road just inside the boundary.”
We didn’t need to end up on some tourist’s vacation pics on Instagram or whatever people were using lately.
