Leif turned and saw the cruiser. He gestured for Alec to follow him, and he headed a few spots down toward the cart corral. Leif got within one spot of the cruiser before turning and heading back to his truck, nodding grimly to Alec as he went.
Same cruiser, same cops. Hard to fool a werewolf’s nose.
He pushed the cart to the corral, mindful of Leif watching over him, the alpha waiting for him to return before getting in the truck after Alec hopped into the passenger seat. Leif locked the doors the second he was inside, and he grinned at the protective actions of the alpha wolf. Alec was in no hurry to be kidnapped again, so anyactions Leif wanted to take to keep them safe, he was all for it.
“Was it them?” Alec asked, just to be sure, as Leif pulled out of the superstore parking lot, heading toward the highway.
“Yup. Matches the scents in the store, too, for who was watching you. The wind was blowing the wrong way for me to get much at Stu’s place, but the cruiser reeks of them both and fits the scent trail in the store. They were watching you. At least one of them, for sure.”
“Probably Earl, the quiet one. John makes him do all the work.” Alec said, checking behind them for anyone following, glad the truck’s windows were tinted so no one could see inside.
“Think they’re in on it? That mess with Stu and the mafia?” Leif asked him, hands on the wheel, knuckles white. His voice was deeper, too, full of fangs and growls. Leif was feeling protective.
“They’re on the mafia payroll, so I’d bet anything they told whoever they report to that I’m loose and alive.” Alec faced Leif directly as his mate drove. “I’m sorry to get you caught up in all of this. They’re gonna try and find out who you are now, where you live.”
“Only a handful of people know my full name, and only one person knows where I live for sure, and that witch ain’t talking to no one,” Leif informed him. “We should expect them to send more people after that first group we took out.”
“Dammit,” Alec groaned. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Leif told him, briefly taking his eyes off the road and giving Alec a stern expression. “I’m not sorry one bit. You shouldn’t be either. This mess brought me you, and that’s more than worth all the trouble.”
Alec reached out and Leif took a hand off the wheel to grasp his smaller hand in his larger one, squeezing firmly. “We got this, you and me.” Leif told him, warming Alec from his toes to the top of his head.
“Yeah, we got this.”
Alec
Grocery shopping went swiftly.The tiny store in Gelridge Hollow had a varied selection, with regional flavors like flash-frozen fiddleheads, crawdad bushels, and locally sourced meat butchered in the back of the small deli.
Assured by Leif that he had a root cellar that stayed cold year round and a large chest freezer in the lower section of the mine he had yet to see, Alec filled the cart at the grocery store, mostly with things easily frozen. He splurged on a bushel of crawdads after checking with Leif that he had a propane cooker and fuel for a crawdad boil. They were going to be eating well that night.
Checking out was slow, the cashier recognizing Leif and talking to him about what had happened since the last time he came in, which Alec guessed was over a week. Leif made awkward small talk, but he gifted the whole store with a huge smile when Alec added his two cents.
“What brings you back so early? Usually we see you once a month?” the cashier asked, ringing up their items.
“He met me,” Alec piped up, loading the belt as Leif loaded the shopping cart after items were scanned.
“Oh? And who are you then?” the cashier asked, curious.
“His mate,” Alec declared proudly, grinning. Leif’s answering smile was incandescent, the cashier stunned by both the words and the smile.
“Congrats!”
“Thank you.”
They had a ton of stuff by the time they were done checking out, and Alec worried again how they were getting it all up on the mountain.
The tiny parking lot was packed, and Alec and Leif made sure to get eyes on all the vehicles. None of them were the cruiser from Hemlock. Leif scented the air as they loaded up the truck, shaking his head in the negative when Alec asked him if he scented anything.
No one followed them there, as far as he could tell, and there was no one watching them now. Well, except the cashier through the store front windows, who was smiling at them and waved when they saw Alec looking back at them. Alec chuckled and waved back, certain they were as safe as they could be at the moment.
Alec
He shouldn’t have worriedabout the amount he bought.
When they got to the storage unit, Leif went to a large shelf and pulled down what appeared to be a huge pile of leather straps and ropes, but when he laid it out on the floor and began untangling the lines, Alec saw it for what it was—a huge harness.
It had clips for attaching things, like the matching nylon bags Leif also retrieved from the shelves, and velcroand buttons for attaching all manner of objects and items along with the bags.
