He wished that he could call Savannah. He’d gotten Harris to give her number to him a couple of months ago, but every time he’d thought about calling her, he’d forced himself to ignore the urge. What could he say?
“Hey, babe, once you go feral, you’ll never go back?” “I’m crazy about you, Savannah…also just flat-out crazy. Can I invite you out for a fun night of dinner, movie, and watching me have a complete mental breakdown?”
No, he had decided months ago that it would be best to keep it casual with her. Flirting. Stealing her marks so she’d have to come give him a hard time about it. Watching her shopping or just strolling around downtown with her family and friends, like some kind of creep stalker.
The farther he drove, though, the more he felt the dull ache of her absence. He remembered her last night, the way she’d looked at him, the way she’d felt when she’d melted up against him, as if turning to him for help and comfort when her family was driving her crazy. As if he were her rock, her protector. She was tough as nails, that one, but she could be soft for him, just him, if only…
He shook his head furiously and punched the car door so hard he dented it.
That line of thinking would get him exactly nowhere.
He needed to do one thing. He needed to concentrate on one thing. Take a giant, psychotic feral killer back to Jason’s property. Without dying.
His phone rang. It was from a number that he didn’t recognize.
He answered it, and was disappointed to hear Tully’s voice instead of Savannah’s. That was crazy, of course. Savannah probably didn’t even have his number, and she had no reason to call him.
“Hey, fur-face. Here’s what I’ve been able to find out about Roy,” Tully said. Tully was calling from a burner phone. Yes, he had been forbidden to help Austin in any way, but Tully was never one for following rules.
“Roy’s pack was small, and they used to be pretty low key. They had a construction business and stayed out of everyone’s hair. Then Roy’s wife died of cancer, and he went into a major depression, and his pack fell apart, about a year ago. He was living off the grid, chasing off anyone who tried to talk to him. Then a couple of months ago, he killed some poachers. Total assholes – they apparently got their rocks off on torturing animals before they killed them. He ripped their throats out. Three men. The bad thing there is that he let himself be seen by humans when he was still in his shifted form. He was apparently the biggest wolf they’d ever seen, and it started up the rumors of werewolves again. The one with the hikers was more troubling. Family of three, including a teenage boy. Totally harmless, no threat to him at all. The Washborn pack sent in a tracker to investigate the killings, and they picked up Roy’s scent at the scene.”
Austin felt a surge of anger rush through him. The poachers, he was fine with. But killing an innocent family? For that, he’d have volunteered to take Roy out for free.
“Anything about his specific abilities?”
“No, just that he’s the strongest shifter that anyone’s ever seen or heard of, and he’s fought two Dominus Alphas at once, when they tried to take over his pack, back when he was sane. Killed them both.”
Well, that was bad news. Like humans, shifters were gifted with varying levels of strength and abilities. There was a lot of variation even among Dominus wolves. And apparently Roy had not only been gifted with the absolute maximum level of Dominus strength, but he’d chosen to waste that gift by using it for mayhem and murder.
Austin was even happier that he’d taken the GPS trackers off his truck. Jason had texted him the GPS coordinates of the cave where Roy had last been seen. Savannah wouldn’t have the inside info that he did, so she wasn’t likely to be able to find Roy.
He knew that Savannah and her family used a special kind of super-strong tranquilizer; it was the talk of the shifter community. She probably thought that would give her enough of an advantage, but she was wrong. She’d never gone up against a Dominus before, and she’d certainly never encountered a freak of nature like Roy. It was a good thing Austin had thrown her off the scent.
“Thanks for doing that for me.” Austin sighed. “I don’t want you to run any more risks, though. Don’t call me again, okay?”
He hung up without waiting for an answer. There was a truck stop just up ahead; time to catch a little shut-eye before he headed off on his doomed quest.
* * *
Savannah’s head was swimming. She felt like she had a spectacularly bad hangover. Either that, or there was a construction crew inside her head, trying to drill their way out of her skull.
She lay there with her eyes closed, swallowing her nausea, trying to figure out where she was and what had happened to her and if she was going to die in the next few minutes.
She was lying on a lumpy mattress in a room that smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat. The same hotel room she’d checked in to…when? How long had she been here?
She searched through her mind, replaying everything she could remember.
She had snuck out of her house after the barbecue, leaving a note for her mother…who was going to murder her when she got home. In the note, she’d said that she just needed a week to herself, to work through some personal issues. She was aware that she wouldn’t be fooling her mother in the slightest, but she couldn’t just vanish without leaving some kind of word behind.
She’d left her cell phone behind so she couldn’t be tracked, bringing a burner phone with her. Then she’d driven all night, and she’d finally gotten close to the area where the local fox shifters had directed her.
She’d known she was going to have to hike in to the area where Roy was hiding, and she’d wanted to be rested up for that. She had checked in to a hotel mid-morning, when she’d been so tired she was swerving on the road. She’d only meant to take a short nap. She had to get to Roy before Austin did.
Her head was still fuzzy. She tried to move her arms…but only one of them moved. Her right arm was free. Her left wrist had been chained to the headboard.
Panic welled up inside her, and she went stiff with anger. Would she be raped? Murdered?
If someone even tried, she’d chew through their throat.
