Derren remembered a pair of mesmerizing emerald eyes. Remembered his wolf’s curiosity, how the animal had wanted to take a closer look.
“Anyway, my Ally likes pack-trotting. Doesn’t stay in one place for more than a few years. But we’ve always kept in touch. And even though I got my ass dumped in here, I’ve had people check on her. I got word that her pack’s giving her a hard time.”
“Hard time?”
“It turns out she was seeing some guy—the Beta.” Cain didn’t sound too happy about it. “Then, a few months ago—bam—he found his mate. The female’s been making things difficult for Ally. Two nights ago, she actually accused Ally of coming at her from behind and trying to kill her.”
“Did she try to kill her?” Derren was expecting Cain to bristle, but the guy smiled. It was strange what Cain would be offended by and what he’d find amusing.
“Look, my Ally’s a fierce little thing—I should know, I taught her every combat move she knows. But she wouldn’t attack from behind. That’s not who she is.”
“Did her Alpha cast her out?”
“No. Maybe he doesn’t believe the Beta female’s account, or maybe it’s something else. I don’t know.”
“Who is her Alpha?”
“Matt Ward. He leads the Collingwood Pack.”
Derren knew Matt well enough, since the guy’s land bordered the territory of Derren’s old pack, where Nick had once been Alpha before forming the Mercury Pack. Although Derren didn’t know the Beta as well as he knew Matt, Derren had judged Zeke to be good at his position. “If you’re right and Ally is innocent, then what’s happening is a shame. But I don’t see what it has to do with me, in any case.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with you before, but it does now.” Cain’s tone turned grave. “I want you to help her.”
“Why? Even though she left your pack, I’m pretty sure the Brookwell wolves would still be willing to help her.”
“Of course they would. My uncles raised Ally—they adore her, think of her as family. But my pack has been under the scrutiny of extremists and human law enforcement ever since I joined The Movement. I’ve kept my connection to Ally quiet. Otherwise, she could be used against me.”
It was a wise decision. “And if you send anyone from your pack or The Movement to help her, she’ll come under the scrutiny of the humans too,” Derren concluded. Still . . . “Cain, you’ve got a lot of contacts.” Scary, dangerous, and equally sociopathic contacts. “Why come to me with this?”
“I could send some people to ‘take care’ of the situation, sure. But that would end in violence. Ally and I lost our parents when our entire pack was slain because of what a couple of assholes did. I won’t do the same, and Ally would never forgive me if I did. Besides, I only trust a handful of people in this world. You’re one of them.”
Derren snorted. “You don’t trust me, you just trust that I’ll keep my word.”
Cain shrugged. “Same difference. The point is I trust that you’ll keep my Ally safe.”
It was odd to see his friend care about anything other than The Movement. The more time Cain had spent in juvie, the more he’d changed, grown indifferent and hard. He didn’t see people as “people” anymore. To Cain, those he kept in his life were either associates or accomplices—things he could use. Yet, this female was obviously very important to him, which could only mean that she was his mate. A mate Cain didn’t intend to claim, for whatever reason, or she wouldn’t have been dating Zeke.
“What is it exactly that you want me to do?”
“I want you to take her to stay with your pack for a while. I’ll be out of here in four months. I’ll take matters from there.”
Sighing, Derren leaned back in his seat. Doing what Cain had asked wouldn’t be easy, since Nick hated outsiders around his pack. “You should have gone to Nick with this. He’s the Alpha.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t owe me a favor.” Anger thickened Cain’s voice as he continued. “She’s not safe there with those fuckers, Derren.”
“It’s possible that she wouldn’t be any safer at the Mercury Pack right now.” A week ago, one of the enforcers, Jesse, had become ill after hunting an animal on their territory that they later discovered had been poisoned. After further investigation, the pack found other animals on their land had been poisoned as well. “There’s been a minor attack on the pack.”
Cain didn’t ask Derren to elaborate, aware that pack business wasn’t shared with outsiders. “If you need the matter taken care of, I can arrange that.”
“We don’t even know who’s responsible. It could be an isolated incident.” Though Derren doubted it.
“Could be.” Cain didn’t seem any more convinced of that than Derren. “Nonetheless, it changes nothing. Your pack might not be the safest place to be, but Ally’s in more danger where she is. Even if she wasn’t, I won’t tolerate people making false accusations against her.”
“That’s why you came to me with this,” Derren discerned. “Kind of sneaky of you.” Not that Derren was surprised. Cain was manipulative and self-serving.
Cain shrugged, unrepentant. “I want Ally safe. If playing someone’s conscience will make that happen, I won’t hesitate.”
“You’re forgetting that I don’t have much of a conscience.”
“Then do it because you owe me.”
And Derren really did owe him. If it hadn’t been for Cain, he would never have tracked down the lying bastard who had put the nail in Derren’s metaphorical coffin and sent his fourteen-year-old ass to juvie. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
Cain gave a satisfied nod. “When I get out of here, I’ll deal with her pack. Until then, I need to know she’s away from them. Understand?”
Since Derren didn’t really have any choice in the matter . . . “Yeah. Tell me what I need to know about her.”
“Her full name is Alyssa Marshall. She’s twenty-six years old. And she’s a Seer.”
Derren’s spine locked. “A Seer?” It came out a growl.
“I know how you feel about Seers, Derren, and I get it. I do. But Ally is not that son of a bitch. She’s a good girl.”
Derren placed one hand on the table, ready to push out of his seat. “Find someone else to help her. Trust me, Cain, you do not want me around her.” His distaste for Seers ran too deep.
Rather than reacting in anger, Cain sank into his chair. “And here I thought you were a man of your word.”
He was a man of his word, dammit. Derren’s one redeeming quality was that he was loyal to the bone once that loyalty was earned. “This is not me going against my word—”
“Oh, but it is, Derren.” Leaning forward once more, Cain spoke in a low voice. “I tracked that fucker for you, I handed him to you and Nick on a silver platter, I helped you bury him, and I kept my mouth shut about it. All I asked for in return was one favor. One. Am I asking you to find, kill, or bury someone for me? No. I’m asking you to protect someone very important to me. Someone who’s being held responsible for things she hasn’t fucking done . . . just like you were.”
If Derren was another guy, a decent guy, those words might have given his conscience—stunted though it was—a twinge. But what made him hesitate to reject Cain’s request wasn’t a sense of guilt, it was the reminder of exactly how much Cain had done and risked for Derren, and how little Cain was asking for in payment. There was a big issue at play, though. “Nick will never go for it. He has a hard-on for Seers too.”
“Then convince him.”
Like it would be that simple. And taking into account that the rest of the pack wasn’t too fond of Seers either, one word came to mind: “Fuck.”
This was one of the reasons Derren highly respected his Alpha female: she had the singular ability to make Nick reconsider his decisions. Oh, Nick listened to Derren, respected his advice, and trusted his judgment. But only Shaya’s opinion truly mattered to Nick.
When they had first met, Derren hadn’t been too sure about her—having wa
tched as she rejected Nick over and over. She’d had every reason to push Nick away, considering he’d failed to claim her when he had the chance. But Derren hadn’t liked seeing his friend so cut up. And since Nick had left his pack to track her down, Derren figured she should have at least given Nick a chance. Eventually she had, and Derren had quickly learned that Shaya Critchley was strong, wise, and had a huge heart.
They had formed their own pack, thanks to Derren’s meddling, and Nick had purchased a chunk of land where a number of hunting lodges were situated. The main lodge looked like a rustic mansion and had been refurbished with Shaya’s tastes in mind. Despite Nick’s reluctance to be an Alpha again, it had all worked out pretty well . . . except for the part where he’d withdrawn Derren’s self-appointed bodyguard position and made him his Beta.
Derren could have refused, but that would have called into question his loyalty to Nick. Still, loyal to his Alpha or not, the subject of Ally Marshall wasn’t something Derren could afford to drop.
As Derren had expected, Nick had freaked at the idea of having a Seer in his pack, even if it were only temporary. Shaya hadn’t been any happier about bringing in an outsider . . . right up until Derren had explained Ally’s sad situation, which had appealed to Shaya’s compassionate nature. If someone had a problem, she would do what she could to fix it—and she would make sure that Nick helped.
So now the Alpha female was doing her best to convince Nick that they should give Ally sanctuary. Although Nick appeared to be stubbornly sticking to his decision, Derren could sense that the guy was wavering, hating the idea of upsetting his mate.
“We shouldn’t get involved; this is none of our business,” insisted Nick from the sofa, cuddling their infant daughter and plucking at her short, blonde, corkscrew curls. Like her mother, Willow had a pixie look about her, but she had Nick’s green eyes. She was also Derren’s goddaughter.
Staring down at Nick, arms folded, Shaya frowned. “It is your business if Cain is your friend.”
“I don’t have friends.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course, my mistake: you have ‘contacts,’” she said dryly. “But you like Cain, right?”
Nick grimaced. “I don’t dislike him.”
Eli, Nick’s younger brother and the pack’s Head Enforcer, laughed. “Which basically makes him your BFF.”
It was true that Nick did his best to alienate the majority of the population, being strongly averse to company. The guy was a born leader, an alpha by nature. But he didn’t like having lots of people around him, which was unfortunately for him one of the trimmings that came with the Alpha role.
“This is your friend’s mate, Nick,” stressed Shaya. “Even if he has no intention of claiming her, she’s still his mate. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Derren wondered if much of Shaya’s compassion came from knowing what it was like to have her mate choose not to claim her.
Caleb pursed his lips. “I wonder why Cain hasn’t mated her.” The submissive male belonged to the same pack as Shaya growing up and was a lifelong friend of hers. Caleb was also genuine, smart, and had recently mated another submissive male within the pack, Kent.
“Maybe it’s to keep Ally safe,” Shaya theorized. She looked at Derren. “You said Cain told you he keeps their connection quiet to keep her off the humans’ radar.”
“Yeah,” confirmed Derren, “but he also said he’s known her since she was six and he was eight. He could have claimed her after he left juvie when he was eighteen. Instead, he let her go pack-trotting.”
As such, Derren wasn’t quite sure why Cain had refrained from claiming her. In fact, he wasn’t sure how Cain was managing to ignore the mating urge either. It was supposedly painful. But then, Cain didn’t feel the way others did. Not anymore. Maybe that had stopped the mating urge from coming into play.
“It doesn’t matter,” maintained Nick. “It’s none of our business. Besides, this could blow over soon. It’s natural for the Beta female to be jealous of her mate’s ex-partners—mates are possessive like that.”
“Yes,” Shaya allowed, “but if the Beta’s so jealous that she’s bitter, spiteful, and targeting Ally to this extent, that’s not good. I don’t believe the Beta will let this go.”
“I agree.” Kathy, Nick’s mother, reached for a babbling Willow, but Nick was having none of it. He was just as possessive and protective of his daughter as he was of his mate. “But the fact remains that this Ally person is a Seer.” The latter word dripped with disgust.
Nick spoke then. “I don’t like Seers. I don’t trust them. And I don’t want one around my pack.” His expression said: end of story.
Shaya seemed baffled. “Why? What’s so bad about them?”
For a moment, Derren wondered if Nick would mention what had happened all those years ago—a story only very few knew. But, as it turned out, Nick didn’t have to mention Derren’s past to make his point.
Nick arched a brow at Shaya. “Have you forgotten what happened with Roni and Marcus?”
Roni, Nick’s younger sister and an enforcer, had mated with an enforcer from the Phoenix Pack. Rather than asking either of the couple to switch packs, Nick and the Phoenix Alpha male had blooded so that the mated couple now belonged to both. It hadn’t made the packs into one, but it had united them on a psychic level, making each one an extension of the other.
Nick continued, “They almost didn’t mate because a Seer fed them bullshit about Marcus’s mate being someone else.”
It was yet another example of Seers misusing their gifts. As Derren considered Roni a good friend, it had pissed him the fuck off—adding to his loathing for Seers.
Shaya waved a dismissive hand. “That’s because Kerrie is an evil bitch. It doesn’t automatically make Ally one.”
Marcus tilted his head, conceding that. “How would you feel about Ally being here, sweetheart?” he asked Roni, while lounging on the other sofa with his arm draped over her shoulders. The two were an unlikely pair in that he was a dominant, very sociable, easygoing charmer, while Roni was a socially inept, intimidatingly intelligent, and seriously lethal tomboy.
“I’ll only have a problem with her if she turns out to be anything like Kerrie,” replied Roni. “Honestly, though, I can’t see anyone being more evil than that bitch.”
Eli’s eyes narrowed at Roni. “Not sure you’re in a position to call anyone evil.” He ran his tongue along his teeth, which still had a slight pink tint thanks to Roni’s latest prank. The two siblings insisted on playing pranks on each other on a regular basis, merely for their own entertainment.
Roni rolled her eyes. “Are you still holding on to that?”
“You put red food coloring on my toothbrush! I looked like a damn vampire after I brushed my teeth this morning!”
“Well, if you hadn’t poured baby oil into my shampoo bottle, it would never have happened, would it?”
“So,” began Marcus before the siblings could argue any further, “you’re saying you’re okay with Ally being given sanctuary here?”
Roni shrugged. “I’ll support whatever decision Shaya makes. You?”
Marcus thought about it for a second. “I won’t have a problem with Ally being here, as long as she doesn’t share her visions with me. In my opinion, it’s best not to know the future anyway. It can just fuck up the present.”
Derren couldn’t have said it better himself.
“If you’re referring to what happened to Trey,” began Shaya, “that wasn’t the Seer’s fault—the blame belongs to Trey’s father.” Trey Coleman was the Phoenix Pack Alpha male.
Kent looked at Marcus. “What happened to Trey?”
“It’s Trey’s story to tell,” replied Marcus. “All I’ll say on the matter is that when he was a kid, the Seer of his pack told his dad he’d usurp his position one day.”
As everyone knew all about the deceased, violent, and totally fucked-up Rick Coleman, it was easy enough to conclude that the old bastard had punished Trey
during his entire upbringing for something he hadn’t even done yet.
Cutting off whatever Nick was about to say next, the front door opened and there was a cacophony of exasperated voices. Three Mercury enforcers strolled into the living area, arguing. More accurately, Jesse and Zander were berating an eye-rolling Bracken.
Derren immediately summed up the situation, sighing tiredly at Bracken. “What did you and Dominic do this time?”
Dominic was a Phoenix Pack enforcer, who seemed to have no self-control and would probably fuck any female who stood still long enough. Though flirty and just as fond of sex as the average shifter, Bracken was a big gamer and preferred technology to people. It surprised everyone when the two enforcers became friends. Together, they had a talent for getting themselves in deep shit.
It was Jesse who responded. “Oh, they only had a threesome with an Alpha’s mate.”
“Intended mate, intended mate,” Bracken stressed. “Her father has arranged for her to mate some guy, but they’re not true mates. She wanted one last fling before the ceremony.” He looked at Jesse. “You’ve seen her—was I supposed to refuse?”
Jesse nodded. “Yes. That was exactly what you were supposed to do.”
“You’re lucky,” Zander told Bracken. “If the Alpha wasn’t absolutely terrified of Nick and our pack, he would have challenged you.” Nick had quite a reputation.
“We’ll discuss this later,” Shaya told the enforcers, gesturing for them to sit. “Right now, there’s a more important issue to discuss.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” corrected Nick. “We’ve said all there is to say.”
As if Nick hadn’t spoken, Shaya informed Jesse, Zander, and Bracken of the Ally Marshall situation. Derren and Nick had first met the three enforcers in Arizona, where Nick had tracked down Shaya to claim her as his mate. The enforcers had separated from their old pack and, basically, followed Nick around until he agreed to form a pack and accept them as part of it.