Not that I was entirely sure I was hearing the dead now, but it just seemed odd I couldn’t see or smell anyone else near. My senses were wolf sharp—if someone had been close, I would have known.
I padded along the white sand until I reached the peninsula rocks. The wind here was sharper, the sea rougher, slapping across the smooth, round rocks and sending white foam flicking skyward. The tide was up, so I’d be getting wet if the voice wanted me to clamber around to the next beach.
I stopped and scanned the horizon. Awareness tingled across my skin, as sharp as needle stings. Whoever the voice belonged to, he was close.
“Riley, turn around.”
For the first time, memories stirred. I’d known that voice in the past. I turned and studied the trees.
A man stood among them. Though at first glance he appeared solid, a more careful study revealed an almost gossamer look to his hands and feet. As if by the time he got to his extremities he didn’t have the strength to maintain reality.
He was a tall man, rangy in build, with strong arms and blunt features. Not attractive, not ugly, but somewhere in between. But even if he’d been the ugliest spud on the planet, it wouldn’t have mattered, because the sense of authority and power that shone from his green eyes and oozed from his tanned skin were all that would ever matter to any wolf.
And this wolf wanted to hunker down before it.
But I wasn’t just wolf, and the other half of my soul bared its teeth and got ready for a fight. I locked my knees and skimmed my gaze up to his hair. Thick and red. Definitely red pack. Definitely my red pack. But who?
As I dropped my gaze to his, recognition stirred again. I knew those eyes, knew the cold superiority behind them. But I’d be damned if I could dredge up a name.“Why are you calling me?”
Though the question was soft, my voice seemed to echo across the silent night. A tremor ran down my spine, and I wasn’t sure whether it was due to the chill wind hitting my bare legs and arms or the sudden sense of trepidation creeping through my soul.
Amusement sparked briefly in the translucent green depths. “You do not remember me?”
“Should I have any reason to remember you?”
This time the amusement reached his thin lips. “I would think you’d remember the wolf who threw you off a mountainside.”
Shock rolled through me. Oh my God…
Blake.
My grandfather’s second in command, and the wolf who would have killed us if he could. The wolf who almost had when he’d thrown me off that cliff. Ostensibly to teach Rhoan a lesson about never backchatting the pack second.
Hate followed the shock, swirling through me thick and sharp. I clenched my fists and found myself fighting the sudden urge to run forward and punch the cold amusement from his thin lips. He wasn’t real, he wasn’t here, and I’d only look like a fool. So I simply said, voice low and venomous, “What right have you got to call me?”
“My right is pack given.”
“The Jenson pack ceded its rights over me and Rhoan when they kicked us out.”
“Pack rights are never surrendered, no matter what the situation or current politics. Once a pack member, always a pack member.”
“You threatened to kill us if you ever saw us again.”
“A statement that still stands.”
“So why the hell are you contacting me? Fuck off and leave me alone. Trust me, I want as little to do with you as you do with me.”
I turned on my heel and began to walk back down the beach, away from him. Part of me might have been curious as to why he was suddenly contacting me, but curiosity didn’t have a hope against old anger and hurt. None of which I wanted to relive in any way.
“You will listen to what I have to say, Riley.”
“Fuck off,” I said without looking at him. Even as my wolf cowered deep within at my audacity.
“You will stop and listen, young wolf.”
His voice was sharp and powerful, seeming to echo through the trees and ring in my ears. I stopped. I couldn’t help it. My very DNA was patterned with the need to obey my alpha. It would take a great deal of will and strength to dare disobey, and right now, it seemed I had neither.
Even so, I didn’t turn around. Didn’t look at him. “Why the hell should I listen?”
“Because I demand it.”
I snorted softly. “I was never one to listen to demands. You of all people should know that.”
“So very true. And it was one of the reasons you and your brother were ostracized.” Amusement laced his harsh tones. “Your grandfather feared you would challenge him.”
Surprise rippled through me. I swung around. He was still in the trees, still in the shadows. Maybe the wind meant coming out onto the beach wasn’t practical for a man who was little more than spirit. “Why would my grandfather fear that? Neither Rhoan nor I were ever allowed the illusion we were anything more than an inconvenience to our mother and the pack. And inconveniences don’t rule.” Especially if they were female. Or gay.
“You have a long pattern of doing the unexpected, Riley.”
“Yeah, and I have the scars to prove the foolishness of that.”
He grinned. It was a harsh, cruel thing to see. “You never did learn your place.”
Oh, I learned it all right. I just didn’t always cower down like I was supposed to. I thrust my hands on my hips and said impatiently, “As much as I just adore reliving old times with you, it’s fucking cold out here. Tell me what you want or just piss off and leave me alone.”
He studied me for a minute, green eyes abnormally bright in the darkness, his form waving slightly as the wind swirled through the trees.
“The pack needs your help.”
“You want my help?” My sudden, unbelieving laugh was a cold and ugly sound. “That has to be the joke of the century, doesn’t it?”
“There is nothing amusing about the situation, believe me.”
“So why me? There have to be hundreds of other people you could ask.”
Which wasn’t an overstatement. The Jenson pack might be one of the smaller red packs, and it might be the poorer cousin when it came to wealth and land status, but Jenson pack members were to be found in all avenues of government and throughout much of the legal system. I had no doubt those pack members could muster up something—someone—far more influential than anything I could manage.
Amusement flared briefly in his eyes. “We have need of your guardian skills.”
Again surprise rippled through me. “And how would you know I am a guardian? Why would you even bother keeping track of two outcast and useless pups?”
“We didn’t. It came to my attention during investigations.”
“Investigations into what?”
He shifted his weight and his form wavered, briefly becoming as insubstantial as a ghost. Which he wasn’t, so how in the hell was he projecting himself?
“My granddaughter, Adrianne, disappeared a week ago.”
He had a granddaughter? Good lord, that made me feel old. Though, in wolf terms, I was still very much a youngster. “Which of your sons was careless enough to lose a daughter?”
It was a cruel thing to say, but I just couldn’t help it. Blake and his sons had been the banes of my existence while growing up—and the reason behind many of the scars Rhoan and I now had. Of course, if I’d just shut my mouth and bowed down like I was supposed to, things might have been different.
Though I very much doubt it.
His gaze narrowed to thin slits of dangerous green. “Adrianne is Patrin’s oldest.”
The image of a red wolf with black points came to mind, and my lip curled in response. Patrin was the youngest of Blake’s get, and only a few years older than me. To say he delighted in following the family tradition of hassling the half-breeds would be the understatement of the century.
“How old is the daughter?”
“Nineteen.”
Nineteen? Meaning he’d been fifteen when he’d sired his first? Randy bastard. But I bet Daddy had been so proud, especially given the pack’s inherent fertility problems.“If she’s missing, contact the police. The Directorate doesn’t do missing.”
“You do if there appears to be a pattern in the disappearances. Three people have disappeared the same way as Adrianne, Riley.”
I crossed my arms and tried to ignore the pulse of interest. I didn’t want to get involved with Blake or our pack, because it could only ever end badly—for me, not for them.
“Then contact the Directorate. Give them the information. There’s nothing I can do without the official go-ahead anyway.”
Which was only a teeny-tiny lie. If I were so inclined, I could investigate just about anything. Guardians were the super-cops, the hunter-killers, of the nonhuman world, and we had free rein to investigate where we willed. Though, if I did investigate and did find something, I’d have to report it back to my boss. A full investigation could only go ahead with his official approval.
“All I’m asking you to do is an initial investigation. If you feel there’s nothing the Directorate can do, then I’ll try other sources.”
He sounded altogether too reasonable all of a sudden, and my hackles rose. Blake and reason just didn’t sit well with my memories of the man. “You were ordering me a few moments ago.”
“Perhaps I’m seeing the error of my ways.”
“And perhaps tomorrow they’ll put a woman on Mars.” I shifted from one foot to the other. I wasn’t trusting this new and improved Blake to last more than a second, but it didn’t hurt to play along anyway. “Why do you think her disappearance is a Directorate matter?”