Jacks, Marcy - Taken by the Alpha Wolf [DeWitt's Pack 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) (14 page)

“Will you be all right to speak with me for a moment?” she asked, her blue eyes darting down to the scanner.

Ryan looked down at it. It wold be highly unprofessional for him to just turn it off to have a chat, but she held the position she did not just for her age.

“I can’t turn it off and will still keep an ear open to it, but if you’d like to talk, I think we can.”

The old woman nodded, seemingly pleased with his answer. “I hear you’ve been having some issues with James.”

Ryan clenched his fists under the desk. He hadn’t known they would be talking about this, and if he had, he probably would’ve told the woman that he was too busy for her.

Too late for that now. He had to eat a little crow at this point and show her that he wouldn’t be a threat to her way of life. “Not anymore, ma’am,” he said. “Not really.”

“
Not really
 
hardly sounds like there will be no problems for the  pack when this is all over.”

He’d been stupid to think an answer like that would be enough to  pacify her. He wet his lips. “I understand why you do it, hide away  from normal people, I mean,” he said. “And in this case, with what  the hunters are doing to those captured werewolves, I understand even

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more the need to act quickly and exact your own justice.”

“But?” she prompted.

Ryan’s whole body clenched. He hated this. “But I feel that if you  were to have access to some of the things humans did, all of this could  go a lot smoother. Those men would go to prison for what they were  doing instead of being killed.”

“Is it the killing that upsets you?”

No. Ryan was a believer in capital punishment. He believed that  there were people in the world who should not be there, and if a man  or woman killed someone, or several someones, in cold blood, then

that person needed  to go.

“The thing that upsets me is that they’re not really being punished.  Death can be slow, but it can also be quick, over in a flash. A lot of  the people responsible for those kidnappings, as well as the man  responsible for Decker’s murder, could have  their heads taken off  before they knew what hit them. There’s no real punishment in that  because there’s no … ” He couldn’t think of the word.

“Suffering?” Old Maggie prompted.

“I wouldn’t have used that word, but yes. For the people who are  doing life, being in prison is a form of suffering. That’s a real  punishment, making them regret what they did.”

“But you do know why we can’t allow the humans to handle this  issue, yes?” she asked, her blue eyes intense as they locked onto  Ryan’s.

Ryan clenched his jaw.  “This is the part where I have to concede,  because yes, I do get it. I’m a werewolf now, too, whether I like or  not, and I don’t want anyone strapping me to a table, drugging me,  and opening me up to see what’s inside.”

Ryan hoped that everything inside of him was the way it was  supposed to be. Sometimes he still felt like there was something that  was off, not right, and he didn’t know how to approach anyone about  this. He hadn’t so much as breathed a word to Blasius.

He was still trying to figure out what  their relationship was

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beyond the heavy attraction and all-star sex.

The police in their cruisers continued to speak to each other, and a  dispatcher called one of them down to the local park just to do a quick  sweep of the area, and Ryan marked it off on the map, still tracking  where each cruiser was.

It seemed everything in the Brampton area was as peaceful as could be, aside from the war between werewolves and hunters that

was about to go down.

“How is your relationship with Blasius coming along?” the old wise woman asked. “I understand the both of you have claimed each  other, but there is the disturbing gossip circulating that neither of you  have made any sort of commitment.”

Holy God, she certainly wasn’t shy. Then again, she was probably  used to being the one to ask these kinds of questions.

Oddly enough, Ryan found himself answering her, even though he  knew full well that what went down in his sex life was none of her

business.

“We’re still working on that part,” Ryan said, totally lying to her.  All he  and Blasius did was run around through the woods, trying to  get Ryan’s mind to merge with his inner wolf, and anytime they  weren’t doing that? They were fucking, hard and raw.

Ryan now understood his need for the other man, but there was  still a part of him that was rejecting the idea that his life partner…a  mate, was being chosen for him. Okay, so they’d chosen each other in  a past life, but that hardly seemed to matter when Ryan couldn’t even  remember anything about that life.

What was it that caused them to fall in love to begin with? They  were from a completely differing species that had almost nothing in  common besides the fact that hunters were after the both of them. And

Ryan had been in love with Blasius. He’d felt the emotion running through him during his memories. He just wished he had more of those memories to guide him.

Blasius didn’t recall much of his own former life, but he still knew

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so much more than Ryan did, and Ryan was jealous for that.

Old Maggie was still staring at him, but now her eyes were  shrewd. “Are you certain it is something the both of you need to work  on, or that you need to work on?”

Ryan stiffened. “What?”

“I don’t mean to pry,” she said, though Ryan was sure that was  exactly what she meant to do. “But more than once I’ve seen mated  couples tearing each other apart because they struggled and fought  against the very thing that has allowed our species to survive and  thrive since the beginning of time. Fighting yourself will only put you  off balance. It will anger your wolf and  make it difficult for you to  merge with him.

“Even should you make the choice to not love Blasius, you must  come to accept that you are both connected by something so much  deeper than even love itself. Otherwise you will never find peace.”

Having Old Maggie say those words to him was hardly  comforting. It was disturbing. He did like being with Blasius, he  really did, and though he’d still been fighting it, he’d also been  entertaining ideas of the two of them being together, sharing the little  cabin Ryan had been given as his living space or even finding a house  of their own to occupy nearby. He’d never been in love, not really,  but the lancing pain through his chest at the thought that he and  Blasius might be tied together with no love at all…

No. He wasn’t  going to think that. Blasius clearly loved him. He  was sure. So that really meant that the only problematic factor in this  equation really was … Ryan. Ryan and his need to overanalyze  everything. That was exactly why none of his relationships worked,  and Ryan didn’t want that to happen to him and Blasius.

“What should I do?” Ryan asked, making another quick note on  the map as one of the officers announced his next destination.

Old Maggie smiled at him, took his hand, and patted it gently like  she was his elderly grandmother or something.

“Just allow your new body and instincts to be. Don’t fight it, and

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everything will be better than you had hoped.”

Ryan wanted better. He wanted this new part of him to work out  because the last thing he wanted to be a part of  was ruining this  amazing pack of people.

He nodded. “All right, but I can’t just disappear from the world.  I’ll go back, I’ll say that I can’t remember the fight that happened, I’ll  do whatever it takes to make sure that this pack stays out of the  interest of the police, and then I’ll resign due to trauma.”

It wouldn’t be hard. If he’d watched a man that he’d been friends

with get killed and then lost his memory because of that, then it was  more than likely they’d let him go with little fuss and the suggestion  of some therapy.

Old Maggie nodded again, but he got the impression that telling  her about it wasn’t enough. He was still going to have to go through  James and Blasius with that one, but he was certain they would at  least allow him to do this.

It would probably be better for the pack to have an ex-detective with them rather than a presumed-dead one. Made fewer questions that needed answering if someone ever found out Ryan was alive.

When Blasius got back, they were going to have a talk, and Ryan was going to have to finally make his feelings for the other man known and hope that he hadn’t put this off so long that it would no longer matter to him.

Ryan suddenly looked at the older woman in front of him in a new light. Then he smiled. “Thanks for the talk.”

“You’re very welcome, young man,” she said, getting to her feet and walking toward the door.

Before her hand could even touch down on the brass handle, a

small explosion rattled the whole house.

Ryan shot to his feet and ran to the other woman, but amazingly,

she kept her own balance without any help from him.

“Are you all right?” he asked anyway.

Her hand was on her chest as she inhaled deeply. “Yes, go,” she

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commanded him.

Without thinking about it, Ryan went, but not before he went back to James’s desk, to the locked drawer where he’d shown Ryan where he kept his Glock. Ryan took it out, grabbed a clip, and slid it into the magazine.

“You won’t need that,” Maggie said, growling at the sight of the

gun.

“I know you want me to better accept my wolf and all that,” Ryan  said. “But if they’re at any kind of distance from me, all the sharp  teeth, claws, and strength won’t save me if they’re picking me off  with rifles.”

He ran around her and barrelled down the hallway just as Corey appeared around the corner in the kitchen.

“What happened?” the blond man asked, though, by the look in his eyes, Ryan could guess that he already knew, especially when the shouting and gunfire sounded outside.

It was like that day all over again, the day that Ryan and Decker

were suddenly attacked without warning by those hunters, all because  of their desperation to kill some werewolves.

Only now, the big difference was that James had taken almost  every alpha with him when he went hunting with Phillip.

It had been a trick, Ryan realized. The hunters had planned this,  knowing that James would do just that as he went on the search for  those missing omegas, and now, aside from Ryan himself―and he  could barely control his own transformations―it was just him and a  few other alphas to defend an entire pack of omegas and children.

“Stay there,” Ryan commanded, and holding the weapon in both  hands, keeping it steady, he ran to the front door.

He opened fire when it burst open before he could reach it, and a  man, a human from the smell of him,  thank God, dropped down with  shock on his face and a machete in his hand.

Ryan ran outside, pulled the man away from the door, locked it

from the inside, and then shut it.

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He briefly looked around. There weren’t many men that he could see, or smell, but they were attacking from a distance, keeping within

the bushes.

It was their gunfire that gave away their locations. Ryan knew where to aim based on the way the leaves in the trees and shrubs tore apart and flashed as their booming weapons went off.

He pointed his gun, making his best guess on how the hunter would be positioning his body to fire that kind of weapon, put his finger on the trigger and squeezed.

The scream from the bushes told him that he’d hit his mark.

It also brought the attention of the other hunters onto him, and he jumped as the wooden rail next to him exploded as a cloud of silver pellets from a shotgun tore it apart.

Fuck! Ryan jumped over the other rail, fell into the bed of flowers there, destroying them, and took off running. He needed to find a better spot for him to attack.

Omegas were running everywhere, but there were still some alphas around to help him.

Nick was blind, and the first time Ryan had met him, he didn’t know how it was possible for James to allow a blind man to hunt with his pack, but now that he watched the man, or wolf as he now was, in action, he got it perfectly.

The guy was practically a ninja. Ryan only caught the blurred sight of him as he rushed through the trees and shrubs, picking off the hunters who were attempting to hide themselves.

Ryan couldn’t sniff them all out and therefore didn’t have a number on how many attackers there were, but Nick worked and hunted, not only as though he could smell them all, but could see them all as well.

He couldn’t get everyone, however. Ryan looked up, by some miracle spotting a lone hunter sitting high in one of the branches of a tall oak, pointing his rifle down at the wolf who was currently tearing apart one of his comrades.