Seeking Pack Redemption (20 page)

“Oh, the
poor thing.”

“Yeah.
She’s a little traumatized, but strong. Thing is, we think Roderick did to her
what he did to you. Somehow, he’s woken her wolf side.”

“Has she
changed yet?”

“No. And
she won’t for a while, I’d wager, because she’s also pregnant.”

The news
rocked her. She’d suffered in Roderick’s
care,
the
vampire somehow bringing forth a heritage she’d never known existed. The first
time she shifted was not an experience she wished on anyone.
The poor girl.
“Who’s the
father?”

“He’s
dead. It was his brother and his buddies that rescued her when they came
looking.”

“Are you
talking about Trent, Marc, and Darren? Wyatt and Gavin came back from a meeting
with Nathan a while ago talking about how this guy and his friends left to look
for his brother. Nathan had to declare them rogue because of it, which seems
kind of extreme.”

“
That
’s
them
. And Nathan had to do
it. He’s the one who advocated the curfew and combining of the packs for
strength. To have someone leave in blatant disregard for the decree would have
made him look weak.”

“He could
have sent a squad of fighters with them.” Although Bailey respected Nathan as a
leader, not an easy position to maintain with the large number of males,
testosterone making some of them brash, she didn’t always agree with his
decisions.

“And they
would have gotten in the way of the search. Roderick’s smart. He’s got
spies,
obviously, because how many of our raids has he
escaped from? Trent’s best bet was going as a small group. Distract the rogues,
a quick in and out, taking out a few rogues on the way.”

“What
happened to the brother? You said he was dead.”

“Yeah, he
didn’t fare so well as the object of Roderick’s mind games and killed himself
before Trent found the vampire’s lair. I met up with Trent and his buddies
about a day after I located their camp. We were too late to rescue David, but we
managed to rescue the girl and we’ve escaped for the moment. But—”

She
finished his sentence. “Roderick will want her back. We can’t let him have her,
Jaxon
.”

“I know, which
is why I’m calling.
Trent’s talking to Nathan right now.
We’ve got a plan, but I want you to do something for me.”

“Tell me
what you need.”

“I need
you.” The soft admission whispered across the phone line, and her heart stuttered.
It felt so good to speak to
Jaxon
again, but at the
same time, it broke her heart. She missed him so much but couldn’t see him.
Touch him. Tell him face-to-face she forgave him. Still loved him.

It’ll never happen.
She tried anyway. “Come
home,
Jaxon
.”

“I can’t.”
He spoke again in a deeper, emotionless tone that failed because she knew it
meant he cared too much. “My real reason for calling is to warn you. We’re
going to try and get the girl sent to the pack.
Trent’s
talking to Nathan right now.
If he agrees, we’ll drop her off.”

“Nathan
won’t go for it.”

“He might.
She’d need to stay under guard for obvious reasons, but if Nathan likes our
plan, he’ll need her close at hand.”

“Hold on a
second. By putting her in our midst, won’t you be painting a bull’s-eye on the
pack?”
Dangling bait at Roderick?

“If there
were any other group big enough or strong enough to take her instead, I’d beg,
but our pack with its size and cadre of males is our best chance we have for
this to work. I mean we get not just Nathan and his strength, but also all the
lesser alphas with him along with the betas. No other pack has that kind of
power. Most can’t hold them together.”

“Nathan
holds them together with that big voice of his and his fist.”

“Welcome
to the world of a
Lycan
. No matter how evolved we
are, it all comes down to ‘I will beat the crap out of you if you don’t toe the
line.’”

“It’s
archaic.”

“But it
works.”

“That it
does. But enough of how
Lycans
have thick heads and
short fuses, you still haven’t told me what you need. There’s nothing I can say
that will convince Nathan to take her or not.”

“I know. And
while I promised Trent I’d ask you to intervene, I actually need something
entirely different from you.”

“Anything.”

“You have to
get to safety. You need to convince the guys to leave with you and go into
hiding.”

“Why would
I do that? Leave the protection of the pack and the gated compound? Are you
nuts?” She didn’t say it, but judging by the silence, he understood the
unspoken,
Is
Roderick giving you orders again?
Immediately,
guilt slapped her.

“I’m not
crazy or possessed. Somehow, the blood I inadvertently swallowed made me immune
to his mind games. So no worries on that score. But forget about me, I need you
to leave because I couldn’t stand it if our plan failed and you end up back in
his clutches.”

“It won’t
happen. This place is better guarded than that secret place they hide all the
gold. And besides, I know you won’t let anything happen to me.”

“Don’t say
that,” he growled.

“Say what?
That I trust you?”

“You
shouldn’t.”

“Too bad.
I do. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“Please,
sweet cheeks.” He begged her, and she bit her lip. She hated to cause him such
misery when he already suffered enough.

But to
hide like a coward? “No.”

“What’s it
going to take to convince you to go?”

There was
one thing he could do. “Meet me.”

“What?”

“You heard
me. Meet me. I want to see you. Touch you. Look you in the eyes.”

“It’s too
dangerous.”

“So is
leaving the safety of the pack,” she retorted.

“I can’t
come to you, and they’ll never let you leave the compound alone. Wyatt, Gavin,
and Parker will forbid it.”

“They are
not the
boss
of me.”

“They are
of your safety. Where you go, they go, so if we meet, they’ll see me and kill
me.”

Ah, yes,
her overprotective mates.
Jaxon
was right. They would
probably cause him grievous harm. They found it hard to forgive
Jaxon
his actions, but mostly, she thought they didn’t
forgive themselves for not suspecting—and deeper down wondered if it
could have happened to them. “So we meet in a public place, full of humans.
Even they wouldn’t dare try something then.”

A heavy
sigh came through the receiver. “You’re not going to budge, are you?”

“Nope. You
want me to run, then you meet me.”

“You drive
a hard bargain, sweet cheeks. I’ll call you in a few days with a time and
place.”

The
resignation in his tone almost made her reconsider. But she had to see him. “I
love you,
Jaxon
.”

“You
shouldn’t, Bailey. Stay safe.” The line went dead, and the dam holding her emotions
burst. The tears poured down her cheeks, in relief because now she knew he
lived.
Tears of joy because she’d get to see him.
And
finally tears of wretched misery because the possibility of getting him back
into her life was a big fat zero.

And that’s so unfair.
Everyone deserved a
second chance.

*
* * *

Nathan
hung up the phone and leaned back in his office chair. On days like these, the
mantle of alpha and leader hung heavy.

“What’s
wrong?” Dana, his mate and the love of his life, came into the room and draped
herself on his lap. Her hands cupped his cheeks and tilted his face until she
could see his eyes.

“I just
finished talking to Trent.”

“The guy
who left to find his brother?”

He nodded,
unsmiling, for the situation with Trent and his friends still preyed on him.
He’d labeled the men rogue, had to lest anyone call him weak. But, dammit, how
he’d wanted to do the opposite and help them. Help them strike back against his
twisted father. Their current stalemate with Roderick chafed, but experience
taught him that the vampire seemed to know one step in advance what they planned.
So even though it burned him to do it, it was safest for Trent and the others
to leave as a small group, outcasts to any prying eyes. They’d only partially
succeeded.

“And?”
Dana, impatient as ever, snapped her fingers to draw him from his musings. “What
happened? Did they find anything?”

“Trent’s
brother is dead, along with a bunch of other rogues under Roderick’s dominion.
They’re heading back in this direction now.”

“Let me
guess. He wants back into the pack even though he came in contact with the
vampire. You know we can’t allow that.”

“Of course
we can’t. It’s not what he was asking. Well, not for himself at any rate. They
rescued a girl, a human girl, carrying a
Lycan
babe.”

Popping to
her feet, Dana paced around him. “Another dormant like Bailey? How did Roderick
find her?”

“Does it
matter? He did, and she’s pregnant even though her wolf hasn’t fully emerged.”

After halting,
she pivoted on a heel and narrowed her gaze. “So he called just to tell you?”

“No. He
wants us to offer sanctuary to the girl.”

“Too
dangerous,” Dana replied quickly. “It was pure luck that Bailey wasn’t infected
by Roderick, and even now, we still have people watching her and her mates just
in case. I know you haven’t forgotten what
Jaxon
did.”

Who could?
The shock of it still haunted his friends Gavin, Parker, and Wyatt—not to
mention their mate still pined for the betrayer. “Speaking of whom, Trent ran
in to
Jaxon
while tracking his brother down. They
teamed up to invade the rogue camp.”

“Are they
insane? After what
Jaxon
did, what would possess them
to trust him?”

A shrug
lifted his shoulders. “According to Trent,
Jaxon
seems to be his own man, determined to take Roderick down.”

“Or so he
says,” she replied suspiciously.

A
suspicion he shared. “Trent says he questioned
Jaxon
on that because at first he didn’t trust a word he said.
Jaxon
claims when he fought Roderick’s control on the cliff, he bit him and tasted
some of his blood. According to him, it did a few things. One, he always has a
general sense of where Roderick is, and, two, it seems to have made him immune
to the mind thing.”

“Again, so
he says.”

“I get it.
You don’t trust him.”

Dana planted
a hand on her cocked hip and pursed her lips. “Don’t tell me you do? Let’s say
for a moment,
Jaxon
did manage to free himself from
the monster, we still can’t take the others back, not knowing they might carry
a ticking time bomb in their head.”

“They
don’t want to come back. They just want us to take the girl. They’ve got a plan
to try and deal with Roderick. But they need my help, and they want the girl
safe while they implement it.”

“Is their
plan any good?”

Nathan
smiled. “It’s better than what we’ve accomplished so far, which is nothing.
It’s bold. Carries risk. But—”

“We can’t
keep living like this. Emerging only in the sunshine and hiding from the
shadows. We’re wolves. We’re meant to run free.”

“Exactly.
And to be quite honest, their idea’s the best I’ve heard in a while.”
Especially since their attempts to deal with the vampire and rogue problem
didn’t seem to get better no matter how many twisted wolves they killed. As for
Roderick, he continually slipped through their grasp. And that Nathan couldn’t
live with. As the son of the monster, he knew it was only a matter of time
before his undead father came looking for him. Came gunning for his family.
I won’t allow Dana or my child to be hurt.

“So what
do we need to do?”

A grimace
crossed his face because he just knew his feisty mate wouldn’t like the next
part. “I need to set up a meeting with the vampires and see if they’ll help us
kill Roderick or at least give us a weakness we can exploit.”

Dana resumed
her pacing. “No fucking way. You are not meeting with them.”

“Someone
has to.”

“Then it
can be someone else, dammit! What if they can control you like Roderick does
with the others?”

Nathan
shook his head. “I think that’s a specialty reserved for my father. Don’t you
think we’d know by now if vampires could control wolves? We’ve heard plenty of
stories about it happening to humans.”