Untamed Force (Force of Nature Series) (7 page)

One of the newcomers agreed. “You should
call them to you. I’ve a report that says he’s only got about sixty left. Shame,
too. This was a very large pack at one time. Too bad the younger wolves have no
pride in their responsibilities.”

Rich knew that voice. It was the man he’d
spoken to earlier in the week.

“You call them to you and while I’m here
I’ll witness their coming to you.”

Rich knew that not one person would
leave him. He’d been threatening them enough with death that they’d be
terrified out of their minds to leave. He sat down to wait for the first of
them to tell this person that they’d rather stay here.

When the bell rang for the meeting place
it only took them several minutes to come. Rich had trained them on that as
well. Promptness was all he would tolerate. He was surprised at how few came
and realized that the pompous ass had been right. There were very few people in
his pack.

“I’m Austin Force, alpha of the Force
pack. I’ve seen how you’re living and have come to offer you refuge in my pack.
You will pledge to me now and I’ll make sure that your living conditions change
immediately.”

No one moved just as he’d expected. But
the alpha wasn’t finished it seemed. Rich wasn’t worried. These people would be
stupid to leave and some of them had seen what he would do.

“I believe your alpha has left you. The
council is here to arrest him and take him into custody for crimes against our
kind. I am well within my rights to simply take you under my protection, but I
would rather you came of your own free will.”

“What of our families? Will you murder them
if we do not do as you say?”

Rich almost popped his head up to see
who had spoken, but didn’t at the last minute. He’d find the prick and burn him
alive.

“I wouldn’t do that even if you yourself
had committed the most heinous crime. Family is all we have and I never hurt
them. My mother would skin me alive.” There was a small laugh from the group
and more questions were asked. The man was a sap if even half of what he was
saying was true.

“Yes, there are houses. Not enough if
you all come now, but we’ll figure something out in the meantime. But we’ve
plenty of food. Each house is yours so long as you want and your families are
only required to give what you can. And I never take more than we can use.”

“How do we know what you say is true?”

Take that
, Rich thought.

“How do we know that once you get us to
where you say you’re taking us, you don’t kill us?”

“If we wanted you dead, you’d be there
already.” This was from the vampire. “Austin Force is my brother-in-law and
friend. As a vampire I will have you know that, if he wanted you dead, I would
have killed you all before the first of you fell to the earth.”

There were some mummers of voices, but
nothing Rich could make out. Then he heard something large pull into the drive.
He looked over the trunk of his car and saw two large city buses sitting there.
What the hell was this?

“If you want to come with me this is the
only time I will bring you a ride. After this you’ll have to get to me on your
own. I have two doctors on each bus and they will tend to your needs. If at any
time you want to leave my pack, then you are more than free to go. But again,
you leave on your own.”

Rich laughed to himself. The man really
was a sap. Providing transportation, doctors, and that stupid speech was enough
to make him sick. The man would be lucky if one person got on either bus. He
pulled out his cell phone and listened to his music with the headphones he had
in his pocket to drown out the insidious noise of the idiots. He knew without a
doubt that this man was wasting his time. He’d not been easy on these people
and there was no way they’d make a break for it now.

After an hour his battery died. He heard
the engines start and then the crunch of the gravel just as he was putting the
now dead phone in his pocket. Any minute now he’d go out and see his pack
standing like sheep waiting for him to tell them to go home. Rich straightened
his clothes and stood up. Time to tell the sheep to leave.

The drive was empty. The limo was there,
of course, but there were no people. Even his bag of money was missing. He
thought maybe they’d gone home already, left the alpha to stand there alone
with his big rides, but he didn’t know. He was about to go back to his car when
he saw the paper waving under the wiper blade. He took it off and read it.

“That’s how a real alpha treats his
subjects. He doesn’t do it by hiding in the garage crouched behind a car like a
small child afraid of his own shadow. Signed, Austin Force.”
The post script
had him snarling.
“By the way, I have Georgia and her cubs.”

He tore the note up and then shifted,
tearing his clothes from his body. He was going to kill someone and he didn’t
care who. The first person he saw had better have their things in order because
they were as good as dead.

~~~

Dallas stood outside the studio and
tried to think how to do this. He knew Alexis had heard about him hitting Stacy,
but he didn’t know how she’d take it. He also knew that she and Stacy were good
friends despite being alpha to a pack. He didn’t knock, but walked in.

The slap startled him. It was hard and
drew blood to his lip. Before he could reach up to wipe off the blood Alexis
started in on him. Dallas was too stunned at first to do more than stand there.

“How could you? How could you hit a
woman?” He started to speak, but she snarled at him. “Don’t you dare try to
justify it. I know what happened. You hit her and knocked her out. Do you know
what’s it like to lose a connection like that? To not know what happened to the
person you can no longer hear?”

He stood there for several seconds
wondering if she was finished, his own anger nasty and hot. When she turned to
him she drew back her hand to hit him again. He grabbed it before she could
connect.

“Once was quite enough. I hit her, yes,
but she walked into a fist that was meant for another.” She started to speak
and he held up his hand. “When you injure a man for no reason, he gets to—”

“No reason,” she shouted at him. “I
suppose you find it all right to hit someone that’s much smaller than you.”

“No, I don’t. But had she not, then I
wouldn’t have bonded with her, nor become her mate.” She took a step back. “In
my family we ask before judging. I’m sorry you have so little faith in me that
you’d…that you’d hit then not ask questions.” He turned to leave.

“Don’t, Dallas. I didn’t know. I—”

“No, you didn’t. Nor did you ask.” He
walked out the door, shutting it quietly behind him. He was nearly naked by the
time the door opened and he was almost to the forest line when she came out of
the building.

By the time he’d been out for nearly
three hours he knew that he’d have to apologize to her. He’d been wrong to walk
away from her. Males didn’t treat the females in their family like he’d done.
He moved along the perimeter of the land to the furthest part and sat down near
a spring and closed his eyes. He felt a small touch of someone trying to
contact him and ignored it. Right now he didn’t want to speak to anyone.

He had a mate. Not just any mate either,
but Stacy O’Brien. She was everything he’d hoped for in a mate and then some. And
she was all his. He smiled as his wolf stretched. Both their beasts were happy
as well.

“How long you going to be out there
before you come back home?”

He could ignore everyone else, including
his mate, but not his alpha.
“I might not. I think I’ll collect my mate and
live as a wolf for the rest of our days.”
He heard his brother laugh.
“I’m
not kidding, Austin. I’m not in the mood for your lecture. When I’ve cooled off
enough I’ll do my duty and apologize to her, but I’m not even close to making
it sincere right now.”

“What if I told you she is crying
because she feels she hurt you? What if—”

“I don’t care and she did hurt me. Leave
it be, please. I don’t want to talk about it or her.”
Dallas stood up
and stretched and then walked to the water’s edge.

“Dallas, it’s not the way you think it
is. Gordon is upset with her and Stacy won’t even speak to her. Everyone is
pissed at her, not you.”

He snorted at his brother.

“
I’m not lying to you. She’s been
crying since she came to me over two hours ago and is, as we speak, telling
anyone who will listen that she is a monster that hits without thinking.”

He wanted that to feel good, but he felt
horrible about it. He started back toward the pack house without speaking to
his brother. It didn’t seem to matter to him. Austin seemed to be in a
talkative mood.

“Mom isn’t happy either, but I can’t
tell if she’s just mad at the whole thing, you, or Alexis. She’s baking.”

That stopped him in his tracks.

She’s made more cookies and cupcakes
than I think we’ll be able to eat in the next five moon phases.”

“I didn’t hit Stacy on purpose. And she
and I mated and bonded last night.”
He started moving again when he had to
stop again.
“Austin, have you been in the south fields this week?”

“No. What do you see?”

He could hear the tension in his voice
and it made the hair on the back of his neck rise.

“Dallas, speak to me.”

“I can smell…death. Not fresh,
but…older. Let me look around and get back to you.”

“No. You keep in contact. After
yesterday I don’t want to take any chance with anyone. You said you’re in the south
field. Where?”

He told him.

“I’m coming. Don’t look around, just
wait for me.”

“Austin. It’s too late. I’ve found it.”

By the time Austin got to where he was
Dallas had shifted and pulled on the sweats that he had on him. Since his
brother Connor had told them it was easy to carry a small pack on their backs
when they were wolf, one that he’d designed that had breakaway straps, all of
them were able to dress wherever they went. He was standing over the mass grave
when Austin and Myles came up in a Jeep.

“I didn’t know what to bring so we
loaded everything we could think of.” Myles was an ex-cop and a newly turned
vampire thanks to Phil and Holly saving him. “You figure out what it is yet?”

“You tell me.” He led them over to the
shallow grave and pointed. “Male, female, human, animal, weres, and vampires. I’m
not sure on the last one whether or not it’s a vamp, though. The only dead
vamps I’ve seen were ash and this one is not.”

“Christ,” Austin hissed. Dallas had to agree.
“They look like they’ve been here at least a week. How deep is this thing,
would you say?”

Dallas knew. “There are seventeen
bodies. No children are in there, but someone was kind enough to put all the
adults’ identifications in that box there.”

Myles walked over to it and opened the
steel box. He was thumbing through a wallet as Dallas continued.

“Stacy and Connor spoke to Harvey today.
He said that he was responsible for burying the dead that Sterling killed. I
didn’t look at the book, but he gave it to Stacy and she said it had all the
places that he’d dug up. He didn’t want to go to the same place twice.”

“So Sterling has been keeping track, or
at least someone is. This Harvey, how does he figure in all this?”

Dallas shrugged at Myles’ question.

“Do you think he’s in with the alpha?”

Another Jeep pulled up and someone
walked toward them speaking. “No, he’s not. The alpha is his brother and killed
his family in order to keep him in line. Harvey is under the impression that he’s
nothing left to live for. Hello, Dallas. You can’t know how sorry I am for all
this.”

Dallas turned away from his brother
Connor. He wasn’t too happy with him either.

“What took you so long?” Austin looked
around when another car pulled up. “What the hell did you do, bring the entire
pack with you?”

“No, just the ones I thought could help.”

Phil came toward them as well as Holly. Dallas
didn’t want her to see this, but she walked right up to the dead and hopped
down in the hole. “This one was killed with a knife. I’d say a dagger. This one
on top…looks like a nine millimeter.” She moved along each body and told them
how they’d been killed and about how long they’d been dead. All of them less
than a week.

“I’d say there are two vampires in that
mess, maybe one more, but no more than that. And they weren’t dead when they
were put in here, but died due to sun exposure.” Phil winked at his mate. “I
think they might not be day walkers like me.”

“Ass,” she growled at him. “All the
others were killed someplace else and brought here. I’d say that they were
carried, so that would explain why there are no other tire tracks.” She got out
of the hole. “There’s something else you should know. The person on the bottom,
the male, he dug the hole.”