Page 1 of Kidnapped by the Wolf (Gold Creek Wolves)
CHAPTER ONE
ADRIAN
I’ve never understood humans on planes.
As an alpha wolf with personal-space issues, I try to avoid flying. The tight quarters, the confinement, the smells — it’s all too much for my animal.
After spending the last three hours sandwiched between a large, smelly man in a tank top and a teenager blasting the worst music of all time from his headphones, my wolf is ready to snap his leash.
I haven’t been this keyed up since Afghanistan.
My hands shake slightly as I watch a woman in too-tight yoga pants wrestle her suitcase out of an overhead bin — nearly elbowing an elderly man in the face when it finally shoots out. She struggles for a moment, balancing her Starbucks cup in one hand while grabbing her purse, backpack, and a paper bag from the duty-free store in the other.
Why do humans need so much crap?
If there’s one thing the military taught me, it’s how to pack light — and how to let someone else think they’re in charge. Two changes of clothes, a laptop, a phone, my wallet, a toothbrush, deodorant, and a charger were all I brought for this trip. And I didn’t even end up needing the second outfit.
Just as I’m preparing to join the queue of people jostling toward the exit, a thirtysomething guy in business casual attire steps into the aisle from three rows back, further encroaching on my personal space.
I don’t normally throw around my dominance when humans are involved, because it just isn’t fair. But after being stuck on the tarmac in the Phoenix heat for over an hour and spending another two inhaling Tank Top’s pit juice on the flight to Denver, my wolf has reached his limit.
Grabbing my backpack, I slide out of my seat with preternatural quickness — forcing Business Casual to take a step back. I hear a cry of protest as he treads on some poor woman’s feet, and the guy scoffs in annoyance.
He’s lucky I’ve got more important things on my mind, or I’d turn around and make him sit the fuck down and wait his turn to disembark.
The line starts to move, and it’s all I can do to maintain the slow, shuffling pace toward the front of the plane as I text Sebastian where to pick me up.
The smell of soft pretzels, cheap carpet, and industrial disinfectant reaches me before I even make it out of the jet bridge. The terminal is a predictable clusterfuck of annoyed human travelers toting luggage, coffee, and screaming children.
As my fellow passengers look around in confusion, I bypass the signs for baggage claim and head straight for ground transportation.
Some of the tension leaves my shoulders as I burst through the exit doors, but the rumble of idling vehicles and the stench of exhaust keeps my wolf on edge.
I spot Sebastian’s obnoxious black Mercedes G550 and nearly rip off the handle as I fling the passenger door open.
“Easy, boss,” Sebastian chides in his smooth British accent as I climb in and slam the door.
Only Sebastian could get away with admonishing me right now. I’m not sure if it’s the accent, his attitude, or a complete lack of any desire to claw his way up the pack hierarchy, but I can never bring myself to be too pissed at him.
“Rough flight?”
I don’t bother answering. He knows damn well it’s not just the flight that has my wolf keyed up.
“What did Devlin say?” he presses, swerving around a line of cars and merging onto the highway.
Devlin is the reason I spent the last three hours sweating in a tin can from hell. He’s alpha of the Phoenix pack, and the two of us worked for the same private military contractor overseas.
Years of doing the military’s dirty work have made him one cold son of a bitch. But Devlin has always taken care of his wolves, which is why I sought his advice.
Sebastian gives a knowing hum. “I’m guessing you didn’t like what Devy had to say.”
“A city like Phoenix is a lot different than Gold Creek,” I counter.
“Because any alpha who makes a run at Devlin’s territory ends up scattered across the desert in a million little pieces?”
I raise my eyebrows. He’s not wrong.
“Mmhm,” is all Sebastian says.
We both know what I have to do — what I should have done the instant Clint McGregor began encroaching on my territory. If I’d acted six years ago when this first started, it never would have gotten this bad. But I was younger then, and I didn’t want to start a war.
These last couple of years, Clint’s bears have gotten bolder. They’ve been expanding their drug trade, picking fights with my wolves, and even attacking members of my pack. Last year, they kidnapped one of our females, and I had to get the pack involved to shut down a she-wolf trafficking ring.
With so many of my pack brothers settling down and starting families, the stakes are just too high. I can’t allow this to go on.
“I know you don’t want to put him down —” Sebastian begins.
“It’s not that,” I snap.
I have no problem taking lives when it’s for the greater good. I fought a never-ending war for my country, but I don’t like starting them.
“If I kill Clint, another of his bears is just going to take his place.”
Sebastian is smart — smart enough that all the top tech companies pay him a mint to pen-test their latest software. He knows what I’m not saying.
If I provoke the McGregors by killing their leader, it’s our pack that will pay the price.
“So what’s the alternative?” Sebastian asks, cutting in front of a slow-moving car and sticking his middle finger out the window.
I drag in a breath to calm my wolf. He hates not being in control. And the thought of the McGregors going after one of his own sends his protective instincts into overdrive.
“Devlin says if I don’t want to start a war with the McGregors, which we both agree is the path of mutually assured destruction, then I need a way to force Clint to behave.”
“And what did he suggest? A marriage to unite the kingdoms? Going to take a bear sow for a bride, are you?”
I grit my teeth, fighting off a fresh surge of annoyance as Sebastian rides the ass of a minivan going seventy in the fast lane.
“Leverage.”
CASSIE
My fingers and toes are already frozen as I pick my way down to the river. On most days, the gentle babble of the creek calms my nerves and soothes my soul. This morning, however, the light layer of frost coating my windshield, the trees, and the tall blades of grass fills me with a fresh surge of anxiety.
It’s only October, but in the mountains, that means the temperature is already getting down below freezing. Last night, it was so cold in the back of the bus that I finally broke down and cranked the heat for a few minutes.
I’m not going to be able to survive living like this much longer.
Crouching down in the frozen mud along the bank, I shudder as I plunge my shirt into the frigid water. My hands throb for a moment and then go numb as I scrub the thin material. Already they look like worker’s hands — nothing soft or feminine about them.
Doing a load at the Laundromat in town would keep my skin from turning raw, but Penny Pincher Wash-O-Mat is wolf territory.
It’s not as though I’m worried one of them might recognize me. My father doesn’t advertise the fact that his only cub is a weak, pathetic human. The problem is his loud-mouth bears. One slip from Callum or Gator or another of the McGregor assholes, and I’d have a target on my back.
Shivering, I pull my shirt out of the water and slap it onto a rock. I have a whole bag full of dirty clothes, but my hands are stinging so badly that I decide to focus on socks and underwear.
I can live with dirty jeans.
Wringing out my sodden clothes, I spread them out on the rocks to dry and walk the twenty yards back to my home on wheels. It’s an orange Volkswagen bus — rough condition — that smells like Nag Champa incense and corn chips no matter what I do.
I inherited it from my mother — a hippie who eschewed animal products, commercial deodorant, and birth control, apparently.
The bus is the one thing she left behind when she fled my father’s pack. Well, unless you count me.
Reaching into the passenger seat, I grab my thermos of instant coffee and the jar of oatmeal I let soak overnight. Wrapping myself in a flannel, I find a patch of morning sunshine and curl up in the grass to enjoy my breakfast while I try to come up with a plan.
I’ve only got eight bucks to my name, and I’m running low on supplies — groceries, gas, and propane, which I need to operate my little camp stove. I’ll get some cash selling my jewelry at the art walk this afternoon, but it won’t be enough to revamp my wardrobe, which currently consists of t-shirts, jeans, and a few ratty flannels.
It was July when I left my father’s land in the dead of night, taking only a garbage bag full of clothes and whatever I could cram into the back of my bus. Like mother, like daughter, I guess — though crucially, I did not leave a bewildered six-year-old behind to be raised by an abusive bear shifter.
Camping in Colorado isn’t bad in the summer, but the nights have been getting progressively colder, and soon we’ll have snow. I won’t make it another week without some proper winter clothes.
The more pressing problem is where I’m going to stay once it’s too cold to camp. I’ve made it this long without driving to one of the shelters west of Denver, and I don’t intend to go once the snow starts to fly. It just doesn’t seem right to take a handout when I’m fully capable of holding down a job.
The trouble is that most of the businesses in Gold Creek are either wolf-owned or frequented by my father’s bears. If I got a job in town, it wouldn’t be long before someone learned who I was — or dragged me back to my father’s pack.
I know I’m going to have to move on if I want to land a steady job that will allow me to sublet a place for the winter. The only reason I’ve stuck around this long is that I know the forest service guys out here, and they’ve turned a blind eye to me keeping the bus parked indefinitely on public lands.
Dread unfurls in my gut. I know what I have to do.
I have to sneak back into McGregor pack territory and gather up the rest of my belongings. That will buy me some time to figure out my next move.
I just can’t get caught.