Page 11

Chapter

Eleven

Q uin crept along the bank of windows in the old office building, trying to find one he could get out of. Most of them were crusted shut, and even though he was on the second floor, he would hate to try without a fire escape. But when he finally came upon that window, not easy when Thiago was nattering at him, he heard the ruckus downstairs.

There was shitload of yelling. Which meant they knew he wasn’t there anymore.

Shit.

They know, babe, he told Thiago. I got to scoot.

So break a window and make with the running.

I think that’s a damn good idea. Where are you?

In an abandoned business park just across from Civic Center Park.

Fuck a doodle. Look for me. I think we’re in the same place.

He gave up trying to raise the window and broke it, which set off an alarm. Maybe his mate and brothers would hear it.

Quin stepped out onto a damn shaky fire escape and ran, sliding down the ladder by holding the sides, and racing toward the parking lot he could see at the back of the complex.

“There he is! Get him!”

“Just shoot him!” Weasel voice screamed.

Shit. He began dodging and weaving, just in case. He didn’t want to get shot, but then, these guys didn’t seem like gun types, except for maybe the ram.

He saw the Escalade parked in the lot just about the time someone did shoot at him, and the hot air as the bullet went by was way too close.

Thiago! I see the SUV. Get everyone back to it. They’re shooting at me!

I see you, Thiago growled, just as another gunshot sounded. Covering you.

I sure as shit hope so. He got low, and he ran. That was really all he could do—trust in Thiago and run like hell.

That and hope his brother had enough insurance on the Escalade to cover any bullet hole repair. Of course, it was Symon. He had a bulletproof Escalade.

Quin had a headache, and he’d pretty much decided he didn’t want to do this anymore.

Just get in the fucking car, brother! I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and a bottle of Excedrin.

So. Fucking. Bossy.

He slipped into the Escalade, barking as a bullet tore through his jeans and scraped a hot line across his thigh. “Dammit! I like these jeans.”

“Not funny,” Thiago snarled.

“Sure it is.” He stuck his tongue out at his mate. “A little funny and also very true. I do like these jeans.”

“Shut up. All of you.” That was Cyrus, who was behind the wheel, and he tore out of there like their ass end was on fire, the wheels squealing on the pavement.

The man really could drive.

Thiago grabbed him, kissing him silly before pushing him down to wrap a piece of gauze from the first aid kit around his thigh to stop any bleeding. Symon was such a boy scout. His vehicle had everything.

“I’ll treat it better when we get to?—”

“My house,” Symon said. “We’ll stop and get Eyre, but I want us all safe somewhere remote.”

“No.” They all looked at him, but he shook his head. “They’re going to keep making trouble. We need to end this bullshit once and for all instead of just cutting off tentacles.”

“What exactly does that mean? Do you want to just go back?” Thiago stared at him, his eyes a little wild around the edges.

“What choice do we have? There are four of us. There’s three of them. Odds are in our favor.” Quin kissed Thiago again. “Let’s get the name of the boss.”

Cyrus gave him a huge, bright grin from the rearview mirror, then slipped him a Glock, the heavy piece perfect in his hand. “I love the way you think, man.”

“Do not encourage him. I will fire your ass,” Symon snapped. “I’ve already called the police. Let’s go.”

Quin rolled his eyes. Faboo. That would just confuse the hell out of everyone and slow everything down to a crawl. “What’s that supposed to accomplish? If we don’t catch the guy in charge, he’s gonna hire another bunch of assholes, and they’re gonna keep coming.” Quin shook his head. “No, I’m done playing with these pricks.”

Then Quin met Thiago’s eyes. I’m not being reckless. You know that if we don’t make our town unpalatable for them, they’ll just keep coming back. If they have to work for it, they’ll leave.

I still don’t like this.

I know. It didn’t matter, but Quin knew.

“Turn the car around. You said it was the Big Horn in charge?” Thiago asked Quin, even as Symon groaned.

“I’m surrounded by idiots. Adrian, we’re going back. Did you get access to the vehicle yet?”

“Not yet.”

Quin nodded toward Thiago. “Yeah. Very Colorado of them, having the local boss be horny.”

“We can pick him up, and then let the cops take the other two.”

“We don’t have to pick him up at all.” That was, in fact, not the plan. “I just need the other two taken out, and for everyone to follow my lead.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means Mr. Puppy here is going to go crazy batshit wolf. We’re going to get to watch the hottest thing ever.” Cyrus grinned at him. “I love this game.”

Quin wanted to grin back at Cyrus, because the man understood him on a deep, personal level, but he didn’t want to get himself in trouble with his brother or his mate. “Just trust me. That’s all I need from you. I need a little trust and five minutes. It’s not too much to ask, right?”

Thiago nodded and sighed. “Five minutes. That’s it. I don’t like this.”

“I know, but it’s going to be okay. I’ve done this before.”

In fact, he was sort of an expert.

Thiago didn’t like this. To be honest, he didn’t like any little bit of it. He did have to admit that Quin was sure about it though.

Quin looked a little bit like he was burning up from the inside. Hair down and wild. Eyes flashing. There were bruises around his neck. Blood on his jeans.

It would have been hot if it wasn’t so discomfiting.

“Okay, we’re going to go in—I’m assuming they’re gonna to be hunting us, so Cyrus, ram the hell out of them. We’ll all brace ourselves, then Cyrus, you have the bear, Thiago gets the weasel.”

“Wait a minute,” Thiago growled, and Quin shook his head.

“I get the sheep.”

“I’m taking out the bear,” Thiago snapped. The bear had bruised his mate, kidnapped him. Shit was about to hit the proverbial fan. “He hurt you.”

“Okay.” Oh, that’s actually dear.

I’ll show you dear. He bared his teeth.

“But I wanted to hear the kitty grovel before you gave him the bear!” Cyrus could whine.

“I’m in, love! I’m in.” That came from Adrian.

Symon snapped. “Stop the car.”

To Cyrus’s credit, that Escalade stopped on a dime, throwing them across the back seat. “What?”

“Adrian’s in the GPS system. We can basically send them damn near anywhere, and? We have all their last knowns.”

“Excellent.” Quin growled, clearly ready for the fight. “Are they on the move?”

“They are, but we’re not far behind.” Symon was coordinating with Adrian, and Cyrus was getting a heading. These guys were a seamless team.

“Adrian says your guy Graham is good, by the way,” Symon snapped.

“Nice.” He rolled his head on his neck, preparing himself to take on a bear. A fucking polar bear. The good thing was the guy didn’t look to be in too great of shape. And Thiago was in peak condition.

He glanced at Rian as Cyrus pulled up on a big SUV, and he got a wild grin. He had a moment of panic, thinking Cyrus was going to pull a pit maneuver, but he didn’t have to do that or ram the assholes.

Their driver hit the curb and a tire blew, which sent their vehicle careening over into a parking lot, the brakes squealing as the fuckwads came to a stop.

The assholes piled out of the SUV and immediately started shooting at them, but the Escalade just pinged the bullets right off. Or caught them in the armor.

“Hang on!” Cy gunned it up over the curb, then made to mow the fuckers down. Thiago did approve of that.

They stopped shooting and scattered, the bear barely leaping out of the way. Thiago was out and after him before Cyrus fully braked, and he shifted, taking the guy down before he could blink, rolling him and starting to smother him with a bite, which was his MO.

The guy grunted and batted at him, eyes wide, then drooping as he started to lose consciousness. He needed this over so he could help the wolf with the wolf in big horn clothing.

Cyrus and Rian and Symon had the weasel locked up tight. No stress.

He held the bear down and didn’t let him shift, until he collapsed, passing out. Not dead.

Just snoozing.

Someone tie him up , he broadcasted as loud as he could, and he saw Rian flinch, but he was fighting tooth and nail with a horny sheep. Of the kind who could knock the shit out of him.

He moved in behind the ram to trip him up, and the guy bleated in surprise as he saw a jaguar. That was clearly unexpected.

Rian growled, the sound incredibly nice even in human form, as he hadn’t shifted.

“Face it, dickwad,” Quin spat. “You’re outnumbered.”

The guy shifted back to human and slumped to the ground, and Symon tossed Quin a blanket. “For god’s sake, cover that up.”

Quin bared his teeth and did just that while Cyrus came to truss the guy’s hands. The weasel was out cold too.

“Put him in the back of the SUV,” Quin said. “I have questions.”

Symon lifted the sheep and put him in the back of the broken SUV, not theirs. Then Thiago stood guard and listened in while Quin started to question the guy.

It was awesome.

“Who’s your boss?”

“Fuck you, man. You think I’m going to tell you dick?”

Quin grinned, baring his teeth. “Oh, I think you will.” Quin leaned in, really close, eyes beginning to glow. “But you know what, sweetheart? It doesn’t matter.”

Quin stroked the man’s cheek, the touch oddly gentle, before the touch sank all the way down the hard belly and almost to the man’s crotch—which Thiago admitted made him a little unhappy—before it slid over to the side, pulling out a phone and tossing it to Symon. “Because we’ll crack your phone, we’ll get everything we need, and then I just get to play with you.”

Quin’s bite was quick, the wolf flashing out so fast that Thiago wasn’t completely sure he’d ever even seen it.

But when Quin pulled back, the sheep’s lip was torn from the corner all the way down to the chin.

Just sliced wide open.

Quin licked his lips clean from the blood. “Oh, I do love the taste of a little mutton. And guess what, lamb chop? You’ll wear my mark forever. And if you don’t start talking soon? Well, I’ll just take you home with me and keep you in a pen. Then we could play like this. Forever.”

Thiago couldn’t decide whether or not he was going to cream his jeans or just die.

Just boom, right there, because—although he was sure that it was incredibly intimidating to Mr. Mean and Horny—for him it was luscious. Public foreplay.

Quin was the hottest motherfucker he’d ever seen.

So fast.

It was delicious.

Stop distracting me, love.

Me? You’re making me hard in front of your brother. He shuddered . That’s scary.

Do you like it when I’m a bad boy? Quin’s face never so much as twitched.

I’ll show you bad boy. When we get done with all this, first I’ll pamper the hell out of you. Then I’m going to put you over my knee and beat your ass until you scream.

I like how you think.

You should. We mated for a reason.

Lamb chop looked out at the rest of them, his voice rising. “Are you going to just let him do this?”

“Yep.” Rian beamed. “He’s a little deranged and a lot pissed off. Better he take it out on you than us.”

Symon simply walked back to their vehicle with the phone, smiling a little.

Thiago yawned. Deeply. Letting his teeth and claws show as he stretched. Fucker needed to be scared, dammit.

“You’re fucking insane!”

“Lamb chop. You had me kidnapped. You tied me up. You were going to cut off my balls.” Quin batted his eyelashes. “Are you sure I’m the one who’s insane?”

The fluttering is a little over the top, mate.

I let you work. You let me work.

You know you’re a little scary when you’re like this.

Pussycat, I count on it. Quin focused on the big horn, his lips parted as he panted just the slightest bit. “Do you think when they talk about Rocky Mountain oysters that you would qualify? I mean you’re a big guy. I bet they’d be really crunchy. Especially if we soaked them in milk.”

“Get this motherfucker away from me!” Oh, that was a bleat. That was totally a bleat. The guy was cracking.

Time for him to shift back to human. He did, and pulled on the clothes Rian handed him.

“I’d start talking if I were you. He’s got a taste for blood now. He’s not a dog, you know.” Thiago let his head kind of fall to one shoulder, as if he were contemplating something. “You do know that you’re their natural prey, don’t you? I mean, you’re the reason they got rid of wolves in Colorado. Because of the sheep. Baa.”

“He’ll kill me if I talk.”

“I’m going to kill you if you don’t. Either way you’re fucked.” Quin shrugged, as if it didn’t matter one bit. “At least if you talk, we’ll get rid of him and let you go—with the assumption, of course, that you leave us alone, and if we see you again, we’ll make you cry.”

“You don’t honestly believe you have a chance to stop all this?”

“I stopped you, didn’t I? How many of your marks have I stolen away from you at this point? How mad is your boss about how much money you’ve lost? Pretty pissed, I think, and then you got me and you couldn’t even keep me.” Quin clicked his teeth. “It’s not a good look for you, and now he’s gonna see the evidence right on your face of how badly it went. Want to rethink your position? You have until the count of ten.” Quin chuckled. “One.”

“I can’t just talk to you. I don’t know that much. I’m serious.”

“Two.”

The sheep looked to Thiago. “You’ve got to call him off. I don’t know anything. And I mean it. I don’t know anything!”

“Yeah, but is your phone gonna say that?” Thiago asked, singsong.

“Three.”

Personally, Thiago thought Quin was actually having fun with all of this. Of course, he had been shot and strangled, so maybe he couldn’t blame his wolf.

“Four.”

By seven, the sheep was sobbing. By nine, Rian was counting, Thiago had his pants back open, and Quin was in wolf form, jaws snapping.

It was nice to work together toward a goal.

“Okay! Look, I’ll tell you who my contacts are and where we send the omegas!” The sheep was wiggling away from Quin, just bawling.

Thiago grinned at his mate. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

And then Rian pulled out his phone to record shit, and the sheep was talking. A lot.

About everything.

That was a good day’s work.