Page 22 of Crave

The guy narrowed his eyes. “Whatcha need Sam for?”

“He was the last person to see an old friend of ours, and we were wondering if he had any information on their whereabouts.”

Seemingly appeased by my answer, he slid a bottle of beer down the bar to a man at the end. I looked at the guy as he caught the beer, then did a double take. There was something off about him, like the shadows had gathered around him, even though the bar was well-lit.

He met my eyes, and I held his. Neither of us wanted to look away first, and that was how I knew he was definitely a supe. Didn’t know what flavor, but not shifter, judging by his scent.

I took stock of him: the long, black trench, the dark eyes and hair, the tattoos that ran up his neck to his chin. The taste of his power. There were other supernaturals that came through Maxton, but very few settled close by. The Manix reputation of being extinct had relied on that fact. But with our reappearance, it stood to reason that a few more would come out of the woodwork just to take a look.

Someone knocked on the bar in front of me, and the man grinned, raising his beer. I dragged my eyes back to the bartender, though I made note to mention the guy to the Alpha General.

The bartender was frowning at me. “Sam sold the bar to a company down in the city and retired last year. He lives around back. Take that door back there, and it’ll drop you into the side alley. He’s the one across the street—the house of sticks that looks like it’s about to fall down around his ears, but he’s too cheap to hire a damn contractor to fix it.” It was clear that the old bartender grumbled with love.

“Thank you,” I replied, and turned back to Kitten, just in time to see a young-ish human with a patchy beard come up to the Omega.

“Kate?”

The Omega winced. “Oh, hey, Garth.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that she’d known this guy intimately. I was kind of glad none of her Alphas had come with her. Otherwise, I had no doubt that Corvin, at the very least, would’ve had this guy laid out.

Kitten did some backtracking, politely fobbing him off, and I stepped between them as the guy went in for a hug.Yeah, no.

“Come on,Kate,” I said, emphasizing the fake name. “Sam retired and lives around back, according to the barman. Let’s go.” I started herding her toward the hallway the bartender had mentioned, ignoring the guy’s stammering questions and Kitten’s soft replies. Soon enough, we were out of the building and across the street, banging on the door to the ramshackle cabin.

There was some grumbling, and more than a little swearing as someone thumped towards the door. The old guy who answered looked like he’d been kicked around by humanity and had come out tougher on the other side. “What do you wan—Leandra?” The quick progression from surprise to sadness in his eyes told me this wasn’t going to be a happy ending. Fuck.

The trip homewas filled with the scent of melancholy from the back seat. I couldn’t wind down the window, though, because one, it was hotter than hell outside, and two, a wind had whipped up while we were in town and it was flinging dust everywhere. The Omega was silent, and Murphy and I didn’t interrupt her thoughts.

That had been rough on the poor thing, and honestly, kind of hard to hear. The old Alpha General was definitely her father, and I’d swear it on my bond with Murphy that he’d killed her mother. He’d been a sociopathic old fuck. Lived too long with too much power. He’d always been hungry for it, and had enjoyed flexing it over those who couldn’t challenge him back. I was glad he was dead. I hated him when I worked for the Legion and he was still in power.

Murphy kept an eye on the girl as we drove back up the mountain away from town. I would be relieved to drop her off with her Pack so they could soothe her hurt. She mightn’t be mine, and I might have no interest in her, but her sadness still riled my Beast.

“Can you stop the car?” she called softly from the back. I looked into the rearview mirror to see her staring out the window in horror. “Seriously, stop the car!” she yelled, and I slammed on the brakes.

“What is it?” Murphy yelled back, but she was up and out of the car, running towards the woods. “Kitten, where the fuck are you going?”

Another scent replaced her sadness. Fear. “Wildfire!”

We raced after her, Murphy getting in front. “Are you sure?”

I caught up, and she stopped dead, looking at us wide-eyed. “I’m sure. Smell the air? You can taste the smoke. Feel it. Hear it. The animals are disturbed—they’re running to find shelter already. That hot wind? It's going to pick up this evening, or maybe even sooner, and with it the fire will rage.”

I lifted my nose again, filtering out the scent of the Omega beside me. As soon as the acrid smell burned my nostrils, I knew she was right. “I believe you. But what are you going to do running toward it? We have no water, nothing we can use to put it out.”

Real terror made her face scrunch, and she shook her head. “The kids are out here with the goats. It's their third day as goatherds. They should be in the western quadrant.”

Fuck.I’d forgotten that the new Alpha General had sent some of the teens to herd goats through the underbrush so they could eat back the overgrown foliage. Too little, too fucking late. We needed Kitten and her forest expertise two years ago to prevent this very moment.

Murphy swore violently. “Let’s go. Merrick, call the Alpha General.”

They both took off, and I pulled out my phone, calling Courtland’s private phone.

“Merrick?” he said by way of greeting.

“We have a big fucking problem. There's a wildfire on the north-western border of the Packlands. Kitten spotted it. We’re just going to get the kids out goat-herding, and then we’ll check it out. You might want to be on alert and start implementing the emergency protocol.”

Courtland didn’t panic. He just covered the phone and started rattling off orders to Radic, then came back on the line. “Get the kids and the Omega, then get back to Maxton. I’ll get the Legion out there with some of the fire-fighting vehicles and see if we can put it down before it gets too wild.”

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