Page 133 of Tangled In Tinsel & Knots
“If Scot hurt those reindeer, I’m going to kill him.” My hands are welded to the steering wheel, tendons tight, knuckles bone white. “Slowly. Painfully. I’ll make it last for days.”
“Get in line,” Chris adds. “Those animals are family. He didn’t just steal livestock. He stole from our pack. And he did it to punish Hannah. To humiliate her. To make her look incompetent in front of the entire damn town.”
My teeth grind. A fresh surge of fury spikes hard through me. “I’m done. We’re done. No more waiting for the proper channels to deal with him.”
“We end this today.” Chris’s voice is flat, a lethal certainty to it. “Whatever it takes. He crossed every line. Hannah is ours to protect, and we’ve let him get away with too much already.”
“Completely fucking agreed.”
We’re flying down rural roads at a speed that would get me arrested anywhere else. I take a turn hard enough that the tires squeal in protest. I don’t care. I’d drive through buildings if I had to.
The sun paints the mountains in gold and fire. Beautiful, but I barely register it. All I can think about is Corn Dog, the others, and Hannah, tonight, waiting for a moment that’s supposed to be hers.
Three hours to find our stolen reindeer, destroy the prick who took them, and give Hannah the opening she deserves.
No pressure.
“Failure is not on the table. Hannah is counting on us. We track, we retrieve, we deliver Corn Dog before that ceremony starts. End of discussion,” I state.
“And Scot gets exactly what he deserves for fucking with our Omega,” Chris barks, cracking his neck.
Bring it on.
22
NOEL
Kane is driving through the mountain like a man possessed, the truck bouncing violently over snow-covered ruts and rocks on these barely maintained dirt roads, and I’m in the passenger seat, gripping the handle above the door, staring out at the dense forest trying to recognize anything familiar.
“Left at that fallen pine,” I say, pointing to a massive tree that’s split down the middle, probably from lightning.
Kane jerks the wheel hard without slowing down, and we slide sideways on the snow-packed road before the tires catch again with a spray of ice and gravel.
“Chris looked so fucking pissed when he drew the short straw,” I say, grinning despite the tension coiling in my gut. “Man wants to beat the shit out of Scot as much as we do. Might have actually cried a little when he lost.”
Kane barks a laugh, and it’s dark. “We’ll tell him all about it when we get back. Give him every bloody detail so he can live vicariously through us. Maybe even take photos.”
“This is a damn long shot, though,” I admit after a moment, scanning the increasingly dense trees. The forest is pressing in from both sides now, branches reaching across the narrow road like skeletal fingers. “Might not even be where Scot actually lives. Could be some random cabin he visited once for a weekend, and then we’re back at square one with no reindeer, no time, and Hannah’s event completely fucked.”
“Don’t say that shit,” Kane snaps, his knuckles bone white on the steering wheel. “Don’t even think it. I mean, where the fuck else would he be hiding eight stolen reindeer? He’s not keeping them in a damn apartment in town. He’s not boarding them at some public stable. This has to be it.”
“You’re right.” I go back to scanning the landscape. “Just nervous as hell. Hannah’s counting on us.”
“Which is exactly why we’re not failing.”
The road narrows even more as we climb higher into the mountains, trees pressing in from both sides, their snow-laden branches scraping against the truck with sounds like fingernails on metal. Then, through a gap in the trees maybe thirty yards ahead, I spot something that doesn’t belong.
Metal. Geometric shapes. Human construction in the middle of wilderness.
“There,” I say, pointing through the windshield. “Slow the fuck down.”
Kane eases off the gas, and we both lean forward instinctively to get a better look through the trees.
A cabin sits in a small clearing carved out of the forest, and far behind it is a thin waterfall, completely frozen to ice. But the place is not exactly what I expected. The entire property is surrounded by a high steel fence, seven feet at minimum. The fence is rusted in places, orange stains bleeding down from the posts, but it’s still formidable as hell. The front gates give us an easy view of the side of the home. More than that, thereare security cameras mounted at each corner of the fence line, professional-looking equipment with weatherproof housings.
This isn’t some rustic mountain retreat where you go to disconnect from civilization. It’s a damn compound, secured like someone is expecting an assault.
“What the actual fuck is this place?” Kane mutters, pulling the truck off the road and into the tree line where we won’t be immediately visible. He kills the engine.
