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Johnny
Like hell I was staying home while Kane and Charlie flew off to Toronto. Levi had things under control—he always did—and I was going to make sure the Andrew situation was dealt with properly. Charlie wanted him badly. I felt her desire to tear a strip into him, both figuratively and literally. It was my duty to satiate her needs, and I planned to do that in every way.
Her bite was no joke. I couldn’t stop tracing the lines of the starburst on my throat. It pulsated like a drumbeat and radiated heat that was almost too much to endure. I’d been branded, and with every minute that passed, it felt like threads were weaving into my skin, connecting directly to Charlie’s essence—to her thoughts, to her feelings, to her heart and soul.
I made a few calls to my boots on the ground in Toronto as I was heading to my chartered plane. I didn’t have access to the Duke jet, obviously, since Charlie and Kane were already boarded and taxing on the runway, but I had my own means of securing transportation.
“Hey, Johnny, how’s it hanging?” Kent, a good friend and pilot always in need of extra cash, continued his pre-flight check.
“It’s not hanging, bro. It’s hard as a rock and ready for some fun.”
Kent laughed and shook his head. “So, this is an emergency cock run?”
“I need to get to Toronto fast, and I know you can make that happen.” I slapped him on the back. Kent was human, so I went easy. Didn’t want to knock him to the ground out cold and mess up my chance to catch up with Charlie.
“You’re damn right. I have a need for speed.” He finished what he was doing then motioned to the stairs. “You got some new ink?”
I dropped my hand from my neck, realizing that I’d been stroking my link to Charlie the whole time. “Yeah, dude. Got it from my girl.”
“I’ve heard ink like that is the kiss of death for relationships, man. Tread carefully.” He closed the door behind us, and I couldn’t help but feel his warning like an ominous prophecy.
I fought the urge to touch my neck again, even though the desperation to be close to Charlie flared, burning like her bite was alive. I wasn’t being reckless, and I wasn’t endangering my new bond. I was being proactive and getting the job done. No need to second guess myself at this stage.
I waved him off and took a seat, anxious to get into the air and on my way to my mate.
“Buckle up, buddy!” Kent disappeared into the cockpit, and I slid into my seat.
Just before takeoff, I got a string of texts from my guys in Toronto. Andrew was locked up in an enclosure at a wildlife center. The only reason he hadn’t been euthanized was because the humans wanted to study him. They’d already figured out that he was different, and that was bad news for our kind. Andrew knew this, too, and he was going to be desperate to find a way out of lock up before mercenaries came to get him or the humans cut him open for a look-see. A desperate wolf was a very bad thing. It might make him so reckless that he went into werewolf mode to get free, and that, for sure, would attract way too much human attention, not to mention a bloody massacre.
My guys were working out a way to get to him first.
I want him alive, I typed. And talking.
Because if there was one thing I knew for sure, Andrew was stalking Ruby for a reason, and that reason was, for sure, connected to Sal. My gut said that Charlie was in danger. I knew she could handle things herself, but I was her mate now and I had a duty to make sure her back was protected at all times. Kane might be with her, but he didn’t take her mark, so he didn’t know what the beat of her heart felt like etched into his skin. He didn’t know what it meant to be one with Charlie.
* * * *
The wildlife center was located just east of the city, which took me farther away from Charlie than I wanted to be.
Couldn’t be avoided, though.
Standard protocol for human captured werewolves was to terminate them. Sal would send his men to do that as soon as he found out Andrew had been caught. I needed to secure Andrew before he was killed, because Charlie wanted to grill him and so did I. The giant turd had information that we wanted, I was sure of it.
The sun was setting as my Uber reached the sanctuary, and the scent in the air reeked of werewolves.
My phone dinged. Heads up, Johnny.
My guys were waiting in a dark SUV on the edge of the parking lot. As they piled out to greet me and I waved away my Uber driver, I knew the wafting smell of monsters wasn’t coming from them, so better for the human to get as far away as quickly as possible.
“We’ve got company.” I embraced my guys, ferals turned by me over twenty years ago when I needed to make a mark in our world. It wasn’t taboo or unheard of for lieutenants of a pack to create their own small team, but I’d kept these three a secret from everyone, even Kane and Levi. They were my henchmen, loyal to me and now, by proxy, to Charlie.
“Yeah, we clocked them already,” Devon said with a nod toward the back of the building in front of us. “Don’t think they know we’re here, and if they do, they don’t seem to care. Up until ten minutes ago, we were watching them work out a way to break your guy out of the sanctuary. Figured we’d let them do the hard work and swoop in to take their prize.”
“They putting a plan into action now?” I took another sniff of the air, and something in my gut told me Devon was wrong.
“Yeah, they’ve killed the power to the fence and moved around back. My ears tell me they’re cutting through the fence as we speak.” Devon had an uncanny ability to pick up on the minutest of sounds. While I couldn’t hear anything beyond the rustling of the forest, I trusted he was right, and they were minutes away from getting our prize.
My hackles were up, all the same. The forest didn’t sound totally right either, though. There was something vibing our way that made my jaw tight. It wasn’t the wolves breaking into the perimeter fence we needed to worry about. I scanned the darkened area of the trees. Nothing to see there.
