Private Dicks Read online

  "They do." A whisper of his power flows through his words and what may be the tentative beginnings of a pack bond, and I shiver. "I know people don’t like to think that their pack was treating them badly, but Reese—for God’s sake, you’re afraid to smile! I won’t tolerate them being cruel to you when you’re under my protection, so no more contact." He pets my knee and gives me a small smile. "You’ll be happy here."

  I smile and say okay and go through all the motions of formally accepting the invitation, but I’m not really involved with it. Happy. Please let this all be a waste of my time. I would rather take Ryan’s punishment for something that isn’t my fault than find out that this whole pack with its vibrant livelihood is just another lie.

  When I finally get out of my head, it’s dinnertime. Unlike Silverlight, Deepine takes most of their meals together in a massive dining hall that somehow manages to hold everyone despite the fact that this pack keeps growing.

  I cast a glance around my new room. It's larger, a little nicer, and closer to Donovan’s rooms, as per my promotion to second-tier enforcer. Second-tier. I didn’t think I’d get this high. Even in Silverlight I was only fourth-tier, though that was mostly because Ryan didn’t want people knowing too much about me. Fourth-tier is out of the way, hidden. Second-tier is public, a position of honor in any pack.

  I hope no one resents me too much for it.

  I step into the hall, turn around to close my door, and feel several wolves move in behind me. I step away from the door with forced casualness and face the wolves—enforcers, for them to be in this wing.

  "Reese," the male in front says, nodding. His scent reaches out and wraps around me, and I relax a little despite myself.

  "You must be Dorian," I say. Two males detach themselves from the group to drift around to my sides, but I keep my eyes on Dorian. "Pleased to meet you."

  Dorian smirks. "Van wasn’t kidding. You’ve got spirit." He ghosts a little closer. "Wonder how that spirit holds up in a fight."

  I shrug. "I’d say you could ask my prey, but then, they’re all dead, so I guess you can’t."

  Dorian laughs, and there’s the family resemblance. Proof that the alphas of Deepine were made to smile and laugh, not be mean and sneaky. "I see why Van likes you so much, pup." The men behind Dorian, three, not including the two eying up my sides for dinner, relax, and Dorian slings an arm around my shoulders before I can stop him. "Come on, you’ll eat with me. Van assigned me to get you oriented and all that, but Mika'll still be your trainer and handler." He starts dragging me forward, and the men fall into line behind us. It’s hard to match Dorian’s pace, what with him being way taller than me, and leaning most of his weight down on my shoulders, but I refuse to fail these little tests.

  "Why would Donovan assign you to orient me?" I ask as we merge into a larger hallway. There’s already a stream of people trickling toward the dining hall, and I smile and nod at the people I recognize.

  "Why not?"

  "You’re second-in-command," I say and have to wrap an arm around his waist to balance myself when he keeps stopping and starting with the flow of traffic. "Alphas and betas don’t orient new enforcers."

  "Ah, but you’re so much more than just a new enforcer, pup." He ruffles my hair and grins down at me. I clamp down on the urge to punch him. "You’re a second-tier enforcer right out of the trial box, and that’s special."

  "Really?" I glance up at him, but he seems to be telling the truth, and he grins broadly.

  "Yup." He leans down closer so he can whisper in my ear, though who he thinks he’s kidding, I don’t know. "Last six enforcers we inducted to second-tier right off ended up married to the alpha."

  "Six?" I make my voice as irritated and not embarrassed and panicked and outraged as I can. "Six doesn’t sound special."

  "Over eight hundred years."

  Oh.

  "Why are you telling me this?" Under Dorian’s arm like this, his scent is pretty much wrapped all around me, and he smells so much like Donovan it’s uncanny. Maybe they’re fraternal twins? I don’t ever remember hearing the age difference between them.

  "Thought it might be useful information for you to have." His voice is very deliberately casual, and he straightens as we get closer to the hall.

  So that’s the way of it, then. I stare at the entryway to the dining hall and try to ignore the wolf hanging off me. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy. Does Dorian suspect? If anyone would, it would be him. I’ve heard stories of Dorian’s ability to detect lies and infiltrators.

  I’m not doing anything wrong, I’m not. This is necessary.

  *~*~*

  Silence and dark and the smell of mildew are underlying everything, on top of the scent of old wood and burned stone and whiffs of rain drifting through the shattered windows. I eye the glass shining on the ground and grimace. What's the bet I end up on that before this night's over? But I creep around the glass, steps light and soundless, and move further into the recesses of the house. I can barely hear the sound of the others moving down other hallways, and I catch a glint of moonlight off an exposed blade.

  I grit my teeth and keep moving. Stupid pup. But I can't say anything without possibly revealing our location, and that's not acceptable. The chances are too great that the rogue could hear us—if he hasn't already.

  I almost wish he'd jump out and just attack already. Hunts aren't usually like this, with the sneaking and hiding and creeping about. Rogues are usually half-gone with blood lust by the time we get to them, and hiding isn't high on their list of priorities. This rogue is different, though, somehow, and I freeze.

  Different. Differences in the attacks—shit, there's more than one rogue!

  I backtrack as quickly as I can without making any noise, my heart hammering in my throat, and round a corner that leads to the hallway the rookie had gone down just in time to see a shadow split off from a corner and dive at the pup.

  By the grace of some ancient god, the rogue's knife glances off the doorframe instead of hitting the rookie, and it gives us the second we need. I hit the rogue running, ramming him hard in the stomach with my shoulder, and we go down in a tumble of arms, legs, and silver, the sudden din of fighting erupting all around us.

  A half-second of fear shoots through me at how vulnerable I am like this, but then the rookie's on top of us, his foot descending on the rogue's wrist. The snap of bone breaking is loud over the general background ruckus of shouting, grunting, and crunching glass. The rogue yells, and I bring an elbow down into his solar plexus, cutting off the sound before it can fully form. Another hit and a pair of handcuffs, and he's down for the count.

  The rookie crouches next to me, his eyes backlit in the dark, and both of us are tense, but our orders were clear: if we found and took down the rogue, we were supposed to wait for reinforcements to execute him. "Thank you," he whispers, and I nod and give his shoulder a brief squeeze.

  Gunshots roar through the house, and I pull the rookie down, almost onto the rogue's still body. "Stay here," I whisper.

  "But Dorian said—"

  "Dorian didn't account for guns," I hiss and take off, staying low, keeping my footsteps silent. Dorian didn't account for guns cuz this should've been one mostly blood-hungry rogue, not an organized group of what, dissenters? Dammit.

  I make my way through the mansion fast, relying mostly on the blueprint we had all memorized before we came in. It's an old Deepine holding, abandoned and due for demolition later this month, and Dorian was supposed to be just a couple hallways over …

  I round a corner and almost run right into a war zone. I duck behind a couch just in time to avoid getting shot, and then almost get stabbed when I surprise Dorian. His eyes are backlit, pupils dilated so there's only a tiny ring of gold around the pupil, and the smell of blood hits me hard.

  "Where are you hit?" I demand under the gunfire and curses.

  "Where's Matlin?" he asks, but lifts his hand to show the pool of dark blood seeping through his sh
irt around his stomach.

  "Safe. Where's—Desmond!" Dorian's personal bodyguard is a few feet away, bent double behind a turned over table. I shuck off my shirt and start ripping strips off. "Desmond!" I yell again when he doesn't turn. Gunfire almost drowns my words out as I shove Dorian's shirt out of the way, but Desmond turns and throws me the first aid kit after a brief hesitation.

  I snatch it up and Dorian pushes weakly at my hands when I start riffling through it. "You all need to go," he pants, and I smack his hands away.

  "Bullshit. Was the bullet silver?" I dump out a small bottle of antiseptic and rip open a packet of gauze, my hands shaking so hard I can barely get the antiseptic open.

  "No." His eyelids flutter closed and panic makes my heart rate jump up. I dump half the bottle over the wound, and he yelps and tries to shove me away again.

  "Reese!" The crack of a gun going off practically next to my ear has me diving over Dorian, but a thud behind me reveals one of the men attacking us, bleeding from the bullet wound in his chest. I whip around to stare at Desmond—when the fuck did he have time to get a gun? "Hurry!" he yells, and I nod, my whole body thrumming with adrenaline.

  Dorian doesn't fight me when I press gauze to his wound and bind it up with the remains of my shirt. "Put pressure on it," I say and press his hands down over the wound. He's too pale in the moonlight, his normally tanned skin ashen, and I yell something at Desmond, the words garbled, but he gets it.

  The gunfire from our side suddenly picks up, and half a second later, there's four people around me, two already fully shifted. "Reese!" Desmond's still behind his table. "Get Dorian out of here! We'll cover you!"

  "Matlin," Dorian murmurs, his eyes half-shut.

  "I know," I pant and get him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. I crouch, and one of the other men, Lee, nods. The gunfire nearly deafens me, but I run towards the door, the wolves flanking me, and by some miracle, no one gets shot.

  I can't hear a damn thing as we run through the black halls except Dorian's too-slow breathing and my own panting. I run past the hall where Matlin was, empty but for the body of the man we'd caught before, and hope the plan didn't fall completely apart. But no, I didn't see Nathan in that ballroom, or whatever it was.

  A shadow with a gun appears a few feet ahead of us, and I backpedal furiously, almost tripping over debris and glass, and one of the wolves lunges forward, snarling. He gets a mouthful of the man's gun arm and the man goes down, screaming. I run past, the other wolf following, and the smell of blood, combined with my own panic and adrenaline, forces a ripple of power through me. I squash the feeling hard, gasping to hold back the urge to shift, and make myself keep running.

  These men aren't wolves, or they aren't all wolves. Who would be stupid enough to try to take out the beta of one of the most powerful packs around?

  Something hits my side hard, and for a second all I can hear is snarling and the ringing in my ears as the hall darkens and swims oddly. I shake my head and heave before I can push the pain away, wiping ineffectually at the blood running down my cheek, and take a moment to note the hot damp of blood spreading against my side. Dorian's growling, I can feel the vibrations through my chest, and I make myself get up from where I'd crumpled against the wall. The wolf is tearing into the man, snarling, the sound almost feral, and I stumble forward, almost falling on the wolf.

  He whips around to snarl in my face, and I grab his muzzle. "No. Stop." I can barely hear the words, and I'm probably yelling at the poor guy, but I shake his head. "Come on. We need to leave." For one long second, I think he's going to rip into my face, but the fury dims in his amber eyes, and he licks a long strip along my chin.

  It takes more strength than I think I really have to pick Dorian up again. All this jostling around can't be good for his wound, and when I straighten, I think I'm going to throw up. The wolf—Quinn, maybe?—whines and noses at my hand, and I make myself get a grip. This isn't the time to be weak.

  Every step seems to take hours on the way out of the house and into the woods, and I frequently have to grab the wolf to steady myself. At some point, another wolf joins us, and when we've gotten far enough away that the sounds of gunfire and yelling are faint and distant, I stop and set Dorian down and drop to the grass as well, panting.

  The wolf I think is Quinn whines and noses at my chest, and I reach up and twine my fingers through his soft brown fur for a few seconds before turning to Dorian. He's propped up on a rock, his hands over the wound, and he smiles faintly when he sees me looking at him.

  "I'll be fine, pup," he says hoarsely. "Already healing."

  The other wolf—Lee, I think—whines quietly. He slinks over to me to shove his nose against the ache in my side, and then does the same to Dorian. He sneezes and takes off into the underbrush. Quinn growls quietly and shoves his head against my shoulder until I move to lean against the boulder next to Dorian.

  Way to be pathetic, I think sourly. How exactly is this different from collecting or hunting rogues? Just because someone got hurt, and I'm not used to patching someone other than me up. I stare at the ground. Maybe I could—but no, it'd be dumb to waste the energy to heal some of the worst wounds. Nothing time won't fix.

  "You did good," Dorian says softly.

  "I could've done better." I shift around, trying to get comfortable and distract myself from the heat in my face. Quinn, who's sitting next to me, tilts his head from side to side, and I glare at him. He sneezes on me.

  We sit in silence until little rustles and the sound of branches breaking filters through the trees. Quinn's ears prick up, but he doesn't move, so I don't bother to, either. Three wolves trot into the clearing, their tongues lolling, and make straight for us. Quinn stands up to rub noses with the wolf in front, and then they're on us, poking and prodding with their noses and just generally making a nuisance of themselves.

  "Stop," I say to the fourth wolf to nose my injury, and my voice is incredibly whiny even to my own ears. He chuffs out a sound like a laugh and licks my cheek before turning his attention to Dorian. None of the wolves seem overly concerned about him, so I figure he'll be okay. I concentrate very hard on not drawing more attention to my side than I absolutely have to. I'd like to think they won't try to beat me up, but too often, you don't know what a wolf really thinks of you until you're vulnerable and he's not.

  "Come on, Reese," Dorian says. He levers himself up, leaning heavily on the fourth wolf until he's standing. "They're gonna take us home. Are you good to walk?"

  "Yeah." I force myself to stand, my side screaming now that I'm calm enough to feel pain. Quinn lets me lean on him, but as soon as I turn to take a step, I double over and heave, my stomach contracting so hard I half-fear I'm gonna throw up something vital.

  The scent of wolves surrounds me, and I cringe, but all they do is nose at me and whine. Dorian sighs, and I wince, but can only wait until the nausea passes and I can move again. The wolf Quinn rubbed noses with pushes against my side, and I thread my fingers through his dark brown fur and lean on him as we make our slow, slow way through the forest back to the mansion.

  It seems like the walk back to the mansion will never end, and at some point, I just leave my body on autopilot, guided by the wolf under my hand. When we finally, thank you God, get to the mansion, Noelle's in the yard already waiting for us.

  She scowls and curses at us, but her hands are gentle, and I realize just why she's the only doctor Donovan tolerates when she gets a good sniff at me and hollers for a stretcher. I try to push her hands away, but she's having none of it, and she doesn't quit haranguing me until I'm lying on the stretcher and two third-tier enforcers start carting me up the hill.

  "Stupid pup!" she snaps. I let my arm dangle off the stretcher so I can keep my hand on the wolf, and stare up at Noelle. "You tell people when you have silver poisoning! I don't care if it's just a scratch!" she yells shrilly, and I realize I was protesting. "And you're concussed! This will just make you more stupid!"

  She's i
n rare form today. Do wolf doctors only come in one flavor?

  "Stupid pup! What day is it? What time is it and what's your name? Fool!"

  I let my eyes slip closed and yelp when she smacks me. "No sleeping with a concussion!" She yammers on and on over my hazy protests, and by the time we get to the infirmary, all I have the energy to do is lie there while she berates me.

  They move me to a bed, and I lose my grip on the wolf. I try to sit up to look for him—who was it, anyway?—but Noelle shrieks at me, so I lie down again. She kicks everyone else out, and I have to bear the brunt of her anger by myself until Dorian shows up, trailed by several more wolves and Desmond.

  Despite the commotion, Noelle yelling, and the pain, I start to drift off after I figure out that no one's seriously injured. Crazy woman.

  There's a dip on the bed next to my hip, and I force my eyes open. Donovan's sitting next to me, a frown on his face. It's much quieter now, and the lights are dim, though Noelle's still grumbling. I must've fallen asleep for a while. I lift my hands to rub my eyes, but Donovan catches my right hand.

  "You have an IV," he says quietly. His pets the back of my hand, carefully avoiding the IV, and I watch him, a headache buzzing at the back of my head.

  When it seems like he's content to sit there for forever without talking, I shift a little. His eyes flick up to meet mine, but he returns his attention to my hand after a second. "Donovan?"

  "I've gotten some preliminary reports back," he says without looking away from my hand.

  "I'm sorry I disobeyed orders," I say, "but the gunfire—"

  "I would never be angry at you for making the right call," he says immediately, his tone firm. "And even if it wasn't the right call, you did what you thought was best. The best enforcers are the ones who can make that call."

  "Then what's wrong?"

  "I'm very proud of you, pup," he says, and this time he does look at me. "You did such an excellent job."

  "I didn't—"

  "You did." He meets my eyes straight-on until I drop my gaze. He nudges my chin, and I look up. He smiles a little. "You probably saved Dorian's life, you took care of Quinn, and Matlin says he would've been screwed if you hadn't shown up."