58. Cole

Gunshot wounds sucked ass. Eva's screams when I fell haunted me. Being so utterly powerless in that moment, unable to protect my mate, felt like a failure on my part. Me, a powerful wolf shifter, taken down by a gun.

The rational side of my brain told me it wasn't my fault, but the wolf in me said it absolutely was my fault.

My wolf had been silent since we came to. He was waiting for us to go after our mate. When we found that piece of shit who'd hurt Eva, he planned to eat him. The images he sent me made me want to vomit, but I appreciated the sentiment.

My gunshot wound had almost knitted back together, but I was still weak. I grunted as I stood, needing to do something. The fear of what Eva was going through threatened to break me. She'd only been gone a few hours and already I missed her so badly my heart hurt.

I'd got used to hearing her random thoughts in my head since we mated. While we could shield our thoughts when we needed to, she rarely remembered to do it. I loved how she lusted after us when we stripped off to play-fight, how annoyed she got when Silas teased her, and how she worried about Tanner when he fell into one of his moods. I also loved how she trusted us, despite her shitty past.

The last few weeks had been the happiest of my life. And now my sweet angel was gone. Taken from us by a person unknown. Our only lead was her psychotic guardian, but Tanner had found nothing on him, other than some unsubstantiated claims of misconduct that had mysteriously been airbrushed away.

The whole thing stunk of corruption. Why would a young orphaned girl be placed with a cop after her only living relative died? CPS should have intervened and put Eva in a group home or with a foster family. Yet that hadn't happened. Instead, Brent Michaels stepped in and nobody said a word. It made no sense.

The fact Eva had escaped her abuser was down to her courage and tenacity. She was far stronger than she knew, which gave me hope she'd be OK. I had to believe that. There was no other option.

Tanner appeared, brushing snow off his shoulders. I dragged my still-healing body up from the sofa, ready to do whatever it took to find our mate.

"Did Rufus have any information?"

"Another female has gone missing. This time from the Misty Falls pack. The alpha there is spitting blood; Jessa is his daughter."

"How are these girls being targeted?" Wolves didn't really mix with humans.

"The female was like Lily. Rebellious and given to hanging out with the low life element from the nearby town."

"This seems like too much of a coincidence."

"I agree," Tanner replied. "I spoke to the kid Lily had been seeing." From the grim look on Tanner's face, I had a feeling he'd not gone easy on the little fucker. "He told me his uncle had a cop friend, and they were looking for shifters. He said he'd revealed what Lily was, hoping to impress him."

"And Brent is a cop…"

"Exactly."

"We're not seeing the bigger picture here. There's something more going on and Eva's guardian is involved. I can feel it." Silas picked up a mug and sipped the contents, then pulled a face. I guessed it was cold coffee. He had a habit of leaving his drinks lying around until they went cold and the milk curdled.

"We need to talk to this kid's uncle," I said. "Do we have a name?"

"Yeah. Rufus said he's called Devon King. Runs a biker bar out on Snake Creek road. It's popular with all the local hoodlums."

"Then let's pay him a visit."

Tanner's expression was positively feral.

There would be bloodshed this evening.

The Outlook was a real shit-hole, a shack set back from the road, where disreputable types could come and get drunk, score drugs, and worse. Tanner had been here before, so we knew the general layout. There was a battered old truck in the parking lot with a vanity plate saying "King", so the man himself was around.

I sincerely hoped he was because I needed an outlet for all the aggression that had been building since Eva went missing and some fucker shot me. I wasn't feeling 100%, but shifting had helped boost the healing process.

The three of us stood in a deep shadow around the back. We'd come down the mountain as wolves because it was faster and more direct. Since none of us felt like kicking ass in the nude, we'd pulled some clothes on. No shoes, but that was OK.

We weren't planning on sticking around for long.

The plan was simple. Tanner would head in first and locate King.

Silas and I could cover the exits to make sure King didn't do a runner.

The bar was dead with very few vehicles and motorcycles in the parking lot, and from the voices inside, I judged there were less than 10 guys and one woman. Nothing we couldn't handle.

As long as the cops didn't show, it should be a simple QA session where King told us what we wanted to know and we got the fuck out of there.

Naturally, things did not go according to plan.

Tanner was a scary fucker. The only person who saw the softer side of him was Eva. Everyone else got Psycho Tanner, and when he was angry, he had no limits.

He'd said very little, but I knew the fact he and Eva hadn't spoken since he stormed off at the Full Moon Party was weighing heavily on his mind. No doubt he felt guilty, which was stupid. It had been a simple misunderstanding.

Yes, he over-reacted, but Eva wasn't the type of female to hold a grudge.

Unfortunately for every asshole in this bar, Tanner wasn't in the mood for a slumber party.

Within two minutes of him walking in, we heard gunshots. Silas and I leaped into action; he ran in through the back door and I took the front.

All hell had broken loose inside the bar.

Several men were fighting with Tanner - and also each other. I looked at Silas and he raised one eyebrow. What the fuck had Tanner said to provoke this much of a reaction? We were here to talk to King, not start World War 3!

I scanned the carnage. None of us knew what King looked like, exactly, other than he had a scorpion tattoo across his neck. There was nobody fitting that description, but he had to be somewhere.

A hard-looking brunette bobbed up from the behind the bar with a loaded shotgun. She raised it in our direction and I dived to the left just in time. Buckshot peppered the door behind me. Fuck this. I didn't need any additional bullet holes.

Without thinking it through, I shifted into my wolf and crossed the bar in two strides. The brunette turned ashen and collapsed. I guessed she'd not seen a shifter shift before.

Tanner knocked his sparring partner to the floor and wiped his fist on his pants. Whereas his opponent looked like he'd gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, Tanner didn't have a mark on him.

The sight of my wolf brought the bar fight to a premature halt. All the men stood silently, most of them pissing themselves.

All but one.

King stepped out from behind the bar from where he'd been hiding.

I spotted the scorpion tattoo on his neck and growled.

"Get out, all of you," Silas barked from across the room. The people in the bar didn't need telling twice. Now they knew what we were, they were terrified. There was a mass exodus and a few moments later, the rumble of trucks and cars high-tailing it away.

Only King and the brunette stayed. Since she had passed out on the sticky, glass-strewn floor, I wasn't worried. Her chest rose and fell, so a heart attack hadn't killed her. Not that I cared all that much. The bitch had tried to shoot me.

My wolf took a step closer to King, and his eyes widened.

"What…what do you want?" His fear was nauseating. Times like this, a sensitive wolf's nose was a real hindrance. The stink of stale sweat and rancid fat made my stomach roll uncomfortably, but I pushed past the desire to hack up a hairball and showed King my teeth.

They were more than sharp enough to tear a few strips off his lanky frame.

"What we want are some answers," Tanner said in a deceptively calm voice.