Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

E vening shadows elongated and transferred to night shadows as Bolt walked up to Justice, who stood next to a dark-colored Toyota Camry parked in a lot on the east side of the Golden Gate Park. "How can I help?"

Justice looked up from the open car door, misery reflected in his eyes. "We need to search this area of the park in wolf form." He'd taken a special interest in Bayden, mentoring the young wolf into a promising pack enforcer. His disappearance had hit Justice extra hard.

Bolt looked inside the car. A large wet stain covered most of both the passenger and driver seats in the front. "You're sure this is Bayden's blood?"

"Not all of it. Some of it is from a regular mortal. He didn't go down without a fight." His British accent always made consonants sound clipped, but tonight, an extra sharpness shaped his words .

The amount of blood worried him, even if two people had bled. Bolt didn't need to tell Justice that the odds of their young pack member's survival were low. Judging from how hard he clenched his jaw, his pack brother already knew that. Instead, he leaned forward and scented the air in the car. Even in human form, Bolt could detect Bay's scent throughout the car. "This is not one of the pack cars," he said.

"We ran the registration plates," Justice answered. "The plates belong to a Ford Escort. Mina's digging deeper into both cars, but I don't know that it will help to know who owns them. The plates and the Camry are obviously stolen." Mina Parker ran a cyber security firm in Denver together with her fiancé, Magnus Flink. Both were friends of Arek, and Heimdall Shield often used them for deeper computer work.

"Should we call in more of the pack for the search?"

Justice ran a hand through his hair. "Mate, I want to call in every fucking wolf I know for this search, but there are evening football games on at the Beach Chalet fields. We can't have a pack of us running around and not be noticed. And there are probably some posh tossers out for a late round of golf on the nearby course." He slammed the car door shut. "You and I are going to have to handle it alone."

"No problem." He and Justice had known each other for a long time. They'd both been in the fighting rings together before Arek had helped bust them out. Other wolves said that when the two of them worked and fought together, it seemed as if they could read each other's minds.

They walked off to the edge of the parking lot into some bushes where the parking lot lights didn't reach. Bolt followed Justice's lead and removed his clothes, hiding them under one of the leafy plants. He mentally reached inside for the link that connected him with his beastly side. The wolf jumped to attention, eager to take over their body. For some in the pack, especially the younger members, the transformation caused pain as their bones broke, elongated, and then knitted together into their animal shapes. But for Bolt, it had always been a seamless process, like he truly belonged in wolf form. The air shimmered around him as his body reshaped into a sleek silver animal, and he knew his eyes now glowed bottle green.

Justice's brown and gray wolf regarded him with lavender eyes. Bolt grinned, and together, they snuck out of the foliage and back toward the Toyota Camry in the parking lot. Hunkering down, they stayed out of sight and out of the light as much as possible as they hunted for Bay's scent. A quiet growl from Justice signaled that the other wolf had a whiff of the younger wolf's trail.

Bolt joined him and breathed in deeply, opening his mouth so the glands inside could sample the air as well—an image of Bay's gray wolf with a darker gray saddle and mask formed in his mind. As long as he kept to the scent trail, that image would be at the forefront of his mind .

Justice's animal took off and ran into the park. Bolt followed, stretching his stride as far as he could to keep up with his pack brother, who ran faster than anyone he knew, both on four and two legs. His animal relished running in what it considered their true form. Bolt had to remind him to focus on the scent of Bayden and not run off chasing the small critter trails they also smelled. But he had to admit that running on four legs again felt good. The world appeared much simpler when he had wolf form. Impressions of objects and creatures were based on scent and sound mostly. Lies had no meaning because words didn't matter. He could tell a person's true intention based on how their emotions made them smell, not what they tried to convey with words.

Bay hadn't traveled through the park on his own. The scent of the regular mortal they'd noticed in the car mixed with their pack member. So far, Bayden had been in his human form, but when they reached a clearing further down the trail, his scent became muskier and more like his wolf's. Their younger pack member had shifted into his animal form.

Justice whined as he circled the area. Bolt sidled up to him and found out what had the wolf worried. More fresh blood coated the grass. Some of it belonged to the mortal, but a few specks were Bayden's. There'd been another fight between the two in this area.

He moved in wider and wider circles until he picked up a trail of Bay's scent leading away from the clearing. This one had no signs of the mortal. Bolt yipped to get Justice's attention and his pack brother joined him as they rushed down this new smell path.

The grass and bushes gave way to a sidewalk, and they emerged onto Fulton Street. Bayden's scent disappeared, and instead, gasoline and burnt rubber assaulted Bolt's nose.

Justice growled and then lifted his head and howled in frustration. Bolt nudged him hard with his head. They didn't want people to report two large dogs, or worse, wolves, running around in the urban park. Justice snapped his teeth at him but then shook his head and whole body. When it looked like he had calmed down, Bolt nudged him again and pushed him in the direction they'd come from. Justice sighed, but started running back, and Bolt chased after him.

They returned to the group of bushes where they'd left their clothes. Bolt commanded his wolf to stand down, and the animal reluctantly seceded control of their body. The air shimmered again, and Bolt's fur retracted, his bones reshaped, and he straightened up into human form. He stumbled, but then he found his new center of gravity.

"I always hate the first moments of being back on two legs," Justice said in a gruff voice as he pulled on his clothes. "If I could carry on a conversation as a wolf, I'd probably stay as an animal permanently."

Bolt got himself dressed and nodded. "Sure, but you'd also lose a little of your humanity as each day goes by, and eventually, there would be no need for words." He could hear the hoarseness in his own voice. A little of the wolf stayed with him for a few minutes after he'd shifted.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing," Justice growled.

Bolt ignored his remark and instead addressed what they both didn't want to face. "Bayden got picked up by a car." The abrupt ending of the scent trail and the smell of gasoline were the big clues. The burnt rubber indicated that the car had stopped very hard and very fast.

"Yes," Justice bit off.

"We don't know for sure that the people he fought are the same people who picked him up."

"Who the fuck is stupid enough to stop their car to pick up an injured wolf?" Justice had a point, but Bolt refused to think the worst and wasn't that a weird turn of events? People definitely didn't think of him as someone who chose the positive way of looking at things—more the opposite.

"Maybe he ran in front of the car, and the person thought him an injured dog."

Justice looked at him for a moment, his eyes still showing glints of lavender in their human color of silver gray. "Or maybe the car hit him and threw the body in the trunk to dispose of later."

"Why would they worry about disposing of a dead dog or wolf? It's more likely they'd leave it in the street and get the hell out of there."

"Maybe he shifted before they hit him. But more likely, the people who he'd fought with got him."

Bolt sighed. "We could play this ‘what if?' game all night, but it doesn't help Bayden one bit. Let's get Mia to pull traffic camera footage so we can see what really happened."

"Fine," Justice growled and pulled his phone from a pants pocket. He pushed a button and lifted it to his ear.

Bolt hoped they'd find Bayden soon. Being on edge, both in wolf and human form, meant Justice could blow any minute. They were both Arek's lieutenants, second in command of the pack, and Justice had always been known as the patient and event-tempered one of the two. This reversal of roles did not sit well with Bolt. He'd have to speak to Arek about the situation, which would make him feel like a snitch, but the pack's safety always came first.

No matter how much it sucked.

He needs a mate , Bolt's wolf growled. Like us.

Shut the fuck up , Bolt ordered the animal. Nobody here has or needs mates.

The wolf chuffed, lolling his tongue outside the snout.