The man had been obsessed enough to follow her. No way would he have risked her getting hurt in the crossfire. “How did you get everyone away?”
“Lorelei.” Zack’s lips twitched. “She’s not the strongest wolf, but she’s the one you want around in a crisis. I never had another alpha to help me run the pack, but everyone trusts Lorelei. She kept them calm enough to grab what they could, and Quinn—the blond wolf—he’d gotten us a couple of junky cars none of the Memphis pack would recognize. We were gone before Scott realized Mae had given him the slip. We didn’t realize he was f**king crazed enough to pay a witch for a tracking spell.”
Fletcher’s car pulled up beside the truck, and Jay nodded to him and Colin. “Remember the plan, Zack. We don’t fight if we don’t have to. Not right now.”
“Yeah.” Zack reached through the open window to let himself out of the truck, his gaze still fixed on the apartment. “Mae said her friend packed up a U-Haul with all the crap she and Kaley hid in their storage unit. I gotta get that stuff back to her. Them.”
Jay followed him. “It goes beyond that. If we start fighting, we can’t stop until the leaders of this little revolution are dead, gone. You wouldn’t think having a power void could be worse than something like this, but it can. I’ve seen it happen.”
Zack stared at him for a tense moment before turning for the broken door. “I’ve only got so much in me, Ancheta. You’ll have to worry about the world.”
“It’s not a suggestion, Green. It’s an order.”
A flinch. “Yes, sir.”
Jay hated like hell to press the issue, to get controlling, but if he didn’t bring Zack to heel… “You asked me to take care of them the best way I know how. This is it.”
“I got it,” Zack snapped, a hint of growl hiding under the words. “I don’t even want to fight. Do you understand? That’s how f**king tired I am. I want to get the girls the shit they need and be gone.”
He smashed through the unrepaired door and slammed it behind him. As Jay stood there, chilled by the words, Fletcher moved to stand at his side. “That is one broken-ass wolf, buddy.”
Gone. “Zack is Eden’s cousin. He can’t be broken, for her sake if nothing else.”
“He’s halfway to dead, and his pack knows it.” Fletcher crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the truck. “I was with him when the pink-haired girl showed up to tell him about the U-Haul. She’s a clever little thing, made it crystal clear to him that the stuff they’d put aside could give them a real start on the farm. Made something clear to me too.”
“What’s that?”
“The only thing keeping that man going is the young alpha’s safety. Mae must have used Kaley’s name a round dozen times. I don’t know if she’s the carrot or the stick, but she sure does get Zack moving.”
“I know.” And it was a valuable piece of information. “But I’m not about to dangle her in front of him unless lives are at stake. An alpha doesn’t manipulate, right?”
“An alpha shouldn’t have to.” Fletcher rubbed a hand over his arm with a sigh. “A submissive shouldn’t have to, either. It hurts, watching them twist themselves in knots to try to steal the protection they’re owed. But I guess Zack’s girls are going to need some time before they’re ready to come to you. Maybe once this is over.”
He sure the hell hoped so. “Colin knows he’s not supposed to start shit in there, but keep an eye on him, huh?”
Fletcher glanced back toward his car, where Colin was in the passenger seat, staring at his phone. “We had a chat. I don’t think he’ll start anything, but if they do…” Fletcher huffed out a breath. “Oh, they’ll f**king well regret it. He’s in a mood.”
Jay walked toward the apartment and gestured for Fletcher to join him. “Did he uncover something else?”
“Yeah. A pair of the enforcers were new to Memphis. Their last alpha ran them out of New York because they were endangering the pack with their sadistic games. Not that the New York alpha objected to the sadism, but they didn’t always bother to finish their kills. Human law enforcement found a few victims.”
“Franz and Jonas,” Zack said, appearing at the doorway, his gaze utterly dead. “They like their women to bleed out under them. Even in Memphis, no one would let them play with wolves—unless it was an alpha bitch who needed to be put in her place or in a shallow grave.”
Jesus Christ. Jay groaned and rubbed his face. “We’ll add them to the list of things to take care of once we have things in order in Clover.”
Zack bared his teeth in a smile. “Only Jonas. Kaley ripped out Franz’s throat.”
“Way to go, Kaley,” Fletcher muttered as he slipped past Zack. Jay saw his shoulders stiffen. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” Zack stepped aside so Jay could enter the apartment.
The place had been utterly destroyed. Drawers lay on the floor, pulled free of their housings and smashed apart, their contents scattered. Paper and silver shards of broken DVDs littered the front room, the refrigerator had been tipped over in the kitchen, and curses and threats covered the walls in multiple garish shades of spray paint.
All that paled next to the smell, the unmistakable odor of stale human urine that drifted up from the carpet. The wolves who had trashed the place had wanted to make their disdain for Zack as clear as possible—they’d not only ransacked his belongings, they’d marked his home as theirs.
Disgusted, Jay surveyed the room again, looking for anything salvageable beyond the wanton destruction. “Bastards.”
Zack leaned against the open door with a sigh. “Better things than people.”
The rumble of an engine outside left Jay clenching his hands into fists. “Is that them?”
A black SUV with tinted windows pulled past the door, and Zack tensed. “That’s them,” he confirmed as Colin’s door slammed outside. “If there’s only one SUV, they didn’t bring the whole crew. Weren’t expecting to need them, I guess.”
“Good. They’ll be less likely to hassle us.” Jay stepped back outside, onto the cracked sidewalk edging the front of the apartment building. This part of Memphis was rough, the kind of place where the neighbors would be watching but wouldn’t intervene.
Colin fell into place on his left. Zack moved silently to stand at his right, and Fletcher pulled the battered door shut behind them but stayed at Jay’s back. “Remember, Colin—”
“I know,” Colin snarled, hooking his thumbs through his belt. “No killing them.”
Jay wasn’t any happier about it than Colin was, but that was his own dirty little secret. His burden to bear as alpha.
The SUV doors opened in unison. Four wolves spilled into the parking lot and arrayed themselves in a crooked line. A tall redhead with dark eyes and a chilling smile took the one step necessary to stand ahead of the rest. “Zachary Green. You’re one stubborn son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
Zack stared at him.
“You don’t talk to him,” Jay said firmly. “You talk to me.”
The redhead shifted his gaze slowly, then took the time to study Jay from his boots to the top of his head with his lips twisted in a sneer of utter derision. “And who the f**k do you think you are?”
Moment of truth. “Jay Ancheta, alpha of the Clover sanctuary. Part of your pack came to me looking for protection, and I’ve given it to them.”
Mutters. One of the wolves bit off a curse. The leader smiled. “Well, I’m Christian Peters, and I’ve lived in Memphis long enough to know that the closest sanctuary is down in Alabama. I think you’re full of shit.”
“That’s what your buddy Scott thought, too, when he came looking for Mae.” Jay shrugged. “He’s dead now. Same thing that’s going to happen to anyone else from Memphis who tries to violate my sanctuary.”
Christian’s smile vanished. “So that’s what happened to Scott.” He seemed to be picking his words more carefully, but the cunning in his eyes was matched by barely restrained fury. “He never had much sense when it came to the girl. I suppose we all have our weaknesses.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
A hulking man butted against Christian’s shoulder, his teeth bared. “This is bullshit.”
Christian held out his arm, blocking the other man. “Watch it, Jonas. The man declared sanctuary. That makes him very dangerous or very, very stupid.”
“I don’t give a flying f**k what he says. I want the other bitch, the one who killed Franz.”
Zack lunged so fast Fletcher’s hand closed on the empty space where he’d been standing. Jay snatched at Zack’s shirt and grabbed his arm, nearly getting yanked off his feet for his trouble.
Too late. Jonas’s eyes narrowed, and a slow smile curled his lips. “Uh-huh. Kaley.” He drawled out her name. “Tasted real sweet. Bad manners, but I could beat that out of her.”
Unchecked power surged. Zack roared his fury and ripped free, leaving half of his shirt in Jay’s grip. Christian smiled and stepped aside, letting Jonas charge past him to meet Zack in the middle of the parking lot in a clash of fists.
“Fuck,” Fletcher snarled. “Want me to try to pull him back?”
“No.” Jay’s own fury burned hot. Fuck it. He could let them fight it out, take on the rest of them. Destroy the bastards the way they’d trashed Zack’s home and the lives of his pack.
His pack. Jay’s now. He remembered Eden’s voice, sweet and low, murmuring about protecting them—together.
She deserved better than this. They all did.
Jay gave in to the instinct under the anger, let the power of an alpha rise to eclipse everything else. He moved, rushing forward to grab Jonas by the back of the head. He yanked the cursing, spitting wolf out of Zack’s clutches, spun and slammed his head down onto the SUV’s shiny hood. “Enough.”