"Oh for the love of...are you listening to yourself? Shun her? Christ, do you have any idea what CJ would do to you if she even had a hint of what you were thinking? You'd better not tell her what we've talked about. She'll run your nuts up the flag pole and set fire to them. Christ." Austin grinned. "I just might tell her to see what you'll do to try and win her back to your side."

Every man in the room held himself. CJ could be a tad vicious and since she'd been pregnant she'd been a little more aggressive. Their mom said it was natural, she was an alpha. Gordon grimaced at his brother, wondering what he'd have to do to keep him from telling her.

"You keep my secret and I'll keep yours." Gordon didn't really know anything, but the threat seemed to work. Before his brother figured out he was bluffing, he'd have to think hard on something worthy of not getting castrated. Gordon was sure he could think of something, but right now he was a little busy trying to keep his new family safe.

Austin backed away from him and sat down. He didn't comment on the threat, but simply nodded toward him. Gordon moved over to the chair again and sat down. He was sure his brother would talk to him later about it.

"Have you talked to Phil?"

Gordon shook his head, knowing his brother was trying to change the subject.

"I want this resolved between the two of you by the next full moon. You f.u.c.ked up and you're going to do whatever it takes to fix this. He's a good friend to our pack and CJ is upset that he won't come around."

Gordon nodded. "I will. I've been...he won't answer my calls. I've left him several messages and-"

"Then go to his house. Fix this, Gordon, or I will fix you. Do you understand me? I want this resolved. Now." Austin stood. "Now, as for you and your mate...I'm sure you expect me to be p.i.s.sy or something, but I'm not. I'm actually thrilled for you both. I can't wait to see her wolf. Has she shifted into one yet?"

"Yes, she's silver. She's sort of afraid of her, though. She's never shifted to wolf before. And she's a little overwhelmed by this all. Well, there is the brother-in-law thing. I've told her that he's hanging around her place. I don't think she is taking this part of him serious. She seems to think she can handle him."

Austin nodded. "Maybe she can. I wouldn't underestimate her. I'll be the first to admit that women, especially mates, are much stronger than we give them credit for." Austin moved to the door. "And if you tell CJ I said that, I'll hunt you down and cut your nuts off myself."

Gordon was still laughing when he got into his truck to drive into town after dinner. Alexis had gone in before him with Dallas. Her shop was brightly lit and he could see her moving around inside. He was nearly out of the vehicle when he saw someone hiding in the alleyway. His cell phone going off startled him.

"Don't go near him. If you do, then I won't get him to return," Alexis said before he could say anything. "Just come inside if you're going to, but don't pay any attention to the boy."

Against his better judgment Gordon got out of his truck and walked past the kid trying to hide against the building. Gordon did take a deep breath and nearly stopped to check the wolf out, but didn't. He went inside when Alexis opened the door and pulled her into his arms.

"Your boy is a girl," he whispered in her ear. "And she's a wolf, did you know that?"

Chapter 14.

Phil listened to the message again. He didn't want to talk to Gordon, but the message from CJ made him think he'd better or else. He had to smile at that. He was a four hundred-year-old vampire and he was afraid of one little wolf who was barely out of her training period. He picked up his phone to call her.

"I have some papers you need to come by and sign off on. And the property on Main Street is now yours if you still want it." He smiled when she didn't answer right away. "Of course if you don't want it any more I'm sure I can find any number of buyers for it."

"You are so full of s.h.i.t it's not funny. And if you try and sell that property I'll hunt you down and rip your fangs out of you." She laughed. "This is not going to get you out of what I asked you to do."

He didn't think it would work, but he had to try. "Are you sure? Because from where I'm sitting, not talking to your brother-in-law is getting me all sorts of work done. If I have to answer his calls or even call him back it's going to put me way behind and frankly, my dear, I could care less how sorry he is."

That wasn't entirely true. He missed the cop. Gordon had been very helpful to him when he'd needed it. He'd given him more information on things Phil knew he shouldn't have known about to help him out in a couple of other things he'd had going on. He looked over at the framed picture of the entire family and of him and Gordon standing next to each other with their arms around each other at CJ's and Austin's wedding. He looked away and nearly missed what CJ was saying.

"What do you mean he needs me more than ever? What the h.e.l.l has he done now?" Phil sat up and punched a few keys on his computer to bring up the local newspaper. "I don't see in the paper where he's murdered anyone."

CJ laughed and he felt marginally better. "No, you dork. I want you to talk to him about Alexis. She told him she's a shifter. Well, she told him she could change into any animal she wanted and he surmised she's a shifter. There is something else, too, but I don't understand it. Something to do with pack law."

Pack law. Those two words excited and terrified him at the same time. He thought about what his mother had told him about Strongs. They were immortals once, but over the centuries things had changed. They sort of bred out the fact that they could live forever. He picked up the leather bound book that his mother had given him.

"I can help him from here. I have a book that he can read. It's very informative and-"

"I swear to Christ, if you make me come over there, I'm going to...I'm going to pee on your very ugly, expensive carpet. Then I might rub your nose in it." She huffed and he laughed...to himself. He wasn't stupid. "Come over, please. I miss you and since you're avoiding him I don't get to see you. And he does need you. He needs you almost as much as I do."

He rubbed the sudden pain over his heart. He loved her. He had loved her from the very beginning, but not romantically, never that. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He knew he was going to regret this, but would do anything for CJ and she knew it.

"All right. I'll come over to your house, but not his. And he'll keep any comments to himself or so help me I'll never come to you again. Understand?" She said she did. "And I want something from him. I want to know where to find Holly. It's high time she and I figure this s.h.i.t out between us or cut our ties."

"I don't know where she is, but if he does I'll make him understand that he has to give you the information. And Phil?" He waited for her to continue, but she only waited.

"Yes, love. What is it?" He closed his eyes again when she laughed that small laugh he'd come to love about her.

"I think you should know that you're my very best friend and I doubt that I'll ever have anyone I love like I do you."

She hung up before he could form an answer. He gently put the phone on his desk and looked around the office. He could have been anywhere in the world, had been, actually, before meeting her. Now, here he was, stuck in the middle of nowhere, in a job he sort of liked, but was very good at, and his mate was who knew where.

He stood up and picked up the book his mother had given him. Time to go and see what he could tell the others about what he'd learned. He only hoped that he didn't have to murder the wolf before he let him know that he was going to live forever. He also hoped that when he told the man...and the girl, that they took the news better than his mother had.

"What do you mean she isn't human? That is no answer, young man. I want you to tell me what makes you believe she's any more than...well, any more than what she appears." His mother had gotten on the phone when Phil had asked his dad what he knew about the legend of shifters.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "She can heal with a touch and..." This was the hard part. "She can heal all supernaturals, including wolves."

He'd been told all his life that wolves, werewolves to be exact, were the hardest if not impossible, animals to heal. If they couldn't shift and heal, or heal on their own, then they were dead. It was the natural way of things. And he'd been there when she'd healed Gordon and knew that the man had taken his last breath and his heart had beat the last time when Alexis touched him.

His mother had been quiet for so long that he was sure she had hung up and was now at his front door, but she'd spoken slowly and very quietly after a bit.

"What makes you think of a shifter, son? I mean, she could simply be a witch and has the power to do so." He knew she didn't want to believe it. h.e.l.l, he'd not wanted to believe it either. "Could you be wrong? Have you...Christ, please tell me you haven't tasted her blood without permission."

"No," he a.s.sured her. "I've not tasted her. I've asked and so far have been told no. But, well, Mom, I'm nearly as positive as I can be about this. She is a shifter as surely as you're my mother."

He'd hoped to make her laugh and, if failing that, to lighten the situation, but she'd either been too upset or simply overwhelmed, he wasn't sure. But what she said next scared him enough that he'd gone to their home and picked up the book she'd told him he could have.

"That poor girl. What is she going to do now? The wolf pack won't accept her now, will they? And that poor man. What will he do not being able to take his mate?"

He nodded. "I know, Mom. But... Well, I don't think she knows what they could do to her. Unless one of them has told her. She's very brave and strong. I just...Mom, I really like this girl. I do need to tell her, tell her everything so that we can deal with this and her one step at a time."

"I have a book. It's been in our family since my mother's mother was born. I'll send it to you and you... Christ, you have her read it and if one of those stupid dogs hurts her, hurts even one hair on her head, you tell them that I will hunt them down and drain them."

With tears in his eyes he hung up after a.s.suring her he would. As he had closed his phone he did something he'd not done for decades. Phil prayed. He had done it several times since his conversation and also since he'd read the book. It was a very terrifying story and he didn't like the things it had to say about his kind.

Alexis Dark Force was an oddity that even he, in all his years walking this earth, had never seen. Phil had never even heard of one, a pure one, existing any more.

Tom watched the wolf pace. He liked it when Paddy came to visit. If he could only let him drink from him then things would be so much better. But Paddy wasn't very trusting. Not that Tom could really blame him. He'd been a bit over the top about a few things, one of them being the ex-wife.

"I want you to sit. Why you think that I relish having the carpet cleaned after you get your fur all over it is beyond me." Tom smiled when Paddy did just what he'd told him to do with a small whimper. "You can shift if you bothered to bring yourself other clothes. I do not want a naked man in my house any more than I want fur all over the place."

The shift was sudden and that startled Tom. He'd seen wolves shift before. It was a long and messy process and he'd been sickened by it. But Paddy had gone from canine to human in less than a handful of seconds. He tried to act as if he wasn't impressed, but he wasn't sure that Paddy had believed him. And that made him sharper than he'd meant to be.

"Oh for the love of Christ, will you please get dressed?" He hadn't realized that in his musings he'd missed the man dress. "Sit over there and try not to break anything. There are things in this room worth more than you make in several lifetimes."

Paddy had looked at him like he was confused, but said nothing as he sat in one of the oldest chairs in the room. Tom didn't collect antiques like most people, for their value or even for the fact that they were from a time gone by. No, he collected them because someone else had wanted them. Or had owned them. He didn't care what he'd had to do to get them so long as the other person didn't have whatever it was.

He'd been doing things like this, buying or stealing, well, mostly stealing, since he'd been told by his mother that he couldn't have the bike next door because Ronnie's parents had purchased the last one like it. It had only taken him one day to figure out that she'd lied, but by then he'd already stolen the bike and sold it to a kid on another block for a tidy amount. When confronted Tom had confessed and had gotten a good beating, but all he'd learned from it was that the next time he stole something for a profit he was not to get caught. He'd not been caught since.

"Alexis said that I can't come on the property any more. She has a restraining order against me and if I break it I'll end up in jail. I'm not going back to jail, not for anything." Paddy looked down after he'd spoken. "I just don't like prison. They don't treat you right in there."

Tom sighed. "Of course they don't, you moron. If they did, it would be called a vacation and you'd be expected to tip them. I think it's sort of expected for them to treat you badly." He handed a file to Paddy as he continued. "These are the specs on the alarm system in the house. The most important one is the gate. You should be able to follow those instructions to the letter, am I correct?"

Tom didn't think that Paddy could follow directions on a paper bag to open it, but didn't say it. Since he'd been working with this idiot on getting Alexis Dark he'd been more surprised than anything that he'd not been caught or killed. Patrick Booth was by and far the stupidest man he'd ever meet.

"I can do it." Paddy looked over the pages, but Tom had already figured out that he didn't have a clue what it was. "Where'd you get this stuff anyway? I thought it was against the law to give this out if you were the one who put it in."

Duh, Tom wanted to shout at him. "I have an inside source. And before you ask, no I'm not going to tell you who it is. Suffice it to say that my contact has been working with me for some time."

And she had too. He wondered why she hadn't been caught either. He would have thought that someone like Alexis Dark would have caught onto her some time ago. He would have. The woman was a fool if she didn't think that someone from that pack, one of the men who guarded their alpha, would figure her out soon enough.

"When you want me to go and get her? And where do you want me to bring her once I get her?" Tom nearly smiled again. Paddy was making it sound like now that he had the codes to get inside the residence the people in the house were going to be so impressed that they'd simply go where he wanted. "I should also have a car or something to drive her around in. The police took my other one when they raided my house. Stupid f.u.c.kers think I murdered somebody."

Tom nodded. He didn't doubt for a moment that Paddy had killed someone, probably a few someones. But he only nodded sardonically at the wolf.

"Sure. And let me make sure that I drive you there too." Paddy started to nod, but stopped when he realized that Tom wasn't being serious. This man was going to get himself dead. And very soon.

"I'll go down there today and try and s.n.a.t.c.h her out tonight. All right?" Tom didn't as much as move his fingers in answer to his question. "I'll get her for you. You don't have to worry."

After Paddy left Tom picked up the phone. As it rang on the other end he thought about having Alexis Dark for one night. The woman was going to be begging him if it was the last thing she did. Even as the phone was being answered he thought it might be the last thing she did. Begging him would make it all the more fulfilling for him.

"Paddy is breaking in today. Kill him." He hung up the phone before his contact in the house could answer. Tom was smiling as he got up and left his office. Things were beginning to look up for him and he thought that by this time Friday he'd be set in all the things he wanted.

He went to his bas.e.m.e.nt. Calling it a bas.e.m.e.nt was an overstatement. He'd had it dug out just after he'd acquired the house. It was his place of rest. It was also his play room and his laboratory. He sat in the chair behind the desk in the office that was far more superior to the one above him. Not only was the desk bigger, but the equipment and computer system here was much more advanced.

He had a monitoring system that watched over every room in the house and every inch of the yard beyond him. The alarm alone had cost him millions and he thought it well worth it. Birds didn't even land on his gra.s.s any more as they were killed instantly when they dared try. The surrounding fence and high barred wired had kept out everything that thought to scale it. The power that hummed along it was enough to fry even the largest of prey and when he turned it up to full amperage the place practically sang with energy. This was why Tom rarely left his compound and had his dinner brought to him. Smiling, he switched a few b.u.t.tons and looked inside the house of Alexis Dark.

The kitchen and the living room were the only two rooms he could see. His partner had been less than helpful when he'd had her install the remotes. But he supposed that she'd done the best she could. Alexis had been on top of every little thing that had gone on inside the renovations to the house. Not that he could blame her. Alexis was a very beautiful and rare woman.

He glanced down at the sheets of paper that had come to him last night. And now he knew just what it was about her that intrigued him so much. Alexis was a shifter. The last of her breed and, even better, full blooded. Now he needed to taste her more than ever. Tom knew without a doubt that her blood would be like a fine wine and a thick steak all at once. He was looking forward to her blood like he did anything expensive he got.

Tom watched the play between the people in the room on the monitor screen. The youngest child, he thought her name was simply Sis, was messy and he'd be glad to have her dead. She ate her human food like it was the best thing she'd ever tasted and, to his horror, she showed the person sitting across from her what was in her mouth every few minutes. Tom shuddered. He hated children of all kinds and thought that their only purpose should be to feed his kind. Flipping the switch, he watched the living room.

The girl Darcy sat in there alone. She sat with her head down and her hands in her lap. He wished he knew what was going on in her mind. The girl frankly creeped him out since the day he'd killed her mother. And as for her being alive, that little bit of information had been a surprise too. He'd thought her dead like the mother. That was another thing he had to thank Alexis for. She'd been responsible for Darcy as well.

The girl continued to sit and he was about ready to change back to the kitchen in hopes of the little one being gone or to see that she'd choked to death on whatever she'd been eating when Darcy looked up. She didn't look around the room, but simply up. It took him several seconds to realize that she was staring at him.

Tom leaned forward in his chair. He scanned the rest of the room to see if anyone had come into it while he'd been focused on her, but could see that both doorways into the room were clear and that it appeared that no one was with her. When she stood up and walked toward the camera, he held his breath.

Darcy walked right toward him and when her face was the only thing he could see in his camera view she puckered her lips and kissed the air. Tom leaped back, swearing that he could feel her lips on his face. When she smiled and turned away Tom let out his pent up breath. When she stopped in the doorway leading to the kitchen she turned toward him once again and flipped him her middle finger.

Tom found himself staring at the spot where she'd stood for a long time. All that kept rolling around in his mind was that she knew. She knew, she knew, she knew. Reaching over with shaking fingers, he turned off the monitor, something he'd not done since having the camera set up. Terror, a thing he'd not felt for many, many centuries, flushed his skin with sweat. Then the anger set in.

She'd been told. That was the only reason she'd known where the camera was set up. The woman he'd had in the house around them all for decades had told her. For whatever reason she'd told mattered little to him now. Now she had to die. Right along with the rest of the humans in the household, his plant had to die.

Chapter 15.

Alexis drove to the pack house with Gordon sitting beside her. She was still trying to figure out what the young female wolf had wanted hanging around her shop.

"What do you know about her?" Gordon startled her out of her musings. "The wolf, how long has she been hanging around your shop?"

She tried to remember. "I guess a little over a month now. I didn't know she was a she though. And if you tell me that you asked her I'll murder you. I don't know what she wants, but she's only been hanging around, not causing me any problems."

"I could smell her. She's also a virgin, but not a young girl. I would say that she's in her mid-thirties or less, but not much. She should have a mate by now, or at least a pack to be in. She doesn't smell like anything but her. No other males have been near her for some time."

Alexis glared at him. "You got all that by smelling her. Just how close were you to her? I mean, that's a great deal of information for someone who only sniffed the air." She sounded jealous and hated that. When she stopped at the light Gordon leaned over and licked her neck. Every nerve ending in her body went on alert.

"You smell delicious, love. If we weren't commanded to be at the pack house to meet with Phil I'd have you pull over and I'd show you how much I love the way you smell." She sat at the light too long thinking about what he was saying and the person behind her beeped. Fl.u.s.tered and a little mad, she nearly killed the engine popping the clutch.

"Stop doing that," she told him when she got moving again. "You know that I don't like you very much and that is so not helping your cause right now. What does Phil want anyway? I thought he was p.i.s.sed at you still."

He moved back to his side of the car and looked out the window. She had made him mad, but she thought she might be safer if he was mad at her and not trying to have s.e.x with her all the time. When he spoke she felt really bad for what she'd done.

"I hurt him. And in hurting him, I hurt CJ. Now my alpha is p.i.s.sed and wants me to fix this. I want to as well. I hate having Phil p.i.s.sed off at me. He's a good friend and what I did and said to him wasn't right." He reached over and took her hand before he continued. "I was afraid and I said some things, some horrible things about his kind, and I have regretted it since. But I think I have a way to fix it. I'm just waiting for-"

The wolf shot in front of them in seconds. If she'd not been looking where she had been going she might have hit it. Jerking the vehicle to a sudden stop had her seatbelt cut into her deep, but the fear of hurting Gordon overrode the pain until she was sure he was all right. He was staring at the wolf as it stood watching them from the middle of the road.

"Did I hit it?" She started to get out to check when he squeezed her hand. "You know that wolf?"

Without taking his eyes from the wolf he answered her, and she looked back when he had. "You do as well. It's your female. She wants something. Are you comfortable enough to get out and go to her?"

Was she? Probably not, but she knew that the girl had been hanging around the shop for over a month now and Alexis wanted to help her if she needed her. She unbuckled the belt and slowly opened the door. When Gordon started to open his door the wolf stood up and her fur stood on end. Gordon stopped, but didn't shut the door.

"He's my...well, f.u.c.k it, he's my mate. And you know how stupid they can be if you don't do what they think is best for you." Alexis got out as she spoke. "Sometimes I wouldn't mind so much if you ripped him up a bit, but I think that whatever it is you want, he can probably help."

The seconds went by slowly. Alexis wasn't sure if the girl/wolf was going to settle down or if she was going to run. When she lay down but didn't take her eyes off of Gordon, Alexis relaxed a little. She heard the door close behind her and a.s.sumed that Gordon got out on his side.

"How do I talk to her? I mean, unless you can understand barking we're going to have a bit of a problem here." Alexis glanced over at Gordon when he chuckled a little. "This is not the time to make fun of me. I'm serious here. She wants to-"