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Were some still involved? He was no fool. And he wasn’t stupid enough to believe all the packs had taken the Saint-Pierre wedding as a means to step back from their vicious sport. But he didn’t want to—could not—dredge the Northern pack through that bit of bad press again.
“I didn’t come here to stick my nose into other packs’ business. I just wanted to unload a wife.”
“Oh yeah? Well, this wife is going to start nagging in about ten seconds if you don’t help her. And trust me, I don’t have to open my mouth to nag. I’ll let my spells do the talking.”
She waggled a finger before her, and that night in the Las Vegas motel returned in horrid detail to Ridge. The pain of the infliction had felt like hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity shocking his entire nervous system.
He glanced at the burned outlet and felt the urge to protectively cover his crotch, but he remained staunch.
“No magic, please. Is there anything else you’d rather have from me? I stand firm on not associating the Northern pack with the foul blood sport again.”
She shook her head, lifting a trembling chin. The baddest of the bad was desperate for his help, and she was trying to keep a stiff upper lip about it. Interesting. But he couldn’t resist that soft, quivering lip. Would a kiss be inappropriate right now?
Probably so.
Why was it always the damsels who managed to pierce his steel armor and touch his heart? A pouty lip, a few tears. That’s all it took. He was a pushover, and nothing but.
“Fine, I’ll see what I can do to help, but you swear you’ll sign these papers after we’ve located the vamp?”
“Yes, but let’s hurry. I want to go to the closest pack, and then on to the next until we find the vampire.”
He grabbed her by the arm before she could head out the side door. “Why the urgency? You said you had forty-eight hours.”
Bowing her head, she nodded. “A man, who I suspect is a witch, contacted me about an hour ago.”
“You suspect he’s a witch, but don’t know for sure?”
“He said he was allied with the Light. But he could be anyone, really. I’m not normally frightened by anyone, you must understand. Hell, I’ve stood against the meanest of the mean, the sickest of the sick, the vilest of the vile. And I’m no angel myself.”
He was about to agree, but held his tongue.
“But I could read the seriousness in his threat. He means business, Ridge. I have to find this missing vampire and bring him to a designated meeting spot in forty-eight hours.”
“Or what? What are they holding against you that would make you go against the Council, when I know such an act could be grounds for dismissal?”
Abigail lifted her chin and bravely met Ridge’s eyes. “They have my son.”
Chapter 3
When Abigail wanted to leave immediately, Ridge suggested they take his truck. She didn’t give him any more information about her son. He had no idea the witch had a kid. But it wasn’t as if he’d kept tabs on her over the years.
Only in your dreams.
“I want to drive,” she said, and veered toward the garage, exhibiting the no-nonsense, listen-to-me-or-I’ll-zap-you attitude he knew all too well. “You agreed to help me, so get on board with the plan, Addison.”
“Plan? When did we come up with a plan?” When she dangled her keys and stepped into the garage, curiosity led him to follow. “Is there a plan?”
“The plan is to get moving. Fast.”
The garage was no warmer than the inside of an icebox, he noted before the door rolled up to reveal the gray evening sky and the security light outside blinked on. Ridge nearly tripped over a toy.
He backed away from the horrendous red-and-black thing some joker in an R&D department had decided to call a vehicle. It was one of those foreign jobs that would get eaten alive by a semitruck on an icy freeway. Not designed for Minnesota winters, that was for sure.
“Oh no. I’m not getting into that death trap. I’m sure you have to be a clown to ride in one of these.”
“Ridge.” She fixed him with an exasperated stare, and he almost looked away for fear her eyes might beam another blast of magic that had very likely left the kitchen wall scarred and bruised near the outlet.
Almost. He leaned his elbows onto the miniature atrocity and looked across the car at the most gorgeous set of sky blue eyes he’d seen. He hadn’t recalled them being so … fathomless. As if mysteries and secrets swirled around inside the iris, and somewhere in there a man might trip and spiral endlessly after.
He’d like to trip. Had never once tripped in his dating history.
“Please, we have to hurry,” the witch pleaded with him.
He relented to the compelling pull of the damsel’s distressed gaze. Ridge folded himself into the passenger seat, and after adjusting it as far back as it would go, his shoulders still rubbed the door and his knees the dashboard.
“You’re right.” Abigail turned off the ignition with a frustrated sigh. “This car doesn’t fit you. I’m sorry. Let’s take yours.”
Pleased to be behind the wheel of his Ford 350—and in control—Ridge navigated the pickup truck around the perimeter of the Twin Cities on Interstate 35W. The snowstorm they’d had three days ago had left a sheen of ice along the shoulder, but the main drive was thankfully clear and dry.
Abigail had suggested they begin with the River pack, located closest to the Cities, which occupied land on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River.
“You’re tilting at windmills,” he said as they cruised the freeway amidst a blur of red taillights heading home during evening rush hour.
Through rain, snow, hail or sleet, the Minnesota driver never backed down from the challenge of rush hour. Another reason he was thankful his job wasn’t nine-to-five or in a business complex. Ridge liked to drive, but preferred the rough back roads and anywhere away from traffic.
“After Creed Saint-Pierre and Blu Masterson got married, all the packs and vampire tribes in the area agreed to the pact to cease warring against one another,” he said, feeling it was necessary to state what the witch obviously had overlooked.
“Do you really believe that, Ridge?”
“You tell me if it’s something to believe. Did they all agree to play nice with each other? Doesn’t the Council know?”
“We always know. I’d say seventy-five percent of the opposing forces have stepped back and are now minding their own business. The Council is extremely pleased over that. The wedding was worth the effort, if you ask me. The Kila and Nava tribes have been exemplary, but then the Kila leader, Nikolaus Drake, does sit on the Council, as well. And I’m sure some of the packs are participating—”
“Some of them? You said the Council always knows. And yet, you have no idea which packs are involved in the cease-fire, if any are.”
“That information has yet to be gathered.”
“Uh-huh. Or did the Council throw a big party for the wedding, then leave the newly-weds to flounder in hopes their love would bring peace and happiness to the world?”
“You’re the one who blindly believes all the packs have ceased participating in the blood sport.”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He didn’t know that for sure. And yes, he did want to blindly believe everyone—vampires and werewolves—could get along. But he wasn’t stupid. Hell, he’d grown up knowing vampires were nasty, longtooth bloodsuckers and should be taken down if they looked at him cross-eyed.
Of course, he’d grown up knowing that it was every man for himself, and no one, not even your own breed, could be relied upon to stand with you or to even be civil to you, let alone treat you with kindness.
“I know little about the River pack,” he said, “save where they could possibly hold blood sport. That is if they are involved in the heinous games. Their compound is on the other side of Marine on St. Croix. But I don’t know what you expect to do. We can’t rush them and rescue the vampire if they do have him.”
“Why not?”
He flashed her a glance, but couldn’t find a joking smirk on her face. “I thought you were centuries old.”
“I was born in 1550.”
“So shouldn’t you know more? Like how one lone wolf and a trigger-happy witch could never stand against an entire pack. Especially if they are holding the blood sport. You have to know how the wolves get worked up during a match. The scent of vampire blood excites them and jacks up their adrenaline. They think with their beast brain as opposed to their were minds. They will tear any outsider limb from limb.”
He slowed and Abigail leaned over to check the speedometer. “What are you doing? We’re on the clock!”
“We need to think this through more. A plan is in order. I’m going to take the next exit.”
“No! We don’t have time to think. Forty-eight hours, Ridge. More like forty-six now with this damned traffic. My son is in danger.”
“Did the caller indicate he was in danger?”
“He’s been kidnapped. What part of kidnapped does not entail danger to you?”
“You said they were keeping him in protective custody. Sounds kind of … protective to me.”
“I can’t believe you’re being this stupid.”
Yeah, him, either. The boy was in danger if some unknown had taken him from his mother’s care. But he needed facts, information—more than a wild goose chase—to better understand the situation and come up with a plan. He did not like reacting.
“Tell me about him.” He resumed speed, catching up with traffic, thinking if he could get more information from her, she may begin to trust him more, and then he could talk her out of this insane mission, at least until a workable plan had been solidified. “I didn’t know you had a son.”
“His name is Ryan and he attends boarding school in Switzerland. That’s all you need to know.”
“Fine.”
Boarding school? He’d never understood a mother who could send her child away for months at a time. It was wrong. Children needed parents to thrive. And for protection. But who was he to judge? His opinion had no bearing right now. Abigail was a lioness out to protect her stolen cub. He should not stand in her way.
“Does the Council know you have a kid?”
He caught her gaze and she quickly looked out the window. Well hell, he couldn’t prevent curiosity. She was known to have a wicked reputation. Motherly and protective were the last two words that came to his mind.
“I think Ravin Crosse—one of the witches on the Council—is aware,” she offered, “but no one else knows. It’s no one’s business but my own. If I want to protect my family by keeping it a secret, that’s my right. You know it isn’t easy surviving in a world meant more for mortals than us.”
“Is he a witch?”
“It’s rare that magic is passed on to a son. That’s something I won’t know until he hits puberty.”
“Which is when?”
She huffed and gave him her silence.
“Sorry. I won’t ask about him again. Kids are miracles. You’re lucky to be a mother.”
It changed his mind a bit about Abigail to know she was a mother, and further, to know she so fiercely protected her own. He’d heard the rumors about her, that she was quick to judgment and the first in line to administer punishment at the Council’s beckon. Rumor told she’d had a crazy love thing going with a vampire once, too, but he wasn’t clear on that. What mattered was now she was clearly putting her child’s interests in front of her own.
He’d do the same in her position. If he had a son, and someone threatened him, Ridge would show no mercy and take no prisoners. Forget the plan, he’d react without remorse. Let the bloody kidnappers beware his paternal wrath.
“So I’m surprised you didn’t come to me sooner,” she suddenly said. The cool darkness of the truck was intermittently lit from the glow of red taillights passing by. “It’s been a long time. Figured you’d had a blackout and totally erased all memory of Vegas from your brain.”
“Close.” But he had never forgotten her sweet coconut scent or the softness of her skin. Never.
“So why now? It’s been over a decade. You haven’t found someone you wanted to marry until now?”
“What makes you think there’s someone I want to marry?”
“Why else would you bother with a divorce from a marriage you’d forgotten, and so quickly?”
“Just want to clear away a past indiscretion and smooth the path for when the time does arrive that I want to marry. And I’ve never forgotten this marriage, just … tucked it away into a dark little corner of my mind.”
“Yeah, a dark place,” she said absently. Then, seeming to lift from the mysterious dark place, she asked, “So you don’t have a girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment.”
“You’ll marry a werewolf,” she stated.
He clenched his fingers about the steering wheel. She had the aggravating manner of assuming her opinion was right.
He wasn’t sure who or what breed he’d marry. Just because he was a wolf didn’t mean he had to marry one. Though, a female wolf would be his ultimate match. Only a wolf could understand another wolf. There weren’t a lot of females in the area, due to rampant hunting of werewolves by vampires in the mid-twentieth century, but their numbers were slowly increasing thanks to the packs’ fierce protection of the valued females. Yet still, to find a female wolf and fall in love was like laying claim to a treasure that must be hoarded and prized. Lottery odds, that. He’d dated a werewolf once—unsuccessfully.
Last year when Amandus Masterson had still been the pack principal, he’d offered his daughter Blu’s hand to Ridge in marriage as a means to forgo her marrying the vampire Creed Saint-Pierre. Ridge had been honored for but the moment it had taken him to hate the principal even more. He’d been shocked the father could so easily pawn off his daughter on the first wolf he’d hoped would serve to his advantage. Ridge had refused, and Amandus had then offered Blu to the next wolf to walk near him, an idiot underling.
Fortunately Blu, at the Council’s insistence, had married Creed, and the match had surprisingly turned into the proverbial heaven-made pairing. The werewolf princess and the ancient warrior vampire, Creed Saint-Pierre, had quickly fallen in love, and Ridge could see the glow of love on Blu’s face every time she visited the compound.
He was glad Blu still visited. He regarded her as a friend, and she him. It had been difficult for her, growing up in the pack compound without her mother. Persia Masterson had suffered greatly at her husband’s hand. Blu had always believed her mother had run away when she was young, never to be seen again.
Ridge had done his best to protect Persia, but he’d been young as well, and a wolf could take only so many beatings. Blu knew it had been his talon that had murdered her father, and she did not hold him responsible for committing an act she had later told him was just and necessary.
There were days he blamed himself. It was your fault. At the time, he’d taken out the one man who had meant to bring down the pack by continuing to partake in the blood sport and wage war against the local vampires. But if he’d been more sensible, probably he could have found a less violent way to take care of Amandus Masterson.
Probably not. The old wolf had possessed a mean streak a mile deep. No one knew that better than his deceased wife, Persia. Masterson had treated her worse than a dog, and he’d tormented Ridge all his life. And he’d thought nothing of creating the largest blood sport complex in the state. The old man had been bad to the bone.
“You’re suddenly quiet,” Abigail commented. “Thinking about the werewolf you hope to someday marry?”
If only his thoughts could touch something so light and hopeful.
“I will marry for love, not because she’s my breed.”
“So you would marry a mortal?”
“I didn’t say that.”
A mortal and a werewolf presented a sticky situation. Because the only way to bond with his mate involved him having sex with her under the full moon—in werewolf form—and mortals generally freaked whenever he wolfed out and proudly wore fur, talons and a toothy maw.
“Severo and Belladonna are making it work,” she commented.
“Yes, but she wasn’t mortal for long. She’s vampire now.”
