Seeking Sanctuary

Tania was a mess.

I shuddered with rage as I helped clean her in the shower. Bruises, scars, needle tracks, she had it all. She’d been whipped before, and I couldn’t feel or smell her wolf and I couldn’t link her.

It was no wonder I had felt the bond break, they killed her wolf.

I finished washing her, then quickly finished my shower before toweling us both dry. I pulled the shirt and shorts over her thin body, she was eighteen years old and at least twenty pounds underweight. She could barely stay awake as I finished with her, so I tucked her into bed. She was deep asleep by the time I had her covered up. I had just put on underwear and a shirt from my backpack when there was a knock on the door. “POLICE,” the voice said.

“Just a minute,” I said, trying to sound sleepy. I put the shorts I had grabbed back in the backpack and set it on the floor by the bed. I padded over the filthy carpet to the door and opened it as far as the chain would allow. A uniformed officer was standing there, and I could hear others knocking on doors farther down. “What do you want, officer?”

“May I come in?”

“Why?”

“There was a shooting upstairs, and we’re canvassing guests to see if you can help us find the killer.”

There was no point in saying no, so I moved the door closed and moved back the chain. “Just keep it down, my sister is still asleep, she got a little drunk last night.” I tugged the shirt down to cover my ass as I moved aside.

He nodded, leaving the door open slightly. “Were you here between the hours of two-thirty and three this morning?”

“We got back here about one thirty. My sister didn’t feel good, she threw up twice and by the time I got her cleaned up and in bed it was maybe two? I don’t know. I took a long shower and went to bed.”

“Did you hear anything? Gunshots? Yelling?”

I shook my head no. “People are yelling all the time in this place, I just turn up my music a little more.”

He looked past me to where my sister’s hair spilled over the pillow. “She was asleep by two?”

“Yeah. She wouldn’t wake up if a bomb went off in the room.”

He nodded and handed me a card. “This hotel is an active crime scene, it’s being shut down. If you see the Community Service Officer downstairs in the lobby, she’ll give you a voucher for another hotel. You need to leave now, Ma’am.”

“We’re being kicked out?”

“Yes Ma’am. I’m sorry about the inconvenience but there were multiple murders in the building that are being investigated. If you remember anything that can help us out, give us a call.”

“I will. Thank you.” I closed the door behind him and let out a deep breath. We had to get out of here, and with the hotel closing, it was the right time to go. I needed help and my nomadic existence wouldn’t work for me now that I had my sister back. I needed a place to stay, somewhere I could get her the help she needed.

I went to my backpack and grabbed a phone, dialing the one person I knew I could count on. “Jerrod, it’s Talia. I found my sister, and I need your help.”

“That’s bloody good news,” the low and cultured voice said. “I’m sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement again. What do you need?”

“She’s been abused, badly, and may be addicted to drugs they gave her. She’s going to need support for detox, counseling, everything.”

“How bad is she?”

“Barely functioning. I found her in a cheap motel being pimped out by a scumbag, Luna only knows how long they’ve been doing this to her. Her wolf is gone, Jerrod, they must have killed it.”

“Bloody hell. Where are you?”

“Fort Worth, but I’ll be moving soon. Cops are crawling everywhere, and I can’t withstand any scrutiny.”

“You can come to the Coven. I’ll take care of everything, Talia, and I’ll make sure she’s cared for.”

It was like a weight off my shoulders. Jarrod was a man of his word, over a thousand years old and raised in a time when your word was bond. If he said he would care for her, she would be. “I know you will, Jarrod. I owe you for this, and I always make things right.”

“You’re one of the few wolves who does, that’s why I like working with you. Those Pack mutts have no honor in their dealings with my kind. You, on the other hand, have always delivered what you bargained.” Vampires and werewolves have had a shaky peace over the past century, and both sides would push the envelope of acceptable behavior. Peace didn’t mean the absence of conflict, it was just driven underground and not talked about. Three times she had killed werewolves to settle accounts for Jarrod without the Vampire Master having his fingerprints on it, and three times the Vampires had saved her.

I was intimately aware of the failings of the Alphas and the Werewolf Council. They had forced me to become a Lone Wolf, always at the edges of society, always one stupid move away from a painful death at their hands. Working with the Coven had sealed my fate, that was unforgivable in their eyes. The last I had heard, the bounty for the Alpha Killer was over two million dollars dead, four million alive. Werewolves would pay a lot extra for the show of torturing me to death. “Whatever she needs, she gets. I’ve got money now.”

He laughed. “Child, your money is the last of the things I would need from you. Sunrise is in an hour, and I have a few things to prepare before then. Are you planning to stay as well?”

“For a while at least. I need to know what happened to her and who is responsible, then I’ll need to leave for a while.” The thought of their blood in my teeth made my wolf come forward, she was unforgiving when it came to her family. “I’m on my motorcycle. We will be there sometime in the afternoon. I don’t know how well Tania will travel, and I need to maintain a wide berth from the Packs in the area.”

“Take all the time you need to avoid them, you’re useless to me dead. My familiars will be expecting you, and your room will be ready.”

“Thank you, Jarrod.”

“Good night, Talia. I’ll see you at sunset.”

He hung up and I put the phone by the bed while I packed, which took all of two minutes. I traveled light, and the clothes that weren’t soaked in blood we were wearing. I pulled on my spare jeans and a fleece pullover, then socks and boots. Waking a reluctant Tania, I put her in socks, cargo shorts and pulled a second T-shirt over her sleep one before giving her the jacket. I was a werewolf, I’d be warmer than she would, and I had jeans on. We’d stop as soon as we could to get something better.

“Where are we going,” Tania asked, still a little groggy.

“To stay with some people that I know in New Orleans,” I said.

“Where are we now?”

“Fort Worth.” She didn’t register any reaction to it, but it was clear she had no understanding of where she was. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said as she stood up. “They would transport us in cargo vans, we were never told where we were. You’d be collected from one hotel room and sleep on the way to the next one.”

I put her in my running shoes and looked her over, it would have to do for now. “We’re going to leave on my motorcycle.” Her eyes got big. “I don’t want you to look at anyone or say anything, just stay at my side and follow my lead, all right?”

“Yes,” she said weakly. I grabbed the backpack, which had the bag of bloody clothes in it, and we walked out of the room into the hallway. We turned for the stairwell, walking away from the officer who was talking to someone near the elevator. We went down the stairs, keeping our heads down, and instead of heading to the lobby we exited the side door. My motorcycle was parked in the back of the lot, and I quickly put the backpack into it. “Climb on behind me, put your arms around me and your feet on the pegs,” I said. She climbed on, her thin arms wrapping around my waist and her head resting on my shoulder.

“Am I really free, Talia?”

“Yes, sis. You’re free and every one of those bastards who did this to you will pay with their lives.” I fired up the Harley and pulled out of the lot; it was four-thirty in the morning, and we still had an hour or so of darkness left. I headed for the freeway, knowing there was a 24-hour Wal-Mart at the exit.

By the time the sun rose, we had gotten clothes appropriate for the road, and we were sitting in a booth at a pancake place. I ate my normal amount, which was a lot, while Tania struggled to finish two pancakes and a piece of bacon. “Tania, I hate to ask you, but I need to know.” She nodded, afraid to look at me. “What happened the day you ran off?”

“I didn’t run,” she said. “I was given away by Beta Todd. He injected me with wolfsbane and a sedative, I blacked out, and when I woke up, I was locked in a room.”

Beta Todd, my father’s trusted Beta male, the one who I looked to like a second father. The one who took over the Pack when my parents died.

The one I’d take pleasure in killing, slowly and painfully.

I rolled over in bed, my hand searching for the cellphone that had ruined my night. Picking it up, I caught the time on the charging station and radio; three thirty-two. It was the duty officer at the FBI Dallas field office. “Meechum,” I said groggily.

“Wake up, Randall, time to work.”

“What’s going on.”

“Fort Worth police are investigating a quadruple-homicide at the Kirk Street Budget Inn,” he said. “Two of the dead are subjects of your investigation into human trafficking, and they’ve got a dozen women, some as young as thirteen, who were being pimped out by them.”

“Fuck. Give me the address.”

“I’ll text it to you. Martinez wants a full-court press on this, she wants the ring taken down before they can disappear again.” Rosalie Martinez was the Senior-Agent-In-Charge of the human trafficking group at the Dallas field office, and his direct supervisor. “Get out there as soon as you can.”

“I’m moving.” I got up and turned on the light, illuminating the bare shoulders and neck of the woman I’d picked up at the bar last night. Like most humans, she was fun, but I couldn’t let my wolf loose with her. Not that my wolf was interested, he was waiting for his mate and never came out when I was banging my one-night-stands. I reached over and shook her shoulder. “Wake up, I’ve got to get to work and you need to leave,” I said. “FBI stuff.”

“I just want to SLEEP,” she whined as I pulled the covers off her.

I smacked her ass lightly. “Get dressed,” I said. “Leave your number on the pad by door if you want to hook up again.” She groaned and rolled out of bed, grabbing her panties and her dress as she went to the bathroom in my apartment on the 22nd floor of the Dallas condominium complex. I had showered with her last night, mainly to get the heavy perfume she used off before we slept together.

I walked to my dresser, pulled out some clothes and was putting my rubber-soled dress shoes on by the time she came out. “I had fun last night, and I’m sorry about this,” I said as I tucked my .40-caliber Glock 22 into my holster, and strapped my backup, a .40-caliber Glock 27 into an ankle holster. I made sure my black dress pants hung properly, then grabbed my suit jacket.

“It’s all right, I should have known sleeping with a Federal Agent wouldn’t end up well,” she said as she picked up her purse. “You’re a great fuck, though, so I’m leaving my number.”

“Do you need cab money?”

“No, I’ll call an Uber. Thanks for the fun, Randall.” I kissed her, running my hand down her back before patting her ass and sending her on the way. I used the bathroom, grabbed a Mountain Dew and a bag of chocolate mini-donuts, and was out the door. A few minutes later I was driving my Jeep Cherokee out of the underground parking garage and through the city streets.

The text message had the address and the phone led the way while I ate my Breakfast of Champions. My Mom would hold her hand over her heart and beg me to settle down with a nice she-wolf if she knew how I was taking care of myself, but my werewolf metabolism could handle it. Being a city wolf wasn’t anything like how I grew up.

My parents were Alphas of the prosperous Sulphur River Pack, north of Dallas near the Oklahoma border. Our Pack ran a cattle ranch on almost ten thousand acres of land, plus we owned mineral rights to the oil below. I was the eighth of ten children and the fifth son, so I was well down the list of Alpha heirs. When I showed an interest in law enforcement after finishing law school, my father encouraged me to apply to the FBI. I’d been an agent for six years now, starting out in Minneapolis before transferring to the Dallas office and the Human Trafficking Division.

I picked Human Trafficking for two reasons; the practice disgusted me, and it gave me insight and access into how identities could be created or transferred. The FBI had a whole division dedicated to witness protection relocations, and if you just needed an identity it was even easier. Packs needed this because werewolves lived longer than humans and a person who was eighty years old and looked to be thirty raised suspicions. A few of the freelance forgers I’d come across had been “privatized” by our Pack, working with and training our Pack members in their techniques. We now supplied identity services to werewolves across the country. It was a valuable and profitable line of work for us.

I exited the freeway, soon rolling up to a piece of shit hotel in a bad part of town. It didn’t shock me a prostitution operation was using a whole floor of this dump. I showed my badge to the cop at the entrance and pulled into the lot.

As soon as I got out of the car, I scented her. My wolf rushed forward, looking for his mate, and I followed the scent trail inside.