"I can't give her up without looking in her eyes and understanding who she is," I said. "If she's beyond salvage, I'll do what I have to do. Like I told Dad, I'm not letting the Council torture her, and I'm not turning her over to the human authorities. You should have seen that place, Bobby. It turned my stomach to think of those poor girls being forced to live like that. If that was her sister in there, I don't have a problem with what she did. Hell, I would do the same thing if it was Bonnie who had been taken."
"One big difference I can think of," Bobby said. I looked over at him. "You're nowhere close to the shooter Nisha is. Three for three on head shots?" I snorted. "Don't even try to argue with me, I've seen you shoot."
"The professional in me admires her skills as much as the wolf in me is sad she had to develop them," I said. "She's been through a lot."
"I hope it works out, Ranmo. You need a woman who can keep you on your toes." Unable to find a good song, he turned it off then leaned back in the seat. "Dad sent us some information on the LaCrosse Pack and the Tomah Pack. How about I read it, then we quiz each other?"
"May as well, it's a long, boring drive ahead of us." The more I learned of the LaCrosse Pack and how Nisha's remaining family had behaved, the better I felt. Her grandfather still lived with the Pack, her grandmother having passed away a year after Nisha was banished. Alpha Clark Grissom, the older brother of Nisha's mother, and his mate Teri were respected Alphas. They were even rumored to have taken in Nisha's friend Erica after she was kicked out of the Tomah pack for treason.
The Tomah pack just made me angry. I was convinced Alpha Todd was either responsible or complicit with the disappearance of Niesha Hunt, and I suspected him in the deaths of their parents. Pack politics and the Council had ensured any investigation was cursory, the deaths ruled an accident, the disappearance just a teen running away.
It was time that someone not involved did a real investigation, and I didn't care what the Council or the Packs thought about it. I had an active case where the Alpha Killer was implicated, and I was going to find out what happened to her.
We did tanks, alternating driving and sleeping so we could arrive late that night. I called the Alphas and told them we were close, and they sent a warrior out to meet us and lead us in. It was almost midnight, so by the time we paid our respects to the Alphas, we were taken to our rooms.
The next morning, we joined the Pack for breakfast. It wasn't a huge Pack, maybe sixty people, but they were close like a big family would be. The food was good, and the Alphas introduced us and said we would be visiting for a time as we looked for our mates.
I could tell Bobby was disappointed he didn't sniff his mate out when we entered the room, but that didn't stop the she-wolves from coming up and saying hello. "Maybe my sister and I can show you around the territory," a curvy young woman said after confirming we weren't mates.
"I'm sorry, I have to meet with the Alphas and their leadership, my Alpha has some things he wants me to bring to their attention," I politely declined.
"Renee, Rachel, show them around this morning but have them at my conference room by ten," Alpha Clark said. "I'm sorry, but I can't get my senior leadership together any sooner because of previous engagements."
"Of course, Alphas. We will see you at ten." I asked him last night to meet with specific persons, and he agreed to have them there. Their land was much different than ours, but it was nice. They had land both in the backwaters of the Mississippi and in the forested hills and bluffs south of the small town. "How hard is it to run with all these people around," I asked as we drove over the railroad tracks towards the islands that divided the backwaters below the dam.
"We usually avoid the river bottoms, too many boaters around in the summer. We normally run along the bluffs or in the woods at the base." My Jeep was having fun on the dirt trails, we even got some offroad action in. All too soon it was time to return to the Pack House.
I walked into the room, Bobby behind me. I was shown to the base of the table, with my laptop in hand I asked if I could hook up to their 80" LED screen. "That's a little much for a mate hunt call, isn't it," Luna Teri said. She sat next to her mate at the head of the table. The Beta pair, Brad and Lori, and the Gamma pair, Michael and Sally, sat along the side opposite the television. On the other side, next to the Alpha, was Nisha's grandfather. Bobby sat behind me on one of the chairs along the wall.
"I apologize for not being honest about my reasons for the visit, Luna, but I didn't want to alert anyone that my presence here was anything but a social call." I pulled my identification out of my pocket and handed it to the Gamma. He opened my FBI identification, his eyes got wide, then he passed it down. "I've been in the FBI for four years now. Last week, the human trafficking task force I am assigned to was called in after a multiple murder in a seedy hotel in Fort Worth."
"Nasty business, that human trafficking," Beta Brad said. "You wouldn't think it would be a problem this far from the cities, but they lure young girls in with drugs and attention."
"True, and sometimes it is worse. The killer took out the couple who was running the prostitution ring, and two of the johns. When I arrived, I caught a scent, and it was the killer. She was a werewolf."
"She? Murdering humans?"
I pulled up the file on my laptop and showed some of the crime scene photos. Their eyes got wide when they saw Dirk Carlson leaning against the wall with his throat torn out. "Damn," Gamma Michael said. "Shifted claws or hybrid form. So was this some rogue she-wolf?" It wasn't common to have female rogues, they didn't last long without protection.
"Not just any she-wolf," I said. I flipped to the surveillance photo the Council had sent out. "The Alpha Killer herself. She didn't run either, she had a room on the floor below; one of the officers interviewed her and recognized her photo. She had checked in the morning before and was in her room when the police arrived. That's why no one saw a killer flee."
"You're sure it was her?"
"Yes, Alpha, I smelled her on the victim and followed her scent to the room. If that wasn't enough, she went three for three on head shots in the hallway. She was gone before I arrived, and the authorities don't suspect her."
The Beta female looked at me. "You didn't tell them?"
"No. I can't divulge my werewolf senses, and I don't want to have her arrested because Nisha Hunt is my mate."
The room exploded in noise, and half of them got up from their chairs. It took the Alpha growling to calm things down again. "The Alpha Killer is your mate?"
"Yes, Alpha. When I realized who she was, I asked my Father to obtain the Council files on her. The first tragedy to befall her was the kidnapping of her younger sister," I said.
"The Council and her Alpha said she ran off with someone," her grandfather said.
"As an investigator, I need to know the truth, and that is why I am here. I intend to investigate the kidnapping and the deaths of her parents, because these events led to her banishment and her new career. I need to know if my mate is a heartless criminal or a wronged female driven by vengeance."
There was silence for a moment. "Niesha was our niece, and there hasn't been a body, a sighting or a communication from her since that day," the Luna said. "Her disappearance haunts me to this day."
"Do you have anything of hers with her scent still on it?"
"Yes," the Luna said. "I'll be right back."
As she left, the Alpha turned to me with anger in his eyes. "Six months after my nieces were gone from the Tomah Pack, I got a call from Alpha Todd. He said he needed the space and had his people pack up all the personal effects of Niesha, Nisha and the previous Alphas. If I didn't want them, he was going to give them to Goodwill." His hands were turning white as he gripped the edge of the table. "We sent a truck and had them brought here, they are all in storage in case they return."
"Was there any evidence to suggest she went voluntarily?"
"Never, but there wasn't evidence she was forced either."
The Luna came back into the room, handing me a blouse in a plastic bag. When I opened it, the scent was still clear, and it confirmed my suspicions. I closed it back up and handed it back to my brother as she walked back to her seat. He took one sniff and ran out of the room with it. "One of the things I found curious about the killings was that Nisha went directly to a specific room where she killed a man who was with a woman and brought her out. The woman she rescued was young and blonde and according to interviews with the other girls, had been a sex slave for years." There were gasps and some of the ladies started to cry. "It was her, Niesha Hunt. I recognize the scent."
"Her sister found her?" The Luna was breaking down, her mate pulling her into his lap and comforting her.
"Yes. They're gone now, and I don't know if she'll contact you, but you are still Niesha's family. I have to warn you, she's essentially human now. Whoever took her, killed her wolf too." It was a lot to take in after four years of not knowing anything. It didn't surprise me when the Luna ran for a garbage can and threw up.
"Anything else," the Alpha asked.
"If she comes here, she's going to need professional help. In addition to how she was used, she and the others were hooked on drugs to make them easier to control."
"We will take care of Niesha if she comes to us, or if you find her," Alpha Clark promised. "Nisha too, no matter what the Council says." He looked at the others, who nodded. "We will get them back, we will find those responsible and they will feel our teeth."
All the wolves in the room agreed, their family had been harmed and the wolves wanted blood. "Ranmo, is your brother all right," the Luna asked.
"Bobby, where are you?"
"Running it off, bro. I can't believe it. Luna gave me a mate like yours."
"What do you mean?"
"That smell. Niesha Hunt is my mate."