Masked By Danger by Christa Wick

Chapter Two

Lights strobedred and blue against the brick façade of the Wild Pony Gentlemen's Club. A rough-looking mix of men and women, old and young, crowded around the police tape blocking the entrance.

"Here I was worried about Hunters." Mathis strummed his fingers on the steering wheel, a disgruntled rumble coating each word. "How about we throw this one back in the latent pool, boss?"

"You know we can't."

"Actually, I don't kn—" Mathis clamped his mouth shut as Cade pushed his wolf at the man.

"This is the assignment we have today," Cade growled as he stepped from the van. "Each latent we find makes us stronger. The stronger we are, the sooner we'll solve this damn mystery with the cubs."

Cade shot Mathis another hard look, then gestured at the radio.

"Tell the others to hold position at one block and keep the engines running while I—"

The instruction died on his tongue as he caught his first whiff of the female they sought. Even unseen, she defied all expectations—neither a latent nor a cub, but a she-wolf…in heat.

A meaty chuckle vibrated low in his throat, his cock surging a hard line up to poke at his navel. "Heat" was the wrong fucking word. The woman's scent scorched his face until his tongue and balls began to sweat.

Rain or not, how the hell had anyone on his team missed her?

"I gave you an order," he snapped as Mathis opened the driver’s side door. "Get on the damn radio and tell them to hold."

Mathis challenged him with a low snarl.

Cade turned, pushing his wolf until the man folded into an uneasy obedience.

Shit. The situation was far beyond the worst-case scenario he had imagined earlier.

The scent he was picking up told him that the woman was not only in heat, but a female alpha. Believed extinct, female alphas had always been extremely rare. For Cade, this was not the way he wanted to find out otherwise.

An alpha she-wolf didn't need a signature match with an unmated male to fiercely attract his attention. She only needed to be in her breeding cycle without a life mate of her own.

Meaning, instead of one lust-filled wolf threatening the mission, he would have eight.

Cade stepped away from the van. After a dozen more steps, he heard the stealthy rustle of Mathis trying to follow. He issued another growl, the sound far below the range of human hearing and meant to snap like jaws around Mathis's wolf until it turned belly up and whined in submission.

"We can't rescue her like this," he warned in a fierce whisper. "Now get in the damn van and start the engine before I take your head off! And warn the other teams what we're dealing with."

Mathis hesitated, then his gaze flicked nervously toward something beyond Cade's shoulder.

Cade turned to find a cop approaching, the man's hand resting on the butt of his service weapon.

"My fiancée’s in there," Cade called out, quickly setting up the only feasible story that would explain his presence, and still keep him off the cop’s radar. "I've been calling, but she hasn't picked up. Please tell me the girls are okay."

"Yeah. Can't say the same for the bouncer with a knife sticking from his gut." Maneuvering to see over Cade's shoulder, the cop eyeballed Mathis climbing into the van. "Who's your fiancée?"

"Mandy." Saying the first random name that came to mind, Cade grinned like a former frat guy talking to one of his house mates. “She’s blonde, with a really sweet set of—” His hands came up then as if balancing two heavy watermelons.

The cop snorted, buying the charade. “That would describe half the chicks in there. Phones have all been confiscated while we check for video. It'll be at least an hour before the homicide detectives release anybody or give back any devices. You need to park your vehicle if you're gonna wait."

Cade nodded, his mind running in one direction while his senses ran in another.

Hell, the she-wolf's scent was on the cop, along with a dozen human women and as many males. His wolf dug past the distracting odors to find what he was looking for, the woman they’d driven two-hundred miles to find.

It punched him hard, right in the gut, and swelled his testicles to the point of near pain.

Oranges and clovers.

He knew the scent like the palm of his hand.

The alpha she-wolf in heat was his mate.

"Iris…" Her name was a feral rumble passing his lips before he could stop it.

Already on his way back to the club, the cop executed a hard pivot, his attention hooked by the name Cade had uttered. The man's gaze narrowed at the same time his hand returned to his sidearm.

"You know Detective Wilkes?"

Detective?

Wilkes?

Cade blinked for a few seconds, each flick another layer of the complicated situation processed. He had ruffled the man's suspicion by saying the name of another cop. Only, Cade's Iris had been a sixteen-year-old she-wolf when she disappeared from his life a dozen years ago without explanation or even a goodbye.

She had been Iris North back then. If she had secured a fake ID, why not change both names?

Fuck. Had she married?

The last question struck Cade like a chainsaw to the chest, nearly knocking him on his ass. Blinking with a stunned slowness, he forced his canines to retreat once more.

"Yeah, I know Iris," he answered finally, his voice still sounding like coarse gravel, but at least more human than wolf. "Maybe if I talk to her for a second, I can get Mandy pushed to the front of the line. It might help to lighten up the other girls, too. Make them more cooperative once they know Iris isn't the sort to jerk them around."

The cop rested his hand on the butt of his gun as the woman in question exited the building, drawing his gaze like a magnet. Beyond the intoxicating fragrance of her wolf being in heat, he recognized the dark russet waves of thick hair and the creamy rounded flesh he had once caressed and nibbled at while he tried his damnedest to coax her willing surrender to his wolf.

Cade’s wolf howled, very nearly forcing him to shift right then and there. And when her nose discreetly pushed up to scent the crowd, his wolf nearly broke through again. Though he was able to keep him leashed—barely—for once, his wolf’s thoughts were nearly identical to his.

Iris North...his mate...in heat...surrounded by her fellow cops and the unmated wolves of his team...out in the open, exposed to the threat of Hunters...

Chest tightening further, Cade nodded beyond the cop's shoulder doing everything in his power to keep his voice modulated, almost casual. “Hey, there’s Iris right there. How long has her last name been Wilkes?"

Iris froze then, her entire frame as still as a statue as her nose lifted a little higher, her expression widening at the scent she’d just caught.

His scent.

Cade's cock thickened with the realization that she had finally picked out his unique scent from the hundred plus humans around and inside the club. Joints rolled and popped along his body, the urge to transform running just below his skin at the thought of his mate recognizing him.

"I asked how long has she been Wilkes?" he barked at the patrol officer.

Startled over the aggression in Cade’s tone now, the man reached for his gun just as Iris’s searching gaze finally collided with Cade’s. And held.

Coarse hair popped along the back of Cade's neck and along his knuckles as he fought to restrain his wolf. Feeling his nails sharpening to lethal points, he grit his jaw and all but tackled his wolf as he shoved his partially-shifted fists behind his back.

"Show me your hands!" the cop screamed.

Cade ignored the order, every fiber of his being wholly focused on Iris.

Adding kerosene to the growing fire, Mathis started the van.

"Turn the vehicle off!" Hysteria coated the patrol cop's voice. Raising his gun, he pointed it at Cade's chest. "And you show me your hands, asshole!"

Cade grinned, one hand striking forward at superhuman speed to knock the gun from the cop's grip. The man shrieked, drawing the attention of every other patrol cop around him.

More weapons were drawn. Each one pointed at Cade's chest.

She rushed forward at a dead sprint, each step closer magnifying her primal draw on him. Her wolf called to his, the link now a live wire of electricity making the entire fucking world around them fade away.

Her heat was his to claim. Not another wolf's and certainly not the human male protectively trailing close behind her, his soft body draped in the kind of inexpensive business suit standard for police detectives.

Pure adrenaline poured into his veins at the sight of his mate running toward him. Soon, her heat was curling around his cock just as surely as if she were stroking him from base to tip, their connection so savagely charged he thought he would explode.

Then, the maddening woman went and inserted herself between him and her fellow officers, ensuring a bullet meant for him would hit her first.

Fucking hell. Over a decade later and she was still driving him past sanity.