Page 64 of Secrets and Ruin

I sent out my best werewolf, my own son. He’ll stop at nothing to help Dirk. He’s madly in love with him and knows how to fight a werewolf like Rainer. Jacky isn’t a pushover, anything but. The fae magic is a complication, but I trust that Jacky and Landon can lean on each other.

His worry was because he loved them, not because he thought they would fail. His worry was that they would get hurt, and only one of them might come back in the end.

Heath was better focusing on the worry, but he had to conceal the rage. The pack knew he was angry, but he didn’t want them to know just how angry he really was. The bitter betrayal they were facing was something Heath could have stopped. He knew that. He could have shipped Fenris back to Callahan or denied him joining them in Jacky’s territory.

I’m tired of being betrayed.

Inhaling, he nodded at Shamus’s offer.

“It’s in consideration, and you will know if and when I need you to step up to do that.”

But if anything goes wrong, I’ll kill you, and I don’t want to do that.

He didn’t say that, couldn’t say that. He hated himself for thinking it. Letting them eat in peace, he went into the office, going to Jacky’s computer. As it was waking up, he tried to call everyone’s cell phones. Everyone went straight to voicemail, something that had started the night before. Heath felt the same panic he had the first time Jacky’s phone did it the night before. He hated it. His heart pounded uncomfortably in his chest as Landon’s phone also went directly to voicemail.

I need…

He looked at Jacky’s computer and closed his eyes, trying to fight off the urge to reach out to anyone else. He didn’t want to involve her family. It would go from bad to worse. There was only one person he actually had faith in from his experiences with them, and he finally broke.

Zuri. I can try Zuri. I have to try something.

He unlocked Jacky’s computer and went to the video and conference call program he’d seen her use. He was now online as his fiancée, and the distaste of his actions made him feel ill, but he was getting desperate. He found Zuri’s name and clicked it, starting a call. His hand was shaking when he let go of the mouse and looked at the screen on Jacky’s wall with a camera on the top.

“Heath! I’m surprised to see you calling.” Zuri was sitting as she greeted him, her husband and mate in the background, bouncing their son as he walked out of view. Her smile faded quickly. “Something must be wrong. Where’s Jacky?”

“Jacky is in Germany with my son,” he said to explain why it was him and not her sister.

Zuri’s eyes went wide.

“Did something happen between Niko and Dirk?”

“Something is probably happening to them,” he said, swallowing his fear. “I should start from the beginning. Please understand that I don’t think anyone has all the information right now.”

“Explain,” Zuri ordered.

Heath was grateful it was the order of a concerned family member and not another werewolf. There was no power in it, which kept him from losing his cool.

“A group of our werewolves was in Dallas this past weekend for one of them to get some of his own work done. He requires a protection detail, and he always took Fenris—”

“The scarred one.” Zuri nodded.

“Yes.” Heath continued what he knew of their weekend, finishing when Jacky and Landon discovered the three under a magically induced sleep and Fenris gone. “ It was fae magic. We didn’t know what fae would have wanted to do this or what their goal was. Mygi sent healers to tend our unconscious, and we tried to start untangling what happened.”

“Somehow, this is connected to Niko and Dirk in Germany,” Zuri said, her lips pressed into a fine line as she stared him down. “Or Jacky and Landon wouldn’t have gone there.”

Heath nodded, knowing he had to explain the rest.

“We didn’t know if he was taken hostage. How could anyone know what I’m about say.” Heath’s regrets couldn’t be hidden as he told Zuri about the secret office in Fenris’s home and the contract Jacky had found in his desk, watching Zuri go from concerned and angry to downright furious. She was right to be angry with him. He hated this entire situation. He hated how he’d missed it, never saw that Fenris wasn’t who and what he said he was. He was supposed to only have werewolves in this territory who his fiancée would be safe with, and he’d failed her. He’d failed his family. He’d failed the other members of the pack.

He hated himself the most at that moment. Zuri’s fury was only a confirmation that he deserved that hate.

“I see.” She nodded. “And what did this fae contract for power tell you?”

“It was for one named Rainer Brandt, but it smelled like Fenris. He sold his soul to the Wild Hunt in exchange for power. We believed he’s hunting Niko. It’s the only rational explanation, which is where we get into Dirk and Niko. Once we knew something was happening, Jacky reached out to Niko and Dirk. Neither answered. Ansel, Niko’s butler I believe, said Dirk had never returned from a weekend trip to Berlin to visit friends. Niko ran into the woods for something. Neither had been heard from.”

“So, the game had already begun,” Zuri said, nodding as she absorbed everything he said. “Jacky and Landon then went to Germany, leaving you to protect the others. You haven’t heard from anyone since.”

“That’s right. I’m sorry—”

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