Page 19 of Cats and Dogs

The enforcer laughed and shrugged. "You come on my turf, I take it as an invitation to come on yours. Chill, though. We don't hurt kids. Not our MO. I was explaining to your little friend here that I came in peace. Just to talk."

He hadn't. Each of his words held an underlying threat. This was a show of force, indicating the enforcer's intention. He knew Hunter had masked his presence and he was making it clear that he could somehow still track him and find him. How, Hunter had no fucking clue. Felines weren't the worst trackers out there, but they had nothing on wolves, and wolves had a hard time tracking Hunter. But that meant the damn cat could sneak in while he slept and slit his throat.

They had to go. Today. He knew he could take this guy without a problem, but if all the Wyvern rained down on him, he was fucked.

"Talk," Hunter repeated, tense as fuck. "Alright. Mike, go pack your stuff, while your friend and I...talk."

The cat let the boy go. That was something.

"What are you doing here, Force?"

"Just passing through."

"What were you doing behind our pride house?"

His mouth remained closed.

"You know, when the guys were trying to work out who was after us a few years back, I considered your pack. You had the right resources to be a major pain in the ass. I dismissed it, though. Didn't even bring it up to my Alpha. I couldn't see a motive, for one. But there was something else. I dismissed it because I figured that if we were hunted by you, we would have already lost."

Hunter listened with eyes narrowed, trying to see the enforcer's game.

"You remember Drew Hartley?"

The name brought him back to another time. A happier time. Drew had been at Dartmouth with him.

"What if I do?"

"He's a good friend. There aren't that many shifters into hacking; we keep in touch. I remember, a while back he told me of a scary as fuck tracker who could ghost. He told me how that guy ran all night and most of a day, when a girl had disappeared from campus. Tracked the kidnappers three states away and busted her out of a fox den. She was home in less than twenty-four hours. So I figured, if a guy can do that to a fox, the sneakiest motherfuckers out there, there's no way he's after us. We're slow, with the kids. Easy to find." Ian tilted his head. "So when it turned out your pack was behind it all, it got me thinking about a few things. Like the fact that, if Lola's a hybrid she must have a wolf family somewhere."

Hunter didn't know what to say. Honestly, after hiding everything real about him for three years, hearing the truth felt foreign, weird as fuck.

"Are you her dad?"

He shook his head, and the feline waited. Sighing, he replied, "Uncle."

Uncle. What a strange notion.

Ian's brows went up. "So, she's your Alpha's granddaughter and he still wants to kill her."

Hunter chuckled humorlessly. "He wouldn't want to kill her nearly as much if she wasn't his granddaughter."

Ian stared. "Dude, your father's messed up."

"And that's news?"

The feline laughed. "Not to you, I'm sure. I'm gonna have to report that to my Alpha. He's on his way back from Europe as we speak. Can you tell me more?"

"You want info about my father's pack?"

Hunter stiffened; he might hate the way it was run, but it didn't change the fact that there were kids like Anna and Mike, and some good people. He wasn't going to betray them to enemies.

Ian shrugged. "Nah, we pretty much know everything there's to know about you guys. However private you try to be, if you have cell phones, bank accounts, Internet, I can hack into it and check shit."

Right. And no doubt, that was how he'd found him; hacking, rather than tracking.

Hunter had ditched his phone and credit cards, but someone determined could hack the hotels around the area until he'd found someone fitting his description, for example.

"What do you want to know, then?"

"Anything that can convince Rye you can be trusted around Lola. That is, if you actually want to meet her without a fence between you."

Holy fuck. His heart was pumping at an unprecedented speed.

"She's my sister's pup. I don't know much about the dad. One day, Gwen shows up, shot and poisoned. She tells me Dad's after her pup and makes me promise to help. I promise. And since that day, I’ve done just that."

He explained everything that came to mind, giving dates and facts. Meanwhile, the cat listened, never interrupting him, until he was done telling him everything up until the day when he got Mike out of Texas.

Ian left, assuring him he'd talk to his Alpha. He made no promises. Hunter was still half in shock at the idea.

He might actually get to see the kid before going north.

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