“He’s out cold,” I said, zipping the bag. “Let’s go.”

But Marc only sniffed Jess’s hands, then looked up and pointed his muzzle at my chest.

I rolled my eyes, finally understanding the question. “Yeah, the bastard groped me. But I broke his balls. I’d say we’re even.”

Marc shook his head and continued to sniff the tom’s hands, then whined at me some more.

I exhaled slowly, dread sinking through me at his insistence. He wouldn’t leave until I’d said it. “Right thumb to left nipple. But he’s paid for—”

Marc shook his head again, then bent with his mouth open. An instant later, something snapped, and the scent of fresh blood flooded the clearing. Jess’s body shuddered and his eyes flew open, then he began to thrash and moan behind the duct tape gag.

Marc backed away and something small and crimson fell from his mouth onto a bed of pine needles, now stained with blood. He ran his barbed tongue over first one side of his muzzle then the other to clean it, looking perversely satisfied. I glanced at Jess’s hands, and nausea rolled over me.

His right hand was pouring blood from the gory stump that had once been his thumb.

Twenty-Seven

Before we left the clearing, I bandaged Jess’s thumb with a torn strip of his shirt and some duct tape and patted down both toms for anything useful. I took a folding knife from Gary, then pulled both toms’ cell phones from their respective pockets and checked their text messages. Gary had none. If he’d ever sent a text, I found no sign of it. I dropped his phone on the ground and stomped it to pieces, so it couldn’t be used against us when he woke up.

Jess, on the other hand, obviously had an unlimited texting plan. Kind of funny, considering he’d now be texting one-handed.

Marc whined in question as I typed, ignoring the residual pain in my right wrist. At least I still had both thumbs. “He has a bunch of texts from Lance. I’m asking if they’ve taken care of Jace yet.”

The reply came an instant later. Not yet. Soon.

I read it to Marc, then typed some more. Still digging. Wait for us.

Lance’s second response came just as quickly. No promises…

“He’s still alive, but not for long. Come on.” I slid Jess’s phone into my left hip pocket and started off through the woods with Marc at my back. We moved as quietly as possible, but neither heard nor smelled any other Appalachian Pride members. A mile and a half from Jace’s premature grave, the sound of a car engine warned us that we were getting close to the house.

We slowed and veered toward the growl of the engine as it first idled, then died. Minutes later, the evergreen foliage began to thin, and a simple, black-shingled roofline came into view.

“There it is,” I whispered, dropping into a crouch as Marc came to a silent stop beside me. A few shuffled steps later, the compound came into view. And compound was really the only word to describe Malone’s property.

I knew from what little Jace had said about his childhood that when his father was alive, his Pride’s enforcers had lived in a converted barn behind the main house. But after Malone’s ascension to Alpha status, the barn had fallen into shameless disrepair and had to be torn down eight years later. Since money was tight in the territory, to replace the barn Malone had brought in two used doublewide mobile homes and had them set permanently into the ground and bricked up to the bottom of the windows.

The result was definitely nontraditional, and I’d heard people openly question the longevity of the housing arrangement. But the advantage to us was obvious. The back outbuilding was almost completely shielded from the main house by the middle one. If Jace was in the last one, we might just be able to get to him without alerting the rest of the Pride.

From where we stood near the tree line, we could see all three buildings from the side. “We should approach from directly behind the back building,” I whispered, then glanced up to find that Marc was already on the move. I rushed after him, careful to avoid anything that could crunch beneath my boots, and we hiked a quarter of the way around the property.

The middle building had almost disappeared behind the rear trailer when hinges squealed suddenly, then a door slammed shut. I froze, Marc at my side.

“…just thought you might want to make something special tonight. You know, since Jace is home.”

“Well, I hadn’t really thought about it, but he always did like homemade stew. And maybe I could make some potato bread to go with it.”

My heart ached at the familiar voice. Patricia Malone. A moment later, she appeared between the last two buildings, heading toward the side yard of the main house. She was facing away from us, but even from behind I could see that she was thinner than I remembered, her brown hair now streaked with gray.

Alex Malone guided her gently but firmly by one arm, encouraging her and making suggestions for Jace’s homecoming dinner.

“Shit. They got rid of Patti,” I whispered, and Marc whined. We watched as the Malones circled the middle building and disappeared from sight, veering toward the back door of the main house. “Let’s go.”

From the edge of the woods at the back of the property, we could see through the windows of the last building. Unfortunately, two of them were covered by threadbare but mostly opaque curtains, and a third was a total blind spot, thanks to a set of plain white miniblinds. But two others were uncovered, and by some stroke of luck, one looked into the kitchen, the other into the living room.