Wild Wolf Chasing Read online

  Wild Wolf Chasing

  Bloodrunners 9

  Rhyannon Byrd

  All rights reserved. This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook cannot be re-sold or given away to others. No parts of this eBook may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the express, written consent of the author.

  Copyright © 2019 by Rhyannon Byrd

  This eBook is a work of fiction. Any references to actual events, persons, or locales are used fictitiously. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Other Titles in the Bloodrunners Series

  About the Story

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Next in the Series

  A Thank You from Rhyannon

  About the Author

  Also by Rhyannon Byrd

  Other Titles in the Bloodrunners Series

  With Harlequin Nocturne:

  Last Wolf Standing

  Last Wolf Hunting

  Last Wolf Watching

  Dark Wolf Rising

  Dark Wolf Running

  Dark Wolf Returning

  Blood Wolf Dawning

  Wild Wolf Claiming

  About the Story

  Max Doucet is a “turned” Lycan who still longs for the human life stolen from him in his teens. Now a deadly Bloodrunner, Max is too busy looking back to fully embrace who and what he’s become. But from the moment he finds himself chasing after the intoxicating Vivian Jackson, his convictions and beliefs about where he belongs no longer hold true. She’s everything he needs, and so much more than he ever thought could be his—but before he can win her heart, he’ll have to catch her. And Vivian has no intention of slowing down.

  Vivian Jackson has always lived a hard, but normal life—until the day she realizes that nothing in her “normal” world is as it seems. On the run from a sadistic madman and a sexy-as-hell badass who claims to be her protector, Vivian has no idea who to trust—that is, until the beautiful, blue-eyed stranger saves her life. Suddenly Vivian finds herself not only relying on Max for guidance, but caught up in a web of connection and lust that’s impossible to resist. Their chemistry is explosive, each searing sexual encounter bringing them closer than she ever imagined was possible—even as his past and her future work to keep them apart.

  She doesn’t know it yet, but Vivian is no defenseless human. She can keep running, but sooner or later her true destiny is going to catch up to her. And when it does, she and Max will be forced to face off against the ultimate evil in a harrowing, bloodthirsty battle for their lives…and their love.

  Chapter One

  A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

  The situation was crazy.

  Infuriating.

  And completely fucked!

  Smashing the flat of his palm against his steering wheel, Max Doucet struggled to rein in the raw, seething fury of his rage, but it wasn’t happening. He was pissed as hell that Vivian Jackson had run on him, when he was the one trying to save her little human ass. He and his Bloodrunning partner, Elliot Connors, had driven into the town of Charity, Pennsylvania for that specific purpose just that afternoon, tasked with the protection of two young women who were about to find themselves in a shitload of trouble.

  After a string of missing persons’ cases along the Eastern seaboard, Jared Monroe, an FBI agent who was friendly with the Bloodrunners, had asked Max and Elliot to look into the case for him. There had been some unusual happenings around the disappearances that had caused Monroe to suspect that something sinister and predatory was involved, like an animal on the hunt for its prey. And sure enough, when Max and Elliot had visited the crime scenes, their heightened senses had picked up the faint, musky odor of something that was far from human. A scent that they’d discovered at each of the locations where the seven victims had gone missing.

  All female.

  All human.

  And from what they’d been told, all beautiful.

  Given their gut feelings on the case, the Bloodrunning partners didn’t believe the women had been killed. No, they believed they were being kept—and they planned on making the bastard who was responsible pay for his crimes in blood and pain…and ultimately death.

  Unfortunately for Max, his meeting with Vivian Jackson hadn’t gone as planned. While Elliot made contact with Skye Hewitt at the diner where she worked as a waitress, Max had driven his truck to the crappy apartment the two girls shared, since they’d believed Vivian would be heading home after work. But when she didn’t show, he tracked her down at the Velvet Rope, the tacky strip club where, according to Monroe, Vivian was employed. Taking a seat at a back-corner table, nearly hidden in the shadows, Max had ordered a beer from a flirty, topless blonde, and asked her if Vivian was still there. The blonde informed him that Vivian was working later than expected, so he’d settled in, his head aching from the blaring music as he waited for Vivian to make an appearance.

  He knew, from experience, that the key to these situations was to act quickly, but smoothly, making contact with the target without spooking them and sending them running. So once he’d spotted the human female, he’d planned to talk to her, calmly explaining the situation, and with any luck, she would be reasonable and decide to trust him, before she found herself trapped in the same nightmare the other seven victims were now living in.

  But a few minutes later, when a breathtaking brunette came through the back-of-the-house doorway less than ten feet from where he sat, the nametag on her skintight tank top telling Max it was her, his plans had gone out the friggin’ window.

  Even now, hours later, he was beyond pissed at himself for not just manning up and talking to her at that exact moment. But the blue-eyed, dark-haired girl… Um, yeah. He didn’t know how to explain it, but she hadn’t been what he’d expected. And he’d screwed up. Big time.

  Instead of proceeding as planned, Max had stopped the leggy blonde the next time she walked by and asked her how long Vivian had worked there, and when it was going to be her turn to dance. And, yeah, by “dance” he’d meant strip. Though he’d barely paid attention to the naked women writhing around three poles atop the glittering stage that extended into the middle of the club, they were there. As his pulse had roared in his ears and confusion had swarmed his brain with Vivian Jackson’s nearness, he’d been caught between two warring choices:

  Option one: tossing her gorgeous little body over his shoulder and getting her the hell out of there, away from all the leering stares and the stench of cheap liquor.

  And option two: keeping his ass planted right where it was, waiting for the moment when she would get up on that stage and he’d be able to watch her strip away the skimpy uniform, piece by piece, driv
ing him out of his goddamn mind. Though that one would have certainly proven tricky, seeing as how he’d have had to kick all the dirt bags out of the place first, since there was no way in hell he was letting them get an eyeful.

  The blonde surprised him, though, by telling him that Vivian was new to the club and only served drinks. She never stripped or went topless. He was torn between a heady sense of relief that was based in emotions he refused to look at too closely, and an acute sense of frustration that he wouldn’t be seeing even more of her golden skin, which made him feel like a total shit. Even more so when Vivian slid him a few curious glances, the pink in her cheeks each time she found him watching her telling him she still wasn’t comfortable strutting around in the minuscule uniform.

  What the hell is happening? his beast had growled in his head, as confused as Max was by the way the human female was affecting them, and he’d scowled in response, spooking the blonde into hurrying away. She’d escaped up a winding metal staircase that he guessed led to what was most likely a VIP lounge, given the bouncer standing beside it, and not long after Vivian had gone up the staircase as well.

  When fifteen minutes went by, and neither of the women came back down to the main room, Max had known he’d botched the job. Moving to his feet, he’d asked the first server he reached if Vivian was on a break, only to have her tell him that the girl had ditched the rest of her shift and left.

  Assuming that she’d gotten spooked—either by the way he’d been watching her or by the blonde telling her that he’d been asking questions about her—he threw some money on the table and hurried out to his truck, breaking every speeding law in the town as he raced back to her apartment. But he’d been too late. She’d obviously headed straight home, where the bad guys had found her. Max didn’t know what the hell had gone down there, but her blood-covered bedroom made it clear that Vivian had been hurt before she managed to escape.

  All of which brought him to where he was now, chasing the human female down. In the middle of a damn snowstorm, no less.

  His phone rang, pulling him from his dark thoughts, and he used the truck’s handsfree system to answer the call. Before he could get a word out, Monroe muttered, “You find her yet?”

  He’d talked to Monroe after leaving Vivian and Skye’s apartment back in Charity, and the Fed had been as frustrated as Max that Vivian Jackson had given him the slip.

  Frustrated, his wolf growled. Is that what we’re still calling it?

  Ignoring the pain-in-the-ass animal, same as he usually did, he answered the Fed’s question. “I know you’re worried, but your calls aren’t helping, man. I need to focus.”

  “What you need is to find her before the shithead kidnappers do.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” he scraped out. “I saw the blood, Monroe. Her blood. I know what’s at stake here.”

  In fact, he was the only one who did. Because while Elliot and Monroe believed he was searching for a human female who needed his help, Max was the only one who knew the truth, as confusing as it might be.

  “Look, I gotta go,” he murmured, eyeing the neon sign for an upcoming roadside collection of diners. “There’s someplace I need to check out.”

  “Then good luck. And call me as soon as you’ve got her.”

  Max ended the call without even saying goodbye, Monroe’s concern chafing against him in a way that didn’t make any sense. It was the Fed’s job to protect the innocent, same as Max and Elliot’s.

  You know the reason, his wolf snarled. Stop playing dumb and get the hell on with it. WE don’t have time for jealousy. The assholes could already have her!

  Gritting his teeth, Max bit back the sharp retort burning on his tongue and took the next exit off the interstate. Instead of arguing with his inner beast—something he rarely did anyway, since he preferred to pretend it wasn’t even there—he pulled into the sprawling parking lot that was shared by the diners. It was the eighth lot he’d searched since starting this little chase, but unlike the other seven, this time he spotted Vivian’s beat-up old truck in one of the distant spaces on the west side of the lot.

  About damn time, his wolf grumbled. Only took you how many hours?

  “Three,” he snapped, scanning the darkened lot for any sign of trouble. “Now shut the hell up and let me concentrate. You’re worse than Monroe.”

  The animal chuffed in response, no doubt hating the comparison to a mere human male, and Max found the corner of his lips twitching with a brief flash of satisfaction as he pulled up behind her truck. It was exactly as her best friend, Skye, had described it to him: a gray, older model Ford. And the license plate matched the info Monroe had emailed him earlier.

  Parking his year-old, massive black Chevy just a few spaces down, Max climbed out into the biting winter chill, his above-average body temperature the only thing keeping him from freezing his ass off in his T-shirt and black leather jacket.

  “I hate the cold,” he muttered under his breath, hitting the button on the key fob to lock his truck. Even after all these years, he still missed the warm, lush heat of the Louisiana bayou. Though he’d been young when he and his sister, Michaela, had moved to Maryland to live with their great aunt, Max could still remember that heavy southern heat and the sweetness of the air. He would have been homesick for the amazing food as well, but his sister spoiled him with family recipes at least twice a month, and her “Bayou Nights” were still everyone’s favorite in Bloodrunner Alley.

  Casting another searching look over the quiet, snowy lot, Max made his way over to Vivian’s truck and knelt down by her front bumper. His childhood memories faded to the background as he focused on attaching a high-tech tracking device to the truck’s undercarriage, courtesy of Monroe, that would make it damn difficult for the human to give him the slip again, since he could monitor the signal using his cell phone.

  Finally, you’ve done something smart tonight. They were the wolf’s words, the animal’s primitive need and fury coiling through Max like a parasite, until his muscles turned battle-hard, ready for action. He needed to shake off the beast’s innate sense of aggression so that cooler heads could prevail, but wasn’t sure there was any way to pull that ship back into the harbor.

  “Just calm the hell down and let me handle this,” he commanded, wiping his hands on his jeans as he headed toward the gleaming entrance of the nearest diner, the holiday lights framing its windows sending splashes of color across the snow-covered ground. While the falling flakes had dampened all the scents in the lot, the second the automatic doors slid closed behind him, Max’s senses were overwhelmed by the unmistakable odor of human bodies. Sweat. Breath. Perfume. Even traces of blood.

  It’d been nearly a decade since he’d been turned, and yet at times like this, when his beast was so close to the surface, he often had to exercise extreme control over his animal nature when surrounded by the flesh and blood of strangers. And the idiots giving him curious glances as he just stood there in the brightly lit entryway, battling the animal into submission, didn’t have a clue there was a monster in their midst.

  Just a wolf in sheep’s clothing, complete with fangs and fur and a deadly appetite. One wrong move, little lambs, and I could tear your picture-perfect world to shreds.

  This was the fear that weighed him down every single time he and Elliot were forced to leave the peace of the Alley and hunt down some bastard that had broken the laws of their pack. His brother-in-law, Brody, would tell him that the bullshit was all in his head, and he knew that in a lot of ways the guy was right.

  But that didn’t mean it wasn’t powerful bullshit. The kind that stayed with Max always, flavoring every aspect of this new life he’d been given within a harrowing world where preternatural creatures lived hidden among humanity, their roles varying from protectors to destroyers, and basically everything in between. And while the Bloodrunners were definitely the good guys—an elite group of hunters whose purpose was to track down rogue wolves who hunted humans—Max still…struggled with his
new existence.

  And he wasn’t fooling anyone with his laidback attitude, jokes and crooked smiles. At least not anyone who mattered. He knew his family and friends continued to worry about him, same as they had for years. Especially Michaela, but then his sister had “gifts” that enabled her to read another’s emotions when she was physically close to them, so there was no hiding the truth from Mic. And while his fellow Runners didn’t possess his sister’s insight, they knew him well enough to understand that he hadn’t yet found a way to fully embrace the creature that was now as much a part of him as those beloved childhood memories he carried so close to his heart.

  Elliot and the others, they trusted him, but not… Not completely. Not even close. And that…

  Yeah, that killed. Max hated it and would change it in a heartbeat if he could, but after all these years, he still didn’t know how. Didn’t know how to wholeheartedly accept something that had been thrust on him so violently, forever changing his world.

  Blowing out a hard breath, he shook off his tension and forced himself to walk deeper into the noisy, chattering throng of tables, each one decorated with a tiny Christmas tree. Despite the lateness of the hour, there had to be nearly forty people gathered around the tables and in the booths that lined the walls, attesting to the popularity of the establishment. He’d nearly made it to the center of the room by the time he spotted his target sitting at one of the booths at the far end of the diner, trying her best to be invisible. But there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Not when a woman looked like her.