Page 26 of Chased

And there she was, talking about how he ‘saved her life from a vicious lavender attack.’ For fuck’s sake.

His Hound senses were tingling, that was all. Because something was off about her, and his instincts wouldn’t lie down and go to sleep until he knew what it was.

This morning, before he and the boys headed to town, he’d been thinking maybe he’d put in some time at the firing range, or start designing that custom knife he’d been thinking about getting made.

Or maybe just go wolf and get in a good cross-country run, while the sun was out and everything was starting to smell like fall.

He’d even—briefly—thought about cleaning the cabin.

But now, suddenly, none of that seemed worth doing. He wanted to go back to her cabin and find out more about her—watch her face while she talked, the way her hands moved, that unexpected mischief in her eyes.

He wanted to mess with her a little to see what she did—if she laughed, or gave it back to him, or just hauled off and smacked him.

See, this was the problem with women. They got in your head, and got you all confused. They took away the things that used to matter to you, and they didn’t give anything back except trouble.

So he just had to figure her out, that was all. What was really going on with her. Then his instincts would calm down, and he could ignore her. And he knew exactly where to start.

He texted Cisco and Matéo to come get his truck and take the rest of the groceries up to their cabin. Then he went out Breanna and Switch’s back door and headed up the mountain.

Halfway up the dirt road to the airfield, another road veered off to the right. Sanchez followed it, walking fast. After a bit it opened up into a gravel parking area, in front of the mansion they called the Big House.

From the front, it looked like something out of a fairy tale, if you were into that shit. Which Sanchez wasn’t. But it had a bunch of pointy roofs on it—gables, he thought they were called. Across the front were pillars made of polished tree trunks, each one a couple feet in diameter and looking like some giant had plucked them out of the forest, ripped off the bark, and used them to hold up his house.

There was also a giant-sized double front door carved out of of thick slabs of oak, that looked like it had been stolen from a medieval manor house.

And inside was paneling and hand-woven carpets and art and antiques, all worth a fortune. Which was fine, because Thanatos could afford all that shit and still have enough money left over to fund all of Outlaw Ridge—weapons, equipment, salaries, upkeep, planes, helicopters—the whole nine yards.

Nobody knew where he got it, and nobody asked, although probably a lot came from the rich bad guys they took down.

That’s what the Outlaw Ridge team did—they went after bad guys no one else could touch. The ones who were above the law, who got away with too much, who hurt too many people—or were about to.

Thanatos had a global intelligence network that tracked more people than anyone realized—maybe even more than Gunn realized. Gunnar Jorgenson was the base commander, in charge of troops, training, mission assignments and strategy. Everything on the ground.

But Thanatos chose the missions, and decided when they happened, with the help of his hand-picked staff.

And sometimes Sanchez.

The Hounds—Sanchez, Cisco and Matéo—were something different. Part of the team, and yet not. They were under Gunn’s command, even part of his pack and pledged to him as their alpha—and yet apart.

Because of who they were and what they could do.

They could track anybody, anywhere. Mostly in the normal ways—by scent, by setting up surveillance, by following clues and digital trails.

But they had something more, something even the three of them couldn’t explain. Once they honed in on a target, they could figure out his or her next move, get inside their heads. To Sanchez, it was like a different kind of scent—as if the target was leaving a mental trail of breadcrumbs. Or maybe an emotional one.

It sounded airy-fairy as fuck, but all he knew was that they’d never set out on a trail and failed to run down their quarry. Not since they’d gone after the people who killed Cisco and Matéo’s parents, and made them pay.

Something had happened to them then—something they didn’t talk about. But they all knew it was there. He needed to use it now—but the more information he had, the better.

Sanchez went up to the huge front door and rang the bell. After a minute Sugar answered the door, like he always did. Sugar was a former drug dealer, and Thanatos’ right-hand man. He looked down his nose at Sanchez like he looked down his nose at everyone—not easy to do, since Sanchez was at least six inches taller and outweighed him by a good hundred pounds of muscle. Sugar was a scrawny thing, almost emaciated, with sunken cheeks and a gelled-up brush of hair that was so bleach-blond it was almost white.

But he was mean as a scorpion and deadly as fuck. Many people had underestimated Sugar and not lived to regret it.

“He here?” Sanchez asked.

He didn’t have to say who ‘he’ was. There was only one person in the Big House that counted.

Sanchez knew Thanatos was there. He always knew when Thanatos was at the Ridge—and when he wasn’t. It was like his presence leached into the earth, telling all the rocks and trees and shit that he was in charge of this piece of land.