My Mystery Mate Ch. 20

When Joe called Enrique, they had picked up their gear from the airfield. He sent them to Wal-Mart with instructions to get supplies for them. Top on the list was clean underwear, shorts and T-shirts. He also told them to pick up food, LOTS of food and drink, that they could eat in the car. The would meet them outside Salisbury on the way to the Bay Bridge.

The group was on the road by eight in the morning. Joe and Linda were exhausted, having been up all night, but two women volunteered to drive and both Suburbans had navigation devices in the glove box-es. At least the Mob had nice stuff, and they knew they would have disabled the GPS transmitters in the car. After a short drive, they arrived in Salisbury and followed Anna's Navigator to a nearby park. The parking lot was deserted and the bathroom was open. As soon as they parked, the women were out. Anna laid out clothes options on the hood of the car, and the ladies grabbed their sizes and went into the bathroom. The mood was festive, now that they were really out and feeling normal again most of the women were riding high. It had also helped that they had a burner cellphone in each car, so the women had taken turns calling their mates. If their Alphas weren't so exhausted, the squeals and cries would have woken them up; as it was, they had to keep reminding each other to keep it down. Reunions were on their minds.

As they loaded back up, three of the girls asked if they could ride with Enrique and Anna. Lois, Jennifer and Robin were allowed in, the new van wasn't as spacious with all their gear in bags, but there was plenty of room for the three of them. Anna was going to rest the first shift while Enrique drove, so she moved to a seat behind the girls to lay down. "So, ladies, why did you want to come with us?"

The girls looked at each other before Lois spoke up. "We don't want to go to the other pack. We can't."

Enrique looked in the rear view mirror at them. "Why not? Don't you want to get back home?"

Jennifer looked at her hands. "That's just it, we have no homes. Our mates were kicked out of our packs while we were being held. They are rogue now, and they can't risk coming to Pack lands to get us."

Anna put her hand on her shoulder. "Did they say why they were kicked out?"

Robin looked back. "My David left his patrol assignment when they told him to go pick up a package."

"My Alex stole a car from the Pack garage in order to complete a job." Lois looked at her hands.

"John punched the Beta when he told him that it was his fault I got taken, and he didn't deserve a mate he couldn't protect."

Anna laughed. "I think I like your mate." Using the bond, she contacted Joe and filled him in on what was going on. "All right, so he agreed we will keep you with us for now, in fact we won't even go with them into the mountains. Do you think your husbands can get a flight out here?" All nodded. "Have them fly into Dulles and we will pick them up tonight. You can have them rent a car to drive home, even fly if they bring your ID along."

"Maybe we weren't clear enough," Lois said. "We don't want to be rogues, and we can't go back home when our mates aren't welcome. We want to join the Nightmare pack."

Thurmont Pack, Maryland

Alpha's Office

Ron barged into his Alpha's office without knocking, which normally would get him in trouble, but one look at his face and Alpha Nichols knew it was important. "Leave us." The three Pack members immediately got up and left, nodding respectfully at their Beta as they exited the office. As soon as the door was closed, Ron asked his Alpha to turn on Fox News. He picked up the remote from the corner of his desk and turned on the flat screen over the small bar area on the far side as Ron took a seat on a chair by his desk.

"FIRE DESTROYS MOB BOSS'S ESTATE." The title was under the reporter standing in front of an FBI crime scene tape, and the Alpha turned up the volume. "Sources tell Fox News that the fire was intentionally set last night, and dozens of bodies have been found inside. There is no official confirmation, but reports are that both Victor and Sammy Torchelli's bodies are in the house. If this is true, the Torchelli crime family has come to a violent end." He muted the TV, which was now showing a helicopter view of the smoldering ruins.

"So?" Alpha looked at his Beta.

"So, Linda said the Nightmare pack was from the Southeast. The only Alphas I know down there are from the Gila pack, so I called and spoke to Alpha Renee Hastings." He sat forward. "She hadn't heard of the Nightmare pack either, but she knew a Linda. Her mate is Joe Miller. She's Black Ker."

Alpha Nichols jumped to his feet, his chair smashing into the file cabinets behind him. "BLACK KER? Fuck me sideways. She took out the Luna of the Telluride pack a few weeks ago."

"Yes, we've gotten the updates from the Council. She is to be shot on sight, her mate is wanted dead or alive. Every Pack wolf that has tried to capture them has died. There's a reward too."

The Alpha sat back down. "And I was going to invite them into our home for a feast." He sat back in his chair. "What were they doing out here?"

"Alpha Hastings said that Linda has a daughter that was being held captive to force her to do jobs for them. Her captor was..."

"Victor Torchelli." He put his head in his hands. "And they just liberated a prison filled with she-wolves, including Mandy, and said they are about six hours away."

Ron nodded. "Mitch has kept us in the loop on everything, it is just as she is claiming. Mandy was captured, he gets a video, if he does what they want she gets fed, if not he gets another video showing her being beaten and tortured. It has to be them."

"Yes. It all makes sense now, why she refused to come on Pack lands and requested a flag of truce. She knows that if she did, the Council rules would force us to kill or capture them." He sat back. "Now what do we do?"

"She's lethal, Boss. Her reputation is that she can get to anyone, anywhere. If we go after her and miss, she will kill us all."

"It could be a trap, too. Have all the Pack fighters out front in an hour. I want all the pregnant women and children in the safe room by lunchtime. This could go really bad."

Gila Pack Office

New Mexico

The team watched the video Enrique had sent them once, then they had to watch it again before anyone could speak. It was Renee who broke the silence. "Holy Fuck."

Robert pulled her into his lap, biting her ear to calm her down. She was more than pissed about what these men had done to Joe's mate and daughter, and then to find out they were betrayed by her daughter's biological father was too much to take. William Post was the first to speak. "This... it helps a lot, but only in sentencing."

"What do you mean?" His mate, former FBI agent Melody, turned to face him on the couch.

"We can argue that she was under duress, and thus shouldn't be held to the same standard. However, we don't have any proof of what her assignment was. We need to get more about what happened in their pack house."

Renee leaned back against her mate. "And even if we show that she didn't go there to kill the Alphas, she still went into the pack house and stole from them. They still will want death as her punishment." There wasn't much to say. "And there may only be a couple people who really know what happened, and Linda isn't one of them."

Robert looked at them all. "So how do we get them to talk?"

William laughed. "You mean get the current Beta to admit that he conspired with the current Alpha to kill their Luna and take over the Pack, while framing Black Ker with it all?" The other three nodded. "I don't know how to do that myself... but I have an idea."

Nightmare Pack SUV's

Near Thurmont, MD

The six hour trip had passed by pretty quickly, and it had given the four members of the Nightmare pack a chance to rest and recover. The women gently woke up the Pack members as the signs for the Thurmont exits came up. Joe directed the vehicles behind an abandoned motel, they would leave the equipment van here along with the three women who didn't want to go to the Pack. Linda got out of her van and came into Enrique's van. "Take a break outside, Enrique, and stretch your legs." Once they were gone, she stripped down shifted into her panther form, shocking the three women who hadn't seen her yet and couldn't place her scent. Anna came back, and following her instructions she placed camouflage pants and a long sleeve shirt in a pack along with a few extra magazines and a scoped AR-15 with collapsible stock and screw on suppressor. She attached the pack on Linda's back using bungee cords. The three women were fascinated by the panther, and they gently stroked her fur and traced the pattern in her nearly black form as she stood there getting ready.

"OK, here's the plan." Enrique came back with his laptop, he had a topographic map of the area. "Here is our rendezvous point, off Catoctin Hollow Road, and this line here is the Pack border. I'm sure they will have extra patrols out, but being that their neighbors are humans they will stay away from the actual border. When we get to this switchback in the road, after verifying we aren't being followed, you'll jump out the back and follow the south side of this creek to this hill. It should give you good visibility of the meeting site at a range of 200 yards or so. We will go slow enough to give you time, and we'll wait until you are in position before we approach. Good?" She shook her head in affirmative. "Joe, please back your Suburban up to right behind our van for the transfer."

Linda's vehicle stopped about four feet away and she came around and opened the back window and then dropped the tailgate. A few of them blocked the view as the back doors of Enrique's cargo van opened and Linda jumped across, only visible for a second before the tailgate was closed and the window came down. Joe walked over and gave Enrique and Anna a hug. "If anything goes bad or you can't reach us on the bond for more than 30 minutes, get out of here." He pulled a key out of a duffel bag in the back. "This is one of her safe houses in Virginia. Go there, wait for things to die down then call the Gila pack or the CIA, depending on who you trust more at the time." Enrique shook his hand, then they loaded up.

The two Suburbans wound their way up the two lane road into the Catoctin Mountains twenty minutes later. Mandy was driving the lead vehicle since it was her pack they were approaching, she had the window down and was smiling broadly as she made her way home. She had been told to keep to the speed limit and not to get too far ahead of Joe's vehicle. There wasn't much traffic to deal with, which made things easier. Her sharp eyes picked up a patrolling wolf in the distance, she waved to him and smiled even more. They were close enough now she could mind link with her Pack and her mate again, and she made use of both.

When they reached the switchback, one of the women opened the back window and Linda jumped out. Her sleek black cat landed softly then disappeared into the forest, moving silently and smoothly across the uneven ground. They continued their way up, Joe driving slower and forcing Mandy to slow as well. Ten minutes later, they turned onto the Canyon road and stopped fifty feet away from the vehicles and people of the Thurmont pack.

As soon as the SUV was in PARK, Mandy pushed the door open and ran across the open ground into the arms of her mate. Mitch caught her, spinning her around, then let her down so she could hug her son Michael. Tears were streaming down her face as she hugged her three year old boy, who was barely weaned when she had been kidnapped. She was soon surrounded by family and friends, all welcoming her back.

While this was going on, Joe had exited his vehicle and the other women had instinctively gathered be-hind the Alpha. He reached under the seat and grabbed the sheets left over from the binder which had contained the information on some of the women and their mates. After some discussion during the drive, it was decided that each woman would get the section related to them to do with as they chose. What he had left was the information on those who had been killed and the guards, as he didn't want the other Alphas to know what their mates had been forced to do. When everyone was ready, he walked forward to meet Alpha Nichols and his Beta.

Linda was carefully monitoring the exchange from her sniper position, and so far hadn't seen anything but she was ready. Joe carried a pair of pistols in holsters by his kidneys, hidden by his shirt. The silver and wolfsbane bullets were ready if he had to fight his way out.

His nose didn't register aggression with the Alpha as he approached, just nervousness. "Alpha Nichols, I'm Joe Miller, Alpha of the Nightmare Pack." He held out his hand and got a firm handshake in return.

"And the mate of Black Ker, both of you wanted for murder of the Telluride Alphas." Joe tensed, but nothing happened. "Renee Hastings confirmed you had gone after Torchelli and why. When I heard you had rescued our females, I figured out what was going on. Mandy confirmed everything as you were driving up. Don't worry, I offered you a flag of truce and I will honor it."

"Thank you. I didn't want to put you in the position of having to say why I came into your territory and you didn't kill me. Can I send the women over while we talk?"

"Certainly." Alpha Nichols motioned for the medical staff to come forward, along with a number of the older women in the Pack who had volunteered to help. Soon they had been moved into the transports he had waiting and were driving away.

"This is the information I have on the facility. In the front are the names of the guards there. Had I known they were treating the women this way, I would have killed them myself, but Black Ker just made a phone call and scared them away." He flipped through to the back pages. "These are the records of the ones who were killed in captivity. I would appreciate it if you would notify their next of kin for me. I also wrote the GPS coordinates of the facility there, I'm sure they are buried somewhere on the grounds. All of the women who are going with you have already contacted their mates and packs, I'm sure you're already getting calls requesting visits."

Alpha Nichols nodded, then accepted the records with a sigh. "I can't thank you enough for what you have done. Losing Mandy was a blow to our Pack, and I can imagine how the others felt. I will make sure all the women are reunited with their men." He looked around. "I wish I could thank Linda in person, today has shown she isn't the menace the Council would have us believe."

"No, she was a victim of them just like they were. They were holding her daughter hostage, forcing her to do their will. I can tell you of a certainty, my mate did not kill the Luna." Using the link, he called her forward. A few minutes later, a fully dressed Linda came onto the road, her rifle slung over her back. "Allow me to introduce my mate. Alpha Nichols, this is Linda Miller, Luna of the Nightmare Pack."

The Alpha reached forward, gripping her fingers with his right hand he raised it to his nose and let go. "Luna, the Thurmont Pack thanks you for what you have done to return our Pack member. I don't care what the Council says, you are a friend to our Pack."

"Thank you, Alpha."

He turned to introduce his Beta, but Ron was standing there white as a ghost with his mouth open. "Lois... you are her image."

It was Linda's chance to be shocked. "You've met my mother?"

"Yes... in Mexico on spring break. When were you born, dear?"

"December 21, 1993. Why?" Linda couldn't move as Ron walked up, putting his hand to her face as Joe started to growl.

"Oh my Luna. You are her." Everyone was staring at him. "You're my daughter!"