Wild Card by Mark Henwick, Lauren Sweet Page B

Nothing like girls talking boys to turn a man’s head. “So why is Felix being so difficult? Is it the Athanate thing?”
    “Smelling like vamps doesn’t help, but it’s the pair of you getting together that has him rattled.”
    I’d already figured that out. Just not the reason. “But why?”
    “Doh! You’re alphas.”
    “What?”
    “For God’s sake, Amber.” She rolled her eyes. “Alex on his own is as dominant as Felix. There’s barely a girl in the pack who doesn’t want to get her belly on the floor and ass in the air when he’s around. You can turn it on, when you want. The pair of you together would be like werewolf crack. Real alpha pairs make strong packs.”
    “Shit.” That explained a lot about Felix’s stress level. “Just what the pack doesn’t need at the moment.”
    She leaned in. “Listen, the guys don’t like to talk about dominance, and you didn’t hear this from me. Here’s how it goes. With Alex supporting Felix, it’s like Felix gets all Alex’s dominance added in to his. The pack loves it, and it plays well opposite the Confederation.”
    “Okay.”
    “Now, if Alex goes, Felix loses his support. Not terrible, but not good either. The Confederation might try and exploit it. But if you stay, the pair of you could challenge. Whatever happens, the pack would be weaker, even if only for a while, and the Confederation would come in like vultures to exploit that.”
    I hated the thought of the Confederation coming in. “What if we both support Felix?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know if you can. But obviously, that’s the best result for Felix. It would make his status even higher.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    Ricky was trotting back toward us, waving at Alex, who’d just come back in.
    Hell, all the girl talk worked!
    Then I saw the cell in his hand and the look on his face.
    “Got a call,” he said. “Silas spotted a group of Matlal. Move.”
     

Chapter 11
     
    “Leave your car,” Ricky said. “We’ll go in mine.” His shiny Dodge Ram truck had the extra row of seats, enough space for all of us. Girls in the back, of course. He was making the tires squeal before we even got the doors closed.
    “Where were they spotted?” Alex asked.
    “Swansea, out by Commerce City. A diner called the Oaxaca, near 56 th .”
    Swansea was an untidy strip, bordered by the South Platte River and Interstates 70 and 270. It was flat, dusty and poor, sandwiched between storage depots and processing plants. The interstates ran by on viaducts and embankments, lifted up as if they were afraid to get their skirts dirty. Railroads ran through, as well as a couple of big roads, the unending Colorado Boulevard for one. It was an easy place to get out of, an easy place to watch. A pretty new Dodge like Ricky’s would stand out.
    I tried to bite my tongue. Felix didn’t want me involved in this hunt at all. He definitely wouldn’t want me telling his people what to do.
    Never get involved in someone else’s command. I’d had that ground into me in the army.
    “How many?” Olivia said.
    “Not sure,” Ricky replied. “Silas is there on his own. There’s a guy outside the diner that he thinks is a lookout. He doesn’t want to get any closer.”
    “Have we got enough people to stop them from getting away or to isolate them somewhere?” I asked. Damn. The tongue biting had stopped working.
    “Depends on how much time we have and how open we want to be,” Ricky grunted. “We’re spread all over tonight.”
    “You’ve got trackers on their cars, right?” I just couldn’t seem to stop myself.
    “No.” Ricky hunched his shoulders and turned onto Colfax. Great. Now I’d put him on the defensive.
    He’d be taking Colorado Boulevard and that meant our ETA was fifteen minutes.
    Alex talked briefly on his cell to another team, down near the University. They’d take the interstates and come into Swansea from the north, closing off the escape there, but it was going to take them half an