The Shard in the Casing

"He was our only living link," I said, rising to my feet. I struggled to keep the anger out of my voice. "You killed him before he could name his contractor."

"I don't need a name," Macario said, wiping his bloody thumb on his trousers. "I know who benefits."

"The ranch doesn't benefit from poisoned water," I insisted.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wrapped shard of amber glass. I unrolled the handkerchief and held the curved fragment out toward him.

"Look at this," I said. "I pulled it out of the well casing. It's medical grade borosilicate. Stamped with a Texas distribution code. SLV-409-TX."

Macario glanced down at the glass. He didn't pick it up. He didn't even lean in to read the numbers.

"What is that supposed to mean to me?" he asked.

"It means this isn't ranch pesticide," I explained, stepping closer. "Yaretzi uses bulk agricultural lime and sheep dip from the county co-op. This is specialized synthetic solvent. It comes out of an industrial supply line in El Paso or Juarez. Someone is buying coyote mercenaries to salt our wells so we tear each other apart."

Macario stared at the glass for two seconds. Then he looked up at me, his eyes cold and flat.

"You've always been too clever for your own good, Oco," he said quietly.

The back of my neck prickled with warning. "It's not cleverness, Macario. It's physical evidence. If we cross the wash and attack the ranch house, we're doing the saboteur's job for them."

"Evidence?" Macario let out a short, harsh bark of laughter. He turned to his enforcers. "Did you hear that, boys? The enforcer thinks we're in a courtroom."

The men around the lift shifted their weight, grinning faintly. None of them looked at me.

Macario stepped into my personal space. The scent of him—scorched copper, stale tobacco, and dominant wolf—rolled over me in a suffocating wave. I forced my spine to stay straight. I didn't back down an inch.

"Let me tell you what I know, Ocotlan," he murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous purr. "Our south holding tank has three days of clean water left. The highway tankers are charging triple because the state troopers are inspecting every rig at the border. In seventy-two hours, this pack doesn't have enough water to cool the truck radiators, let alone keep eighty wolves from dying of dehydration."

"Then we hunt the coyotes," I countered. "We track their supply run back to the highway depot."

"We don't have time to chase shadows in the brush," Macario snarled. "Yaretzi has four spring-fed artesian wells behind his south ridge. Clean, cold water that bubbles right out of the limestone. He has enough water for ten packs, and he sits on it while my people choke on dust."

My stomach dropped into a cold pit.

He didn't care about the poisoner. He had never cared.

The poisoned well wasn't a tragedy to Macario. It was an opportunity. A bloody, golden excuse to break the thirty-year border treaty and take the ranchland springs by force.

"You're going to start an extermination war over a lie," I whispered.

Macario’s hand shot out.

His thick fingers clamped onto my left shoulder. Pain exploded across my collarbone as his grip dug directly into the fresh bullet graze beneath my jacket. I swallowed a gasp, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a flinch.

Macario leaned down until his mouth was an inch from my ear.

"You've been soft since you drove out to that arroyo," he whispered. His breath smelled like old coffee. "You come back smelling like soap, carrying trash from the dirt, telling me to spare the ranch. Why is that, Oco?"

My blood ran like ice water.

Did he know? Did he suspect?

No, I told myself. He's fishing. He smells hesitation, not the bond.

"I care about keeping this pack alive," I said through clenched teeth. "If we rush their ridge, Yaretzi’s rifles will butcher our front line before we hit the fence."

Macario squeezed my wounded shoulder harder. Blood began to seep through my bandage, warm and wet against my shirt.

"Then prove it," he said.

He released me with a shove. I caught my balance against the fender of an idling Peterbilt.

"Prove what?" I asked, keeping my voice steady.

"Prove your loyalty belongs to this asphalt," Macario said. He walked over to the workbench, picked up a heavy steel wrench, and tossed it onto the metal tabletop with a deafening clatter. "The vanguard moves at sunset tomorrow. We hit their south fence and take the artesian pumps."

My chest tightened until I couldn't draw a full breath. "Macario—"

"Before we roll," he interrupted, turning his dark eyes back to me, "I want leverage. I want a high-value hostage to keep Yaretzi’s rifles from firing on our tankers."

He pointed a thick, grease-blackened finger straight at my face.

"You have twenty-four hours, Ocotlan," he said, each word landing like a hammer blow. "Bring me someone from Yaretzi’s inner circle. His Beta. His foreman. Or his sister."

My heart stopped beating entirely.

Tlalli.

The name echoed in my mind with the force of a detonating landmine.

My wolf surged forward, baring her teeth, a feral roar rising in my throat. Protect her. Kill him.

I slammed the mental door shut, shoving my wolf back into the dark with everything I had. My fingernails bit into the palms of my hands until the skin broke.

"Tlalli never leaves the ranch house perimeter," I said, fighting to keep the tremor from my voice. "She's their lead tracker. She'll have a dozen guards on her."

"Then you better be as good as you think you are," Macario sneered. "Bring me the girl. In chains. In this bay by sunset tomorrow."

"And if I come back empty-handed?" I asked.

Macario smiled. It was the cold, hollow smile of a butcher appraising cattle.

"Then you don't come back," he said flatly. "If you fail to deliver the hostage before the vanguard rolls, I'll know where your loyalties went. And I'll string you up from the highway billboard by your heels."

The three enforcers behind him watched me with dead eyes.

I was cornered. If I refused, they would kill me right here on the concrete. If I agreed, I was promising to hunt my own fated mate and deliver her into the hands of a monster who would use her as a human shield.

I took a slow, measured breath. I let my enforcer mask slide back over my face, cold and unyielding.

"I need to hunt alone," I said.

Macario raised an eyebrow. "You want to go solo into the lion's den?"

"A pack squad will kick up dust across the alkali flats," I said, leaning into his own tactical vanity. "Yaretzi’s lookouts will spot three trucks from five miles out. If you want a silent grab, you let me work the wash in my truck. One vehicle. One target. No alarms."

Macario considered this. Greed and suspicion warred across his scarred face. He wanted the glory of the strike, but he wanted the hostage more.

"Fine," Macario said. "One truck. No backup. But the clock is running, Oco. Twenty-four hours. Bring me Yaretzi’s sister, or don't bother coming back across the line."

"Understood," I said.

I turned on my heel and walked out of the service bay.

I didn't run. I kept my stride slow, deliberate, and steady until I cleared the heavy rubber curtains of the garage doors and stepped out into the blazing desert sun.

·  ·  ·

The heat outside was staggering, a dry furnace blast radiating off three hundred acres of asphalt.

I marched straight to my pickup, unlocked the cab, and climbed inside. I slammed the door shut, rolled up both windows, and locked the latches.

Only then did I let myself shatter.

A harsh, ragged gasp tore out of my throat. I slumped forward over the steering wheel, pressing my forehead against the hot plastic rim. My whole body was shaking.

My left shoulder throbbed with a rhythmic, fiery pulse. Blood had soaked through my shirt, sticking the denim to my skin.

Twenty-four hours.

Macario was going to slaughter the ranch. And if I didn't hand Tlalli over to be tortured, he was going to execute me for treason.

She is ours, my wolf snarled, pacing restlessly in my blood. We protect.

"I can't protect her from three miles away," I whispered into the empty cab.

I sat up, wiped the sweat from my eyes, and reached into my pocket.

I pulled out the amber shard again. I held it up against the desert sunlight filtering through the windshield. SLV-409-TX.

Then I pulled the paper napkin from my pocket—the scrap I had palmed from the coyote's sock while checking his boot tread.

I unfolded the crinkled square of paper on the passenger seat.

Scrawled in grease pencil was a freight routing number and a coordinate: Mile Marker 44. Arroyo Culvert. 0200.

The coyotes weren't finished. There was another shipment coming tonight. A fresh drop of chemical solvent, five miles west of the border line.

If I could intercept that drop, I wouldn't just have an empty glass vial. I would have the supplier. I would have the names of the people funding this war.

And more importantly, I would have leverage.

I turned the key in the ignition. The old V8 engine roared to life with a deep, guttural rumble. I dropped the shifter into reverse, backed out of the space, and swung the truck toward the highway exit.

I had twenty-four hours to save my pack from a massacre.

And twenty-four hours to find a way back to the woman who held my soul in her hands.

I slammed my foot onto the gas pedal and headed west into the blinding white heat.