The Enforcers: KANE (Silverlake Shifters) (Silverlake Enforcers Book 1) Read online

  The Enforcers:

  KANE

  (Silverlake Enforcers Book 1)

  by

  Anastasia Wilde

  The Enforcers: KANE

  Copyright © 2016 by Anastasia Wilde

  Copyright © 2016 by Anastasia Wilde

  First Electronic Publication: December 2016

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning, uploading, or distributing via the internet, print, or any other means, without written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover by Jeanne Gransee Barker

  Come to Silverlake Mountain and fall in love…

  Smokin’ hot shifter men with hearts of gold; the strong, passionate women who love them; secrets, lies and danger; naughty, steamy love scenes—and happily ever afters.

  Silverlake Shifters Series:

  Fugitive Mate

  White Wolf Mate

  Tiger Mate

  Silverlake Enforcers Series:

  Silverlake Shifters – The Enforcers: KANE

  Silverlake Shifters – The Enforcers: ISRAEL (Coming in January)

  Silverlake Shifters – The Enforcers: NOAH (Coming in February)

  Prologue

  Ten years ago

  “Hunter. Hunter. Come to me, Hunter…”

  The whispering voice tore at his exhausted brain, shredding him from the inside out. He had to get up…

  “Hunter, they’re going to kill me. You have to kill them first.”

  Kane looked around frantically. Who? Where?

  He growled. No one could be allowed to hurt Selina. No one. He was her Hunter. Hers. She’d tell him how to make them stop.

  She’d tell him how to make them hurt.

  Visions swirled in his mind. Hunting on the dark streets, paws on wet asphalt. Tracking down his prey. Dragging it home to place at her feet.

  Blood. Pain. Ecstasy. Death.

  Selina’s smile. Blood dripping from her fingers, smearing on his skin as she caressed him. He lived for that smile. For her touch.

  “Hunter…”

  He had to go to her.

  He lurched up off the bed but was stopped by the chains that bound him to the bedframe, encircling his wrists and ankles, binding him across his chest, hips, and thighs.

  “Hunter…I need you…”

  He strained against the chains, feeling them cut into his flesh. Enraged, Wolf burst out of his skin with a snarling howl—but it didn’t help. They were still bound.

  Kane fought back to the surface, forcing Wolf inside. Wolf raged against him, and his skin rippled and his bones broke over and over as they battled.

  He had to stay sane. He couldn’t listen to the voice; he couldn’t listen to his feelings. They’d betrayed him. They’d made him betray little Raven.

  “Hunter…”

  It was just in his head. Selina was in his head, not really here. He could block her out.

  Stop feeling, he told himself. Start thinking. Look around. She’s not here.

  Kane forced Wolf back, inch by inch. Selina was gone. He’d broken free of her.

  The chains cut into him. Free. The irony was killing him.

  A small hand slid under his head and he felt a bottle at his lips. “Drink this,” a voice whispered, helping him hold his head up.

  Cool water trickled down his sore throat.

  A surge of hope lurched through him. “Raven?” he gasped. His voice was hoarse. Had he been screaming?

  “No, it’s me. Israel.”

  Kane took another swallow of the blessed cool liquid and opened his eyes. A young boy looked down at him, his gray eyes worried. He was small and skinny, about fourteen.

  Israel.

  Whirling visions took over his mind again. An empty, echoing warehouse. A cage. Those wide gray eyes, staring at him from inside it.

  And then other eyes. Selina’s eyes. Her voice. Her touch. Her hand, pointing to Israel. He’s our enemy. Hurt him. Teach him not to hurt us.

  And something rising up inside him. A word he’d almost forgotten how to use.

  NO.

  There was fighting and blood and screams, and Selina was angry, so angry, her anger hurting his brain, burning all his nerve endings. He wanted to do what she said and he didn’t want to, and his head felt like it would explode and he was grabbing Israel and running and running.

  And then it was all confused. Selina wasn’t there and Raven wasn’t there and the boy was looking up at him and trusting him and Kane had to keep him safe, he knew he had to keep him safe but Selina wanted to hurt him, and that was wrong but it was right but it was wrong and he had to stay away no he had to go back no he had to stay away…

  His brain was on fire and he screamed, and Israel bathed his face with cool water and said words that didn’t make any sense, but the sound of his voice was something real, something good that Kane could hold on to until he could shove

  all the feelings

  into a box

  and just

  make it

  stop.

  Chapter 1

  Kane Colton sat alone in the lounge of the Silver Cloud Resort and Casino, slowly sipping a whiskey and trying to blend into the shadows. It was the same table he’d been sitting at every night for the last week, waiting for the eleven-thirty show. Waiting for the singer with the smoky voice that stabbed him to his heart, but that he couldn’t walk away from.

  Waiting for Raven.

  Even the name sent a stab of pain through his chest. A reminder of a past that was best forgotten, a loss that had never healed.

  Guilt had a way of keeping wounds open.

  A single spotlight appeared on the dark stage, illuminating her as if she’d simply appeared by magic out of the darkness. Her red dress glittered in the pool of light surrounding her, and her dark hair floated around her face in waves, her eyes dark as jet.

  She surveyed the room once, and Kane felt as though her gaze focused on him. She took a soft breath, closed her eyes, and started to sing.

  She sang songs of love and loss, of times gone by, of glory and sadness. Kane, nursing his one drink in the corner, felt the dark brittle casings around his heart and soul start to crack.

  It had been so long since he’d let himself feel anything. There was too much darkness in his past, too much pain. Most of it he’d caused to others. He’d tried to be a good man, a decent man, after his childhood pack had shattered, but he hadn’t been able to do it. Not alone.

  He’d drifted down into the darkness, and he’d almost stayed there. Only two people had given him the strength and the reason to find the light again. One was his best friend, Israel.

  And the other…well, the other was long gone. She was probably dead by now, and he’d locked the pain of that knowledge deep in his heart with all the other things that were best not remembered.

  But Raven’s sultry voice brought it all back.

  Kane wondered why he put himself through this. He’d shut down his heart because the only
way to redeem himself was to use his head. Make good rules and follow them. Think before he acted, and deliberately put his duty and the good of his pack before everything else.

  It was the only thing that kept him from sinking back down into the abyss.

  Then, a week ago, he’d walked past the lounge after he finished his security shift, and heard Raven singing. Something in her voice pulled at him, dredging up the parts of himself he kept hidden and cracking the walls he’d so carefully built.

  And then she’d started singing that song. Raven’s song. It tore him up inside.

  Years ago, Rachelle—his own little Raven—had sung it to him at night. Back when they lived on the street, when he was exhausted from hunting down food and scrapping to survive, from being alone with no pack and no territory.

  Sleep had come hard, when he first hit the city. His wolf was always strung out and miserable, hyper-alert for threats, terrified by the noise and the concrete and the enclosing walls.

  And the loneliness.

  Then he’d found this scrawny little street girl and taken care of her. Wolf felt better, with someone to protect. Kane hadn’t realized until later that she was taking care of him too. And on nights when he was afraid to sleep but so exhausted he was shaking, she’d sung him to sleep with this song.

  He’d never heard anyone sing it since.

  And, masochist that he was, he kept coming back to hear it again.

  In the end, he’d betrayed Rachelle. Instead of protecting her, he’d abandoned her.

  He never found out what happened to her, and the deep, aching pain and guilt had never left him. He’d just buried it under brittle layers of darkness, like volcanic glass.

  And now he sat in here, night after night, and let this stranger shatter it layer by layer.

  What the hell he was going to do when the last layer was gone and he had to face everything he’d buried, he didn’t know.

  She swung into the song twenty minutes into the set. It was about pain and despair, redemption and forgiveness. A reassurance that somehow, through the darkness, things would be all right.

  That love would somehow prevail.

  So far, he hadn’t even made it to the end. Wolf always started tearing at him, and he had to leave.

  This time he almost made it. But the fear of facing all his guilt and failure was too much for him, and he chickened out, the way he always did.

  Kane threw a couple of bills on the table and walked out.

  Kane’s stride lengthened as he walked down the hall towards the exit. Wolf was fighting to get out, and he had to get outside before he changed. This might be a shifter-owned resort and casino, but most of the guests were human.

  Seeing a man turn into a giant, enraged wolf would not exactly be a big draw for customers.

  He slapped his security card against the electronic card reader and banged the emergency exit door open, almost running straight into the eleven-to-seven security supervisor, Noah Reilly.

  What the hell? Noah was supposed to be doing rounds. “What are you doing out here?” Kane demanded.

  Wolf growled.

  Noah drew himself up—not quite standing at attention, but close. He was only twenty-three, an ex-Marine, and habits died hard—especially because Kane was technically his boss. As the Silverlake wolf pack’s Enforcer, Kane was primarily in charge of their security. But his team also did contract Enforcement work for other shifters, and the Silver Cloud Casino was his current assignment.

  “Just checking the perimeter, sir,” Noah said.

  Kane glanced at his watch, fighting Wolf down. The midnight perimeter check should be starting now, but not here. “Midnight check starts at the front entrance,” he said. “Is there a problem?”

  “I thought I saw something on one of the security cams,” Noah said. “I wanted to check it out before beginning the rest of my rounds.”

  Kane studied him. Noah’s stance was respectful and his voice was neutral, but his eyes had shifted just slightly when he answered, and so had his scent. He wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  From inside Noah’s pocket, a cell phone chirped with a text alert. Not the alert used on their security phones.

  Noah didn’t move.

  Kane narrowed his eyes. “You going to get that?”

  Noah’s eyes shifted again. “I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t wait.”

  There was another chirp. Kane saw a muscle in Noah’s jaw tighten and then relax.

  Fuck.

  “Marine, if I rip that phone out of your pocket right now, am I going to find out you’ve been standing out here texting your fucking girlfriend?”

  Noah’s jaw clenched again. “I would prefer it if you didn’t do that, sir.”

  Kane did not need this right now.

  Moving with snakelike quickness, he swung Noah around and slammed him against the wall of the building. Probably harder than necessary.

  He got right up in the kid’s face, Wolf snarling in his chest.

  “Let me reiterate, Reilly,” he said. “A high-tech gang is robbing shifter-owned casinos, moving east from the Pacific Ocean. That means every shifter-owned business is in the line of fire. If the thieves should happen to come here between eleven at night and seven in the morning, your job is to stop them. So if you can’t keep your mind off your dick for eight hours in a row, I’d be happy to help you by ripping your balls off and shoving them down your throat. Because this is not getting fucked up on my watch. Is that clear?”

  Noah gazed into his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now go do your job. And turn your damned personal phone off.”

  Kane released the hormone-crazed idiot and strode off before Wolf did something they’d both regret.

  Chapter 2

  From the stage, Rachelle watched him leave the room. Again. Night after night he came to her show, sitting at the same shadowy corner table, all alone.

  He had one drink, maybe two. He never took his eyes off the stage, except to close them in what looked like pain. And he drank in her songs with an intensity that she could feel from where she sat. It was like an invisible cord was strung between them, connecting them.

  But he never stayed. He always left in the middle of the same song—as if he couldn’t bear to hear it all the way through.

  Rachelle snorted to herself. More likely, he had to get home to his wife.

  It was stupid to build this man up in her mind. She didn’t know anything about him. Hell, with the spotlights on the stage and the dim lighting in the bar, she could barely see him, really. He was a shadow of dark hair and gleaming eyes.

  She was making a fantasy out of someone who was probably just a depressed alcoholic.

  And yet each time he left, it felt like he took part of her with him. She always put her whole heart into that song, now, hoping somehow to call him back with the intensity of her emotion.

  She wanted to heal him with the song, but she could never reach him.

  Ah, well.

  She finished the set and took her bows. The audience was sparse tonight. That didn’t matter to her—it was the pleasure of reaching them with her music that she enjoyed.

  And, of course, there was the little fact that the singing was just a cover.

  She was here on a mission.

  Rogue shifters were targeting shifter-owned casinos, and the Agency’s intel said that the Silver Cloud was going to be their next target. That put her ahead of the Feds, who knew nothing about shifters and had no idea that was the connection between the targets that had already been hit.

  It also put her ahead of the Shifter Council; they were dividing their attention between several possibilities along the thieves’ path east from Washington and Oregon.

  Which was a good thing.

  Because she needed to be the one to bring these people down. It wasn’t about justice or public service.

  For her, it was personal.

  She couldn’t afford to get distracted by a man, however brooding and soul
ful and sexy he might seem.

  She had a job to do. Years ago, Selina Douglass had taken Hunter from her and destroyed him.

  She still had to pay.

  And now she was going to.

  Even so, after she’d changed out of her costume and taken off her theatrical makeup, Rachelle went back through the lounge on her way home. Manny, the bartender, was stacking clean glasses.

  “Nice set tonight, Raven,” he said. “You really put your heart into it. I thought one or two of the customers were going to start crying in their beer.”

  “Like you’d care,” she said. “Unless it made them order more.”

  “Better profit in hard liquor,” he said with a wink. “Give me the alkies any day.”

  She shook her head. Manny didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body, but she liked him.

  “So,” she said, hiking her butt onto a barstool, “speaking of customers crying into their beers, what’s up with that guy who sits at the corner table? I’ve seen him in here every night. Is he a regular?”

  Manny shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I never saw him before you started. Must be a groupie.”

  Rachelle frowned at that. Could be a harmless guy crushing on her, too shy to approach her. Or working up the courage. Although, even from the shadows, he looked way too hot to be that insecure. More like the kind of guy who could get a woman to drop her panties with a single smoldering look.

  Was it possible he wasn’t what he seemed? Had one of Selina’s scouts made her?

  “Does he talk to anybody?” she asked. “What’s his story?”

  Manny shrugged. “That’s not the kind of guy who opens up to the bartender,” he said. “I’ve seen his type before. Hard-ass, brooding alpha males who don’t confide in anybody. They just keep it all inside until one day they explode with the crazy.”