The Wolf, page 12
Lucan looked around. If there were no guards here, there was no product here. No dealers here. No business here.
Unlike in that stretch of ten blocks between all those clubs, down by the bridge. Where he’d found the man he’d initially dealt with, before the woman had stepped in to do the negotiating.
Besides… if someone didn’t answer the phone when there were millions on the line?
He knew what had happened to her, even if he didn’t have the details.
On that note, he turned away from the stairs, and twisted his back to release some of the tension in his spasming abdominals—
What was that noise?
As he froze and held his breath, he listened. Out on the street, a car with loud music trolled by. Someone hollered at somebody else. In the distance, there were sirens—then again, when weren’t there sirens in downtown Caldwell.
Sniffing at the air, he just got more of the same. And the smell of his own blood.
Lots of the latter.
“This is bullshit,” he muttered as he went to the exit.
His eye on the prize needed to stay where it had been before that woman and he had crossed paths… and he’d ended up in a ditch.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rio felt the switchblade’s tip move from between her breasts to down onto her abdomen. The point was doing a helluva job on both her fleece as well as the thin cotton t-shirt underneath, the layers giving way, her skin registering the contact with a shiver of warning. She didn’t know whether or not he was cutting her yet because she both was numb and hyperaware at the same time.
But whether it was happening now or not, things were going to head in that surgical direction. Fast.
“I really like to film these kinds of things,” the man said softly with his accent. “Mozart needs proof, but I like videos as well for my personal souvenir. Smile for the camera.”
The blade disappeared, and he gripped her chin and forced her face over to the tripod. As she breathed hard through her stuffy nose, the nostrils flaring and sucking in, flaring and sucking in, she felt the switchblade snake down to her breast, the tip making a circle around her nipple.
“You’re going to be so pretty when I’m done with you.” The tone was soothing, as someone might placate a patient who was about to get a medical procedure done. “And don’t worry, I’m going to make sure you feel everything I do to you. If we have to take breaks for you to catch your breath, we will. And when the end comes, and I enter you properly, you’re going straight to heaven.”
Rio squeezed her eyes shut and thrashed against the ropes, her body fighting for its freedom on its own, her brain taking a back seat to the high-octane fear coursing through her veins.
The man took a break from the teasing and sat on his heels, watching her as a child who had picked the wings off a fly might regard the insect’s futile suffering.
She ran out of energy pretty quickly, and then she was limp and sweating, in spite of the cold.
“So pretty,” he murmured as he tilted his head and then brushed her bangs back with the switchblade. “I wish I could take out the gag. I want to hear everything you have to say to me, and I want to kiss you—”
The door to the apartment blew off its hinges, not opening but falling in, the panel hitting the floor with a clap and a cloud of dust, its screws bouncing free as they ran off across the bare floorboards.
After that… Rio wasn’t sure what happened.
The man with the switchblade was attacked, but not by another person. It was an animal, a huge… dog? The massive gray-and-white canine bounded into the space and launched itself at Rio’s torturer, punching the guy on the back with its forepaws so that her attacker fell face forward—then latching on to the nape of the neck with tremendous fangs.
The man tried to fight back, the switchblade swiping in wide, useless circles as the animal managed to keep him pinned on his stomach by planting itself on his back. And then there was a banging, the man’s torso lifted and slammed down, lifted and slammed down, the dog heaving its great head up and down, the bludgeoning turning the pale features of its victim to a crimson red as the nose was broken.
When the man went loose-armed and utterly limp, the dog shifted its bite to an arm and rolled the deadweight over, like it was thinking this all through, as if there were a specific strategy to what was happening.
Then it cocked its head, as if confused.
The pause didn’t last, and things got even bloodier now. The beast tore the front of the throat open and then went to work… on the face.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Rio trembled, and her nausea came back—especially as that strange smell she’d caught as soon as the man had revealed himself grew loud in her nose. And without her eyes tracking the carnage, the sounds of it all got unbearably loud: The wet slopping, the ripping, the crunching that had to be bones.
Rio was next.
That was her final thought as her blood pressure gave out entirely and she—
* * *
Rio resurfaced into consciousness slowly. Her head was pounding and she was sick to her stomach… and every time she breathed in through her nose, she choked on the stench in the air. Like roadkill and old-lady powder—
“It’s okay, you’re okay.”
Her lids flipped open. Someone was kneeling in front of her, someone her memory told her she knew, yet she couldn’t place… a man who was beautiful in a harsh way, his handsome face both stark and concerned, his dark hair on the long side—
His hair was wet. Was it raining?
Given the way his mouth was moving, she had a thought that he was talking to her, and that was when she saw the camera on the tripod behind him. All at once, the whole sordid mess came back to her, from being knocked out at her apartment, to drugged at Mozart’s, to what had happened here—
She needed to warn him. She needed to tell him about the—
“Dog,” she croaked.
As the word came out, she realized she no longer had the gag in her mouth. With a punching expansion of her lungs, one that caused pain everywhere in her body, she breathed in so deep and so hard it was as if she sobbed. Or maybe she was sobbing? And then the tether around her neck tightened and she moaned in fear.
That deep male voice cut through her protest. “It’s all right. I’m just going to untie you. I have to pull on the ropes a little to do it. Shhh… it’s okay. I’m going to take care of you.”
All at once, the tension around her throat was gone—and then she heard a shuffle and felt tugging at her ankles. Able to lift her head, she looked down herself and saw…
Luke.
It was the supplier, Luke. That’s who he was, and his eyes were full of worry and warmth as he looked at her—
“How… find me?” she groaned as he went back to work and cut what appeared to be nylon climbing rope with a knife—
Between one blink and the next, she saw the switchblade he was using right next to her face… felt it between her breasts… heard the pale man’s accent tell her they were going to stop when she had to catch her breath.
Rio let out a choked sob. “Oh, God. He was going to kill me—”
“Don’t think about that right now.” Luke collapsed the switch, and came back up to her head. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
Strong arms gathered her as if she were cut glass and pulled her into his heavy chest. Even though she didn’t know him, and had every reason not to trust him, she wanted to put her arms around him in gratitude. But she didn’t have the strength.
“I can’t walk,” she mumbled as she turned her face into his neck. “My legs… I can’t feel them.”
God, he smelled good. More of that cologne he’d had on before—and it was strong enough to cut through that horrible smell.
He glanced over his shoulder to the door that had been broken down by that animal. “I’ve got to get us a car—”
“Mine is…” Back at Mozart’s—no, at her apartment. Which was miles and miles, and a lifetime, away. “Gone.”
“I’ll figure it out.” He set her back a little. “I’m going to lay you down, okay?”
After he’d lowered her onto the floor once more, he got to his feet and went over to a pack of some sort. “Maybe there are keys in here.”
“What… happened… dog?” What if the thing came back—
“He’s gone.” Luke spoke absently as he continued to rifle through whatever was in the bag. “He’s how I found you, actually.”
It was then that she turned her head—and retched. Across the room, looking like he’d been holding a bomb to his chest when it exploded… was the white-haired man: His naked body was sprawled in the far corner, a bloody smear pattern tracking across the dirty floor like he’d been dragged over there.
“Dear God,” she mumbled.
Whether it was the desecration of that body, or dehydration, or that cloth gag, her mouth was like steel wool, the inside of her cheeks chewed raw, her tongue nothing but a dry slab between her rows of teeth.
“Okay, I found a car key, but it’s not safe. I’ll bet they’ll have a tracker on it…” He tossed a key fob at the mangled remains. “Fuckers.”
Luke rose to his full height and stared at the wall, and that was when he properly registered to her for the first time. He was wearing black pants that didn’t reach his ankles and were tight around his thighs, and a black leather jacket that was zipped from hem to collar. The jacket also seemed too small, a gap of taut flesh around his hips and lower belly showing. And he was barefoot, too.
But like she was going to argue with the sartorial choices of her savior?
Or the wet hair, she noted numbly as he pushed the waves back again.
When he returned to her, he looked away sharply and she worried he’d been wrong, that the dog had returned. But then his gentle hands realigned her cut-open fleece and shirt, making sure her breasts were covered.
“You need to take this.”
Her eyes refused to follow her command to focus. But eventually, she recognized what he was holding out to her. A gun.
“I have to go find us a car,” he said. “And I know there’s no one in the building. You’re safer here than you are down on the street, especially if armed.”
It took everything in her not to beg him to take her along. But he was right.
“Help me… up. Prop me on the wall.”
Luke closed his eyes briefly. “Yes.”
Bending down, his hands, his big, careful hands, slipped under her arms. As he lifted her, she hissed in pain, and his face paled.
“I’m so sorry—”
“Move me,” she ordered, “just move me.”
Biting down on her molars, she endured the agony of a change in position, her arms and legs screaming as the joints, which had become locked, were forced to bend. And then, when she was leaned on the flat wall, her torso just slid to the side, her energy spent, her body refusing to work.
Luke ended up having to relocate her so she was in a corner.
“Gun,” she grunted.
She tried to lift her hands to hold it. She couldn’t.
Luke got the pack thing and put it carefully in her lap. Then he situated her forearms on the bundle and set the gun between her palms, training the barrel at the door at what would be chest height on an average man.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “You go… I’ll take care of myself.”
There was a pause. And then Luke surged forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
He was gone after that, rushing out the wide-open doorway.
As Rio took a deep breath, her ribs were like a steel cage around her lungs and nausea rose again. Then her vision receded to a fine point—although it came back quick enough.
Shifting her eyes over to the dead body, she swallowed compulsively. In the light that shined in from the stairwell’s fixture, the gleam of blood seemed evil—and then something moved.
Or… at least she thought it did. Probably just an autonomic jerk of muscle fibers.
Well, no doubt, it was that—considering most of the muscles of the chest were gone, and she wasn’t even sure which part of the glistening remains was the face.
She refocused on that open door and trained all her strength on her trigger finger.
In case she needed it to pull hard.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lucan hit the walk-up’s staircase on a leap, jumping down landing to landing, swinging himself around by the banister. At the ground floor, he ignored the front entrance and shot to the back hall. Breaking out through the battered door at the end, he found a series of parking spots in the alley, but they were empty—of cars, that was. Discarded mattresses, a broken TV, and a couch that had its inner stuffing exposed to the elements took up the shallow asphalt square.
As he cursed out loud, he tasted anew the blood of the man he’d eaten.
Even though his wolf had done the chewing, as usual, he was left with the aftereffects, his full stomach not the kind of third wheel he needed right now.
Taking off at a jog, his bare feet were silent over the damp, cold pavement of the alley. When he got to the first intersection of a proper avenue, he looked left and right.
And jumped out in front of a car.
As the headlights splashed across him, he put both his palms forward like he was Superman and could pick the thing up by the front bumper—and then, because he was no hero at all, much less one that was super, he had to jump out of the way when the tires locked and the skidding started.
Momentum being what it was, he sprinted forward to keep up with the driver’s side window, and the second the sedan came to a halt, he locked eyes with a—shit, it was a kid behind the wheel, a human young who couldn’t have been much older than fourteen or fifteen, not that Lucan knew a ton about the aging cycle of the other species.
Actually, it was two kids, and they were arguing with each other, like over who’d chosen to come this way. Then both doors punched open and they bolted from the scene, taking off so fast, Lucan didn’t have time to get into their brains and demand that they give him control of the vehicle.
Might be the only thing that went his way tonight, Lucan thought.
The deserters had left the engine in gear, so without any brake pedal pressure, the sedan was rolling forward at an idle. Hopping in, he yanked the wheel around and hit the gas. The passenger’s side door flopped wide on the turn, but as he righted the course to straight, it clapped shut.
For no good reason, he noticed that he smelled fast food and glanced across the console. The passenger side’s wheel well was filled with Burger King bags, and that pair had obviously just stopped for some more grub. There was also something else in the air—fake strawberry and tobacco smoke.
The car was clearly stolen. Not exactly the complication he was looking for. He’d have preferred to tamper with the memories of a human so that he didn’t have to worry about the Caldwell police having an all-points bulletin out on Rio’s escape route away from that walk-up. But he had no time to spare to look for a better four-wheel option.
Back at the walk-up, he pulled in next to the deconstructed sofa, slammed the gearshift into park, and jerked the keys out from the steering column. It was a good thing that the beater was so old. In the last couple of months, he’d learned that modern cars had remotes that could live in a pocket or a bag and didn’t have to be plugged into the ignition.
Those boys might well have taken the ability to secure and restart the thing with them.
Stretching across the seats, he pushed down the lock on the passenger door. Then he was out and locking the driver’s panel with the key.
He’d never moved so fast in his life: In the rear entrance. Back down the dark hall. Around the base of the stairs and then up the steps three at a time, his hand grabbing at the balustrade and hauling his weight up.
Fourth landing now—and he remembered how he’d left her with the gun.
“It’s me,” he said before he jumped into the open doorway. “Rio? Don’t shoot, it’s me—”
“I’m here,” was the weak response.
Lucan all but flew into the shitty apartment, expecting to see the woman slumped on the floor. She was not. Her head was listing to the side, but other than that, she was precisely where he’d arranged her, like a rag doll abandoned by its maker.
God, she looked bad.
Yet her eyes were shining fiercely, and that nine millimeter was angled right where it needed to be.
Her body might have been failing her; her will was not.
As he rushed over to her, time fell into a crawl. It seemed like a hundred years until he was kneeling by her side again, and the sight of her so battered and bruised was etched into his mind, indelible. From her matted short hair, to the blood that stained her sliced-open fleece and shirt, to the ligature marks around her pale throat, she was nothing like the woman he had met the night before.
And to think he’d almost ignored that sound he’d heard, that prickle of awareness that he’d had out in front of the building as he’d been about to leave.
If he’d been even ten minutes later or had taken off… she’d have been hurt in ways that were intolerable to consider.
That bloody, naked corpse over in the corner hadn’t paid enough.
“Let’s go,” he choked out.
When he went to take the gun from her, she shook her head. “I’ll cover us. You just carry me out of here, and I’ll shoot anything in our way.”
Her voice was stronger than it had been, and he took a moment to respect the warrior that was just under her skin. Then he slung the pack her attacker had brought with him onto his shoulder, scooped her up—and grimaced as she gasped and grunted in pain. As he marched them into the light of the stairwell, he glared across at the mangled body.
Out in the common landing, he had to give her credit. Despite her condition, she kept that weapon pointed right in front of them. The job required both her hands, but he knew that she wasn’t going to drop the weight.
