Jack, page 21
part #2 of Hunted Shifters Legacy Series
The voice was Danny’s again, her dazed, confused mind registered, right before she looked up. She saw another familiar face, but it no longer looked like the familiar face from before—not with those eyes redder than Dennis’, not with the fangs spilling out of his mouth and pressing against his lower lip. He eyed her impersonally, but with a pleased expression that made her shudder.
He took note of that shudder, and he switched from pleased to delighted.
“But you’re also very gullible for thinking my voice was Dennis’ when I simply made it a point not to stand where you could see me. You were eyeing the whole thing earlier, weren’t you, sweetheart? Dennis and Aidan should’ve learned from you. You’ve got good technique.” Casually, he took a step forward, a hunger firing up his gaze. “But not good enough to get away from me—fuck!”
Her dagger went loose from Dennis’ body, plunging straight at this man’s—vampire’s—ankle. She heard it connect with bone, used the same method of push, twist, and pull to dig in further. A raw, violent howl filled the air, and long nails reached out to swipe.
She ran before they could, the wind taking her away. She kept running until the howl died down, and no sound came for her again. Her lungs burned, and her body screamed at the exertion.
Kit ran until she stumbled to the edge of the forest, where she found herself staring at another field.
Only this one was filled with skeletons, old bones, and silver scraps.
Chapter 28
There were two people facing him right now, and both men were looking at Jack as if he were both the enemy and the ally. Jack supposed that pretty much summed it up, considering these men were the last he would invite to his penthouse under different circumstances.
But the circumstances now didn’t leave him much of a choice.
Hunter looked like he’d rather be somewhere else, while St. Charles looked right at home on the couch where they were sitting. In fact, the man’s violet eyes were taking some sort of lazy inventory to the penthouse, and Jack had a feeling there wasn’t much being missed. Hunter didn’t look around, as he’d already been there.
But he did glance at the phone Jack had in hand before looking Jack in the eye.
“She won’t be much longer,” was all he said.
“We could have done this ourselves,” Jack said, but St. Charles was already shaking his head and smirking.
“You don’t seem to know Leila well. When she says she’s coming, that means she’s coming. And she essentially threatened to cut off our balls if we went without her.”
Before Jack could fully analyze the motive for the insistence, someone was already asking for access from the elevator. Recognizing the voice, Jack granted entrance and waited. A few seconds later, Leila strode in through the open front door, leaving a cloud of faint perfume in her wake. Her black shrug shimmered with her movements, and her heels clicked as she walked. She stopped right in front of them in the living room, arching her hip to the side and putting her hand there.
Dark eyes studied Hunter, St. Charles, then Jack.
“You’re late,” St. Charles said. “And I’m always the one late.”
“Good for you. I had some errands to run.”
“I can’t believe they call hookups errands these days.”
Those dark eyes flared, and she looked like she was ready to strangle St. Charles on the spot. But the annoyance disappeared a second later, the cool façade now back in place. An elegant brow rose in Jack’s direction.
“I’m here is what matters, and I’ll hold off from strangling this impertinent man on your couch. Now tell me what the hell I’m here for, and how it’s related to Kitty.”
Jack expected impatience in the tone. But all he heard was worry. He studied Leila back, assessing the sincerity before he reminded himself this was Kit’s clan and his only chance for help. Inwardly, he sighed, heart heavy from his worry.
Outwardly, he simply nodded his head, launched the tracking application, and placed the special phone on his coffee table.
“This is Kit’s tracking device. It’s the application that tracks down all your movements when you turn your ear pod trackers on, and I’ve been monitoring it since this afternoon.”
All three glanced at the phone, then at him. The reactions were different: Hunter confused and wary, Leila downright bracing herself, and St. Charles eyeing him with open speculation. Oddly enough, out of the three, it was the latter who had Jack bracing himself, sensing the incoming attack.
“Whatever are you doing that for, Sylvester?”
“Kit has disappeared,” Hunter bit out before Jack could. “She’s disappeared, and Jack here asked Celine for help to look for her.”
They were just simple sentences, but the shift was instantaneous: Leila’s hostility turning into astonishment and St. Charles’ shoulders turning rigid. Violet eyes flared hard.
“What the hell, Malone?”
“If you let Jack explain, we can find out more,” Hunter snapped back before giving Jack a subtle nod. The given support, however reluctant, had him dumbfounded, but Jack took it in stride and nodded in return.
“None of you were showing on the tracker yesterday, and I’m assuming that’s because none of you were using it. But someone was in this area.” He opened the map, then zoomed it in the Manhattan area. “A green dot, which I attempted to follow. But when I got to the area, the green dot disappeared. I can’t find Kit anywhere. Normally I understand Kit stays under the radar, but she’s still very much present during her radio segments. She’s on vacation for a week. She isn’t answering her calls. Her neighbor, Dennis Supra, one of the suspects in the murder case, is also gone. He parked his car close to the area where the tracker was beeping, and he hasn’t been found since.”
Hunter and St. Charles reacted with a blast of questions, while Leila stayed quiet and listened as he explained the basics. Her eyes went frosty when he finished, and St. Charles let out a deep grunt.
“Bloody fucking hell. Someone’s taken our Scarlett.”
Shoulders bristling, Jack tried to ignore the possessiveness rising inside him. “We’re not sure of that yet. But…”
His eyes widened when he zoned in on something that had changed on his phone screen. Slowly, all three heads turned to look, too. The green dot blinked once, twice, slowly…then, faster. Words flooded from the bottom of the screen, an address that was familiar.
The same address from last night.
Jack’s heart stopped.
Leila was on her feet in an instant.
“We need to move now. Let’s go. I have a murderer’s throat to rip apart.”
* * *
The car ride was tense, and it was a miracle the four of them didn’t tear each other’s throats out. It soon became painfully clear that the only reason for that was Kit, who was still out there missing, and they all somewhat cared for at different degrees. Jack wondered if they felt the same worry he did, then immediately dismissed it as his hands tightened on the steering wheel.
This wasn’t worry he was feeling, but fear—a sick fear that rolled around in his gut, taking root and growing. Some realizations came early on, and his did. But he’d been too prideful to fight, too stubborn in his insistence to give her space when he should’ve just said what he felt.
He loved her.
He loved the quirky woman who came barreling into his life like a force field, all bright and bubbly and alive. She'd punched him in the stomach with everything she'd taught and given him, right before she ripped his heart out when she left.
And yet his feelings hadn’t changed, only intensified.
The thoughts—the realizations—had to be put away when they finally parked in Manhattan, then hurried towards the location the tracker indicated. Of course, hurrying for supernatural creatures meant complete stealth, and they were barely seen as they passed by the side alleys and back buildings before arriving at their destination: an old, abandoned graveyard. No one hesitated as they entered it, but everyone’s shoulders tensed as they got closer to the spot.
They found what they were looking for a few minutes later: a toy car with a camera, turned off and lying in between some tall grass, and an earpod lying beside a gravestone. The earpod was turned on.
But there was no sign of Kit.
Frustrated, Jack looked around, sensing no other person besides them. He bent down, placing the earpod to his ear but finding no recordings. There had to be a reason why it was left there, unless it was an accident. He touched the tombstone, trying to see if the name on it would make sense—
He was on his feet in an instant.
“Pocket. This is an entrance.”
“What—”
“I’m going in,” he called out, ignoring the hissed warning from Leila. Then he was diving forward, allowing the entrance to suck him in before he landed on the other side.
Fog met him, followed by repeated thuds behind him. One, two, three. Like a unit, they spread out, back towards each other and facing their surroundings. The fog was so thick that it gave zero visibility, but soon his eyes adjusted and saw the crumbled rocks, dead trees, and such.
A mirror pocket.
A definitive rigidness to his right had him glancing, where he found St. Charles’s violet eyes focused on the ground. Jack’s gaze followed, and his entire body went cold as he recognized the dead figure swimming in its own blood.
He didn’t speak. He raised his hand instead, gesturing until they understood. Hunter and Leila moved as one and strode in one direction, while St. Charles reluctantly went with Jack as they stepped over Aidan’s corpse and went the other direction.
The fog became thicker, but they didn’t stop until it slowly thinned out. Blasted by the sight of dark night, even though it was close to dawn in New York, was surreal, but they took it in stride and kept going, eventually reaching a crossroad. St. Charles pointed in one direction, while Jack pointed in the other before they nodded their heads to indicate they weren’t budging. The lion-wolf’s claws came out as he went for the dead forest, while Jack went for the lush green one.
It became an endless mind game of silence from there, with Jack’s sensitive ears hearing nothing. He kept going, using the fog as his cloak, his claws now growing out but hidden inside his coat pockets. It was the kind of silence that had him half-expecting something to come out at him, but nothing did, which only made him more suspicious. That was logic for you.
Logic went out the window when he sensed movement behind him. His sharp teeth came out to defend, body braced for a painful burst into his animal form. But a clawed hand was already clamped on his arm, stopping him from going further, and the face was right in front of him—a deliberate movement.
St. Charles. Warning flashed in the man’s eyes, his features already half-animal. He shook his head, indicating he found nothing on the other side before he eased back and let Jack go. They glared at each other, traces of the old hostility still there.
The thick fog started swirling, thinning out, misting. The trees became more visible, so vibrant with greenery that it was blinding and unreal. Definitely another realm, one that didn’t seem to have many clan residents yet. Huge clans never left pockets unprotected like this, as the entrances often led right in front of their homes or inside it—just like his apartment, just like Kit’s clan’s mansion. But nothing was there…
No, something was there. Not a house, not a clan.
Just a man, sitting on a rock with such leisure that it looked like he’d been sprawled there in wait. Maybe he was. Surprise sparked in his eyes when he spotted them, but that soon turned into speculation.
Then, pleasure.
“That was fast. And you gave me a start, if I’m to be honest.”
Recognition was a funny thing, stilling Jack for a second before he was taking a step forward.
“Killian,” he growled out, rage in his voice. Rage unfurling everywhere.
“Malkovich,” St. Charles said at the same time, rage not quite as pronounced but the hostility there. This was a different level of hostility, filled with more raw intensity.
The fact that all three knew each other sank in, and Jack and St. Charles managed a glance at each other. Then they focused on the man in front of them, who bared his fangs in response.
“How do you know him?” St. Charles drawled.
“He’s a cop,” Jack said coldly. “Homicide division. You?”
“Fuck it.” The lion-wolf’s gaze narrowed. “He’s a clan betrayer. Recruited our old cook, who tried to kill Edmund. He's older than he looks.”
Alarm punched Jack in the system, but he calmly nodded in response. Killian did too as if the announcement didn’t faze him.
“You forgot detective about to receive all the honorary awards after fooling countless human imbeciles, cold-blooded killer with an impressive hit list, and the vampire who almost took out the clan with the biggest pocket in the world.”
“One of the biggest,” St. Charles corrected with a casualness that was deceiving. “But I bet that’s the only information you have, and it kills you that your little cook failed, and you don’t have proof of anything. How’s your old clan, by the way? I heard they’ve kicked you out. I would’ve been ecstatic to see that with my own eyes.”
“They’d have killed you on the spot,” was Killian’s easy reply, though there was nothing easy about his stance now. The lion-wolf’s words had hit a mark, and Killian hadn’t liked it. There was history here, deeper than what Jack had with Killian the investigator, and he was the one out of his league.
But that didn’t mean he was ready to let it go.
“Enough with the chitchat and tell me how you’ve easily gotten in the police force,” Jack cut in as calmly as he could. “You were a cop in California, but there had been no report of a killing spree back then.”
Killian smiled. The smile was different, too—older, filled with more knowledge and less eagerness. But the hint of ego was still there.
“You’ve been doing your research.”
“So have you,” Jack shot back.
“Then there’s no need to talk about it.”
“There is, because something changed. I want to know what.”
Killian seemed to think it over for a second before he spread out his hands and shrugged. “It’s simple. The clan kicked me out, and I escaped before they could kill me. I discovered my talent in police work and did the training. I worked my way to the top, got myself reassigned here. But it wasn’t enough, and I wasn’t happy. Then I discovered there was one more thing I excelled at: precision. Precision at slicing bodies, at placing evidence. Precision in finding the right victim at the right time, performing the perfect act. Control over my temptation, as I never took in a single drop of their blood.”
The blow hit Jack hard. “You knew all along the clan was here. You knew Kit was the messenger and expected her to report this to the clan.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Stallone. I did it for the thrill. Perfection gets my blood going.” Fangs and mouth formed a smirk. “Kit being in the middle of it was just coincidence, and it’s not my fault that the bitch was being nosy. She had to pay.”
A growl ripped out, and it took Jack a while to realize that it was coming from his own throat. But a bigger growl resonated, and beside him, a furry St. Charles took a step forward, beast form more visible and voice now snarly from the change.
“Not until we kill you first, you moron.”
“Too late for that,” Killian returned.
St. Charles pounced—
And Killian stepped back to show them what was behind him all along: Dennis, just as dead as Aidan. Blood muted by soil.
And Kit, unconscious and leaning on the dead body.
Chapter 29
It took effort for Kit to keep perfectly still, especially after everything she'd gone through and everything she'd heard up to this moment. The bruise Killian inflicted on her stomach wasn’t deadly, but it was so painful that it throbbed hard in her veins and made her want to scream. She stifled any movements, however, her mind still absorbing the truth from Killian’s mouth.
That was a shock, too. But it wasn’t shocking enough to render her mind blank. The moment she heard St. Charles growling in his beast form and charging, then stopping abruptly as he crashed against Killian’s side, she opened her eyes, locking in with ice blue ones.
The sight of Jack was so clear, so visceral, that she almost sobbed. Her heart tightened, then pounded hard, but she swallowed every bit of it in and kept her position. Nothing in his gaze indicated that they were eyeing each other, but there was a promise there that only she could read because she knew him that well.
She knew his heart, and they didn’t.
With barely a blink, Jack’s gaze shifted back up and straight at Killian, while Kit kept hers down, afraid to look up and have the enemy realizing she was awake this whole time. Dennis’ blood had grown reek, seeping and cloying down her nearby nostrils. That feeling didn’t last for long as she felt sharp nails scratch her arm before she was yanked up with a force that should’ve jerked her awake.
Refusing to have her cover blown, she willfully kept her body sagged as if Killian was lifting a lifeless person. He positioned her in front of him, a sharp nail digging at her throat and his dark voice at the nape of her neck. She barely stifled the shudder.
“Take one more step—either of you two—and there won’t be a Kitty in existence.” An approving noise came out. “That’s good. Jesus. I didn’t realize you’d be this attached to a puny human girl. I should’ve used her sooner.”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” St. Charles quipped in a soft, deadly voice. The smoothness of it was back, indicating he’d changed back to his man form, and she could’ve cried right there.
A quiet gasp burst out of her as Killian waved her around like a limp doll, but he didn’t hear the sound.
“We haven’t formally met, St. Charles, but I’ve heard all about you. A wealthy man with expensive real estate all over, but you still choose to be with a poor, struggling clan. Don’t you think that’s a waste of your talent? If you join me, you’d be so much more.”
