Midnight Shift, page 14
Keane turned his back to Trace. “Not yet.”
“Great. Fucking great.” The son-of-a-bitch wasn’t through with him. “Your king wants you to kill me. So goddamn it, kill me.” The last bit came as a choking sob. Trace was done. Finished. If his wrists and ankles hadn’t been bound, he’d have ended his own life already. Anything to stop Garrick from getting to Benie. If he was dead, there would be no reason for her to come to Caledon.
Keane turned back to him. “It will all be over soon. One way or the other.”
Trace concentrated on sending her a message as he did every day, knowing she’d probably never receive it, but still he tried. Benie. Don’t come for me. I’m a dead man already. Please don’t come. Let me go.”
*
Benie crossed the field without incident. Even if it hadn’t been night, she would have been fine. Her ability didn’t depend on light. At least it didn’t require a lot of light. Of course if it had been pitch black, she wouldn’t need to shift anyhow.
With a guard at every window, and two sentries on the front door, how in the world was she supposed to get inside? She could make herself invisible, but she couldn’t walk through walls.
A voice penetrated her mind. Don’t come for me. I’m dead. I’m a dead man. Not worth it. Don’t come.
Trace?
Benie. Trace’s voice in her head was full of despair. You shouldn’t be here. Go. Run. Run.
Not without you, she shot back. Benie paced the entire house, searching for the cellar door marked on the map. She found a locked opening on the back right side. She grabbed a knife from under her arm, and had the old-fashioned lock opened in a few short moments. Carefully, she opened one side. The creaking sent panicky chills up and down her spine. Mentally she told the hinges to shut up.
She heard Trace’s voice again. You shouldn’t be here. Please, go. I am already dead.
No, she thought back fiercely. If he was already dead he couldn’t get into her mind. Unless his ghost had learned some weird Jedi mind trick thingy like an other worlder Obi Wan.
Forget it, Trace. Get yourself together because I’m coming for you.
Fear pulsated in her stomach when he didn’t answer back. Without hesitation, she crawled into the inky blackness beyond the cellar doors.
This was pitch black. She had to fumble her way forward until she found the exit. Gripping the handle, slowly, quietly, she opened the door. A putrid scent of human waste and remains instantly gagged her. A flickering sconce on the wall dimly lit the hall with barred cells on either side, only making the basement seem even more horrific.
She retched, the sound echoing off the brick walls.
“Clever, girl.”
Benie’s hand instantly gripped the blade she’d used to open the lock.
A figure stepped forward out of the thickest of shadows. His form slowly transformed into that of a man. He was tall, thin, and he wore a sweater vest Mr. Rogers would have envied.
He grinned. “What? No kiss for Daddy?”
A chill of foreboding and shock ripped through Benie’s psyche. Her enemy—her blood. “I’ll kill you, you bastard.”
“You’re not wrong. About me being a bastard, that is. The killing part? Well, there you’re just grossly mistaken.” Garrick’s form shimmered and faded, but his shadow remained. It moved forward, quickly and without warning, until it stopped in front of Benie.
So Daddy had a few tricks of his own. He could shift like her. Benoica slashed out with the blade, hoping to catch him across the neck. End game.
Unfortunately, the blade met with no resistance. There was nothing in front of her but air. She waved her hand above the shadow.
She heard Garrick laugh. It sounded like a whisper of wind. Then suddenly the shadow at her feet took shape. And there he was, standing right in front of her. His arm snaked out like a cobra—snap. He gripped her throat with more strength than she could have imagined his frail form capable.
Swinging up with her right hand, she tried to slash him again. He knocked the blade out of her hand and slapped her across the face almost simultaneously.
Damn. Shit. Piss. Fuck. He was fast.
“I should have never sent fools to do what I could have done so easily myself. At least then I would have known the job was done right.” He sniffed. “Nevertheless, I’ll rectify the situation now.”
Garrick examined Benie. He shook his head. “You look so much like your mother.” Even with Garrick’s reminiscing, he didn’t stop choking her. The pressure on her throat grew crushing.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. In an act of pure self-preservation, she allowed her body to go limp, praying the move would break Garrick’s grip but not her neck.
It didn’t work, but it surprised him enough that Benie was able to punch him in the groin without him blocking the action. That move made the ruler of Caledon let go. He doubled over, howling in pain.
“Not so smug now, huh?”
Before Benie could get off another punch, he disappeared once again into shadow. Okay, so maybe he was still a little smug.
The ghosted form went up the wall, across the ceiling, and came back down behind her.
More prepared, Benoica sensed him before she saw him begin to shimmer back into form. She leaned back into a side kick. Garrick was quick, and moved just in time to prevent solid contact, but Benoica countered with a sharp jab, catching him in the mouth.
He wiped his lip and spat blood. His eyes glittered with rage.
His rage was met with her own. She could feel the berserking essence of her werewolf permeate her being. “I won’t be caught off guard again, Daddy.” She flicked her knife at him. “Come on. You wanted your kiss.”
She cried out her wrath as she attacked full force using all the fighting skills her adoptive parents had taught her. She slashed, kicked, and punched. Garrick fought back adeptly. He blocked some of her hits, while some landed, and not for nothing, he landed quite a few blows of his own. The violent surge of adrenaline allowed her to ignore the pain.
Even still, Garrick was faster, stronger. He swooped his leg under Benie’s, causing her to land on the hard cement floor with a thud.
Straddling her thighs, he pinned her arms to the ground. He leaned in close to her face. “Here’s your kiss, daughter.”
His mouth met hers. Gentle, chaste. “Ahhh!” Benie screamed. Then she bit him on the lower lip, tearing fiercely into his flesh.
Garrick’s eyes grew wide with disbelief. “You’ve poisoned me? But how?”
She guessed the question as to how and when the poison from the polandrial would work in her body had been answered. “Good. Now die.”
“Oh,” he smiled, even with pain apparent in his eyes. “It will take more than that to kill me. So, you first.” He raised his elbow and caught her against the jaw. Blinding, white-hot pain exploded in Benie’s head.
Her vision clouded, but didn’t completely fade. She watched as Garrick prepared his next blow, unable to do anything to stop it.
Ian and Trace. She’d failed them both. And the last thing she’d see on this earth was the smiling face of her powerful and maniacal father.
An explosion sounded from somewhere deep in the house, or maybe outside. Suddenly, Garrick’s eyes widened again, and he gasped for breath. He rolled off Benie, clutching at his throat. She looked around the darkened hall, unable to get a bearing.
Ian Arent came into view. “Ian,” she whispered, her mouth and throat dry and swollen.
He’d shifted into half-form, a fierce and deadly werewolf. Benie rolled onto her side and watched, since she hurt too badly to do much more.
This is it, she thought. Garrick will die, and no more fighting.
Instead of dying, he dissolved into darkness once more. The shadow scurried across the floor and under the door of the room leading to the outside cellar door. Gone. Just gone.
Dead would have been better, but for the moment, she allowed herself to feel relief. “How?”
Ian squatted next to Benie, his body already shifting back to human, and helped her to stand. He checked her over from head to toe for major injuries. And since she was naked, and no longer shifted, it wasn’t hard for him to get a complete picture. “Are you okay? Does anything feel broken?”
Benie thought about Trace, and his last words. I am already dead. She hadn’t heard him since, and she feared the worst. “Only my heart.” She shook her head. He’d manage to control his shift like someone who’d been born to it. “Ian. How did you do that?”
“Long story short? I’ve been doing a little experimenting at home. I’ll explain more later. Right now, we have to get moving if we want to get Trace out of here.”
She barely managed the words. “If he’s still alive.”
“He’s alive, Benie. If he wasn’t, your mark would have lost a line. You’re not the only one who’s been talking to Myron Gray. Anyhow, I checked your back. The mark. It’s intact. Which means we’re not too late.”
Emotion, threatening to manifest in a wave of tears, washed over her. She didn’t have time to break down. Not now. It could wait.
“Do you know where he is?”
“No, but we’ll find him.”
“The explosion?”
“Yep. Little black bag.”
“We’ll find him.”
“For sure.” He squeezed her hand. “Let’s go.”
As if on cue, a blond man with bronze skin appeared at the end of the hall. He carried a human over his shoulder. Ian put himself between the man and Benoica.
“Wait.” The guy held up his free hand. He deposited his burden gently onto the floor. It moaned.
“Trace?” Benie walked toward them with difficulty. Her legs were sandbags—thick, heavy, and hard to move.
“Kill me,” Trace rasped.
Benie choked back a sob when she saw the state of him. He was naked, his body covered in dirt and dried blood. His normally robust frame was gaunt and drawn. “What have you done to him?”
“I’m returning him to you.”
“Why? Why are you helping us?”
The blond man dropped to his knee before the three of them. “I serve at the pleasure of my liege.”
He stood, and with the same flourish he’d arrived, the blond man disappeared.
As soon as he left, Benie could once again move freely. She dropped to Trace’s side. “Trace? Oh, God. Ian, help me.”
“Garrick,” Trace mumbled.
“Gone now,” Benie said.
“He can’t live.”
“He won’t. Not for long.” She stroked her fingers through Trace’s matted hair. “I swear it.”
“He won’t stop. Not until you’re dead. Not until we’re all dead.” His voice faded as his head slumped.
Ian checked Trace’s pulse and glanced over to Benie. “I’ll carry him.”
A figured stood at the cellar door. Tall and lithe with pitch black hair and a gun in each hand. One lethal-looking woman. Benie gathered her will, ready to do whatever it took to get Trace and Ian out of the farmhouse.
The raven beauty spoke, “Hurry. Garrick is coming back.”
Trace raised his head. “Semina?”
“No time now to explain, sweetheart. Garrick wants your balls.”
Benie didn’t care for the weight of possession in the woman’s tone. She shoved her jealousy aside. “Are you one of Gray’s people?”
“Nope. But I am here to help.” She gestured toward the exit. “And I hate to go all Terminator on you, but come with me if you want to live.”
Destan came running in and stopped short when the woman aimed one of her guns at his head. “Do we have a problem?”
Benie shook her head. “If she’d wanted us dead, she’d have already tried to kill us.”
“Then I suggest we get the hell out of here. Ty and Max have taken out the guards, and Eustan is getting the SUV, but the magic is shifting the kingdom, and we do not want to be in here when it does. Because I have no idea when or where we’ll pop up.”
She still didn’t trust the woman. Not one of Gray’s rebels, and all too familiar with Trace. “Who are you?”
“Semina Calder,” the woman answered. “But you can call me Shade.”
“Calder?”
“As in Mrs. Trace Calder.” Shade narrowed her eyes. “Are we going to talk about this now, or are we getting the hell out of here before the place goes all magical transport?”
Benie, feeling gut punched, jerked her thumb back at Ian. “Help with Trace.” She narrowed her gaze on Shade. She felt a mild sting as a polandrial spike broke through the skin of her index fingertip and dripped poison. She tried to hide her surprise at her new ability. “Lead on. But I promise you this, if you take us into a trap, you’ll be the first to die.”
Shade assessed Benie for a moment. Finally, she nodded. “Deal.”
Chapter 13
The farmhouse began to shake, the walls shimmering as they clambered toward the stairs. Benie debated going after her father. Trace was bloody, with huge open wounds on both shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees. The extreme damage made it impossible to walk, which meant they would have to carry him to safety.
I’m dead. Just leave. His words rang like mourning bells in her mind. Leaving without Trace had never been an option. Now, Ian and a woman named Shade—who claimed to be Trace’s wife—hauled him toward the exit while Benie took the back of the group to fight off anyone who came at them from behind.
“Hurry,” Destan shouted. “Caledon is losing its reality. If you’re not out the door when it moves, you’ll be stuck wherever Garrick takes you.”
“Let’s go,” Benie said, urging Ian and Shade to move faster. She had some questions for the mysterious woman, but they could wait until they were safely out of her father’s kingdom.
A guard with a long sword ran toward them as they exited the cellar doors. Benie’s first impulse was to throw herself between the ruffian and her mates, but one loud blast from a 9mm Glock stopped her cold. The sword dropped first, and then the man—a neat hole dead center of his forehead. Benie looked at Shade, the dark haired woman was vigil as she scoped out the open landscape. Benie gave her a nod of approval.
“Come on,” she said, exasperated when a small army began to converge on their group. She couldn’t take them all on, and even if they did win this battle, it wouldn’t be without casualties. Who could she stand to lose? Her two lovers? Never. Ty Wasape or any of the dragon triplets? Not without regret and guilt. After all, they were only here because she’d insisted on going in to rescue Trace, and they were tasked with her safety. The mysterious woman Shade? The one who was apparently, or at least had been, married to Trace at some point in time? Not even her, Benie thought. I don’t want to lose even her.
Ty Wasape, the large Native American man, had dropped his large bloody machete on the ground and shifted into a large black bear. He tore apart the guards who’d come at them from behind. She never seen such a large and vicious rendering, and she thanked her lucky stars he was on their side. Destan darted in and around four men, neatly crippling them by slicing major tendons behind their knees, at the ankles, and finally he finish by ramming the blade into the back of one guard’s neck in an upward thrust that scrambled his brain.
Benie, not to be outdone, pulled her taped down knives from her sides and ran at two attackers, one turning gaunt and pale before her eyes. He bared razor sharp fangs as he leaped at her. Benie side stepped the lunge and rounded on the amphyr, a vampire-like creature, and punched him in the back of the head. He landed face first in the grass, but scrambled to a stand as she flipped over the second man, shoving her knife down past his collarbone and into his heart.
The amphyr came at her again, his high-pitched scream meant to instill terror. Unfortunately for him, he’d picked the wrong fucking girl on the wrong fucking day. Benie dove forward into a tuck and roll, and she came up, knife at the ready to slit his throat. Another loud blast had her turning away at the last second. Her blade missed its mark, and sliced a wide gash over his left eye. The bullet hole in his chest was what took him down as the fanged man fell over.
“I had that,” she yelled at Shade.
The tall, dark-haired woman shrugged. She resumed her position under Trace’s shoulder, as she helped Ian carry him further out into the yard. But she kept her gun hand free.
More bad guys were coming. “Destan,” Benie screamed over the roar of the shaking farmhouse as the walls shimmered and puckered, flickering in and out as it translocated. His two brothers were conspicuously absent. “I hope you have an extraction plan?”
A group of at least twelve men ran toward them from the tree line, weapons drawn. They were sitting ducks in the empty yard. The dragon ran to her, large silver wings sprouting from his back and tearing his shirt apart. “Hold on,” he yelled.
Two other full-on, head-to-toe, silver dragons, their bodies the size cargo vans with claws big enough to pick up large prey animals, swooped down on the group.
“Ty!” Destan shouted. The bear shifter turned back to his human form, his neat braid replaced by free-flowing ass-length hair. He turned a level gaze to Destan, nodded, and held up his hand. One of the two flying dragons dropped down and grasped his arm with one claw.
It pivoted toward Benie, and she shook her head. “Trace first.” The dragon seemed to nod, and it latched on to Trace’s waist. The pained moans of her tortured mate gutted Benie, but it had to be done. There was no gentle way to rescue him.
The second dragon flew in and grabbed Ian and Shade. Benie looked at Destan.
“You ready?” he asked.
She’d never flown before, not even on an airplane, but she steeled her resolve and flung herself into his arms. The sensation of air whooshing past her as she watched Caledon completely disappear took the bottom out of her stomach, and silently, she apologized to Destan before throwing up on his chest.
*
Ian Arent stared across the living room at the new comer. The woman looked deadly, but she’d helped them escape, and for that he was grateful. When she’d said she was Mrs. Trace Calder, a sickening lump formed in Ian’s gut. Whether he liked Trace or not, Benie needed him, and for Ian, her needs would always come before his own. He’d made that vow when he was twelve and in all this time, nothing had changed for him. Not his love for her or his devotion. Nonetheless, he wished Benie didn’t need the wolf shifter. He knew her feelings for Trace ran deep, but he couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge her love for the man.
