by RJ Blain
“I stole handcuffs from Maxwell. I will use them if you attempt to escape.”
Yep. Sassy was a chip off her mother’s block when motivated. “So, this is a hostage situation?”
“Yep.”
“How long am I being held hostage for?”
“However long is necessary. Mom locked Dad in her basement for a month before he surrendered. I’ve been told I have as long as needed. The alpha I borrowed this from is aware you may be stubborn.”
Cheetahs. I swallowed my urge to laugh, unbuckled, and eased out of my new truck. As I hated the idea of lying to her, especially after everything that had happened, I saw one realistic choice I could make: I would tell her the truth and nothing but the truth.
“I punched your father because he’d jumped the gun and infected me before I asked him to arrange for some sort of accident so you wouldn’t have to break your word about dating a lycanthrope. I suspect your brothers are mad they were robbed of a chance to involve me in some horrific and bloody accident of their making,” I confessed. “We were on the way to the lumber yard to buy supplies so I could play with power tools to ensure such an accident occurred. I would’ve preferred to have skipped the crash, but the results were already on my schedule.”
Sassy gaped at me. “You were what?”
“Stealthily making arrangements to become infected so you wouldn’t have to break your word about dating non-lycanthropes.”
“You’re serious.”
“I’ll understand if you get upset and don’t want to talk to me for a while. I’ll also understand if you opt to lock me in a basement until you feel I’ve paid penance for my crimes. Does confessing get me off with a misdemeanor?”
“You were planning on contracting lycanthropy?”
“Sassy, I bought you really expensive shoes and a purse hoping you’d forgive me, and after I bought the shoes, I willingly went to your father’s house. What happened the last time I went to your father’s house?”
“He punched you in the mouth and broke your teeth.”
“And masked the fact he’d bled on me to optimize my chances of contracting lycanthropy. That old ass planned it from the start. And I’d been wondering why he hadn’t wanted to kick my ass the instant I knocked on his door.”
“Because he knew he’d likely infected you, and he’d toed the line doing it so your virus would be slow to mature.”
“That’s what Joe thinks. And the infection was so slow we didn’t notice any changes in my personality, but when Joe checked, he could tell.”
“Because Joe knows what it’s like to be a lycanthrope and could identify the symptoms. Him looking that far through your memories would give him a good idea of probability of infection.”
I nodded. “So, that’s where we’re at.”
“You tricky bastard.”
“Remember Jolie?” The mention of my last ex would likely infuriate Sassy, but I needed to make it clear what I had in mind for the foreseeable future.
“The cheating bitch who dyed her hair every time she cheated on you?”
“Yeah, her.”
“I put dog shit in her shoes after you broke up with her.”
Well, that explained a lot. No wonder Jolie had been extra mad at me. “I think she blamed me for that.”
“Technically, it was your fault. You were a participant in that train wreck of a relationship.”
“I gave up on women entirely at that point. Then your dad socked me in the mouth.”
“And?”
“If you want me to be stubborn, you’re going to have to tell me. Otherwise, I’ll probably just do whatever you want without argument or complaint.”
“But Mom had to lock Dad in her basement for a month.”
“Your father was also a coalition cheetah. I’m not.”
“What are you?”
“Your cheetah-to-be, obviously.” I pointed at myself. “I’m also proof cheetahs can win, thank you very much. I’ve won this war. I’m just waiting for you to figure that out. Don’t worry, though. I can be patient.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re rather relaxed about this. I brought you to a remote location to be held hostage.”
“It’s not a kidnapping or a hostage situation if your victim is a willing participant. It’s a vacation. And after the past few weeks we’ve had, I think we’ve earned it. If you want me to put up a fight, I’m happy to do so. If you want me to chase you so you can put up a fight, well, I’ve heard a few too many lectures about how I shouldn’t try to be a gentleman with you. That’s the real question here. How do you want it?”
It could mean a lot of things, and her eyes narrowed to slits while she thought about it. The soft rumble of her purring promised my favorite sort of trouble in the near future. Relaxing, I leaned against my truck and watched her over the hood.
“What makes you mine faster?”
“I figured I was yours around the same time I started bailing you out from bad dates and arranging my schedule for rescue efforts on a daily basis. You have no idea how much those cheetahs pissed me off, Sassy. Some days, I wanted to go pick a fight with them for upsetting you like they did. How many pairs of shoes should I budget for? I’m not sure if our new salary will give me a lot of shoe shopping room.”
“We get a nice bonus package and hazard pay because we will have to deal with a lot of pissy lycanthropes. I figure one moderate pair of shoes a week would fit within the budget.”
“Whose budget?”
“Ours.”
“Power tools?”
“I’m sure we can fit tools in the budget, and I’m sure you can con some poor suckers into paying you for hauling shit for them and helping them with their construction projects. Charge them in new tools.” Sassy laughed, shut the door, and sashayed towards the house. “What do you think I’ll like best, Mr. Clinton?”
“A little bit of this, a little bit of that.” I peeked into the cab, spotted several bags waiting, and grabbed them before following after my feisty little cheetah. “I’m sure I can think of something.”
“Think faster,” Sassy growled.
I’d enjoy finding out how hard I could yank Sassy’s tail before she snapped and took what she wanted. Some challenges couldn’t be refused.
Chapter Twelve
Someone needed to hang a warning sign around Sassy’s neck so unwitting men, me specifically, knew better than to taunt and provoke her into ditching her restraints. Despite having been warned by her brothers, her father, and even her mother in various ways, I’d underestimated her. I’d underestimated her so much I emerged from her claim battered, bruised, and exhausted. Most of the battering and bruising I bore full responsibility for; I’d forgotten to account for how fierce my little cheetah could be. Doubting her determination accounted for at least half of my bruises, too.
I needed to thank Joe for his warnings cheetah females got rough during a claim as it likely resulted in my survival of her plans.
Sassy handled her enthusiasm far better than I did; she bounced out of bed like she hadn’t taken me for a twelve hour marathon I’d never forget. Skipping to the adjacent bedroom added insult to injury. I doubted I could crawl across the hardwood floor to make it to the tub. A soak sounded good. A soak might help me survive through the next few days.
“Mercy?” I begged. “Please? Sassy, come on. You’re going to kill me.”
“Daddy said I wasn’t doing it right unless I made you beg. Mom agreed. I got the talk several times.”
Her father’s days were numbered, and I’d enjoy beating a matching set of bruises into him. “Your father’s a jackass. I’m not saying anything about your mother as she’d win the fight if I started one, so we’ll just say she’s right.”
She leaned out of the bathroom, a toothbrush shoved into her mouth. “What? You liked it.”
While true, the bruises would remind me I needed to learn how to moderate even good things. “I match my truck.”
“That’s nothing new. I have a blood
pressure kit in our bags, and one of the wolves works with Joe. Grover. You met him a while back. Short, quiet guy with a temper. If you need a transfusion because I got too rough for you, we’re set. Honestly, that was a part of my plan. I just didn’t plan on you being so enthusiastic.”
She was calling me enthusiastic? Crazy cat. “How could I not be enthusiastic? You brought six pairs of shoes. Six pairs. And you kept showing them off. I’m just a man, Sassy. You can’t do that to a man and expect anything other than what you got.”
Her smile informed me she’d been planning on my reactions. Smirk firmly in place, she vanished into the bathroom to brush her teeth.
Damned. Cat.
“You’re such a feline, Sastria.”
“Oh, now that’s hot. I got you to use my real name in that flustered tone. Do it again.”
“I don’t know if I have any places left for you to bruise.”
“Do you need me to be gentle and kiss it all better?”
What sort of question was that? “Yes, obviously.”
She laughed. “I’ve been told I have to feed you or you’ll be useless to me. Go take a shower, hostage. Make yourself presentable while you’re at it. I’ll give Grover a call and have him check on you. Joe promised if I claimed you thoroughly enough, I get to give you a transfusion, which will secure my claim better.”
“Why aren’t you bruised? Anywhere. Not a bruise. Anywhere. I checked when you strutted to the bathroom.”
“Post-shift lycanthrope, Aaron. It’s a major advantage. Sure, I’m incurably diseased, but I heal bruises as fast as you give them to me. You’ll have to try harder than that if you want to leave a mark.”
Damn. “Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about getting too rough with you.”
“That is a fringe benefit of lycanthropy.”
“Anything else I should know?”
“Daddy suggested I give you a break once I tired you out enough you started to whine. He also said I needed to be gentle.” She emerged from the bathroom wearing a silky pair of pajamas. “There’s pajamas in the bathroom for you. You clean up and get mobile while I get Grover over to make sure you won’t drop dead on me. After, we’ll get some work done.”
Did the woman forget about the existence of sleep? How the hell did she expect me to work after so long spent in bed? If my sore muscles were any indication, I’d pass out the instant I sat somewhere comfortable.
“Shouldn’t you have been worried about that earlier?” I eyed the floor, sighed, and eased out of bed. I ached, but I managed the short walk without falling on my face. “We need to have a talk about what it means to be gentle.”
“You liked it. That’s good enough for me.”
“You’re so damned sassy.”
“Well, there is a reason you call me Sassy, and it’s not because my first name is Sastria. You only have yourself to blame for how this worked out. If you hadn’t been so irresistible, you’d probably be uninfected and bored and lamenting over how other women use you and leave you for other men. Idiots, those women.”
“You’re good for my ego,” I acknowledged, flashing a tired smile at her. “Do that some more.”
“You’re so tired. Food first, then Grover, then you can take a nap. It’s no good if you fall asleep on me.”
Somehow, I’d unleashed a devil of a woman on a sexy mission. “I’m just going to agree with you on this one.”
“Smart move. Move it, Aaron. We don’t have all day.”
I checked the clock on the nightstand. “Sassy.”
“What?”
“It’s six. In the evening. There’s basically no day left.”
“Huh. Fancy that.” Sassy placed her hands on her hips. “Shower and dress, Aaron! What’s left of today is wasting. I’m going to wrangle some wolves and make sure Grover’s ready to do his doctor business so he goes away and leaves us alone.”
“You have no idea how long it takes to do a transfusion, do you?”
Sassy frowned. “Well, no.”
“Get our paperwork for investigations and be prepared to sit still for two to three hours while the wolf monitors us both. Also, the line hurts like hell inserting and it doesn’t get much better throughout the transfusion.”
“You’re serious?”
“Very. And he’ll have to check your virus levels. If you’re spiking, it’s fine, but if your virus levels have dropped, he won’t let you donate. I’ll just have to suffer until there’s a compatible donor with the right virus.”
“I have to sit still for up to three hours?”
“Yep. It’s no fun. I’ve done this too many times for my liking now. It’s not all bad. We can get work done while Grover monitors us. Then we’ll be expected to eat as much as we can stomach and rest until your virus does its job.”
“This is not how I envisioned my evening going.” Sassy pouted. “All right. I can handle some work and be patient.”
“We have to sleep, too. The restful kind.”
Her shoulders slumped. “That’s not fair.”
I smiled. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
“I’m holding you to that, Mr. Clinton.”
I enjoyed two hours of peace and quiet during the transfusion. Within five minutes of Grover setting up the line, Sassy passed out. Grover chuckled, shook his head, and assured me there was nothing to worry about.
Having slept through a few transfusions, I didn’t blame her at all. While she slept, I read through newspapers in search of more pieces of the puzzle. Sassy’s speculations were almost correct regarding Tom Heatherow’s presence in the newspaper on my birthday. Instead of the shining recommendations I expected, I found a rape accusation of a classmate. Like with Renata Kirkville, the picture the newspaper featured included him together with the victim. The article claimed the case had been dropped due to insufficient evidence. The woman, one Felicity Jasper, showed up again in an article several years later, the victim of a hit and run. A quick search of the internet revealed no one had ever found the vehicle responsible, or its driver.
“If you’re going to get pissy over your work, keep your heart rate somewhat tolerable. Don’t screw up my transfusion being moody.”
I snorted but put aside my tablet so I wouldn’t be tempted to chuck the thing across the living room. “Riddle me this, Grover.”
“I hate riddles. They give me a headache.”
“Yeah, this one is going to give me a migraine, too.”
“All right. Hit me with it.”
“What kind of killer leaves a bunch of clues incriminating someone with old newspaper articles?”
“The kind that doesn’t like the job he’s paid to do and wants to see his hire sink.”
The immediate answer startled me, and I frowned, glaring at the tablet. “That’s not stopping this fucker from killing a bunch of kids.”
“You’re right. It’s not. Depending on where the killer was hired, mercenaries have a code, and it’s punishable by death if they violate it. If the guy was paid to kill fifty people, he’s going to kill them or die trying. If he’s hired to make sure someone is out of the way for a set period of time, he’ll do it. We see it sometimes in military ops, and they’re the worst sort. Do or die for them. And they may not know who they’re killing before it’s time to start the assassinations. If the hire’s smart, he wouldn’t list the kids until after payment was made. At that point, the code kicks in and they’ll do it—or die. This guy might be ethical enough to try to sink his hire in a creative fashion. Or he was hired to make it flashy. Or he was hired to cover his tracks. How hard was it to find these clues?”
“Well, I had to count nine months ahead of the dates on the evidence. That’s all, really. Then read the newspapers.”
“So, it was a message within a message.”
“Right.”
“Have you fully evaluated the newspapers on the date reflected in the evidence?”
“I haven’t found anything in them. That’s why I tried my birthdate
; I was born right on due date.”
“So, you’re the control.”
“I wasn’t the first targeted, Grover.”
“No, but you’re probably his lynchpin hit. He was probably ordered to get you out of the way for a while, so instead of killing you outright, he does as ordered: gets rid of you for a while in a flashy way. That accident was flashy, Aaron. He carpeted the highway with scraps. He wanted everyone to know you were in the way. They know, for certain, your birthdate. You’re the right number of days, forty weeks on the nose. If you use forty weeks as the metric, I bet you’re going to find a lot of interesting articles to read. Guys like this are methodical. They have a strong ethic, and when you piss one off during a contract, they’ll find any loophole possible to get back at their hire.”
“You’ve seen this before in the military?”
“Yeah. We had a guy sniping medics when I was overseas. That struck a nerve with the guy, who ultimately started writing letters on the corpses with bullets. By the end of his hit list, we had the coords for their camp. We wiped the bastards out; the mercenary got away, but we got the hire and his band of terrorists hoping to wipe us off the map.”
“That’s a gruesome method of making a loophole.”
“Doesn’t bring back our guys, but we got our payback at the end of it. This reminds me of that op. And if he’s half as good as the guy who nailed our medics, you aren’t going to prevent any of the killings, but you’ll have a yellow brick road leading you straight to the hire. It doesn’t stop him, but at least you’ll get the main player.”
“So you don’t think the clues could lead us to other victims?”
“He’s probably done. These guys move fast once they move. In and out, killing off as many of their targets as quickly as possible. When was the last shooting?”
I reached for my phone, unlocked it, and checked my mail for updates on the shootings. “Two days ago.”
“And before? How many”
“Multiple shootings a day.”
“Hitting every opportunity he can after learning their habits.”
“There was someone stalking single women,” I muttered.