by Selina Woods
“Worry over your safety is a burden. You—never.”
Jae hesitated, at last seeing the sense of what I said. “But I’ll worry about you,” she whispered. “If you don’t come back—”
“I will meet you on the highway, baby. I promise.”
“Jae,” Chad interjected with a tiny smile. “Declan is right. If anyone can outrun and outsmart Raphael’s enforcers, he can. He’s a survivor.”
I took both her hands in mine. “I’ll be there. We’ll go to Denver, find my mom, be mated. Got it?”
At last, she nodded and put her arms around my neck. I pulled her close to me, holding her tight, feeling her tears trickle down my neck. “It’ll work out fine, Jae,” I murmured. “You’ll see.”
As I held her, the others spoke of distance and timing, setting up the exact when, where, what, and how. All I needed was my marching orders, to be where I needed to be, and blow the house when they needed me to blow it. Sitting on my lap, Jae leaned her head against my shoulder.
“I need to be with you tonight,” she whispered. “I don’t care what Chad or Morgan say. “If I lose you—”
I silenced her with a kiss. “You will be. And you won’t lose me.”
Chapter Fourteen
It took some arguing with Chad, but by the time the meeting broke up a few hours from dawn, he and Morgan both agreed we should stay together in Jae’s apartment.
“Meet us back here at the bar,” Chad ordered, gazing at both of us. “We’ll open as usual, but then once we close, that’s it. We never come back.”
“We’ll be there, Chad,” I said, my arm around Jae’s waist.
“We’ll all go with business as usual tomorrow,” Porter added. “Tomorrow night, we’ll get everyone to my shop, and into the cars. You have a human friend, correct? Get her to the bar with you, and she can go with Jae.”
Jae nodded. “We’ll tell her as soon as we get to my apartment.”
“All of you,” Chad announced, “tonight, tell your people how to get to where they need to be and when. We can’t wait for stragglers. They stay secret, silent, and above all stay together. Anyone who gets lost stays behind. Questions?”
No one seemed to have any. Chad opened the door, and Jimmy, Harry, and Boomer slipped out into the night. Shutting off the lights, Chad led us to his truck, and we all piled in. “I’m almost gonna miss this place,” Chad mused. “My bar anyway.”
“I sure won’t,” Jae said from the front seat. “I bet Denver needs bars there.”
“As long as everyone I love is safe from the gangs, I’m happy.”
He let us out at the apartment building, then drove away to his tidy bungalow and his family. Resigned to Morgan sleeping on the couch while Jae and I went into her room, I went inside with him. “I want to go tell Chelsea to pack her things and be ready to go tomorrow,” Jae said, heading down the hall.
I kept the door open and occasionally put my head out to see Jae talking to Chelsea as Morgan made himself comfortable on the sofa. He yawned. “You kids keep it down, all right?”
Embarrassed, I scowled at him, but no sarcastic reply came to mind. Jae returned and closed the door. “She’ll be ready,” she said. “We need to take her to the bar with us and protect her.”
“Does she have anyone she wants to bring with her?” I asked. “Someone she loves?”
“She said no; she’s alone.”
On the sofa, Morgan closed his eyes, and I took that as our signal to go to the bedroom. We held hands as we closed the door, and I reminded myself this was not the last time we would spend the night in each other’s arms. “I will be back, Jae,” I whispered, cupping her cheeks as I gazed into her eyes. “I swear it.”
“I know,” she murmured, her arms sliding around my neck. “I’m just scared, you know? Full of all these ‘what ifs.’ Most of all, what if you don’t come back?”
“Don’t think like that. Stay positive; keep it in the front of your mind that we will make it to Denver.”
“Okay.”
Jae kissed me, and all thoughts of tomorrow flew from my brain. We undressed each other slowly, caressing one another’s skin with sensual lightness, letting our love for each other flow freely. Jae lay back on the bed as I sat beside her, trailing my fingers over her flat stomach and feeling her delighted shiver. Leaning over, I kissed her, my tongue tangled with hers, our passion rising together.
Stroking my palms over her small boobs, my staff raging, I forced myself to go slow, to not just arouse her, but make the moments last longer. Her hand around my shaft made that difficult, and I longed to bury it deep into her warm wetness. My fingers trailed down to her mound, dipping into her folds, teasing her nub. Jae moaned against my mouth.
Pulling me to her, she encouraged me to mount her. I spread her legs with my knees, pushing the head of my rod into her only a short way. Pulling back out, I teased her fully, kissing her, my hands buried in her hair. Entering her only an inch at a time made her thrash under me with need, driving her crazy with lust.
Her gasps and moans in my ear told me exactly how much I pleasured her. When my own insane need overtook me at last, I drove in deep and hard. Jae pulled her knees back and wrapped them around my hips, her nails digging into my shoulders. Quickening my pace, I thrust hard, feeling the rush of sheer ecstasy flow from my shaft to my belly, my head spinning behind my closed eyes.
Jae’s explosion rocked through her, and I knew she fought not to cry out. Shaking under me, she clutched me tightly to her body, her moans came in breathy gasps. My own climax was imminent, following upon hers as she clamped down on my thrusting erection. It burst from my balls, and I tried to keep my shuddering groan quiet as the pleasure, the sheer intense sensations, consumed me as I continued to stroke her.
Panting, I rolled off her, my arm around her belly pulling her to me. I threw the covers over us both, exhausted, feeling her pulse slow under my skin. She relaxed against me, cuddling her body into mine. I neared sleep when Jae spoke.
“If you get killed, Declan, I can’t live without you.”
I brushed her hair back from her face and neck and kissed her lovingly. “I won’t get killed, Jae. I swear it.”
I’m not sure if my instincts were dulled by the prospects of leaving this town, or whether it was because there were four of us on the street. There was certainly an element of safety by being in a group, but even then, I should have kept a sharper watch out for danger.
The four of us—Morgan, Chelsea, Jae, and I—had walked halfway to the bar when five cars screamed in to park not just at the curb but over the sidewalk itself. Our escape blocked, we bunched together, ready to fight and die. Chelsea gave a long slow moan of terror while my gut dropped, and my only thought was of Jae’s safety. How could I protect her against the enforcers who leaped from the cars with their semi-automatic weapons trained on us?
“Well, finally,” said a smooth, urbane voice as the rear door of a sleek, black car opened, and Raphael stepped out. As I had seen him before, he wore all black clothes with heavy shades over his eyes, and a wild thought entered my mind. Does Jae still think he’s a fox? “I’ve been wanting to have a chat with you, little man,” he said, the shades turned toward me. “Get in the car.”
My mouth dry, staring at the heavy armament arrayed before us, I managed to reply without my voice squeaking. “No.”
Raphael sighed, tapping his hip absently with his fingers. “Get in the car peacefully, or my boys will mow your friends down, and you’ll still come with me. What will it be? Your friends dead or your friends alive?”
I half turned, seeing the fury on Morgan’s expression, the panic on Chelsea’s. Jae met my eyes with a calm rage that stunned me for a moment, and I knew she wanted to fight and die. I was dead; I knew that for certain. But they didn’t have to die. I could go with Raphael with peace in my soul as long as I knew she was safe and alive.
“You swear you won’t kill them?” I asked.
“I have no interest in them,” Raphael replied. “On
ly you.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I dared not hug or kiss Jae or indicate she was more to me than a casual companion. Meeting Morgan’s eyes briefly, I flicked mine to her and back, silently asking him to look after her. He gave me nothing in return that indicated he got my message and continued to scowl dangerously. At least he didn’t provoke the enforcers into shooting him.
Turning, I got into the black sedan’s rear seat, Raphael sliding in behind me. I stared through the rear window, seeing his enforcers also getting into their cars. They didn’t shoot Jae, Morgan, and Chelsea down as I feared, and I watched them fade, alive and standing, into the distance as the chauffeur drove the big car away.
“What exactly do you want with me?” I asked.
“Information.”
Raphael pulled the shades from his face and looked at me with pale, green eyes. “You killed Barry the Blade, didn’t you?”
There wasn’t much point in lying. “Yeah.”
“How come?”
“He was going to rape a friend of mine. I couldn’t let him.”
Raphael nodded. “The girl back there?”
“Yeah.”
“Barry never could control his urges,” Raphael commented. “I don’t mourn his loss, believe me; the idiot was a pain in my ass. I normally might not have cared he was dead; except he stole something important from me.”
I kept my tongue still when it wanted to ask, the source of all magic? “How’d you know I killed Barry?”
Raphael smiled. “You left something behind on his corpse.”
“What?”
From his pocket, the gang lord pulled a plastic baggie and held it up to my eyes. Inside were several red-gold hairs, exactly the same shade as my own. I gaped. “How’d you find those and match them to me?”
“They were snagged on his jacket,” Raphael explained. “And as for how I knew they belonged to you; you are the only one known to my boys to have that color on your head. You know Jonesy?”
Stunned, I nodded.
“He’s the one who saw the hairs and said, ‘They belong to the little lion runt.’ You were seen going into The Tiger’s Paw a few times, so it wasn’t hard to find you.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Now what?”
“You’re going to tell me what you found on Barry.”
“Cash,” I replied. “Is that what he took from you?”
“No.” Raphael stared out the front windshield. “What else did you find?”
“Some jewels. I sold those.”
His eyes came back to me. “No, you didn’t. Where are they?”
“Gone. Sold for cash.”
Raphael shook his head and placed his sunglasses back on his face. “You’re going to make this too hard on yourself, kid. Tell me, and I’ll let you live. I want them, not you.”
Then check the sewers because they got flushed down the john. “They’re gone.”
“Do you really want me to go back and slaughter your little girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Then tell me where they are.”
“They were flushed down the can.”
Raphael sighed. “Now that I will never believe.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” I said, frantic. “The big lion said they could connect me to Barry and got rid of them.”
The cars pulled up the long drive to Raphael’s huge mansion, gangsters with semi-automatic rifles watching as one by one, the vehicles parked in front of the house. One enforcer opened the door for Raphael, and as I got out too, I wondered if I could make a break for it. Raphael wouldn’t want his goons to shoot me, thus I thought that if I were fast enough, I might actually escape.
I readied myself to shift and bolt when heavy hands gripped me by the back of my neck and my arms. Two shifters, both twice my size and ten times my strength, yanked me along behind Raphael as he strode on long legs toward the front door.
That, too, opened for him before he reached it, and as we entered the foyer, he said to an enforcer, “Get the iron collar.”
“What?” I demanded as the goon nodded and strode quickly away.
Without answering me, Raphael walked away while his goons dragged me in the opposite direction. They took me to a room down a short hallway and pushed me into a single chair. The place was bare of much furniture and contained only the chair and a table with various items on it. My blood ran cold. I was going to be tortured for information I didn’t have.
A goon entered the room with a heavy collar of metal and a length of chain attached to it. Though I struggled, panicked, they didn’t have much trouble snapping the thing around my neck. Raphael came in and closed the door behind him. “If you think of shifting,” he said, “think again. That is far too small for even your lion neck, and will strangle you the moment you shift.”
He eyed the goons. “Search him.”
The pair of them patted me down, inspected my jeans and coat pockets, but never ran their hands down my legs to find the knife lodged in my boot. “Nothing, Raphael,” one said, his tone respectful.
Nodding, Raphael lifted a long-serrated knife from the table and approached me. Cringing back in my chair, I glanced from it to his implacable face. “Where are the jewels you took from Barry?”
“I told you,” I answered, panicked. “Down the john.”
“I wish I believed you.”
The knife opened my cheek from my eye to my chin. It almost didn’t hurt at first, then as my blood gushed down my neck to wet my shirt and coat, the agony flared. I kept the scream locked in my throat for that one. But as Raphael found plenty of sensitive places to cut, pinch with pliers, and burn with open flames, I lost the battle to keep my shrieks of agony from bursting forth.
Chapter Fifteen
How many hours passed, I had no idea. I knew night had fallen, for the darkness pressed against the window beyond the curtains. Blood soaked my clothes, leaked into my boots, and the loss of those precious pints kept me close to passing out. Raphael never lost patience and asked me questions over and over, which I answered the same way—I don’t have the jewels.
When the gunfire erupted, I almost didn’t recognize it for what it was. Raphael ambled, seemingly unconcerned, to the window and gazed out. “A rescue attempt?” he asked, amused.
Surely Chad and Morgan took Jae and now headed south to Denver. I swallowed the dryness in my mouth and rolled my head toward the window. He gazed out for a few more minutes, then spoke to the goons behind me. “Go check it out.”
The pair left the room, closing the door behind them. The rifle fire continued, yet Raphael still watched. “They won’t get in here, you know,” he said, his voice amiable. “Your friends are getting slaughtered.”
I was alone with him. His enforcers didn’t find the knife. But did I have the strength, as weakened by pain and blood loss as I was, able to kill him? I had to. This was my only chance for survival, and for the survival of those who risked everything to rescue me.
Raphael still had his back turned toward me. The collar’s chain hung over my shoulder and pooled in my lap. I bent forward, my wounds screaming, as though I were going to be sick. Under my hair falling over my eyes, I saw Raphael glance at me once, then turned his attention to the window again.
Pulling my pant leg up, I slid the knife from its sheath, then held the hilt in my hand, the blade against my arm. Remaining in the position, I made some choking noises, garnering his attention again. I spat as though I puked, but nothing came up, and he finally wandered back to me.
“Let’s continue,” he said, pushing on my shoulder to straighten me into a sitting position.
Uncoiling like a snake, I lunged upward, spinning the hilt in my hand. I plunged the blade into his throat four times in quick succession, seeing the astonishment and shock overtake his eyes. He stumbled away from me, his life’s blood spilling down his chest and shoulders. His hand at his throat, Raphael tried to get to the door, but I got there first.
“Sorry,” I told him
and kicked his knees out from under him. He fell at my feet, choking on his blood, swallowing it, drowning in it. His eyes found mine again as I said, “I told you the jewels got flushed. You should have believed me.”
Leaving him to die, I opened the door a short way and peered out. I saw no one, but the sound of gunfire still rocked the night outside. Slipping out of the room, I hurried as fast as I could down the hall, my weapon ready. The house itself echoed with silence, and I couldn’t understand why I found no one around.
The front door burst open.
I crouched, expecting to get shot by the people garbed in black that poured inside, rifles aimed at me. Oddly, they didn’t shoot, and I gaped as I recognized them. Morgan and Chad.
“Declan!”
Morgan and Chad rushed in while the others stood by, rifles aimed in all directions, and grabbed me by the arms. “Shit, Declan.” Morgan grimaced, taking me by the arms. “What did that bastard do?”
“Ask him later,” Chad snapped. “We got him; we go now.”
Morgan hustled me out the door behind Chad and the others, the shots still echoing through the night. “Where’s Raphael?” he asked as he urged me to a faster pace toward the trucks parked just beyond Raphael’s.
“Dead,” I answered, and lifted the bloody knife still in my hand.
“Why am I not surprised,” Morgan replied with a chuckle, shoving me into a truck.
The engines roared as Chad and the others climbed in, then screamed away to the street. The drivers blared the horns as we went, and through the windshield, I watched as figures with guns jumped into cars. “That’s the signal we got you,” Morgan explained, taking the knife from my hand. “With Raphael dead, it might take his enforcers a while to get organized without him to give orders.”
“Don’t matter,” Chad said tersely, gazing at me from the front seat. “They’ll still come after us.”
“Jae?” I asked, my pain and weakness overwhelming me.
“She’s fine, kid,” Morgan said. “Once we get the plow, we’ll swing by Porter’s shop and grab everyone. Then we’ll hit the road.”