Box Set: Rune Alexander- Vol. 4-5.5 (Rune Alexander Box Set Book 2)

by Laken Cane

  Rune rested the back of her head against her seat. She needed to sleep, but she didn’t want to. Her dreams were bleak, dark, and terrifying.

  She dreamed of Strad’s little boy, of Cree Stark, of Llodra.

  Worst of all, she dreamed of the rape. She relived it. Every time she fell asleep she was there again, on the floor of that cage, helpless, savaged, invaded.

  She shuddered. Bastards. Bastards. She wondered about Levi. The puffiness under his eyes was purple in the stark pallor of his face, suggesting he was having as much trouble as she was.

  They didn’t talk about it.

  Someone rapped on her window, startling her so badly she yelped. Simon Kelic, River County’s master vampire, stood at her window, as still and unmoving as only a master could be.

  As still as death.

  She stared at him through the glass for a long moment before finally opening her door and stepping out into the night. “What do you want?”

  “I’ve discovered something you should know.” He looked as perfectly coifed and neatly dressed as usual, with not so much as a wrinkle or an unnoticed drop of blood marring his suit.

  One of his vampires, an exotic black man named Iker, appeared suddenly and stood at Simon’s side.

  She gave him a nod. “Iker.” Then she put all her attention back on Simon. “So tell me. What is it I need to know?”

  He leaned toward her. “We heard you have an assassin after you.” He lowered his voice until his whisper caressed her eardrums with a softness no human could have heard. “And I know where he is.”

  Chapter Three

  She dropped her fangs, an automatic reaction that brought a smile of approval from Simon. “Why the fuck didn’t you bring him to me?”

  “Two of my children discovered him,” Simon said, unflappable. “They knew only to come to me.”

  “Exactly as they’re taught to do,” Iker said, belligerent as usual. “You don’t—”

  “Iker,” Simon said, calmly. “Shut up.”

  “Where is he?” Rune ignored the drama queen and kept her stare on Simon.

  “My children saw him lurking outside your house. They followed him. He’s staying in Wormwood.”

  She put her palm against her stake scars. “Wormwood? You’re sure?” He couldn’t have been there long or Gunnar would have told her. “Why would a human assassin hide in a cemetery full of Others?”

  “Maybe he isn’t human.”

  “He is. I caught his scent.” She narrowed her eyes and stared into the dark distance. Gunnar would know where the assassin was hiding if he was really using the graveyard for his hideout. And why were the Others in Wormwood allowing him to hide there? They should have either tossed him out or killed him.

  It didn’t make sense.

  “We’ll meet you there,” Simon said. “You may need backup.”

  She climbed back inside her car. Did she seriously want to owe the vampires? No. Not so much. “I can handle it. Dawn will break soon.”

  He shrugged and stepped back. “As you wish.”

  She sped to the graveyard, briefly considering leaving Lex a voicemail letting her know where she’d be. In the end, though, she didn’t want to wake the girl. The crew got little enough sleep as it was.

  When at last she stood outside the gates of Wormwood she inhaled deeply, searching for the scent of her would-be assassin.

  Her nose caught nothing, but she registered the eerie, normal sounds of Wormwood at night—murmurs, low moans, whispers.

  And some sounds that were strangely out of place. A whistle, a buzzing sound, and an abruptly hushed humming.

  As she slipped through the gate and into the territory of the Others, she caught the sound of running footsteps, a cry, a growl.

  And even though she was Other, gooseflesh arose on her skin at the sounds of the place. At the feel of the place.

  Usually Gunnar the Ghoul was there to meet her, his hands folded, his face serene. Waiting for his Baby Ruth candy bars.

  “Shit.” She patted her pockets, but she knew they weren’t full of chocolate. She’d forgotten, for probably the first time since she’d understood Gunnar could be bought with Baby Ruth candy bars, to bring a treat into Wormwood.

  There was no help for it now. She’d bring him extra next time. She walked deeper into the cemetery, swiveling her head from side to side as she watched for the ghoul.

  As she watched for the assassin.

  “Gunnar,” she murmured. “Where are you?”

  The residents of Wormwood were accustomed to her. She visited the graveyard often. Still, something was different.

  Wormwood waited, breath held.

  She shivered, then dug her nails into her thigh. She refused to fear a fucking human who’d been hired to take her out. The asshole should fear her.

  And though she wanted to wrap her fingers around her throat in some semblance of protection, she did not.

  She shoved away images of the spinning, sharp-edged blade the assassin had tried to decapitate her with. She ignored thoughts of her head rolling through the graveyard mud before thumping to a stop against one of the crumbling tombstones.

  She wasn’t concerned about dying. She really wasn’t. But she wanted to be in control of her death. Some piece of shit human was not going to be allowed to kill her.

  That was not the way Rune Alexander was going out.

  She couldn’t bear the thought of the enemy once more gaining control of her. She pushed her palm against her stake scar. She’d rather die than be forced to endure that again.

  And she couldn’t find Gunnar.

  She wished she hadn’t sent the vampires away. They could have helped search for the ghoul. “Dammit, Gunnar,” she muttered.

  She walked carefully, threading her way through tombstones as she watched for movement. She couldn’t call out. If the mercenary were there, she didn’t want to alert him to her presence.

  But Wormwood was vast and the assassin could be hiding anywhere. If she couldn’t find Gunnar, she didn’t have a very good chance of finding the man who’d been sent to kill her.

  Finally, she spotted a pair of glowing eyes peering around a tall tombstone. She didn’t try to sneak up on the bright-eyed eavesdropper. Patience wasn’t her strength—speed was.

  She raced toward the sneaky Other, then jumped on his back as he attempted to run. “Hold on,” she demanded. “I just want to talk to you.”

  He was an unkempt, half-starved male Other. The muted lights of the graveyard glinted off his too wide gaze.

  She frowned. He was an Other.

  Wasn’t he?

  His scent was unfamiliar. It was the scent of a human, an Other, and something else, something she couldn’t quite grasp.

  She hung on with an arm around his neck as he tried to shake her off him. “Calm down, baby. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He stopped struggling and dropped to the ground, then rolled to his back to offer her his belly.

  She ignored his act of submission and sat back on her heels. “I need to ask you some questions.”

  He curled in on himself, not looking at her, as though sure she was going to start kicking him at any moment.

  He couldn’t have been more than twenty, and from the condition of his body he was accustomed to people hurting him. “Sit up, kid. I told you I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He sat up but kept his back hunched as he knelt there, his arms folded across his belly, his eyes downcast. He said nothing.

  The moonlight gleamed off puckered, pink scars twisting over his knobby shoulder blades and prominent spine. His head was covered with tiny spikes of greenish hair. A few bare patches were visible, and as she watched, he scratched at one of them.

  His cheekbones were sharp, his eyes long, dark, and large in his thin face. His lips were dry and even as she watched, he darted out his tongue to moisten them.

  She had no idea what he was.

  Anger made her harsher than she meant to be. “Who the fuck i
s your alpha?”

  He flinched. “Please don’t tell him.” His voice was soft and pleading, and still, he didn’t look at her.

  She understood he believed the mere act of meeting her stare would have been too aggressive on his part, and might have earned him a punch. “Shit, kid.” She rubbed her temples. “I’m searching for a ghoul named Gunnar. Do you know him?”

  He looked at her then, a quick glance full of surprise and recognition.

  “Good,” she said. “You do know him. Where he is tonight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s your name?”

  He hesitated. “Alice,” he whispered.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “I really doubt that.”

  He twisted his hands together, then rolled his eyes up to look at her. There was something desperate in the light brown depths. “My master renamed me. I am Alice.”

  For a second, she was sure she heard a spark of rage in his low voice. But his admission and his haunted, hollow eyes broke her heart. “You need a new leader, kid. Now tell me your name. Your real name.”

  He swallowed, but kept his gaze glued to hers, seeming to find comfort in her calm dominance. Again, he licked his lips. It did no good. His lips remained dry and peeling. He opened his mouth, then shut it.

  Whoever he belonged to had done a number on him. He was afraid to say his own fucking name. “Kid—”

  “Epic,” he said, then without waiting for her to speak, he repeated the word, louder. “Epic. My name is Epic.”

  She grinned. “Awesome name.”

  “With a K,” he told her. “E-p-i-k.”

  “Tell me about Gunnar, Epik.”

  He continued, as though he hadn’t heard her. “I am Epik.” He smiled at her then, and it took her breath. He was beautiful when he wasn’t scared. Even with at least three of his top teeth missing.

  She was nearly certain Epik wasn’t the name he’d been born with, but she wasn’t going to question his answer. If he’d renamed himself Epik, that was his right.

  “Tell me what you know about Gunnar,” she prompted, gently.

  His smile fell, and the light went out of his face. “Once he gave me candy. I wasn’t supposed to eat, but he…” He shook his head. “He insisted. And I was so hungry.” He glanced over his shoulder, as though to make sure his bastard fuck of an alpha wasn’t standing there.

  “Gunnar’s a good guy,” she said. “Please, Epik. I could use your help.”

  He twitched. “Can I stand?”

  It took her a minute to realize he was asking her for permission. “You can do anything you want.” Only he couldn’t. His pack was his family. He had no one else. Even those pack members who weren’t so submissive and beaten down wouldn’t go against their alpha—unless they wanted to fight for position and likely die.

  Epik didn’t have a chance. He was owned, and it was his bad luck to be owned by an asshole.

  She gave herself a few long seconds to regain control of her emotions. “What’s your alpha’s name?”

  He scuttled a few feet away from her, then rose to his feet. Still, he remained bent over. Cringing. Afraid. “There’s a human. He’s as scary as anyone I’ve ever seen and if you knew the scary ones I’ve seen, you’d understand what that means. He’s bad. Too bad for the Others to mess with. Even those in Wormwood.”

  “What does he look like?”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t gotten close enough to see much of him. Both times I saw him he was wearing a black mask. You have to kill him. The Others are afraid. He has too much power, this man.”

  “He’s human,” she said. “How much power can he have?”

  He swallowed hard. “The first time I saw him he was walking the path by Poison Pond. One of my people stepped out to challenge him, since he was a strange, lone human. Brian—my packmate—felt no threat. If he had, he would have called the pack for backup.”

  Epik’s skin dried a little more even as she watched. Patches of peeling skin appeared on his face, his chest, and his arms. As he continued speaking, tremors of pain flashed over his face as though his voice hurt his throat. “Brian opened his mouth and the human filled it with a knife blade. Buried it in Brian’s open mouth.”

  “God,” she murmured. “That’s a hardass human.”

  Epik scratched at his forehead with trembling fingers. “It’s a hardass world.”

  No shit. “What happened the second time you saw him?”

  He turned away from her, ready to bolt. “The second time I saw him, he was dragging an Other through the mud. The Other’s hands and legs were restrained by something I couldn’t see. He’d been staked with a black blade. Another blade had been shoved through his forehead.” Epik held a hand to his throat and backed away as he continued.

  “He didn’t move or struggle. The human had tied a rope around his feet and was using the end of that rope to pull him along. I don’t know where he took him.”

  “The Other,” she murmured. “Who was he?”

  But she knew. Of course she knew.

  “It was your ghoul,” he told her. “It was Gunnar.”

  Chapter Four

  She searched the graveyard until dawn had come and gone, but found no sign of Gunnar. He’d disappeared. She hoped it was because he’d escaped to another graveyard. She didn’t want to believe that Epik was right and her assassin had captured the ghoul.

  “Dammit, Gunnar.” She’d search again another time. She needed food, coffee, and blood. And not in that order.

  When she left Wormwood she checked her phone. Strad had called once, and left a voicemail. Elizabeth had called twice.

  She groaned. She’d be lucky to get coffee—forget food and blood. She listened to her messages as she drove to the Annex.

  “Call me,” the berserker said. There was a slight hesitation, then, “Damn you, Rune.”

  She sighed. He needed to accept the fact that she was a grown monster who could look after herself. She’d never reported her every move to another person, and that wasn’t going to change.

  Elizabeth wasn’t calling her into work—there were ops for that who’d have sent the crew a page, a radio call, or a phone call. The Annex had ops for everything.

  Which meant Elizabeth was calling her about something personal, and Elizabeth didn’t do that often.

  “Rune.” Elizabeth’s voice held a small tremor. The only time Rune had heard her sound weak was after she’d been attacked and nearly killed by Nicolas Llodra.

  “God,” Rune said. “What now?”

  She didn’t want to listen. Shit was about to get real fucking deep and she wasn’t in current possession of a ladder.

  Elizabeth’s voicemail continued, whether Rune wanted it to or not, and all she could do was listen.

  “I met Lane at the hospital. She brought Stefanie in to visit with George. We didn’t want her to forget him. She’s so young…” She trailed off as though she’d forgotten what she wanted to say, but finally, she went on.

  “What?” Rune muttered. “What?”

  “Stefanie tried to kill him.” Elizabeth’s voice broke. “Fie tried to kill her brother. She said she…she breathed him. I don’t know what she meant. She said she breathed him to try and set him free. She sounded ancient. But she wasn’t sad. In her mind she was doing a good thing.”

  “Fuck me,” Rune whispered.

  “George isn’t dead, but they took Fie. She didn’t cry. She watched me as they led her away. Wondering…” She paused to take a deep, shaky breath. “Wondering why I didn’t save her. Why I didn’t grab her and run with her. But I couldn’t. She’s where she needs to be. Someday she’ll understand.”

  Rune frowned. She’s where she needs to be. What the hell did that mean? Who had taken the child? She punched in Elizabeth’s number, not bothering to leave a message when she got the other woman’s voicemail.

  She called the berserker.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She told him about Gun
nar and pulled into the Annex parking lot as she was finishing her story. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Annex.”

  “I just arrived. I need to talk to you.” The berserker had a soft spot for little Fie and she didn’t want to tell him what had happened over the phone.

  But he already knew. As she got out of her car he walked from the building, and though he’d buried the sorrow deep, he couldn’t hide it.

  Not from her.

  She walked into his arms. “It never ends, does it?”

  He tightened his arms around her. “I still have her dog.”

  She pulled back to look up at him, acknowledging the way his penetrating stare ate up her face. The berserker could be overwhelming in his intensity. “Who took her?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Elizabeth came back to speak with Parish, then left again. Rice doesn’t seem to know anything more than we do.”

  “Eugene is here?”

  “He’s been here for a couple hours.”

  Their cells beeped at the same time. The superintendent of the Annex was calling them in.

  “He wants a meeting,” she said. Every time Eugene showed up he called a meeting, so that wasn’t a surprise.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dude likes his fucking meetings,” she grumbled, and walked into the building with the berserker.

  Raze met them as they walked down the hall to the main conference room. The new building was still unfamiliar to them. Unfriendly.

  Hurried footsteps clicked on the polished, shiny floors, and booming voices alternated with the shifty whispers and murmurs of strangers.

  The Annex was too new. Too large.

  The rest of Shiv Crew, along with a dozen or so other crews, sat behind the long tables in the conference room. The room had a small platform built against one wall, with three steps leading up to it.

  Eugene Parish stood on the platform, his hands on the lectern. Iris stood behind him, her slim body stiff and still. She almost faded into the wall and was so quietly unmoving that it was easy to forget she was even there.

  Eugene watched Rune, Raze, and Strad as they found seats, then began speaking. He didn’t waste time with niceties.