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

by Laken Cane

  Not, perhaps, as much as Levi needed it, but she was going to get a dose just the same.

  He was sitting at his desk, his chin propped on his hand, staring vacantly at his computer screen.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He jerked and then jumped to his feet. “Rune.”

  She opened her arms as he ran to her, then caught him in a hug that made her instantly relax. It grounded her, that hug.

  Neither one of them said anything.

  Rune saw a shadow from her peripheral as someone came to the door. When she turned her head slightly and saw Gustav, he held his palms up and slipped noiselessly away.

  She felt Ellie sigh.

  “I’ve been neglecting you,” she told him.

  He pulled away to smile at her, a flinching in his eyes she hadn’t seen since before she’d given him his protective necklace.

  “Have lunch with me today.”

  “Sure, baby. I’ll meet you here around eleven. Sound good?”

  “Yes.” He stepped away from her. “That’ll be great.”

  “I need to talk to you anyway. About Levi.”

  He put his hand over his mouth and tears sprang immediately to his eyes.

  “Ellie.” She grasped his wrist and pulled his hand away. “What the fuck is wrong?”

  “I’m not perfect,” he murmured. “I’m not good.”

  She shivered. “Ellie. What do you mean?”

  “I—”

  “I’m sorry, but we have to get to work. Elizabeth has sent some runs to our computers,” Gustav said, standing in the doorway.

  Ellis wiped briskly at his cheeks. “We’ll talk at lunch,” he told Rune. He walked to his desk and sat down behind it.

  Gustav sat as well, and after a brief look at Ellis, began tapping at the keys on his keyboard. “Elizabeth wanted you to know they have a team excavating the well you fell into.”

  “She didn’t fall into it,” Ellis snapped. “She was pushed.”

  “My mistake,” Gustav said.

  “Good,” Rune said, staring at Ellis. “Anything yet?”

  “No.” Gustav tried so hard to look casual he was anything but. “But she said she’d send an update to you as soon as they have something.”

  “Fine. Where do you need us?” She was anxious to get to work, and hoping more than a little bit for a battle or two to get her workday started on a positive note.

  “There are three things in need of immediate attention,” Gustav said. “You can split your team however you want to.”

  “She’s aware of that,” Ellis said.

  “What,” Gustav said, “is your fucking problem?”

  “Guys,” Rune said, spreading her hands. “Come on. Give me a job, then you two can chat.”

  “My problem is that you manipulated me,” Ellis said. “You took advantage—”

  “I took advantage!” Gustav snorted and swiveled his chair to face Ellis. They seemed to have forgotten Rune was in the room. “You wanted it as much as I did. I didn’t force you to fuck me.”

  “No,” someone murmured, and all three of them turned to look toward the door.

  The twins stood there.

  Levi’s face had lost all its color, and even Denim had paled. His scar stood out in stark relief against the pallor, and Rune knew he was feeling Levi’s pain.

  “Fuck,” she whispered.

  “Levi,” Ellis cried, and leaped to his feet. But when he started to run to the twins, Denim was the one to halt him.

  “Best not,” he said. “Keep him away, Rune.”

  Levi smiled, and it was that smile, not Denim’s words, that caused Rune to shoot out a hand and yank Ellis to her.

  “Stay put, Ellie,” she said, when he struggled to escape her grip.

  Levi didn’t say a word, but he stared at Ellis with such bright hatred that Rune had to fight not to shield Ellis from the force of it.

  But then that hatred faded and there was nothing left in his eyes but…

  Nothing. Just nothing.

  And finally, he turned and walked away, Denim at his back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Raze,” Rune said, her finger tightening on her gun’s trigger. “Can you make them out? I’m going to a different position. My view is impeded by a rock the size of a fucking house.”

  Rune had sent floaters to one of the hills right outside Wormwood. Eugene had offered them telescopes, and, surprisingly, his blessing.

  “The second you see pikes, you call me,” she’d told them.

  It’d taken most of the day, but finally, she’d gotten the call.

  “You’re not going to believe this.” Raze’s voice slid into her ear, somehow comforting as she lay in the dirt, alone.

  “What?”

  “They’re with a group of slayers.”

  Strad was speaking almost before Raze had finished his sentence. “Stay where you are, Rune. I’ll be with you in two minutes.”

  “You and Jack keep your posts, Strad,” she ordered, sure that the shiver running through her body was not detectable in her voice. “Raze and I can handle it.”

  “There are eight slayers that I can see,” Raze said, when Strad was quiet. “But I’m counting six pikes.”

  “The pikes are kissing slayer ass,” she murmured. “Fucking pike alpha really is a son of a bitch.”

  “COS and Others,” Jack said. “Working together.”

  “These Others are idiots,” Rune said. It wasn’t the first time COS used Others, and it wouldn’t be the last. When the slayers were finished with them, they’d kill their asses. And the Others just kept letting them do it.

  “We’ll lose radio signal when we go inside, Rune.” Raze hesitated. “Will you be okay?”

  He wanted to tell her to stay outside the gates, that the crew could handle it. She heard it in his voice. “I’ll be better than any of you assholes,” she said. “Don’t do that, Raze.”

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  She jumped to her feet. “I need to talk to the pikes. Get me a live one—Sean Colley if possible. And kill the fucking slayers.”

  She’d known the church wasn’t finished. She’d also known they had some big fucking balls. Or maybe the slayers lingering in River County were desperate.

  She’d sent the twins, Lex, and Owen on other assignments, and that was a good thing. Levi would have found it impossible to maintain control with COS members so close. He’d have started killing and wouldn’t have stopped.

  And she needed one of the pikes alive.

  As she sprinted down the hill and toward the slayers, she glanced over to see the berserker at her side, running with her.

  She’d known he’d run to her the moment Raze had mentioned COS. The twins weren’t the only members of the crew who wanted to kill slayers on sight.

  And Strad thought, despite her massive skills, that she needed his protection.

  Hell. Maybe she did.

  I love you so goddam fucking much…

  She shot out her claws and waded into the midst of the shocked slayers, whose attempts to scatter and flee came too late.

  And even as she slashed open chests and throats and faces, the guilt of not saving COS for the twins jabbed at her conscience.

  She watched Strad collar Sean Colley. She’d never seen the pike’s face but he had the same air of authority about him that all alphas possessed.

  The berserker thrust his spear into its sheath and with his free hand grabbed a female pike, whose bleeding body had shriveled and wrinkled in the moments since the attack.

  They all were shriveling.

  It must have been a reaction to stress, because they were too near their pond to have dehydrated.

  There was a lot to learn about fish shifters.

  The berserker dragged the pikes away, leaving Rune, Jack, and Raze to finish the slayers.

  That had to have been difficult for him.

  After the slayers lay in bloody bits and pieces on the ground, she spared them only a quick,
satisfied glance before leading her men to Poison Pond.

  Strad crouched at the water’s edge, holding the two pikes by the chains of silver he’d locked around their throats.

  They couldn’t shift, but the water would seep into their thirsty, dry bodies and keep them alive.

  She hoped.

  Strad looked up at her. “You okay?”

  She pointed her chin at the pike alpha. “He said anything?”

  “No.”

  She stood beside Strad’s crouching body, her stare on the alpha. It was difficult to tell his age—the cracks and wrinkles of his stressed skin made his appearance that of a very, very old man. She figured when he’d had time to soak in some water and relax, he wouldn’t look quite so ancient.

  She nudged his head with the toe of her boot. “Dude. Can you talk?”

  His head bobbed on the water, and he kept his thin, veined eyelids closed. As the water of the lake slid into his ears, something black and viscous was pushed out.

  “Jack, go call Ellie. Have him send transport to take these two back to the Annex. We can question them there. They have tanks.”

  The alpha groaned and his eyelids fluttered. “No,” he said, his voice weak. “I’ll tell you what you want to know. If you take me out of Wormwood, they’ll kill me.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but she really didn’t care if they killed him.

  She knelt beside Strad. “I want to know about Megan Smith. I want to know about the lab where she’s being kept. I want names, and I want locations. Give me some answers and I’ll leave you and what’s left of your people alone.”

  “Yes. Okay. Give me a second to—”

  “I’ve heard there’s a broker,” she interrupted. “Is that you?”

  “No. And I’m hardly high enough on the food chain to be told where any of the labs are. Sometimes I take the humans in when the broker brings them here for safekeeping before they can be moved.”

  “Safekeeping,” she said. “Safe-fucking-keeping.”

  He flinched. “I do it for my people.”

  “What does the broker do for you,” she asked, her anger nearly choking her. “Bring you dried fucking fish food?”

  “We have to survive. And in order to survive in a human’s world—”

  “Fuck you. I don’t care about your problems. I care about the girl.” She shot out her claws. “Where the fuck is she?”

  “I don’t know. I swear, I don’t know. The broker doesn’t tell me where he takes them. He leaves them here for me to watch, then comes back to get them when he’s ready to move them.”

  “Them. How many have there been? All girls?”

  “Six...seven. Maybe a dozen. I lost count. Yes. All girls.”

  “What’s the broker’s name?”

  “Johnson. He COS.”

  The fine hairs stood up on the back of her neck, as though Johnson were there, watching. “I know who he is.” She sat back on her heels and pushed her palms against her eyes. “I need to know where he is.”

  “You’re not asking the right questions,” the berserker said, handing the chains over to Jack. And then, before she could blink, he pulled a blade and thrust it through the underside of the pike’s jaw. “Where is Johnson?” His voice was calm.

  His stare was not.

  Colley flopped in the water, his mouth opening and closing as he fought for air. His eyes rolled back into his head. “Uh, uh,” he mumbled. “Gah…”

  “I know where he is,” someone said.

  She and Strad whirled around, Strad jerking the blade from the pike and readying it to fling at the new threat.

  Epik stood there, his hands up, his bare body covered with new wounds. “I know where he is. Let my master go and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Rune straightened and retracted her claws. “Crew, meet the fuck who shoved me into the well. Epik, meet my friend Jack. That big guy standing behind you, ready to take off your head, is Raze.” She pointed her chin at Strad. “And this is the berserker.”

  Any of her crew could easily have pinched the malnourished boy and killed him. Jack narrowed his eyes at Epik and slowly cleaned his bloody blades on his pants. “I will kill you for what you did to Rune—right after I kill your master and have him for my supper.”

  Rune lifted an eyebrow. “A little over the top, Jack,” she murmured.

  He shrugged and grinned at her.

  “Tell me what you know, Epik,” Rune said. “If your information is good, I’ll let Colley go.”

  “Swear it,” he said.

  “I swear.” Her reply was so quick and glib she wasn’t sure he’d believe her, but he didn’t seem suspicious.

  “She won’t keep her word,” Sean Colley said, his voice hoarse and weak.

  Rune strode to him and kicked him in the head. “Shut up, asshole.”

  Epik held out a hand. “Don’t…”

  She shook her head. “How can you want to protect this piece of trash, Epik?”

  “Protect,” the pike alpha said, and snorted.

  She ignored him.

  “He’s what I need.” Epik looked at the ground. “Dr. Johnson is in Reverence, Kentucky.”

  “That’s in Eastern Kentucky,” Rune murmured. “I’ll need an address or directions to his house.”

  “I don’t know the address but he lives in a big yellow house on Pine Road. He took me there once for punishment. I stayed for two weeks.” He shivered.

  “Hmmm.” Strad narrowed his eyes. “I’ve heard of that town. Take us a couple hours to get there.”

  “People are not going to be happy with you, Epik,” Sean muttered. “But that’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “What else you got for me, Epik?” Rune asked, ignoring Colley.

  “You’d better destroy the labs.” He looked up through his eyelashes at her, a spark of malice in his eyes. “Someday they’re going to figure out how to trap you and take you in. You really don’t want to be taken to the labs.”

  She almost stepped back. She couldn’t decide whether Epik was a victim or a lunatic. Maybe he was both. “What’s your problem, little dude?”

  From the water, Sean Colley laughed. “Oh, if only we had the time.” But there was fear in his laugh.

  She turned to him, shooting out her claws. There was no reason to keep him alive.

  “Yes,” he said. “Kill me. I’m dead anyway and at least you’ll make it quick.”

  “You swore,” Epik cried.

  Shit.

  She strode to the pikes and sliced through the silver around their necks. She held onto Colley as the other pike sank beneath the water and disappeared. “I’ll be back for you,” she promised.

  He curled his lip, then flipped and followed the other pike, shifting as he went. When she turned back to Epik, the boy was already gone.

  “When do you want to leave?” Strad asked, striding with her to the gates.

  “Go grab some lunch. I’ll report to Elizabeth and let you know.”

  “What are you doing?” Raze asked, when she opened her passenger side door, grabbed a box, and turned to go back inside Wormwood.

  “I need to check on Gunnar.” She hefted the box. “I have candy. I’ll meet up with you all later.”

  Strad stared at her for a long moment. “Be careful.”

  “I will,” she said, and slipped back through the gates as her crew drove away.

  She loped through the graveyard, watching for Gunnar. Ten minutes later there was still no sign of the ghoul, so she stopped running and sat down on a rock to wait.

  If he was in Wormwood, he’d know by then she was there. He’d find her.

  And if he didn’t show up in a few minutes she’d leave the candy on the rock and hope like hell he hadn’t left the cemetery for good.

  Two minutes later he slipped up behind her. “Your Horror.”

  She turned with a relieved grin but the grin changed to a frown when she got a good look at him. “You’re still not completely
healed?”

  He brushed his fingers over his face and glanced away. “I am healing.”

  She tossed him the box. “I brought you a present, sexy.”

  Usually Gunnar waited until he was off by himself before he ate the Baby Ruth candy bars. This time, he opened the box, gazed at the two dozen bars inside, then took one out and unwrapped it.

  He ate it as she watched, his eyes closed, his thin, ravaged face lit with delight.

  “Good?” she asked, smiling.

  He nodded, then tossed the empty package into the box and took out another bar. He began to devour it.

  “Sorry it took me so long to bring it to you, Gunnar.” Watching him eat, she got an idea of how addicted he really was to the candy.

  He stopped chewing and frowned. “It is not right that you apologize. You’ve softened and that is not good for you. Not in this world.”

  She scratched the side of her nose. “Fuck you, ghoul.”

  He smiled, and the first spark of the old Gunnar shone in his eyes. “Better,” he said, then continued eating his candy.

  “You have anything interesting to tell me?” she asked.

  “I do not.”

  “Is the assassin still around?”

  “I have not seen him.” He didn’t look at her, and she wondered if he had already begun his move to another graveyard.

  The thought caused her breath to catch.

  “I’ll see you again soon.” She paused. “Don’t go anywhere if you have a choice. Okay?”

  “Go away, Highness,” he said, politely.

  All was not right in Gunnar’s world. She trotted away, leaving him with his candy and his fears.

  Outside the gates, Cruikshank was waiting.

  He leaned against the front of her car, his ankles crossed, and nodded hello when he saw her.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” she asked him, unable to believe the reporter was standing there in front of her with Owen and Strad gunning for his ass.

  He shrugged. “Your two thugs are being kept busy right now.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have a radio, Rune. I have it turned always to your channel. You or your crew gets called out, I know about it.”

  He was sick. His pale cheeks were hollow, and his eyes were lusterless. His fingers shook when he lifted them to brush his unkempt hair out of his thin face.