Mallory's Hunt

by Jory Strong

  I'll be your mate.

  She read it in his gaze, in the slow strip he did for her benefit, in the wide-stanced posturing and ripple of muscles.

  She rejected it. "Never."

  He laughed. "As you've seen, I enjoy a challenge."

  He changed then, his Hound form larger than Dane's, his fur making her think of a black abyss rather than the color of midnight.

  The battle was savage. Bloody. Eerily silent.

  She paced the edge of the ring. Feelings of desperation grew with each rip and tear of Dane's fur.

  A thrill spiked through her when it was Dane whose teeth sliced and opened skin.

  He fought for her.

  He fought for the control that would allow him to take human form.

  She allowed herself to hope.

  Sabin lunged then, catching Dane's front leg between powerful jaws.

  It snapped. The sound of bone breaking speared into Mallory's heart.

  Dane's entire body jerked.

  Sabin released him and leapt, taking Dane to the floor.

  His canines buried in Dane's neck, threatening to open jugular and carotid, to crush his throat.

  Dane continued to fight and Mallory was reminded of those early days in Hell, when he'd protected her, putting himself between her and the pure Hounds.

  "Yield, Dane," she whispered. "Yield."

  He stilled and his body softened, not in death but in surrender.

  The magic swept inward and Sabin shifted forms, aroused in victory. The dominance of an alpha poured off him as he looked at her with the confidence of a male who believed it was only a matter of time until he'd claim his mate.

  Dane came to her side. He looked up at her, eyes liquid with apology, his body vibrating where it pressed to hers.

  She cupped his neck, stroked.

  Sabin's gaze met hers. "It was sloppy and dangerous involving a human in our affairs, Mallory. But at least he's here where it'll be convenient to deal with the body."

  He took a step forward as if to leave the circle.

  She made her choice, ditching the harness and gun before crossing the inlaid brass in silent challenge.

  "No knife? You think you can take me without one?"

  His eyes skimmed the length her body. He smiled, the same twist of sensuous lips. "Maybe you can."

  The magic swelled.

  The circle filled with the stink of Hell.

  She forced her mind into the moment.

  Everything inside her stilled though adrenaline surged in, demanding she act.

  He'd never seen her fight, didn't know what she was capable of, while she had seen his moves.

  She readied herself, followed him as he circled, gauged her moment.

  Attacked.

  With hands.

  With feet.

  With teeth bared.

  Desperation built when her blows missed, when they slid off him without doing any damage.

  She was fast.

  He was faster.

  Her heart hammered.

  Sweat rolled down her sides.

  Her lungs labored.

  Fear made a grab for her at understanding Sabin only played at fighting.

  She fought that fear, launched another attack.

  He dodged.

  He pulled his punches.

  He danced away from hers.

  On and on—until he tired of the game.

  He hooked his foot around her ankle. Dropped her to the floor and immediately covered her with his naked body.

  She wriggled and struggled.

  He pinned her with manacled wrists and weight.

  She bucked and twisted, her mind flooded with wild desperation as he ground against her, leaving his scent on her clothing and skin, his taste when she couldn't evade his lips.

  She snapped, willing to tear him apart with teeth. Her muscles burned, sweat coated her skin. Her breathing was harsh and shallow as she warred not only against him but everything he represented.

  Sabin's smile flashed. He laughed. Rolled with her buck and shove, putting her on top.

  She jammed her forearm against his throat. Pressed her knee hard against his unprotected balls.

  "I yield," he said, and she understood the trap for what it was when magic poured into her along with knowledge, the bonds between her and the others shifting, making her the thing she'd never wanted to become—alpha.

  Use it. Use it to free Dane from fur.

  She scrambled off Sabin and stood to concentrate on Dane.

  She could see his human form curled inside fur like a fetus that only needed call and tug to come forth. The knowledge of how to do it was there, the power was there, but when she pulled, he jerked in pain, whimpered as if slamming against a wall.

  Once, twice. Three times, the desperation growing with each failed attempt.

  A fourth and Sabin said, "It's too late for that. You should have taken the gun when it was offered."

  She felt the phantom weight of it in her hand. Coldness filled her at the thought of using it, of becoming a killer.

  Too late. Too late. Too late.

  The refrain from the nightmare was a line thrown to the drowning. It didn't have to be too late for all the girls.

  Sabin rose to his feet, slowly putting on the discarded jeans, hands lingering at the front of them suggestively. She looked at Hayden, gazes meeting, unified now by the presence of a common enemy. Something good could still come of this. And maybe, just maybe because she was alpha, she could keep Matthew safe.

  "Tell Sabin where to find the Satanists. He can question them and get something of Maven Stone's."

  Hayden smiled, dark eyes glittering. "He'll be right at home with them."

  Sabin only laughed and saluted her. "Until next time, Mal."

  She turned away from him, put the haltered gun on and said, "You're with me, Dane."

  Caleb glanced up as Mallory emerged from the private room.

  Her shirt clung to her skin. Her hair was free. A wildness radiated from her and Jesus, he'd never seen anything as beautiful, never wanted a woman more.

  He set the pool cue on the table and straightened. It was shades of that first glimpse of her, made worse at having felt Mallory's body along the length of his, at having tasted her lips and breathed in her honeyed scent.

  He could almost ignore the dog at her side. Almost, because he remembered the dog's initial greeting. He remembered the dog looking up from the corpse and realizing there was a witness.

  "You settled things with a fight?" Caleb asked. He'd seen the gloves and headgear in the ring. He'd heard the blond's words but hadn't taken them as literal, until he'd seen Mallory.

  "For now. Let's get out of here."

  In the Jeep, he keyed the GPS to their destination.

  "Who are we going to find there?" she asked.

  "Dwight Brooks. He does reptile parties. He did one at the Lawrence house. It was the last time Landon saw Caitlyn. Landon said the guy couldn't take his eyes off her. Kept trying to get close but she avoided him. Finally got in a fight with her mother over having to be there and stormed away. The kid's carrying a load of guilt since the party was for him. He saw Dwight the next day, driving down their street."

  "Did he tell his parents? The private detective they hired? The police?"

  "Yeah, it didn't go anywhere."

  His gut said it would this time.

  The police didn't know about the other girls.

  The police weren't looking for connections.

  The police weren't Mallory.

  They made good time.

  The house was narrow, a green adobe shoehorned between squat brick apartments.

  No one answered the door.

  He pulled his picks. "Go in?"

  Mallory's hand dropped to the knob, twisted, foreboding hitting her instead of surprise.

  "It's unlocked," she said, opening the door.

  The smell of reptiles spilled out onto the stoop.

  Her skin craw
led. Her body resisted taking that first step into the house.

  She shivered, remembering the snake-filled pits in her sire's realm, remembering the screams of those chased into them—her own screams and the acid-burn of poison as she'd been bitten repeatedly while scrambling to escape.

  A whole body shudder gripped her. Her lungs seized as if to ward off further memories by refusing breath.

  Matthew pulled her backward against his chest, warm arms and masculine scent eradicating the freeze of memory and the smell of reptiles. His lips touched her neck in a murmured kiss. "You okay?"

  She allowed herself to lean into him, soaking him in, a part of her soul wallowing as a Hound would until necessity forced her forward. "I'm good."

  Cages and terrariums filled the front room. Snakes coiled in rocky pits, in nests of sand, around branches and struggling, dying rodents.

  Lizards blended, scurried, stared with beady eyes.

  "Look," Matthew said, and her gaze followed his to a small urn set in an asp's enclosure.

  Ashes. It had to be given the picture of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl.

  "Another victim," she said.

  "Unless she was his first and he's recapturing the thrill by recreating it with girls who look like her."

  Matthew moved toward the enclosure. He was halfway there when a black cobra with faint yellow banding slid from an opening between two displays, already in striking distance.

  It rose, hood flared.

  He froze.

  Mallory pulled her gun.

  The cobra had the low, growling hiss of a king. It was a massive specimen, eighteen feet and at least twenty-five pounds. It was beautiful death, though usually they avoided confrontation, were only aggressive when provoked.

  It swayed. Back and forth. Back and forth, like the pendulum of a lethal clock.

  If it struck, they wouldn't get to the hospital in time. If it struck, Matthew would die.

  Her heartbeat became constant thunder matched to the swaying cobra. She aimed, not wanting to kill, deeply reluctant to kill. The hair along her nape rose like a Hound's ruff at envisioning magic unleashed by the snake's death and cage doors falling open, freeing viper after viper.

  Instinct? Premonition?

  It's guarding the urn.

  She knew it with a surety she couldn't explain.

  "Ease away from it."

  Matthew remained frozen.

  "I've got my gun aimed at it. Trust me, Matthew, back away."

  Don't force me to shoot. We won't make it out of here alive if you do.

  Time might as well have been measured in eons, in the crawl of a centipede across a mile-long field.

  Finally he moved. An inch. Two. Three.

  Not out of striking range, but the cobra's growling hiss softened. Its thick, sinuous body lowered, and continued to lower with Matthew's retreat.

  "I wondered if you'd be the one to come," a woman said, appearing in the hallway doorway unannounced by sound or movement, her presence deepening the smell of reptile.

  Hound reaction had Mallory fighting contradictory urges, to flee, to attack.

  The woman moved deeper into the room, and just as Mallory had seen Dane's human form curled inside fur, the hundred golden-blonde plaits of woven hair became snakes, the triangular beads at the tips, venomous heads.

  Mallory holstered the gun.

  The cobra retreated, disappearing into the crevice.

  Mallory's gaze flicked to the urn. "Who is she?"

  "Belinda, sister of Dwight. But you need nothing of hers. You'll take nothing of hers. Our dead are protected, as you have discovered."

  "When did she die?" Matthew asked, his voice strong, assured, as if he were used to encountering cobras and dealing with the supernatural.

  The woman cocked her head, sending the braids slithering across her shoulders. "A little over two months ago."

  Shortly before Amanda Edson went missing.

  Matthew asked the follow-up question. "How did she die?"

  "A black man caught her in an alley when she was cutting through on her way home from checking on a friend. He hit her with a tranquilizer dart but she managed to get away from him. In her panic, she ran into the street and was hit by a car."

  "Did the police get anywhere?"

  The woman's eyes slid from him to Mallory. "You wouldn't have found the door unlocked if the man's identity were known."

  Did the medusa know about Amanda Edson? Was she somehow responsible for Nathan getting the flier, knowing ultimately that he might pass in on? Was she Rahmiel's ally?

  Mallory shrugged the questions aside. They didn't matter. "Is there anything else you can tell us?"

  "Don't come here again unless you seek death or are prepared to offer service."

  "Understood."

  They left the house. Matthew's hand settled at the base of her spine, its heat burning through her clothing.

  "Want to tell me what that was all about?"

  I'd love to. "You were there, same as I was and this is your lead."

  He let it drop.

  The fur along Dane's spine rose when they slid into the Jeep, as if the scent of reptiles clung to them.

  Her cell rang. She didn't recognize the number but took the call.

  "This is Detective Marlon Gerke, Homicide. I need to talk to you in person."

  Guilt crept in with thoughts of Iosif. "If you want to do it today or tomorrow, it'll have to be at my office. Do you have the address?"

  "I have it. Can you head there now?"

  Better to get this behind her. If Hayden had anything new he'd have called, and she doubted Sabin was back from visiting the Satanists' high priest.

  "I'm on my way."

  * * * * *

  Chapter 26

  Linden dropped into the chair in his home office. Sweat coated his skin as if he'd run for miles instead of merely descending the stairs. He was short of breath, drained of energy.

  What if this wasn't some flu he'd picked up from a client, from attending the party, from the girl now in his possession?

  A shiver wracked him. Then a second and a third, stripping away years and years of good health with resurfaced memory.

  Once this fatigue, this sweat-coated skin, this lack of energy had been everyday existence. The disease whose first symptoms had manifested when he was five had caused muscles to atrophy and will to wither by the time he was ten. It had trapped him in a wheelchair, well on his way to becoming nothing more than a drooling waste of humanity.

  Fear clawed at the barrier of denial. Subtle tremors rippled through him.

  What if the Russian girl had succeeded where the last had failed?

  He concentrated on the medallion. He felt the faintest hum of the magical life-force stored there and connected to what had been collected and remained at the house.

  Was there less of it?

  The sweat on his skin turned cold.

  There had to be for him to feel so weak.

  It had been decades since he'd felt the warning signs, the subtle indicators that he needed to kill—and those had been nothing like what he now endured.

  Aubrey entered his study with Zeus at her side. The sight of her with the Old English Sheepdog slowed the frantic race of his heart and engulfed it in warmth.

  The love and concern on her face as she came to him, slender arms hugging him, filled him with resolve. He would do whatever was necessary to overcome this setback.

  "Mommy said you're not feeling good. If you're too sick to go to the dog show tomorrow, I'll understand."

  "I'll be there. Absolutely nothing will keep me from it."

  He buried his nose in silky hair and breathed in the scent of her shampoo. The feel of her against him stirred desires he refused to be tempted by.

  He set her aside. His thoughts became dominated by the need to get to the house.

  Aubrey picked up the remote and aimed it at the TV mounted on the wall across from his desk. The screen filled with familiar imag
es.

  Linden's breath became leaden weight from lips to lungs. He'd expected them to find that last body. But the others…

  The girl he'd left behind a dumpster.

  The girl who'd cursed him, claiming to use some demon's name.

  The girl he'd acquired thanks to her friend, two sacrifices, one he killed immediately while the other, a policeman's stepdaughter, he'd enjoyed for six months.

  His stomach shriveled and burned.

  Had the authorities found the house?

  Were they already on their way to arrest him?

  How could this be happening?

  He didn't deserve this!

  The pounding in his ears muffled the male reporter's voice, but slowly the words filtered in. "Police haven't been willing to confirm rumors that a serial killer is preying on young girls, possibly targeting runaways, but inside sources say that consideration is being given to forming a task force."

  Safe. He was safe for now.

  He pressed a kiss to Aubrey's soft mouth. "Would you get me some orange juice?"

  "Of course, Daddy."

  Her sweet smile pierced his heart.

  She left.

  The onscreen location changed. An Asian reporter stood next to a woman wearing the unattractive brown uniform of a UPS driver.

  "We're standing with Amy Edson, the aunt of Amanda Edson. Earlier today, after being approached by a bounty hunter, she grew suspicious that her niece's disappearance wasn't the only one being investigated. When talks with the police yielded no answers, she contacted our investigative unit."

  Two pictures appeared in the right hand corner of the screen, a young child and an adult version of that child.

  The sight of them stripped away his feeling of safely. He'd glimpsed that woman as he'd been leaving the party.

  It's a coincidence.

  He couldn't bring himself to believe it.

  "Ironically enough," the reporter said, "the bounty hunter in question is Mallory Cassel. Viewers might remember her from news coverage nineteen years ago, when at eight, she was abducted from a grocery store while there with her mother. Calls to her have gone unreturned. As have calls to her stepfather, Phillip Ackerman, a senior level prosecuting attorney."

  The news anchor asked, "Is there reason to believe she's working for or with the district attorney's office?"