A Cold Day in Hell (The Hellcat Series)
Page 1
A Cold Day in Hell
(Hellcat Series
Book 3)
by
Sharon Hannaford
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2013 Sharon Hannaford
Cover Artwork by Erin Kuhle
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and occurrences are fictitious and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the copyright holder.
DEDICATION
For Garth, Rob and Ashleigh. Wherever you are is home for me. My little world is complete. Love you all insanely.
In Memory of Dinky
My little hooligan baby who, when she wasn’t up to mischief, spent many hours curled on my lap as I typed. I miss you little one, your time with us was much too short.
I
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
You would think as you get more experienced at your craft that you might need less help from others, but somehow reality seems quite the opposite. My list of people to thank gets longer and more profound with each book.
As always, thanks go to my wonderful editor; Pauline Nolet and my fabulous graphic artist, Erin Kuhle. Without the finishing touches, my work would simply fade into the noise.
My group of Alpha readers has grown too big to name individually, but thank you for the time, effort and encouragement, your work is invaluable to me.
If there’s one thing moving to the other side of the world has taught me, it’s the true value of friendship. When blood relations are thousands of miles away, friends become family. It was a big year for our family, and you never get through ‘big’ years on your own. Thank you to all those who generously helped out this past year; taking Rob for a day, making a meal, sharing a coffee or a glass of wine, lending an ear. You know who you are and you mean the world to us. Carley, of course, stands a little above the rest; without you book 3 would probably have taken several years longer to complete. Your gift with littlies must never be underestimated or ignored; you are the perfect day-mommy and friend!
To friends and family who continue to encourage, prod and congratulate; big kisses – I love ya!
Last, but by no means least, my readers, my Hellions and the street team members who’ve supported me and my fellow authors over the months. You guys simply ROCK!
PROLOGUE
The club was unnervingly empty for a Friday night, Kyle reflected. The music wasn't blaring at the usual ninety-five decibels—a relief to his werewolf auditory system. Everything else was normal: the lights, the drinks, the writhing bodies on the dance floor. If you considered a nightclub full of supernatural beings normal, of course. Norms, as most of those present referred to humans, had been turned away from the club tonight. The club's owner, Julius, Master Vampire of the City, was having his own private party, thanking those who'd put in long, hard hours rebuilding the manor house on his estate after it was bombed by a nut-job human. Tonight was for his people to enjoy themselves without fear of upsetting any humans or having to hide their true natures.
His eyes roved the dance floor as he pulled Trish closer against him. He couldn't get enough of feeling her skin pressed close to his, her scent enveloping him, her sea-breeze-scented hair tickling his nose. They were taking a break from dancing to raid the catering tables, which were groaning with enough food to feed, well, a club full of hungry Werewolves. Trish responded by turning to nuzzle his neck and press a kiss to his bare skin. The wolf inside him rumbled satisfaction, making his human side slightly uneasy. It was the first time in his life that he and his wolf were not in complete agreement.
Kyle had a better-than-average understanding and control of his inner wolf personality; he was the only known Werewolf who'd been born already infected with the Lycanthropy virus. He'd never known life without the other half of his personality, never been alone in his own head. He found it easy to push the wolf personae back and assert his human side whenever he needed to, and his wolf rarely fought him for control. But things had changed the moment he saw Trish lying on the bed in her brother's house, bleeding from a terrible neck wound.
His wolf had decided in that moment that Trish was his. She hadn't even been a Werewolf at that stage. The virus hadn't had time to take over her body; her own wolf didn’t exist yet. At that time there hadn’t even been any kind of certainty that she'd survive the assault the Lycanthropy virus had been making on her body. The majority of women, and even a large percentage of men, didn't make it through the raging fever that was the body's attempt to kill off the virus before it took hold.
When Trish had made it through the fever stage, Kyle had been relieved, but his wolf had been smug, he hadn't doubted her strength once. It wasn't that Kyle wasn't attracted to Trish. On the contrary, he found her appealing on so many levels it scared him. But he wanted to take things slowly, let Trish get used to her new life, find her feet, and learn about her reinvention without pressure.
A common Werewolf trait was a tendency to promiscuity; they rarely settled with just one partner in the first few years after the Change. This was especially true when the moon was heading towards full. This was when the Lycanthropy virus was at its most potent. Rage and sexual tensions ran high then, and often Werewolves eased their tension with whoever was willing, able and accessible.
Kyle had never been ridden by the virus like the others, so while he understood it, he didn't partake like the others, always holding himself back. He wouldn't share a partner; it wasn't in his nature. Others thought of him as an easy-going kind of person, especially those who hadn't seen him in his wolf form, and these days he rarely Changed, except to enjoy an occasional full moon run with one of the Packs, but in truth he'd discovered within himself a possessive streak wide enough that he knew monogamy was his only option. The wolf might be willing to allow Trish her freedom while she came to terms with her dual nature, but the man couldn't.
Trish's first Change had been one of the most stressful things he’d ever endured. She'd coped better than he had. He would be eternally grateful that Gabi had agreed to be there; it was about the only thing that kept him from losing his mind. His best friend, and fellow supernatural anomaly, had been a rock at a time when she’d had her own stresses to deal with. She'd spent the better part of two days helping to keep Trish's brother, Derek, from Changing to wolf form. The full moon rose only days after the assault on Jason's compound, which had claimed half of Derek's left leg. The doctor was worried that if he Changed form, he would undo any progress he'd made in healing.
Trish had done extremely well for her first Change. In only minutes a beautiful, petite, chocolate brown wolf lay panting on the ground in Gabi's garage. Gabi calmed and soothed the new wolf using her unique gift to communicate with animals, while Kyle quickly forced his own transformation. It was easier to communicate in wolf form. He’d coaxed her into going for a run in a forested area on Gabi's rural property. Trish's wolf was shy and initially a little clumsy, but also playful and curious; Kyle's wolf was even more stubbornly insistent that she was his.
He hadn't been able to stop himself taking her to bed that night after they left Gabi's, the tension had been too much for both of them. Still, he was resisting officially declaring her his mate; once he did that, he knew he would never be able to stand allowing her near another male Werewolf. Her freedom to choose for herself would be gone. And so, while he allowed himself to enjoy a physical relationship with her, he was holding himself back. And he and his wolf were at loggerheads.
Then Kyle noticed a couple entwined in a dark corner of the club; the woman was a Vampire, but the man was human. One of the feeders from Julius's estate, Kyle assumed, as this party was by invitation only. The man's eyes were closed in ecstasy as the woman's face nuzzled determinedly into the junction of his neck and shoulder. Kyle repressed a shudder. He knew it was hypocritical of him, Werewolves frequently fed in their wolf shape, usually on freshly killed herbivores, but it was hard to think of humans as a meal.
As he sipped from his beer bottle, he continued his perusal of the club. His attention was caught next by the couple dominating the dance floor. Given a respectful space by the other dancers, Julius and Gabi were entwined together, moving like a single, co-ordinated entity. Each beat of the music, each tiny nuance of sound echoed through their bodies, their eyes only for each other. They were only a couple of steps shy of actually having sex. Kyle wasn't the only one bemused by the spectacle; several Vampires and a few Werewolves stood with barefaced amazement on their faces, watching the dancers.
Kyle had known Gabi for more than half his life, but Julius had been unknown to them both until just a few months ago, when a nasty excuse for a Vampire tried to flood the City with Demons from the Etherworld. He'd learned several things about the Master Vampire since meeting him, the first and most important thing being that he was a scary fucker. His mere presence cowed most Werewolves, including some of the City's Pack Leaders. Vampires treated him with careful respect at best and exuded outright terror at worst. Only a handful spoke to him candidly, and even most of those tacked a respectful 'Sire' onto the ends of their sentences.
The Master Vampire even made Kyle himself slightly nervous, his wolf always urging caution when Julius was in the same airspace. Trish valiantly fought to keep her usual calm and cheerful demeanour when Julius was around, but even though she now officially worked for him, Kyle knew it was a constant struggle for her to deal with his close proximity. Julius radiated power and danger, just being near him triggered most people’s fight or flight reflex. You didn't even need to have supernatural senses to pick up on it; Kyle had seen norms go out of their way to walk around him, avoiding eye contact and hurrying away.
For some reason, Gabi seemed utterly immune to all the danger signals he emitted. Kyle doubted she even realised how much others feared the man she teased, argued with, ordered around and occasionally lost her temper with. He doubted she had any idea how much leeway Julius gave her and how little he gave others. Gabi had never been a pushover herself and had a hard time curbing her quick temper and smart mouth, but she seemed like a bunny rabbit compared to Julius. The man probably hadn’t needed to lose his temper for decades; the sheer force of his personality was enough to keep everyone around him in line.
But as much as they were obviously in lust with each other, and tended to do as they pleased rather than bow to the conventional, it wasn't normal for Gabi and Julius to be quite this openly demonstrative either.
"A most unusual sight," drawled a voice with a British accent to his right.
Kyle turned to find Alexander—Julius's pretty boy, right-hand man—following the direction of his gaze. There was a pretty blonde woman at his side. When Kyle recognised her, he very nearly snorted beer out of his nose. The woman at Alexander's side was none other than Athena, the haughty Magi High Council Magus. Notoriously unconcerned with anything or anyone not Magus, it was a shock to see her in a club full of Vamps and Weres, let alone seeing her in the company of the Master of the City's second in command. Athena caught his dumbfounded expression and lifted an imperious, challenging eyebrow at him, but not even the dim lighting and smoky atmosphere could hide the faint blush spreading across her cheekbones.
Kyle grunted, at a complete loss for what to say. Alexander caught the direction of his stunned gaze, and smirked, his fangs unusually prominent. Luckily the music was loud enough that conversation wasn't strictly necessary. Kyle looked away, back to where Gabi and Julius were virtually fusing their bodies together to the beat of the dance music, and something struck him about Alexander’s words. He glanced back at the blond Vampire and saw that he, too, was watching them again, all hint of amusement gone and something else in his expression. If Kyle didn't know better, he'd have said it was concern.
It was then that all the little niggling occurrences of the past few weeks sewed themselves into a dark, worrying tapestry. While Gabi was on stand-down from her duties with the SMV, a clandestine group who monitored and policed the supernatural citizens of the City, she'd been concentrating on her animal training and handling work on film sets and for certain VIP clients. She always had more offers of work than she could cope with. Her ability to deal with difficult animals was the stuff of legends, and the norms didn't know a quarter of what she was truly capable of. She had stoically accepted her suspension from the SMV, while they discussed what to do about her unsanctioned killing of Jason, the nut-job human who'd car-bombed Julius's mansion. The same human had been trying to build an army of genetically engineered Werewolves to use as mercenary soldiers for hire to war-torn areas of the world.
Kyle had first-hand experience of exactly how crazy this man had been. He'd been captured by the egomaniac and used as a guinea pig for his genetic research. The man had then had the audacity to offer Kyle a job as Alpha Leader of the mercenaries. He was a true crackpot, who'd ultimately tried to turn himself into a Werewolf in order to save his own ass. It'd backfired, and Gabi had put him down like the rabid dog he was. Unfortunately the SMV Council weren't in agreement.
Their mandate wasn't to police humans, so Gabi was in the SMV dog box (not for the first time, but this was her most severe transgression so far), and her relationship with Byron, SMV co-founder and the closest thing she had to a father after her own had been killed in the line of duty for the SMV, was strained.
To casual friends and acquaintances, she was coping well and enjoying having more time to herself, but Kyle knew better. Something was seriously bugging her, but she brushed him off every time he broached the subject. They'd been best friends since school days, and there was almost nothing they didn't share. Kyle had been putting down her reticence to his newly developing relationship with Trish, who had become a close friend of Gabi's after Jason’s efforts saw both Trish and her brother, a work colleague of Gabi's, infected with Lycanthropy. Kyle had figured she was giving them space to get to know each other, while also finding her feet in her relationship with Julius.
But now he thought maybe he'd been wrong.
He'd seen something disturbing in Julius's behaviour recently. He'd caught Julius watching Gabi with a dark, intense, protective stare when she wasn't looking. Extra guards lurked everywhere the two of them went, and Julius had developed an uncharacteristic interest in his new mobile phone. The Werewolf Pack Leaders of the City had been put on alert about visiting Vampires, and instructed to report any suspicious visitors to Julius's Clan immediately. Trish had been sworn to secrecy about the work she did for Julius. She'd once moonlighted as a hacker, and Julius was now employing her to hack information for him. She refused to discuss the details, even with Kyle, but it was apparent that she'd uncovered something disturbing.
As he watched the pair dance, Kyle was suddenly certain of one thing. His eyes met Alexander's, and the slender Vampire gave a slight nod, his arrogant smirk for once a deadly serious mask.
Trouble was on the way, and it was going to be big and nasty and equipped with fangs.
CHAPTER 1
Gabi stared the Werewolf down, her hands on her petite hips, her short sword, Nex, securely tucked in a sheath down her back. He glared at her belligerently from just a few feet away, furious that she'd let herself into the li
ttle house after he refused to answer the door. He wasn't in wolf form, but the scent of Werewolf was thick enough to be gag-inducing for anyone with better-than-human olfactory senses. She worked hard not to wrinkle her nose in disgust. It wasn't just the Werewolf scent, the man smelled like he hadn't showered in days.
"What do you want? Did Trish send you? Did she tell you I need a friendly face to cheer me up?" he snarled, 180 pounds of muscular, silver-eyed, brown-haired, pissed-off, dominant Werewolf. His left leg was missing from just above the knee. The remainder of his leg was tucked into a lifelike prosthetic lower limb, complete with foot and hinged ankle joint, clearly visible below his tatty football shorts. A state-of-the-art, bladelike prosthetic rested against a wall behind him, nestled close to a pair of crutches.
Nothing like trying to flaunt the excuse for your rage, Gabi thought, biting back a growl of her own. Served her right for thinking just yesterday that life had been just a little too calm and routine for her liking. The phone call from Trish wasn't completely unexpected, nor was the plea for help. In a case like this she would've stepped up to help even Athena (one of her least favourite people in the world), so it was impossible to say no to Trish, the first real female friend she'd had in years.
"Derek, enough," she snapped, her voice a whip through the room. "You've had long enough to feel sorry for yourself." She watched the disbelieving anger pound through him, and tensed, waiting for his reaction. But her words had momentarily knocked him off balance. He was so accustomed to everyone tiptoeing around him, trying to say the right thing, not saying anything to set off his hair-trigger temper, that her attitude simply floored him. And she hadn't even gotten started yet.
She levelled a glare at him. "Time to stop taking the coward's road. Look at how you're forcing Trish to deal with all of this. Your little sister has to be the one acting strong, being the rock, taking all the shit you've been dishing out day after day for weeks."