All Hell Breaks Loose (The Hellcat Series)

by Sharon Hannaford

  “Okay.” She chewed on her lower lip, thinking. “Tell Julius about this, and I’ll contact Byron. If he can find someone with ace hacking skills, he’ll contact you, and we’ll see where this leads us. It could be nothing more than one of those paranormal magazines fishing for information.” But her gut instinct was telling her otherwise.

  She stuck her head into Trish’s room before she left. Trish was asleep, breathing lightly and evenly. Derek was stretched out on a fold-out bed, awake but looking more relaxed than she’d seen him for days. She remembered the conversation she’d promised him. The fact that Julius had picked up on his feelings for her made it seem that much more important that she explain. She moved silently into the room and pulled up a footstool to sit near him. He turned onto his side, propping his head up on his hand. He didn’t say anything, and he kept his features schooled, but she could feel a sense of bitterness emanating from him.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t explain about Julius before you met him,” she said quietly. “I can imagine it would’ve been something of a shock.”

  “So he’s the reason you wouldn’t go out with me?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Things with Julius are a…fairly recent development.”

  “So you’ve just had no attraction to me from the start?” He sounded belligerent.

  “No, that wasn’t it.” She hadn’t expected his hostility. “I just don’t date ‘norms’. It’s too complicated.”

  He let out a quiet, disbelieving huff. “You mean if I’d become a Werewolf earlier, I might have stood a chance?” He fell back against the bed, staring at the ceiling, a twisted imitation of a smile on his face. “Just my fucking luck.”

  Gabi gritted her teeth. Only Trish, sleeping peacefully a few metres away, was keeping a muzzle on her temper.

  “It’s pointless playing the ‘what if’ game,” she said in a low voice. “Sexual attraction to someone doesn’t mean a relationship with them would work. I’ve got plenty of those T-shirts. If things hadn’t gone well, we’d still have had to face each other on sets. Would you like to have put your life in the hands of an ex-lover? It was better this way. Safer.”

  He turned his head to look at her now, his look resentful. “Better for who? You? So you could find yourself a Vampire lover? I can smell him all over you, Gabrielle. I could smell your arousal as soon as you saw him tonight.” His voice had become guttural, his Werewolf scent stronger.

  “It doesn’t matter what you scent, Derek. You have no claim over me,” she hissed, standing up in annoyance. “I hope you know what your friendship means to me, but I’m not hanging around to be pissed on by a dominant wolf. Call me when you get control of your hormones,” she said coldly over her shoulder as she stalked from the room.

  Damn, damn, damn, she cursed herself as she pulled the Mustang onto the dark winding street. It was after three a.m., and she was exhausted. She should never have tried to have that conversation with Derek when they were both tired and she was exuding a post-coital glow from being with Julius. What had she been thinking? That was part of the problem, after being with Julius she found it hard to think straight. One of these days she’d learn to not let her temper get the better of her. The only thing to do now was to give them both some time to cool down and see if the friendship was salvageable in a day or two. With a sigh she called Byron’s number. His phone went straight to voice message, which was unusual, but Gabi hoped it meant he was asleep. She didn’t leave a message; he’d call her back as soon as he saw the missed call.

  When she got home, she spent a few minutes with Roman before going inside. She filled Razor’s and Slinky’s food bowls before taking a quick, hot shower. She settled Rocky in with the other two on the bed and had just picked up her phone to call Julius when it rang in her hand. It was Byron. When she answered, he sounded tired and flustered, but insisted he was fine and just heading to bed. Gabi explained what Jonathon had told her, and Byron agreed that it was worth following the lead to see what it produced. He told her to leave it in his hands. She wished him sweet dreams, but when she disconnected, she couldn’t shake an increasing sense of disquiet.

  She called Julius to say goodnight. Jonathon had told him what he’d told her, and they discussed the possibilities. Julius agreed with her that this event was too coincidental not to be linked to the rest of the Werewolf unrest. After a few minutes, however, the conversation degenerated into dirty talk. Gabi slipped into sleep with some very naughty thoughts in her head.

  Chapter 10

  Gabi revelled in her morning run. A solid six hours of sleep had cleared her mind and left her feeling vibrant and energised. The small intake of Julius’s blood the previous night probably had something to do with it as well. There was a rough, cross-country track hacked through her forest and around the edges of her property. It was one of the attractions of buying a house with several hectares of land attached. The morning was crisp and clear without even a hint of a breeze. And it was surprisingly pleasant to have some company. Even better, it was company that didn’t talk back. Roman was enjoying the run every bit as much as she was. He bounded ahead, scenting animal trails, splashing through the stream, setting pheasants and rabbits scattering. He always stayed in visual contact with Gabi, though; his protectiveness utterly ingrained.

  As she ran, she thought about the injuries Doug had sustained. She’d called Ian before her run, and he’d assured her Doug was out of danger and healing well. But it would be weeks, if not months before he was fit enough to rejoin the Hunters; a bullet to the chest was no minor matter. She’d checked with Byron, and Tim was fine—a little shocked, but no long-lasting damage. They’d come scarily close to losing two of their own last night. The thought was a sobering one. They’d lost a Hunter shortly after she’d joined the team, and the memory of his death was still vividly etched in Gabi’s mind.

  Roman pulled her out of her dark thoughts by charging after a wild hare and sneezing from the dust his paws threw up. It made her laugh. She realised that she could get used to this and was suddenly reluctant to think about finding a new home for him. She seriously began to wonder if Razor could get used to the idea of having the big dog around. She sure could. Near the end of her run she chose to let Roman decide for himself. She would keep him for the next two weeks and see how things panned out. If he coped with the comings and goings of Werewolves and Vampires without it affecting his confidence and if he could play subservient enough to Razor to satisfy the cat’s sense of proprietorship, then she’d adopt him.

  She left Roman out of the cage to see how things went between him and Razor. She gave the Rottweiler a mental nudge to stay away from the front of the house, where Razor liked to sun himself, and left him to explore the rest of the garden. Rose was in the kitchen with Rocky perched on her shoulder and Slinky on the counter watching her work. Razor was sprawled on the floor in a ray of sunshine streaming through a window. Gabi smiled at the sight of the domestic bliss.

  “You don’t have to try to work and keep the little rascal amused at the same time. You should make Razor look after her; he brought her home, after all,” she told the housekeeper.

  Rose smiled back. “You know I don’t mind, sweetling. I think she’s even cuter than Slinky was when he was a wee thing. How was your run?”

  Gabi grabbed a sports towel from the hall cupboard and began to dry off. “It was great, and I really enjoyed Roman’s company,” she said.

  Rose smiled knowingly, as Gabi grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. When she turned back to the older woman, she was surprised to see a concerned look on her face.

  “Sweetling,” Rose said, “I don’t want to put more on your plate than you already have, but…” She hesitated, obviously reluctant to burden Gabi.

  “What’s wrong, Rose?” Gabi asked, steering the other woman to a seat at the counter and sitting down herself. “Tell me. You know I have a big plate.”

  That brought a hint of a smile to Rose’s lips; it was an ongoing joke between th
em that Gabi could eat so much.

  “It’s Mr Byron,” the housekeeper finally said. “Meryl is worried about him.” Meryl was Rose’s cousin by marriage and Byron’s long-time housekeeper.

  “What do you mean?” Gabi asked, a tight band of anxiety suddenly clenching her chest. “What is she worried about?”

  Rose reached out and patted her hand. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound so melodramatic. Don’t get upset. It’s just that she thinks Mr Byron is taking on too much at the City Board. There are big problems there, and it’s stressing him, and he’s not getting enough sleep. She mentioned it to me the other day and thought maybe you would be able to talk him into letting go of some of the responsibility. Maybe get him to delegate more and get some more rest. She had thought to maybe phone Ian or Laura, but she didn’t want to get everyone worried, so she thought maybe it would be better if you spoke to him.”

  The band of anxiety loosened a little, and Gabi breathed easier, but the niggle at the back of her mind got worse. “So Meryl also picked up that there are problems at the City Council? Did she say what the problems were?”

  “Not too many details, just that someone is trying to make his life difficult. Someone powerful and well-connected is going out of his way to go against things that Mr Byron and Miss Olivia are trying to carry out,” Rose explained.

  “So it’s not just Byron, then, but more about thwarting things for the SMV?” Gabi asked. Olivia was Byron’s protégé, a very capable woman with a background in law and a father who was an influential Magus.

  “I’m not sure, sweetling, but that’s what it sounded like. Meryl doesn’t know much, just what she has heard when Mr Byron is on the phone and some rumours running through the Community grapevine,” Rose said.

  Gabi stood to toss her bottle in with the other recycling. “Leave it with me, Rose,” she assured the housekeeper. “I’ll talk to Byron and see what can be done to help.” Then she glanced at the kitchen clock. She just had time for a shower, and then she should catch Byron coming out of his weekly SMV Council meeting. It was time to pin him down and find out what was really going on.

  Gabi made it to Byron’s office a few minutes after the weekly meeting was due to end.

  “Hey, Hazel,” she greeted Byron’s secretary. “Will you see if he can fit me in for a few minutes?” While she knew Byron would never turn her away unless he had an urgent appointment, Gabi had learned to play the game with his often over-protective secretary.

  Hazel didn’t flash Gabi her customary sunny smile or return her greeting. “He’s not back from the weekly meeting yet. It’s running overtime,” she told Gabi shortly, barely looking up from her computer screen. Hazel appeared uncharacteristically annoyed by the tardiness. “Do you want to wait in his office or come back later?”

  Gabi was momentarily lost for words. The secretary rarely allowed anyone into Byron’s office except on direct orders from him.

  “Uh, I’ll wait in his office,” Gabi ventured, and when Hazel said nothing more, she let herself into Byron’s inner sanctum, pulled up one of his guest chairs and kicked her feet up onto his desk to wait for him.

  A couple of minutes later she heard Byron arrive. Hazel told him that Gabi was waiting in his office and then asked if she could go home, as she wasn’t feeling well. Byron agreed immediately, asking if she needed someone to drive her. She declined, saying it just felt like a migraine coming on, and she wanted to lie down before it got worse. Gabi was relieved that, for once, it wasn’t her or something she’d done that had made the woman grumpy and irritated.

  “Gabi, honey.” Byron greeted her with a kiss and a hug. “What a lovely surprise to see you outside work hours.” He dropped a pile of files on his desk and went to the coffee maker in the corner of his office to pour two cups.

  “Maybe not such a lovely surprise when you find out this is sort of an intervention,” Gabi warned him as he placed a steaming cup on the desk in front of her.

  “An intervention?” he asked, an intrigued smile playing around his mouth.

  Gabi could see dark marks under his eyes and wondered how long they’d been there without her noticing. Meryl was right; he looked tired and over-worked.

  “You’re going to tell me exactly what is going on at the City Council that is making you worried, upset and tired, and then we are going to figure out how to take some of the pressure off of you,” she said emphatically. When she saw the stubborn set to his jaw, she continued. “If you don’t come clean to me, I’m going to call Ian and tell him you’re over-doing things.” Now he actually glared at her. She smiled back innocently.

  “That’s not playing fair, Gabrielle,” he complained.

  “Them or me, she said, not budging. “Take your pick.”

  He sighed and sat down heavily in his leather office chair. He took off his glasses and rubbed absently at his eyes. “His name is Jason King, though that doesn’t appear to be the name he was born with,” Byron began tiredly. “For some reason, he is doing his very best to block every move Olivia and I make. I have contacts far and wide, but he has even more, and they are making things very difficult for us at every turn.”

  “Jason King,” Gabi murmured, “why does that name sound familiar?”

  “He’s a big-time socialite, makes the newspapers and tabloids regularly, a business man and property developer with a taste for the high life. One of these self-made millionaires, pulled himself out of obscurity a couple of years ago by developing the new shopping mall and casino out in the western suburbs,” Byron explained.

  “Oh yes,” Gabi said, “I think I know who you’re talking about. Medium height, dark hair, mid thirties, a little on the pudgy side, always has a leggy, blonde model on his arm. That one?”

  Byron nodded, though only someone who ran with Werewolves and Vampires would call the man pudgy. “That sounds like him.”

  “Why would he be making trouble for you? Have you tried to block any of his property developments?” Gabi asked.

  “No, that’s just it. Olivia and I rarely get involved in blocking land development, unless it directly affects the Society, and I can’t trace back anything that we’ve done that could anger him enough to go after us like he is.”

  “Does he have underground businesses that could be affected by Council decisions?” she suggested.

  “I’ve recently tried to do some digging in that regard. Where he got his start-up funds from is very murky, and it certainly seems likely they weren’t come by legitimately. But it’s proving very hard to find anything useful about him.”

  “Do you think it’s possible he knows about the SMV and is actively working against the group as a whole instead of simply against you and Olivia?” Gabi wondered.

  Byron shrugged. “It’s certainly a possibility, though we haven’t found any links between him and anyone in the Community. Unfortunately, the problem with the Werewolves is taking precedence at the moment, so Mr King’s interference will have to take a back seat until that is cleared up, I’m afraid.”

  Gabi knew that was the truth, but it wasn’t helping Byron’s situation.

  “But, honey, you don’t need to worry about me. I’m a tough old coot. I think I’ve just gotten used to having things my own way for so long that nowadays I see obstacles as a hindrance instead of a challenge.”

  Gabi pursed her lips. “I’ll mention this to Julius, maybe he knows something about this Jason King character; he’s involved in so many businesses in the City he’s bound to have come across the man before. Maybe all we need is a bit of leverage,” she mused. “And once we have that sorted out and the Werewolf business calmed down, it’s time you took a holiday,” she said firmly.

  Byron laughed. “I’ll take a holiday when you take a holiday, how’s that for a deal?” he asked her.

  “I just came back from six weeks’ holiday,” she groused.

  “Sick leave is not a holiday,” he pointed out. He seemed a little less strained having shared his concerns with her,
so Gabi left his office feeling less worried, but added the new complication to her growing list of concerns. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to this than an egotistical idiot flexing his political muscles.

  She was just on her way to check the roster board to find out who she was pulling patrol with tonight when a text message chimed on her phone. It was from Derek. It read, ‘Sorry for being an ass last night. Pls stop by so I can apologise in person. Kyle is taking me for training after lunch but I’ll be here after that. Forgive me. Bo.” Gabi couldn’t help a wry smile. He hated her calling him Bo; she only did it to annoy him, so he must be feeling contrite. Another little weight lifted off her shoulders at the thought that their friendship wasn’t unsalvageable.

  Gabi was on patrol with Kyle and Fergus (she was pleased about that, she had a soft spot for the loud Scotsman) and two Werewolves from the Blackriver Pack that she’d met once or twice. Kyle would know them better. She hoped they didn’t all get in each other’s way. She, Kyle and the other Hunters were so adept at working together that they rarely tripped over each other in a fight. Throwing unknown fighters into the mix could be a recipe for disaster. Maybe that was the strange, niggling concern gnawing at the edges of her brain.

  She stopped at a burger joint for three takeaway burgers, large fries and a milkshake and then drove to the Estate. She was hoping to have a chance to chat with Trish before Kyle and Derek made it back from training.

  She was in luck; Trish was alone in Hawthorn House when she arrived. She was in the communal kitchen of the apartment block, dressed in a pair of track pants and a sweatshirt, which reminded Gabi of her promise to take Derek to fetch some clothes and personal items from Trish’s house. She knew Julius wouldn’t mind Trish and Derek staying here until they made some decisions about their future. It was more comfortable here than at SMV HQ, where they’d have to stay in the secure underground rooms designed more for prisoners than guests. She still looked a little shaky, but her face lit up in a smile when she saw Gabi.