Daughter on the Run (Sons of Gulielmus Book 2)

by Holley Trent

  His jaw flapped a few beats, and then he shut his mouth tightly.

  He had been digging around in the dusty recesses of his mind for the perfect lie. What else could he do? What would he say? “Oh, by the way, my last name is Wolff because I am one. Please pass the sugar.”

  He gritted his teeth and tried to psychically push back the will of that roiling asshole taking up too much space in his head. “I just can’t.”

  “I see. Well. I can’t stay here all the time, and if you won’t take me, I’ll find my own way.”

  “I offered to call you a cab, honey.”

  “To hell with your cab.”

  “What’s that supposed to—”

  He was on his feet before he could finish the query because the energy in the room had suddenly crackled and spiked in a way that put both the human and wolf halves of him on edge.

  It felt like magic, but she wasn’t a witch. He knew witches and had dated one once.

  Wait.

  Her fists were balled at her sides and shoulders pulled back like she was one bad word away from burning the whole place down.

  Suddenly, he got a feeling that she could probably do it, too, and she might not even need a fire starter.

  He took a step toward her, arms out in a placating gesture.

  What had she said? Demon spawn?

  He’d thought she was making shit up because those were creatures that didn’t exist in the lore he’d grown up with.

  Maybe he just didn’t know what he didn’t know.

  You would have known if you’d talked to her, the wolf in him scolded.

  He took another step forward, hoping she’d take his outstretched hand.

  If he couldn’t diffuse the situation, the creature was going to revolt, and Calvin wouldn’t be able to stop it. He’d be so far gone that he wouldn’t recognize his name if he heard it.

  He’d be feral and there would be little chance of recovery.

  You should have just listened.

  “You need…to understand something about me, sweetheart,” he ground out. “I’m not what you think.”

  She took a step away from him.

  He allowed her the space, even though the wolf in him was howling in his ears and scratching at his psychic seams, trying to force Calvin into submission.

  The wolf would have him sweep her into his arms and kiss her until her eyes crossed and explain himself later, but he was trying to be fucking decent for once in his life, even if it came at a cost.

  A searing swipe of energy through his midsection forced him to his knees and he put his hands against his ears to keep the wolf’s howl from getting out of his head because certainly, the whole damn forest could hear it.

  “Not like this!” he shouted, grinding the heels of his palms against his ears. The beast was getting louder and the piercing in his chest even sharper. “Just leave me alone!”

  Suddenly, the noise stopped.

  The magic in the room had gotten thicker.

  And Julia’s face…it was pink, and her eyes were wet and there was so much hurt in them.

  With a loud cry of wordless frustration, she vanished from sight.

  He bolted to his feet and ran to where she’d been standing, thinking he was losing his ever-loving mind once and for all.

  “Where’d she go?”

  He raced through the whole house searching for her, tugging at his hair and kicking any obstacle in his path.

  So angry at the wolf in him that he could combust.

  Maybe she was never here. Maybe I imagined her. I’ve lost it. I’ve lost my—

  But there was her bag in the corner of the guest room.

  He crumbled in front of it and dragged it against his chest.

  He hadn’t imagined her standing at his front door with her bag, looking so desperate to be let in.

  That had really happened, and he’d fucked everything up and she went away.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Julia was afraid to open her eyes.

  She didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten there, but the place stank of excrement and garbage.

  And it was loud.

  So loud.

  There were car horns and people yelling. Some sort of machine was grinding high above her head. Music boomed from behind too-thin walls.

  Living things skittered around her.

  She could sense every single one that was larger than her fist.

  The place was positively teeming with living energy.

  I’m cold.

  Folding her arms against her chest, she slowly opened her eyes.

  She was in an alleyway in a bustling city, and she didn’t intend to stay.

  She hadn’t meant to go there…or anywhere, really.

  She’d just felt like she was losing control and wished she could be alone with her shame.

  But apparently, she’d done what John did all the time. She’d used magic, or whatever passed for magic in the children of fallen angels, to physically remove herself from one place and land in another.

  “Now what?” she whispered as she peeked around the wall of the building beside her.

  People were hustling to their destinations, paying no attention to her. Everything was well in their worlds, even while hers was crumbling by the second.

  “I should have stayed in Arizona. I’d rather be ignorant than—”

  No.

  She dropped her head and let out a dry titter of laughter.

  No, she didn’t want to go back to that.

  Her life had been prescribed and arguably “easy” at Sweet Desert Rock, but it hadn’t been good, and she hadn’t felt like she was worth anything.

  She was worth everything, and that was why she’d taken a chance.

  She still had a chance.

  Steeling her spine, she closed her eyes tight once more.

  She was going to have to go back to Calvin’s, but she’d do it on her own terms. He’d given her the cold, hard truth, and she was going to give him more of the same.

  He said he didn’t want her, but that wasn’t true.

  It couldn’t have been.

  That same magic that told her there were a thousand people in the building next to her told her that wires were crossing somewhere.

  She didn’t understand him.

  He didn’t understand her.

  She refused to think that Charles was wrong.

  He wasn’t wrong.

  There was something in the way of them, and she needed to be bold enough to find out what it was.

  She was the daughter of one of the most powerful incubi ever known, so how hard could that be?

  “We’ll try again,” she whispered.

  She didn’t know how to get back to where she was.

  Strong emotion had gotten her to that alley, but her anger had fled.

  However, something John told her during a short phone call before her rescue floated to the forefront of her memory. He’d said, “I don’t know how to explain it. When I move around that way, I kind of imagine that I’m reaching for the other place. Then I land there.”

  So she did.

  She imagined the pattern of the rug in Calvin’s office, and reached for it, mustering up every ounce of fortitude she could spare to propel her along.

  Her body spasmed hard and her vision went black.

  Moments later, she hit the floor hard on her side, and her vision returned, but it was spotty.

  Everything was blurry and her head was spinning.

  She tried to move her arms so she could push herself upright, but she couldn’t.

  She was too drained. John hadn’t warned her about the physical toll. She’d teleported twice in under five minutes, and her body didn’t like that sort of chaos.

  It ached. Everywhere ached.

  And the light was fading again.

  She heard the thunder of pounding feet against the hardwood floor and then saw the toes of Calvin’s socks.

  “Shit. Hold on there, Julia. Try t
o keep your eyes open for me, will you? Fuck, you…came back.”

  She felt herself being yanked into his arms and saw the terror on his face when her body flopped sideward.

  She couldn’t control it, couldn’t stand, couldn’t speak.

  Apparently, magic had a cost, and she hadn’t had enough of the right stuff to spend.

  “Julia, don’t leave me like that again,” she heard, but the plea was distant. “This thing in me…it’s gonna kill me. Do you understand?”

  She didn’t understand, but she nodded anyway as her eyes closed and she was carried.

  Consciousness fled before she could see where.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Come on, Julia, open your eyes, honey, please.”

  Calvin pulled Julia’s unconscious form into his arms and cradled her on his lap.

  Her skin was clammy, and her breathing was thready, and he’d never felt so hopeless before.

  He couldn’t even blame his inner wolf for his fleeing intelligence. For the first time in months, the beast was quiet. That part of Calvin didn’t have any ideas, either.

  If Julia had been a Wolf, he might try pushing some of his energy into her. That was a typical alpha trick and was a useful boost for new or young Wolves who just couldn’t keep up with a pack on-the-move.

  But whatever she was didn’t seem to be easily receptive to his wild energy.

  He pressed his cheek against her cold forehead and idly stroked her hand as he rocked her. “You in there? Come out and say hi to me. I won’t bite. I’ll be on my best behavior. I swear.”

  She didn’t stir.

  He growled and hugged her tighter.

  Fuck.

  Dialing 9-1-1 was out of the question, and people like him tended to avoid doing so as a matter of course. Shifters took care of their own shit. The last thing they needed was to have outsiders clued in about the supernatural citizenry amongst them.

  And what would he say, anyway? “Yes, hi, could you please send some paramedics to Newton Road? My lady here collapsed after teleporting into my office.”

  He could hardly believe it himself.

  He’d wrap his mind around that demon-spawn-could-teleport thing eventually. Probably right around the same time she came to grips with the fact that a useless werewolf had decided she was his forever-mate.

  “What a pair we’ll be, huh?” Letting out a dry laugh, he set her up so her back was against his front and her head didn’t flop. He didn’t want her to wake up with a sore neck. “Bet you’ve never dated a werewolf before. Actually, I think that’s a pretty safe bet. You haven’t dated much of anyone, have you?”

  He cringed.

  Entry-level boyfriend, he was not.

  “Who’d you piss off in your last life anyway, huh? Must have been pretty bad if you came back only to get mashed together with me. Momma calls me a work in progress. That’s better than what my sister calls me, I guess.”

  The proximity alarm linked to his computer went off. Immediately he tensed and turned his hearing toward the front of the house, but everything was quiet.

  A deer or something had probably entered the sensor range. Whatever it was, he’d look at the video later.

  Suddenly, Julia’s hand was clutching his thigh and she was struggling against him and casting her gaze wildly about.

  “Julia! It’s me. It’s Calvin. I’m right behind you. Slow down. You fell pretty hard. Just stay still.”

  She scrambled away, and he let her.

  He knew what it felt like to shift from his wolf form to his two-legged one or the reverse and to sometimes come out of the transformation feeling like he was on another planet.

  His bruised feelings could be mended later. They couldn’t have the fresh start they needed if the very first thing he did was try to hold her against her will.

  Her face blanched and lips parted as she scooted back more.

  “Julia, what’s wrong?”

  She scrambled to her feet and ran for the door.

  He followed her, scooping up her shoes to put on her, but she didn’t slow down as she streaked through the front door.

  “Julia, wait! You’re barefooted.”

  She was stunningly fast, and those woods were dangerous for a person who didn’t know where to step.

  “Julia!” he called after her disappearing form. “Wait. You want to go somewhere, I’ll take you.”

  He dropped the shoes onto the doormat and took off.

  The cold didn’t bother him. He was an animal, and he had thirty seconds tops to find her before she disturbed some sleeping creature’s nest or twisted her ankle in one of the uneven pockets of terrain. The wildness of that forest had always been an added benefit to him where his privacy was concerned, but now it seemed like a huge liability.

  As he jogged in the direction she’d taken off toward, he opened the security video app on his phone and scrolled through the stills. With Julia out there, he wanted to be damned sure whatever had caused the alarm to peal really was just a deer.

  He stopped in his tracks.

  Whatever that misshapen thing was on his screen, it wasn’t a deer or even one of the local shifters trespassing across his property the way they were all prone to. It was big, though—easily big enough to knock a waif over, even one who wasn’t quite human.

  “Fuck.” He backtracked to the front door to grab his shotgun, then pushed his body to run faster than it had since he’d been forced to leave baseball.

  He was rusty, but he was a Wolf. His legs always figured out what to do when it mattered.

  “Julia!” he called out, scanning the woods systematically as he ran, looking both for her bright hair and her white shirt, and seeking out predatory beasts that would do her harm.

  Head toward the driveway, his instincts told him. It made sense that if her aim was to get to the road, she’d try to access it using the smoothest terrain possible. He cut left and ran toward the asphalt.

  There she was, coming out of the woods about twenty meters ahead of him.

  “Julia! Slow down for me,” he called out and kicked up a bit more speed. “Come back to the house with me, and let’s talk this out. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Come on. Put yourself in my shoes.”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. She was nearly at the road. If she got to the road, she could flag down a car for a ride, and there he’d be waving a big gun like a homicidal maniac.

  Shit.

  He threw the gun down into a patch of brush.

  Julia’s scream pealed through the woods, and Calvin saw the dark streak he’d seen on the video blocking her path and hissing.

  “What is that thing?”

  It looked like some cross between a cat and a lizard: hairless, earless, and having fangs that went on for days. Its tail thrashed as it circled around her.

  “Don’t come closer,” she said, finally finding her voice, though it sounded like it’d been ripped out of her and returned in jagged parts. “I think it wants me, not you,” she yelled. “That’s why I ran. I felt like something was out here.”

  “So, you weren’t running from me?”

  “Should I be?” She hurled a rock toward the beast and dashed out of its path.

  “Fuck no. And like hell if you think I’m gonna let that thing have my mate.”

  She made some startled sound that sounded like “What?” but it only registered at the back of his mind because he was already on the move.

  If that thing was there to raise hell for Julia, he was going to turn the tables and show it what hell really was.

  He forced his body to give him one more burst of speed, and along with it came the hot searing pain.

  Colors muted, his hearing sharpened, and four feet struck the ground instead of two.

  He took a flying leap and clamped his jaws around the ugly thing’s neck, but it fought back, trying to knock him off.

  Vaguely, Calvin registered a man’s voice saying, “Shit, it got in before we got the last mojo bag buried. Pop sends
these beasts out when he can’t find us. It’s looking for me. Pop summoned me yesterday and I ignored him.”

  “I got it. Get your wolf off it, Julia,” another man’s voice said.

  Calvin couldn’t spare an upward glance. The creature was trying to stab his dagger-sharp claws into his underbelly, and he had to keep moving around.

  Oh, you want to fight dirty, do you?

  Calvin bared his teeth at the thing and growled out a thundering warning that stunned it in place for a moment.

  But then it charged again, and Calvin had no choice but to let the human part of his brain retreat and let the animal step up and do his job.

  “Call him off? I don’t know how!” Julia cried.

  “Call him,” the man said.

  “Calvin! You need to get away from it.”

  He could hear, but he couldn’t obey.

  He couldn’t stop until the trouble was managed. That was his job—he protected the creatures he cared about.

  Hissing and snapping, Calvin rolled with the beast, and they separated, circling, snarling.

  But the beast’s front left twisted as the foot tangled beneath a fallen branch covered by leaves, and Calvin saw his chance.

  He crouched to strike, planning to sink his fangs directly into the ugly creature’s neck. His front paws had barely left the ground when someone got their arms around his belly and weakly pulled him back.

  “Calvin! It’s me,” Julia said in a hurried whisper. “Don’t bite me, please.”

  The creature saw his chance, too, and dove for them both.

  Instinctively, Calvin fought free of Julia’s arms to meet the attack, but an explosion nearby had him retreating to cover her.

  A second gunshot echoed through the woods.

  The creature fell lifeless onto the driveway barely a meter from where Calvin was bumping Julia back with his head.

  A red-eyed man with Calvin’s gun emerged from the woods.

  A second man followed with a sharp knife and knelt near the creature.

  “It’s okay,” came the husky voice behind Calvin when his warning growl rent the air. “They’re my brothers.”

  “You didn’t know he was a werewolf?” the one with the shotgun asked the one with the knife.

  “No, I can never tell,” the one with the knife said. “Creature identification doesn’t come along with my gift.” He grabbed the dead thing by the feet and dragged it toward the road. “What I need to do to this thing, I shouldn’t do around the wolf,” he said.