by Sable Grace
“We don’t have time for this shit.” Shifting the case toward his right shoulder, he jerked his arm back, hauling Shanna to her feet. Before she could regain her balance, he bent and lifted her over his shoulder.
He paused long enough to grab her keys from the hook by the door, her screams for help echoing in his ears as he carried her outside.
Shanna’s small pickup wasn’t a comfortable fit for a six-foot-five man, but Zach squeezed behind the wheel and leaned as close to Shanna as he could to ease the pain from their linked wrists.
The minute his door closed, she stopped screaming for help and began wailing on his biceps with her small, clenched fists. “You bastard! I swear to God—”
He pressed a brutal kiss to her mouth. “Shut the hell up,” he said as he pulled away. “Damn it, you know I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No, just kidnap me! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Turn that up,” Zach barked, something the DJ on the radio said catching his attention.
When Shanna didn’t obey, he jerked their bound wrists forward and twisted the volume so he could hear.
“The carnage that has taken place here in Marathon, Florida, is unexplainable, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Bodies are piling up in the city morgues with mysterious wounds that look to have been caused by wild animals. Similar reports have been submitted in other cities, including as far north as Washington, DC. Eyewitness accounts of rabid, large wolves and other wild animals continue to pour in—”
“Wolves?” Shanna said, obviously forgetting she was supposed to be pissed.
Zach cast a glance at her, hating the worried expression on her paling face.
“Zach?” she asked as they rolled out of the driveway. “What’s going on?”
“I tried to tell you, remember?”
“You mean demons.” The laughter in her voice was muffled by a whiny pitch of fear. “You think what the radio is referring to are really demons? They’re wolves.”
He pulled the truck onto the main road, watching the sides of the street for any shadows that didn’t belong there. The streets seemed quiet enough, but so had his own. He wasn’t letting his guard down for a minute. “You’re not going to believe anything I tell you until you see it with your own eyes. And I’m going to try to make very sure that doesn’t happen, because if you can see it, you’re too close. Got it?”
“No! I don’t got it.”
He should have just knocked her ass out and stuck her in the bed of the truck.
“Damn it, Zach, if you don’t start talking—”
“I told you, I used to work for the Order of Ancients—”
She groaned. “No, not that again. Greek gods looking out for humans with the aid of Witches and crap. That conversation didn’t end well last time.”
No, it hadn’t. After a year of dating, he’d finally felt close enough to her to let her in on his most precious secrets, and she’d laughed at him just before calling him crazy and walking out of his life, taking his heart with her.
“Do you want me to talk or not?” he demanded.
She fiddled with the cuff, twisting and turning it until the skin beneath it puckered and turned red. “I just want you to let me go.”
The tears in her voice almost broke him. “As soon as I get you to St. Augustine, you can go wherever the hell you want.”
“Why? What’s in St Augustine.”
“Divine intervention.” He turned the radio down and the A/C up. Despite the cool January wind, he was sweating like mad. He had enough body heat radiating off him to keep Shanna warm, too, but aimed the vents at his face to keep her as comfortable as possible. “Listen, you know me. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you, right?”
“I used to,” she whispered. “Not so sure now.”
“Well, be sure. I’m taking you to the airport. We’re meeting a friend of mine. You can ask him all your questions since you won’t believe my answers.”
“Why would I believe his? He could tell me anything you wanted him to say.”
Zach hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand, the sting numbing some of his frustration. “Damn it. Just give me one hour. If I don’t have you convinced before the plane leaves the ground, you can go. All right?”
He had no intention of letting her go anywhere, but if it made her less skittish to think he might, he was willing to offer her anything.
When she didn’t respond, he sighed. “It’s important to me. Just say okay.”
There was a long moment of silence while she stared at him. Finally she exhaled.
“Okay.” Her voice was quiet as she pushed her wet hair away from her face. “But Zach, if I don’t start getting some answers soon, I’ll arrest you myself. Or maybe shoot you. Depends on how much more you piss me off.”
He glanced at her and couldn’t hide his smirk. “I have your gun.”
She glared. “Don’t try me.”
Knowing this was an argument neither of them would win, he suggested, “How about we agree to shut the hell up until we get to the airport?”
She tried to cross her arms, but ended up with his hand on her breast. She shoved him away. “Fine.”
“Fine,” he mimicked, glaring out the windshield and taking the turn a little more sharply than required.
Trying to save Shanna was likely going to end up with him throttling her. If she didn’t bust a cap in his ass first.
“What the hell?” Shanna pressed her hands to the window to see into the darkness, dragging Zach partially across the console in the process. “Zach, look!”
Sirens screamed to their right and the faint flicker of orange lit up the evening sky. “Fire,” he muttered, turning his attention back to the road.
“No, look! There, in the parking lot. Jesus, just pull over a sec.”
Zach didn’t trust her enough to stop the car, but he did slow, and steered onto the shoulder so he could get a better look. Dozens of people poured out of an apartment complex, one that sat a good three blocks from the fire. With no immediate danger to them or the structure, their screams were out of place. Yet half-naked men and women screamed and wailed as they carried children across the lot and toward the grassy banks that led to the main road.
“What do you think it is?”
Zach checked his watch. He’d already wasted almost forty precious minutes getting Shanna. He was due to meet Lance in twenty. Chances were, the residents of the complex were simply being evacuated in case the fire spread. But even that logic couldn’t explain the look of true terror etched on some of the closest people’s faces.
A huge shadow cut through the darkness, sailing over the hood of the pickup and nearly causing Zach to careen into the guard rail. He righted the vehicle, wincing as Shanna’s panic caused her to reach for the dash and their shackles to rip the hair from his arm.
“Where did it go?”
Shanna twisted to her knees, peering out the windows. “There!” She yelled, pounding the rear glass. “Behind us.”
“Son of a bitch!”
Zach could have handled seeing just about anything in the rearview mirror except what he saw. Vampyre, no problem. Shyfter, he’d have kicked its ass.
But it was neither of those. Instead, it was the one Dark Breed that still had the ability to still his heart, the one breed responsible for his retirement from the Order.
A Lychen.
Chapter Three
7:42 p.m.
4 hours and 18 minutes before the fall . . .
Zach floored the pedal and risked another glance in the rearview. The damned Lychen was following them and showed no signs of tiring.
“Give me my gun.”
“It won’t do any good.” He tugged against the cuffs. “Put your belt back on.”
She braced her hand on his shoulder. “You heard the news. That wolf has to be one of the rabid ones they were talking about. I have to shoot it.”
“Fine.” She wasn’t going to believe hi
m, anyway. She’d rather believe perfect strangers on the damned radio.
Zach shifted forward as much as he could, allowing her to grab the gun. She slid open the rear window, aimed, and fired. The Lychen stumbled, but it didn’t fall. He pulled hard on his arm, bringing her around in the seat. “See? Regular bullets won’t even slow it down. Now put on your seatbelt.”
The minute he heard the belt click into place he sped up, hoping that maybe she’d inflicted enough pain to cause the werewolf to lose its form.
He should’ve known they wouldn’t get that lucky. When a Lychen caught scent of something it wanted, it could hang onto it for days. He had to do something to throw the beast off their trail.
He squinted against bright, oncoming headlights and a plan began to take route. “Hold onto something,” he shouted, before cutting the wheel sharply to the left, directly into the path of the vehicle coming right at them.
“You’re going to get us killed!”
“Come on, you bastard.”
“Zach?”
The driver of the other car blared its horn. Waiting until the last possible second, Zach swerved into the ditch. The truck bounced over the embankment as a high-pitched yelp broke through the squeal of the other vehicle’s brakes. Zach struggled to regain control of the pickup, and with a bone-jarring bounce, he directed the truck out of the ditch and back onto the road.
Shanna twisted in her seat. “Oh God, there’s dog all over the road.”
“Good.” Zach wiped the beads of moisture from his forehead. “Never killed a Lychen with a moving vehicle before. Hopefully it’ll stay dead.”
Shanna adjusted the cuff on her arm with shaking fingers. “It was a wolf! If you would have just stopped the truck and let me have a clear shot at it, I could have ended it right there. But no! Your insane ideas almost got us killed. Almost got someone else killed!”
He held her gaze for several seconds. “Princess, my insane ideas are what’s going to keep you alive.”
She glared at him, tucking her gun into the front of her pants. “You really want me to believe that was a . . . I don’t even know that word.”
“Lychen. Lycanthrope. Werewolf.” He aimed the vent right at his face, his temper making the truck feel like a sauna. “We have a lot of names for them. Sadly, they only have one for you.”
“Oh, really. And what might that be? ‘Bitch’? Or your favorite insulting nickname, maybe . . . ‘princess’?”
Zach smirked. “Nope. The only thing they call you, sweetheart, is food.”
Fifteen minutes later, Shanna finally broke her oath of silence and thrust her finger at her window and the man striding toward them in the private airport loading area.
“Let me guess. That’s your friend?”
Zach gave a slight wave to Lance through the window. “Yep.”
“Shocker.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice, but Zach ignored it. He was sick of trying to convince her that it hadn’t been an average red wolf they’d splattered all over the road. If she refused to believe him, she’d believe Lance. Lance had ways of proving these things that Zach couldn’t hope to replicate.
He parked the pickup, then pulled Shanna through his side after him.
She didn’t protest as she stumbled to her feet beside him, her gaze locked on Lance’s approach. Zach couldn’t blame her for staring. Lance stuck out in Key West the way a Rolls Royce stuck out in a junk yard. Wearing a suit worth several thousand dollars, long blond hair, and perfectly polished shoes, Lance strolled toward them, a well-dressed flunky on either side of him.
“How do you know someone like that?”
“The Order.”
“Ah. Of course. He a dealer?”
“If he was, don’t you think you’d know, being one of KWPD’s finest and all?”
She growled something he couldn’t decipher. “Where’d he get the money, then?”
“He’s been around for centuries.”
“Right.”
“Ever hear of Sir Lancelot?”
Shanna gave him a light shove to let him know she wasn’t taking him seriously, and Zach shrugged, pulling her toward Lance and his entourage. The fact that she was looking at the man behind the King Arthur myths would be only one of many things she was going to have trouble believing.
“Lance,” he said, holding out his hand for a shake, yanking Shanna’s with him.
“Would you stop that?” she seethed.
Lance looked down at the handcuffs and grinned. “Do I want to know?”
“No.”
“Right then.” He gestured behind them where a group of people were bustling about his private jet. “She’s next in line for fueling. It’s the soonest I could arrange. I’d wager you have fifteen minutes, tops, to get her in the air and see how far you can get before they make you land. Soon as they get the word to upgrade national security, you’ll be grounded, mate, and they’ll begin evacuations.”
“Evacuations for what, exactly?” Shanna asked.
“Yeah,” Zach said. “Tell her. She won’t believe me. She thinks the Dark Breed that just chased us, going sixty for twenty minutes, was your run-of-the-mill red wolf.”
Lance turned a slow gaze in Shanna’s direction. “Love, Hell’s opening whether you choose to believe it or not. If you like your life, I suggest you do whatever this bloke tells you to.”
Shanna let out a snort. “Do I have ‘gullible’ stamped on my forehead? You’re asking me to believe in werewolves, for God’s sake.”
Lance’s brow lifted inquisitively toward Zach. “Stubborn?”
“The definition.”
“Perhaps we should give the lady some proof?”
Not knowing what Lance had in mind, and not caring if it got Shanna onboard the plane without further fight, he nodded.
“Malcolm!” At Lance’s bellow, a tall, lanky man dressed almost as well as Lance walked toward them. “That an Armani?”
The man looked down at his suit then back at Lance. “Yes, sir.”
“Take it off. Don’t want you destroying it.”
“Sir?”
“The lady needs convincing. I’ll leave that to you.”
Malcolm grinned and wasted no more time stripping bare-ass naked right there on the airstrip. Shanna gasped. “What the hell is he doing? Zach, that’s indecent exposure—oh, my God!”
Malcolm’s dark complexion turned black and hairy as his bones shifted and he dropped to all fours. Hands became paws. Nose became snout. His brown eyes shifted and flickered to pale yellow as they stared straight up at Shanna. Zach looked away. There were a decent number of Lychen in the Order. Ones who weren’t a threat to him. Didn’t matter. He still didn’t like them.
Shanna tried to bolt back to her car, but her binds to Zach jerked her to her knees. She reached for her weapon, but he grabbed it first. “Give me my gun!”
“That’ll do, Mal.” Lance said, touching what had become a large wolf on the back of the head.
Shanna was shaking so badly Zach had to lift her to her feet and pin her to his side to keep her from falling again.
“I’m sorry, Shanna, but you had to see for yourself that everything I told you is true.”
“H-how is that even possible?”
Zach didn’t think she even realized she was clutching his hand, and he didn’t try to break free of her hold. As they watched the wolf shift back into Malcolm, watched him dress, watched him walk away howling with laughter, Zach kept his arm firmly around Shanna, waiting for her to faint.
She didn’t.
“Lychen,” Lance explained. “But not to worry. He’s the good sort. Works for the Order.”
“But there are others out there who aren’t on our side. Ones who chase cars and don’t stop long enough to pant. And he was only one of thousands.” Zach pointed toward the plane. “You ready to let me take you to St. Augustine or not?”
“I-I need to sit down. Oh God, I need to sit down!”
“You can sit on the plane.” Zach looked to
Lance. “It’s less than an hour’s flight to St. Augustine. There enough fuel for that?”
“Can’t swear to it, mate. Hasn’t been used in months.”
“I’ll check. I just need enough to get me there. We don’t have time to fuel up.”
“Needing my pilot?”
Zach shook his head. He didn’t want any other passengers he’d have to worry about once they landed. “I’ve got it.”
It had been years since he’d flown a plane this size, but he’d manage.
“Thought so.”
When he looked down at Shanna, her eyes were wet and her nose was turning red. “You all right?”
She shook her head. “You’re really being serious, aren’t you?”
He nodded and squeezed her lightly. “I wish I wasn’t.”
When he bent and scooped her into his arms without the smallest mutter of protest from her, he was afraid she was going into shock. He carried her to the plane and into the cockpit, settling her into the copilot’s chair as Lance followed.
“Coming with us?” he asked.
“Can’t. Supposed to be looking for Aphrodite’s Chosen.” Lance pointed at the cuffs. “Think you can unlock her. Looks too bloody frightened to make a run for it now.”
“Got something I can use? The key’s at her house.”
“I always have something, mate.”
Pulling a long, thin wand from the inside pocket of his jacket, Lance pointed it at the handcuffs, spoke a foreign word, and bam, the handcuffs snapped in two.
“Thanks.” Zach said.
And this time, Shanna did faint.
Chapter Four
8:05 p.m.
3 hours and 55 minutes before the fall . . .
Shanna woke with a taste in her mouth like she’d been sucking on a dirty sock and a headache she couldn’t explain. She didn’t bother to open her eyes, the feel of the rumble under her bottom immediately reminding her that she was on a plane with Zach and that it must have taken off. She’d fainted. For the first time in her life, she’d freaking fainted.
And now she was on her way to St. Augustine with the man she’d once thought she would marry—kidnapped and scared out of her mind.