Cold Mercy (Northern Wolves)

by Sadie Hart

  “All right. Enough. Where’s the bathroom?”

  That was something Tegan had no problem showing her. They scooted her up the stairs and into the guest bathroom, even letting her shut the door and lock them out. He didn’t think for one second she’d run. She wasn’t the tuck-tail-and-bolt kind of girl.

  Tegan shook his head at the sound of the lock turning over, and with it, the night’s earlier play and joking faded, hard reality flooding back in. He glanced at Kanon. “She has the patience of a fucking saint.”

  Tegan watched the lines around Kanon’s eyes deepen as his partner looked away, stress no doubt eating at him. “Hey. Don’t. Tristan, Caro, the staff, they’ll clear you.”

  “You think it’ll be enough for her?”

  He hoped so. Tegan glanced back at the closed door between them and the Hound. He’d come too damn close to losing Kanon tonight, and the thought left him hollow. Exhausted.

  “I think we have the best shot with her. No other Hound would have let you get away with half that shit.”

  “It was stupid.” But Kanon smiled anyway, a tight, worn smile, but a real one nonetheless. Kanon closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Tegan’s waist, holding him tight.

  “We got lucky,” Tegan murmured, knowing damn well Lennox could hear everything. “Though you should probably stop the stress flirting.”

  “Maybe.” Kanon pressed a kiss to the crook of his neck, then trailed several more across his collarbone, nipping over his pulse.

  “Kanon,” Tegan whispered, his voice drying up as Kanon leaned in to steal a kiss. The tap water in the bathroom stopped.

  Kanon pulled back. “I figure in case she reneges on our deal and turns me in, I might as well get you one last time.”

  “It’s not going to happen.”

  “Having you, or her breaking the deal?”

  “She won’t break her word.” Tegan pressed a kiss to the corner of Kanon’s lips. “And you always have me.”

  Kanon gave a satisfied groan, and cuddled closer.

  “You are not screwing each other outside this door.”

  Tegan smiled. They probably had given her that impression.

  Kanon called out, teasing, “Not yet, honey, care to join?”

  Tegan closed his eyes and shook his head, but he could feel Kanon tensing, reality creeping back in, and he bit back the lecture.

  “I would rather jump out the window. Put your pants on so I can come out.”

  “Damn,” Kanon said. “Reckon we should take them off first?”

  The bathroom door jerked open and Lennox stumbled straight into them, catching herself on their shoulders. Lennox gave a small growl, stepping back, startled. “You all have no sense of...” Her voice died in her throat and she turned away, lips pursed. “Let’s go to the bar. Now.”

  Lennox stepped around them both and headed for the stairs. “I’ll meet you at my car. It’s by the billboard for that new grocery store in town. Behind a few bushes. And I’ll be watching, so don’t try to run.”

  Her sultry tone turned dark as she glanced between them, and then met Tegan’s gaze. She’d heard everything. “I hope you’re right and you can clear your partner’s name.”

  A shadow slipped over her face as she headed down the stairs.

  Tegan’s gut twisted.

  She hadn’t looked very confident.

  Find out more on Hounded

  http://sadiehart.com/

  Cry Sanctuary - Shifter Town Enforcement #2

  Chapter 1

  Lennox Donnelly’s voice came sharp and clear over the phone. “Dammit Ollie, answer your phone. You’ve missed two check-ins. We need to hear from you.”

  The voicemail clicked over and Holly Lawrence bit back the urge to scream. She’d have given anything to call her boss back and check in, but she couldn’t. Not with her hands strung up over her head as she hung from the rafters in a dilapidated shack in the middle of nowhere. Her arms trembled under the strain, the muscles in her shoulders slowly tearing, and she had to fight the urge to whimper as the Hunter stepped closer, head cocked as he grinned at her. It wasn’t his name, she didn’t know his real name, but it was what the press called him now. Ever since someone had let it slip in an interview that he liked to hunt his victims down before he killed them.

  “Your boss sounds so worried about you.”

  He reached out to touch her and Ollie jerked before she could stop herself, a pained hiss sliding out between her teeth. Damn. His grin flashed wider, the shadowed line of his dimple almost mocking in the dark. His canines were too long to be human teeth. This time when his fingers reached for her, she didn’t jerk away. Instead she let the son of a bitch run his hand over her hip, down her thigh, watched the frustration flare in his eyes.

  “You think you’re so strong.” The Hunter drew his fingers in a circle over her belly, and she had to force herself to hold his wolf-bright eyes. Do not flinch. Don’t give him the pleasure of making you squirm. The muscle in her jaw twitched.

  “But they all break. You will, too.”

  He pulled back and rammed his fist into her gut, driving the air straight out of her lungs in a hollow grunt. Her body swayed. The barren wood shack blurred around her, the Hunter’s face the only thing that stayed clear while the rest of the world spun.

  “Just like you,” he crooned, and Ollie watched as he knelt by the woman on the floor, his fingers twisting through her long blonde hair. He yanked Rosalie Myers’s head back, exposing the long, pale line of her throat. Her glasses lay smashed in the corner, pink cat’s-eye frames that were now nothing more than bits of shattered plastic. The Hunter leaned in close, and Rosalie flinched, her eyes squeezing shut. Fear radiated off her. It hung in the air, smelling like thick sweat, clammy skin, blood, and urine. Ollie’s heart gave a painful, longing twist. The woman had been trying so hard to believe her, to listen, but as the Hunter ran his thumb over her cheek, Ollie could see she was ready to break.

  He leaned in close enough to brush a kiss against Rosalie’s forehead. “You want out of here yet?”

  His finger trailed down Rosalie’s throat, and Ollie watched as the woman shivered, while her own fear rose like bile in her throat. “Don’t,” Ollie whispered, pleading with the woman on the floor every bit as much as the Hunter. Don’t run. Don’t hurt her. They were twin chants she’d been begging and screaming since he’d dragged her in here. “Don’t.”

  The Hunter spun on her, tossing her phone aside as he yanked Rosalie Myers backwards, dragging her across the concrete floor. “Shut up. Fucking Hound, shut up.” Her phone hit the ground with a clatter, and he stomped on it, the black case shattering under his boot.

  Combat boots, laced halfway up his shin. Ollie forced herself to focus on the details, her gaze traveling up the length of him to his face. He could say whatever he wanted to say to her, she didn’t care. As long as it gave the woman on the floor a chance. And every extra detail she could remember would help her later if he got away. If she was still alive.

  He yanked Rosalie Myers to her feet, and Ollie saw tears brimming in her blue eyes. The woman had been missing for eight days before Ollie got lucky. The Hunter liked to let his prey go on the full moon. Nights like tonight. He caught and kept them for weeks until then, raping them but otherwise keeping them healthy, fit, and strong. Then as dusk ate away the sky on a full moon night, he let them go.

  Only to hunt them down in the woods and kill them.

  The final chase was why he hunted.

  He hunted them down as a wolf, proving his predatory superiority again and again, but for the actual kill he always shifted back. Always shot them.

  He’d been trying to get Rosalie to run for the last two hours, beating her, screaming at her, threatening everything she held dear. So far, she’d held strong. But as Ollie met those shimmering blue eyes, she knew Rosalie was about to give in. Ollie shook her head. “He wants you to run. He can’t kill you if you don’t run,” she whispered.

&
nbsp; He laughed at that, a thick, menacing sound that echoed through the shack as he pulled Rosalie’s head back, forcing her to look at him. “Like I couldn’t hurt you? You going to keep listening to her, or do I have to keep proving her wrong?”

  “He lives for the hunt. Rosalie, if you run out that door, you’re going to die.”

  “Maybe.” His hand tightened in Rosalie’s hair, his eyes locked on hers. “But you’ll also have a chance to get free. Just shift. Be a good little tiger and run. You’re bigger than me; fight me if I catch you. Surely a big cat like you can take on a puny little wolf like me.” He caressed the ugly bruise on her cheek. “Or stay here and let me rip you apart slowly.”

  Rosalie glanced between them, and the Hunter snarled. The sharp crack of his hand against her face filled the shack.

  “She thinks she knows me? This bitch doesn’t know shit. She’s here just like you. Mine.”

  “I do know you.” Ollie tensed. Desperation and anger made her voice low, harsh. “I study bastards like you for a living. I know every case. I know what makes you tick. I know if she doesn’t run and the sun comes up, you’re fucked.”

  His hand slammed down against Rosalie’s back, claws sprouted from his fingertips, and he raked them down the woman’s spine before pulling back, barely keeping the wolf under his skin. “Run or die.”

  His boot swung back, and Rosalie threw one last desperate glance at Ollie hanging above her. She couldn’t blame the woman at all. Rosalie Myers didn’t have the luxury of confidence. She was running and hoping that the lies he was feeding her were true. That running gave her a shot. That maybe as a tiger she could beat him.

  “Don’t,” Ollie managed to whisper right before the woman darted out the front door.

  The grin that slid over the Hunter’s face was triumphant, the harsh edge of his dimple suddenly carved into his face. Mocking. He turned those gold eyes back towards her. I win, that gaze told her, screamed it at her. Then he shuddered as fur washed out over clothing and in a blink of an eye, the monster that was the Hunter—the man who had killed fourteen people over the past two years—became a lean, black wolf.

  Dark and deadly, he slipped out the door into the dwindling evening light, and Ollie Lawrence knew that, tiger-shifter or not, Rosalie Myers didn’t stand a chance.

  ***

  “Damn. Dammit.” Ollie squeezed her eyes shut against the rush of tears. Crying wouldn’t get her down from the rafters, it wouldn’t get her out of this shack, and it damn well wouldn’t save the fool woman running through the woods. Her arms were going numb from the lack of blood and the pain. She didn’t have long to come up with a plan.

  Breathe. Unlike the last time she’d tried this, the Hunter wasn’t standing in the room to beat her for trying to escape, and the man had been just stupid enough to use normal rope. No, not stupid. He wanted his victims to escape. To run. “Gonna get what you wish for, then,” she muttered and called up her inner dog, felt the shape-shift start in her bones.

  The faint tingle of magick slipped through her, and Ollie focused on her wrists. Her limbs thinned, her normally chubby body twisting into the lean form of an Irish wolfhound. Even as big as her shaggy dog-self was, the noose wrapped around her hands was too big. She slipped loose and hit the ground with a yelp. She gave the broken cell phone one last look of longing, then shook off her fall and bolted out the door. Scruffy gray muzzle pressed to the ground, she loped after the combined scent of woman and wolf, smelled the moment Rosalie Myers became a tiger. Please, please don’t let me be too late.

  About a mile from the shack she heard Rosalie roar, the sickening snarl of a wolf after that. They were close. A hundred yards out, max.

  Ollie shifted back, her empty gun holster swinging at her hip. She wished he’d left her gun. But as much as he’d wanted his victims to run, wanted them to fight back, a still-armed Hound from Shifter Town Enforcement was apparently a bit too much for the cold-blooded bastard.

  Her boots broke through the layers of dried leaf litter on the forest floor, acorns cracking under her weight, just as a gunshot ripped through the darkness. A sharp, piercing boom that eroded the peaceful quiet of a summer night and left it hollow. Barren. Even the crickets stilled in the grass. Ollie heard the tiger give one last snarl, and the gun fired again, followed by the heavy thud of Rosalie Myers’s dead body hitting the ground.

  Too late.

  Ollie stood in the darkness, the black arms of the trees waving in the wind as she listened to the Hunter’s boots crunching over the forest floor. She heard his low, satisfied chuckle. The deep bass of a howl tearing out of his throat. Wrong coming from a man rather than a wolf.

  “Your turn,” he called out of the darkness, but Holly didn’t move.

  The crack of his gun sounded again and pain lanced through her upper arm as the bullet ripped through fat and spun her around, knocking her to her knees. But there was no burn of silver on top of the pain. It was about the only luck she had going for her tonight. He hadn’t been out here to maim. He’d intended to shoot Rosalie Myers dead with the first shot, he didn’t need the torturous, slow burn of silver eating through her blood like poison.

  And while a normal bullet hurt like hell, Ollie could work through this.

  “Run.”

  She gritted her teeth against the pain.

  He wanted her to run. She couldn’t give him that. Another gun shot rang out and the ground spit dirt in her face as it swallowed the bullet. Another shot, and she jerked as it hit the ground again, this time to her other side. “Run, run, run.”

  Ollie forced a smile to her face. She breathed out a slow breath. He could only kill her if she ran. “I told you. I know you.”

  Black boots appeared out of the shadows in front of her, and she could hear him breathing heavily, feel him staring down at the back of her head. She refused to look up.

  “It’s not fun for you if I don’t run.”

  His knees bent as he reached down to drag her to her feet. To beat her. She didn’t give him the chance. Ollie launched up and into him, ramming into his midsection hard enough to send him toppling backwards. Her hands scrabbled for the gun, wrenching it out of his hands as she stumbled. She whirled, catching herself before she fell, gripping the Glock firmly as she lifted it to aim.

  A black wolf split the night shrubs and was gone.

  One shot rang out, followed by the hollow thud of a bullet biting into the trunk of a tree.

  Gone. A cold vise clamped her heart as Ollie stood there alone in the dark, Rosalie’s still-warm body somewhere nearby, the only company left in the forest. It would be a long hike back to the nearest road, but at least she could show them the body. Give a description to a sketch artist. Have another chance to catch the bastard.

  Exhausted, Ollie headed for the clearing in front of her and found the gold and black body of Rosalie sprawled out over the forest floor. Once magnificent, the tiger lay there broken and bloody. Ollie stared down, grief filling her as she thought of Rosalie and the fourteen other victims. She should have had him. Should have saved Rosalie Myers from becoming number fifteen. She should have done more. Instead, he was free to kill again.

  To hunt again.

  Find out more on Cry Sanctuary

  http://sadiehart.com/

  ###

  Thank you for reading!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  Available Titles by Sadie Hart

  Excerpt:
Hounded by Sadie Hart

  Excerpt: Cry Sanctuary by Sadie Hart

  Thank you for reading!