Jaws snapping, Zack jumped on the creature’s back and sank his teeth into his neck. The evil one arched his back, threw Zack off, and turned to face him. The black dogs whined, but didn’t release their prey.
“Zack, oh thank God, it’s really you,” Charlene cried out.
Claws extended, the shape-shifting deviator jinni came at Zack, hissing and screaming in a strange language. Then in clear English, the creature shouted, “Not even Solomon’s daughter and her soldiers could capture me. You think a dog can hurt me?”
The snake man swiped at Zack and grabbed a handful of his fur. Zack yelped in pain, then lowered his chest to the ground, a deep growl morphing into a snarl as he hunkered down and prepared to leap.
The reptile snickered and danced before him, a whirling dervish of death and destruction as Charlene lay pinned to the ground by the jinni’s companions. The night sounds of the forest ceased. Zack’s nostrils twitched at the dank smell of the genie and the clean copper scent of Charlene’s blood. He thought of his friend, Jessie, and how she must have been tortured in the same manner by this evil being. His paws gripped at the moist ground, and a rush of energy coursed through his legs into all of his muscles—as if the earth mother reached up to give him additional strength against this creature from another world.
Snarling, Zack jumped on the capering tormentor’s chest and hit him squarely on the face with the Ring of Solomon. There was a deafening bang, a blinding flash of light, a puff of green smoke, and the world went black.
~*~
Zak didn’t know how long he was out. He blinked his eyes and when he could see again, the jinni was gone, along with the dogs.
Running to Charlene’s side, he found her barely conscious and pale—as pale as the moon.
She smiled. “You’re here.”
He couldn’t speak, could only try to communicate with his eyes, his paws, and tongue. He licked her terrible wounds and whined.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked.
Zak nodded.
“I’m dying.” Not a question.
He whimpered.
“If you bite me, will I live?”
Zack nuzzled and licked her neck.
The light was going out of her eyes. Please choose, please choose, he urged mentally.
Charlene whispered, “I choose life. You and the Pack—bite me.”
Worried that it might be too late, he placed his teeth on her neck, and drew blood. Nothing. He pushed at her with his nose. Her head flopped to the other side, lifeless.
The love of his life, his one and only soul mate was still and cold. He staggered away from her body, threw his head back and gave a long mournful howl. All was lost. Jessie, Jethro, and now Charlene were dead. The pack was going to die out. He had failed. Zack thought his heart was going to break. He howled again, and again—until his throat was hoarse. He paused to take a deep shuddering breath.
A female howled back.
He turned.
Resplendent in thick golden fur, her smoky blue eyes flecked with emerald green, Charlene trotted over to him and nuzzled his ear. “I can hear your thoughts.”
“Charlene,” he breathed. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Thanks for the love bite. Let’s go home.”
~*~
Eliana’s heart thundered and her hands shook as she watched the live video feed on her home computer in Alexandria, Virginia. She could scarcely believe her eyes, but there it was, live and in color, proof of the existence of jinn and the power of the werewolves. Furious, she began to type up her report, and cursed her boss.
“Stand down, he said. Stay away from the mine, he said. Stay away from the Carter clan, he said. You killed that corporal with your foolhardy scheme, he said.”
Despite the wealth of intelligence she’d gathered from Fred Johnson’s research, her by-the-book boss had refused to listen to her and had told her to get back to Virginia and prepare to be transferred.
She had obeyed his orders—right after she installed a dozen infrared, motion activated surveillance cameras in the woods around the abandoned mine. She attached the video clip to the email and hit the send button with a hard click of her mouse.
“Let’s see what you have to say about this, el Jefe.”
Epilogue
~*~
New Beginnings
Special Agent Eliana Solomon stood by the abandoned mine in Eden and drummed her fingers on the butt of her Sig Sauer. She rubbed her eyes and wished she hadn’t been right. That poor soldier had paid with his life. Generations of women and children of Eden had suffered and paid with their lives, too. The Carters had been particularly hard hit. But now, they had a fresh start. And, thanks to Charlene and Zack’s unflinching desire to protect the world from this threat, Eliana knew why the Djinn attacked certain groups in a blood feud of biblical proportions.
She sighed, whispered the prayer for the dead in Hebrew, and waved over the military demolition expert, a huge hulking figure of a man whose size belied his intelligence. “This is a Djinn portal. The people of Eden have been terrorized by these deviants long enough. Fill it with iron, whatever you can find. If you’ve got anything magnetic, throw that in there, too. Then demolish it.”
The large man nodded. “I got no problem with that. I’ll see what kind of scrap metals we can find in the area.”
She flexed her fist and rubbed the heavy signet ring inscribed with pentacles and Hebrew letters. Last night, she received a call from the Virginia Bureau of Investigation. Girls had gone missing and turned up traumatized, alive, and pregnant. Or found dead, torn to bits. When the doctors at Quantico saw the ultrasounds of the babies, they promptly called the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, and Special Agent Eliana Solomon, aka, “The Jinn Hunter.”
She was going to need some help in the Virginia coal fields, someone who had personal experience with the Jinn. She knew exactly who to ask—a tall, dark, and dangerously handsome psychiatrist and Islamic scholar she’d worked with on an extremely difficult case two years ago. But he was the last person in the world she ever wanted to see again. Not that she held a grudge, mind you, but didn’t she have the right to be pissed at a guy for leaving her for dead?
~*~
The orchard exploded in pink with newly opened buds, tables overflowed and bowed under the weight of food, and little tow-haired girls, decked out in their best dresses, played hide-and-seek, their laughter ringing through the trees. Mothers chatted, their excitement palpable. The boys from the bus route poked at their mothers and signed, “Where Charlene?” Trotter made rounds, investigated each partygoer with his gentle nose, and created a ripple of giggles in his wake. He found Joey, sat down at the foot of his wheelchair, and began to snore.
Tired of surveying the pack and listening to its happy rumbles, Zack turned to Jethro and demanded, “What’s taking her so long?”
The Old One looked up from whittling the wolf head on his new apple wood cane, amusement glinting in his sky blue eyes. “Don’t you know women take whatever time they need? You’d better learn to be patient.”
“I can’t stand this,” he growled and fisted his hand with the large signet ring. “Why can’t Rebekkah make her move faster?”
The door flew open, framing Rebekkah. Strands of hair fell out in wild angles from her normally impeccable bun. She grabbed Zack’s wrist and said, “Get in here. Now!”
Seized with a type of terror he had never experienced before, even when he faced the jinni, Zack turned to his elder. “Come with me?”
Jethro shook his head. “Sorry. You’re on your own, son.”
Rebekkah dragged him into the bedroom.
“Charlene?”
His radiant wife sat up in bed, holding not one, but two babies in her arms. She gave Zack a wobbly smile. “Would you like to meet your boys?”
“Are they—?”
Rebekkah’s no nonsense voice cut through his fog of fear. “These are the pinkest, healthiest babies I�
��ve ever delivered.”
Zak touched each child’s cheek with a trembling finger. “They’re so…perfect.” He leaned down and kissed Charlene’s forehead. “Thank you. I love you.”
Tears slid down her flushed cheeks. “I love you, too. Let’s share the good news.”
Rebekkah nestled the infants in Zack’s arms and placed a metal bracelet around each one’s wrist.
Love and pride rose in Zack’s chest as he watched his wife dress. He knew she had to be exhausted after the ordeal of birthing twins, yet she put the pack’s needs ahead of own. He cuddled the sleeping boys and sniffed their heads. “They have both our scents.”
Charlene held out her arms to take a child. “Let’s show our family our beautiful babies.”
Rebekkah preceded them, opened the screen door, and stood aside. When Zack and Charlene stepped out onto the porch, Jethro stood. Silence fell and all eyes gazed upon the blanket-swathed bundles.
Zack removed the swaddling cloth and lifted the naked baby up over his head: “Behold, I give you Z’ev Jacob.” He passed the wriggling infant to Rebekkah, took the second naked squirming one from Charlene, and raised him on high. “And, I give you Joshua Zebadiah.”
The now wide-awake blue-eyed babies cried in unison, and their voices merged into an infant-sized howl. Laughter rippled through the crowd, and the pack joined the newest members in a paean of joy for the rebirth of happiness and hope in Eden.
THE END
Killer Kisses Page 27