Rusty and Truman each sat at different tables staring at Chantelle while the women got their drinks. They watched every step Chantelle took.
“How ridiculous is this?” Chantelle asked Taylor as they walked past Rusty’s table. “What would I do, try to walk out of here? The exit is gated and the woods are full of werewolves.”
“Should have thought about that before you trespassed on wolf land,” Rusty snapped.
Taylor pretended to trip and spilled her cup of coffee on his lap. He howled in pain and leaped to his feet.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry,” Taylor said sweetly. “I meant to do that when the coffee was hotter.”
“Crazy half-werewolf bitch!” Rusty snarled, and hurried to the counter to get paper towels as Chantelle gasped with laughter.
Taylor took Chantelle aside. “You’re wearing a full face of makeup at seven in the morning. Foundation. Blush. Lipliner. Gloss. Mascara. You even contoured. Talk to me. Do you have a crush on Truman?”
Chantelle snorted and looked out the window. “There are handsome, sexy guys all over the place. Why wouldn’t I want to look my best?”
“Why are you avoiding looking me in the eye? You only do that when you’re lying.”
Chantelle looked back at her. “Oooh, I’m Taylor the human lie detector.”
“Actually, if we’re being accurate, I’m Taylor the werewolf lie detector. Quit avoiding the question, wench, because if you think— Hey!”
Anita was sprinting for the door.
She was a healer. Someone had been badly injured.
Taylor’s heart dropped to her shoes. Cliff?
She bolted after Anita.
Several men were waiting for Anita in a car idling at the curb. Anita leaped in and the car took off. Taylor and Chantelle, with Rusty and Truman on their heels, ran after the car, back towards the starting line, where Cliff’s men and Jerrold’s men were milling around, shouting at each other, furious.
As they arrived, Cliff and Grant came trotting out of the forest, and Taylor started breathing again.
“What happened?” she cried out. From the grim looks on their faces, something had gone terribly wrong at the trials. Again.
Cliff pointed to two men hurrying out of the woods with Austin on a stretcher. He looked as pale as a ghost and his entire left side was drenched with blood, which dripped off his arm and splattered on the ground.
“If he’s still bleeding, he was shot with silver,” Taylor heard someone say.
Austin’s breath was coming in tortured pants. He gestured weakly at Grant and Cliff.
They hurried over. Taylor followed but stood back.
“I just want you to know…” Austin rasped weakly.
He coughed. They leaned in closer.
“Austin. Stay with us,” Grant said to him in a low, urgent voice.
“You’re fine. Anita’s here. Just hang in there,” Cliff urged him.
Anita kneeled down next to him and put her hands on his blood-drenched arm.
“I just want you to know…”
“Yes?” Cliff said.
“That you’re a couple of douchebags. Especially you,” he added to Cliff.
“Seriously? Grow up,” Cliff snapped at him.
“Does that mean I’d be like you? Tight-assed, miserable control freak? Doesn’t seem like…much…fun…” He passed out.
* * * * *
It was a long few hours back at Cliff’s mansion before they finally got word that Austin would pull through. He’d been shot with a silver bullet, but he’d dug it out of his shoulder with his claws before it poisoned him too badly. Nobody knew who’d shot him; whoever had done it had gotten away clean.
James began the lengthy, tedious process of truth-challenging every non-contestant who’d been in the area, to find out if any of them had shot Austin or sabotaged the rope course, or knew who had.
Austin had volunteered to drop out of the trials, but since Anita said he’d be healed in a few days, the Elders had refused. If he dropped out, he’d still be banished. Serafina had gone to his bedside and burst into tears and begged him not to drop out, so he’d reluctantly agreed.
Unfortunately, that meant that the trials would probably run past the full moon. They’d wanted to get them over with before then, but it couldn’t be helped.
Taylor was sitting in the parlor reading when Cliff brought in a plate of steak tartare. Before she knew what she’d done, she grabbed it out of his hands.
She practically inhaled the whole thing before stopping for breath. Then she said, “How did you know?”
“It’s that time of month.” He grinned at her. “So to speak. For the next few days, you’re going to be craving raw meat.”
She looked regretfully at the plate. “I didn’t leave any for you. I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” he said, looking deeply wounded. “We’re going to be mates. Sharing everything. And you didn’t leave me one little crumb.”
“Jeez. I’m not usually like that.” Then she looked at him closely. “Hey, you’ve got a chunk of raw meat on your collar!”
He flicked it off. “You got me. I ate three pounds of it in the kitchen before I came out here.”
“You’re an absolute son of a bitch.” She slapped at him, and he easily warded her off.
He laughed. “You’re just now figuring that out?”
“You remind me every day.”
“You know what else I remind you of every day?” He pinned her down on the couch and his hands slid up under her shirt. “That you’re mine. You belong to me. Want to argue about it?”
She felt a rush of arousal. “If I do, do you promise you’ll spank me?”
“Hey, we’ve got trouble!” Chantelle yelled, rushing into the room. Truman and Rusty were right behind her.
Taylor scrambled to pull her clothes back into place. “Really!” she said indignantly. “Have you ever heard of knocking?” Now she knew what blue balls felt like. Ouch.
“What couldn’t wait?” Cliff grumbled. “Is somebody dead? Somebody better be dead.”
“Worse,” Truman said, sounding exasperated.
“What’s worse than someone being dead?” Taylor said, worried.
“The possibility of an entire town full of humans showing up on our doorstep right before the full moon,” Truman said. He held up Chantelle’s cell phone. “Her parents just texted her.”
Chantelle glared at him, grabbing for the phone. He held it up out of her reach.
She turned to Cliff in exasperation. “I sent them a copy of the map that Taylor sent me, so they know where we are. They aren’t buying that ‘need to prepare for the wedding’ thing. They texted me to say that they think Taylor and I have been kidnapped, and if I don’t answer them in fifteen minutes they’ll call the cops, notify the media, and round up everyone in town and show up on your front doorstep. And since this idiot won’t give me back my phone, we’ve got about one minute left before they go viral on your ass.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“He’ll type the text for you,” Cliff said.
Chantelle rolled her eyes.
“Fine. Write ‘Jeez mom cool your jets everything’s fine.’ “
Truman typed quickly.
The phone rang.
Truman glanced at Cliff, who nodded. He handed the phone to Chantelle.
“Mom, for heaven’s sake, what’s your deal?” Chantelle said impatiently as she answered. At the same time, she extended her middle finger at Rusty and crossed her eyes. He looked away with a silent snarl of disgust.
Chantelle began pacing as she talked. “Yes, I know I’ve been texting rather than answering the phone… For heaven’s sake, I’m trying to help Taylor pull together a huge wedding in a couple of weeks. Weeks, mother. No, we haven’t booked a place yet. Yes, that should have been one of the first things I did. Okay, okay, Barrington Farms on the fifteenth, if you think you can get a reservation. How many? Uh, two hundred. I’ll have Cliff’s business manager co
ntact you about paying for it. Meet with you tonight? No way, we have a bunch of girls coming over for the cake tasting. And tomorrow evening is…uh…the dress fitting. And the day after that we’re going to be doing the invitations. And the day after— All right. Calm down. Fine. Fine. We’ll be there!”
“Excuse you?” Cliff scowled at her in annoyance. “We’ll be where?”
“Three nights from now, we have to be at Finnegan’s Steakhouse at six p.m. for dinner. There’s absolutely no way out of it. Also, my mother will be calling me at noon and six every day until then, and if I don’t answer, shiznit’s going down.”
“That’s the night before the full moon!” Cliff said angrily.
Chantelle shot him a dirty look. “I put them off as long as I could.”
Cliff groaned. “Fine. Fine. We’ll take Truman and Rusty; I’ll say they’re friends. I’ll meet the parents and charm the daylights out of them. I can be pleasant when I have to. I don’t want to have to be a dick about this, but I will say yet again that it is of the utmost importance that you don’t breathe a word about us, for our safety and yours.”
The expression on Chantelle’s face would have made a lesser man cry. It was the look she’d give something she was trying to scrape off her shoe. “Wow, that’s the first time anyone’s mentioned to me that if I tell your secret, Taylor will also be exposed, and I won’t get any more pills so I’ll die. Now if you’ll excuse me, you people are giving me a splitting headache, and I’m going to go lie down.” She glanced at Truman and Rusty. “And I suppose you two bozos are going to come stand outside my door.”
“You’re slightly smarter than you look,” Rusty said coldly.
Chantelle turned her back on him. “You’re slightly less gross than dogshit, but only slightly, dick-face.”
“I’ll be outside guarding her window – you take the door,” Truman said in annoyance. “I don’t want to breathe the same air as you for any longer than necessary.”
“Fuck yourself in the ass, pretty boy,” Rusty growled.
“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” Truman sneered as they headed for the door.
“Only when you wear makeup, princess. When I’m done guarding the human Bratz doll here, why don’t we meet outside and I’ll introduce you to my friend, Mr-Fist-Down-Your -Throat?”
“Thanks, I’m flattered, but I’m not really interested in having you fist me.” Truman stalked out the door, following Chantelle.
“Jeez, that’s a lot of testosterone,” Taylor groaned as they left the room. “And I’m including Chantelle in that. In fact I think she has bigger balls than they do.”
And Chantelle was continuing to wear a full face of makeup from morning to night. She’d never shown any interest in any of the werewolves as far as Taylor could see, but something was up. Something was definitely up.
“Excuse me,” Cliff said to Taylor. “Now that the crisis has been temporarily averted, can we go back to our previous conversation? As I recall, there were no words, but a lot of tongue was involved.”
* * * * *
“Thank God for pants suits,” Taylor said to Cliff as they walked into Finnegans. She’d shaved her legs three times that day, before finally giving up. On the way to the restaurant, she’d eaten several pounds of raw hamburger.
Truman and Rusty were there, on their best behavior after a very long car ride of muttered threats and insults.
It was a best-behavior kind of restaurant. The décor was carefully country-casual, but the glassware and china was obviously expensive, and one look at the wine list was enough to make Taylor blanch. The smell of juicy, medium-rare steak on the air was maddeningly good, even though Taylor had eaten half a cow on the way there. Her stomach growled.
Carol and Chester were sitting at a table by the front door, watching anxiously as they all trooped in, ten minutes early.
Chester stood up as Cliff walked over to him.
“Hello, Mr. Zywicki, I’m Cliff Bronson. Thank you for all the excellent work you do for my company.” His voice was friendly and non-threatening, and he thrust his hand out to shake.
Chester, who was at least eight inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than Cliff, looked him right in the eye with an expression that was much more neutral than friendly. “So you’re the man who’s taking our Taylor away from us.” He grasped Cliff’s hand and squeezed hard.
Cliff actually winced slightly. And there was no way that Chester had hurt him, so Taylor knew he was doing it on purpose. Acting. Reassuring Chester.
“Yes, sir, that’s me. But I promise you that I will dedicate my life to making her very, very happy.”
Chester nodded. He held on to Cliff’s hand, still squeezing. “I hope you do. Let’s get this out of the way so we can enjoy a pleasant dinner. Taylor is very, very precious to us. As precious as flesh and blood. And Chantelle, our daughter, the light of our life, is staying on your property. And I want to believe that everything’s on the up and up, but this whole wedding-out-of-the-blue thing, and Chantelle’s behavior since she’s been on your property…it feels hinky to me. If you’re hurting or coercing them in any way, I swear to God, I will dedicate my life to destroying yours.”
Then he let go of Cliff’s hand and sat down.
Carol gazed at him in adoration. Skinny, short, Chester had just threatened Cliff even though Cliff could squash him like a bug both financially and physically.
“You’re my hero,” she said to him. “Have I mentioned lately that I love you?”
Chester would do anything for the people he loved. He’d die for them if necessary. Carol was a lucky woman.
As Cliff pulled her chair out for her, Taylor realized that so was she. Cliff was her Chester. He was her knight in shining armor. He loved her passionately and unconditionally, at her worst and at her best. He would do anything to keep her safe.
She wanted to tell him she loved him, but in private. It was just for the two of them. She’d do it the moment they were alone back on pack lands.
“I want to talk to my daughter alone,” Carol said abruptly. “And Taylor. Come, girls, we’re going to the restroom.”
Before Cliff could object, she’d whisked them away.
They spent several minutes in there, reassuring her again and again that they hadn’t been kidnapped or brainwashed, that Taylor and Cliff were madly in love and Taylor was probably expecting so that was why they needed to rush the wedding, and everything was totally fine.
As they walked out, Taylor was annoyed to see Brandii with two iis heading into the bathroom.
“What are you doing here, freak?” she snapped at Taylor.
Chantelle shook her head wearily. “Call us when you’ve got some new material,” she said.
That had been unusually subdued of her.
They made it through the rest of the meal without threats of violence. Both Chantelle and Taylor ordered steak tartare. At least Chantelle’s appetite was good.
Chester and Carol seemed mollified as they headed out. Cliff stayed behind to pick up the check as Rusty and Truman walked the girls out to the car.
Rusty stopped in his tracks as they got close to it.
“Both the rear tires are flat,” he said. His tone turned urgent. “Girls. Run back to the restaurant now.”
Chantelle and Taylor turned to run, and as they did, Perry and Joel stepped out of a dark pool of shadow by the side of the restaurant. They were aiming rifles at them.
Taylor felt something sting her. She looked down and saw a blowdart sticking out of her abdomen, and she heard angry shouting from very, very far away.
She fell to the ground, and the world faded into nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Oh, God.” Taylor woke up with a groan and slowly, painfully sat up. Her head throbbed and her throat and mouth were dry.
She was in an enormous metal cage, in a dark room. She could see surprisingly well, considering how dark it was. The cement floor felt icy cold.
Chantelle lay cur
led up on the floor next to her, her breathing shallow.
Panic rushed through her, and she felt like a helium balloon, light with fear. Was Cliff okay? Were Truman and Rusty dead? Why had Perry and Joel kidnapped her and Chantelle, and why was she in a damn cage?
Don’t panic. Panicking won’t help. The whole pack will be out looking for us. They’ll find us – out of self-preservation if nothing else.
But would they find them in time? Perry and Joel obviously had plans for her and Chantelle – bad plans.
A sickening thought occurred to her. Serafina’s parents, killed by a hunter who basically used an elephant gun on them…had that been a coincidence, them running into the wrong person at the wrong time like that?
Were Perry and Joel planning to hunt her and Chantelle?
She looked around the room. The door was closed and there were no windows, but somehow she could see. It must be because she was so close to the turn. There was one other cage in the room, but it was empty. Why were there two cages?
The moon pulled at her. It wouldn’t be long now. She sensed it. It was getting close to morning, and that evening, she’d turn. She didn’t know how she knew…but she was sure of it.
Was she going to turn here, alone, without help? Would she kill Chantelle when she did?
She crawled over to the cage door. The cage was too small for her to stand up and walk. She tried the door, but of course it was locked. She patted her head, feeling her hair for bobby pins. She didn’t have any, and she didn’t actually know how to pick a lock, although if she’d found a bobby pin she would at least have tried.
She crawled back to Chantelle, who looked pale and drawn underneath her heavy layer of makeup.
“Chantelle, wake up,” she whispered, pushing her shoulder.
Chantelle groaned and mumbled something.
“Wake up. Now. It’s an emergency.”
“What’s happening?” Chantelle sat up, looking around in confusion.
“Perry and Joel shot us with tranquilizer darts and kidnapped us.”
Chantelle’s eyes widened in panic as she took in their surroundings. “Rusty? Is Rusty okay?”
The Billion-were Needs A Mate (The Alpha Billion-weres Book 1) Page 15