Checkmate

by Annmarie McKenna

  “Fuck.” No. Straying now could spell disaster. He would stick to the way he’d always done things. Soon. She’d come up soon enough. For now he’d settle for finding out her name. The hunt was half the fun anyway.

  He smiled and gave his cock one last tug. Tonight he’d give it more of the attention it deserved. And her face would be the one he jacked off to.

  Sweet victory would be his.

  Chapter Two

  Eight Months Later

  Nikki muttered a curse for letting her stupid phobia get the better of her and punched 9-1-1 into her cell phone. She would simply hold her thumb over the send button and walk quickly. Or look like the chicken shit she’d become and run.

  The parking lot was dark due to the storm earlier in the evening knocking out power. The convenience store was running on a backup generator, but was otherwise open for business.

  “Lots of cars, lots of places to hide.”

  She shivered, despite the heat and humidity being forced upon the St. Louis area. Another line of thunderstorms was bearing down on them from the west and the weatherman had forecast a real doozy of a night.

  Nikki clenched the bag of goodies until her knuckles turned white. It had happened on a night just like this.

  The insane fear gripped her mind in a punishing hold, keeping her frozen in her spot.

  If her brother Derek hadn’t had to back out on her at the last second, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. Of course, if she could grow up and get over it, she wouldn’t be in this predicament, either.

  You’d think eight months would be long enough to get over the incident. Unconsciously, she reached up to the right side of her face and touched the thin, smooth scar that zigzagged from the corner of her eye to the bottom of her earlobe. Two plastic surgeries hadn’t been able to completely get rid of it.

  “Excuse me.”

  Nikki jumped at the terse female voice coming from behind and spun around, her heart pounding and her plastic grocery sack swinging in a wide arc.

  “Sorry.” She winced. The lady had to practically dive out of the way before Nikki’s bag, filled with a two liter of Sprite and a box of Ho Hos, could take her legs out.

  Follow her, be with somebody. Except, the lady was going in the opposite direction. And if her horrified gasp when she’d seen Nikki’s face was anything to go by, she probably couldn’t wait to get away from the crazy, maimed woman glued to her spot in the doorway.

  Would she ever get used to people looking at her like she was a monster?

  Nikki’s shoulders drooped in resignation. Get it over with, go, go. She slid the plastic bag’s handles onto her wrist and held the phone in that hand, her thumb at the ready. In the other hand she clutched the small can of pepper spray attached to her key chain.

  She set a world-record pace and made it to her car without incident, shutting herself in and slamming her fist down on the automatic lock button. No more manually locked cars for her. Her lungs heaved with each breath, seizing up and threatening to shut off completely. A problem she’d dealt with since waking up in the hospital two days after her car had flipped.

  With shaky fingers, she inserted the key and turned it.

  Nothing.

  “Fuck.” The blood drained from her head, and her stomach dropped. “No, no, no. Damn it.” Tears trickled down her face and her throat burned as the middle stages of a panic attack set in. “Please God, please, don’t do this to me.” A streak of lightning lit up the dark lot, followed instantaneously by a clap of thunder close enough that the hair on her arms and cheeks stood up. “Jesus!” She wiped at her running nose with a tissue from the console.

  They were out there, watching. Waiting for her to drive, to be alone on an isolated road again. She could feel their hands closing over her mouth, moving down her body, pulling at the waistband of her shorts, a hardness digging into her thigh as they taunted her. It hadn’t mattered that she’d gotten away, they’d jumped in their car and chased her down. Literally. Sometimes she swore she’d heard maniacal laughter as they sat there on the highway watching her life drain away.

  “No!” Nikki ground the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. When would this end? Would she ever feel safe? Even when it had happened and she’d moved back home with her mom and dad, she hadn’t felt safe. Their security and love hadn’t been enough.

  And Eli…well, she’d had to beg her parents and her brother Derek not to tell him. Not then, and not now. She’d loved him for too long, even if he didn’t know it, and there was no way she wanted him to know about what those men had almost done to her.

  What they had done to her face. Somehow she’d have to hide in plain sight when he came home in a few days because the pity she knew she would find lurking behind the golden brown depths of Eli’s eyes would kill her. She didn’t want his pity. He was a busy man, staying away from him might not be too hard.

  And she lived in a delusional world.

  Just thinking about him made her pussy tingle with heated desire. Unbelievable, considering the circumstances. Right after the attack happened, she believed she would never be able to stomach another man’s touch. Instead, as the months went by she found more and more of her nights filled with erotic dreams. Of Eli. Dreams which were slowly taking the place of the nightmares, yet left her unsatisfied and wondering what it would be like if Eli ever touched her for real.

  And there were still the rumors. Talk that he and his family were werewolves. Derek had never quite confirmed the possibility whenever she asked. That alone made her wonder if the rumors were really true. What she needed was a flat-out, laugh-in-her-face, “what the hell made you think that”, type of solid, absolute “no” answer.

  Instead, the one time she’d straight out asked her brother, he’d given her an exasperated sigh and turned his back on her like a recalcitrant child. Something about the calm, even tone of his voice when he said, “You seen your psychiatrist lately?” had put her senses on high alert. She’d been on the lookout for some kind of sign for the last few years, but nothing, nada. You’d think after all the years she’d known Eli, she would sense if he were somehow different from her.

  Nikki snorted thinking about her psychiatrist. Lately even a few days were too long for her to wait between visits. Every miniscule noise seemed to freak her out. Maybe her increased anxiety had something to do with Eli returning home later this week.

  She sniffed and wiped at the tears soaking her cheeks. A fat drop of rain splattered on her windshield. How appropriate.

  She was late. Her friends were already at Lou’s house, girls’ night out party central, and were probably getting concerned. About thirty minutes ago, she’d called Lou to let her know she was running a few minutes behind. When no one answered, she’d shrugged it off. They were home, she knew, having already talked to them earlier in the day to find out what kind of chips they wanted.

  No way would she call again. Lou didn’t need to know that Nikki had been too afraid to walk through a dark parking lot. She wanted to have fun tonight, relieve a little tension and not give her friends another reason to walk on eggshells around her.

  She reached for the key again and the engine roared to life. A bark of laughter burst out of her mouth at her overwrought behavior. The four- door Civic zipped out of the parking spot when she stomped on the gas. With one more glance around her, Nikki put the car in drive and left the lot, only to come to a stop when the light at the next intersection turned red. A few more drops of rain fell heavily on her windshield and she tapped her fingers in agitation on the steering wheel, wondering if she would ever get over the feeling she was being watched.

  The street wasn’t busy. Most people were inside, out of the storm’s path, but she had to grit her teeth against the eerie feeling worming its way through her body. Her tires squealed the second the light turned green.

  Five minutes later she pulled up to the homey two-story house where Lou lived. Thank God the man Lou had been dating the last several months was gone on a bus
iness trip for the weekend. According to Amy and Kelly, he was kind of weird. Nikki didn’t even know the guy’s name. Jerry, Jim, Jake. Something starting with a “J”. Of course, Nikki’s attack made her opinion biased against most men so this guy would be no exception. If there had been even a hint he might show up tonight, she wouldn’t have come in the first place since to this day, coming within ten feet of any man other than Derek or her father made her heart race. The mere thought of meeting a stranger tonight did not appeal.

  Still, if she hadn’t had the accident, Lou and this guy would never have met. It had been during one of the times Lou had visited Nikki at the hospital that they’d discovered each other and gotten close. Nikki didn’t remember much from the weeks following the crash and Lou had seen enough of Nikki to know better than to introduce them. Hadn’t stopped Lou from excitedly mentioning the man she was quickly falling in love with. She’d talked a few times about him. Nikki couldn’t repeat much of what she’d heard because at the time, she’d pretty much blocked out any conversations involving men.

  Nikki grabbed the bag of snacks and out of newly formed habit, palmed her can of mace. She raced up the walk and the two steps of the porch, shivering again at the tingle that crawled up the back of her neck. Music was blaring from inside and she smiled. The shits had started without her. Not that she was any kind of party girl, more so the pooper, but being with her friends always made her feel better. At least for the time she was with them. Tonight marked her first time attending their regularly scheduled girls’ night out since the accident.

  The front door was open.

  Not wide open, just not latched as if whoever had closed it hadn’t shut it all the way. A hard knock and the door would swing inward. Nikki shrugged, gave it a nudge with the toe of her tennis shoe and poked her head in, a false smile plastered on her face. Better to make them think she was okay after all this time.

  Nikki knew something was wrong before she could even announce her arrival. The stench of blood gagged her, sending her stomach into a tirade. Bile squeezed into her throat. She wobbled in the doorway, frozen in time, and had to squelch the scream that bubbled up. They were dead. All of them. On the couch. Blood covered nearly every inch of what she could see through the wide opening above the half wall. Kelly’s wide eyes stared unblinking at the ceiling. A gaping hole was the only thing left of what used to be her neck.

  “Christ,” she whispered raggedly, hoping against all hope she was having a nightmare.

  A movement in the mirror hanging on the wall inside the door caught her attention. A dark head of hair and a set of wide shoulders dressed in black reflected back at her. He’d killed them! Mutilated them, and he was humming. An obscene tune that she somehow heard over the music as he ended one song and segued into a new one.

  Call the police, get help. She shuffled back out the door, her heart in her throat, praying that the door wouldn’t creak as she pulled it closed and reveal her. If any one of her friends was still alive, she had to help them.

  A sob tore from her lips, sounding like a shotgun blast in the silent, humid calm before the storm. She winced and turned away, running back to her car. The bag of snacks fell off her wrist and landed with a thud on the porch, giving her away for sure.

  Nikki slammed into the back bumper of her car with her thigh, and was thrown off balance. Her body twisted, her foot slipped on the wet pavement, and she went down hard. Her face scraped against the concrete when she wasn’t able to catch herself, making her cheek burn.

  “Son of a bitch!” The deep, angry voice rang out behind her.

  There was a popping noise, once, twice. Nikki scrambled around the trunk of her car. A pinch pulled at the top of her shoulder. A heated whine filled the air next to her ear. He was shooting at her! Her heart hammered as she bent in half, using the car to shield her body.

  With a yank, she opened the door and jumped in. The passenger side window exploded. Something plowed into the floorboard, burying itself in the carpet and out of sight.

  She screamed and jammed the key into the ignition, stomping on the gas pedal at the same time. The tires squealed as they fought for purchase on the rain-slicked ground. Another bullet slapped against the dashboard. Sparks flew out of the area around the radio causing it to pop and hiss. Nikki screamed again and threw her arm up over her head, deflecting the sparks that leapt out at her.

  The car shot forward, pounding her back into the seat. Glass shattered again as the rear window took a hit. Hunkered down, she sped off down the street, her screams echoing in the night.

  * * *

  “Fucking cunt.” He stomped through the house collecting his gear, hurried now that he’d been interrupted. No way would that whole scene not have attracted attention. The bitch had been screaming her head off. He’d used a silencer, but she’d made enough goddamn noise to wake the dead.

  He’d hit her, he was sure. He wished it had been her head instead of her shoulder, he would have liked to see her skull explode. Too merciful for what she could potentially do to him, but extremely effective.

  And where the fuck had she come from? For four months he’d been casing Lou, though he’d met her eight months ago. At first he’d set his sights only on her but had changed his mind after learning her pattern. Friday night parties for three. He’d envisioned taking all three of them as a challenge. In all the time he’d watched them he’d never fucking seen anyone else join them. He’d fucked up. Taken a drastic chance when he should have stuck to what he was comfortable with. But no. What had started out as a desire to have the woman he’d first seen eight months ago by her dying friend’s side, had blossomed into his cock’s demand for three women.

  He’d studied them and had quickly learned the three were closer than close and he hadn’t been able to resist.

  “So again, where the fuck did you come from?”

  The meddling bitch was one of the reasons he liked doing this. Fucking women couldn’t keep their goddamn noses out of everyone else’s business. He forced himself to stop and breathe. He had a few minutes. It would take a little while for people to come out of their houses and decide if what they’d heard had been real or not. There wasn’t anything out there to see right now anyway. No one would equate the noises to this house.

  He calmed himself enough to tune out the wailing of the radio, and listened to the final silence of death surrounding him. Tonight he’d done himself proud, taking out three cunts at once.

  He’d been methodically cleaning up when he’d heard her. At a dead sprint, he’d hurdled the couch, coming inches from kicking one of the dead girls in the head. The only option left to him when he’d thrown open the front door was to shoot. She’d already gotten to her car, but had fallen, giving him an opportunity. He still couldn’t believe he’d fucking missed.

  No one would ruin this night for him. The adrenaline that had been fading just before his little witness had shown up was back with a vengeance. His dick hardened and his fingers itched to stroke himself. Even after all the fucking he’d done tonight, the damn thing wanted more.

  He packed all of his things away, leaving absolutely no trace of himself behind. Twenty-three times he’d done this without getting caught. Tonight would be no different. He stripped out of his black sweatshirt and pants, groaning when his cock jumped against the waistband as he dragged it over his hips.

  A good whore would fix his raging hard-on.

  After changing into clothes that weren’t spattered with blood, he took off into the night, via the back door. The police would be there soon and he had other things to do. Namely, finding the bitch who’d seen him.

  Chapter Three

  Eli Graham wrestled his suitcase from underneath two others as it tried to slither away from him on the carousel. Eight long, fucking months. More than eight months actually. Eight days more to be precise, not that he was counting or anything. You would think a man would have more than a couple of suitcases after having been away that long. But he was home now, and he would
n’t be leaving again.

  Eight months was a lot of time to think about what he really wanted in life. And what he really wanted, what had been eating at him for nearly a year, was Nikki-Raine Taylor, his best friend’s kid sister. A human.

  His mate. He’d tried to deny what his body had been telling him for too long. Tried to protect her from who he really was instead of scaring her off with the truth. He couldn’t do it anymore. Now that he was back, he was going to have her.

  “Eli, you old dog. S’bout time you got back.”

  Eli grinned at the sound of his best friend Derek’s voice and turned with a playful left hook at the ready. Derek dodged the blow and countered with one of his own, landing a punch on Eli’s upper shoulder.

  “Hey, man, how’s it hanging?” Eli slapped one hand into his friend’s and pounded him on the back with the other. Derek reciprocated. “It’s been what, not more than twenty-four hours since we talked?”

  They had talked on the phone every few weeks since Eli had left on a pack security assignment that had taken him out of the country for all of the eight months. It had been hard on him, when he was used to seeing his family and Derek’s nearly every day. Then there was his nephew to think about, who could make an appearance any day even though Tieran still had something like two weeks left. To hear his sister-in-law tell it, she was ready to rip the poor kid out of her belly herself. Knowing her klutzy ways, if she tried, she’d end up on the floor on her ass. He smiled at the image.

  “You ready?”

  Eli didn’t miss the gruff tone of Derek’s question. He looked closely at the man who’d been more like a brother to him than a friend. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes and more than a day’s worth of stubble on his face. Something was wrong.

  “What is it?” Eli stood rigidly, his heart pounding. Please God, don’t let it be Nikki-Raine. If something had happened to her while he was gone…