“We need to move in and locate her, and we need to do it fast. From what we know, she’s been missing since the night of the pack meeting.” She paused to gauge everyone’s reaction. The faces staring back at her were a mixed bag of emotions, but there was one common denominator: they were all eager to retrieve Allsún.
“I know it’s custom to vote on which warrior will save her, but I think this case calls for special circumstances.” She fought hard not to show any sign of weakness. “As we discussed before, Jace is the only one of us who has any possibility of destroying this bastard, because this killer isn’t just a normal werewolf, he’s something else. We’ve already approved Jace to hunt him down, so now let’s approve him to save Allsún in the process.”
Small murmurs cropped up around the room, mostly among her warriors, the highest-ranking males. After briefly conferring with several of them, Alejandro stepped up to the stage.
“If you expect us to let a non-pack member do our job, then he needs to prove himself. He needs to show us that he’s stronger than all our warriors.”
A loud growl sounded as David climbed laboriously onto the platform. “That’s a waste of time. We should be out looking for her right now. A whole search party could be out there if we weren’t too busy standing here scratching our heads like a bunch of dumb-asses.”
Alejandro frowned. “It’s pack policy. Only one male and one female will go, so we don’t risk multiple members for the sake of one. Frankie is the strongest female here, no one doubts that, so it’s a given that she should go, but Jace is not a member of this pack. He’s a temporary ornament.”
David’s mouth tightened into a thin line and a look of anger crossed his face. His temper visibly shot up. Frankie interrupted before he said something that turned the pack against him.
“Let’s also remember that Allsún is an associate member of the pack. That means only some of the pack rules apply to her.”
Alejandro shook his head. “True, but this rule stands firm whether she’s a full pack member or not—one male, one female, to retrieve her.”
Frankie’s hands balled into fists at her sides. “Alejandro, you’re combating my every move just because I—”
“I’ll do it,” Jace said.
Everyone looked at him.
“I’ll pass your little challenge and beat all your asses to a bloody pulp if that’s what it takes to save Allsún.”
Alejandro met Jace in the middle of the platform, and the two men stood face-to-face.
“You’ll fight my warriors and you’ll fight me, and you’ll prove you’re as strong as we are?” He leaned in so close to Jace’s face that their noses nearly touched. “You’ll prove you can shift and fight?”
Jace matched Alejandro’s glare. “You bet.”
From the confident tone in Jace’s voice and the way he stared Alejandro directly in the eye, if Frankie hadn’t known better, she would have thought he had shifted a thousand times before. He didn’t even blink as he stared Alejandro down.
But she knew the truth. Jace had scraped the surface of shifting with the slight transformation of his hand, but he was nowhere near ready to shift into complete wolf form. And even without being aware of the specifics, Alejandro had to know that Jace couldn’t yet match the skills of a seasoned warrior when it came to transforming. He’d set up Jace for a battle he couldn’t possibly win.
She grabbed Alejandro by the elbow and tugged him away.
“We need to talk now,” she whispered to him. Then she released him and stepped back to address the crowd. “I want eyes and ears on the street, everyone trying to figure out where this bastard has gone to ground with Allsún. Use every available resource.” Stepping off the stage, she gestured for Alejandro to follow her as the crowd began to disperse. It took every ounce of restraint in her to ignore David’s furious screams of dissent.
* * *
AFTER BRIEFLY ATTEMPTING to calm David down and realizing it was a battle he couldn’t win, Jace followed Frankie and Alejandro the Prick out of the main room of the club. The two strode down a nearby hallway until they reached an office at the end, the sounds of David’s curses still carrying from the main room. The man wouldn’t rest until they’d found Allsún, and Jace couldn’t blame him for being furious at the delay, but he couldn’t focus on David’s rage right now. Not when he needed to beat Alejandro in order to save David’s woman.
Frankie threw open the door to the office and marched inside, with Alejandro close on her heels. When the door shut, Jace jogged the length of the hallway and pinned his ear against the wood. He needed any advantage he could get, and listening in on the conversation would provide more information than he would be getting out there with David.
Frankie’s voice carried through the closed door. “What’s your problem, Alejandro? Ever since I got back, you’ve been trying to block my every move. You’re my head warrior. How do you think that makes me look to the rest of the pack?”
“No worse than you made yourself look.”
Jace’s jaw clenched. He already he wanted to march in there and teach Alejandro how to respect his leader.
He felt pressure on the door and realized that one of them was leaning against the wood.
“What the hell does that mean?” The pitch of Frankie’s voice escalated. She was pissed. Royally pissed. Jace smiled. He hoped Princess hit the asshole where it hurt.
Alejandro scoffed. “What? Do you think no one noticed that you disappeared just in time to miss our mating ceremony?”
Jace heard a low growl, and he wasn’t sure whether it was Frankie or Alejandro—or maybe both.
“He took me captive, Alejandro.”
“Yes, but for how long? How long before you switched allegiances? Because you brought him into our home as if he were one of us.”
Frankie let out a loud huff, and he could hear her walking away from the door. “He is one of us, and you know it.”
Alejandro banged his fist on what was probably a desk. “He hunts our kind, Frankie. He’s not one of us.”
Jace pressed his ear closer to the wood, listening hard. Who ever told that bastard he could talk to a woman that way—and his leader, for God’s sake?
Frankie’s voice escalated to the point of yelling. “He’s our only hope of finding and beating this sadistic son of a bitch. You weren’t there. I’ve seen what this sicko can do, and Jace is the only one of us who even stands a chance against the guy. We need him.” Her breathing was audible by then. Alejandro was pushing every button Princess had, and like a bomb, she was about to detonate.
“We need him? Or you need him?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her tone was filled with venom.
“You were with him the night of your mating cycle, Frankie. The night you were supposed to be married to me, and he held you captive. Do you mean to tell me that he resisted the Call and that you didn’t sleep with him before you returned? Or were you lying when you told Marshall that you and Jace had mated?”
A long moment of silence passed before Frankie answered. “That’s none of your damn business,” she said in a tone that would have frozen lava in its tracks.
Alejandro raised his voice to match Frankie’s in volume. “Like hell it’s none of my business. You stand me up at the altar and then bring a hunter home with you to join the pack, and you think it’s none of my business? You’ve been my arranged mate since we were children.”
“Exactly, Alejandro,” Frankie said. “Arranged. Do you understand that word? Arranged, meaning it was set up. I never wanted to be with you. I never chose to be with you.”
“So because you neglected your duties as packmaster and chose not to mate with the designated warrior, the highest-ranking warrior, I must pay the consequences? I must find a different mate than the one I’ve been waiting on before I even became a warrior? Is that what you’re saying?”
Frankie’s words were garbled, as if she were holding back tears. “What do you want from me, Alejandro? I
can’t give you what you want. You’re my friend—a very dear friend, despite the fact that you’ve been acting like a complete asshole lately—and you know I love you.” She paused. “But I’m not in love with you.”
A long silence passed, and even through the door, Jace felt the heavy tension in the air. For a moment he wasn’t sure who he pitied more.
“I will act as your mate, even though I’m already bound to Jace—if that’s what you want from me,” Frankie said.
Jace stopped breathing, waiting for her next words.
“But you deserve a better mate than that, and I think you know it.”
Jace exhaled the breath he hadn’t planned on holding.
“I don’t want any other woman, but I won’t force you to be with me. I’d rather be alone. But what about you? If not me, who will your mate be? It can’t be the hunter, even if he is bonded to you now. As soon as this is over, he’ll resume his job, Frankie.”
After a long silence she finally answered, her voice barely above a whisper. “He was there during the Call. I don’t know if it...worked or not. I think the mating was one-sided.”
Jace’s stomach flipped. She didn’t want him?
A mix of anger and frustration filled him. He’d managed to get himself hung up on a female werewolf. A sharp pain hit his heart like a Mack truck, and he thought of the warm feeling that shot through his veins whenever he saw Princess.
It took every ounce of control he had not to punch his fist through the wall. Mother Nature had tricked his darker side into a mating ritual he’d never wanted, and all he got was a damn T-shirt that read Mated Moron. A woman he couldn’t stop thinking about who didn’t want him for a mate—he was screwed.
He forced his anger inside and tuned back in to the conversation.
“Please, tell me you’ll be reasonable and call off this challenge, then,” Frankie said.
“No. He needs to prove himself worthy. If he proves himself, he’s fit to be your mate and he can be the one to go after Allsún. Though either way, you know he won’t stay once this is over.”
She groaned in frustration. “But you set him up. You know there’s no way he’ll be able to shift quickly enough to win.”
“Let your mate fight his own battles. He accepted the challenge.”
Jace could practically see the smug look on Alejandro’s damn face.
He heard Frankie stride to the door and grip the knob, and he quickly moved down the hallway to escape notice, but not before he heard her stick it to Alejandro.
“I hope you know that when you can’t kill Robert, the blood of all the women he killed and all the women he will kill will be on your hands. You need Jace. You’re just not man enough to admit it.”
* * *
JACE WALKED INTO the shambles of his apartment. The door lay splintered in large pieces from the hallway all the way to the kitchen, left over from the fight. The screws from the hinges had scattered across the floor, and dried blood dirtied the floors. The place looked like shit. Not that he’d expected anything different. The super was too lazy to get off his couch unless someone dragged him off. In this building, if you wanted something done you had to do it yourself.
Jace stalked through the apartment. He checked the closets, the shower and underneath the bed. Damon, Ash and Trent were long gone. Good riddance...at least when it came to Damon. Ash and Trent were—or had been—his comrades, maybe even his friends.
After wandering into the kitchen, he slumped against the bottom cabinets by the sink. He reached into the brown paper bag, courtesy of the Lucky Bastard, and removed his last bottle of Bushmills. He held it up to the light as he examined its contents. Just great. Already down to the halfway point. He unscrewed the cap and started gulping the liquor. A warm, tingling coated his throat as the alcohol slid down.
The new cell phone Shane had given him vibrated in his pocket. He set down his bottle on the hardwood with a loud thunk before he pulled the electronic piece of shit out of his pocket.
“Hello?”
A desperate voice sounded from the other side of the line. “Jace, we have a problem.”
Jace lowered the phone from his ear and glanced at the screen. “Shane?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“You sound awful.” The kid sounded like someone had drained him of all his energy.
A moment of silence passed, and then Shane let out a long sigh. “I’ve barely slept in days. I’ve been too busy deterring them.”
Jace pushed the Bushmills aside. Now Shane had his attention. “Deterring who?”
“Damon and the rest of the Execution Underground.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Why the hell haven’t you said something before now?”
“David told me not to tell you. He said you wouldn’t want me involved but that you needed me. He wanted you to concentrate on learning how to shift and taking down the killer, so he said to keep my mouth shut and make sure they didn’t get to you.”
Jace cursed under his breath. “Why are you telling me this now, Shane?”
“Don’t go back to the hotel.” There was a hint of pleading in the kid’s voice.
“Why the hell not?”
Shane paused for a moment, as if he wasn’t certain he wanted to say the words out loud. “They’ve found it.”
Jace sat forward, his whole body suddenly alert. “What? How did they—”
“I know you’re at your apartment getting drunk right now, but you need to get out of there, too. I doubt they’ll go back there again, but you don’t want to take a chance. Meanwhile they’re ransacking your hotel room as we speak,” Shane said.
“Shit.”
“Find somewhere to hide out, a location they won’t think to check for you.”
Jace wracked his brain for somewhere to crash. Damn. Only one place came to mind. “All right. Thanks for the information. I’ll find somewhere. Call me if there’s any news.” He went to hang up the phone, but paused. He lifted the cell to his ear again. “Oh, and, Shane, how the hell did you know I was in my apartment drinking?”
“I put in a camera. Damon wanted it so I could tell them if you came back—like that was ever going to happen.”
Jace scanned the room for a camera but didn’t see anything. “Yeah, okay. Thanks again.” He pressed the off button and pocketed the phone. He grabbed his bottle off the floor and stood, then walked down the stairs and headed straight for the H3. He revved the engine and death-gripped the steering wheel as he peeled out onto the street. He lodged the Bushmills bottle conveniently between the driver’s seat and the console. He had a feeling he was going to need it later.
Damn it. All this was his fault. He banged his fist against the steering wheel. The conflict with the Execution Underground, his inability to shift, the fight he’d agreed to with Alejandro, and now he was permanently stuck with a mate who didn’t want him. He thought of his name being carved into those poor victims’ forearms. Robert had killed those girls to get his attention.
Why was that bastard after him? Jace tried to think of whether he’d ever met or even seen Robert, some reason why the man was out for his blood.
Nothing.
Damn. All this shit traced back to him somehow, he just had to figure out how.
He pulled over to the side of the road and parked. As far as he could see, he had two options. One: spend the whole night trying to shift and fail. Or two: drown himself in Bushmills and hope shit turned out in his favor.
“Oh, fuck it.” He hit the bottle and hoped for the best.
* * *
FRANKIE WAS WRENCHED awake from her deep sleep by a loud banging sound reverberating through her apartment and rattling her skull. The door. Someone was pounding on her door. Pushing off the sheets, she stumbled out of bed and across the wooden floor. She grabbed a black silk robe off her closet knob and slipped it on, covering her blue satin nightie. She clutched the material and looked through the peephole. A large dark figure was standing on the other side of the door.
“Hey, Princess. Open up,” the man said.
“Jace?” She hadn’t expected to see him until the fight, especially once Shane had told her not to go to the hotel. She’d thought staying at her own place again would give her a temporary break from the constant heartache when he was near. She inched open the door, making sure the safety latch was in place.
He staggered forward, his full weight slamming into the door frame.
“Holy crap. Jace, are you okay?”
She undid the chain and threw open the door. Jace stumbled through, a nearly empty bottle of Bushmills in his hand. His green eyes were bloodshot, with dark bags underneath. He looked as if he’d been up all night.
“I never should have picked you up in that damn alley.” He slurred his words together until they became an unintelligible mumble. He made the shape of a gun with his thumb and forefinger. “Boom. Done for. Would’ve been easy.”
“Jace, are you drunk?”
“But no, I had to be a fucking moron.”
“That’s what you’re being right now.” Anger coursed through her veins.
“And look what happened. Look what happened.” He laughed bitterly and stumbled.
Frankie slipped underneath his arm in a futile attempt to support him. He was easily twice her size, and she groaned beneath his weight. “Okay, buddy. Let’s get you sobered up. Thank God for supernatural metabolism. At least you’ll burn it off quick.” She dragged him into the bathroom and toward the shower.
“And why are you doing this, huh? Because you’re a good fucking person, that’s why.”
Trying to ignore his drunken words, she pushed him into the shower and helped lower him to the floor. “Take off your clothes,” she said.
He did as he was told. He fumbled with his coat and shirt until he managed to remove them.
She threw them onto the floor outside the shower, along with her robe. Then she reached carefully for the faucet, trying not to get her nightie wet. Cold water spewed from the shower head and hit Jace’s half-naked body.
He cursed and wiped the water from his eyes. “I don’t deserve you,” he mumbled.
Twilight Hunter (The Execution Underground) Page 20