by Lola Gabriel
She guided him into her, and then they were both swearing quietly. There was something special about having to be quiet. The urge to be noisy was massive. And it built in her as the pleasure of Cayden also built in her. As the heat built between their two bodies, and they moved together, just a little too hemmed in to do as they really wanted to and shift positions.
Cayden pressed his head into her shoulder, and she pushed closer to him, wrapped her legs around his hips. She really wasn’t going to be able to be quiet anymore, the electricity was still alive in her skin, but it was inside her too, waves of it, lightning bolts of it.
She said Cayden’s name into his hair. Her hands slipped and slid on his back as she tried to take him deeper in, as her body tried to become one with his body, and his nails dug into her back, holding her against him, and then they were both making noises they wished could be full volume, and the electricity concentrated inside her as their pleasure peaked.
7
Cayden
They tried to lie beside one another once it was over, but there was no space, so they ended up with their limbs entangled, still pushed together, sweaty and breathing hard. Her cheeks were pink and her hair a mess, loosed from its bun by their exertion.
Cayden didn’t know what to say. Wasn’t sure how that had even happened… adrenaline and desire were still coursing through him, swimming through him. He felt waterlogged and warm and stupid and spent. Claudia grinned at him goofily. And then she said, “Oops. Didn’t expect that.”
Cayden shook his head. It was about all he could manage.
Claudia put a hand to his face. She was soft. Suddenly, he was very aware that it was still the middle of the night, and he was tired.
“We… I mean, we can… leave it in here?” she said this like a question, but he didn’t know which way she wanted him to answer. He could still barely think. “We might need to think about sticking our heads out and seeing if they’re gone?”
Shit! He had completely forgotten why they were in this tiny room, this tight little bunker. Mrs. Cruikshanks! God, typical bloody Cayden, he had fucked a huge problem straight out of his brain. Well, it hadn’t just been the sex. As if thinking about that now would help, though.
Cayden tried to sit up, but it was tough; they were still tangled. “Oh crap,” he managed. “We need to…”
He was looking for his pants, and couldn’t see them anywhere, when Claudia shifted and pulled them out from under herself. She handed them over, and he performed basically a contortionist act getting them on. She had her clothes in her hand too. “I’ll get them on outside,” she said. “Might be easier. Though I’m sure you’re used to getting dressed in the dark and creeping out.”
Harsh. She was funny, and mean. He hated to be reminded of her father, but there was a reason he and Ali were best friends, and much of that chemistry of personality was there with Cayden and his daughter too. The thing was, though, he didn’t want to creep out. He couldn’t, obviously, but well…
“I’d like to stay here,” he said in a weirdly cracked voice.
She looked thoughtful and then nodded. “Yeah, well, it’s probably going to be scary, but we’ve got to get her back. And also, well, I hate to mention it while I’m still starkers, but we should call Edinburgh. Tell my dad.”
That hadn’t been what he meant. He’d meant he wanted to stay with her. The confusion must have shown on his face, because she quickly added, “About the kidnapping, I mean, obviously, not about the sex!”
And with that, she stood up and reached for the ladder set into the wall. She held her t-shirt and underwear in her teeth as she climbed. He wanted to kiss the soles of her feet. He didn’t begin following her until she had pushed the false bottom of the cupboard up and begun to disappear through it.
Idiot, they could be out there! Whoever had taken Mrs. Cruikshanks clearly wasn’t messing around.
He scrabbled after her and arrived into the room panting. But she was standing there, still naked, totally composed. She was so confident. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to be in his early twenties, not really, but certainly he had not been self-assured.
Claudia turned, taking in the destruction, arms crossed over her lovely chest. “Well,” she said quietly, “they were up here. So, I guess they checked the whole house.” She looked at Cayden. Her face was serious now, and the pink glow lent to her by their lovemaking had faded. Now she just had her normal, pale, moon-like glow.
“So,” she said, “they’re likely to be gone. Right?”
Cayden nodded, distracted still. “Yeah, probably,” he said. “Unless they’re hiding somewhere.” She was looking at him expectantly, her head cocked slightly to one side.
“So, are you going to get dressed?”
Cayden felt his skin prickle with slight embarrassment. He needed to pull it together, seriously. “Yeah,” he said, then, “wait, are you?”
Claudia seemed a little surprised, as though she had just realized she was still naked. She looked down at the clothes in her hands. “Oh,” she said, “yeah, of course. I don’t want to go downstairs alone to get jeans or anything.”
Cayden turned to his chest of drawers and rooted around. He found himself sweatpants, and then pulled out a pair of running leggings. “Can you wear these?” He turned to her and held them up. She put her hand out for them.
They made their way onto the landing and, as quietly as possible, Cayden stepped onto the stairs.
“Follow me closely,” he said, and feeling Claudia getting ready to shoot back at him from behind his back he said, “not because I’m a big strong man, just because I know what creaks in this house.”
“Okay, fair,” Claudia said, and put a hand lightly on his back. As they got further down the house, all the lights were on. The whole place was a mess, drawers open, clothes strewn everywhere, and picture frames smashed. They had to step gingerly around broken glass with their bare feet.
“What were they looking for?” Cayden whispered.
“They’re meatheads,” Claudia replied, her hand still on him, her thumb stroking gently. “They want my father’s pack. Yours too, eventually, and they get, like, roid-rage level angry when they don’t get what they want.”
They were still tiptoeing lower in the house. There was the sound of a car outside, and Cayden froze. He felt Claudia do the same behind him. When it had passed, they began to move again. “They want the Scottish pack, and they think they’ll get it by kidnapping my nan…my…Mrs. Cruikshanks?”
Claudia let out a small laugh. A small, lovely laugh. “No, you actual idiot, they think they’ll get it by kidnapping me! You really are fucking self-centered, Cay.”
This was a new nickname. Despite the insult before it, it filled Cayden with a warm and bubbling glow.
“They want,” Claudia continued, “to bond to me, maybe knock me up, and then kill my father. Hey, presto! My new quote-unquote mate would be co-leader of the pack and have a strangle hold on me. I assume that’s what’s happening. Why does this feel like the exposition in a Bond movie? Are you a little slow?”
Again, Cayden didn’t care about the insult. He stopped, turned. They were just above the kitchen, which was bright and empty. His heart was beating hard and fast, and he didn’t know whether it was fear for himself or for her or for his best friend, or something else. With Cayden on a lower step than Claudia, he was the same height as her. He put a hand to the small of her back and pulled her forward, kissing her deeply. She leaned into him.
When she pulled away, she looked his face up and down.
“You know a dramatic moment when you see it, don’t you, ladies’ man?”
Cayden shook his head. “Come on…that’s… I’m sorry I didn’t think, and I didn’t ask Ali for details. I’m… yeah, I’ve been a real self-centered asshole, I guess. Just as you have so smartly diagnosed.”
“Ooh!” Claudia mock-squealed. “Is this the part where you’re reformed, and we ride off on a white horse? Me side-saddle, ob
viously.”
Cayden sighed lightly. He let his hand trail across her back as he withdrew it. “Claudia, I wouldn’t even try to force you side-saddle. I’d probably end up as the bloody horse.” A few more steps down into the kitchen, and Cayden stepped into a pair of slippers, and pointed at some for her.
“I’m not worried about cold feet at this exact moment,” she said with just a little venom.
“Me neither,” he replied, “but once we’re in a cold tunnel dug hundreds of years ago, you might be glad to have a little something between your feet and the rock floor.”
Claudia stepped down and slid her feet into a pair of the slippers. “Fair,” she said. “Ooh, tartan! Very appropriate!”
Apart from when she was angry at him (admittedly, a fair amount of the time), Claudia had such a capacity for fun. Cayden had missed fun. He was never fun with Mrs. Cruikshanks even, who was always trying to rile him up with her joking.
How was this girl making him rethink his whole life like this?
Claudia was in the kitchen now. She looked back at him. “Got your phone?” she asked, and like a total idiot, he sort of patted himself down.
“No, I left it by my bed.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Is there a phone? I didn’t grab mine when I heard strangers in your house.”
“Yeah,” Cayden said, “of course, over there.” He pointed to the marble countertop, where a 1980s relic of a telephone sat, bright blue and weird. Claudia walked over to it. She picked up the receiver, and then paused above the rotary dialing wheel.
Behind her, Cayden said, “There are such pros to being old. You turn it to the numbers and let it spin back, one at a time.”
Assuredly, Claudia put a finger into the lowest hole, and then she turned her head to look at him.
“Shit,” Claudia said, “I don’t know it. I don’t know the number for home.”
Secretly, Cayden loved this. He tried to suppress a smile. “I do,” he said, “I memorized it when Ali moved up. You know, we didn’t used to carry them all around with us.”
Claudia looked back at him over her shoulder. “Are you showing off about being not only old, but old enough to be my father, pretty much exactly the same age as my actual father, who you happen to call your best friend, when we just—”
“Okay!” Cayden said, too loudly for the stealth they had been trying to maintain. “Just give me the receiver. You won’t be able to use the dial anyway, it’s weird.”
Cayden stepped forward and put a hand on the receiver. For a moment, Claudia pretended she was going to wrestle him, so that when she let go, he pulled it hard toward himself and smacked himself in the chest with the old plastic.
“Ow! Very funny,” he said. “Come on, let me get to the phone.”
Claudia made a face and moved out of the way, and Cayden closed his eyes to think of the old number.
He had expected a member of the staff to answer, or maybe Vanessa, but it was Ali’s half-asleep voice that he heard after a long period of ringing. His mouth felt full of fluff suddenly.
“Hello?” Ali said for the second time. “Cayden? Claudia?”
This jolted Cayden into speaking, though his “It’s me” was high-pitched and again way too loud for the hour and the situation.
“Is something wrong?” Ali asked, obviously worried. And Cayden found himself saying no out of instinct before he stopped and corrected himself.
“I mean… Yes!” With his wits returning, Cayden at least had the wherewithal to add, “Claudia’s fine,” at this point.
“What’s happened?” Ali sounded less panicked now, but he had clearly woken up at least. Being roused from your bed by a landline call was hardly a usual occurrence anymore, adding to the middle-of-the-night fear of it all.
“Someone has been in the house,” Cayden said. And as he did, his stupid brain kept replaying sex with Claudia. The taste of her skin, her smell, the way she kissed…
“Shit!” Ali said, and Cayden heard him pacing, his slippers rubbing against a stone floor. “Claudia was sure she hadn’t been followed. I was going to call you and fully update you, but it’s been mad here too. Did they hurt Mrs. Cruikshanks?”
“I don’t think so,” Cayden said. Half of him wanted to have a go at Ali for letting him fall into this crap blind. But did he really have a leg to stand on now, if he wanted to talk about deception? So, he just continued, “There was no blood or anything, as far as we could see. Look, we’re going into the tunnels and we’ll ask for the protection of the Mathersons. You know where to find us?”
Ali made an affirmative noise down the phone. Claudia was shifting from foot to foot, looking at Cayden nervously.
“They’ll be looking for me, Cayden.” Ali paused. “Keep Claudia safe, yeah?”
Cayden felt his cheeks burn, then his ears. “Yep,” he said, “yep, will do.” Abruptly, he hung up. Claudia looked at him, indignant.
“I wanted to talk to my dad!” she said, and Cayden felt a smirk forming.
“You sound like a child,” he said. “Come on.” Head down, he walked toward the pantry. He had slept with his best friend’s daughter. What a typical damn move for him. What an amateur, womanizing…
Claudia’s hand was on his back, “Cay…”
A feeling like hot milk and honey swirled in him. He was almost dizzy. “Yes,” he managed, quietly.
“Where are we going?”
Cayden gestured vaguely forward. “Behind here, there’s access to the tunnels. We’ll go and ask for help. It’s a whole traditional thing, even the alpha must sometimes fall on the mercy of the pack. The Mathersons, the key keepers… well, ironically, this is one of the purposes they serve. Didn’t think I’d have to use them again anytime soon—or maybe ever. I guess I’ve become complacent in my old age.”
Claudia laughed, but Cayden still couldn’t bring himself to turn his head and look at her.
“Comfortable, maybe,” she said, and she scampered a couple of long steps to be next to him. “Cayden, you feel bad, because you talked to my—to Ali?”
Cayden didn’t answer, he just searched the wall for the correct brick, pushed it in, and then pushed the brick to its left. In front of them, shelves clicked into the wall, dropping boxes of cereal and the loaf Cruikshanks made earlier. How was this the same day? A dark, downward staircase was revealed.
“I’m an adult, and I can make my own decisions,” Claudia said. “And if you like, that can be the last we say of it.”
It was true. This woman in her twenties seemed in many ways older than Cayden himself. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at her. He was basically behaving like a schoolboy. He could smell her sweat and woman tang from behind him, and it physically hurt not to touch her. Maybe this was the ultimate wanting what you can’t have…or can’t have again, anyway.
“Great!” Cayden said, too brightly, finally managing to meet her eyes. “That’s that, then.” And he started down the stairs.
8
Claudia
The floor of the tunnels was vaguely damp, which rendered the slippers Cayden had insisted they both put on pretty much useless. The light system seemed to be some kind of candles? Maybe Flaming torches? Either way, they came on automatically. Clearly the London wolf pack had friends in high—or at least magical—places, just as her father’s enemies did.
Cayden seemed to be in a huff. Childish as he was… In fact, he was probably less mature than she was if you thought about their brains as well as their bodies—not that that helped. Not that she, surely, wanted them to be any kind of a match. But even as she thought this, her stomach gave a lurch. She ignored it and simply walked as fast as she could after him. The light from the torch flames was lapping at the walls, throwing shadow after shadow, each of which had her on edge and almost ready to fight, almost ready to shift.
“Cayden!” she called after him. “Will you please slow down?” He did as she asked, if only briefly, and when she caught up with him, slightly out of breath
, she said, “You know, if you arrive without me, no one will be pleased.”
Cayden shook his head, his dark curls bouncing. “I know,” he said, “I am your surrogate parent. But we have a long way to go.”
“That’s gross, Cayden, and you know it,” she said, and tried to walk beside him before he again sped up. When he did that, she thought, Fine, be a baby, and kept a step or two away, but this made every turn he took in the labyrinthine tunnels terrifying. For all she knew, he would be gone by the time she got around that same corner, or her eyes were playing tricks and he hadn’t gone around it at all and she would be lost forever under a city she didn’t even know at street level.
In those deep, sub-city tunnels, Claudia let herself realize for the first time what a serious situation this was. Someone wanted her father dead, wanted the throne that, if he were ever to die, would be hers. And that person was willing to kill and kidnap to get it.
Time passed measured only by footsteps down in the cool murk. Footsteps, and the light, shadow, light, shadow of moving from warmly glowing stake to warmly glowing stake. Their breathing synced up, Claudia noticed, just like earlier when they had been—
Nope. No thinking about that. Her legs were beginning to burn from the pace they were keeping, and her feet were like blocks of ice by the time Cayden changed up his routine and began gazing intently at one part of the wall after another.
“What are you doing?” she tried to say, but it came out as a kind of croak. She gave it another go.
“What are you doing?” They had been walking for hours, she thought. At least a couple. Though, of course, the mind could play tricks…
“Looking for the door,” Cayden said. “It’s marked with scratches, and claw marks.” He kept inspecting, now running his hands over the dewy rock.