by Molly Prince
“Barely. Listen… I’m being held in some kind of facility, maybe a private hospital or lab. I’m not sure where. It’s near the coast, I can hear the sea. And it’s warm... muggy. If you can trace this call, come and get me. I don’t have much time I…”
I dropped the phone as I was hit by a wave of pain in my abdomen worse than any cramp I had ever experienced.
Oh God. Oh no.
“Oh God. Oh no. Jackson? Hurry. I don’t have much time.”
We sank to the floor as the wave of pain passed, and grabbed frantically for the handset.
“Listen Jackson. If you’re not in time… if you’re too late. Find the child. Find the child and look after it as if it were your own. I love you.”
But the phone was dead. We were talking to static.
“Miss Derry.”
A voice came over the intercom. A clipped European accent. Not German, but something similar. There was something else as well, something wrong with his voice. Something inhuman.
“That’s quite enough exercise for one day Miss Derry. Any further exertions would be detrimental to the health of your unborn child… as would a high velocity projectile travelling through your abdomen. Please consider this when my men open the door and enter the room in five… four… three… two..”
Defeated, we let the phone slip through our fingers as half a dozen guards entered the room, their weapons drawn. They were followed by an ugly, bald man and I immediately sensed he was the almost-German who had been speaking. His pale complexion and sunken cheeks almost made him look like a…
And then another contraction hit and the whole world exploded in a bright white light.
- X -
“WhathehellNaziVampire!”
I awoke with a gasp and sat bolt upright in bed. I felt woozy. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was. Or even who I was. I still felt the remnants of Miss Derry… Helena, rattling around in my head.
“Did you just say Nazi Vampire?”
I nodded.
There was a handsome man sitting at the end of my bed. He spoke with a British accent. Was he with me? Alarm bells were ringing in my head but I wasn’t sure why. Was I in a hospital? It didn’t look like a hospital.
“I don’t know how you… but I can see why you’d think that. He’s actually neither. There’s no such thing as vampires.”
“And next you’ll be telling me there’s no such thing as werewolves. Who are you? Where am I?”
I instinctively reached out with my senses, trying to read the man I was alone with. I felt something. Something that drew me to him. He was a shifter! Like James, but not like James.
I was embarrassed to feel my nipples stiffening and a growing dampness between my thighs. Just for a split second I wanted him… and then my memories came flooding back. Although I was drawn to him it wasn’t the same as it had been with James. It felt purely animal. Lust, but with no emotional component.
“Wait…”
He shifted uncomfortably on his chair, unable to disguise an impressive, yet somewhat lewd, bulge at the crotch of his trousers. He felt it too. This attraction. He’d felt it before… at the club.
“Edward? Wait… what the hell is happening? Did you kidnap me?”
I tried to shake the wooliness out of my head. I was sure I’d been drugged. Drugged and kidnapped and taken to who-knows-where.
“Kidnapped is an ugly word. Let’s just say I claimed you. You’re very important. More important than you realize.”
This was not happening. My head was spinning and I tried to get a grip. I should have been freaking out. I should have been screaming. But for some reason I felt uncharacteristically calm.
“He’ll come for me.”
“Hmm?”
I crossed my arms defiantly and held Edward’s gaze with my own.
“He’ll come for me. He’ll find me and he’ll come for me.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it.”
That was not been the response I was expecting. Edward clearly knew who I was talking about and he didn’t seem to be impressed.
“I doubt he’ll be here for a while though. In the meantime, you’ll be staying here. Unless you want to…”
“What?”
“Oh, dinner perhaps? A walk? The sunset through the pines is spectacular. Or if you’re not really into all that, my room is just down the hall and we could…”
Despite the circumstances there was some kind of quirky charm to his clumsy advances. Maybe it was the accent. That, combined with the way my body was responding to his presence, almost had me considering his offer. But it was insane. The man had kidnapped me.
“Are you kidding me?”
He shrugged, “another time perhaps. There’s a guard outside the door, so don’t try and escape. You’ll be here another couple of days at least. I’ll try and find you some magazines or something. Do you like fishing? For some reason there’s a shed out back completely full of old fishing magazines.”
“And then what?” The matter-of-fact way that Edward seemed to address my captivity was beginning to grate on me.
“And then I’ll kill James and we’ll finally be together.”
Chapter 7: James
Kent handed me his binoculars and I peered down at the cabin. It was larger and far more luxurious than the place where Carrie and I had first encountered each other what seemed like a lifetime ago. I wanted to catch a glimpse of her, to see that she was safe. I could feel her presence and I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame, but for now she remained tantalizingly out of reach.
However, I didn’t completely trust these feelings. As a shifter, I was used to depending on senses other than sight, but sometimes even that wasn’t enough and you just had to see something with your own eyes.
“I’ve seen two goons patrolling the perimeter. If they’re working in shifts that means three or four minimum.”
I grunted, “more like six. I can smell them from here. Shifters… wolves.”
“Six wolves and Edward,” Kent sucked his teeth, he knew this didn’t look good.
I’d never seen Kent in the field before. In a suit he was an asshole and at times I’d wondered if the sarcasm and constant needling was all a big act. Either way, I’d often found myself questioning his competence. That too, may have been a deliberate ploy. It was easier to surprise an opponent if they underestimated you.
Out here he seemed to be in his element… or as in his element as a human can be in the woods. Even in human form, the stealthiest non-shifter was clumsy to our kind. Despite Kent’s precautions, the ridiculous camouflage and all the crawling around, I suspected the wolves below already knew we were here.
I glanced at the man that circumstances had forced on me as a partner, he was sporting an impressive black eye. The next time he wanted to tell me that the only woman I’ve ever truly loved had been kidnapped by a psychopath from my past he was probably going to do it by phone. My reaction had been instinctive and, in hindsight, a little excessive.
“Why me? Why not send in the cavalry?”
“This is a matter beyond the scope of my official employers.”
“And your other employers?”
I still wasn’t sure exactly who Kent’s employers were. He had implied he worked for, or was a member of, the Daughters of Diana, but that didn’t make sense. I’d spent my whole life believing they were the bogeymen. A force intent on destroying all shifters. Now Kent was claiming they acted like some kind of benevolent guardian angel, protecting us from legions of obscure enemies that we weren’t even aware of.
“They’re stretched a little thin at the moment… and this whole operation is somewhat off-the-books as it were. What about your sorry excuse for a pack?”
I gave him a noncommittal shrug.
“There’s one more thing.”
“Of course there is.”
“Edward asked for you by name. Made it perfectly clear where he was going to be and when. Even brought her within spitting distance of your mountain
just to make it more convenient. You and no one else but you… or he’ll kill her. I’m guessing I don’t need to point out the obvious, but yeah, there’s a slight chance it may be a trap.”
“You don’t say.”
One-on-one with Edward, I didn’t think I stood a chance. But throw in a handful of shifter bodyguards and I was royally screwed.
Edward had always had a competitive streak, especially where I was concerned. Personally, I didn’t care. I had no interest in competing with him, at anything. He was a psychopath and no matter how much they tried to make me, I didn’t want to be like him.
“You know what Edward is?” I asked.
Kent nodded, “Do you want me to sing at your funeral? I’ve been told I have the voice of an angel.”
“I want you to stop fucking around and listen. Edward will take his time. He’ll enjoy humiliating me and he’ll want an audience. I want you to get her out while he’s distracted. Whatever happens to me, I want you to get her the hell out of there.”
“And if she won’t go without you?”
“Convince her.”
“And if she’s still guarded?”
I glanced down at the holstered pistol at his waist and shrugged, “convince them.”
- X -
With each step I took I could feel her presence growing stronger. A heady mix of fear and anger and something else, something that hadn’t been so obvious when we’d first met. She’d changed since we’d parted. She’d grown stronger… or perhaps she’d always been strong, she just kept it hidden under a lifetime of people telling her otherwise.
As I grew closer to the cabin I felt overwhelmed by the realization that I was the weak one. That I’d allowed others to mold me into what they wanted me to be. Hunter, soldier, killer, leader. In the short time she’d known me she’d seen so many different sides to me, and never once turned her back on me. Even when the end came she’d been the one to take action. I’d just stuck my head in the sand and ignored the questions that needed to be answered.
Two men met me at the perimeter. Shifters. Wolves. Mercenaries. They approached as if to pat me down and I snarled, “touch me and lose an arm. I’m here to see Edward. He’s expecting me.”
Apparently they knew me well enough by reputation to back down. I decided to push my luck, “after I’ve finished with him I’ll be coming for you, so you might want to take a nice long walk or something.”
They ignored my posturing and escorted me to a clearing in front of the cabin.
Edward was waiting for me.
“Jimmy, It’s been a long time.”
That unmistakable upper class British accent was an affectation. It slipped when he was under duress. Edward was obsessed with being the best and that obsession extended to his place in society. It was one of the many reasons I had never trusted him. If a man can’t be honest about where he came from, how can you trust anything he says?
“Cut the bullshit. Let her go and I’ll give you what you want. One-on-one, that’s what you’ve always wanted. To prove to everyone that you’re the better man?”
“Oh Jimmy, as clueless as ever. That was never what I wanted. That was what he wanted.”
More bullshit. I was sick of it all. Kent, Edward, the German. Whatever factions that were moving us around like pieces on a chessboard. I didn’t want any of it. I just wanted Carrie.
“Just let the girl go. Whatever you want. Whatever he wants. I don’t care anymore.”
“It doesn’t work like that. She was the prize you see. She was always the prize. Whichever of us won, she was our prize. And then she was stolen from us and hidden from sight… until you found her. You found her… and then you let her go.”
Edward had finally snapped. I had no idea what he was on about.
“I don’t know who you think she is, but you’re wrong. She’s not important to me and she’s not special.”
“You’re sure about that? She’s not special? Bullshit. You knew she was special the second you laid eyes on her. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind that you got to taste her first. I did… for a while. But now, when I take her… when I take her and make her mine, she won’t be able to stop herself comparing us, and she’ll know who the better man is.”
I bared my teeth and stepped forward, struggling to stay in control. But I had to. The longer I kept Edward talking, the better chance Kent had of getting her out of there.
“Please, I don’t know who you think she is, but you’re wrong, just let her go.”
He looked confused, “you really didn’t know? You just thought she was some plump piece of ass you happened to bump into… repeatedly? That’s priceless. Either way you are very much mistaken. She is special. She was bred to be special. She’s going to be the mother of a whole new race.”
He was ranting now and had a maniacal glint in his eyes. This whole thing reeked of the German. That little bastard, with his laboratories and his experiments and his obsession with shifters. But he was wrong. He had to be. Carrie and I had met by chance. Except that bond between us. The bond that didn’t make sense.
“Enough… Edward, enough.”
“But don’t you want to know? All these years you’ve been turning over rocks and chasing shadows. Don’t you want to know who? And don’t you want to know what it has to do with her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
I could feel the memory of half forgotten pain flair in my shoulder and back, as if the scars that marred my flesh had come to life. I remembered the flames and the screams and howls of my pack… my family.
“I don’t… what does this have to do with her? What does it have to do with Carrie?”
“It’s all connected. Everything. Aren’t you dying to know?”
Edward was enjoying this. He wanted me to beg him for answers. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. None of it had mattered since I met her. Even though their memories still burned bright, they were dead. They were gone and no amount of knowledge would bring them back. She was real. She was alive. She gave me a reason to live. I had failed the others. I had failed everyone I ever loved. I refused to fail her.
“No.”
I enjoyed the look of surprise on Edward’s face as I shifted. My clothing ripped to shreds as I transformed and ran at him snarling. To get to Carrie I was going to have to go through him, and I was bored of talking. Just for the briefest of moments I felt as if I had the upper hand. I charged from a standing start, but before I was on him the look of surprise turned to a grin. He shifted just as I jumped and any slight advantage I may have had disappeared in an instant.
I had been aiming for his neck, but instead I sailed through the air and collided ineffectually with a wall of fur and muscle. I fell to the ground and rolled aside, narrowly avoiding the massive paw that swiped at me with bone-breaking force.
I backed away and bared my teeth, growling in the back of my throat.
Edward responded by rearing up on his hind legs and letting loose a great bellowing roar that echoed through the woods around us.
I’m so sorry Carrie.
I braced myself as the massive Kodiak dropped to all fours and charged.
- X -
Chapter 8: Carrie
What would Miss Derry do? It was my new mantra. The divine Miss Dee was my new guru on all matters of escaping from the clutches of nefarious evildoers who wished me harm. And while I may have had about fifty pounds on her and I may have lacked her super-ninja trainin,g I had the distinct advantage of not being nine months pregnant.
I intentionally overlooked the fact that things hadn’t ended so well for Helena and instead focused on the positive. Miss Derry could only have a long distance chat with her knight in shining armor. Mine was right here.
James had come for me, I could feel him. But he was in danger. I sensed that he needed me as much as I needed him.
I forced myself to calm down and assess the situation. I was alone in a bedr
oom. It was neatly appointed and the furniture and fittings all appeared to be quite new… a fact that most likely wasn’t relevant.
There was a single locked door to the hall.
Was it locked though?
I hadn’t even thought to test it. However, even if it was unlocked, I was pretty sure Edward had guards out there. Lots of guards with big guns. My knees felt weak and I couldn’t stop trembling. For a second I thought I was going to lose control of my bladder.
That was it. One door. No private en-suite. I felt a momentary flash of indignation as I noted that I had been imprisoned in the guest bedroom, before I realized that, again, this fact wasn’t particularly relevant right now. Focus Helena. Focus. No, not Helena... Carrie. I took a deep breath and tried to clear my head. I had a pretty good idea who Helena Derry was and it wasn’t something I could deal with right now. James needed me.
I scanned the room looking for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon. I wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice. The best option as far as I could see was a rather cheap looking lamp on the bedside table. I unplugged it and positioned myself behind the door.
“Hey… hey. I need to use…”
My voice came out as a shaky whisper. This sort of stuff might be OK for the likes of Miss Derry, James and possibly Ethan Hunt, but I was not a highly trained operative. I was a regular person who had been taught from birth to avoid exposing myself to danger. I was, in a word, terrified. I glanced down at the heavy lamp in my hand and pondered whether or not I was actually capable of hitting someone in the head with it.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and at that moment a ferocious roar shattered the silence of the remote forest. What the hell was that? Seconds later the roar was followed by an anguished howl. It was a desperate heartbreaking noise that pierced me to my core. James? Oh my darling, what are they doing to you?
I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Hey, let me out I need to use the…”