by Helen Scott
“So . . .” Elijah waved his hand in the air and looked up at the ceiling as he chewed on the first bite of pizza.
“Oh, sorry. This is the basement of the pub we own, The Celtic Cross. Asher is a bartender here, and Liana and Kinsley sometimes do shifts as well if they want to earn some extra cash. And when we have live music, Domino—you’ll meet him when we get home for dinner—is our bouncer.” Valentina grabbed a slice of pizza from the plate and began taking large bites. She paused only for a moment to say, “You should eat more than a slice of pizza. You’ll need the energy.”
Elijah took one of the burgers and devoured it in only a few bites, before grabbing another. By the time they were both finished eating, Asher had returned with some clothing for Elijah.
“Some sweatpants and a T-shirt, but that’s all I could find.” He handed the clothing to the other man and turned to Valentina. “We need to reup our supplies out here.”
“We should probably recheck all our supplies in the territory, what with Reapers being about. I don’t want anyone getting trapped as their animal just because there are no clothes to put on. I’ll see if Penelope is up for it. It would be good for her to get out of the house, and this wouldn’t mean she would have to interact with anyone outside the pack.”
“Good plan.” Asher nodded and grabbed the last slice of pizza. “You guys okay to get home?”
“Yep, see you there in a few.” Valentina’s stomach growled at the thought of more food. She didn’t know what had her body needing so much more fuel than normal, but it was annoying.
“It was nice to meet you,” Elijah said as Asher disappeared up the stairs.
Chapter 10
Elijah’s head had been spinning from the moment they’d arrived back at Woodhaven. As soon as they’d arrived, the pack had descended on him, interrogating him about the Reaper attack, what they had found out at the bar, what he remembered. The truth of it was he was remembering more, but he wasn’t about to announce that to the whole world. No, he’d tell Valentina later, when they were alone. That way he could take his time and try his best not to sound crazy, because the memories he had didn’t make any sense.
All the packmates were kind and friendly. Some, like Domino, were cooler toward him than others, but for the most part, everyone had welcomed him with open arms. Their chef had made an enormous meal that he thought could feed at least one hundred people, and had set it all out on display in the kitchen.
“Grab a plate and get some food before it’s gone. Trust me, it will all be gone soon,” Harper’s voice sounded just behind him as she patted him on the shoulder. The human woman was Domino’s mate, and the bond the two of them shared was almost a physical thing. He could practically see it, and it stirred an emotion within him that he hadn’t felt in a long time. Jealousy.
His eyes drifted toward Valentina, who was now sitting at the head of the table with a large plate of food. Her ebony hair and warm, tawny skin were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his attraction to her. She had made her position clear, though, and he would respect that, even if it left him with a hard-on most of the time. He knew she was right and that all they could have was a fling. The thought of trying to have a relationship with someone so completely opposite from the women he usually spent time with almost made him laugh out loud. No, theirs was a purely physical attraction, which could result in a night or two of pleasure, nothing more.
As he loaded his plate with salad and steak and a little bit of everything else, his stomach growled loudly, and he heard snickers coming from the dining area. He turned to get a glass of water, only to almost run into the one person who hadn’t been part of the interrogations earlier, who hadn’t even said one word to him. Penelope.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were behind me.”
She stared at the ground before moving around him, her brown hair catching in the light as she passed and turning a deep auburn color. He watched her go, and something inside him recognized that she was damaged and still healing, not physically, but emotionally. It was like a metallic scent in the air.
Shaking off the encounter, he moved into the dining area and grabbed a chair close to Valentina. Liana and Kinsley exchanged a meaningful glance as he sat down.
“Please, eat,” Valentina said, smiling at him between forkfuls.
“I’m surprised I’m still hungry after lunch and the burgers at The Celtic Cross.” His stomach growled again as though it were agreeing with him.
Valentina laughed, and he was transfixed. She had laughed before, but never like this. This was a relaxed, easy laugh that had her smile widening across her face and little wrinkles forming just under her eyes by her nose, while others formed at the outside of her eyes. She was stunning. When she snorted, he couldn’t help but laugh as well, and that was when he noticed that everyone else at the table had gone quiet. He glanced away from the beautiful woman who had captivated him, and found that everyone was staring at them.
When he glanced at Liana and Kinsley, they were both watching Valentina with soft smiles on their faces. Further down the table, Imogen had gone still and seemed to be waiting for something, while Asher and Liam were both whispering something to one another. The only one not looking was Domino, but that was just because he was watching Harper like a sappy puppy dog. God, he hoped that wasn’t how he looked at Valentina. He shoved a forkful of the delicious, perfectly cooked meat into his mouth and tried not to think about it.
A loud buzzing thankfully distracted him. The alpha reached into her bag, which he hadn’t noticed was sitting on the floor next to her, and retrieved her phone. The whole table had gone still, everyone watching her.
“Midnight,” she said after swiping to answer the call.
He focused his hearing and found he was able to hear not only the other side of the conversation but her heartbeat as well. It was at a steady pace, if a little fast while the person on the other end spoke.
“Everything has been cleaned. Staff are taken care of. Target is secured, along with the security footage. Both are awaiting your attention at the Kildeer location.”
“Thank you. We will be there shortly.” She pulled the phone away from her ear and glanced at him. The following spike in her heartbeat surprised him. Had he caused that? Or was it related to facing the Reaper?
“Everything okay?” Elijah asked, unsure if he was supposed to be listening in or not.
“They have the Reaper and the security footage we need. If you’re done eating, I’d like to head out.”
“Can I finish my steak first?” he asked, looking at the delicious meat that he was only halfway through.
She nodded, and he began shoveling forkfuls into his mouth. The meat didn’t taste as good now that he knew they would be interrogating the Reaper, because there was no other reason to have him taken to a secure location. He wasn’t opposed to violence, but he hadn’t ever been involved in something like this, either.
It wasn’t long before they were on the road again, but this time, they were only in the car a few minutes. There was a strange tension coming off Valentina, and he didn’t know what to make of it. Was she nervous about encountering the Reaper again? Was it him? Did she not trust him? None of it seemed to fit with what little he knew about her. She was strong and confident, with big brass balls, so what had shaken her?
They pulled into the parking lot of a construction company situated just down the street from an electricity company and a gym. The loose gravel crunched under the SUV’s tires as she drove to the back of the building and reversed into a parking spot that had the back of the vehicle almost pressed up against a roll-up door. The dull-gray metal had clearly seen better days, and as they got out of the car, the smell of cement and freshly laid tarmac hit his nose, making him feel like he was choking on the smell.
Instead of going in the metal door as he thought they would, Valentina pushed open the fancy glass door a few parking spaces down. Elijah jogged over, uneasy at the thought of her being alone an
d vulnerable in this weird, slightly rundown building. Also, he didn’t want to be left behind.
Once they were both inside, she locked the door behind them and they moved through the office until they found a storage closet. Without a word, Valentina walked in and pushed on the back wall. It gave way, revealing some utilitarian stairs going down.
At the bottom, they found a man sitting on a chair reading a book, while the Reaper, the man they had come to interrogate, was bloodied and practically unconscious on a chair next to him. His ratty, white long-sleeved T-shirt was stained red and pink in places, while the trench coat and pullover he had been wearing when he attacked Elijah sat off to the side, along with the thick-soled boots that cracked his ribs, even if it was only briefly. Instead of being disgusted as he had thought he would be, Elijah was glad to see the man punished. Something inside him roared with satisfaction and disappointment that he hadn’t been the one doing the punishing.
“Wake him, please.” They were the first words Valentina had said. No greeting the man’s guard, no asking how everything was going—she cut straight to the point in a way that would leave the most ruthless of business men proud.
The man put down his book and rose, silently moving over toward the Reaper. Then, without warning, he slapped the man across the face. The crack of flesh meeting flesh in violence reverberated throughout the room, making Elijah flinch as though he had been the one slapped.
The Reaper grunted in pain and spat blood from his mouth onto the guard’s shoes before he looked up. A flicker of surprise briefly crossed his face when he saw that there were more people surrounding him, before a blank mask replaced it.
“How many of you are here?” Valentina asked.
The Reaper remained silent, watching them both with malice radiating out of him. Elijah had no doubt that if the man were to get loose, he wouldn’t run, he would attack.
Another backhand from the guard cracked through the room. “The lady asked a question.” It was the first time the guard had spoken, and his voice sounded off, as though it wasn’t quite human.
“Who are you hunting?” she asked, trying a different tactic.
“All of you,” the gorilla of a man said, disdain dripping from each syllable.
“Good fucking luck with that,” Elijah muttered, earning a glare from the alpha.
“What brought you here?”
“What didn’t bring me here?” the man countered.
Valentina sighed, and as though that was an instruction, the guard punched the Reaper in the face. The crunch of bone and a gush of blood from the man’s nose made Elijah’s own blood heat with the need to fight. Once he was focused on them again, his glare even more intense, Valentina said, “What do you know about people being kidnapped and turned?”
His eyes widened momentarily, belying the surprise he was trying to hide, while his lips thinned into a small strip across his face.
When she walked toward him and got within arm’s reach, Elijah had to clench each and every muscle to prevent himself from going over there and acting as a shield between her and the Reaper. He wanted to yell and scream at her, demand to know what she was doing putting herself in harm’s way like that. It didn’t matter that the guy was strapped down; he wouldn’t trust those restraints, and neither should she. Every protective urge in him was screaming at him to save her, but she was an alpha. She had been in this world a hell of a lot longer than he had, and she was a true blood. She had to know what she was doing.
She squatted in front of the Reaper and said, “You didn’t know, did you? You and your buddies had no idea that regular humans were being kidnapped, turned, and held hostage. Maybe instead of hunting down people who improve the communities around them, you should try actually hunting the bad guys.”
“Please, like you could improve anything. Your kind are disgusting stains on the face of humanity. I will gladly hunt down and kill every last one of you.”
She stood and turned to Elijah, the tendons on her neck standing out in sharp relief as her jaw clenched and her eyes bled to jaguar gold. It took a few seconds of steady, controlled breaths before she was able to turn around again. “You may do whatever you wish with him. Is the footage upstairs?”
The guard simply nodded. He seemed to prefer not to speak when possible.
Elijah followed behind her as she left the hidden basement area and went to an office in the back of the building. The room was almost pitch black, which made sense since night had officially fallen while they were downstairs and there were no windows to speak of in the room. A large flat-screen TV was mounted to the wall to the right of the door. They walked in, and the alpha shut the door behind them.
When she walked past him, his panther went wild with the need to touch, to confirm that she was uninjured. Even her scent spoke to him of how unsettled she was, how much that encounter had unnerved her. His hand acted of its own accord and reached out to her, gently grasping her arm. Her soft, warm skin was electrifying against his fingertips, and as she turned, the world seemed to slow down. Ebony hair floated over her shoulder, bearing more skin to him as it revealed the long, elegant line of her neck, the slight blush on her cheeks, and her golden eyes.
The jaguar was still so close to the surface, he could practically see the rosettes on her skin. Her eyes locked onto his mouth, and he tried to get the words out, to express his concern, his desire to see her safe, but they caught in his throat as he looked at her stunning face. The gold faded from her eyes, leaving the rich mahogany brown in its place, which made the warm rose color of her lips all the more vibrant.
Before he could process what was happening, the lips he had just been admiring were being pressed against his own. Their silky softness glided against his mouth while a hand came up and wrapped around the back of his neck. Something in him responded to being forced into a weaker position, and his whole body roared to life as he flipped them around and pushed her up against the wall. Her body was soft and pliable against his own, and it was taking all his strength not to rip her clothes off and take her right there in the meeting room.
“Elijah . . .” She breathed his name between kisses as if it were a prayer, and it went straight to his cock with a painful throb.
“Fuck, Valentina.” He pulled away from her. This wasn’t what she wanted. She’d made that clear in his apartment, his mind chided him. But when she kissed him, his body responded. The confusion had him stuck between going back to her flushed lips and stepping further away.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a rough voice as she breathed heavily, her hard nipples poking out through the fabric of her shirt. Why did he have to notice that? Why couldn’t he just let go and look at her like a friend or a sister? The craving he had for her was so intense, it was unlike anything else he’d ever felt. Eventually, she continued. “I swear I’m not trying to confuse you.”
“It’s okay, that was as much me as it was you,” he said as he turned away from her and tucked his erection up into the waistband of his jeans. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but at least he wouldn’t be tenting the whole time.
“Let’s watch the footage, shall we?”
“Yeah . . .” He tried to focus on anything other than her. The dumb artwork on the walls, the bookshelves filled with binders, books, and even some awards, but his body was completely attuned to where she was in the room, her exact position, each and every movement. It was like he didn’t even need to see her, but when he looked around to where he knew she stood, it was just in time to see her bend over to type on the computer. He wanted to groan as her plump, heart-shaped ass was perfectly displayed for him. The panther inside wanted to mount her, to have her, knowing that if he approached her now, she wouldn’t refuse him, but his human side was thankfully still in control.
The TV on the wall turned on, and two security feeds were displayed across the whole thing like a split screen. He could see himself sitting with his coworkers, laughing about something, and then the rage started building within hi
m.
Chapter 11
Valentina watched as the woman in the video who was sitting with her back to Elijah casually dropped something in his drink while she flagged down the bartender. Nothing seemed to happen to the drink—it didn’t change color or bubble or anything like that—but she did notice that Elijah’s movements became more exaggerated, even on the grainy black and white video. His whole body seemed completely relaxed, which was the polar opposite to the body perched next to her on the desk. Every muscle in his body stood out in sharp relief through the thin fabric of his T-shirt.
She had kissed him.
What was she thinking? Oh yeah, that the strange, vicious yet dead eyes of the Reaper downstairs were creepy as all hell, and now he knew she was a shifter and what she looked like, not to mention what Elijah looked like. It wouldn’t be too hard to track either of them down, if he wanted to. She wanted to punch something. Going down there without any kind of mask or disguise was risky and careless. It seemed as if ever since Elijah had come into her life, her brain was too busy thinking about getting into his pants and not so much on the important things, like protecting herself and her pack from a Reaper.
A few minutes later, and the footage showed the woman who had spiked Elijah’s drink walking with him out of the bathroom area. His arm was thrown over her shoulder, and she held the hand that sat just above her breast and was leaning to the side as if she was supporting him with her own body. They moved awkwardly through the crowd, and when they got close to the door, a man took him off her hands. She pulled a phone from her pocket and watched the group where Elijah had been sitting. Once she saw one of his friends check their phone, she exited the building.
The security footage that showed the front door caught the edge of a white-paneled van waiting on the street just outside. Both the man and the woman helped get Elijah into the van before hopping in with him. The door slid shut, and the van drove away. They watched in silence for a few minutes after that, but it was clear nothing else was happening and that was all they were going to get.