Besides, driving gave her something to focus on other than what might be happening in Galveston. Gator, pacing back and forth in the backseat with an occasional high-pitched whine, seemed to pick up her mood.
“Coming back’s going to be a bitch.” Robin pointed to the northbound lanes, which were at a standstill.
“I’ve been thinking about that. We can take the ferry if it’s still running, skip the interstate altogether.”
Robin turned sideways in her seat, eyes wide. “I love ferries. We use them a lot in New Orleans to cross the river. I didn’t know Houston had any.”
Mori smiled. “Not Houston, but Galveston. There’s a ferry that runs back and forth between the eastern tip of the island to the Bolivar Peninsula. Then it’s an easy drive from there into Louisiana.” She’d taken that trip a lot, looking for the deserted stretches of narrow beach to shift and run along, or letting her wolf explore the miles of wildlife refuge near Cameron, just over the Louisiana state line.
There would be no stopping to frolic today. She had a bad feeling about what they might find, but at least she and Robin had been of one mind. It had been hard to let Kell bark out orders and make plans, knowing they had no intention of following them. But she thought one of her grandfather’s old sayings applied here: it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
On that, she and Robin had agreed instantly last night. “He always says because I’m small, I can’t help him, even though he knows I’m physically stronger than him,” she’d said while packing food. “Jack Kellison, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, is a stubborn, misogynistic oaf. Thought I’d save you some time by telling you. You’d have figured it out eventually.”
Robin had whispered the entire time they loaded pantry items into bags for the trip. She’d talked strategy, asked questions about Michael, and assured Mori that they’d help Kell whether he asked for it or not. “I’ve gotten kinda attached to the bossy old goat, so we’re going to save him from himself. That’s why I’m following him to Galveston. I don’t have to ask why you want to help him. It’s all over your face whenever you look at him. Kind of makes me want to hurl.”
Mori didn’t know how to respond to that, so she just shrugged.
By the time they’d finished loading the SUV and driven out of downtown Houston, Kell had a thirty-minute head start. Thirty minutes alone with Michael was plenty of time for things to fall apart.
Because of the dearth of traffic on the southbound interstate, the drive to Galveston went quickly, according to the time on the dashboard clock. According to the tension building in Mori’s gut, it had taken way too long. Finally, she reached Seawall Boulevard.
Robin craned her neck to see out the windows on Mori’s side. “Man, look at those waves. I’d have trouble flying in this shit already, and the storm’s still pretty far offshore.”
Mori had ridden out both Rita and Ike at the Quad-D. Michael had been there, of course. Hovering. Possessive. Now, it was easy to look back and see how obsessed he’d become with her as she grew older. At the time, it was just Michael being Michael.
Nothing looked amiss at the Tex-La building. Mori drove into the back lot and spotted Michael’s sedan and a shiny black pickup. “Is that Archer’s truck?”
“Yep.” Robin hopped out as soon as Mori pulled into the space between the vehicles, and was halfway to the back door before she climbed out.
Damn, but the little eagle was fast.
Mori said a few calming words to an agitated Gator before locking him inside the vehicle, leaving the windows open enough to get him some air, and making sure his water bowl was open and within reach. With any luck, they wouldn’t be here long.
Robin waited for her at the door. “Think there’s an alarm on it?”
Michael was too arrogant to think anyone might break in, and she’d bet he hadn’t brought in extra security on a Saturday, either. He wouldn’t consider Kell enough of a threat to warrant the expense.
“My guess would be that it’s not even locked.” Mori reached out and grasped the handle, pulling it open. “See? After you.”
She followed Robin inside, shivering as the air-conditioning enveloped her. After the dry, hot air outside, it felt like walking into a meat locker. “Third floor,” Mori said. “Elevator or stairs?”
“Better do stairs. It’s quieter.” They found the stairwell and started to climb. Halfway between the second and third floors, a crash sounded from somewhere above them.
“Gotta be Michael’s office.” Mori took the remaining stairs two at a time, with Robin close behind. “It’s to the left when we get to the top.”
“Don’t rush in.” Robin stayed her hand as Mori reached for the hallway door handle. “We have to go slow, make sure we don’t stumble in and make things worse.”
Slow sounded like the worst idea in the world. Mori’s sense of foreboding had grown with every mile as they grew closer to Galveston. She’d written it off as paranoia and fear for Kell. But even a paranoiac was right sometimes.
Robin was the one with the military training, however, and Mori respected that. She hoped she’d get a chance to kick back at Kell’s cabin and learn more about how an eagle-shifter got tied up with this quasi-military bunch of guys. Between her and that hope, however, stood whatever situation lay at the end of this floor.
“Shit.” Robin looked up at her as soon as they stepped into the hallway. A strong reek of blood wafted from the other end of the corridor.
“Michael’s office.” Mori mouthed the words, and Robin nodded. As they crept closer to the office door, their decision not to bring weapons struck Mori as foolish. They’d agreed that since they’d both need to shift if forced to fight, their weapons could just as easily end up in the hands of Michael or one of his thugs. Still, Mori would have felt better walking in that office with something lethal.
They stopped outside the office door for a second, exchanging glances that said everything and nothing. Robin’s plan had been to stick her head in, see if Kell was in trouble, and if not, try to slip out unseen. They’d drive on to Louisiana, and he’d be none the wiser. If Kell or Michael saw her, she’d improvise.
Unless Kell was in real trouble, Mori had reluctantly agreed to stay out of sight.
The door stood open, so they could see the portion of the office visible from the hallway. Michael’s big desk sat empty, but the blood scent was definitely coming from this room. Mori could tell some of it was human blood — but some of it wasn’t.
She nodded at Robin, who stepped forward and cautiously peered around the doorjamb into the long rectangle of the office. Then she stepped in fully, her sudden flare of agitation scraping across Mori’s skin like sandpaper. Robin was ready to shift.
Mori pushed past her into the office. Her heart stopped at the sight of the enormous wolf, Michael’s wolf, standing over Kell.
God, what if he was already dead? What if they were too late?
“Michael.” Her hands shook, but she managed to keep her voice strong, commanding his wolf to listen. She’d never used her own wolf to hurt or to fight. That was about to change.
Slowly, Michael’s wolf raised his massive head and bared his teeth. Mori had seen him in wolf form, of course, but never in the confines of an office. He was almost six feet long from nose to tail and almost waist-high on an average human. He dominated the room.
While the wolf focused on Mori, Robin circled the office behind him, trying to get a look at Kell. She nodded, and Mori breathed again. He was still alive.
She wanted to keep the wolf’s focus on her. “Your fight is with me, Michael. Not with him. We’ll go back to Houston and work it out.”
She didn’t mean a word of that nonsense, and the wolf’s snarl said he knew it. The good news was she’d spotted the source of the wolf blood she’d scented. A deep wound in the right haunch bled freely. Her guess would be that, somehow, Kell had gotten a knife at just the right spot to nick an artery. Michael would have to shift back to human
form to heal.
For the longest time, none of them moved. Mori feared if she did anything sudden — or anything at all — Michael’s wolf would take a bite out of Kell. She had no idea how badly he was hurt, but he hadn’t moved since she and Robin had arrived.
Behind the wolf, Robin had already shifted, her eagle stepping daintily out of the clothes left crumpled on the floor. But she hadn’t squawked or otherwise moved. She simply watched the wolf and Kell with sharp, intelligent eyes.
Kell started the train in motion, and then it rolled downhill fast. He groaned back into consciousness and tried to roll onto his back, only to find himself trapped between the front legs of the wolf. He turned his head from side to side, paused for a second at the sight of Mori, then reached up and tried to jab his thumbs in Michael’s eyes. All the while, he’d been thrusting his legs in different positions, trying to leverage himself away from the snapping teeth of Michael’s wolf.
He wasn’t fast enough, and there was another momentary pause as the wolf’s powerful jaws clamped down on Michael’s left hand, causing him to cry out. Michael’s wolf had bitten, broken skin. Was it the first bite? The second?
The horrifying idea that Michael might try to turn Kell into a hybrid jolted Mori out of her trance.
She shuddered through her own shift, her released wolf finally raising her head in a howl as Robin’s eagle began an awkward flying assault on Michael. A heavy, hooked claw caught in his ear and distracted him enough for Kell to claw his way across the hardwood and out of snapping distance.
Good, that cleared the path for Mori.
She crept closer, her wolf tracking Robin’s movements. She couldn’t attack until Robin was clear. But Michael caught the eagle first, his jaws snapping down on her wing and slinging her back and forth like the world’s biggest dog with the world’s oddest chew toy. Finally, he slung her hard to the right and released her with enough force to send her through one of the big windows in a shattering of glass, followed by silence.
Mori was only marginally aware of the hot air rushing in through the broken glass, or the sudden tang of sea air, or what might have become of Robin. All her wolf saw was an injured dominant that needed killing. She leapt without hesitation, knocking Michael to his side and following him down. Her teeth closed over his throat with a satisfying snap, his pulse thudding against her lips. She bit down enough to break skin and shook her muzzle, dragging his head back and forth.
Dire ritual dictated that when a new dominant attempted to wrest control from the alpha, there always came this moment. It was the old alpha’s one chance to relinquish control without fighting to the death. All Michael’s wolf had to do was relax his muscles and give one short whine.
Mori waited, feeling his pulse race against her tongue. But instead of relaxing his muscles, he tightened them. He wanted to fight it out? Then fight they would.
They exploded in a tangle of limbs and teeth and fur. She had no idea what she was biting — only that if it wasn’t attached to her, it was fair game. They rolled into the edge of the desk, and Michael’s wolf took advantage of her cracking her skull against the wood to back away and regroup.
Not happening.
She charged again, drawing blood from a bite to his neck. Pain shot through her left shoulder as he made heavy contact. The injured haunch was her target, and they rolled back and forth across the floor, knocking furniture aside and ignoring the glass from the broken window. Always, she tried to twist herself into biting range of the injured haunch.
“Mori, hold him still so I can get off a shot!”
The noise came to her, but the bloodlust was greater. The weakness lay in the bloody hind limb. She had to reach it, had to tear it open.
“Mori! Hold him still!”
The noise filtered through again; only, this time, she recognized it. Kell’s voice. Kell wanted to kill the dominant, but that was her job. He was hers.
She pivoted again, at last finding what she sought. Her teeth sank into the ragged, bleeding wound, and her ears filled with the howl of the alpha before the world exploded around her in five sharp pops and the sting of a bullet.
EPISODE 8
CHAPTER 29
Kell managed to roll himself toward the spot where his weapon had fallen and then pushed himself into a seated position against the wall. He aimed, pulled back, and aimed again, glad the wolf had mangled his left hand instead of his shooting hand. Still, he hesitated.
The two wolves had similar markings, but the male wolf was slightly larger, maybe a hand taller and broader across the shoulders. His muzzle was a silvery gray, whereas when Mori had shifted, in the brief moment he saw her, he thought her wolf’s muzzle was black. But they were a constantly moving tangle of teeth and blood and fur.
He shouted for Mori to stop moving so he could get a clean shot, but she was beyond hearing. If he waited until he was totally in the clear, Benedict might kill her.
Finally, after his second shout, Mori’s wolf paused briefly before resuming her attack. In that moment, Kell took his best shot. For agonizing seconds, he wasn’t sure if he’d hit the right wolf — not until Benedict shifted back to his human form, unconscious, his neck and chest a bloody battlefield.
Mori’s wolf watched the transformation before leaping to place her teeth over his throat. She started to bite down, but hesitated.
Shit, is she going to kill him?
Kell had a split-second moral conflict. He wanted Benedict dead. All the way into Galveston this morning, he’d sensed that one of them — either Benedict or himself — would not survive the day.
But if Mori killed him now, it wouldn’t be self-defense. Not with Benedict unconscious.
“Mori, stop.”
The massive wolf looked up at him, her teeth still locked on Benedict’s neck. She hadn’t bitten down, but she hadn’t let go, either. Her eyes were a deep-goldenrod yellow, and blood covered patches of her silver-and-sable coat, tinged with touches of gold. He couldn’t tell how much of the blood was hers, but figured most of that coating her black muzzle was Benedict’s.
He also didn’t know how much of Mori remained inside the wolf. In his head, he’d known she was a shifter, but it was an abstract sort of knowledge. Things had been moving so quickly that he’d never taken the time to think about what that truly meant, about how much of her was inside when the wolf was dominant.
But he had to figure out something fast because the wolf had shifted her gaze from him back down to Benedict, and her muzzle was wrinkling like Gator’s when he cornered a lizard in the cabin. Only, the teeth of a Dire Wolf were a hell of a lot longer than those of a Catahoula hound.
Kell tried to stand — hell, even to roll to his knees — but after being still for a few minutes, the pain of movement was blinding. As the adrenaline drained, he realized that, if nothing else, he’d managed to get his back good and truly fucked this time. He cursed and settled back against the wall, closing his eyes and waiting for the pain to ease before he could try again, all the while hoping Mori wouldn’t tear out Benedict’s throat in the meantime.
At the sound of a high-pitched whine, he opened his eyes and found her wolf focused on him again, her head raised and away from Benedict for the first time since he’d fired his weapon. Was it his imagination, or did she look concerned? This might be his last chance to get through to her.
“Mori, listen to me. Do not kill him. Don’t.”
The wolf looked down again, and Kell banged the gun on the floor to get her attention.
“This is not who you are, Mori. He deserves it, but not like this. You won’t be able to live with it.”
She looked at him a moment longer before hanging her head with another high whine. Then she ran from the office, her paws slipping on the bloody hardwood floor for a few steps before she gained purchase and disappeared into the hallway.
Damn it.
Gritting his teeth against the spears of pain that gouged into his back with every movement, Kell half rolled, half pushed
himself closer to Benedict’s body until he could set a couple of fingers against his neck. A rapid thump from his carotid pulsed against Kell’s fingertips. The son of a bitch was alive, which meant he’d heal. Who knew how long it would be before he regained consciousness?
Kell understood Mori’s impulse. He was tempted to dig that other combat knife out of its sheath and carve out the SOB’s heart or put the gun to his temple and scatter his brains across Seawall Boulevard. Who would know? Moreover, who would care?
He would. Apparently, he’d found another line he couldn’t cross. Instead of contemplating Benedict’s murder, he needed to find Robin. He needed to stop Mori from running away and starting this whole cycle again.
Walking. That had to be his first priority. Slipping the gun into his pocket, Kell crawled to the edge of the desk. He reached up and clutched the same corner Benedict had slammed him into, what, an hour earlier? Two hours? Time had become muddy and abstract.
His swollen left hand slid off the desk, slick with blood, unable to hang on. He suspected at least one finger had been broken in the grips of the wolf’s massive jaws. He reached up with his right hand instead, grasped the beveled edge of the desk, and finally pulled himself to his knees.
So far so good. Sweat broke out on his forehead from the exertion, and a bead trickled down the side of his face. He’d fought through pain before, and he could do it again. Only, the nausea had never been this bad. The more he moved, the more stomach-churning waves washed over him.
Pressing his lips together tightly, he slid his left leg forward until his knee bent at a ninety-degree angle, then shifted his weight onto it. His thigh muscles burned in protest at having to do all the lifting, but they responded. It seemed as if the process took an hour, but eventually, he managed some pathetic, hunched-over version of standing.
“Did that slobbering, four-legged fuckwad bleed all over my clothes?”
Omega Force 01- Storm Force Page 22