by Paula Black
Ooohhh ... Tempering the urge to bite him, she snarled her whispered anger against his ear. ‘Get out? The way you ‘got out’ of the forest?’ Snapping mad, her nails dug into his shoulders. ‘You left!’
The hissed accusation cut through him like a blade, the clawed half moons of her nails in his flesh roughening his voice. ‘I came back, you were gone. I can explain everything, if you just let me take you away from this place.’ The scent on her hair was clean, synthetically perfumed soap. So quick to wash his scent from her skin, when he still wore hers.
‘Explain? There’s a lot of things you have to explain and I’m not going anywhere with you until you have!’ They were moving slowly, swaying an instinctive beat to the music that swelled, hypnotic, around them. The rhythm brushed her thighs to his, stroked her fingers around his nape and ground her hips in slow circles with every step.
Though he fought the raw flashbacks to the forest his mind was throwing up, his body knew hers, remembered exactly how they had fit together, how her spine had bowed in his hands. Hands that moved now to map the lush curve of her ass and the backs of her thighs. The memories pulsed through him like electrical echoes, his blood pumping with aftershocks of his release inside her. This girl made him lose control.
‘I had to go, Ash. I could have hurt you.’ There was a strain in his voice that made it husky and cracked.
‘Hurt me? Yeah, ‘cause I remember, I was screaming for my life.’
Raising one hand, the backs of his fingers brushed her cheek, sweeping her hair around the shell of her ear, his breath a hot caress to skin. The need to touch her was a compulsion. ‘I never left you, not really.’
His lips moved against the silky heat of her skin as he spoke, velvet-soft, intimate friction, such a contrast to the savage collision of flesh, the bruising impacts that had brought them together in the forest only hours before. Her screams of pleasure still rang in his ears.
‘These men will hurt you. They haven’t brought you here to give you answers.’ Urgency laced his harshly whispered words. ‘Your friend, the doctor, is arranging your abduction as we speak.’
‘He’s ... huh? He’s a doctor.’ As though that makes everything better. ‘He’s more likely to put me in a straightjacket and settle me in a crazy cell than kidnap me.’ The whole thing sounded ridiculous but that underlying layer of doubt crept in, niggling in her head to tell her she was missing something crucial.
‘A doctor on the surface. These men are traffickers, Ash. They traffic women. They hurt women.’
‘The way you thought you’d hurt me? Oh my God, you’re one of them, you’re a ... trafficker.’
One of them? He was so much worse. Caught in a room full of devils, and he was the deep blue sea, liable to drown her as soon as save her. ‘If I’d wanted to kill you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
She wasn’t sure how they were having this conversation, spun so quickly on its head. From sex trade to murder in the span of a few choice words. Her fingers wrapped in his dreads, the coiled strands dark, wooly and soft, stroking her skin. She tugged, harshly demanding his attention. ‘Kill me? No, you don’t want to kill me, you just, what, need me to help you bury another body?’ She hissed the end words, fisting his hair tighter until they were as close as they could get with clothes on. She sizzled. And snapped in the tension that had gathered them into their own bubble of angry frustration. ‘What do you want with me?! I mean, really. Who am I, some girl from across the sea, to you? Who are you? The Big Bad, wolf-killing stalker! Who am I to every guy in this country who suddenly decides he wants me? Wants me enough to pin me in an alley, or touch my coat and invite me home? Is it just here? Or am I suddenly beautiful everywhere?’ She scoffed, paused to draw a breath heavy with his scent. ‘Ever since I set foot in this place, I’ve been attacked and stalked, buried a giant fucking wolf-thing, been left in a forest and now you’re telling me a doctor and his Stormtrooper macho-men want to kidnap me? Who the hell are you?!’
‘I am your worst nightmare, Ash, and your only hope of getting out of here alive.’ The breadth of his large hand fused to the base of her spine, dragging her closer. His arm wound up into the luxuriant fall of her hair, mirroring the grip she had on his dreads, arching the milky curve of her slender throat, forcing her gaze back on him. Tears of frustration were brimming in those eyes, like jewelled sapphires. He had to make her see.
‘You coming here was no accident, Ashling. There are no coincidences. Everything that’s happened, everything, is connected. I told you the truth. I am a hunter. You saw that beast with your own eyes. Look around you now. There is only one predator here, Ash, and right now, you are the prey.’
Ash didn’t want to look, if he wasn’t crazy, if she wasn’t crazy, then there was a real possibility of her turning her head and being plummeted into a nightmare.
She had been so deadly aware of the heavy gazes of the occupants of the table she’d abandoned, up until his fingers had brushed the backs of her thighs and her body went hyper, shutting down and zoning in to the press of his body to hers, the raw masculine scent of him the only oxygen she could draw in. To look now would break that, it would invade their space of electric heat coalescing into something more than anger.
Risking a glimpse, it was nothing more than a fluttering of her lashes over her shoulder. His tsk of disapproval sounded close to her ear.
‘Look closer, use your vision, look beneath the shell. Check out your new friends now, Little Red.’
Fist clenching in the falls of his hair, Ash was braced against his body, stoking up some nerve to just look. ‘Dude, you’re whacked, they’re just ...’ She took one hand from his hair and waved it at the table, her voice trailed off, eyes following the path of her dismissal to catch and look closer. The club could have dropped out of existence, the world could have exploded, Connal could have grown another head and she wouldn’t have noticed. The universe stopped.
Nightmares flickered where she’d been sat, the males were human looking, broad and tall as they had been, there was just something amiss. Like a second image superimposed and living over the first. Not human. So far from it, the figures beneath could have been stick men in comparison to the bestial visage. Huge, furred with thick pelts and long limbs, handsome faces disappeared under the long wolf-like muzzle of a creature she shared her sleeping mind with. The thing they’d buried could have been a smaller cousin, it had lacked the bulk of these males, didn’t have the wicked, clawed talons curving from hands more paw than human appendage. They were monstrous, as monstrous as her nightmares had shown her. More upright, with squared jaws that crushed like a wolf’s couldn’t. Fuck no ...
Ash was scrabbling at Connal’s chest, clawing into his shirt, her blood ice-cold and dragging any colour she may have had in her face to drop into nothingness. She could feel shock set in, eyes wide, vision blurring, tongue thick and layered in the coppery tang of blood as she threw words at him. ‘Getmethefuckoutofhere!!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
'Shit, I can hear them following.’ Panic leached into her voice as he steered her through the maze of corridors, hustling past the Thralls wandering the halls of Form like stoned stripper extras from a zombie flick. She did a terror-clouded double take at a couple; the female’s foggy eyes lighting up a split-second before she sank her teeth, with a throaty, sex-filled moan, into the neck of the wolf grinding her through a wall.
‘They can’t touch us until we get outside.’ She threw him a puzzled look as he pushed through a set of double fire doors. ‘This place is what you might call neutral territory.’
‘Territory? What is this, some gangland turf war? Why don't we just call the police?’ The look he cut her could have iced Hell over, and she quelled another question, biting down on her tongue and praying he’d answer as she fought to keep up with his forward pace.
‘These things have no respect for the law, Ash. They don’t have an issue with collateral human damage. You want to sign some beat cop’s deat
h warrant? Be my guest.’
No. She didn’t want blood on her hands. Swallowing, Ash offered another question into the strain. ‘Well not to be Captain Obvious here, but what exactly happens when we do get outside?’
‘Liath is waiting in the alley with a car.’ Connal was all focus, marching her forward, jaw set with grim determination.
‘Liath?!’ Ash grabbed his bicep in a vain attempt to divert his attention to her, but he pushed on and she stumbled to catch up, huffing consternation.
‘She called me when you went below deck with Dr. Frank-N-Flirter.’
‘Fuck, is there anybody here not stalking my every action?’
The petulance in her voice got his hackles up. ‘Liath is risking her ass to get you away from here.’
Ash fell silent. Connal punched through the emergency exit and they spilled out into the night. The beat-up yellow Ford Fiesta was there waiting, engine idling, coughing up tarry fumes that tainted the air with their acrid scent. He popped the passenger door and Liath’s blonde head dipped, jade eyes met his, betraying the urgency they all felt.
‘Take her home Liath. Don’t stop for anything, and when she’s locked inside, you pick up Josh and head on over to your mother’s. You’ll be safe there.’
‘Shouldn’t I take Ash with me?’
‘No.’ Ash insisted. ‘I’m not putting you or your little boy in danger.’
‘The house is guarded. Old Mrs DeMorgan set up wards. Ash will be ok there.’ Trapping her in the circle of his arm, he propped the car door open, leaving her no option but to slide into the passenger seat. He slammed the door. She rolled down the window.
‘You’re not coming?’
Connal shook his head. ‘These boys want a pissing contest, I’ll give them one.’
‘But ...’ The exit doors flung open like a gust of wind had ripped through them, the streak of movement so fast as to be indiscernible as Fite, until he was plowing into Connal, slamming him up onto the hood of the Fiesta. The car jolted, bouncing the occupants in their seats, the bodywork crumpled under the force of the impact, the windshield crazing into a spider web of hairline cracks that sagged inward, threatening to spill Connal right into Ash’s lap. Their eyes met briefly, her expression frantic, before Fite’s fist landed a bone-crunching contact with his jaw, temporarily stealing his sight.
‘This is for Crys, you fucking son of a bitch!’
Fite spat the words in his face like venom, cocking back his arm, the lethal metal tips of his gloved hand bared in a claw, he punched down, stabbing deep into Connal’s side, five ripping penetrations that tore through the muscle and tendon of his ribcage.
Connal roared, knees kicked up on instinct, he planted his soles on Fite’s chest, the power of his thrust sending the male recoiling across the alley. His body sang with agony as he popped his spine off the hood of the Fiesta, leaving a massive, man-sized crater of a dent in his wake. Dreads whipped around his face as he wheeled towards the windshield. Wild-eyed, teeth bared and outlined in his own blood, he barked the order at Liath. ‘Drive!! Fucking drive!’
Liath looked like she was about to lose it. He held her horrified gaze, bending her to his will, crushing the second thoughts that played across her features. The gearbox crunched, the engine over-revved in her panic, already the bodies were pouring through the club exit like oily shadows, the car lurched and Connal’s gut took a ride along with it, but she pulled it together, released the parking brake and floored the accelerator. The little car tore out of the alley, clearing the stage for something far more sinister.
Connal stood in the spot of the yellow streetlight, his breath sawing, blood, wet and hot, saturating his shirt. The wolves had filed out to line the shadowy walls of the alley and block its exit. Snarling and baited by the scent of fresh blood, their eyes glowed red. All were trained on him. Doyle stood cross-armed, guarding the pool of light above the club’s door, smokes tucked under the sleeve of his plain white tee. He wore the kind of smirk that spoke volumes about Connal’s chances of walking away from this fight alive.
‘I want my pound of flesh from this fucker.’ Brandr pushed off the wall and stepped forward. Fite inclined his head to the warrior, eerily-slanted eyes sliding to lock Connal in a hostile glare. With fluid motion, the white-haired warrior lifted his clawed right hand and slowly licked the blood from the steel tips of the leather glove.
Connal laughed like a wet chainsaw. ‘You girls keep eyeballing me with all these ‘do me’ vibes, and I’m liable to slap you in the face with the immensity of my hard-on.’ Arms spread, he flipped his palms up and motioned with his fingers for them to bring it. Every stalling moment he could keep the wolves focus on him was a moment bought for Ash.
What transpired next went down so quickly that even if human eyes could see it through the veil of the red fog, they would struggle to decipher the sequential changes that transformed men to ravaging beasts. A symphony of growls ripped through the air. Brandr and Fite sneered in unison, baring lethally-daggered, ivory canines. The air around them shimmered like a mirage as features began to stretch and morph, cloth seams ripping, silhouettes growing at grossly distorted, inhuman angles. They charged Connal, barrelling into a frenzied mauling of snapping jaws and flying fur, torquing power that clamped down on jugulars, claws that tore viciously, scoring flesh in ragged gashes until their three bodies rolled slippery in the slick of crimson bathing the alley’s floor, their pelts dyed red in the bloody carnage, the tumble and gore disorientating to the point that the wolves temporarily lost the focus of their attack.
From within the roiling twist of fur, Fite emerged, human in form, drenched in blood and swearing a blue streak. His upper lip was ripped open, one side of his moustache drooping from the gaping wound. ‘Brandr, you took my face off, you fucking idiot.’ He growled.
The massive black wolf bulldozed Connal’s body into the wall before leaping back, morphing back to human form mid-air. In all his naked, bloodied glory, the male grinned a sinister smile at his friend, hauling air through a powerful set of lungs. ‘Collateral ‘tash damage.’ His grin widened. ‘You always did have a big fucking mouth.’ Brandr was in his element, never more alive than when he was elbow deep in slaughter.
Connal’s spine slumped down the rough brick wall of the alley, human legs splayed at odd angles, his lungs pumped erratically, his skin was slashed with viscera like a sadistic butcher had gone noughts and crosses on his flesh with a meat cleaver. A sick, wet, bubbling sound gurgled from the holes where his chest had sprung multiple leaks. Fite’s claws had turned him into a human colander. Rough laughter cost him in agony, dreads whipped up as he threw back his head, using the wall as a crutch to support his lolling neck. It had been over a millennium since he had been outclassed in a fight. He stood to lose his head here. The pain wracking his body was a macabre novelty, so long had he been numb. Death was a taste in his mouth, a thing he’d fantasised about so often in the long, lonely stretch of his immortality. Better to burn out than to fade away ... Be careful what you wish for. The clichés were coming hard and thick. The irony was not lost on him. The very thing that had resuscitated his will to live would be the means to end his life. He fancied he could still feel her soft hands at his nape, the scented veil of her raven hair curtaining his vision, but suspected it was the rapid swelling of his injuries and the lure of unconsciousness drawing his lids to hover at half-mast.
‘Where is the old witch to protect you now, Vargrliker?’ Brandr planted his foot solidly into Connal’s flank. His body indented like a sack of flour, forcing a groan from his chest, though he was beyond pain, lost in wondering what death would be like when she finally came to greet her elusive prodigal son. ‘Is she good with a needle and thread? Perhaps she can re-attach your head.’ He scrubbed at the beard on his jaw and laughed at his own sick little rhyme.
‘The stinking Judas does not deserve a warrior’s death.’ Fite spat in Connal’s face while he held his own ragged cheek together with steel-clawed fingers. ‘Le
t the dogs finish him.’ Low-growled approval stirred amongst the red-eyed circle of shadows already closing in for the kill.
Brandr fisted a bunch of Connal’s dreads and yanked, hard, getting eyeball to eyeball in a sneer. ‘Know as you die, traitor, that we are gone to claim your woman. She will be screaming our names in ecstasy as you beg the very dogs you have hunted all your life to grant you a merciful death.’
‘Poetic justice?’ Fite quirked a brow, amused.
‘Just call me the Barbarian Poet.’ Brandr’s laughter was deep-throated as he turned his back on the slumped and broken warrior.
‘Breathe in violence, breathe out poetry.’ Fite clapped a hand to the male’s shoulder. ‘But now I have need of an artist. Where is that cockless runt of a doctor to stitch my face?’ Fite fell into step with his brother in arms, their footfalls bouncing off the walls of the alley as they abandoned Connal to his fate.
The sweet, woody scent of tobacco smoke reached Connal’s nostrils. He could hazard a guess that Doyle was propping up the wall, enjoying a post-coital cigarette. Connal’s words were barely audible, a hoarse, voiceless gurgle in his throat. ‘Should have taken my head.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Hours. it had been hours, it had to have been hours. She stared at the wall ahead of her. Her head was ringing, thoughts pinging around and hitting off panic until she vibrated with tension, shivering a teeth-chattering attack of paralysing fear. She couldn’t move, she knew she had to, had to at least get into a cupboard or something so she wasn’t within shooting range of a window. They probably wouldn’t even use guns, they’d just rip her head off with giant ice-pick claws and leave her mutilated body to rot in the house until Liath came back and noticed the smell. If she ever came back. Had she made it to her mom? Would they go after her? Ash was trapped in a vortex of spiraling questions, too many worst case scenarios and no answers. Her nightmare was real and she was still expecting to wake up to Setty smothering her.