by Ruby Raine
Brother to save! Get a move on.
Was every guy on the Isle suddenly too hot for their own damn good? And suddenly interested in her? She turned and scurried into the bookstore.
“Emily!” she shouted expectantly.
Emily, upon hearing Melinda, popped out from behind a bookshelf.
Wonderful, loveable, predictable Emily.
“You’re okay,” she declared, rushing to hug Melinda.
“Um, yeah. I’m fine. Kind of great actually. Why?”
“Your brothers have been worried sick!” Emily explained. “Me too for that matter.”
“Oh. Well. I did leave in a bit of a huff this morning. I was mad at Charlie but I’m over it now. They could’ve called me on my cell.”
“Which you dropped in the kitchen,” Emily informed her.
“Oh, dang. Sorry,” she squeaked. And like I would have answered.
“Well, at least you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I am.” She shook her head. “I am more than okay. But I’ll explain about that later. Charlie on the other hand, is not okay.” Melinda dragged Emily into a small office, shutting the door behind them. “But he will be okay if this plan goes right. Which it will.”
“What’s going on?” Emily was thrown off by Melinda’s energetic confidence.
Melinda gulped hard, clasping her hands together, smiling forcefully. All her teeth were showing and her shoulders lifted in a you’re not gonna like what I have say, manner.
“Melinda, what’s going on?” Emily’s tone turned suspicious.
“Emily, my dearest Emily. How do you feel about being captured by a werewolf?”
MACK MET THE BROTHERS at the door and motioned for them to come in. Her new deputy threw them an odd look, but said nothing. Mack took them into a temporary holding cell.
“Exam room’s already full,” she explained, turning to Charlie. “I need to know if you can I.D. this body. This woman was a tourist. But I think you might have known her.”
“What do you mean?” asked Charlie, confused. “I don’t really know any tourists.” Well, he knew a couple but few very well.
Mack sucked in a breath and upon exhaling explained, “This woman was still alive when she was found. Her throat was cut open, but she mumbled out two names before she died. Charlie. Howard.”
Who could it be? He rarely got friendly enough with any tourists for them to know him by name. Never mind to have his name someone’s final words.
He gazed down at the body. A sliver of dark skin not covered by the sheet.
Charlie tried to speak but stammered incoherently. He lunged forward tearing off the sheet. Nina’s lifeless and bloodied body lay on the table.
“It can’t be.” How could this happen? He grasped the side of the table to keep from falling over. How could this have happened? To her, to Nina. She’s too strong for this. Protected by her ring. His chest squeezed, his heart corkscrewed into a knot, air impossible to get enough of.
“Charlie,” Michael called out, realizing instantly that bringing him had been a mistake.
Charlie didn’t respond. He just stared at the dead body on the table. “Her name,” he spoke with great effort, “is Nina.”
“Does she have a last name?” Mack asked kindly. “I need to notify next of kin.”
“She doesn’t have a last name, and her kin will already know.” He gently touched Nina’s arm, stroking it fondly. “I’m so sorry.” He gazed into her empty eyes. He reached up and closed them, running his hand down her arm, lifting her cold hand, shakily caressing her fingers.
“Who did this to you?” Who could have done this to you? You can’t be hurt like this.
Michael huffed, confused. “What do you mean, her kin, Charlie? Who is she?”
Charlie could not answer.
Fury erupted inside him.
He grabbed Nina’s other hand. She wasn’t wearing her ring, the ring that should have protected her from such an injury. Why would she not be wearing it? Why would she have removed it?
He let go, backing away from the table. Chest heaving, a surge of emotion charging through him.
He exhaled with a pained cry, hands reaching up to grasp the sides of his head as if something was hurting him. A menacing echo forged into his thoughts.
“Come and find me,” it growled. “I killed her, Charlie. I will kill everything you love until you bow down to me.”
The alpha werewolf. It was in his mind.
It had done this to Nina.
It may not have killed the man left in the park the night before, but it was a killer. And it would pay for its crimes.
Charlie responded by pounding his fists into the brick walls lining the inside of the cell, shouting violently as he did. The wall shattered upon impact, sending brick and stone flying across the room.
“Get out!” Charlie spat at the walls. “Get out and lock the door!”
Michael grabbed the sheriff and bounded outside of the cell, locking it.
“Just give in,” the alpha’s voice lamented in Charlie’s mind. “Give in and no one else will get hurt.”
Charlie fell to the floor, doubling over as the desire to let out the wolf sent him into a rage. He shouted horrifically, begging his body not to give in.
The alpha echoed in his head, again.
“Just give in this one time,” its voice enticed. “You won’t ever have to fight it again.”
Charlie could feel the moon’s pull almost tearing the wolf out of his unwilling skin. Breathe, he repeated. Just breathe. Ignore the voice.
“I can still reach the body,” he heard Michael telling the sheriff. “Maybe it will tell us who we’re looking for.” Michael reached through the bars.
“No!” Charlie warned in a pained voice. “You can’t read her, Michael.” Charlie’s face was red, blood vessels protruding from his skin.
“Who the hell is she, Charlie?”
“A Guardian, Michael. Nina is a Guardian.”
Michael pulled back his hand, in stunned awe. A Guardian... They were some of the most powerful beings in existence. Chances were it would do permanent brain damage if he tried to read her death.
Charlie struggled to his feet. It took everything he had to do it. He held onto the bars and tried to explain. He struggled to find the right words, and when he spoke, it came out labored.
“Nina is the woman I’ve been seeing every summer.”
Only Michael realized what he was talking about, and it made sense, at least from what Michael knew about Guardians. They wore a ring, which protected them from normal dangers. It also enhanced their strength and made their bodies impenetrable. Without the ring though...
Michael sighed as it all fell into place.
Charlie would have been able to be himself, completely, with a Guardian, unlike a human woman. He also realized why he had never gone into any real detail; the world of the Guardians was quite secretive. They rarely showed themselves to humans at all, and few outside the supernatural world even knew of their existence.
“A little confused here,” Mack chimed in.
“To be honest, Mack, I don’t think this woman had anything to do with the whole werewolf thing. Just wrong place, wrong time. I’ll explain later.”
“What are we going to do about Charlie?”
Charlie had slid down to the floor and was panting, heavily.
“Do whatever you have to,” Charlie spoke hoarsely. “I’m not going to make it.” The wolf is winning.
Out of nowhere, William materialized into the room, coming to an abrupt stop. “Actually,” he announced emphatically, “we have to let Charlie out of the cell.”
MELINDA STOOD IN FRONT of the house in which the Guardian named Nina had been staying. She felt weird stepping into a house she had never been in before.
“You did, sort of, technically meet her.” She slipped inside the house. Upon entering, she huffed out a burst of air. “Look at this place! How the hell am I going to find a ring in all this?”
<
br /> She tossed around blankets, pillows, and strewn about couch cushions, kicked an empty bottle of tequila out her way, and tried not to cut herself on a broken vase, while scouring the floor for Nina’s ring.
“What the heck was she doing in here, anyway? I know this isn’t where she died.”
Melinda stood up and closed her eyes, the realization hitting her.
“Nina was Charlie’s summer fling. Yuck. And not a visualization I need right now.”
She ran into the kitchen and washed her hands. Nina had known many things about Charlie. She’d known a lot about Melinda too. But now that she thought back, Nina’s knowledge of Charlie had an intimate edge to it.
“C’mon,” Melinda scolded herself. “It’s here somewhere.”
She opened every drawer and cupboard, looking for the black ring that Nina had told her she would need to save Charlie. After not finding it in the kitchen, she moved on to the bathroom and then the closets.
“One room left,” she said, putting her hand on the doorknob to the bedroom.
Melinda gasped after opening the door.
The black ring lay in the middle of the bed, on a blanket of perfect white.
All Nina had told Melinda was that she had taken off the ring before she died and it needed to be given to Charlie. He needed to put it on his finger, and Nina had explained that Melinda would arrive at the exact moment Charlie needed the ring.
Something bothered Melinda about the placement of the ring.
“It’s like she was planning on dying.” An eerie sadness crept into her gut.
Melinda did not pretend to understand. She reached down, scooping up the ring into the palm of her hand and raced out of the house to find the sun had set, and the moon was rising.
She gulped, hard. “Nina said I would get there at the exact right moment.”
Could a Guardian be wrong?
Melinda took off running.
She knew exactly where she needed to go.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, LET him out?” asked Michael.
“My thoughts exactly,” agreed the sheriff.
“I have it on very good authority that we need to let him out,” William spoke decisively.
“You can’t,” Charlie pleaded. “I’ll hurt someone. I might kill someone.”
“Actually, Charlie, you’re going to lead us to the alpha.”
“How?”
“By tuning into his thoughts, you can track him. Once you lead us there, we will kill him.”
“Do you think we can?” Michael dared keep a glimmer of hope.
“Yes. I can.” Mack pulled three silver bullets out of her pocket. “Just get me a clear shot, and the alpha’s done for.” She looked nervously toward Charlie.
“Just promise me, sheriff, that you won’t be afraid to use those on me if something goes wrong.”
“You know I don’t want to, but you know I will.”
“I don’t know about this,” Michael doubted. “What do you mean, good authority, William?”
“Melinda.”
“You saw her?” Charlie asked.
“Did she have a dream?” Michael questioned.
“She’s fine. No time for details.” William headed toward Charlie’s cell. “But I trust this plan, with complete certainty,” he claimed, looking Charlie in the eye.
Something he heard in William’s definitive tone and determined face calmed him. Made him feel as though he could trust whatever plan was in motion. “What do I need to do?”
“Let the alpha into your mind.”
Charlie nodded apprehensively. He dragged himself back up, leaning his head onto the bars, opening his mind to the alpha’s thoughts.
William motioned for Michael and Mack to back away.
“What’s going on, William?” Michael’s patience was wearing thin and the vampire clearly knew more than he was telling them.
“This is Charlie’s final test,” William told them, which clarified nothing.
Michael just stood looking dumbfounded, waiting for William to explain. He did not, instead giving Michael a warning. “You must prepare yourself. What you’re about to hear will be infuriating, but you must believe me when I promise that everything will be all right.”
Michael looked about as ready to implode as Charlie did. It was unlike William to be so cryptic. That wasn’t true. But this was definitely extra cryptic even for him.
Charlie gripped the bars of his cell like they were the only thing keeping his body from ripping into pieces. The alpha’s voice rang through his thoughts. It didn’t hurt if he didn’t fight it.
“I will make you transform,” he heard the alpha sneer.
“No, you won’t,” Charlie panted. “But I am coming to kill you,” he warned defiantly.
“To revenge your Guardian,” the alpha taunted. “She walked right up to me and didn’t even fight when I gutted her throat.”
“I won’t let you hurt anyone else. I won’t allow you to control me.”
The night sky brightened outside the window in Charlie’s cell. The moon was full and rising fast. He clutched his chest and cried out in anguish. “I won’t fucking turn!”
“I thought it might come to this,” the alpha expressed, sounding bored. “So I found myself a little insurance.”
Charlie heard a familiar voice, through the alpha’s mind.
“Another easy target,” it snarled. “Found her wandering down a pathway you’ll now follow. If you refuse me, Charlie Howard, she dies.”
He started to shake uncontrollably. Silver ravaged his eyes, sucking away any sign of his normal blue. His arms and legs thickened, tearing through his clothes. He let out a sound that was a mix of howling, growling, and roaring, at the same time, grabbing the bars of the cell and pulling on them with great force.
The iron broke in his hands like twigs.
He lunged out of the cell, his chest heaving.
“He’s taken Emily,” his voice rattled ferociously. His eyes looked venomous as he bounded out of the morgue.
Michael just stared in awe, unable to move or put together a clear thought.
“I know where Charlie is going,” William advised.
“We’ll take my car.” Mack loaded the three bullets into her gun.
“Michael,” William called out.
Michael was in a numb haze. He felt William nudge him toward the door and his body begrudgingly moved.
CHARLIE RACED OUT OF the morgue and down a small alley to the back of the building, running into the woods. He sniffed the air, smelling for the alpha.
“You can’t kill me,” it scoffed. “Not while you’re still holding onto your fear.”
“I don’t fear you,” Charlie’s thoughts screamed back at the alpha.
“But you fear the wolf. And unless you become the wolf, you won’t be strong enough to kill me.”
Charlie skidded to a stop. He knew the alpha was right. He wasn’t strong enough. He took a cleansing breath and spoke calmly. “I might die trying, but I won’t let you hurt Emily. Or anyone else.” He ran forward, deeper into the woods, stopping when he spotted movement ahead. He could see the alpha. Waiting for him.
The alpha, in werewolf form, was much more menacing than the wolf that had bitten Charlie ten years ago. It stood over seven feet tall, its body slim and muscular. It reared its head upon seeing Charlie’s shadow emerging from the woods.
It gnashed its jagged teeth, readying to battle.
“Surrender yourself, or die!” it threatened.
Charlie saw Emily tied to a tree just to the side of a small bonfire. He let out a primal cry as he sprang out of the woods. He assumed the alpha would expect him to stop and confront him, try to talk him out of all this, so instead he rushed forward, plowing his partially transformed body straight into the werewolf.
Emily closed her eyes as a vicious fight erupted. Melinda had promised her everything would be fine, but seeing Charlie trying to fight this terrifying creature concerned her immensely.
&n
bsp; MICHAEL DIDN’T REMEMBER walking to, or getting into the sheriff’s car.
He didn’t remember the ride.
He did remember arriving, stopping, storming out of the car, and confronting William. “What did you do?” he roared at the vampire. “Offer up Emily as bait?”
William calmly put his hand on Michael’s shoulder.
“I swear to you, Michael, that Emily will not be harmed.”
“How can you know that? How can you be so calm? How could you allow this to happen?”
William sighed. He’d expected nothing less of a response.
Michael stuck his face right in front if William’s. “If anything happens to her, I will drive a stake through your fucking heart, William. Without a second thought.”
“Michael, if anything happens to Emily, I will drive a stake through my own heart.”
Michael backed down, saying no more. He turned and followed Mack. She had her gun cocked and ready to shoot, working down a pathway. He wanted to storm by her, but she motioned for him to stay put behind her.
The smell of saltwater wafted through the trees, followed by the flickering flames of a bonfire.
When Michael, Mack, and William stepped over a small ridge, they saw Charlie, still only partially transformed, crouching, as a fully transformed werewolf stared him down. There was blood dripping down Charlie’s arm as well as the alpha’s face.
Michael paced and searched desperately for Emily. “Do you have a shot?” he asked Mack, too loudly.
“Not yet,” she mumbled. “And stay put, would ya, Michael. I don’t need to worry about shootin’ you by accident!”
The alpha swung his arm at Charlie’s head, missing it as Charlie ducked out of the way.
“You know you want to give in,” the alpha jeered. “You want to kill me, I can feel it.”
Charlie ignored the alpha’s taunts, focusing on his movements. He heard the others arrive but gave them no mind, unwilling to give the alpha the advantage of catching him off guard.
William used his vampire senses and located Emily, struggling to free herself. Within an instant, he dashed to her side, freed her, and delivered her safely into Michael’s arms.