by JJ King
She took an immediate step forward then felt Quinn’s hand on her arm, pulling her down roughly toward the ground. She growled for a split second before realizing that she was being incredibly stupid once again. She breathed deeply and mentally shook herself then looked around for cover. “Sorry,” she muttered and then focused all of her attention on doing the smart thing so that everyone involved stayed alive and well.
There was an expanse of grass before the building with trees sporadically spaced out, so they dashed forward and crouched behind an elm, which, despite its age, offered precious little coverage. Excitement and fear rose like bile in Katherine’s throat as she suddenly and intensely caught the scent of both Rachel and the hunter. The need to leap into action filled her chest with an ache but she forced herself to stay calm and cool.
“I’m going to call in backup,” she whispered, careful to keep her voice low.
While Quinn kept a watch out for danger Katherine reached for her radio and, stupidly, almost dropped it in her rush to contact Anthony. She forced herself to slow down and stay as quiet as possible. If the hunter heard anything he would kill Rachel or use her as a shield.
She motioned to Quinn that she needed to move back to use the radio and he nodded. He inclined his head toward the building and then pointed to the ground. She smiled and nodded.
She stayed low and moved silently back around fifty feet so her voice wouldn’t be heard. There was a huge chance they’d already been spotted by the hunter but she didn’t want to discount luck or the protection of the Old Ones just yet.
She brought the radio up to where she could see it. They needed Anthony and another backup at their location as soon as possible. Thankfully the radio was top of the line and didn’t give off any feedback when she pushed the button to speak.
“Kat to Tony. 911. Out.”
It took only a moment before she heard her brother’s anxious voice.
“Kat? Did you find something? Out.”
“We found her necklace. Her scent is all over it and so is his. We tracked them to an unrented office building but we haven’t gotten a visual yet. And Tony? It feels like a trap. Out.”
There was a momentary pause before the radio clicked softly once and Tony whispered a cracked “Thank you, Kat. Thank you.” Even through the radio she could hear his relief. He sounded like a man coming up for air. Then his voice shifted and he became the epitome of an Alpha, his power ringing clearly through his whispers as he asked her for information. She whispered their GPS coordinates into the radio and then advised that she would be going under radio silence immediately.
“Agreed. ETA eight minutes and counting. Stay invisible and be safe. Don’t move until I get there. Out.”
She clicked her radio off, crawled back to Quinn as quickly as possible and relayed the message in hand signals. He nodded but looked at her with worried eyes.
“We were right the first time. This is definitely a trap.” His voice was little more than a whisper.
She breathed out through tensed lips and chewed on her lip. “Shit,” she breathed, “They’ll be here soon, though. We’ll sit still and wait.”
They didn’t have eight minutes to wait for backup.
The first shot exploded the Elm branch just inches from Katherine’s head and set her ears buzzing. A shower of splinters and leaves sprayed her body as she dove, out of sheer instinct, to the ground next to Quinn’s now prone body.
The second shot followed immediately but this time, it didn’t hit the tree. It slammed into Katherine’s left shoulder and ripped a gaping hole through her muscle and sinew, leaving behind a burning sensation that could only have been worse had the bullet not exited her body.
She sucked in a scream and grabbed at her shoulder. Quinn’s voice echoed through her ringing ears and his hands grabbed her, pulling her up as she scrambled to her feet.
“Run!”
They sprinted forward with all their innate speed, separating slightly to make them a harder target for the hunter, a trick ingrained in their wolf subconscious. The landscape around offered precious little cover and way too much possibility of being seen should they have to change to escape to Katherine sped towards the side of an adjacent building where a dark alley led to another street and knew that Quinn followed at her heels.
Bullets flew through the night, stirring the air around her body over and over, as she ran like a wild woman towards her only hope for freedom. Several bullets tore the skin and muscle of her body as she ran, praying that none of the shots found their home.
She should have prayed harder. One of the bullets finally struck her and stayed. The pain was overwhelming. She cried out and surged forward, desperate to keep her momentum. Vaguely she recognized Quinn screaming in rage and agony and she didn’t know if he’d been shot or if he was feeling her pain.
Katherine gripped her right arm with her left and held it close to her body, protecting it as she ran. Her mind was filled with pain so intense that she couldn’t think. A memory of being at the restaurant with Leigh and Victor flashed through her mind and she giggled a little hysterically. She never stopped running.
Quinn grunted in pain and she looked ahead to see him holding a hand to his side, his fingers holding back streaming blood. The haziness in her vision cleared and she ran to his side and urged him on. She felt her own fear of death mingle with her fear for Quinn’s safety and it gave her a surge of strength even as her body weakened from blood loss and silver poisoning.
Katherine gasped wildly as she leaped a fallen garbage can, taking in as much oxygen as possible so her muscles wouldn’t freeze up and betray her. She opened her mind and tried desperately to focus on the whole moment rather than just the frenetic slap of her footsteps against the concrete. She could hear Quinn’s ragged breathing next to her as they ran side by side through the alleys and shadows.
His voice was inside her mind now, urging her to move faster, urging himself to fight back. The fear he felt for her was tangible, it tasted like bitter herbs and damp earth.
Then he faltered as one more silver bullet ripped through the muscle of his thigh and his leg gave out. He fell towards an old crate that lay desolate and forgotten in this dark alley and turned his body to face her. His eyes met hers and she reached for him to keep him moving. Then she heard one more shot ring out, echoing off the walls of the alley, and her life exploded.
Chapter Twenty Three
Katherine watched in horror out of the corner of her eyes as the bullet ripped through Quinn’s chest, throwing him back violently against a nearby concrete wall. She knew a shot to the heart when she saw one and she knew, as well as anyone, that it meant instant death.
Her heart exploded in pain and grief. She closed her eyes and offered a silent prayer to the Old One’s for his soul then took a deep breath, resolved herself, and turned her head slowly to face the hunter.
His eyes were cold, like the silver he used to make his deadly bullets, and Katherine knew that she would probably soon be dead. The bullet wounds in her shoulder and legs would regenerate quickly, in a matter of minutes, if given the time, but time was a commodity she didn’t have.
She knew it was pointless but every cell in her body demanded that she not give up even if her soul would have welcomed it. Instinct overtook her. She knew that fighting back wasn’t going to work as an option if she wanted to live, so she chose the only other option, flight. Katherine swallowed her pride, and her loyalty to Quinn, and ran.
She ignored the gripping pain that seared through her body as she willed her limbs to cooperate. There was no hope of changing until she could rid her body of the bullets and find a safe location. Katherine could hear the fall of the hunter’s boots as he raced after her through what seemed like an endless maze of dark alleys. As she ran Katherine could feel her body expunging the silver even as it burned in her blood, pushing it out of her muscles and simultaneously healing itself. She felt stronger every moment and prayed for the possibility that she would get the c
hance to heal completely.
Katherine saw her hands fly out in front of her and gaped at them, wondering why she was falling to the ground when escape was so near. Her brain felt fuzzy and confused, and Katherine urged herself to get back up and run. Straining to understand her own actions, Katherine looked down at the crumpled body that she barely recognized as her own, and started to cry.
She was bleeding from over ten different wounds, newly inflicted, by the startlingly large semi-automatic the hunter now held above her prone body. Katherine’s system couldn’t deal with that much silver, and it reacted as if to an allergen, by shutting down and slowing to conserve energy. Katherine closed her eyes, tried to clear her mind, and push the pain aside. She was the daughter of the Alpha, a warrior to be reckoned with. She refused to die with tears on her face.
Katherine pushed with all of her strength and stumbled to her feet before the hunter. Her eyes were no longer confused or pleading for her life. They were hard and cold, just like his, and just like him, she stood proudly waiting for the inevitable. Katherine heard a gun cock and she closed her eyes.
The sound of the gun firing filled the alleyway, ricocheting off the concrete walls and echoing deafeningly in Katherine’s sensitive ears. Katherine felt the bullet rip through her chest and into her pounding heart. She collapsed and waited for the darkness to wash over her and the end to come.
She lay on the cold concrete and let her eyes close. Visions of her family filled her head with bittersweet memories and she couldn’t stop the tears that came. She felt the silver of the bullets burn inside her, overwhelming her and she released herself from the pain.
As she slipped into unconsciousness, she heard the roar of a second gunshot echo dimly behind her accompanied by a human scream of pain. With her last ounce of strength, she forced open her eyes just wide enough to see the Hunter’s body slide to the ground just behind Quinn whose eyes were staring at her in relief and utter disbelief.
With little effort, he picked her up and smiled down at her. Sleep now, Mia, he whispered inside her mind, you’ve been brave enough for one day. Sleep.
She smiled and was content in the knowledge that she and Quinn would be together forever in the life that comes after death.
♀♀♀
The morning light shone through a window casting reflections of blue and pink through a tiny prism that hung suspended from the pane. The dancing lights fell across Katherine’s face and gently woke her. Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton, dry and dusty, but her body felt fine. Yawning, she pushed herself up in bed and looked around. The room was painted a light blue and decorated with beautiful landscapes in print. She didn’t recognize any item she saw but the area smelled and felt like Quinn.
Katherine’s back stiffened. Quinn.
She scrambled out of bed, fighting against the sheets that threatened to hold her back. Her mind exploded with images of their encounter with the hunter. Memory fragments bombarded her in random sequences and her head began to ache just behind her temples.
She leaned against the bedpost and sagged to the floor, unable to hold her body upright. In a heap on the floor, she breathed, fighting hyperventilation, and forced the images to slow down and form a pattern.
The sound of her own heart, now beating wildly, was all she could hear. Her head thrummed to her pulse, refusing to quiet enough for her to think clearly. There was just too much information filling her mind.
She inhaled deeply and lowered her head to her chest, trying to relax her body and mind as she’d been taught by Sensei after Sensei in more than one martial arts class.
It took all of her concentration, but after a few minutes the pain in her head cleared and she began to think clearly. She opened herself back up to the images and the thoughts, putting them in context so that they made sense.
She pieced together her memory and watched in horror as her mind’s eye showed a bullet tearing through Quinn’s chest. She stopped, unable to continue as her body once again filled with unbelievable pain, this time from the hole that bore its way into her chest.
She gasped for air and clutched at her shirt, trying somehow to grab her heart and ease the swelling. It felt as though her chest would break open and spill her life’s blood.
Tears streamed from her eyes but she didn’t feel them. She didn’t understand how she wasn’t dying from the pain coursing through her body and mind. It didn’t seem possible that one person could feel this much pain and still live.
Then she understood. She was dead.
The certainty of that thought filled her and momentarily pushed aside her grief. She breathed in and out several times and each time her chest felt as though it were being squat with a compressor.
Why was she feeling pain if she was dead?
Another image flashed before her, the hunter aiming his gun at her chest and pulling the trigger. The report had been deafening and the blaze of the silver as it smashed into her heart had felt like death.
The bullet had hit her heart. She had to be dead.
But if she was dead then why did everything hurt? And why did she have another memory of Quinn’s face filling her line of sight, of his speaking to her and picking her up before everything went dark?
What the hell was going on?
She focused her memory on Quinn and replayed the scene in her mind. She remembered the moment she’d seen the silver slug enter Quinn’s chest and the blood that had poured from the gaping wound. There was no way any wolf could recover from a shot like that; direct entry to the heart…unless it hadn’t been a direct shot to the heart.
Unless she’d been delusional from her own wounds and she’d imagined that the bullet had hit Quinn’s heart.
That was it, she’d been filled with silver, her body burning and dying. There was no way that she would have been completely lucid in that moment. The memory of being shot in the heart and watching Quinn be shot in the heart were fabrications of her traumatized mind.
Yes, she thought, her mind grasping onto this truth with certainty that she was right. The vise grip that the thought of Quinn’s death had on her chest loosened and she felt a rush of adrenaline and lust for life fill her.
Some miracle had saved them from the hunter’s bullets. He must have missed his mark and hit beside Quinn’s heart, not in it. She must have been hallucinating from blood loss.
Quinn was alive!
The empty cavity that had moved into her chest just moments before now exploded with a new feeling. Her heart beat with absolute joy, all traces of the grief abandoned.
She climbed to her feet and ran from the room without a thought for her nudity. She inhaled deeply and, although Quinn’s scent was everywhere, she caught a fresh trace. Darting towards the kitchen she stopped just short of smacking into a grinning Quinn who just stood there looking at her with a glass of orange juice in one hand and a plate of bacon, eggs, ham and everything else that smelled of breakfast and heaven in the other.
“I thought you were dead!” Katherine wrapped her arms around his giant chest and buried her face into his shoulder. She let herself breath deep of his scent and she silently pressed her lips against his heart, her lips curving up against his shirt.
Quinn gazed down at her and brushed his lips against her forehead, “No,” he murmured quietly looking down at her, “he missed my heart.” Quinn’s eyes shifted away momentarily from Katherine’s as he whispered, “Thank the Old Ones for that.”
♀♀♀
They spent the day together, constantly within easy distance of one another as if both were afraid to let the other out of their sight.
Quinn had brought her back to the small apartment that he had leased upon arriving in Montreal. The smell of him throughout the rooms calmed Katherine’s soul. Although he had spent little time there, there was a certain maleness that he brought to the apartment that she was certain other men would be unable to execute.
By the time the sun went down she was again feeling washed out and exhausted. The
emotional overhaul of the day was too potent to ignore. She’d called her father to check in and find out if there was any good news to share about Rachel. The news had been good.
Rachel had been found, a little bloody and beaten but no worse for wear and she and Anthony were presently wrapped in each other’s arms while Sylvie showered her son and future daughter-in-law with food and drink. It looked as though she and Quinn’s interruption had saved Rachel from the hunter’s plans.
Katherine slid into bed around 8:00 pm and instantly drifted off to sleep with Quinn scratching her back patiently and affectionately.
It was late when Katherine started awake violently. She lay shivering in sweat soaked sheets until her heartbeat returned to normal. She groped around next to her for Quinn’s body but the area was cold as though he’d been up for a while or hadn’t come to bed at all. She sat in the dark, heart beating wildly.