by Sophie Stern
I’m a little different.
I went to school to become an ESL teacher. I wanted to teach English as a Second Language to kids who might not otherwise be able to learn English. After taking six years to get my bachelor’s degree, I started in the field only to discover that my nightmares were getting worse with age: not better. My therapist was the one who suggested I start writing my thoughts down and keeping a journal. I published them on a whim, my stories took off, and the rest is history.
Now I’m almost thirty and living my best life. I mean, I’m single and I have two cats as companions, but so what? People enjoy reading my stories, and even though I’m not a full-time teacher the way I planned to be, I still tutor kids a few days a week. Only now I can do it for free, so I actually feel like I’m giving back to my community.
The elevator doors ding and open. I grab my suitcase and tug, pulling it into the little box. I’ve never been the biggest fan of enclosed spaces, but this is fine. Totally fine. I push the button for the thirteenth floor and the doors close.
Only the elevator starts moving down instead of up.
“Shit,” I jab at the number 13 on the elevator buttons. I do not want to go down. Nope. The parking garage? Really? I mean, I’m not really paranoid, but I don’t think anything good is going to come from going down to the parking lot. It’s probably just a late night visitor who missed check-in earlier. Maybe they got stuck in traffic. Yep. That’s it.
I move to the back corner of the elevator and wait for the doors to open. This person will get in, we’ll go back up to the lobby, and then I’ll finally get to go to my room and sleep. My feet hurt, I’m tired, and I’m ready to hurry home to my cats tomorrow morning.
But when the doors open, it’s not a weary traveler standing there.
It’s him.
The man from the book signing.
I’m instantly drawn to him. I should be terrified of him: he’s tall, he’s overbearing, and he’s blocking the only exit out of my little traveling box. He’s standing between me and any means of escape, and he’s looking quite menacing.
But all I can do is lick my lips and wonder what it would be like to push him back and climb him like a fucking a tree. Oh, I bet this guy fucks. He’s got to fuck. I mean, just look at him. He’s damn delicious.
I shake my head.
I’ve definitely been reading too many romance novels.
“Well?” I finally say. “Are you getting in?”
He looks surprised to hear me asking him that. Why is he surprised? He stares at me for a minute and then he seems to actually sniff the air. Strange. Does something smell in here? I look around and I sniff the air, too, but I can’t smell anything. Hopefully it’s not me he’s smelling. After standing around and talking to people all evening, I’m well aware of the fact that my deodorant has long worn off.
So much for 24-hour protection.
The man doesn’t say anything for awhile.
“Come on,” I say, gesturing for him to enter. “You’re blocking the doors, so they can’t close.”
“Are you explaining to me how elevators work?” He looks amused.
“Yeah, because you obviously don’t seem to know. Now will you please get in? I don’t really want to be down here all night.”
He smirks again, and once more, that smile goes straight to my already-wet panties. Damn him. I hate that this guy has such a wild effect on me. It’s super not-cool.
Then, instead of grabbing whatever luggage he has – does he have luggage? – he just steps inside the elevator. The doors close behind him, but he doesn’t press the button. He doesn’t even look at the buttons. Instead, he gets closer and closer to me.
“Uh, personal space?” I say. “Heard of it?”
“Being stolen away by a big bad?” He counters. “Heard of it?”
My mouth goes dry.
Stolen away?
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t think I did,” I say. I look around the elevator. There are cameras in here, right? The man seems to know what I’m looking for because he chuckles.
“Ah, little Heather. The cameras are all turned off, and even if they weren’t, I’m afraid you’ll find the hotel staff is quite, uh, how shall we say? Indisposed.”
Shit.
“Did you kill them?” I ask, suddenly realizing that I’m in some sort of terrible danger. This guy has a weird effect on me, but I need to be afraid of him because he’s going to try to take me away. He’s going to try to kidnap me!
He laughs and shakes his head.
“Kill a human? Come on. That’s beneath me.”
Why is he saying human like he’s not?
Is this a crazy person?
I’ve read about crazy people. In a recent psychological article that was floating around Facebook, I read all about people who think that they’re totally sane, but who aren’t. This guy? Definitely not sane.
“You should go,” I say, trying to stay calm. My heart is racing. It’s a good thing he can’t see it because it would definitely give me away.
“I will go,” he says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Then he adds, “But you’re coming with me.”
He steps forward and reaches for me. I move to kick him, to punch him, to push him away. He’s too swift, though. He turns me around and pulls me so my back is against his chest and his hand is covering my mouth. I try to bite him, but I can’t quite reach his skin. Besides, his grip is way too strong. I’m getting the feeling this isn’t the first time he’s done this.
I shake my head, trying to wiggle away, but the man doesn’t seem bothered at all.
“You have two options, Heather. You can be a good girl and sit quietly in the backseat. I’ll tie your hands, but you’ll be able to watch where we’re going and you’ll have a nice, comfortable ride.”
I stay still, not wanting to hear what the second option is.
“Or you can fight me, and I’ll knock you unconscious and shove you in my trunk,” he says.
Fuck.
So no matter what happens now, I’m not getting out of here alive. The only reason he would offer to let me look out the windows is if he knows I can’t do anything about where we’re going. That means that no matter where we’re going, it’s the last place I’ll ever go. This guy is going to murder me and he doesn’t even care.
I’ve seen enough cop shows to know that you don’t want to go to a secondary location. If your abductor gets you to a new place, he’ll definitely kill you and the worst part is that nobody will ever find you. At least if he kills me in the parking lot, the hotel staff will find me later. Someone will know what happened to me.
He loosens his grip on my mouth for just a second, and I take the opportunity to jerk my head around as much as possible and then bite him on the finger.
He growls and slaps me. The shock surprises me, catching me off guard, and I’m momentarily dazed.
“Oh Heather,” he says. I feel the prick of a needle in my neck and I instantly start to feel drowsy. “I thought you would choose better than that.”
Then everything goes black.
Chapter Two
Flynn
“Well, that didn’t go as planned,” Gaston turns to me from his position in the driver’s seat as I slide into the car.
“Shut up and drive,” I growl. I slam my door shut, wrestle with my seat belt, and lean back in the seat.
“Aye-aye, captain,” he says sarcastically, but he starts driving the car, and that’s all I care about. I shouldn’t have tried to take her alone. Gaston offered to help me acquire the female, but I was too stubborn. After I talked to her this evening at the book signing, I almost didn’t want to take her at all.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice.
She knows far too much about our people. We have to figure out where she’s getting her information and why she’s sharing it with the world. Why does Heather Smith, ordinary human, have such a vested interest in the world of t
he supernatural?
By all accounts, she’s just a normal person. I saw the background information: 29-years-old, average height, average weight, average life. She dresses nicely and she takes care of herself. It’s safe to say that book sales are good for Miss Smith, so what’s her deal?
Why is she sharing personal secrets that could get the shifters killed?
Gaston pulls out of the parking lot and onto the busy street. Nobody in the hotel will even know we were there. As far as they’re concerned, the employees passed out after a long day at work and oh, what a surprise, the security cameras were down, too.
He starts driving, and the tiniest feeling of guilt washes over me about how I treated Heather. Maybe I shouldn’t have put her in the trunk. Was that really necessary? I mean, did I really expect that she wouldn’t fight back?
“Just say it,” Gaston says. He’s known me long enough to know that something is bugging me about this entire situation.
“I just don’t know if it was the best choice to put her in the trunk.”
“Are you going soft on me?”
“Never.”
“She’s just a human.”
“Yeah.”
“Not really worth your time.”
“Of course.”
“She’s certainly not worth your concern,” he continues.
“I know.”
With that, I reach out and turn on some music. My flash drive, filled with music just for this little excursion, blares through the speakers. I lean back, close my eyes, and wonder whether I made the right choice.
For the pack, I definitely did. We need to know who’s threatening us and why. We need to know everything we can about these hidden villains, and the biggest lead we have right now is Heather Smith.
Why did it have to be her?
Meeting her wasn’t what I thought it would be like. She’s been very private on social media about her appearance. She doesn’t post pictures of herself, although I’m guessing that’s going to change today since this was her first public appearance. I saw a few people taking pictures both with and of her, which is terrible since it means our enemies are going to have a better idea of who to look for.
Heather Smith isn’t just a writer of paranormal romance books. She’s also the one person who seems to know exactly how our pack works. Her books detail exactly how our pack operates, where we’re located, and even who’s in charge. These are all closely guarded secrets that no one is supposed to know about, so how does she have all of these answers?
I don’t like the idea that Heather is a bad guy.
I don’t like the suspicion that she’s a terrible person or somehow evil or rotten.
Seeing her up close was like a punch in the gut because Heather Smith is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. My cock has been stiff as a board since the moment I saw her for the first time. It hasn’t calmed down since. She hasn’t seemed to notice that, but she’s noticed me.
I smelled how turned on she got when she saw me. Even being cornered in the elevator didn’t scare the little vixen. Nope. If anything, it just turned her on even more, and isn’t that curious?
I would have thought a girl like her would be shy and timid when it comes to men, but she’s not. She’s not anything like I expected her to be.
“She’s taller than I thought she’d be,” Gaston says, interrupting my thoughts.
“What?”
“The girl,” he jerks his head toward the back of the car, like I don’t know where she is.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
I don’t like the idea that he’s thinking about the way she looks.
“And prettier.”
I bristle, fisting my hands to keep from punching my best friend. If he notices, he’s smart enough not to say anything about my reaction. The idea that I’m attracted to a human is disgusting. I hate it. I hate the fact that she’s got me all riled up and I’ve only just met her.
Most of all, I hate the way she’s supposed to be this terrible villain that we’re apprehending, but I feel like I’m missing something. There’s some key to this puzzle that’s just out of reach. Heather Smith holds the secret to saving the Greystone Pack, but we have to convince her that our pack is worth saving.
After all, how can we convince the person we’re most scared of in this entire world that our pack is actually worth taking care of?
Gaston glances at the clock. We’re about six hours from home. He’s heading in the right direction, and I realize it’s time for me to get to work. I reach for her purse, which is at my feet. We went through her hotel room and cleared it out while she was at the signing. The last thing we want to do is make it look like she was abducted. If everything goes according to plan, the other writers will simply think that Heather was overtired and rude and took off for her home without saying goodbye.
Writer seem to be pretty introverted as a whole, so I don’t actually think anyone is going to be missing her very much.
At least, that’s the goal.
“Anything in there?” He asks. I rifle through her things.
“Lip gloss. Lipstick. Lip balm. Lip moisturizer.”
“Okay, so she cares about her lips. What else is in there?”
“A couple of snacks. Oh, and a wallet.”
I reach for it, pulling out. Then I open the wallet, and I’m surprised by what I see there. Gaston instantly notices me tensing.
“What is it?”
“Fuck.”
I pull out her cards and ID. No wonder we couldn’t find her.
“Her name isn’t Heather Smith,” I say, surprised.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Guess what’s why we had such a hard time finding her,” I grumble. It took us weeks to locate the girl, and the only reason we were finally able to was because she announced her first public appearance: a book signing this weekend. If she hadn’t come to this, we never would have been able to find her at all.
“What’s her name?”
“Heather Miracle.”
“Seriously?” Gaston chuckles. “What a weird name.”
“I guess that’s why she goes by a pen name, although I’m not sure why she’d choose something so...”
“Plain?”
“Pretty much.”
“Maybe she wants to blend in a little easier.”
“Perhaps.”
I keep going through her stuff. Sure enough, the name Heather Miracle appears on all of her credit cards, as well as her ID. More importantly, the ID card lists an address, and it’s on our way.
“We’ll want to stop by her house,” I say.
“To tie up loose ends,” Gaston nods.
“Well, we aren’t going to kill her roommates,” I point out.
“She doesn’t have any,” he says.
“What? How do you know? We only just learned her address a few minutes ago.”
“Lily’s a fan,” he chuckles.
“Your mate is a Heather Smith fan?”
“Oh yeah,” Gaston shakes his head. “She’s read all of her books. Her favorite is the one where the feisty werewolf falls in love with an unsuspecting human and the two of them go off on an adventure to save the werewolf’s father.”
“That’s literally the plot of all of her books,” I grumble.
“Have you read them?”
“Well, no.”
“Then how would you know?”
Brushing off his comment, I try to get back to what he said about Lily.
“How does Lily know that Heather doesn’t have a roommate?”
“Lily is in her reader group,” Gaston says. “That’s how we found out about the book signing, and Heather has Q&A sessions with her readers once a month.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where all of the fans get online at the same time and ask questions about the author’s life. Last month, someone asked about roommates. She lives alone.”
“I guess that makes our job a lit
tle easier.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“We’ll see when we get there.”
I don’t like the fact that Gaston is being kind of cryptic and I definitely don’t like the fact that I didn’t know Lily was a Heather Smith fan. That’s information that should have been shared with me, and I’m a bit put off by the fact that it wasn’t.
I know it doesn’t really matter.
“What does Lily think about this little mission?” I ask.
Gaston’s silence speaks louder than words.
“Didn’t tell her?”
“Nope.”
“She’s going to be pissed, huh?”
“Hopefully she’ll be understanding.”
“You kidnapped your wife’s favorite author in the world and you think she’s going to be understanding?”
Even I know that Lily isn’t going to be pleased with this development. She’s a great woman and a wonderful mate to Gaston, but even a woman as patient as Lily has her limits.
I’m going to guess that kidnapping someone she admires is a hard limit.
We drive in silence, listening to the music, and I stare out of the window. Memories of being a kid on road trips with my parents flood my mind. Things were a lot simpler back then. Mom and Dad weren’t always the best parents. They weren’t always there for me and they didn’t always understand me, but they tried their best. That’s what matters, right? When I think of my childhood, and I think of the way my parents raised me, I have a lot of wonderful, happy memories.
A lot of people don’t have those things.
A lot of people don’t have any of these things.
They have pain and loss and tragedy. They don’t have the good times. I think that when I’m going through something tough, or something impossible, having those good times to fall back on is pretty important. Even now, our pack is going through something horrific. We’re being systematically hunted and we don’t know who’s behind it.
We have ideas.
We have a few clues.
