It had all been for nothing.
Billy crouched in front of her, staring into her face again without seeming to really see her.
“So, what would you prefer? Shall I leave you to their tender mercies a while? Say, a day or two?”
She knew better than to shake her head; held herself still instead, offering no indication of an opinion either way. If she defied him even by gesture, even by trying to plead, she knew it would set him off again. Instead she simply watched him wide-eyed as he smirked and stood up, walking away again.
Tonight, the night before she and Dennis were going to drive the rented moving truck of her things across the Bridge and to her new studio in South Berkeley, Billy had finally found her. Thinking about it now, with the blood from that encounter still crusted around her nostrils, she guessed that his associates — his mob associates, she realized now — had helped him track her down. Dennis had gone down to make sure that they had locked the back of the truck, after spending the evening after his shift helping her carry her boxes out to it. The two gunshots, right outside, had made Laurel flinch away from the windows, wondering in terror if Dennis was all right. A minute of worrying and waiting later, Billy had walked in the door with that blank look in his eyes, and blood and gunsmoke on his hands. And she had known, in shame and creeping horror, that Dennis was dead. His voice pulled her back from the memory for a moment.
“That's okay. You're in shock. It's understandable that you can't do much more than sit there and listen. And that's fine with me. In fact, you'd better watch it. Cause I could get used to this!”
His short bark of a laugh held no humor at all, but at least he finally turned away from her for a minute.
He had beaten her unconscious, slamming her head against the wall five times before she had gone limp in his hands with darkness flooding her ringing head. Her last sensation had been of him scooping her up roughly and slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of wheat. And then, half an hour ago, she had woken up here, with him standing over her and that little, post-tantrum, solicitous smile fixed on his face.
But his eyes had been as blank as ever, and they had stayed that way, even as he paced the room like a restless animal.
I have to get out of here.
Her thought was laced with almost crazed desperation. She knew now the feelings of a fox who chews off her paw to get out of a leg-hold trap. She chafed her wrists raw testing the handcuffs, worked her jaw hard to try and pull free of the duct tape. But the moment Billy turned back to her from the single darkened window in that empty, white-painted room, she went still again, not daring to show any hint of her struggle.
“You shouldn't have gone against me like that. I don't care if that Dennis guy really was gay. He took you in, and he shouldn't have done that. You should have come home like a good girl. You don't run away from me, honey, you're mine.”
He was walking back toward her when a heavy, dull boom sounded just outside. Orange light washed over the windows, and she heard shouts erupt outside.
“What the fuck—?” Billy snapped, turning back to the window. One meaty hand slipped under his jacket, and she heard a noise of steel on leather as he drew an enormous, darkly-blued pistol from beneath his arm. “Sit tight, little lady, looks like there's a problem outside.”
He hurried out, the door banging shut behind him. Laurel looked around frantically, then tried her bonds again, rocking against the sturdy chair to try to knock it over. Apparently, it was bolted to the floor - she whimpered against her makeshift gag and kept struggling. This might be the only chance she had to escape while Billy was distracted.
Gunshots went off outside. More shouting. Her head jerked reflexively toward the window again; the orange glow was brightening. Another dull thud of an explosion — and then something like a growl.
She froze, hairs standing up all over her body as that rumbling snarl seemed to reverberate through her bones. It sounded like an angry tiger the size of a city bus. A few of the shouts rose to sharp, terrified screams — and then cut off suddenly amid a flurry of thuds and crashes.
She heard the distinctive sound of a door being smashed in downstairs. More yelling. And then something even more terrifying: the sharp, rumbling whoosh of flames.
It sounded, in fact, like someone had just broken in with a flamethrower. And to her horror, she immediately smelled smoke.
Oh no. The building's on fire!
She redoubled her fight against her bonds, hurting her wrists and making her shoulders crack.
Help... somebody help....
That roar again, louder and closer - downstairs. Whatever had made that noise was in the house with them. Suddenly her fear of Billy's fists and his promises of hideously sexual revenge felt trivial in the face of burning to death while some unknown monster stalked the halls.
Men cried out and cursed, yelling things she didn't understand.
“It's in the hallway, get it, get it—”
“Go for the eyes! The eyes!”
Guns fired.
She heard wood splinter and glass smash downstairs. And then, with a mix of exhilaration, satisfaction and horror, she heard Billy's voice down there, joining the chorus of screams.
In under a minute, all those voices went silent, leaving behind the rumble of the spreading fire and the heavy tread of something coming up the stairs, splintering wood under it as it came. She froze, and started to shake, as she listened to its approach.
Oh God, what is it—
Something snuffled at the door outside like a gigantic dog. The door rattled in its frame, and she started panting against the gag, her head swimming with terror. But then, the noise stopped, and she heard the creak of the floorboards soften and die, and the thump of boots on the floor outside.
Someone kicked the door in, a single hard blow smashing the wood around the lock and sending the whole thing flying back against the wall. She flinched, ducking her head down between her shoulders and sobbing in fear as a huge shape filled the doorway. But then she blinked, and raised her head, realizing that the shape facing her was... human.
A man stepped into the room, taller than Billy and leaner, but with shoulders as broad and a tread as heavy. Black leather gleamed, covering his body: pants, boots and jacket, a bandanna crossing his chest. He was very pale-skinned, his features sharp and aristocratic and his jawline just faintly stubbled with black. Close-cropped jet hair swept back from a widow's peak above a high brow and piercing, pale green eyes. Eyes that took in the room and then fixed on her.
She could feel hot air from the fire downstairs rushing in past him, laced now with threads of smoke — and a faint, terrible smell of charred meat that she realized suddenly had once been human. This man had done this somehow: killed all the mobsters downstairs, killed Billy — and then set everything on fire.
Now he stared at her, astonishment widening those fierce, pale eyes. She cried out against her gag, her plea for help muffled down to low mumbles and squeals. But he seemed to get the message regardless, crossing the room in two strides to stand over her.
He smelled of smoke and leather, and his chest heaved as he looked at her with a strange confusion on his face. But before any fear of him could take hold, he stepped behind her, and did something quickly that she couldn't see. A hard tug on the chain between her cuffs — and suddenly it snapped, links tinkling to the floor. She gasped and pulled her arms around in front of her, her shoulders creaking painfully, and sighed heavily through her nose with relief. He looked her over one last time — and then glanced up as the crackling from the fire grew louder.
Without a word, he scooped her up against his chest, cradling her as carefully as if she were made of tissue paper. He turned — toward the window — and suddenly he was running, as fast as he could, toward the panes of glass. She heard the roar of the fire rising up behind them and realized that the flames had reached their level just outside the room's door. But what was he doing—? She realized, a second too late, as she flinched an
d squeezed her eyes shut.
Something hard and leathery, perhaps the edge of his jacket, wrapped around her protectively as he went through the window. She felt them fly outward into the dark space beyond the window — and fainted as they started to fall.
Chapter 2: Jason
She woke to someone carefully cutting the duct tape away from her face. It hurt, peeling off, but whoever was helping her did it very gently, even holding the bits of her hair that stuck to it in back and pulling them free so that few of the strands snapped. Finally, the last patch came off her lips, and she gasped for air, eyes flying open into dimness.
The inside of a van; she sat on a padded bench seat with the same strange man bending over her, his white face seeming to float above his uniformly black clothes and his green eyes gleaming oddly in the semi-dark. As her eyes adjusted, she saw him wearing that same confused frown as before, his eyes slightly narrowed as they searched her face.
“Thank you,” she managed to mumble through the shock and exhaustion.
He nodded distractedly, and his nostrils flared oddly for a moment, as if he was sniffing her. His head shook once, a brief jerky motion, as if he was trying to throw off a bout of dizziness.
Then he blinked at her, and it was like a pair of lights flickering.
“You're not one of us,” he said, in a low rumble that was filled with confusion. “What are you?”
She stared at him. Whoever he was, he was obviously very, very dangerous. He had killed his way through Billy and the armed men with him as if they were ants. But he had also rescued her from the fire, with barely a second thought. She still remembered how he had cradled her close as he had gone out the window, the leathery edge of his coat covering her exposed skin as he had crashed through the glass. Right before she had passed out, she remembered hearing a heavy thump, like a gigantic umbrella being opened. Or maybe a parachute.
Who is this guy, James Bond's weirder brother?
“I'm sorry, what do you mean? My... my name's Laurel, Laurel Kendrick.”
He looked down at her, his chest heaving once, then slipped off one of his gloves and reached out to touch her face. His hand was very warm, almost hot, and smoothly callused, feeling a little like leather itself as he brushed his fingertips over the side of her face. A line appeared between his brows.
“You're... human,” he murmured, as she tried to ignore the little tingling trails that his fingertips left in their wake.
It was probably the adrenaline, mixed with the sudden rescue, and his careful tenderness after Billy's brutality, but she felt his touch right down to the pit of her stomach.
“Um...yes. I didn't know there were any alternatives?”
Please don't be crazy. Though obviously if he was saying things like this, his world view was quite a way off from her own.
He cut his eyes away, disliking something in her expression. Maybe the incredulity.
“There are. I thought you were one. You... smell... different from other humans.”
Her mind flashed back suddenly, to those harrowing seconds before he had kicked the door in and rescued her. She remembered the roaring outside and downstairs, the low growls undercutting the crackle of the fire, the way the men had screamed. And then, those sounds, like some elephant-heavy creature walking up to the door. She remembered the harsh, animal snuffling at the other side of the wood, by something so huge that its breath had pulled the door back and forth. At the time she had thought that she was misreading things from sheer terror. Now, looking up at him, smelling his smoke-and-leather scent in the closed space, she wondered. And wondered at herself, because the tiny, tentative idea that he might be something other than human — or simply very crazy — did not change that little tug of attraction to him inside of her. Not one bit.
“What's your name?” she asked softly.
He stared at her, as if considering how much to tell. He didn't blink enough, except when startled or confused. His silver-green irises, the color of horehound leaves, seemed more to be generating light from within than reflecting it from the windows.
“Jason,” he said softly. “Jason Ember.” He seemed to remember his manners after a moment. “Hello, Laurel. Why were you there?”
She swallowed, throat tightening as she thought of her ordeal.
“One of those men was my boyfriend. I didn't know what he was into with the mob. We dated a few months... then he started beating me. I tried to get away, so he knocked me out and brought me to his mobster buddies to be punished.”
“...Punished.” His eyes flashed briefly, the flare of cold anger more terrifying in its own way than Billy's blankness had been. But it wasn't aimed at her. “I don't understand why so many human men are cruel to their own mates.”
For some reason his tired astonishment hurt her heart. Her eyes stung, and she couldn't hold his gaze anymore.
“I... I don't know either. I didn't do anything to deserve—”
“No.” He cut her off, wincing. “That is always the way. They always blame their mates for what they choose to do on their own. I have seen it too much.” He sniffed. “Humans are such strange, cruel creatures at times.”
“I'm not. I'm... I'm just grateful you got me out of there before he could do what he wanted to me.” She watched him as he sat back on his heels, crouching easily, the leather of his clothes creaking as he settled in limberly. “He was going to pass me around to his friends.”
He tilted his head suddenly, a quick, almost lizard-like motion, eyes narrowing.
“Pass you around?” And then it seemed to dawn on him. His eyes widened, then narrowed again, and she saw another flash of rage. “I see. Forced mating. Another human perversity.”
“I don't get it. You keep talking about us as if you're not human yourself.” She looked around. From the whoosh of cars going by outside they were parked on the street somewhere. From the sirens she heard drawing nearer, they were still fairly close to the fire. “Why is that?”
“I'm not human.”
He said it matter-of-factly, watching her face closely as if waiting for her reaction.
“How can that be? You look like a man to me.”
Except for those eyes. He had the eyes of an animal. An intelligent animal, one with a heart, capable of passion, rage, even kindness. But an animal nonetheless. His lips quirked.
“I look like a man right now.” He leaned up and peered out the window, and she saw a faint gleam of orange light in his eyes. They must be down the street from the building fire. A firetruck screamed past, and he flinched back, clapping one hand over his ear. “Ouch.”
“Jason?” she asked softly, and he looked back at her, again startled. “What were you doing there?”
He licked his lips, again staring at her silently as he put words together. He hesitated, and then drew a deep breath.
“I... had a friend. A human friend. He was kind. He didn't want anything from me but company.”
“What was his name?”
“Carl. He loved a man named Dennis.” Dennis. Her heart started to pound as he went on. “Carl was coming over with food and wine to surprise Dennis and his... house guest. He was very happy with this mate of his. They planned to move in together after the guest left. I did not understand their relationship, but he was my friend. I wished him to be happy.” He rubbed his face, the effort of putting the story together for her seeming to cause him some discomfort.
It was as if he simply wasn't used to having long conversations. “But earlier tonight, he and his mate were shot by these men, in front of Dennis's apartment building.” He froze suddenly, his eyes widening as he watched her cover her mouth with her hand, and saw the tears brim in her eyes. “Wait, no. No, what are you doing?” His hands reached for her, the ungloved one showing the tremor suddenly running through him, and then stopped in midair, as if he was unsure if his touch would be welcome. “Stop. I did not mean— don't... don't do that!”
He sounded so baffled and upset by her tears that it shocked he
r partway out of her grief.
“It's okay,” she mumbled. “It's just... Dennis was my friend. I was the house guest. He took me in because my boyfriend was beating me, and then Billy turned out to be a gangster, and they must have... they shot Dennis and Carl out front because Dennis had been sheltering me.”
Shame did what grief couldn't, and her tears got away from her again, running freely down her bruised cheeks.
“I see,” he murmured, his face still creased with pain as he watched her weep. “Dennis was brave. He stood up for you.”
“And he paid for it, too.” She swallowed, her eyes drying but still stinging terribly. “I'm so sorry.”
“Why would you apologize? Those were good men. They did what had to be done. Evil men ended them. If it had not been because they were looking for you it would have been because of something else. Some of them would even kill my friend and his mate just for loving each other.”
“Yes.” Her voice came out a tiny, sad squeak.
He stared at her again, mouth working. After a moment he reached past her, pulling a box of tissues from the back of the van and retrieving it for her. She took one and swabbed her face with it, a little impatiently. When she looked back at him again, he was still watching her intently.
She didn't know who this Jason Ember was, but she wondered why Dennis had never mentioned him. Maybe he was a newcomer in their lives. Or maybe he was so strange that they hadn't known how to bring him up to their friends. He was certainly eccentric. She didn't know what to make of his refusal to identify as human. Strange things happened around him, and even his appearance was a little strange. But she hesitated to believe him fully, in a non-metaphorical way.
Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection Page 61
