Before Dawn

by Olivia Hutchinson

  Natalie frowned, not liking where her story was headed.

  “They were beating him. I think they would’ve killed him.” Lila glanced at Gabriel. “I grabbed a tire iron and I…I smashed the one in the back of the head. Anyway, it turned into this big fight, but we managed to get out of there. Gabriel brought me back here afterwards. The thing is, the one guy…he pulled me across the parking lot without touching me. He called me a witch.”

  All Natalie could do was sit and listen, but the last two sentences Lila uttered surprised her, and for a moment she wasn't sure if she heard her correctly. Kaleb stepped closer to Lila, listening intently. Natalie glanced up at Beth, who appeared just as confused as Natalie felt. At least it wasn't just her.

  "We get back here, and Gabriel tells me that he's a werewolf. Of course, this was after he changed and had claws sticking out of his hands at the gas station. He tells me that the men who were trying to kill him were warlocks. Then he tells me that they think I'm a witch and they were going to try to kill me, too."

  Here she was, confused and engrossed in Lila’s wild tale of gas station fights. She was concerned about Lila’s safety. She was a tiny bit concerned she would have to help bury a body in the backyard or something, but then Lila mentioned the word werewolf.

  Lila thought Gabriel was a werewolf.

  Natalie couldn’t help herself. She erupted into a fit of laughter.

  “You made me miss work to tell me some werewolf fairy tale?” Beth demanded, pissed. Natalie shook her head and wiped a tear off her face, her body still shaking with laughter. Oh, this was hysterical and so worth missing her date with Stewart.

  “It’s the truth,” Lila said with a frown.

  “It’s bullshit.”

  “It’s the truth,” Gabriel interjected. Natalie stopped laughing as soon as he spoke, noting the edge in his voice. “Both Kaleb and I are werewolves.”

  Beth swung on Gabriel, her face red with anger. “You, sir, are insane.”

  “I think it’s funny,” Natalie said to Beth in an attempt to get her to chill out. Regardless of what was going on – real or imagined – Beth was being hateful.

  “You would.”

  Natalie slapped Beth on the leg. She was about to give Beth a piece of her own mind when Gabriel said, “Kaleb, show them.”

  She was quiet as Kaleb strode over toward them. He stopped in between the couch and the chair where she and Beth sat. Gabriel stood up, standing behind his brother. The determined look on Kaleb's face made Natalie frown. Although when he started stripping, she definitely looked.

  Hey, he was a good-looking man and if the bartender wanted to strip, who was she to stop him?

  He lost one article of clothing after another and before long, he was standing in front of them naked as a jaybird. Hot stuff, she thought with appreciation. Well-built and strong. Beth shifted next to her and Natalie glanced up. Beth was frowning, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Is this really necessary?” Beth snapped at Lila.

  Oh yeah, Beth wanted her a piece of that.

  The sounds of bones cracking jerked Natalie’s attention back to Kaleb. His body was shaking – no, vibrating – as he grew several more inches right in front of them. His already olive-toned skin darkened even more as the well-defined muscles bulged as if he was just injected with a massive dose of steroids. His chest barreled out to twice its original size.

  Natalie felt her jaw drop as Kaleb changed right in front of them. He wasn’t a man anymore. Oh, no. He had massive teeth, an animal’s powerful jaw, and right now he was staring at Natalie as if she were his next meal, his nose sniffing the air.

  Fear flooded her system. Her ass was glued to her seat, paralyzed. The sudden thought struck her that if she moved, he would be on her in a second, teeth to her throat. Beth stood, jerking Kaleb’s attention off Natalie and to herself, much to Natalie’s relief. Sucked for Beth, though.

  Kaleb took half a step toward Beth. In one quick motion, Gabriel stepped around his now much larger brother and put his palm in the center of the werewolf’s chest, halting his progress. “Kaleb,” he said, stealing the werewolf’s attention. Kaleb’s familiar green eyes narrowed, his pupils constricting. “That’s enough.”

  As Kaleb shrank back to a man, Natalie was on the edge of the chair, eyes wide. Never had she seen or imagined anything like that. Of course, she watched movies, but even that didn’t do justice to what had just unfurled in front of her. Oh, in her mind the possibilities were endless.

  If there were werewolves, what else was there?

  Now that she wasn't afraid for her life, Natalie wanted to know everything. Kaleb jerked on his clothes, a sad look on his face. Her heart went out to him, and even though she was brimming with questions, she stayed quiet until he disappeared out of the front door. Beth was a stone statue next to her, watching him silently.

  The screen door banged against the frame, and Natalie zeroed in on Gabriel, who was staring through the screen after his brother. “How do you do it?”

  Gabriel turned to her. “Change?” He sat back down on the couch next to Lila.

  Her mind was racing with everything she ever saw on television or in the movie theater. “Yeah. Were you guys bitten by other werewolves?”

  “No,” Gabriel said, slightly taken aback. “We were born this way. There are no bitten werewolves.”

  “Do you go running around chasing rabbits and stuff at the full moon?”

  "Umm…we do change involuntarily at the full moon, and I've eaten a few rabbits in my day."

  This was awesome! Best. Day. Ever.

  Declan Azarov was having the worst day he could remember in recent history.

  Zachariah Mason had been located by the Council Enforcement officers and dragged to Boston for questioning.

  Declan desperately tried to find the old werewolf before the CE officers did, but he failed. Now he had one of his own imprisoned in the basement cells of the Council House, and another two missing.

  He wished Zachariah trusted him enough to come to him when he first found out his daughter, Everleigh, was pregnant by a human male. Declan knew the issues a hybrid pregnancy would cause for the territory generally, and for the Mason family in particular. He knew as soon as the Council found out, the CE officers would come for her; and that's precisely what they'd done. Declan had been removed from the loop until it was too late to ensure Everleigh’s safety, and now he was left scrambling after the missing woman and her newborn.

  It pissed him off to think of Zachariah trying to handle this without the help of his territory leader. It had been Zachariah’s mate – Everleigh’s mother – who came to him in a last-ditch effort to help her mate and daughter, but only after Zachariah attacked the CE officers who showed up at their door. The old werewolf managed to evade the CE for several days, but as of this morning, his running was over.

  He sent his most trusted werewolf enforcers after Zachariah as soon as his mate confessed everything in the hopes of finding Everleigh's location before the CE did, but they were too late. Ben, Josh, and Elijah had to keep their heads down to avoid the CE officers' attention and the extra care they had to take cost them. Zachariah had been found, but Everleigh and the baby were still missing.

  It sickened him to think about the frightened woman going before the Council to beg for the life of her child. The Council wouldn’t allow her to keep the child, no matter how much she pleaded. Unfortunately, her best chances now were to run and keep running before the CE found her.

  The gene pool was now considered polluted.

  If the child had been male, they would take him and ship him to one of their educational facilities. They would sterilize him to prevent him from one day passing on his half-breed genes and train him to mindlessly follow Council orders. He would join CE ranks himself when he was old enough, and the cycle would repeat itself.

  But Everleigh’s child was not male. There would be no saving the infant girl if the CE officers and the Council got hold of her. He sh
ould know. He already had a half-human-half-witch hybrid hiding in his territory. He would hide another if only Zachariah had trusted him enough to come to him.

  Declan rubbed his weary eyes. It wasn’t even noon yet.

  He should be at home and packing his suitcase for his looming trip to Boston. He had to leave first thing in the morning to get there when they brought in Zachariah. As his territory leader, he had an obligation to be there in case the Council pulled him in for questioning, but he also wanted to talk to Zachariah himself to see if he knew Everleigh's whereabouts. Only then could he send werewolf enforcement after her and keep her out of the CE and Council's hands.

  Instead of being at home and trying to figure out how he could help the Masons, Declan was pulling down a narrow gravel driveway with information that not only pissed him off, it shook him to the core.

  He was not happy being here, but he couldn’t ignore the call he received from his cousin. Gabriel and Kaleb were more than cousins, really. They were his brothers. The three boys had been raised together with Hannah, Declan's sister, after their parents had been killed twenty years earlier. But even before then, they hadn't spent a day away from one another.

  The territory leader already had a lot on his plate, but Gabriel added to his workload and opened a massive can of worms. As much as he wanted to tell him that he wasn't able to ride out to a human's townhouse and look around, there had been something about his tone that told Declan he couldn't ignore the request for him to check it out.

  Now, here he was, sitting in his SUV in front of another human’s house, getting ready to go inside and tell Gabriel that Andrea, the human he was concerned about, was gone. And not just gone, she had been kidnapped by warlocks.

  Declan was furious. Warlocks came into his territory and stole a human from her home. It didn’t matter whether or not she was human, they had been there without his knowledge or permission.

  He saw Kaleb as soon as he reached the house. He was standing in the front yard, his nose pointed up in the air.

  The siding of the little house was a moss green that helped the place blend into the heavily wooded property. Four cars were parked in the front yard: Kaleb’s dark green pickup, a red Jeep Wrangler, a red Corolla, and a sky-blue Volkswagen Beetle. As soon as Declan stopped his own vehicle next to Kaleb's and threw it into park, Kaleb was at his door.

  “He dragged you into this?” Declan asked him as soon as he opened the door to the Subaru.

  Kaleb growled. “He didn’t just drag me in, I’m fucking balls deep.”

  Declan's nose twitched, and he arched a brow. Kaleb's body was still humming. His cousin had changed recently. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Kaleb snorted and shook his head, his dark hair falling into his eyes. Hands thrust into the pocket of his jeans, Kaleb kicked at the dirt in the driveway, his mouth contorted in irritation, which piqued Declan’s curiosity even more.

  What the hell was going on in his territory?

  “You really don’t want to know.” Kaleb sighed when Declan stared at him, still waiting for an explanation. “Cliff Notes version is that Gabriel got attacked by warlocks last night. Lila saved his ass, now he feels like he owes her protection. In addition to that, Lila and some of her friends tinkered with love spell magic – thanks to Carey Tremblay – so the warlocks are hunting them now.”

  Carey Tremblay. After the stuff going on with Everleigh, Carey’s name wasn’t far from his mind. The witch-human hybrid was thought to be a witch by his cousins and the rest of the territory. Only Declan and his father Malcolm knew her secret.

  She and her grandmother were powerful. They kept to themselves and stayed out of Council business, which was why Declan never cared whether or not they remained in Azarov territory. Ruby Tremblay moved to the area almost twenty-five years ago, seeking refuge, which his father Malcolm granted. His father had sworn a blood oath to hide Carey, which was the same oath Declan swore once Malcolm turned the territory over to his son.

  Declan never had an issue hiding the hybrid when he took the reigns in the territory, but he couldn't allow Carey to spill Netherworld secrets to humans either. However, Carey’s dabbling explained a bit more of what he found at the townhouse. “That explains why the warlocks took Andrea Connelly then.”

  “She dead?”

  “Not yet,” he said with a frown. How long ago she had left, he didn’t know. He and Kaleb walked toward the front door. Gabriel was inside, arguing with several women. “Who’s here?”

  “Lila, Beth Muller, and Natalie Everhart.”

  “Great,” he mumbled. So far, four humans had been dragged into the mess, one of whom Gabriel’s beast had been after since the first time they met almost two years ago. Ever since then, Gabriel had done everything he could to avoid Lila, but now he was sitting in her living room and risking their exposure.

  “They saw me change.”

  Scratch that. Gabriel and Kaleb both had already exposed themselves. Declan froze at Kaleb's words, and he slowly turned on his cousin. "What?"

  “I showed them what I was. What we are.”

  Declan shook his head with a growl. “Great.” More issues he would have to sort through. Zachariah and Everleigh. Warlocks. And now his cousins revealing the existence of the Netherworld to a group of human females. Declan cracked his neck and took a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

  "How am I supposed to function? This is insane," a Southern-accented voice said. He assumed it belonged to the woman Natalie since he knew both Lila and Beth. Lila because of Gabriel’s infatuation and Beth because she’d been born and raised in Cantor. They’d all gone to school together, even though there were several years between them all.

  “What am I supposed to do? Just lock myself inside the apartment and order delivery?” Obviously distressed, Beth was yelling at Gabriel as he and Kaleb walked in the front door, the screen banging behind them.

  The room silenced in a split second and all eyes fell on him.

  Beth was standing just inside the living room. Gabriel was sitting next to Lila on the couch, but he climbed to his feet as soon as Declan walked into the room. Lila stayed on the couch, her hands dropping to her lap as she stared at Declan with wide eyes, waiting for bad news, and the woman who he assumed to be Natalie was sitting in an armchair, staring at him with curious dark brown eyes.

  Lord, she was gorgeous. He had definitely never seen her before. There was no way in hell he could forget a woman who looked like her.

  His gaze lingered for a moment, taking in her dark brown hair, which was tied back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck, her pretty upturned nose and pouty pink lips that were just made for kissing. He sucked in a deep breath, inhaling traces of her unfamiliar sweet scent. Peaches and vanilla. A low deep growl shook his chest.

  “What did you find?” Gabriel asked him, jerking his attention away from Natalie.

  He forced himself to focus his attention on Gabriel. It wouldn’t do him any good to stare at the forbidden human.

  Lila jumped to her feet. “Did you find Andrea?”

  Declan glanced at Gabriel. They would have some words at a future point in time, but right now he didn't want to scare the women with the news he had. When Gabriel nodded, he said, "The door was ajar, and I went in. It was obvious there had been a struggle. The TV in the living room was on, and there was an ironing board and an iron on the floor."

  Lila took a shaky breath, but Declan pressed on almost in disbelief at the words that were forming and falling out of his mouth. “I followed the scent of the female upstairs to her bedroom where I found the smell of gunpowder, two shell casings and a warlock’s blood on the wall next to the door and on the floor. She injured him, but not mortally. The other bullet struck her ceiling. From what I could tell they dragged her downstairs and out the back door where they had a car waiting, probably a van or SUV, judging by the size of the tire treads. I smelled three warlocks inside, one of whom was very powerful. He was the one who was inj
ured.”

  Declan looked to Gabriel, trying to avoid Lila’s suddenly pale face. “She’s alive,” Lila said, her pitch near hysterical. “Isn’t she?”

  As honest as he could be, he replied, “When they took her from the house, she was alive.”

  Lila sunk to the couch and within seconds her two friends were on her, arms around her, trying to provide comfort to the woman currently falling apart. Declan glanced from Kaleb to Gabriel. Gabriel was frowning, watching Lila but unable to find words of comfort. Declan stood there, unsure of what to say and realizing quickly nothing he could say would be appropriate.

  Natalie stroked Lila’s hair. “We need to report this to the police.”

  That was out of the question, but Gabriel responded before Declan could. “No police involvement.”

  The woman shot to her feet and glared at Gabriel, fire in her eyes. Her demeanor was challenging, and since she realized what she was facing off against, Declan couldn't help but admire her bravery. "Someone has to report her missing!"

  She was tall for a woman, with long legs clad in tight jeans and high-heeled boots on her feet. The gray and green plaid shirt she wore clung to her in all the right places and was opened just enough to show a gray t-shirt underneath.

  “Someone will probably report her missing once she misses a day or two of work,” Beth said as Declan stared openly at Natalie, who met his eyes.

  As their gazes held, suddenly the arguing between Lila, Beth, and Gabriel faded into the background. The growling in his chest picked up when a blush crept over her cheeks. Declan looked away then, realizing his gaze was making her uncomfortable. Hell, it was making him uncomfortable.

  “What happens when someone comes to her house to check on her and finds it disturbed with blood on the walls?” Lila was asking.

  Declan cleared his throat and focused on Lila instead of the woman still looking at him. “I straightened it,” he said. “If someone does come by, they’ll find the doors locked and the house free from signs of a struggle.”