Cody didn’t hear anything else beyond that, as his shark surged upright, wanting out, wanting to find the man who had tortured him and make him pay.
Armand was suddenly directly in front of him, cupping his face. “Livingston, pull back on the anger or we will have bigger issues to contend with.”
Mac snorted. “Aye, like where in the fuck do we put you if you shift into shark form fully? In case you’ve nae noticed, Aussie, there is nae an ocean close.”
Car grinned. “But we’ve a pool here that is saltwater. We can throw in some fish and sit around poolside, working on our tans, trying to catch up to his, while he stays confined to the pool, pissed off over some douche named Walter.”
His brother nodded. “Aye. Come to think of it, I’ve never known anyone named Walter who wasn’t a douche. You?”
“Nope,” added Bill. “Total douches. Wanna go outside and blow shit up with me?”
The twins shared a looked before they both nodded.
Armand sighed, still cupping Cody’s face. “The twins make Gram and Striker seem easy to deal with, don’t they?”
The statement, with all its truth, made Cody laugh softly, helping him to fight off a pending shift. They were all right. Losing control and shifting into shark form would be very bad. The last time he’d come close to doing such a thing had been years ago in Costa Rica when he’d found the little girl drowning and been captured by Helmuth. At least then he’d been on a beach, with open water within running distance. Unlike here. Here he’d just be good and truly fucked.
He took a deep breath to gather control of himself. It worked to a certain degree. “I need to go back to Savannah.”
Armand nodded. “I thought you would say as much. I’m readying a jet for us now. But, Cody, you need to understand if the chatter is correct and he is there, it is likely a trap. One possibly set for you. After all, have you not been calling Savannah home as of late?”
Cody thought harder on it. “Yes.”
“And you still want to charge in head first?” asked Armand, a knowing note to his French-accented voice.
“Yes,” replied Cody with no room for interpretation. “He has to pay. What he did to me…to others. And the people he’s in bed with—the things they’ve done. They have to be stopped. If that means running into a trap to do it, fine by me. But if he takes me, put a bullet between my eyes. Don’t let me fall into his hands again. What I am, what I have in me, it helped make him what he is now—nearly unstoppable. He can’t be allowed to get even stronger. You know it, and so does everyone else here.”
“Aussie is right,” said Mac.
Teddy grunted. “Doesn’t make the plan any less stupid. We can’t just let him run off alone and do this.”
The twins stepped forward. They shared a look and Mac took the lead. “We’ll be going with him.”
“As will I,” said Armand. “Teddy, can you take point here?”
Teddy inclined his head. “But only if you take the humans. I cannot handle babysitting them. I’ll eat them.”
“I heard that,” said Bill. He then looked off in the distance for a moment before speaking again. “Gus says we need to go with Cody too.”
“Of course you do,” said Cody, his ire growing. “We need to go now. No fucking around.”
Armand patted his cheek. “Calm yourself. It has been set in motion, friend. The jet is being readied. In the meantime, grab a bag and try to stay in control of your beast.”
Chapter Five
Forty-five minutes outside of Savannah, Georgia…
Walter Helmuth sat on the back patio, overlooking the ocean. As he stared out from beneath the safety of the shaded area at the sun’s rays on the boarded path that went over the dunes to the beach, his anger grew, his father’s curse limiting what he could and could not do. Each passing day, he found himself more and more sensitive to sunlight.
He could still be outside during daylight hours, unlike many of his kind, but direct sunlight was not his friend. That was why he wore copious amounts of a special concoction that acted like sunscreen, as well as did his best to stay in shady spots—like the patio.
He’d thought he’d beaten the issue after he’d spent time at a friend’s wellness resort out in Colorado. The resort provided nearly everything a supernatural could need for rest, relaxation, and healing, should they require it.
And Helmuth had required all those things and more.
The man who owned the resort, Caladrius Fabius, was something of an eccentric (which was putting it mildly) but wielded true power, and therefore was one of the few people Helmuth respected and feared. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid of what Cal was capable of.
Helmuth had been a witness to the man’s abilities on more than one occasion and it had certainly left an impression. There was no denying the level of power Cal had, and that he was not a man to be crossed.
When Helmuth had found himself injured and in need of special recovery methods to assist in his healing, he’d known instantly who to go to for help. And he’d not been wrong. Cal’s facility was far more than it appeared to be to the general public. For one, it catered to the supernatural. For another, Cal liked to feed from alpha males, leeching their powers and quite literally sucking the life from them.
Helmuth had known the truth about Cal and his exotic tastes in food for decades but never batted an eye. He’d kept Cal in a good supply of fit alpha males, to be drained of their powers and who knows what else, and in return, Cal assisted Helmuth when need be. And there had been a need recently.
Who was Helmuth to judge the man? There were times when nothing but the sweet taste of blood would satisfy what lived deep in Helmuth. Then there was the dark need he had to kill—to tear flesh apart with his clawed hands.
That too was part of his curse.
Closing his eyes momentarily, he dug deep to center himself in an attempt to keep from shifting forms then and there. His shifter side wasn’t like most supernatural males’. In fact, his species was so rare, they were thought to be nothing more than myths.
Something dreamed up in storybooks.
Creatures that were birthed from legend.
Gargoyles.
Helmuth was a testament to their existence. Proof there was more out there.
He’d studied all the lore surrounding his kind. All the rumors. Some were based in truth, many were lies more than likely spun by the gargoyles themselves to throw others off their trail, and some were outright comical. But one was certainly true.
Turning to stone.
And it fucking sucked.
The loss of control over your own body. The immobility of being stuck in stone form, vulnerable even during daylight hours. Then there was the monster side of it all. Above turning to stone. The shift into something that was a strange combination of reptile, bat, demon, and vampire. Each of which came with its own set of issues. Then there was the addition of witch that Helmuth had within him from his mother’s side.
She’d been an unwilling participant in his creation, and he’d killed her while she was giving birth to him.
“My first murder,” he said, lacking any real remorse over a woman he’d never known. There may have been a time when he’d wept for her. If so, he couldn’t remember it now. He couldn’t connect to any point in his past when he’d had anything close to compassion. Life and circumstances had beat the caring out of him, leaving him what he was today: a man who did what he had to in order to survive. It was hard to imagine he’d ever cared one way or another for his mother.
After all, she was why he was cursed.
His mother’s people had taken exception to her being stolen away and forced to birth a child. One they saw as evil. They’d lashed out the best way they could. They’d cursed Helmuth’s father and, in turn, Helmuth. As if the gargoyle’s weakness during daylight hours wasn’t enough. No. The witches had seen to it that his father was turned to stone for good. Not just during the day.
And that would soon be Helmuth’s
fate as well if he didn’t find a cure or something to hold off the pending changes. The serum he’d been using had lost its effectiveness. And he’d gone so long fighting to keep away the change that it had left the monster side of himself fighting for dominance. There was a very real chance that if he fully shifted forms again, he’d be locked in gargoyle state and, from there, turn to stone for good relatively quickly.
But all hope was not lost as he’d once feared.
Caladrius—a man who was as close to a friend as someone could be to him, since Helmuth had trust issues—had stepped in and helped Helmuth recently.
He’d spent time out near Denver recovering and healing from a battle he’d gotten into with a group of do-gooders. He’d not gone down easily. No. It had taken more than one of them working together to injure him as much as he had been.
Helmuth’s jaw set as he thought about the succubus he’d had in his grips and had nearly fully molded into the perfect mate. It didn’t matter that fate hadn’t given her to him. He’d found a way to circumvent destiny—to create the perfect woman to complement him. A woman who could help him fight off the darkness and the curse threatening to take hold of him fully.
Gisbert Krauss, a man Helmuth had aligned himself with out of necessity, not loyalty, had assisted in creating a way to alter the succubus’s genetic makeup. He’d even come to oversee some of the process himself before vanishing like he was so good at doing.
Since her kind drew upon the energy of others in order to survive, she’d been the perfect candidate for the trials. Her natural-born ability to siphon from a supernatural had been the ideal catalyst. And the trial had been working. She had been turning into a hybrid. A blend of succubus and Helmuth’s species.
Everything had been seamless and on track when she’d somehow managed to gain her freedom—and ran straight into the arms of her true mate.
“Bastard.”
Hissing at the memory, Helmuth tipped his head back, his fangs distending quickly as his anger flared.
The damn weregorilla, who was what most knew as an Outcast, had been gifted the succubus as his mate. The beast didn’t deserve her—or all of the hard work Helmuth had put into her. So much time and resources wasted, and for what? To leave him, injured, in battle, needing to hide out while he recovered.
It was enough to make him want to go on a killing spree to simply wash his palate of the taste of defeat.
He checked the time and did the time zone conversion, knowing Cal was two hours behind him. If memory served, it was about the time Cal and his minions had their morning worship before they gathered to eat together.
Helmuth didn’t miss that or group sing-alongs.
But he’d gone along with what The Flock did in most respects while he’d been a guest among them. Though he also did not miss Cal’s long-winded inspirational speeches, which were thinly veiled as gospel. What he did miss was Cal’s oldest daughter and her healing remedies.
His friend’s eldest daughter was something of an herbalist, though Helmuth liked to refer to her as an alchemist. That was certainly more along the lines of her abilities. She’d made him a salve that had helped the patches of his skin that were reptile-like and given him protection while out in the sun.
There was a slight breeze coming off the water, but it did little to cut through the heat and humidity of the south. It wasn’t even noon yet and already it was oppressively hot.
Disgustingly so.
He despised the heat.
While he’d had the home built several years back, his plan had been to use it during months when the humidity wasn’t as high. When the temperature stayed around seventy degrees. Necessity and circumstances had changed that timeframe for him.
Irritation coursed through his veins—something that seemed to be a constant anymore. The rage that lived just below the surface was no longer easy to hide or control. It was yet one more road sign indicating his path to hell was nearly complete. That the transformation he’d been fighting for years was coming, regardless of how hard he tried to stop it.
A curse he’d inherited from his father.
Bastard.
One more thing he could despise the man for.
The scent of rotting fish reached him, and he knew the smell was coming from the same dead one he’d found on his predawn walk and had considered burying, only to leave it and continue onward.
His nostrils curled as the smell beat at him more. It probably wasn’t even that strong, but the transition he’d been attempting to stave off left his senses in a constant state of overdrive. He was acutely aware of every single person within the beach house, on the premises, and on the neighboring lots, all from the sounds of their heartbeats. While it was hardly uncommon for a supernatural male to be able to pick up the telltale sound of a heart beating, it was out of the realm of normal to hear it from the distance he was, and as loudly as he could. Especially considering the distance between his home and the houses nearest to him.
The sound beat like twenty drums in his head, all of which were out of sync, thumping over and over again. It was nearly maddening, and it took everything in him to avoid simply slaughtering everyone to finally have some semblance of peace.
Of quiet.
Even that wouldn’t help. All it would do was bring about the inevitable bloodlust that he was doing his best to ignore. It too was part of the curse bestowed upon him by his father. As much as he wanted to feed that darker side of himself with the sweet, coppery nectar of life it craved, he didn’t dare. Not right now. Not with how on edge he was. Surrender would take him down a path of no return.
The other day, he’d been sitting poolside at the wellness resort, relaxing, when he’d caught the scent of a coyote-shifter who had been on the premises. The female’s smell had sickened him, and he’d demanded she be dealt with accordingly.
And she had been.
He grinned slightly, thinking about how it had all played out.
Perfectly.
Except for the fact his time there had come to an end. Now he was here, in humidity hell with the foul smell filling his nostrils. Thankfully, the wind shifted once more and stopped bringing with it the odor of rotting fish.
“Master,” said Ernest, one of the men in his employment, as he entered the patio area. “Can I get you anything?”
Ernest had been with Helmuth for nearly twenty years, holding several positions, all of which were in the service capacity. The man looked to be in his early forties, but he was closer to two hundred. Ernest had been employed by more than one powerful family in his immortally long life.
Helmuth had been awarded the man as partial payment from a debt owed by a man whose gambling habits had drained his coffers. He did his job and didn’t annoy Helmuth. That was saying something.
Helmuth nodded. “Brandy.”
“Of course, sir,” said Ernest, scurrying off and past two other men who were stationed just inside the doorway.
They were trained killers, men who were feared by others. One had even worked for PSI at one point in his life but had been subjected to conversion techniques that opened his eyes and his mind, his true nature shining through. Of course, the guard was unaware of his true, full past. He’d been given exactly what he needed as far as memories but nothing more.
And he’d been molded into the perfect weapon and guard dog.
Or in his case, a guard orca.
The man’s job was simple.
Keep Helmuth guarded and oversee the completion of the research vessel that had been in the works for some time. For a while, Helmuth hadn’t been sure the project would be able to move forward, since his standing within The Corporation had been on shaky ground, but that was all behind him.
In Seattle, he’d already taken unnecessary risks that had left him scrambling to clean up the fallout. He’d not make that mistake again.
His beach home and the freighter that was currently out to sea but within a quick boat ride’s distance were heavily guarded.
Veritable fortresses.
They had to be. They needed to keep out a well-trained enemy and, in the case of the freighter, keep in test subjects that he and the scientists who were on loan to him from The Corporation had been working on.
Try as he might, Helmuth found it hard to contain his growing excitement over how everything was progressing. Even with the minor setback he’d suffered recently, things were working out in his favor. And he’d gotten information and news from Cal that only sweetened the near future.
Cal had been one of the driving forces affiliated with The Corporation who had refused to turn his back on Helmuth in his hour of need. Cal had believed in him.
Helmuth adjusted the rolled cuff of his long-sleeved, lightweight white designer shirt and brought up a leg, putting his ankle on his thigh in a relaxing position as he continued to stare out at the water.
All around him was peaceful, yet it was a façade. A state of mind, because the reality was vastly different. He was being hunted like a fox with dogs nipping at his heels.
At least that was what he wanted people to think.
Especially those who were trying to bring him to their version of justice. Which was a joke. Who were they to decide what was right and what was wrong?
He knew where all the pieces on the chessboard were, and he was controlling them. It was working out as planned. And the information he’d been given by Cal had panned out and was so very close to bearing fruit.
While the succubus may be out of his reach for now, Caladrius had given him hope that another female might fill the open slot…and perhaps be an even better candidate for the testing. And Caladrius claimed this wasn’t the first run-in Helmuth had had with the new woman. That he’d been in close proximity to her once before, years ago. And that, like years ago, where she was, the other would be—the male that still held value to Helmuth.
The wereshark.
He licked his lower lip in anticipation of what was to come.
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