by McKenna Dean
“Bitterness doesn’t suit you, Peter. Nor does wallowing in self-pity and drunkenness, I might add. Flattering as it was, it was a little pathetic to watch.”
Knight’s lips flattened in a grim line as he lunged up toward her, brought short by the reach of his chain. He sank back. The torchlight drew shadows across his face, emphasizing the look of utter contempt that washed over him. “You watched me. You knew what...what your reported death put me through. Why? Why marry me? Why fake your death, disappear for two years, and then come back now?”
She took several steps closer to him and crouched down, balanced on her heels. Her smile curved in a caricature of affection. “Darling, you loved being married to me, didn’t you?”
She leaned toward him; the bodice of her clinging skinsuit emphasizing her generous cleavage. “You were a business investment that failed to pan out. That’s all.” She laughed when Knight’s mouth fell open in shock. “A costly investment of my time at the wishes of my employer. Had you accepted their offer, the organization would have absorbed you, and in good time, I would have been free to leave.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your understanding isn’t necessary. Suffice to say when you turned down the job offer it was time to cut my losses. I knew Margo’s death would destroy you and take you off the market. I was right. And your paranoia regarding the government meant you wouldn’t turn to them, either.” She cast a glance in my direction and when she spoke again, the steel flashed in her voice like a stiletto in the ribs. “I didn’t count on you joining up with Redclaw. They don’t work with...outsiders.”
“I’d hardly call it joined.” He replied with his typical British reserve: cool, collected, and dismissive. He was in control once more. “Merely camping out there until I identified all the parties attempting to put a period to my life. So, not the government. Some criminal organization? I should have guessed. Why else would someone like you have been interested in me? I take it you’re with the gunmen who tried to pick me up outside Moneta’s?”
“What makes you think I’m not with the wolf pack?” Her sultry flirtatiousness made me want to slap her.
“Because they’re still outside the cave, looking for a way in.”
“I do so admire a smart man.” She trailed a finger down his nose and tapped his lips with mocking gentleness. “Pity you didn’t take the offer from HADES before.”
Tommy might be in his usual gin-soaked stupor, watching their interaction in slack-jawed confusion, but I refused to let them ignore me any longer. “HADES?”
Both Knight and Margo glared at me in surprise, as though they’d forgotten I was there.
“HADES.” Knight’s upper lip lifted in a slight curl. “The puffed-up name of the organization that approached me about working for them. I presume it’s some sort of convoluted acronym. Like Hellfire and Damnation Essential Services. Oh wait, I know. Honestly Arrogant Dumb Expendable Stooges.” He aimed his comment at Margo, but his obvious contempt just fed her amusement, and she tossed her head back with a little laugh.
She patted his cheek hard enough to make him flinch. “Let me repeat. There was never any us, my dear. You were a job, nothing more, nothing less. Since you weren’t willing to come on board voluntarily, HADES had planned to pick you up after you were blacklisted, seeing as no one would care enough to look for you. But then you disappeared. So inconsiderate.”
Knight’s gaze met mine, pained apology drawing fine lines at the corners of his eyes. No one should ever hear their worth—their love—was just a business venture. And though he must be feeling guilty for getting us into this mess, no one had twisted my arm to come. I was the one who insisted on poking around when we had a chance to escape. On following Tommy and Margo in the first place. It wasn’t his fault she was, as Joan Crawford would say, a word no lady would use outside a kennel.
None of this was his fault. It was mine.
“What about Rhett?” Tommy asked, and might as well have added, “and me.”
“I’m not interested in your old girlfriends, sweetheart. With one exception.” She turned a baleful glare in my direction. “I’m surprised you came down here unarmed. Where’s that unique little weapon you had the other day? I want it.”
Her demand cleared up one little thing at least. She must work with the people who tried to grab Knight outside Moneta’s, or else she wouldn’t know about the ray gun. But she hadn’t found it? I wasn’t going to question that little bit of good luck. I indicated my outfit with a sweep of my hand. “It didn’t go with the dress.”
Her eyes narrowed. She was distinctly unamused by my reply.
“What are we going to do with them?” Tommy’s whine made me wince, and irritation spurted across Margo’s features before she tamped it down.
“Go ready the boat. I won’t be long.”
“But it isn’t loaded—”
“I said—” She took a deep breath and began again with a brittle smile. “I’m just going to pick up one or two representative objects to show our buyers. I’ll join you in a moment.”
“But I’ll have to lower the shield. If the shifters have found the boat entrance—”
“They’re too busy trying to break in from above. I’ll be along in a minute.”
“Tommy.”
My single word caught him as he was turning away. Dark circles, almost like bruises, emphasized the puffy bags under his eyes, previewing what he’d look like in another ten or so years, if he lived that long. “Remember when Jane Reid stole her grandmother’s pearls? She tried to get you to cover for her.”
Tommy’s brow furrowed as he searched for the memory, and then his expression cleared. “You pointed out I’d be an accessory after the fact, so I didn’t.”
He began to walk away. I shouted after him.
“Jane didn’t love you! She was just using you. Like Eve, here. Or Margo. Or whatever name she goes by. As soon as you’re no longer useful she’ll cut you loose. Don’t turn your back on her.”
Tommy turned to look at me, indecision locking his step.
“Go now, Tommy,” Margo ordered. “We don’t have much time. We must catch the tide.” She fixed her gaze upon him like a snake mesmerizing its prey.
Tommy stood as if being pulled between two poles, unable to move due to the equal forces tugging on him. When Margo realized his resolution wavered, she crooked her finger at him in a mockery of a come-hither gesture. “Tommy.”
As if being jerked along by an invisible leash, Tommy stumbled toward her. Making sure Knight and I both were watching, Margo wound a hand in Tommy’s hair and pulled him down for a kiss. From the way she ground her lips on his, she seemed hungry for him, and he responded with eagerness. When she withdrew, her lipstick was smeared. She looked like a wild animal that had been feeding at a kill. “Hurry, my love.”
He made brief eye contact with me, and then ducked his head and turned away, shoulders slumped as he headed back to the boat dock. There would be no help from that quarter.
Margo watched him leave with a satisfied smile on her face. As soon as Tommy was out of sight, her demeanor changed. Gone was the pretense of attraction. She was all business again as she crossed over to the crates stacked in the middle of the cavern.
The terrier leapt at the wire with a growl, and she aimed a vicious kick at the cage in passing. From behind the crates, she lifted a satchel. Patting the side of the bag, she said, “I have everything I need here. Including back up." She undid the latches, extracted a little Beretta, and closed the bag again.
With her gun held rock-steady at Knight, she tossed him a key. “Unlock your chains. You’re coming with me.”
He undid the shackle, rubbing his wrist as he got unsteadily to his feet. His leg gave out from under him, and he fumbled for balance, knocking up against the nearest crate. He caught it just as it tipped over, but several objects fell to the sand, including my clutch.
Cursing, he pulled himself upright to shake out a leg and stamp it several time
s before bending down to pick up the fallen items and replace them on the crate. “What about the girl?”
Margo slew her glance at me sideways with a curl of her lip. “She stays.”
“You’re just going to leave her here? She could starve before anyone finds her.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” Her feline smile didn’t bode well for me.
Something in her tone brought Knight up short, and a note of desperation entered his voice. “At the very least, unchain her. She can leave after we go. There’s no one at the main house, I have the car keys, and the nearest phone is miles away. She’s no threat to your business.”
“I’m going to leave her where she is. If the shifters get in here, I’d like them to have something to keep them occupied until I return.”
“You can’t—you wouldn’t—” Knight sputtered in disbelief his pupils wide with horror.
Margo shrugged with a casual elegance. “She stays chained or I shoot her outright. Who knows, maybe the shifters won’t kill her. Consider it my way of giving her a sporting chance. Either way, I won’t have her following us.”
“I won’t go with you. Not unless she comes, too.” Knight’s lips pressed together as he stood clutching an armload of artifacts.
“Yes, you will. Or I’ll shoot you both and be done with it. HADES might be put out, but at least you won’t be working with Redclaw. My boss would like that.” There wasn’t a trace of hesitation as she took aim at his chest.
Knight raised his hands, dropping everything but my purse and a trinket box, looking like a nervous bank teller at a holdup.
A low-thrumming rumble vibrated around us.
“What’s that?” Knight asked, arms splayed out for balance. “An earthquake?”
Margo flicked her glance toward the docking area, even as she frowned. “Tommy must have raised the gate over the boat entrance. It’s too soon, the idiot.”
The sound of a boat engine reached the hold. More than just a casual idle of the motor. It was the full-throated roar of a throttle being shoved forward. The little dog bounced forward in his cage, barking.
“He’s leaving without us.” Margo’s beautiful face twisted with fury, and she wheeled toward the boat bay.
Knight flung the clutch in my direction. It landed just shy of my feet, the clasp open and the contents scattered. I didn’t see any sign of the ray gun, but was pleased Knight had included the key to the shackles in his quick toss. I shifted my foot to cover it.
The movement caught Margo’s attention. “What did you do?” She leveled a suspicious glare on Knight.
“You’re not going to let him take the boat, are you?”
“We’ll take your car. Go.” She waved him toward the tunnel at the back of the cavern. When he hesitated, she swung the gun around to point at me. “Your choice. Move or she dies. And then you’re next.”
Something inside my clutch twitched. The bag humped forward, then flopped like a fish on a hook. The caged terrier tipped his head first one direction, and then the other. I sent a slight prayer that he wouldn’t bark. Catching his gaze on me, I lifted a finger to my lips for silence, not that he could understand.
Something slithered out of the bag and made its way toward my hand, visible just by the marks it left behind in the damp sand. My fingers closed around it just as the first wolf appeared at the tunnel’s opening.
Chapter Nineteen
“How did they get in here?” Margo raged at the intruders. “Get back!”
The wolves must have found the boat bay opening, and when Tommy had lowered the energy shield to raise the gate and escape with the boat, there’d been nothing to keep them out.
Margo fired several shots at the wolves skulking around the boulders lining the entrance to the cavern. The sound rang my ears in the confined space. Bullets pinged off the rocks surrounding the dark opening, sending stone chips flying. A high-pitched whine caused me to flinch and duck as something passed close by my head.
As the wolves retreated behind the pile of boulders, Knight tackled Margo, forcing her gun hand toward the ground as he shouted, “Are you insane? Haven’t you ever heard of a ricochet?”
She elbowed him in the gut hard enough to make him grunt with a whoosh of air, and wrested the Beretta free. Fury stripped her face of any possible beauty as she snarled like a harpy at him.
I dropped the invisible ray gun into my lap. Margo was too far out of its range; I had to get free before I could help Knight. I tried to pull the key into reach, but only buried it deeper in the sand. Taking a calming breath, I forced myself to relax and concentrated on grabbing the key with my toes.
Margo pointed the gun at Knight again, and I thought it quite possible she would shoot him out of sheer temper.
Knight seemed to think so, too. “Go ahead, shoot me. But I’m thinking you only have so many bullets—and then what? The wolves will be on us. Is there another way out of here?” Knight cracked out his questions with the voice of someone used to being the smartest person in the room.
It got Margo’s attention.
“Yes.” She nodded toward a dark opening at the far end of the hold. “There’s a tunnel out the back.” She grabbed a torch off the wall and thrust it with a shower of sparks at the wolf who poked his nose around the bend. With a snarl vicious enough to match any wolf, she overturned several crates and touched the torch to them. Orange flames leapt up from the straw used for packing, burning bright. The thin dry wood of the crates burst into flame, and black smoke filled the air. “We’re leaving. Now!”
It was a good thing Margo wasn’t looking at me when I gripped the key with my toes. The triumphant smile would have been hard to hide. Gratitude for having ditched my shoes and for Knight having slashed my dress fueled my relief when I was able to transfer the key to my palm.
On the other side of the fire, the wolves howled in frustration as they paced back and forth behind the fire blocking their entrance; the flames casting gross, fantastical silhouettes like demons on the rough stone surface behind them. The little dog in his cage barked in return.
“Rhett!”
Thinking I was still trapped and defenseless, Knight would have taken a step in my direction, but Margo shoved him toward the tunnel.
I’ll never forget the stricken look on Knight’s face as she forced him forward, abandoning me to my fate.
After pushing him inside the passage, Margo flipped a switch by its entrance, causing a string of anemic light bulbs to flare along its path. She paused at the opening to look back at me, taking in my captive state and the burning boxes that would soon prove no barrier to the wolves. I saw the moment she decided to let things play out on their own. Being torn apart by wolves was a far more gruesome death than a quick bullet to the head. With a grin that would haunt my nightmares for weeks, she ducked into the tunnel and vanished from sight.
I didn’t waste any time. The key fitted into the lock on my wrist, and with a quiet snick, the shackle fell open. The warm metal of the ray gun fit into my hand as if designed just for me. No sooner had my hand closed around it than the gun materialized. Given the gun’s short range, I’d have to let the wolves get closer than I’d like, and it would take too long to charge on stun, but just having it in my hand lent me confidence I hadn’t known I’d lost. I switched the setting from stun to kill.
Without a care as to whether I burned Redclaw property or valuable artwork, I tossed more objects into the fire, which showed signs of dying back.
The terrier emitted a bizarre yodeling cry, and I frowned at him. If I released him, would he run off or join in the melee? Surely it would be safer for him to remain confined, and yet how was that any different from Margo leaving me chained for the shifters to find? His odds seemed poor no matter what I decided. I’d at least give him a chance. I opened the door.
The terrier bounced out of the cage and shook himself with vigor before looking up at me with bright, shoe-button eyes and a tail wagging too fast to see.
; “Run, little buddy.” I chucked my head toward the far tunnel.
He lifted one paw in submission. His little black ears stood in sharp contrast to his white body, and his legs trembled with either fear or excitement. His excited eyes fixed on mine, as though willing me to understand something just outside my range of comprehension.
The flames were dying out. As the last box collapsed in on itself with a crack and pop, the little dog turned his head to look at it. The tag on his collar didn’t shift with his movement, but remained fixed in place, the ornate lettering declaring DELILAH.
Why call a male dog Delilah? Unless....
I had no time to consider the matter further. Through the thick smoke, what seemed like dozens of gold eyes gleamed in the shadows. Several wolves came into the light, their canines gleaming as they bared their teeth. I edged behind some crates, hoping for some cover for when they attacked.
As if responding to some secret cue, wolves boiled out of the opening like angry wasps from a hive. I fired, dropping several in their tracks, but more followed. The ray gun grew hot in my hand and took longer to cycle up again with each shot fired. They’d be on me soon and would show no mercy. Of that I was certain.
When the trigger clicked several times and nothing happened, I tucked the gun in my waistband and hurled everything within reach at the rush of bodies. China plates, small boxes covered with mysterious symbols that weighed as much as gold ingots, and even the Tiffany tea set rained down on my attackers with more sound than fury. Selecting a driver from a monogrammed bag of golf clubs, I executed a textbook swing and connected with the lead wolf, who let out a high-pitched yelp and collapsed. I caught another one on the chin with the backswing, glad that all that time at the country club had paid off.
The little dog dashed in and out among the longer legs of the wolves, latching on to a flank or neck only to be flung to the side, barely avoiding the slashing of wicked teeth. He bounced up again every time as though on springs, unwilling to give up. A wolf snatched the driver out of my hands midair in his jaws and tossed it aside with a triumphant growl. I bashed him with a painting, ramming the canvas down to split over his head so he wore the frame like a gaudy necklace. The force of the impact made me stumble backward, and I landed on my back with the wind knocked out of me. The fall jarred loose the ray gun from my waistband, and it landed a few feet away.
