I nodded. “Can you shift?”
“I’ll show you.”
Zach stood up, shaking his hands. His face rippled and contorted. He groaned as white fur burst from his skin, gathering all around the edges of his face. His brown eye turned to gold, his hair retracting into his skull to make way for more fur.
Groaning in pain again, his arms gnarled into claws. His mouth stretched, filling with large teeth, and his face stretched outward, forming a sort-of snout.
“Whoa!” I was on my feet. “I’ve never seen this before!”
Zach signed with his claws. “Can you shift?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I left out the Bob and Rose stuff.
Xavier reappeared on the platform, striding over. It’d been an hour since the elf investigators had appeared. He looked pretty glum.
“What’s up?” I asked, turning away from Zach as he started to return to his other form.
“They found a trace of silver on the werewolf’s neck.”
“Oh, fuck. How did I not smell it?”
“It was small. I didn’t notice it before.” He sighed. “It looks like he was killed with a silver blade.”
Illegal as fuck!
“That doesn’t mean it was an elf,” Phi said. “Not like terrorist groups aren’t making silver weapons.”
Dear papa wouldn’t be too happy about that!
But it was true. Many terror cells had been crushed, but there was still a market for silver for those who wanted to do some harm to the furry peeps in power.
“No. Of course not, darling Phi.”
“Too obvious,” I added.
“Let’s hope so,” Xavier replied. “If this turns out to be the work of an elf killer, then we are going to have some serious trouble on our hands.”
“Why now, though?” I said. “I mean, there’s been no rebellion for a while. Don’t get the revolt vibe from the elves at the moment. This would be really fucking stupid. The High Alpha’s wrath would be hardcore.”
Xavier folded his arms. “I’m sure he’s already thinking bad things about us.”
“Let him. Fuck him. I know an elf didn’t do this.”
“You should never assume, Akira. It’s a fool’s game.”
“Yeah, well. I’ll be a fool.”
He smiled. “Come, let’s get this body on the move.”
* * *
At Green Park, a werewolf detail waited at the entrance—about twenty wolves and a black van. They were bonkers to be dressed in black in the afternoon heat. It was turning out to be a scorcher of a day!
The road was blocked off from both sides, crowds gathered at the barriers with their phones out, along with some paparazzi snapping away. Not that there was much to see. The wolves were blocking as much of the view with their bodies as they could, and there were more wolves on crowd control too.
Derek’s body was on a stretcher, covered in a white sheet, and I wheeled it out onto the street as the elves gathered behind me. They would never step out into the Green Park area, just as the wolves would never head into the tunnels.
Gabriel was there waiting for me, keeping his distance in the shade as the wolves in black took the stretcher from me.
“Nice work.” Colin was at my back once again. I hadn’t even spotted him or smelled him.
I turned around. “Thanks.”
“Good to see you again today.”
I didn’t know how to answer that. He…he…
“See you around, yeah? Been too long.”
My mouth was dry, my tongue on strike.
He smiled and ran a thumb across his bottom lip. I watched every movement as his eyes lingered on me, as he turned and headed to the van.
Fuck.
I wanted to puke.
“Akira?” Xavier called.
Sweat all over my forehead, I went back to the tunnel entrance. “That went well.”
“Yes. Thank you again for being a reasonable force.”
I wouldn’t go that far! “Happy to help.”
“Are you alright? You look rather pale.” He felt my forehead with the back of his hand. “You’re on fire! Sweaty. Are you ill?”
“No. I’m fine. Just the summer, I guess.”
Zach signed at me.
“Nice to have met you,” Phi spoke.
“Can I give you my number?”
Zach nodded.
The strange connection thingy didn’t raise its head again. We swapped phones and typed in the relevant numbers.
“Thanks,” I said, pocketing my phone. “We should all go for a beer, chat about stuff. You’ve proper freaked me out, but you might be able to help me.”
Zach smiled when my words were signed back to him.
“Didn’t mean to freak you out, but there’s certainly a mystery to solve there,” Phi said.
Life was a funny fucker sometimes. One moment you’re over there, then it comes and shoves you over there. This all had the potential to not only rock the boat but capsize the bastard.
Yeah, as I’d told Zach, I was freaked out—in a good way. Answers could be coming!
The van started to pull away, slowly making its way to the turnoff that led to The Spire. Behind it like a funeral parade, the twenty wolves followed.
Twenty wolves, including Colin.
Colin…
Two men who could make me feel like a mouse—him and my dad.
“How about Tuesday night?” Zach said through Phi. “We could meet at The Thistle and Bone pub near Euston.”
“Cool. I know the place.” It wasn’t far from my flat and was nice and quiet. Good for a convo and a pint.
“See you then. Say eight?”
The couple agreed.
I hugged Xavier goodbye. “You’re never boring, are you?”
“Cheers.”
He laughed and then tensed up. “Oh, no.”
“What’s wrong?” I followed his eye line.
A guy with a camera had leaped the barrier, snapping away as he ran from the wolves. The camera was pointing right at me as I stood just outside the gate to the tunnels.
Ah, crap!
Didn’t take long before he was wrestled to the ground, camera ripped out of his hand, and then carried off kicking and screaming about his rights.
“Do you think they recognized you?” Xavier asked.
“I hope not. They’re not bothered about me, but if the right person sees that picture…”
“They won’t let him keep the camera, surely.”
“They won’t, but that doesn’t mean the picture isn’t on its way to a press center as we speak.”
“I hate how clever cameras are nowadays.”
“Me too.” Shit! If someone noticed it was me, then they’d defo make a story out of it. What was that thing I was saying about life shoving you in different places?
“I’d better go,” I said.
“Yes. I see a handsome werewolf watching you. Is that Gabriel?”
“Yeah.”
Xavier nodded and said no more.
“See you around?”
“You will, indeed. Have a lovely rest of the day.”
“Same to you.” I waved off Zach, Phi, and Melody, hurrying over to G.
“What was that about?” he asked.
I told him.
“Oh, no. We’ll need to do some damage control if anything comes out of it. How did they let him slip through the barrier like that?”
“Shit happens, I guess.” I let out a heavy sigh.
He led me down a backstreet to his car. I got in, and he didn’t waste time hitting the road, weaving his way through more back streets blocked off by the wolves. Seeing Gabriel, they let him drive through until we were back on the main road.
“Want to go home?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Okay. How did it go down there?”
I explained about Derek.
“I just don’t get why he’d be down there,” he said. “It has to be deliberate.”
/>
“Would he be enough of a dick head to start something with the elves?”
“No. He wouldn’t—even though he’s the world’s biggest asshole.” His American accent was really thick when he said that—proper Texan.
“Fucking prick used to beat the shit out of me when I was a kid. Him and his friends made my life hell.” I’d never told G any of this stuff.
“Sorry?”
“Yeah. But I was the half-breed, stunted freak who couldn’t shift. So, they beat me, stuck my head down toilets, humiliated me on a daily basis at the school.”
Bullying aside, I was still made to go to the werewolf school in Richmond to endure the shit every day.
“Didn’t your father do anything?”
“No. Told me that’s life with wolves, that it was character building, and I needed to toughen up and fight back, seeing as I was having martial arts training after school. One of my teachers tried to help me, but she was bollocked for being a blockage in the path to my manhood. What the fuck that meant, I don’t know. Stopping me being a bully like everyone else, I guess. Anyway, the training did pay off one day. I snapped and broke some bones, then I was left alone. Only took me three years to strike back.”
Seeing Colin had…had… In my eighteenth year, it was his turn…
“I’m so sorry, Aki. I had no idea.”
I shrugged. “You weren’t around then. Anyway, I can kick arse proper now.”
“Maybe, but that’s no way to grow up.”
“Dad was right. It was character building.”
He shook his head but said nothing. I could see stuff playing out on his face, though. He wanted to cuss out my papa, but then he couldn’t as he was the beta.
What a conundrum for the poor bloke. Being torn is a shit stain.
I kept my mouth shut too. The next thing would be me blabbing about my life with Colin, and that’d open up a nasty can of worms.
So, I told him about Zach instead, and the strange thing that’d happened.
“Maybe you’re related,” he offered.
“What the fu—”
The blur of black came out of nowhere, slamming into my side of the car.
We spun across the road, G trying to get control of the vehicle, smashing into a parked van, every window shattering from the sheer force of the impact. My seatbelt almost split me in half, strangling my chest.
Before I could yell anything out, even a ‘fuck!’, the car flipped, hurtling down the street.
The last thing I saw before everything went dark was the road, from an upside-down point-of-view, coming up to meet us.
Chapter Thirteen
Snow…
Petals…
Snow…
The circle of light, the snow, the petals raining down on my head…
Pink…
Petals…
“Think he’s stirring, boss.”
“Yes, I think you’re right.”
The snow and pink petals were going, fading into the dark. But there wasn’t just dark anymore, a new light over in the place of shadows and white.
Shit.
“Eyes are moving.”
“You don’t need to examine every single detail.”
The boss was a woman, the other person, a man with a gravelly tone.
My head was pounding, bright light on the fringes of my eyeballs. Opening my heavy lids wasn’t gonna be fun.
“G?” I managed, my mouth a desert. Swallowing hurt like hell. Water. I needed water. But those two voices weren’t gonna hear me beg for it.
My body was leaning forward, something pulling on my wrists.
What the fuck?
Nausea started to rise up, joining the bad head, making my stomach roil. Motherfucking fuck! If I opened my eyes, the world would probably spin like I’d knocked back the Sambuca again, and I’d hurl. That’s what I was on the verge of—projectile puking.
Shit was getting clearer. I was in the belly of the beast, standing up and tied to what I could only guess was a pole, with chains around my waist, hands linked up behind me, ankles bound.
They were silver chains cutting into my skin. I didn’t have a top on, but I could feel my jeans were still there. Luckily, silver didn’t affect me the same as it would a full-blooded wolf. Okay, so my skin itched, but it wasn’t the silver making me sick. It was the fact I probably had a concussion. The inside of my head was a ship on a pissed off ocean.
“G?”
“Time to wake up,” the woman said.
I couldn’t keep my eyes closed forever. Slowly, they started to open, letting in the light. Yep, my head did a loop, and the contents of my stomach came oozing out of my gob, running down my bare chest.
Even though I felt like shit wrapped in shit, my eyes adjusted quickly, giving me a clear view of the room. It looked like a hunting lodge with fur rugs and animal skin sofas. The walls and ceiling were all a series of logs, and there was a moose head on the wall straight in front of me. Had I been teleported to the wilderness in another country somewhere? Did these sorts of places exist in London?
“What is this place?” I said, spitting out a chunk of sick. I blinked, my throat really wanting some water.
“Do you like it?” the woman asked.
I saw the light-skinned woman then, in a white boiler suit, her brown hair cut into a stylish short do. Amber eyes met mine, glossy lips in a pout as if she were making love to a camera.
“We meet at last,” she said.
Violet. The bloody gang queen!
“Can’t say I’m happy about it,” I retorted.
Next to her, was a good-looking man made of muscle, tanned with a black buzz cut, in a pale blue shirt and navy trousers. “Rude tosser,” he countered me.
Was that the best he had? Anyway, didn’t matter. I wasn’t about to spar with the fuckhead.
My swords were gone. My smaller knives too.
“G?”
Movement from the corner of my eye. I slowly turned my head, another sickly spin striking me and bringing up bile that dribbled down my chin.
“Ah, the other one’s waking up,” Violet said. “Eyes back to me.” She snapped her fingers. “Always on me, murderer.”
It was G, in the same position as me. No top on, a bloody bandage across his chest, also chained up in silver. There was a sickly sheen to him. He started to open his eyes. That silver would really be doing a number on him.
Heels clicked, and nails were digging into my cheeks, Violet’s grip intense. “What did I just tell you?” I couldn’t fight her off as she forced my head around, putting her back into my eye line.
“There,” she said, “that’s better. If you look away from me again when I’m talking to you, I’ll drive my heel into your ball sack. Do you understand?”
She’d do it. No second chances. She didn’t have a rep for being cotton wool. And I wasn’t a prat when it came to this shit.
“Yeah,” I answered like a good boy. I liked my balls just the way they were.
“Good. I want us to have a long time together, to draw this out for as long as possible. And I’m guessing it will be quite a while seeing as you’re such a tough cookie.”
This cookie’s gonna gut you.
“You’re dying here today. You killed my men. I always avenge my fallen warriors. I’m going to take you apart piece by piece, and your boyfriend here is going to watch every moment.”
He’s not my boyfriend! I kept the protest quiet. Best not to say anything until spoken to. Silent times were planning times. This bitch must think silver would fuck me up like G, but more fool her.
She walked over to Gabriel, I followed her with my eyes. Stopping before him, tilting her head, she placed a hand on a sweat-drenched pec. “The beta wolf. So handsome, so strong.” Violet traced her nails over his skin. “I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating biscuits.” She laughed, her muscled comrade joining in. “But you’re his lover.”
G groaned, his eyes weak and narrow slits, his jaw clenched with pai
n. Where the chains bit into him were silver sores—pretty but nasty. I had to get them off him.
Since Violet had herself some silver, was she a suspect in the werewolf murders? This was about me cutting up her peeps, yeah, but was she getting her crew to slice up wolves too? If so, what was her plan?
Hmmm. I wasn’t selling the idea to myself. She might be providing weapons. These gangs made their cash selling bad stuff, and that might have been the limit of how involved she was—a means to a violent end.
Right now, though, I needed to save G and maybe cut off her head. Where the hell had she put my swords?
“I hope you’ll enjoy the show we’re preparing for you,” Violet said to Gabriel, stroking his face. “Once you’ve reveled in the agonized cries of your boyfriend when he is no longer a part of this world, you may go and join him. I’m reasonable, I’ll give you a quick death, then send your heart to the High Alpha.”
Grim much?
The big geezer was watching her like he wanted to give her the throw down right there and then. His dick was hard judging by the bump in his trousers. Which was good for me because the wanker was distracted.
“So handsome,” Violet said again, sniffing G.
Freak.
I brought out Bob and Rose, planning on them scanning the area for me to smell out a plan. But they stared up at me, resisting my orders.
“Go and find something,” I told them. “Go on. We need to escape.”
Their heads tilted.
“What’s wrong?”
Then they shot off, straight through the wall, as if they’d been sucked out of there by a hoover.
“Babies?” They kept going, the speed making me even more dizzy than I already was. “Babies?”
I sucked in a sharp breath, all of me being pulled along with them towards…something.
I sagged forward, the chains digging into me. Straightening back up wasn’t happening. Gravity was really pushing down on me.
“Babies?”
Heels clicked. “Oh, no,” Violet said, coming back to me. “What’s happening here?”
“Get…away…” Gabriel wheezed.
“Shut the fuck up!” the man bellowed, storming over to him.
I saw Violet’s white heels stop before me.
“Is this all too much?” she asked. “Poor you. This really is nothing compared to what I have in store.” She grabbed my face had pushed me up. Every part of me protested against it, wanting to sag, the pull of my babies—wherever they were going—was extreme. But Violet managed to get me facing her again.
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 12
