by Paige Tyler
* * *
“You guys got here fast,” Rachel said as he and Alyssa met up with her and Diego at the entrance to an alley off Third Street.
Zane looked around, wondering what they were all doing there. The area was dark and relatively deserted, which was surprising considering Downtown LA was full of clubs, restaurants, shops, and tourist traps. But when he’d plugged it into the map app on his mobile phone, he hadn’t seen anything of interest around there.
“I thought for sure you’d get stuck in traffic,” Rachel added. “You must have gotten dressed and out the door in thirty seconds flat to make it here this soon.”
Zane threw a glance in Alyssa’s direction, seeing the quick grin that slipped across her face. No, they hadn’t gotten dressed and out the door in thirty seconds—not even close.
The look Rachel and Diego shared spoke volumes. They smelled Alyssa on him and him on her. Diego looked surprised while Rachel looked extremely satisfied. To their credit, neither of them said anything, though they looked like they wanted to.
“We were lucky. Traffic was light,” he said. “What are we doing here in an alley at midnight? It doesn’t seem like a place where Stefan can nab his next victims.”
Diego jerked his chin at the area farther down the alley.
Zane didn’t see anything at first, but then he spotted a couple in dressy clothes walking toward them. Halfway in the alley, they turned and headed down a set of steps, disappearing underneath one of the buildings. He picked up bits and pieces of their conversation, then the distinct clank of a heavy, metal door. Thirty seconds later, three women hurried into the alley, teetering on their high heels and laughing. They vanished down the same stairs.
Obviously, there was a club down there.
Zane looked around. Other than a piece of red neon attached to the wall near the steps, there was nothing to tell anyone the place was there. Even the neon—a stylized cat with back arched—didn’t exactly scream nightclub.
Maybe it was an invitation-only kind of place.
“I thought for sure we’d lost Stefan when we got here. They parked in a lot nearby, so we followed their scent and it led us to this place,” Diego said as four guys jogged down the steps, joking with each other about who was buying the first round of drinks. “Oh, and I should probably mention, some of the people with Stefan reek of mud and stale blood. The stench was nasty as hell.”
Zane threw a glance Alyssa’s way, knowing there was no way she could have missed that whole thing about Diego and Rachel tracking Stefan’s scent. But Alyssa didn’t even bat an eye. Maybe she hadn’t been paying attention?
He seriously needed to have a talk with his pack mate about keeping a low profile regarding the werewolf stuff.
“How long have Stefan and his buddies been down there?” Zane asked, not caring if Stefan’s friends stunk. The guy was a wanker. It wasn’t shocking the people he hung out with smelled crappy. “And is there a back way out of the club?”
“About twenty minutes,” Rachel said. “And there’s a loading dock on the far side of the block that seems to be connected to this side. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a labyrinth of interconnected rooms and corridors down there. If Stefan and his chucklefucks grab someone, that’s probably the way they’ll get them out.”
“We need to get down there,” Alyssa said. “They might already have drugged someone by now. Twenty minutes is a long time.”
As they headed toward the stairs, Diego slipped ahead to fall into step beside Alyssa while Rachel hung back with Zane. “You and Alyssa, huh? Wow. Who saw that coming?”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “If you say I told you so, I’ll bite you.”
“You won’t hear it from me,” she promised. “I’m only glad you figured it out. You two are good together.”
“We haven’t figured out anything.” He sighed. “Part of me is sitting back, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Rachel frowned. “It doesn’t always have to go that way, you know? Just because there have been some crappy moments in your life, it doesn’t mean this time can’t be better. Sometimes, it’s all right to believe things are going to turn out okay.”
Zane would have told her that was a naive view of the world and that his experiences indicated things really could go from bad to worse to horrible damn fast, but they’d reached the stairs to find Alyssa and Diego already waiting for them.
The big, dark-haired guy with tattoos on both arms at the bottom of the steps barely looked at them, but the petite girl with pin-straight, cobalt-blue hair standing beside the bouncer stared at them like she’d seen a ghost. The girl looked eighteen at the most and too young to be working at a place like this.
“Wow,” she breathed, her lavender eyes going wide. “We don’t usually get your kind here. Now it’s like Grand Central Station.”
Zane was still trying to figure out what kind of people she meant when the girl motioned with her head toward the metal door. The tattooed bouncer opened it without a word and waved all four of them in.
“Okay,” Diego murmured as they descended another set of steps, illuminated only by small, red, neon cats lining the walls. “Is it just me or was that girl weird as hell?”
“She smelled funny, too,” Rachel said.
Zane ignored the curious look Alyssa threw his teammate’s way, praying she wouldn’t ask what Rachel meant.
As for the girl with the blue hair smelling odd, he hadn’t gotten a good sniff of her, mostly because he’d been too busy trying to understand why she was the one in charge and not the mountain of muscles beside her. Now that he thought about it, there was something off about her. Besides the fact that she didn’t seem to possess a filter when it came to knowing what to say to potential customers, her eyes seemed way too old for someone her age.
They were about halfway down the steps when he felt the bass beat of the club’s music vibrating through his boots. But it wasn’t until he got to the bottom of the stairs that he realized the music wasn’t merely loud. It was bloody deafening. The moment he pulled open the set of heavy double doors, the thumping techno beat smacked him in the face and hundreds of strobe lights did their very best to blind him.
As if that wasn’t enough, a dozen bizarre scents he didn’t recognize hit him all at once, making his eyes water. He glanced at Rachel and Diego to see it was affecting them the same way. Rachel actually used the back of her hand to block her nose.
“What the hell am I smelling?” Diego asked.
No need to worry about Alyssa overhearing anything they said in there. Zane could barely hear himself think.
“I don’t know,” he told Diego. “Forget about that for now. We need to find Stefan and his crew and figure out what they’re up to.”
Alyssa glanced over her shoulder at him. “This place is a complete madhouse. Should we split up and search?”
Madhouse was one way to describe it. Complete bedlam was another. Then again, that could just be the effect of the strobes. The flashing lights made the club’s patrons look like they were moving at half speed and fast-forward at the same time. It was disturbing as hell.
Zane tried to ignore the annoying lights and survey the club. Rachel had been right. The place wasn’t one big space. Instead, it seemed to be a series of individual rooms on different levels, all connected by archways and tunnels. This level had a gigantic bar along the back wall and a dance floor packed with partying people.
“You two take the left side. Alyssa and I will go right,” he said to Rachel and Diego. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wireless earpiece, slipping it into place, then clipped the mic to his shirt. “If we see anything, we’ll let you know. You do the same. And remember, watch yourselves. We don’t have a clue what Stefan and his crew are up to yet, but we know they’re dangerous.”
“Will do,” Diego said.
He and Alyssa slowly worked their way through the crowd, searching for Stefan, but the damn strobe lights made it nearly impossible t
o get a good look at anyone very clearly. He tried to use his nose to see if he could pick up anything, hoping maybe one of the guys he’d fought in the alley the other night had come with Stefan, but the strange odors in the air were messing with his head. He couldn’t seem to focus on anything but them. A few of the scents were almost werewolf like, but not quite right. Definitely not like any alpha, beta, or omega he’d ever smelled. At least whatever it was smelled vaguely like an animal, which was comforting for some reason.
The other scents worried him. Because there were at least three or four of them, including that weird mud-and-stale-blood stench Diego had mentioned that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. At first, he thought he might be picking up the odor of something decaying in the walls or the air vents of the club. He could only imagine how many rats a place like this might have. But the scents moved around too much for that. Whatever was putting off those odors was wandering around the club.
Things that smelled like dead rats walking around an underground nightclub—nothing bizarre about that.
Zane was still trying to pinpoint the source of the scents—relatively sure one or two of them were out on the dance floor—when Alyssa dragged his attention back to the real reason they were there.
“I don’t see Stefan or anyone who looks like his Neanderthals in here,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the loud music. “I think we should move to another part of the club.”
He nodded and motioned toward one of the archways that led into another room. She headed that way without comment, and he fell in directly behind her, so he could keep both an eye on her and where they were going. When they stepped through the archway, Alyssa halted midstep, surveying a room that was even bigger than the one they’d just left.
“How the hell did they fit this all in here?” Alyssa asked.
Zane had to agree. Maybe there was some kind of TARDIS magic going on and it was bigger on the inside than the outside. If he didn’t know better, he’d think they’d stepped onto the third level of the Dallas Galleria and were looking down at the ice-skating rink they set up in the main atrium of the mall during the winter season. Except this version of the Galleria was painted pitch-black, lit with more of those bloody strobe lights and neon cats, and had a multilevel dance floor instead of an ice rink, complete with at least a hundred half-drunk, barely dressed people grinding together.
As he and Alyssa made their way through the crowd, he realized it was going to be damn tough finding Stefan in here thanks to the dark alcoves all along the walls. Even with the improved night vision that came with being a werewolf, he still couldn’t see very far into them. Stefan could be ten feet away from them right now and they’d walk right past him.
Zane slowed as a strobe light spun around and almost blinded him. By the time his eyes cleared, Alyssa was a good ten feet ahead of him and he had to hurry to catch up to her. He was moving so fast he didn’t see the dark-haired woman standing at the railing overlooking the dance floor until he bumped into her. He stopped to apologize when the woman’s scent hit him. She smelled a little like a werewolf but different at the same time.
Eyes flashing bright green, she let out a low-pitched yowl. When that wasn’t enough to immediately scare him away, she lifted her hand, revealing petite, curved claws, then hissed at him, exposing a delicate pair of fangs.
Bloody hell. She was some kind of werecat!
He put up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bump you.”
Catwoman—yeah, he was going there—glared at him, letting out another hiss. “Stay the hell away from me. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m not getting involved in your crap.”
Baring her teeth at him again, she hurried away, disappearing into the crowd, leaving Zane to wonder if they were pumping psychedelic drugs into the club’s air system. Because there was no way in hell he’d seen what he thought he’d seen.
“I don’t know what the crowd looks like on your side of the club,” Diego’s voice in his earpiece jerked him out of the minor mental breakdown he was currently experiencing, “but there’s some weird shit going on in this place.”
“You have no idea,” Zane muttered. “I think some kind of werecat just threatened to rip my face off. She had glowing eyes, fangs, and claws, but she definitely wasn’t one of us.”
He expected an immediate barrage of questions—and maybe a few comments about how insane he sounded—but he got neither.
“This is going to sound crazy, but when we ran into this guy who didn’t smell like any human I’ve ever come across, he freaked out and took off through the crowd,” Rachel said. “We followed him to a small alcove, and when we tried to tell him we only wanted to talk, he ran through a wall to get away from us.”
Zane did a double take, sure he’d heard that last part wrong. Finally, he forced the words out. “He did what?”
“He ran through the damn wall,” Diego said. “As in he disappeared through reinforced concrete without leaving a mark on it.”
Zane was still letting that sink in when Alyssa walked up and stopped in front of him. She must have realized he wasn’t behind her and circled back. “What’s up? Did you see Stefan?”
“Not yet. Let’s do a lap around this level, then head down to the second floor.”
As they moved through the crowd, he kept a hand on her lower back this time, so they wouldn’t get separated again. They stuck close to the rail, keeping an eye out for Stefan, but between the swirling lights, hidden alcoves, and ridiculous number of people in the club, it was impossible.
“Anything yet?” he asked Rachel and Diego.
“Negative,” Diego replied.
“But we just walked by a girl who didn’t have a heartbeat,” Rachel added. “She actually had the audacity to look at us like we were something she’d only seen in the off-limits part of the local petting zoo.”
Zane didn’t know what kind of animals were off-limits in a petting zoo but was afraid to ask. This night was bizarre enough as it was.
They were heading toward the stairs to the second level when he picked up a scent he immediately recognized. An alpha werewolf. It was difficult to pinpoint exactly where the guy was in the sea of humanity, but he was close by. The comment about Grand Central Station from that girl with the blue hair out front suddenly made a lot more sense. Another werewolf must have slipped in there just minutes before they had.
Zane wasn’t sure if they found the other werewolf or he found them, but five minutes later, they ran into him. Alyssa didn’t realize what the tall, broad-shouldered Asian American guy was, so she stepped to the side to slip around him but stopped when she noticed Zane wasn’t following her.
“Man, am I glad to see you,” the werewolf said, relief clear on his face as he extended his hand. “Jake Huang.”
Zane automatically shook his hand. “Zane Kendrick. This is Alyssa Carson.”
Jake gave her a nod in greeting as he shook her hand. “I’m looking for two betas. Identical twin girls about eighteen-years old. Tall, platinum-blond hair, blue eyes—you can’t miss them. They’re in trouble, and if you’re willing, I could use help finding them.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Zane caught Alyssa looking at Jake in confusion, and he wasn’t sure what was crazier about this situation—that the other alpha had said something like that in front of a human or that he’d just described Zoe and Chloe to a tee.
Then it hit him. This guy was the twins’ alpha. And based on the racing heartbeat and waves of anxiety rolling off Jake, it was obvious he knew his betas were in danger. It must be so bad he’d simply stopped caring about the normal rules of werewolf behavior—like not letting random strangers know werewolves existed.
Zane would have preferred not to have this conversation in front of Alyssa, but asking her to wander off on her own for a few minutes so he could chat with Jake wasn’t going to work. “I know who you’re talking about and you can relax. The girls are okay. They’re safe in a
hotel room halfway across town.”
Jake stared at him in confusion. “No, they aren’t. I tracked their scent in through the front entrance not more than ten minutes ago, but there are so many strange odors in here I can’t find them now. Every instinct I have is telling me they’re in serious trouble and that I have to help them even though I’ve never actually met them.”
Alyssa was standing there looking baffled as hell, but Zane ignored her. “How could you describe them if you’ve never met them?”
“Because I saw them on a security camera last week.” Jake ran his hand through his hair and blew out a breath as he added, “I’m a cop in Santa Fe. After my shift, I stopped at a diner to grab something to eat before I went home, and the moment I walked in, I smelled them. They must have been there right before I was.” He shook his head. “I can’t explain it, but something told me they were in trouble. I got the manager to show me the security footage and as soon as I saw them on camera, I knew I had to find them. I took emergency leave and have been tracking them ever since. The sensation they’re in trouble has gotten stronger every day. They’re in here now…and they’re in danger.”
“You’re saying Zoe and Chloe are here in this club?” Alyssa asked.
She might not have a clue what was going on, but she was picking up speed fast.
“I think we would have seen Zoe and Chloe if they were up here,” Zane said. “Let’s check the next level down.”
They were heading downstairs when Zane spotted a woman with cobalt-blue hair running up the stairs, nearly shoving people aside in her haste to get past. For half a second, he thought it was the girl from the front entrance, but then just as quickly realized that while she was almost assuredly related to her, she was twice the girl’s age. Her mother maybe?
The woman’s lavender eyes filled with panic as she skidded to a stop in front of them. She ignored Alyssa, instead focusing all of her attention on him and Jake. “You can’t be here. My daughter should never have let you in. You need to leave—now. Before anyone sees you. I’ll take you out the back way.”
