She surprised me with her agility, holding the two ends of the chain with one hand as she produced a small knife with the other. As Mel reached a clawed hand back toward her head, she leaned away and jammed the knife into his palm. Mel screamed, and I felt myself whimper at the enraged roar of it.
I was still rooting for him to win, but the rage inside me had faded slightly. I was losing the reckless gumption I’d been feeling right after Norma’s death and it was being replaced by the strong desire to pee my damn pants.
Mel jerked his hand away from Chloe in an arc, spraying blood across the room. Without hesitation, he yanked the knife out of his palm and threw it to the side. Chloe had gone back to doing her best to suffocate him, but Mel’s neck seemed to be getting broader the furrier he got. He had a muzzle, and the entire shape of his head had changed to include tall, fur-tufted ears.
I had managed to gloss over the sound of joints cracking and clothes tearing up to that point, but when Mel twisted his head in an attempt to bite Chloe’s arm, I saw that his nice, misbuttoned shirt had ripped at the seams to reveal deep black fur on his shoulders. Chloe pressed further into him and, while his head was turned, I saw Owen dive forward, syringe in hand. He dropped to his knees under Mel’s swinging arms and jammed the syringe up into Mel’s groin.
I don’t even have testicles, but that hurt to watch.
Mel let out a sound that started as a roar of anger and trailed off into a howl of pain. His bulk shifted to the side and Owen twisted to shoot his foot out, sweeping Mel’s legs out from under him. The wolfman dropped to his side and Chloe let out a grunt as she hit the floor shortly after. I watched in shock as Owen pushed to his feet at the same time as he drew his gun, aimed it at Mel, and stepped to the side, out of range of Mel’s long limbs.
Chloe rolled away, leaving the chain around Mel’s neck and coming up in a crouch. She’d produced another knife and she held it out in front of her.
“Next time warn a girl,” she muttered. Owen’s grin was quick and wicked, but he didn’t move from his spot until it had been a full minute of Mel laying still, barely outside arm’s reach of Norma’s corpse.
“You son of a bitch!” I yowled, fighting against my bonds. My struggle felt human, though, weak and ineffectual. The clarity of my empathy had faded, leaving me with only the rage Norma’s death had sparked.
Chloe glanced over at me and the pool of pity in her solidified, going cold and hard as though ice chips were forming along the edges. She was annoyed with me. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to get to my feet and continue the fight. Owen holstered his gun, satisfied that Mel was down for the count, and turned to face me. Grinning across the room, he watched me struggle for a bit before he chuckled.
“She’s pretty cute when she’s mad.”
“Yeah, but she bites,” Chloe said conversationally, getting to her feet. As she moved toward Mel, Owen came closer to me. I tried to kick out with both legs but missed entirely. Waggling his eyebrows, he dropped down over me, sitting on my knees and reaching into his pack again. I tried to punch him again, with both fists this time, but he just he swept my arms out of my way with his right hand, leaning close as he did.
“Hate to do this to you, sweetheart, but you’ve really made a mess.” Pressing his lips to mine, he ignored the growl I let out as he lifted his left hand. I saw it sweep closer in my peripheral vision before I felt a pinch in my neck.
The world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I woke up in the arms of a woman, comfortable and content. My head was cradled in the crook of an elbow, and it was so dim in the room I could barely see who was above me. My first thought was that Norma had come back to life for me, that now we could be together. I lifted my hand to the arm draped over my chest and smiled.
“Love,” I murmured, hunching my shoulders up around my neck like a child happy to be tucked in snugly, before I turned so I could lay my cheek on her breast. The woman shifted and the lights came up. I realized it wasn’t Norma I was with, but Madeline. She was stunning.
The ruddiness of her cheeks had cleared up, leaving her skin flawless. Her lips looked full, her eyes soft and inviting. When she smiled, her teeth were perfect and, when she brushed my hair off my cheek, I noted that the dark hairs along her arms seemed to have lightened and thinned.
“You’ve come out of it,” she said softly, laying her hand on my cheek. “I wasn’t sure I was getting through.”
“Madeline?” I asked, though I knew it was her. I recognized the feeling of being this close to her and, though she looked different, she wasn’t entirely foreign. Like seeing someone made up by a professional make-up artist next to their own gawky high school picture. “Where are we?”
“My bed,” she said. Her hand on my cheek was warm, like she’d pressed it to a hot oven before touching me. I frowned, and it made her laugh.
“Why am I—” I cut off, suddenly uncomfortable being draped in her arms like we were lovers. I sat up, scooted away from her as she trailed her arms along my body until I was out of reach. “Why am I in your bed?”
“You needed help. You and Mel, though I’m not sure where he got off to. Chloe and Owen said he disappeared before they could round him up.”
“Disappeared from where?” I looked about the room, realizing I had no idea what had happened in the last few hours. “What time is it? Are we dating? I thought I was straight. What’s going on?”
Madeline laughed, tipping her head back as she did. Her hair fell over her shoulders like a waterfall. I found I wanted to reach out and run my hands through it. When she caught my gaze again, I felt myself blush.
“Everything you’re feeling now, everything you felt with Norma, it wasn’t your fault. You’ll pull through. Now come, sit in my lap. We have a bit more until you’re right as rain.”
My gaze fell to her hand as she reached out toward me and I thought about the contentment I’d felt upon waking. I realized I missed it, and that all I had to do to get it back was put my hand in hers. When I did so, she tugged, gently pulling me close. I looked up to find her slipping a hand behind my head and leaning in close as she tipped my mouth to meet hers. Her kiss was like a tornado in my mind, whirling my thoughts up and outward, leaving me blank.
##
It seemed it had become habit for me to get knocked unconscious by something supernatural and wake up in bed with a man. Last time it had been Chloe’s bed and Mel; this time it was Stan and the bed was mine.
Sitting next to my hip, Stan smiled down at me, and I felt happiness flutter out of him. It took me a few brainless seconds to comprehend exactly what him sitting over me meant.
“You’re okay!” I breathed, pushing into a sitting position and grabbing for his shoulders. He let me pull him into a hug and held on tight as dizziness took hold. I groaned as I felt the world slip out from under me. He hugged against the side of me that was suddenly magnetically attracted to the bed; instead of letting me topple, he kept me against him and ran a hand over my hair.
“Why am I hungover?” I mumbled against his sweater. He let out a soft laugh, ran his hand down my back and shifted closer, letting me straighten my spine marginally.
“Madeline had to fix you. You tried to kill Chloe and Owen.”
“I tried to kill Chloe?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t your fault.”
I opened my eyes, staring at myself in the floor-length mirror across from my bed. I looked terrible. I noticed the bruise along my right wrist and felt the fuzzy memories trying to surface. Everything from the moment I’d stepped into Norma’s house was a cloud of sensations, emotions, and flashing visions. One memory was clear, though, rooting to the forefront of everything else: I remembered Mel getting stabbed in the balls.
Stan pulled back slightly when I started to giggle, the look in his eyes matching the alarm he felt at my state of mind. He glanced over at the doorway before calling out for Chloe. I pushed myself upward, keeping a steadying hand on Stan’s shoulder
as I looked to the door. Chloe came in, followed closely by Owen. He smiled as he saw me, stopping next to the bed to regard me. I was still giggling and Stan gestured to me with his free hand.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s probably just thinking about Owen stabbing Mel in the crotch,” Chloe explained. Disapproval fanned out of Stan, hitting me in the face and making a snort slip its way into my giggling. Owen barked out a laugh at the sound, and I reached out to him. He took my hand, gave it a squeeze.
“Thank you for that mental image. You don’t ever owe me any birthday presents, for that was truly the greatest gift of all,” I told him. He winked at me and I could tell there was a bit more behind it than mutual amusement at Mel getting tranq’d in the junk. After a second, I felt curiosity get the better of me. “Where is Mel, anyway?”
“We’re not really sure,” Chloe admitted. One of the fuzzy memories shuffled up, trying to remind me of something about Madeline and the warmth of a dark room. “He just up and disappeared. I’m sure he’s fine, though. If he could walk, he’s alive. We didn’t really hurt him.”
“Ah,” I murmured, wondering if I should send a fruit basket or something to apologize for what we’d put him through.
“So you’re okay, then?” Stan asked, distracting me. I turned back to him and nodded.
“I think I feel okay. I don’t want to kill any of you, or make out with any succubi. Succubusses?” I wrestled with my groggy mind. “Succubi, right? Like when there’s more than one Elvis?”
“Something like that,” Chloe agreed, winking at me. “I had to change your clothes because you had chocolate squeezing out of the back pocket.”
“Hunh?” I asked, glancing down at myself. I was wearing loose pants and a sleep-tee. Looking back up to Chloe, I tried to figure out what she was talking about. She jerked a thumb toward my bathroom.
“The candy you stole from Mel, you left it in your pocket and it melted. You’re either gonna need to toss those pants or find a really good dry cleaner.”
Owen was smiling, glancing between us to see my reaction as Chloe spoke. When I recalled the chocolate she was talking about, I felt my face settle into a pout. That had been pretty good chocolate and I’d wasted it on pants. Dammit.
Deciding changing the subject was for the best, I tried to pull myself out of my lost-sugar funk.
“Is Norma actually dead?”
“She is. Owen took care of it.”
“I can’t believe you just shot her in the head and that was it.”
Owen shrugged, though there was something there he clearly wasn’t saying.
“They’re not hard to kill; I didn’t consider the fact that it would make you and Mel so mad, though.” Another fuzzy memory tried to force its way forward. A flutter of panic held it back and I moved on before I could realize what was making me so nervous.
“And yet you just had syringes full of tranquilizers lying around?” I asked, feeling the discomfort inside Stan double.
“They come in handy more often than you’d think,” Owen explained. “Like our first date, for instance.”
“Ah,” I said, biting my lip. Stan was no longer the only one feeling uncomfortable. “Can I have a few more minutes alone with Stan?” Chloe and Owen nodded, turning to leave as suddenly as they’d come in. Chloe shut the door behind them, but I caught her eyes lingering on me, full of suspicious concern.
“What happened at Madeline’s?” I asked. Stan’s cheeks went slightly pink and he cleared his throat, shaking his head.
“With me or you?”
I blinked and shook my head. “Both, I guess.”
“Nothing untoward.”
“Well, that’s good at least. She kept her promise.” When his gaze drifted to the headboard behind me, I nudged him with my knee. “I don’t remember much. You?”
“There was some touching. Nothing inappropriate.”
“All outside your bathing suit area?” I asked, thinking of Owen’s remark. Stan nodded.
“Yes. I’m not entirely certain but I think we can assume she was, well…” He trailed off and I lifted my hand to gesture vaguely.
“A perfect gentleman?”
Stan smiled and nodded. “More or less.”
“Is there really no term like that for women? Is it only men who can be either beast or man?” Stan looked troubled by my words and I wondered for a moment if he was thinking about the way our marriage had ended. I hadn’t been just beastly, but monstrous. I know I couldn’t forgive myself and I sort of hoped he never could either.
I realized then that it was very dark in the room, except for the one lamp on the far nightstand keeping things dimly lit. I glanced through the open doorway at the clock I kept on a shelf in the bathroom and balked at the time. I’d lost several hours.
“Jeez.” My bladder took that moment to explain the consequences of ignoring it for so long. “Ah, excuse me for a second.” Swinging my legs out of the bed, I hurried to the bathroom, slamming the door.
After I’d washed my hands and run a brush through my hair I went back out into the bedroom. I perched on the foot of the bed and Stan turned to face me, lifting a knee and laying it in front of him on the bed. Something had occurred to me in the bathroom and it was eating away at my brain, an experience Stan and I now shared that I wasn’t sure anyone else would quite understand. Fighting off an embarrassed smile, I watched him in the mirror while I spoke.
“Norma was pretty.”
“Oh. Yes. Well.” The distress I’d felt in him earlier peeked out and I swallowed, pushing through the doubt that I couldn’t help feeling within both of us. Had she been beautiful? Had Madeline?
“I kind of couldn’t help but just grab her boobs,” I admitted after a bit. Stan’s eyes went wide and he met my gaze in the mirror.
“You too?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, turning to face him for real. He gave a short laugh and lifted a hand to touch his own cheek, like he was hiding from the memory. I reached out and touched his hand. “I am so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I feel like it is. You wouldn’t have been here, alone, prone to her wiles if I hadn’t gone off in the middle of the night.” Cutting myself off before I went too far into why I’d been gone, I rubbed my palm over the back of his hand. “How did she get you?”
“She just came to the back door and knocked. Next thing I knew, we were in this nice family sedan with a baby seat in the back, driving out to that warehouse. I was too smitten to really ask any questions.”
“It was that fast for me, too.”
“Gwen, this really wasn’t your fault. She had my home address. If I had left Seattle on time, she would have met me there and you and your friends wouldn’t have been around to save me.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” I said with a nod. “Then you would have been succubus food.”
“Probably not a bad way to die, I’d guess?”
“I think, judging by how pathetic Mel was in the end, that may not be true.”
“Oh,” Stan said simply. We sat in silence for a bit longer before I shifted to straighten myself out. I left my hand on his.
“When do you leave?”
“I pushed my train out until tomorrow—today. Around two.”
“Have you slept?”
“No, but I’m not tired at all. Chloe suggested we all go out and get some breakfast. She said you’d probably be hungry when you woke up.”
“We’ve got a few hours until anything opens up, though. I’m going to see if they want to crash here, to nap or something. Are you okay?”
“You need to stop being so concerned for me.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. Smiling at him, I leaned forward, pulled him into a hug. We stayed that way for what felt like a long time. I think we needed to hold each other, and not just because we’d both lost control with a beautiful monster. I pulled away slowly and, without thinking about it, kissed him. He kissed back and our lips parted, but
the kiss remained chaste. As we pulled away, we watched each other’s eyes, some piece of our history passing between us, settling in a way it hadn’t before. Feeling like closure had been achieved in some form or another, I smiled and got to my feet.
##
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked when Chloe’s concern got too annoying to ignore.
“I’m not looking at you at all,” she said, glancing away from the pan of vegetables she was cooking. “Well, now I am.”
“Okay, but your head’s looking at me. I mean,” I corrected, trying to clarify. “Your feelings. Your emotions are looking at me.”
“Are they being creepy? Peeking at you from behind a fence while you’re trying on bras?”
“You’re already force-feeding me vegetables. I don’t need your sass, too, young lady.”
Chloe laughed and it eased the anxiety that was grasping at me like a kid pulling on mommy’s shirt and begging for a candy bar.
“Why are you so worried about me?”
“I’m always worried about you,” she explained. “You’re basically diabetes on two legs.”
“No,” was my only argument. She laughed again, harder this time, turning to lean against the stove and smile at me. She regarded me for a few moments before her smile faltered and nervous concern gripped the edges of her psyche with iron fists.
“What do you remember from the night we stopped Norma?”
“Mel getting stabbed right in the balls,” I announced, giddy that it had been a week and the image hadn’t deteriorated in my brain one bit. Mel had been missing, but I wasn’t terribly concerned. He was a strong, independent werewolf. After what he’d been through with Norma, I imagined he was probably off drowning his sorrows in coconut-covered boobs and coconut oil-covered butts.
Stan had gone back to Portland, Owen had left the next day, so it was just Chloe and me back to our regular lives. Since I’d woken up with Stan sitting at my bedside, though, there’d been an undercurrent of anxiety running through her.
Business With Pleasure (Empathy in the Preternatural PNW Book 2) Page 23
