by Jory Strong
Her palms landed on his chest. Her lips curved slightly, obviously pleased with his protectiveness even though the quick hardening of her expression told him he wouldn't win this battle.
"We need answers, Matthew. Iosif's daughters and their mother are running out of time."
If it hadn't already expired.
If they weren't already long gone.
Or dead.
He let her push him away.
She slipped the asinine excuse for a leash onto Dane.
"He won't think a woman can defeat him. If I'm alone, he'll make his move." She offered the leash. "You drive away. Let Dane out around the corner."
Caleb's gaze moved to the window visible through the open doorway of her office. Christ, she had to know what Dane was capable of—except a dead man couldn't answer her questions.
"What if he gets in before your dog does?"
"He won't. But if he does, I'll shoot him."
Jesus.
Jesus.
But what did he expect?
He should resist. He knew he should resist.
He gave her a hard kiss.
"I'll drop Dane, but I'm not staying away."
"So you've been telling me since yesterday."
Her smile hit him center mass, hard, like a forty-five caliber round. His stomach roiled at the thought of not making it back in time.
He took the rope. It was slack, but it might as well have been pulled taut. The dog's desire to kill surged into him like jolted electricity.
* * * * *
Oleg lifted a small wooden frame from the dresser, bringing it closer for a better look at the picture of the woman. It was too bad she wasn't home.
She was pretty. He would have enjoyed having her entertain him while he waited.
That would not be a good thing for the man smiling so adoringly at her. Another weak, pathetic American.
Oleg returned the picture to the dresser. It was just as well neither had been home when he entered their apartment.
Already this was messy. He did not wish Vadim to think he had become a liability.
He could imagine Vassily whispering such things in Vadim's ear. Wanting to curry favor, to make himself more valuable.
The police car drove away.
Oleg smiled in anticipation of finally dealing with the stupid cunt who had caused him so much trouble. Killing the man and dog, that would be like foreplay.
His cock stirred, thinking of the pleasure he'd find in it. He swept his arm across the dresser, the gun crashing into the photographs, breaking the glass and sending most of them to the floor.
Imagining the fear that would come when the woman and the man in the pictures returned and found their home violated, that was also foreplay.
Across the street the office door opened.
He cursed, his pleasure wiped away at not being close enough to act. He could not reach them without their becoming aware of the threat. He could not shoot from his location because the distance and angle did not allow for success.
The dog stepped outside and then the man. The woman stopped in the doorway. She smiled at the man like a bitch in heat.
Oleg's pleasure returned.
The man retraced his steps. He kissed the cunt who had caused so much trouble, not the demonstration of a man of power but the touch of one who allowed a woman to control him with her pussy.
Oleg stroked the gun's trigger. This was a man who deserved killing.
He and the dog walked to the Jeep. They got inside and drove away.
She was alone now.
Oleg would have preferred it to be nighttime but he did not think such an easy opportunity would come again. The street was not a busy one. Only a few people had come and gone as he waited, only a few cars had traveled down it.
He would need to subdue her quickly and get her to his car. She would tell him where to find the man responsible for Pyotr's disappearance. She would tell him how to find the man and the dog. And he would enjoy his time with her before he took her to Vadim.
The glass and wood and plastic of the picture frames crunched beneath his feet as Oleg walked away from the window. He checked the hallway before leaving the apartment and moving purposefully down the stairs.
He was glad he had not entered the office earlier. He'd thought to wait for the woman, to rifle through her files and discover a home address, or the address of someone she loved.
He hadn't wanted to risk the dog being inside. Now there was no such risk.
The lock would take him seconds to open. It could be done quietly, though it amused him to think of knocking on the door and having her answer.
He smiled as he left the shelter of the apartment stairway.
Dane jumped through the office window and padded to Mallory's side in the reception area. Her mouth watered as she watched the man's approach.
He looked like a man who'd once fought in a ring. He moved with confidence and purpose.
What she'd experienced standing in front of the pedophile was nothing compared to what she felt now. Her body ached. Her fingers flexed. Ancient, powerful words hummed through her.
She hadn't worn fur in eleven years and now that she could evoke the change, the need to was nearly unbearable.
Dane bumped against her, urging her toward her office. He growled and she met his gaze, knowing her eyes held the same amber sheen.
Another growl, the flash of his teeth and her own bared, coming with an alpha's desire to pin a challenger to the floor.
That shook her nearly as much as the depth of her desire to change into a Hound's form.
Dane pressed his head against her hand and she could see the human version putting both hands in the air. She could hear him saying, We're good, Mal. Just make the fucking smart move here.
Her brain said that move was retreating to her office, where she'd be a visible target, where she'd serve as a distraction.
They'd hunted countless times in Hell, one of them human, the other hound. She didn't doubt that Dane would take the Russian down before he'd managed a single shot, and still…
Her mouth watered. Her body hummed with the desire to be the one to engage.
She couldn't expel that desire, only counter it with, "He's all yours."
Fast, long strides took her into the office.
It was the smart move.
But she wondered if it was the smart move simply because it would distract the Russian, or if it would also reduce the chance that she'd lose control and shift form then kill.
She heard her assailant's footstep.
The soft touch of his hand on the doorknob.
The slow turn and she imagined him smiling at finding the door unlocked.
A shove and he entered, arm extended and holding a silenced gun.
His gaze met hers.
Satisfaction and anticipation flashed between them.
Dane leapt.
Powerful jams clamped on the Russian's arm.
And the hunter became the prey.
Adrenaline flooded Caleb's system. He left his hiding place at a run. He would never have been able to leave Mallory in the first place if he didn't know she anticipated the attack, that she could handle a threat, if he didn't know what Dane could do, just how fast the dog could take down an armed assailant.
He reached the door, shoved through it, breathing hard. And still, relief slammed into him.
Dane had the Russian pinned to the floor face up. His teeth were clamped onto the man's throat in a crushing grip.
The Russian's suit jacket was shredded. The skin on his gun arm was ripped and punctured and bloody.
Mallory held the silenced weapon in her left hand and her gun in the other. "Cuffs are in my back pocket."
Caleb holstered his weapon and tugged the cuffs from her pocket.
He got one of the Russian's wrists bound.
Dane shifted his grip and his weight to accommodate rolling the Russian onto his front to get both hands secured behind his back.
Caleb patted the man down. "No identification. No phone."
Hayden could probably tap into surveillance and find the Russian getting out of a car. Or Dane could find the car with his nose. Fuck, Mallory probably could.
That sped Caleb's heart.
Dane's head jerked, eyes suddenly trained on him.
Fuck! He'd be glad when he was done with this.
And Jesus, this was heading right where he never wanted to go again after his last undercover assignment. "You know he's going to lawyer up."
Mallory's eyes met his, dark, like shiny obsidian.
"He'll talk before we turn him over to the police. Get the Jeep as close to the front door as you can then walk away, Matthew." Run away.
His lips pulled back in a snarl every bit as fierce as one of Dane's. "No."
"You won't get into the back room while we do this."
"Even if I volunteer to question him for you? I know how to make a man talk."
His gut roiled admitting it. He'd done hard things overseas. He'd done hard things in the States.
Mallory shook her head. She wouldn't let Matthew sacrifice more of his humanity.
She wished he'd just go, get as far away from them as he could, but he'd made it clear that wouldn't happen.
"Let's get him to the Brass Ring."
"The Jeep's in the grocery store parking lot. I'm not leaving you alone with him, even if you've got Dane."
She retrieved the Jeep rather than fight, warmth curling through her at his protectiveness.
The Russian struggled as they took him out of the office. He cursed and spat and kicked at Dane, sustaining a bite without crying out.
They secured him in the back of the Jeep. Wrestled him into the Brass Ring, customers turning and watching.
When the door to the ring room opened, three pairs of eyes glanced off their prisoner and settled on Matthew.
Sabin slid from the desk. "So you're going to include your pet in the upcoming fun."
"Stop calling Matthew that," she said, putting a growl in her voice.
It elicited a smile from Sabin, the brush of his body against hers. "Trying to make me jealous?"
Dane lunged and snapped.
Sabin danced away, laughing. "Overprotective? Or does he always fight your battles for you, Mal?"
Hayden and Mikhail took the Russian, forcing him to the center of the circle.
Mallory turned to face Matthew. "This is where your participation ends."
His hands gripped her upper arms, pulling her close. His scent was laced with concern and reluctance. "Don't do anything stupid. There are witnesses who saw him come in here alive."
Her palms pressed against his chest in a silent request for him to leave. It will be okay, she wanted to say, but that would be a lie.
"Go, Matthew. We need answers."
He resisted for long seconds, finally yielding.
Mallory joined the others in the circle.
Sabin forced Iosif's killer to his knees. He gripped the Russian's hair, jerking his head backward so his face looked into hers.
* * * * *
Chapter 28
"Where are Iosif Gruzinsky's daughters and their mother?" Mallory asked.
"Stupid cunt," the Russian said, breaking his silence and spitting at her.
Hayden kicked him in the stomach.
Mallory's churned.
"Where are Iosif Gruzinsky's daughters and their mother?"
The Russian spat again.
Mikhail said something in their common language, his kick striking genitals, Sabin's grip keeping the Russian from pitching forward.
Bile rose in her throat. "Who do you work for?" she asked, hoping a change of question would get a different result.
The Russian smiled. "You will learn this. The ones you love will pay for the trouble you have caused the same as you will pay. But I will not tell you. I am a dead man if I talk. I am a dead man if I don't talk."
Sabin laughed. "You think dead men can't talk?"
His knife slashed the Russian's throat, so fast Mallory's shout of NO! remained trapped in her mind.
Blood sprayed across the floor. It rivered down the front of Oleg's shirt. It emptied from his body in beats, freeing his soul and casting it directly into Hell.
The air around them became laden with the smell of a voided body.
Sabin's eyes met hers in challenge and she wanted to shift and lunge, to tear his throat out.
His lips curved upward in a sharp smile, his blond beauty not hiding that he was a ruthless killer any more than his actions had, any more than the brand he bore above his heart did. "What now, Mallory?"
He'd left her no choice. But then, maybe choice had been an illusion all along.
Just as she'd gained the knowledge of how to free Dane from fur—when their sire no longer prevented it—she knew how to open the door between his world and hers. She could enter it with her mortal body and dispose of the Russian's at the same time.
"Get out of the circle," she growled through clamped jaws as she tried to keep her mind equally closed.
Hayden stepped over the brass inlay.
Mikhail left more slowly, his expression holding the open longing to return home.
Dane brushed against her on his way out, his gaze burnished gold instead of midnight black, all of his focus on Sabin.
Sabin stepped over the corpse. He sauntered past her with arrogant confidence, biding his time, a bomb set out in plain sight. One day he'd challenge her in truth to become alpha.
Only his death would end the threat he posed. If the possibility didn't exist that he'd be replaced by something worse, she could almost bring herself to contemplate killing him in cold blood. Almost.
Ancient words flowed from her mouth. A child's whimpering filled her head along with the memory of that first plunge into Hell.
She did not allow the sound of her whimpers to escape—even when the taste of rotten eggs coated her tongue and clogged her nostrils. Even when she saw the female dwarf, and terror and hate moved through her in riotous waves. Even when the shrieking of those claimed by Hell rose and fell, and it was music, a song that brought the desire to shed human form and lift her muzzle in a baying call to hunt.
She clung to her humanity. She fought to retain as much of it as she could by calling up images of Sorcha and Austin, of her mother and Matthew—the latter making her go hot and cold because in the world she thought of as home, on the other side of the ring room door, he was only steps away from Sabin and her brothers.
"The Lord is waiting for you," the dwarf said. And of course, he wouldn't let her come to his realm and leave quickly with answers from Iosif's killer.
She could close her eyes and find her way to her sire's dark castle, so tight was the leash created by blood and magic and brand.
Mallory went, ignoring the dwarf who trailed behind.
She climbed the thousand black stairs and traveled down the long hallway. Entered the throne room decorated with souls trapped into twisted sea salt statues, their eyes alive, leaking tears as beneath the white crystals their raw, skinned bodies burned.
Her sire smiled. He greeted her as he had when she was eight. "Welcome home, Mallory."
She approached the throne and the Hound at its base. The eyes of Mikhail's twin gleamed with a desire to attack and savage, with a hatred of anything human despite being half human.
Above them, the Reaper Lord stood, black cloak transformed to shiny black wings spread indolently over obsidian. "Shall we hunt together?"
Her lips pulled back in a silent snarl. The stink of patchouli rose from her skin and filled her nostrils even as Rahmiel's words drifted into her mind.
Your hate for him blinds you to possibilities. You know so little about your sire's realm, about his motivations.
The Reaper Lord descended the stairs. "Come," he said, a twitch of hi
s hand indicating she was to walk at his side, not behind him.
To keep those she loved safe, she forced her hate downward, imagining it buried in deep, rich soil. And for the first time since her sire had torn her reality apart, she smelled pine trees and rain instead of patchouli.
She equated it with the summer fields scent belonging to her mother and Sorcha and Austin, though she doubted the Reaper Lord was capable of love. "Why manipulate me into becoming alpha?"
He stopped, partially turning so their eyes met. "To make you stronger."
"Because I'm your only daughter?"
His eyes narrowed. Then he smiled and touched a hunch-backed statue whose bobbing, rolling green eyes made her think of fishing floats. The statue dissolved, becoming a white mouse like the one the dwarf had held that day in the grocery store—magic, because all souls possessed it—and some of it was the Reaper Lord's to harvest.
The mouse scurried.
He crushed it beneath his boot.
Warning that he could do the same to her? Or a demonstration of his power?
She suppressed a shudder, remembering what she'd experienced in the morgue, the pulse of a soul against her palm, the sensation that she could absorb some of it, convert it, use it.
"Yes. You are the only daughter I possess."
He lifted his foot, ignored the cockroach that remained.
He resumed walking.
They entered a hallway and passed through a doorway much like the one between realms so they were suddenly outside, walking beneath the gallows trees, their bare limbs adorned with hanging corpses.
Black wings became a cape of blood-red leaves.
Mikhail's mother waited for them at copse end. Her skin was bleached of color, her lips turned gray.
She held the reins of two black horses. Their flowing manes and tails brushed the ground. Sharp horns protruded from their foreheads, the unicorns of myth except for their color and the desire to kill that shone in glowing red eyes.
His smile full of dark secrets and deadly amusement, her sire took one pair of reins from Mikhail's mother. His hand brushed hers and pink flowed into her skin. Her lips darkened, turning shiny red, like Snow White inviting a lover's kiss.
