They left to deal with other things at one point and Chloe lay there utterly spent, her head spinning as the scent of their lovemaking filled her nostrils.
What now?
Shivering, she remembered Rodger and what he had said. Completing her transformation. What did he mean by that? And would he try to come back for her again? Even with Devon and Sly right there?
Sighing, she rolled over and stretched out her achy body. She didn’t want to think about that. She wanted to float in this cloud of what it meant to be with the wolves in this way. The doors they’d opened for her in just a single night.
They came back sometime later and every ache in Chloe’s body seemed to intensify.
“Strawberry,” she blurted. As much as she had loved what they did, her body was just too used and sore to even think about doing more tonight.
Devon chuckled as he walked up to her and kissed her forehead. “Yes, strawberry. No more sex. But we still have a few things we need to do.”
Chloe frowned. Sly lifted her from the bed and carried her into the bathroom, where the tub had been filled with warm water. As deep and big as it was, there wasn’t room for all three of them. Her eyes widened in surprise as they knelt to either side of the tub and began to gently wash her body. Her cheeks flushed.
“I can clean myself,” she mumbled.
“Of course you can,” Devon soothed. “But after what we did to you, it’s the least we can do to help you recover.”
Even Sly smiled, seeming far more relaxed than she had ever seen him. Well! If she had known this was what it would take to get him to act like an actual person rather than a rage-machine, she’d have spread her legs a long time ago.
Both of them were so gentle as they cleaned her up, then toweled her dry and applied lotions and ointment to the marks they’d left on her body. Several teeth marks were at the base of her neck and they taped gauze over them and took her back to bed. Not to her prison-room but to the office with its broken window. Cardboard had been taped over it.
“It’s past dawn,” Sly told her as he settled her down in the bed. “So don’t think about running away.”
“Oh, I won’t,” she promised. “You could be planning to kill me tonight and I still wouldn’t. You’ll never be as cruel as he is.”
Sly paused, an uncertain look on his face for the briefest of moments before he shrugged and was gone.
As she lay there, resting her body, it occurred to her that nobody had ever taken care of her like that before. Never with so much tenderness, so much concentration. It felt just as good as the sex had.
A smile crossed her face as she drifted off to sleep. She quite liked this whole aftercare thing.
Chapter Eleven
Sly crashed on the couch, groaning as his muscles protested the action. “I think I strained something.”
On the air mattress on the floor, Devon laughed. “Worth it, though.”
A slight grin crossed Sly’s face. Yes. Yes, it had been worth the physical discomfort he was in now. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been so wholly in the moment. Everything about it was so sharp and clear. He’d been worried at times that he would go too far, that Devon would have to drag him off of Chloe and beat some sense into him.
But he’d stayed in control of his faculties surprisingly well. And Chloe had clearly enjoyed herself. They’d paused and reassured her of her colors often enough to be certain of that. Sly had to admit, he was glad that Devon had introduced that. He’d hate to be laying here now, wondering if Chloe really had wanted him to stop.
“She’s quite the explosive delight, isn’t she?” Devon sighed as he cupped his hands behind his head. Since it was sunlight outside, they weren’t going to be attacked by vampires any time soon. This was probably the only time they’d have to rest. “Does it make you wonder if she’s really evil simply for being a vampire?”
Sly scowled at the question. The only reason he’d have slept with her if he truly thought she was evil was if he thought he was evil, too—not that he was going to tell Devon that. The truth was, his doubts as to just how evil Chloe was had been fading for some time.
He didn’t want them to, though. If he started questioning that, then he’d have to question everything. Including the morals of kidnapping Chloe in the first place.
“Sex isn’t enough to make me change my mind about that, Devon. I’m not going to let my hormones get in the way of thinking clearly.”
Devon hummed. “How about the way she acted before and after the sex? She’s scared of Rodger, that much is clear. And she was worried about Angela. She told her and Sandra that everything was alright when she could have used it as an excuse to get us arrested. She’d have been free to do whatever she wanted then.”
Sly grunted. “Go to sleep already.”
No response.
“I’ll have to know more before I make a decision one way or the other,” Sly said softly. “And that’s the best you’re going to get. So go to sleep. We have a lot to plan for tonight.”
“Alright, alright.” Devon closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “Just one more thing.”
Sly rolled his eyes.
“You liked it, right?”
Sly thought of her sensuous body, the way her back arched when he took her, the marks his teeth and fingers left on her creamy skin. The way her eyes rolled into her head and her whole body twitched when he watched Devon fucking her, leaving those same marks on her.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I liked it.”
***
Sly slept soundly; more soundly than he’d slept in a long time. He woke to a rumbling stomach, so he made himself some food while he pondered what to do now. Obviously letting Chloe run amok wasn’t an option, even if he did doubt just how wicked she actually was. The whole thing could be a trap, but Rodger was clearly the greater threat.
He’d sent Ian to talk to the morgue attendant and see if he was a vampire as Chloe claimed, but Ian got back to him stating that the attendant was nowhere to be seen. So, either he was a vampire and was now on the lamb, or he’d been killed to make it look like he was a vampire.
Either way, he needed more information.
Sly left Devon sleeping where he was. He needed to talk to Chloe alone and didn’t need someone to stop him at the moment anyway. Besides which, Devon was more likely to think that Sly ought to talk about Chloe herself, rather than the situation they were in. The vampires were unlikely to do anything while the wolves prowled at night, after all.
In his opinion, that they were unlikely to do anything made it all the more likely that they would do something.
Chloe was snuggled deep in the blankets of her temporary bed when he stepped into the office. Her dark curls tumbled about her, all the curlier for not having been brushed after her bath. The bruises on her skin were even more visible now. Sly liked the sight of them—or rather, what they represented. He didn’t want to bruise her simply for the sake of bruising her.
She looked angelic, sleeping like that. But even demons have their beauty, he told himself grimly as he quietly shut the door behind him.
I don’t think you’ll hurt me. You’re not that sort of person.
What did she know what kind of person he was?
Shaking his head, he cleared his throat. “Chloe?”
She stirred, moaning. Such a delightful sound that nearly had him hardening again.
“Chloe,” he called again, shaking her shoulder.
She stretched as she opened her eyes. A small smile crossed her face and his heart did some sort of strange twisting thing. What happened to only wanting her to fear him? He scowled, as though that would help him fight off these unwanted feelings and pulled her upright. She let the blanket drop, wincing slightly as she looked past him.
“Is Devon joining us again?”
Sly stared at her. Was she serious? “You can’t possibly be ready for another marathon like that?”
She frowned. “Then why…?”
“
Because I have things to talk to you about.” He covered her again and sat on the edge of the desk—he didn’t trust the chair. “Like how you became a vampire.”
Chloe winced again, folding into herself again. There was a different sort of rigidness to the way she held herself now than there had been from before they’d had their marathon, though. She looked away. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
She chewed her lower lip for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh. “My father and I were in a car accident. He was killed on impact but I… I wasn’t dead. Close, though. I was so very close to dying. Rodger found me. Pulled me away from the crash and turned me. For two weeks of pure hell, he kept me locked in a cage feeding me animals and laughing while I cried over their corpses. I could never control myself.”
Disgust welled in him as she shuddered again. But strangely, not toward Chloe. No, his disgust was toward her captor.
“Eventually some other vampires, ones who believed that we could be just as strong as any others without feeding on living blood, came to my rescue. They got me and several others out of there. Rodger was supposed to have been killed. I guess he got away.”
“I guess,” Sly agreed. “What happened next?”
Chloe turned to look at the ceiling. She was trembling slightly. “I had to hide. I was an unauthorized turn. And that’s illegal. There is a long process that vampires have to go through in order to be allowed to turn a person. It takes years. You’re supposed to have all these training courses to make sure you don’t slip up. Secrecy is highly valued.”
Sly frowned. He hadn’t known that. There were actual procedures they had to go through to allow someone to be turned? He’d assumed that there was a lack of vampires around because they were killing off their victims through bloodlust.
Was he wrong? If there were actual laws and regulations… And if secrecy was that highly valued, then perhaps the ones he’d dealt with before were rogues.
“I almost wanted to be discovered,” she mumbled, now talking to her hands. “I was so tired of living in fear. I hated what I was. I hated having to drink blood. I hated thinking that I might lose control and hurt people. I thought being dead would be better than that. It’s only because of Erica that I didn’t turn myself over to the vampire authorities to be killed. It would have hurt her too badly.”
“I see,” Sly murmured.
Chloe sighed again. “And then there was Cooper. He wanted Erica and was using me to blackmail her to be with him. He locked me away, kept me his prisoner because what good was a hostage that you didn’t have access to?”
Sly went rigid, a growl rising in his throat. “He raped you?”
Her eyes widened. “No. No, that’s not what I meant. He didn’t… He just held my life in his hands to make Erica do whatever he wanted. I nearly killed myself then. But I was too afraid.”
Was that sympathy he was feeling? “I know that feeling,” he blurted. Chloe gave him a startled look and seeing her expression made him feel the urge to say more. “Did you ever hear about the Pack?”
“Yes… they were wolves who were trying to start a war between humans and shifters, weren’t they?”
Sly nodded. “I’d run undercover operations before but that one… I was head of the team. I knew everybody but they only knew me, Devon and one other. We were inside the Pack for years. Saw all the terrible things they were doing. Feeding information back to the people who could actually do something about it. But those of us in deep cover?” He shook his head, a haunted, empty feeling filling his chest. “It was more than we could do anything about. We had to join in. That kind of shit fucks you up.”
Chloe nodded, tears brimming in her eyes. “I can only imagine.”
“I lost a lot of men. Some of them turned on us and started believing what the Pack said. Others were found out and refused to turn. I see their faces every night when I—” Sly cut himself off abruptly.
And then he was on his feet. His hands clenched, his eyes blazed with fire and he snarled. Chloe jerked back, her eyes widening.
“So, is that it, then?” he growled. He wanted to grab her and shake her. He should have seen this coming. How could he have been so fucking blind? “You spin out a story about how terrible it was for you to become a vampire, you say you were suicidal—did you find the hospital records, is that it? You knew that I… you lured me into a false sense of security by building on something that we had in common and then—"
“I didn’t do anything!” Chloe shouted back even as she quailed from him. “I was answering your question! I didn’t lie, I wasn’t trying to manipulate you. I didn’t know anything about what you did, and I certainly don’t know about any hospital records.”
Fury welled and he stepped forward, snarling again.
“Stop it!” She pulled the blankets up over her, fear exuding from every pore. “Just stop it! I don’t like it when you scare me like this. It’s not you, I don’t know why you do it but—”
“You don’t know anything about me!”
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she shrank back from his grasping hands. “I know that you helped Erica. I know that you could have run and hid but you helped all of your men get out of their situations. I know that you blame yourself and feel guilty for the men you lost. I know that you got a silicone sex doll because you didn’t want to actually hurt a living woman with the things you’d do. I know that you have to convince yourself that I’m evil in order to hate me and…” She slowly unfolded herself. “I know that you aren’t going to kill me.”
His chest heaved as he stared down at her, not knowing what to say.
And then his phone rang.
Chapter Twelve
Devon rolled his eyes as he strode across the yard. A handful of the wolves stood in a circle around Ian and Theron, yelling taunts at them as they rolled around in the dirt, punching and grappling with each other. Which one had instigated the fight this time? He was getting quite annoyed by always having to break them up.
Sure, he understood why they were always trying to kill each other, but it was still rather annoying that they were always trying to kill each other.
“That’s enough,” he shouted as he waded into the fight; he punched both of their jaws at the same time and as they jerked, startled, yanked them both apart. He shoved Theron into one group of wolves and Ian into another, then stood between them. He glared first at one and then the other. “I’m not going to ask what started it this time. But I want this to be the last time. Understood? Your fighting isn’t helping anybody, and right now the team needs to pull together—”
“What team?” Ian smeared blood over his lip as he tried to wipe it off. “We aren’t a team. We haven’t been for years.”
Devon frowned at him.
“Sly can suck my dick,” Ian continued, sneering. “Five years of moping around and then expects us to die fighting his vampires?”
Devon’s frown deepened. That was not the sort of thing he wanted to hear—but if he was honest, it wasn’t surprising, either. He sighed as Theron scoffed.
“I, for one, think this is a very important mission. After all, vampires are invading. Isn’t it important to protect the town and its civilian population?”
“Thank you for your support,” Devon cut in. “But I understand that Ian has concerns that most of you share. It has been a long time since we were last working together for anything and it’s been a rough five years.”
Ian snorted. He jerked himself away from the wolves who were holding him back but didn’t go to attack Theron again. He folded his arms, scowling deeply. Devon nodded to the wolves holding Theron and they released him as well. He scoffed again but didn’t say anything—for now.
“If you don’t feel like you can handle the situation, you are free to take your leave,” Devon continued, narrowing his eyes at Ian. “And by handling the situation, I also mean being able to work with all your colleagues.”
“I have no problem with that,” Theron said, louder than
necessary. “I still want to protect the town from a vampire invasion. I would have thought you would, too, Ian since your sister was attacked by vampires. But maybe you don’t really care that much if she’s murdered, then?”
Ian let out a howl as he lunged for Theron. Devon shouted, stepping in his path. But the other wolf was enraged beyond reason; he swung, his fist colliding with Devon’s face. Devon flew back, landing in the dirt as pain throbbed his in jaw. He spat out a mouthful of blood as he scrambled back to his feet.
“What the fuck is going on out here?” a dangerous voice snarled.
Devon glowered at Ian, daring him to try to justify that attack.
Ian dropped his head, shoulders slumping.
“Theron and Ian were fighting again,” Devon told Sly once it became apparent that neither of them was willing to speak. “After I broke them up, Theron got smart with his mouth and Ian tried to attack him.”
Sly folded his arms as he glared at Theron, who dropped his gaze this time. Anger radiated off of him and Devon’s heart sunk—he didn’t want more fighting! But Sly surprised him. He took a deep breath, reined his anger in and spoke with a surprisingly gentle tone.
“I know that I haven’t been the best leader over the past five years and this situation isn’t what we expected. I don’t just mean the vampires. I mean all of us living here. Going through things we never could have imagined. I will do better, for all of you. I need you to do better for me, too. That means not beating the crap out of each other and not being a smartass.”
None of the wolves said anything, although a few held themselves straighter, that determined, excited light in their eyes. Devon brought himself up more, as well, puffing out his chest. Things were finally getting back on track.
“So, with that in mind, we better start getting things ready to take out the vampires threatening Deville, shouldn’t we? I just received a phone call from our enemy. Asking for a trade.” He grinned a feral grin and Devon frowned. This did not bode well. “Apparently, he is very desperate to have our prisoner. Has generously offered to forgo a town massacre in exchange for her to be handed over to him.”
Kidnapped by the Wolves Page 7
