Gabriel frowned. “I hope you’re not including me in that.”
“I am.” Val’s tone became petulant. “Only you’re worse. You’re a traitor, too.”
His wolf growled, and he withdrew his arms from around her. The warmth that had been budding in his chest evaporated at once. “Then why did you just have sex with me?”
Val shrugged, not looking at him. “Guess I was just desperately horny. Must have been the venom.”
The venom? No, it wasn’t that. Gabriel snarled as he launched himself to his feet. Were there any clothes in this place? It seemed stocked with everything else. He stomped away from Val as she remained lying there, naked and smelling of him. What was wrong with her? Why did she have to act like such a bitch? The venom. As if it hadn’t worked its way out of their systems.
The door opened. Gabriel’s head whipped around at the sweet vampire scent. He charged without stopping to look at the intruder; with a roar, he flung himself at him, only for the newcomer to clothesline him across the throat and bring him down. Gabriel coughed as he was pinned to the floor.
A familiar face peered down at him. Fangs flashed, and Gabriel called his wolf forward. Fur began to sprout along his body, but before he had a chance to fully transform, his attacker lunged for his throat. Gabriel threw an arm into its path. Teeth clamped down on his arm.
Great. I’m going to have to do this all over again.
He swiped at his attacker’s face, claws ripping across flesh. Great drops of blood splattered over his face.
Wait. Blood?
His gaze finally focused as the attacker released his arm and wrapped his hands around Gabriel’s throat. His mind whirled. Beneath the scent of vampire was the wild, musky smell of wolf—and the recognition clicked. This was Thunder, alpha of the Ivywood chapter of the Savage Brotherhood.
His fangs gleamed as he tightened his grip on Gabriel’s throat and whatever relief had come with the realization disappeared at once. He bucked his body and punched Thunder in the kidneys, anything to break his grip. Thunder’s eyes took on a maniacal gleam, and he began to slam Gabriel’s head against the floor while choking him.
A snarl and a scream caused Thunder to look up. In the next second, Val’s golden-yellow body rammed into him, knocking him off Gabriel. As the sheriff coughed and choked, Val threw Thunder to the floor and wrapped a paw around his neck before shifting back to human form. Or at least, partially. Fur still covered her body, fangs and claws sharp and deadly.
Thunder twisted his head to glare at Gabriel with so much hatred that he thought the alpha was going to throw Val off and come at him again.
“Don’t even think of it,” Val snarled. “He’s with me, Thunder.”
“I can smell that, Shadow. What the hell are you doing?”
Val snarled.
Thunder eased his head back, putting distance between her claws and his throat. “Let me up.”
The leopard considered him for a moment before she eased off his back. Gabriel rolled to his knees, ready to defend himself if need be. Thunder didn’t attack again, though. He sat, rubbed his throat and glared at Val. Gabriel’s hackles rose and the desire to push her behind him made him start moving forward. He froze, though, as he remembered what she had said to him moments before.
“You’d better have a fucking good reason for bringing a traitor and a cop to a safe house in Ivywood territory, Shadow. And it better not be because you wanted to fuck him without your brother finding out.”
Gabriel was reminded that not all of the Brotherhood was on as good terms with him as the Coalfell chapter. He had no doubt, if Val wasn’t here, he’d be dead in a second.
“Blizzard is instrumental in Coalfell for our work,” Val replied, her voice cold, as though she wasn’t the first to call him a traitor. “He keeps our boys out of jail and understands what we’re doing. Don’t even have to go through the mess of bribing him. ‘Sides, he saved my life from a bunch of vamps and got bit for his troubles.”
“So, you fucked him as a reward?” Thunder spat.
Gabriel rolled his eyes even as his muscles bunched. “Yeah, sure, whatever. We got info that Typhoon needs to—”
“Shut up or I’ll rip out your throat after all.”
Gabriel growled at him and Val stepped between them. She glared at Gabriel and he glared back.
“Yeah, we fucked,” she said, not looking at Thunder. “Because we were both bitten and that seemed like a better idea than tearing each other apart for the vampire’s amusement.”
She turned back to Thunder so that Gabriel couldn’t see her expression, but he could imagine that she had pulled a smug, superior look. His gut twisted. The vulnerability he had seen in her while they made love was utterly gone. Not that he blamed her. But it had started to fade the moment she called him a traitor. And he had an awful, sickening feeling that he was never going to see it again.
Thunder’s gaze moved from Val to Gabriel and he jerked his head toward the door. “Get the hell out of here, Cop. And don’t come back unless you want your head mounted on my wall.”
“Very dramatic,” Gabriel sneered, but got to his feet anyway. He didn’t head for the door, though. Not when there was so much more going on here than he knew about. “I have as much right as anybody to know what the vampires are after. This new king’s got a plan to get the Brotherhood fighting each other so he can wipe us out—”
“Us?” Thunder started forward and it was only Val punching him in the shoulder that stopped him. “You aren’t part of this, Blizzard. You left the Brotherhood. You turned your back on us. You don’t get to start demanding that you’re a part of this.”
Gabriel’s hands clenched. “Just because I’m against murder and drugs and other stuff that the Brotherhood has fallen into, doesn’t mean that I want vampires to run amuck. And yet here they are, running around in daylight, attacking prominent members of the Coalfell chapter. And what are you doing about it? Attacking me?”
Thunder started forward and once more Val pushed him back. She snarled, flashing her canines at him.
“For God’s sake!” She threw her hands into the air. “Gabe’s already naked, why don’t you just pull it out to compare already?”
Thunder lifted a fist, whirling on her. Gabriel sprang forward before he could stop himself, pulling Val back. She turned on him, driving a fist into his stomach. As he hunched over, all the air escaped his lungs. As he wheezed, she pushed him toward the door, keeping her body between him and Thunder. The alpha, however, no longer looked as angry as he had been. No, now he looked positively amused.
“Get out of here, Cunningham. If there is anything you need to know, we’ll tell you,” Val spat at him.
Gabriel straightened, breathing shallowly to avoid hurting his lungs. He glared at her for a moment longer before he turned on his heel and marched out. If she didn’t want him there, fine. The Brotherhood had long since failed in their mission. His duty was to protect civilian lives, not the gang.
He had his own business to take care of. Fighting here, when he was still weakened, was insane.
He was just outside the door when a wave of nausea hit him like a freight train. His knees buckled. Behind him, he heard Val give a pained whimper. He turned to help her, but the world pitched, and everything went black.
***
He came to as he was being pulled out of his cruiser. A couple of men, shifters by the smell of them, gripped him around the arms and hauled him to his house. Everything spun around him, and he wondered if they had beaten him up. Then bile rose up his throat and he remembered. Vampires. But he’d gotten better. Had Thunder done something to him?
He lifted his head weakly and found that the two shifters now unlocking his front door were unfamiliar. His wolf growled, but that was about all it could do. With a groan, his chin fell back to his chest.
“Val,” he mumbled.
“Shadow’s being taken care of,” one of the shifters spat. “Damn cop. Don’t see why we don’t just take h
is head.”
The other snorted as they dropped him to the floor. “You heard Thunder. We’re supposed to leave him here.”
“He’d never know.”
Gabriel tried to push himself to his hands and knees, but a foot pressed between his shoulder blades and pushed him back down. “You want to take on Thunder?”
The foot was removed and a flurry of footsteps told him the two had fled. Gabriel looked up, a tart insult on his tongue, but everything spun around again, and he laid his head down again. For a long time, he lay like that, not daring to move. Eventually, cool hands pressed against his hot body and he smelled the distinctive scent of cat.
He knew it couldn’t be Val, but hers was the face that his mind put into place as the shifter lifted him from the floor and encouraged him to bed. Hers was the voice, panicked, that asked him what she needed to do. It was all Val, all around him, and he sank back into the darkness, holding her image in his mind.
***
The feline scent was still strong when he woke once more from a haze of fever and dreams. This time he felt like death. Every bit of him ached like he’d been in a fistfight and had come out on the bad end. Nails spiked through his brain and he screwed his eyes shut tight, wanting to sink back into the blissful unconsciousness. It wasn’t going to happen, though.
He still smelled Val. His arm moved on its own, patting the bed beside him for her, even though he knew she wouldn't be there. That didn’t stop the twist in his gut when he found the bed empty.
What had he been thinking? Why had he been so stupid as to sleep with Val? He should have had better control of his faculties. They didn’t have any sort of relationship and this would just make the antagonism between them worse.
“You’re awake.” A female voice made him look up. Melanie stood in the bedroom door, looking torn between fury and relief. She marched in and the anger took over on her face. Her fists clenched, and she shook them at him. “You! You… dirty cop!”
Gabriel stared at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking care of you.” Melanie huffed, still glaring at him. “Ava called me and told me to come over here and look after you. She said it was important that you didn’t go to a hospital—and I know exactly why, too!”
So, they had told her about the vampires? It would make things a lot easier from here on out.
“I ought to call the FBI. Homeland security. The US marshals!”
Or not. Gabriel pushed himself up to a sitting position. His vision threatened to tilt, but he blinked hard and it stayed steady. He focused on Melanie again, who still glared at him as though he had mowed over her rosebushes.
“That would only make things worse. How would people react if they found out?”
“That their sheriff nearly died from an overdose? They’d be bloody furious, as they should be! No wonder you’ve let that gang keep pushing all their drugs. I thought you were in their pocket, but it turns out, you’re in their hookah!”
What the hell was she going on about? Gabriel glared at her. He swung out of bed and opened his mouth to tell her that it had nothing to do with drugs, but stopped. He couldn’t reveal the truth about vampires, especially not to someone like her, who’d most likely start blasting off about it on every social media platform out there.
“Not an overdose,” he finally muttered.
Melanie snorted and rolled her eyes. “You had the exact symptoms that my coworker had. You can’t tell me that it wasn’t an overdose!”
“I was poisoned,” Gabriel snapped and then stopped. His eyes widened as he understood what she had said. “Wait, you said that your coworker had those exact same symptoms?”
Melanie nodded, though she looked less furious now and a little more uncertain. Probably thinking about his declaration that he had been poisoned. He didn’t care about that, though. He strode to her and seized her wrist, staring intently into her eyes.
“Tell me everything that happened.”
Chapter Seven
Shadow
There was an empty ache in the pit of her stomach when she woke and for a wild, fearful moment, Val thought it meant she had lost the baby. When she closed her eyes and concentrated, though, she could hear its heartbeat, rapid and fluttering, like hummingbird wings, and she let out a sigh of relief.
So then why this ache?
She peeled her eyes open, which was difficult given the state she was in now, and found that she was lying in a huge bed. Seriously it was bigger than a king. A frown crossed her face as she started to sit up, only to find herself utterly naked. What had happened here? She remembered going to the safe house with Gabriel and the hazy fevered dreams there… then making love… Thunder had shown up and everything after that was a blur.
Speaking of Gabriel… she turned to the empty side of the bed and glared at it. Why was she alone in this giant bed? Where had he run off to? Not that it mattered. She knew what he was like, he was a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of lover, just like her.
The ache in her stomach increased.
Val shook herself off and climbed out of bed. Some clothes were folded over a chair nearby and she threw them on. They were slightly too tight, but only just. Once she was dressed, she took a moment to assess herself. She ached, but only in that ‘I’ve been sick’ sort of way. There was a faint smell of wolf in the room, but the only scents clinging to her skin were Gabriel’s and her own.
Good. Thunder might be part of the gang and an alpha, but she didn’t know him enough to trust him not to try anything while she was unconscious. It seemed like he hadn’t, though, so she didn’t have to kill him.
She headed out, still feeling shaky, but that was because she had been unconscious for… it had to be at least a week. It took that long for vampire venom to run its course. Probably longer than that, even, since she was pregnant and her immune system wouldn’t be fully up to snuff.
As she stepped out of the bedroom into a lavishly decorated hallway, she spotted Thunder coming toward her, carrying a tray of food. He grinned when he saw her and even had the audacity to wink.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty. I wasn’t sure when you were going to wake up. Don’t tell me that the infamous Shadow can’t hold her vamp venom.”
Val grunted at him and grabbed a slice of toast off the tray. It was slightly overdone, but she didn’t care as she gobbled it up.
“Where am I?” she demanded, glaring at him. “Why’d you move me?”
“You compromised the safe house with that cop.” Thunder’s face twisted in disgust. “So, I brought you to Hurricane’s place.”
Val choked on her toast. “Hurricane?” she spat furiously.
Considering how hostile he was towards Gabriel, this was the last thing she had expected. Gabe might have turned cop, but he still helped them out when called upon to do so. But Hurricane? Her lip rose in a sneer as she eyed the food tray contemptuously. That was food bought by blood money.
“So, you’re all murderous toward Blizzard, but you still like to hang out here with this traitor?”
Thunder growled at her. “Watch it. You are my guest in Ivywood. I’m not above throwing you out. Or letting Typhoon know about your… indiscretions.”
Val frowned for a moment, then recalled a missing piece of memory. Thunder trying to kill Gabriel, her interfering. So, this was more than about her sleeping with him. A knot twisted in the center of her empty stomach. She had said something to Gabriel, hadn’t she? Something that had made him angry… what was it?
She shrugged, aware that Thunder was still staring intently at her. “I have my reasons.”
“And those are?”
“Coalfell’s affairs are none of yours.”
Thunder snarled, moving closer as though he intended to intimidate her into talking.
Puh-lease.
“That doesn’t explain why you brought me to a traitor’s house, Thunder.”
“He—”
“Is as much a traitor as Blizzard.”
“Hu
rricane never tried to kill an alpha. Any comparison between him and your cop ‘friend’ will only get you into trouble here, Shadow.”
The chapters often worked together on important issues. Ivywood, being the closest to Coalfell, was very important to them. They worked with Thunder often when things cropped up. Starting any sort of bad blood here could potentially end in disaster for them. Didn’t Cromwell want to have the Brotherhood wipe themselves out for him?
But she hated to back down. There was nothing more she could say about Hurricane without starting problems, though, so she took a different route. “You had better have kept your hands to yourself while I was sleeping.”
Thunder rose his lip in a sneer. “Why would I want to touch you? You’re a surly, unfeminine, foul-mouthed woman. Besides, I don’t like cats.”
“Ah, no pussies for you?” She couldn’t stop herself as she laughed. “I didn’t know you were a dick man.”
The tray came at her. Val swiped it away as coffee splattered against the wall. Even as she started moving to defend herself, Thunder had rammed into her. He used his weight to throw her against the wall and pinned an arm over her throat. Not hard enough to cut off her breathing, but enough to hurt. Fury radiated off him as he snarled again.
“Homophobic ‘jokes’ like that are a really good way to get on my bad side, Shadow. Don’t forget that I know all the good places to hide bodies.”
Val glared back at him, ready to claw his eyes out, but then she remembered. Thunder’s little brother was gay. And he’d been beaten to death because of it. The fight went out of her at once. If her brother had suffered that, or one of her daughters?
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Thunder released her. “Doesn’t matter if you meant it. It was still like that.”
“Ahem.”
Val glanced over to find an unfamiliar woman staring at the two of them. She wore a slinky red dress, her brown hair done in perfect curls and her face expertly contoured. Strappy heels finished off the ensemble and Val had to wonder what sort of life a woman like that would live, that she never found herself having to fight. She herself could never dare to wear heels. What if she was attacked? She had to fight at a moment’s notice.
Blizzard: A Paranormal Romance (Savage Brotherhood MC Book 2) Page 5
