A job well done most likely meant Liam had his support. The thrill of that helped to erase some of the heaviness in his heart at what good pack law really meant.
Chapter 10
Jinx’s wolf did not like closed spaces, but he offered Gillian the option of the elevator. She seemed to accept his claustrophobia in stride and walked up with him.
“I don’t much like small spaces either,” she told him as they started up the stairs together. Jez took the elevator, mainly so he could make sure all was right in the penthouse.
Jinx was sure they would’ve sensed trouble, but Jez was more careful than most, a trait Jinx appreciated.
“I really like the other house. Why don’t you live there anymore?”
“It was time for me to get out on my own.” They rounded the landing to the halfway point of the upstairs.
They finished the walk in silence. Jez met them at the door with a nod to Jinx as Gillian stepped inside.
“I like this place too,” she told Jinx. There were lots of windows in the main part of the room. Most vampires would hate that, but Jez wasn’t most vampires.
“I’m going to head to the roof,” Jez told them.
“Do you sleep there?” Gillian asked.
“I don’t sleep much at night, no.”
“I’d like to sleep outside, I think.”
“I’m never going to have any privacy again, am I?” Jez grumbled, but he didn’t look all that put out as they went out onto the rooftop terrace under the stars.
It was so calm—too calm for monsters to be roaming the night. Then again, most humans thought wolves were monsters too. He settled with Gillian in one of the double loungers while Jez took one on the other side of the roof for maximum privacy.
She snuggled in against him. “Do you see them now? The ghosts?”
“Yes. They’re everywhere.”
“I could only see the one in my room. I liked her,” she said wistfully.
There’d been a time he’d liked ghosts too—thought maybe they were misunderstood. He’d spent what seemed like a lifetime trying to hold to this theory. Since it was his ability, shouldn’t he be kind to the things?
Rogue never had that issue. He’d wanted the spirits to go back to where they came from, no niceties at all. And by the time Jinx was convinced he was right, Rogue was far ahead of him in the sending them back into their box thing.
But Jinx had learned. “You shouldn’t ever get that close to a ghost. Don’t let them talk to you. Ignore them, because most of the time, they lie.”
That was true about half the time, but for the inexperienced, the ignoring thing was generally the best rule of thumb.
“You make them all sound scary.”
“You don’t know what’s underneath what you’re seeing or hearing.”
“It sounds like a hard job. I used to want to work at Carvel when I was younger, but mainly so I could have ice cream all day long,” she admitted. “What about you? Did you always want to hunt ghosts?”
He couldn’t tell her yet that, as a Dire, you didn’t really have a choice as to what you wanted to be. You just were—and he was a warrior alpha wolf born into a great warrior family big on tradition and worried as hell that the twins would ruin the line with their witchy ways. “It’s what I’m good at.”
There was a long, comfortable silence and then Gillian turned her head against his chest and went to sleep. It was a calm, peaceful sleep, with deep, easy breaths and the hint of a smile on her face. He covered her against the coolness of the night, since she hadn’t officially turned yet. Her metabolism was faster, she was warm, but he wouldn’t take any chances.
Shifting—especially the first shifts—on any Dire were very hard. In his day, on average maybe half survived the transition.
Brother Wolf whined in his ear and he didn’t blame him. Jinx didn’t want to think about the possibility of losing Gillian either.
As Gillian slept under the stars, he and Jez moved back over to the small table in the middle, bringing beer and chips and salsa with them. Their talk turned back to the other matter at hand while they had the opportunity. Decided that reopening purgatory was the worst idea ever, but neither had a clue about how to send the purgatory monsters to hell.
“Hell might not even accept them,” Jez pointed out.
“How can you be rejected from hell?” Jinx asked.
“I was.” Jez sniffed.
“You sure there’s no one innocent in purgatory?”
“There’s another place for the innocent who haven’t moved along yet. They’re not all walking the earth.”
“And you’ve seen this place?”
“I’ve had a rather extensive tour of all the areas except purgatory. And I can assure you that none of these monsters were in hell.” Jez sucked back the beer and then grabbed for the chips. Odd deadhead, this one was.
“In order for you to travel through hell, you can’t be innocent.”
“That I’m not innocent is news?”
He’d never asked exactly what the vamp had done, but he supposed, by the very nature of vampires, that killing was up there on their list of sins. “I’m going to have to get Rogue’s help on this.”
“I’m thinking it couldn’t hurt.”
The hellhounds listened to him for now and in turn, corralled the monsters. He couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take before the monsters actually ruled him. This kind of power was something you couldn’t wield for very long without losing a hell of a lot of yourself.
But he couldn’t deny that he’d allowed himself to think about how he could use the monsters for good.
“When are you going to tell your girlfriend that you run purgatory?” Jez asked.
“I will fucking stake you.”
“That’s a myth. And it was a simple question. You need to get laid.”
Jinx grabbed the phone and dialed Stray.
“I say get laid—you call a male wolf. Odd,” Jez moved and Jinx gave him the universal shut up signal in the form of the middle finger.
“Yeah, it’s me. When you go to the hospital, can you find the books that were in Gillian’s room? Yeah, there were some classics, a few romance.” He rattled off some titles. If Stray couldn’t find them, Jinx would replace them with new copies, because everyone deserved to have something that made them feel good when they were in a strange place.
Hell, even Jez had done that for him, had orchestrated moving Jinx’s old comforter and pillows from the Dire house to here, with Vice’s help. Brother Wolf greatly appreciated the comforts of home. It had only been a few weeks, but when they’d faced battles together, warriors tended to bond faster. He wasn’t sure what would’ve happened to him had he not approached Jez in the first place, and he didn’t want to think about it.
Chapter 11
Jinx carried a sleeping Gillian in from the roof around dawn, put her in his bedroom and resisted the urge to crawl in next to her. They had enough issues to deal with already and truth be told, the king of purgatory thing was going to be a nice wedge in their relationship.
On his way to the shower, he grumbled something at Jez while the vampire ate his Cocoa Pebbles, wondering if the deadhead needed any sleep. Superfuckingvampire, he was.
He contemplated the day ahead as he let the hot water sluice over his back. Brother was pissed about the no-running thing. Rogue was pissed. Rifter was pissed. Vice would be pissed soon enough.
Maybe the hellhound could be housebroken. The building obviously didn’t have a problem with pets.
Brother Wolf growled. “I wasn’t talking about you.”
And maybe you’re punch-drunk on lack of sleep.
He’d barely gotten out of the shower when Jez opened the door.
“I think we’re close enough that I don’t feel the need to shower together,” Jinx told him.
“Stray’s on the phone—said it’s an emergency. Asshole,” he added and Jinx dried himself as he walked into the living room to grab the phone
.
Jez had put it on speaker. “Stray, what’s wrong?”
“Your girlfriend’s famous,” Stray said. Jez was already turning on the TV where a special news bulletin was splashed across the screen.
There was a picture of Gillian—and a drawing of a guy who he guessed was supposed to be him.
“Looks nothing like me,” he scoffed.
“You’re lucky I managed to destroy the video footage. Took all night—neither you or Jez was really slick. And Kate was the sketch artist—she helped make sure the sketch is just off enough.”
“I’m not supposed to show up on celluloid,” Jez mused.
“No one says celluloid anymore,” Jinx said as Stray continued, “You were all over it in black and white.”
Jez frowned but merely said, “They’re offering an obscene reward.”
“Her parents are the Blackwells. As in Blackwell Industries,” Stray told them and Jinx couldn’t tear his eyes away as the press conference with Gillian’s parents began.
They didn’t look anything like her, which of course made sense. In a way, he’d been hoping they were Dires, even Weres, but no way. He’d be able to tell.
“I’ve got a call in to Marley—she knows a couple of the camera guys at the conference. Parents are human,” Stray confirmed.
Mrs. Blackwell looked suitably teary, her husband, stoic and firm. They pleaded for their daughter’s safe return and offered five million dollars.
And now there was a bounty on Gillian’s head the size of fucking Earth.
It made sense that Gillian would’ve used the name Black. Using her real name would’ve attracted the media as well as making her a target for, well, kidnappers. Like him. “We’re screwed.”
This new world of wolves and humans living so close—mixing—was inherently dangerous. She wouldn’t be the first accidentally adopted wolf. But the fact that she’d been locked away and forgotten, and now they were trying so desperately to get her back, struck him as more than a little strange.
“. . . She’s a danger to others. She tried to kill several members of the hospital staff,” one of the doctors was saying now as the camera lights flashed and members of the press called out questions.
“That’s a lie,” Jinx said.
“Is it?” Jez asked.
“Wouldn’t the orderly have shared that with me?” Jinx demanded.
“None of this makes sense,” Jez agreed. “But this is going to get everyone’s attention—and Gillian is hard to miss.”
“Please call law enforcement to help bring Gillian in. Do not attempt to grab her yourself,” the New York City police chief was saying. “We are working with law enforcement in the areas around the hospital where Gillian disappeared. Yes, I’ll take a question.”
“Sir, does it appear that Gillian Blackwell left of her own accord?”
“According to reports, she was carried out by the man you see in the police sketch. We believe he has taken her against her will.”
“Sir, have there been any calls for ransom?”
“Not as of yet,” he confirmed.
Jez shook his head and Jinx stared at the floor.
“Does the Greenland pack have TV or Internet?” Jez asked finally, without a trace of irony.
“That’s a good fucking question,” Stray muttered across the line.
“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this—now,” Jinx said.
“Kill’s got a lead,” Stray assured him.
Jinx had forgotten how damned hard the memories of the Greenland pack were for the brothers—and it wasn’t like they could saunter in and say, “Hi, we’re the other Dires and we’ve got one of yours.”
“I’m sorry you and Killian have to deal with this, Stray,” Jinx told him.
“It’s all good. For your mate.”
All Jinx could say was “Thanks.”
“Obviously lay low,” Stray added.
“She’s got to run.”
“Fill her in when she wakes,” Stray said. “You can’t ease her into this.”
And then what? Jinx wanted to ask, but he couldn’t. Because the “then what” would entail hiding her. Sending her away, possibly back to a pack they all hated.
* * *
Gillian had been watching TV in the bedroom. She sat up, hugging the covers to her body, her eyes glued to the screen of the channel that prepared to run the news on a continuous loop. She didn’t acknowledge him at first, until he said, “I didn’t know you were, ah . . . you know . . .”
“An heiress?” she answered without tearing her eyes from the news conference.
“Rich as shit.”
“That too.” He’d wrapped a towel around his waist, as all his clean clothes were actually in this room, washed by whatever vampire cleaning fairies Jez employed. He never saw any of them, but everything was always pretty damned impeccable and there was always a ton of food, including a lot of meat, so he had no complaints.
Now, he grabbed a pair of jeans and dropped the towel to yank them on. She was glued to the TV screen, so not the biggest confidence booster.
He took the remote from her and turned it off. She grabbed it back from him and turned it on. “I have to know what they’re saying about me.”
“Why?”
“Because.” She shoved the covers aside, frustrated, and he tried not to stare at her long lean legs. “You don’t understand. My family is so fucked up.”
“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t understand fucked-up families,” he muttered.
She was staring at him because she’d heard him. Goddamned wolf hearing. “All I’m saying is—”
“Am I?” she interrupted.
“Are you what?” Jinx braced himself as she asked the next part of the question.
“Dangerous. They kept telling me how sick I was. But they never tried to find me when I left. And I don’t remember trying to hurt anyone, but I had blackouts.”
“What kind of blackouts? From the drugs?”
“Maybe. I lost time. Days—weeks, one time. But the doctors always told me that things were fine.” She gave her parents on the TV a hard look. “I shouldn’t have believed any of them.”
* * *
Jinx was studying her. She wondered if this was the point where everything that had been so wonderful and easy between them would break down, that he would reconsider hiding her.
Five million dollars was nothing to sneeze at, and ghost hunting couldn’t pay that much, if at all. Granted, she had no idea how he afforded this place, but maybe Jez paid for it.
Another doctor was on-screen now, discussing Gillian’s diagnosis without saying the exact word schizophrenia, because that would violate all kinds of HIPPA policies. Instead, he talked generally about what happens to a mental patient who stopped taking meds suddenly.
He had no clue the daily meds did nothing for her. She didn’t even bother spitting them out any-more because she was convinced they were sugar pills. And she certainly wasn’t suffering from any kind of withdrawal symptoms as far as she could tell.
She would, however, kill for a nice, stiff drink. And a rare hamburger. She wanted to go to a bar and dance on tables and kiss Jinx all night, end up in his bed.
She’d settle for not being put back into the hospital at this point. Moved nervously under the covers until Jinx finally spoke.
“You said last night that your family could be difficult. Didn’t you think it might be important to tell me who they were?”
“No,” she said coolly. “I liked that you didn’t know.”
“I could’ve been lying.”
“But you weren’t. I would’ve known. I lived my entire life growing up around people using me for that damned last name.” She fisted her hands on her bare thighs as she watched her mother daintily wipe her eyes, her father’s comforting arms around her. “This is the most they’ve touched each other ever, and I’m counting their wedding night.”
“Wow.”
“They’ve slept in separate bedrooms as l
ong as I can remember.”
“Maybe they have, like, conjugal visits?”
“In separate wings. My father’s lovers sleep over.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m adopted,” she said suddenly. “They didn’t want to tell me, but I hired a detective to find the lawyer they got me from. At least my father’s money did me some good.”
“You’re their only kid.”
“Yes. And no, I don’t want any of their money. They can keep all of it.” There was a time in her life she couldn’t have imagined saying that, never mind meaning it. But she had and she did.
She was angry—at Jinx, herself, her parents. All of it.
“I don’t understand why they’re even doing this. It’s got to be for show.”
“Maybe they’re sorry?” Jinx asked.
“They haven’t even come to see me in years. People don’t change that much.” Granted, even before that, her parents had never really taken a huge interest in her. Like most of her friends, she’d been raised by staff, rarely seeing her parents except for important functions where she’d been shown off to the society she was supposed to become a part of.
Poor little rich girl.
“Look, Gillian . . . if you decide to go home, I don’t want you to think you’re not free to do that,” Jinx told her.
“There’s no point. There’s nothing to go back to—my parents don’t even want me inside their house. And I’m not going to live in a psych ward for the rest of my life. So no offense, but you’re not helping this at all.”
But what was she going to do? Hide out here forever?
It seemed, at least for the foreseeable future, that was the best thing for her to do. “I’m sorry, Jinx. I’m being a bitch.”
He didn’t seem worried or offended. Concerned a bit, yes. But he didn’t seem to mind her, moods and all. It was an enlightening and completely new feeling. “I’ll bring you in some breakfast. Best you stay inside for the time being, okay?”
She nodded and he closed the door halfway. She could see the big TV was on in the living room, of course, on the news station. She was causing a lot of trouble for both men now.
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