by V M Black
But if Levi tried to rush him, the M79’s shotgun round was perfectly capable of disabling him, instead. Surprise had been on his side the first time. This time, the goons were ready for him.
Damned if you do, blown up if you don’t.
The other survivor backed up, away from the barn doors, his gun in his holster as he tapped frantically at his phone.
“It’s Kowalski. We found him, sir, in a barn just north of mile forty-one.”
Levi’s ears, sharper than any human or ordinary wolf, picked up the reply.
“Good. Don’t move in until backup arrives.”
“We already did. Reynolds’ call.”
The first goon had the grenade launcher now and was retreating slowly, step after step, into the open dirt space in front of the barn as he reloaded the grenade round. There was nowhere to hide there, not even shadows.
“What? The idiot. Put him on,” said the voice on the phone.
“Can’t, sir. He’s dead.”
The other voice snarled a curse. “Of course he is. Have you got the target pinned?”
“I can’t say for sure, sir,” Kowalski said cautiously.
There was another sound, one from inside the barn, a soft metallic noise. Levi jerked his gaze over, but from his vantage, all he could see was the driver’s side of the gold car. What the hell was the girl doing over there?
The man on the phone spoke again. “Just—hold on. Back up’s coming.”
“ETA?”
“Half hour. Keep him there.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.” Kowalski hung up.
This was bad. It was very bad. Even in his wolf-form, he understood that. He was fast, but fast enough to close distance on the one with grenade launcher before he could shoot? He didn’t think so. At least it wasn’t an RPG—that would have blown clear through them to the other side of the barn—but what the hell was Mortensen thinking, arming his men with that?
He was thinking he was facing a werewolf. Levi answered his own question. And really, as far as that was concerned, the M79 was a pretty damned good choice. It was small enough to shove in a car, and it wouldn’t take down a house, but its stopping power was something that not even Levi wanted to test.
If they hadn’t wasted their first shot on the door, it might have already been all over. Lucky for him that good help was hard to find.
Levi couldn’t even see the patch of barn floor where he’d set his gun from this vantage point behind the bulk of the Skylark. Not that it mattered. With the man with the grenade launcher peering through the doorway, he wouldn’t want to take bets on whether he could make it to the gun and shift back to his human shape before he got blown away. Hell, the man could get tired of waiting and just start letting loose. Grenades weren’t exactly precision weapons.
There was a click in the darkness, loud enough that the men jumped from outside the door.
“There’s nowhere to go, Levi!” Kowalski called out as the jumpy one with the grenade launcher swept the weapon back and forth across the interior of the barn. Levi’s hackles rose at it crossed where he was hidden, deep in the pile of furniture.
How the hell had they learned his name? Someone, somewhere had blabbed. Or someone had recognized him. He’d been found somehow, so there was a good chance that the steps he’d taken to disable Mortensen’s surveillance had fallen through. If his face had been recorded, it would have taken someone with the vampire’s resources a matter of hours to identify him.
If the stakes hadn’t been high enough before….
“Why don’t you come out now, nice and easy?” Kowalski continued. “We don’t want to hurt you. We just want the knife back.”
Levi swallowed the growl that rose in his throat. Mortensen wanted him dead. It was the only kind of response the bloodsucker could have, if he wanted to save face among his kind.
A small movement at the corner of Levi’s eye attracted his attention. There, over the trunk of the car, the black snub end of his nine mil slid slowly upward.
If Harper was going to have any chance of hitting the guy, she was going to have to aim. And to aim, she’d have to stick her head into view. Then the thug with the grenade launcher would see her and fire, and it would all be over.
Unless the man was looking somewhere else….
Levi crouched, muscles bunching hard under hide and fur, and then he leaped, propelling himself up the tottering pile of furniture. A chair, balanced precariously, tottered under his weight as he landed, and he slammed it down the pile as he jumped again, starting a slow avalanche of wood and upholstery behind him.
The man with the grenade launcher shouted, whirling. Levi could see his finger on the trigger even across the distance, tightening….
But the nine mil barked first, and the man fell to the ground, the launcher falling from his hands. Kowalski shouted, firing a burst of rounds wildly into to the barn.
“Get in the car!” Harper’s voice pierced the reverberating aftershocks of the gunfire.
He crested the top of the collapsing mountain and half-ran, half-tumbled down the other side, paws dancing on the shifting furniture. He could see her through the front windshield now, scooting over the bench seat in nothing but her bra with her keys clutched in one hand. He hit the ground with all four paws, claws biting into the dirt as he took the corner around the front of the car. He shifted as he lunged for the door handle, dragging it open and flinging himself inside.
“My pants,” he managed. The SD card was still in the pocket.
She didn’t even look at him as she slapped the gear stick into reverse. “In the back.”
Never before had a nearly naked woman seemed as beautiful as Harper did just then. He slammed the door. The car was already moving, jumping backward even as Kowalski fired at them again. The Skylark hit the hole in the barn doors and burst through, wood splintering in every direction.
Kowalski jumped back, hitting the ground as the rear bumper narrowly missed him. Next to Levi, Harper yanked the car through neutral into first and floored it.
“Told you I’d find out your secrets,” Harper said as she moved up through the gears, the car accelerating down the dirt road. “But I didn’t expect one of them to be that you’re a goddamned werewolf.”
The story continues in…
The Alpha’s Captive
Part Two
Aethereal Bonds
On Sale June 3, 2014
Want to keep reading in the Aethereal Bonds world? Like dark, moody, and sexy books? Try out Life Blood, the first installment in the Cora’s Choice series—for free!
The werewolf is just the start of Harper Bailey’s bad day….
Curvy bombshell Harper Bailey loves bad boys, but Levi Harris might be one step too far. Within a short time of meeting him, her car was stolen, a grenade blew through their hideout, and several men with ugly guns tried to shoot them. And the super-sexy Levi himself turned into a wolf—at the most inconvenient time.
But she’s in for it now. The vampire mafia will find out who she is, if it doesn’t know already, so Levi insists that she stick with him as they try to get the data he stole into the right hands.
Harper is usually game for anything. But never has she played with so much to lose.
Can’t wait to find out what happens next?
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Author’s Note
I hope you enjoyed this book! If you want to keep up with me, you can find me on my blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Tumblr. I update Facebook and Twitter most often. Click “Follow” on Facebook if you want to see my updates but don’t want to share yours. Otherwise, choose “Friend.”
The Alpha’s Captive is a novelette serial that comes out on the first Tuesday of every month. When the serial finishes, it will be collected into an omnibus/boxed set edition. If you like this book and want to try out my other serial (with installments that run about twice as long), try Life Blood, the first in the Cora’s Choice serial. It comes out on the third Tuesday of every month.
I’m currently working exclusively in the Aethereal Bonds world, which I’ve mapped out to be big enough to let me tell all the different kinds of stories I want to share with readers. It’s got vampires, demons, weres, faes and more—all sorts of creatures that are great fun to play with.
I live near Washington, D.C., with my family. A proud geek, I love fantasy, romance, science fiction, and historical fiction.
Table of Contents
Aethereal Bonds
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Afterword
