by Susan Laine
“Jesus fucking Christ! You scared the shit out of me.” Kieran spoke harshly, angrily, even though their being caught literally with their dicks hanging out was all his doing. “What the hell are you doing here, Erin? I thought you were at Homochitto.”
“At the National Park? Why would she be there?” Gabriel cut in from the sidelines, curious but calm. Kieran was glad about that, even though he had offered the man no explanations of who the woman was and what was going on.
Kieran waved a dismissive hand around. “Don’t ask.”
“What the hell is that?” Erin pointed at Gabriel, giving the big cowboy a sharp once-over, but speaking only to Kieran. “You picking up strays now?” She shook her head, half in mockery, half in disappointment.
Kieran snarled. “Don’t start.”
“I took care of the car you so recklessly left out there in the parking lot like a couple of low-grade dumbasses.” She put down the guns, aiming them at the ground, cocking the safeties in place, but her expression didn’t soften, not even a smidgen. “Jesus, Kieran! You’re a goddamn specialist, so why don’t you fucking act like one!”
“I definitely hear a family resemblance,” Gabriel murmured next to Kieran, obviously amused at all the cussing the King family never engaged in. Fuck. Why was everything so hard these days? Kieran sighed. Gabriel beat him to the resolution, though. “So, you are Kieran’s sister?”
Steel flashed in her narrowing eyes, just like it did in Kieran’s own at times. Looking Gabriel up and down, she said, “So, you’re his gay lover.” And from her icy tone it was evidently not a question. Kieran closed his eyes and sighed. As Gabriel didn’t answer, Erin moved on. “What the hell is up with you, Kay? You’ve become lax in your responsibilities, and what the hell is this I hear about you welching on a contract? You could get yourself killed, for fuck’s sake! Have you lost your mind?”
“It’s got nothing to do with you, Erin.” Erin stepped closer, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Out of the corner of his eye, Kieran saw Gabriel move closer, his amused expression changing into a wary one. “I know you don’t approve of what I do. But I’m telling you now to butt out. This does not concern you.” Squaring his shoulders, he kept up appearances as best he could. “We made a deal long ago. You don’t involve yourself in my affairs, and I don’t get mixed up in yours.”
Erin grunted scornfully. “If you want to throw your lucrative, yet despicable, freelance mercenary career down the toilet, that’s your business. I just came to see why you seem to have taken leave of your senses. Especially knowing it’s going to be the death of you. Now I see why.” Her gaze veered briefly to Gabriel who stood in place serenely, not uttering a word. Curiously, Kieran couldn’t decipher the look in her eyes as she did so.
“Mind your own fucking business, Erin,” Kieran snarled, shifting to stand between Erin and Gabriel, as though a centuries-old lycan needed his help. “I won’t tell you again—”
For some reason Erin seemed just as heated as Kieran was, or even more so. “What you’re doing with those mercs is beneath you.”
“You’re taking the moral high ground with me?” Kieran chuckled, incredulous. “You of all people? The anarchist?”
Erin stepped closer in a heartbeat and jabbed a finger against Kieran’s chest. “I do not go around hunting and slaughtering beings older than the time of man on this earth. What I do is to demand people not shut their eyes and ears to the real troubles of the world—global warming, poverty, warfare, extinction of whole species of animals, disasters brought on by humanity—so that they can become aware that there’s more going on than what they can conceive with their greedy hearts and selfish souls. Our practices, our values, our principles, our very ways of life do not compare in any sense of the word, and, you piece of shit, you know it. You, Kieran, you’re a man without a cause, without a single belief, without any reason to get up in the morning other than to sate that blood thirst of yours and to fill your wallet with blood money.”
Frowning, Kieran had to grudgingly admit that Erin had him there. Before Gabriel had come along, he had not known the meaning of an ideology or any purpose beyond what he could get out of his mercenary missions. Not even in the IRA had he felt like his heart belonged to the frontlines of that endless and pointless skirmish.
A part of Kieran had always assumed Erin steered clear of him, flew below the radar of the establishment, because her lifestyle as a social and political rebel necessitated it. But he had always had the nagging sense that deep down the real cause was their dissimilarities. Somewhere in her teens, Erin’s social consciousness and conscience had ramped up to a thousand percent, and this reckless forward momentum had carried her to this point in time and space—to Kieran, whose social awareness did not extend beyond knowing who the incumbent president was.
Now Kieran knew that he was indeed a man who had never embraced a cause. His sole raison d’être revolved around the simple act of the hunt, kill or be killed—and getting handsomely compensated for his troubles.
Erin was right. Kieran had lost his way.
“You think I’m like dad,” Kieran said quietly, looking at her midsection instead of her eyes. “Purposeless, useless, mindless….”
“I don’t think in those terms. But if you do, you don’t have to be. You know that, Kay. I know you do cause you aren’t stupid.” Erin’s husky voice, smoky as long as he had known her, got softer and more empathetic. “Dad was a dick. You’re not—yet. So, come on, Kay. Could you fill me in here? What is going on?”
Kieran took a deep breath. “Gabriel’s a contract. He’s a… he’s a….” Unable to finish the sentence and out Gabriel as a lycan, he fought for words that would sound innocuous enough to be construed as sensible, yet ethical.
“A werewolf, yeah. I know.”
Kieran shot her a suspicious look. “How?”
Erin sneered, shaking her head. “How do you think, dumbass? Thermal goggles. You’re not the only one who’s noticed how hot he is.” Yes, Kieran did know thermal imaging goggles were more effective than night vision cameras, but he hadn’t seen any on her. Shit. That meant she had been scoping the place out for a while before coming out in the open, having undoubtedly seen everything Kieran and Gabriel had done from start to finish. Apparently Erin realized that Kieran had come to the right conclusion, because she smiled wickedly, giving her appearance a feminine glow. “I had no idea you were gay.”
“I’m not,” Kieran growled. He did not need to see Gabriel to feel the effect his denial had on the man—his mate. The flinch, the dejection, the blankness. It was as if he could actually see them. “Look, it’s complicated, and—”
Gabriel made a sudden gurgling sound behind him, and Kieran felt like a heel.
Turning around, with an apology on the tip of his tongue, Kieran stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the bright-red feathery tranquilizer dart sticking out of the cowboy’s neck. With a swift move, Gabriel swatted it as though it were an annoying bug. And then he held out his hand, his expression stunned, as he too realized what it was.
“They found us!” Kieran exclaimed, reaching for his gun at his belt—and finding he didn’t have the weapon on him. All he had was his hunting knife stuck in his boot. “Fuck!”
Gabriel grunted, and Kieran watched helplessly as two more darts landed on him, one in his neck and another in his chest, the feathers vibrating over the red T-shirt.
“Kay, here!” Erin shouted and tossed Kieran one of her semiautomatic handguns.
Adeptly, Kieran snatched the gun midair, cocked it, and crouched to scan around. “Get down, Gabe,” he hissed amidst an adrenaline rush.
What he heard in response was a growl. Gabriel changed. What to Kieran looked like an excruciating ordeal was apparently familiar territory for Gabriel since his face was contorted with animalistic rage, not pain. In dumbfounded fascination, Kieran watched the transformation. Gabriel grew taller, maybe three or four inches, and bulkier, heavier, hairier, and Kieran felt a surge of instinct
ive fear at the sight of such primitive savagery. Glad he’s on my side.
But he had no time to process his feelings when men in black swarmed the clearing by the brook. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gabriel pounce on two of them until all three went tumbling to the ground in a heap of limbs, and Gabriel’s claws and canines tore them apart. Even while shuddering, Kieran got off several hastily aimed but lucky shots at the other men charging at them from the shadows and took at least three men down. Yes, they had bulletproof vests on, so he knew they wouldn’t stay down for long. He knew he should have aimed for their heads.
“Traitor.”
Swiveling, Kieran felt a sting of pain flash through his hand and arm when his gun was kicked out of his hand. Slade. The man grinned maliciously—and tossed his own gun away.
“He’s mine, you hear?” he shouted at the other mercenaries, who stopped their advance on Kieran and veered off.
It was then that Kieran saw why they moved so peacefully. Grunting, Gabriel stood by the riverbank, held in a rigid, motionless pose like a statue. With all the bright red, quivering tranq darts attached to his chest and neck he looked like a dartboard at a pub. Next thing Kieran knew, the man’s eyes rolled in his head and he fell backward, straight as a board. Timber!
The thud of him crashing down on the soil, dried leaves and dirt flying about, forced Kieran to focus back on Slade. It was too late for Gabriel now. The only way for Kieran to save him was to get rid of his former compatriots. He had to kill them—and Slade was on the top of the list.
Slade brought up his knee and pulled out his combat knife from his ankle holster.
Knowing full well what was ahead, Kieran followed suit, calm as soon as the familiar grip of his combat knife came into contact with his palm. This was a game he knew how to play.
From the distance, Kieran overheard angry shouts. “She’s locked herself in the bunker! We ain’t never gonna get her outta there!” Kieran grinned. Erin was always one step ahead of most people, and she was not only sharp as a razor, she was also quick on her feet. At least she had gotten out of harm’s way, even if Kieran and Gabriel had not.
Watching Slade and his twisted grin, Kieran cautiously circled around him. Slade mimicked his movements in opposition, like in a slow dance with a cautious partner. “Lost her, didya? Sucks to be you.”
Slade growled at the taunt, but it didn’t sound even close to as frightening or arousing as Gabriel’s.
“How’d ya find us anyway?” Putting people in a position where they could boast about their cleverness or ingenuity was always a safe bet, because it allowed for a distraction for an all-out assault. If Slade would only take the bait.
Uttering a nasty laugh, Slade said, “You thought we’d inject him with the tracer chip? Nah, fool. It’s on his clothes. All our clothes.”
As Slade kept laughing, Kieran took advantage of his enemy’s breathless condition and dashed closer, into Slade’s personal space, and took a swing with the knife. Slade jumped back, but not quite fast enough. Blood seeped out of a gash on his left arm, where the black shirt was newly torn.
Now Slade was pissed. “Motherfucker!”
What followed was a heated, swift battle, where they alternated getting the upper hand. Blue sparks flew every time the blades chinked, the succession so speedy their eyes could not track the movement their hands were engaged in.
Kieran used his free hand to distract and camouflage where he was going to strike, and he got off several pricks and cuts to Slade’s extremities, avoiding the man’s chest since his vest would protect him. Slade did have skill in this area of combat, but he wasn’t as good as Kieran, whose hands were riddled with scars he had gotten from situations just like this one, among other times he had played with knives instead of toys.
The advantage of a knife fight was that with enough experience, speed, and accuracy, a knife could be used as both a weapon and a shield—sometimes at the same time. The risks were, of course, obvious as Kieran felt the slash across his pectoral muscle that was guarded only by his T-shirt, but he willed the pain to subside.
Keeping in constant motion, first sprinting forward and then sliding back out of range, Kieran relished this moment because he knew in his heart he was going to win. Slade was no match for him. In his mind, Kieran had already won—and Slade was dead.
Jabbing the tip of the blade once on the strap of Slade’s vest in a sneakily fast attack, Kieran managed to cause a significant tear in the tight fabric, enough to slow Slade down a fraction as the movement of his shoulder became restricted because of the flapping strap.
“Fucking fag!” Slade cursed and with a yell, rocketed forward.
Kieran spun around, dropped to a crouching position, and kicked Slade’s feet from under him. Attempting to stab Slade while he was face down in the dirt, however, failed as the man rolled away, swinging his knife wildly about. He was back on his feet in a heartbeat, same as Kieran. They both knew better than to expect mercy, and Kieran was going to show none.
Switching the grip he had on the handle of the knife, Kieran misdirected his intention, and was rewarded with a huge gash on Slade’s cheek. The guy screamed in frustration and pain and attacked, running at Kieran like a madman.
He caught Slade’s knife hand in his own free hand and kicked the guy in the balls. As Slade grunted and doubled over in pain, Kieran cut the other strap of the vest off as well, causing the vest to flap down.
With a vicious murmur, Slade stormed forward, knocked his shoulder into Kieran’s chest and tackled him with sudden strength. They tumbled down to the ground, where they began rolling around as each tried to gain enough leverage to get the other off. Slade’s knife disappeared in the tussle since he used both fists to hit Kieran’s flanks, even though Kieran managed to block and deflect most of the blows with his arms.
Finally, Kieran was able to push Slade back for that extra inch that allowed him to stick his fist in the man’s diaphragm in a single punch, knocking the wind out of him, and land a blow on his bleeding cheek, which disoriented him. Violently, Kieran shoved the man off and jumped up without using his hands. Though shaking and blinking his blood-soaked right eye, Slade got up too, making a hasty, foolhardy move toward Kieran, whose knee landed in Slade’s gut, and he keeled over.
This time Kieran swung around like a dancer on the balls of his feet and struck with deadly accuracy, his knife now embedded to the hilt in Slade’s exposed, vulnerable neck. His groan withering, Slade fell forward to the ground, dead as a doornail.
Not waiting for the other mercenaries to ram him down, Kieran dove for Slade’s gun, lying on the dirty leaves, and he reached desperately for the cold metal of the handle.
Then there was a surprising amount of pain on the back of his head, a cruel throbbing kind of ache that spread throughout his body, like a stone cast into a rippling pond. Faintly, he knew he had been hit over the head with the barrel of a gun. It wasn’t a novel experience for him. Then colors flickered into shadow and light splintered into shards on darkness.
Kieran was unconscious before his body hit the dirt.
Chapter Six
“OH, YOU have done well, my dear. So very, very well.”
A man’s raspy, creaking voice brought Gabe out of the dark pit of unconsciousness. It was not a voice he recognized, but the admiration and awe were familiar enough. His head swam in dizzy confusion until his wolf within healed him, and his mind cleared of the haze in the blink of an eye. Yet he kept his eyes closed and his breathing sleep-shallow.
“I told you, Papa. Isn’t he just adorable?”
That sugary sweet sound, however, was immediately identifiable to Gabe. Victoria Adler’s flowery perfume took over his awareness, but only briefly. He pushed the sensations aside, seeking his mate’s scent, sound, or feel. Soon he smelled what he assumed was his mate’s natural odor, but he wasn’t close enough to touch him, to be certain one way or the other.
But then…. “He has been running around like a little untrain
ed puppy, Vicki. You must scold him, or he will never be a proper husband to you.”
“Oh, Papa,” Victoria huffed indignantly, from the sound of it, in a pique. “He is a real man, good and proper. He would never hurt me.”
Gabe wondered what, if push came to shove, he would do with her. She was, after all, the enemy, his captor, and unfortunately, also his apparent bride-to-be.
“Well, I’m sure you’re right, my dear. But still, I’ll feel better when the minister says the words, binds the two of you in the holy bond of matrimony, and you are with child.”
“Oh, but Papa! What about our honeymoon?” Now she sounded like a child who had just had her favorite toy yanked out of her hands and was about to throw a temper tantrum to rival that of the gods.
The man, William Adler, scoffed. “There’ll be plenty of time for that tomfoolery once this is all aboveboard. He is not going anywhere, sweetheart. Now hush. I do believe our guest is awake.” William’s hoarse tone came closer, as did the sound of some sort of mechanism, and he spoke again. “Good morning, Mr. King. I’m afraid your little midnight run has, for the lack of a better phrase, run its course. Time to wake up and face the music. Why, I do not understand your obvious reluctance? I’ll have you know many distinguished men seek my daughter’s hand in matrimony, and you would abscond? How fundamentally rude. Did your parents teach you no manners?”
Gabe opened his eyes. The man was decrepit, hunched in a wheelchair, his stark black-and-white evening wear immaculate, but he was clearly disease ridden. His teeth had been whitened, but the underlying yellowing from smoking, and the constant wheezing from his lungs, told Gabe the man was sick, perhaps with lung cancer or some other deadly respiratory disease. There was still a trace of the strong man he had used to be within that frail shell, but the man now had either lost or abandoned his conscience. That much Gabe saw in those watery, dim blue eyes, almost veiled by the cascade of gray hair over his forehead.
“Who are you?”
