by Casey Lane
The men were all posed in some subservient manner, kneeling with their gaze forced towards the ground. Some of the women were in the same pose, but there were also more disturbing poses, ones that reminded her of the whore of Babylon, making their screams look like ecstasy instead of suffering. As she got closer to the center, a pattern started to appear. The few male statues looking straight ahead from their kneeling position held expressions of righteous anger instead of pain, and they all faced a woman posed in a lewd position.
Her gaze caught the name Blaez on one of the righteous statues. Alessandra stopped and stared at the angry and pained face of Hunter’s father. She knew that expression. She had seen it on Hunter’s face the moment Winters appeared. Her heart dropped to her stomach. She didn’t want to turn, but she couldn’t help it, and sure enough, a woman positioned in an x-rated pose held another plaque with the last name Blaez.
She closed her eyes and turned away. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to see the plaques labeled Tate. Not now, but when her eyes opened, her gaze fell on another set of silver statues that pulled her breath from her body.
Her mother and father knelt with their foreheads touching. The sorrow and pain etched in their expressions created agony inside Alessandra. It was as if they were both alive when Winters coated them with silver. Her gaze moved to the screens showering the room with the sounds of abuse. Her throat closed and she couldn’t draw a breath. Her mother had ‘died’ years ago. The insinuation of life in their statue pose broke something inside her. The primal pain formed a scream that transitioned to a howl as the shift took over. The haunting sound echoed off the concrete and silver.
All her father’s over-protectiveness now made sense, especially if her mother’s death had actually been a disappearance. There seemed to be only one path for the missing of her kind, and it all led to this horrifying room.
Alessandra turned and ran, without regard to her surroundings. Her powerful shoulders knocked over at least a dozen statues, and more than a few of the police officers she passed had pulled their guns at the sight of a giant wolf plowing towards them.
“Don’t shoot!” Nathan and Hans yelled, as they followed her on foot.
Some force beyond her control gripped her and she ended up in Winters sparse bedroom. With teeth and claw, she tore the bedding to pieces between her wailing howls of loss. With feathers and pieces of cloth spread from wall to wall, Alessandra shifted and fell to the ground, covering her face with her hands.
“Holy...” a voice behind her made her stiffen, and she glanced over her shoulder at the cop standing in the doorway with Nathan and Hans.
“What? You’ve never seen a shifter before?” Alessandra snapped and sniffled as she wiped her face with dusty hands.
“It’s not that,” he said and pointed. Within the frame of the bed lay ledgers, along with neatly stacked one hundred dollar bills. There must have been at least fifty stacks visible.
Perhaps this was what the police were after. Winters’ private stash, and who knows what those ledgers held. Alessandra climbed to her feet. She didn’t give a damn about the money. She didn’t give a damn about anything except Hunter right now. She turned and walked out of the house of horrors.
Chapter Twelve
Ever since she had been taken to deal with the council issues, Alessandra had been distant in his company. Hunter stared at her from his reclined position on the bed. The nurses had moved him out of the inverted position after another round of x-rays showed alignment in his vertebrae.
He hadn’t felt a thing since that first tingle when Alessandra whispered in his ear, and the prognosis was still the same. According to the doctors, he would never walk again.
But that wasn’t his greatest concern, at the moment.
“Leigh?” he asked, and she turned her gaze from the world outside his window to him. The haunting look in her eyes left him hollow. The last time he saw that expression had been after they’d rescued her from that field. “What happened yesterday?”
Her eyes glossed over and her lips pulled at the corners. The fast blinking didn’t stop a tear from escaping, and his chest constricted. He couldn’t fathom what caused the heart wrenching pain in her eyes.
She glanced at the ceiling before she met his gaze and crossed to the chair next to him. “I know what happened to your parents.”
He inhaled. “You found the documents in the jeep?” he asked, still wondering what caused her to look like she had seen a ghost.
Her eyebrows shot up. “What documents?”
He blinked. His mind was still fuzzy from all the pain meds, but even with that disadvantage, he caught her surprise. “The proof that Winters was killing innocents. That’s what he wanted me to give up. If you didn’t find the papers, then how do you know what happened to my father?”
She cocked her head and took a deep breath. “They were a part of his trophy display.”
Hunter’s brain slowly processed the information. Rumors, along with Winters’ taunting, gave him a clue of what the trophy room encompassed. While he knew Winters killed his father, the fact Alessandra had said ‘they’ sank in. “My mother was there?” he asked, still trying to wrap his mind around that. The papers he had proved Winters was a twisted serial killer, but he never connected the dots as to why his father was so hell-bent on bringing the man down.
“Jesus,” he whispered. According to his father, his mother had died in a car crash. That was just before he had turned twelve. Just before his father moved them to the northeast and started investigating Winters. “Winters had her?”
Alessandra nodded. “And he had my parents.”
All the air in his chest blew out with those words. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around his mother being part of Winters’ collection. He blinked as Alessandra’s words sank in.
“Parents? Both of them?”
Alessandra nodded and tears spilled over. “The way they were posed... I think my mom was alive when they died.”
A chill ran through him. Her mother had died when she was a teenager. Thinking about the possibility that she might have been at Winter’s mercy for more years than he cared to calculate, left him shivering. Christ almighty.
“Winters might have posed them that way to screw with you,” he said, hoping it sounded as logical to her as it did to him.
Her chin trembled.
Hunter patted the mattress next to him and she moved to the spot and into his waiting arms. His eyes burned with unshed tears, and his stomach cramped at the thought of his mother having to do all the vile things Winters had insinuated he was going to do to Alessandra. The impact of what Winters had done to everyone he cared about tightened his throat, but the shake of Alessandra’s body against his kept his own emotions at bay.
“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” he whispered in her ear. He brushed his lips against the edge of her cheek and she pulled away. Her tear-stained gaze met his.
“Why is it your fault?” she asked again, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“If I had just given him the papers...”
“He still would have done all this. He was a sick fuck.” Anger laced her voice. “He still would have tried to kill us just because you knew about his psychosis.”
“Maybe. And maybe he would have paid me off and left us alone,” Hunter said, owning part of the blame for all that happened.
Her brow smoothed and she sighed. “I saw the malice in the way he looked at you. He never would have let you live.” She sniffled and met his gaze.
He didn’t disagree, but they might have had a few years of bliss before the gauntlet fell.
“Did the doctors say when you’re walking out of here?” she asked.
His heart plummeted at the change of subject, and he took a deep breath. “Here’s the thing,” he started, and shifted, unsure of how to summarize his condition on the heels of such bad news. He glanced out the window and then back at her. “I’m not ever going to walk again.”
; She blinked and leaned back, staring at him like she was waiting for the punch line. It took a few moments, and then sadness filtered into her irises and he cursed himself for blurting it out so callously.
“Ever?” she finally asked.
He shook his head, pressing his lips together, trying to push off the memories of running with the pack, of running alongside her. That wasn’t in the cards. And neither was having the alpha dote on him for the rest of his life.
“No. And I don’t expect you to stick around,” he said, forcing the words to come out steady, without the pain that crushed his insides.
Her gaze hardened and her lips thinned. The bloom of red in her cheeks spread until it encompassed her nose. “I’m not leaving you,” she said through clenched teeth. “How dare you even suggest that!”
“Ally,” he started, and her fingers covered his mouth.
“No.”
He pulled her hand away from his lips. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You don’t need to be saddled with a paraplegic werewolf in a wheelchair.”
“You don’t want me?” she asked, her voice as small as he felt.
Hunter closed his eyes. “What I want isn’t part of this discussion. This is about what you need.”
“I need you.”
Hunter opened his eyes and met her gaze. “You do not get it. I’m not going to run with the pack. I’m not going to be able to go for walks with you or dance with you. I’m going to be stuck in a goddamned wheelchair.” His voice rose to a pitch he recognized as much as the tightening of all his muscles. Anger had finally burned to the surface. “I’ll never be able to fuck like a normal man,” he said through clenched teeth as everything blasted through.
He didn’t know who he was angry with. Alessandra. Winters. His father. The doctors. Right now they all were on his shit list, and the news of so many dead didn’t help.
“Why are you yelling?” Alessandra asked, with a voice so calm he wanted to scream. The hurt in her eyes just fanned the inferno further.
“Because I’m fucking paralyzed and that royally screws up all of my plans. Why...” He stopped himself from asking her why she saved him. Even through his current state of fury, he knew if the tables had been turned, he would have done the same damned thing.
They studied each other in silence.
“I think you need some time alone.”
Alessandra stood, and he grabbed her wrist, kicking himself for letting his aggravation cloud his thinking. “I’m not angry with you,” he said, forcing his voice into a calm cadence that belied the tornado inside.
“Then why push me away?”
“Because you deserve better than this.” He waved at his useless legs.
She cocked her head. “What are you afraid of?”
He narrowed his gaze. “Stop trying to psychoanalyze me.”
Her lips tilted into a whisper of a smile. “Sucks when someone does that, doesn’t it.”
“Fuck you, Leigh,” he said, under his breath.
“Back at you, Jake,” she replied and twisted her wrist from his grip. He expected her to turn and leave. Instead, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
His mind stalled when her tongue swiped his lips. The kiss turned sweet and sultry, melting his resolve. He didn’t want to give her up, but he didn’t see any other way for her to be happy.
“I don’t really give a damn if you’re sequestered to a wheel chair. I’m going to be there for you like you have been for me. And if you don’t cut it out, I’ll order you to do as I say,” she said, after she pulled away with eyes full of hellfire.
“Order me?” His voice cracked.
“Yep. I’ll pull the alpha card.”
Her hands landed on her hips, and if he could have jumped to his feet and stared her down, he would have, but glaring from a bed was the only thing he could do. It was less than ideal and had nowhere near the same results. In fact, he was the first one to break eye contact. Hunter huffed in frustration.
“Where do you want to go when you get out of here?”
“I want to go home,” he said. He wanted familiarity and comfort, hell, he wanted his bed.
“Do you think our houses are still there?” she asked.
“I’m talking about our place in Maine. You know, the one I bought outright, and we lived in for a little over two months with no interruptions?” He challenged her with his tone. He hadn’t even thought of their hometown, nor had he thought about the pack at all. He just wanted a quiet setting with no complications.
“We’ll have to actually get phone and internet service,” she said with a nod.
He’d thought she’d put up some sort of argument and raised an eyebrow.
“Nathan’s taking the lead with the pack,” she said. “He knows I need to take care of you for a bit. Besides, I nominated you the council lead.”
Hunter leaned back into the pillow. “Why?”
“You are the most level headed werewolf that I know, and there’s a lot of shit to sift through. There was no way I was taking that on without you by my side. Besides, we both know you’re the better leader, despite the spooky ash marks on my stomach.”
“Did you just admit I’m a better alpha than you?” This time his eyebrows felt like they rose all the way to his hairline.
“No one, not even my parents could give me an order I had to follow. No one. Until you ordered me to leave that ditch. So, maybe I am.”
He chuckled under his breath. “Shit got crazy,” he said.
“It certainly did.” She settled back into the chair. “I’m ready to sleep through the rest of the winter,” she added with a yawn.
He didn’t say anything, just watched over her as she leaned her head back on the padding and close her eyes. That familiar tingle settled over him and she opened a single eye before she closed it again, this time with a hint of a smile on her sweet lips.
Chapter Thirteen
The cold March wind howled around the house and the fire crackled in the fireplace, sending warmth all the way over to where he sat on the couch. The internet was spotty again and he slammed the laptop closed, setting it on the coffee table before he ran his hands through his hair.
The lights flickered and Hunter glanced towards the kitchen. “How close is dinner,” he called and glanced at the mountains of papers spread across the kitchen table. To say the council was a mess was an understatement. Winters had been cooking the books and skimming off the top for years, which explained his stash in his bedroom. So, not only was the prick a serial killer, but he was also a thief.
The committee had paid for the remainder of his physical therapy down in Virginia and sent him home with Alessandra, an architect, and what had to be some of the fastest builders on the planet. It had only taken them a month to renovate the first floor with a master suite so he didn’t have to try to navigate the stairs.
They also sent them with all the shit that needed sorting, from valid crimes that needed to be addressed, to the nitty-gritty requests that flooded in daily. He had only been home for two weeks and he was ready for a vacation. On top of that, the bitter cold had settled over central Maine, which made the Florida Keys sound better and better.
Alessandra came out of the kitchen with two plates and took a seat at the other end of the couch, handing him one like a sacrificial offering.
“We might be eating by firelight,” Hunter said taking the plate. The meatloaf weighed the china down and he took the offered silverware before setting his dinner on his lap desk. As if on cue, the lights flickered again.
Alessandra was quiet and focused on her food, which was unusual. She was normally the one to pull conversation out of him, not the other way around. He studied her profile, and the tension in her posture.
“What’s wrong?” he asked around his first bite of the thick meat.
“Six months, today,” she whispered.
His gaze flicked to the calendar and his appetite vanished. Their life had taken a turn into hell six mon
ths ago. All at the bidding of Ken Winters. Hunter had uncovered all the documentation in emails and the money trail leading to Alessandra’s rape while he had been sequestered to the hospital in Virginia. The sick fuck even had the video those monsters took inside the van. Hunter could only stomach a few minutes of the brutality, but the video, along with the evidence he supplied the newly formed council, absolved both Alessandra and him from what they did to those boys.
But that event didn’t take away the nightmares; although, they had evolved for both of them. Now the nights were filled with ripping flesh, silver and other horrors he would rather not focus on.
He glanced back at Alessandra, slid his plate onto the table, and dropped his lap-desk on the floor, before spreading his arms wide for her. He signaled with his head for her to come to him and she crawled into his grasp. After all this time, she still shuddered when he wrapped his arms around her, but he knew it was because of this particular date and the unwanted memories, and he couldn’t blame her one bit.
Hunter kissed her forehead, keeping silent because there were no words that would wipe out what she’d lived through. Only time would heal her wounds. Time and his infinite patience. She hadn’t actually been in his arms since the night in the hotel, and the physical sensation of her body against his stirred something deep within him.
She inhaled and glanced up at him. “Salted caramel,” she said, and he smiled, shrugging in response. “I haven’t caught that scent since the hospital.”
“I’m sorry,” he started, but she stopped him, planting a kiss that sizzled. Every muscle in his body tensed with the intensity, and his arms tightened around her. Her tongue explored his mouth, teasing at first, but it soon escalated into a burning need. He groaned under it.
The lights finally succumbed to the weather, flickering out, leaving them with only the fire casting shadows. She pulled away and straddled his lap as she stared into his eyes. “I honestly thought...”
