Her Lone Wolf

by Paige Tyler

  He focused harder, pushing his awareness out—like he did when he wanted to pick a particular scent out of a crowd. But again, it didn’t work.

  Dammit! Why had this been so easy when he’d chased McDermott through the freaking forest?

  Because he’d let his inner wolf out and given it free reign.

  Clayne shifted, right there in the middle of the running path. Anyone that got too close was going to be in for one hell of a scare. Fangs, claws, features—he let it all go.

  Every sound was suddenly louder, every smell more intense. The vibrations of cars and trucks moving on a road a mile away found their way through the earth and up the soles of his feet to his head, where he cataloged and analyzed them. If he opened his eyes, the blue of the sky would be more vivid, the horizon farther away.

  But none of those senses mattered. He was only interested in the sensation that told him where Danica was.

  When he finally felt it, he almost dropped to his knees and wept. How could he have missed it?

  He turned slowly until he was facing in her direction, then opened his eyes. He was facing almost due east, into the heart of DC. A laugh, mixed with equal parts growl, escaped his lips.

  I’m coming, Danica. Just hold on.

  * * *

  Danica woke to a strange echoing sound filling her ears. What the hell was that noise? And why did her chest hurt so damn much?

  She tried to lift her hand to rub the area and ease the pain there, but her arm felt like it was too heavy to pick up. She tried her other arm but couldn’t move that one, either. That was when it came back to her—waking up beside Clayne, going running on the trail, seeing McDermott.

  Her eyes snapped open and she jumped up—or tried to. That was when she realized she was tied down to something. She jerked hard, but her arms and legs were immobilized. There were ropes wrapped around her wrists and forearms. No, not ropes. Yellow, heavy duty extension cords. She was tied to a cheap metal armchair.

  That didn’t explain the pain in her chest. It felt as if she’d been hit with a stun gun. Which made sense. McDermott liked to subdue his victims that way.

  Where was that sick bastard anyway?

  Danica lifted her head to find the cat shifter sitting in a matching chair a few feet away, his long legs stretched out in front of him. She had shot him twice—in the heart. How the hell could he be alive? It was impossible, but it was true. He’d gotten rid of the beard and cut his hair shorter, but it was him.

  “You should see the look on your face, Agent Beckett,” he said. “It’s absolutely priceless.”

  He pulled his legs in, then leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees, and she felt her stomach quiver in fear as he focused his predatory eyes on her. The only reason she wasn’t dead already was because he had something far worse in mind for her, she was sure.

  “Of course it doesn’t compare to the one you had on your face when you first saw me on that running path. It was like you’d seen a ghost. Though I guess from your point of view, I am a ghost.” He sat back, regarding her like she was an amusing puppy. “Nothing to say. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

  He laughed at his own joke.

  That was when Danica realized she wasn’t gagged. She darted a quick look around, ready to start screaming her head off.

  “Don’t bother,” McDermott said, reading her mind. “No one will hear you.” He jerked his chin to the concrete wall on her right. “That constant hum you hear from that direction? That’s I-395, just a block or two over.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to another concrete wall. “That’s a Metro station over there, with a couple million tons of concrete between us.” Then he pointed straight up. “And that way? More concrete. We’re about four floors below street level. You could scream until your vocal cords fell out and no one would hear you. Which is good, since that’s exactly what I intend for you to do before I kill you. I want to make sure your furry boyfriend knows exactly how bad it was for you—when he finally finds you.”

  Danica could have lost it then. She certainly would have been well within her rights as a normal human being faced with a psychopathic serial killer. But she bit her tongue. She’d learned something important when she’d joined the DCO—don’t ever let a shifter know how scared you are.

  So she quelled her fear, squeezed it into a tiny ball, and put it somewhere out of sight. She needed to keep her cool. When she didn’t come back, Clayne would call her. And when she didn’t answer her phone, he’d come looking for her. If she held on long enough, he would find her. She knew that in her heart. He had found Beth in the middle of a national forest—he’d find her in the middle of a concrete one.

  She looked around at the place this crazy killer had brought her. He’d said they were in between I-395 and a Metro station. That meant they were in DC proper. She’d never been to this place, though.

  She turned back to McDermott. “Where am I?”

  If the cat shifter was disappointed that she didn’t respond to his threats, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he grinned. “You’ll love the irony here. Someday very soon, this construction site will be the National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum. It will be dedicated to all the heroic men and women who have died in the line of duty, protecting the world from bad guys like me.”

  She wasn’t sure what kind of response McDermott expected from her, but he probably didn’t expect her to laugh. In fact, from the way his eyes narrowed, she was sure he didn’t.

  “I get the symbolism here, I really do,” she said. “But the joke would have worked out much better if you hadn’t gotten me fired from the FBI.”

  He stared at her as if trying to figure out if she was lying. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m officially suspended pending a review board. See, my boss was quite upset that I killed you before he had a chance to play big man in charge.”

  Danica thought McDermott would bite—okay, bad choice of words—but instead he waggled a finger at her. “Shame on you.” He got up from his chair and walked over to circle behind her. “You’re thinking that if you keep me talking for a while, your wolf in shining armor will come loping down here to save you.”

  He gripped her shoulders with both hands and gave them a squeeze, letting his claws dig in. She bit back a cry of pain. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.

  “It’s not going to work.” He put his mouth next to her ear. “Remember the four floors of concrete? Your furry lover boy could be standing right above us and never get a single whiff of your sexy scent.” He put his nose in her neck and inhaled deeply to emphasize his point. “I called him, you know. I didn’t give him any clues on how he might find you, though. So trust me, there won’t be a happy ending to this story.”

  Hope kindled in her heart. Clayne didn’t need to smell her to find her, but the cat shifter didn’t realize that.

  “If that’s the case, there’s no reason you can’t satisfy my curiosity about a few things before you kill me.”

  That came out so calmly, she was almost proud of herself.

  McDermott circled around in front of her, then leaned in and inhaled deeply again. “Mmm. I can definitely see why your wolf lover keeps you around. You’re ballsy, and you smell like peaches—with a hint of filet mignon.” He gave her a chilling grin that made her shiver. “Lucky for you I like to play with my food. So ask your questions. I’ll keep answering until I get bored. Then I’ll start tearing your skin off in little strips.”

  Danica didn’t even try to control her heart as it started to race out of control. There was no way to handle a threat like that calmly.

  McDermott went back to his chair and sat down. “I can hear your heart pounding, little rabbit. Better ask me your questions quick, or I might change my mind and start toying with you right now.”

  Right then, Danica had a hard time concentrating. All she could think about were those razor sharp claws ripping into her skin. Even worse, she i
magined what it would be like when Clayne found her mutilated body. It would drive him so insane he might never recover.

  She was on the verge of hyperventilating when a calming sensation appeared out of nowhere. She knew at once what it was. Clayne was out there, still far away, but closer than he’d been before she became aware of him. He would find her—she just had to keep McDermott talking. She took a breath, then another one. She pushed the fear away until her heart became her own again.

  “Why aren’t you dead?” she asked.

  She expected him to say something about shifter physiology, and that a cat shifter actually did have nine lives. But instead he completely surprised her.

  “Because you never shot me. You shot my twin brother.”

  * * *

  Clayne had been tempted to run to downtown DC from the Potomac running path where he’d picked up Danica’s location. But he got a grip and sprinted back to his apartment to grab his car.

  He let his innate sense of direction guide him downtown. Past the White House, he pulled out on K Street and started weaving his way east toward Union Station until he reached 6th. There, the sensation was so strong that he pulled over to the curb in a no-parking zone and started hoofing it. His car was going to get towed with one hundred percent certainty, but he didn’t care. He needed to be on foot to truly feel where he needed to go. He got a lot of odd looks from tourists out sightseeing, but he didn’t care about that, either. However, he did his best to keep his canines covered and his fists clenched. A big guy running down the sidewalk was one thing, but a big guy with claws and fangs was something completely different.

  When he got to the Judiciary Square Metro Station, his inner GPS told him he was close, but no matter which direction he went, he couldn’t seem to pinpoint exactly which way to go. He’d take a step one way and his sense of her would strengthen. But three more steps and it’d practically disappear. When he moved the other way, he couldn’t even find the place where he’d sensed it so strongly before. Nothing he did seemed to help.

  He was so frustrated he felt like howling.

  He was thinking he’d made a huge mistake, that he wasn’t getting any closer to the woman he loved when his internal compass finally pointed him in the right direction—a construction site under the buildings. He didn’t need to go left or right—he needed to go down.

  But how?

  One quick lap around the block and he found what he was looking for off F Street. He checked to make sure no one was watching—just tourists more interested in their maps than in the people around them—before ducking under the tarp covering the entrance.

  Danica’s delectable scent hit him the moment he stepped inside. Just a few more seconds, sweetheart. I’m almost there.

  * * *

  “This is so fucking perfect. With all your forensics, your FBI profilers, and your pet wolf to hunt for you, you still never for a single second thought there might have been two of us.”

  Danica shook her head. “That can’t be right. Clayne would have smelled the difference if there were two of you.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” McDermott slouched back in his chair. “But don’t be too hard on your boyfriend. It turns out that shifter twins share everything—looks, fingerprints, scent, even sociopathic tendencies. There’s no way to tell us apart.” He held up a finger. “That isn’t quite true. There was one very distinct difference between me and my brother. Ray was an idiot, whereas I’m not. The ultimate case of environment over heredity.”

  She’d been trying to think of some way to keep him talking, but it never occurred to her to appeal to his vanity. “You two weren’t raised together?”

  “No. We were placed into foster care when we were still young. I was adopted shortly after and was raised by a family that had the money to pay for a good education along with everything else they could buy. Poor Ray, on the other hand, bounced from one foster family to the next his entire childhood. He never even graduated from high school. To say that he had a checkered past would be an understatement.”

  “How did you find each other?”

  Clayne was near—she could feel it. She just had to keep this guy talking a little while longer.

  “Ray liked to kill people, but he was messy about it,” the cat shifter said.

  Danica didn’t say anything. She had no doubt this guy liked to kill people, too. He was just a lot better at cleaning it up.

  “He got his picture in a Denver newspaper by claiming to have witnessed a murder he committed, only he said it was a mountain lion attack,” McDermott explained. “I recognized him and tracked him down. I’m guessing that’s how you tracked him down as well?”

  At Danica’s nod, the cat shifter continued. “I helped him find a new home, paid his bills, tried to curb some of his baser instincts. I showed him how to hunt his victims without leaving any clues. It worked for a little while, but environment won out in the end.” McDermott sighed. “It turns out that his little brush with the law—the one where he’d pretended to be a witness—had really twisted the sick bastard. He decided he liked watching the cops find his kills. I guess you could say he was a sadistic voyeur.”

  Danica could think of a lot of things she could say besides that—like how he could have turned Ray into the police—but she didn’t think that’d go over very well. “So, when he wanted to kill openly, you decided to help him.”

  The cat shifter grinned. “Damn, you are a clever little rabbit. It’s too bad I can’t keep you. Brains like that, with a body to match—a rare combination.” He sighed. “But yes, I decided to help him. If we were going to kill people, we should at least make it interesting. I came up with the hunting idea. I picked the targets, the hunting grounds, where to dump the bodies.”

  “And Ray did the killing?”

  “We all do what we’re good at I guess.” McDermott got up and walked over to stand in front of her. There was a feral glint in his eye that worried her. Like suddenly he’d grown bored with the conversation. “I enjoyed the mental part of the game more, especially once your wolf lover joined the hunt. I didn’t expect you to find us when we grabbed that FBI agent’s wife, though. I suppose I underestimated you. And poor Ray paid for it with his life. Not that I cared. He was getting to be a pain in the ass anyway. I have to admit, I thought there for a second you were going to catch me, too.”

  Danica frowned. “That was you I sensed in the woods just before we shot your brother, wasn’t it?”

  He leaned in close, taking a long, lingering sniff of her neck. Their conversation was coming to an end, she could feel it. She should have been terrified, but for some stupid reason, she wasn’t. Maybe because she knew in her heart that Clayne would be there in time—that he was already there.

  McDermott pulled back, eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you don’t have a little animal in you? That would explain how you figured out I was in the woods the other night, and how you’re controlling your fear now when all the men my brother and I hunted were practically pissing their pants at this point.”

  “No, I’m not a shifter. But there is something that makes me different. Special, even.”

  For the first time since she’d awakened to find herself tied to a chair hoping to live a little longer, the killer seemed off-balance. If you’re not like me, why do you think you’re special?”

  “I’m special because my mate is a wolf shifter.”

  The cold swagger returned to his glimmering eyes. “Having sex with a shifter doesn’t make you special. If that’s the case, there are a lot of prostitutes out there who could consider themselves special.”

  “I’m not special because I slept with Clayne,” she explained. “I’m special because I’m mated to him. There’s a difference. I doubt you’d understand, but there’s a bond between us, a bond that only exists between a wolf and his mate. And that bond means he always knows where I am, and I always know where he is.”

  McDermott smirked. “Damn, I know you’re desperate, but that’s
the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever heard. As you’ve probably already guessed, I love games, so I’ll bite. If you always know where your mate is, then tell me—where is he?”

  Danica smiled. “Behind you.”

  * * *

  Once underground, Clayne could no longer pick up Danica’s scent. Or McDermott’s. But he could hear them talking. Then again, if he couldn’t smell anything, neither could McDermott, and Clayne had no problem using that to his advantage.

  And he’d take any advantage he could get—since he realized about five minutes ago that his Colt was sitting in the nightstand next to his bed. But that’s what happens when a serial killer grabs the woman you love. You stop thinking about slowing down to get your man-made weapon and instead bring the ones God and nature had given you.

  Clayne forced himself to move slowly as he left the stairwell and silently made his way through the construction debris, Danica’s voice guiding him.

  Stay calm and keep the asshole talking and focused on you, babe. I’m right here.

  He stopped at the corner of a floor-to-ceiling metal utility panel. It stuck out far enough for most of his six feet six inches, two-hundred-plus pounds to stay hidden behind while he got a good view of the room. To see if McDermott had his back to Clayne. If not…

  Clayne was just about to take a peek when Danica’s words stopped him. At first, he assumed she was giving the shifter a dose of FBI psychobabble—connect with your kidnapper and all that shit. But she was talking about being his mate and knowing exactly where he was. And him knowing where she was.

  Clayne didn’t stop to think about how insane that claim made her sound. He simply accepted it and stepped out from his hiding place. If Danica somehow knew he was there, she would have found a way to warn him if the coast wasn’t clear.

  He bit back a growl. McDermott was standing less than ten feet from him, his back to Clayne. He couldn’t see Danica with the cat shifter blocking his view, but he could tell she was tied to a chair, and that there was only a foot of space separating her and the killer. That was too close. If McDermott heard him, he could slash Danica’s throat with those wicked claws of his before Clayne closed the distance between them.