The second her palm slapped the smooth hilt, the tiny puncture wound in her neck erupted in blistering agony and she screamed, collapsing to her knees.
Einar leapt at her, a blur of enraged disbelief. “No!”
She lashed out, swinging her arm up in a tight arc, the pain in her neck choking her.
The blade sank into Einar’s right thigh with a wet thud, just below his crotch. He squealed, the cry loud and ear-piercing. Silver light poured from the entry wound and, eyes wild, face contorted, he wrapped his fingers around the hilt and disappeared.
Leaving Jackie on all fours, the black night pressing down on her like a shroud, her heart slamming with painful force.
She didn’t wait to see if he returned.
She ran. Heading north. Back to Marshall.
Transforming into her thylacine form mid-stride.
Chapter Nine
Delanie studied the man crouching over her. He’d said a total of ten words to her since she’d demanded he tell her who he was. “Marshall Rourke. I’m a friend of Jackie’s,” he’d said. And then, when she’d asked where Jackie was all he’d said was, “I don’t know.”
After those ten words, he’d not uttered a sound. First, he’d checked the freshly bandaged knife wound in her side so generously given to her by the psycho hunter. Then he’d called someone on a cell phone he’d pulled from under the driver’s seat of the black Audi she was lying beside, muttering something she couldn’t hear. Then he’d paced backward and forward beside said Audi, staring into the bush to the south like he was trying to rip it out with his mind.
She’d watched him the whole time, her side throbbing like a son of a bitch, the wound feeling like it was on fire. Hot fingers of pain kneaded their way into her belly, down her legs, up her spine. It was only the curious actions of her saviour that kept her from crying. Or demanding he tell her what the hell was going on.
Worry ate at his expression. Which wasn’t at all comforting.
After ten minutes of watching Tall, Dark and Pacing, she’d had enough. Struggling up onto her elbows, she fixed the back of his head with a level look. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful,” she said from the ground, flinching a little when her saviour swung a very intense stare her way. “But if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m going to force myself to my feet and bleed all over your—”
A cry of pain choked her flippant declaration before she could finish it. She collapsed back to the gravel, the knife wound erupting in an agony so total for a split second she wished she was dead.
Rourke was by her side in half a second, the worry on his face tenfold. “You need to stay still,” he said, and even in Delanie’s state she couldn’t miss the growl in his words. “Unless you want me to stitch you up.”
He brushed his fingers against her side directly above the knife’s entry point, and Delanie bit back another highly undignified cry. “Fuck!” she ground out instead, trying to move away from his hand.
“Fuck,” he echoed on a mutter, his American accent broad. He lifted his gaze to her face, sharp blue eyes unreadable.
Uh-oh. Not a good sign, Del.
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. She felt cold. No, she felt hot. God, she felt…weird.
“Can you describe the knife that cut you?”
She frowned at Rourke’s question, trying to look at her side without moving. Was that fresh blood? Why were her lips numb? Christ, she was boiling. Where was—
“Delanie.” Rourke’s voice commanded her attention and she jerked her stare back to his face. Damn, he was good looking. Who was he? Why was he—
“Can you describe the knife used to cut you?”
She swallowed again, her throat coated with burning dust. “Big…kinda…kinda curved…pointed.” She closed her eyes. Her side didn’t seem to exist anymore. In its place, an inferno blazed. “Silver...with some kinda…pattern…”
“Fuck,” he muttered again.
She forced her eyes open, scraping her dry tongue over her lips. “Whas…the problem?”
He swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I need you to stay still, Delanie. Do you understand? You need to stay still.”
She nodded. At least, she thought she did. She wasn’t really sure anymore. She felt…wrong. “Is Jackie okay?”
Her saviour let out a ragged breath. “Christ, I wish I knew.”
The raw torment and pain in his voice made Delanie’s throat squeeze. “Can’t you go after…find her?”
Rourke scrunched up his face and dragged his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “If I leave you, she’ll kill me.”
Despite the pain engulfing her side, Delanie snorted. “Guess you really do…know Jackie.”
Rourke snorted back and shook his head, exasperation fighting with worry on his face. “You could say—”
He shot to his feet before finishing, spinning one-eighty degrees into a semi-crouch, his left hand reaching for the gun tucked into his jeans at the small of his back.
Delanie tensed. And then hiccupped out a weak laugh of relief at the sight of an animal she knew very, very well bursting out of the bushes. “Jesus…Jack,” she croaked, slumping back to the road as the Tasmanian tiger loped toward the Audi. “Make us worry…why doncha.”
A cold, wet nose touched the side of her neck, soft whiskers tickled her jaw and then Jackie’s fingers threaded through hers, her best friend holding her hand with such force Delanie almost asked her to let go. Almost.
She rolled her head and looked up at Jackie, giving her a small smile. “Took your time, girlfriend. You been playing…fetch?”
Jackie pulled a face. “Found a couple of teenagers playing Frisbee. Couldn’t resist.” She smiled, the relaxed action crinkling the corners of her eyes.
If Delanie didn’t know her friend as well as she did, she’d think the smile real. Jackie however, was as worried as Marshall Rourke.
“I see you’ve been up to your usual tricks,” Jackie went on, sliding a quick sideways glance at Rourke where he stood silent at the Audi’s tailgate watching them both. “Do anything to get the attention of a good-looking guy, won’t you?”
Delanie chuckled—and then winced as a scalding dart of pain speared into her ribcage. “Don’t think it’s me…he’s interested…in.”
Jackie’s eyes widened, and to Delanie’s immense surprise and enjoyment, a pink blush tinged her cheeks. “Shush, you lunatic,” she mumbled.
Delanie chuckled again, risking life and agonizing pain. She didn’t care. Her friend was safe. Pain didn’t stand a chance of ruining her mood.
As if to prove her completely wrong, another blistering dart sank into her side, this time shooting through her body like an electricity storm. She snapped into a rigid arch, hissing in a sharp breath.
“Del?” Jackie frowned, her grip on Delanie’s fingers growing tighter. Before Delanie could tell her not to worry, Jackie snapped her head toward Rourke. “What happened to her?”
The American’s expression turned dark. “Einar.”
“Do you have your gun?”
He nodded once, eyes narrowing. “Why?”
Jackie turned back to Delanie. “We have to get her out of here.”
Rourke took a step closer, his hands going to his hips, his stare locked on the back of Jackie’s head. “What happened, detective?” His voice sounded like a growl again. “Where have you been?”
Delanie gazed into her best friend’s eyes. They were chips of amber ice—cold and hard and angry. “I met your ex-partner.”
At Jackie’s words, Marshall Rourke moved. Quicker than Delanie had seen anyone move before, including Jackie. He dropped into a crouch beside them both, studying Jackie’s face with such intensity even Delanie wanted to squirm. “Are you okay?” His gaze slid to Jackie’s neck and his nostrils flared. “That fucking bastard.” He reached out with his right hand, placing his fingertips on a small, blood-crusted hole at the base of her throat.
Jackie swiped his hand a
way, and it suddenly dawned on Delanie her friend was naked and not remotely concerned about being in that state of undress in Marshall Rourke’s presence.
“I’m fine.”
Rourke shook his head. “And I’m a beagle.”
Delanie blinked at the man’s bizarre retort and then was hit by another wave of agony in her side. Another…another…
Oh, no.
The world swam, black fire spread through her, radiating from Einar’s stab wound, and she cried out.
Oh. Oh…
“Del?” Jackie’s voice—stretched with worry to a harsh gasp—came at Delanie from a distance, but the pain was too much. Too much. She writhed on the ground, eyes squeezed shut, trying to escape it. Trying to—
Someone scooped her up. Strong arms hauling her from the side of the road. Pinpricks of light stabbed at her closed eyes and she cried again, cowering from the assault. Her side erupted in new agony, tearing through her like a monster.
Oh, oh, oh, no. It hurts. It hurts, oh God, it hurts.
The world shifted and she heard a growl, the sound too animalistic to be real.
I’m delusional.
The thought floated through the black fire seconds before she felt something firm yet soft press against her back.
“I’ll stay with her.” Jackie’s voice slipped over the pain, and for a brief moment Delanie wondered why her best friend was here in hell with her. She tried to open her eyes, tried to tell Jackie to run. “Run. The hunter’s after you. He’ll find you even here.” But the fire roared through her, a column of black agony filling her throat.
Cool fingers brushed her temple, scalding her flesh and she flinched, jerking away from their brutal touch.
“What’s happening to her?” Jackie’s voice scraped at her ears like steel wool and she whimpered.
No. No, no, no.
If an answer came, she didn’t hear it. How could she over the inferno devouring her from within? Eating her alive.
“Del?”
The black fire roared through her. Consumed her.
“Damn it, Marshall, what’s happening to her?”
No answer came. Nothing came. Except the agony of the burn, the blackness of the agony, and the image of a man with an evil knife and dead eyes.
And then they too were devoured by nothing, and Delanie felt herself turn to ash.
Einar screamed and slammed his fist against the wall. The plaster cracked and fell to the ground in a shower of white dust, turning the toes of his boots grey. The knife wound in his thigh detonated, ice and fire and black void and he let out another yell, punching the wall again.
She had stabbed him with his own blade.
The shape-shifting cunt had not only escaped him, she’d stabbed him with his own knife.
Dark poison throbbed through his veins, snaking out from the neat hole in his right quadriceps, turning his thigh to a blizzard of agony. His flesh had never been rent by his own steel before. He could feel the blade’s poison turning his blood to death with every beat of his heart.
Fuck.
She’d escaped him. She’d stabbed him.
How the fuck had she beaten him?
He turned from the wall, ignoring the numb ice in his leg. There was more to her than he thought. More to the perversion behind her transformative magick. Something to do with this cursed country. A connection?
The black ice in his thigh grew colder, scalding his blood, blistering his flesh. He spat out a guttural curse, driving his nails into his palm. He would need to address the wound soon, before its poison reached his heart. If that happened…
He knew what the magick of his knife did to his kind and it made what it did to paranormal abominations pale to a paper cut.
None of that mattered at the moment, however.
He’d taken Jacqueline Huddart for granted and she’d escaped him. For the first time since leaving his realm to join P.A.C. over fifty years ago, he’d been bested by a paranormal abomination. Not to mention, fooled by a fucking wolf in man’s clothing.
Einar snarled, an image of his ex-partner rising through the black pain fogging his brain. Marshall Rourke would suffer for this. Einar would pin out the stinking, flea-ridden werewolf and skin him alive, rending him of his human flesh and feeding it to him one bloody strip at a time.
The thought filled his groin with heat, but he didn’t enjoy the sensation for long. Another surge of icy pain throbbed through his thigh and he collapsed, his leg crumpling beneath him.
“I’aht!”
The curse burst past his lips, the hitching breath of his native language sounding peculiar in the silent human house. He dragged himself across the carpeted floor to the closest piece of furniture—a wide bed with a sunken mattress and gaudy duvet—and climbed onto its edge, staring up at the ceiling. The house he had commandeered was far from the luxury he was used to in his own abode, but it was serviceable for his needs now. A ground base of operations while he hunted Jacqueline Huddart. The previous occupants currently resided in a state of comatose ignorance, unaware of their new guest, frozen in perpetual terror until he deemed them worthy of release or death.
Humans were such pathetic things. Easily entranced. Easily controlled. All it had taken was one word spoken from his lips in his true language and the family who lived in the house had meekly lain on the floor of the room where he’d first appeared, their minds his to do with as he wanted.
Pathetic. Why they deserved protecting from the horrors walking amongst them he never knew. If those very horrors didn’t pervert the She-God’s world so much, he’d gladly leave them to feast on the humans at will.
Scalding ice speared up his torso, growing close to his heart, and he choked back a gasping breath. If he didn’t tend to the injury in his leg now, he would be dead by sunup.
Struggling upright, he touched his thigh with steady fingers. The flesh around the puncture seemed to boil even as he watched it, sloughing away from his muscle, staining his trousers with wet ichor, turning the course fabric black with blood. He drew in a slow breath, picturing the poison running through his veins. There was only one antidote to its fatal magick, and he doubted he would find a virgin fae in Tasmania. The cunts were hard enough to find in his realm, let alone in a backwater human piss-hole.
He traced the clean edges of the lesion with the tip of his right index finger, dipping it into the raw flesh with increasing pressure. Excruciating agony shot through his thigh and he hissed, pushing his finger deeper. Until he could return to his home, he needed to stem the poison’s spread. Imprison it so it could not enter his heart.
He pushed his finger harder into the cut, turning it into a narrow hole, opening it wider and wider. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Black smudges danced in his vision.
He drew an image of Marshall Rourke to his mind, pulling strength from the thought of killing the werewolf. The pain subsided, the black smudges fogged to the edges of his sight and, bending slightly at the waist, he bowed his spine enough to align his mouth directly above the wound on his inner thigh.
He stared at its glistening black entry. Watched fresh blood, like liquid night, ooze from it.
Rolling his tongue against the back of his throat, he worked up a mouthful of saliva, leant closer to his leg and let it dribble from his lips.
Searing heat ripped through him. He wanted to arch his back, to throw back his head and scream. Instead, he stayed motionless, spitting more and more of his saliva into the hungry wound. His muscles convulsed, spasm after spasm torturing him, threatening to snap him from his position, but he fought it. The poison from his blade would only be stayed by complete saturation. He would need to drench the wound with his own saliva until his mouth was dry and incapable of producing more. Then and only then, could he move.
And when he did…
He focused on the image of Marshall Rourke in his mind.
Five years as partners. Five years pretending to be friends. Pretending to share the same goals, the same ethics. Until the ni
ght Rourke had reported him to the head of P.A.C. for excessive violence against an assigned suspect.
Einar closed his eyes, continuing to spit into his wound. P.A.C. had been the perfect existence for him. The hunt, the torture, the destruction of all those he deemed deserving of death. A perfect career for someone who loved the hunt as much as he did. He was not a violent man, no matter what the Im’oisian elders had declared. Their grounds for expelling him to the human world were ludicrous, but he’d found a second home, if you will, as a P.A.C. agent. He’d concealed his true form with a simple incantation, presenting himself as a simple mage of limited magical ability. No one had suspected what he was and all hailed his phenomenal skill at “bringing to heel” those he enjoyed killing the most. What dark elf wouldn’t enjoy a life destroying creatures whose very existence was a front to the Word and the Law of the She-God?
And he had done it so well. For so long. Until Marshall Rourke.
Curling his lip, Einar spat harder at his leg. He wouldn’t just skin Rourke when he found him. He’d slice his throat, hang him up by his ankles and let his duplicitous blood drain from his veins until he was almost dead. Then he’d skin him. Alive.
No wait. Change that. As the Texan’s blood dripped from his body, Einar would gut the thylacine bitch in front of him and then skin him alive.
Wet heat flooded his groin at the thought and his mouth filled with fresh saliva. Perfect. Exactly what he needed.
The hunt called him. Even through the agony of his knife wound.
The Audi purred to a halt under the high street light, rumbling with restrained power before Rourke killed the engine. Jackie lifted her stare from Delanie’s sweat-slicked face, worry eating at her. Her best friend had not regained consciousness the entire drive back to St. Helens—and with the G-forces pressing on Jackie’s belly the duration of the trip, she suspected the drive went a lot quicker than it legally should have. Rourke had pushed the sports car to its limits, driving with silent determination and focus, and she hadn’t cared. Not one little bit. Delanie’s life seemed to be rapidly deteriorating and the sooner she was in the ER the better.
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