Jackie frowned out the back passenger window, studying the deserted car park around them. Where were they? She scanned the surroundings, looking for the St. Helens hospital, finding a dark, boarded-up shopping centre beyond the asphalt instead. Her stomach knotted. “What the hell are you doing, Rourke?” Brushing a damp strand of hair from Delanie’s forehead, she shot Marshall a quick look. “Why have you stopped here?”
Instead of answering, he shoved open his door and leapt from the car, pulling something small from the back pocket of his jeans as he did so.
Jackie bit back a muttered curse. Damn him. What was going on?
She returned her gaze to Delanie’s face, adjusting her position slightly so Delanie’s head rested deeper in her lap. The blue denim of the jeans she’d hastily pulled on before climbing into the Audi looked black compared to her friend’s ghastly white skin, and Delanie’s purple eyelids and ashen lips made her already unsettled stomach churn. She let out a frustrated sound. She didn’t want to move or leave Delanie alone. Since Marshall had laid Delanie out on the Audi’s plush backseat, the white gauze bandage wrapped around her torso pink with blood, she had barely shown any signs of life. Jackie had kept her fingertips pressed to her pulse, the erratic beat disturbing her as much as it told her Delanie was alive. Her friend had made no whimpers, no moans or groans. Nothing. She’d just lain on the backseat, limp and motionless, sweat rolling from her, the heat radiating from her body so hot Jackie feared her insides must be boiling.
“I don’t know what’s going on, hon,” she murmured on a whisper, tucking the damp strand behind Delanie’s ear, “but we’ll fix it. I’ll fix it.”
The promise squeezed Jackie’s chest and she closed her eyes. Guilt gnawed at her. Her mouth filled with bile and a soft sob escaped her. She had done this. If she hadn’t come home, back to Tasmania. If she hadn’t let Delanie pick her up from the airport. If she hadn’t been Delanie’s friend to begin with.
She opened her eyes and looked down at the still woman, hot tears turning her vision to a blurred smudge of muted colours. “I’m sorry, Del. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
Delanie didn’t move.
Jackie lifted her gaze back to the window, swallowing the thick lump in her throat. What the hell was Rourke doing? Was he lost? Asking for direction? Didn’t a car like this come with a GPS?
Anger rolled through her, competing with the guilt coiling in her soul like a pissed-off snake. She wriggled her fingers, sharp, jerky movements that brought no relief or calm to her state of mind. Bloody hell, this was ridiculous. She couldn’t just sit here while her best friend died in her lap.
Loathed to move Delanie’s head, she strained to see the Texan beyond the glass. Where was he? Why would he drive them to an empty car park? What was he thinking?
Her fingers wriggled again, and deep within her soul, her thylacine growled, eager to be away from this turmoil. To run. To hunt. To kill. She closed her eyes, snapping her fingers into a fist. God, she wished she had her gun.
And who would you shoot, Jackie?
The ominous thought stabbed into her like a shard of ice and she let out a choked sob. “Stop it.” She could feel guilty and angry later. Now all that mattered was Delanie.
She stretched her neck to look out the window again, ignoring the blistering pain that flared in the tiny wound at the base of her throat. She had to trust Marshall knew what he was doing. No. She did trust Marshall. As screwed up as it was, she trusted him with Delanie’s life and she trusted him with her life—a state she’d never experienced before with anyone except the woman close to feverish death. Jackie had seen the worry in the Texan’s eyes when he’d helped her lift Delanie into the Audi. She’d seen his concern etch deep lines into the sides of his mouth every time his gaze dropped to the stab wound in her neck. Whatever reason they were sitting in a shopping-centre car park, she had to believe the man she was now mated to for life knew what he was doing.
“Just wish he’d tell me,” she muttered, blinking at the tears still threatening to overwhelm her. She looked back down at Delanie’s deathly face. “Before I thump him one.”
She didn’t have time to snort at the hollow threat. A sudden roar shook the car, vibrating all the way through Jackie’s body. She twisted on the seat, craning to look out the window. It sounded like a chopper. A bloody close chopper.
White light flooded the car park, illuminating everything with blinding force, and she tensed, her right hand automatically reaching for her absent gun, her left splaying over Delanie’s chest. “What the hell?”
The door behind her opened and cool night air streamed against her back from outside. She jerked around, the sudden chill covering her arms in goose bumps, and gazed up at Marshall. “What—?”
“We need to get Delanie to specialist care ASAP,” he shouted, his voice barely audible over the roar above the car. Wild downward wind whipped his hair around his head and Jackie leant sideways in the seat, peering out the open door at the sky above the car.
The black belly of a large helicopter hung high overhead, a massive spotlight bleaching the ground from the aircraft’s snub nose. As she watched, it keeled slightly to the left and began a smooth horizontal descent, far enough away from the Audi to not be dangerous, close enough to tell her the pilot knew exactly what he was doing.
She twisted until she could look up at the Texan, her hand pressing flat to Delanie’s chest. The rapid beat of her friend’s heart filled her with dread. As did the baking heat emanating from Delanie’s body. “P.A.C.?”
He nodded, his expression guarded. “Sorta.”
The helicopter’s downforce tore the ambiguous answer away. Jackie turned her stare on its black shape, a sense of something very like foreboding squeezing her chest tight as it came to a perfect landing in the empty car park ten metres away. She shook her head. She didn’t like this.
A firm hand touched her shoulder and she started, jerking her glare back to Marshall. “I’m not leaving her.”
He studied her with unreadable eyes. “The chopper can’t take anyone else, Jackie.”
Before she could tell him to find another chopper—or go to hell, she wasn’t sure which—the other back door opened and a man built roughly the size of an office block leant into the car, black sunglasses hiding his eyes from view. “She doesn’t have time for you to argue, Detective Huddart.”
His voice rumbled around the car’s interior like a thunderstorm, an accent Jackie couldn’t identify rolling over each consonant.
Jackie glared at him. “I’m not leaving her.”
Black lenses regarded her.
“Lift her out, Hillerman.” Marshall’s command punched over Jackie’s shoulder. “She’s running out of time.”
The office block nodded once and, moving with fluid speed, slid his massive arms under the small of Delanie’s back and lifted her from the seat. She bowed in his hold as if boneless, one arm slipping from her stomach to swing in a limp arc beneath her.
“No,” Jackie cried out, scrambling forward.
“Detective,” Marshall shouted, his fingers gripping her shoulder with increasing pressure, holding her back. “Jackie.”
She spun around on the Audi’s backseat and shoved her palms against his chest. “Let me go.”
He didn’t budge, his expression revealing nothing. “Jackie. This isn’t going to save her.”
“And you can?”
He didn’t answer and she let out a sharp snarl. Pushing him aside, she leapt from the car, sprinting around its hood toward the chopper. She had to stay with Del. Keep her safe. Hold her hand until she opened her eyes and said something witty and sarcastic. She couldn’t let them take Delanie away from her. She couldn’t—
Her hair lashed at her eyes as the helicopter’s whirring propellers thrust the air down to the ground with powerful force. She stumbled backward, the pit of her belly sinking as the black craft lifted from the asphalt and rose into the night sky.
Tears stabbed at her eyes and s
he let out a growl, the sound far less human than it should be.
Del…
“Time is against us, Jackie.” Marshall’s voice came from behind her. Close. “If Delanie doesn’t receive treatment soon she will die.”
Jackie spun around and smashed her fist against his nose. “You fucking bastard!”
He staggered backward, blood seeping from his right nostril, his stare never leaving her face. “Jackie, you need to trust me.”
“Trust you? You didn’t say a bloody word in the car! Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?”
He shook his head. “Because you would ask too many questions. Questions I can’t give you the answers to.”
Cold fury tore through Jackie and she growled again. The wound in her throat throbbed with stinging heat, fingers of fire sinking deep into her chest, but she didn’t care. “I have had enough of this secretive bullshit, Rourke. You’ve just sent my best friend away in a helicopter with a stranger who sounds like he’s from a bad James Bond movie to wherever the fuck knows where. I have no idea if I will ever see her again, if she will even be alive by sunup and you’re talking about answers some US agency I’ve never heard of won’t let you divulge?” She clenched her fists harder, every molecule in her body charged with rage. “Tell me where he’s taking Delanie. Now.”
Rourke’s jaw bunched. “I can’t do that, detective.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Then I can’t do this anymore.”
She turned and looked up into the night sky, trying to locate the chopper. She’d get a fix on its direction and call up the Tasmanian State police commander. Fuck that, the Australian Federal Police commissioner. It wouldn’t take long for the Feds to track it down.
The world around Jackie swam. Black smudges blossomed in front of her eyes and she blinked, her throat erupting in pain so hot it incinerated her breath before it slipped into her lungs.
She blinked again, black fire devoured her from the neck out and the world tilted on a sickening axis.
Arms that felt like corded steel slid around her back and knees, lifting her from her traitorous feet. “Gotcha,” a deep male voice—Marshall’s voice—murmured in her ear. He pulled her closer to his hard body, the warmth of his bare chest chilly against her fevered face.
“I feel…wrong…” The words fell from her lips in a slur. Her throat burned, her eyes throbbed.
“Shhh,” Marshall whispered against the top of her head. “Save your voice for later.”
The world span once more and she clung to his neck. “What…what…”
Marshall shushed her again. “How are you going to chew me out later if you don’t save your energy?” He carried her back to the Audi, each step he took sending jolts of agony into her body.
“I haven’t…finished…with…” A finger of intense pain speared into her chest and she bit back a whimper.
Marshall chuckled—the sound low and distant. “Yeah, I kinda figured that.” Leaning into the car, his arms holding her tighter to his torso, he laid her gently on the backseat, brushing the hair from her eyes. “Now shut the hell up, will you.”
She looked up at him through black burning fog, and even though her body felt like it was on the verge of spontaneously combusting, she couldn’t miss the worry in his face.
“Just hold on for a little longer, darlin’.” His Adam’s apple jerked up and down his throat and he ran the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone in a touch so light she wondered if she’d really felt it at all. “I can fix this, but you’ve got to hold on for me.”
Fingers of fire bored into her body. Squeezed her lungs. Sank into her head. She closed her eyes, the Audi’s muted cabin light like knives piercing her eyeballs. “Don’t…call me darlin’.”
He chuckled again. From a long, long way away. From the other side of the world. “That’s my girl.”
She heard a solid thunk, the glaring light vanished and more fingers drilled into her skull.
God, don’t let me die.
A deep gnarr scratched at the edges of her brain, as if another entity pawed for escape. An image of an animal flittered though her head, maybe a wolf, maybe a dog, black stripes marking its back and hindquarters and tail. It looked at her, golden amber eyes scared. Lost.
Beautiful. So beautiful. What are you?
The animal’s ears flattened to its head and it lifted its muzzle, a soundless cry warbling in its throat. Its throat. Fire danced over its throat. Burning in a single flame at the base of its long neck, singeing the russet fur.
Jackie reached for the animal, the pain raping her body nothing compared to the agony in her heart—the animal’s heart.
Beautiful creature. I will help you. I will…
The animal’s head swung back toward her and looked at her with human eyes. Her eyes. And then a man appeared, a man within a man, as if two beings inhabited the same space, one gaunt and tall and leathery with empty eyes and wiry strength, the other with pearlescent black skin and long silver-white hair and lean sculpted muscles. The man stepped up behind the animal, a dead smile stretching lips both sensual and thin. He raised his left arm high, a wicked silver knife reflecting blood-red light gripped in his fist and Jackie cried out—no!—seconds before he plunged the knife down into the beautiful animal’s side. Into the creature’s chest. Into its heart. Her heart. Jackie’s heart.
She cried out. Liquid fire spewed from the wound. Enveloped her. Engulfed her. She writhed under the man’s knife, the man no longer two men, now just one, his glossy black skin and shining white eyes glistening with the animal’s blood, with her blood. She struggled against the knife, against Einar’s blade. The animal, the thylacine, bucked and thrashed. The animal that was her. Her duel soul, her duel existence. Fire poured from the hole in her side, up her chest, into her muzzle and down her throat. Choking her, burning her from within. The last thing she heard was Einar’s laugh and the faint distant sound of Marshall calling her name.
Chapter Ten
Jackie opened her eyes and squinted at the low yellow light pressing all around her. Where was she?
She rolled her head to the left, ribbons of warm pain threading through her chest as she peered at the wall opposite her. A framed print of a fishing boat hung at a crooked angle above a white Formica desk, a gold lamp straight from the sixties sitting atop the chipped surface.
She frowned and pulled a slow breath.
Musty air slipped through her nostrils, dry and stale, and her frown deepened. It smelt like a hotel room. Why was she in a hotel room? What hotel room? Where was she?
She let her gaze slide to the window, the pale glow behind the garish drawn curtains telling her it was close to dawn. God, how long had she been out?
The mattress shifted beneath her, dipping deeply to her right and she jerked her head around, staring up at Marshall, her stomach lurching as the world spun in sickening rolls.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Marshall placed a hand on her shoulder, looking down at her with a dry grin. “Better you keep the movements slow and steady for a while, ok, darlin’?”
She lifted her hand to her face, rubbing at her eyes. They stung, like she’d stood too close to a bonfire, staring at its raging flames for too long. “You’ve brought me to a hotel room, Pacman?” The base of her throat throbbed and she swallowed, the simple action more painful than she expected. “Does this mean we’ve moved on from derelict buildings and abandoned shacks?”
He chuckled, tracing a gentle line down her temple with the back of his knuckles. “Sorry it’s not the Hilton.”
A soft laugh bubbled up Jackie’s throat and she cringed, the scratching pain hitching her breath. “I’ll forgive you. Did the thought happen to cross your mind to put some clothes on me?”
Another laugh rumbled in his chest. “Well, it did, but…” He shrugged, a lopsided grin playing with the corner of his mouth.
Her belly flipped-flopped at the subtle meaning in that smile and she let out a soft chuckle of her own. “I take it I’m going to—�
�
Live.
The word no sooner formed in her mind when she remembered Delanie. She sat up, every muscle and sinew in her body protesting the abrupt move. Waves of dark fogginess rolled over her, the base of her throat throbbing harder, but she tuned it all out and focused her stare on Marshall’s face. “Is Del okay?”
He didn’t answer. Not straight away, at least. “They are working on it.”
Jackie narrowed her eyes. “They?”
His expression remained neutral.
She ground her teeth, guilt and anger slinking into her chest. “Why am I here in a hotel room, sitting up with nothing more than a killer sore throat while Delanie is with the oh-so-secretive ‘them’?”
Marshall’s jaw bunched at her sarcasm. “Einar’s knife penetrated Delanie McKenzie’s body completely.” His tone was brusque. Clipped. “Your wound was only a shallow nick.”
Jackie cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m not stupid, Rourke. You should know that by now. What aren’t you telling me?”
He sat silent, his gaze locked on her face for a moment before he raked his hands through his hair and stood up. “We suspect the weapon Einar used to stab you both was elvish.”
“Elvish? As in pointy ears, mystical realms and J.R.R. Tolkien?”
He rolled his eyes, frustration pinching his eyebrows together. “You know, darlin’, for a shape-shifter, you know next to nothing about the paranormal world.”
Jackie gave him a flat glare. “You know, mate, for a wolf, you know next to nothing about pissing off an angry, wounded bitch.”
He studied her, and for a split second Jackie wondered what definition he’d given to the word “mate”.
What definition did you give it?
She stopped her fingers before they could wriggle. “So, your ex-partner is an elf?”
Marshall shook his head, his attention flicking to her hand before returning to her face. “No. Fae, even light fae, are not employed by P.A.C. Einar must have procured the weapon from an illegal trader.”
Jackie’s head swam with sudden prickling heat and an image flashed at her through the pain. An echo of a memory she could barely recall. A tall man with glossy black skin, silver white hair and cruel, sensual lips, a long, wicked blade marked with intricate glyphs gripped in his long fingers. She frowned, slumping a little on the mattress, and pressed her palm heels to her eyebrows. A dull ache filled her head. Her throat hurt.
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