Mass kidnappings meant the vamps had a rogue group on the hunt for humans. Deadly virus outbreaks meant the werewolves had accidently infected a human with the disease that the werewolves carried it had spread. Unlike the folklore, werewolves weren’t able to bite someone and turn them into one of them. If they had that kind of power the werewolves would’ve turned the entire human population a long time ago, in hopes of upping their status in the paranormal world. The vamps were the only ones with that power, and they made sure every one of the paranormals knew it. They didn’t make a lot of new vamps, mainly because they didn’t think many humans were worthy of becoming a vampire. But at every turn the vamps were sure to remind everyone else that within a week their numbers could swell and they could take over the world.
Lajos and his pack never paid any attention to their bluffs. If the vamps turned all the humans into vampires they would also be getting rid of their main food source.
Lajos tried to focus on the television, but found himself fidgeting with anything he could get his hands on. He couldn’t stay down for too long. He kept getting up to peek out the window. Meisha was always in the same spot. He had to give it to her. She was a determined little minx. As the sun began to set he knew he had to do something. He couldn’t leave her to sleep outside during the night, even though he really shouldn’t have cared since he hadn’t invited her to Miami in the first place.
His wolf sent him a picture of Meisha huddled and shivering on the sidewalk in the dark.
Don’t try to make me feel bad, Lajos said.
Another picture was sent. This time of a man standing over Meisha and her cowering away from him, bloody and bruised.
That was enough to make him react.
Lajos turned off the television and headed out his door. There was no need to wait for an elevator. His room was on the second floor. He took the stairs and went through the lobby. There was a high-end boutique nestled in the corner. The lobby also had a bar and a lounge area where all the furniture was stark-white and the tables were made of glass.
When he got to the front door, the doorman opened it for him. “Will you need your motorcycle, Mr. Farkas?”
“Not right now, but I will in an hour or so. I’ll have another bike for valet momentarily. Can you make sure someone who knows how to ride is available to park it?”
“Yes, sir.”
He knew he wouldn’t have a lot of time to get to Meisha before she tried to hide. He bounded down the front steps and didn’t bother going to a crosswalk. He crossed the street and dodged some cars. When she spotted him she rounded the bench she’d been sitting on and hid behind it.
Lajos chuckled. Surely she didn’t think that she could hide from him? He went straight for her motorcycle. “Nice bike,” he said stopping in front of it. “I know someone who has one just like this. Maybe I’ll steal it and keep it for myself.” He kicked up the stand.
“Take my bike and I’ll take your hand.”
He looked up to see her coming from behind the bench. She looked tired. They’d had a long drive and he wasn’t sure if she’d gotten anything to eat. She held her leather jacket in her hand and wore a tight fitting T-shirt and jeans. There was nothing about her appearance that should’ve turned him on. She looked like she needed a shower, she was glaring daggers at him and her hair was wild all around her.
But she still looked good—damn good.
His wolf became attentive, watching her as Lajos was.
“You heard me,” she said, when he hadn’t responded.
He opened his eyes wide, feigning surprise. “Meisha? Is that you? What a surprise seeing you here.”
She rolled her eyes and came toward him. She tried to smooth her hair back into place. “How did you know I was here?”
“It’s not hard to notice a crazy chick sitting at the bus stop and not getting on any of the buses that come by.”
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “I’m determined.”
“To get killed? I thought I left you in Jacksonville where you belong. You shouldn’t have come. I’m trying to find out more about the Russian mafia, and if they notice you here, they’ll kill you for what you did to one of their men.”
She put her hands on her hips and leaned to one side. “Russian mafia? For real. Are you going to keep that story up?”
He frowned. Why hadn’t his push worked on her? He’d repeated his words three or four times just to make sure what he’d told her stuck. “What are you getting at?”
She looked from left to right, making sure no one was in earshot, and then she leaned closer to him. “I know what you are. You’re a wolf shifter. And that guy I killed, he wasn’t from the Russian mafia. He was like you.”
Shit.
“Meisha, I don—”
She put up a hand, silencing him. “But what I don’t understand is how you planted a different memory in my head. What did you do to me?”
“I-I didn’t do anything.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Lajos, if you don’t tell me the truth, I will dropkick you where you stand. And you thought me taking you tied up to my courtyard was going to be bad, imagine what I can do to you in Miami.”
He could push another thought to her now, but if it wasn’t working it wouldn’t do any good. She would just regain her memory and come after him again, but the next time he could bet it would be feet-first. “Okay, I pushed some thoughts into your head.”
She immediately put a hand on her head. “What do you mean by ‘pushed’?”
“I used my mind to persuade you about some things.” Her eyes opened wide. “Don’t be alarmed. It won’t damage your brain and I didn’t have you do anything that you shouldn’t have been doing in the first place—going home and forgetting all about this mess. I’ve heard of it not working on some humans, but it works on most.” He shook his head. “Just my luck that it doesn’t work on you.”
“So you went into my mind and told me to do things?” she said, almost as a threat.
“I didn’t go into your head. Only mated pairs can read each other’s thoughts. All I did was told you something and persuaded you to do it. I couldn’t read what you were thinking.”
She clenched her jaw and balled her fist. “I swear to Oprah, if you do that shit again I will smack you sideways.”
He chuckled at her ridiculous statement. “Why are you swearing to Oprah?”
She waved a hand through the air. “My mom doesn’t like me swearing to God, she said it’s bad. So I swear to the next best thing—Oprah.”
He burst out laughing. “And you don’t think you’re crazy? Not even just a little bit?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“You’re willingly heading into danger with paranormal beings that wouldn’t hesitate to kill you. I call that cuckoo.” He twirled a finger by his ear and rolled his eyes upward.
She slapped his hand down. “Don’t be an ass.” She grabbed her bike from his grasp and began walking it across the street.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“To your room, I have to use the bathroom,” she hollered over her shoulder.
He trotted after her. “I was about to get room service. I figure we can go by the address where the shifters are hiding. The Enterprise clerk gave it to me. We can take a look in a couple of hours.”
She maneuvered her bike onto the sidewalk and turned around. “You’re going to let me go with you?”
What harm could come with letting her tag along? It wasn’t like he planned to raid their house and engage them in a fight. All he planned to do was sit back and do some reconnaissance then return to the hotel.
He raised a brow and crossed his arms. “Do I have a choice?”
She smiled at him and his wolf grumbled contently.
Chapter Ten
Meisha followed Lajos, their bikes maneuvering through traffic in Miami’s Liberty City district. She had to give it to Lajos, he rode that motorcycle like it was made just for him. His lean legs gripped the sides of
the bike when he turned corners. His jeans hugged his nice muscular thighs. He wore a plain black T-shirt, but there was nothing plain about his back and arms. She shouldn’t spend this much time looking at his back muscles. She should have her eyes on the road.
But damn that back. Um.
She imagined her hands running over his muscles, feeling each and every one. Her legs spread wide, letting him fill her with his cock—she imagined that would feel good too. Damn good. Her breath hitched and a tingle began between her legs. The engine made the seat vibrate and added more pleasure to what she was feeling there.
She adjusted herself on her seat, pulling forward.
Right there.
She tightened her grip on the handles.
Shit.
How long had it been since she had sex? She frowned, her eyes still on him. A couple of months? It hadn’t been with a boyfriend, since she really never had one of those. Why would she get serious with someone when at any minute she might have to pick up and leave? Granted the Yaruzi haven’t found them yet, and it’d been twenty-four years. But still, she knew just when she got a job at a bricks and mortar school—where she really wanted to work—bought a house and maybe found a man, that’s when they would show up. She would be too tied down to everything in her life to want to leave. The Yaruzi would either kill her or take her back to Japan.
No boyfriends. It was just the gateway to wanting something more.
But with Lajos, she could have sex. Hot, wild, animal sex. He’d go back to Michigan and she would go home.
There was nothing wrong with having sex with someone who didn’t want any strings attached either, and she assumed that’s what it would be.
But what if he’d want more? She nibbled on her lower lip. No, forget about it. Getting involved with Lajos would be a bad idea.
When he looked at her through the side mirror, she averted her eyes. She didn’t know why she did it. He couldn’t see her eyes or face for that matter, her helmet prevented it. Maybe it was embarrassment that had her glancing in the other direction. But whatever it was, she developed a rush of heat across her face.
That did it, no more thinking about Lajos is a sexual way. Plus, she shouldn’t be thinking about him at all. She’d lost it when Lajos told her Trudy and his brother had been abducted. There hadn’t been anything she could’ve done to prevent it, he’d said their plane had been hijacked. Lajos said his older brother could sense that both Trudy and Kristof were alive and unhurt. But hearing that did nothing to tamp down the guilt. She still wasn’t one hundred percent sure the Yaruzi weren’t to blame for everything that was happening. And if they were, then it meant Meisha and her family had put Trudy in a direct line of fire. If Meisha had never involved her, Trudy might still be at home, safe in bed.
Lajos began to slow and she did the same. She rode behind him as he made a right onto a residential street. It was a lot darker than the busy street they’d just left. There were two-story houses mixed with ranch-style homes. He pulled into the driveway of a darkened house and shut off his engine.
She parked next to his side and did the same. “Did we really just pull up to the house where the shifters are?” she whispered. She glanced around warily expecting one of the shifters to jump out at them at any moment.
“I’m not a pup, Meisha. This isn’t the house.”
“If that’s the case, then why did we stop here?”
He took off his helmet and turned his nose up to the air and took three quick inhalations.
She frowned at what he was doing. Then it dawned on her. “Oh, my god. Are you sniffing the air?”
“Of course.”
“Could you try to hide what you are a little better?”
He tapped his nose and smiled at her. “This is why I’m the best.”
She frowned and pulled off her helmet and set it in her lap. “Best what? Wolf? Shifter?”
“Wolf. This is why I’m head of security for Dark Wolf Enterprises.”
“That might be the case but there’s no reason to advertise it to everyone. Try not to sniff out in public.”
“No one is out here but you and me.”
“Yeah, well try not to sniff in front of me—it’s just not right.”
He rolled his eyes and focused his gaze down the street.
“Which one is it?” she asked.
He pointed. “It’s the pale blue, two-story house down there.”
Meisha squinted, trying to see what he saw. It was dark and the street lights weren’t much help. On this block all of them except for two were broken. She looked at each house, first trying to figure out which one was pale blue and then the easier part was to determine which house had a second floor. “I don’t see it,” she finally said, when she couldn’t make anything out.
“It’s on the next block, I wouldn’t expect for you to.”
“The next block,” she exclaimed, not bothering to whisper any longer. “How the hell can we stake out a house that we can’t see and that’s not even on this block?”
He turned, flashing his pearly whites at her. “I can see it just fine.”
Oh god, I love those dimples.
She pulled her gaze away from him. No involvement, Meisha.
“Okay, you can see it with your super non-human eyes, but now what? You just sit here and watch it? Shouldn’t we try to get closer? Don’t we need to find out how many shifters there are and maybe ambush them?”
“There are six shifters in the house and another who just entered that liquor store on the corner.”
She turned back toward the direction of the house. Okay the liquor store she could see, but she definitely couldn’t make out anyone coming or going from it.
“Wait, how are you so sure about the numbers?”
He tapped his nose again.
“Yeah, right. The best in the business.”
“Exactamundo.”
“So we’ve come all this way to find out how many of them there are? I thought you needed to find out who hired them to kill Mark and Trudy? For that wouldn’t we need to capture one and torture him into telling us what we want to know?”
He looked over at her. His eyes seemed to grow brighter in the dark night. And they were on her, making her feel… She really didn’t know how they were making her feel. There were too many emotions raging in her at once. She adjusted herself uncomfortably on her seat.
“Sweetheart, you jumped straight to torture. I don’t know if I should be turned on or a little scared.”
She tried her best to appear nonchalant, like she hadn’t just had a spark course through her body when he looked at her like she was the only woman on the face of the Earth, making her feel like she was. Another man would’ve cringed away from her at the mention of torture, but Lajos wasn’t an ordinary man. “I’m just saying. We won’t get anywhere way back here.”
“We’re positioned downwind. They won’t be able to smell us, me in particular, as long as the wind doesn’t change direction. I can’t risk getting any closer. The minute they get a whiff of me we’ll be in trouble. We’re outnumbered.”
“What about me?” She brought her hands up to her handlebars in anticipation of riding down the street to get a quick look at the house the shifters were holed up in. “I could get closer and catch one for you, or at least break into their house and snoop around.”
He shook his head adamantly. “Absolutely not. I’ve put you in enough danger as it is. It’s more than likely that you have a very angry shifter pack wanting to get their hands on you.”
“If I’m in danger already, what’s the harm in letting me do what I know best?”
“Breaking into houses is what you do best?”
She straightened in her seat. She was poor, but she wasn’t a criminal. Well…she did have a criminal record, but not for what he was thinking. “I’m not a thief. I’ve learned the art of escape. It’s what I do best. My dad taught me when I was younger. As far as I’m concerned, I could apply that same knowledge in rever
se.” She shrugged. “It should be easy enough.”
He raised a questioning brow. “And you think to try this trick your dad taught you on a houseful of wolf shifters?”
“It’s not a trick. He taught me how to take care of myself and how to survive if I was ever captured by someone who wanted to do me harm. So, why not use what I’ve learned on them?”
He rubbed the side of his head and closed his eyes. “You’re making my head hurt,” he mumbled.
“Listen to me. They won’t be looking for me. I’ll be in and out before they even suspect a thing.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “They’ll smell you as soon as you enter their house. They’ll hear every little noise you make. And when they get a hold of you there’s no telling what they’ll do. Do you know what they did to Trudy’s employee Mark?”
She shook her head. Even Trudy hadn’t been told what had happened or seen Mark’s body. The cops made Trudy close her eyes while they escorted her from the office. All the news stations described the murder as “heinous” and “gruesome”, but revealed nothing more.
“One of the wolves must’ve been in wolf form while the other asked the questions. The wolf would’ve started torturing Mark by ripping into his stomach, using his claws and teeth to expose his insides. When Mark was good and open, I’m sure the wolf would’ve began to eat his liver, pancreas and kidneys—all while Mark was alive. They most likely shredded his intestines last, ensuring him a slow and painful death.”
Meisha’s mouth hung open in shock. Her dad had explained different torture techniques to her. Once he’d told her that one of the Yaruzi favorites was to skin their victims alive or let the fighting roosters peck away at them, but this…
She didn’t want to believe that his kind was that monstrous. “How do you know they did this? The news didn’t say exactly what had been done to Mark.”
His eyes met hers, the color shifting from brown to a lighter green. Something dark lurked behind them, lethal and predatory. “I know,” he said slowly. “Because it’s something I would’ve done.”
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