Chapter Eleven
She took in a sharp breath. Her heart seemed to stop. Was she scared of him now? No. But her common sense told her she should be.
“I don’t know what exactly you think we are, Meisha. Paranormals are dangerous and we’re smart. We’ve been on this planet just as long as humans and we haven’t been found out. Some of us, like shifters, walk freely during the day, while others slink through the night. There’s nothing docile about what I am. I’m a predator—a lethal one.”
Predator…
Lethal.
She swallowed a lump in her throat. Granted she didn’t know Lajos very well, but he didn’t strike her as anything but…human.
“Sorry to lay it on you so harshly, but I don’t think you’re fully aware of what’s going on here. You took down a shifter—which is not even heard of for a human to do so easily—and I think you have it twisted in your head that it’ll be that easy if you were attacked again.”
“I caught him by surprise,” she said, her mouth feeling like it was full of cotton. “Everyone…thing…” She shook her head, not even knowing how to address him or talk about the man she killed anymore. “No one or thing expects a surprise attack, that’s why it’s called a surprise.”
“You’re right. But those shifters in there,” he pointed in the direction of the house that she couldn’t even see, “would love to get their hands on you.”
She settled back onto her seat. Having people wanting to get their hands on her wasn’t a new concept. “I’m sure they would, but they’d have to stand in line.”
He angled his body toward her and rested a hand on his thigh. “What do you mean?”
She pressed her lips together tightly. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. It was between her and her family, not to be discussed with outsiders. But there was something about the way he watched her that made her feel comfortable in his presence. They may go back and forth with banter but, in reality, it felt good. Right. Most people couldn’t tolerate her smart mouth or the bad attitude that she projected to keep herself from getting close to anyone, but Lajos seemed to take it all in stride and move past it.
“My dad is—was—a high ranking member in the Yaruzi,” she said, with a little hesitation. If Lajos knew anything about gang life then he would know it was deadly and dangerous. “Yaruzi is the largest gang in Japan.” She had guarded those words so tightly that it seemed almost foreign to speak them out loud.
Those words had kept her and her family bound to a secret life. She’d only told one other person; Trudy. If the day came when the Yaruzi finally found them and they had to leave Jacksonville, Trudy was the only person on the outside who would aid her. And now she may’ve inadvertently gotten Trudy harmed.
Her and her family might’ve put Trudy’s life in danger just to be able to store extra clothes and a stash of money in Trudy’s attic. Meisha had spent most of her life hiding from the Yaruzi. They wanted to kill her family. The thought could be paralyzing sometimes.
If the Yaruzi wasn’t involved in this and Lajos was right, that it had something to do with his business, Meisha would get everything out of Trudy’s house and distance herself from her best friend anyway. This situation made her realize she couldn’t endanger Trudy the way she had anymore. It would hurt like hell, but at least she’d know Trudy would be safe.
She let out a shattering breath.
“I’ve heard of them,” he said. “In the human world they’re not to be played with. Some of the werewolf packs have aligned themselves with the Yaruzi. They help them with their illegal weapons trade.”
Werewolves?
He couldn’t be serious. “W-werewolves don’t really exist.”
The side of his mouth quirked up to a smile. “Just like shifters don’t exist?”
He had a point.
“There’s a lot going on in the big-wide world. Werewolves, shifters, vampires and faes. My world is pretty crowded.”
She struggled to wrap her head around everything he was saying. She closed her eyes for a minute, taking everything he’d told her in. “I can deal with wolf shifters, but werewolves and vampires and faes. That’s…that’s too much to deal with right now.”
“Like I told you, it’s a scary place out there.”
She opened her eyes to look at him. “Are they—the other paranormals—as bad as the Yaruzi?”
“I’ll put it to you this way. The vamps are assholes, plain and simple. They have an authoritarian complex and they’re sneaky. It’s not like the movies though, since normally they wouldn’t give you the time of day. There are too many willing victims for them to be interested in you. Unless you crossed one, or came across a rogue clan, you’d have nothing to worry about.”
She put a hand up to her neck, remembering all the vampire movies from childhood where the man in the black cape attacked pretty girls.
“The werewolves, well, most of them aren’t happy. They have a disease that makes them bound to the moon. Shifters are in sync with the animals that reside in them; we are one, but also separate. Werewolves have two distinct personalities that often don’t mesh well with one another. A few are fortunate to have a beast within that isn’t out to destroy or do harm, but many aren’t that fortunate. In situations like that, the host is in a constant battle with the beast inside. Does that make them bad? Not really, but I’d have to say the ones who give in to the inner beast become bad.”
“And the wolf that lives inside of you…is he…”
“Bad?”
She nodded.
“It’s not that way with shifters. If the host is bad, the animal will conform to that personality. For shifters the host and animal are in sync. When I shift, I’m still me, but I have an animalistic force that guides and leads me.”
“And when you’re like this?” She waved a hand up and down his body. “Does your wolf still guide you?”
He squinted. “It’s hard to explain. But in a way yes. He’s always with me. Sometimes he sends me pictures of what he wants or he thinks I should do.” He tilted his head to the side. “I would describe it as having a very active conscience.”
“And your conscience is good?”
He chuckled. “He’s good.”
She knew he was good. She could feel it in him, just like she could feel the evilness in her father’s “friends” who would come to their house for visits. They had still lived in Hyogo, Japan then. Those men weren’t good and she doubted they had a good conscience. She’d been just a child when she first met them, but she knew to stay clear of them. When they watched her and her mom, she knew they were having bad thoughts about them.
An involuntary shudder ran over her body.
He reached his hand out to her, but stopped halfway, holding it there for a pause. On the next breath he pulled his hand back and gripped the handlebar. “I’ve never heard of a member leaving the gang—any gang—of their own accord. Not to mention a high ranking one.”
“My dad had to. They wanted my mom and me for payment.” She looked down at her boots, not able to meet his eyes. Her family had never talked about what happened that night twenty-four years ago. If they didn’t talk about it, it would be as if it never happened.
Lajos frowned. “What do you mean as ‘payment’?”
“A deal my dad was involved in fell through. He lost the shipment—gold artifacts and money. He’d tried to make it right by cutting off the tip of his finger as penance, but that wasn’t good enough for Hasuki, the leader. He wanted more.”
She remembered the night her dad had come home from a business meeting. He tried to remain calm even though the crisp white shirt he wore was soaked in blood. He’d taken off his jacket to wrap it around his hand, trying to hide it from her mother, but it still bled through.
“Your hand,” her mother kept screaming. And when her father unwrapped his jacket, she could see why her mother was distraught. His hand was shredded, pieces of skin were hardly recognizable. Other pieces that she knew now were tendo
ns and bones were visible and dripped with blood.
“You don’t have to say any more,” he said.
She shook her head. “It’s okay. I want to talk about it. It feels good. I’ve been holding it in for so long.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Besides, you told me your secret. It’s only fair that I tell you mine.”
Her smile faltered when he didn’t return one back at her. He just looked at her as if he was surprised by her gesture.
She quickly turned her head away. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him any of this; maybe she should’ve held this secret inside.
He reached out and tugged on her elbow, bringing her attention back to him. When she turned around her heart fluttered. He was smiling reassuringly at her. “Please tell me, I want you to.”
It was something about the way he watched her that made her feel calm and protected. It felt good to be able to talk to him. “What they did to my father and what they wanted to do to us wasn’t right. They took his hand away from him. That, as odd as it may seem, was justified. My dad wasn’t perfect. He didn’t lead an honorable life. He knew the consequences for his actions. But my mom and I? We didn’t sign up to be their whores.”
“What?” he said, raising his voice.
She’d expected that reaction from him. She’d expected that reaction from anyone who had a conscience. “They wanted my father to give us over to the Yaruzi boss to do with as he pleased. My father refused and made a deal with the US authorities. The information he’d given up had earned us a spot in the protective custody program. It afforded us new lives here. He hadn’t always been good, but my dad did right when it mattered.” She said the last sentence with pride.
There was a time when she would’ve never thought her father would go against the Yaruzi. The gang had been his life—since he’d been a boy. She thought he loved that gang more than anything—including his wife and children.
“Is that why you said “stand in line’? Are they still after you?”
She shrugged, because even though her family still looked over their shoulders and watched their backs, they didn’t know for sure. “I can’t say. But my dad thinks that if given a chance, they’d kill us if they could.”
“Hence the reason why he’s taught you how to fight and how to escape, just in case they ever caught you?”
She nodded. Her hair fell into her face and she hooked it behind both ears and out of the way. “He taught my brother and me everything we know. While other girls were trying out for the cheer team or going on dates, I was in our backyard getting the snot beat out of me by my dad.” She chuckled, remembering that while it’d been work they’d also had a lot of good times and fun.
He raised a brow. “I don’t see what’s so funny about a dad beating up on his daughter.”
“I didn’t see it as anything bad. I wanted to spend time with my dad. I wanted him to teach me everything he knew. You have to understand that before we came to America, he was practically an absentee father.”
“So, he’s the one I have to thank for your fighting skills and attitude?” he asked jokingly.
She inclined her head toward him and laughed. “You can thank him for the fighting skills and thank my mom for my attitude. She’s from Compton and she doesn’t play.”
“A father in the Japanese gang and a mom from Compton. An interesting mix.”
“My dad met my mom while he was in Los Angeles on a ‘business trip’. It was love at first sight. When he left a month later, she went with him.”
“That’s almost sweet.”
“I think it is. I just leave out the part of him being in the US to distribute drugs and guns and it’s a very nice story.”
He chuckled lightly.
“If the Yaruzi have anything to do with this and if they’re now planning on harming Trudy, I’d never forgive myself. I know you think I’m crazy for not wanting to stay at home, but I can’t. I can’t know that she’s out there, in danger and it might be because of me.”
“Don’t carry this burden around, Meisha. Whoever has Trudy isn’t working for the Yaruzi.”
“Who are they working for then?”
He frowned. He didn’t have an answer for her.
“See? You don’t know and you already told me the Yaruzi have aligned themselves to the werewolves. What’s stopping them from joining forces with this shifter pack to come after my family and me?”
“You’re right, I don’t know who hired the Russian shifters, but it’s not the Yaruzi. Whoever hired the Russians are trying to stop us from conducting the investigations into our audit, not find you and your family.”
She shook her head. “I’m still not sold. Why would someone murder and abduct someone over an audit?”
“They would if they were stealing millions of dollars from Dark Wolf Enterprises.”
Millions of dollars?
Her mouth hung open in shock.
Chapter Twelve
Meisha tried to fight against consciousness as a hand shook her shoulder. She knew who it belonged to, since Lajos kept calling her name. She clamped down her eyelids, trying to keep hold of the dream she’d been having. It was bad, oh so bad, but no harm could come of it, right?
“We have good news,” Lajos said.
“What?” she replied, in a not-so-nice tone.
Her dream of hot-n-sweaty sex was fading away fast. She was on top of him, riding his cock. In her dream it’d been large and thick. Her hips pumped up and down, her hands were on his chest, gripping onto his well-defined pecs. His hands were on her breasts, squeezing them and playing with her nipples. Sweat dripped down her body; her hair hung in wet clumps on her back.
“Meisha.”
She tightened her eyelids. She was just about to get to the good part. She squeezed her legs together. Her clit tingled as she did.
“Come on, get up,” he coaxed.
“Go away,” she mumbled.
“Kristof and Trudy have been found.”
Her eyes sprang open and the dream left in an instant. She lifted straight up in bed. “Where are they? Are they hurt?”
“Their plane was hijacked, they’re in North Dakota—unharmed.”
“North Dakota? Why would anyone take them there?”
“Probably to get them as far away from our pack as possible. Kristof said he recognized the scent of the shifters who attacked him there. It matches the same scent of the ones who killed Mark and attacked Trudy. The entire pack is in this together, we just have to find out which pack it is.”
“That should be simple enough, right?”
“Not hardly.” He shrugged and her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to the loveliness that was Lajos. “But that’s not going to stop us from trying. We’ll bring whoever is behind all this to justice.”
He’d slept on the floor, wrapping himself in the comforter even though she’d tried to explain how utterly nasty hotel comforters were. He had lines in his face from a crease of the blanket and sleep in his eyes, but his body…
Sometime between the time she’d fallen into a fitful sleep and now he’d taken off his T-shirt. She’d thought him lean before, but his clothes had deceived her. He had muscles that were nicely defined and everywhere. She wanted to trail her tongue along every one of them. His neck was long and thick, not body builder thick but just enough to have her wondering about the thickness of other things. His shoulders were well formed and led down to arms that looked as though he’d done his fair share of push-ups. His chest…holy smokes, that’s what made the heat begin to boil within her.
The first thing she noticed was his nipples. Dark brown and erect. When had she ever been a sucker for nipples?
Since now.
She looked at them as if they were on the breakfast menu. She could almost taste them on her tongue. She pulled her eyes away from his nipples to focus on the dark hairs that were sprinkled along his perfect pecs. Her gaze followed the path that those hairs made down to his six-pack and to his cute little belly button. Her ey
es stopped when they reach his waistband.
My, my, my.
She inhaled a lustful breath.
“So…if you’ll finish molesting me with your eyes, I’ll tell you what’s up.”
Her eyes snapped to his face to find him watching her with an eyebrow raised.
“Don’t flatter yourself, I’ve seen better,” she said, lying pitifully.
A grin spread across his face. “Yeah, right. No human has anything on me.”
“Pft, so sure of yourself are you?”
He leaned closer. “If you know anything about canine physiology you’ll know that we swell when we come,” he whispered. His eyes glanced down to his lap.
Oh Jesus.
She tore her gaze away from him and slammed her back onto the bed. “Hasn’t anyone told you that it’s not the size of the boat but the motion of the ocean?”
He laughed. “That’s a human saying, not a wolf one.”
He was right. She didn’t believe it either, but she couldn’t let him know that or that he’d had a physical effect on her. If he asked, she’d probably drop her panties for him right now. She squeezed her legs closed.
No panty dropping today.
“Whatever. Get your head out of the gutter and tell me what’s going on with Trudy.”
The smile was still on his face as he stood. He walked to one of the chairs by the only table in the room.
Good. That’s what she needed—distance.
He took a seat, grabbed the remote and switched on the television. “Apparently they were taken to North Dakota to be killed.”
She inhaled a sharp breath.
He waved a hand at her. “Calm down. I already told you how this story ends. Kristof fought off the wolves that were sent to kill him. He was able to put down two and sent one running. They were a million miles from anywhere and they had to walk from the airfield to a motel. My brother Andras is on his way to get them now.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We wait here. Once in Michigan, Trudy will finish her work finding out who’s embezzling from Dark Wolf Enterprises. I’ll continue to gather as much information as I can about the Russians and when I’m ready to take them down I’ll have Andras send my team to me.”
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