by Dena Christy
Dark Vengeance
Dena Christy
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
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Copyright © 2015 by Dena Christy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Chapter 1
David is dead.
The thought echoed in Simone Moore’s head as she tried to concentrate on the paperwork in front of her. Their threadbare connection severed last night, and she would not mourn him. He was one of two men who’d ruined her life, and her only regret was that she was not the one who’d killed him. It was a pity she didn’t know who did since she would like to offer her thanks.
The quick staccato beat of high heels on the industrial floor alerted Simone to Amanda Ryder entering her space. Simone’s lips tightened for a moment, until she forced a bland smile to curl the corners of her mouth. Amanda wore a matching look, her crimson colored lips making a gash across the bottom of her face.
“Has David contacted you? He’s supposed to check in while he’s on assignment and hasn't.” Amanda tapped a toe on the floor beside Simone’s workstation.
Simone waited until she heard Amanda draw in her breath to repeat her question.
“David doesn’t keep in touch with me,” Simone said as she looked away from Amanda, and shuffled through the paperwork on her desk.
Amanda huffed out a sigh and turned and stomped away, taking the sour tang of her dislike with her. Simone twitched her nose, trying to clear out the scent. One of the many things she was having difficulty getting used to about being a werewolf was how strong things smelled.
She wheeled back on her chair and walked away from her desk. Restless energy stirred within her, and she needed to get rid of it. The warehouse had full staff tonight, but she avoided her colleagues as she made her way down the corridor. There was a room here that had been drawing her for weeks. She peeked in the glass window, even though it was empty. A few weeks ago she’d made sure of it.
She couldn't squelch her curiosity about the room's former occupant. When she had first seen her, she thought she was looking at a ghost of herself. The woman’s name was Kate Townsend, and it stirred a vague sense of recognition in the back of her skull. She felt a connection to her that defied explanation, and perhaps that’s why she’d arranged for her to escape. Or maybe she’d just hated seeing another woman turned into a werewolf against her will.
She turned away from the room and glanced in the windows of the other doors along the hall. Five women occupied the other rooms, and all were under heavy sedation. They needed to complete their journey from human to werewolf. Simone longed to unlock their doors and unhook their equipment. Doing so would kill them if they weren’t far enough along in their treatments to survive the change.
She went to the end of the hall and stood before the window. She needed to decide what to do next, now that David was dead. Dany Cavanaugh needed to pay for what he’d ordered done to her, and for what he was doing to all the women locked in here. David had gotten her this far, but he could take her no further.
Movement on the edge of the parking lot caught her attention, and she squinted her eyes at it. Her heart pounded in her chest as her body temperature plummeted and then soared. A group of about ten men, all dressed in SWAT gear and carrying guns made their way toward the building. They belonged to the Order of Odin, and they were here to end this part of Dany Cavanaugh’s operation.
Simone blew out a frustrated breath as she reached into her pocket for her cell phone. She had a few minutes to make one final connection with Dany. She needed to get close to him to exact her vengeance. The Order’s appearance on the scene was pushing her agenda faster than she wanted it to go.
She scrolled through the contact list David had set on her phone until she found Dany’s number. Her thumb paused over the screen of her phone. The information she was about to impart to him might cause him to bolt, but then again, it might earn her a few brownie points. It might enable her to get close enough to him to kill him.
Her decision made, she selected his number and put the phone to her ear. Her heart pounded in her chest when Dany Cavanaugh’s smooth voice came on.
“Alicia, what do you want? Shouldn’t you be working?”
“Sir, it’s the Order. They’re outside the warehouse. What should we do?” Simone did her best to sound as panicked and breathless as Dany would expect. He paused for several moments, and when he spoke his voice was cold enough to make Simone shiver.
“I suggest you figure it out for yourselves,” he said with little inflection. The call disconnected and Simone didn’t think it was accidental. So much for her boss offering helpful advice. She expected nothing less from a monster who would turn innocent people into mirror images of himself.
An ear piercing siren shattered the stillness of the building, and Simone dropped the phone as she covered her ears. Her head darted around, but she saw no one. She squatted down, picked up her phone and tucked it in her pocket. The sound of guns firing, and people screaming soon joined the siren to create an ear damaging crescendo of noise.
She forced her feet to move, and she ran down the hall, her panicked mind screeching at her to escape. Two agents from the Order stood at the end of the corridor, and Simone skidded to a halt. She raised her hands as they lifted their weapons and aimed them at her.
“Get on the ground,” one shouted, and Simone lowered herself to the floor.
She stretched her hands out as she turned her head to press her cheek against the cold linoleum. Their booted footfalls came to her. The barrel of a gun pressed against the side of her neck, just under her ear. Simone closed her eyes, and for a moment she thought about asking them to shoot. A survival mechanism she didn't know she had kicked in.
“I… I can help. I can help you save the women,” Simone said as she opened her eyes. She kept her body still and tried not to flinch when the gun pressed harder into her neck.
“Shut up, bitch,” said the man with his gun buried in the soft flesh of her neck.
“Vince,” the other man growled. “Cadric wants the women brought out alive, and if she can help, we should let her.”
Simone held her breath until the pressure of the gun lessened. She melted into the floor for a second, before strong, rough male hands grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. Her eyes darted to the man who held her and back down to the floor in a show of submission.
“Well, talk. Where are the women?” the man said as he gave her a shake.
“Vince, that’s enough. She’s cooperating, so just go easy.”
“You deal with her. I’ll go see if I’m needed elsewhere.” Vince shoved her away and Simone winced as she hit the wall with her shoulder. She stood where she was, trying her best to keep calm.
“You going to be a good girl?” the agent said, his voice rumbling in her ear as he stepped closer. “You better not try to run, because I will put a silver bullet in your brain.”
“Where are the women?”
“Just down that corridor,” Simone said as she inclined her head toward the direction where the women were. “You need the keys to let them out.”
“Show me,” he demanded.
Simone led him back to her desk. She yanked open the top drawer, and his weapon came up. He rested the barrel against her temple.
“Just go easy and show me what you are doing,” he said.
Simone swallowed hard as she slowed her movements. She made sure he saw the keys in her drawer, and she took them in her hand and held them up. She held herself as still as possible
He lowered his weapon and extracted the keys from her hand. She glanced up at him, and he shoved the keys in his pockets. “Turn around and put your hands on the desk.”
“But don’t you need me to help you get them out?” Simone said, as she licked her lips and her eyes darted around.
“Turn around,” he said again as he brought his gun up. “Do it now.”
Still Simone hesitated. What did he plan to do to her? He grabbed her arm, turned her to face the desk and shoved her against it in one quick movement.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.
He paused behind her, and then he drew her hands behind her back and she heard the clicking of handcuffs around her wrists. The silver in them burned her skin like rings of flame. She screamed, the pain of the cuffs shoving her over the edge, and she bolted away from him. She made it a few yards before her shoes slipped in a dark wet substance on the floor and she fell. With her hands behind her back, she could not break her fall. She turned her head at the last moment to keep her face from smashing into the floor. As it was she hit the side of her head. Stars exploded in front of her eyes. The last thing she saw before she succumbed to darkness, was Amanda’s sightless eyes staring at her.
* * *
Consciousness brought a thumping pain behind her eyes. She eased her head up and nausea gave her stomach a hard turn. She looked around, trying to take in her surroundings. It was dark, and cold metal surrounded her, and she heard the wind rushing outside. She was in a van, going God knows where.
“You’re on your way to Kingston. You should consider yourself lucky since you are the only one of your colleagues alive to make the trip.”
Simone turned her head toward the voice. The man who’d cuffed her at the warehouse sat on a bench across from her, his rifle resting across his thighs.
“What will happen?” she said, her voice coming out in a croak. It took a tremendous amount of effort not to throw up, and she eased over onto her side and put her head back down.
Her hands, cuffed in front of her, hugged her stomach as it gave another hard turn. She rolled onto her knees in time to lose the contents of her stomach. Her companion put his weapon aside and came over to her. He took her by the arms and helped her sit on the bench on the other side of the van.
“Thanks,” she mumbled as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
He grunted and resumed his seat, putting his gun back on his lap and watching her every move. He needn’t have worried about her making a break for it. The worst she could do to him at this point was puke on him. She'd have laughed if she didn’t need every ounce of strength she had just to hold her head up. She gave up the fight as the back of her head came to rest against the wall of the van, and her eyes slid shut.
Her eyes opened again when the van came to a halt and the man guarding her dragged her to her feet.
“Welcome to the Order of Odin headquarters,” he said. “I hope you enjoy your stay with us.”
The back door of the van opened, her guard pushed her out, and Simone stumbled when her feet hit the ground.
“Come on sweetheart,” another man said as two guards flanked her. “This way.”
They took her to a small building, through a door and down a tunnel. She shivered, not from cold, but from the misery seeping through the walls. They went through another door at the end of the tunnel, and just when she thought the place couldn’t be any scarier, it got worse.
The door led to a room that had old rusty chains and manacles hanging from the walls. The air thickened, heavy with old wounds, and Simone noticed that even the guards picked up their pace. They went through the door at the opposite side of the room and up the stairs.
She blinked her eyes when pain lanced through her head as they came into a well lit corridor. It looked at odds with the torture room she’d just come out of.
“Come on, your accommodations are this way,” one of her escorts said as he took her down the hall.
They turned a corner, and a man sat at a desk, typing into a computer in the center of the room. Heavy steel doors lined each side of the room, with small windows in the centre of each one. She knew that these rooms were holding cells.
Some form of madness leapt inside her. She tore herself away from her guards and took off back in the direction she’d come from. A rational part of her brain screamed now was a stupid time to escape. She should have done it much earlier, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She made it around the corner when shock brought her feet sliding to a halt.
A tall dark haired man stood at the end of the hall, and his face was so familiar that pain tightened her chest at the sight of it. He looked like her former lover, Lee, the man she had wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
She stared at him as her guards grabbed her by the arms. She put up no resistance as they dragged her away and took her back to the cells. The words they spoke registered as a low buzzing noise, and they shoved her into a cell. She fetched up against the wall and slid down it until her butt came to rest on the floor. Her legs splayed out in front of her, and her head came back to rest against the wall.
Lee is here.
The thought echoed in her head. She didn’t open her eyes when the heavy steel door holding her in the room clanged shut with a heart sinking sense of finality.
* * *
She’s alive?
How was it even possible? Simone was still alive?
Lee took a step forward when a hand on his arm stopped him. His boss stood beside him.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Cadric said with no inflection in his voice. “Do you know her?”
“She looks like a woman I used to be close to. It can't be her though, since she's dead.”
“Come to my office. I have something to discuss with you,” Cadric said as he turned and walked toward the stairwell.
Lee followed. His boss required unquestioning obedience, and he got it. Things got ugly for those who betrayed the Order, and as far as Cadric was concerned the Order was everything.
When they got to the office, Lee sat in the chair opposite Cadric’s desk, and watched as his boss read through some paperwork. The muscle jumped in Cadric’s jaw as his eyes skimmed the reports, and Lee was sorry for whoever had screwed up. He made a noise of disgust as he shoved the papers to one side and turned his attention to Lee.
“We’ve raided your father’s warehouse in Ottawa. There were five women being held there, and they died in transport.” Cadric raked his hand through his hair. This was the first time Lee had seen his boss so flustered. Usually Cadric was cold and unruffled no matter what came his way. “That woman you saw in the hall is the only person who survive the raid.”
Although he was medical staff and not involved in much of the Order’s other business, Lee was positive that most raids didn’t involve such an extreme casualty rate. “All are dead except one sir? Isn’t that a little unusual?”
Cadric’s lips tightened, and he shrugged his shoulders back. “So do you know her?”
“I thought I did, but you say she was working for my father at his warehouse?”
“Yes. The reports say she was cooperative. Although it appears she is prone to panicking if
her racing down the hall is any sign. The name on her ID says she’s Alicia Williams. She is the owner of the clothes and car that Kate stole when she escaped the warehouse.”
“She can’t be the woman I knew, her name was Simone.”
“A name can be changed. Was the woman in your pack?”
Lee shook his head. His boss didn’t understand. “She wasn’t in my pack, she was human.”
“Well, the woman we brought in is a werewolf. What troubles me is her striking resemblance to Kate Townsend. Who told you Simone was dead?”
A sinking sensation settled in the pit of Lee’s stomach as the implications of who told him about Simone’s death slammed into him. “David O’Connell.”
“The same David O’Connell who worked for your father, who stalked Kate and was working at the same warehouse we found this woman Alicia in? Is there any chance at all that Alicia and Simone could be the same woman?”
Lee tipped his head forward and buried his face in his hands. It was possible. Lee’s heart ached at how it could have come to pass. David lied to him. He must have attacked Simone, which is the only way she could now be a werewolf.
“I need to see her,” Lee said as he stood and his chair fell backwards, hitting the floor with a loud smack. The sound jolted him for a moment and he paused.
“Sit down,” Cadric said. He gave Lee a cold, hard stare and Lee swallowed back a hot denial as he righted his chair and sat down.
“Sir, I need to see her. I need to know if it’s her.”
“We’ll let her stew in the cells for while, and the plan is to interrogate her. She will tell us whatever she knows.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Lee barked, and Cadric blinked at him. Lee took a deep breath, he needed to get a grip. Antagonizing Cadric was not the way to go here. “Sorry, sir.”
“I don’t operate like that,” Cadric said, and heat crept up Lee’s cheeks. Cadric was ruthless, but he also had a deep sense of honor that wouldn't allow someone to be harmed until they proved guilty.
