Hunted (Riley Cray)

by A. J. Colby

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I growled through gritted teeth, refusing to give in to tears again. I was tired of feeling weak and victimized, the lingering pain from Johnson’s attack fueling the anger burning hot in my gut.

  “Fuck tears, I’m tired of being afraid.” I curled my hands into tight fists at my sides until my nails bit into the flesh of my palms. Focusing on the pain, I locked away my fear. I could fall apart once it was all over.

  With anger fueling my movements I stripped off my t-shirt and panties in stiff, jerking motions. Removing the bandages Alyssa had trussed me up in took a little more time, and a lot more grimacing and cursing. Finally naked, I stalked into the adjoining bathroom, vowing to wash away the last of my fear. I wasn’t going to let anyone make me feel helpless again.

  I’m a werewolf, dammit, and the world had better watch out. This bitch bites.

  * * *

  I stayed in the shower until I’d scrubbed my skin red and I was beginning to resemble a giant prune. The drugs Alyssa had supplied me with had taken the edge off the pain, but it was going to be a while before I was anywhere close to being back to normal. With the wolf’s healing abilities suppressed it would be some time before the cuts and scrapes on my hands and knees began to fade to fine pink scars that would eventually disappear, and even longer for my more severe injuries to heal. I didn’t relish the thought of the days of pain that were ahead of me.

  Standing in front of the bathroom mirror I studied the woman in the glass through the haze of steam, seeing a steeliness in my reflection that hadn’t been there just days before. The collection of black and purple bruises littering my body were a testament to the beating Johnson had given me, while the livid bruise and swelling on my cheek made me look like a battered housewife. Fingering the dark splotch across my ribs, and the bright blue stitches running the length of the slash in my side, I clenched my teeth against the pain. I’m no glutton for pain, I find it as unpleasant as the next girl, but in that moment, as I stared at my reflection, I reveled in the buzz of pain rushing through my veins, bolstering my spirits and giving my anger new purpose.

  Wrinkling my nose in disgust at the variety of smells wafting up from the stained denim I pulled on my jeans from the night before sans panties, wishing I had my things from the hotel.

  I’d kill for a clean pair of underwear.

  Attempting to put on my bra led to a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush before I tossed the offending garment aside and decided that anyone who didn’t like it could kiss my furry ass. Picking up the t-shirt I’d borrowed from Alyssa, I gave it a tentative sniff and frowned. Smelling of blood, sweat, and antiseptic it was a sharp reminder of the previous night. There was no way in hell I was doing anything with it besides throwing it in the trash, and maybe setting it on fire.

  Using the foggy mirror to see what I was doing I attempted to wind a roll of bandages around my ribs after slapping a gauze pad over the oh-so-pretty line of stitches. The act proved to be as successful as putting on my bra had been, and ended with the bandages scrunched up in a ball tossed into the sink in frustration. All the while I kept my mind busy plotting how I was going to make Johnson suffer for what he’d done. I’d never had broken ribs before, and it’s not something I’d recommend.

  Limiting myself to short breaths to ease the sensation that someone was trying to dislodge each of my ribs with a sledgehammer, I turned my attention to my topless conundrum. Glancing around the room I spotted the door to Holbrook’s closet standing ajar on the opposite side of the room.

  It’ll have to do.

  Rifling through his shirts, feeling far too much like a creepy stalker for comfort, I snagged the first thing that didn’t look as though it would make me look like a little girl playing dress up in her daddy’s clothes. The lavender colored brushed cotton shirt was like silk as I slid it over my shoulders, and I wasn’t able to resist stroking the fabric covetously before buttoning it. Finishing off the look with a loose braid that I left to trail over one shoulder I studied my reflection one last time and decided that I didn’t look half bad. Well, if you ignored the ugly bruise covering a good portion of my face and the swollen split in my lip.

  Bah, who am I kidding? Miss America, I’m not.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” I said, fingering the hem of the shirt when I ventured out into the living room. “I haven’t had a chance to visit the laundromat yet.”

  Looking up from where he sat on the couch reading through what looked to be some kind of report, Holbrook let his eyes trail over me in a slow pass, lingering where the shirt gaped open to reveal the first hint of cleavage. The heat gathering in their forest depths made me think he might reply with a huskily spoken innuendo, but instead he just nodded and said, “Not at all.”

  Quashing the small of glimmer of disappointment before it took root, I asked, “So, what’s the plan?”

  “We tell Santos the truth, and then we nail Johnson’s ass,” he replied with a vehemence that made me glad I was not on the receiving end of his anger. Something dark and dangerous flickered in his expression, there one moment and gone the next, but whatever it was, I saw enough of it to know that he was not a man to be trifled with.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MY MOVEMENTS WERE wooden as I slid down out of the SUV, the frigid air in the parking garage smacking me in the face like a cruel fist. The bitter cold rekindled the ache in my bruised and swollen cheek, making my eyes water. I raised a hand to wipe the back of my glove over my eyes, and winced as the pain in my lip flared back to life. After eight years I’d forgotten how much it sucked to heal like a mundane, injuries lingering for weeks rather than a few days.

  The pills I’d downed before leaving Holbrook’s house were already starting to wear off, and the pain was eating up what little energy I had left. As enjoyable as it had been, our romp on the back deck hadn’t helped much either. I was stuck in a sucky kind of limbo where my lycanthrope metabolism was burning through the painkillers but wasn’t back up to par enough to help speed my healing. Curling one arm around my ribs I shuffled along in halting steps, my breath rasping out in a hissing wheeze that made me sound as though I’d been smoking a pack a day for thirty years.

  “You sure you’re up to this?”

  I looked up from the scuffed toes of my boots to find Holbrook standing close. I hadn’t noticed him come around the truck, his hand hovering near my elbow without touching, ready and waiting in case I needed his support. The pills he’d forced down my throat hadn’t been able to insulate me against the pain that throbbed in my ribs every time we hit a bump or a pothole, but they’d effectually dulled the rest of my senses. If the renewed ache in my chest was anything to go by, I think it was a safe assumption that the trip from his house had been filled with nothing but potholes.

  While his doting white knight act was sweet and should have made my toes curl with giddy schoolgirl affection, I instead bristled at needing his help in the first place. It was unfair of me to resent him seeing me vulnerable, but I’d had to be self-sufficient for so long that it was hard for me to admit that I wasn’t quite as much of a badass as I’d believed. It was jarring and disconcerting to realize that the painkillers had dulled my senses and muddled my mind to the extent that he could sidle up on me so easily, however unintentional it might have been. My thoughts were foggy, and I felt out of touch with my senses, but I doubted that I’d be able to move much at all without the drugs to smother the pain.

  “I’m fine.”

  Ignoring the safety of Holbrook’s proffered hand, I continued to shuffle my way towards the door leading into the building. Although it was no more than twenty feet or so from the SUV, I was already breathless and covered in a thin sheen of sweat by the time we reached the door.

  I guess whatever Alyssa pumped me full of last night has finally run its course.

  Under the guise of waiting for Holbrook to fish his security badge out of his pocket, I leaned back against the wall, the chill from the concrete bri
cks seeping through my borrowed coat and shirt to cool my clammy skin. My head was spinning from the exertion of walking the short distance, my mouth flooded with saliva as I fought off a wave of nausea. I regretted the coffee I had nursed on our drive over, the giant cup of Starbucks churning like acid in my gut.

  Refusing to let the pain win and send me running off with my tail between my legs, I swallowed hard against the lump rising up in the back of my throat, clenching my jaw against the desire to whimper like a wounded pup. I almost sighed aloud in relief when the door buzzed and he pulled it open, releasing a flood of warm air that eased some of the chill in my cheeks. Pushing away from the wall with a grunt I ambled through the door as fast as my shaking legs would carry me.

  In a daze I followed Holbrook’s familiar silhouette, tracking him by the ever present eddy of crackling energy that he left in his wake as much as the sugary scent of his skin. When I came to a swaying stop I was surprised to find us standing in the doorway of Santos’s office. Somewhere between the parking garage and Santos’s office my brain had checked out, leaving me disoriented and confused. I wobbled on my feet for a moment, and reached out for the door frame to steady myself, trying to ignore the tremble in my hands and the sweat that slicked my palms.

  Crap on a cracker, that’s not good, I thought, struggling to clear some of the fogginess from my mind while wiping my hands off on my jeans.

  Considering that I had a psychotic werewolf on my tail, and had now added an FBI agent to the list of people that wanted to see me dead, my lack of focus wasn’t a good thing. Blinking rapidly as if the action could help to brush away the cobwebs, my gaze settled on Santos and I was struck by the barely restrained anger radiating from him.

  Standing behind his desk, he seemed to loom larger than the last time I’d seen him, the muscles in his shoulders straining against the cotton of his shirt, his hands curled into fists at his sides. Looking closer, I could see a thick vein in his neck pulsing furiously. A bitter smell, like stale coffee sizzling on a red hot stove, rolled off him in waves, and it took a tremendous amount of effort not to wilt beneath the weight of his stare.

  “Excuse my language, Ms. Cray, but where the fuck have you been?” he asked, his face flushed crimson.

  “I...what?” I floundered, taken aback by his flare of anger.

  I watched as Santos placed his hands on the desktop, his weight resting on knuckles that quickly grew white from the pressure. My face contorted into a grimace when his knuckles creaked as he leaned across the desk towards me.

  “You are in protective custody, Ms. Cray. That means you do not leave this office, or your hotel room, without an escort. You do not shift in public, or disappear into the woods,” he stated, the icy calm of his voice at odds with the blistering heat in his eyes. Somehow his composed voice was far more unsettling than if he had been ranting and raving, and my cheeks warmed at his reference to my little escapade at the Knotty Pine. “And you do not send my staff on a goose chase across the city.”

  “A goose chase?” I parroted.

  Has everyone around here lost their minds?

  “Sir, if I may interject?” Holbrook asked as he stepped forward, angling his body in front of me as though he was shielding me from his boss’s glare.

  Santos didn’t answer, his eyes still cold and full of anger when they settled on the younger agent, narrowing slightly. After a moment he nodded, giving Holbrook permission to speak.

  “I think there may be some confusion here. What do you know about what happened?”

  “Johnson informed me that Ms. Cray slipped her security detail and her whereabouts were unknown.”

  “That’s not–”

  “That lying sack of ogre shit!” I interrupted, ignoring the way my ribs sang with agony when I waved my arms in the air.

  Rather than saying anything, Santos raised dark brows at me while Holbrook just sighed and shook his head. Chagrined, I flashed them a weak smile and shrugged my shoulders, wincing a moment later at the motion.

  “Perhaps you’d like to tell me what happened?”

  “That pus-filled cock holster is lying. He kidnapped, and tried to kill me.”

  They both frowned at my colorful language, but I could have given two shits about their delicate sensibilities.

  Damn pussies.

  “That’s a very serious accusation,” Santos said, going still. His expression held an intensity I hadn’t seen before and something in the way his eyes narrowed sent a chill down my spine. “I advise you to tread with caution.”

  “It’s true, Sir,” Holbrook added, looking as though the admission cost him a great deal.

  “Did you see it?”

  “Well, no. But–”

  “So what proof do you have?” Santos asked, keeping his scrutinizing gaze on me.

  “You mean beside my broken ribs?” I snarled, prickling at the disbelieving look on his face.

  “This is a serious allegation. You need solid proof. Evidence. A witness. Something.”

  “Get Coffin Whore...Chrismer, on the phone. She was there.”

  “And she saw this happen?” Santos asked with a skeptical tilt of his brow.

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I was too busy getting stuffed into his trunk at the time,” I snapped.

  I was quickly growing frustrated and irritated, my drug addled mind struggling to keep up with his questions. Why didn’t he trust me? Weren’t the bruises on my face and broken ribs proof enough that Johnson had tried to save Samson the trouble of taking me out?

  “Christ, Cray. I can’t just take your word on this. Not when you’re talking about one of my agents,” Santos said, his voice warming with renewed anger.

  “You want proof?” I demanded, using my anger and frustration to keep the pain at bay. “Well, there’s evidence all over his damned basement. There’s a bloody were pelt nailed to his wall, and I’m pretty damn sure his dead wife is stuffed in the freezer! And if you don’t believe that, I’m sure I got a couple good licks in myself before I stabbed him with a fucking screwdriver, so why don’t you just check him for evidence!” I ranted, my breaths coming faster and faster until the room started to spin around me.

  “Take it easy, Riley,” Holbrook warned, his face hazy and surrounded by a golden nimbus in the corner of my vision.

  Damn, he really is one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen, I thought, my hand beginning to rise to touch his cheek.

  The slight narrowing of his eyes stopped the motion, and letting my hand fall back down to my side, I blinked in an effort to clear my eyes. Looking up into his face I saw that the shimmering halo was gone, though he continued to glow with an inner light. I was still struck by his beauty, the forest green depths of his eyes threatening to swallow me up. Shaking my head, the action making the room swim again, I ignored the pull of his gaze.

  “I’m okay,” I ground out, waving off his hands lingering just shy of touching me.

  The deadly calm of Santos’s voice burnt through my irritation, leaving me breathless. “Are you saying that you assaulted an FBI agent?”

  Was he seriously accusing me of attacking Johnson, as if the dirty fuck sock hadn’t deserved it? And what about the fact I had just let him know that one of his beloved agents was guilty of at least two murders?

  What the hell is going on here?

  “Assaulted a...you think I...” I spluttered, a flood of rage and disbelief washing over me, making me forget about the pain throbbing in every inch of my body for a moment. “I don’t have to put up with this shit! I’m outta here,” I said, turning my back on the two men as I stalked towards the door.

  “Sit your ass down,” Santos commanded, the inscrutable force behind his words striking me between the shoulders like a physical blow. I flinched, sending a flesh wave of pain through my battered body.

  “Fuck you!” I snarled, my voice coming out sounding more wolf than human even though the wolf was still painfully out of reach.

  “Sit. Now.”

  I
waited for the span of several heartbeats, before turning on my heel to face him. Red-faced and seething, he presented an imposing figure, and my fury flagged a little beneath the intensity of his stare. Not wanting to let him see how easily I had bent to his will, I made him wait another moment or two and then stomped back towards his desk, slumping down into one of the visitor’s chairs.

  “We’ll straighten this out,” Holbrook tried to reassure me, though he looked as confused as I was.

  The sour look I shot back at him told him that as far as I was concerned he could burn in hell with his boss and the rest of the FBI. A small glimmer of guilt fluttered in my chest at the hurt that passed over his face, but I quickly quashed it with the anger that warmed my blood and roiled in the pit of my stomach. From the corner of my eye I watched him retreat several paces, distancing himself from me and Santos, but didn’t have time to dwell on the maelstrom of emotions struggling for purchase beneath my fury.

  A headache was forming just behind my eyes and weariness was swelling in my limbs, making every inch of my body feel leaden and bruised. I was nearing the limits of my body and mind, hovering precariously on the edge of utter exhaustion, floating somewhere between delirium and hysteria.

  Santos pressed a button on his phone and waited a moment before saying “Marge, will you send Agent Johnson in here?”

  Sinking down further into the chair, shifting fitfully in an attempt to find a comfortable position, I lost track of time. I drifted in the fog of painkillers that were no longer working, but still managed to make my brain as useful as a bowl of porridge. The sound of Holbrook pacing back and forth jolted me out of my daze, and made me wonder if I’d fallen asleep. Glancing up to make sure that neither of the men were watching me, I raised a hand to wipe a small trail of drool from my chin.

  Brilliant. I’ve been reduced to slobbering on myself.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO