“How do you feel?” Elijah asked.
“You mean other than being cracked in the head with a bat and chained to the floor?” I replied sarcastically.
“Yeah.” He smiled. “Other than that.”
“Great,” I said as I took a closer look at my restraints. “You know this goes against my principles, right?” I noticed the mortar was cracked around the edges of my right shackle where it connected to the wall.
“What does?” Elijah asked.
I held up one wrist as I teased, “I never use restraints on the first date.”
He smiled and in spite of our surroundings it brightened my mood. I pointed to the chopsticks in Elijah’s pocket. “Can you pass me those?”
“Sure.” He looked confused, but slid me the chopsticks.
“Any idea why we’re here?” I asked as I inspected the mortar more closely.
“No clue,” Elijah answered. “A guy comes in about every hour or so.”
“What does he do?”
“He just looks at us. Sometimes he checks your pulse, then leaves.” I couldn’t reach the crack in the mortar with my hands, so I put one of the chopsticks between my toes, stretched out and began to chip it loose.
“Can’t you just rip these out of the wall?” Elijah pointed at his shackle.
“Probably, but do you have any idea how much noise that would make?”
“Oh, hadn’t thought of that.”
A few minutes later the short guy that I’d kicked in the face walked in. I looked at him more closely this time. He was about my height with dark hair and pale skin. He appeared to be in good shape, with a sleek athletic build. The guy might have been nice looking if it weren’t for the two black eyes he was sporting and the fact that his nose was obviously broken. He approached me with caution despite the chains. Apparently he wasn’t as stupid as I’d thought.
“How’s your head?” he asked in a surprisingly deep voice.
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.” At least he was honest.
“Then why ask?”
“Because I was told you need to be fully recovered,” he replied.
“For what, torture?”
“Couldn’t say, but I’m not going to get close enough to look for myself.”
I laughed, but not like I was amused. “Well, my head still hurts, so that gives you plenty of time to go screw yourself.”
He gave me a nasty sneer before he turned on his heel and left the room.
“Do you think that’s wise, pissing them off like that?” Elijah asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said as I stretched back out to chip away the mortar.
“Why?”
I stopped for a second and looked at Elijah. I had been about to say, “Because they’ll never see tomorrow anyway.” Instead, I went back to work on loosening the shackle. It took several hours to loosen the heavy bolts from the wall. The short dark haired man came back in, but this time he went for Elijah. A gun was clearly visible pressed against the small of his back as he walked toward him. Elijah shot a pleading glace my way, and I knew that I couldn’t allow him to be taken away from me. One look at the other man said he had nothing good in store for Elijah.
“It’s me you want.” I decided to provoke him.
He turned to me.
“Before they do whatever it is they have planned.” I licked my lips. “Don’t you wanna touch me?” I motioned toward my body suggestively. “You know you want me,” I purred seductively. “I’ve seen the way you look at me.” I winked at Elijah as I said, “We can make him watch.”
Elijah looked horrified as the man began to walk toward me, but there was no way to let him know what I had in mind. He knew what my job was. I only hoped seeing me do that job wouldn’t change the way he looked at me. There was no time to think of another way. Once the dark haired man was within range, I snatched the chain free with a roar, hitting him across the face and cutting his cheek badly. I hit him with the chain again as I swung it so that it wrapped around his neck. I yanked him toward me and slammed his face into the wall, several times.
“Where are the keys?” I asked as I pressed him face down into the floor, strangling him. He motioned to his belt. I snatched the keys from his belt and let them hit the floor. My feet were cold and it pissed me off.
“Where the fuck are my shoes?” I growled.
He rolled his eyes toward the door.
“In the next room?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Are there more than two of you?” I let up so he could speak.
“No,” he whispered.
“If you tell me the truth, you might be the one I leave alive,” I taunted.
“There’s four,” he said quickly. “Two across the hall, and one at the front door.”
“You lied to me.” I choked him harder. “What do you say?” I leaned in closer, as if waiting to hear an apology. “What’s that? You’re a cocksucker?”
I broke his neck.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
This is who I am. I’m hard, because my job requires it. Could you imagine a soft werewolf hunter? I’d get killed in a heartbeat. Talking trash helps me to cope with the things I have to do. I suppose you could say I psych myself up for what I know is coming.
I unlocked my chains and tossed the keys to Elijah. He looked stunned. I knew he had seen worse things, but he’d never watched me do any of those things before. I couldn’t bear for him to look at me that way.
“Don’t look,” I said. “Don’t look at me.”
I took the dark haired man’s gun and checked to be sure it was loaded.
“Wait here while I check out the room across the hall,” I said as I pressed Elijah back against the wall. To my relief, he didn’t withdraw from my touch. He still looked shocked, but nodded his agreement.
I listened at the door for a moment and distinctly heard two voices inside. I kicked the door in quickly as I shot one guy in the back of the head. Another rushed me, and I caught him in the chest three times. I found my shoes, but my blades were still missing. When I went back for Elijah, he seemed to have regained his composure. After all, he was a cop, and this wasn’t the first dead body he’d seen. It wasn’t even the first body he’d seen that I was responsible for, but it was the first time he’d ever seen me harm anyone. I couldn’t blame the poor guy for being shocked. He was no doubt wondering how he’d gone from kung pow chicken and old movies to watching me break some guy’s neck on a cold tile floor. Not the way he wanted to spend his weekend, I’m sure.
As best we could tell, there was no one else inside the small building. We snuck out the back and around the side without encountering anyone. I put my hand against Elijah’s chest and motioned around the corner. There was a guard standing there, I could smell him. The wind was blowing just right to carry the scent of his cologne to where we stood. The building must have been sound proof for him to have not come running when I’d shot the two men inside. One look at the surrounding woods told me we were in the middle of nowhere, but I was still afraid that someone might hear if I shot him. I passed the gun to Elijah and removed the shoe lace from my right boot. I moved slowly toward the unsuspecting guard, careful not to make a sound. Just as I looked around the corner, he turned away to light a cigarette, and I struck.
Before he knew what hit him, I’d strangled the guard and begun to drag his body out of sight. As I re-laced my boot, I looked up at Elijah. He was obviously trying to remain neutral about seeing me strangle someone. I knew a cop face when I saw one. It was one of those looks that said, “No matter what happens, I will not think about it now.” There would be plenty of time to have nightmares later.
I fished some car keys out of the guard’s pocket. “Let’s hope there’s a parking lot on the other side, because I don’t see anything in front,” I told Elijah.
He nodded and began to move down the wall toward the back of the building. We found more than cars waiting for us on the other side. Emerging
from the woods all around was what could only be described as a pack of werewolves. There were at least thirty of them, not enough for a true pack, but what else do you call a bunch of werewolves? They were still in human form, but there was no mistaking the current of sex and violence that radiated from them. You could almost reach out and touch the scent of lycanthrope in the air. I let one of them take me by surprise and wrestle me face down to the ground.
“We’ve been given orders to detain you and your little boy toy at all costs,” a female voice said. “Not so tough without your weapons, are you?” the voice taunted, still out of my sight. Whoever she was, she wasn’t the one holding me, but she was close.
I turned toward Elijah, where he struggled against a choke hold from another female lycanthrope. There was no easy way out of this. I looked into his innocent blue eyes and knew that the only way to escape was to make the one person who’d never looked at me like a monster change his mind.
A pair of spiked vinyl boots appeared in front of my face. “I’ll never know what Marco sees in you,” the voice continued from directly above me.
As I laughed I heard my voice drop lower, into a deep and evil rumble before I replied, “Please, let me show you.”
The werewolf on my back was caught by surprise as I flung him off of me. My eyes began to burn, and I knew that they had turned to amber. The werewolf that I’d just dislodged from my back lunged at me. I threw an uppercut as razor sharp claws shot from my fingertips, catching him under the chin.
Pieces of his throat landed on the ground beside him as I ripped my nails across his wind pipe. I rode his body to the ground while I stabbed him through the ribs with the claws on my other hand. I rose slowly. Blood dripped from my hands as I looked into the face of the woman who’d taunted me. She might have been attractive had it not been for the look of complete hatred on her face.
She was taller than me and thin, with long, curly red hair that was beginning to frizz, thanks to the humidity. Although I thought it was creepy that Marco was dating someone who slightly resembled me, I noted with some satisfaction that my breasts were bigger. She had to be Marco’s girlfriend. There was no other explanation for that level of hatred in a woman I’d never met before.
“I can’t believe he named that goddamned club after you,” she spat.
Yep, she was Marco’s girlfriend. I sneered at her with nothing short of malice. I don’t know if it was some hidden feelings for Marco, or just the alpha female in me, but I wanted to hurt this woman. What she said about the club had only confirmed my suspicion. That would explain why I’d sensed so many werewolves that night. Marco owned club Red.
“You must feel special,” I said silkily.
She growled as her eyes turned wolf amber and I felt my blood boil. How dare she threaten me? I barely kept the growl from my voice as I said, “Come get it then ... Bitch.”
Just as I’d expected, she lost her temper and swung wild. I leaned into her as I covered my head and rammed my elbow into the underside of her biceps. She yelped like an injured dog as I grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to put my left knee through her side. A rage such as I’d never felt before broke over me. It was the rage that I’d held in over the past week, watching Marcy flirt with Alfred, imagining what he must have been dreaming when he’d called her name. For all I knew he had spent the night at her house last night, and now this bitch was going to get in my face about Marco? I should have screwed his brains out when I’d had the chance. Maybe then I would’ve at least gotten some sort of satisfaction. Oh, but I would have satisfaction, if I had to take it out of her hide. Enough was enough, and I’d more than reached my limit for bullshit and bitchy women.
I grabbed her by the hair and snatched violently to the right, knocking her into three other werewolves. A tall man with claws for hands ran toward me. I dropped to the ground and delivered a brutal heel palm to his left knee, shattering it so badly that the bone protruded from his jeans. He howled as he fell to the ground, where I broke his neck with a loud snap. The redheaded she-wolf staggered to her feet and lunged at me. I caught her in the chest with my boot, just as hard as I possibly could. She coughed and blood dribbled down her chin as she fell back to the ground.
The woman who’d been strangling Elijah flung him at the ground with an eerie inhuman howl as she began to transform. In mid-transformation, her face suddenly exploded and she collapsed. It took me a minute to realize that Elijah, who was still armed, had shot her through the back of the head.
Marco’s disgruntled girlfriend struggled to her feet again. Her otherwise pretty face lost some of its appeal as she began to grow fangs. I decided that I wasn’t going to wait for her to come at me again as I charged forward and grabbed her by the hair so hard you could hear it tear loose from her scalp. Over and over again, I slammed her into the ground, picked her up by the hair, and slammed her again. Chunks of her frizzy red curls began to fall out in my monstrous hands. With each fall, I heard her bones break, like a wooden toy cracking beneath pressure. I could hear the howls of the werewolves around me, and gunfire echoed in my ears, but I kept slamming her, flinging her limp body like a filthy ragdoll. I dropped her to the ground, threw back my head and screamed. It was the same rage filled battle cry that I’d heard on the first full moon after my attack.
I grabbed her again and began throwing her at the crowd. I hurled her mercilessly into them, just to watch her bounce off again, and again. When at last I threw her down, she just lay there, broken, in a twisted heap. The crowd of werewolves had drawn back, whether they were afraid, or just shocked, I couldn’t tell. I straddled her waist, propped a clawed hand on either side of her head, and looked at the pack around me, some still in human form, others well into the change.
“I’ve got a message for you to deliver to Marco,” I growled threateningly. And without further ado, I broke her neck so hard her head spun around backward to face the crowd.
“Oh no, love, not Marco,” said a deep voice with a thick Australian accent.
Bade Garren stepped through the pack into the clearing. I growled low and menacing as I bared my teeth. Bade wasn’t exactly handsome, but he wasn’t unattractive either. He and Marco were like opposite sides of the same sadistic coin. He had shoulder length hair of the palest gold and a creamy white complexion. They were both muscular though Bade was perhaps an inch or two taller. To see them standing together was enough to conjure thoughts of hedonistic pleasures in the most faithful lover.
Bade Garren’s body was a masochist’s paradise. He had a flare for the dramatic and was into S&M, so his wardrobe was no surprise. Tight black vinyl pants clung to his muscular legs like a caress. He wore a flowing black satin jacket, held open to reveal the white perfection of his chest. Through one nipple a silver stud glinted in the fading light of dusk. Werewolves have an extreme allergy to silver. Direct exposure to the internal organs, such as being shot with a silver bullet, almost always results in death. The stud must have caused him constant pain and I’m sure that’s why he wore it.
I decided to play with him a bit if I could, to buy enough time to recover my strength. If I did not fight our way out, we would die in that clearing. Elijah was out of ammunition and I was outnumbered. Not to insult him, but Elijah was no match for a fully grown werewolf.
I retracted my claws as I rose to my feet, but my eyes were still blazing amber.
“Bade,” I purred, putting as much sex as possible into my voice. “I would have expected you to keep better company,” I said as I kicked the woman’s body at my feet.
“Think highly of me do you?” he asked. His sarcastic smirk added a charm that I would have liked to ignore.
I remembered how I had let my feelings flow to Alfred and wondered for a moment if it would be possible to do the same to Bade. I concentrated on what I wanted him to feel, what I wanted to be in my voice when I spoke again, and it felt as if a door opened in my mind. Something warm and hot flowed beneath my skin, giving me a fever that I had previously only
felt behind my eyes when they turned. It was like flipping a switch in my head, but instead of turning on a light, I had turned on what could only be described as pure sex. I was unsure of this new “talent,” but I wasn’t going to waste my one chance of delaying Bade and whatever it was he had planned.
“I have never put you in the same category as Marco,” I said, and my voice no longer sounded like my own. It was deep, earthy and sensual, a bedroom voice in every sense of the word. Truthfully, I thought much worse of him. But, when I spoke, I was delighted to find that at least some of what I had intended was felt by the wolves around me. I heard a few who were closest to me gasp in response to the sound of my voice.
I moved closer to Bade. No one tried to stop me. As I spoke, I felt my voice take on a hypnotic quality. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” I whispered as my voice flowed over the crowd like silk.
Bade visibly jumped when I spoke, his eyes rolled and his lids fluttered slightly.
“How do you do that?” he said, breathlessly.
“I’m not doing anything ... yet.” I caressed his bare chest, leaving a bloody trail across his pale skin.
“Lying bitch.” He winced as I moved around his silver nipple piercing.
I moved closer to his chest. My lips hovered mere centimeters above his nipple as I breathed against his skin, “What reason would I have to lie?”
“What reason would you have to tell the truth?” he pointed out.
I bit down on his skin and tugged on the piercing, not enough to cause pain, just a little pinch. He threw his head back and cried out.
“Why have you brought me here?” I asked as I looked up into his pale blue eyes. His full pink lips parted as I bit harder, bringing a growl from his human throat that was frightening and out of place.
“I need a sample of your blood.” Bade placed his hands on my shoulders, his nails were beginning to form into claws and they bit into my flesh. I have a high tolerance for pain, and in small amounts I sometimes enjoy it. But this was a pain that I was not expecting and for a moment, my concentration wavered.
Lilith Mercury, Werewolf Hunter Series (Boxed Set, Books 1-3) Page 10
