“I’ve got news for you Bade. I don’t take on the beast, I am the beast. Besides, that would just create a whole shitload of problems if you ask me. You’d have people wanting to be turned for the superhuman abilities, and trying to suppress the change at the same time.”
“Actually, we’ve already had that problem.”
“You haven’t actually tried the suppressant on anyone?” Richard asked.
“No.” Bade turned to me. “You remember those blokes who attacked a woman at The Firestarter several months ago?”
How could I forget having to take down a group of men who’d tried to gang rape a female werewolf? That’s not exactly common practice, even for an experienced werewolf hunter.
“Yes. I remember. They called her a monster and she was a werewolf. If they were wannabes then why would they—?”
“Because they thought they would be superior,” he interrupted.
“You lost me.”
“First of all, those were not my people. They hung out with Simon who used to be one of mine, but that’s not important. The deal is they were hoping Simon would turn them and they could suppress the change with the new drug that was being developed.”
“Oh, so they wouldn’t be monsters if they didn’t turn?”
“In their minds, yes.”
“They sound as crazy as Bill,” Richard commented.
“Well, he doesn’t work for me anymore. We found out he was using the blood samples from myself and some other wolves for—” He paused.
“For what?”
“I don’t know how to describe it he was—”
“Combining it with the DNA of other animals,” Richard finished.
“Yes. He’s a very sick man.” Coming from Bade, that was saying a lot.
“But why suppress the transformation?”
“So we could fit in without people knowing what we are. Without the council ever being involved.”
“So, you were against that idea, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“So, you guys don’t hang out?” Richard asked.
“The last time we saw each other he tried to kill me.” I gestured toward Bade.
“You bit my nipple off!”
“You bit his nipple off?!” Richard exclaimed.
“Yeah, why don’t you tell him about that?” Bade grumbled.
Before I could respond a werewolf face was pressed against the window. I didn’t recognize him in wolf form, but I knew his voice. “Let me in.” It was David. Bade opened the door and David stepped inside.
He wasn’t as big as Bade, but he was impressive. His fur was a darker golden brown and his eyes were amber.
“There’s too many of them,” he said. “We’ll have to turn back.”
“Am I the only one here who’s not hung like an elephant?” Richard asked.
Both werewolves just shook their heads and I asked, “How many are there?”
“Six. Well, five. I killed one,” David answered.
“What do they want?”
“You.” He pointed at me. “I had no idea all this shit was going on tonight.”
“Neither did I. Apparently, every alpha female in the pack who fancies themselves worthy of Marco’s affection has come out tonight to fight for it,” Bade said.
“Well, I had no idea that you were on his side.” I pointed to Bade.
“I’m not on anybody’s side. I was interested in the werewolf suppressant since I have such obvious symptoms of lycanthropy.” David gestured wildly at his physique.
“Fine. It doesn’t matter now anyway. Let’s head for the other side.”
I went back up the stairs and David followed me past Richard who was still sort of in shock. After bolting the door shut, Bade stepped over to the foot of the stairs. He was on eye level with Richard who was several steps up.
“No worries mate.” He put his arm around Richard and pointed at me. “She’s not hung like an elephant.”
David and I both snickered, but Richard looked horrified. Bade walked past Richard and patted him good naturedly on the back.
“You called me about Dr. Williams?” Bade asked David.
“Yes. I found out he’d been experimenting with Dr. Monroe’s snakes.”
“Sick. Who was he experimenting on?” I asked.
“Himself,” Richard answered. “That reminds me—”
He took off toward his own lab and reemerged with a can of gasoline as the rest of us rounded the corner. Careful to avoid the bloody smears across the tile, Richard made his way into Mallory’s lab. The rest of us followed. As we walked in Richard was leaning over the various tanks and dousing the snakes in gasoline.
“I hate snakes,” he said disgustedly as he took a match from her desk and set fire to the lot.
Bade was there instantly with a fire extinguisher. He had some difficulty maneuvering the handle with his enormous hands, but shortly began to put out the flames as he asked, “Are you crazy? If the fire alarm goes off the police will come. That’s all we need. There are werewolf carcasses on the grounds, remember?”
But the snakes were still burnt to a crisp, so Richard seemed satisfied. As we made our way back down the hall Richard looked around wide eyed at the carnage. I tried to steer him around the severed head and its surrounding gore, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“Is that a—? Oh my, God.”
Richard fell to his knees and heaved violently into a large plant sitting in the hall. Bade propped on the wall beside him.
“Sorry mate. I tried to spare you, but those crazy bitches outside gave us no choice.”
“I appreciate it,” Richard wheezed.
Bade extended one clawed hand. “Name’s, Bade Garren. I take it you’ve met Dr. Kane?”
Richard nodded and accepted the hand as he got to his feet.
“Richard Stacey,” he replied.
“Thought I might as well introduce myself, since you’ve seen me naked and all.” Bade shrugged and it looked awkward on a werewolf. Richard smirked and in spite of everything I think he felt better.
However, once he turned around he was careful not to look down again, but moved around the mess in the floor by touching his way along the wall.
“What’s up with the dick in the floor?” David asked.
Richard rolled his eyes at him. “Thanks a lot David. I was trying to avoid that subject.”
“What? You see a dick in the floor and you’re not allowed to ask questions?”
“The security guard was mutilated,” Bade informed him.
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. It was Jenna and Mallory’s doing.”
“Figures. Is that why you cut her head off?” David asked.
“Not me, mate.” Bade pointed in my direction as David said, “My hero.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “But I didn’t do it in his defense.”
“Is there anyone else in the building?” I asked Richard once he’d made his way around the gore.
He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I saw John’s car earlier, and I thought I heard Taylor.”
“Keith Taylor?” David asked. “What’s he doing here this time of night?”
“Probably helping another student get a scholarship,” Richard said nastily.
Chapter Nine
Just as we reached the door at the end of the hall we heard a thunderous noise downstairs followed by both male and female screams.
“Shit, they’re inside,” I said.
As we began to descend the stairs I asked, “David, will you help watch over Richard while Bade and I handle this?”
“Of course.”
“So, now you need my help, eh?” Bade asked.
“This is different. None of them are directly challenging me. Therefore, I am not allowing you to be my protector.”
“Smart little cookie,” he said with a wink.
“I’m not an easy catch,” I replied.
But my mind was no longer on Bade. I was looking through the slit
in the door at two large female werewolves. The door to the security office had been swung open and they were in the process of disemboweling Shawn.
A third werewolf stepped in front of the door to the stairs and I kicked it into the back of her head with a roar. I pulled the long machete from its sheath along my spine and stabbed the werewolf through the back of the head as I jumped her.
While I did this, Bade took on the two who were further desecrating the body of the security guard just a few feet away. He reached through the door and snatched one out by the fur on the back of her head. The she-wolf snarled at Bade as he flung her into the concrete wall as if she weighed nothing. The impact reverberated down the halls. John Simmons was the head of security and he picked that moment to come by and check on Shawn. He came in through the door Bade and I had used earlier. How he managed to stroll across campus with werewolves on the loose was beyond me. He took in Bade with a glance. He was quite the spectacle all his own, but Bade was now holding a struggling she-wolf in each hand. Both were restrained by the hair at the nape of their necks.
Unlike the other guards on campus, John had a gun and he pulled it on Bade.
“What the hell is going on here?” he asked shakily.
“John?” He looked at me like he hadn’t noticed me before. “John take cover.”
I retrieved my blade from the back of the she-wolf’s head where she lay spread-eagled almost at his feet and John whimpered. I looked behind me and saw Bade slamming the two smaller wolves together as if he were playing some bizarre type of symbols.
He paused and looked at John. “Put the gun down, jackass.”
John shook so badly that he nearly dropped the gun on cue. I suppose hearing a werewolf speak would do that to someone who’d never seen one before. Let alone have it speak to you with an Australian accent.
“John, please!” I finally got him to look at me. “We think Keith Taylor might still be in the building.”
John nodded.
“Get him.”
He nodded again. Keith’s office was only three doors down and I saw no other wolves down the hall. I didn’t want to take a chance on him shooting Bade. It wouldn’t be enough to kill him, but it would be plenty to provoke him into killing John.
Bade let go of one of the she-wolves as he slammed her into the floor with such force that the concrete underneath the carpet cracked. As he turned his back to deal with the other wolf, the one on the floor reached out to slash the back of his leg. Without thought as to whom it was I was protecting, I cut off her hand before her claws made contact. She howled in pain as I leaped onto her body and put all of my weight into the downward thrust of my silver machete. It came out the back of her skull with a crunch and I twisted it while she shook violently. The body of the other she-wolf fell limp beside me and I looked up at Bade. He’d torn her throat out and his muzzle was covered with blood.
“Where’s the little man with the gun?” he asked.
I pulled the machete free with a wet slicing sound and wiped it on the fur of the fallen monster as I replied, “I sent him down the hall to get Keith Taylor, if he’s here.”
A low growl escaped Bade’s throat and he took a step forward.
“You can’t eat them,” I added.
He looked genuinely disappointed. As David and Richard emerged from the doorway to the stairs where they’d been hiding Richard blurted out, “Sure you can! I hate those guys.”
I gave Richard a scornful look as Bade said, “I like him.”
David’s large body had blocked much of what just happened from Richard’s view. Bade reached over and closed the security office behind us before Richard’s head could turn in that direction.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Now can I eat the man with the gun?”
“No.”
Before we rounded the corner to Keith’s office I heard a scream. We all broke into a trot and found John standing frozen with fear in the doorway. Across the desk were the scattered remains of what was once a woman.
Bade reached between us and wrapped his large clawed hand over John’s gun, “Give me that,” he growled.
John began to shake again and let go of the gun. Bade passed the gun to Richard, “Hold onto this.”
I wasn’t sure giving Richard a gun was such a good idea, but I’d rather him have it than John. David and Richard stayed in the hall while Bade and I walked through the front office into the nicer room it connected to. Something moved in the bathroom at the back of the office and we both heard it. I snatched the door open and had a blade at his throat before I recognized Keith Taylor. He was in his boxer shorts and t-shirt cowering in a corner.
“What happened here?” I asked.
He looked up at me with a confused expression. “Aren’t you Lilith, Richard Stacey’s friend?”
I didn’t respond.
“You won’t tell anybody about this will you? Finding me here, I mean? Melissa and I were just—”
“Melissa is dead,” I interrupted coldly. “And you’ve got worse problems than getting caught banging a student.”
Keith started to shake as he said, “Those things, they killed her? I saw them come in and I—”
“You ran back here and left them to her,” I finished. “You disgust me,” I said as I turned my back on him. Keith Taylor could rot for all I cared.
“Left your girl to be eaten by werewolves, eh? Oh, that’s top notch, that is,” Bade drawled.
Apparently Keith had not seen Bade before then. He screamed and closed the bathroom door again.
“Chicken shit,” Bade said.
I turned around and kicked the door open, breaking its hinges.
“Get up you coward.”
“What are you doing?” Bade asked.
“He’s still a human being. I’m not leaving him to the wolves like he did her.” I gestured to the other room. “Get up you piece of shit.” I kicked him hard enough that my foot should have went up his butt.
Keith shook all over, but he got up.
“Your death will not be on my conscience,” I hissed.
He looked at Bade and shook more violently. Bade refused to step back so that Keith and I both brushed against his fur on our way out the door. In his defense, it was a small space for a large animal. But I think he just wanted the opportunity to frighten Keith.
When we entered the adjoining office and Keith saw Melissa’s remains he went ballistic. He screamed and clawed in an effort to get past me and back into his office, but Bade blocked the door. I stood my ground and continued to push him toward the exit. Keith Taylor was about six feet tall and slightly overweight. His hissy fit made his bulk even harder to maneuver out the door.
When he scratched my face, I’d had enough. I backhanded Keith so hard he flew out the door. By the time he hit the floor I was on him and I hit him again.
“How dare you touch me you bastard,” I growled.
I felt my eyes burn back to amber once more as I pulled Keith’s face toward mine.
“Look at me,” I whispered menacingly.
Keith whimpered, but he looked.
“I’m trying to save your life. Do you understand me?” I shook him hard with my last words.
“Yes,” he cried.
“If your fat ass ever touches me again—” I looked at Bade over my shoulder and then back to Keith. “I’ll let him eat you.” I nodded toward Bade and much to my satisfaction he growled on cue.
As I rose to my feet again Richard exclaimed, “What’s that smell?!”
“Loverboy here shit his pants,” I answered as I gestured toward Keith.
“There’s one left,” David said. “What do we do now?”
“I need to get them out of here.” I motioned to the three men in the hallway.
“We’ll escort you to your truck. David and I can take care of the last one.” Bade looked around before adding, “And we’ll clean up.”
“All right,” I said. “John? You came in that way, right?”
He nodded.
“Then I’d say that’s our best bet. We can go through those doors and straight through the woods to my truck.”
As we stepped outside once more the rain pounded us relentlessly. It was difficult to see even a few feet ahead. It was also impossible to detect a scent and if someone remained very still, they could easily get the drop on us.
We had just reached the edge of the grounds when the remaining she-wolf knocked John to the ground in front of me. Bade reached forward and flung her off. Unfortunately, part of John’s throat went with her. Keith took off across the wet grass, screaming like a banshee and slipping in the mud. I watched the she-wolf gain her footing again before running after him. I also watched Bade and Richard step out of her way. Richard I could understand, but Bade could have stopped her.
“Hurry, while she’s focused on him,” David said.
“I know he’s an asshole, but he’s still a person,” I objected.
“That’s debatable,” Richard said.
“I say we cut our losses,” Bade suggested.
As he spoke Bade stretched out his long arms and herded us all toward the woods. Just as we reached the trees horrible shrieking and tearing noises reached my ears and I knew Keith was beyond my help.
We tore through the woods at a break neck pace Richard couldn’t keep up with. We stopped halfway for him to catch his breath and Bade dropped to one knee in the mud.
“Get on,” he growled, “or you’ll never make it.”
“You want me to ride piggyback through the woods on a werewolf?”
“Yes. Don’t expect me to offer twice,” Bade snapped.
“What are my other options?”
“Richard—” A howl cut through the night before I could finish what I was about to say and Richard climbed on Bade’s back without further objection.
Once we reached the truck and got Richard safely inside David assured me that he and Bade would dispose of any evidence of werewolves. As I went to get in Bade grabbed my arm.
“What is it?” I asked as I looked back to him.
He hesitated a moment before replying, “Tell Marco ... we’re even.”
And just like that he was gone. I didn’t know what to make of what he’d just said, but there was no time to think it over.
Lilith Mercury, Werewolf Hunter Series (Boxed Set, Books 1-3) Page 44
