His resolve didn’t make what he’d endured any easier, though.
Every time he thought it was over, the pain would begin fresh, some new and horrific assault inflicted on his body. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hang on, would lose stretches of time, presumably because he’d fainted. Those stretches of time seemed to get longer and longer, his body growing weaker. He could practically feel himself beginning to shut down, but he struggled to remain strong – for Dean, and for all the other lives hanging in the balance.
He hovered now in that state between unconsciousness and wakefulness, his entire body a mass of pain. He was desperately nauseated and thirsty at the same time, and he’d lost control of his bodily functions more than once since his capture. But John remained relentless, uncaring of the mess or the smell, and seemingly tireless.
“Is this how you repay us for taking care of you?” Coop had asked him near the beginning, when he’d been stronger.
“I would rather be dead than know a whelp took pity on me. You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
Tied up, bleeding, and broken, Coop struggled with the knowledge that John Sinclair might have been right.
♦ ♦ ♦
Coop lifted his head slightly when he heard the voices. They were soft, distant, perhaps in a different room. Or maybe his ears had stopped working correctly.
No, there it was again. A second voice. He didn’t recognize it but, then again, all sounds had a muffled quality to them now, like trying to hear with his ears stuffed with cotton.
The voices became raised, heated, and he began to make out some words. The second voice, obviously that of a man, sounded angry. “What the fuck, Sinclair? Have you gone off the deep end?”
“This here is that goddamn whelp’s friend, the one who held me hostage after I got bit.”
There was a pause and, when the voices started again, they were closer now, more distinct. They were in the same room, and he could feel their eyes on him even though his own were swollen shut. “You did a number on him.”
“Sure did, but he’s a tough son of a bitch. Wouldn’t give up the location of their hideout or what their plans were up there.”
“You’re a goddamned idiot, Sinclair.”
“Mind your tongue, boy, or I’ll cut it out of your stupid skull.”
“Anytime you want to go, old man.” There came a pause, then a frustrated sigh. “I think I know where the place is. It’s upstate, maybe an hour north of the city. I’ve been there. It’s locked up tight, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about it.”
“‘Pretty sure’ doesn’t sound good enough.”
“I know it’s the right place. It’s owned by Dean Mason and, unless I’m wrong, beneath all the cuts and bruises, this is his good buddy Cooper Maddox.”
“I didn’t get no last names out of Rowan, just Dean and Coop, but yeah, I guess that matches up.”
“I had a hell of a time tracking it down, but I’m sure it’s the place. I could feel him in there.”
“Describe it.”
“Big house, like a mansion in the middle of the woods. The lot’s overgrown, but the gate was well-maintained.”
“Big circular driveway out front?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds like the place, all right.” John sounded triumphant. “Goddamn it all, Kane, you actually found it.”
Kane? The other hunter. Coop tried to will his eyelids open, to see if he’d been right and this was the man who’d been casing their home, but they were swollen shut.
“Yeah, if you’d waited, I could have saved you the trouble,” the second man, Kane, said.
“Wasn’t nothing this fucker didn’t deserve. He was helping a damn whelp.”
“Guess I was wrong about him.” Kane’s voice sounded closer as if he were leaning down inspecting his quarry. “I thought he might be a whelp, too, but being here now, I’m not getting that feeling from him.”
“Nope. This one’s human, or as human as a bastard wolf lover can be.”
Another pause. “So what’re you going to do with him? He’s wanted for questioning, but there’s no way I can take him in like this.”
“You could shoot the bastard and claim self-defense.”
“The way he looks?” Kane asked.
John gave a grunt of disgust. “Fine, then. I’ll take care of it.”
“Whatever you do, do it right, Sinclair. If wind of this reaches my colleagues at the station, you’re on your own. I’m not putting my neck on the line if you get sloppy.”
“I said I’ll take care of it. Ain’t my first rodeo, boy.”
“You really are a piece of work, old man.” Coop heard movement. When Kane’s voice came again, it was distant, as if he’d moved away. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it quick, and do it right.”
“Don’t you worry. I got something special planned for our friend here.”
From the conviction in both men’s voices, Coop knew he was a dead man.
♦ ♦ ♦
Dean checked the security footage one more time. The man Coop had spotted on the feed hadn’t returned, which he had thought a good thing. Far more worrisome was that Coop was long overdue back from his trip to meet Ro in the city.
That worried him for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fear that his friend had given into the temptation to start using again. He didn’t think that likely, but the past few months had taken their toll, and the additional worry of having a hunter possibly stalking them definitely had not helped Coop’s stress level.
Of greater concern, though, possibly the thing Dean feared most, especially with the full moon looming, was that Coop had abandoned him. That Dean had pushed his friend too far and he’d simply given up on him.
Dean realized he was letting his imagination run wild, but he couldn’t help himself. The wolf clawed at his door, so to speak, and alone in the mansion he found himself so on edge as to be jumping at nearly every shadow.
He tried contacting Ro on her burner again, but the phone had been turned off the past few days. His calls went directly to voicemail and all texts unanswered. Perhaps the craziest thought that kept flitting through his head was that Ro and Coop had run off together. After all, they’d spent quite a bit of time together when she’d been here, even more time than Dean had spent with her. And they sure as hell bickered like an old married couple.
It was stupid jealousy, plain and simple – made even worse by the cycle of the moon. His hormones were all out of whack along with just about everything else.
No, if there was any chemistry to be had, it was between him and the hunter. There was little denying it. If their last meeting had proven anything, it was that when they were together, even a casual touch was electric. He sensed that she knew it, too, could see it in the quickening of her breath and the darkening of her eyes. If his years of debauchery had taught him nothing else, he knew when a girl was aroused.
The wolf in him seemed to have sensed it also, and it had taken all his self-control not to throw her on the ground and tear her clothes to shreds to get at the tempting flesh beneath.
Dean shook his head, sending those thoughts scattering to the darker corners of his mind, and tried to refocus on the problem at hand. His friend was missing, that was the important thing, and Ro was the last person to have contacted him.
Even though there was still a ton of work left, to prepare for a possible visit from that other hunter, he needed to find Coop, make sure he was safe. Together they could weather the storm ahead. Doing so alone, well, it was too terrifying to consider.
Taking a trip into the city this close to the full moon would be a huge risk, but it was one he had to take.
31
Late morning on the day of the full moon, Ro was edgy with anxiety. Soon after her father had left to work on his new case, she’d noticed that her burner phone was missing. She couldn’t remember the last place she’d used i
t, and it was nowhere to be found either in the apartment or at the hospital. She wondered if she’d been pickpocketed, but thought the possibility unlikely. It would take someone with ninja-like skills to pickpocket a hunter.
Upon discovering that she no longer had the device, she’d felt a sort of emptiness. It had been her only tether back to Dean and Coop, their one secure way of communicating – however sparingly they’d done so – and now that was gone. She couldn’t risk using her regular phone. She supposed she could always catch a ride up to the mansion to check on them, but she had no solid reason to make the trip. Besides, that would be ridiculous – a hunter going to see if a werewolf was okay, maybe to hang out together for a while and shoot the shit.
Maybe it was better this way. A clean break. That way, she would be less tempted to contact them and put either of them in more danger. It might also serve to get Dean out of her subconscious, where he’d continued to torture her with sweet temptations via her dreams.
Yes, this way was better. She couldn’t worry about them, not now when she needed to focus on the Los Colmillos raid. Both of them were adults. They could take care of themselves.
Kane had assured her a few days back that everything was a go for that evening, having apparently been put in charge of the raid by the Guild.
He’d told her he had a group of hunters inbound. She was supposed to meet them all at a prearranged checkpoint come sundown. Kane would take point with Ro at the flank. He’d been vague on the number of reinforcements allotted, leading her to wonder if the Guild leadership had been as skeptical about her information as her father had been. Still, if he screwed this up, it would be on his shoulders, not hers. That alone made her feel better he’d been assigned leadership on this one. Kane was all about himself. He wouldn’t knowingly hang himself out to dry, not with this big of a potential score at stake.
Her father was the one wildcard still left. In his note, he’d said he would be back for the full moon, but there hadn’t been any sign of him since. She tried not to worry, but in the back of her head, she couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d gone missing. She had to trust him, though. He was a grown man, an elder hunter, and her father. Besides, the day was still relatively young.
Ro glanced down at her phone, half surprised Kane hadn’t started texting her yet. She had the location of where they were supposed to meet, but it wasn’t like him to not try to weasel in an early meeting with her alone, another lame attempt to get into her pants. She hoped he was taking this seriously, because letting that cocky attitude of his lead the way would surely end badly for them.
She wondered if she should have contacted the Guild herself to protest his assignment, but as one of the younger hunters in the state, she had little clout amongst the elders. As both a man and a member of the police force, Kane was much more respected, regardless of the fact that he had some major asshole tendencies.
But then again, asshole tendencies are considered a plus with most of that group.
She was shaken from her thoughts by a chime from her phone. A glance at the readout showed a text from an unknown number. We need to meet. Same place as last time. NOW!
Who the hell was sending her this...?
Ro rolled her eyes. Goddamned idiot! Hadn’t Dean figured out yet that meeting in the alley was stupid, and texting her on her personal cell was the height of idiocy? If she wasn’t so eager to see him again, she’d be tempted to ram her fist through his perfect teeth.
She stopped herself. His looks, his strong arms, his sky blue eyes, they should have been the last things on her mind, especially this day. But now that the cat was out of the bag, that she’d allowed herself to acknowledge that there was some pull between them, it seemed those thoughts would no longer be contained.
Grrr! This is so ... not right!
Mentally slapping herself, she threw on her coat and headed out before she could think better of it, at least partially hoping that he said something stupid that would give her an excuse to deck him.
♦ ♦ ♦
Ro felt his presence well before she saw him. The electric pull between them was almost intoxicating but tinged with an undercurrent that called for violence. It was weird to want to jump someone’s bones yet still want to break them.
She saw him in the shadows and was about to give him a piece of her mind when he stopped her with a glare. “I know what you’re about to say, that I shouldn’t be here and I shouldn’t have texted your phone, but you weren’t responding on the other one.”
“I lost it at some point,” she snapped, annoyed both at herself and at his accusatory tone.
His expression became alarmed. “You lost it? How?”
“Don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter now. What’s going on? Why are you here?”
“It’s Coop. I wanted to know if he seemed okay when you met with him, because he hasn’t been...”
“Huh? I didn’t meet with him.”
“You didn’t? He said you got his text.”
“I haven’t heard from either of you since you told me about the big werewolf rave tonight.”
By the look that crossed Dean’s face, she knew whatever he was going to say wouldn’t be good. “He messaged you a few days ago, wanted to meet.”
“What for?”
Rather than answer her, he asked, “So you didn’t get it?”
She shook her head, a deep dread filling her stomach. “Like I just said, I never received a text from him.”
“So you don’t know where he is?”
“No.” When he didn’t reply, she asked in a whisper, “He said he was coming here to meet me?”
“Yeah. He told me he was leaving to see you, but he never came back. That was three days ago.”
Three days. That was right around when her Dad had disappeared. She could feel the blood leaving her face, the tips of her fingers going cold. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“What? What is it?”
“My dad left suddenly that same day, said he was working on a new case. He’s been gone since then.”
“Did he know we’ve been in contact?”
“I didn’t think so, but...” She let the implication hang, fear chilling her. That had also been around the time she realized the phone was missing.
“Shit!” For a moment, Dean’s eyes darkened, and she could almost see the red of the wolf peeking through. But when he took a deep breath and he looked at her again, he was still himself. “I don’t mean to assume the worst about your father, but...”
Ro held up her hand. There was no need to soften the blow. “Just say it.”
“Where would he have taken him?”
“I ... don’t know.” Her mind went blank, the fear and disbelief clouding any coherent thought.
“You have to think, come on.” He grasped her upper arms, the movement jolting her from her malaise. “Please, Ro!”
It was as if an electric current passed from him to her, causing her to gasp involuntarily. It did, however, have the result of clearing her mind for a moment. “He ... wouldn’t have gone to the Guild. It would have taken too long and they have protocols in place for dealing with wolf ... thralls, for lack of a better term.”
“Thralls?”
“Their language, not mine. Either way, I know my dad. And there’s no way their methods would have been enough for him if he was in a mood.”
“So then where else...?”
Ro took a deep breath, closing her eyes. After a moment, she opened them again. “His office. It’s the only other place I know of.”
“No offense, but he doesn’t strike me as a suit and tie guy.”
“He works as a PI in his spare time. It’s a little shithole of a place. I let the rent lapse when Dad went missing, but I doubt anyone else has moved in. It’s sort of a dump.”
“Are you certain?”
The more she thought of it, the more she was. “If he wanted someplace private, then yes. He
had it soundproofed and the neighbors are not the type to knock on the door and offer you peach cobbler.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then I have no idea. My dad doesn’t tell me everything.”
Dean nodded as if resigned that this was their only shot. “Where is it?”
She started to tell him the address, but then said, “Screw it, I’m going with you. I need to see for myself.”
For perhaps the first time since they’d met, he didn’t argue with her – just led her out of the alley to where his motorcycle was parked and waiting.
♦ ♦ ♦
They didn’t speak as they headed downtown, their only communication being when Ro indicated he should make a turn.
At last, after what felt like an eternity, they arrived at the office. Dean parked behind the building and they walked together to the entrance. The front door was locked, but Ro remedied that with a swift kick.
“Whoops,” she said dispassionately, then led him up the center stairwell to the second floor landing where a narrow hallway housed a row of doors.
Most were covered with discolored frosted glass, except one that was solid wood. The words John Sinclair, Private Investigator could be seen in faded lettering on it.
Ro stopped in front of the door then paused to look left and right. All was quiet in the hall. She tried the knob, found it surprisingly unlocked, and pushed the door open.
The stench of urine, vomit, and feces immediately assaulted her nose and left her gagging. She briefly wondered – hoped – that perhaps a vagrant had been squatting there.
That thought was quickly dispelled with she spied the stained tarps covering the floor. Ro had to swallow down the gorge rising in her throat as she stepped through a small swarm of fat houseflies hovering lazily in the room.
The main room was empty, so she moved to the small storage room she knew was in the back. Despite her years of training, she gasped when she stepped in.
Blood smeared the floor and walls, and the smell of excrement was even stronger here. A single chair occupied the room. Blood was pooled beneath it. “Oh my God,” she whispered, not wanting to comprehend the sight before her, not wanting to understand what its presence meant.
Lycan Moon: An Urban Fairy Tale (Lycan Evolution Book 1) Page 23
