“I don’t know, but I want her dead.” They headed back upstairs. The unused nursery went along with the baby bump he’d spotted her sporting. They didn’t find much of value, until they rifled through the bedroom.
There, in a bedside table, Cameron found an old book.
“What the fuck is that?” Gerry asked. “And why are we wasting time? Are we going to chase them down, or what?”
“Yeah,” he said as he thumbed through the book. “But we need to go back to the hotel first.”
“What? Why?”
“I need to give this to Aliah.”
Sure enough, her eyes widened when he handed it to her. She thumbed through it. “Where did you find this?”
“It doesn’t matter. Is it what I think it is?”
She might have a lot of human lineage, but she’d also done a lot of research during their decades together, knew a lot about cockatrice esoterica, something they’d been able to leverage into earning potential in the past.
She nodded. “Yeah. Do you have any idea how much this is worth? How much they’ll pay to have one of them back?”
He grinned. “At least half a mil.”
Gerry let out a low whistle. “I get half, right?”
Cameron glared at him. “Why?”
“Dude, I helped you find it.”
Cameron wanted to argue with him, but he also needed the guy’s help tracking down the woman. “Fine. If you help me get that bitch. I want her dead.”
“Well let’s fucking get going.”
Cameron kissed his wife. Finally, it seemed, their fortune was turning around. “Love you.”
She grinned. “Love you, too.”
* * * *
Marston’s nerves felt drawn up tight. He stood watch all night, insisting Mercedes got some sleep first. She still felt confident the cockatrice wouldn’t cross into the wolves’ territory.
He wasn’t so sure. He’d paired up with enough cockatrice over the years to know that if one of them was pissed off or greedy enough, they’d do anything.
Case in point, their own hideout in wolf Clan territory.
Still, it would do no good to belabor the point.
He got a short nap the next morning when her voice woke him up. “Papi.”
Immediately he was on alert. He stood and joined her at the cave entrance. “What is it, the jaguars?”
“I don’t know. I gave them the GPS numbers for the big rockpile nearby. I didn’t want them right here at the cave.”
“Just in case?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want to do?”
She glanced back in the cave. “I left a roll of duct tape back there. Tape his mouth, his wrists, and his ankles.”
“Even with the manacles?”
“Yeah. Keep him quieter. I already dosed him up with a syringe of ketamine to knock him out for the morning.”
“Then what?”
“Let’s head out and look around.” She hoisted her backpack onto one shoulder.
They walked out, Mercedes leading the way. They were almost at the rock pile when they came face-to-face with two men who were definitely not jaguars.
She turned. “Run!”
Marston followed her through the woods, winding away from the cavern and north toward the river. Behind them, they heard a cockatrice scream, one of them shifting and lunging, smacking Marston to the side with a feathered claw.
He felt the breath knocked out of him but bolted after them. They’d reached another clearing and had cornered Mercedes where she’d tripped, her backpack on the ground next to her. The shifted one ripped a low branch off a tree and advanced on her.
Marston grabbed a rock and threw it at the back of the head of the unshifted one, knocking him to the ground.
Before he could recover, Marston jumped on him, grabbing his head and wrenching it, his neck snapping in a satisfying way.
“Run!” he screamed at her.
She scrambled to her feet, grabbed her pack, and took off into the woods.
The shifted one howled as he spotted his comrade dead on the ground. He turned and threw the branch at Mercedes’ back. Marston barely had time to register her scream before the creature was upon him.
He jumped to the side, knowing the cockatrice was underestimating his abilities. He might be an older wolf, but the past year with Mercedes had gotten him into the best condition he’d been in years. His hand landed on a rock and he grabbed it, ready.
When the cockatrice, rushed past him, Marston leapt on the cockatrice’s back. He hooked one arm around its neck, and used the other hand to pummel its skull with the rock.
The cockatrice let out an inhuman shriek as he thrashed, trying to shake Marston free.
Over and over, Marston slammed his fist into the cockatrice’s skull, bashing him, until finally it stumbled and fell to the ground.
His hand slick with the shifter’s blood, Marston felt fury take hold of his system. He dropped the rock and grabbed a larger one with both hands. Bringing it down onto the back of the cockatrice’s skull rewarded him a satisfying crunch.
The cockatrice started spasming under him as Marston showed no mercy, refusing to let up, blow after blow, until the shifter fell still and the back of his head was caved in.
He dropped the rock and rolled to his side, trembling, panting, adrenaline coursing through his system.
Mercedes!
He scrambled to his feet and followed her trail to where she’d fallen. She looked up at him, eyes rimmed with tears, the branch protruding from her chest.
Dropping to his knees next to her, he wanted to kiss her, caress her, but was afraid to touch her.
She winced. “I fucked this up, papi, didn’t I?”
“Shh, pet, don’t talk. It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. I can’t shift. The damn thing’s all the way through me.”
“I can try to pull it out and you can shift.”
She slowly shook her head. “He got me,” she rasped. One hand slowly snaked out and he grabbed it, bringing it to his cheek and kissing it despite all the blood covering him. “Listen to me,” she said. “You need to get you and the baby to the jaguars. They’ve got to be close. Find them.”
“What?” He didn’t want to contemplate what she was saying.
“I’m less than three weeks from my due date. She’ll live. You have to cut her out of me.”
Horror filled him. “No, I can’t.”
Resolution filled her gaze. “If you don’t, we both die. You cannot let our little girl die.”
“Mercedes, you’re going to make it.”
She squeezed his hand but it felt weak, like she was already leaving him. “Papi,” she whispered. “My mate.” A sad smile curved her lips. “I love you. Deep inside you, there’s a sad, broken man trying to make amends. Better soul than my soul, that’s for sure. Ortega Montalvo promised me in Yellowstone. Sanctuary.” She coughed, letting out a weak cry. A bubble of pink passed through her lips.
He tried to focus on her beautiful eyes and not that.
“He told me, me and mine.” She weakly squeezed his hand again. “Take her there. Hand over Abernathy when Montalvo gets here and ask for sanctuary. He’ll protect you.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re going with us. I won’t lose you.”
“I’m sorry, papi. You already have.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “Promise me you’ll raise her yourself. Don’t let anyone take her from you.”
His heart breaking, he nodded. “I promise.”
“Okay.” She took a pained breath. “Promise me something else, please?”
“What?”
“Lie to her. Tell her I was a good person.” She forced her eyes open again. “Please don’t tell her everything I did. Or about Lenny and Edgar. Tell her she’s a wolf. Don’t tell her the other stuff.” She brought her free hand up to her belly. “Please, papi,” she whispered. “And tell her I loved her and wanted her. Please.”
His vision doubled
as tears filled his eyes. “I will. I love you, pet. My beautiful mate. I love you so, so much. You gave me a second chance at life.”
“Don’t fuck it up.”
He barked a laugh. “I won’t. I promise you, I won’t.”
She shifted her eyes toward her backpack. “There’s a knife in there. Get it.”
“But—”
“I want to see her.” Her voice was fading. “Please, papi. I want to see her.” Another cough, another spray of pink. “I can’t feel anything down there, anyway. I think the fucker got my spine. Please, I need to see she’s okay, that he didn’t hurt her.”
He gently put her hand down and lunged for the backpack. He dumped it out on the ground and found the knife. Hands trembling, he pulled her bloodied shirt up and worked her pants down her hips.
When he looked up, she was watching him. “Do it.” Her voice sounded as if coming from a thousand miles away. “I love you.” Her eyes closed.
“I love you, too, mate.”
He shoved away all other thoughts. How fucking unfair this was, that he had another chance at love and life and happiness, just to have it once again yanked away from him. That he’d had a chance to make amends for some of his Karmic debt, and this…
He swallowed and touched the tip of the blade to her flesh.
Beneath her skin, he saw the baby move.
Tentatively, he pressed harder, afraid of going too deep and hurting the baby. But a moment later he was through to the amniotic sac, gore and fluid gushing over his hands as he put the knife aside and carefully removed the baby from her womb.
At first, she lay silent in his arms. Then he thought about it and tipped her upside down while he patted her bum.
She let out a cry.
He looked up at Mercedes. Her eyelids fluttered again, like the wings of a dying bird. “She…okay?”
“Yes, love,” he said, sobbing. “She’s beautiful.” He held her up so Mercedes could see her, reaching for one of her hands and lifting it, stroking their daughter’s cheek with her fingers.
“Colleen,” she said as her eyes fell closed.
“Colleen?”
She nodded. “Send Lacey a picture and tell her her name. She’ll know why. Love you.”
He tightly grasped her fingers in his hand. “Love you, too. Rest well, mate. I’ll see you again one day, I hope.”
Her eyes went still, remaining partly open. Her hand went completely slack in his.
He wanted to sob, to rage, to scream, but the baby in his arms cried out again and brought him back to his purpose.
Working one-handed, with the baby cradled against his chest, he scavenged through the bag’s contents, not finding anything to use for tying off the umbilical cord. Then his gaze settled on Mercedes’ feet, still clad in her hiking boots. It was difficult one-handed, but he managed to get the laces removed from her left one and used it to tie the cord off so he could cut it. He’d just managed to get the cord severed when the sound of several people storming through the brush startled him.
He didn’t have time to react. The three jaguars emerged in the clearing. The lead one, Ortega Montalvo, shifted into human form and advanced.
“What the hell!” the man said as he stared, wide-eyed, at the scene.
“That fucking cockatrice did it,” Marston said, holding the baby cradled against him. “Did you see their bodies? I fucking killed them.” Now he didn’t care if they saw him crying. “They killed my mate.”
Montalvo moved closer, then froze as he studied the tableaux. “You are Mercedes’ mate?”
“Yes.” He couldn’t bring himself to look at her now, wanted to remember the way she’d been in life, vibrant and mischievously evil, and all his.
“Why shouldn’t I kill you right now?” the jaguar asked. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because…” He had to play both aces, for his daughter’s sake if not for his own. “Because I can take you to Abernathy. Right now. Mercedes told me you promised in Yellowstone to give her and hers sanctuary if we ever needed it. Well, I need it. We need it.”
The other two shifters changed back into human form and stared at their brother in stunned silence.
Montalvo’s fury thundered silently within him, his expression growing darker as he stared at Marston.
Eventually, Montalvo took in a deep breath and let it out again. “You are her baby’s father? That baby’s father?”
Marston nodded, desperately, protectively clutching her to him.
Montalvo raised his head to the sky and let out a ferocious scream before returning his attention to Marston. He jabbed a finger at him. “I will offer you both protection and sanctuary until she is of age. At that point, you will leave and if you ever cross my path again I might not be so generous. Her safety I will guarantee for her entire life, if she is in my territory.”
He nodded.
“Where is Abernathy?”
“I need to take care of her. I need to wrap her in something. I can’t let her get cold. Please, I’m begging you.”
Montalvo looked at one of his brothers and jerked his head back the way they’d come, toward where the dead cockatrice lay. They immediately left to scavenge the cockatrices’ clothes.
Montalvo advanced on him and knelt down, his voice soft and deadly. “I am a man of my word. However, if you abuse my hospitality while you are under my protection, you will regret it.”
Marston nodded.
“Where is that filthy animal?”
“Please, at least let me get the baby covered. And…and we need to bury her.”
“My brothers will come back and do that. After you take me to Abernathy.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Four hours later, Marston sat in a hotel room with Juan Montalvo, the youngest of the three jaguar brothers.
After Juan and Ricardo had returned with the cockatrices’ clothes, which Marston had used as makeshift swaddling for the baby, he led them back through the woods to the cave.
Ortega walked in alone and emerged a moment later, vicious triumph on his face. Then he’d ordered Juan to take Marston back to the car and drive him to their hotel. To buy Marston whatever he needed for himself and the baby, and to spare no expense.
Now, freshly showered and dressed only in clean boxers, and with a freshly bathed infant sleeping soundly in his arms, her tummy full of formula, Marston lay stretched out on the bed as he stared down into her face. She looked so much like her mother it threatened to rip his heart out of his chest.
Colleen.
He vaguely remembered something about that. About a Seer Abernathy had murdered long ago. He didn’t bother questioning how Mercedes had known about it. He suspected there were many things he’d never know about his mate. Many secrets she took to the grave.
If it wasn’t for the baby in his arms, he’d gladly put a gun to his own head and end it all. Finally, he’d had something good in his pathetic life worth living and fighting for.
And now, she was gone.
Leaving him with the only other thing in his life worth living and fighting for.
Worth dying for.
Juan Montalvo regarded Marston with far less arrogance and hatred than he had just a few short hours ago when they first found Marston in the woods.
“Does she have a name yet?” he asked, his tone low in deference to the sleeping infant.
Marston nodded. “Colleen Elsbeth Mercedes Hill,” he softly replied, not wanting to wake her.
The jaguar nodded.
Marston tipped his head back against the headboard. Their room was now filled with packages of diapers, baby clothes, a portable crib, bottles, formula—everything he’d immediately need to take care of her until they got to Bolivia. She was dressed in a pink onesie from a package of them. The jaguar, unsure of sizes, had bought one size too large and it was baggy on her.
Although, if she proved healthy and hale, Marston knew she’d soon grow into it—and out of it again.
A quick rap on th
e door caught their attention. Juan got up and answered it, letting in Ortega.
Ortega wore a ferocious grin. He strode over to Marston and, mindful of the sleeping baby in his arms, lightly slapped Marston on the lower leg in a friendly way. He shook his finger at Marston. “Until she is eighteen, my friend. And then, as long as you do not vex me, I shall let you live in peace and consider our business complete. If she chooses to stay, you are welcomed to stay, or to come and go in safety, as long as you do not cross me.”
“‘Friend’?”
“Ha!” He shook his head. “‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Have you never heard that?”
“Yes, I have.”
“You are also now a very rich man.”
“What?”
“The bounty I offered on that bastard’s head. I am a man of my word. It is yours. All yours. I would strongly suggest you hold on to it in case you leave my care.”
The jaguar pointed at the baby. “You and she will live in my house as my guests and I will see to both of your needs, including her schooling. She will have the best of everything and never want, I swear it.” He dropped his voice. “Around her and Fiona, my granddaughter, we will never, ever speak of what happened. We will simply say her mother—your mate—was killed by cockatrice, and I brought you both to my home to protect you. I told Fiona that Abernathy was actually working with the cockatrice. You do not ever tell her the truth. That is one condition I will never sway from. You break that, I will evict you immediately. Do I make myself clear?”
Marston nodded, his oath to Mercedes painfully fresh in his mind. He hadn’t even had time to properly grieve her yet. “Actually, you’re closer than you realize. Rodolfo is part cockatrice, it turns out.”
“Ah. That explains his stink.”
Marston nodded again, exhaustion quickly threatening to take him.
Apparently the jaguar wasn’t completely without compassion. His expression softened. “I personally helped bury her,” he said. “I promise, we were gentle and treated her with respect and care. I said a few words over her as well. If you wish, before we leave, I will take you back there to say good-bye.”
“No. I’d rather remember her alive. But thank you. I know you didn’t have to do that, and I truly appreciate it.”
A Wolf in the Fold [Triple Trouble 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 35
