His suspicions were confirmed when he entered the empty bedroom with the window wide open: Uncle Damien had also made an early escape.
***
“Who in their right mind scales to the top of a skyscraper to reach the penthouse in another building?” Cyn asked Kaden.
He should’ve been prepared for such questions, but didn’t want to think about what they meant.
“Someone who isn’t afraid of heights,” he murmured.
Namely, Uncle Damien.
Downtown Vancouver buzzed around them. Rush hour had ended a while ago, but light traffic remained.
From across the street to the Cottonwood Club Hotel, Kaden scoped out the building. Kaden, Zach, Sinister, and Cyn arrived not too long ago to bring an end to the madness. Somehow, someway, they had to get Damien and Ty out of there.
“You sure you want to go after Ty in the parking garage?” he asked her.
Cyn was a strong hunter who could hold her own, but if he had his way, she would be back in the apartment waiting for him. Unfortunately, the situation required all hands on deck.
“Oh yeah, the roof is all yours, pal.” She glanced upward and shook her head.
He had to agree. No one in their right mind would take the same route Damien had. Half of the time, he questioned whether Uncle Damien was in his right mind.
Cyn wrapped her arms around him and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “I don’t like goodbyes so I’ll just say, ‘See you.’” She tried to leave his side and he wouldn’t let her go. “You could wait for me to return and I’d take care of Ty?”
“Not happening. I got this.”
He expected as much, since Ty was her little brother. She tugged free. “Besides, you need to watch your ass, since you’re about to become Spiderman going from one building to another.” She left his side and headed down the street to join Sinister and Zach, who had given them a moment of privacy.
Just watching her leave filled him with apprehension. Was this the right thing to do? Leaving her behind to take care of Ty? She had fully recovered and had settled into her werewolf skin well, but he didn’t know what waited in the parking garage with the Cerulean clan going head to head with the Red clan.
She is stronger than you can even imagine, he reminded himself as he headed to the high-rise condo building next door. She is the most stubborn person you’ve ever met, he reminded himself as he rode up the elevator toward the roof.
By the time he reached the roof, the sun had set and the sky was dark purple with hints of pink. The wind whistled in his ears and the smell of the sea reached his nostrils. He stood on the edge and glanced below.
Kaden had never been afraid of heights. There were other things to fear that were far more frightening than falling. One could control falling, but the actions of others were another matter. He walked along the edge. So how did Uncle Damien get down to the Cottonwood Club roof? He grinned when he spotted the scaffolding for the window washers. Clever Uncle Damien got a ride.
Usually, the scaffolding was rolled up to the top, but someone had ridden it down to the thirtieth floor below, which meant Uncle Damien jumped from the thirtieth floor down to the Cottonwood Club roof. At least ten stories.
Kaden whistled. Now that was a tall order. Damien had some years on him and that meant experience as well.
He nimbly climbed onto the scaffolding and rode down the rope to the window-washing ledge.
Jumping ten stories was nice and all, but he noticed the window washer platform could go down about five more floors.
Uncle Damien always was the show off...
At the twenty-fifth floor, Kaden took a deep breath and made the leap. The building came at him far faster than he’d anticipated, but he was ready. He landed with ease and rolled to stand. He glanced around him and saw the hotel roof was empty, but Uncle Damien’s scent was here. Kaden followed it.
At the far end of the roof, he spotted the caved-in doorway. From there, he entered the hotel.
Chapter 11
Cyn and Zach, with Sinister not far behind them, walked into the well-lit basement garage at the Cottonwood Club Hotel. Down at the far end of the garage, a large window of glass led to a set of elevators to the hotel. Cyn’s gaze swept over the place. There weren't many hiding places among the rows of cars. Cameras were perched in the corners. How the hell did Ty expect to ambush the Ceruleans?
At her side, Sinister assessed the space as well.
“Two emergency stairwells. A few pylons to hide behind,” he grunted.
If the Ceruleans expected Kaden to park on the second level and enter the hotel through those doors, that would be the ideal place to take Kaden out.
The trio darted to the closest wall and moved from car to car. Not many vehicles flowed in and out around them. To Cyn, the ones she passed smelled like money. The expensive cologne and polished leather seats practically stabbed at her nose. The guests shelled out quite a few bucks to stay here.
Along the way, Cyn observed a white van going by.
Vince was in the passenger seat. Lovely.
Now that wasn’t a face she expected to see. Kaden had told her he'd left Vince in the back of a semi hauling sex toys to Southern California. That greasy bastard should be at the beach by now, but instead, he’d be a nuisance bent on revenge.
When the van parked at the far end of the garage, two men dressed in casual clothes ambled out while Vince, and a few others, continued to wait in the van. The guys who got out chatted with each other about how much they couldn’t wait to finish such a shitty job.
If they were smart, they’d forget about this shitty job and just go home. The garage was too wide open. Only a fool would come down here with all this light.
A thunderous sound rumbled from inside the building, shaking everything around them. After that, a sharp pop broke the glass windows to the hotel elevators. Debris from the ceiling fell to the floor in front of the elevators.
Then all the lights went out.
***
Kaden saw the first dead body before the lights went out. One of the Baker guards, posted to watch the hallway to the roof, had been slaughtered like a small animal. A single emergency light flickered to life as he approached the mangled form. The werewolf’s legs were bent at awkward angles and the man’s mouth was open wide as if he’d been in the middle of a scream when Damien had found him.
He swallowed and kept going. Only once in his life had his father warned him about Damien’s true nature. The conversation had been a casual one while Naomi was playing with her toys not too far away, but Kaden had caught the warning hidden within the words.
“I don’t regret making Damien what he is,” his father had said at the time. “But now that decades have passed, I never anticipated what time and the past would do to a man. Most men should die after such a traumatic experience, but I let him live.” His dad sighed. “I released a wild dog from his cage and let him run free in the hopes that love and time would heal him.”
Many times, Kaden thought Damien had found peace, but as he found another two bodies in pieces on the stairwell to the next floor, he questioned that thought. The tiny dim light in the stairwell didn’t hide the carnage from his eyes or keep him from smelling the wet, coppery scent that had doused the walls.
“I want my revenge,” Damien had said to him.
Was this revenge or slaughter? All these guys were most likely hired men and not true members of the Baker pack. They were casualties.
The hallway led to the service stairwell. Kaden plodded down the stairs, expecting to run into someone, but the path was clear the whole way. As much as he tried to find a path that led to a floor, all the doors were locked.
Finally, he came to a door that was open a crack. Open a crack was the wrong term. Someone had ripped the door open with claws. The scent of desperation was all over the place. Someone had fought to keep the door shut and Uncle Damien had forced the door open.
Through the doorway, he reached the landing to the pe
nthouse suites. Two double doorways at the end of a large foyer with a single elevator. The sconces on the walls were out, but a single emergency light over a mirror was on. Shadows danced. Then a scream filled the air: a woman’s screech that turned into a choked growl.
No, it couldn’t be.
Even though it had been a long time since he’d heard Hayley scream, the sound was unmistakable.
He rushed to the sound from the left. The door wasn’t locked, but it wasn’t exactly unblocked either.
Dead bodies were in the way.
Once through the door, he staggered from the sight.
At the far end of the room, he spotted Hayley and Uncle Damien.
Bodies littered the floor. Splattered blood wet the floor like a slaughterhouse kill floor. The stench of death smacked him in the face, and the wolf within him wanted to cower, to force him to turn away from what was unnatural.
The gun Hayley held quivered in her outstretched hand. Had she emptied the clip yet?
The couches had been overturned and bullet holes filled the sides. But the men who had pulled the guns had had their limbs ripped off from the werewolf who lumbered toward Hayley. The only thing Kaden recognized was the crimson-stained white hair all over his body. Damien could barely be considered human with bloodshot red eyes and fingertips extended to sharp claws. Only his mouth remained in a form close to being human.
Damien’s mouth extended into a wide grin, revealing bloodstained teeth.
***
Instead of darkness swallowing her whole, the garage blossomed into view. The emergency lights left little to be desired, but in this new body, she could hear the hammering of Zach’s heartbeat next to her, his muffled curse as he pulled his gun from behind his back.
Sinister was a bit too calm.
“Fish in a barrel,” Cyn whispered.
“Bang. Bang. Bang,” Zach replied.
Sinister chuckled.
The first pop came from the general direction of the elevators. From there, Cyn spotted Ty, who was using night vision googles, heading toward the nearest emergency light. Once he took out all the lights, the death games would begin.
This wasn’t a new tactic for the Red hunting clan. Flush the enemy to the optimal position and then take them out.
“We need to get him the hell out of here before the Baker pack’s security gets involved.” She tapped and pointed toward the direction of the elevators. With the power out, any reinforcements would come from the stairwell to the main building.
Unless the explosion took out the stairs, too. Worry about that later.
“Take point near the garage entrance and cover me when I bring Ty back,” she whispered to Zach.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
Sinister rolled his eyes and disappeared first to find an ideal cover point.
Cyn left his side next, racing from car to car. As she veered around a corner, she had to dodge a Cerulean who was stumbling to find his way back to the white van. Another nearby light went out and the man bumped into her shoulder.
“What the hell?” his muffled curse was subdued as she grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. With a hard shove, she rammed his head into the closest vehicle.
“Don’t move,” she whispered to the knocked out man on the ground.
Cyn hurried to follow the path of knocked out lights. Ty was getting closer to the elevators as he took out more Ceruleans on the way. Once they heard gunfire, they scattered like frightened cockroaches. Many of them fired into the dark, searching for their attacker.
At the far end of the floor, near where the Ceruleans were trapped behind cars, shadows gathered behind the broken glass.
The Baker pack reinforcements had arrived.
Oh, shit, no.
“Damn it, Ty,” she grunted. She leapt over a vehicle. Stealth be damned.
Two Ceruleans fired at the shifting shadows she created, but they missed as she reached Ty.
Just a few more steps. He was taking out Cerulean clan members with no mercy.
“Somebody’s shooting at us. Cover our asses!” someone yelled to the Baker pack.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted one of the Baker pack members storming through the broken glass door with something large in his hands. He placed an RPG-7 onto his shoulder and Cyn’s insides turned to liquid.
Oh, no freakin’ way.
The fish in the barrel had missiles.
There was no way they’d avoid getting hit. She just reacted. No thought. No second-guessing. She grabbed Ty by the arm and pushed him toward the closest car. Bright lights blossomed to their left as an SUV was blown to bits. Blinding lights forced her eyes shut. Her ears painfully popped. The explosion battered her backside as scorching heat fanned her back. She covered Ty with her body and took the brunt.
When everything quieted, her ears rang, but she forced herself to move. Gotta keep moving, Cyn.
Holy hell, everything hurt. Each inhale burned. Blood coursed down one ear. Her trembling fingers reached for the back of her neck and found scorched bits of hair.
Some of my hair is gone, she thought.
But Ty was alive.
He shook his head as if to jolt himself out of shock and she grabbed his arm to lead him past the thick smoke into safety. With each step, she found the energy to go faster, until the point where she was dragging him. Zach and Sinister weren’t far behind them and covered their rear.
By the time they reached the garage entrance, a crowd had gathered. Cyn shouldered her way to the sidewalk and pulled Ty down the street. Two blocks later, she veered into an alley. Collapsing seemed the best plan of action, but she kept going.
“Keep moving,” she grunted.
“Where’s Zach?” Ty asked. He sounded funny. He must have a popped eardrum, too.
“He’s behind us.” Cyn’s backside still hurt and the burns on the back of her neck had turned into a stinging coldness, but when she touched the back of her head, the skin was already better and the burnt hair had fallen off.
Gotta love this werewolf healing.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” she said.
“Don’t touch me.” Ty yanked himself free and staggered toward the brick wall. He sank to the ground and ended up banging his head against a dumpster.
She snorted. Serves him right for being stubborn. “You probably took some shrapnel back there, and I don’t think you want Old Bart pulling that shit out of your ass for the next couple of hours.”
Ty groaned and Cyn could smell his pain. It was bitter and filled her nostrils like black licorice.
Zach joined them. “How is he?”
Cyn’s right eyebrow rose. “He’s ready to bring them all down.”
“I almost had them,” Ty grunted.
“Them? You mean the small army of Baker pack members who had rocket-propelled grenades?” Cyn couldn’t contain her dry laugh, but then she blew out a long sigh. She’d learned a valuable lesson today. “I thought revenge would be so easy, but we’re in over our heads here. You two are more important to me than getting back at people who don’t give a damn what happens to us.”
Ty twisted toward her. He pulled a gun out from the holster under his arm and pointed it at her. Zach snarled and stepped in front of Cyn.
“Don’t,” she snapped at Zach.
“So you’re gonna shoot me after I saved you?” Cyn said to Ty next. “I saved you so that we could live. Dying while we seek revenge won’t bring Mom and Dad back…”
Ty’s finger on the trigger trembled, but Cyn resolved herself to not move this time. He’d already shot her once. She’d survived that time and she could endure it again.
Ty’s lower lip trembled and Cyn could still see the boy from the day she told him their parents were dead.
All of her brothers were alive. That was enough for her for now.
She’d almost lost Ty.
The staring contest continued until Ty slowly lowered the gun. “I won’t accept what you are, but
I’m willing to let you go.”
“Thank you?” She crossed her arms and winced from the pain in her back.
She turned to Zach. “Take him to the hospital before he does decide to shoot me.”
Zach placed Ty’s arm over his shoulder and helped him stand.
“But if the time comes—” Ty threw over his shoulder.
“I’ll be sure to watch my back.” Cyn smiled.
Ty nodded.
A cease-fire was good enough for her. Especially if his hate kept him alive. Seeing the McGinnis boys together felt good.
“I guess I’d be disappointed if you went soft on me,” she whispered.
Chapter 12
Kaden slowly approached Damien. The early evening’s moonlight spilled into the room through the expansive windows that went from one wall to the other.
Streaks of tears wet Hayley’s cheeks. “Kaden,” she whispered. “He killed Cameron…”
“Quiet,” he replied to her.
The floor was slick with Cameron’s blood. He kept his footing, all the while his gaze was locked on Damien’s. Blood from a head wound coursed down Damien’s face and dripped off his chin. Parts of his white hair were crimson stained.
“You’re hurt badly. We should leave,” Kaden began.
“You should leave, nephew. Before I stormed in here, Cameron had called for reinforcements.”
Hayley edged backwards toward the nearest door, but Damien growled. “Not so fast…”
“Don’t touch her, Damien.” He still had more of the room to cross. If his uncle lunged for her, it would be all over.
Instead of closing in on Hayley, Damien stopped. “I can take away the pain she has given you.”
Now where did that come from? Was his pain that visible? “If you hurt her, you’ll give me more pain.”
“You’ve been blinded, boy,” Damien said softly. “She wears a mask to the world, but I see behind it.”
“I’m not blind anymore. She’s cruel, selfish, and doesn’t give a damn how much she hurt me.” Kaden caught the faint sounds of footsteps thundering up the stairwell. So many men. Time’s running out. “But I’m not like her. Neither are you.”
Windham Werewolves Page 26
