But the honeymoon was one part of the ritual we hadn’t discussed. So, if a wedding was out, the least I could do was give her a honeymoon.
So I’d planned everything. I’d picked St. Louis because she’d mentioned once that she’d like to go there. I’d made all the arrangements-my way of saying that I’d fucked up eighteen years ago and I knew I was damned lucky we’d ever reached this stage.
***
The mutt resurfaced at dinner, spoiling my second meal in a day. Not just any meal this time but a special one at a place so exclusive that I-well, Jeremy-had to reserve our table weeks ago. It was one of those restaurants where the lighting is so dim I don’t know how humans can see what they’re eating or find what they’re eating-the tiny portions lost on a plate filled with inedible decorations. But it was romantic. At least, that’s what the guidebook said.
I didn’t know what was romantic about eating in the dark surrounded by strangers, but it matched Elena’s expectations and that was all that mattered. She’d enjoy the fussy little portions, the fancy wines, the fawning wait staff, then fill up on pizza in our room later. Which was fine by me… until the mutt showed up.
As I was returning from the bathroom, he stepped into the lobby to ask the maître d’ for directions. Our eyes met. He smiled, turned and sauntered out.
I knew I should walk away. Take care of him later. But there was no way I could enjoy my dinner knowing he was prowling outside. And if I didn’t enjoy it, Elena wouldn’t enjoy it, and we’d get into a fight about why I’d take her someplace I’d hate only to sulk through the meal. I was determined to make it through this trip without any knockdown, drag-out fights… or at least not to cause any myself.
I waited until the maître d’ escorted a couple into the dining room, then I took off after the mutt.
***
I found him waiting for me in the lane behind the restaurant. He was leaning against the wall, ankles crossed, eyes closed.
This was one problem with mutts. Not all mutts-I’ll give them that. Some teach their sons basic survival, and a few do as good a job as any Pack wolf, but there are far too many who just don’t give a damn.
Here stood a perfect example of poor mutt parenting skills-a kid not only stupid enough to challenge me but stupid enough to feign confidence to the point of boredom, lowering his guard in the hopes of looking “cool.” Now I had to teach him a lesson, all because his father couldn’t be bothered telling him that I wasn’t someone to fuck with.
Werewolves earn their reputations through endless challenges. Twenty-seven years ago, when I’d wanted to protect Jeremy on his rise to Alphahood, I didn’t have time for that. So I’d sealed my reputation with a single decisive act, one guaranteed to convince every mutt on the continent that the infamous child werewolf had grown into a raging lunatic. To get to Jeremy, they had to go through me, and after what I did, few dared try.
I could only hope this mutt just didn’t realize who he’d challenged and, once he did, a few abject apologies and a brief trouncing would set the matter straight and I could get back to my honeymoon.
I walked over and planted myself in front of him.
He opened his eyes, stretched and faked a yawn. “Clayton Danvers, I presume?”
So much for that idea…
I studied him. After a moment, he straightened, shifting his weight and squirming like a freshman caught napping during my lectures.
“What?” he said.
I examined him head to foot, eyes narrowing.
“What?” he said again.
“I’m trying to figure out what you’ve got.”
His broad face screwed up, lips pulling back, giving me a shot of breath that smelled like it’d never been introduced to mouthwash.
“So what is it?” I asked. “Cancer, hemorrhagic fever, rabies…”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You do have a fatal disease, right? In horrible agony? ’Cause that’s the only reason any mutt barely past his first Change would call me out. Looking for a quick end to an unbearable existence.”
He let out a wheezing laugh. “Oh, that’s good. Does that line usually work? Scare us off before you have to fight? Because that’s the only reason a runt like you would have the reputation of a psycho killer.”
He stepped closer, pulling himself up straight, just to prove, in case I hadn’t noticed, that he had a good five inches and fifty pounds on me. Which did not make me a runt. I’d spent my childhood being small for my age, but I’d caught up to an average size. Still, mutts like to point out that I’m not as big as my reputation, as if I’ve disappointed them.
“You do have a daddy, right?” I asked.
His face screwed up again. “What?”
“Do you have a father?”
“Is that some kind of Pack insult? Of course I have a father. Theo Cain. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”
I knew the Cains. Killed one of them a few years ago in an uprising against the Pack. “And your daddy warned you about me? Told you about the pictures?”
“Pfft.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard about those. Photos of some dude you carved up with a hatchet.”
“Chainsaw.”
“Whatever. It’s bullshit.”
I eased to the side, getting my nose away from his mouth. “And the witness? He’s still alive, last I heard.”
“Some guy you paid off.”
“The pictures?”
“Photoshopped.”
“It was almost thirty years ago.”
“So?”
I shook my head. The problem with stupid people is you can’t reason with them. Waste of my time, while my meal was getting cold and Elena was spending our romantic dinner alone and wondering where I was.
Screw this.
I surveyed the dark service lane. There was never a convenient Dumpster when you needed one. I eyed the garbage cans, eyed Cain, sizing him up…
“So when do we fight?” he asked.
“What?”
“You know. Go mano a mano. Fight to the death. Your death, of course. I’m looking forward to enjoying the spoils.” His tongue slid between his teeth. “Mmm. I gotta thing for blondes with tight little asses, and your girl is fine. Bet she’ll fix up real nice.”
“Fix up?”
“You know. Get some makeup on. Get rid of that ponytail. Trade the jeans for a nice miniskirt to show off those long legs. You gotta keep after chicks about things like that or they get comfortable, let it slide. Not that she isn’t damned sweet right now, but with a little extra effort, she’d be really hot.”
I shook my head.
“What?” he said. “You’ve never tried?”
“Why would I?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. Another waste of time. “So you think if you kill me, you get Elena?”
“Sure, why not?”
“If it didn’t require my death, I’d be tempted to go along with it, just to watch you tell her that.”
“Whatever.” He rolled on his heels. “Let’s get this over with. I’m hoping you brought your chainsaw, ’cause otherwise this fight isn’t going to be nearly as much fun as I was hoping, with your fucked-up arm and all.”
I stopped and then slowly looked up, meeting his gaze. “My arm?”
“Yeah, Brian McKay said you busted his balls last year for having some sport with a whore. He said something was wrong with your arm. You kept using your other one. Tyler Lake says he did it, as payback for what you did to his brother.”
“Yeah? Did he mention which arm it was? This one?”
I grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall, hand tightening until his face purpled and his eyes bulged.
“Or was it this one?”
I slammed my fist into his jaw. Teeth and bone crackled. He tried to scream, but my hand against his windpipe stifled it to a whimper.
I dragged him down the wall until his face was level with mine
and leaned in, nose to nose. “I’d say that will teach you not to listen to rumors, but you’re a bit thick, aren’t you? I’m going to have to-”
A thump to my left stopped me short. I glanced over as the back door to the restaurant swung open. We were behind it, a dozen feet away, out of sight. I held Cain still as I watched and listened, ready to drag him into the alley if a foot appeared under that door.
Garbage can lids clattered. They were right next to the door. No need to step outside. Just dump the trash-
Cain let out a high-pitched squeal-the loudest noise he could manage with a crushed windpipe. Then he started banging at the boarded-up window beside him. I tightened my grip, my glower warning him to stop. A foot appeared under that door, someone stepping out. I dropped the mutt and dove around the corner.
“Hey! You there!”
I pressed up against the wall. Footsteps sounded. A man yelled at Cain, mistaking him for a drunk. The mutt mumbled something about being jumped, struggling to talk with a broken jaw.
I gritted my teeth. Ending a fight by alerting humans was bad enough, but trying to set them on my trail? That toppled into full-blown cowardice.
I shook it off and retreated before someone came looking for the “mugger.”
***
Back in the restaurant, I longed to visit the washroom and scrub Cain’s stink off me, but I’d been gone too long already. So I grabbed a linen napkin from a wait station, wiped the blood from my hands as I strode through the dining room and tossed the cloth onto an uncleared table.
Elena looked up from the last bites of her meal.
“Hey there,” she said, smiling. “Thought you’d made a fast-food run on me.”
“Nah.” I took my suit coat from the chair and slipped it on, blocking the mutt’s smell and covering the blood splatter. “Something didn’t agree with me.”
“Lunch, I bet. That’s the thing about buffets-lots of food, none of it very good. So, is dessert out of the question?”
I shook my head. “Just give me a second to finish dinner.”
***
Our hotel was a few blocks from the restaurant, so we’d walked. To make sure she didn’t smell Cain on me, I had to stay downwind from Elena and keep a gap between us. She didn’t notice the extra distance. Neither of us was much for public displays of affection, so walking hand in hand wasn’t expected.
That only worked until we got to our room. She leaned against me as she pulled off her heels, then she ran her hand up the back of my leg, grinning upside down, hair fanning the floor. She swept it back as she stood, her hand sliding up my leg.
“Pizza now?” she asked. “Or after we work up an appetite?”
I took her hand from my leg, lacing my fingers with hers, elbow locked to keep her from getting too close.
“Hold that thought,” I said. “I’m going to grab a shower.”
Her brows shot up. “Now?”
“My problem at the restaurant? I’m thinking it might be something I rolled in this afternoon. My leg’s itching like mad. Let me scrub it off before I pass it along.”
Her head tilted, the freckles across her nose bunching as she studied me, her bullshit meter wavering. Normal-Elena would have called me on it, but honeymoon-Elena was struggling to avoid confrontations just as much as I was, so after a moment, she shrugged.
“Take your time. I’ll catch the news.”
***
I ran my hands through my hair and lifted my face into the spray. My forearm throbbed as the hot water hit it. Tomorrow I’d pay for overworking the damaged muscle, but it was worth it if Cain took home proof that Clayton Danvers’s arm was definitely not “fucked up.”
For two years, I’d been so careful in every fight, convinced no one would notice I was favoring my left. I should have known better. Like scavengers, mutts could sense weakness.
I squeezed the water from my hair as I moved out of the spray and looked down at the pitted rut of scar tissue. All these years of fighting without a permanent injury, and what finally does it? One little scratch from a rotting zombie. At the worst of the infection, I’d been in danger of losing my arm, so I couldn’t complain about some muscle damage.
But if rumors were already circulating, I had to squelch them. And maybe even that wouldn’t be enough. Was Theo Cain’s son only the first in a new generation of mutts who’d heard the stories about me and fluffed them off as urban legends or at least ancient history?
I’d first cemented my reputation to protect Jeremy. Now I had fresh concerns-a mate, kids… and a fucked-up arm that was never going to get any better. So how was I going to convince a new generation of mutts that Clayton Danvers really was the raging psychopath their fathers warned them about?
I rubbed the face cloth over my chest, hard and brisk enough to burn. I didn’t want to go through that shit again. What the hell would I do for an encore? What could I do that wouldn’t have Elena bustling the twins off to a motel while she reconsidered whether I was the guy she wanted raising her kids?
Elena understood why I’d taken a chainsaw to that mutt. If pressed, she might even grudgingly admit it had been a good idea. Anesthetic ensured that the guy hadn’t even suffered much-the point was only to make others think he had. Still, only in the last few years had she stopped twitching every time someone mentioned the photos. Admitting I might have been right didn’t mean she wanted to think about what I’d done. And she sure as hell wouldn’t want me doing it again.
I shut the taps and toweled off, scrubbing away any remaining trace of Cain.
As I got out, I could hear the television from the next room. So the news wasn’t over. Good. I had no interest in local or world events-human concerns-but Elena would be engrossed in them. Distracting her was always a challenge… and a sure way to clear my head of thoughts that didn’t belong on a honeymoon.
I draped the towel around my shoulders, then eased open the door to get a peek at the playing field. Through the mirror, I could see the bed. It was empty, the spread gathered and wrinkled where Elena had sprawled to watch the news.
A sportscaster was running through scores. Shit.
I tried to see the sitting area through the mirror, but the angle was wrong. It didn’t matter. If she was finished with the news, I’d lost my chance to tease. I gave my dripping hair one last swipe, tossed the towel on the bathroom floor, walked into the suite and thumped onto the bed, springs squealing.
“All done with my shower. You still ready to work up an appetite-?”
The room was empty.
I rose and strode to the door, heart thudding as I sniffed for Cain. I knew my fears were unfounded. No way would he get Elena out of this room… not without blood spattered on the walls and carpet.
But what if he’d been lurking outside the door? If she’d heard him? Peeked out and he bolted? She’d give chase.
I opened the door and was crouching at the entrance when a yelp made me jump. Down the hall, a middle-aged woman stumbled back into her room, chirping to her husband. For a moment, I thought, Hell, I wasn’t even sniffing the carpet yet. Then I remembered I was naked.
I slammed the door and stalked into the bathroom for a towel. Humans and their screwed-up sensibilities. If that woman saw Elena dragged down the hall kicking and clawing, she’d tell herself it was none of her business. But God forbid she should catch a glimpse of a naked man. Probably on the phone to security right now.
Towel in place, I cracked open the door. When I was certain it was clear, I crouched, smelling the carpet. No trace of Cain. A quick glance around, then, holding the door open with my foot, I leaned into the hall for another sniff. Nothing.
I paused there for a few deep breaths, sloughing off the fear, then strode into the room to search for clues. The answer was right there, on the desk. A page ripped off the notepad, Elena’s looping handwriting: salty crab + no water = beverage run.
Shit. We really should have grabbed more water earlier.
As I pulled on a T-shirt, I told
myself Cain was long gone. I’d had him in a death-hold before he could lay a finger on me. A sensible mutt would take it as a lesson in misplaced arrogance, swallow the humiliation, get out of town and find a doctor to set his jaw before he was permanently disfigured. But a sensible mutt wouldn’t have gotten himself into that scrape in the first place.
Cain would back off only long enough to pop painkillers. Then the humiliation would crystallize into rage. Too cowardly to come after me, he’d aim a sucker punch where he thought I was most vulnerable: Elena, who’d just strolled out alone into the night, having no idea that a mutt had been stalking her all day because I hadn’t bothered to tell her.
Shit.
As I tugged on my jeans with one hand, I dialed Elena’s cell phone with the other. Elena’s dress, discarded on the chair, began to vibrate. Beneath lay it the purse she’d taken to dinner, open, where she’d grabbed her wallet, leaving the purse-and her cell phone-behind.
I grabbed my sneakers and raced out the door.
***
I didn’t bother checking the gift shop. Elena had already decreed the water there too expensive. Jeremy and I might have had some lean times during my childhood, but Elena knew what it was like to wear three sweaters all winter because you couldn’t afford a coat. Even if she could now afford to buy the whole damned gift shop, she wouldn’t give them three bucks for water that cost half that down the block.
Normally, I respect that, but this was one time that I wished to hell she’d just spend the damned money.
I strode out the front doors, stopped and inhaled. A couple glowered when they had to drop hands to walk around me. I scanned the road, sampling the air. Finally it came. Elena’s faint scent on the wind. I hurried down the steps.
***
There was a convenience store on the corner, but Elena’s trail crossed the road and headed down the very alley where I’d lain in wait for Cain that afternoon. What the hell was wrong with the shop on the corner? Was the water ten cents cheaper three blocks away? Goddamn it, Elena!
The Hunter And The Hunted Page 2
