by Lori Drake
“He’s a monster. You know that, right?”
His whispered words drew her eyes back to his. Sighing, she shifted closer and slipped an arm behind his back, then laid her head on his shoulder. “It’s… complicated. Let’s leave it at that for now, okay? We can talk about it later.”
They sat in silence until Ben returned a couple of minutes later with a glass of apple juice and a sandwich. Joey lifted her head from Chris’s shoulder and ignored her brother’s questioning look. Instead, she rubbed Chris’s back and said quietly, “I’m going to see if I can get some answers about what really happened out there. Fill Ben in while you eat, okay?”
Chris glanced her way and nodded. “Be careful.”
Joey made no promises, but offered him a small smile as she withdrew. She was of a mind to try and catch up with Kate. The woman had seemed particularly shaken by what had happened. With Jenny resting in Kate’s room, Joey figured Colt’s room was probably the next best bet. She was on her way up the creaky old stairs when Eric appeared at the top of them.
She paused, a hand on the bannister. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, smiling. He had a nice smile, but it could become a sneer so easily… “Looking for me?”
Nope. Joey’s thoughts raced. She couldn’t tell him her true errand. If he got a whiff of her trying to go around him for answers… that wouldn’t end well. Maybe she’d just have to grab the bull by the horns. “Um, yeah. Can we talk?”
“Anything for you, babe.”
He held out a hand when she reached him at the top of the stairs. She took it and let him guide her down the hall. He paused outside a set of double doors that obviously led to the master suite, and Joey hesitated.
“Is this your room?”
He fished a key out of his pocket. “Yup. Nice, quiet place for a chat. No one will disturb us.”
Joey groaned inwardly, not particularly wanting to be alone with Eric in any bedroom—much less his. “You lock your bedroom door?” she asked, while trying to come up with an excuse to not go inside.
“Only way to keep the slaves from escaping.”
Joey blinked, and Eric laughed.
“Joking, babe. We had a klepto a few years ago… I guess the habit just stuck.” He smiled that disarming smile of his, which was far from disarming if one knew him well.
Joey chuckled and let him draw her into the room, curiosity momentarily overruling her sense of self-preservation. What did he have in his room that was worth locking up? The answer turned out to be… everything.
While the rest of the house was shabbily furnished in antiquated pieces, Eric’s room was completely modern. There was no trace of peeling wallpaper, not in here. The walls were painted a steel gray. Recessed lighting highlighted modern art pieces on the walls and kept the room from being too dark. There was a seating area off to one side with a massive television mounted on the wall, but, naturally, Eric tugged her in the direction of the king-sized bed. There was an honest-to-goodness mirror on the ceiling. Joey’s stomach turned over.
“Whoa there, that’s not the kind of chat I wanted to have,” she said, digging in her heels.
He chuckled and released her hand, but continued his course to flop on the bed. At least he was clothed now; the only skin on display was what covered his bare feet and muscular arms—not that she would have found his bare flesh enticing in the slightest.
Unaware of this, Eric propped himself up on one elbow and smiled at her from afar. “Damn shame. What can I do ya for, then?”
“Cut the crap, Eric. Are you going to tell me what really happened out there?”
His smile lingered, frozen on his lips, but his brown eyes were calculating as they studied her. “What do you mean? I told you what happened.”
Joey snorted and folded her arms. “Don’t blow smoke up my ass. There was more to it than some guy with a gun. It was painfully obvious. Your people were scared, and just because they’re not alphas, it doesn’t mean they’re cowards.”
Eric patted the mattress. “Come sit with me and I’ll tell you.”
Joey rolled her eyes. “Come on, be serious. There’s a girl fighting for her life downstairs.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Something dark and dangerous glittered in Eric’s eyes as his smile faded. He pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Then why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”
“How about a little tit for tat?”
Joey’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You tell me what’s going on with you and Chris, I tell you what happened in the woods.”
“Going on with me and— Don’t be absurd. There’s nothing going on with me and Chris,” she said firmly. Maybe too firmly. “He’s like a brother to me.”
He stood, and Joey took an involuntary step back before she caught herself and held her ground as he approached to stand in front of her. His flat expression was a mask that gave nothing—and everything—away.
“Then why,” he said, thumb sliding along her throat as his hand settled lightly along the arch of her neck, “does he look like he wants to rip my throat out every time I touch you?”
She wanted to break his fingers, but settled for swatting his hand away. “Because you’re a possessive asshole that likes to make trouble?” It might not have been the best thing she could have said, but she’d never been very good at self-filtering, and he’d known her long enough that anything else would probably rouse his suspicions… and he was a very suspicious person. Case in point, this conversation.
Eric reached for her hips next. The smile was back, lips peeled back from even white teeth. “I love it when you get sassy.”
Joey snorted softly, pressing her palms against his chest but letting him pull her against him. She could feel the heat of his skin through his tight black T-shirt. “Well, there’s plenty more where that came from. How about that tat?”
He dipped his head, leaning down to brush his nose along her neck. It’d be sexy if she didn’t find him repulsive. Plus, she knew what he was really doing: looking for any trace of another man’s scent. She humored him, fingers curling behind his stubbly, shaved head.
“There was a man with a gun in the woods,” he said, lips brushing her skin as he spoke. His breath was hot and moist on her skin.
She shivered in revulsion, but it wasn’t like he could tell the difference. “And?”
“That’s all.”
Joey tensed, ready to push him away and go another round, but Eric latched on to her neck suddenly. Her eyes flew open and she gasped. A low growl rumbled from his throat as he drew hard on her flesh. Her fingers scrabbled at the back of his head instinctively, but he had no hair to grab on to. She pushed at his chest with her other hand.
He responded by biting down, and it was pretty firm for a “love bite.” Pain flared and she growled, pushing with both hands now. His arms clamped around her waist in response.
“Eric, stop!” Her mind raced. For a moment, she thought he was trying to rip her throat out, but no… it was almost worse than that. He was marking her. Anger surged within her, white-hot and burning.
Joey brought her knee up between his legs. It connected, hard, and he let go with a gasp. She shoved him away, ready to face his rage with her own. He stumbled backward, but what he did next surprised her.
He laughed.
It was a breathless, pained sort of hysterical laughter, but laughter nonetheless. He collapsed on the floor, clutching his junk, overcome by hilarity.
Joey brought a hand up to her neck, fingers brushing the wet spot where his mouth had been. They came away slippery with saliva, but fortunately not bloody.
“You son of a bitch!” She glared daggers at him while he literally rolled on the floor laughing.
It took him a few moments to simmer down, but once he did, he looked up at her with a wide, shit-eating grin. “Mine.”
Joey growled, hands balling into fists at her sides. She strode forwar
d with murder on her mind. A red haze clouded her vision and her wolf howled in rage, but she kept that part of her caged. She couldn’t actually kill him, but she could, and did, give him a pretty savage kick to the gut. He crumpled around her foot and “oofed” as his breath rushed out again, then dissolved into laughter once more.
Bereft of even a glimmer of satisfaction for having made him suffer, she turned on her heel and stalked for the door. Even slamming the door behind her didn’t help; the faint echo of his laughter followed her out into the hallway.
9
Chris trailed along behind Jessica as she carried his unconscious body down the hall. He’d been too shocked at first to do much but stare as she hoisted him into a fireman’s carry and made for the door. She’d listened at the door for a moment before opening it, peeking out, and slipping into the hallway. She moved pretty quietly for a woman carrying two hundred pounds of unconscious man over one shoulder.
“You do this a lot?” he asked, though of course he didn’t expect an answer. He had no idea what had sparked her sudden betrayal. Had she been playing him all along? What was she going to do with his poor, defenseless body? Fear filled him, second only to a boiling-hot rage. Just as the last time he’d been on the astral plane, his emotions were on overdrive. It was difficult to think clearly. To make matters worse, he found slipping back into his body to be impossible. Maybe it was the angle, or the fact that the body was in motion, jostled by each step, or maybe it was just his state of mind. Frustrated, he threw back his head and howled in outrage.
In the silence that followed, he heard a distant thump from upstairs. Jessica halted and glanced over her shoulder.
“You heard that too, eh?” Chris said, frowning.
Jessica began walking again, but Chris heard another noise from upstairs and started to get worried. Could the attacker be in the house, back for more? Worry ate at him as he continued down the hall, not wanting to lose track of his body but very much wanting to know what was going on.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, though whether to Jessica or his body, he wasn’t sure. He’d just blink upstairs real quick-like, then zoom in on Jessica and figure out what to do from there. Maybe he could possess her and jump off the pier or something. That’d keep her busy long enough for him to get back.
Chris jumped upward, launching himself through the ceiling to end up on the second floor. He found himself in a darkened bedroom, which was fortunately empty. From there, he had to pass through a few walls before he located the source of the mysterious thumping.
It was Kate, thumping her heels against the wall as Colt pinned her to it. He had her up off the floor, a hand clenched around her slender throat. She scratched and pried at his fingers, face dark from lack of breath.
“Colt! What the hell?” he exclaimed, and something very unexpected happened.
Colt turned his head and looked right at Chris, the whites of his eyes glowing in an eerie—but familiar—manner. When Harper had asked a spirit for help to see him, his eyes had glowed like that.
“Let her go,” Chris said.
“Or?” Colt’s voice sounded different. Gravelly, like stone sliding against stone.
A chill ran down Chris’s incorporeal spine, but he couldn’t let Colt—or whatever was inside Colt—kill Kate. He rushed the spirit-man, thinking to try and force him out of Colt, but when he grabbed for Colt to try and slip into him, his arms closed around a very solid form rather than passing into or through him.
The spirit-man threw him off, but released Kate in the meantime. She drew in a gasping breath and slid down the wall to cower on the floor.
“Run!” Chris called out, but she couldn’t hear him.
That seemed to strike spirit-Colt as particularly funny, because he threw back his head and laughed. “That’s my line,” he said eventually, turning back to look down at the cowering woman at his feet. “Run, little wolf. Run.”
She just covered her head with her arms and sobbed. “Please, Colt. This isn’t you…”
Chris winced. She had no idea how right she was. Seeing no other recourse, he rushed for them again, but this time, instead of going for Colt, he dove for Kate and slipped right inside her without issue. It took him a couple of seconds to orient himself, at which point he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Kate was hurting, seemingly everywhere. Her throat burned and her neck ached where spirit-Colt had strangled her, but there was more than that. Pain shot down one leg as he stood and her knee almost gave out. Apparently the spirit had roughed her up a bit already. Her stomach and face were also tender, and her eyes stung from crying.
The spirit swung a foot at Kate’s stomach and Chris crumpled around it as pain flared in his abdomen.
“Get up, bitch!” Colt’s voice sounded all too normal now, harshness aside, and when Chris looked up, the other man’s eyes no longer glowed. Nonetheless, there was no doubt in his mind that Colt was still far from himself.
“Trying…” Chris said, and struggled to his feet.
Colt tilted his head and frowned. “Who are you?”
“I’m Chris, who are you?”
Colt glowered at him. “This isn’t your fight. Get out of her.”
“She wasn’t putting up much of a fight. Does beating up on defenseless women make you feel like a big, bad spirit?”
A low growl was the only warning Chris got before Colt came flying at him. He attempted to dodge, but Kate’s knee did give out then, and dumped him on the floor. On the upside, Colt slammed into the wall instead of Kate. A framed photo, jarred off its nail by the impact, slid down the wall and hit the floor. The glass covering the photo shattered noisily.
Chris scrambled to his feet again and half walked, half hopped for the door. Kate was in no condition for a knock-down drag-out with this guy—whoever he was. He needed to get Kate out of the room, but a hand grabbed Kate’s long braid and yanked backward. Chris stumbled and almost fell again, but twisted on his good leg and kicked out with the bad one, managing to tag Colt’s knee. He howled and went down, but pulled Chris down with him by the hair.
They scrambled about on the floor, grappling for purchase. Chris was at a disadvantage. Kate was injured, smaller, and her strength—however supernatural—was no match for Colt’s. For an accountant, the guy was ripped. Chris used every tool in his arsenal. He kicked, punched, even bit whenever he could manage it. They rolled around on the floor, crashing into various pieces of furniture until Colt got Kate’s braid in his grip again and slammed her head against the floor a few times.
Dazed, Chris lay there while Colt got to his feet. Spots clouded Chris’s vision. He looked up at his assailant, who licked blood from a split lip, then smiled. It was a cruel, merciless smile, made all the more unsettling by the sheen of blood covering Colt’s teeth.
“Why—why are you doing this?” Chris managed to croak out. Kate’s ravaged throat didn’t have much more left in it.
“You know why, you stupid bitch. You’re going to pay for what you did. You all are.”
Had he forgotten Chris was inside her? Chris blinked up at him in confusion. “Did what? What did we do?”
“You know what you did!” Colt screamed at him, like they weren’t separated by only a few feet.
Thump thump thump.
Someone banged on the door. Colt spun to glare at it. Chris used the moment of distraction to crawl toward the first thing he saw that could be used as a weapon: a shard of glass from the shattered picture frame. He almost made it, but Colt grabbed his ankle and pulled him away at the last moment.
“Oh no you don’t!” Colt sneered.
THUMP THUMP THUMP!
“Help!” Chris croaked, but Kate’s throat wasn’t really up to the task. His fingers clawed at the floor for purchase but only raked the carpet with Kate’s short nails.
THUMP!
It sounded like someone was trying to break the door down. Hope flared within Chris. He twisted onto his back and kicked out at Colt again, but Colt dodged and t
hen dropped to his knees, straddling Kate’s hips. Chris bucked and writhed, trying to throw him off to no avail. Colt’s laughter echoed in his ears even as his hands closed around Kate’s neck. Chris clawed at those hands, trying to pry Colt’s fingers up enough to suck in a breath, but Colt held on tightly. Arms locked, he squeezed harder, a demented sort of glee on his face as he watched Kate struggle for breath.
Chris swiftly became uncertain which thumps were on the door and which were the pounding of Kate’s heart in his ears. It beat a panicked staccato as he fought for her life, but those spots in his vision were getting bigger and his chest burned for want of air. Just a little longer; he only had to hold out a little longer. Help was on the way.
But help never came.
As Kate lost consciousness, Chris found himself staring up through her still-open eyes, but unable to control her body anymore. Her fingers went slack along with the rest of her. All he could do was watch while Colt-but-not-Colt continued to throttle her. Her heartbeat slowed, then stopped.
Chris knew it the moment Colt came back to himself. Colt’s hands released their hold on Kate’s bruised neck and he looked down at her in confusion, then alarm.
“Kate? Kate!”
Blood drained from his face as he stared down at her in dawning horror.
“No… no, no, no, noooooo!”
The door finally burst open, announcing the arrival of the cavalry. Too little, too late.
When the door finally gave way, Joey spilled into the room with enough momentum that only her lightning reflexes and dancer’s grace kept her from ending up on the floor. It shouldn’t have taken that much force to bust the door in. She’d kicked at it and slammed herself against it enough times that her shoulder felt bruised. By the time the door flew open, the banging and crashing that had drawn the small crowd in the hall was replaced by Colt’s anguished howl.
The room looked like a tornado had blown through it. Furniture was knocked over. Wall hangings were askew or knocked off entirely. Debris littered the room, and Kate lay at the center of it on her back, unmoving, eyes open. Colt knelt astride her with a stricken look on his puffy face. Blood dripped from a cut over one eye and down his chin from a split lip. They both looked like they’d taken a beating, but from whom? Joey scanned the room for an assailant, but found none.
