Collateral Damage

by Susan Harris

  Caitlyn felt pride well inside her. “Good work. And Melanie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be ready at sundown tomorrow. Defense classes start.”

  She snapped the phone shut. “Melanie has a location. We need to head out.”

  The team bristled into action, and Caitlyn spied Ever getting up from her seat to go with them.

  “No, Ever. You need to stay here.”

  “Like hell I do!” she exclaimed.

  “Think of Derek. He would not want you out there. If he scents you, then he may do something rash and end up dead.”

  A pop of gum. “I’ll watch her back, keep her away from the rough stuff.”

  Much as Caitlyn had once done, Ever jutted out her chin. “I won’t get in the way. I’ll stay out of trouble.”

  And who was she to stop Ever from acting as she saw fit? For centuries, her life had been dictated by others. Whom to kill, whom to save, whom to love. She was tired. Sometimes, she was weary enough to seek the lure of a final death. But she understood.

  “Fine,” Caitlyn retorted, her finger pointing at Erika. “So much as a hair is harmed on her head, and I will flay you alive with a butter knife.”

  Caitlyn walked away from the two women, needing the comfort of the night. She slipped out the back to wait as the others readied themselves to head out.

  If you ever find a man that you love with every fibre of yourself, I will end him. I will rip his heart from his chest in front of you and make you eat it.

  The thought of Donnie’s lifeless body slowly turning to ash clamped a noose around her neck. Maybe it was for the best. Donnie would be safe. Melanie would be safe. She could sacrifice herself for them. She had to.

  Because hell would rain on earth if he came for her, and those who remained would never wash the blood clean.

  Derek Doyle sat slumped in the chair in front of him, and he could almost taste vengeance on his tongue. Every single thing he had accomplished in life was to bring him here to this moment. To kill the man who had ruined his life. Who had ripped apart his childhood, who had taken not only his father from him, but his mother as well.

  Decades. That’s how long he had waited, preparing for the right moment to exact his revenge. He’d fought his way into the Munster pack, climbed the ranks until he was in a position of power, and slowly turned some of Arthur’s top-tier wolves against him. He had convinced them that once Arthur and Derek were out of the way, werewolves could rise to the top of the food chain once again. No rules, no restrictions, just bloodshed.

  And then the perfect moment came. News spread that lone wolf Derek Doyle, who refused to join a pack, who thought he was better than them, had found a mate—a very human mate. He’d thought about killing the human, but he didn’t have the stomach for it. Instead, he devised a plan to strip everything from Doyle the way it had been stripped from him.

  But it seemed to bounce off him. Nothing stuck to Doyle.

  So, he was going to kill Doyle. Torture him and tear out his heart as Doyle had his father’s. He’d lost both parents that day, and now Derek Doyle would suffer for his sins. Judgement Day had come calling; the reaper was knocking on Derek’s door, calling time on his life.

  And he would enjoy every fucking minute of it.

  He had become good at pretending, had built up his patience while his alpha had begun to trust him. Derek only returned to the basement at night, but more often than not, Neville Morris decided that Derek was compliant enough not to worry about.

  But he was wrong.

  Derek learned quickly. He built up his endurance, sparred with Morris’s pack, and studied their weaknesses and strengths. He became very observant. He memorized shift patterns, when deliveries arrived at the compound, who came, and who went. He learned that alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays, a cleaning crew came in to scrub the blood off the stone floor. Derek observed that Neville was closely guarded, almost impossible to get alone.

  He trusted no one and watched everyone.

  But most of all, Derek watched Neville Morris. He had charisma, charm, and a way of getting people to do as he pleased. Derek knew the alpha had two weaknesses—women and arrogance. Morris believed he was the alpha of alphas, more powerful than any other supernatural creature in the world. He believed his own bullshit enough to think that no one would be brave enough, or possibly stupid enough, to end him.

  But Derek would.

  The moon danced on his skin, a sensation he doubted he’d ever get used to—her pull, her power over him. Clear skies tonight meant she stood out in full force, though cut in a strange shape this evening. Derek supposed it looked as if the moon, a majestic shade of yellow this evening, had teeth of her own. The stars that twinkled paled in comparison to her. If he were to die tonight, then at least he would die with poetic words about the moon on his mind instead of the blood-soaked ones he planned to wring from Neville Morris.

  Despite the amount of weres’ hearts he had ripped from their chests at Morris’s behest, Derek’s first victim, the one whose mate had screamed and wailed as Derek had reached into the man’s chest and yanked out his heart, tended to be the one that haunted him, plagued his nightmares until he awoke in a cold sweat. He could still smell the blood, feel the warmth of the heart that no longer beat in his hand.

  He had decided then that he needed out. Not because Morris had forced him to do it, but because he had liked it a little too much. Or rather, the wolf had.

  And perhaps that was something Derek told himself when he felt the urge to lick the blood from his hands after a kill, or when he woke in a cold sweat, retching his stomach free of its contents on a nightly basis.

  He told himself a number of times he needed to be strong. That he needed to be tough enough to release himself from the control Morris had over him. He couldn’t disobey him, not yet, for Derek was a lesser wolf and Neville Morris had had years to hone his dominance.

  When he had awoken as a werewolf, Derek had been as weak as a newborn lamb; the muscles he’d built up during his years in the army were useless. So, he trained and built up his strength and endurance. He ran for miles and miles around the compound’s walls, giving him both an outlet for his growing anger and a means to observe the guards’ shift patterns as well. He lifted weights, and soon he surpassed the fitness he’d held as a human and became a force to be feared in the camp.

  Crouching low to the ground behind a bunker, Derek checked the watch he had won in a game of cards. It was a little after nine on Friday. Any minute now, Morris would leave the pack gathering and take one of the she-wolves back to his bed. It mattered not if the female were mated already; once Morris wanted something, he got it.

  Sure enough, the door to the main hall swung open, and the sound of music and laughter broke the stillness of the night. He recognised the wolf with Neville, a flirtatious redhead who was unmated and had been a favourite of Morris’s for years. Dressed in Daisy Duke shorts and a barely-there bra, Derek could scent their arousal. She giggled and pressed her body to his.

  It was a five-minute walk to Neville’s home, a spacious complex where his top lieutenants resided. Normally, it would be full to the brim with Morris under constant guard. But not on a Friday night.

  Friday nights the house was cleared out, and Neville would spend the night rutting with his chosen partner. Morris’s tastes were well known amongst the she-wolves, which meant quite a few avoided him on Fridays, but tonight, Derek had chosen the partner for him. He had used the charm he’d learned from Morris to convince Rosalee that if Morris were dead, then he would become alpha and she would be his mate.

  Rosalee was ambitious, and Derek was young and handsome. It had been easy to get her to comply with a few rough kisses and false promises. He hated himself for it, but after years of witnessing the torture and depravity of this place, Morris wasn’t the only one who Derek wanted to end.

  Derek mimicked every step the pair took, gliding along the wall, staying in the shadows that kept him hidden from vie
w. Rosalee had her hand down Morris’s pants, and from the way his hips were jerking, she was doing a hell of a job at distracting him.

  The couple arrived at the steps of Morris’s house, and he made to drag her up the stairs, her hand still firmly wrapped around his cock.

  Derek sprang out of the shadows as Rosalee ducked and rolled out of the way. With a growl, Derek shoved Morris to the ground, his knee pressed into the man’s stomach, his elbow jammed into the pulse of his throat. His captive bucked off the ground, but Derek was stronger; he had made himself so.

  “You snivelling little shit. I will kill you.”

  Derek smirked. “No, Neville. I’m going to kill you. You made a mistake turning me instead of killing me. I won’t stop until you’re dead.”

  He pressed harder on the wolf’s larynx as Neville growled at Derek. It would be so easy to crush it between his teeth, or his claws. To make Morris feel what it was like to have your heart ripped from your chest.

  He smelled Rosalee watching from a distance. She was turned on by the aggression—not surprising, but it sickened him a little.

  “Are you remorseful, Neville? Are you sorry for all the wolves you had us kill for your sport?” Derek demanded.

  Morris just laughed, a cruel sound that made Derek grind his teeth together.

  “Not at all. And if you think that sweet Rosalee lured me to my death, then it is you, Derek, who has been fooled. I knew all along what you planned to do.”

  Derek snarled in Rosalee’s direction, and whatever she read in his face, the she-wolf paled.

  Morris continued to laugh. “I’ll make a deal with you, Derek. Go now, and I promise not to hunt you down. I promise to let you run along back to Ireland. But, when I do come for you, I’ll let you know. I’ll tell the pack you escaped in the dead of night and this never happened. Go now, or be torn to shreds in minutes.”

  Panic flared in his chest, but Derek slammed it down.

  “Why should I believe you? Why should I not kill you now?”

  Neville sneered up at him. “Rosalee.”

  As soon as he spoke her name, the woman began to scream. Derek knew the sound would carry over the music in seconds, and every single one of Morris’s two hundred and fifty strong wolves would be on him. He’d killed some of their friends, their lovers, their children at Morris’s request. But it was him they hated. Him they longed to see bleed.

  “Fight or flight, Derek. Choose.”

  So he ran, shoving off Morris, scaling the stone walls that surrounded the compound, up and over until his feet hit the dirt. Then he moved, pumping his arms and legs as fast as he could. Derek wasn’t sure how long he ran, but he did so until his legs gave out and he collapsed in the middle of a desert, sure that his life would end on the cracked, dry dirt.

  But it hadn’t.

  Ice cold water dragged him back to consciousness. Derek gasped and shook the water from his face. His vision blurred, his throat and mouth tasted like sandpaper, and his mind felt foggy. He struggled against the restraints and tried to free his arms, but the rope burned against his skin, blistering and bubbling every time he moved.

  “Wolfsbane-soaked ropes. Nice to know not everything you learn on TV is false.”

  The voice echoed throughout the building, far enough away to not be any immediate danger to Derek, but close enough to make him cautious. Derek craned his neck to see who had spoken, but the binding on his wrists and ankles didn’t allow him much wiggle room. So, he studied his surroundings.

  The ground was tarmacked and smattered with tires. He inhaled the scent of rubber and petrol. Broken-down go-carts lay all around him. Derek lifted his head, and his eyes connected with those of the ghost who had taken him.

  “You’re dead. I killed you,” he stammered, his tongue dry from the drugs, his mind still a little hazy.

  “Not quite, Doyle. Not quite.”

  Derek shook out the cobwebs in his mind as his kidnapper descended the stairs to stand in front of him. Blinking hard a few times cleared his vision a tad, but the man whose face had haunted his nightmares for centuries was still standing in front of him. Derek inhaled—the scent was wrong. Similar, but entwined with another’s. Derek relaxed into the chair, making it appear as if he weren’t bothered with the situation at all. The man faced him alone, but Derek could smell others waiting in the wings.

  “Why so pale, Doyle? Seen a ghost?”

  “The ghost was less smug when I ripped out his heart.”

  Incensed by anger, his captor lunged forward and punched him.

  Derek’s head snapped to the side with the force, but he slowly dragged it round. Spitting blood on the ground, Derek gave the man his best feral smile. “You can hit me harder than that, right? I’ve been spanked harder.”

  His captor barked out a curse, his body trembling in anger.

  Good. Anger made you reckless, made you concentrate less. It would give Derek the advantage.

  “So, are you going to introduce yourself to me, or have you decided to flirt a little more?”

  Perhaps working alongside Ricky for so long was starting to rub off on him.

  His captor came nose to nose with Derek, a snarl curled on his lips. “We once belonged to the same pack, Doyle. I’d think you’d remember me.”

  “Neville sent you to soften me up? Knew he couldn’t take me himself?”

  The man paced, a restless side effect of most werewolves. When the wolf was anxious, the human paced.

  “Neville Morris didn’t send me. I left of my own accord. Made my mark with the Munster alpha while I bided my time. You never noticed me. You never looked at me.”

  Derek tried to shrug his shoulders, biting back a wince as the ropes dug into his flesh. “Why would I? You weren’t a threat. You still aren’t. If these ropes were off and your goons gone, you’d be no match for me.”

  That brought a chuckle to the man’s lips. “Who do you think orchestrated all of this?” He spun in a circle and waved his hands about. “It was all my idea. Kill the escort, drug you, and frame you for murder.”

  “What do you want, a round of applause?”

  A muscle ticked in the wolf’s jaw, so Derek continued. “And you bribed Agent Gober to plant evidence and lead the investigation my way.”

  The man beamed. “It was easy, really. Once I began to set it all in motion, every single thing fell into place. You see, we wolves aren’t really creatures of change. We settle things in dominance fights and bloodshed. So, of course, no one would suspect a wolf to come after you by any other means.”

  Yeah, werewolves tended to be stuck in the dark ages where traditions were concerned.

  “If the wolves were smart about it,” he continued, “they would stop bowing down to archaic rules and roll with the changes. So reluctant to move with the times. In the future, battles will be fought and won by being smart, by evolving. It’s what brought me here, to you and your final moments. Do you really not remember me?”

  Derek heard a slight whine in his voice, and he almost grinned. He shook his head and gave him a dumb look. “Nah, seriously. But then again, I’ve killed too many weak-assed wolves to remember. Tell me who you are—might jog my memory.”

  He left Derek sitting there as he walked to the opposite side of the room and dragged a chair across the tarmac, scraping it slowly across the floor. Derek gritted his teeth without looking like he was, never once losing his ‘I just don’t give a fuck’ attitude.

  “Let me tell you a story, Doyle. It’s not a happy one, but still, it’s the last one you will ever hear. My name is Christopher Gomez. That probably means nothing to you, but it soon will.”

  Christopher sat down on the chair, folded his left leg over his right knee, and rested his hands in his lap. His hair was a reddish-brown, his eyes a murkier shade. He looked ordinary, seemed unnoticeable. Not someone who would stand out in a crowd.

  “I was born into Neville Morris’s pack, was a boy when you soldiers raided the place. Still a pup when Morris decided
it would be his life’s mission to break you. We kids used to sneak a peek at you in your little cage—I even felt sorry for you. Then you decided to grow a spine.”

  Closing his eyes, Christopher opened them again, and the wolf was in his eyes, amber laced with rage. “The first night Neville dragged you out to the fights, I snuck out of bed to see how you would fare. I hid underneath the bleachers. My mom and dad were there. When Neville called you out and told you who your opponent would be, my heart stopped.”

  Recognition flooded through Derek. “It was your dad I killed.”

  Baring his teeth, Christopher snapped, “It’s my dad you murdered!”

  “I didn’t know. To me, he was just another random wolf. It was me or him.”

  “It should have been you!” Christopher screamed in his face. “I lost both my parents that night. Mom became catatonic, ended up on suicide watch. Didn’t stop her from jumping off the edge of the cliff when she realized she was pregnant.”

  His hands shook. “She told me, you know. Just before she did it. That Derek Doyle had ripped her heart from her chest that night, too, and she had nothing left in her for me.”

  Derek wet his lips. He needed to keep Christopher talking until he either freed himself of his restraints or Melanie managed to back-trace the location… if she ever did. Who knew whether Christopher had any computer skills.

  “If you’re looking for someone to blame, Christopher, then Neville Morris is your guy. I only did as I was told, like everyone else under his rule. None of us had a choice.”

  “You seem to have had a choice when you ran,” Christopher spat, his face reddening with anger.

  Derek knew the moment Christopher decided he was going to kill him. It was like a peace settled over the wolf’s face as he nodded to himself. Derek was out of time. The rope hadn’t frayed enough for him to break it, but if he twisted his wrist just a little, or broke the bastard thing, then he might slip free.

  He waited till Christopher glanced away from him, then wrenched his wrist out of its socket with a sickening crunch. He swallowed back a yelp of pain as the limb hung loose from the joint. Carefully and gingerly, he eased the hand out of the bindings, catching the rope in the palm of his hand before it fell to the ground.