Stalk (Hotblooded Book 1)

by Victoria Danann

  “What?” He smiled.

  “Ruff,” she said with a seductive smile of her own.

  A few minutes later they stood on a hundred-foot-wide brick porch. Reese’s red knee-length silk dress made her feel both sexy and elegant.

  A man, who didn’t have either the manner or costume one would expect for a butler, opened the door. He said nothing, but held the door and stood back. They heard the door close behind them just as Bogosian arrived in the foyer.

  “Reese!” he said. “So glad you could come.” He held his hand out to Nick. “Miles Bogosian.”

  Nick shook his hand. “Nicholas Sigil.”

  Reese resisted the temptation to steal a glance at Nick. She’d never heard him use ‘Nicholas’ before and had to admit she wouldn’t have been sure that was his name.

  “Glad you could join me,” Bogosian said, guiding them toward the dining room.

  “It’s, um, just you?” Reese asked.

  “Oh, yes. My wife was called away unexpectedly. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  The dining room held a massive fireplace, a wall of windows and a table to comfortably seat eighteen. The three places made ready for dinner at one end looked a little silly in that setting worthy of a small state occasion. Both guests were thinking that Bogosian must be given to pretention. Having extraordinary ability to smell, both also wondered why there were no aromas of cooking, or even preparation, in the house.

  Bogosian gestured to the chair on his left, toward the windowed wall, and said, “Reese, you sit here.” With a wave to the other chair and a quick look at Nick, he said, “Please.”

  Nick sat with his back to the door, but wasn’t uncomfortable with the situation for long. The man who had answered the front door approached the table with an expensive bottle of still water, presumably for the purpose of filling glasses. Carrying the bottle in his left hand, he leaned toward Nick, but instead of filling Nick’s glass, he stabbed him in the neck with enough carfentanil to tranquilize an elephant. Nick had just long enough to meet Reese’s panicked eyes before losing consciousness.

  “What are you doing!?!” She shrieked at Bogosian and leapt to her feet. He responded with an infuriating smile.

  A second man who looked surprisingly like the one who’d answered the door and stabbed Nick arrived in the dining room. He grabbed Reese before she made it around the table to check on Nick.

  She didn’t know what was going on, but she was certain her wolf needed to remain contained for the time being. It took every bit of mastery Reese had gained over her wolf to get her to stand down, be patient, and trust Reese’s two-legged form to make decisions for both of them.

  Bogosian had every good reason to believe he was dealing with six wolves, one hyena and a human. Maybe one of the wolves and the human had been sitting at his dinner table moments before. He’d instructed the regular staff to take the night off so that he and his guests could be assured of privacy. Reese and Nick were alone with Bogosian except for the two men whose roles weren’t clearly defined. Bodyguards? Thugs? Both?

  “He’s not hurt. Just taking a nap.” Taking her by the elbow, Bogosian said, “You’ll come this way with me.”

  She allowed him to believe he was manhandling her roughly as he would have been able to do with a hundred and forty pound human. She looked back over her shoulder to see what the other two were doing with Nick. It looked like they were trying to lift him. Unsuccessfully. No doubt they were surprised by how much he weighed.

  Reese recoiled at the sight of Bogosian’s study. Every aspect of it demonstrated the unique human capacity for cruelty. All of it was grotesque, but the mounted wolf head, with its glass eyes and muzzle frozen in an eternal snarl had Reese’s wolf clawing to rise to the surface and take charge.

  “Sit down,” Bogosian said. She obeyed, curious about what would happen next. Handing her a phone he withdrew from a drawer in his desk along with a slip of paper, he said, “Call the others. Tell them that, if they want Nick Sigil to live, they’ll go to that address. Right now. Within the hour.”

  She was trembling on the inside. Between the outright threat to Nick’s life and the revelation that Bogosian might know something, she was scared. “Others?” she managed to say.

  “Don’t be cute. You know what ‘others’ I mean. Do it. Or neither of you will leave here tonight.” At that Bogosian sat down in his chair, as relaxed as a man who was used to getting what he wanted.

  “What is it that you want?” She angled her head to the side. She wasn’t sure what Bogosian wanted with them, but she was sure that she was looking into the face of a monster. No wonder her wolf was always so uneasy around him.

  He smirked. “What happens when you have everything you want?”

  When he didn’t continue, she realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Wanting.” He sighed. “Wanting is the epicenter of everything. When you have everything you want, you begin to look for other things to want. Wanting is part of survival instinct. It makes us strive for more instead of ending it all. I ran out of things to want. I even got bored with financing wars and pitting governments against each other. Then one day I saw a photograph of a wolf that wasn’t exactly a wolf and I began to wonder if it could be true that all myths spring from fact.”

  “So? You plan to put them in a zoo?”

  He laughed out loud in a way that she found chilling. When he stopped laughing, he shook his head. “You really are dim, aren’t you?”

  “Let’s say yes if it gets us to the answer to my question.”

  “Stupid, but brave. Very well. I told you I belong to a hunting club.”

  Every hair on her body stood up. The man actually planned to hunt them like animals. To be accurate, he hadn’t told her that he belonged to a hunting club. He’d only said he belonged to a ‘club’. It was easy enough to put the rest of that puzzle together.

  “Who all knows?”

  Bogosian narrowed his eyes. “A strange question considering the predicament you’re in. A normal girl would be weeping and begging for her life.” He glanced at the phone in her hand. “Make the call or I’ll have to instruct my men to begin removing body parts from that thing you came with.”

  Reese gave a short nod to herself and took a deep breath. Since it was clear he wasn’t going to give her the names of people who knew, if any, it was no longer to her advantage to pretend to be vulnerable. She stood, kicked off her high heels, untied the belt around her waist and pulled her silk dress over her head.

  With an ugly sneer, Bogosian said, “Ms. Braga. You’re an attractive young woman, but an offer of sexual favors isn’t going to change my mind.”

  “I’m not offering sexual favors.” As she unhooked her bra and slid her panties to the floor her actions seemed to be in contradiction to her words.

  Internally she was rehearsing, preparing herself for what was to come. A few weeks ago she couldn’t have imagined a scenario in which she’d choose to kill people. But a few weeks ago she wasn’t a member of a werewolf pack whose first allegiance was each other. She knew she had to steel herself and be completely committed to ripping out the man’s vocal cords before he could alert his two henchmen, who were next in line to discover that they’d made very bad choices. The main thing she had going for her was the total amorality of her wolf. The wolf knew exactly what to do, why it needed to be done, and required no pep talk. All she needed was to be let off her invisible chain.

  Reese walked to where he sat, leaned within inches of his face and whispered, “You’re never going to be bored again.”

  She was more than grateful for all the practice the pack had given her to learn how to shift quickly and on demand, not that her wolf wasn’t poised and eager enough to shift instantly on her own. Bogosian’s eyes went wide when he realized he’d made a fatal error. He believed she was human just because she’d begun life that way. In the blink of an eye, she had his neck caught in her
powerful jaws before he could make a sound.

  Though Reese was a little squeamish, her wolf wasn’t in the least. Bogosian’s throat was ripped open with relish.

  The study door had been left open. She didn’t need to look before venturing into the hallway. Her sense of smell was as good as radar. She knew exactly where the other two men were in the house. One had remained in the dining room. The other was somewhere toward the rear of the house.

  Because the shift-and-surprise technique had worked so well before, she decided to do it again. She shifted to two-legged form just before she reached the dining room. The man looked up to see Reese naked with blood on her face and chest. His first reaction was surprise, but not fear.

  While he was trying to decide what to make of what he was seeing and what to do about it, she was able to get close enough to shift and kill. Standing over her second victim, his blood spreading out from the torn arteries, her head angled toward the back of the house.

  Reese shifted to two-legged form knowing that bare feet make less noise than claws on hard floors. She walked past the library, the sunroom, and through the kitchen before finding the second man in what appeared to be a large server/security room. It was clear that he was busy destroying the camera evidence. It made sense that they wanted to destroy any evidence that she and Nick had been there. On that, all parties could agree.

  Hearing a soft growl, the man turned around. Reese indulged her wolf the pleasure of hearing screams before silencing the third man in the same way as the other two.

  Reese had accomplished what she set out to do upon learning that Bogosian was using her to get to the pack. That was the good news along with the fact that she hadn’t actually eaten dinner because the aftermath of the kills made her wretch. Repeatedly.

  After verifying that Nick’s heart was beating steadily and his breathing wasn’t constricted, she made use of the three-quarter bath next to Bogosian’s study. She took a shower, washed off the blood, washed out her mouth, put her clothes back on and, as long as she didn’t look at the bodies, could keep her nausea under control.

  When her shifter genes were triggered, she’d gained strength in two-legged form as one of the ‘benefits’. On that particular night, she had a list of things to be grateful for. Her wolf, who’d protected Reese and her mate fearlessly and without hesitation, the strength to carry Nick to the car, and the fact that she’d talked Nick into keeping his Alfa Romeo, while giving her a loan to buy another car.

  After three days of arguing over what kind of car that would be, he’d come home one night with a Volvo and handed her the keys.

  “You can pay it off at $100 a month if you want.”

  She’d taken the keys. The fob said Volvo. “Show me.”

  All argument drained away the first time she saw Bertie sitting there in the parking garage all showroom shiny.

  “It’s the safest car for you,” he’d said. “You have to accept this so I can relax.”

  “Why would me driving this car cause you to relax?”

  “I’ve seen you drive.”

  “Jerk.” She glared.

  He laughed. “And. It’s fire engine red. Just like your personality.” He’d grabbed her into a hug and planted a big smoochy, affectionate kiss on her cheek. “Just say yes.”

  She’d already said yes when she’d gotten a look at Bertie. But even if she hadn’t, she was helpless when Nick’s brown eyes turned her way with longing for something.

  She was strong enough to carry Nick to her car over her shoulder, but the logistics, with him being so much bigger, made it awkward. After ‘arranging’ his body so that it was more or less horizontal on the rear seat, she slid behind the wheel.

  She called Rapp. No answer. She didn’t have the phone numbers of every pack member, but she did have Mars’. Also no answer. After shouting a string of curses at the world, the interior of the car, and an unconscious Nick who absolutely couldn’t be taken to an urgent care facility under any circumstances, she started the ignition and drove Bertie partway down the drive.

  First, she disabled every server and security device.

  Next, she found three cans of gasoline in the five-car garage and a wand lighter in the kitchen, no doubt for use in flambé. She’d been hoping for matches that she could strike and toss. No luck.

  Each of the men was in a different part of the house. She left them where they were, soaked them and the room around them with gasoline, set the fires, and sprinted away. There was no time to lose since the house was undoubtedly equipped with monitored fire alarms. People who paid the kind of property taxes Bogosian paid got great service from the commons.

  She slammed the car into drive and raced to the iron gate. Disabling the security system inside must have automatically opened the gate. As she drove out, she looked in the rear view mirror and felt nothing but satisfaction at the sight of seeing flames through windows. She hoped that every vestige of reference to the pack, if there was any, would be ash long before the fire was brought under control.

  It was late enough that people had completed commutes and were home for the night. She was driving slowly so as not to draw attention when she heard sirens. The trucks making their way toward the fire were coming from the direction she was leaving behind her, which meant they wouldn’t pass by.

  When she was a mile away from Bogosian’s neighborhood, on a major thoroughfare that connected to the highway out of town, she pulled her phone out and called Rapp again, not caring that it might be dangerous to drive and go through contacts at the same time. No answer.

  She went through her short list of pack members. No answer.

  Something was wrong.

  It was midnight when she reached the lodge. All pack member vehicles were present and accounted for, but that made the fact that the lights were on and the side door was standing open even more worrisome. She switched off the ignition.

  Everything was quiet. Not just in and around the house. In the nearby forest as well. Under the circumstances, she didn’t want to leave Nick in a state of helplessness in the car, alone. But she needed to see what had happened.

  She got on her knees and reached over the center console, into the back seat to check on Nick. After satisfying herself that his breathing was still okay, heart pumping with determination, she eased the car door open quietly. Her caution wasn’t logical because she could sense that no one was nearby.

  There was no pretending that she had stealth experience as a human, but the new Reese found that it came naturally. Instinct. She stalked toward the house, pausing every few yards to listen and sniff. Nothing.

  Just before breaching the open doorway, she cast one last look back at the car. The biggest part of her world was unconscious and in that car. The remainder was supposed to be in that house.

  The scene inside was shocking. It looked like a tornado had hit the interior of the house. Furniture was displaced, lamps overturned. The books and magazines Rapp collected were strewn everywhere. Kai’s standing chimes were on the floor. And there was one single streak of blood on the floor. She investigated. It wasn’t a huge blood loss, but what was there had belonged to Ken.

  A pall of sadness descended over her as she looked at the mess. The words ‘gone’ and ‘taken’ circled through her mind like they were on a carousel. Her wolf whimpered and went quiet.

  Even in two-legged form, she had the sensation that her ears had just pricked. Nick was awake. She heard him approaching, if somewhat unsteadily, and waited. She knew he would insist on seeing this for himself.

  He stumbled toward the open door and leaned against it. The look on his beautiful face as he took in the damage broke her heart.

  Rushing over, she put his arm over her shoulder so that he could lean on her. Some of the sedative was still in his system.

  “What…?”

  “Now that you’ve seen this, we’ve got to get out of here. I’ll tell you everything, but we have to leave.” He nodded. “Is there anything from the cottage you have
to have?” He shook his head no, looking a little like he was in shock. She was going to have to ignore that. Nick at quarter-capacity was still a better man than most.

  They pulled away from the second home she’d learned to love. For the second time that night, she looked in the rear view mirror, but that time she didn’t like what she saw. She slapped at a stray tear falling.

  “What do you need?” she asked Nick

  “To know what’s going on.”

  She drew in a big sigh. “Yeah. I meant coffee? Water? Food? We never had dinner.”

  “Reese.”

  “Okay.” She started the story where he’d been sedated and continued in between giving an order for takeout at the Jack in the Box, which was the only place open in the adjacent two counties. She ordered a variety of food and handed sacks and drinks to Nick. The pungent aroma of fried food immediately filled the car.

  Some people lose their appetites when they’re stressed or grieving. Reese wasn’t one of those. Quite the opposite. But Nick refused food.

  His features never changed as she told the story, but she could hear his heartrate speed up when she talked about the killings.

  It wasn’t possible for him to love his mate more than he did, but his respect for her grew in ways that surprised him as she described what she’d done not only to protect him, but the entire pack.

  “That’s all of it,” she said when they were half an hour away from home.

  Nick shook his head again. “That’s not all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He ignored everything that came after, ‘What do you mean?’

  “I mean that Bogosian wanted you to call the pack and get them to agree to go to a particular address.”

  “Yeah?”

  “That call never happened.”

  “I know.”

  “But everybody is… gone. Anyway.”

  “Yes. I know that, too.”

  “Which means that somebody else knows.”

  Reese sucked in a breath. “And got there first.” She felt her stomach go cold and wished she hadn’t eaten fast food. “We have to find them.”