Big Bad Billionaire (The Woolven Secret Book 1) (18 page)

“David Rutger was my father.”

“That does put a different shade on it.”

The implication of his words rang hollow in her ears.

“So you know who killed him?” Blake prompted.

“You have to understand, Blake, when Remus told us about the Blessed Ash weaponry, well… we couldn’t let that happen and your Dr. Rutger was determined to be loyal to you until the very end.”

The beast in front of her killed her father.

“By the old laws, you owe my mate compensation.” Blake sounded stony.

Evgeni flashed those teeth again. “I can do better than that.” He turned his attention to Randi. “Do you want your father back?”

She didn’t speak; she couldn’t.

“Well, don’t you?” Evgeni cocked his head to the side.

“What have you done?” Blake demanded.

“It was a shame to destroy a mind such as his. He’s in the conversion chamber, down with the stock.”

Randi wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel. Elation, rage, fear, hope… it all swelled together as the tide of emotions washed over her.

She’d buried him. She’d seen the body… she’d begun to grieve.

Isn’t this what everyone wanted who’d lost someone they loved? The chance to have them back?

Or would it be like some horror movie, and he was wrong somehow?

Randi thought about the beast that now lived under skin. She wondered if maybe her father would think she was wrong, unnatural?

His safe comforting scent would no longer be that of her childhood. He’d smell like death—he
was
dead. How could he still be David Rutger? Looking at the creature—predator—in front of her; if he was like him, was he still her father?

“Do you accept my restitution, Woolvens?”

“What happens if I do?”

“You take your father and leave.” Evgeni shrugged. “If you do not, you simply leave.”

She remembered what Blake said about taking on a murder of Vampyr. Her wolf believed she and Blake could do it and could walk out alive, but logically, she knew that was bullshit and a good reminder never to listen to only her wolf.

“Ah, Evgeni, we would not simply leave. You owe me a blood debt and now, so too, my mate.”

“Did you forget where you are?” Evgeni’s tone stayed jovial, but he’d added an underpinning of steel.

“No, but I think you must’ve. Do you recall your time at Aphelion? You wouldn’t be here in Upyrion if not for our friendship. Now, you’d deny my mate her father? You’d make a joke of her pain, to what end?”

“Fuck me, but you’re boring. I thought dogs liked to play?” Evgeni smiled, but this time, the expression cut as vicious and sharp as any knife. “Fine. If you don’t, I do. How about we make a game out of it? I owe you one life in exchange for mine. Who will you choose?”

He made a dramatic motion with his arm and a sections of the floor began to recede revealing a transparent surface beneath.

“Tick tock, Lady Woolven. Tick tock.” He smiled again.

In one chamber below them, she saw her father. He was pale, gaunt, thin and haggard. They’d chained him to a bed, and an IV of what she believed to be blood hung next to him.

In another chamber, she recognized her former roommate and only other friend, Jessa Rain. At first glance, it didn’t seem Jessa was in any immediate danger.

Closer inspection delivered a hard truth. Several other entrances to the stone-walled room that held Jessa were filled with snarling beasts, what could only be the beserker wolves. At any moment, those doors could open, and Jessa would be ripped to shreds.

“You have to understand, I didn’t realize Randi was your mate when Grigori brought this to us,” Evgeni said quietly.

“But now you do. Now you know. So all you have to do is say the word, and they’re both free.”

“That’s not how it works here, Randi. This other woman? She’s now murder property. Evgeni must give them something in return for taking her,” Blake explained.

“I don’t care what he gives them,” she snarled. “That’s his problem.” Her wolf and a growing darkness struggled inside of her. It clawed forward, tearing at her vision behind her eyes until all she could see was red. Literally. Everything around her looked like meat. The Vampyr were rotten meat, but meat nonetheless.

She kept waiting for Blake to demand she stand down, to force her wolf down, but he didn’t. He said nothing. Why wasn’t he doing something?

Almost as if in response to her unasked question, he whispered, “This is your choice. I can’t do it for you, but I believe in you. I give you permission to do what you must.”

A lone howl tore from her throat, and she barely managed to speak. “My father. I choose my father.”

Her blood began to boil in her veins, her bones again melting to reshape, reform, and her wolf in control. The pain was excruciating, but the rush of power and strength was worth it because pain became an unfathomable pleasure as she punched through the glass and dropped into the room with Jessa just as the cages opened. Shards of glass crunched under her feet, but her skin was too thick and hard to be penetrated.

She felt invincible.

Somewhere, through the fog, she heard Blake say, “Is this payment enough for your murder? A spectacle?”

“Oh, indeed.”

She briefly wondered why he wasn’t snarling, biting, acting every bit the knuckle-dragging Alpha. She was in danger. Evgeni threatened them, mocked them and made fools of them.

Randi vaguely remembered the way he spoke before they arrived. He’d known this would be awful, but he’d done it to get to the truth.

And she had gotten the truth.

Her father…

She let the anger take her. The darkness inside her swelled, unchecked, a violent storm.

Jesse smelled like fear and vodka. Randi knew that she partly caused her fear, but she couldn’t think about it. All she could think about was the beasts coming for her.

Then she wasn’t thinking about anything at all.

Lost in a haze of blood and the primal urge to protect, Randi fought for what was hers.

Chapter Eighteen

Fuck, but she was magnificent.

As he knew she would be, but the first full emergence of her wolf was a thing of beauty, much like Randi herself. She was the embodiment of the Goddess—strong, powerful, and elegant. Her pelt wasn’t just a pretty rust, but pure crimson fire.

The darkness inside of her which he’d feared would take her away from him still writhed inside of her, but he could see how she used it, channeled it to become her strength.

Everything in him demanded he jump into the fray, that he defend her. Protect her.

But Warner was right.

Blake needed to let her stand on her own. If for no other reason than she’d know she could. She needed this. All along, it wasn’t about him saving her, or making this right for her. It was about her saving herself. He wished he’d seen it sooner so he didn’t have to watch her earn her first blood in a pit with monsters.

He faced Evgeni, trying very hard to keep his expression neutral. “Kindly return David Rutger to me, as he was her choice.”

“Certainly.” He waved a hand and his Chosen rushed to do his bidding. “I do hope this hasn’t caused any—” He paused, seeming to search for the right words. “—strife between us.”

No, no strife. But his enemies, the Saints, a rising power in the Vampyr underworld, were about to become Blake’s new allies. And Warner’s friends in the Department of Defense who dealt with supernatural threats were about to gain a new test subject.

The thoughts cooled his fury and helped him leash the turmoil that roiled through him. “No, I understand you had to do what you had to do. That’s how it goes with our kind, isn’t it?” he asked in a blasé manner that belied the urge to rip the Vampyr’s head from his body.

“Good. I’d hate to find us on opposite sides of a war. Wouldn’t you?”

“That would be terrible, especially since the Vampyr are dealing with a new threat. A rogue murder, or is it a whole clan? Calling themselves Saints, are they?”

Evgeni laughed. “Dragomir Saint is nothing but a mosquito who will be swatted when I tire of his games. For now, he suits my purposes.”

And he’d suit Blake’s purposes even better. Blake nodded and turned his attention back to the fight and his mate, noting that the murder had begun to fill the private apartments and he was surrounded by leeches.

The stench of death choked him, but he pushed it down and watched as his mate came into her own.

She tore a bloody swath through the berserker wolves, rending them limb from limb, the blood splatter spraying high and hitting the gathered crowd. Money, jewels and gold changed hands fast and furious as the red wolf demolished the berserkers while Jessa huddled in a corner behind her.

One of the wolves tried to claw his way up to the crowd. Some of the weaker, younger Vampyr feared it. He could tell by the way they stiffened their bodies, their eyes filled with blood, and a few even bared their teeth.

That was good to know.

Through the entire ordeal, Blake took stock of his enemy, and those he kept close.

Especially his reaction when Randi tore his berserker from the wall and ripped his heart out.

When all three berserkers were dead, she turned her face toward the crowd. He could see the intent in her eyes. She wasn’t going to stop with the berserkers. She was going for the Vampyr.

Some of them feared her, but not enough. Even she and Blake together couldn’t handle a whole murder.

Evgeni read the intent in her eyes too, because he said, “You’d best leash your bitch. I wouldn’t want to have to take her down.”

Blake’s wolf rose in protest, but he kept himself from the Change. It seemed to bother them more, the more control he displayed. He knew his eyes burned like hot coals. He could feel it. “No, you wouldn’t.” He spoke low, his voice like gravel and rust, but calm and definitive.

There was no doubt whether Blake would attack anyone who touched Randi. Without making threats or posturing, he let Evgeni know he understood the consequences, but he’d rip his head off just the same.

“There’s a door to the outside down there. A right, right, right, left out of the observatory, a secret passage the handlers use. Old school, gargoyle on the wall trick. You could lead her to it. Get your prize to follow.” Evgeni shrugged. “My friends will be sorry they didn’t get to observe the aftermath. I’m sure they’d love a real werewolf mating. That should be quite the spectacle to end all spectacles.”

Blake didn’t answer him. Instead, he dropped down into the pit.

Jessa wasn’t crying and hysterical, but she wasn’t quite with it, either.

“Don’t. Move,” he instructed her. “Not until I tell you.”

Randi began circling him. A thrill shot hot and steady through his veins as he began the dance with the wolf in her warrior form.

“I’m going to lead her out until she can regain control. You are to follow.”

“No.”

“Yes. Or you’ll stay here with them.” He pointed up at the slavering Vampyr with the diamond teeth. “Okay? You’ll follow us out, then you go around to the front of the building. My driver is there with the black Rolls.”

Jessa shook her head slowly. “I don’t think I can move.”

“Yes, you can. Remember, she did this to save you.”

He saw when it finally clicked in her head and he nodded slowly, and did something no one should ever do a predator—he turned his back and ran.

And dear Goddess, it felt just as amazing as she’d promised. She was chasing him, this beast, his mate—his Alpha bitch. She ran him down like prey and he fucking loved it.

Adrenaline coursed through him, his heart racing, the Change hovering so close, but forced to edges of his consciousness. He couldn’t let her catch him, not until they were outside and Jessa was secured.

Oh, the things he would do to her then.

He remembered what Evgeni had said, right, right, right and then left. She was snarling and growling just behind him. He took the turns through the tunnels and was thankful she wasn’t in her human form, that she couldn’t see the cages of stock…

Blake led them through to the passage, and outside into the fresh air, but he couldn’t stop. Not until they’d rounded the building and he saw them strapping David into the back seat, blood bag IV still attached.

He’d paused—a mistake, he realized, as he heard Jessa scream then he hit the ground, hard. Randi landed on top of him and her teeth tearing into his throat.

His cock was so hard. If not for the inopportune audience, he’d have taken her right there.

His warrior form erupted. He easily pinned her beneath him, a roar from him silencing her. He exerted his will, his dominance and forced her down into four-legged wolf form where the darkness could bleed away slowly and her human thoughts could return as the battle haze dissipated.

It would also keep them from needing clothes until they returned to the hotel.

He didn’t trust their safety on the island, anyway.

Blake supposed to the casual onlooker, it would be strange to see a liveried driver open the door of a Rolls Royce for two wolves and half-mad dirty young woman hugging herself.

He didn’t need to instruct the driver. He drove them directly to a secret airfield where the Woolven jet was being refueled.

Once they were on board, he saw to practical matters. Getting her clothed and in his arms in the sleeping quarters in the rear of the jet. Then he used his power to push her down to sleep where, hopefully, her psyche could begin to repair itself. He entrusted the care of their new passengers to the well-trained werewolf staff.

And he held Randi the whole flight home.

Even while he called Warner.

“How did it go?”

“Put Westwood and Medical on notice. We’re coming in hot with a natural who could quite possibly be in shock, as well as David Rutger.”

“What did those bloodsuckers do?”

“I’m not sure, but Grigori was procuring stock for Evgeni. He confessed his part in all this. They took David, turned him because of the Ash weapons. He’s on a blood IV now for nourishment. He hasn’t spoken. The change isn’t complete. If we could reverse what’s happened to him… I don’t know.”

“What about Breslin?”

“I think we need to set a meeting with Dragomir Saint.”

“Are you sure that’s the road you want to take?”

“More than ever. Evgeni fucked us. I expected some rough road. He’s Vampyr, after all, but I really believed he’d honor our pact.”

“You want me to set the meeting?”

“Yeah. I need something else from you as well, Uncle.”

“What?”

“Your contact at the Department of Defense working the supe division—I want you to give him the coordinates of Upyrion. Tell them to take their very best and all their toys for recon and capture.”

Warner laughed long and hard. “Boy, when you break covenant, you burn it down.”

“Fuck them. Evgeni threatened us, stole from us, and if I hadn’t Turned Randi, he’d have killed her. Dropped her in the pits for the berserkers to fight over. I’m sure your contact could use a few test subjects.”

“What about the berserkers? You know we haven’t turned over any were-neutralizing tech.”

“They’re dead.”

“All of them?”

“They were low, only three in residence. Or they’re running loose on the island, but I think that’s unlikely.”

“Got it.” Warner chuckled again in his signature gravelly voice. “You must’ve had a mighty rage to kill three berserkers. Randi will be proud of you.”

“No, she’ll be proud of herself. She’s the one who killed them.”