Bitten 2 (32 page)

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, accompanied by the faint rustle of movement, as if someone had pressed a hand over the phone to silence their words. In my mind’s eye I was envisioning Chuckles getting the reaming of a lifetime, and although I kinda liked the guy, I felt a flutter of vindication in my chest.

When Cordova came back on the line, he was once again oozing cool charm. “I apologize, it appears there was an unfortunate security breach this afternoon.”

“An... unfortunate... breach? Is that what you call almost having my throat torn out?” I demanded, wincing at how shrill my voice sounded.

“I believe you
were
advised not to wander about unaccompanied.”

Listening to Cordova play the part of the slippery politician with ease, I felt my temper rise once more. As scary and intimidating as he was, he sure seemed to have a way of inciting my anger.

“I didn’t have much of a choice, unless I wanted to let crazy vamp number one use me as a daytime snack, in your fucking office, no less! What the hell was with those guys anyway? Are all your vamps total nut jobs, or just the ones you let wander around during the day?”

Another long silence and murmur of movement made me wonder if Chuckles was likely to be in one piece the next time I saw him.

“As I said, an unfortunate breach in our security protocols. The matter will be thoroughly investigated,” he said, and I cringed at the unmistakable threat. “Now, back to the matter at hand. Where is my car?”

“I tell you that your minions tried to eat me, and you’re worried about your fucking car?”

“Ms. Cray, I assure you, the matter is well in hand. Unlike my car.” The icy chill increased. “If you insist on this course I will have no recourse but to terminate our relationship.”

For some reason I didn’t think he was just talking about my attempts at detective work.

Given the chilling turn our conversation had taken, my enjoyment in tormenting Cordova had dissolved into something more closely resembling fear.

I wasted no time replying, “It’s here, it’s fine.”

“And where exactly is ‘here’?”

“Hank Stone’s house.”

“Ah, the Denver pack master. Excellent. I will send someone over to collect it post haste,” Cordova said, filling my head with images of Mr. Burns steepling his fingers and grinning that awful shark smile.

If it had been anyone else I would have asked how the hell I was supposed to get my car back, but, deciding that I liked having a pulse, I managed to keep my mouth shut.

And people say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

“Oh, and Ms. Cray?”

“Yes?” I asked, hating how my voice quavered.

“If I find any scratches on my car, I
will
make you pay,” he said, and I didn’t think he was talking about money.

“You won’t,” I insisted. “Though the same can’t be said of me.”

“I can assure you, the situation will be dealt with.”

“Cut the cryptic crap, Cordova. What does that mean?”

“We take care of our own,” he said with an intensity that made me wrap my arms around myself while praying that the sudden chill in the air was just a figment of my imagination. “Is there anything else I can assist you with?”

Shuddering at the promise in the silken words, and the danger that lurked behind them, I said, “N-no. We’re good.”

Just like his Day Servant, Cordova didn’t say goodbye and simply hung up on me; I wondered if she had picked up the irritating habit from the vamp.

“Asshole,” I grumbled, rubbing my sweaty palm on my jeans to hide the fact that it was shaking.

“You look like you could use another drink. I know I could,” Hank said, grabbing a couple of fresh beers from the fridge. In typical were fashion, my buzz from earlier had already dissipated, and I was glad for the cool bottle he placed in my hand.

We drank in silence, each mulling over our thoughts as we avoided each other’s gaze, until the rumble of a tow truck pulling up outside roused our attention. Looking to the distant front door at the sound of a car door closing and footsteps approaching, I said, “That’ll be Cordova’s guys.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

STANDING ON THE curb with my arms wrapped around myself to ward off the cold, I watched the man, no doubt someone’s Day Servant, walking a tight circle around Cordova’s precious Ferrari, checking for scratches and dings. I’d already told him that the car was fine, but he’d insisted on examining it before he left all the same. Knowing Cordova, he’d told the guy he’d string him up next to me and flay us both if he found any scratches on the sports car. I just hoped my little light show while fleeing Asylum hadn’t left any permanent marks on the car.

Beside me, Hank loomed as silent and solid as a stone pillar, seemingly immune to the cold wind that whipped my hair across my face. He watched the Day Servant with icy eyes, and I thanked my lucky stars I wasn’t on the receiving end of his gaze. A snippet of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” cut through the silence, accompanied by a buzzing sound emanating from Hank’s pocket. Blushing an impressive shade of red Hank glanced at me before dropping his eyes guiltily.

“Is that...” I started to ask, fighting in vain to keep from laughing.

“Juliet’s idea of a joke,” Hank muttered, digging the phone out of his pocket and turning away from me. “This is Hank,” he answered, taking several steps away.

Still grinning, I tuned him out to give him some privacy and turned my gaze back to the guy surveying the car, catching him smirking. We shared a fleeting moment of amusement across the Ferrari’s hood before he erased all emotion from his face and resumed his assessment.

Probably afraid cracking a smile would make him lose points with the vamps or something. Heaven forbid any of the undead have a sense of humor.

I smelled the change in Hank at the same time I noticed the stiffness in his stance. A wave of sour, burnt cinnamon flowed off of him, stinging my nose. The guy over by the car noticed it too, his eyes flaring silver beneath the streetlight as he turned them towards us. Something bad had happened.

Stepping closer to Hank, reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder, I drew my hand back at the last second, his sharp gaze giving me pause. Dropping my hand back to my side I asked, “What’s going on?”

Ignoring me, Hank listened to a sobbing woman on the other end of the line, and I felt the blood drain from my face at the few words I caught.

“...it’s Ben. He-he’s dead. They killed him!”

“Stay there. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“What’s going on?” I asked again when Hank hung up and stomped back towards the house, his long stride forcing me to jog along behind him to keep up.

Wrenching open the front door with enough force to make its hinges squeal in protest, Hank growled out a reply. “There’s been an attack.”

“Another vamp?”

Struggling to keep up, I followed him into the kitchen where he snatched his flannel jacket from a hook beside the back door, and scooped up a pair of keys from the table. I couldn’t figure out why he was so worked up over a dead vamp. I wouldn’t have thought there would be much love lost there.

“No, a were. One of the pack.”

His words hit me with the force of a ton of bricks, making me lurch to a stop in the center of the kitchen.

“What? Wait. Talk to me.”

“I can’t. I can’t do whatever this is,” he snapped, waving a hand between us to encompass the hot, spicy scent of arousal that lingered in the air. “I have to go tend to my pack.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. This is pack business. It has nothing to do with you.”

“You want me to join the pack, don’t you?” I asked, his reflexive flinch confirming my suspicions. “That’s why you had me meet Juliet, why you guys had me run with you. I’m not stupid, Hank. I get that it makes you look bad to have me running around unbound, and we’ll talk about that when this is all over. But if you ever want this to be over you have to let me figure out who the hell is doing this.”

He looked as though he was going to tell me to mind my own business, but after a moment he said, “Anyone ever tell you you’re stubborn as a mule?”

“All the time,” I replied, shying away from the guilty pang in my gut.

Following Hank back outside, I drew up short at the sight of the guy inspecting an imagined scratch on the hood of Cordova’s Ferrari. I’d completely forgotten about him. Judging by the sudden tightness in Hank’s shoulders he had too, and for a second I thought he might stomp over to the Day Servant and punch him. Or worse.

“You’d better get out of here,” I called out to him as Hank lurched into motion once more, and cut a stomping path across the grass towards a big silver pick-up.

“I need to finish—”

“Are you deaf? I said, get the fuck out of here!” I snapped, jogging after Hank who’d already started the truck.

* * *

I thanked every deity known to man when we pulled up outside a two-story stucco house and Hank turned off the engine. A trip that should have taken an hour under normal circumstances took us less thirty minutes, and I’d spent the entire trip clinging to the “oh shit” handle for dear life.

Note to self: even if the world is ending, do not, I repeat
do not
ride with Hank ever again.

Sliding out of the truck, I resisted the temptation to fall to my knees and kiss the pavement in thanks for arriving in one piece. Following the stiff-shouldered pack master up the cobblestone path to the front door, I shook off some of my lingering tension only to feel it worm its way back under my skin when the familiar silhouette of Metembe filled the doorway.

Great. Captain Sunshine is here.

Opening the door as we approached, Metembe greeted Hank with a deep bow of his head. I, on the other hand, received a thinly veiled sneer and a cold stare. “Everyone is inside,
Mon Roi
.”

“The council is here?”

“Almost. Genevieve and Jacqueline should be here any minute. Austin is on his way.”

Council?
I figured there had to be some kind of pack hierarchy to support the pack master, but this was the first mention I’d ever heard of anyone besides his judgmental lieutenant.

I didn’t know how many wolves were in the pack, but judging by the all but palpable cloud of were musk wafting out of the door I estimated there to be at least a dozen weres crammed into the house. I felt the wolf rush to the surface, drawn out of the darkness by the scent of so many others close by. She was curious and eager to come out, and my limits were tested holding her at bay.

Sensing my internal struggle, Hank turned a stony gaze on me. “You can leave if you can’t keep it together. I can’t hold your hand and deal with this.”

Wrestling the wolf back down, I said, “No, I... I’m good.”

Metembe’s dour look made it quite clear that he doubted my ability to keep the wolf under control, and that he would be delighted to take me down given half the chance.

Not today, asshole.

Stepping past Metembe and flashing him a saccharine smile, I went inside. The front door opened into a large room that might have been a formal living room in someone else’s house, but here was filled with the brightly colored plastic toys of young children. The sound of multiple voices and sobbing came from another room towards the back of the house. Fighting to ignore the weight of Metembe’s glare focused between my shoulder blades, I followed Hank and the sound of voices.

A steep staircase led up to the second floor where a shaft of light escaped from one of the upstairs rooms to illuminate the framed pictures lining the wall. A cursory glance at the pictures showed the growth of the family, from the happily smiling couple on their wedding day to the addition of first one child, and then a pair of pink-cheeked twins. Sitting halfway up the stairs, half hidden in shadow, was a blotchy-faced boy with a shaggy mop of dark brown hair. His face, still soft with youth, bore the haunted look of loss. It was an expression I’d seen reflected on my own face more times than I could count.

Although he was years away from his first change, I still caught the telltale hint of cinnamon and spice coming from him, along with the smell of the dirt caked to his shoes. Large eyes, red-rimmed from crying, watched Hank with a shadow of awe and instinctual respect as he stalked by. Doing my best to be as unobtrusive as possible, I gave him a small smile. I’d been where he was more times than I cared to remember, and felt the old pain flare to life in the center of my chest. It was dull and faded now, but hurt nonetheless.

After the initial look of confusion upon spotting a stranger in his house, his expression shifted to one of curiosity as if I was some kind of newly discovered creature.

I guess in some ways I am,
I thought. As I was learning, unbound wolves were a rarity, and I doubted the boy, or anyone else in the pack, had ever encountered one.
Great, I’m the side show attraction.

The feeling of being apart, a curiosity, was amplified when I stepped into the crowded living room. I could hear voices coming from another room at the back of the house, but it looked as though most of the pack had gathered around the weeping woman on the couch. Recognizing her from the family portraits, I shrank back against the wall, trying to stay out of the way. The growing headache and uneasiness in my stomach were even more reason to hang back and let Hank do his pack masterly duties.