Claimed by the Beast Bundle (47 page)

Chapter 15

Crystal gave up pretending she wasn’t watching the officer as he typed in their information and spoke on his radio. He put the radio down and dug into his pocket. He lifted a cell phone and started talking into it.

“A cell?” Crystal frowned. “Why’s he on a cell phone?”

“My guess is that’s one of the paladins. Maybe the sheriff you saw,” Hank said.

“Really? You think?”

“Really,” he confirmed. “Private conversation that way, not something recorded on the police logs or heard by anybody with a scanner.”

“Oh my God! I didn’t—you’re right! Anybody can hear those if they’ve got the equipment, right?”

“Right.”

Crystal turned away from the patrol car when she heard a distant screech. Coming down the road from the east was another vehicle, this one a SUV. Red and blue lights were flashing as it barreled down the road towards them. Crystal pointed at it. “Hank!”

“I know. That’s the sheriff,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“Usually the sheriffs have the nicer cars,” he explained. “I hope Red gets our friends here soon.”

Crystal swallowed and glanced back as the officer exited his car with his shotgun held in both hands and pointed at them. She gasped and tugged on Hank’s arm.

“Hands up!” he shouted. “Henry Rogers, you’re under arrest for kidnapping!”

“Kidnapping?” Crystal asked. “But I—”

“Do it,” Hank hissed as he slowly raised his hands.

“Turn around! Now!”

The SUV came closer, a cloud of dust billowing out behind it as it raced towards them. Crystal raised her hands slowly and turned to see Hank wink at her. “I’m eighteen!” Crystal protested. “He’s not kidnapping me!”

“I’ve got a missing person’s report, miss, and it says that a Hank Rogers is a suspect.”

Crystal shook her head. “Oh my God! Stop it, he’s my boyfriend!”

“If there’s a mistake, it can be cleared up at the station,” the officer said.

She could hear that he was getting closer but wasn’t in arm’s reach yet. Hank could turn and shift and have him, she was sure, but she wasn’t that good at it yet. When she’d shifted back to two legs this morning, she’d managed it without collapsing or blacking out, but it still took her several seconds.

Before she could put any more thought to it, she realized just how fast and how close the sheriff’s Trailblazer was. She opened her mouth to warn Hank when the driver jammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel. It skidded to a halt sideways across the road, blocking both lanes.

The dust rolled over them, obscuring everything for a few moments. She coughed into her shoulder and heard the officer coughing behind her. Was this it? Should she shift and run? Did she have time?

“Hank!” she hissed.

“Not yet,” he whispered back.

Crystal waited and blinked the dirt out of her eyes. She saw the sheriff approaching, a gun in his hand. He walked around them, giving them plenty of room, while keeping his gun trained on them.

“Sheriff Whitcomb, I’ve got them ready for you.”

“You weren’t supposed to risk yourself, Ted,” the sheriff said. “These two are considered dangerous. They’re wanted in relation to the disappearance of that Dixon kid.”

“Sorry, sir, but I thought—”

The sheriff stepped up beside him and reached down to his pocket with his left hand. Crystal watched as he drew something out of it. He stepped back behind Ted and raised his pistol so he wasn’t pointing it at the man’s head. “Good job here, Ted. Damn fine job finding these two.”

Ted glanced back but only for a fraction of a second. He returned his attention to Crystal and Hank as he stared down the barrel of his shotgun. “Tha—”

“No!” Crystal shouted as the sheriff jammed a knife into the patrolman’s back three times.

The stricken officer twisted and fell, firing the shotgun into the ground and tearing up some baby cornstalks. Sheriff Whitcomb kicked the shotgun away as the man rolled onto his back.

“I’m sorry to do this, Ted, but know that God will accept your sacrifice. You’re dying for a holy cause, brother. You are a martyr and I will make sure your family is looked after.”

The fallen officer gasped and reached down for the pistol at his side. Crystal could hear his breath hissing through the holes in his back. Sheriff Whitcomb stepped closer and then dropped to one knee on Ted’s reaching arm. The sheriff kept his pistol pointed at them and kept glancing their way to make sure they didn’t move.

“Go with God, my brother,” the sheriff said before he drove the knife between the ambushed man’s ribs and into his heart.

“St—Oh my God!” Crystal cried out. “What are you—He didn’t—”

“Shut up!” Whitcomb snarled. He rose up to stare at them. “You filthy beasts have no right to talk! You’re no better than dogs. You shouldn’t even be standing on two feet!”

“We’re the evil ones?” Crystal sputtered. “You just killed an innocent man! A police officer, for God’s sake!”

“Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain!” he shouted. “This pistol is loaded with silver bullets, same as my knife. Blessed in the Lord’s name, too! You won’t get away this time, you lying bitch!”

Hank growled and took a step forward. The sheriff turned his attention to him. “Take another step, Demon! One more step and I put a hole in your head the devil himself can’t fix.”

“Then what?” Crystal snarled. “Then you’ll make up a story about how we stabbed your officer and you saved the day? How you’re the hero? Oh, and tell his family what a brave man he was when you killed him in cold blood?”

“Shut your filthy mouth! I didn’t want to do what I did—I had to. For the greater good!” Sheriff Whitcomb was so enraged he sprayed spittle with his last words. “Now where are your friends? The rest of your pack of devil-worshipping demons?”

“I don’t worship the devil,” Crystal growled at him. “Matter of fact, I believed in God until I met you sick fucks!”

“Liar!”

“No!” she shouted back and took a step closer to him. “I’m not lying! But now I can’t understand how a loving God could ever stand by and let people like you run around and hurt people in His name.”

“Even the devil can quote scripture,” Whitcomb mumbled. He shook his head and raised his pistol. “You lied to us once and got away. Crafty, but the first betrayer to man was a woman, so that makes sense. Is your demon lover as cunning as you? What if I kill you now to stop your lies and then I’ll get what I need from him?”

Crystal froze and felt Hank trembling beside her. It wasn’t fear; it was rage. She could smell it. Whitcomb had no idea of the danger he was in. And not just from Hank—she was on the edge herself.

“Want to try?” she asked. She heard Hank’s inhaled breath beside her. “You tried before and look at me now.” Crystal lowered her arms and unsnapped her skirt. She let it fall as she spun and raised her arms to pull her shirt over her head. It fell to the pavement behind her. “Not a scratch.”

“Temptress!” he hissed. His eyes darted to her full breasts and to the patch of hair below. “My friends are coming. You’ll be purified to save what soul remains. And if there’s none left, then you’ll burn. Burn forever!”

“Oh, I doubt that very much,” Crystal said with a smile that turned into a snarl. She jumped forward and shifted, throwing herself into the pain and relishing it. She called on it, exulting in the agony.

She heard the thunder of a gunshot and felt something slam into her. It stole her breath and left her dazed, but she knew she had to get up. Another gunshot echoed into the sky as she picked her head up and scrambled to her feet. She sidestepped to catch her balance and spun around, looking for Whitcomb.

She saw his feet jerking as a monster wrestled on top of him. She thought it was half wolf and half man until she realized that Hank had shifted without taking his clothes off. His shirt was torn and caught up around his barrel chest while his pants were hung up on his legs and tail.

More important was Whitcomb’s pistol that was skidding to a halt in the middle of the road. The sheriff thrashed a few more times and lie still amid a pool of spreading blood.

Chapter 16

The large wolf backed away from the fallen sheriff and melted before her eyes. The ridges and shape turned liquid as hair was sucked back into the amorphous shape and bumps and ridges moved and reshaped themselves. His tattered clothing fell free and left behind the familiar form of Hank on his knees with both hands on the ground. He lifted his head and twisted his neck, stretching the muscles before he let out a sigh.

Hank lifted himself up and rose to one knee and then his feet. He turned to Crystal and frowned. “Did he hit you?” Hank asked as he stepped closer to her.

Crystal heard the sheriff shoot twice. Had one of the bullets hit her? She turned and glanced down her left flank and then did the same to her right. There wasn’t any pain and her fur looked unruffled. She turned back to him and shook her head.

“Shift back,” Hank said. “We’ve got to get away from here.”

Crystal whimpered. She’d just shifted and, now that the adrenaline surge was passing, she wasn’t looking forward to the pain.

“Hurry,” Hank urged.

Crystal growled her displeasure and then made herself think like a woman again. Her skin felt like it was on fire as her fur pulled back and then the real torture began as her bones, muscles, and organs rearranged themselves. The pain vanished and left a dull ache, only to come back and feel like a wave of acid splashed over her when her nerves reconnected.

Crystal groaned and remained on all fours, her body trembling and her arms and legs feeling too weak to support her. She blinked as the misery faded and felt the warmth from the mid-afternoon sun filling her with strength. She pushed against the ground and then caught Hank’s hand in hers to help her stand.

“It gets easier?” she whimpered.

Hank nodded. “It does.”

She looked past him and saw the sheriff’s throat and face looked more like fresh ground hamburger than human flesh. She winced and turned away. “So much for that.”

Hank nodded and walked over to where his clothes were spread across the ground. “Get our stuff from the cop car,” he said.

Crystal nodded, the urgency of their situation helping her past the phantom memories of pain. She stepped around the dead policemen and stuck her head into the open door of the cop car. Their cards and Hank’s registration were lying on the console. She picked them up and hesitated. Had she touched anything to leave a fingerprint? Was there any other evidence? She looked around at the trooper’s computer and saw that he hadn’t even typed anything in yet. Or had he cleared it out already?

Crystal frowned and backed away. She shook her head and looked back. Hank was shoving his torn shirt in his saddlebag and already had his pants, vest, and loose tied boots back on. She was still nude.

“Hurry,” Hank called to her when he saw her looking.

Crystal nodded and walked back, skirting the bodies and staring at them even though she didn’t want to. Officer Ted—she wondered what his last name was—didn’t need to die. It was so stupid. So pointless! He’d been a decent person trying to do a job he believed in. Now, because of the sheriff and his stupid beliefs, he was dead. She bit her lip and shook her head.

“Sorry about how that went down,” Hank said when Crystal walked up to him. He held out her clothes to her.

“Ted didn’t need to die,” she said.

“I know,” Hank agreed.

“Whitcomb did.”

Hank stiffened. “I thought—”

“Hank, I’m not stupid,” Crystal snapped. “I don’t believe in hurting people if there’s any other way. I still think maybe we should be running and hiding instead of fighting back, but we didn’t have that choice here. He was an asshole. A royal jerk who was so full of himself he couldn’t see reality. Even with that, maybe there was hope for him, or at least maybe a padded room somewhere in a hospital.”

“Wait, you just said he deserved it?”

Crystal nodded and finished wrapping her borrowed skirt around her hips. She pushed it down on her hips until it wouldn’t go any further, offering some modesty at the expense of showing enough lower back to prove she wasn’t even wearing a thong. “When he killed the other cop,” she continued without missing a beat, “he gave up any rights he had, as far as I’m concerned.”

Hank nodded. “They’re all like that,” he said.

“All of the men we’re after?”

“All paladins. At least all the ones I’ve come across.”

Crystal pulled her shirt over her head and dragged it over her chest. She fixed him with a serious stare and asked, “How many is that?”

“Probably a couple dozen.”

“A couple dozen?” Crystal gasped. “There’s no way they all found you out. You guys don’t go out of your way to expose yourselves!”

“We hunt them.”

Crystal stared at him for a long minute with her lips pressed together. “I’m not like that,” she said.

“I know.”

Her chin trembled as she demanded, “Are you? Wait, that’s a stupid question. Of course you are. Here we are, doing this.”

“Crys, it’s not like that.”

“It’s not?”

“Well, okay, it was. It is. Christ, I don’t know.”

Her eyes narrowed and she held out her hand. “Give me my phone.”

“What? Oh, here.” He reached into his vest pocket and pulled her phone out. “That’s just what we’ve always done. Or what they’ve been doing. I’ve only been doing it with them since I changed. I know I wasn’t sure at first either. My first time, I learned how evil they are.”

Crystal jerked her attention up from her phone to him as he laughed. “This is funny?”

He nodded. “In a twisted way.”

She brought up the text message thread from Ember and saw the only response was her saying, “OK.”

“I’m not laughing.” Crystal growled. She looked up at Hank again and felt the world spinning around her. Had they really lied to her? How much was a lie? Where they evil after all? Was there something satanic about them? She didn’t feel that way but she’d wanted to kill Whitcomb just as much as Hank had.

“I said they’re evil, and they are,” Hank explained. “The funny part is they think they’re the good guys. They want to rid the world of people like us. Well, people like anyone that they aren’t. They start with us but when all the shifters and witches and everything else are gone, what’s next? Muslims? Atheists? Democrats?”

Crystal blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t care. You lied to me. The others too, but you let them. You—you’re supposed to be my boyfriend. My mate! How could you?”

“Crys! Stop, it’s not like that!”

Crystal shook her head and turned away. “Go back to your friends. Your murderers. I’m done.”

“Crystal! Wait. You can’t walk away. You won’t be safe! You need us. And we need you.”

She turned back and stared at him through the tears that made him swim in her eyes. “Is that right?”

“I need you.”

A sob escaped her throat. Her heart leapt out of her chest for him, and she ached to run to him. She shook her head. “I can’t live like that. I’m not a killer!”

“Crys—”

“No!” she sobbed. “Leave me alone! Damn you, Hank. Damn all of you!”

Crystal turned and ripped her clothes off as she ran. She threw herself forward and shifted flawlessly for the first time. She hit the ground running, too consumed by her own misery to realize what she’d accomplished.