Dire Desires: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan (8 page)

J
inx carried a
sleeping Gillian in from the roof around dawn, put her in his bedroom and resisted the urge to crawl in next to her. They had enough issues to deal with already and truth be told, the king of purgatory thing was going to be a nice wedge in their relationship.

On his way to the shower, he grumbled something at Jez while the vampire ate his Cocoa Pebbles, wondering if the deadhead needed any sleep. Superfuckingvampire, he was.

He contemplated the day ahead as he let the hot water sluice over his back. Brother was pissed about the no-running thing. Rogue was pissed. Rifter was pissed. Vice would be pissed soon enough.

Maybe the hellhound could be housebroken. The building obviously didn’t have a problem with pets.

Brother Wolf growled. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

And maybe you’re punch-drunk on lack of sleep.

He’d barely gotten out of the shower when Jez opened the door.

“I think we’re close enough that I don’t feel the need to shower together,” Jinx told him.

“Stray’s on the phone—said it’s an emergency. Asshole,” he added and Jinx dried himself as he walked into the living room to grab the phone.

Jez had put it on speaker. “Stray, what’s wrong?”

“Your girlfriend’s famous,” Stray said. Jez was already turning on the TV where a special news bulletin was splashed across the screen.

There was a picture of Gillian—and a drawing of a guy who he guessed was supposed to be him.

“Looks nothing like me,” he scoffed.

“You’re lucky I managed to destroy the video footage. Took all night—neither you or Jez was really slick. And Kate was the sketch artist—she helped make sure the sketch is just off enough.”

“I’m not supposed to show up on celluloid,” Jez mused.

“No one says celluloid anymore,” Jinx said as Stray continued, “You were all over it in black and white.”

Jez frowned but merely said, “They’re offering an obscene reward.”

“Her parents are the Blackwells. As in Blackwell Industries,” Stray told them and Jinx couldn’t tear his eyes away as the press conference with Gillian’s parents began.

They didn’t look anything like her, which of course made sense. In a way, he’d been hoping they were Dires, even Weres, but no way. He’d be able to tell.

“I’ve got a call in to Marley—she knows a couple of the camera guys at the conference. Parents are human,” Stray confirmed.

Mrs. Blackwell looked suitably teary, her husband, stoic and firm. They pleaded for their daughter’s safe return and offered five million dollars.

And now there was a bounty on Gillian’s head the size of fucking Earth.

It made sense that Gillian would’ve used the name Black. Using her real name would’ve attracted the media as well as making her a target for, well, kidnappers. Like him. “We’re screwed.”

This new world of wolves and humans living so close—mixing—was inherently dangerous. She wouldn’t be the first accidentally adopted wolf. But the fact that she’d been locked away and forgotten, and now they were trying so desperately to get her back, struck him as more than a little strange.

“. . . She’s a danger to others. She tried to kill several members of the hospital staff,” one of the doctors was saying now as the camera lights flashed and members of the press called out questions.

“That’s a lie,” Jinx said.

“Is it?” Jez asked.

“Wouldn’t the orderly have shared that with me?” Jinx demanded.

“None of this makes sense,” Jez agreed. “But this is going to get everyone’s attention—and Gillian is hard to miss.”

“Please call law enforcement to help bring Gillian in. Do not attempt to grab her yourself,” the New York City police chief was saying. “We are working with law enforcement in the areas around the hospital where Gillian disappeared. Yes, I’ll take a question.”

“Sir, does it appear that Gillian Blackwell left of her own accord?”

“According to reports, she was carried out by the man you see in the police sketch. We believe he has taken her against her will.”

“Sir, have there been any calls for ransom?”

“Not as of yet,” he confirmed.

Jez shook his head and Jinx stared at the floor.

“Does the Greenland pack have TV or Internet?” Jez asked finally, without a trace of irony.

“That’s a good fucking question,” Stray muttered across the line.

“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this—now,” Jinx said.

“Kill’s got a lead,” Stray assured him.

Jinx had forgotten how damned hard the memories of the Greenland pack were for the brothers—and it wasn’t like they could saunter in and say, “Hi, we’re the other Dires and we’ve got one of yours.”

“I’m sorry you and Killian have to deal with this, Stray,” Jinx told him.

“It’s all good. For your mate.”

All Jinx could say was “Thanks.”

“Obviously lay low,” Stray added.

“She’s got to run.”

“Fill her in when she wakes,” Stray said. “You can’t ease her into this.”

And then what?
Jinx wanted to ask, but he couldn’t. Because the “then what” would entail hiding her. Sending her away, possibly back to a pack they all hated.

•   •   •

Gillian had been
watching TV in the bedroom. She sat up, hugging the covers to her body, her eyes glued to the screen of the channel that prepared to run the news on a continuous loop. She didn’t acknowledge him at first, until he said, “I didn’t know you were, ah . . . you know . . .”

“An heiress?” she answered without tearing her eyes from the news conference.

“Rich as shit.”

“That too.” He’d wrapped a towel around his waist, as all his clean clothes were actually in this room, washed by whatever vampire cleaning fairies Jez employed. He never saw any of them, but everything was always pretty damned impeccable and there was always a ton of food, including a lot of meat, so he had no complaints.

Now, he grabbed a pair of jeans and dropped the towel to yank them on. She was glued to the TV screen, so not the biggest confidence booster.

He took the remote from her and turned it off. She grabbed it back from him and turned it on. “I have to know what they’re saying about me.”

“Why?”

“Because.” She shoved the covers aside, frustrated, and he tried not to stare at her long lean legs. “You don’t understand. My family is so fucked up.”

“Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t understand fucked-up families,” he muttered.

She was staring at him because she’d heard him. Goddamned wolf hearing. “All I’m saying is—”

“Am I?” she interrupted.

“Are you what?” Jinx braced himself as she asked the next part of the question.

“Dangerous. They kept telling me how sick I was. But they never tried to find me when I left. And I don’t remember trying to hurt anyone, but I had blackouts.”

“What kind of blackouts? From the drugs?”

“Maybe. I lost time. Days—weeks, one time. But the doctors always told me that things were fine.” She gave her parents on the TV a hard look. “I shouldn’t have believed any of them.”

•   •   •

Jinx was studying her.
She wondered if this was the point where everything that had been so wonderful and easy between them would break down, that he would reconsider hiding her.

Five million dollars was nothing to sneeze at, and ghost hunting couldn’t pay that much, if at all. Granted, she had no idea how he afforded this place, but maybe Jez paid for it.

Another doctor was on-screen now, discussing Gillian’s diagnosis without saying the exact word schizophrenia, because that would violate all kinds of HIPPA policies. Instead, he talked generally about what happens to a mental patient who stopped taking meds suddenly.

He had no clue the daily meds did nothing for her. She didn’t even bother spitting them out any-more because she was convinced they were sugar pills. And she certainly wasn’t suffering from any kind of withdrawal symptoms as far as she could tell.

She would, however, kill for a nice, stiff drink. And a rare hamburger. She wanted to go to a bar and dance on tables and kiss Jinx all night, end up in his bed.

She’d settle for not being put back into the hospital at this point. Moved nervously under the covers until Jinx finally spoke.

“You said last night that your family could be difficult. Didn’t you think it might be important to tell me who they were?”

“No,” she said coolly. “I liked that you didn’t know.”

“I could’ve been lying.”

“But you weren’t. I would’ve known. I lived my entire life growing up around people using me for that damned last name.” She fisted her hands on her bare thighs as she watched her mother daintily wipe her eyes, her father’s comforting arms around her. “This is the most they’ve touched each other ever, and I’m counting their wedding night.”

“Wow.”

“They’ve slept in separate bedrooms as long as I can remember.”

“Maybe they have, like, conjugal visits?”

“In separate wings. My father’s lovers sleep over.”

“Ouch.”

“I’m adopted,” she said suddenly. “They didn’t want to tell me, but I hired a detective to find the lawyer they got me from. At least my father’s money did me some good.”

“You’re their only kid.”

“Yes. And no, I don’t want any of their money. They can keep all of it.” There was a time in her life she couldn’t have imagined saying that, never mind meaning it. But she had and she did.

She was angry—at Jinx, herself, her parents. All of it.

“I don’t understand why they’re even doing this. It’s got to be for show.”

“Maybe they’re sorry?” Jinx asked.

“They haven’t even come to see me in years. People don’t change that much.” Granted, even before that, her parents had never really taken a huge interest in her. Like most of her friends, she’d been raised by staff, rarely seeing her parents except for important functions where she’d been shown off to the society she was supposed to become a part of.

Poor little rich girl.

“Look, Gillian . . . if you decide to go home, I don’t want you to think you’re not free to do that,” Jinx told her.

“There’s no point. There’s nothing to go back to—my parents don’t even want me inside their house. And I’m not going to live in a psych ward for the rest of my life. So no offense, but you’re not helping this at all.”

But what was she going to do? Hide out here forever?

It seemed, at least for the foreseeable future, that was the best thing for her to do. “I’m sorry, Jinx. I’m being a bitch.”

He didn’t seem worried or offended. Concerned a bit, yes. But he didn’t seem to mind her, moods and all. It was an enlightening and completely new feeling. “I’ll bring you in some breakfast. Best you stay inside for the time being, okay?”

She nodded and he closed the door halfway. She could see the big TV was on in the living room, of course, on the news station. She was causing a lot of trouble for both men now.

Apparently, they’d somehow signed up for it.

She looked around Jinx’s bedroom. It was furnished in clean, modern lines like the rest of the penthouse. Very few personal touches, she mused as she looked around.

It was then she noticed the books on the shelf.

The books . . . the titles she’d kept in her room at the hospital. They were here, neatly lined up on the bookshelves. Not the same books, mind you. No, these were brand-new, no creases on the spine.

He hadn’t been able to get hers back in time, because they’d probably thrown them out once they realized she wasn’t coming back. But he’d gotten her every single one and left them here. It was the only explanation.

When he came back in with a tray filled with bacon and eggs and toast, among other things, she was up rifling through the books, smelling the pages. “How did you . . . ?”

“I have a good memory,” he said. “It seemed like you really liked them.”

She put one to her chest. “They were all I had.”

“I didn’t want to bring back bad memories.”

“They’re not. You didn’t. Thank you.” She reached out and hugged him, not wanting to tell him that, at this moment, that was all she had of them.

C
ain dream
ed of Angus almost nightly. Sometimes they were sex dreams, but most often it was his wolf stumbling on the battered, broken FBI agent, too late to do anything but mourn him. When he woke, his stomach knotted and he wondered what the thin line was between dreaming and prophesying.

Yeah, he much preferred the sex dreams. Because in those, no one was bloody or broken . . . well, maybe Angus was a little bloody from Cain’s teeth, but he enjoyed it.

Did Angus need him? He hadn’t changed his number but the man hadn’t called him at all.

You’re turning into a female.

“You were tossing around so much you shook the damned floor,” Cyd complained now. “I don’t want to be inside those dreams anymore.”

The twin thing assured that, more often than not, Cyd would feel whatever Cain did when he was in distress. And since Cyd knew all about the Angus situation, he knew who his twin was having those feelings about.

There was far more judgment that Cain felt that way about a human than the fact that it was another man. “I’d think you were too busy with your own floor shaking to worry about mine,” Cain said dryly and his twin laughed as he headed into the shower. Cyd’s back was covered in scratches, which would match the screaming werechicks who’d ended up in Cyd’s bed last night.

“Hey, I offered you one,” Cyd reminded him.

“Yeah, yeah.” Cain lay back on the pillows, covering his eyes with his hand. It was dark out, but too damned light in the room since Cyd turned on all of the lights to wake Cain up. His cock was half hard, because this particular dream had them finishing what they’d started the night he’d saved Angus’s life.

He’d pressed Angus up against the sink—the fed was holding on and they were both staring into the mirror, his cock inside Angus’s hot, tight—

“Better get moving—you’re babysitting today,” Cyd called out from the shower, breaking the mood for the umpteenth time. Cain sighed and tossed the covers off.

“Don’t let Rogue hear you call it that,” he said darkly. The Dires had been staying with Rogue around the clock. According to Liam, who’d heard it from Vice, every time Rogue tried to sleep, he’d wake up screaming.

Cain could only imagine the literal hell he’d been through.

Speaking of dreams, he wondered if Rifter was wandering around in his mind too. He hadn’t exactly caught sight of the shaggy gray Dire but, then again, he really wasn’t paying attention to anyone but Angus.

Angus.
Gone for just a short time but it felt like months. You’d think Cain would have better judgment or at least survival skills after all he’d been through.

He guessed love really did make you goddamned stupid.

•   •   •

Rogue had sta
yed up all night and all the next day, because fuck sleep. He’d had enough to last him a lifetime. Stray and Killian hung out with him, and then Vice came back and they smoked some hand rolls, because at that moment, Vice seemed more fucked-up than he was.

He’d heard the wolves talking in low tones about Liam’s big fight. The twins’ involvement. And then there were the visits to his room—the just-checking-on-you glances, the let-me-know-if-you-need-anything looks.

He was drowning.

It was after midnight by the time everyone cleared the fuck out for their runs and Rogue was alone. Semi-alone, since a much-subdued Cain trailed into the attic and he enlisted the young Were to help him burn the bed.

He wasn’t surprised by Cain’s quiet. Young Weres usually had enough energy to bounce off the walls no matter how hard they ran, but last night had been a battle. And even though they’d won, Rogue knew they’d lost something as well.

As they watched the giant bonfire roar in the middle of the yard, Cain said, “The female Dire escaped. She’s with Jinx now.”

“She didn’t look like much could hold her. If she could do that before a shift . . . well hell, from what I remember, the females were actually stronger than the males. Granted, I think it’s like that in every culture, although the males aren’t likely to admit that.”

Cain gave a soft snort but his eyes didn’t lose their sadness.

“You miss Jinx.”

“Don’t you?” Cain asked.

“I miss a lot of things,” Rogue admitted, ran a hand over his shaved head. It would take some getting used to for sure, but he liked the feeling of freedom. “Thanks for babysitting me.”

“That’s not what this is.”

But Rogue held out a hand to stop him. “Don’t bother. It’s okay. But I want to shift and run.”

Rifter had told Rogue to wait at least a couple more days before trying to shift. Cain didn’t seem all that worried about disobeying that order. Rogue supposed that, after the last couple of months, what he wanted to do was mild in comparison and as natural as breathing.

But hell, if he was going to shift, doing so with an omega around seemed like a good idea.

“Think you’re ready?”

“Brother Wolf’s singing. But he’s nervous.”

Cain put his hands on the bare skin of Rogue’s back, over the glyph. Rogue felt the warmth sink in until he was heated from head to toe.

The pup had gotten stronger since turning twenty-one. He was coming into his destiny.

Inside Rogue’s head, Brother began to howl. Without warning, Rogue shifted and although it seemed to take a little longer than normal, everything else appeared to have fallen into place. Brother shook his fur and howled. Cain walked around his big wolf as if checking to see if it was all systems go before stripping and shifting himself.

Brother watched the young Were’s pain, the way the scars on his back pulled during the transformation. Those scars had been put there purposely by a cruel packmaster, so Cain would always feel the pain of them during his shifts.

Cain always said it was a reminder of how lucky he was now that he’d escaped. The pup had a good attitude. And now, the wolf in front of him motioned with his head as if to say, you first. Rogue took him up on it and burst like a shot through the woods, his wolf humming as he picked up speed. The forest blurred as he ran, the scenting almost overwhelming, but welcomed. He was worried he wouldn’t be able to tolerate handing over the reins to Brother after what he’d been through, but Brother had suffered as much as he had. They both deserved this. Needed this. And with Cain on his six, they ran until they hit the lake.

It was still a little icy, because the nights remained cold, but his wolf walked in and splashed around in the freezing, clean water. Cain waited and watched, and Rogue swore he spotted some amusement in the lupine eyes.

Cain needed this as much as he did. And after several more minutes in the lake, he got out and shook. Prepared for another run when he scented humans. Cain obviously had too, and they moved toward a thicket of brush where they could camouflage and make sure there was no danger approaching.

Rogue’s hackles rose, but both wolves remained still as night as the humans passed them with weapons readied as if searching for someone. Or something.

Hunters.

Hunters were like Switzerland. They were equal opportunity, believing live and let live. They policed humans and shifters alike. They lived above human and shifter law, hated by trappers and rogue wolves, tolerated by most Weres and other shifters. Most humans didn’t know who or what hunters were, as they were also still in the dark about the existence of the supernatural world.

They hadn’t been seen in this area for a long while. Weres stayed clear of them for the most part, although some packs sent their wolves inside the organization to make sure the hunters were on the up-and-up. For the most part, any Weres that worked with hunters were seen as disloyal. Weres made their own laws and they didn’t want—or need—humans policing them.

So far, hunters had proven to be evenhanded, on the up-and-up, but Rogue knew that most organizations started out like that. Absolute power corrupted absolutely and all that crap. He’d seen history repeat itself on a loop like
Groundhog Day
for centuries.

He watched in silence as the group, who all bore the traditional hunter bow-and-arrow tattoos on the backs of both hands, met in a tight group. They were discussing Gillian, which was unsurprising, considering the five-million-dollar bounty was the news of the day, but as Rogue listened, it appeared they were simply patrolling the area, not looking for trouble—or Gillian.

“Listen, if they’re giving away that money, better that we find Gillian Blackwell and not the trappers or the Weres. At least we’ll bring her in safely,” one of the men was saying.

“I don’t disagree that we’re the best ones for the job, but I won’t pull us off our posts to hunt for her. If we come across her, we save her, deliver her to her parents before any harm comes to her,” another man said. “Beyond that, we’ve got a job to do.”

There were four humans in all, three men and one woman, not a Were among them. And they seemed serious and capable and Rogue wondered what would happen if he and Cain stepped out in front of them. That would tell the tale for sure.

But neither wolf did, their own sense of self-preservation more ingrained than that.

It was only after the hunters passed and he and Cain ran for several more hours did Rogue realize he hadn’t seen a single spirit. Not a real one, anyway, but it had gotten to the point where he’d begun to realize that his flashbacks of his time spent in hell might not be flashbacks after all.

Maybe, for the first time in his life, the spirits were as scared of him as he was of himself.