Dylan (Bowen Boys) (9 page)

“What do I smell like?” Reed looked at
Dylan. “I asked you a question, not him. And you’ll damn well answer me.”

“Him. You smell like Dylan. And not
because you used his crap in the shower either. You have his scent, the way his
panther smells.” Reed’s nostrils flared. “And you smell like feline, too.”

She looked at George. “What does that
mean? And your answer had better be more helpful than his was.”

“I would like for you not to speak to my
dad like that.” She glared at Khan and didn’t back up when he stood. “You’ll
have respect for your elders, or I’ll show you how to have it.”

Her fist came out so quickly that there
was no way for Khan to avoid it. When he started to lunge after her again, she
pulled her gun out and shot between his feet. No one in the room moved.

“I’m a little stressed out right now,
and you fucking aren’t helping me by ordering me around and treating me like
pond scum.” She ordered Khan and Dylan to sit. “I’ve been shot up, beat up, and
left for dead before, but I at least knew what the fuck was going on. You
people are giving me just enough for me to feel like the rabbit down the hole
and no tea party at the end to make it fun. And I’m not happy about it.”

“No shit,” Reed said very softly, but
she heard him and took his plate away. He looked ready to argue with her, but
she looked like she’d take him on if he did. Smart boy sat back in his chair
and glared back at her.

“Now, this is how this is going to play
out. I’m going to ask questions and you four are going to answer them. And I
want the rip-the-bandage answers, not the millimeter–by-millimeter version. Got
it?” Everyone nodded but Dylan. “You have a problem?”

“Yes. You’re going to get your ass
whipped when I get you alone. You don’t treat my family like this and expect
there to be no consequences.” Dylan stretched his legs out in front of him as
he continued his threat. “And then I’m going to have you apologize to them,
each of them, for this.”

“Fuck off. If I wanted to be treated
like a five-year–old, I would have asked you to dress up like my daddy. I don’t
need this shit.” She looked at the door again, then at them. “I’m twenty-seven
years old, and single. I came into this world alone and as an orphan. My father
died of a drug overdose, so I was told, and my mother did the same a few weeks
later. I was delivered by c-section by some homeless man that had come across
her. No one wanted a drugged-up baby, and I was one until I was a year old. I
grew up on the streets as soon as I could escape the place I’d been put. You
think you can threaten me and have
me
tremble in my boots?”

No one answered her, and Dylan even
looked ashamed. He started to stand up, but he was stopped when she pointed the
gun at him. He nodded once at her but didn’t threaten her.

“You bit me, and that’s how they knew
not to touch me.” Dylan nodded at her as she hopped up onto the counter. “And
does this smell thing, will a human be able to smell it?”

“No. Unless they have some latent abilities,
no one but another paranormal will smell it. To a cat you’ll smell like another
cat, but to other weres you’ll smell off-limits. And when another male touches
you, even human, I’ll have an overwhelming need to mark you again.”

“Mark, as in biting again or sex?”
George felt his face heat up. She looked at him. “I’m sorry, but he started
this.”

“You go ahead and get your answers from
us. You should have had this talk sooner. It’s partly my fault. I wanted to see
Dylan happy, and I encouraged him to see to you.” George looked at Dylan.
“Answer the girl, son.”

“Both. The biting to mark you
physically, sex so that I can dominate you again. Not that what we did wasn’t
mutual, but that’s the way of my…our beast.” She nodded. “If Reed had hugged
you like he wanted, then I would have taken you back to the bed and fucked you
until you couldn’t walk. Next I would have sank my teeth into your cream flesh
and marked you.”

She reddened a little, but looked at
Khan. “And what are you? You have some sort of power over the rest of them,
right?”

“Yes. I’m their leader. Yours, too, now
that you and Dylan are mates.” She snorted again. “You will pledge to me or I
won’t be able to call you to me or you call me to you. I’m your leader as much
as I am Dylan’s. And your family, as well.”

“Family I don’t need. They’ll get you
killed.” She looked at George. “And when you came into the bedroom as a panther
the other day, why did they all run from you?”

“Run?” He tried to remember. “Oh no,
dear, they weren’t running. They were showing respect for the old man of the
family. They gave me a wide berth to allow me passage. I’ve retired from the
family as the leader, but they still have some respect for me.”

“I’m sure they respect you more than a
little.” She hopped down off the counter and put her gun down. “This isn’t
over. But I refuse to resort to pulling a gun to get answers. You know
something you think I might benefit from, you give it to me straight. I’m not
stupid, nor am I some weak-kneed ninny that can only survive if there’s a man
around to save my ass.”

Reed stood up and walked to her. When he
pulled Jack into his arms, George looked at Dylan. His body was still, stiff as
a board, but he didn’t move to hurt his brother.

“I’m sorry, Jack. I really am. I’m not a
mated male, so hugging you is sort of off-limits, but if you can take his wrath,
so can I.” He kissed her head, pulled his plate off the counter, and sat down.
“Especially when you can cook like this.”

George watched Dylan and the girl. He
wondered what was going on behind their minds, both of them a study in
stillness. When Jack turned back to the stove, Dylan sat up straighter in his
chair and took a slice of bacon off Reed’s plate.

“Jack, do you think I could have something
to eat as well? I worked up a powerful appetite last night.” She nodded but
didn’t turn around. “Jack?”

“I’m cooking as fast as I can. Maybe you
should have taken into consideration how much you guys eat before you put in
this tiny-assed stove.” She turned and handed him a plate piled high with eggs,
bacon, and toast. “If I have to do this daily, I’ll want a bigger stove and a
bigger refrigerator.”

“I can do that.” Dylan stood up and
pulled her into his arms. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

George had a feeling Dylan was talking
about more than the kitchen and nodded. This was going to turn out all right,
and he couldn’t wait to tell his mate. Corrine was not going to believe this.

Chapter Seven

Lucius watched the house from his perch
on the tree. Deveron was proving to be much more of a problem than he’d asked
him to be. When he’d told the wolf to make life difficult for the human, he’d
never dreamed he’d make things this bad. He watched as the human Mann cleaned
up the body of the woman that Deveron had murdered.

Lucius materialized in the room just
behind the human. “He will pay for this. I did not give him leave to kill
someone. He knows better.”

The human turned and looked at him,
shock written on his face. Lucius thought the human had aged much in the past
few days, and it did not look well on him. When he turned his back to continue
his task, Lucius tried to contain his anger.

“He killed her. Now I have to figure out
what to do with her body and all the blood around this room. And that man…the
one that sent her here…he’s going to charge me for this one, too.” The human
turned to him. “Do you have any idea how much he’s costing me to look for
Crosby and not coming up with any more results than I did?”

Lucius swiped his hand around the room
and the body disappeared, as did the blood and other parts of the woman. The
human sat in the chair and looked around. Lucius thought the man was going to
fall over the edge into insanity. He couldn’t let that happen just yet. He
still had a use for him.

“I will also take care of the wolf at
the bar. You’ll have no more problems with him.” The human nodded. “Deveron has
not been able to locate the woman. He says that you have given him false leads
and misinformation. Is this true, human?”

“I’ve not spoken to the man but to tell
him ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ since he darkened my door. The little pisser even leaves
me notes on what he wants me to fix him for dinner and when he requires another
female or something.” He looked at Lucius. “The only time he leaves this house
is at dusk, and he returns within the hour without a word to me. If he can’t
find her, it’s because he’s not trying, not for lack of information from me.”

Lucius had thought so. He moved out of
this room and into the one below them by simply willing his body through the
floor. He heard the human come down the stairs and sat to wait for him. When he
came into the room that had the couch in it, Lucius bid him to sit.

“The girl? What do you know of her?
Where she lives? Who are her friends?” Lucius knew very little about the woman
who was messing with his plan, and hoped that when he found her he’d have
something to hold her with.

“She gave us a bunch of half answers to
questions, and the address she gave us is a fake. And the only friend she had
has disappeared. I thought I had her killed, but it turns out that the woman in
the accident had been dead for several days before the accident.” Lucius didn’t
want to be impressed, but he was. “Crosby must have known we’d figure out she’d
taken that chip from her body and had hidden the vet away so we couldn’t find
her.”

“I don’t know…. Chip?” The human nodded
and told him what it was and how it had been used. “So she found the chip and
had it removed. If so, then how did you know where she was at any given time?”

“She fooled us at first. I thought it
had malfunctioned because it would work, then not, for a few days. I had set
her up to have a physical done, a sort of head-to-toe look-see of her body
inside and out, when she kept avoiding me. I had one of the tech guys look into
her chip, and that’s when I figured out she was controlling it on her own.” The
human smiled, pride in his voice. “She did a bang up job of it, too. Might
never have figured it out but for the little glitch that we found when she went
through the metal detector at work. It sent a double signal. She came there so
seldom that we didn’t catch it before.”

“So she is smart.” The human nodded. “I
should have seen what I could have done to hold her in my services instead of
you.”

The human said nothing. Lucius heard the
wolf coming back and waited. He told the human to go to his office and not to
return until he called for him. Pulling shadows around him, Lucius sat quietly
and waited.

Deveron was drunk. His body reeked of
cheap liquor as well as women. When he staggered to the refrigerator and
bellowed for the human, Lucius materialized. Deveron fell backward, only just
catching himself.

“Lucius?” Deveron looked around, trying
to straighten his clothing. “When did you get here? Come to check up on old
Kirby? The man is not cooperating at all with what I’m doing for you.”

Lucius nodded. “I can see that he is not
giving you enough. How much progress have you made since I spoke with you
yesterday?”

“I’ve just came back for some dinner. I
didn’t get a chance to eat before I left. There was a problem that old Kirby
had to see to.” He laughed, but Lucius remained serious. “He talk to you any
since you’ve been here?”

“Yes, we had a nice conversation. Were
you aware that he cannot lie to me? Unlike you, when he stuck a deal with me,
it rendered him incapable of lying to me.” Lucius had a chair move toward
Deveron. “Sit.”

The wolf sat, and Lucius stood up and
moved slowly around the room. “Are you aware that wolf blood to a vampire is
like a drug? It’s like one of the finest wines ever made. And even as drugged
up—”

“I swear to you that I’ll find her. I
swear it that—”

“Quiet.” Lucius could smell the fear on
the wolf; hear it in his pounding heart and rapid breathing. “I have given you
several chances, Deveron. Many more than I have shown any other, wolf or
human.”

Lucius ripped back his head as he stood
behind him, his eyes deeply bloodied red and his fangs long within his mouth. He
leaned down, but stopped at the last second and felt the wolf relax, sagging a
little in the chair. Lucius smiled and tore his throat out. Spitting his flesh
to the floor, he came around the chair to face him as he died. Deveron
struggled to live, but it was too late for him, much too late.

“I shan’t sully myself with a lowly wolf
like you. I’d rather starve. But fortunately for me, I had my dinner before I
came here. You’ll serve as a reminder as to who is boss. I will not have you or
anyone else in my employment think that I am soft.” Deveron’s body dropped to
the floor, the chair skittering across the room. “You’ll be an incentive for
them, I believe. An incentive for them to please me more.”

Lucius called for the human and let him
see what he’d done. The man sat down and didn’t move, even after Lucius cleaned
up his mess. He sat beside him at the table and had him look deeply into his
eyes.