Force of Nature Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 4) (59 page)

Chapter 19

He’d shot her, the fucking bastard. Baring her teeth at him made her want to latch her canines around his neck and snap it. She would, too, if she ever got the chance. This sucker was a dead man.

“You have one more minute before I shoot you again. Now shift or whatever it is you do to make yourself human again. I have to get you out of here and I think you’re a bit stronger than me in your current body.” He grinned at her again. “Of course, you will have to learn to obey me in either form, but just so you know, I’m going to take great pleasure in making you obey my every command.”

He rubbed his cock again. He’d been hard since she’d shifted. She wondered if the guy had an animal fetish and decided that there were some things she just didn’t want to know. Pacing close to the wall, she whimpered. Just as he raised his gun again, Holly felt Phil coming. She only hoped it wasn’t too late.

The bullet ripped through her front flank. She knew that had he hit her where he was aiming, he would have killed her. Didn’t the guy have a fucking clue where her heart was? She whimpered again, this time to cover the sounds coming from above. Phil was crashing through whatever was above them like a demolition crew.

“This is the last time I’m going to tell you, bitch. Change back or I’m going to end this relationship I was forming right fucking now.” He waved the gun at her just as she heard Phil on the other side of the door.

“It ends now.” Phil crashed through the door just as the gun went off. If the bullet hit him, he didn’t show it.

Blair was suddenly in pieces. Not big ones either, but small bits of him all over the room. When his gun slid toward her, she simply stared at it. There was no way he’d ever be using it again. When Phil knelt before her she scooted back. Not that she was afraid of him, but she was hurting and she was afraid.

“Come on, baby. Let me lift you up. I need to get you out of here before Anye returns. And your brothers are still a bit behind me.” She was being lifted when suddenly, she was being dropped again. Before she could ask him, she saw why.

“You should have moved a little faster, Phil. But I do not appreciate you killing my friend over there before I got my money. However, now I have two bargaining chips. You and the bitch.” Anye moved into the room and looked over at her. “She’ll be dead soon enough. There is no way that a wolf can heal from a wound from a vampire.”

Phil wondered how she knew that and thought of Jose. Okay, this meeting between him and the pack was becoming more and more necessary. But he glanced at Holly before he continued.

“She won’t die from the bite, dumbass. She’s my mate and I bite her daily.” He was bluffing and hoped she didn’t have an answer for that too. “As a matter of fact, before you became stupid, or should I say stupider, we were just going over her training for her to do all sorts of things I can do.”

Another lie, but again, he didn’t think she knew. He leaned back against the wall and reached for Holly. He was trying his best to keep Anye occupied until Holly could move out of the small cavern.

Leave here and find your brothers. Send them to me as soon as you’re safe. I can—

Don’t be fucking stupid. I’m not leaving you. I’m just getting my second wind. Let’s kill this bitch.
He could hear her lie for what it was and loved her all the more for it, but she had to get out before Jose returned.

Holly, I’m ordering you to leave here now.
As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake. She didn’t take orders any better than his friend CJ. Worse, he would imagine.

Her snarl made them both look at her. The sight of her standing there as a full-grown wolf would forever be burned into his mind. She looked like an avenging angel and one pissed off bitch. He turned and shifted to his knight as soon as he saw Jose join in the fray.

He stepped to Anye and brushed against her. He knew she was aware of what would happen, but by the time he was going for Jose, she was already screaming. Phil lunged at Jose just as he saw a blur of fur going after the vampire. Phil was never so grateful in his entire life to see Austin.

“You fucking prick. Why couldn’t you have just left us alone? All we wanted was to get some money and leave. Now look what you’ve made us do.”

Phil grinned. “Me? No, the moment you touched what was mine, you sealed your fate. I take my role as a mate very seriously. You should have left when you had the chance. Now, well, now you’re going to join the other prisoners in the cells below the castle keep.”

Jose pulled a sword from the air. He waved it in front of Phil several times before he spoke again. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You are going to let me walk away and when you do, I might let your bitch live. But I’m not making any sort of promises.”

Phil wasn’t worried. His armor would keep him safe and the sword that Jose had now was nothing more than a stainless steel blade, and not a very good one at that. He did worry about Holly, though. She was still hurt and—

He looked behind him just as another scream came from Anye. It wasn’t Austin like he’d assumed, but Holly. Christ, she was the most stubborn woman he’d ever—

The blade hit him in the chest. The sparks sprayed over Jose and him, but did little to nothing to either man. But the other man knew that he wasn’t going to penetrate his shield so easily. He stepped back and seemingly pulled another blade from the air as the first one disappeared.

“Steel doesn’t work, but that’s fine. I have a whole arsenal here that I can keep banging away at you with until I find a good one.” This time, when the blade came at him, Phil leapt forward. He grabbed Jose by the throat.

“I don’t have that kind of time.” Another scream rent the air and Phil snapped Jose’s neck. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would slow him down a bit. Just as he turned to help Holly, Austin entered the small room.

“Take him. But don’t let his blood touch you. It’s poison because of his position in the Trustees.” Phil moved to Holly and Anye. “Holly, love, you have to come away from her.”

She growled low in her throat and Phil hoped that as his mate, even in her pain-riddled body, she’d not be able to hurt him. He dropped to his knees as he shifted to his regular street clothes.

Holly had Anye by the throat. The vampire was still alive, but not by much. She was bleeding out quickly and Phil knew that if she died this way, they might never figure out why she’d done it. Not that it mattered, he supposed, but he would like to know why she’d betrayed her entire race.

“Holly Campbell, let her go. Now.” The compulsion in Austin’s voice was hard to miss. Phil had the feeling that the alpha rarely used that tone and, if he did, he got results. Holly whimpered once again and let the woman go.  She shifted almost immediately so that her wounds would heal, he assumed.

“Thank you. Now, Anye, you are hereby ordered by the High Trustees of Vampires to be brought before them in trial. You’ll be imprisoned until such time that—”

“You can’t do this to me. I’m not some nobody that you can take to prison like a common criminal. I demand that you take me to be healed, then we’ll see about where I’ll go from there.” She stood up, bit her wrist, and rubbed it over her neck. Then when she had that taken care of, she straightened up her clothing. No one spoke as she did this.

“You finished primping?” Holly laughed. “Christ, you’d think you were on your way to a tea party and not your own death.”

Phil laughed too. He couldn’t help it. He was standing in a room covered in blood and gore with a vampire who lay behind him with a boot at his broken neck and one in front of him that was fixing her hair. He had a naked…no, make that two naked wolves standing around him and one at the door laughing as well.

“I do not think there is anything funny about this. You may take me to my office now. I’m quite ready to explain what happened here today.” Anye looked over at Holly and grinned. “I always knew that you’d be trouble. When I’m finished speaking, you’ll wish you’d never met me.”

Holly stood up and was handed a shirt by Dallas. Then a man was handing his brother some clothes as well. He’d have to remember to thank the wolf later.

“You think I don’t already wish I’d never met you? Honey, you have no idea how true that statement is.” The shirt covered most of her body, but to Phil, it was still too short. “Phil, why don’t you deliver this bitch to her cell and I’ll meet you back at the house?”

He nodded to Dallas, who came forward and stood in front of Anye. That was when Phil noticed that he had on a pair of thick gloves and a silver chain in his hands. Phil laughed again.

“You wolves? Are you always so prepared?”

Dallas laughed as he wrapped the chain around Anye’s waist and wrists. No amount of her screaming made him remove them. “Connor handed me this pack before I left the mall. He said that I’d probably need it, but I had to refill it when I gave it back to him.” Dallas held the chain in his hand as he slapped Anye and shut her up. “I’m thinking he might not get this back until I get a good inventory of what he packed in the sucker. Might have to make me a couple of these for myself. Whatcha think?”

Phil laughed and pulled Holly to him. “I think you might be on the right path with that. I’m taking Holly to the clinic. I will be back in a few minutes. If these two give you any trouble—”

Austin’s snort cut him off. “They won’t. Take her to the clinic. We’ll be here when you get back.”

Phil kissed Holly when she started to protest. He leaned near her ear and licked the still open wound closed. “I’m going to feed you and if I have time, fuck you. But if you protest too long, I won’t have time for either.”

Her mouth closed with a snap. When she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back, he took them to the clinic. He’d completely forgotten about his family there with Myles.

He fed the human again. One more and he’d be fully vampire. The man wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped and he thought about the odds of conversion. One in every fifty survived if the human was too injured to recover. He looked over at Holly as she was brought to him.

“He needs to live. I won’t let that bitch take his life just because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.” He pulled his wrist away and sealed the wounds. “I like the stupid human.”

“Me too. I’ll stay with him.” She took Myles’s hand into hers and Phil felt the stirring of his own beast. She must have felt it too. “Oh for heaven’s sake, go to my brothers so they can come here to see the baby when it’s born. Go.”

He didn’t like it, but he left. When he had time, he was going to have to tell her the rules about mates. He grinned as he walked down the stairs to where her brothers were. She more than likely knew them as well as he did.

It took them only a few minutes to gather the idiots up. Jose had healed his neck, but he was no match for a pissed off wolf. Austin had left a considerable print on his neck and Phil found himself being jealous. He and Austin put the prisoners in the separate cells in the castle, stood outside the doors, and said nothing for several minutes.

“What happens now? Do they have a trial?” He nodded toward the cell where Theresa was yelling obscenities at them both. “Will they all three be put out of our miseries?”

“Yes. They will each have their time in court, but…you don’t have to worry about them getting out, Austin. Even if they did somehow manage to escape death, I’ll make sure they don’t ever get out.”

Austin took his hand and pulled him close. “See that you do. I’d really hate to have to kick your ass over something like this.” He stepped back. “Besides, I think I’ll let CJ take care of you. She’s a little hell cat when she’s upset.”

Phil laughed and was still laughing when another member of the Trustees came toward them. Phil wasn’t as trusting as he had been and stood in front of the wolf and shifted.

“You’re to meet with the High Council, sire. They await your…sire?”

Phil didn’t move and he was glad for once that Austin didn’t growl. “Who is it? The one I’m suppose to meet. Who is it?” The man looked nervous and Phil nearly felt sorry for him. “Is it someone strong enough to carry us?”

“Sire. You’ve been asked…she’s not happy, sire. Not happy at all. She is tearing up the office as we…do you think it is possible that you hurry? Your mother…she is scary, is she not?”

Phil took a few seconds to figure out what the scribe was saying. “My mother? She’s on the— good Christ, no wonder you’re terrified. Take me to her. And if you want to stay on her good side….”

The man practically crawled up his arm in his attempt to beg Phil for anything to keep him on his mother’s good side. “Please, sire. Anything would be most helpful. How does one stay on her good side?”

“You bring her flowers for her office and make sure she has an endless supply of books. My mother loves to read.” He walked a few steps more when he gave the scribe one more piece of advice. “And whatever you do, never enter the room without knocking. My parents tend to think that any flat surface is a perfect place to have sex.” Phil shuddered. He’d done that once, walked in on them in the kitchen, no less, and had not gone home in nearly a decade. And he still knocked at every doorway whether there was a door or not before he entered a room. Any room.

He knocked on the door he and Austin were shown to and walked in when given permission. His father sat on one of the chairs and his mother stood behind a massive desk throwing papers everywhere.