Harlequin Nocturne March 2016 Box Set (5 page)

CHAPTER 9

B
astard, Monica thought, even though she knew she'd deserved it. Why did she seem to pick only the men who got bent out of shape about what could be pure and simple passion if only they'd let it? She was still bruised and tingling from the ravishment Jordan had so delightfully provided on his dining room table only an hour or so before, but though her body was sated, her mind was anything but. She'd tried to sleep but couldn't, and for once, not because she was afraid of the nightmares.

She'd been watching from the window to catch a glimpse of him coming back, but so far, nothing. Instead, she sat on her uncomfortable couch and made more lists. She'd signed in to the Crew database again to compare what she'd been able to find out with what others had logged in their experiences. So far, not much was making sense. Then again, not much ever did.

Dark had fallen, and with her window cracked, she could hear the familiar far-off noises of the animals in their habitats and night-active insects. Low-grade anxiety plagued her. A crackle of tension, as though there was an oncoming storm. Or maybe it was simply that she'd been here two days already and hadn't figured out what she was looking for.

Or she was fooling herself, she admitted reluctantly, and her need to pace was directly related to the man who still hadn't come back from his run.

Jordan Leone was trouble. Bad news. Which was probably why she wanted him again, Monica thought with a sigh and a smile so twisted it almost hurt. She rubbed at her face and tried to shake off the lingering feeling of his touch, but all she could think about was the way his mouth tasted.

She wasn't going to accomplish anything this way. No amount of note taking or database studying could help her if she didn't get out there in the field and do her own research. DiNero had hired her for a job, and she meant to do it—because the sooner she found out what had been killing his animals, the sooner she could get out of here and away from Jordan.

She put on a pair of thick khaki work pants with a lot of pockets and her heavy waterproof hiking boots, laced tight over thick socks. Her knife went on her belt, along with several others in different utility pouches. She tucked a notepad and pen sealed inside a plastic waterproof pouch into a pocket. She added a flashlight and a package of matches, both waterproof, and a small wax candle. A couple granola bars and a bottle of water went in another. They weighed her down, especially the water, but she'd spent forty-eight hours in a pitch-black cave, desperate enough to drink just about anything; she never went on any scouting mission without at least a minimum of supplies.

Finally, she pulled her hair into a tight tail at the base of her neck, threw on a baseball cap and shrugged into a denim jacket. She'd be sweating in seconds the moment she stepped outside, but the protection for her arms and upper body would be worth it. She didn't have a map of the menagerie, but DiNero had laid it out to be easily navigated, so it wasn't as if she had to figure out a maze. All she had to do was follow the paths.

She knew how to move quietly, though she wasn't trying to be sneaky. She paused at the first cage she came to, peeking inside at the flashing eyes of the silver fox. It yipped softly at her and came close to the bars of the cage, but Monica didn't reach to pet it. She crooned to it gently, though, watching the fox's ears flick forward and back.

“You're okay, pretty girl,” Monica said and moved on.

She wasn't sure what she was looking for, exactly, just that she'd exhausted her resources and needed to come at this from a different angle. She'd worked on a team once that had set a bait trap, something she hesitated to do because it meant sacrificing an innocent living creature. She didn't think DiNero would go for it anyway, at least not with one of his pets. Which meant what, she thought as she walked, waiting for another attack?

Fortifying the walls could work to prevent another slaughter, but it was no guarantee. It also meant they'd never find out what had been doing it, unless the thing showed up someplace else...like a playground, Monica thought with a shudder. Sour bile painted her tongue at the thought of a case where the Crew had successfully managed to chase off a Chimera that had been repeatedly ransacking a poultry-processing plant, only to have the thing show up in the backyard of a nearby day-care center. She hadn't been on that team, but everyone had heard about it. The news had said it was a pit-bull attack.

That was why, she thought as she moved on, people like Jordan didn't believe.

Following the curving brick path, she caught sight of DiNero's house. Lights blazing. The sounds of a party inside. She hadn't been invited, didn't care. She paused, though, to admire the mansion and wonder what it was like to have so much money you could drop a few grand without a second thought. Most of what DiNero was paying her went back to the Crew to fund travel and other expenses, but she got her fair share. It wouldn't buy her a mansion but it was enough, as Carl would've said, to keep her in Cheetos and beer.

For a moment, grief rose in her throat, choking her. Her husband had been full of sayings like that. Most of them had made her laugh, even when his tendency to try to make everything a joke was making her angry. Suddenly, fiercely, but not unexpectedly, she missed him with a deep and wretched longing that would slaughter her faster than any monster ever could—if she succumbed to it.

There, right there, she almost did. She almost went to her knees on the bricks and wept. It was too hard, sometimes, to keep herself from giving in to sorrow. She had ways to manage the terror that came from the dreams that were really memories, but this...oh, this was something else, and nothing could make it pass but time.

Monica did not go to her knees, though she did close her eyes against the burning slide of tears. At the taste of salt, she let out a low, shuddering sigh. She rode the pain for a moment or two before steeling herself and shaking it off.

Carl had died, and nothing could bring him back. The most she could do was honor him by doing her best to prevent more death. And that was exactly what she intended to do here.

CHAPTER 10

J
ordan had lapped the entire perimeter of DiNero's estate, eyes open for any signs of destruction in the wall but finding none. He'd exhausted himself, sweating, panting and finally aching, before he slowed to a walk. The night air was thick and humid, but he sucked it in greedily. No scent of anything weird, just the familiar mingled smells of the animals and, from farther off, dinner coming from DiNero's house. The guy was having another party, which meant that sooner or later Jordan could expect a call to give a tour. DiNero loved showing off his pets.

For now, though, Jordan walked to clear his head and soothe his muscles. He wanted a hot shower and something to eat but didn't dare go back just yet. He'd managed, barely, to fend off the hunger he'd tried to satiate with Monica.

Monica.

Damn, the woman had managed to get under his skin. He'd been stupid, he knew that, but no matter what she said, he
was
only human. Not even his twisted, tangled combination of DNA could make him less than that.

Still, there was shame, instilled in him for as long as he could remember by parents who'd wanted anything but this for their only son. They'd never tried to make him embarrassed about what he'd inherited; if anything, their staunch and devout insistence that he could learn to control his “condition” had been meant to make him feel better about it. But all they'd ever managed to do was repeatedly underline how different he was. How he could try and try, but he would never be the “same.”

That made him want to run again, but there was no getting away from the past. He'd learned that long ago. No way to run away from himself. The best he could do was learn to control it, the way his parents had taught him. To keep the hunger at bay.

And still he felt it constantly, always under the surface. Waiting to rise to something as simple as a steak or a beautiful woman or a thousand other things that tempted him to give in to his baser impulses. Not human, Monica had said, but she had no idea.

No matter what happened to him, Jordan thought grimly, he was always a man. Nothing could take that away from him. He wouldn't let it.

For a moment, he leaned against the wall to feel the heat left from the earlier sunshine. It felt good, heat upon heat. It slowed things down. Made him languorous rather than agitated. He let himself press against it, then took a seat in the soft grass DiNero had spent a fortune to grow and maintain. If there was one benefit to his condition, it was that the night bugs left him alone.

If he stayed here a little longer, maybe she'd be asleep by the time he got back. Her windows would be dark. He wouldn't be tempted to go in and see her... Jordan's eyes drifted closed.

* * *

“Maybe we'll be okay,” his mother said to his father when she thought Jordan couldn't hear. “His birthday was last week. He's fourteen now. Surely if it was going to happen, we'd know about it by now.”

Jordan had been sneaking into the kitchen for a late-night snack, his rumbling stomach making it impossible to sleep. Summer, school out, nothing but the possibilities of a whole three months of freedom ahead of him. He had plans with Trent and Delonn tomorrow, video games and a bike ride to the gas station, where they might try to talk to some girls. Maybe. At the sound of his parents' hushed whispers from the back porch, though, he stopped. He hadn't turned on the light, so they had no idea he was there.

“It's going to be all right, bébé,” his father said.

Jordan froze. Dad never called Mom that unless they were arguing about something and he was trying to make up to her. Had his parents been fighting? The soft sound of sniffling made his stomach twist. Mom was crying?

“I just want him to be all right, Marc. I'm so worried...”

His father made a shushing sound. “I know. Me, too.”

“We should have been more careful.” Now his mother sounded fierce, angry. “We knew the risks. We were stupid. Arrogant and reckless!”

“Hush, bébé, don't. You're going to make yourself sick.”

“I
am
sick,” his mother said. “Sick with worry. Jordan's the one who will pay the price for us being careless... My sweet boy. Oh God, Marc, what will we do if he has it?”

“We'll love him anyway,” his father said. “What else could we do?”

The sound of his mother's sobs should've chased away any lingering hunger, but Jordan's stomach only ached more. What were they talking about? If he had what?

Last year, Penny Devereux had been diagnosed with leukemia. She'd had to miss almost the entire school year, and when she'd finally come back, she'd worn a scarf to cover her bald head. She'd been thin and pale, and she still laughed a lot, but she wasn't quite the same.

His parents had gone silent, but Jordan caught a whiff of smoke. That was bad. His mother only lit up when she was superstressed. She'd been trying to quit. Now she was smoking, right there with his dad, who hated it. Something was very wrong.

It didn't stop him from going to the fridge, though. It was as though a phantom hand pulled him, actually, an impulse he couldn't fight. He was so hungry he thought he might faint from it, that and the anxiety from overhearing what he knew they didn't want him to know.

He'd come down hoping to snag a piece of leftover birthday cake or some of his mom's homemade tapioca pudding, but what his hands pulled from the fridge's bottom shelf was the plastic-wrapped platter of uncooked burgers his mom had put together for tomorrow's dinner. Without thinking, Jordan tore the plastic off. Handfuls of soft ground beef went in his mouth. He barely chewed, shoving the food past his lips and licking his fingers. He couldn't get enough.

The lights came on. His mother cried out. Jordan turned, as guilty and embarrassed as if she'd walked in on him in the shower or doing what he'd just discovered he could do under the tent of his sheets late at night. No, this was somehow worse, because somehow he knew it was related to what his parents had been saying.

Something was wrong with him.

“Put that down!” his mother cried, but she wasn't angry, as she ought to have been. Fear had widened her eyes. He could hear it in her voice.

He could
smell
it on her.

“Jordan, give me that.” Dad was calmer, pushing past Mom, who clung to the doorway and burst into tears.

No. Mine.
The thoughts rose unbidden, and though Jordan would never have dreamed of disobeying his father, he backed up still clutching the platter. His mouth hurt. He tasted blood, and not from the meat but from his own gums. He ran his tongue along his teeth and felt the burn and sting of a wound opening—he'd cut it on something sharp.

His own teeth.

Mine.

The thought rose again, but this time, he tossed the platter to the floor. Raw meat splatted on the linoleum, and he backed up with his hands in front of him. There was more pain. He clenched his fists. More cuts, fingernails long, sharp. There was blood.

He would carry the scars on his palms for the rest of his life.

“You're going to be okay, son. It's all going to be all right,” his father said, but the look on his face told Jordan that nothing was going to be all right.

Not ever again.

* * *

Jordan woke with a startled gasp, hands in front of him. He'd clenched his fists and winced automatically at the expected sting of his nails pressing his flesh, but the years of self-discipline had worked. He wasn't going to run off into the night and start making mayhem.

Still, he got to his feet with the memory of those long-ago burgers coating the inside of his mouth. He spat, then again, but he could still taste them. He still wanted them. He would always want them, the way he'd always want to run and punch and break and devour.

With a low groan, he closed his eyes and breathed deep. He focused. Not full-on meditation, which he did every day, but still a forced pattern of breaths that was supposed to relax him. A minute passed. He opened his eyes.

At fourteen, everything had changed for him. His parents, recessive carriers of a set of genes that had combined in him to make him different, had never planned to have children. And if he'd been a girl, he'd never have ended up this way, since only males manifested the condition.

Monica had said werewolves did not exist, but Jordan could've told her otherwise.