Khan (21 page)

“We’ll get her. When someone calls again,
I want you to pump them for everything they know. Maybe she told them something
else or they got the name wrong. I don’t think so, but she’s not there.”

He nodded. He knew she was, and short of
going door to door of the hotel, there was nothing really he could do. He
watched the phone, and every time it rang, everyone in the room tensed up. He
was ready to go out and find her himself until Dylan came in the room again and
sat down. Each of them came to sit with him each hour, and he wondered if when
the time came, they’d be going with him to get her or try to stop him. He hoped
it was the former because he didn’t want to have to kill them if it was the
latter.

~~~

Screaming in her head woke her. She didn’t
know who it was at first, but soon realized it was her. He was hurting her
again. He was taking great pleasure in this, and she was sure that he was going
to kill her sooner rather than later. She was so weak, but reached for someone
to help her.

“Tell Khan to come where you are now to
get me. I’m on the seventeenth floor. Hurry. I’m dying.” She gave them the
phone number to the kitchen at the house. She wished she’d paid more attention
to what the name of the hotel was now, but she’d been so afraid.

The knife slid into her again. She
screamed around the gag, this time biting it hard enough that she felt blood,
her blood, fill her mouth. She looked up at Tony with her one eye, the other
long since swollen shut.

“If you’d just tell me that you love me,
I will end this. You know you do and that you’ve made a mistake marrying that
other man. You just have to tell me.” He cut her again, and she felt faint with
it. She reached for someone else, anyone else, and screamed at him rather than
asking for help.

Please,
she begged him
in her mind.
Please just get it over with.

~~~

The phone rang and Khan stepped to it. His
heart was in his throat and he was shaking. He felt his hand being taken and
looked over at his dad. He nodded, and Khan picked up the receiver.

“I’m looking for Khan. Is he there?” He
told the man that he was him. “She said to tell you to hurry. She’s on the
seventeenth floor. She said that she’s dying for you to hurry.”

“Where are you?” the man cried out. “Sir?
Are you there? What’s happening? Tell me.”

“She screamed at me. Just now she
screamed and it sounded like she’s in a great deal of pain. I’m calling the
desk and seeing—”

“Don’t do that. He might kill her if
they call up there. He’s dangerous. I’m coming. Are you at the Wilkinson?” The
man told Khan he was. “I’m coming. We’re all coming, but stay away from the
floor. He’ll kill you both. He’s killed so many others.”

The man assured him that he would and told
him that he’d be near the elevators when he arrived. “I just checked in on the
fourteenth. I can…I have the ability to talk to others and I heard her loud and
clear. I’ll be waiting.”

Khan hung up and turned to his dad
again. In the time he’d answered the phone, his entire family was standing
there with their coats on. The cook, a big, burly man, had his on as well.

“You’ll not go without me. I know what
you people are, and while I can appreciate the situation, I like this girl, and
I’m going with you.” He looked over at Walker. “You try and stop me and I’ll
quit this house and go anyway. I’m going.”

No one said a word as they went out to
the cars. Khan was riding with his brother in Caitlynne’s truck. Just where he
wanted to be. The others were in two other vehicles including Bill’s. The man
had his own little arsenal in his trunk, it seemed.

The ride was one of the slowest and
longest of his life. When they pulled in front, there were several SUVs already
there, and they were leading people out. There was a scare of a large animal
loose in the building. He looked at Caitlynne.

“I didn’t know what you’d do so I wanted
a cover story first. It’s been in the works to be told to the public since she
was kidnapped.” She kissed his cheek before moving into the building. “Try not
to fucking eat one of my agents. I like most of them, and the ones I don’t, I’ll
give you a list later.”

He nodded as they moved to the elevator.
Walker and Dylan were with them. The man who had called, Daniel Patterson, was
there as well, and he was armed. The man looked like he could eat them for
breakfast. And he was a werebear.

“You go on up and find her. You leave
this down here to me. I will keep anyone from coming down without your say so.”
He looked at Dylan, and there seemed to be some sort of understanding between
them. “I’ll let him know if the elevators move before you let me know.”

As soon as the doors shut, Caitlynne
pulled out her gun, stood under the small camera, and shot it. She winked at
him. He took off his shirt and told her to turn around. When she laughed at him,
he turned to Walker who only shrugged. She was going to get her butt beat. He
knew it.

By the time she, the other two, and he
were on the floor, he and Walker both had shifted. Caitlynne was going ahead of
them to get all the people out on the floor. Dylan walked by each door and
paused. He said he would be able to find her.

They walked slowly down the hall. There
were eleven rooms on each side of the hall, and Dylan stopped at each one. When
he would pause too long, he would shake his head and whisper that it was
occupied. He and Walker would hide around the corner until Caitlynne got them
roused and off the floor. They remembered to contact Bill each time.

The fourth time he paused too long, Khan
started down the hall. Stupid fucking people should learn to listen. When a
soft whistle had him turning, Dylan took off his shirt. She was in there.

Caitlynne stood in front of the door. “I’m
going to unlock the door and when I do, I’m going to step back. If possible, I
would like very much not to have to explain what went down in here. The
bedrooms are on the left and the right. He probably has her in one of them.”

Khan snarled for her to get a move on
and she swiped the card to unlock the door. He waited for her to move back. No
one wanted her hurt either. She set the large, black bag down that he hadn’t
even noticed that she had and nodded. He looked at Walker, who had shifted back
to human.

“She’s going to need me to help her. You
have a problem with that?”

Khan shook his big head.

“Good. And Khan? She’s going to be hurt.
I need for you to make sure you know that I’m only going to be helping her.”

Khan told him he understood. He looked
at the now open door. He had to go in, and he wasn’t looking forward to seeing
what that monster had done to her. He nosed the door open and entered the room
on silent paws. They all moved to the bedroom to the right. The door was shut. When
Dylan walked up to it and shook his head, they turned to the other door. The
door was shut here as well.

Dylan shifted. He nodded to the door,
and Khan was poised, ready to leap inside the moment it opened. When he turned
the knob, Dylan stepped back and moved out of the way. The scream that rent the
air made him knock the door back and leap in the room.

Christ, he was going to kill her. Blood
was on the walls, over the bed. The smell of impending death filled the air. There
were footprints in the carpet, bloodied and large. Booted and barefooted. A
dress and a bra were there also covered in blood.

Khan moved forward to see her. He needed
to see her in the worst way. When he was perhaps only ten feet away, Khan froze
for a second, no more, but the man turned. The blood on his shirt was fresh and
the knife in his hand dripped with blood, her blood. Khan snarled deep, his
claws burst from his paws, and he moved toward the man. When he was less than
five feet away, he leapt at him. Khan hit him with all his weight.

He felt the sharp blade enter his
shoulder, then his hip. He couldn’t seem to get a good hold on the man. When
the man raised his arm up to give Khan what would be a killing blow to the
heart, he lunged for his throat. He clamped his powerful jaws into his neck
just as he clawed at the man’s soft belly.

The smell of feces and urine permeated
the air. The man’s screams rang in his ears, but Khan didn’t let him go; he
tore at the man. Jerking his head to and fro until he felt the flesh give and
fresh blood flood his mouth, he knew he’d torn his throat out. Khan wanted more
than his death; he wanted him gone for good. He snapped his mouth over his neck
again and felt the bone break under his strength. The man’s head rolled off and
away from the body just as Khan dropped it.

He turned to the bed to see his brother
over his mate. He snarled, the taste of fresh blood in his mouth, the adrenaline
still coursing through his body hard and hot. Khan was ready to leap at him, to
kill the man who dared touch his mate. But a sudden movement had him stop. He
couldn’t harm the female.

“You take one more step forward and I
will blow your fucking brains out.” Caitlynne held the gun steadily at his
head. “I mean it, Khan. You back the fuck up and take a chill pill or so help
me, I will kill your fucking ass.”

“I’d do it, man. You don’t want to fuck
with her. She’s breeding and could—”

Walker cut Dylan off. “Khan, shift. I
need you to…shift, please.”

Khan found he didn’t want to. He wanted
to leap at Walker and have Caitlynne kill him. He shook his head and looked at
Walker again. He nodded and Khan knew that they were too late.

“I can’t save her. She’s dying. The loss
of blood is tremendous. She won’t make it to the elevator, much less to the
hospital.” Dylan handed him a pair of pants as Walker continued. “He stabbed
her so many times, did so much damage, I don’t know how she’s hung on this
long.”

“You have to do something. You have to
save her.” Khan went to the side of the bed and looked down at her. She was a
mess. Her body and bed were so bloodied, he couldn’t tell where she was. He
looked up at Walker when he cleared his throat.

“You could try to save her by converting
her.”

Khan shook his head.

“It’s her only chance. If you—”

“She’ll die. I can’t do that to her, she’ll—”

“She’s going to die anyway. Try it,
Khan. It’s her only hope. If you don’t do it, she will surely die. But if she
makes it, you’ve saved her life.”

Khan felt the tears on his face. He was
asking him to kill her. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t. He took her hand in his
and kissed it. He looked up at Walker and shifted again.

Walker felt for his brother. He knew as
well as the rest of them did that converting a human to a cat was nearly a
death warrant for them. When Khan shifted and bit down hard into Monica’s belly,
he cringed. She would either die immediately or she’d start the change. Walker
reached for his own mate’s hand and held it as he listened to Monica’s heart
slow even more.

“I’ve opened the room across the hall.
It’s empty of anything that might belong to a guest. I know that time is
running out for us, so we have to figure out a way to get them over there.” Dylan
came into the room once more and looked at him. “Walker, can we move her?”

“No. Not just yet. We need just a little
more time.” He listened again and held his breath. Her heart was slower, nearly
five seconds between each beat. He knew that when they moved her, they would be
moving a dead woman. Then he heard it. A stutter of a beat, then another.

“What is it?”

He looked up at Caitlynne and smiled
when her heart started beating faster. Not like it should, but it was getting
stronger. He nodded.

“We can move her now, but Khan, you stay
with us. We’ll take the sheet, each of us taking a corner. Khan, don’t you dare
stop giving her your essences. If you do, we might lose her yet.” They each
took a corner and froze when someone knocked on the door. It was Bill.

It took him only seconds to see what
they were doing, and he dropped his gun and took Caitlynne’s corner from her. They
had her and Khan going through the doorway in seconds. It had been tricky for a
second, but Bill had suggested Khan climb on the sheet with her and they got
them across the hall. They had to put the sheet on the floor and drag it so
they wouldn’t lose them both, but it worked.

Laying her on the bed, each man stood by
while Walker listened to her heart again. He felt tears roll down his cheeks,
and he was unable to speak for the lump in his throat. He nodded and held his
wife to him. “Her heart is slow, still very slow, but it’s getting stronger. I
don’t fucking know how, but she’s might just make it.”

Caitlynne hugged him and took off. She
had work to do as well.

Khan shifted again and they both sat
next to her. Her chances were better of making it, but she still had to shift. If
they could bring her around and get her to shift, then she’d heal much quicker.
And her loss of blood would make her weak. Walker thought of his own mate’s
conversion and decided that the next time he saw her, he was going to fall at
her feet and tell her over and over how much he loved her.