Operation Saving Daniel (Entangled Covet) (13 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Lissa closed the door behind her and rested her back against it. Now that she was away from Daniel, she felt shaky, and her legs threatened to give way beneath her. “Bloody hell.”

Everything was catching up with her, and despite the fact that nothing seemed real, everything inside her was in turmoil. Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself away from the wall.

Across the hall, the kitchen door opened and Julia appeared. She looked at Lissa warily. “What’s up?”

Lissa pursed her lips and tried to make her expression as bland as possible. “Why should anything be up?”

“Daniel said you were fine, but you seem totally frazzled,” Julia said. “And was that Daniel dropping you off? What happened to Buffy?”

A good question. And one she really didn’t want to answer. Buffy was still parked in a car park outside London with the tires slashed and covered in deer blood. Somehow, she suspected that Julia wouldn’t want to hear that, even less than Lissa wanted to tell her. Why upset her with something she didn’t need to know? If Lissa was fast, she could get it sorted without Julia ever finding out. Still, she needed to say something. But she had no clue what.

Luckily, there was movement behind Julia, which saved Lissa from fabricating any lies. Jason strolled out of the kitchen with a mug in his hand. The fragrant scent of freshly brewed coffee wafted across and Lissa almost swayed.

Jason grinned as he saw her, but the grin faded quickly. “What’s up?”

Couldn’t anyone think of a more original question? She scowled. “Why does everyone think there’s something up?”

Julia shrugged helplessly. “You seem a little odd,” she said, eyeing her closely from top to toe. “And where are your shoes? Oh my God, what have you done to your feet?”

Lissa glanced down. Her feet were a little worse for wear, scratched and bruised, and her pretty gold toenails were embedded with dirt and caked with dried blood. She winced. “I was communing with nature,” she said. “Feeling the soil between my toes.”

Jason put his cup down on the nearby table and stepped up closer to her. He reached out with one hand and stroked a finger down her cheek. “Someone hit you.”

She’d forgotten that bit, but at his reminder, her cheek started to throb. She shrugged off Jason’s hand and shuffled a few steps across the hallway to stare at herself in the mirror hanging on the wall. And winced again.

Frazzled was one way of putting it. Total and complete mess was another. She looked like she’d been chased through the woods by a pack of hungry werewolves, then spent the night sleeping in the bushes, and then… Maybe best not to think of the “and then” in the present company. A dark bruise was forming beneath her right eye where Sophia’s friend had punched her. And to top it all, her hair stuck on end. She reached up and plucked out a twig.

“Well?” Jason said

Lissa shrugged again. “We were communing in the woods and I suppose I might have banged into a tree.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” He studied her closely. “Did the tree hit you in the mouth at the same time?”

She ran her tongue over her lips, swollen from Daniel’s kisses. “Hey, it was a vicious tree. But honestly I’m fine. I had a good time, we camped out. It was great.”

Peering at herself in the mirror, she frowned. On top of everything else, she looked well and truly shagged. Which wasn’t surprising, considering she had been well and truly shagged. A wave of heat washed over her as she remembered the feel of Daniel, on her, in her, his hard body moving against hers.

Julia coughed and Lissa remembered that she wasn’t alone. And the two other people in the room were studying her as though she were some sort of interesting specimen.

“You’re blushing,” Julia said.

“Am not.”

“Oh yes, you are.” Julia peered into her face, and pulled another twig from Lissa’s hair. “And you’ve been out all night. And your T-shirt is on inside out.” She turned to Jason. “I reckon your little sister has been up to no good.”

Lissa shrugged. “I suppose it depends on how you define ‘no good.’”

“So how would you define it?” Jason asked.

“I wouldn’t.” She ran a hand through her hair as if checking for anything else that might be hidden in there. But really to give herself time to think. How much could she tell them before they called the men in the white coats and had her taken away and locked up? She decided that offense was the best method of defense and turned to face Jason.

“What are you doing here this time in the morning?”

Jason stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I wanted to talk to you about your friend, Daniel.”

“He’s Julia’s brother as well. Can’t you talk to her about him?”

“I’d like to talk to both of you.”

Lissa had no clue what Jason could want to talk about Daniel for, but she had an idea it wasn’t good. Maybe that had something to do with discovering he was a werewolf. But Jason couldn’t know anything about that. Could he?

The beginnings of a headache throbbed against her skull, and she pressed fingers against her forehead. She could also feel the bruises forming beneath her skin. She hadn’t noticed them before, probably because Daniel had been making mad, passionate love to her. It had taken her mind off the other things. But she really wanted to be clean before she had to face those other things. And maybe a cup of coffee and a sleep and…

“Okay, okay I really am okay, but we can talk later. First, I need to shower. So, why don’t you two go and make me a nice cup of coffee and I’ll be back quicker than you can say—you’re blushing—which, by the way, I won’t be anymore.”

“You will tell us what you’ve been up to though, won’t you?” Julia said.

“Probably not.”

Not waiting for either of them to say anything else, she turned her back on them, and hobbled up the stairs. Shutting the door to her room, she released a sigh of relief, then pulled the T-shirt over her head. A slight rash covered her pale skin and her breasts were sensitive. She stroked her palm over one and the nipple stiffened to a hard little point. Daniel’s mouth had been there earlier, though she was finding it almost impossible to believe. In fact, she was finding it hard to believe any of the previous evening or this morning in the forest had really taken place.

For the first time, it occurred to her to wonder what had happened to Sophia. Was she still alive, or had Daniel killed her? Everything had been so confused, fighting all around her. She’d seen Sophia go down and not get up, but other than that, she knew nothing. One more unanswered question.

Part of her really hoped the woman was dead, but how would Daniel feel about that?

The Daniel she had known years ago hadn’t been capable of killing anything. But obviously, he’d changed. She slapped her palm, to her forehead.

Of course, he had changed.

He was a freaking werewolf.

Daniel Melville was a werewolf. She said it over a few times in her mind to see if she could make it sink in. But it still didn’t seem real.

Flopping down onto the edge of the bed, she lay back and stared at the ceiling. Maybe she was going crazy. Maybe this was some sort of return of her fever. And she was hallucinating. And there really was no such thing as werewolves.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Yes, she liked that theory. There was no such thing as werewolves, Sophia hadn’t tried to eat her last night, and Daniel was a nice, ordinary guy who was about to marry a complete bitch. There was nothing unusual about that. A lot of men married complete bitches like Sophia, especially if they were beautiful bitches.

Actually, maybe she didn’t like that theory after all.

She had to get off the bed. Julia wouldn’t wait forever. And Lissa needed to get the story sorted out before she went back and faced them again. Growing up, she’d never considered Jason particularly bright, maybe because of his rebellious teenage behavior. Then over lunch the other day she had noticed a shrewd intelligence and she really didn’t fancy having that intelligence directed against her.

Jason and Julia weren’t the enemy. For that matter, she wasn’t even sure who the enemy was, especially if Sophia was out of the picture. But she had an idea that Sophia had been acting under someone else’s orders.

Sophia had meant to kill her. Really kill her, not simply frighten her. A shiver ran through her, and a cold lump formed in the pit of her stomach. If Daniel hadn’t turned up last night, she would be dead.

Dead and eaten.

That thought gave her a twinge of nausea.

But Daniel had come. And he’d killed, or at least incapacitated Sophia. Somebody probably wasn’t going to be too pleased about that, meaning Daniel was in danger. But from whom?

Poor Daniel.

For years, he had faced this alone, unable to confide in anyone.

But he wasn’t alone anymore. And whoever was manipulating him would have to deal with her as well.

So how did Sophia fit into this? She was betting the other woman had never been a real girlfriend. More likely, she had been put in place to keep Daniel in line.

But what had he been told to do? And why?

Without Daniel’s cooperation, she doubted she would ever find the answers, which might make her head explode. Maybe if she proved she could be useful and not merely the hindrance he considered her, Daniel would allow her to help.

She had walked out on the man she loved once; she wouldn’t do it again.

Holy crap, she was in love with a werewolf.

“Lissa!”

Julia’s voice shouted from downstairs, definitely impatient, and Lissa still hadn’t worked out what to tell her. She pushed herself off the bed, crossed the room, and opened the door a couple of inches. “Five minutes,” she shouted back.

After peeling off her jeans, she headed into the bathroom and stood under the hot spray. Maybe Jason could help. He was, after all, an ex-soldier and a security expert.

By the time she’d dried herself off and was pulling on her clothes, she still hadn’t decided what to say. She’d have to hope that inspiration came at the right moment. She dressed in a clean pair of cutoff jeans a white linen shirt and eased her sore feet into a pair of flip-flops. A quick comb through her hair and she was ready to face them—sort of.

Julia and Jason were sitting at the kitchen table looking very chummy. They glanced up almost guiltily as she entered the room. They’d probably been talking about her. Julia jumped to her feet and poured a mug of coffee, adding cream and sugar just as Lissa liked it.

Taking the cup, she sank down in the chair opposite and asked Jason, “How’s Spot?”

“Great, he’s taken over the house.”

“Good.” She took a sip of coffee and wondered how long Julia could hold in her questions without spontaneously combusting.

“So?” Julia prompted after thirty seconds.

Across the table, Jason sat back in his seat and regarded them over his mug. “Perhaps I should say my piece first.”

She’d forgotten that bit. Of course, Jason had wanted to talk about Daniel. She licked her lips. “What do you know?”

“Well, after lunch the other day,” he said. “I decided to do a search into his background.”

“You investigated my brother?” Julia sounded offended.

“Yeah, I investigated
your brother
, because it was obvious that
my sister
is infatuated with him.”

“I’m not infatuated,” Lissa said. They turned to look at her with almost identical expressions of disbelief. “Okay, but only a little bit.”

“A lot.”

Lissa ignored the comment. It wasn’t worth arguing the case anyway. Instead, she turned Jason. “So what did you find?” She was betting he didn’t find anything that had any bearing on the truth, or he’d act way more smug. After all, brothers were always warning their sisters away from undesirable types. But what brother got to warn his sister about a werewolf?

“I was investigating the man he works for.”

“I thought he worked for a big multinational corporation.”

“He does. But the multinational corporation is owned by one man. His name is Ethan Stone. And he’s into some very dodgy things.”

Daniel had mentioned an Ethan—he had said “Ethan” knew where his parents lived, implying that put them in danger.

“And are you suggesting Daniel is also into some dodgy things?” Julia sounded indignant on behalf of her brother. And Lissa didn’t blame her; Daniel was the most honest person ever.

“You’re talking a load of crap,” Lissa said. “Even if this Ethan Stone isn’t totally legitimate, that doesn’t mean that Daniel has anything to do with it. He just works for the company.”

“He’s worked for Stone International for six years, and he’s risen in that time to become Director of Research. No one rises within an organization that fast unless they’re aware of what’s going on.”

“What sort of dodgy stuff is this Ethan Stone into?” Lissa asked.

“Just about every dodgy thing you can think of. Arms dealing, drug smuggling. You name it—he’s done it. And he’s been doing it for a long time.”

Lissa sat back and tried to fit this new information into the equation. Could this Ethan Stone be the leader, the man in charge, the head werewolf? Maybe he’d changed Daniel because they needed his expertise in some way. But what would a bunch of werewolves need a scientist for?

“I can almost see your brain working,” Jason said. “What exactly are you coming up with?”

“Nothing yet,” she replied. “Tell me some more about this Ethan Stone. Where he came from, what he looks like, whether he’s tied in any way to Sophia.”

“That would be perfect,” Julia said. “If we could prove that Sophia was up to no good.”

Jason shook his head. “I doubt you’ll do that without implicating your brother.”

“Do you think this Ethan Stone is dangerous?” Julia asked.

“Hell, yes.” Jason ran a hand through his black hair ruffling it. “That’s why I’m talking to you. I don’t want you involved in any way with Stone. And that means I don’t want you involved with Daniel.”