Ravished by Wolves (2 page)

“I’m not married.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No, no boyfriend.” She smiled.

“So then you live all alone.”

That sent warning buzzers going off in her head.
Why does he care so much about where I’m going and who’s waiting for me to get there?
She thought again about all those women who had been disappearing.
Did a man like this one approach them, talking to them to gain their confidence, only to tote them off and kill them?
The guy seemed fairly harmless, but didn’t Bundy seem that way too? Then she realized what was wrong. He was very tan and when she glanced again at his hands she realized they were more than just extra large hands-they were callused.
Not a lover’s hands, a working man’s hands
. The tan could be explained away, but a business man didn’t generally do things to cause that kind of long term callusing on the hands.
He doesn’t look like he belongs in that suite because he doesn’t!

Amber
slipped off her heels, reached down and grabbed them, then tried to move back away from him in her seat without being obvious about it. The man moved to follow her.

“I’m sorry, I have to go. My brother’s waiting for me in the next car over.” She jumped out of her seat and took several steps backward.

“Really? So why weren’t you riding with him to start with? Hey, where are you going? I thought you wanted to talk. You’re not planning on leaving me all alone in here, are you?” He grabbed at her hand as he stood but she tore it away from him, throwing her shoes in his face before turning and making a run for it.

Please, oh please god may there be someone in the next car, anyone at all.
Amber tried to scream past the lump of fear that threatened to choke her, but all she could make was a strangled gasp. She slammed her hand against the button that opened the doors, shoved them out of her way and stumbled into the next car. Relief flooded over her as she entered the next car.
A man!
A man in a suit sat halfway down the car.

“Sir! Oh my god, sir, a man, in the other car—”
Amber ran toward him, only stopping when she was close to him. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that the mad-man had indeed followed her into the car. She turned back to her savior when she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders. He was now standing in front of her, looking behind her at the other man.

“Please, that man is following me—”

“Is that so?”

“Yes! I don’t know why, but we were talking and he seemed interested in stuff he shouldn’t have cared anything about and now he’s following me and—”

He fixed the man behind her with an icy glare.

“You idiot. Sloppy fucking work Jordan. All you had to do was find the girl and snatch her. This one isn’t even the right one! Does she look
dark and fat to you? She’s white for crying out loud! Is it really so fucking hard to do what you’re told? How the hell did you even let this one get away? You know what would happen if anyone found out what we’re doing? You remember we’re the ones that’d take the fall, right? Those rich bastards wouldn’t even bat an eye and we’d be in jail the rest of our lives.”

Amber
felt the blood in her veins grow cold and her heart thudded so hard in her chest it hurt.
Oh… my… god! He’s… in on it?
She tried to back out of his grasp, tried to drop and twist away, but he turned those cold eyes on her and held on tighter, pulling her against his body, wrapping one arm around her neck and the other around her waist.

“Let me go!”
She screamed against his ear and he winced.

The mad man she now knew as Jordan continued talking as he approached, and now she could feel him directly behind her.

“Shit, I couldn’t help it. She got suspicious. I forgot about the fat thing. Hell, as many as we’ve taken recently, you expect me to remember which ones are supposed to look like what? Doesn’t really matter anyway. I saw which office she came out of! It’s still one of his secretaries. No harm, no foul—”

“Would you shut up and help me?”

She tried to jerk away again, but the man tightened his grip on her. Jordan grabbed her around the waist, replacing the other man’s grip. Amber screamed again, but the man in front of her slapped her across the face. She glared at him through the tears of pain, a million different things running through her mind.

“I found out all we need to know. She’s alone. She’s pretty enough. Bet she’d look good tied up. I figure she’ll do.”

This is it. It’s over. They’re going to take me off and rape and kill me and I can’t get away. No one will ever even notice that I’m gone.
She fought panic and screamed again. This time, Jordan grabbed at her mouth, covering it with a funny smelling white rag. She held her breath and tried to get away, dropping her weight and trying to fall out of their grasp, but the two men held her in place.

“Thanks to your carelessness, she’ll
have
to do. Damn it, we had all fucking night to do this and you have to grab the first chick you see? This is sloppy work. We’ll be damned lucky if they don’t can us for this. From now on, you do back up, I’ll talk to them. We can’t afford to make any more mistakes.”

Amber
tried to knee the man in front, but he moved his leg in her way before she could. She settled for kicking Jordan in the shin and he tightened his grip around her face.
Don’t cry. He probably wants to see you cry, damn it Amber don’t cry!
She felt hot tears run down her cheeks and cursed herself for being too weak to save her own life.
This is it. It’s over. It’s all over. No one will even miss me. It’ll be days before Christine notices I’m gone and who’s to say she won’t just assume I quit?

“Hurry it up. Just punch her in the gut so she’ll breathe. We’re almost to the stop.”

Jordan moved his arm, grabbing one of her breasts and squeezing. She kicked at

him again, but this time he kneed her hard in the back.

The man in front punched her in the ribs and in spite of herself she gasped, breathing in the fumes from the cloth. The world swam and grew dark at the edges.
Hold on. Just a little longer. Someone will see all of it if I can make it to the next stop. Someone would have to see then.
They continued to talk, but she couldn’t make any sense of it. Amber realized with horror that she was going in and out of consciousness and at any moment she might lose her grasp entirely. She fought hard to hold on.
Have to listen. Have to know what they’re going to do with me.

Amber
’s last disjointed thought as the darkness crept in, was that Christine was really going to be pissed off about having to work alone this Christmas.

Chapter Two

The night was clear and crisp with a good stiff breeze, the moon a bright white eye in the sky, watching them from above. By its light Fador could see everything, but he regretted having such a good view of it. What he saw, what he
smelled…
disgusted him.

Before him, a large, dark building was situated among the island trees. Bright lights lit almost every window, casting shadows that danced as the wind blew the branches of the trees and the weeds that had been left in place to camouflage the location of that dread building.

A long, low growl formed in his throat, mirrored in time by that of his brother’s. He glanced over and caught Michael’s eye, not sure who started that feral growl first, and not at all surprised to see his rage mirrored as well.

It had taken a lot of effort for him and Michael to find this place. They had searched for some time before discovering where
they
had been taken and, with every other option failing, had finally resorted to allowing themselves to be captured. It was a blow to Michael’s pride, but Fador hadn’t seen any other alternative. Their mission was simply too important and time was of the essence. Every death brought them one step closer to oblivion and Fador was not ready to give up yet.

Several fat, old white men were standing outside the building talking, snatches of conversation brought to his keen ears by the same breeze that brought him the smoke from their cigarettes.

“Yeah, we’ll set— in a bit.”

“— perfect night to— some hunting in.”

Their laughter angered him and he growled his displeasure. Meeting Michael’s eye again, Fador gave a nod and the brothers inched in closer through the brush for a better look at their quarry. As he moved, he caught the faint scent of several wolves and the stench of the fear they had felt as they passed and it turned his stomach. By the age of the differing scents, he could tell they had all passed through some time ago.

Already dead.

Listening to the men before him discuss with gusto the night of hunting they had planned, he was reminded of his own bloody past. There had been a time, long ago, that he and his brother were no better than they, and that knowledge both hurt and sickened him. They had been the best hunters in their little village. Together they had slaughtered hundreds of wolves, taking a special delight in the evidence of a dwindling population. They both thought what they did was a good thing, that the wolves didn’t deserve to live anyway and that they were protecting their village. Fador shook those thoughts away.

No. I
enjoyed it. I liked killing them. I loved the hunt and the challenge of tracking down those wolves. We both did. The only difference….

The only difference was, they had never used people for live bait. They had never killed one of their own kind for entertainment.

He remembered that fateful day, the huge white wolf that didn’t even flinch when they shot arrows at it at such a close range there was no way they could have missed, the chase through the woods on the trail of something they both felt even then was somehow unnatural… the
curse
….

Fador turned at Michael’s growl and pricked his ears. A moment later he caught the scent of fear and…

A woman.

Her smell was tantalizing and sweet, but there was a stench of fear there as well and he knew she had plenty of reason for it. Her captors had killed not only the wolves he and Michael were there to protect, but had directly caused the deaths of countless human women as well.

It was all he could do not to jump to the attack when he heard her pitiful cry, but the men below were too many and the plan was already set. He sat back on his haunches, allowed his hatred and rage to boil… waiting for the hunt to begin.

* * * *

“Yes, that one should do rather nicely. I don’t really care for the clothes, though. A bit too ragged for my taste. Put up a fight did she?”

Amber
woke in a panic, fighting a sudden wave of nausea, but did not dare move. She could hear at least a dozen different voices around her, all men. She cracked one of her eyes open but shut it quickly when the world seemed to twist around her. A few minutes later she tried again and watched the two men nearest her through one cracked lid as they spoke. It was obvious to her that she was the subject of their discussion.

“B’tween me and you, I heard she gave Jordan and Case a run for it. Took both of ‘em to take her down. Of course, her boss was pretty tic
ked off. He was planning to use his other secretary, but those idiots caught this one instead.”

Mr. Hiroshi?
She felt sick to her stomach.
Mr. Hiroshi… is in on this?

One man was standing so that all she could see were his worn black work boots. The other man was kneeling close enough that she could just make him out through her lashes. He was an older man, thinning white hair neatly trimmed and brushed to the side. His face lacked compassion, very authoritarian, like someone who’d spent their life in charge of everything around them. The hunting clothes he was wearing looked out of place on him, evidently a recent purchase.
Amber could smell their new scent from where she lay.

Why is he wearing that?
Only a handful of possibilities sprung to mind, but none of them seemed to bode well for her.

“Really? And he didn’t want to hunt
with this one instead?”

“No sir. Said he couldn’t do it. Got his money back too, since we can’t take the other one now without people being suspicious.”

“Well, his loss is my gain! I love a good fighter. Clean her up. As for the clothes… she looks like a street walker in that skirt.”

A street walker! This is a ninety dollar skirt!
Amber bit back on her indignation.

”A
white dress would be perfect. Something lacy. Should make a rather poetic sight, wouldn’t you agree?”

Oh god, poor Christine…. Well, at least
she
isn’t in any danger now.
It was hard to believe Mr. Hiroshi had planned, had actually
paid
, to kill her friend, but finding out that he didn’t have it in him to kill
her
instead didn’t help her feelings.

Where am I?
She remembered the attack, the men on the tram, but nothing else. There was no telling where they had taken her, though why was looking more evident by the moment even if
how
was still a mystery. She didn’t even know how long she had been out. It felt like a lot of time had passed, but there was no telling if it had been only hours, or days. Amber’s body was stiff all over and her head felt like it might split in two any second. She tried to think of a way to escape, but came up with a blank. There were men all over the place and they were obviously inside a building. For the moment, they didn’t know she was awake, so she had that advantage at least, but it seemed like a pitiful one considering their numbers.