The Hunted (Sleeping With Monsters Book 2) (12 page)

“Who else knew?”

“No one. He never said
anything when anyone else was around. And I would have taken it to the grave.”
I stopped questioning everything Vincent had done and tried to remember if I’d
ever given any of his dissatisfaction away. I’d always done my best to never
talk to Syd, and I didn’t interact with most of the rest of the family, they
were all too ‘good’ for me.

I just wish I’d known.
I knew he’d done it to protect me, but – how lonely he must have been, without
anyone else to turn to – without anyone else at the very end –

Oh God, Vincent,
baby, why.
For the first time, I
really felt that he was gone. I started crying, and all the tears I hadn’t let
myself shed in the past twenty four hours welled up.

I set the book down and
sobbed.

Max reached over and
patted my back, like someone completely unused to the act. It made me realize
what I was missing more and cry harder, and then he made a sad sound too.
Without asking for permission he grabbed me – how the fuck was he so strong? –
pulled me underneath one of his arms, pressing my head against his chest. I
didn’t fight him, I clung to him and he to me, like we were one another’s life
preservers in a storm-tossed ocean. His chest rumbled and the sounds he made
were just as sad as mine.

I didn’t know how much
time passed, only that he recovered before I did, and started stroking my hair,
rocking me softly. After all the being afraid of him, there was nothing but
gentleness now. When I could manage to talk again, I pulled back, and he
quickly let me go.

“If I didn’t know –
then who did? And how?”

“That’s not what you
should be asking yourself, Sam.” His gaze was serious as he looked at me. “He
wanted a different life for you – he bought it with his own.” He rocked up to
standing and went for the safe closet again and hauled a new bag out of it.
“I’m taking you out of town tomorrow.”

“What?” my tone
surprised the both of us. It was exactly what I’d wanted less than an hour ago.

“It’s the reason he
sent you here. He knew I’d get you out safely.” Max’s face looked resolved,
moving from the tenderness he’d shown with me back to the glowering man he felt
he had to be.

“But -- what’ll you
do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you – just going
to stay here?” I didn’t want to ask him to come with me, but I didn’t want to
be alone. Plus – the way he was moving, the far-away look in his eyes --
“You’re going to do something. I can tell.”

“I am,” he admitted.
“After you’re gone.”

“What?”

“The less you know the
better.”

I stared at him. “Did
you really just fucking tell me that?”

He looked like I’d
slapped him, but didn’t answer me. I stood up and started shouting. “It’s his
fault! He promised me a life without secrets! He told me that he trusted me –
and he made me trust him! I didn’t want to, but he made me -- and now – and he
held this back from me –“ I pointed at the book.

“That doesn’t change
the fact that you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Even if you make me
get on a plane, I’ll be flying right back.” I stared up at him. “You can’t make
me be safe. No one can. If my life has had one guiding principle – it’s that.”

“He wanted you to be
safe,” Max said, like that would change my mind.

“Fuck what he wanted –
he’s not here to see it.” He was standing by the fire, its light giving him
shadows that made him look unholy. It lit his hair like a halo, but the
shadowed expression on his face was grim and cruel. His naked chest heaved, and
I imagined Vincent stroking his hands all over it, pressing into all the secret
places of Max’s body like he had mine.

We were one and the
same, he and I. We had to be.

I took a step, and then
another step, until I was standing right in front of him and I put both my
hands on his chest and stared up as he watched me cautiously. “I want revenge,
Max. Whoever found out, whoever told on him, whoever got him killed – I want
revenge. When they’re dead, I’ll go, but not a second sooner.” I kneaded the
muscles of his chest as though I were a cat. “I can’t live my life without him,
knowing that they’re still alive.”

He swayed under my
hands, as though the current of my hatred was passing through to him.

Knowing Vincent had touched
him, cherished him – maybe even loved him – made me feel like he would
understand. And he was the only other person on the planet who knew what losing
Vincent felt like.

“We might die,” he
finally said.

“So?” I asked,
completely sincerely.

He closed his eyes and
bent his head down. Then, faster than I could see, he reached forward and
grabbed my hair, pulling my head down so that I was showing him my neck. I was
scared in the way someone who sees a snake is startled – one moment you’re
fine, the next you’re not – as he controlled all of me, making me sway. If I
swatted at him or pushed him or complained, all of this would be over, I knew
it, and so I rocked with him, letting him pull me in, feeling his breath along
my neck, even as my hands on his chest felt him breathe it. Time slowed to a
crawl as he weighed my resolve versus my fear.   

“All right,” he said,
releasing me. I took an unsteady step back and put my hands down. Primal urges
rolled through my body – I wanted to be taken like that, like there was no
question of who was in charge or who I was supposed to be. I shoved them down
as he went on. “We need a plan.”

“Anything. I’m in.” I
swallowed, and held my hand out. He looked from me to it and took it, shaking
it firmly. The look in his eyes just then – wild, angry, and determined – made
me very glad that he and I were on the same side.  

Chapter Ten

He was right to mate
with her, after me. She didn’t know what the firelight did to her, how it ran
over her body like electricity – and when she touched me, how it burned. It was
like she had a core of silver underneath her curves – maybe she’d been soft,
once, but living with Vincent with the family, had made the right parts of her
like steel. The tears she’d shed – we’d shed – earlier, were gone, replaced by
a lust for revenge, and who could blame her? I’d had seven years to come to
grips with Vincent’s absence, she’d had only a little over a day.

And when she’d let me
pull her near to make sure she wouldn’t break -- the wolf inside me
shivered
.

“We have to figure out
who to kill first.” My truck keys were in my pockets – I didn’t go to the
closet for a shirt, in fact I needed to ditch these pants, they smelled like
her and him. “You read that book and try to figure it out, and I’ll be back
later – I’m going out to try to get us answers.”

“Where?”

“The bars, the clubs –
the places where people talk.”

“And you think they’ll
talk to you?”

“They’d better.” I took
two strides toward the door, and she ran after me.

“Don’t you dare lock me
in.”

“Not tonight. But do
not leave here. Trust me, this forest isn’t safe.”

She nodded, and I
believed her. “What about your clothes?” she asked me, as I stepped off the
porch.

“What about them?” I
asked back, and went into the darkness.

Truth was, I’d hidden
stockpiles of clothes and cheap boots several places in the forest. Never knew
when or where I’d be in wolf form and quickly need to appear human. I stripped
off my jeans outside when I was far enough away from the cabin, turned into a
wolf, and picked up the keys I’d dropped with my teeth. Then I ran for a cache
and changed back into human, so nothing on me would smell like her.

The pack wouldn’t be
happy to see me, but they were the only place I could start. I circled below
the ridge down to my truck, and got in.

#

I was with Vincent when
I got the call.

“We’re going to take
your place.”

I’d noticed pack
members ingratiating themselves with the family, I couldn’t not. I was on the
gravy train, so of course they wanted in too. Working security and muscle was a
hell of a lot easier than being a construction worker as a were. It wasn’t 9-5,
they expected you to be up at night, and you got to be as intimidating as you
wanted to.

I just didn’t want to
think they’d go this far.

“You have to leave.”

I stared around at the
room I’d grown accustomed to, the chairs, the wide leather couch, and Vincent,
lounging with his legs across mine, a book in one hand and a glass of wine in
the other.

“When?” I asked.

“Immediately,” the
voice on the other end of the line said, and hung up.

Vincent looked up as I
brought the phone down. “What’s wrong?”

Ever since I’d exposed
myself to him, I’d been dreading this possible moment. Our life together’d been
so perfect – he knew me and I knew him, and we knew
all
of each other.
It wasn’t fair that I had to go – but the pack had never been fair where I was
concerned.

“I need to leave,” I
said slowly.

“Why? Where?”

“My time’s up.” I
started pushing his legs off of me.

“What the fuck, Max –
this isn’t funny.”

How thick were the
walls, and how close were my packmembers? If I didn’t leave now, they’d kill us
both on principle.

“You know what it’s
like to get orders, Vincent.” My hands reached for his. “I just got mine.”

“But -- why?”

I reached over and put
a hand on his lips before he could say anything incriminating. I pointed to my
lips and spoke without sound.
If I disobey them, they’ll kill me.

His eyes narrowed.
We
have guns.

If you try anything,
they’ll kill you too.

I’d never told Vincent
about the pack’s infiltration. I’d been trying so hard to keep him safe -- the
less I told him the better. But now there was no time.

You can’t trust
anyone new. Look around on a full moon. You know why they’re not there.

He bent over, and
grabbed my head, pull me close to him.
We can fight them.

I knew that he’d loved
me then, even if he’d never said it. The tortured look in his eyes, knowing he
was losing me --
There’s no fighting what you are,
I told him, kissed
him, and walked out the door.

#

I put the car in park
outside of The Doghouse. It was Syd’s chosen dive, first for the name, secondly
because the bartender poured strong. Someone was supposed to be guarding
Vincent the night he’d been killed – I wanted to find out who.

I rolled in and the
first person I saw was Syd. I saw Syd-the-wolf every full moon night, as I
skulked around the edges of the pack, begging for a place at whatever we’d
killed. I hadn’t seen Syd-the-man in years.

“Well, well,” he said,
turning around the second he scented me. “If it isn’t the mountain man.”

I walked straight for
him. “Who was protecting him that night?”

He frowned at me. “Who
told you?”

“Karl.” I didn’t care
if he got in trouble. Fuck him. 

Karl came down the hall
from the bathroom, adjusting himself. “Aw, shit,” he said, seeing me.

“You went and told him
our business?” Syd asked, without turning around.

“I was hoping he knew
where the bitch was hiding out. Maybe he and Vinnie fucked there years ago or
something.” He shrugged one shoulder.

“His name was Vincent,
not Vinnie,” I corrected, under my breath. Syd and Karl were the only weres in
here. The rest of the men present were family men of assorted caliber. I
recognized some of them, and knew some of them recognized me.

“He’s dead now, and
I’ll call him whatever I want.”

I ignored him and
looked at Syd again. “I need to know who was supposed to be there.”

“Why?”

“Why the fuck do you
think?” I said. His eyes narrowed. There was a line coming up. My wolf was
whispering not to cross it, don’t run over, run-back, hide, but I didn’t give a
fuck if I made my alpha mad anymore.

“Let it go, Maxie,”
Karl said, reaching out to push me back. I knew what he was thinking, we were
in public, this was no place to make a scene. “You going to take on the whole
family? On your own? These things happen, Max. He had a good string. Let it go.”

I was shivering in
rage. It’d been so long since I’d been among their number as a man. All the
times they’d been cruel, all the scars they’d left on me, inside and out, came
rushing up. On full moon nights my wolf just
was
, it didn’t have to deal
with all the ignominy, it knew its place.

Whereas human me – my hands
curled into fists. “Anyone in the family would be a fool to let you watch their
back.” I said it loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.

Syd growled. I knew it was
coming, and I didn’t care. He punched me in the stomach, and I took it like a
man would, folding in and falling back. Tables scattered behind me. Other men
jumped and stood, not complaining – they wanted to watch.

I grinned at Syd. I’d caught
him -- he’d started in here – he’d have to finish it in here. He and Karl
weren’t strong enough as humans to get me out the door, and there were too many
witnesses for either of them to go were.

“Where were you? Where the
fuck were you?” I yelled, clutching my stomach, like he’d hurt me, making a
show. “You were supposed to be guarding him!” I howled, making as much of a
scene as I could.  

Karl made a wild noise and
accepted my challenge. He grabbed a chair, unseating its owner, and ran for me.

After that we were a tangle of
blows. Wood crunched overhead, punches that would have shattered a normal man’s
jaw, ribs, sternum. I gave as good as I got, staying upright and always in
bounds, us playing a game with each other right in front of men who watched
from the sidelines with glittering eyes. This was a family fight, for them and
for us, they weren’t going to get involved.