The Hunted (Sleeping With Monsters Book 2) (17 page)

 I pitched my truck keys at
her and she caught them without thinking. “Those are for you.” I made my voice
flat and unyielding, and her expression clouded instantly.

“What’s wrong?”

I pointed at the bag she was
carrying. “Take the rest of the money and the book and go. Call the Marshall
and get the fuck out of my life.”

“But –“

I gestured towards the door.

“I’m not leaving you! You
can’t make me!”

“I’m leaving you – and I can.”
I stood up to my full height, making myself seem bigger than I was, more
menacing. “Take off, Sam.”

“But we had a plan, and we
have all these guns, and –“

“Go.” I let shades of my wolf
through, I could hear it in my voice, using its frustration with my manskin
side to color the tone I was using with her.

“But --” she protested.

“This is my place. And my
fight. Go.”

Her hands clenched in impotent
fists. “None of those guys meant anything to me, Max – they didn’t, I swear –“

“Go,” I commanded again. My
voice rumbled with authority, and I saw her take a step back toward the door,
cowed. Some animal part of her knew that she should run.

“I can still be your mate – I
know how to be true –“

“Go!” I shouted at her, half a
roar, and started lunging for her like I was going to throw her out myself – or
tear her in half and eat her organs.

She screamed instinctively and
ran for the door. I closed it behind her, and leaned against it. “Fuck you,
Max!” she shouted when she was safely outside. “We had a plan! We were a team!”

She beat her
frustration out on the closed door, and I didn’t dare answer her, no matter how
much my wolf wanted to howl back. 

After I heard the truck race
off, I felt like I could breathe.

I’d scared her away. My only
chance at mating, gone. This was why I wasn’t an alpha – clearly I was an
idiot.

But I’d finally done the right
thing. It would be cold comfort when I was getting torn into pieces tomorrow
night, but it’d still be right. I kicked a bag of silver jewelry gently. There
was no way I could kill all of them – but I was going to make damned sure that
I didn’t die alone. I reached into the bag from the hardware store, and pulled
out gloves.

I wound the silver chains
across the teeth of traps, tacking it into place with messy gobs of silver
solder, two windows of my cabin broken out to create a cross breeze for
ventilation’s sake, and a respirator strapped tight across my face just in
case.

Almost-alpha
, my wolf
whined.

Sorry, boy.

I lost myself in my
work, so that I could ignore what I’d just done.

Chapter Fifteen

I stormed down the ridge.
After everything I’d done for him today – he didn’t get to treat me like that.
He was right, I’d take his shitty truck, I’d earned it, and I’d just go, drive
for the horizon until I was almost out of gas. I didn’t need some mountain
man’s revenge, I just needed the law.

I looked around his truck, at
the seat cushions impregnated with his blood, and remembered the way he’d been
when he’d gotten back, after risking his life for me and Vincent.

No. Fuck him, for ditching me.
For judging me.

That was what it was, right?
It had to be. He’d wanted me up until I’d told him the truth. Vincent had never
judged me for what I’d done.

I pulled the truck into the
outskirts of town, found a gas station, and tugged on my wig, in case anyone
was around to see me make a phone call.

I refused to go to voicemail.
By my third call in a row, I got some irritated sounding secretary.

“Yes?”

“Is Marshall Bren there?”

“Who’s asking?”

“I’d rather tell him myself.”
The family had eyes and ears everywhere, and were well versed in bribes and
threats.

“Fine. Hang on.”

A man’s voice came on the
line. “This is Bren,” he said, sounding curt.

How could I guarantee it was
him? There was a long pause while my mind raced, thinking.

“Hello?” he prompted.

“Have there been any leads in
the Vincent Depolo murder?”

“You’d have to ask homicide,”
he said, sounding as annoyed as the receptionist had. “Wait – how did you get
this number?”

“How do you think I got it?”

His voice went low. “Someone
told you to call.”

“They did.”

“Hang on.” There was a
rustling in the background, a desk drawer being opened and closed again. “How
can I help you?”

“It’s more me helping you. I
have something I want to turn in.”

“Might I suggest that you get
the fuck out of town and then mail it to me, express?”

“I wish that were an option,
but it’s not.” I felt better about talking to him now, though. No one who
wanted to catch me or the book would try to send me away.

“You do understand how
dangerous –“

“I do. Is it safe to talk?”

Another pause. “Yes.”

“Tomorrow night. Meet me at
Rider Plaza, at midnight.”

“Daylight’s safer.”

“No, it’s not.”

“How will I know you?”

“You won’t.”

“How will you know me?”

“Easy. You’ll be the one who
looks like a cop.” I hung up after that. There was a slim chance that the
Marshall’s phone was bugged, or that it was somehow tracing me – he’d be there,
or not, and Max’s plan would be in full swing. I trotted back to the truck and
drove off.

I wound through country roads
until I was almost out of gas and then fueled up again. I had to stay in town
until tomorrow night to make the exchange – Max hadn’t thought about that when
he’d kicked me out, unless he’d meant for me to be smart and go far away before
calling in. He should’ve known that I wasn’t – or that anytime I was, my luck
didn’t hold.

One hand found the locket on
my chest. I’d been lucky for seven years in a row. That was a lot longer than
some people got. The girls I’d left behind at Ray’s – I was sure half of them
were dead of ODs or had rap sheets as long as my arm.

Without thinking – or because
I was thinking too hard -- I’d come almost full circle around town, just as the
sun began to set. I was only a few miles from the turn off to go back to the
forest where Max was, trying to turn himself and the surrounding forest into a
one-man army.

He didn’t have a chance
without me. I knew it. He never would have shown me what he was last night, if
he hadn’t felt compelled to – he’d been embarrassed afterwards, and like a
bitch I’d let him be, because I was embarrassed too. He’d been forced to show
me all of his secrets in the space of 72 hours, whereas I’d been holding all of
mine in reserve. No wonder Vincent hated hiding things so much. It put the
person being honest at a terrible disadvantage.

I stopped at an empty four way
intersection that didn’t have a light. The only car there, I let the truck idle
while I thought, hard.

And then I turned right.

Chapter Sixteen

I put my odds at getting half
of the pack out of commission with the spring-guns and the traps, which’d leave
me four to fight on my own – including Syd.

Almost alpha!
my wolf growled,
making its opinion of Syd known.

Not anymore,
I informed
him. Not with Sam gone.

I’d finished soldering – I’d
put the traps out tomorrow on the trails the pack was likely to take in, and
then I’d bait them further with things that smelled like
her
. She’d
walked around in my sweater long enough for it to have her musk, and the pack
already knew her scent. I hoped they’d be so eager to find her that they’d take
risks – and the whole cabin smelled like her. If I left the front door open and
blew out the stove they’d have to send someone in to check it out. I hammered
in the nails that I’d spin out trip wire on tomorrow. Someone was getting a
silver slug in them by the end of the night. Hopefully Syd.

As for the rest of the guns –
I spent the next few hours pulling apart shotgun shells and reassembling them
with bits of silver tossed in, while wearing gloves. They’d have to get blasted
close, for the fragments to get past their fur and thick skin – but a wolf
would have a hard time gnawing a deep splinter of silver out before it poisoned
them. And if I was lucky and shot it someplace good and soft, like into their
nose or eyes – well, the whole night was going to require a lot of luck.

When I next looked up the sun
was down, and I could feel the moon’s quiet pull, urging my furskin out. My
wolf would like that too – to race around the forest, making himself known
after the indignity I’d put him through today by chasing Sam off. He didn’t
understand rightness – he was, after all, an animal.

I stood up and felt my back
pop and made my way out to the porch. The night was serene, like it’d been
every night for the past seven years. Except for her smell, it was like she’d
never been here.

I wished that there’d been
another way, that I’d have been smart enough to think of one. I breathed in
deep again and again, as if by scenting her and doing so, I could keep part of
her inside of me.

And then – my wolf beat its
tail, knowing her before I did.

Sam,
we thought in
unison.

Not old smells from behind us
– but new fresh ones, carried in on the night’s breeze.

She was here. For us. Knowing
what that meant.

And yet –

My wolf whined and
pulled inside of me, trying to get out or take control. I wrestled with it,
just like Jacob did the Angel, except I lost.

Maybe on purpose.

My feet left the porch
of their own accord and started walking into the forest. A quarter mile away I
changed into all fours.

I found the first tree as the
moon began to rise. It smelled like her sex and I licked at the bark, and then
ran my cheek over it, wanting to rub the smell of her into my fur.

The next tree, and the next --
I galloped along on her trail, growing more excited with every step, every
heartbeat thudding blood into my loins.

I saw her before she saw me –
a pale goddess under the moon’s dusky glow – and I leapt into the clearing
where she was before I thought to stop myself. She whirled and covered her hand
with her mouth, so as not to scream.

I fought to sit there, chest
heaving, muscles bunched. I knew we didn’t want to scare her, she wasn’t were,
but my wolf’s urges – he’d never been like this, I’d never felt him pull so
hard before, so desperate to get out and
mount her.

She took a tentative step
toward us, then another, and whispered, “You’re beautiful.”

Was I? No one but other
packmembers had ever seen me as a wolf before, and I’d never seen my wolf in a
mirror. I fought to watch her as a man.   Did she know what she was doing? Did
she know what she was going to let us do?

My haunches tensed,
ready to leap upon her and knock her to the ground and rut her --

Then she snapped her fingers
by her thighs, like I was a lapdog. Bemused, my wolf trotted forward, instead
of rolling her to the ground.

It wasn’t too late, I could
change into a man again and send her away.

But as I stood still beside
her, two hundred pounds of muscle and fur, claws and fangs, I felt her put her
hand atop my head. One finger traced the fur of an eyebrow and then she became
more bold, stroking her whole hand over one ear.

I leaned into her, intoxicated
by the contact. This was how it was supposed to happen. What it was supposed to
be. She raked her fingers through the thicker fur of my back and I shivered
bodily, then wound around her, leaning into her, seeking more of her touch. 

And then I knew without
knowing that the moon was above the treeline. I could feel its light land on me
like another hand.

It was time.

I sat back again. If she ran
now I couldn’t promise anything, but if she chose to just turn around and walk
away calmly, my wolf would understand. I could still make him.

But she looked up at the moon
and then back down at me.

“Now, Max,” she breathed, and
inside my wolf took control.

We changed. Furskin in,
manskin out, I heard her gasp to watch the transition – but I wasn’t in charge
anymore. I could see what he was doing, smell, taste, touch it, but it was like
I was in a glass box, unable to change the course.

This had happened before. I
knew if I concentrated I could break the glass and take over – but that would
ruin this for him. For us both. For all three of us, if this mating was to
take, and make beating Syd a real thing. So I fought to control myself, just
let go, and appreciate him appreciating her.  

He stood in my skin,
triumphant, looking out at her with his golden eyes. We were as naked as she
was, and all our blood was rushing low to inflate our shared cock.  

He grabbed her and she gasped.
His tongue wanted to taste all of her, so that she hid nothing from him – he
licked from her collarbone out to her shoulder and felt her tremble under his
hands like prey, delicious prey.

Don’t run Sam, don’t run --

She stilled and the moment
passed. He drew his face along her skin, breathing her in deep, groping at her
ass with one hand while the other brought her breast to his mouth roughly. After
he licked them her nipples went hard, and he noticed this, too, licking over
their pebbly roughness again and again, with the need of an animal, not a man. She
wrapped her arms around his back and tried to kiss him, but he growled –
kissing was not for wolves, even in human form.

I felt her tense. So far, we’d
been rough, but growling was an inhuman sound, there was no way to pretend that
it’d come from our throat. Her hands fluttered in the air and then found our
back again.

Just hold on. Everything
will be all right if you just hold on,
I wished I could tell her – wishing
I was sure it wasn’t a lie.