The Strip (12 page)

The blonde man sat on the edge of the bed beside her. Across the room, Vincent Cromwell turned toward the windows and closed his eyes, focusing his concentration on the spell he desperately needed to maintain.

“Do you hear me, Charlie?” The fallen angel had lowered his lips to her ear and was speaking softly to her, his strong arms pinned on either side of her slim form. He lowered his voice to a whisper and asked, “Can you recognize my voice?” He chuckled then, an utterly cruel sound, and Charlie gasped in her sleep.

“I know what you want, Charlie,” he told her, still whispering. His fingers found her right wrist and wrapped around it, grasping it gently in order to turn it over. His gaze flitted to the mark on the inside of her arm. “I know what you need,” he continued, his gaze darkening slightly as the emerald mark shimmered in the moonlight streaming in through the windows.

When he looked back up at Charlie’s face, his lips parted, his merciless smile exposing the long, sharp fangs behind them. She would have screamed in her magical slumber if not for the kiss he then forced upon her, silencing her outcry.

By the windows, Cromwell nearly cried out himself as Charlie’s mark went from emerald green to a deep, burning, ruby red and the magic he had to force over her to keep her asleep beneath such an attack became nearly impossible to command. His palms were splayed against the glass, his head bowed, his eyes shut tight. He was shaking hard with the effort of keeping her under.

But Gabriel was merciless. He always had been.

Phelan parted her teeth with his tongue and tasted the Dormant beneath him. She was sweet – unbelievably so. She was cinnamon and alcohol and something like strawberries. His cock jumped in his pants, straining for release. He’d wanted it for so long. He’d wanted
her
for so long.

He could not take her this night. It was the one thing Cole’s mark absolutely forbade. However, he could have a part of her, nonetheless. And he
would
have a part of her. This part of her. The rest, he swore he would have later.

He broke the kiss slowly and sat back on the bed, allowing his inhuman gaze to burn down her body, taking her in. As he watched Charlie settle down into a deeper, more peaceful slumber, he came to a decision. “I want the mark off of her by tomorrow night, Cromwell.”

Across the room, the wizard Vincent Cromwell swallowed slowly. He nodded. He was spent and exhausted. But he would not let it show. Instead he said, “As you wish.” His low voice was a mere whisper in the new silence of the room.

Gabriel Phelan stood then, his gaze still boring into Charlie’s sleeping form. Then, without another word and without looking at the mage, he left the room.

Vincent heard his master leave the suite, the door shutting softly behind him.

Slowly, the mage ran a shaking hand through his long blue-black hair. And then, with something like regret in his glowing, amber eyes, he made his way to the bed and pulled the blankets up so that Charlie was once more covered.

On the bed, Charlie smiled. It was a grateful smile. Small, and sweet.

Cromwell straightened and wondered what the hell he was going to do next. He did not possess the kind of magic that could remove an alpha’s mark from his mate. That was a dark magic, indeed. It would take a warlock, and he was not one.

He would have to find one. And within twenty-four hours.

Or his life would be forfeit.

Chapter Seven,
The Raise

Malcolm hurriedly began to shove furniture up against the walls. Jake and Lucas helped, and then, when the center of the hotel room was completely cleared, Lucas backed up to take station by the tall windows along one wall. Jake moved to guard the front door, bolting it tight.

Cole stood motionless in the middle of the room. He glanced down at the glowing red marks on his wrists, and then his hands curled into tight fists at his sides.

“God speed,” Jake said softly. Malcolm glanced at him and their eyes met. Then he dropped his head and closed his eyes, waiting for the curse to once more disturb his already disturbed existence.

It didn’t disappoint.

Within seconds, the pain he’d come to know so well was arcing through his body, riding along his spine to send sparks of agony into his inhuman brain. This time, he refused to give it voice, swallowing the anguished bellow that threatened to rise from his throat and erupt behind his extending fangs.

Another few tortured heartbeats passed and the flash overtook him, ripping him from one reality and sending him reeling into another.

He forced his eyes open and took in the scene around him.

A young woman lay on a dirty hotel mattress. Her corpse was pale, despite the flickering red light emanating from a dying neon sign beyond the hotel room window. She had been drained of blood – gashes marked both of her wrists and were carved into the insides of her naked thighs.

The scent of blood here was overwhelming, even though the mattress beneath the woman was dry. Whoever had done this had painstakingly collected her blood – and then painted the walls with it.

This is my fault
, Malcolm thought.
She’s dead because of me
.

It was the second time the killer had struck in as little as twelve hours. Same technique. Same kind of victim.

If Malcolm had gone after the killer the first time, the woman on the bed in front of him would still be alive.

But Cole had been snowed under by Charlie’s appearance and utterly preoccupied with the prospect of claiming her. And he had truly thought that there would be more time before the murderer would strike again. A few days, at least.

But the man who had done this was on a rampage. He was not a patient, systematic serial killer. He was angry and frightened and wanted to do as much damage in as little time as possible.

Malcolm bit back the bile that churned in his stomach and allowed himself to change. A quick burst of light filled the room, like the sudden flare of a camera’s flash, and a wolf was standing where a man had stood only moments before.

The room’s furniture focused into quick, sharp contrast. The smells in the room separated themselves and became like hard, tangible objects, almost with colors and shapes of their own.

He found the scent he wanted and committed it to memory.

And then the pain was back and he hunkered down in his wolf form, gritting his teeth against the physical torture of being torn from the here and now and sent into the then and there.

When he flashed back to the hotel room, Lucas Caige and Jakob Samson were still standing where he had left them. They took one look at him in his wolf form and prepared to fight. It was natural for their kind. If the alpha was in fighting mode, the others followed suit.

But he switched back into his human form before they could unleash their own wolves, and ran a shaky hand through his thick black hair.

“I’m going hunting,” he said, his tone low, his voice hoarse with pent up emotion.

Jake’s head raised in understanding. “We’re going with you, then.”

Cole didn’t object. It was as much their right to hunt as it was his. And it would have been stupid to refuse the help. Cole was incredibly capable and strong – perhaps the strongest werewolf in the clan, save James Valentine. But no wolf was an island, and Phelan’s men were out there. The night was long and dark. Anything could happen.

So, he nodded once and made his way to the door. Samson and Caige silently fell in behind him.

* * * *

By the time the trio of wolves returned to the Bellagio an hour later, they’d purchased new clothes and washed their faces and hands with a hose borrowed from someone’s yard. It had been a long time since they’d gone hunting in this manner; on the spur of the moment and without backup supplies. In a way, it felt good.

At least, Malcolm could tell that his
companions
felt good. Caige was fairly swaggering with satisfaction as they entered the luxurious lobby and made their way to the elevators. And Jake didn’t look too disappointed either.

Malcolm, however, felt tired. Unnaturally so.

His thoughts kept returning to Charlie. He wanted to visit The August and find her room. He wanted to make certain that she’d made it back all right. But Jake had assured him that the taxi driver dropped her off at the hotel’s entrance and that Charlie had made it safely inside.

And he was so tired.

When the elevator doors closed in front of them, Cole leaned against the far wall and shook his head to clear it. His thoughts were becoming fuzzy. Something was wrong.

“I’m not bloody injured,” Cole stated. But, again his words were slurred and unconvincing. His legs felt weak. He was too heavy. He felt as if he’d been poisoned. Maybe drugged.

His thoughts flashed to Charlie again. Sudden concern for her flooded his mind.

Magic!
This was the work of magic – and he smelled no mages anywhere near him. Which meant they were using it on Charlie. He knew that they were linked now. Whether she wanted it or not, Cole’s blood ran through her veins. If someone was using magic on her, there was every possibility that he would be affected by it as well.

Before he could warn his men and send them out after her, his tall, strong form swayed in the elevator and began to fall. Lucas and Jake were instantly on either side of him, holding him up. He sensed them vaguely, as if at a distance. Consciousness was slipping from his grasp.

From afar, he heard the elevator doors ding open. A voice miles away said, “Get him to the couch.” And then there was darkness… but it didn’t last. Malcolm had not had a dream in decades. It had been so very long, he’d forgotten that he had ever dreamt at all.

He was familiar with the concept of dreams, of course. The mind empties itself during sleep. However, since he had been cursed, he had been denied that luxury. What his mind absorbed, his mind retained. He was never rid of it.

The only reprieve he could find was in the spilling of a pen’s ink upon a paper. Or the words that he typed onto a screen. They were a smattering of soul-stuff forced somewhere else – somewhere other than his own brain, his own weary spirit.

There was brief, however slight, liberation in writing. At times, he felt that if he did not write, he would explode. The thick, bulbous, inky-black plague of his memories would spill over, weakening the seams that barely seemed to hold him together. Already, he felt fractured. Each time the marks on his arms heated up, the miniscule cracks in his psyche split a little further and rode a little higher in the weathered pottery of his core.

There was no light at the end of this tunnel. There seemed to be no escape.

But tonight, at last, he dreamed.

It took him a good while to realize what it was he was seeing and that it wasn’t real. Something in the way the world around him blurred at the edges and in the way the sound seemed both too clear and muffled, all at once – this is what tipped him off.

He stood, wide-eyed and stunned that he’d found himself in the sleep scape after so many long years of nothing but night time oblivion.

“Claire, let’s move down the hill a little. The light is perfect in the valley with the older stones.”

The young woman before him was striking and bore a remarkable resemblance to Charlie. But it wasn’t her. Not exactly. She had the same color hair, if a bit shorter. Same facial features. But the eyes were different. Where Charlie’s were that impossible arctic blue, this woman’s were amber, and they had that strange glow to them that Malcolm recognized so well. She was a werewolf.

She was standing in a massive cemetery, its grounds immaculately tended, its trees magnificently tall and plentiful. She was holding a large camera, its strap over her shoulder, bearing the weight. She was speaking to someone behind her.

Malcolm watched as she glanced over her shoulder and a beautiful smile spread across her face. “What do you think?” she asked, addressing the hidden person once more.

“Fine, I’ll race you down, mom” came the reply. The woman stepped to the side and Malcolm got a look at the young girl who had spoken.

Charlie…

It took all of a split second for Malcolm to realize that this was Claire St.James as a child. She was beautiful, even when she should have been right on the verge of an awkward stage. He would place her at eleven or twelve years of age, and her hair was already waist-length. It shimmered gorgeously in the sun. Her skin was still smooth, having yet to be subjected to acne, and there was already a smattering of tiny freckles across her small, up-turned nose.

The woman, who Malcolm realized must have been her mother, laughed once and then whirled around to begin running down the hill.

“Hey, no fair! You’re cheating!” Charlie’s blue eyes flashed in irritation, but her own smile matched her mother’s as she leapt up from where she’d been seated beside a particularly weathered gravestone and began to chase after the young woman.

Malcolm watched them race down the hill. Charlie’s mother won, though barely. Charlie was fast. When they reached the bottom, Malcolm’s perspective began to change.

The dream scape became more fuzzy and seemed to shift. He blinked. And then he was gazing up from a hole six feet in the ground. Charlie stood beside it, still the twelve-year-old girl he’d seen earlier. She was dressed from head to toe in bright yellow. A tall, nearly skeletal-skinny woman stood next to her. She too was dressed in yellow, though more conservatively. The woman’s shoulders shook and her expression was grief-stricken. She raised a gentle hand and placed it on Charlie’s shoulder.