The Strip (5 page)

"Okay, then." Claire shook her head, a tired smile on her lips. She picked up her back pack and followed them out of the warehouse.

Chapter Three,
The Fast Play

The plane’s engines were a constant, low drone, reminding him of days long since past. Of battles fought and won – and lost. He didn’t usually fly. It was discomforting to think of himself being zapped to a murder scene and then zapped back to some space a mile off of the ground where a plane used to be, but is no longer.

He normally drove or went by boat. But he had never been forced to visit two homicide settings in one night, and he’d already had his fill of blood and gore since sundown. He figured he was safe, and in this instance, time was most assuredly of the essence.

Cole turned from the window of the luxury jet and glanced back down at the file folder in his lap. Over the course of the past hour, he’d learned quite a lot about the woman he knew as “Charlie,” who was actually Claire St.James, the female born werewolf from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Much to his growing sense of foreboding unease, he had also learned quite a lot about the man who had paid for her temporary move to Las Vegas, Nevada.

“When does he return from New York?” Malcolm asked softly. Jakob Samson, or “Jake,” one of the two most trusted members of Cole’s pack, sat across from him in the opposite plush leather seat.

“Tomorrow night. I can only assume he’ll want to meet her immediately at that time,” Jake replied.

Without a doubt
, Cole thought to himself.

Claire St.James, according to the Clan Council’s file on her, was a female born werewolf who had been orphaned at the age of twelve. Council suspected foul play in her parents’ deaths, but nothing had ever been proven. The water from the river in which their vehicle had fallen had washed away all traces of scent, leaving behind nothing but their mangled and conveniently decapitated bodies.

Their memorial and funeral services had been closed-casket and the child had been left in the care of her godmother, a human woman who had been her mother’s best friend.

Female born werewolves were so human-like in nature that, in essence, they lead lives of an overtly human nature. Their sense of smell was slightly better than the average human’s, as was their sense of hearing. Some were stronger than the standard human of the same stature would be. But, other than these few exceptions, a female born was no more werewolf than a Goth was a vampire.

Most werewolf parents share their secret with their female born children, despite the fact that such children will never be able to flash into wolf form and will not possess any of the gifts that are naturally given to the males.

However, Claire’s parents did not. For some reason, they chose to keep their nature a secret from their daughter. And so, when the humans in Claire’s circle decided to embrace her as one of their own, the Council did not have much to say. They debated the merits of telling her the truth and bringing her fully into the werewolf folds, versus the merits of leaving her with her human counterparts.

In the end, the Council assigned a few individuals to keep discrete tabs on the girl and make certain that she was capable of coping with her transition from living with her parents to living with her godmother. When it appeared that the young Claire was handling her parents’ death in an acceptable manner and that she was content to lead a human life, the Council recalled her watchers and left her alone.

Her file was closed. The werewolf community would let her go.

Apparently, they had had no idea that she was also a Dormant. After all, a female born werewolf-Dormant was supposed to be an impossible combination. It was clear to Cole that none of her watchers had gotten close enough to her to catch her scent, or they would have known, and the Council would have taken a much different stance.

Either that, or her Dormancy did not readily appear until later. Perhaps puberty. She was twelve when her parents died. Clan Council might have just missed it.

Either way, in the end, the Council let slip through their fingers what might have been their most precious treasure to date, and they still didn’t know about it. Because Cole wasn’t about to tell them.

Apparently, neither was Gabriel Phelan, the man who owned half of the real estate in Las Vegas and would now be living in the penthouse suite of The August, one floor up from Claire St.James. The man was really an alpha werewolf who undoubtedly knew all too well exactly how special Claire truly was.

One of his pack members must have scented her. There were not many werewolves living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was possible that this was why Claire’s parents, Colette and Brian St.James, had chosen to live there in the first place. Perhaps they truly wished to keep their daughter from anything having to do with the werewolf way of life. Maybe they just wanted her to be normal. It was a desire that Malcolm could readily identify with.

But, for whatever reason, Charlie had managed to remain anonymous for quite some time in Pittsburgh. It must have been only recently that either Phelan or one of his men happened through the city and by sheer luck scented a hint of the female born Dormant.

Cole turned to stare out the window once more. The night beyond stretched infinitely. Thirty-five thousand feet below, one small city after another appeared in sporadic blooms of multi-colored lights, and then disappeared beneath the plane.

Now that he thought about it, it would have had to be one of Phelan’s men who had scented St.James. Because if it had been Gabriel, himself, he would have simply taken her then and there. It was what Malcolm had wanted to do. The need to claim her had been sudden, harsh, and undeniable. According to his file, Gabriel Phelan was around the same age as Malcolm. Ninety years without a mate is a long time.

Now Cole had less than a day before Phelan would return to Las Vegas from whatever business he’d been attending to in New York. That meant that Cole had less than a day to get to Charlie before Phelan did. It wouldn’t be easy. He could imagine that Phelan’s men were watching her every minute. They most likely trailed her everywhere she went and knew everything she did. In fact, he was impressed that she hadn’t been locked up for safe keeping. Phelan obviously wasn’t counting on any other alphas interfering. Most likely, the werewolves in Las Vegas were all members of his pack and hence, under his firm control.

Cole’s lips turned up into a small smile.
That
was about to change.

He turned to glance across the aisle at two of the other members of his pack. One was a fairly young wolf, but incredibly strong. He had blonde hair and the common, stark amber eyes that werewolves often had. He was a vicious fighter. His name was Adam Trenayne.

The other wolf was a black-haired man with haunting eyes of pitch and an earring in his left ear. Lucas Caige had a purely ominous look about him, always had. He reminded Malcolm a lot of Daniel Kane, with his black leather and his penchant for motorcycles.

He had served Cole for many years. Caige was an alpha, himself, and had once had his own pack. His power was great and his magnetism was undeniable. But he’d left his pack in Australia long ago and traveled to the states and he’d been with Cole ever since. He was loyal to the end when it came to his leader and seemed to be content not to strike out on his own again.

Cole studied him now as Caige gazed out the window, his thoughts unknown.

And then, as if he could sense that Cole’s eyes were on him, Lucas Caige turned and their gazes locked. “Do you still dabble in ink these days, Caige?” Cole’s accented voice reached out across his pack members, wrapping around them with unmistakable authority.

Caige raised an eyebrow and shrugged, an interested look crossing his handsome features. “A little. A friend of mine owns a tattoo parlor in town. I do a few requests.” His voice was a deep timbre, lightly accented. Caige cocked his head to one side. “Why do you ask?”

Cole grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. He turned to stare back out the window once more. A plan was formulating in his head. “I have an idea,” he said. With any luck, it would work.

* * * *

“No!”

Claire jerked violently in her bed and came awake with a nearly painful ripping sensation. Her heart skipped several beats in her chest and she curled in on herself, nausea roiling up through her belly. She moaned and squeezed her eyes shut tight. The world tilted around her as her skin flushed horribly hot and, at the same time, she began to tremble as if chilled to her core.

It took her a few miserable seconds to understand what was happening. She’d had the nightmare again – and awoken straight into a panic attack.

She wasn’t going to die.
I’m not going to die
, she told herself.
I’m not dead. It didn’t kill me. And I’m not going to die now.

She forced these thoughts through her fevered brain over and over again. Another wave of nausea rolled through her and she tried to take a deep breath. Her lungs didn’t seem to want to expand, at least not all the way. She could only get half a breath. One half here, one half there.

When her heart skipped again and another terrible chill racked her body, she shoved off her soaked covers and stood. Dizziness washed over her. She sat back down and put her head between her knees.

“Breathe,” she told herself. “Just breathe. Think of thunderstorms….” She tried to imagine an anvil cloud above her, the wind of a racing tempest on the way, the rumble of thunder as the storm gained ground on all who fled before it.

To anyone else, such a vision would probably have been less than settling. But she’d always loved storms. She loved the way there was no controlling them. No stopping them. They were in charge. They were awesome. There was nothing anyone could do but stay inside and wait them out. She loved that.

Her lungs opened up a little more and the nausea passed. She imagined the sound of the rain hitting a tin rooftop. She closed her eyes and could smell the damp soil. It was her favorite scent in the world.

After a few minutes, she was able to sit back up again. In her mind, lightning cracked the night sky and thunder rolled. She was in a cabin beside a warm fire. It crackled invitingly as the gale raged outside.

Slowly, as the world’s claws retracted around her, Claire opened her eyes. When she did, she continued to breathe calmly and looked around.

The hotel suite she was in was enormous and opulent. It had been decorated with lavish tastes. It was a no-holds-barred luxuriousness that made Claire more than slightly uncomfortable. She almost felt as if it wasn’t just her music that was being purchased.

In truth, and to put it bluntly, it made her feel cheap, despite the obvious high-end price tag of everything around her. The room was on floor beneath the penthouse level of The August and overlooked the entire Las Vegas strip below. The floor to ceiling windows were covered at the moment; she’d pulled the curtains before heading to bed.

Now Claire stood and went to the windows, slowly drawing them open. As ever, the city was wide awake so many feet below. She raised her gaze to the line where the lights seemed to stop and the desert reclaimed the night. It looked peaceful out there beyond the synthetic, neon-lipped fracture that humans had carved into the region’s face.

At that moment, she desperately wished that she were out there somewhere, sleeping beneath the stars, with nothing for companions but the coyotes. She took another deep, cleansing breath, hugged herself against the chill that would not leave her slender form, and let her breath out in a long, weary sigh.

She wasn’t going to get any rest this night. She knew that now. Every time she closed her eyes, they were there.

The first dream to come was always about the man with the blue eyes that seemed to delve into her very soul, paralyzing her as they ripped away the layers of her secrets and exposed her to her core. It laid her bare and vulnerable, shivering in her sleep until the second dream rolled along.

Without fail, it was of the man with the piercing green eyes whose perfect, white smile she could only just make out in her mind’s eye. She remembered that he was painfully handsome… the kind of man you couldn’t make eye contact with because it lit up too many fires within you.

Claire was disarmed by
his
dream. He seemed to catch her unawares. He took her pleasantly by surprise. And yet, when she awoke, she could barely remember his face. All she could recall clearly was the green of his eyes. As sleep faded away, the dream image hid from her like a flounder in the sand. She would always roll over, frustrated and despondent.

Until the third dream invaded her mind. The beast. The teeth and claws and the terror-induced flight through a landscape that fought her at every step. The force that knocked her to the ground… and the human hands that turned her over.

Claire wondered how many times she would dream of the beast before it killed her. Each night, she felt its breath hotter upon her neck and its presence stronger above her. Would it rip her throat out tomorrow night? The night after?

She wondered whether the whole Freddy Krueger myth might actually be the verity in her case. If it killed her in her sleep, would she really die? The panic attacks she was having of late certainly led her to believe so.

Claire ran a hand through her long, sweat-dampened hair and turned away from the window. She felt utterly miserable in that moment. She missed her parents. She missed her home. And she was so tired. Suddenly, she came to a decision. She left the window and strode to the bathroom, where marble covered every surface and plush, ultra-soft towels hung on several gold-gilded racks. She turned on the shower and waited the two seconds it took for the water to run extra hot.

Then she stripped off her nightgown, which clung to her damp skin for a moment before slipping free. She left it on the floor and stepped beneath the hard spray.

Thirty minutes later, she was pulling an ACDC t-shirt over her head and heading for her front door. She left her hair wet, not wanting to bother with the blow dryer. As a result, it began to curl into long waves as it quickly dried in the natural desert night air.