“Hello, little cub whore. It’s been almost impossible to get you alone, but I knew if I hunted long enough, I’d get my chance.”
Jones, Culin’s right-hand enforcer and the psycho who had almost killed that rabbit shifter a few months ago, had me at his mercy. I had no idea what his plan was, but no plan that involved him or Culin could ever be good for me.
“Nothing to say, whore? That’s funny. I thought you’d be squealing for your Ze or that old guy you have sniffing around your sweet ass all the time. Half this fucking place loves you and the other half want to own your little body and make you cry. Guess which one I am?”
I tried to struggle under Jones, but his bulk and shear strength were too much for me. I could feel my energy pushing to be let loose, to protect me, but I couldn’t take the risk of Jones finding out about me and telling. I had to believe Jarvis or Ze would be back any minute and come searching for me. My hopes were dashed in the next breath.
“Don’t think those two are going to come get you, either. Ze’s going to have to deal with a wolf attacking one of the owls on the other end of the floor, and that old guy is going to meet up with one of my guys, Kane, who I understand has a beef with the old guy for some reason. We’re all alone for now, and I love to play with my prey.”
Jones had his hands all over me, touching, violating. I pinched my eyes closed and never stopped trying to struggle, but every touch to my body was like a knife in my skin. Over my clothes, under my clothes, all over places I only wanted Ze’s touch for the rest of my life. He was only pawing at me now, but I knew the worst was coming soon. I decided to shut down, close my mind and hide from what was coming.
Then it all stopped.
I was free to scramble away from where I’d been held down and pull my pants back up. As I focused down the hall, I was stunned by the sight that met me.
Farley and one of the other elderly shifters had made their way down the hall, carrying a metal folding chair between them. They had evidently hit Jones over the head with it. The effort had been extreme on the frail Farley and the other guy. Both were leaning on the side walls to catch their breath and stay upright.
I had never been more thankful than I was at that moment.
But Jones wasn’t knocked out. He was only pissed the fuck off. As he got up, shaking his head from side to side, he set his sights on the two gentlemen in the hall. I risked sending out my energy to brush up against him and felt his wrath and need for blood. He was thrilled he had new targets to hurt, but he had to get back to me because he had orders.
I pulled back my energy as fast as possible when I realized that I wasn’t just reading an aura with Jones. I had read his thoughts somehow. They were disgusting. I felt their evil cling to me even after I had pulled back. I had never known there was such a capacity for the love of horror, but I was so wrong.
The first man Jones approached was an older wolf shifter that had just moved over to the area last week. He was kind if a bit gruff. He had complained that Culin didn’t care about the whole pack, only the wolves that could do something for him, or pay for his protection. Many of the wolves went without any comforts so they could use the money sent to them by their families to pay Culin to be in the pack. The old guy had spit on the ground and called Culin a disgusting excuse for an alpha.
The old wolf tried to stand up to Jones as he approached, but it was no use. One blow to the side of the head was all it took for him to fall and not get up again.
“Fucking traitor to the pack, coming over here with the weak ass wastes of air in this place. You should have died years ago and never had the ability to embarrass the pack the way you did. The strongest don’t associate with the prey. I just did you and all of us a favor.”
Jones stepped over the dead wolf like he was a puddle on the road and went for the second shifter, Farley. I had been numb when he went for the wolf, but there was no way I could let Jones harm Farley. Not only was he a nice man who I had gotten to know over the last few weeks, he was Jarvis’s dad. I couldn’t let him come back and find his dad dead, and I hadn’t done anything to stop it.
As Jones lifted his hand to hit Farley with the same death blow he’d just dealt a moment before, I made my decision.
The barrier I’d put up around my energy dropped, and I lashed out with everything I had. My experiments lately had been focused on moving and manipulating metal objects, and that’s what I did now. My energy lifted the metal chair the men had brought down the hall and threw it with all the force I could manage at Jones’s back. I hadn’t meant for the legs to go first, but that’s just what happened. The impact took the chair legs straight into and then through Jones to exit out the front.
He was dead on impact, one of the legs going straight through his back…and his heart.
Farley had been able to shift to the side before the point of the impact, so he was a few inches to the side before the legs went through. Otherwise, I would have been responsible for his murder, too.
I’m a murderer now. I killed him.
Ice moved through my veins as Jones’s blood seeped across the floor. The blood met the sheets I’d dropped, and indeed they were ruined by blood today. But it wasn’t mine.
I watched the blood soak the sheets and then inch closer and closer to my feet, but I was pulled from my icy trance by yelling coming down the hall. Ze followed immediately by Jarvis and Kane ran down the hall and came up short when they saw the scene in front of them.
Ze didn’t hesitate long before he jumped over Jones’s body, skirted around the other body and pulled me into his chest so tight I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t care. If I had to die, this is where I would choose. It might be my only option once Culin found out what I’d done.
“Baby, I got here as fast as I could. Culin set a trap and tried to keep me busy. Luckily Kane and Jarvis came to help.”
I tried to pull away from him to explain what had happened, but he held me even tighter and shook his head against the top of mine.
“No, don’t talk now, there are ears behind us, we’ll talk later. Jarvis will figure out what to tell the guards. It’ll be ridiculous, but they won’t care as long as they have something to put in a report. It’s Culin I’m worried about. This whole situation is going to be a clusterfuck in about twenty-four hours. Gods dammit! I can’t keep Culin at bay until next week. Fuck, I have to talk to Luke and Geordie and get a message to my contact. The plan has to be pushed up.”
I was told that Kane had been sent to take care of Jarvis, but had told him what Jones had planned instead. He had chosen a side now and knew he was on borrowed time once Culin found out.
While Jarvis and Kane dealt with the bodies, Ze hustled me out of the hall and into an alcove area I’d never seen before. It was hidden behind an outcropped wall in the very back of the floor opposite the elderly area. He pushed on the wall, and it gave way to a small closet filled with medical supplies and bandages. He took a pen that was on the shelf, wrote a quick note on a pad of paper on the same shelf and then closed the false wall again. The whole thing only lasted a few seconds, but now I knew at least part of his plan included an accomplice on the staff.
Seeing the questions in my eyes, Ze looked guilty, then shrugged.
