A deep, rumbling chuckle met his abrasive greeting and Knox knew who the caller was before the man said anything.
“Did I catch you in the middle of something with that lady friend of yours?” Theo Whittaker sneered. “You know, the one you never want to talk about.”
Knox ground his jaw. Theo was his boss as well as the owner of Direct Action Private Security. The man was also a frigging d-bag. He was constantly talking about the women he banged and assumed every guy on the planet wanted to boast about it too.
Knox had never intended to work private security. In the world he came from, private security was something you ended up in, not something you aspired to do—kind of like porn or prostitution. But stalking a female werewolf back and forth across the country had gotten expensive. Ergo, he’d needed a job. DAPS paid good money and was easy to get into for someone with his résumé.
“I’m not with anyone,” he said. “I told you before. There is no woman in my life. I was sleeping. You woke me up.”
“Bullshit. I can practically hear the heavy breathing over the phone. What, did you just finish getting—ahem—intimate with her?”
Knox cursed silently. Stalking Rachel from the rooftop across the street from the SWAT compound was the most intimate he’d been with a woman since he’d gotten out of the Navy.
Damn, that was sad.
“Is there a reason you called?” he asked, refusing to engage his perverted boss on the subject.
“We got a new job,” Theo said. “Some woman lawyer got herself on the bad side of a bunch of scary dudes, and her husband is paying us an ass-ton of money to keep her and their daughter safe. I need you to come with me to do a recon of their residence and start working up guard shifts. We’ll need to work with the local cops, too, since they’re going to be involved as well. I know this shit is your jam, so I want you with me from the jump.”
Knox didn’t bother to point outthis shitwas the jam of almost everyone in the company, since all of them were prior military. But if Theo wanted him to take point on this, whatever. It was a paycheck.
“So, this family we’re protecting. It’s just the three of them, right?” Knox asked, already working through the logistics of babysitting people he didn’t know the first thing about. “The lawyer, her husband, and their daughter?”
“Yup. Mom’s a looker, too,” Theo said. “At least she is in the pictures I’ve seen of her. Wouldn’t mind hitting that, I can tell you.”
Knox shook his head. “Theo, you’re a pig. You know that, right?”
The man laughed. “Hell yeah. And proud of it. Meet me at the office in thirty. Pick up breakfast on the way, would you?”
Knox hung up with a growl, his gums aching as his teeth threatened to rip their way right out again. He prayed he didn’t have to work much with Theo on this job. The man had been with Army Special Forces for years before getting out to open DAPS, so he was capable, but it was damn hard being around the guy without ripping his throat out with your bare hands—or your teeth.
He groaned at the visual. He’d just imagined wanting to sink his teeth into another human being’s throat. What the hell was wrong with him?
But the truth was, he knew what was wrong. And no matter how long he’d been putting it off, he was going to have to stop screwing around and finally talk to the only person who might be able to help him. And soon.
“But not today,” he muttered.
Getting to his feet, he headed toward the back of the warehouse roof and the ladder attached to the side of the building.
Chapter 2
Rachel jerked upright in bed, screaming in terror loud enough to wake the dead until she realized it had all been another nightmare.
Crap, she was so over this.
She flopped back on the bed, groaning in disgust when she noticed her sheets were soaking wet with sweat. She covered her eyes with her forearm and licked her lips, making a face at the metallic tang of blood in her mouth courtesy of her fully extended fangs. She only hoped her screams hadn’t woken her poor neighbors again.
Glancing over at the clock on her nightstand, she saw that it was only a few minutes past 2:00 a.m. Great. She’d gotten an entire three hours of sleep. Three more nights like this and it might add up to a full evening’s rest.
With a sigh, she replayed the dream, trying to remember exactly what had scared her so much. But it was difficult recalling any details. Nothing more than images of something dark and vaguely shaped like a man chasing her, clawing, stabbing, and biting at her back and shoulders as she tried to get away. But no matter how fast she ran, she couldn’t escape the thing in her dream. Even without being able to see it, she knew with every fiber of her soul that whatever it was hated her and wanted her dead. The worst part of the nightmare, beyond the pain and the fear, was hearing the thing laugh at her. Harsh, sick-sounding cackles that twisted her stomach into knots and made her want to curl up into a ball. The thing in her nightmare knew she was terrified and had reveled in that hopeless terror.
She reached up and fingered the necklace lying on her chest, toying with the Celtic shield knot charm hanging from the chain there. Hannah had given her the necklace right before Rachel had left Chattanooga for Dallas, and she never took it off. She and Hannah had become good friends during their recovery in the hospital and had spent a lot of time together afterward simply being there for each other after that traumatic night in the cemetery. Hannah had given her the Celtic knot for protection. Rachel had given her a wolf charm necklace for the same reason.
If it wasn’t so late, Rachel would have jumped on the computer and checked in with Hannah that very second. The two of them texted and Skyped regularly since Rachel had moved, but giving her a call now was out of the question, so Rachel pushed back the paisley-print comforter and climbed out of bed, then stood there for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to pass. She always felt weak after a nightmare, but lately it seemed the episodes were getting worse. Or maybe the dreams were. Either way, it felt like someone had drained the energy completely from her body.
Since she wasn’t getting any more sleep tonight no matter how exhausted she was, she decided to make some coffee. If she was going to be awake at this ungodly hour, she might as well be caffeinated, too. But first, she needed to rinse the taste of blood from her mouth.
Padding into the hallway, she wandered into the bathroom. The light in there was already on, as was every other light in her apartment, including the bedroom. Thanks to those damn nightmares, she couldn’t stand to be in the dark anymore.
