Sleeper_Google, page 11
part #3 of Hunter Series
Oh, but if he’d been doing something wrong, I was going to put him through so much more.
“Your Highness, please back away. In fact, it would be best if you left the room altogether.” Felix put himself between me and Roberts. “Kelsey, I need you to push her down. Push her back down for a few moments. Marcus will be back soon and he’s going to take care of you. Being around those angels unsettled you. I don’t know if you noticed, but at the end of the meeting, your ward fell off. You didn’t have it on when Oliver shook your hand. He’s unbalanced and now you are, too. It’s like a contagion for someone like you. Oliver’s illness has called up your inner wolf and she’s angry.”
“Perhaps if I touch her,” Henri began. “I’m an academic. I don’t have the same connection she has with Marcus, but I might be able to help.”
“I’m not unbalanced.” It didn’t matter that my hands were shaking and they had been ever since I’d left the angels behind. “I’m going to talk to the wolf whether you like it or not. He’s been handling silver. It’s the only reason his hands wouldn’t have healed. Even then, a couple of hours would have done it. Unless the freaking silver he held came straight from Heaven. What about it, Roberts? How did you spend last night?”
The wolf was shaking his head. “I don’t know.”
That wasn’t an answer I was willing to accept. I was about to explain that to everyone when Chad stepped up and got in my face.
“I’m taking him out of here now,” Chad explained. “You’ll let me or we’re going to have trouble.”
I was ready for trouble. I was fairly sure I grinned, the idea of fighting a vamp lifting my spirits high. For the first time in what felt like hours, I went still. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Chad turned, his shoulders squaring, and I felt the world begin to bend around me. Chad belongs to one of the rarest classes of vampire—the magicians. As far as I knew, he was the only one walking the night at this time. He could form illusions so real you could taste food, feel imaginary rain on your skin, utterly believe whatever he wanted you to believe. I’d come up against him before. I might be one of the only people in the world who could see through him.
“It won’t work,” I said calmly as reality seemed to go dark and I heard the hissing of snakes all around me. “Do you not remember what happened the last time you pulled this shit on me? It took three tranqs to take me down. I don’t think you have those on you today.”
“I won’t need them.” Chad lifted his hand and the world shifted.
“Holy shit,” Casey said, climbing up on his desk. “What the fuck is happening?”
Snakes were happening. They were crawling from the woodwork, twitching and hissing my way. The fibers of the carpet beneath my feet lengthened and formed more snakes until they were a menacing mass, threatening everyone in the room.
Well, except for Chad, who had lifted his husband into his arms and prepared to take him away.
I let my wolf loose a bit. She knew this was all an illusion. That primitive part of my brain that Chad was accessing, the lizard brain that merely wanted to survive, was taken over by the wolf inside me. The alpha wolf didn’t want mere survival. She wanted to dominate, and that meant seeing past fear, trusting her instincts over what her eyes perceived.
The minute I opened the door, I felt her surge through me.
“I’m not letting you go. I can’t. I’m conducting a murder investigation, and I believe your boy here just became my prime suspect.” My hands twitched, eager for a fight, and I realized how long it had been since Marcus and I had thrown down.
Too long. Remember that whole thing about needing sex or violence to feed my inner wolf? Well, she was hungry and there was a whole lot of violence in Chad’s eyes.
I welcomed it. I could feel the need rise like a wave threatening to engulf me. This was why I had a trainer in the first place.
I gritted my teeth because Chad turned on his power. I could feel those fucking snakes climbing my legs and sinking their fangs into me. I refused to pay any attention to them despite the fact that I ached to rip the fuckers off me and toss them aside. To do that would have given the magician more power. If I bought into it, if I took my eyes off the only thing in the room that was real, I would end up like Casey, who was screaming like a girl.
“Let me pass, Hunter,” Chad said.
I stood my ground like the good Gandalf I was. Except I kind of wanted to shove my nonexistent staff right up old Chad’s ass, and then we would see if he sent snakes my way again.
The anger rose, rapid and quick, a flash fire coursing through me. I didn’t even realize when I had reached for the fireplace poker. All I knew was it was suddenly in my hands and I was going to use it. I could see myself shoving that piece of wrought iron right through his heart. It wouldn’t kill him. I would need wood for that, but then again, I didn’t want the fight over so quickly.
I raised the poker, ready to start.
“Stop it, both of you.” Donovan stepped in between us, but I didn’t care at that moment. I hadn’t felt this way in forever, not since Marcus had taken me in. I hadn’t been so out of control that I didn’t care who I hurt as long as I got to hurt someone. I would fuck up Donovan, too. All that mattered was seeing blood, feeling bones crush.
“You see, I told you she’s far gone and I can’t fix her anymore. I’ve called Gray and he has an idea of what to do,” Marcus was saying.
I wasn’t listening.
I started to bring the poker down Donovan’s way, but I was stopped in mid swing. A hand held my wrist, an arm going around my middle and hauling me back against muscled flesh.
“Stop it,” Trent growled in my ear. “You stand down right this second.”
“Mr. Wilcox, she’s too far gone,” Marcus shouted.
“No, Marcus, let him,” Donovan said. “Let him try.”
She-wolf did not like that. She didn’t want anyone to “try.” I brought my boot down on his foot and heard him groan.
“Try to ease her, Trent. She wants a fight. Don’t give it to her. Soothe her. Make a connection,” Donovan was saying. “You’re not dealing with Kelsey. You’re dealing with the wolf.”
He wasn’t dealing with anything at all. I meant to make sure of that. I brought my elbow back and tried to hit him. He dodged, struggling to keep that beefy arm around me.
“Marcus, I don’t want to hurt her,” Trent shouted.
“The king is wrong. You won’t be able to ease her. She’s past that now. You can’t hurt her when she’s in this state, but she can certainly hurt you.” Marcus stood to the side, watching us with an almost clinical detachment. “Treat her like the alpha female she is. Show her you’re stronger. Take her down and force her to submit. It’s what the she-wolf wants.”
The darkness was gone, the snakes fleeing as Chad obeyed his king, but my rage kept boiling.
My wolf was pissed that she didn’t get what she needed, what she’d been needing for so long. She sure as hell wasn’t going to fucking submit.
“Hush, sweetheart.” Trent’s mouth was against my ear. I could feel the heat of his breath. “Don’t fight me. There’s no reason to fight.”
But there was. I wanted to. That was reason enough. I let myself go still because the wolf in me knew what Trent would do. His wolf didn’t want to fight. He liked me deep down. He didn’t want to hurt me. He was uncomfortable with the idea.
“See, it’s all right now.” Trent’s grip loosened a bit, his body relaxing behind me. “Let’s calm you down and then we’ll get a beer and talk this through.”
I didn’t want to talk. I could feel her raging through me and it felt good. That’s the danger of my wolf. When we weren’t perfectly integrated, she threatened to take over, and I wanted to let her. There was something freeing about letting her have her way. I didn’t have to worry about silly things like humanity. For the wolf who lived inside me, only a few things mattered. Freedom. The hunt. The kill. Fucking. God, I missed fucking so badly and Trent smelled like heaven.
The wolf inside me opened her senses and she liked what she smelled. Trent smelled of pine and male and sex and alpha.
“That’s right. It’s okay. You don’t need a fight,” he whispered. “You need a good run. I’ll give you that. We’ll get in my truck and go up to Denton and run all night.”
I practically growled in frustration when Trent let me go. The she-wolf didn’t like the alpha telling her to run it off like what I felt was a cramp or something and I should push through. I turned on him, baring my teeth and pushing him back. “Run yourself, puppy. And you can fuck yourself while you’re at it.”
“You should listen to Marcus. He’s right. She’s too far gone.” Donovan was standing in front of his wife, but seemed otherwise merely interested in the outcome of the event. He wasn’t jumping in to save his bodyguard, nor was he trying to hold me down so I wouldn’t hurt myself.
“This is what it’s like,” Marcus said quietly. “There’s no treating her gently when she gets to this point.”
“Which is precisely why she shouldn’t have been allowed to get to this point,” Trent replied, even as his eyes were gaining that otherworldly wolfy shine that would normally indicate a full change was coming. “I hope to hell Gray knows what he’s doing.”
But Trent proved he was as alpha as I’d thought he was. Lesser wolves had to make a complete change, but alphas, both male and female, could change single parts of their bodies. The eyes always changed though. Trent’s canines lengthened, his hands becoming wicked claws.
Yeah, that did something for me, too.
I circled around him, itching for the fight to come. He wanted to use those claws on me, I could handle that. Even pain in this situation fed something inside me.
“This is far worse than she would normally be,” Felix explained. “It was the angelic influence. I tried to stop it, but she got a dose at the end and it’s unbalanced her. She needs to be soothed.”
“No, she needs something else and Marcus doesn’t feel like he can give it to her,” Donovan said quietly.
“I explained it to you,” Marcus replied. “I can longer serve her in this function.”
Because he’d gotten sick of taking my shit. It’s what happened. Gray had left me. Oh, he’d said it was for my own good, but I knew the truth. He’d walked out on me the minute it became hard. I could still see him walking away from me and leaving me to the next guy. Well, the next guy looked like he was done with me, too.
Who would the king pay to fuck me? To give me the affection I needed so much but couldn’t quite seem to earn?
“Kelsey, we don’t have to do it this way.” Trent seemed to be the one who’d drawn the short straw when it came to taking care of me. “Let me take you someplace private.”
Where he would undoubtedly try to pull some wolfy mojo to get him out of his “duty.” I wasn’t about to be anyone’s fucking duty.
I swiped out at him, trying to catch him off guard. I needed to get out of this damn room. At some point in time that fucking magician had taken his boyfriend and gotten away. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
Trent leaned back, his body graceful as he evaded me with ease.
“She’s not going to let you talk her down and she won’t want to run, not unless she can kill someone, and that might end up being you,” the king was saying. “I told you how this was going to go.”
“She’s not ready and she’ll hate me later.” Trent spoke to the king, but his eyes were on me.
I was ready. I was beyond ready. I could smell the magician. He was getting away and he would take my prey with him. Roberts was weak. I could smell that, too. Roberts was weak, and a weak wolf would be easy to put down. I could practically feel my teeth in his neck, severing his jugular, and then he wouldn’t be able to kill demons anymore. I would find the stolen sword and I would have done my job.
And then maybe I would take that run. Maybe I would run into the woods and never come out. They would undoubtedly send Trent after me, and we would see who would win that fight once and for all.
It didn’t occur to me that it had been little more than an hour before or so that I’d felt perfectly fine. I hadn’t felt this kind of rage swell inside me since right before Gray had left. I’d had Marcus, but he had drifted away.
Grief pressed its way up, but I had sweet rage to shove that sucker down. I didn’t even fight. I gave in wholeheartedly because wrath was so much more fun than grief.
I threw myself at Trent, not wanting to draw this out longer than need be. I launched myself at him as I felt something hit my back.
“Hold her off for a few seconds more, Mr. Wilcox.” Henri was yelling over someone screaming. So loud. Someone was yelling and raging. “I formulated that tranquilizer specifically for her. Hold her off and it should work.”
Tranq. He’d tranqed me? Henri was supposed to be my friend. He was supposed to be on my side, but I’d forgotten what I was. I’d forgotten that I was an animal and these people were my keepers.
“Don’t cry, baby.” Trent held me and I couldn’t seem to fight him. Whatever Henri had dosed me with was working way better than anything before.
Trent eased me down to the ground, but had enough compassion to not dump me there. He held me in his arms and I felt him pull the dart out, tossing it away. He smoothed my hair back. “I’ll find a way to help you, Kelsey. I don’t want it to be this way between us.”
I managed to shake my head. “Just keep me out. Put me down.”
Feeling this way again put me in a black hole I thought I’d gotten out of a long time ago. I’d been wrong. It wasn’t gone. It had been lurking, waiting for the real me to come back out. Poor little Kelsey. She couldn’t be sane if she didn’t have a man, and no man really wanted her. Yeah, those were the thoughts running through my head as Trent smoothed back my hair. I wasn’t sure why, but he kissed my forehead. Sympathy, I guess. Wolves can be extremely affectionate, but I’d gotten his message.
He didn’t want this between us.
If I woke up, Donovan would have to let me kill something or send in someone who would only be doing his duty.
“Put me down,” I whispered, the drugs making my mind hazy. All this would do was stave off the inevitable.
He hugged me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe, and I felt something wet hit my skin. Was I crying? Someone was crying. I didn’t want to cry.
“Never.” Trent started to rock me. “I told you. I’ll figure a way out of this. I’ll do it for you.”
I started to argue but the darkness was already around me. The last thing I remembered was breathing in his smell and thinking something about him smelling like home.
Stupid me.
Chapter Eight
I woke up to darkness but there was something soft and warm about it. The darkness I’d entered when Henri had taken me down wasn’t the one I woke to. I was still on edge, but I could feel a big hand smoothing down my back, a warm mouth at my neck, and this time the scrape of teeth wasn’t something to worry about. This time it was something to beg for.
I let my head rest back. Even in the confusion of those first few moments, I knew I was somewhere good. Strangely enough, though I’d been angry at the king before, I knew he would never put me somewhere bad and let me wake like this. The man might have to kill me one day, but he would do it humanely.
And Trent. Trent had promised me.
So I was either safe or I’d gone to the Heaven plane, and in that moment I didn’t care which.
I sighed and smiled as the man behind me palmed my breast.
“Relax, Kelsey mine,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll have you better in no time at all.”
Or I was dreaming and that was all right, too. I reached back to touch my dream lover, and that was when my back spasmed. Hard.
“Easy.” Gray forced me onto my belly, and I felt a big hand on the small of my back. “Apparently you went down hard.”
But I hadn’t. Trent had caught me. He’d been so gentle with me. “It must be where the dart hit. That hurt.”
Would I hurt in a dream? That seemed wrong.
I stiffened because there was something wrong. I wasn’t dreaming. This was real. I could sense it. I’d thought for a moment that Marcus was here, but he wasn’t. I sent out that invisible thread that tied us somehow together, but I got nothing back. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t even close, and I knew Gray wasn’t here. He couldn’t actually be here with me.
The arms around me tightened. “Hush, I’m using the sword. I told you I could use the sword to contact you. A certain king managed to find me and told me I better deal with your problem or he would have me executed. I think there’s a wolf who would love to carry out that particular order.”
Gladys. He could contact me through her. I relaxed a bit. The king had certainly found a creative solution. “The king exaggerates. He’s not all that into executions.”
“I think you’d be surprised,” Gray said, rubbing my lower back. “I was worried in the beginning that the king would simply use your power, but I think he’s come to care about you.”
I groaned at the feeling of those big hands stroking me and getting my tense muscles to relax. “He cared about my dad.”
Gray moved his hands down, rubbing, and I felt some sort of spark go through me, a deep warmth that seemed to relax my whole body. “He did, but now he cares about you. I think he considers you a part of his family. Poor Donovan. Never thought he would have to deal with a demon like me. Better?”
“Yes.” It came out all breathy and sexy, like I was saying yes to something other than the question he’d asked. Like I was giving him a blanket yes to anything and everything he wanted to do.
I pretty much was.
He rolled me over and snuggled against me, his body warming mine in a way it never had before. He rested his cheek against mine and put a hand on my chest. “You feel so good. I’m going to beat the shit out of Jacob for not telling me about the unique properties of this piece of silver.”
