The Dark-Hunters, page 249
Sighing, she got up from her desk to head off to the library and meet with her group.
As she left the building and headed across the lawn, she wasn’t paying attention until she heard a man calling out, “Maggie.” His voice was so deep and rumbling that it sent a shiver down her spine.
There was only one person she knew who held a voice like that. Only one person who called her Maggie nowadays.…
Pausing, she turned to see Wren coming toward her from the street. He moved with a graceful, masculine lope that sent a heated wave through her. He had on a pair of faded jeans that had holes in both knees, black biker boots, and a black T-shirt with a ragged red and black flannel shirt worn over it that he’d left unbuttoned. She’d never known anyone to dress so haphazardly, and there was something about the clothes that made him seem like a young teenager.
But that aside, it was obvious that he was completely ripped. A fact she knew firsthand since she’d seen him without those shirts on. There was also a dangerous confidence about him that said he was a lot older than he appeared at first glance.
He kept one arm behind him as he moved to stand just before her. She shivered at his commanding presence. He was so much taller than her, and those eyes …
There were times when they didn’t seem quite human.
“Should you be upright?” she asked.
He shrugged with a nonchalance that she couldn’t fathom. “I told you it wasn’t fatal.” He brought her backpack around from behind him. “But I thought you might want this back. You left it in the bar the other night.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” she said, delighted to have it returned to her.
“You stunned me so much when you came to my room yesterday that I forgot I had it.”
She smiled up at him, grateful that he’d gone to such trouble to bring it here. “You didn’t have to bring it to me. You could have just called and I would have come for it.”
“I didn’t have your number.”
“Oh,” she said as she realized that she hadn’t given it to him. Which brought up another question. “How did you find me here?”
He didn’t answer. In fact, he looked rather uncomfortable at her question. “I should be going.”
“What the hell is this?”
Marguerite looked past Wren’s shoulder to see Blaine with a group of his frat brothers. She drew a sharp intake of breath. This wasn’t good. Knowing Blaine, he’d see this as a direct violation of his territory by Wren, and with his friends backing him, there was no telling what he might do. Blaine could be a total prick when he wanted to.
“It’s none of your business, Blaine,” she snapped in warning. “Go on and leave us alone.”
He didn’t take her obvious hint.
Blaine glared at them. “What are we having here, revenge of the busboy? In case you haven’t noticed, pal, there aren’t any tables out here in need of cleaning.”
She could sense the rage that was swelling inside of Wren. Luckily, he was holding it back.
She glared at Blaine. “Leave him alone, Blaine. Now.”
Blaine sneered at Wren as he raked a disgusted stare over Wren’s clothes. “What? Can’t you afford a real pair of pants? Or are you so hot natured, you need natural ventilation?”
“Blaine,” she growled.
“What kind of hair is that?” another of the frat boys asked. “Don’t you ever wash it?”
“It’s dreads, mon,” another answered in a fake Jamaican accent. “All the better for smoking the ganja, don’t cha know?”
Blaine tsked, then passed a feigned sympathetic look at her. “Really, Margeaux, why are you hanging with such lowlifes? I know you can’t help who your mother was, but damn, woman, I would think your father’s genes would take some dominance.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Wren said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“You’re not embarrassing me,” she said between clenched teeth. “They are.”
Still Wren didn’t look at her. He started away from her, heading back toward the street.
“Yeah, keep walking, busboy,” Blaine said in an acidic tone, “and don’t come sniffing around her anymore.”
As Wren moved past them, Blaine shoved at him. Wren’s reaction was swift and violent. He slammed his fist straight into Blaine’s face. Blaine hit the ground hard as his frat cronies jumped Wren.
“Stop!” Marguerite shouted, afraid they would hurt Wren. But to be honest, he was cutting through them with little difficulty. He slung one over his back, onto the ground, then punched him hard while the other two were swinging at him.
All of a sudden, campus security was there, pulling Wren off. He turned on the officer with a growl and slugged him before he realized it wasn’t another student.
The other officer pulled out a club and struck Wren’s injured shoulder with it. He growled loudly and shoved the officer back. Marguerite realized that Wren was about to attack him as well.
“Wren, stop!” she shouted. “They’ll hurt you.”
He froze instantly.
“I want that bastard arrested for assault,” Blaine snarled as he wiped at the blood on his face. His nose was a total mess.
“Don’t worry,” the officer said as he cuffed Wren’s wrists together behind his back. “He’s going straight downtown.”
Wren’s face was stone as he said nothing in defense of himself.
Marguerite was livid over this. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong. They attacked him first.”
“Bullshit,” another frat boy said as he wiped the blood from his lips. “He hit Blaine for no reason. We were just protecting our brother from being mauled by this animal.”
“He doesn’t even belong here,” Blaine added. “He’s town trash who was trespassing.”
The officer Wren had struck tightened the handcuffs to the point where she could see that they were biting into his wrists.
Still Wren said nothing. Nor did he flinch or show any emotion whatsoever.
“Are you a student here?” the officer asked him in an angry tone.
Wren shook his head.
“Then why are you on campus?”
Wren didn’t answer.
The officer was getting even angrier as he tugged at Wren’s cuffed hands. “Boy, you better answer me if you know what’s good for you. Who invited you here?”
Wren kept his gaze on the ground. “No one.”
“He was my guest,” Marguerite said.
Wren gave her a harsh stare. “She’s lying. I don’t even know her.”
Marguerite’s heart clenched that he was trying to protect her so that she wouldn’t get into trouble, too. As a student, she was responsible for anyone she invited onto campus.
Meanwhile there was no telling what the police were going to do with him.
She started to speak up and tell the truth, but the look on Wren’s face kept her silent. She could tell he didn’t want her to contradict him.
A police car pulled up to the curb.
Feeling completely helpless, she watched as they took Wren and placed him roughly into the car.
“Wait until my lawyers get through with him,” Blaine said with a laugh. “That bastard will be serving a life sentence for this.”
She turned on Blaine with a lethal glare. “You are such an asshole. You can forget ever interning with my father. Hell will freeze over before you step one foot into his office.”
“Margeaux…”
She wrenched her arm away from his grasp and headed in the direction of her car. She needed to find a lawyer for Wren. There was no way she was going to leave him in jail when he hadn’t done anything other than protect himself.
* * *
Six hours later, Marguerite hesitated in the police station as she felt a wave of fear go through her. She’d never been near such a place. It was cold and sterile. Eerie. More than that, it was frightening. She hoped that she never had to visit such a place again.
As bad as it was for her to be here to get Wren out, she couldn’t imagine how much worse it must be for him to be in the scarier part of the building with other men who’d been arrested for God only knew what.
They had to get Wren out of here.
“I told you, you should have stayed home, Ms. Goudeau,” her attorney said. He was a short African-American with thinning hair that was dusted with gray. Very distinguished and accomplished, he was one of the most prominent attorneys in New Orleans. Best of all, he was discreet, so no one, not even her father, would ever learn of this.
Both she and Wren would be protected.
She doubted Wren could afford his own counsel, and from what she knew of public defenders, they were often overworked. She wanted to make sure that Wren spent as little time here as possible. Luckily, she had enough money of her own to easily cover Mr. Givry’s fees to get Wren out of this.
“I think you should go on back home,” Mr. Givry said as he urged her toward the door.
“No,” she said hastily. “I wanted to make sure he was okay myself.”
Looking less than pleased by her insistence, Mr. Givry led her to the desk where a female clerk sat wearing a police uniform. Even though the woman was heavyset, it was obvious she was well muscled and in great physical condition. Her face was dour and stern as she brushed her short brown hair back from her face. She looked up with a bored stare as they approached.
“We’re here to make bail for … um…” He looked at her expectantly.
“Wren,” she said.
“Wren who?” the clerk asked in an agitated tone.
Marguerite hesitated as she realized that she had no idea what his last name was. “Um … I’m not sure.”
Mr. Givry gave her a stunned look. It probably did seem strange that she was willing to spend several thousand dollars to get a man she barely knew out of jail. But to her it made perfect sense, and she didn’t dare explain to the lawyer or clerk that Wren had saved her life.
With her luck, that would make the local news and she would be in deep trouble.
“Well,” Marguerite said quickly, “he’s around my age, about six three, and has blond dreadlocks. They brought him in about six hours ago for fighting at Tulane.”
An African-American male clerk came up and shook his head. “You know who that is, Marie. He’s that kid we had to isolate earlier.”
The woman screwed her face up in disgust. “The crazy one?”
“Yeah.”
“Crazy?” Marguerite asked as she frowned. “How so?”
The man snorted. “When he was first brought in, we put him in with the normal crew of prisoners. He beat the shit out of three of them. It took seven officers to pull him off and stick him in a cell alone. Since then he’s been pacing back and forth in his cell like some kind of wild animal. He glares and growls at anyone who comes near him. It’s spooky as hell. There’s something definitely not right with that kid.”
Her lawyer arched a brow at her. “You sure you want to bail him out?”
“Yes. Positive.”
Mr. Givry looked extremely skeptical, but he turned dutifully to the female clerk. “How much is his bail?”
“Seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Both she and her lawyer gaped.
That couldn’t be right, could it? “Are you serious?” she asked them.
“Yes, ma’am,” Marie said without hesitation. “He assaulted an officer.”
Marguerite was indignant on Wren’s behalf. “Not on purpose. He didn’t know it was an officer when he struck out.”
The male clerk scoffed at that. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
Marguerite felt ill and angry. She didn’t have that kind of money. At least not without going to her father, who would stroke if she told him why she wanted it.
“Hi, Daddy, I met this man who is a busboy in a local biker bar and he needs to get out of jail.… What did he do? Nothing much. Just assaulted an officer and Blaine. You remember Blaine, don’t you? His father is one of your major campaign contributors. But that’s okay, isn’t it? Wren’s a good guy. He even got shot when he kept me from being raped after I was down in the area of the Quarter where you told me not to go.
“Daddy? Are you seizing? Should I get the pills for your heart?”
Oh yeah, that would go over well.
Mr. Givry gave her a sympathetic look. “What would you like for me to do, Ms. Goudeau?”
Loan me the money?
Before she could answer with something more reasonable than that, the outside door opened to admit three men. She knew one of them instantly. He was Dr. Julian Alexander, who had been her undergraduate advisor.
Tall, blond, and absolutely gorgeous, he was with two other good-looking men. One who was two inches taller and blond and another one who had short black hair. The brunette stood even in height to Dr. Alexander.
“Bill,” her attorney said to the dark-haired man as he offered his hand to him. “What brings you here? I didn’t know you made personal calls anymore.”
Bill laughed as he shook Mr. Givry’s proffered hand. “I don’t.”
“Then I must be imagining things.”
Bill continued to smile. “I wish, but I have an extremely valuable client to bail out. He always gets my personal attention, if you know what I mean.”
The look on Mr. Givry’s face said he knew exactly what Bill was talking about. Marguerite had no idea who Bill’s client was, but he must be loaded to warrant such personal attention from an attorney who didn’t normally give it.
“Marguerite?” Dr. Alexander said as he approached her. “What brings you here? I hope you haven’t been in any trouble.”
She shook her head. “The lack of news coverage alone shows that I’m innocent. I came in to bail out a friend but found out I don’t have enough money to cover it.”
She frowned as she suddenly realized who the dark-haired man was. “You’re William Laurens, State Senator Laurens’ eldest son, aren’t you?”
Bill cocked his head as he searched his mind for clues as to her identity. “Do I know you?”
“She’s Senator Goudeau’s daughter,” Dr. Alexander and her lawyer said at the same time.
“Ah,” Bill said as enlightenment came to his features. He extended his hand to her. “We’ve met at campaign parties.”
She nodded. “I love your wife. She’s quite a character.” Selena Laurens was more than that. Extremely idiosyncratic, Selena was a psychic who owned a new age store down in the Quarter. She was only tolerated by Marguerite’s father because Bill’s family was one of the wealthiest in the state of Louisiana and Selena’s family wasn’t too far below his.
Had Selena been poor, she would have been an insane kook. As it was, Marguerite’s father referred to the tarot card reader as “eccentric.”
Bill laughed. “Yes, she is. It’s why I love her.” He indicated the blond man with him. “This is my brother-in-law Kyrian Hunter, and you already know Julian.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said to Kyrian, who shook her hand and returned her words.
“If you guys will excuse me for a second…” Bill went over to the clerk to speak with her.
Marguerite looked back at Kyrian. “You’re the man Nick Gautier used to work for, aren’t you?”
Kyrian frowned. “You’re a friend of Nick’s?”
She nodded. “He was a great guy.”
“Yes, he was,” Kyrian said, his expression extremely sad.
Bill rejoined them. “They’re getting him now, but damn, that boy needs to learn to stay out of trouble.”
“What happened?” Kyrian asked.
Bill sighed heavily. “Well, he neglected to tell me he’d assaulted a Tulane cop and now they have him in isolation.”
“Wren?” she asked hopefully. “You’re here for Wren?”
Kyrian looked stunned by her words. “You know Wren, too?”
Marguerite nodded. “We only just met, but yes, I know him.” She looked about sheepishly. “I’m ashamed to say that I’m the reason he was arrested.”
Bill arched a brow at that. “How so?”
“Wren came to campus to return my backpack to me that I’d left in Sanctuary. When he started to leave, a group of frat boys started harassing him. After insulting him repeatedly, one of the boys shoved him and then Wren slugged him. The rest jumped on him and then the police came and arrested him for the disturbance.”
She could see Bill processing the new information with a keen focus on how he could use it to get Wren out of trouble. “Did he really attack a cop?”
“Yes, but it was an accident. The officer came up from behind him and I’m sure he thought it was another student jumping on him. Wren didn’t see who it was until after he’d struck the officer.”
Bill narrowed his sharp gaze on her. “You willing to testify to that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good,” he said with a smile. She could tell that Bill was going to get Wren out of trouble. Thank goodness.
“So who is this kid that he got you out at dinnertime to spring him?” Mr. Givry asked.
“Wren Tigarian.”
Her lawyer continued to frown, as did Marguerite.
“Should I know that name?” her lawyer asked.
“Tigarian Technologies,” Dr. Alexander explained. “He was the only child to Aristotle Tigarian and the sole heir to their entire international empire.”
Marguerite gaped at that. Tigarian Technologies was second only to Microsoft in the corporate world. “Why does he work as a busboy?”
Julian gave her a pointed look. “Why does the daughter of a prominent senator go to Tulane and not Princeton, Harvard, or Yale?”
“I like New Orleans.”
“And Wren has no interest in running his father’s company,” Bill said. “He’d rather leave it to the management in charge.”
Still it didn’t make any sense to her. Wren didn’t live like a wealthy man. He lived like a vagrant.
Bill looked past her shoulder, then scowled. “Hey!” he shouted. “Take the damn cuffs off the man. There’s no need in embarrassing him. He’s not a criminal.”
The police officers with Wren gave Bill a sinister smirk. “Yeah, right, you didn’t see the way he tore through those bikers. This ‘kid’ could give Mike Tyson a run for his money.”
