Big Bad Bite (33 page)

She hated him. Stomping down the hallway,
past a shocked Alec, an amused Logan, and a delightfully ignorant
Uncle Owen, she marched into the elevator car and refused to
acknowledge their existence. Adam slid behind her, wrapping an arm
around her waist and snuggling her backside into his rock hard
erection.

Okay, so she didn’t hate him. But she refused
to talk to him for at least the next three hours. Surely there
wouldn’t be a reason why she would have to speak to him for at
least three hours. Having to endure this outfit was worth at least
three hours of silence.

After asking Jenna if she was as proficient
with knives as she was with guns, where Jenna had answered ‘hell
yes’, Adam had disappeared for an hour while she watched extremely
confusing German soap operas and eaten an early dinner. He then
came back empty handed and informed her that he was going to take a
shower. When he came out fifteen minutes later in nothing but a
towel wrapped around his waist, she wondered how much trouble she
would get into for being late so that she could seduce her lover
into having her first quickie, but Adam had smacked her on the ass
and told her that it was time for her to jump in the shower and
start to get ready.

When she came out twenty minutes later – and
yes a woman was capable of getting ready in twenty minutes if they
weren’t into all of that extra makeup crap – she saw Adam sitting
dressed on the bed with a bag in his hands. At first she could have
cared less about the bag he held. The human woman in Jenna was
drooling over her lover dressed in black denim jeans that cupped
him lovingly in the best places, with his black shit kicker
motorcycle boots, and black button up dress shirt which had the
sleeves rolled back to his elbows. His hair was finally dry, and
sticking straight up in all of its red glory in a hundred different
directions, just the way she’d come to love it to look. He was the
sexiest thing she’d ever seen, and her wolf was all but jerking her
control away to get out and take a bite of their mate.

Wait a minute. Had she just admitted in her
head that Adam was her mate?

Before she got the chance to ponder the
implications of that slip up, Adam shook the bag at her. Motioning
for her to hurry up and take it. Now she was standing in an
elevator wearing a leather purple mini skirt designed with pleats
and buckles, with a matching leather purple vest that was low cut
and buckled up the side but had corset style ties down the back.
She felt like a Barney colored Catholic schoolgirl porn star
wannabe from a crummy horror flick. Her girls were barely staying
in the damn thing, and all she had to say about that was if
anything popped out at an inopportune moment it
was not
her
fault.

Adam had also given her knee high black
leather boots that were the only thing she appreciated about his
shopping trip. Sure they had four inch heels, and she’d more than
likely break her neck while trying to walk in the damn things, but
they came with sheaths on the inside of the boot that hid two
knives per shoe. So they were fabulous and functional. Not to
mention, that instead of feeling like a midget next to Adam because
her head barely reached the top of his shoulder, now she was up to
his chin, so she had a little extra height in case she decided to
give into the urge to punch him in the mouth.

The only thing she’d truly loved about the
outfit was the knife like hair stick he’d given her. With her hair
pulled up in a French twist secured by the hair stick, she had a
fifth weapon that the population in general would over look, and
her hair looked flippin’ fabulous. Of course, if Adam continued to
play with the wisps of hair lying against her neck she was going to
ruin that phenomenal hairdo and take her hair stick out to stab
him. If this was going to work between the two of them, he was
going to have to learn when not to provoke her, or he was going to
end up shot sometime in the near future. Not to mention that if
Logan snickered one more time over her obvious snit fit, she was
going to stab his annoying little ass too.

The cab ride to the club went fairly quickly,
with the mid forties cab driver sporting greasy hair, beady eyes,
and a deviant grin giving her multiple looks in his rearview mirror
as Adam growled in low tones back at him in warning. She rolled her
eyes in dismay over his possessive idiotic behavior because – HELLO
– he was the reason she was getting this kind of attention.
Somehow, the outfit the tiger had given her earlier in the week
didn’t seem so awful now, at least it covered more.

Her mental tirade was cut off when the cab
started to turn down a narrow ally on the side of their
destination, and the moment they crossed the entrance to that
alley, a weird sensation hit her. It felt as if her entire body was
suddenly crawling with spiders, and she didn’t know whether she
should start trying to claw her skin off to get rid of the feeling,
or tuck her tail between her legs and haul ass the other way. She
felt Adam do a whole body shiver beside her and knew that he’d felt
it too.

“What the fuck was that?”

The pervy cab driver was casting an evil grin
now. It kind of made her want to stab him for getting his rocks off
on her discomfort.

Adam put a reassuring arm around her
shoulders. “Magic barrier. Whoever owns this club doesn’t want the
buildings extracurricular activities seen is my guess. What you
felt was a deterrent spell for anyone not meant to know about the
club. I bet it probably has an invisibility cloak to it as well.
Whatever does make it past the entrance of this alley won’t be seen
once it crosses that barrier. Clever.” He stopped talking to look
out the vehicle’s windows, watching their surroundings for
danger.

Jenna was too busy with the shock and awe
factor at her first introduction to magic to say anything. Her Mama
had told her about magic and where it came from, but she’d never
been in a position to experience it. She couldn’t help but wonder
what the witch who cast the spell looked like. Her education on
Others
was limited, but she knew that witches were the
product of fallen angels and humans. With their paternity, one
might assume they would be inherently good. That assumption would
be a mistake. Just like the earth born demons, the product born of
a hell bound demon and their human encounter, the infant demon or
witch was born with a human soul that had the opportunity to
choose.

Good or evil.

For two species that had paternal fathers on
the opposite ends of the spectrum, earth born demons and witches
had a lot in common besides the chance to pick their path in life.
Demons were gifted with some kind of telepathic abilities, such as
Jenna’s own telekinesis, while witches were gifted with magic. Both
traits that would give someone pause before you messed with a demon
or witch. Jenna couldn’t help but wonder if the similarities
continued from there. One might assume that the product of a
demon’s rape would be hideous looking like their father’s grotesque
features. After all, their outer packaging was supposed to reflect
the being’s inner character. Therefore, while demons looked like
your worst nightmare, angels looked like the most beautiful thing
your eyes would ever behold. But one would be wrong. Demons and
witches take on none of their paternal physical traits. The looks
were solely based on that of their mother. A witch could end up
ethereally beautiful, or like the hags of Halloween stories. So,
what did the one who’d cast the barrier spell look like?

They pulled up around the back of the ten
story high rise, exited the cab, and watched as a cab carrying the
rest of their group pulled up behind them. Looking from the
curbside back to the building, Jenna noted that it looked innocuous
enough. Who knew what truths the inside would reveal? Would it be a
geek lover’s sex club like The Arena? A mass of writhing bodies on
the dance floor like the night she went to Adam’s Pier Six
club?

Alec turned his head, scanning their
surroundings as if he was looking for something before leading the
way into the building. They entered through a heavy metal door into
a small homely sitting area with two different hallways branching
off of it. The walls were white, the carpet looked like the kind
you would see in your doctor’s office, and there was a fake potted
plant in one of the corners. It was all terribly… boring. In fact,
it was so exceptionally dull that she had a hard time reconciling
the fact that there had been this huge ordeal of a barrier spell to
hide the comings and goings in relation to this building and its
secrets. She kind of hoped their destination proved to be a bit
more exciting.

Jenna looked to Alec, “You told us what’s on
the top four floors, what’s Drake Ward use the rest of this
building for?”

“An accounting firm Mr. Ward owns. The
business is actually a nauseatingly successful international one.
He has several offices all over the world. If only his puny mortal
employees who worked for him here knew what their employer did
after hours on the top floors, huh? They’d probably shit themselves
while stampeding all over each other to run as far away as
possible.”

Jenna cocked an eyebrow at his vague
description of the owner and his club. The place couldn’t be that
heinous, could it? Alec led them to an elevator with a keypad.
After punching a series of buttons, the doors slid open, and they
entered a 9 ft. by 9 ft. freight elevator. Not exactly the kind of
elevator car you expected to see in an accounting firm. The tiger
shrugged his shoulders at her inquiring look.

“Let’s just say Mr. Ward likes to be prepared
for all eventualities.”

Jenna scoffed, “Like what? Transporting the
dead bodies?”

“Sure. Or the
Other
responsible for
the bodies.”

She didn’t know how to respond to that
comment, so she shut up. The car moved slowly upward and Jenna
watched the numbers illuminate as they reached, then passed each
floor. While waiting she internally prepped herself for their
mission.

Reconnaissance.

Determine the potential threat the Corvus
Pack was becoming to outing themselves to humanity. Figure out
their possible motives for their involvement in criminal behavior
when they should be amply provided for through their long term
investments. What possible reason could they have for condoning
Pack members to acts such as the hostage situation in Wilmington?
It had been a hopeless situation for the kidnappers to get out of
that restaurant alive. Well, hopeless given the fact there had been
a demon and shifter/demon hybrid on the SWAT team that went in to
neutralize the threat and extraction of the hostages. Perhaps the
odds that she and Kent had been the team that responded to the call
were astronomical, but the chance that any of those wolves would
slip up and do something decidedly inhuman were more likely than
not. So why let them go into a situation where they would
undoubtedly out themselves as something other than human?

When the number seven finally lit up above
the elevator’s doors, and the car floated to a stop, Jenna pushed
all thoughts away. It was time to focus. Being distracted could
cost you your life when you were in a hostile environment. After
hearing that the elevator was purposely sized for the
transportation of dead bodies, she was going to assume this was a
hostile environment.

The elevator doors slid open and they were
immediately blasted with loud rock music that damn near caused her
sensitive ear drums to vibrate in her head. A black shiny tiled
floor reminded her of obsidian rock and reflected spots of black
lighting that were sporadically placed throughout the open floor
before them. The walls looked to be just a few shades lighter than
the floors, and there were ornate gold filigree mirrors in clusters
everywhere. In between the clusters of mirrors were panels of rich
damask fabric with a black background and pewter colored designs.
Placed on either side of the panels of fabric and attached to the
wall were skulls that doubled as decorative lighting since you
could see light glowing from the eye, nose, and mouth holes. She
seriously hoped those were fake. The implications that they could
be real were too disturbing to process at the present time.

Shoving the thought aside she continued her
scan of the club. More low lighting was provided by black metal and
crystal chandeliers displaying faux candles. Looking up she noted
the numerous chains in varying sizes running the length of the
ceiling. Something else she didn’t want to ponder the implications
of possible uses for. There were even a few chains dangling from
the ceiling with manacles attached to the ends of them. Nope, not
going to think about why those would be hanging there.

She had to admit that it wasn’t as spacious
as she thought it would be. With the smaller club size you got the
impression that it was an intimate and decidedly exclusive kind of
club. Which kind of made sense if it were a club that catered to
Other
varieties. Wouldn’t want too many humans running and
screaming if a vampire or shifter flipped their shit and killed
somebody, right?

Where they entered into the club there was a
large lounge area filled with chaises upholstered in red velvet,
purple leather couches, and silver snakeskin upholstered chairs.
All of the furniture displayed a Victorian or French influence in
them. Upon further inspection, Jenna noticed that every piece had
an added modern twist besides what they were upholstered in. There
were all kinds of different trims for the furniture from chains,
spikes, or metal studs. It was undeniably old world elegant meets
rock and roll modern. What were the chances this demon was older
than Moses, and those chaises and chairs were originals refurbished
from their time periods? Probably more likely than she wanted to
consider. Off on the left far wall sat a short bar which was made
out of distressed wood painted black and adorned with two skulls on
either end of the bar top, but no bar stools in front of it.
Apparently the women walking around in various costumes were the
waitresses, and they brought your drink to whatever seat you’d
taken in the lounge.