Entwined Strangers (BBW Shifter Romance): Sorcery & Shifters Book 4 (2 page)

Trent has already given this some thought. Perhaps some very last-minute thought, but he clearly has a plan in mind.

“So do we have a deal or not?” he asks hurriedly.

“Why does it feel like I’m signing a pact with a devil?”

“Because you’re not wrong. Still, there’s either me or there’s Felix. One of us is the lesser of devils. If you decide that’s me, then we have a common enemy.”

“Mason almost died because of you,” I remind him.

“He survived.”

“He could have died just as easily.”

“I doubt that. I made him, after all. It takes a lot to kill a werewolf of my bloodline.”

“You weren’t there! If it wasn’t for me, there was a very good chance it could have gone the other way. I didn’t have the strength to pull those spikes out of the wall. I used my magic to give him the strength. You didn’t know I was a witch at that point.”

“If he died, then he wasn’t worthy of my mantle,” Trent says offhandedly. “Look, there’s no time to waste here. Can I count on you or not?”

Trent isn’t very good at negotiating, and I’m not at all inclined to take him at his word.

I don’t have much choice here—he’s right about that much. I can either go with now or stay in this apartment for who knows how long until Felix returns.

Still, if nothing else, Trent has played his hand before I’ve shown mine. It makes me believe that his desperation is genuine.

“I’ll help, but on one condition.”

“Gods, woman, we need to move quickly! We don’t have much time here.”

“You’ll make time or we’re done here.”

“Fine! What’s your condition?”

“If we get out of this place alive, you’ll leave me and Mason alone forever.”

“Done.”

That was too easy.

“Sylvia too,” I add quickly. “She clearly doesn’t need you in her life. Not after seeing the way you treat her.”

“I can’t promise that,” Trent says.

Really? That’s what he can’t promise?

“Why?”

“Because Sylvia and I… it’s tricky. I just can’t make that promise.”

Trent doesn’t say anything else after that. He simply waits for my response.

Suddenly I trust him, precisely because he’s
not
willing to promise something. That’s a good sign. It means that Trent actually values his word, which is good enough for me.

“Okay. We have a deal,” I say.

“Finally! Come with me.”

Trent grabs me by the hand and pulls me out of the apartment. We stop outside the elevator. There are no buttons on the wall.

“How do you summon a car?” I ask him.

“You can’t. Felix will send up two guards to let me out. They should be here any moment. I’ve been listening for the elevator car. They’re almost here.”

Trent grabs both of my shoulders and places me firmly against the wall off to one side.

“Whatever you do, don’t move from this position,” he says with authority.

Trent stands in front of the elevator, composes himself, and waits. The door opens and he nods curtly, probably at the guards I can’t see from this angle. He calmly steps into the elevator, but just before the doors completely close, a rifle butt is jammed between them.

I hear a growl and the sound of men being slammed against the elevator wall. Then a moist sound. Flesh tearing, followed by the sickening crack of bones breaking. The men are yelling, until they aren’t. That’s when I hear two bodies slump on the floor.

It’s quiet again, except for the elevator door that keeps trying to close on the rifle butt. A claw reaches out of the door and pushes it open. Trent pokes his head out, half-man, half-wolf.

“Come with me,” he says in a guttural voice.

I do as I’m told. The elevator is filled with blood and carnage. I’ve seen worse, but it’s never pleasant. I look up instead. There used to be a camera in the corner. It’s gone now. I’m sure Trent tore it out already.

“Won’t that set off any alarms?”

“It will, but not right away. We still have time, but not much.”

He presses a button for one of the lower floors. The smell of iron fills my nose. I can only imagine what that’s like for a werewolf, although Trent probably likes the scent of blood.

Right now he’s completely focused on the floor count as we approach the one he pressed. Moments before the doors open, he pushes me into a corner of the elevator car.

“Don’t move from there, but keep the door open.”

I ready my fingers on the elevator hold button. The doors open and Trent leaps out. I pull the button as he roars.

I can’t see anything, but there’s a collision of bodies. The sound of men dying and terror-filled screams.

Guns fire this time. A stray bullet embeds itself in the elevator wall beside me. It would have hit me if Trent hadn’t pushed me into this spot. The fighting stops seconds later. Silence for a moment. Is he alive? Then breathing.

Trent steps back into the elevator. He grabs my arm again and pulls me out, trading places with me.

I look around. There are two more men on this floor. Neither are moving anymore, blood pools on the floor beneath them. Trent tears apart the elevator ceiling. Clawing and ripping his way through metal. He finds a hatch, pushes it open, and pulls himself up with no effort whatsoever.

I can hear more slashing sounds in the elevator shaft. Claws on cable this time. A second later and the car groans, lurches, and falls. Trent swings down out of the shaft and lands next to me. The elevator screeches downward and collides with the bottom of the shaft.

“That will buy us a few more minutes.”

Trent is already on the move. He lopes to a door around the corner, similar to the one that was opened for me. In fact, the whole floor is nearly identical in that respect. Trent drives his shoulder into the door. It crumples beneath him. His strength is monstrous.

The door lands on the ground with Trent on top.

It’s bright inside. The walls have been painted cream and pink. There are images of animals too. That’s what I see a rocking horse in the room. Trent springs to his feet and walks into the next room.

“It’s safe to come inside,” he calls out a few seconds later.

I approach the door he went through and tentatively step inside. That’s when I see them. Trent is kneeling on the ground, still half-man, half-wolf, embracing a child who is hugging him back, completely at ease with his feral appearance.

The little girl turns and looks at me. That’s when I see her face for the first time, except I realize it isn’t the first time. I know her face all too well.

“Ms. Aberdeen!”

It’s Piper. Piper is Trent’s daughter.

Piper breaks out of Trent’s hug and runs over to me. I’m suddenly very aware of the dead bodies behind me, just outside the apartment. I step forward and kneel down as she comes running up to me, scooping her up in my arms.

“Hello, little urchin. It’s good to see you.”

She wraps her arms around me.

“I haven’t seen you in so long! But I’ve been painting this whole time!”

I look around the apartment. It’s filled with toys and decorated for a girl who likes pink. None of them look like they’ve been touched. There is, however, an easel and canvas that has seen a lot of use.

“Have you been here the whole time?” I ask her.

“Not the whole time. Daddy’s friends picked me up at the airport and brought me here.” Piper leans in close. “It’s a bit too
baby girly
if you ask me.”

Trent stands up, bolt alert. I can tell he hears something.

“What is it?” I ask him.

“People are coming. We have to get going.”

Piper turns around in my arms to face her father. Her eyes widen.

“Hey! You know Daddy’s a wolf! Does that mean I don’t have to keep it a secret anymore?”

Piper must be used to seeing him like this. It only just occurred to her just now that he’s been a half-man, half-wolf this whole time.

“No, you still have to keep it a secret, little cub, just not from Ms. Aberdeen.”

“What do you hear?” I ask him.

“There are stairs in the building, but they don’t have access to every floor, like this one. They have to cut their way in.”

“Is that what they’re doing now?”

“Yes,” Trent says, walking into the apartment.

The space is filled with children’s furniture and dolls. He starts looking around for something to grab.

“Piper, Daddy is going to make a lot of noise, but don’t be scared, okay? I’m not angry. I just need to break something.”

“Like you broke the door? Why? Where are we going?”

“Outside, but we’ll be using a shortcut,” Trent says as he grabs a desk. “Put your hands over your ears, okay?”

I put Piper down and she does as her father says.

“I don’t like this one bit,” she complains. “I hate it when you break things!”

“I know, little cub, I’m sorry, but this time it’s important.”

Trent speaks to his daughter with more gentleness than I thought possible for him, especially as a creature of claw and fur. That’s when he turns to me as well.

“You might want to do the same.”

I follow Piper’s example.

Trent lifts the wooden desk over his head, every muscle rippling with power, and then drives it into the window.

Nothing.

It’s a floor-to-ceiling window like in the apartment we left. Trent does it again. This time a crack forms. He drives the desk into the window two more times. The crack spreads, slowly spider-webbing outward in all directions.

Felix wasn’t kidding when he said these windows are shatterproof.

The desk is falling apart in Trent’s hands. I didn’t know a window could be made this strong. He keeps slamming the desk into the window until there is very little of the desk left to use as a bludgeon.

That’s when he drops the broken pieces, drives his hands into a small hole that he created, and starts to pull. The glass still doesn’t shatter, but the whole window shifts and starts to come out of the frame. It’s more like a flexible carpet of glass now.

Trent’s hands are bleeding, but that doesn’t stop him. He keeps pulling on it, making incremental progress. That’s when I hear something in the hallway.

“Wait here, Piper,” I tell his daughter.

I walk over to the door and look outside. The wall across from me has turned molten red. There’s a bright flame snaking a path through the surface. They must be using some kind of high-powered blowtorch. It’s moving faster than I would have thought possible.

“They’re cutting through the wall!” I yell back. “I don’t think it’s going to take them much longer!”

Piper still has both hands on her ears when I go back inside. I kneel down at her height and wrap my arms around her little body.

Trent yanks on the window one more time.

This time it comes out of the frame, cracked and crumpled, but otherwise in one piece. He tosses it aside. Suddenly we can clearly hear the city outside. There’s a building across the street. Maybe two stories down.

Trent walks toward Piper, breathing heavily. His forearms are covered in blood.

“Daddy! Your arms!” she screams.

“It’s okay, little cub. I’ll heal just like always, but I need you do something for me, and you have to promise me, okay?”

“I’m scared,” she says.

“I know, but there’s no reason to be. Not if you do exactly what I say, all right?”

She nods, tears welling in her eyes.

“You know how we go running in the forest sometimes? You hold on to my fur? Gripping me between your knees like I’m a horse?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I need you and Ms. Aberdeen to do that now.”

My eyes widen.

“You can’t mean—”

“It’s the only way,” Trent says. “They’re going to cut through the wall any second, and these men will be ready for me.”

He means they’ll be ready for a werewolf, with silver bullets. Trent turns back to Piper.

“Can you do that for me, little cub? It’s very important that you don’t let go, but it has to be right now.”

Piper wipes her eyes and turns to look at me. “And you’re going to be with me the whole time, Ms. Aberdeen?”

I look from Piper to Trent. He’s completely serious, and it’s not like I have a better idea at the moment. I look back at Piper.

“Yes. The whole time,” I say, stroking the side of her face.

“Okay then. I’m ready,” she says, more resolutely than an eight-year-old has a right to sound in this situation.

Trent doesn’t waste time after that. He falls onto his hands and knees and starts the change; bones rearrange and muscles stretch. The last shreds of his clothes tear away from his body as he grows even larger than his half-man, half-wolf shape.

His nose elongates into a snout and his hands and feet become massive paws. Fur thickens into a coat with gray streaks. I’ve seen him like this before, before we met, when he appeared to me a vision. A gigantic dire wolf.

Trent looks back at us over his shoulders when the transformation is complete. He gestures with his head to climb on his back. He really has mastered his inner wolf, both the hybrid and this larger shape.

It’s now or never.

I lift Piper on his back and she grabs fistfuls of his fur. They’ve obviously done this before. I do the same, but keep Piper beneath me. Trent walks back a few steps, moving as far from the open window frame as possible until he comes up against the wall. His wolf lungs seems to inflate with one deep breath, and then he gallops forward like a racehorse charging out of the gate.

“Close your eyes, Piper,” I whisper.

I don’t know if she does, but my eyes are wide open. I even turn around to look back at the door Trent shouldered open. Men with guns and body armor come running into the apartment. They’re caught off guard by what they see, but then that is all left behind.

Trent vaults off the window ledge and the three of us are airborne, flying over four lanes of busy downtown traffic. It’s probably sixty feet across to the next building, including the two sidewalks.

The building across the street is flat-roofed, but twenty feet down. I can already feel our descent. Piper is still holding on with both hands, but her knees lose their grip. Now I have to hold on for us both.