Authors: Karin Shah
Chapter 15
The smell of gunpowder and metal and the sound of booted feet told him the men outside were not residents of the apartment complex coming home.
The lion awoke.
Danger. Protect
. Standing by the door, Jake didn’t just want to kill something, he wanted to tear it limb from limb and eat the gory carcass, but he had to stay in control for Anjali.
Ignoring the lion roaring for blood inside him, he held one finger to lips still humming from the heady sweetness of Anjali’s kiss. She nodded. He gestured to her to go into the bathroom. “Duck down in the tub,” he whispered. It wasn’t very deep, but it was the most protected spot in the apartment.
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving you alone,” she mouthed, eyes stubborn.
“You know I can take care of myself.” He pointed to the bathroom again. “Please.”
She pressed her lips together mutinously, her expression dark and worried, body language screaming reluctance, but she went.
Jake heaved a sigh of relief. If he had to, he was going to do something he’d never done before. He was going to try and
call
the beast.
And he had no idea if once summoned, he would be able to put the genie back in the bottle.
The men outside were climbing the stairs now.
It was the slamming of so many doors in swift succession that had first drawn his attention from Anjali’s incendiary embrace.
She’d lit a fire in him, and without the proper fuel, it raged to expend itself in pure destruction.
He smiled with teeth that were now too big for his human mouth. After viewing the discs, he knew what Kincaid had been trying to do when they’d carved him up before his last escape.
He’d been trying to force Jake to change.
Luckily, he’d had more control in those days. Lately, the beast had been all to close to the surface. Only the thought of Anjali seeing him in the grip of his madness had stopped him from giving in to the urge to transform when Sanchez and the others had pushed her back at the facility.
Now he knew what he was, if not all the details, and it was time to welcome the beast. For the first time, the decision felt proper, right. The lion inside him knew no higher purpose than to protect his mate.
The thought halted the progression of his change. No matter what the beast’s instincts told him, Anjali wasn’t—couldn’t be—his mate. His life was too messed up for him to drag her further into it.
The men stopped outside Anjali’s door and he could hear them conferring almost silently, confirming this was the proper door and directing assignments.
From the number of heartbeats, he thought there were eight men in the hall.
Kincaid was one of them. Jake recognized his aftershave.
Seven men would fight.
Kincaid wasn’t the type to do his own dirty work.
Jake was surprised he’d even come. A slight odor of fear emanated from the older man. Maybe someone else was pulling his strings. It would serve the bastard right.
Jake welcomed the surge of adrenaline speeding through his veins. If Kincaid entered the room, he’d better have a gun.
They rammed the door with something, and it flew open with a loud bang, leaving the guts of the wooden trim spilling from the deadbolt plate.
As they burst in, adrenaline surged through him. The men, dressed in black, had their weapons out and the closest one fired on sight. Heart rate on overdrive, Jake dodged out of the way and seized the man.
The smell of gunpowder and smoke burned his nose. The bullet slammed into the back wall and Jake prayed Anjali had followed his directions.
Growling, teeth bared, Jake stripped the gun away from the man he held.
Anger and fear rose in a cloud from the invaders. He held the guard in front of him, using the man’s body armor to shield his own chest. He knew he healed quickly, but he had no idea what kind of punishment his body could take.
The men shouted to each other, and him. His eyes watered at the noise, but he didn’t move.
“Release our man and put down the gun,” one of the men yelled.
Yeah, right
. Jake growled and bared his teeth. They’d already shot at him. There was no way they planned to let him go if he released their friend.
The cold competence in the men’s eyes labeled them as professional killers. He didn’t doubt they’d shoot through their buddy to fulfill their contracts.
The man in his grasp leaned down and came up with a knife, but Jake blocked it with a fist to the merc’s wrist, which snapped audibly. Sagging, he howled and grabbed his injured arm.
They opened fire. The man Jake held jerked as his armored chest was riddled. Blood darkened the area rug. A bullet must have gone through, though the projectile had missed Jake.
The metallic smell triggered something in him. The animal inside him pushed past the man. He roared. The sound echoed off the walls.
And released the lion.
The men barely had time to move before the lion was on them.
Gunshots seared the air and cracked into the walls. But Jake’s teeth were deadly, and hundreds of pounds of enraged lion barreled through the apartment like a derailed locomotive.
Jake lost himself in the instincts of the lion. Nothing existed but the hot burst of blood in his mouth, the tear of flesh beneath his claws, the screams of the men. They threatened his mate, and they must die.
Pain stung his flanks.
Bullets
the man-part said, but they didn’t slow him, only sent a further surge of adrenaline through him.
In less than a minute, the noise ceased and the reek of death tainted the apartment, adulterating the last hints of aromatic spices and oil left from dinner.
Jake sniffed the air. He padded to the door and slipped out, leaving seven dead men behind.
The lion had only one target left, and it was the only one it wanted.
Kincaid.
Leaping to the base of the stairs, Jake landed lightly on all fours and stretched. The pain of his wounds nagged at him, but his quarry was close and he trotted into the night.
He stopped. The burning oil and gasoline of cars and the outgases of the pavement masked his enemy. His raised his massive head and tested the air.
An unnatural silence filled the apartment after the two or three minutes of shooting, shouting—and most terrifying of all—roaring and screams. Anjali huddled for a moment longer in the tub, heart slamming in her chest, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
They’d shot first.
She knew that because Jake hadn’t had a gun. She thought of their conversation a few days earlier about Han Solo and shook her head. Reality was much more complicated.
They’d planned to kill him, but even knowing that, the idea of all that raw ferocity unleashed, scared her down to her bones.
Anjali stood, reached up to brush her hair out of her face, and stared at her shaking hand.
Panting to bring her trembling under control, she stepped out of the tub, picked her way to the door, and opened it, peering through the crack next to the wall.
Nothing moved. She stepped over the threshold. Bits of plaster and drywall crunched beneath her bare feet. White dust hovered in the air and settled like snow on the floor.
“That’s gonna need a ton of spackle,” she muttered. A tiny shaky laugh leaked out. Her landlord was definitely not going to return her security deposit. She shoved a hand over her mouth to quash the bubble of hysteria longing to burst out.
As a movie fanatic she’d seen plenty of gore, not to mention medical school, but this was different.
The smell of blood was almost overpowering, but it shrank in comparison to the stench that followed loss of all muscle control.
Bodies lay everywhere. Though afraid of what she might see, she forced herself to examine their faces.
Relief pushed past shock. None was Jake’s.
A pile of clean, shredded, denim and gray cotton lay near the door.
He’d escaped.
But seven men were tossed like driftwood throughout the apartment, hands still on their guns. Some had puncture wounds at their throat. Others had gaping wounds at the junction of their shoulders and neck and had clearly bled out. One man had been shot.
All stared at the ceiling through eyes empty of life.
Nothing in medical school had prepared her for the sheer devastation of teeth and claws. The bits of hair and flesh and bone exploded from smooth skin.
A pang of regret seized her at the loss of life, but she blinked back the tears clouding her vision. Kincaid’s men had come to murder them. It’d been kill or be killed.
The question was, did it matter? Could Jake control this side of him? And if he couldn’t, what if someone innocent were hurt? How could she live with herself?
She moved further into the room and her toe brushed something wet. The sheer magnitude of the devastation rushed over her.
Anjali gagged and her dinner came up. She glued both hands to her mouth, rushing back to the bathroom to unload the contents of her stomach into the toilet.
Oh my God, oh my God
. She fumbled for a paper towel, wet it and wiped her face and mouth before racing for the door. Her feet shook as she jammed them into her shoes.
What did you do, Anjali?
She might have let a monster loose.
The urge to run, to abandon everything and never look back overtook her, but she couldn’t.
She’d let him out. She had a duty to stop him.
The stairs clanged as she sped to the landing.
Please, please, don’t let him hurt someone.
She heard the sound of a door opening behind her and
Meena’s voice call, “Anjali?” but she didn’t stop to answer.
Her gaze scanned the parking lot, unsure if she were searching for a man or a lion.
But she was lying to herself, she acknowledged as she searched for him; it wasn’t only duty that sent her after him. Even having seen the worst of what he could do, she still wanted to go with him.
The need to be with him was as irrational as a duck imprinted on a cat, but it was just as strong, just as imperative. A biological craving she couldn’t deny or ignore.
A low chuffing, a noise more in keeping with the plains of Africa than the conrete jungle of LA, raised a shiver.
She rubbed her hands down her chilled arms and, against every shrieking instinct, headed toward the sound.
Chapter 16
Kincaid huddled against the black Expedition, his hands, no doubt slick with sweat, fumbled for the handle.
Jake rolled back his lip, showing his teeth, unable to resist playing with the man who’d caged him for so long. Kincaid had presided over one tortuous ‘therapy’ after another, all while strutting around like a
GQ
model. Jake savored the sight of him bloodied and dirty.
A purr of satisfaction vibrated his throat. He was going to enjoy the feeble struggles of his enemy, toy with him, before shutting off the blood supply to his brain with one comparatively gentle bite. His every instinct cried out for his enemy’s destruction.
A high-pitched wail resonated in the distance, growing louder every second. It meant something to the man-part of him, but the man-part had surrendered almost completely to the lion.
“Jake.”
A soft voice spoke. A rhythmic clicking sound accompanied the creature’s approach. He turned his massive head to examine the new source of prey.
She skidded to a halt. He could smell the fear in her and he liked it.
A roar rumbled in his throat.
“Jake.” That word again. He took a step toward her, gathered his muscles for the strike. Her natural scent met his nose and the man-part thrust through the murk of instincts. She was saying his name.
And this was not prey. This was his mate.
Anjali
.
The sound of scrabbling snapped his gaze back to the man.
Kincaid
.
Fury boiled through him. He was getting away.
“Jake,” Anjali said. “The police are coming. We have to go.”
A roar thundered in his chest. Kincaid had to die. In this, the lion, which thirsted to destroy what it feared, and the human, were very much in accord.
He advanced on the older man, relishing the stench of blood and fear emanating from him.
Anjali’s voice quivered. “Jake, no! You can’t. He’s defenseless.”
But he could.
He lunged.
Anjali touched him, wrapped her slender arms around his midsection as he sprang, his weight dragging her with him. He could feel her heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s wing in her chest.
The animal rage driving Jake dissipated. In a flash, the man resumed control.
What was he doing?
He put on the brakes, but it was too late. His forequarters hit the car and Kincaid. Anjali grunted with the effort of holding on.
There was still enough momentum to dent the vehicle. The older man gasped as the wind was forced from his lungs at the impact. Jake could hear one of Kincaid’s ribs snap.
He stepped back, his huge body none the worse for the aborted charge. Anjali freed him. He shook himself, feeling his mane and fur-covered skin ripple.
Kincaid slid to the ground, holding his narrow chest. His injury called to the lion. The compulsion to kill him, to end it now while the man was wounded overwhelmed Jake. He lifted a paw to lunge forward.
“No!”
The sound of Anjali’s voice ripped through the web of hate and instinct driving him. He tamped down the urge to finish his prey and turned to his mate. Her arms were open but down, palms up, fingers spread wide, as if they’d acted on their own, and she couldn’t believe what they’d done.
She swallowed. His eyes followed the motion down her neck to her panting chest. “Jake?”
He padded to her and butted his head against her, rubbing his body along hers and knocking her back a step.
The sirens were close now, but he could still hear the shaky rush of her exhalation. It was almost as loud as his purr.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Shots fired downtown!”
The words lit a spark under the sleepy newsroom. Zara Coventry jumped to her feet. Finally, something exciting. “I’ll take it.”
She scrambled for her keys, fishing them out of a wrapper-filled candy dish, then remembered she was still wearing the comfy slippers she kept under her desk and sat back down to feel for her pumps.
“Forget it, Coventry. This one’s mine.” DeJean Elliott, senior correspondent and all around insufferable pain-in-the-ass, ambled over, smoothing his yellow tie. He stuffed his hands into his suit pockets and shot her a smug smile, propping his hip against her desk. “I’m just waiting for my camera crew.”
Zara leaned back in her squeaky office chair. It took every professional thought she had not to shove him off. She allowed herself to imagine him falling on his trendy-suited ass.
Elliott’s phone rang. “And they’re here.”
He winked. “See you later, Coventry.”
He swaggered out. She hoped the news van ran over his foot. Or maybe a Santa Ana wind would plaster a gooey gunk-covered newspaper on that obnoxious face.
She blew a raspberry at the closed door and slumped onto her desk. “Not if I see you first.”
Jake couldn’t look at Anjali as she drove. He was too ashamed. He’d known releasing the beast would be risky, but he had no idea how much carnage he would wreak.
A few seconds after they’d left Kincaid sitting with his back to the wheel of the Expedition, Jake had flashed into his human form. Naked, he’d run behind Anjali back up to her apartment. She’d thrown him some clothes and old sandals of her father’s and taken some things for herself. An old woman’s voice had called out as they passed her closed door, but they hadn’t stopped to acknowledge her.
He’d shared a glance with Anjali at that moment and found his own question echoed in her eyes. What could they say?
They’d made it out of the parking lot with only seconds to spare, seeing the illumination of the squad cars’ red and blue lights against the other side of the building as the police arrived.
“They’ll be on the lookout for your car,” Jake said. He scuffed the leather sole of his undersized sandal on the rubber mat of Anjali’s Honda Civic, his anger mounting. He’d not only lost control, he’d relinquished it, subsuming his human reasoning and giving free rein to the feral instincts of the lion.
In that heat and fury of primal directives he might have killed anyone in his path.
Hell
, he closed his eyes against the pain that balled in his gut,
he’d come within a whisker of killing Anjali.
He had to leave her.
The thought ruptured something in his chest, making it burn. He closed his eyes.
“Are you all right?” Anjali asked. “There was so much shooting. Did they hit you?”
“Yeah,” Jake forced out through the choking obstruction in his throat. “They hit me, but the wounds healed when I changed.”
Anjali pressed her lips together and nodded. “What should we do about the car?”
Jake pointed to a small lot ahead. “Pull in there.”
He got out and walked to a blocky, dark-colored American car. “Turn your head. I don’t want you to get hit by glass.”
Anjali nodded and faced away.
Jake wrapped the tail of his shirt around his hand and broke the tempered glass with his fist, something no human could have done.
For a moment, he reveled in the power. The duality of his feelings gave him pause. His other natures gave him talents, but they were a tremendous responsibility. A laugh almost escaped him. There was a movie quote somewhere in there.
He transferred his things into the other car and broke open the steering column to start the car.
Anjali slid out of the driver’s seat and went around to the passenger side of the new vehicle.
Jake felt the ache expand in his chest as he strode to the trunk of her car. “Can you open this for me?” he asked.
“Sure.” Anjali popped the trunk release and Jake pretended to glance inside.
“I put my book in here,” he said. “But I don’t see it.”
Anjali came around to see. Before she could react, he scooped her up and set her gently into the trunk.
“Watch your head,” he said, chest heavy, and closed the lid.
“Jake!” Her voice was muffled but he heard every word. “Let me out.” Pounding sounded from inside.
“I’m sorry, Anjali. I’m just too dangerous to be around. Please don’t make so much noise. You can call 911 in a few minutes. Tell them the men broke in, and one of them had a huge pit bull.” He slid into the other car and drove off, the ache growing larger and more severe with every second.
Gareth pulled into the parking garage at the Group and rested his sweaty forehead on the steering wheel. He needed medical attention, but couldn’t risk going to the hospital. He’d driven out of the parking lot immediately after Finn and Anjali had gone inside.
His broken rib hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but he was more concerned with admitting their failure to Clara Bansbach.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to yet.
He grabbed his phone. “Anders,” he said, expelling the words past the pain in his chest. “I need you back at the lab. It’s time to activate the tracking devices.”
Salty tears slid into Anjali’s mouth as she bruised her palms and scraped her knuckles on the inside of her trunk. “Jake! Come back! Jake!”
He’d left her.
She’d lost many people in her life. People she had known from childhood. People whose place in her heart had been earned with love, support, and through blood.
They’d been terrible losses, every one, and none worse than the loss of her mother. And still she couldn’t remember this vicious, wrenching agony.
She felt empty, as if someone had taken the lynchpin she needed to live.
A laugh rocked her. How could a stranger be so necessary? She couldn’t say she loved him. How could she?
Her body craved him, yes, but a person didn’t wither away because she couldn’t have the object of her desire. And that was how she felt, as if she faded with each minute he was gone. She was losing herself in this crazy need.
Without him, life didn’t seem to have a point.
Don’t be stupid, Anjali. Of course, there’s a point. You went on after losing your whole family; the loss of a stranger won’t stop you.
The pep talk should have cleared her head, rallied her spirits, but it didn’t. All she felt was a grinding, mounting ache. She clutched her chest and moaned at the pain.
The darkness closed in around her, smothering her. Air slipped away from her grasping lungs. Suddenly, she was in her nightmares. Not herself any more. Vinit. She was Vinit. Lost under the dark rubble of an earthquake torn city. The weight of marble, metal, and unreinforced masonry pressing down, suffocating him, calling for help until his throat was too raw and sore to call. Hungry, thirsty, in pain, dying.
The sound of a passing car outside snapped her back to reality. She wasn’t being crushed. She dug deep into her yoga training to clear her head, but though the overwhelming panic lifted, the pain didn’t.
She mentally tallied the possible causes of the pain and a hiss escaped her. Overhearing Mr. Kincaid had driven her own possible illness right out of her head. Was this pain a result of whatever had caused her elevated WBC?
Her hand mopped her damp forehead. No matter the cause, the agony felt blindingly, excruciatingly real. She was smothering, suffocating with the pain. Maybe it was time to call 911.
She reached for her phone, but the feeling eased with stunning abruptness. Her respiration improved. She wiped the tears from her face with an unsteady hand.
There, you see, Anjali. Just a panic attack. You don’t need him
.
Suddenly the lock clicked and the trunk swung up. The light from a flashlight held by a dark shape shone into her eyes.