The Hunted (Sleeping With Monsters Book 2) (21 page)

I took a step back. “I can’t.”

“You realize you’re in danger,
right? Or did you just get by this far on luck?”

“I know – but –“ I couldn’t go
anywhere until I saw Max tomorrow morning.

Marshall Bren advanced a step.
“The book’s useless to me without you. They’ll say we made everything up if we
don’t have you there to testify.”

I shook my head – this was one
reason we’d met in the park, so I’d have space to run. “I just need one more
day –“

He growled. “I can’t let you
leave,” he said, and he lunged for me. He caught me because I could see what
was behind him.

A grey wolf appeared out of
the park’s shadows. It was the size of the Marshall, paunch and all. It came
forward, limping, gobbets of meat visible on his right foreleg, and he started
snarling at the sight of me.

I knew that it was Syd. It had
to be.

Which meant that Max –
something in my soul crumpled like a crushed box.

My jaw dropped, in horror, and
with his hand still firmly on my wrist, Bren turned.

To his credit, he put himself
between me and the wolf, unholstering his gun with one hand. “Get back!” he
commanded – me? Syd? – and he shot the wolf once, twice, but his bullets
weren’t tainted with silver.

Syd crouched, and I could see
huge muscles bunching taut beneath his skin. He threw himself up into the air and
it would’ve been so graceful to watch if it hadn’t been meant to kill me. I
screamed and cowered, dropping to the ground and throwing my arms overhead,
expecting the worst, when I heard the sound of flesh impacting flesh, and fresh
snarling.

I glanced up through my hands.
A black wolf, out of nowhere.

“Max!”

Bren had control of his wits
again, and fired three more shots.

“No!” I ran into him bodily,
making him stumble against the fountain’s cement side. He dropped the gun into
the water, and started searching for it frantically, while simultaneously
trying to push me back.

The water was dark, and he
looked up at me. “Get out of here! Run!”

But I couldn’t. All I could do
was watch the wolves fight. The clouds moved again and moonlight shone down on
the night’s children. Max was standing between Syd and us, and there was a
strip of flesh hanging from his cheek where Syd had almost popped his eye, and
I could see red tears where teeth had raked through muscles on his haunch –
while Syd favored one weak side, and I was guessing he’d yanked his foot out of
a trap.

Max growled deeply, and Syd
barked defiance, and then they met again. Fur twined with fur, moving too fast
for me to see who was winning, each pressing any advantage that they had,
trying to kill the other one.

A high pitched squeak of pain.
Max had one paw down trying to crush Syd’s face – but Syd’s teeth were latched
into the thinnest part of Max’s neck. One of Syd’s eyeballs was hanging free,
but his teeth – his teeth –

“No!” I shouted at the top of
my lungs. I ran towards them, ripping Vincent’s necklace off my neck. The
locket went flying off the chain as I raced to Max’s side. He made a strangled
noise at me, his eyes wide, warning me away – Syd could’ve let go of him and
killed me in that instant, I knew it – if only Syd could see me. But he couldn’t
and –

I wrapped my arms around his
neck and lassoed the silver chain between them. Then I took the loose ends of
my silver chain and pulled.

Syd hissed – either his mouth,
or his neck, something hissed, it was a strange sound like a shaken nest of wasps.
I pulled the chain tighter, and heard high, alien sounds of pain as I sawed the
chain up, imagining it cutting through fur, skin, muscle, cartiliage. Warm
fluids leaked out and covered me, like the center of a hundred blisters, and
the scent of something foul burning rose.

Syd made one final sound and
let go of Max’s throat, whipping his head around, dislodging me, sending me
spinning to one side. I could see the mess my silver garrote had made of his
throat, where it’d sliced and burned deeply, and I didn’t think the edges of
any of his blackened skin would heal. He snapped at me. There was murder in his
good eye, the other still bouncing against his gray-furred cheek – and Max
bowled him over. He splayed Syd’s jaw up with a paw, and reached in and bit the
depth of his neck that my necklace had exposed. Carotids severed, and blood
spilled out of Syd like oil, a slick spreading pool in the night. His chest
took in two harsh breaths and then exhaled a final time.

Max’s wolf turned to look at
me. Beat to hell and limping and his golden eyes narrowed at something behind
me –

The crack of a nearby gunshot.
Marshall Bren. I whirled, hands to my ears, nearly deafened, as Max twisted and
raced away.

“What the sweet fuck was
that?” Bren shouted.

I put my hands on my knees and
leaned over, dizzy. I felt like I was going to throw up. “I don’t know.”

We were swarmed an instant
later. Bren hadn’t come alone – he’d only pretended to, for my sake, but yeah,
I should’ve known that no cop would come into Rider without back-up. They’d
started running in with guns out the second they’d heard his first shot – the
whole fight had happened so quickly and there was nothing to show for it.

Syd’s body was gone. Not a
wolf nor human remained. But I knew I’d watched him die – and there was a muddy
pool of blood left behind, mixed in with splashing water from the fountain. No
way anyone would get an uncontaminated sample now – and they wouldn’t believe
it if they did.

Just like no one would believe
the rest of us. I played dumb and said I wasn’t sure what I’d seen, only that
I’d seen it, and how lucky was I that Bren was there to scare the bear-mountain-lion-monster
off. And since the homeless witnesses they’d rounded up told even stranger
tales, everyone was inclined to blow it off. Without a corpse, no harm, no
foul.

But Bren knew – and he knew I
knew. He’d question me later, alone, no doubt. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t the
kind of girl who was easy to break.  

After that, I couldn’t
get away. I was rushed off to a safehouse on the outside of town. No one put
anything past the family, not even hiring a killer dressed in a bearskin rug,
apparently.

I had to admit I liked being
back in civilization. Taking a shower that night and then laying down in a real
bed – it suited me, as did a smattering of People magazines and late night TV.

But I didn’t dare sleep. Not
when I had to get out and make sure that Max was all right. Syd might not have
been the last of them – what if he stumbled into one of his own traps, going back?

The officers watched me with a
combination of disgust and pity. Even as I was willing to help them, I could
see the natural penchant for hating snitches in their eyes. I’d played for the
other team too long. I was untrustworthy.

But I was also just a woman,
and I was also very tired, and I’d spent some time crying over Vincent really
loudly in the bathroom, so loud that one of them came in to check on me while
the other was off at the vending machine – let’s just say it was a trick that
Syd would never have fallen for, and I found myself outside a non-descript
hotel just after dawn.

Without cash or keys it was
going to take me awhile to hitchhike in, but as long as Max was waiting for me
when I got there I wouldn’t mind.  

I couldn’t actually order
coffee at the coffee shop, which made me feel like a heel. I’d bunned my hair
up and I figured the generic clothes the marshalls had given me to wear, ones
that weren’t covered in gore, would have to be disguise enough – it was worth
the risk to be here.

I walked in and looked around.
Everyone else was looking at their phones or staring into their coffee, waiting
to wake up. I took a few more steps, trying not to look like I was getting into
line because I wasn’t, but --

“Sammy,” a low familiar voice
said. Hidden in an alcove by a cement pole, Max was lounging behind what looked
like a latte.

“Hey,” I said. My heart
thrilled. We’d done it. We’d really done it.

“You alone?”

“For now. Probably not for
long though.” I sat down across from him, the cement post at my back.  

He nodded. “That’s good. I
want them to keep a close eye on you. After this, you have to let them keep you
safe. Promise me.”

I opened my mouth to protest.
I knew he was right, but I didn’t care – I hadn’t gone through all this just to
leave him behind.

“I killed the pack, not
the family,” he reminded me.

“I know.” I looked into
his eyes for answers. What were we now, other than strangers who’d spent the
past week intensely? What did we have to talk about that wasn’t the past? Did
people like us ever get to have a future? “So are you king now, or what?”

The corner of his lips
lifted in a rueful smile. “So to speak. Only one other wolf survived. Tony. I
hate him.”

I vaguely remembered
knowing him. Some low-level grunt who wasn’t smart enough to be involved in any
plans.

“Is one follower a
pack?”

He shook his head. “Not
hardly.”

“Then what’s alpha
without a pack?”

“Just a man.”

His voice was low and honest
and I felt myself pulled to it like it had gravity. It was completely
irresponsible – unless he felt it too.  

“I got you something.” He leaned
over and pulled a box out of a back pocket and handed it to me. I took it and
slowly opened it up.

Inside there was a gold locket
on a gold chain. I knew what I wanted to be inside the locket without opening
it. “Is this what I think it is?”

“If you want it to be. Or it can
just be a good luck charm – or you can sell it at the cash for gold place down
the street.” He watched me take it up with shaking hands. “Hope you don’t mind
that it’s not silver.”

“I don’t,” I said, fastening
the clasp around my neck as he took back the box. His locket fell almost where
Vincent’s had, and I tucked it inside my shirt and pressed it against my chest
with one hand. “Max -- I don’t know what’s in store for me. They need me to
testify that the book’s real – and so many trials could take forever –“

His eyes searched mine. “I’m
good at waiting. If you want me to, that is.”

I knew what he was offering –
was I brave enough to take it?

Who else knew what we’d been
through? Who else had our shared history? I’d never find anyone else in the
entire world like Max – or his wolf.

I nodded helplessly.

He stood up abruptly and
pushed the table between us aside. It scraped on the ground and I was sure
people turned to look but I didn’t care – he stepped toward me as I stood up,
and then the column was pressed against my back and he was kissing me, hard. One
hand wound into my hair, the other pulled my hips close, and everything in me
matched him, like we were meant to be together, like this was right. The way he
held me, the way he smelled, the fierce intensity in his eyes before I closed
mine and he kissed me, the way his lips covered me and his tongue moved against
mine. He pulled back before I was ready and I sagged, held up in his strong
arms, as he set his forehead against mine.

“Just wait till you’re safe.”

“I will. But I won’t make you
wait a second longer than you have to.”

“Good,” he growled, I
felt it echo in my chest.

Someone began coughing
pointedly behind us. Max’s eyes glanced over, and his gaze darkened. I turned
quickly – had the family found me out so soon?

But it was Marshall Bren,
drumming his fingers on one thick thigh. “Samantha Carter are you, or are you
not, coming with me?”

I gave him a sheepish look as
Max subtly pushed me over. “Yeah, I am.”

“Good. After you,” he said,
pointing to the patrol car parked illegally out front.

I looked back to Max. We’d
already said everything we needed to say and more but – I put my hand to my
chest where the locket was, and he smiled, wolfishly.

I turned around, fairly sure
that I was grinning wolfishly too, and followed the Marshall out the door.

“Done with whatever you had to
do?” Bren asked, after settling himself in the driver side of his car.

“Yeah. I’ll be good from here
on out.”

“Somehow I doubt that, but I’d
appreciate you trying.” He hit the gas, lurching us into traffic as he reached
into a pocket of his sportcoat. “I got this for you off of some homeless guy.” He
tossed me a plastic bag. It was Vincent’s necklace, still discolored with gore
and fur. I’d tried to inconspicuously look for it last night but I hadn’t been
able to find it – now I knew why.

Oh, Vincent, baby. I love
you. I’ll always love you.
But the chain was broken and from here on out
silver was going to be no good.  

“Thanks, but I don’t need it
anymore.” I handed it back to Bren.

“You sure?” he pressed. The
sun was up now, blinding us both.

I flipped down the sunvisor
and caught sight of Max’s necklace glinting in dawn’s light. “Yeah,” I said,
smiling up at my reflection. “I am.”  

From the Author

The Hunted is the second book in my Sleeping with Monsters series, about women who love dangerous creatures. The Haunted was the first Sleeping with Monsters book, about Daphne Vance and her time in an estate haunted by a domineering ghost. You can find it
here
.

The House
, a Come Find Your Fantasy adventure book, was my first erotica release, if you’d like to go back and see where it all began.

If you’d like to be notified about giveaways, appearances and new releases, please sign up for my mailing list
here
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