“Dude, I was desperate. I needed something and Amy wasn’t backing off. I know her.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Conall grabbed her hand. “Let’s go back to the hotel and fuck some more.”
“Actually, I have another idea.”
Why didn’t he like the sound of that? “A better idea?”
“Probably not.” She held up a small slip of paper. “But an idea just the same.”
“What’s that?”
“Leucrotta’s address. Let’s do a drive-by.”
“Shooting?” He wouldn’t put it past her.
“No, you nut case. Let’s go check him out.”
“No way, baby. Something happens to you, Zach will have my ass because Sara will have his.” He looked down into that adorable face of hers. “And I might miss you a little myself.”
“Gee. Thanks.” Miki smirked at him. “Look. We can do this one of two ways. We can go there now. Together. Check it out for our amusement. Or you can find yourself passed out in a pool of your own vomit in the bathroom while I risk life and limb going there by myself.”
Conall stared down at her. “You’d drug me again?”
“Sure. I’d only have to wrap it in bacon.”
Conall wanted to be insulted, but she was just so damn cute. “I can’t afford to have you traipsing that tight ass of yours around a Clan den.”
“And I have no desire to get too close. I have no guns. No knives. No hand grenades. I’m defenseless. But we need to check out the enemy. We need to find out who these people are. I don’t believe in spending my life hiding or running.”
He believed that. He saw why Sara and Miki were friends. Miki was as tough as any wolf he knew, she simply found a different way to survive. But still, he didn’t want her to get hurt. “I don’t know, Mik.”
She smiled at him and he felt his cock rear its ugly head. “Please, Conall…baby. For me.”
He laughed again. “You’re fuckin’ shameless.”
She took the car keys out of his jean pocket. “Come on, baby.” She jangled the keys at him. “Come on. Let’s go for a ride!”
“I swear to God, woman. You make one crack about hanging my head out the window…”
She frowned and he could tell she’d been all set to do just that. “Damn.”
She wondered how long they would play twenty questions as she led him to Leucrotta’s house. She’d memorized every street map of Seattle and the surrounding areas. Didn’t take much. She only had to examine a map once to know every detail.
“Where did you learn to shoot?” Again with more questions. Why was he so interested? They’d already gone through these types of questions just the other night, but then he was still trying to get into her pants. Now that he was in, she wasn’t quite sure why he was still so curious.
Are booty calls supposed to be this chatty?
“The Marines.”
“You were in the Marines?” He didn’t have to sound so shocked.
“No.”
“Did you date a Marine?”
“No.”
He seemed relieved by that answer, which confused her even more.
“Was your father a Marine?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know the man.”
“Really?”
“He tried to contact me once after high school. But I told him to go to hell. I had no desire to meet a man who at twenty-six dated a sixteen-year-old girl, got her pregnant and then dumped her.”
It had been a good thing she didn’t meet her father then. Nineteen years old, in college, with full access to the biotech labs. Between that and her association with Craig and the guys, she would have hurt the man. As it was she remembered a late night of hiding one of her creations in what was now Craig’s personal lab. Had to. The military wanted to get their hands on it. Of course, Sara and Angelina still thought she was delusional when she said Black Ops would be coming for her one day. Little did they know.
“I can understand that. Did your mother love him?”
“Tragically, yes.”
He fell silent on that point and apparently decided to let it go. “Angelina dated a Marine?”
Miki rolled her eyes. “Nope. They’re on the List.”
“What List?”
“You know, it’s right in your face. You just refuse to see.”
Conall stopped at a red light and looked at her. Then he grinned. A big, beautiful grin. “Your mother was a Marine.”
“And finally my Cro-Magnon man enters the twenty-first century where women are in the military.”
“Your Cro-Magnon man?”
She stared out the window so she didn’t have to see his Viking grin. She wasn’t going to start liking him. Not really liking him. A passing “I don’t hate you enough to kill you” association was fine and dandy. But liking him like she liked Sara or Amy or Angelina or even Craig was out of the question.
The light changed and he moved forward. “Okay. So I missed it. The obvious. So she taught you to hunt?”
“No. I learned to hunt from my grandmother. Her father was a tracker and moonshiner. My mother taught me how to shoot. Every Marine’s a rifleman, ya know.” She shrugged. “By the time I was twelve, I’d skin my own kills.”
“That’s lovely.”
Miki nodded, ignoring his sarcasm. “I’d cut off the pelts. Strip the flesh. Freeze it. We’d have deer meat for weeks.” She looked at him. “And sometimes I’d make little hats from their heads.”
Conall pulled over on a quiet suburban street. “Okay. This conversation’s ending now.” He shuddered. “Freaky woman.” He glanced around. “We’re getting near. I can smell them.”
“We’re not going to get any closer?”
“No way.” He shut off the car and handed her the keys. “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, leave and don’t go back to the hotel. Understand me?”
“Yes, my liege.”
He glared at her. “Smart ass.”
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged. “Stay downwind.”
Then he was out of the car and disappearing down the street. Miki put her feet up on the dashboard and waited.
Conall dumped his clothes behind an empty house with a For Sale sign in the front, shifted, and trotted the rest of the way to Leucrotta’s house. He knew as soon as he hit their street. The smell almost overpowered him. It took him a bit to discover the disgusting scent came from the pasty white secretions on almost every tree and home he passed. When these guys mark their territory, they really mark their territory. He soon realized almost every house on the street belonged to this Clan.
The street was pretty deserted and Conall assumed the majority of members were at their day jobs. He slipped into a backyard and tracked his way to one of the houses where he actually heard activity. There was a high fence, but he found a tear in the wood he could look through. A good-sized property with a pool, it seemed like any other normal high-priced suburban home. Yet he was witness to one of the most disturbing things he’d ever seen.
Four females—they were females right?—were in a full-on fistfight. Blood was drawn and he could hear bones breaking. The other females, about fourteen of them, watched impassively. Even more freakish was the vicious brawl going on between the children. Not just a shoving match or putting little Johnny’s head in the toilet, but teeth and claws used to cause permanent harm.
He thought about growing up as wolf pup. He remembered wrestling with Zach. One time, when they were no more than six, Zach accidentally knocked him down a flight of stairs and the poor kid cried for hours until Conall could walk again and remember his first name.
But what Conall watched now was a brutal display of pure, unadulterated aggression. These were definitely not people to fuck with lightly.
Then the wind shifted. The fighting stopped. The aggression stopped. And all attention focused on him at the fence.
He took several steps back, spun around, and took off.
It was time to call
on his Pack.
Miki got tired of waiting in the SUV, so she sat on the stoop instead. She couldn’t stop thinking about the previous night. So that’s what Sara and Angie meant about getting your world rocked. No wonder people were obsessed with sex. Now she was obsessed with sex. Sex with Conall.
She felt Conall as wolf come up next to her. She didn’t even bother glancing at him as he settled down next to her. He nuzzled her arm.
“What are you doing?” He licked her chin.
“Are you going to tell me what happened or not?”
Conall lay down next to her and rolled on his back. She sighed. This was so demeaning.
Still refusing to look at him, she rubbed his belly. Conall clearly loved it. She could feel his whole body wiggling under her fingers as they played across his stomach and chest.
“This is ridiculous. Just shift and tell me what you saw.” She finally turned to look at him. His tongue was hanging out, the happiest grin on his face. And it suddenly occurred to her that this dog was not a wolf. And it definitely wasn’t Conall. “Oh for shit’s sake—”
“What are you doing?”
Miki cringed. She looked up and kept looking up until she could see Conall’s face. As human, he stood on the other side of her. Wet, like he’d been swimming. Fully dressed. And fully disgusted.
“Uh…playing with this cute doggie?”
“You thought he was me, didn’t you!”
“Don’t get testy. It could have been you.”
“It’s a golden retriever,” he growled. “I can’t talk to you right now.” He stormed back to the SUV.
Miki looked at the golden laying comfortably next to her. “Thanks a lot.”
“Are we going?”
Miki stood up as the dog bolted at Conall's yelled question, his tail between his legs. She couldn’t even spare him a glance. She walked back to the SUV and over to Conall. Normally she wouldn’t care if she hurt someone’s feelings, except maybe Sara and Angelina’s but they had hides made of stone. But for some reason, having Conall mad at her gave her a lousy feeling.
She stood in front of him. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“I know that. I just wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t even look at him.”
“You know, we don’t all look alike.” She didn’t bother to point out that they were all part of the canis lupus family. That would probably just piss him off more.
“I know.” On a whim, she wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. She felt his body grudgingly begin to relax as his arms wrapped around her. She had never been an affectionate person, but for some reason she found it easy and kind of nice with Conall. “I’m really, really sorry. Really.”
He chuckled. “Not sure you said enough reallys.”
She felt the dampness of his T-shirt. “Why are you wet?”
“Wind shifted. I had to use someone’s pool to get them off my scent.”
“Smart. So what did you find out? Was Conridge right?”
“They’re more than barbaric. They’re scary. Scarier than I remember. Maybe you could do some research on that computer of yours. See what else you can find out.”
But she already had some knowledge, so why wait? Miki closed her eyes. She could visualize one of her favorite books. Encyclopedia of Mammals. She saw the pages turn as if she had the book in her lap. She flipped to the section on hyenas and read what was there.
“They’re matriarchal. Extremely aggressive, which we already know. They don’t get along like wolves or Pride, though. There is a lot of in-fighting. Well, this explains a lot. The male-female sex organs look very similar. At one time it was believed they were hermaphrodites, but they’re not. Oooh.”
“What?”
“The cubs are born with a full set of teeth and they start fighting from the time they are pushed out of the womb. Sometimes two will fight while the mother is cleaning off a third. How freaking interesting is that?”
Conall frowned. He should be mad. She’d mistaken a golden retriever for him. Not even a German shepherd or a husky, but a golden. But he was too busy loving the feel of her arms wrapped around his waist and the sudden realization she just pulled hyena knowledge out of her pretty tight ass.
“How exactly did you know all that?”
“I have a good memory.”
“It sounded like you were reading from a book. You were, weren’t you?” He could feel her get uneasy. “You just read a book in your head, didn’t you?”
“I’m not sure what you—”
“Exactly how high is your IQ anyway?”
Miki cleared her throat. “One hundred and seventy-eight.”
Last he heard one hundred and forty was hitting genius level. Damn.
“Why didn’t you go to some special school or something?”
“My grandmother didn’t believe in them. But I always took advanced classes and some college courses.” Her body was tense against his. She was waiting for some kind of weird repercussion to her admission. She didn’t seem to realize he really could give a shit. As far as he was concerned this only meant their kids would be smart shapeshifters.
“Well, so you don’t get too cocky, I myself often complete the TV Guide crossword puzzle.” He puffed out his chest. “In pen.”
Miki burst out laughing. He loved making her laugh. Her entire body became involved. Kind of like when she had an orgasm.
Conall kissed her forehead. “Let’s get out of here before they—oh, shit.”
“What?” She pulled out of his arms and turned to see what he was looking at. Not a pretty sight. The hyenas had done something he’d never seen before and he hoped to never see again.
They’d sent their children to hunt them.
Six of them stood in the middle of the street in front of her and Conall. A quick look behind them and Miki saw three more.
It was broad daylight in a nice, quiet suburban neighborhood. Yet she felt trapped in a desert in the dead of night.
Miki didn’t mince words. “Let’s get in the car and run the fuckers down.”
Conall gaped at her. “They’re kids. I can’t hit kids. And I’m really hoping you can’t either.”
Miki sighed. No. She couldn’t mow down a bunch of kids. But she wished she could. Because they may be children, but they were the scariest fucking things she’d ever seen. She always wondered what kind of kids were homeschooled. These guys must make up a huge percentage. She had a feeling the fangs they were showing couldn’t retract until they were much older.
“Fine. You want to be Mr. Nice Guy and not hit the kids, then that leaves only one option.”
“Which is?”
She quickly snatched the door open to the SUV, dived inside to dig into her backpack, and pulled out her house keys.
“Now I don’t want you to take this personally,” she ordered as she scrambled back out.
Conall didn’t look at her, too busy watching the slowly advancing cubs. “Take what personally?”
Miki pulled off the small plastic controller attached to her keys. She showed it to him.
“Stop the Bark?” He smirked even as his canine teeth extended and his eyes shifted to wolf. “You’re kidding, right? That may work with that golden you were loving up, but I doubt it will do much to the rest of us.”
Miki cleared her throat. “I amped it up a bit in case those full-blooded wolves got a little cranky Sara wasn’t around anymore.” She pushed the button and hoped Conall could forgive her.
He went down first. His hands over his ears, his fangs bared, a howl torn from his throat. Then the hyenas went down screaming. Even the adult females watching from the sidelines hit the ground, their androgynous bodies writhing in pain. To Miki it was silent. She couldn’t hear anything and she felt nothing.
Well, at least now she knew it worked.
Miki grabbed Conall by the neck of his T-shirt and tugged, hoping he could manage to get up since she’d never be able to lift him by
herself. He dragged himself up and crawled into the SUV. She followed, her finger still on the button. She adjusted the seat so her feet reached the gas pedal, and then she started the SUV. She finally released the button as she drove off, making sure to avoid the cubs lying in the street.
Once they were safely away, she dropped her keys and the device back in her bag.
Conall looked at her. His fangs still out, his eyes red rimmed. “You call that ‘amping it up a bit’?”
She shrugged. “Be thankful. It could have been worse. I’ve been thinking about mating it with a stun gun. You know, for shits and giggles.”
He leaned back in the seat. “You’re a dangerous woman, Miki Kendrick.”
She smiled. She got the feeling he meant that as a compliment.
Chapter Sixteen
Conall had been watching her for the last ten minutes. She’d asked for grape but he could only find cherry. A cherry ice pop. He’d handed it to her after getting back with their lunch from the deli next door.
Once they got safely back to the hotel, and his ears stopped ringing, he’d talked to Sara. Filled her in on the information discovered by Miki’s hacker friends. Told her about what he saw at the Clan den. She was unfazed by the fact Miki had gone with him on his little excursion. Seemed she trusted her friend as much as he did. And he did trust Miki. That realization kept playing through his brain. Sara told him she would talk to Zach once he got back from hunting, and they’d get some Pack members up to Seattle as soon as possible. Then she gave him a direct command. Something she never did. Protect Miki. She didn’t care what he had to do or who he had to kill. She wanted Miki safe.
As far as Conall was concerned, not a problem.
So, he’d settled in to eat the first of the three giant sandwiches with chips and beer he’d bought. But he hadn’t taken a bite. Not once he noticed her and that freakin’ ice pop.
Stomach down on the bed, she worked on her laptop doing more research on hyenas. She had both hands on the keyboard, forcing her to suck on the phallic-shaped ice pop only using her mouth. In and out. In and out. And the slurping sounds—she had to be kidding! He’d bet money Miki had no clue what she was doing to him.