There were two men stationed at the pool room door; these were men Jack knew personally. Both had been with him on hunting missions dozens of times. Aidan Walsh was a genuine red-headed Irishman, born and raised in Galway. He’d moved to the states three years earlier to help Darius Walker track down the Hunters who’d killed his American fiancé before she’d been able to make the permanent move to Ireland.
Theodore Nassir was the other gentleman, born on the opposite end of the world from Aidan, and raised in Agadez, Niger. Growing up a stone’s throw from the Sahara Desert had given Nassir a keen respect for the natural world, its beauty, and its fickle and murderous nature. He’d worked on the National Nature Reserve in Niger, coming face to face with human violations on the animals of his land before coming to the US to do the same thing Aidan had done – join the Shifter King’s hunters and settle the score.
Jack held these men in the highest esteem. He was well aware that they’d remained on this side of the door in order to give the girls their privacy. They’d done it not only because Jack was their king and they knew Samantha would one day be their queen, but out of genuine respect for Jack.
Still, at that very moment, he could have strangled them both.
They straightened and met his gaze as he neared. Aidan hastily stepped aside, and Theodore followed suit, his brows hitting his hairline. “Is there a problem?” Theodore asked. His voice was just deep enough to be heard over the music, which played even more loudly on this level, as the sound system was built to be heard under water.
Jack had nothing to say. He was completely focused as he reached the door, turned the knob and threw it open.
The massive, heated room was of course empty.
“What the bloody hell?” Aidan swore.
Theodore shook his head. “Boss, they never came out, I swear.”
“They didn’t need to. The Guardian has a waypiece. She used it to transport them both out of the mansion.” That was why Sam had switched on the sound system and turned it up. The music had hidden the noise of the portal as it opened and closed behind them in their escape. “I need Jason Alberich here ASAP.”
“On it,” said Theodore. He turned and left, pulling a cell from his pocket as he ran briskly down the hall.
The song ended, and Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams” cut in next. Jack couldn’t help but note that this one was just as good at hiding portal-type sounds as the last. Sam had chosen her music list wisely.
“Aidan, where would you go if you were planning on taking on the Hunters all by yourself and didn’t know where to start?” Jack asked, thinking out loud more than anything. He hadn’t actually expected an answer, but Aidan gave him one anyway.
“I suppose I would try to find someone who’d fought them in the past. And won.”
Jack turned and met his friend’s eyes. Aidan Walsh smiled a small smile and shrugged. “Maybe one of the werewolf alphas, something like that.”
Jack slowly smiled back. Not for the first time in his life, he was exceedingly happy he’d taken the time and effort to surround himself with good people.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“You should wear this. You’ve always looked way better in red than me. The color washes me out.” Raven pulled a dress down from the rack in the closet and glanced over her shoulder. Sam pulled off her jacket and tossed it on Raven’s bed. “Besides,” Raven added, “it’ll go great with that jacket.”
“Yeah, I decided I was keeping that,” Sam said, nodding at the red leather piece that she’d pretty much decided she was going to be buried in.
“He’s got amazing taste,” Raven said as she turned back to the clothes in the closet and presumably began searching for a dress for herself.
“No,” Sam corrected. “I have amazing taste. He’s just really good at spying on people. Or, spying on me, anyway.”
“Tomatoes, tomottoes,” Raven shrugged, quoting the old adage. “Ah, here we go. I’ll wear this one. Thank the gods, too. I’m at the end of the closet. The rest of this shit hasn’t been dry cleaned in forever.” She turned back to the closest door and made her way out, a dress in each hand.
Sam shimmied out of her jeans as Raven handed her the gown. It was a spaghetti strap dress. She never wore spaghetti straps. She never even wore tank tops. She had reasons.
“Um… I know you just said you were at the end of the closet, but….”
“I’ve seen the scars, Sam. And they’re no big deal. Everyone has issues – everyone. The scars prove that you dealt with some of yours a long time ago and came out victorious. Besides,” she said as she raised her hand and gently touched the edge of a piece of medical tape that was sticking out beneath Sam’s white tee-shirt, “you have bigger things to worry about.”
“Oh yeah,” Sam whispered. She’d almost forgotten about the gunshot wound. That medicine had worked wonders. And she could tell she was healing rapidly. But Raven was right; the bandages over her shoulder were going to look like a blinking neon sign under the spaghetti strap gown. “Shit.”
“Well… how’s the shoulder doing?” Raven hedged. “Maybe you can get rid of the bandages at this point?”
Sam gingerly pulled back the tape at one corner of the wrappings and peeked underneath. “I can,” she said. “The wound is closed and a lot of the swelling is gone. But the bruising is ugly as hell. Bandages or not, the injury’s going to show.” She peeled the tape and gauze off and folded it so Raven wouldn’t have to see the blood. Then she moved to the sink and tossed it into Raven’s bathroom wastebasket.
“Okay then,” said Raven. “I guess it’s a good thing you have a kick-ass jacket to go over it all. Just try not to forget and take it off.”
Sam blew out a sigh. “Right.” She started to get dressed, and as she did, she considered everything she was about to do. “How long have you had this apartment?” Sam had never been to this one before. Apparently Jack Colton wasn’t the only one with shit loads of secrets, and just as many living spaces. Her guardian had been keeping an apartment in San Francisco behind Sam’s back. For situations like this, she guessed.
“Seven months. I just… had this feeling, sorta. Like we might need a special, secret place to escape to some time soon.” Raven shrugged. “I guess I was right.”
“Guardian instinct,” Sam said softly. It was Raven’s job after all. And that’s why she tried so hard to keep the sulkiness out of her voice, because it was so goddamn childish, especially given everything they’d been through. But some of it leaked into her words all the same.
“I know,” said Raven just as softly. “You don’t know how much I wanted to tell you.”
Sam took a deep breath and nodded, waving away any further explanation. “Okay, okay. I get it. I really do. So, tell you what. No more secrets at all between us. I can take it. You can take it. Our friendship can take it. We’re grownups. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Now,” said Sam changing the subject, “are you absolutely sure we have to wear this stuff? We’re about to go head to head with big baddies. I’m not sure I want to make my last stand in a cocktail dress. I always pictured it more of a jeans and combat boots moment.”
“I’m sure,” Raven said, smiling. “And I know. But this person we’re meeting owns a night club in San Francisco. The place will be swarming with werewolves, so we want to go in as un-threatening as possible anyway. And if we don’t make the dress code, we won’t even get past the bouncers at the front door to find the owner.”
“What’s her name?”
“Katherine something….” Raven made a face. “Crap, I just went blank on her last name. But she’s known as the Curse Breaker among werewolves. I’m betting all we have to do is go to the bar, ask the bartender if we can see the Curse Breaker, and that combined with our weird-ass scents will get us an audience with someone of importance. Even if it isn’t her at first.”
Sam’s brows raised. “Sounds crazy as hell. What if they just decide to rip us to shreds instead?”
“Well, that’s part of the reason we’re going in dressed for loving and not fighting.” Raven’s smile gleamed. “Werewolves are just like shifters. They react to threats. So we make sure we aren’t one. Then, I’m sure once they hear our story, they’ll sympathize enough to take us to Kat.”
Raven blinked. “Kat! That’s right, her name is Katherine Dare, but everyone calls her Kat.” She nodded, proud of herself. “Now I remember.”
“Why is she called the Curse Breaker?”
“Because she basically single-handedly broke the curse that had been destroying werewolves for something like four hundred years.”
“What kind of curse?” Sam let the dress slide over her body, smoothing it into place. She had to admit the silky satin felt wonderful against her skin. An image flashed in her mind, bodies intertwined, sweat trickling, a fireplace crackling. Her nerve endings prickled, and a shiver rushed up her spine. Her mouth watered, and she blinked. What the hell?
“It prevented females from being born with werewolf powers and abilities,” Raven said, explaining about the curse. “And a lot of other things. It was just a bad scene. They were going extinct until Kat came along and set things right.”
Sam hesitated a moment, licked her lips and then nodded. Maybe it was the pain killer she’d taken. Or something. She tried to shrug it off and mulled over what Raven had told her. Her curiosity formed all sorts of questions in her mind. But she knew she only had time for so many. “What did she do before she broke the curse?” she decided on.
“She was a Hunter.”
Sam froze mid-dress adjustment and looked at her best friend. Raven’s smile was tight and helpless. “Well,” Raven said with a tilt of her head. “Why do you think she’s the one we’re going to see?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The music from the dance club poured out onto the street in front of its double doors, decorating the atmosphere with the air of carefree revelry. The name of the venue was “Hungry.” Raven had told Sam it was a reference to “Hungry Like A Wolf,” but the simple and evocative name did enough referencing all on its own.
People who passed by in the street couldn’t help but glance in the direction of the bouncers and the long line of hopefuls that stretched from them to the corner down the block. Older couples probably wished they were a little younger and had bodies that didn’t hurt quite so much. Younger punks no doubt wished they had fake ID’s. And one by one, the enormous men that society had no idea were anything but human allowed beautiful men and women into the neon strobe-lit area beyond.
When Samantha and Raven made it to the door, they didn’t even have a chance to stop in front of the bouncers before the men were hastily waving them through – and with two enormous, very white, slightly pointy grins. Sam met the ardent gaze of the man closer to her and experienced another shiver, this one stronger than the one she’d felt at Raven’s secret apartment. Her brain conjured hands on wrists, nipples hardening, a fullness between her legs, and Sam found herself swooning.
“Sam?”
Everything spun. She closed her eyes and reached out. Raven had stopped beside her just inside the doors, and Sam felt her take her hands.
“Sam, are you okay?”
Sam kept her eyes closed until the goose bumps passed, but she nodded. When she opened them again, she found Raven watching her closely, her expression distinctly worried.
Sam had to speak loudly to be heard above the music, even this close. “I’m sorry. I’m good,” she said as her brain cleared and everything stopped tilting. “I’ve just never been in a place like this before.”
Raven waited a moment, then nodded. “Well no worries, because I have.” She turned toward the bar at the center of the club and took Sam gently by the arm to usher her through the writhing mass of dancers and drinkers. “Don’t make eye contact with any guy you don’t want to dance with, don’t take any opened drinks from strangers, and don’t leave with anyone you don’t want to sleep with.” Raven glanced over her shoulder and winked at her.
Sam swallowed hard and looked dead ahead. But she felt eyes on her as they moved through the crowd. Their attention had a weight to it, one that pressed in on her, followed her, and hunted her down. By the time they reached the equally crowded bar, Sam was feeling breathless. Her heart was hammering, and her stomach was tight.
“We need to get up to the bar,” muttered Raven. She was looking over the groups of drinkers on the barstools, probably calculating who would scoot over and who wouldn’t. But she needn’t have worried – because that was when Sam felt a tap on her shoulder.
She turned to find herself face to face with another werewolf. This one, she imagined she would have guessed was a supernatural even if she hadn’t been able to scent the wolf on him. He was more than six feet tall, had eyes like a night fog or a white-out storm, and black hair the color of crow’s feathers that fell to his shoulders in careless waves. He was wearing a black leather jacket over absolutely nothing and jeans that hugged every well-muscled curve in his overtly masculine frame. His abs were the infamous six-pack that had locked women in heated dreams for centuries, and the jeans were low enough to show it all off.
Shit, Sam thought. And that was all she could think. All other grammatical thought fled from her mind at the sight of him.
“I’m guessing you’re here to see my wife,” said muscles.
Sam blinked. “Your wife?” Who was his wife?
“If she’s Katherine Dare, then yes,” said Raven, who at that moment seemed much more capable of mature conversation than Sam.
Muscles glanced at Raven and smiled. “That, she is,” he said, and then returned his gaze to Sam. His attention was unnerving to Sam. It was like he was looking through her, noticing something she wasn’t even aware of herself.
“How did you know we wanted to see her?” she asked. Her voice was softer than she would have liked. She was afraid, at first, that he hadn’t heard her over the music. But then she remembered he was a werewolf.
“Oh… ways,” he said slowly, and began to circle her like a shark. “You have the most intriguing scent, little one,” he told her. “Impossible to pin down. And… there’s something… ready about you,” he went on as his smile turned predatory. “I couldn’t imagine someone smelling like you coming into a place like this without very good reason.”
Sam swallowed. It was hard pushing it past the lump in her throat. There was something ready about her? Ready for what, exactly?
“A place like this?” Raven asked, pulling the man’s attention from Sam as if the guardian knew the attention was unwelcome. “You mean we’re in danger?”
“Not with our security. And most weres are well behaved,” he told her. “But you probably didn’t know that, did you? So you’re taking a chance.” He looked back at Sam, and his eyes sparked. “At least one of you is.”
“Okay, then!” exclaimed Raven with finality. “I think it’s time we meet this wife of yours.”
“I think so too,” he said. “My name is Byron, by the way. Kat is in the back. Follow me.” He turned and began making his way through the crowd again, but this time it parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses. Men nodded at him as he passed, and women looked on with a touch of regret. He was taken, after all. And by the Curse Breaker, no less.
The three of them reached a dark set of double doors free of decoration, and Byron pushed his way through, holding it open for them. “Come on in,” he said as they moved past him and into the darkness beyond. It was a long hallway with two doors on the right and one on the left. “All the way to the end and through the second door on the right. Kat’s inside. She’s expecting you.”
Raven turned to Sam and raised her brows. The werewolves certainly acted quickly. Sam was beginning to realize she was going to have to be on her toes around their kind.
They moved down the hall to the last door, turned the knob, and went in. The room beyond was a well appointed study type room with lots of dark cherry wood and red cushions,
dimly lit with candle light and a soft-white chandelier. A woman made her way across the room toward them, a grin on her face.
She was very tall, slim, and had a head of white-blonde hair that instantly made Sam jealous. It was so very different from her messy, massive mop of wavy, curly light-brown hair, it felt like a stick in the side with a sharp pin. She could never have hair like that. But that wasn’t where the woman’s beauty stopped. She had eyes like a deep indigo night, clear and enormous and highly keen. The woman stopped before them and stuck out her hand. “Hi,” she said warmly, “I’m Kat. I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
Sam at once liked her. There was something in the woman’s tone, or maybe in her broad and open smile, perhaps even in her scent that Sam unconsciously recognized as inherently friendly. It was inherently good.
So Sam smiled back, and nodded. “Yes,” she immediately said. And then, as if Katherine Dare had been her best friend for centuries, Sam opened up and came clean. “My name is Samantha O’Neill. I’m the magishifter. The Hunters are after me, and I need to face them once and for all. I hear you can help.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It turned out that seeking out Katherine Dare was the best idea Raven and Sam had come up with in a long time. Having been a Hunter herself, Kat was privy to all sorts of insider information – which she willingly and eagerly shared with the two shifters. But her information did not come without caveats. She warned them of Hunter strategy, of their sneakiness, and of their brutal determination when it came to wiping all of shifter-kind from the face of the planet.
“They’re brainwashed from birth on,” she told them as they sat at her table and shared a round of beers. “When someone is taught to believe something from childhood, there’s almost no factual information or evidence in the world that can convince them they might be wrong. Their minds are closed to possibilities, to other ways of thinking, to reason. They simply can not fathom or process it. That’s the nature of brainwashing. So Hunters grow up believing that shifters of all kinds, from werewolves to werecats to werebirds,” she said with a nod to Raven, “are demons. Evil, sneaky, inflicted. They believe this demonism is a disease and that if shifters would only make the choice to seek treatment, their illness could be cured. Exorcised, if you will.”