Lily listened intently. As he spoke, his British accent again wrapped itself around her, but this time, not in pleasure. In sadness. She was once more standing in her dream, amidst the very suffering of which he spoke. And she couldn’t look away from the scene unfolding before her.
“One pulse was particularly erratic. It concerned me. I approached the woman, recognizing her for a Roma.” Cole’s eyes opened at this and he pushed away from the window to turn around and pin Lily with his green gaze. “A gypsy to you Americans. She was close to death. But not close enough.”
Lily cleared her throat, swallowed, and as if sensing she was going to speak, Malcolm waited.
“She grabbed your wrist and said something,” Lily ventured. “In another language. What did she say?” she finished softly.
Cole leaned back against the glass, crossing his arms over his chest. “She called me a soldier of death. A bringer of death. And then she said, ‘If you love death so much, may you be its eternal witness.”
Lily and Cole were both silent then. The space between them was filled to the brim with the growing discomfort that comes with new understanding and stark realization.
“What did she mean?” She finally asked.
Cole was silent for a moment, watching Lily intently. And then he blinked and, moving so swiftly that he literally blurred, he came to stand before her and was ripping the leather bands off of his wrists.
Lily gasped and jumped as he held them up so that she could see them. Blood-red markings of ancient, cryptic origin marred the insides of his arms. They looked painful. Ominous.
“Every time an innocent is murdered with the same cold-blooded dispassion that was shown to that Roma, these come to life,” he told her, nodding toward the markings. She could see that his teeth were clenched, his body rigid with pent-up anger. “One moment, I am here – and the next? I’m somewhere else. Standing over a woman. A child. An entire family of murder victims. Only I’m always there too late.” He took a step forward and she was forced to step back. His gaze darkened menacingly. “They’re dead. And there is nothing I can do but take it all in. Every. Bloody. Detail.”
Lily’s breaths were coming quick now, shaky and uneven. Horror flooded her veins. Horror, for so very many reasons. “You mean… you don’t….”
Malcolm smiled a nasty smile, his fangs out once more. His green eyes began to glow. “I don’t kill them myself?” he asked, his tone hardening. “No,” he shook his head. “Not them.” He laughed a mirthless laugh, taking another step toward her. Again, she stepped back, and found herself against the door.
“At first, I tracked down the killers. It was simple. Their stench filled my lungs and they became easy prey.” His smile disappeared and his pupils expanded ever so slightly. “But then…. I got used to it.”
“The werewolves think that you killed those people, Cole,” Lily managed to whisper. She had no idea where her courage was coming from. But it certainly impressed her.
Cole’s smile was back and, this time, it was the hungry, sensually promising grin that she was so uncomfortably familiar with. Her belly warmed and her legs grew weak as his pupils claimed more of the green in his eyes. He leaned forward and placed his hands against the door on either side of her head, once more caging her in.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “And, it’s Malcolm.”
Chapter Twelve: Smoke ‘Em Out
Daniel swiveled in the plush leather chair. His uncle came over the intercom and gave them the notice that they would be landing. Across from him, Detective Aiden Knight was talking on the phone. Knight looked at Daniel as he spoke, “You sure about that?”
Daniel could hear the voice on the other end. “Yes, sir. No match.”
“Okay, thanks Sandler.” Knight hung up. He clicked his phone to his belt beside his badge and sighed. “That was forensics, in case you didn’t hear the whole thing.”
Daniel nodded, waiting.
“The bullets in the Mayor’s body and the bodies of his family members don’t match up with the weapon left at the scene, despite the fact that its chamber had been recently emptied. It had GPR all over it.”
Daniel considered this for a moment in silence. The gun had been hot, recently fired. Daniel and Aiden and Lieutenant Angel had all been on the scene; they’d all smelled the gunpowder.
Aiden leaned forward, as if to speak with him in confidence. “To be honest, I’m a little confused as to why Cole would bother shooting them in the first place.”
The landing gear came down as the plane centered up with the ribbon of black below them.
“You’re not the only one,” Daniel admitted. “And we didn’t smell him there either.”
Aiden shook his head. “Nope.”
The gun had been a police issue fire arm. Normally, Cole’s victims were sensationally murdered. His murders were the kind of thing the press was always all over. Mutilation and torture and half-eaten corpses.
This? This was strangely straight-forward. Unlike Malcolm Cole.
And if he couldn’t be scented at the scene, Daniel had to admit that there as a very real possibility that the other werewolf had had nothing to do with it. Which meant that the murder had been an impossibly grand coincidence that Cole had been quick to take advantage of.
“We may have a killer lose in Baton Rouge,” Knight finished, leaning back as the wheels touched down and they decelerated to a stop.
To that, Daniel had no reply.
* * * *
Malcolm Cole strode with determined speed toward the stone stairwell that would lead him down into the wine cellar. As he did, he pulled the cell phone out of his front pocket and speed dialed.
“Jake, I’m on my way out again. Keep an eye on her for me.”
“No problem, boss. God speed.”
Cole hung up just as the burning in his wrists was becoming unbearable. He strode to the center of the vast underground chamber and let his hands fall at his sides. He closed his eyes and tried to prepare himself. As always, he knew that no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be ready. It was pointless.
He knew that when he opened his eyes again, he would be standing amidst a lurid nightmare composed of far too much red and darkness and a smell like copper and fear.
He thought of the Roma woman and how he’d gone to Romania to try to have the curse removed – only to find himself nearly cursed again. They hadn’t believed that he wasn’t a soldier of death. What proof did he have?
He was condemned to this for the remainder of his life. Only the peace and contentment that came with claiming a mate would be capable of muting and dulling the ache that was there no matter how many times he wrote about it – no matter how many violent words he bled onto a page.
It was always there.
The marks flashed stop-light red, ripping a harsh cry of pain from his throat. Then he began to shimmer. He gritted his teeth against the agony.
And he was gone.
* * * *
Okay. So, she had a plan.
It was insane as hell and probably wouldn’t work anyway and, frankly, she was beginning to resent Daniel Kane for ever riding back into her life and putting his damned mark on her arm and forcing her to make such a ridiculously crazy decision in the first place. But, at least she had a plan.
Of course, she was probably going to die –
Lily saw stars swimming and leaned against the wall, running a hand over her feverishly hot face. That was a sobering thought. I might die.
She straightened and blew out a shaky breath. It wasn’t the desired outcome, of course, but the reality of the situation was that Lily didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with Malcolm Cole. He was an incredibly sexy man. He was a tortured man. But he was also a jaded and dangerous man and no matter how green his eyes were and how seductive his voice might be, she couldn’t see herself loving him. Not now. Maybe not ever. Because her heart longed for Daniel instead.
If a human female was going to defeat a male alpha werewolf, there we
re only so many things she could do to accomplish that feat. All of them were bat shit.
She was only fortunate enough that, over the last few days she’d reached a frame of mind that barely skirted the edges of a reality that was scarcely recognizable, and her respect for her own mortality was blunted and blurred. Otherwise, there was no way in hell she’d attempt to do what she was planning on doing.
Plus, she was getting pretty pissed off. She was pissed at Tabitha for lying to her all these years. She was pissed at herself for not having the guts to just go up to Daniel Kane in high school and ask him why he had hit on all of her friends but not her. And she was pissed at Daniel – for pulling a 180 and finally hitting on her in a completely selfish, utterly manipulative and frankly insane manner.
So, there it was. She was surrounded with madness and she wanted out.
After their truth-or-dare episode earlier in the dining room, Cole had shoved himself away from her and the door that he’d pinned her against, only to push the door open behind her and then catch her as she fell backwards.
The brief contact had caused her arm to flash in pain, but he’d quickly set her aside and let her go. Then, with one last very strange look, he had moved through the door and down the hall, not glancing back. He’d rounded a corner, moving with swift purpose, and then he was gone. Just like that.
She had stood there, wondering at his sudden change and dumbfounded by all that he’d told her. She was utterly and completely confused about where she fit within the world of crazy-ass werewolves and their screwed up mojo.
She wasn’t at all sure what to think of Malcolm Cole, the author whom she now knew got all of his ideas for his books by being unwillingly thrust into bloody murder scene after bloody murder: Malcolm Cole, the green-eyed werewolf who was cursed by a Roma gypsy in World War Two while serving as a British spy – a good guy; Cole, the man who kidnapped her best friend and tied her to a chair and held Lily down while a witch poured an agony of a spell through her burning veins; Malcolm Cole….
He had whisked her away to a cabin-castle in the middle of the New Mexico wilderness, so that he could flay her mind and body with his magic over and over again while he fully planned on killing Daniel Kane. And yet he suffered horribly himself.
He presented her with an image of him that was half dark and half light. Half villain, half victim. But the two were so tightly intertwined that they were impossible to pull apart. He’d been cursed for far too long. Lily had no intention of allowing the man to take his consequential anger out on her.
So she’d taken the opportunity that his sudden departure afforded her and she’d quickly explored his ginormous “cabin” in order to get her bearings. Make a plan.
In doing so, she realized that calling it a cabin was a tad absurd.
The mansion of wood had, at her last count, three enormous great rooms with stone and brick fire places, twelve meticulously decorated bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms with whirlpool tubs, two dining rooms, a gourmet chef’s kitchen, a massive library, a plush appointed study, an in-home theater, a solarium set up with a fully stocked bar, two giant wall-mounted TV screens and a hot tub, a home gym complete with circuit trainers, and an indoor natatorium with a lap pool and a bigger hot tub with enough room for twenty.
Cole had gone to great lengths to create a home that was a virtual city within itself, and Lily had a feeling she knew why. If every other werewolf out there was certain that Cole was responsible for countless murders, there was a good chance that one day he would be holed up in his own home – his own territory – and under siege.
It was clan law and its loophole stipulations that currently kept him safe. She assumed he was quite grateful for that. But laws could be changed. And if they ever were, Cole would be prepared. Not just in terms of his home. But, in terms of his pack.
Maybe it was Daniel’s mark. Or, maybe it was the fact that she’d been around werewolves enough in the past forty-eight hours that she could now recognize one when she saw one. But, whatever it was, she could tell that the men on Cole’s property were not human. She had counted eleven, all with those unnaturally stark eyes and tall, strong builds. Every one of them watched her with a wary, careful interest.
Keeping tabs.
She knew they would report back to Cole about everything she did and every place she went within the property. She could only have expected as much. But it sure as hell made things difficult for her. She’d been forced to well and truly consider the logistics of the place before she’d finally chosen the library and the solarium.
It was horribly perfect, actually. All of those books…. Thousands of them. Some of them quite old. It broke her heart, but the logical, analytical part of her brain insisted that the more there were and the older they were, the more flammable they would be.
The library was adjacent to the solarium. The large, glass-encased room was set up as a bar and entertainment area, probably for all of those werewolf-men that had been wandering the property. The liquor was all very, very strong. Everclear. Absinthe. Vodka.
She assumed she had an answer now as to what it took to get a werewolf drunk. Or even buzzed. There were copious amounts of the liquid. Perfect for what she had in mind.
It had been exceedingly difficult, as the werewolves seemed to double their guard on her the moment Malcolm Cole disappeared, but Lily managed to keep careful track of where the cameras in the halls and rooms were pointed at what times. She’d noted what the rotation schedule of Cole’s men was.
With this knowledge, rough though it was, Lily spent the afternoon sneaking several large bottles of high-proof liquor through the hallway between the solarium and the library. Once they were there, she set them on the hidden side of one of the reading sofas, next to the hearth lighter she’d swiped earlier.
Now, as she stood before one of the taller, more packed bookcases, she realized that her time had just about come. She’d already “carelessly” left some of the books open atop other shelved books. Kindling. She had everything she needed.
Cole had disappeared and she didn’t sense him anywhere near. It was strange how she just knew. But he was an incredibly powerful werewolf and his presence managed to make itself known. She was positive he wasn’t on the grounds.
All she needed to do was wait for that big blonde werewolf to come in and check on her again, like clockwork….
There he is, she thought, as she pretended to be reading the book in her hands. A tall man with light blonde hair and blue eyes entered the study and leaned against the door jam with his arms crossed over his chest. I wonder if he can smell my fear, she thought frantically. Maybe he’ll just think it’s more of my general fear about this entire messed-up situation. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair as she gazed out the window. She then pretended to hug herself as if in despair. The blonde man’s expression became unreadable but for something solitary that flashed in the depths of his eyes. Then he turned in the doorway. He’s buying it, she told herself. And there he goes.
He was gone. It was now or never. Even with the cameras, it’ll take them a few minutes to get in here. There was only so fast that someone could come running around a corner without slipping and falling.
Lily dropped the book, picked up the first of the full bottles of liquor, and splashed its contents all over the book shelf, making certain to douse the books that were open and the ones laying on the table. Then she emptied another bottle. And then she poured the liquor from the last bottle, making certain to save just enough for her exit.
At once, she could hear the camera up above whirring to life as it went from left to right and zoomed in, zeroing in on her actions. They would be coming any second.
Lily pulled the trigger on the lighter and held it to the pages that stuck out along the shelves and across the table. The books went up like magic, the new, hot flames hungrily devouring its fuel as if they hadn’t eaten books in far too many years.
Lily bolted from the room, taking the lighter and the half-empty b
ottle with her. As she fled, she poured the alcohol onto the rug in the hallway and set the lighter to it.
Then, as she began to hear shouting, she straightened and ran toward the solarium. Behind her, she could hear one of the shelves in the library go up like a roman candle. The atmosphere around her seemed to shift with the heat, both sucking in air and expanding at once.
Her adrenaline kicked up a notch as she sprinted into the solarium and slammed the wooden door shut behind her. Then she ran to one of the wooden stools, carried it to the door, and jammed it up against the door knob. It was probably pointless, as the werewolves would be loathe to cross through a hallway filled with fire anyway. But should any of them get through, the added, simple barrier would confuse them for an extra few seconds.
Already, heat and flame were licking at the door, sending their threatening tendril-like fingers of yellow and red underneath until it, too, was catching on fire.
Lily wasted no time. She ran to the stools again, chose the sturdiest looking one, and then moved around the hot tub to the glass windows of the solarium.
She slammed the stool up against the window for all she was worth.
The wooden stool splintered a little and then bounced off, uselessly landing with a splash in the nearby hot tub. Lily stared at it for a second as the slow, heavy poison of realization washed through her. The windows were bullet-proof. Unbreakable.
And she was trapped.
Chapter Thirteen: Cease Fire
Each of the werewolves were out of their chairs and heading for the exit before the plane even came to a complete stop. Beyond the expanse of wing outside the windows, Daniel could see that there were several waiting motorcycles lined up, along with a single black sedan with dark tinted windows.