The transportation had been James Valentine’s doing. The Guardian made the call before they left the landing strip outside of Baton Rouge. Apparently, the man was a powerful werewolf to have on your side. He’d made good investments in his time and had amassed his own none-too-small fortune. Plus, lest Daniel forget this extra important fact, James Valentine was an alpha. He had his own pack and they were as eager to do his bidding as Kane’s was for him.
Why Valentine was working for Malcolm Cole was beyond Daniel, but he was sure he’d come to find out in due time.
For now, Daniel was almost grateful that he’d made the man Lily’s Guardian. As such, he was possibly an even more powerful alpha male than Daniel. And he would have nothing but Lily’s best interest in mind. Which meant he would do anything and everything to keep her safe. At the moment, he and Daniel were on the same page, and that was saying something.
William Kane unlatched the exit door and kicked down the stairs. The werewolves exited the plane and strode toward the waiting motorcycles. They had all agreed that this was the best mode of transportation for getting somewhere remote as quickly as possible.
There were eight of them. “Tabitha, you remember how to ride?” Daniel asked his little sister as he chose one of the bikes for himself and gave it a quick once-over. Obviously, Valentine had planned on allowing Tabitha to ride on her own. The older alpha had more faith in her than Daniel did.
“Shame on you, Danny,” Tabitha admonished softly as she moved toward one of the bikes and mounted up. “You scum-sucking chauvinist,” she added lightly, throwing him a nasty smile as she turned the key in the ignition and the bike roared to life.
He bit his cheek and then sighed through his nose as he swung his leg over his motorcycle and put the key in the ignition. He didn’t fail to see the rather proud and amused look James Valentine gave to Tabitha before the Guardian too mounted his own matte black bike and started it up.
Valentine twisted the throttle to hear it roar just before Daniel gave the order to the rest of his pack. “Mount up, men!”
A few seconds later, the smell of jet engine fuel and motorcycle exhaust permeated the air.
But there was also something else….
Daniel stilled atop his bike and straightened, cocking his head to one side and closing his eyes. He drew in a slow, deep breath. His eyes flew open and he turned in the saddle to see Valentine’s mercury gaze glowing eerily in the twilight darkness.
“Not again,” the Guardian whispered. Daniel could hear him even over the roars of the engines.
“Prepare for a fire, men!” Daniel yelled over his shoulder and over the din of the bikes. He then kicked his bike into gear, twisted the throttle, let off the break, and tore out of the lot. Major Jordan Stark was right behind him. Next went Detective Aiden Knight. Lieutenant Michael Angel and Tabitha roared easily after them, nearly side by side. Valentine pulled his bike out after Tabitha’s and Jonathan and William Kane brought up the rear.
Each and every werewolf on the New Mexico blacktop could smell the ash on the wind now. And everyone of them was filled with a sinking foreboding. Their speed was reckless and desperate. They ruthlessly carved the streets, scraping foot pegs so hard and fast that sparks shot out beside them, lighting up the coming night like fireworks.
The smell of fire drew nearer and a red glow began to light up the horizon. Daniel gave the engine more gas, his bike shooting forward with renewed desperation. The others followed suit.
The air grew positively hot. A roar nearly as loud as that of their engines filled the night sky. Finally, smoke cascaded so thick across the paved road that the gang had no choice but to pull over. Daniel and Valentine were the first to be off of their bikes and flashing into wolf form.
Daniel let the other wolf lead. Valentine knew the lay of the land; he knew where Cole’s territory began, and he knew where Lily was being held. The fact that he led Daniel headlong into the most intense heat of the fire made Daniel’s heart sink.
She’s in this, he thought to himself. She’s somewhere in this hellish inferno.
Lily….
As his paws pounded out the earth beneath him, smoke shoved its sticky fists down his throat and tried to throttle his lungs, but he was a werewolf, and such things didn’t work on their kind. Lily would not be so lucky.
James picked up speed ahead of him, as if driven by a demon. Daniel was hot on his heels, but he had to trust the other alpha to clear the path, as the smoke and the blur of their movement turned their head-long dash through the woods into a smudged distortion of color, smells, and sound.
The roar was louder now, becoming deafening. Daniel’s left front paw began to ache. He wondered whether he’d stepped on something – a thorn or a shattered piece of glass. The ache grew steadily until its sharp, hard pain distracted him enough that he pulled back, flashing into his human form so that he could peer down at it.
The thin blue line across his palm was glowing angrily in the darkness. Daniel’s heart beat hard in his chest. He called out to Valentine, but the other wolf was already out of the range of both sight and sound.
Daniel could go no further. He knew that now. He’d drawn up flush with the edges of Cole’s territory. And Lily was inside of it. From the way his hand was hurting, from the way his knees gave out beneath him and his guts twisted and wrenched inside of him, he was positive that she was dying.
He was only vaguely aware of his men passing him by as they crashed through the underbrush on their rush into Cole’s territory. They were hot on Valentine’s trail. It wasn’t until Jonathan Kane stopped to stand beside him and place a hand on his shoulder that Daniel was able to rip his gaze away from the glowing blue mark on his hand.
“It means she’s alive, grandson.” Jonathan gave Daniel’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “The boys will get her out.”
A red flame burned as freely at the center of Daniel’s eyes now as it did through Malcolm Cole’s territory. Daniel prayed that his grandfather was right. Because if he wasn’t, he was going to have to kill himself.
* * * *
Lily could feel the water heating up around her. The door to the solarium had gone up in flames an eternity ago. Along the wall, bottle after bottle of liquor exploded with a pop and a shattering sound that she could barely hear over the roar of the fire that licked its way along the walls and searched for flammable material to help its hellish subjugation.
She wasn’t sure how much more smoke she could inhale. Her lungs burned and felt as if they were being slowly painted with tar from the inside. Her eyes hurt too much to open. Her heart was beating a rapid-fire hopelessness against a rib cage that felt as if it had been wrapped in plaster of Paris.
On the one hand, she had the fleeting realization that she had at least been successful on one account. No werewolf had attempted to brave the fire in order to come through the door into the solarium. She wondered if they’d made it out of the house. Or if they were dead.
She wondered where Malcolm Cole was. She had a feeling that he was not in the house. She couldn’t sense his presence at all.
She coughed violently and sank lower in the water. Maybe he got zapped out of here…. The thought went flitting through her brain like a tiny, mad butterfly. That Roma curse thing…. That’s why I can’t feel him.
She coughed again and then inhaled – and then coughed again, as if she had dry heaves in her lungs. There was no oxygen left to inhale. She slid further down. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself sitting at her desk in history class in her sophomore year. The coach was the history teacher. He was telling them about Vietnam in that authoritative manner that he used to pretend he’d been there himself. Then he was making them watch Platoon. She couldn’t watch. She wanted to cry but didn’t want her peers to see. She excused herself as he smirked knowingly, and watched her leave. She paced quickly to the girl’s bathroom with its metal mirror, cigarette butts, and missing stall doors. There, she turned on the tap and splashed cold water over her fac
e. She accidentally inhaled some.
She sprang up, coughing violently yet again, realizing that she’d fallen asleep in the hot tub. No… not sleeping…
She once more slid down into its watery depths.
Dying…
*****
Malcolm Cole flashed back onto his property and into the exact location from which he’d disappeared an hour earlier. At once, he was accosted with the scents and sounds of infernal chaos.
Fire.
Its stench was heavy in the thickening, ash-filled air of the wine cellar. Though there were no flames in this below-ground cavern as of yet, Cole could tell that it had all but claimed the rest of his mansion above.
Glass shattered, exploding like melted sand bombs. The floor boards creaked and groaned. Support beams crashed to the ground, slicing through ashen walls as they fell. Any human or animal sound that might have been made above would be drowned out in the crackling, howling bellow of the fire.
The roar was deafening, droning in Cole’s ears as he took the steps out of the cellar two at a time, only to come to a stop at the heavy, banded door that led to the storeroom and then the kitchen beyond. It was hot. Havoc played just beyond it.
There would be no escape this way.
Lily….
With that thought, he spun on his heel and blurred in the opposite direction toward the wall. There, he shoved an entire shelf filled with wine away from the wall so that it slid violently forward and then toppled, crashing to the ground in a grand display of merlot and amber. Malcolm gazed into the dusty passageway that had been revealed beyond it. He’d had it dug out long ago. Just in case. It led to an old mine shaft on his land; one that had been barred up against intruders years ago.
He wasted no time, already in stride as he flashed into his wolf form and plunged head-long into the much cooler darkness of the tunnel, using his senses to guide his way.
*****
Through the echo-like muffling effect of the water in her ears, Lily could hear the faint sound of breaking glass. Again.
Another bottle of Everclear, she thought. It was a weak thought, like a wisp of smoke when someone snuffed a candle.
And then, as two strong arms pulled her from the depths of the hot tub and carried her swiftly through the broken window and into the clean air beyond, she found herself back in the girl’s bathroom of her high school. A man stood in the doorway, leaning against the door jam, his arms crossed over his broad chest. He was tall and handsome and had jade green eyes.
“It’s easy for people to die, Lily,” he said. His British accent wrapped around her like a warm blanket. And then it was a blanket, thick and black. She shivered violently into it, suddenly feeling the need to cough. He continued to stand there, watching her as she coughed and coughed until she was bent over from the effort. Pain shot through her chest. It rose to her head, where it throbbed from the base of her neck to some point behind her eyes. Nausea roiled in her belly.
She dropped to her knees, almost letting go of the blanket. But, for some reason, she felt the need to hang on. So, she did. She clung to it like a vice and pulled it tighter around herself as her body wracked with seizures of pain.
The man came forward and knelt before her so that they were on eye level. “That a girl.” His green eyes glittered. He smiled a poignant and proud smile. “Maybe it’s not so easy after all, eh luv? Not for everyone.”
He reached out and brushed a lock of her gold hair from her face. She blinked, wondering distractedly why her arm didn’t hurt when he touched her.
“You’re a fighter, Lily. I’ll give you that.”
He leaned forward then and she closed her eyes as he gently pressed his lips to her forehead. The tender deed seemed so unsuited for this man, with his green eyes and beautiful voice. Yet, she felt that it was more suited to him than perhaps anything he had done in a very long time.
When she opened her eyes again, it was to watch as he stood once more and moved away from her. When he reached the doorway of the bathroom, he turned and their gazes met.
“Good bye, luv,” he told her in his perfect British accent. “Give him hell for me.”
Lily watched him round the corner and disappear. She leaned forward then, placing her arms on the floor in front of her. Her forehead dropped to the backs of her hands.
When the tears came this time, she didn’t choke on them.
*****
James Valentine knew the moment that Daniel Kane was no longer able to follow him into Cole’s territory. The other alpha had flashed back into human form and staggered to a halt as Valentine had continued to rush forward into the murky, smoky madness. James had gone another hundred yards before skidding to a halt, a new scent whipping at him in the wind.
Cole. And…. Chlorine?
James pricked his ears, listening for something he knew he would never catch. It was pointless; the fire was too loud.
He sniffed the air again. Yes, chlorine. He turned toward the scent, carefully following it as it wafted in and out, there one second, gone the next. His pace sped up as he locked on. Beside him, Kane’s men watched him, running at his side, their wolfen expressions questioning. He ignored them, concentrating hard.
Ten yards. Thirty. Seventy.
The scent grew stronger. Water. Chlorine. Lily! The hint of lavender, of cinnamon, and soap and Dormancy.
And with her scent was Cole’s, as heavy and powerful as the man, himself.
Kane’s pack stopped in their tracks as James Valentine entered the clearing. He stood still for a moment, taking in the scene before him with molten silver wolf eyes.
The green-eyed man turned to face him.
“Ah, Valentine.” Malcolm Cole nodded to himself, as if everything made perfect sense. At his feet lay an unconscious and drenched Lily St.Claire, her small form curled on its side, a damp patch of earth beneath her lips.
James could see and smell Cole’s wolf pack, roaming in the shadows of the adjoining forest, watching their leader. They were waiting for the slightest hint from Cole that they should attack.
There was mockery in Cole’s tone, to be sure. Valentine could tell that Cole was not at all surprised to find that James had turned on him. But there was something else in his tone as well, something that skirted the edges of capitulation. It was also there in his expression. “I can sense that you’ve been made her Guardian,” Cole said. He smiled then. It was mirthless, as always. “I can’t say I blame you, Valentine. What would any of us do for the chance to feel whole again?”
James flashed back into his human form and strode across the clearing until he stood a few feet from the man who had kidnapped and threatened Kane’s marked mate.
“Where will you go, Cole?” James asked.
Malcolm blinked. And then he nodded, once. “Nothing escapes you, does it?”
Valentine was old enough to know that Cole was surrendering. Perhaps not the war, but the battle, at least. He knew that Cole would take his pack and disappear. He was very good at that.
Cole looked down at Lily’s sleeping form and his gaze softened. “She was willing to die to escape me,” he said. He knelt beside her and James knelt with him, ever watchful.
It didn’t faze Cole. With a shaking hand, he gently brushed a damp lock from her cheek. “She isn’t meant to be mine.” Cole bent over her and James allowed him this small token, this scrap of a goodbye, as Cole placed a tender kiss to Lily’s forehead.
Then Cole pulled away and stood once more. His gaze flitted to the edge of the clearing, where wolves moved through the trees. Some of them were his, watching and waiting for their alpha to engage in battle so that they could follow suit. Others were Kane’s. They, too, were waiting. To see what Valentine did – or maybe Lily.
The fire was spreading. Embers of red danger floated on the wind around them. Soon, it would cross the garden and touch the shed that housed the propane tank. There would be no hope for anyone in this vicinity if they were still here when that happened.
&nb
sp; “You need to get Kane and his people out of here,” Cole told Valentine.
Valentine gazed up at the man who had been long thought of as responsible for countless grizzly murders – the man who had been a Nazi soldier. He knew that none of those things were true. Malcolm Cole was a very smart, very dangerous and stunningly powerful alpha werewolf. But he wasn’t a bad man.
James nodded. He understood. There would be no great battle this night.
Cole stepped back, flashed into wolf form, and dashed into the forest with blurring speed. In a few short seconds, Valentine could no longer hear or smell Cole or his men.
They were gone.
Beside James, Lily stirred. She coughed in her smoke-clogged slumber. He bent and lifted her into his arms then strode quickly to the edge of the clearing and the wolves that waited there.
Chapter Fourteen: The 4-1-1
Lily awoke gradually, the sound coming first. Deep voices conversing, but muted. Traffic at a distance. She felt a little cold, but a warm beam touched her cheek, as if to stay the chill. She could smell the detergent in the blankets that were wrapped around her.
And then she smelled him. He was leather, the faintest hint of cologne or body spray, and wind. Yes, wind has a smell, she thought, as the corners of her mouth turned up in a slow smile.
She opened her eyes. They burned a little, but the blurriness subsided after a few seconds and she took in her surroundings.
She was in Tabitha’s house, in the guest room that she had used when she’d first come back to Baton Rouge and had been looking for a place to live. There were flowers everywhere, artfully arranged, all with get-well notes attached. She could hear Tabitha’s voice in the other room. She was talking to someone who spoke in a voice that was somehow familiar to Lily, but she couldn’t place it.
Lily’s gaze skirted the room to fall on its only other inhabitant. Daniel Kane lay reclined in a large chair several feet from the bed and against the wall. His eyes were closed. His inhumanly perfect features were darkened with a five o’clock shadow. As always, he was dressed in black, his badge attached to the waistband of his jeans. Even in sleep, his presence ate up the space around him without forgiveness. His breathing was deep and slow, his broad chest rising and falling in easy slumber.