“They didn’t tell you,” Adrian said flatly. He shook his head and snorted with disdain. “Of course not. They wouldn’t want you to know, now would they? The Knights don’t believe Lucan can be saved. Why would they do anything to make you want to try to save him? But their tricks didn’t work, did they?” he asked. “You won’t desert Lucan as they have. I know you won’t. You’re here to save him, and I am going to let you, Kresley. Just bring me the ring.”
Confusion slid through Kresley, but she forced herself to shake it off. Adrian was a Demon, a manipulator. She had to be strong enough to remember this. She’d come here to save Lucan. It came down to that and that alone. “I will get you the ring. Now, let Lucan rest.”
Adrian studied her a moment, clearly assessing her commitment. Then, to Kresley’s relief, he waved his hand over Lucan, and Lucan’s body instantly relaxed. He waved his hand again, and Lucan suddenly disappeared, and then reappeared on top of the mattress–orbed from the floor to the bed.
Adrian pushed to his feet and offered her his hand. “There is much to discuss. A huntress must know her prey.” Kresley’s gaze flickered to Lucan, confirming he was still at peace. She had to save him. Had to. And though trusting Adrian would be stupid, she saw no option but to play this his way. Once she had the ring, she wouldn’t hand it over until Lucan was free. Decision made, she slid her hand into Adrian’s and sealed her deal with hell.
***
Cullen Moore, executive and primary stockholder of Moore Industries, stood at the massive expanse of ceiling-to-floor windows of his executive office that overlooked the Manhattan skyline; the lights of New York twinkled in the distance. Success surrounded him, centuries of accumulated wealth, of providing for his Werewolf pack in a world made for humans. But all that was threatened now. Centuries of living outside the Underworld–as unknown Demons except for a few myths–was now threatened. Now the pack, his pack, was about to implode from the inside out. Rebel wolves had begun to hunt humans, and he had yet to stop them.
“We need to deal with this firestarter, Cullen.” The voice came from behind him, from his Head of Security, Nick Nepal. Cullen inhaled and turned the ring on his finger, reassuring himself of its safe place on his hand. “It’s time to hide the ring. Protect it before it’s too late.”
Cullen turned sharply, finding Nick in ready position, with his legs in a v, arms crossed in front of his chest, wearing the suit and short haircut befitting someone in a Moore staff position. “We’ve had this discussion,” he stated sharply, fixing Nick in a hard stare. "The ring stays with me.”
Nick looked as if he might argue, but after centuries with Cullen, he knew how to gage where to push and where to back off. He detoured from the subject of the ring. “The Pack is restless. They want this hunter destroyed. When they hear he now employs a firestarter, that unrest will escalate.”
Cullen’s brow inched upward. “The firestarter who failed to injure even one wolf?”
“That isn’t the point,” Nick countered, not backing down this time. “She was with the Hunter. The pack fears the Hunter.”
“The lone hunter you cannot seem to find one piece of information about? The one doing a better job of destroying our rebels than you seem to be?”
Nick bared his teeth a fraction and quickly covered them, knowing better than to cross Cullen. “He has no rules. You give me many.”
Cullen lashed back. “Rules that have served us well for centuries.”
“I have supported our rules for centuries and done so honorably,” Nick stated. “But these are changing times, Cullen. Obviously, these rules no longer work, or we would not be under rapid attack.”
“Or the rules are compromised by someone on the inside,” Cullen said in a low, lethal voice, repeating something Nick had suggested several times before. “Someone who is with the rebels.”
Nick gave a sharp incline of his head. “Which is why you must take steps to protect your reign as Leader,” he said, not daring to bring up the ring again, but they both knew it was what he referred to.
Unease curled in Cullen’s stomach. He trusted Nick, and smelled nothing of lies in the air. Yet lately, Nick had been pressing this issue of hiding the ring, and it did not sit well. Something . . . a disturbing thought came to Cullen, a theory he put to the test.
“What I need,” Cullen said, intentionally aiming to cause Nick discomfort, "is a Head of Security who can actually get results.” He firmed his voice further. “Find out who is leading these rebels and destroy them, or I will find someone who will.”
Nick paled, taken off guard by Cullen’s attack. “You don’t mean that.”
Cullen’s nostrils flared, seeking the scent of unease in Nick that did not come. Where was the scent? A cold feeling swept through Cullen’s body. Surely, Nick, who had been with him since before their retreat from the Underworld, would not betray him. “I believe you’ve known me long enough to know, I say nothing I don’t mean. Deal with the rebels and deal with them now.”
Nick glared at Cullen, his chest rising and falling, his jaw tight.“It will be handled,” he stated. Still, no scent.
“It better,” Cullen said coldly and turned, giving Nick his back, telling him without words that this conversation was over. He had a meeting to attend, a secret roundtable meeting with leaders of the few peaceful Demon communities on earth. It seemed Cullen had more than his own rebels to deal with. Word had it that Adrian, the Leader of the Darkland Beasts, no longer wanted to destroy humanity. He wanted to take it over, and that meant killing off anyone who he perceived would stand in his way – and the Werewolves ranked high on that list.
Cullen's life on earth was becoming more and more like life in hell.
Chapter Three
Kresley. Horrible images of her with another man filled Lucan’s fitful sleep. He struggled to see the man’s face, but he could not. But he saw the ring the man wore, and the ring's black stone glittered in his mind as if it were taunting him. Telling of danger preying upon her.
Abruptly, Lucan jerked awake and shoved his body upward on the bed, sitting back against the headboard. Sweat gathered on his upper lip, on his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut as the intimate images of Kresley with another man, with a Werewolf, threatened to attack his mind again.
The storyboard of wolves killing humans played nightly in his sleep, nightmares he’d seen become reality. Nightmares that drove him to hunt them down, to destroy them. After what he’d seen, he didn't care why the Guardians wanted him to hate the wolves, why they wanted them dead.
A flash of Kresley with the Wolf set him seething, and Lucan scraped his palm against his jaw in frustration at his captivity, his inability to act. Lucan cursed, the stubble on his jaw proof of lost days, days Kresley had been on her own, in danger. Lost days during which this Wolf in his dreams could have been finding his way to Kresley’s side. She was young, innocent. Alone. She needed protection. He inhaled a painful breath. Protection he’d failed to deliver. Protection he owed her now.
Lucan flicked a look toward the warped nightstand where the clock sat, stamped with time and date. October 8th. His mind raced, ticking off the days. It had been five days since he’d seen Kresley in that alley. Five days that could have delivered her into danger at this stranger’s hands. He had to find her; he had to find her now.
His wrists tingled and warmed a moment before two silver-bodied snakes slithered off his arms and to the foot of his bed. At two-feet long, and four-inches thick, they curled into full-size serpents, beady eyes pinning him in a trance as they hissed through huge fangs. Another moment passed, and they changed yet again, growing, shifting, taking the form of two beautiful, dark-haired females, dressed in silver bodysuits – twin deadly beauties. They were Lithe and Litha – the Guardians of hell’s serpent pit – his captors.
Cloudy memories came back to him. Kresley had been here. Adrian had been with her. “Where is she?” he asked, suspicious that he was now allowed a clear enough mind to remember any of what
had happened. They wanted something from him. The Guardians always had an agenda.
The twins joined hands, the joining of their flesh a conductor of magic. “She is near this place and she is well,” Lithe said.
“For now,” Litha added. “She has made a dangerous bargain–the ring the Werewolf leader wears in exchange for your freedom.”
“What bargain? What ring?” He began to recall remotely some of the conversation between Kresley and Adrian. He squeezed his eyes shut. “No. God no, Kresley.”
“You fear she will die trying to free you,” the twins asked in unison.
He hated the way they read his thoughts. “Let me go to her. Let me help her obtain the ring.”
“The ring will destroy you if you touch it. It will burn you alive. Even a great Knight of White cannot endure the fires of hell. But Kresley is born of an Angelic bloodline, as are all the Knights' mates. Her fire is from the heavens. She will get the ring.”
“Please,” Lucan said, thinking of how much he had sacrificed to ensure her safety, to find her in peril again.“I will do anything. Just let me go to her.”
The twins' eyes darkened to a deeper silver. “You will go to her, but you will not interfere,” Lithe said.
“You will wait until she removes the ring from the Wolf, and then you will kill the Wolf leader,” Litha added.
Then together they spoke, “Only then will Kresley be free.”
His heart missed a beat. “What does that mean? Only then she will be free?”
Evil smiles slid onto their faces. “Kresley touched one of your bracelets. She touchéd us. Once again, she is ours.”
Lucan felt as if his heart was going to explode but his body was stiff, incapable of moving. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t reality. It was one of his nightmares. Let it be one of his nightmares.
“Don’t worry Lucan,” Lithe purred. “The mark is temporary. It will fade if we allow it to.”
Litha added, as if her words would actually comfort him, “And it’s invisible, so Kresley doesn’t know she's been marked again.”
“It’s our little secret,” the girls whispered together.
“We will bargain for your mate,” Litha said. “She goes free if the Wolf leader is dead by the next full moon.”
Then together, “Otherwise, she is ours again forever.”
Forever. The word echoed in his head and turned into his own scream. No. No. No! That one word formed in his head as fury did in his body. Images he’d long ago suppressed flashed in his mind– his father running from a Beast, his sister bleeding in his arms. Kresley wasn’t supposed to end up like them. He’d taken no chances. Made sure she was safe. More images of blood, of failure, the taste of his family's fear in the air. Rage ripped through him and he forgot his limitations, forgot his inability to attack the Guardians. He shoved off the headboard and lunged toward them. Threw himself forward and reached the closest of the two twins. Instantly, pain cut through his mind and stilled his actions. Lucan grabbed his head.
The twins were beside him now, their bodies pressed to his sides, disgustingly intimate. Their lips pressed to his ears. “The Wolf will try and seduce her. Already he has met her. She is working for him, his personal assistant. Already he lusts for her. You will want to kill him.” More images of the Wolf making love to Kresley flashed in his mind, twisting him in knots no matter how fictional he knew them to be. “The Wolf’s life for Kresley’s.”
A moment later they were gone, as was the pain in his head. He fell to his hands on the mattress, inhaled, blinked.
There was no time to recover, no time to allow his body to heal. He shoved off the bed, weak from days of lost nourishment and nightmares, with a vow repeating in his mind: He would not be played for a fool again. The twins had turned the tables, changed the stakes, shown their hand; they wanted something – they wanted that ring. And he had every intention of figuring out how to use it against them.
But above all, he had to find Kresley – find her before the wolves killed her as they had done to so many before her.
***
Five days had passed since she’d made her deal with the devil, since Kresley had agreed to trade the ring for Lucan’s freedom. Five days of emotional turmoil, of worry, of wishing she could go to Lucan and ensure his safety, but knowing she didn’t dare. Knowing Lucan would try to protect her if he knew where she was, what she was doing. And right now, he couldn’t even protect himself.
The fact that Cullen Moore, the Demon leader of the Werewolf Pack, wore the ring, had been a blow–a mountain that seemed impossible to climb. How would she get to him? To the ring? But she’d calmed down when a lead from Adrian had allowed her to maneuver close to Cullen, landing a temp job inside his executive office.
And now, on her third day at work, Kresley sat behind a mahogany desk as the assistant to Cullen’s secretary – right smack in the center of the Werewolf Pack headquarters. To the rest of the world, of course, it was a mega-powerful holding company with a number of successful businesses attached.
It was an intense, fast-paced environment with high standards for hiring. An environment she should be prepared for. Years of operating as her doctor’s personal assistant had given Kresley a polished resume and excellent office skills. But the prickly personality of Cullen’s sixty-something assistant, Sheila Davenport, had been hard to overcome.
“Did you finish that report?” Sheila demanded, peering across her desk, which faced Kresley’s and sat just outside Cullen’s office. How was Kresley ever going to evade this woman’s eagle eye to get near Cullen? Sheila's look was expectant, demanding. “Mr. Moore will be here shortly, and he will need that report.”
“Almost complete,” Kresley responded, grinding her teeth as she managed a pleasant voice. The ten-page PowerPoint presentation, a good two hours of work, had only been given to her an hour before. “Another fifteen minutes at the most.”
As if she’d willed him into existence, the elevator dinged, the room crackled with electricity, and Kresley knew that Cullen would emerge into the lobby. Though she’d actually seen him only a few times, there was no mistaking this man – or rather Wolf. Tall and dark, he wore his tailored, black suit with a lethal air of authority. Cullen Moore was an adversary she didn’t willingly oppose. Nevertheless, she had no option–he wore the key to freeing Lucan, the ring.
He walked through the lobby and past the desks, never giving Kresley the time of day, pausing at his door to flick Sheila a look. “I need that report.” Nothing more. He disappeared inside his office.
Sheila’s dark gray brow lifted in accusation, and she waved Kresley forward. “You get to tell him it’s not done. I have to deal with the arrangements for tomorrow’s board meeting.” She pushed to her feet and stormed away, leaving Kresley gawking after her.
Kresley pressed her fist to her chest, willing her racing heart to calm, telling herself this was the opportunity she’d been waiting for, a chance to enter Cullen’s inner circle, his world. A chance to figure out the best time and place to snag that ring without having a pack of wolves on top of her. Of course, at this moment, it would be nice if that report were actually done.
She pushed to her feet, drew a calming breath that did nothing to calm her at all. In the back of her mind, she replayed the worry she’d had for days – who had seen her in that alley that first night? What wolf might know her, might place her? But it was too late for those concerns. She was here. She was determined to make this work, to free Lucan. She wobbled around the desk, her black patent-leather heels and fitted, black suit dress reminding her that she wasn’t exactly dressed for a fast escape.
Kresley knocked on his door and heard the murmured "enter." She didn’t give herself time to think about it, striding into Cullen’s office, and leaving the door open. Immediately, her gaze swept the oval corner suite that smelled of fine leather and expensive wood. The walls were lined with antique books and decorated with pieces of history– statues, pictures, and artifacts. A room that w
ould have been intriguing if not for the man, or rather Wolf, who stood with his back to her, looking out upon the night sky through ceiling-to-floor windows. He captured the room, stifled it with a thick tension that suffocated, stealing her breath. So much so, she thought about backing out. Reminded herself why that wasn’t an option – why she had to get to know the Wolf leader, not run from him.
Delicately, she cleared her throat, “Mr. Moore?”
He whirled around, lifted a dark brow, his amber eyes fixed heavily on her face, scrutinizing, probing her with the exactness of a surgeon holding a knife. His nostrils flared with an inhaled breath, and she somehow knew he sensed her fear – no, he could smell her fear. Slowly, his expression softened, as if she had passed some test, or perhaps, her fear simply pleased him.
“Cullen,” he offered. “Call me, Cullen. It’s Kresley, correct?”
“Yes,” she said, feeling like a mouse playing with a cat. As if she had been led into an invisible trap she had yet to discover. “I . . .the report you requested. It’s not quite complete. Honestly, I need another hour. It was about two hours of work, and I only received it a short time ago.”
He scrubbed his face, where a light stubble darkened his jaw; the ring on his hand drew her gaze. His fingers ran along his jaw, almost as if he taunted her with the ring’s presence. She’d seen it before, but never so close. Black Opal, beautiful etched, brilliantly reflecting the tiniest glimpse of light. How could anything that amazing be from hell? She tried not to stare, tried to look away, but it was that ring that she’d come for, that ring that would free Lucan.
Cullen’s hand dropped from his jaw, and Kresley forced herself to keep her gaze level with his when her eyes wanted to follow that stone. “I’ve just been given some new, rather displeasing, numbers to insert in one of the spreadsheets, anyway,” he commented grimly. With agile steps he moved toward his desk, walking behind the massive antique frame of the wooden and brass structure and claiming a folder. “I’ll need you to print out the general outline so I can see the overview and approve it. Then we’ll need these numbers added and not just the ones I have for you now. Several other operational areas are late reporting. Those will need to be worked in before we leave this evening.” He glanced up at her. “You are okay with a late night, correct?”