Cross the Line: A Gabriella Cross Paranormal Romance Book 2 (5 page)

Gabby pulled the e-brake at twenty miles an hour and held on as the car came to an angry stop. She shot out of the car as fast as she could and ran over to the driver side. The gun was in her hand, though she didn’t remember bringing it with her. Her eyes were locked on the road behind them.

To her horror, she heard screeching tires and saw a car crest the hill and erratically veer to the right.

“Quip, Quip move!” Gabby cried, unbuckling him and pulling him out of the car. She dragged him from the car with strength that she shouldn’t have been able to muster and pulled him around the other side.

The headlights were coming straight at them. Rumble strips thrummed as the SUV barreled down the side of the road. Gabby changed her momentum and hurriedly shoved Quip toward the guardrail.

The SUV came on, engine screaming.

Gabby raised her gun and unloaded it into the windshield. To her utter surprise and shock, the SUV exploded and burst into flames thirty yards away.

She dove behind the Z28 and watched, amazed as a small helicopter flew overhead. Peering over the hood, Gabby saw that the SUV had come to a stop, burning against the railing.

The helicopter turned sharply as it flew out over the gully and came back to hover overhead, spreading dust and the black smoke from the burning SUV. Four men in black combat gear and face masks dropped from zip lines and landed around and on top of the Z28.

“Miss Cross, come with us,” said the closest.

“I’m not leaving Quip.”

“We’ve got him. Come on.”

Both Gabby and Quip were taken up by the strong werewolves. The one carrying Gabby gave the go-ahead to the chopper, and it began to rise into the sky. The strong ropes holding them were quickly pulled back to the chopper where more men were waiting to pull them in.

To Gabby’s surprise, Michael turned from the cockpit.

“You all right?” he asked over the loud propellers.

Gabby was shocked to see him. She felt embarrassed and relieved all at the same time. “I’m ok. It’s Quip. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“How is he?” Michael asked one of the men bandaging her friend.

“Stable. We’ve stopped the bleeding.”

“He’ll be alright. They’ll take care of him at the Tower,” said Michael with a reassuring smile before turning back to his controls.

Michael flew them to Steele Tower, where a medical team was waiting. They whisked Quip away as Michael led Gabby from the chopper. She hadn’t been up on the roof since the night that she and Victor had led an attack those many months ago, and that old guilt reared its ugly head once again.

“I want to stay with him,” said Gabby over the slowing rotors.

“It’s best that you stay away. Many of our healers use spells and potions in their work.”

“I get it,” said Gabby, somewhat haughtily. “You don’t need me nullifying their work.”

“Every power has its downside,” said Michael. “Come on. I’ll bring you down to the garage. An escort will bring you home.”

They got in the elevator and Michael hit the button for the ground floor. Gabby was intoxicated by the closeness. The night had been so hectic, now all she wanted to do was fall apart in his arms. She remembered the way their bodies had moved together on the dance floor, his firm form pressed against hers…

“Do you want to talk about what happened earlier tonight?” said Michael, glancing over at her.

“I, uh…” Gabby stammered, thinking of Valentine. “Not really?”

“Not really? This makes it twice in one night that you were attacked by vamps. They’re only going to come on stronger.”

“Oh…that. Right. I should have mentioned it. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” he said, squaring on her. “Jesus Christ, Gabby, that wouldn’t have happened earlier if you hadn’t shaken my guys trailing you. They’re there for a reason, you know.”

Gabby already felt like shit about Quip getting hurt because of her, and Michael’s fatherly demeanor grated her nerves. She glowered at him, but he didn’t relent.

“These vamps are no joke. Until this all blows over, I want you to keep your head down and let my men do their jobs.”

“How about you let me do
my
job, and we go after these blood-sucking assholes. You said it yourself, they’ll just come on harder. Well, let’s hit back.”

“They’ll be taken care of,” said Michael, averting his eyes from her demanding gaze.

“They’ll be taken care of.” Gabby scoffed. “By who, you? You’re not my goddamned guardian, you know.”

“Gabby, you’re not ready.”

She felt like she had been slapped in the face. “If memory serves, I was the one who saved your ass from Victor.”

“Gabby—”

“You can’t protect me from what’s out there, just like you couldn’t protect Maggy or my mother!”

Michael frowned, and his eyes dropped. Gabby knew she was going too far, but she didn’t care.

“I loved your mother,” he said in a near whisper. “And I loved your sister.” He took her hands in his and stared at her with searching eyes.

Gabby stood frozen in his gaze, hoping that he would say what she wanted to hear.

“And I…” he began, looking to have found his courage. But then he let out a sigh. “I tried my best to protect them.”

Gabby was deflated. His grip slowly loosened, and his hands dropped, leaving Gabby feeling empty and alone. “Stop acting like my big brother,” she said, moving closer and demanding his attention.

“Gabby—”

She kissed him before he could get out another word. He resisted for a brief moment, but then he let out a soft groan and wrapped his arms around her. The kiss became frantic as their searching hands found what they had coveted for so long in secret. Michael lifted her onto him with strong hands. She straddled him, wrapping her legs around his hips. One of his strong hands held her ass, and the other cradled the back of her neck as he turned and pressed her up against the cabin wall. The soft warmth of his lips and his darting tongue sent her over the edge. She cradled his head with one arm, and with her other hand reached into his jeans and squeezed him, delighting in his girth. He groaned like a beast and tore the top of her dress down. His mouth found her breast and she pulled on him harder, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside of her.

The elevator suddenly stopped and dinged, and the door began to open.

Gabby gasped and instinctively jerked her head toward the door even as Michael reached over and hit the button to close it, but not before they both saw Juliette standing on the other side. She cocked an eyebrow and stared at them as the door slowly closed.

Michael put her down and fumbled with his zipper as she fixed her dress. The spell that had overtaken them both had suddenly burst, leaving in its wake an awkward silence that neither seemed to know how to break.

The door opened once again, and Juliette was still standing there with the same judgmental look on her face. She reminded Gabby of one of her teachers, and she felt like she had been caught making out under the bleachers. “Good evening, Gabby,” Juliette said evenly. She glanced at her brother, clearly unamused.

“Hi,” said Gabby, hurrying past her.

“Gabby,” said Michael.

She turned around and met his eyes, wishing that he would come with her, wishing that they could finish what they had started.

His gaze told her that he felt the same, but he glanced over at Juliette and said only, “I’ll let you know when Quip is out of surgery.”

“Thanks,” she said, and walked to the waiting car.

Gabby was driven home by her new team of werewolf bodyguards. Four of them sat in the back of the armored truck, and Gabby sat up front with the new guy in charge of her detail. He was a big Native American, at least six-three, and dressed all in black like the rest of them. He talked about as much as a mannequin, to Gabby’s annoyance, and didn’t even bother putting on the radio.

She wanted conversation, needed it to distract her from her worries for Quip.

“So you’re the new guy, huh?”

He sat there expressionless, eyes forward. “Yup,” he said in a deep, flat voice.

“What happened to the other guys? Did I get them fired by getting away?”

“Yup.”

“Has the entire team been replaced?” said Gabby, suddenly feeling bad.

He took longer to speak this time, and once again let out a droning, “Yup.”

“Can you say anything besides ‘yup’?”

The guard glanced over at her with expressionless dark eyes set above high cheek bones, and then returned his eyes to the rode.

Gabby sighed. “How long you been working for Michael?”

“Years.”

“Are all of you guys werewolves? I mean all his security?”

He nodded, only giving a deep, “Mmm hmm.”

“Doesn’t being a werewolf stuck in the city kind of suck?”

He didn’t answer.

Gabby wanted to wave her hands in his face and scream “hello!” Instead she resigned herself to staring out the side window at the passing apartments.

He gave a half annoyed, half resigned sigh and finally spoke more than one word. “Mr. Steele does a lot of work outside the city. We get to hunt in some of the most exotic forests in the world. One full moon in the Amazon makes up for months stuck in Chicago.”

Gabby imagined Michael and his pack of weres chasing down game in one of his nature preserves and shivered, reminding herself of the nature of such…people.

“What’s your name?” Gabby asked, hoping to keep him talking.

“Bob.”

That made Gabby smile. “Bob the werewolf,” she said, unable to help a little chuckle.

Bob glanced over at her as though he had never considered it humorous. “Bob the Mohawk werewolf,” he said in his deep, steady voice.

She cleared her throat and offered him a smile. “I like that name. It’s a palindrome, you know. A word that can be spelled—”

“I know what a palindrome is,” said Bob patiently.

“I’m sorry if I’m being a Chatty Cathy, I’m just nervous about my friend.”

She put the hook and line out there, but he didn’t bite, just stared at the road ahead.

“He got shot when we were attacked by vampires on the freeway earlier tonight.”

Still nothing.

“Have you ever killed a vampire?” she asked.

“Every chance I get,” he said, and then turned onto the freeway heading south toward her town.

“I’ve killed…” Gabby mentally counted them. “Four vampires.”

He showed no sign that he was impressed by this number.

“Have you ever regretted killing one?” Gabby asked, suddenly thinking of Victor. “I mean…do you think that there can be some good in there? Can they all really be monsters?”

He looked at her like he smelled something bad. “They
feed
off humans, and they enslave people with their blood.”

Ah, that’s what’s going on here,
Gabby thought.
He thinks I’m a vamp juice addict.

You mean he
knows
you are,
said another part of her mind.

She ignored the allusion and stared out the window. Her eyes suddenly became hot with tears as her mind raced miserably. She didn’t know why, but Victor’s death was weighing heavily on her conscience. Her mother had seen something in him and had tried to help him fight his primal vampire urges. For a time, Gabby liked to think that it had worked.

He had said that he loved her mother. He had said that he loved Gabby as well.

She felt a knot tighten in her throat and fought to not make a sound that would cue Bob in to her misery.

You’re an idiot, Gabby. He never loved you, there was nothing human in him to save.

She told herself this and many things, and wondered why she was digging up these old bones and lamenting for a monster who had taken her mother and her sister from her.

The thought of Maggy sent her over the top and she broke down in quiet sobs.

Bob shifted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat and feigned attention to the road and traffic ahead. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything. Gabby didn’t want to talk anymore, she just wanted her bed. She knew in the back of her mind that she only felt the way she did because of the vampire blood, but that realization only led her to thoughts of how weak she was for continuing to crave it.

They pulled into her driveway and Gabby hurriedly opened the door and lurched out.

“If you need anything, I’m a stone’s throw away,” said Bob from the cab.

By the discomfort in his voice, she knew that it had been hard for him to form the words, and she was grateful for his effort.

“Thank you, Bob.”

As soon as she was inside, she pressed her back against the door and slid down to the floor. She was shaking, and tears were flowing like a river in springtime. Every muscle in her body suddenly ached, her head throbbed, and her stomach began to turn as though she were seasick.

She had felt this way after the attack on Steele Tower, when she had been locked in a room waiting to see if Michael would survive. Memories of the fight played out even as she fled from them. She sang a song loudly in her mind, but the thoughts barreled through her every feeble attempt to block them out.

The pain in her gut increased tenfold and she curled up on the floor in a fetal position, wanting nothing more than for it to stop. Depression washed over her like darkening storm clouds, and images flashed like lightning: Maggy falling to her death beside Steele Tower, the moment the mortician pulled back the white sheet to reveal her pale face, Quip unconscious and bleeding, the look on little Sophia’s face when Gabby nullified her, and images of Derek crying and speaking words of regret and love while he raped her.

Gabby cried out, not recognizing her own strangled, haunted voice.

She lay there, curled up in a ball, sobbing. At some point in her vampire-blood-induced delirium, she slipped into fitful sleep, but she could not escape her tortured thoughts even in slumber, for dark dreams of blood and tears haunted her all through the night.