Lone Wolf (13 page)

“I think that will work.” Now to have him let her and Pablo out of the house so Ellison could continue with his plan. She rose. “Adios, Mr. Bradley. I’d better have Pablo drive me back, before the Shifters punish me for staying away too long. It’s my one day off a month.”

“You can go, certainly.” Bradley’s mouth turned up at the corners. “But I’ll have Mr. Marquez stay a while as my guest. You give me the first cubs tomorrow, and I’ll let him go home then.”

Maria contrived to look worried, then she gave him a nervous smile. “He won’t like that. But all right. I’ll do it. I can . . .”

Shouts cut off her words. The bodyguards came alert and hurried out the door, and Bradley’s half smile vanished.

The cold he’d exhibited before was nothing to the iceberg he became. All humanity left his eyes, and he came off the desk, walked back to the wet bar, and calmly took out a pistol.

Maria’s heart stopped, certain he was about to shoot her dead.

“Get under the desk,” he said in clipped tones, then walked past her out of the room.

Maria heard the unmistakable snarl of a wolf, then the roar of a bear and the uncanny, breathy growl of a tiger. Then shots firing, the chug, chug, chug of a semiautomatic.

Her heart pounded in fear. But the animal snarls only escalated, and one of the bodyguards cried out. Maria raced out of the room.

Below the balcony, two wolves fought to tear a gun out of one bodyguard’s hands. Ronan rose to his full Kodiak bear height, bringing his paw down on a second bodyguard. He didn’t even have to use his claws.

The man collapsed, and then a puddle of blood spread out from under him. Ronan blinked his bear eyes at him in surprise, then at Pablo, who stepped out from the living room, a large gun in his hand.

A giant Bengal tiger was flowing up the stairs. One of the bodyguards at the top, face paling, shot him. Once, twice.

Tiger came on. The man stepped back. “Mother fu—”

Then Tiger was on him. The weapon flew wide. The remaining bodyguard brought his gun around to shoot Tiger again, but Maria sprang into him from behind.

She wasn’t big enough to take the man down, but he at least misfired. The bullets sprayed into the ceiling, bits of plaster and dust raining down on them.

Tiger opened his mouth, his teeth gigantic, spittle running down them, as he turned to the remaining bodyguard. The light in his yellow eyes wasn’t sane.

“Tiger!” Maria yelled. “No!”

Tiger jerked his head up, caught by her voice, but the rage didn’t leave his eyes. He snarled once again, but Ellison was there, leaping into him, knocking him away from the man.

Tiger roared in fury, but Ellison growled, and Tiger finally loped away back down the stairs.

Ellison turned to the bodyguard. Ellison’s wolf was huge, his hair up along his neck, his ears flat with his red-eyed snarling. The bodyguard dropped his weapon and fell to his knees.

“Please. I got a wife. I got kids,” the man said. “I just work here because it pays good.”

Ellison stopped his charge an inch from the guy’s face, jaws snapping in irritation. Maria reached down and picked up the gun. It was heavy, and she didn’t know how to hold it. The danger locked in the firm piece of metal scared her, but she figured it was better she had it than the bodyguard.

“Go home,” she said to him. “Hurry. Where’s Bradley?”

A second wolf and Ronan came up the stairs, the staircase creaking under the Kodiak’s weight. Bradley was nowhere in sight.

“He hasn’t come past me,” Pablo called from below.

“He has a panic room,” the bodyguard said, still on his knees. “Through that door and at the end of the hall.” He pointed. “Sealed tight. He holes up there when things get bad.”

“Thank you,” Maria said. “Go now.”

The bodyguard hauled himself to his feet. His face was gray, eyes filled with fear. “Thanks. Thanks.” He stuttered the words then turned to go past Ellison, Broderick, and finally Ronan.

Ronan couldn’t resist giving a little growl and swatting at him. The former bodyguard hurtled down the stairs, ran past Pablo, who only watched him without interest, and sprinted out of the house.

Maria opened the door the bodyguard had indicated, then felt teeth on her wrist. Ellison had his mouth, ever so gently on her arm, looking at her with admonishment.
Stay here,
he was saying. Maria sighed and stepped back to let the Shifters go through first.

The hall ended in another innocuous door, but it hung partway open, revealing a steel door behind it. The second door had no handle, only a keypad.

Maria reasoned that a man like Bradley would have been too cautious to use the same code for his panic room as his front door. But the combined might of two Shifter wolves and a Kodiak bear was soon breaking the seal on the door. Tiger stood back, growling under his breath, tail swishing the slightest bit over the hall carpet.

“Tiger, what’s wrong?” Maria asked.

Ellison glanced up. Tiger’s warning rumble escalated, and then he roared.

Ellison, Ronan, and Broderick sprang away from the door as it gave, the wolves diving flat as Tiger did. Ronan, too big to do anything but back up, knocked over a delicate gilded side table, the trinkets on its top shattering.

The steel door burst open, and two large, sleek wildcats hurtled out, straight into the wolves and Ronan.

Maria screamed. Tiger rose, but instead of rushing to aid the others, he ran at Maria, herding her back onto the foyer’s balcony. Once she was there, he turned and sprinted back down the hall.

What was Bradley doing with
Shifters
?

Her chest constricted. Oh, mother of God.
What happens to the cubs when they get too big to handle?
she’d asked Pablo.

The cheetahs had been wearing Collars, so not feral. Stolen, she guessed, from a Shifter family somewhere. How long ago? Had the clients given them back to Bradley once they tired of them? Had they been here all this time? Prisoners? How many more did he have?

The hallway was a confusion of fur and snarling, yelps and roars. She saw Ellison fall, cheetah claws raking across his fur. He was up in a second, wolf maw closing over the cheetah’s neck. He could break it in the next moment.

“Ellison!” she shouted. “Ellison, they’re cubs!”

Chapter Fifteen

Ellison showed no sign of hearing, but the second cheetah, squirming away from Ronan, knocked into him. Tiger was roaring, but not fighting. Maybe he understood. Tiger was always so protective of the cubs.

Maria had seen Scott crazed from his Transition, striking out before Ronan or Rebecca could stop him. If these two were going through the same thing . . .

They’d stop at nothing to fight their perceived enemies, their killing instinct wound high.

Bradley must be behind them, in that room. Or was he? Would he have run into a room from which there was no escape?

Maria looked swiftly around, taking in the layout of the hallway relative to the rest of the house. She turned and hurried down the stairs and looked out the front door, the gun awkward in her hands, but she feared discarding it. The other guards were subdued, not dead.

Ellison’s pickup remained in the driveway, but the limo was gone. Had the driver fled? Or had he driven around to pick up Bradley, who could have escaped out the back? Maria moved through the house again, looking around for another way out—faster than trying to run around the vast building and encounter who knew how many walls or other obstacles.

In the rear of the ground floor, Maria found a kitchen, a huge, elegant room with stainless steel appliances and warm wooden cabinetry. Maybe she should show it to Pablo, and have him take photos for his girlfriend.

A door from this led out to a wide area between the house and five-car garage, a building that looked as though it had once been a stables. An iron stairwell snaked down the house next to the kitchen, a fire escape. High above was an ornate door, closed, that led back into the house.

Bradley wasn’t on the fire escape. He was running across the yard toward the garage. The limo raced up from the other side of the house, dust flying as the driver headed to help Bradley.

Maria raised the gun. It was not very big, but square, like a machine gun with a very short barrel. She aimed down at the limo’s tires and squeezed the trigger.

Three bullets spurted from the weapon, and the kick nearly knocked her off her feet. The shots came nowhere near the tires—they popped into the ground by the limo driver’s door and open window.

The limo stopped, the driver staring at Maria with fear on his face. She lifted the gun again, her hands shaking.

The limo jumped forward, swung around, and raised dust roaring off the other way. Bradley glared after it, then at Maria, and ducked inside the garage.

“Ellison!” Maria yelled. “Ronan! Bradley’s out here!”

Her shouts brought no one. The man was going to go for whatever car was in there and get away.

Maria aimed the gun again and fired a few shots to ping against the ground in front of the garage doors. The weapon’s metal felt hot in her hands, and the gun’s kick, though she was ready for it this time, still made her take a few steps backward.

All was silent within the garage. Maybe fear of a young woman with a gun she obviously couldn’t control would keep Bradley in place for a moment.

Maria risked it. She ran back into the house, through the kitchen and out to the staircase hall. The fight had moved to the balcony above, the wolves and cheetahs rolling in a free-for-all, Ronan having backed off as though waiting to find a good opening. Tiger crouched on the stairs, growling, unhappy.

And where had Pablo disappeared to? The man was nowhere in sight, though Ellison’s truck was still in front. Pablo hadn’t taken it, made good his escape, and stranded them there. But where was he?

The iron railing above her creaked and strained. As Maria looked up, one of the supports snapped. The railing teetered under the weight of the fighting animals, then came down. With it tumbled the wolves and cheetahs—one wolf, Broderick, scrabbling to keep his hold on the balcony until the last minute.

Maria fled out of the way. Ellison hit the stairs on his back, the cheetahs’ limbs flailing until they landed on him, claws raking as they struggled to gain their feet. Ellison, still wolf, rolled out from under them, coming to a stand on four paws, panting hard.

Broderick managed to crawl back up to the upper floor, shifting to his half beast to do it. He morphed to fully human as he stood up, trying to catch his breath.

Tiger moved. He came down the stairs almost on his belly, heading for the cheetahs, his ears back, teeth bared. The cheetahs looked at him in uncertainty, then the mad look came back into their eyes, and they charged him, Collars sparking.

At the same time, men poured into the house from the front, the back, all armed. Bradley or one of his guards must have called for backup. A man like Bradley could afford the best, and the men who came in, at least two dozen of them, were large, grim-faced, and hard-muscled—likely ex-military, ex-mercenary, ex-convict. They aimed at the Shifters, who’d be mowed down.

Maria yelled a warning. A few of the hard-eyed men glanced at her then walked on, not seeing her as a threat. She still had the gun, held down and behind her back, but her fingers were slick on the trigger. Could she shoot another human being? And if she started shooting, would they simply train weapons on her and obliterate her in seconds?

Her cry had alerted Ellison. He was moving again, racing up the stairs, Ronan coming down toward him. Tiger saw the men and roared, rising to his full height. He put himself in front of the cheetahs as the first shots were fired, a bullet bloodying his fur.

Ellison turned and leapt over the last curve of staircase, landing on one of the mercenaries before he could get off a shot. His Collar sparked as he rolled over the man, the gun clattering away.

The others split off through the staircase hall, aiming, firing. Tiger herded the cheetahs back upstairs, toward the room with the steel door. Ronan and Broderick had ducked behind walls when the bullets started flying. They were big, tough Shifters, but shots could still kill them.

Ellison fought alone. He bloodied the man, while one of the merc’s colleagues tried to get a clear shot at him. The rest were moving up the stairs, or through the house, hunting, searching, shooting.

What could Maria do? Whatever happened, she had to stop Bradley. And save Ellison. As soon as Ellison came up from subduing the man he fought, the second man would shoot him.

If this were one of the many TV shows she watched, she’d come up with some clever way to bring down all the bad guys, who’d obligingly drop weapons and look defeated and disgruntled. Maria had the feeling it wouldn’t be that easy in real life. These men were professionals, who would shoot Ellison and the others, get Bradley safely away, and then go have coffee.

Maria ducked into the living room, where Bradley’s men had originally taken Pablo, but the room was empty. She plucked a cell phone from the man Pablo had shot in the hall and punched in a number. Bradley had called backup; she could too.

She’d dialed Dylan’s phone, but she wanted to cry when Connor answered. “You’re all right!” she whispered.

“Yeah. Groggy, but all right. Where are you?”

“Where’s Dylan?”

“Driving. Maria, I asked you—where are you?”

“At Bradley’s. We need help.”

Connor started to speak again, but his words cut off to be replaced by Liam’s voice. “Lass, you stay put; make sure Bradley stays put. We’re coming. Where to, exactly?”

Maria opened her mouth to answer, then the cell phone was yanked from her hand, and a punch landed across her face. She went down, pain exploding through her, the gun falling from her numb fingers.

Ellison was there in the next moment, the giant gray wolf slamming into the man who’d hit Maria. The merc lost hold of his weapon, sending it sliding across the rug. Ellison landing on him, breaking the arm the man stretched toward the gun. The merc screamed, and then again as Ellison’s paws rendered his head a bloody mess.

Another weapon clicked, a second merc with an automatic weapon raised and pointed at Ellison. Maria scrambled to her feet, face aching from the first punch. She launched herself at the man, thinking to grab his arm to train the gun away from Ellison.

Crimson burst over the merc’s face, and he fell gurgling. Dead. Maria gaped past him to see Pablo, his small pistol back in his hands, his eyes almost as cold as Bradley’s. The bang of the gun filled the room and made Maria’s ears ring.

Ellison climbed off the other man he’d knocked down, that merc out. Ellison’s wolf sides heaved, his jaw bloody, scratches and blood in his fur. He shook himself, nose wrinkling at the smell of death.

“You’re welcome,” Pablo said to them. “Where’s Bradley? I can’t afford to let him live.”

“In the garage.” Maria’s jaw hurt when she spoke, and she worked it. “Last I saw. He could be long gone by now.”

“Let’s go find out.” Pablo had lowered his gun but didn’t holster it. “I called my own backup, but if we don’t get the hydra, I’m a dead man.”

Ellison shifted. He rose onto strong legs, his torso bruised and abraded, his face bloody. He limped to Maria, still breathing hard, and put an arm around her.

“You all right, sweetheart? I’m sorry—I couldn’t stop him in time.”

Maria rubbed her cheek. “I will be. I’ve had worse.”

She had, when she’d been prisoner of the feral Shifters, but the answer made Ellison’s eyes fill with fury. His arm tightened around her, but his touch on her face was tenderness itself.

“They found Connor,” Maria said quickly. “I told Liam to come, but I didn’t get a chance to tell him where.” The cell phone on the floor was cracked and dark.

“My girlfriend will tell him,” Pablo said. “She’s hacked all the calls in and out of here. From a safe distance—I told her to get the hell out of town until this is over.” He gave Ellison an admonishing look, as though Ellison should have done the same with Maria. Not that Maria would have listened.

Pablo led the way out, through another door and around to a back hall. More gunfire sounded, and over it came the roars of Tiger and Ronan. Maria wanted to run and make sure they were all right, but Ellison steered her firmly out.

They had to fight in the kitchen. Ellison shoved Maria down behind a counter and shifted into the state between wolf and human as more of Bradley’s mercs opened fire on them. A few of Pablo’s men—one of them Maria recognized as a mechanic at Pablo’s car shop—were pinned down here, firing back. Pablo joined them, Ellison slinking under their fire to tackle one of Bradley’s mercs.

Maria crawled behind the counter to the door, then sprinted out. Another two mercs were down outside, one unmoving, one groaning, both unarmed. Maria hurried past them in time to see one of the garage doors open, a gray Cadillac emerging.

She’d dropped her weapon when the other man had knocked her down, and Pablo had grabbed it on the way out, giving it to one of his men in the kitchen who’d run out of ammo. Now Maria could only stand helplessly and watch the car come out of the garage. Bradley was getting away, but what could she do?

The answer came from a deafening roar behind her. The sound pounded through the house, vibrating it like a small earthquake.

Maria had heard it once before, a lion’s roar. The lion Shifter that bounded toward the car was Dylan, black maned, his Collar silent, rage in his white blue eyes. He roared again, an alpha male in his full strength. Behind him came Spike, his naked human form covered with tats, and another black-maned lion—Sean. Sean was followed by a wolf that looked like Ellison, only a little smaller and finer boned.

The wolf stopped beside Maria, then it froze as the Cadillac accelerated, swerving to avoid the Shifters. Maria saw Bradley behind the wheel, his face still expressionless, his glasses shining.

Beside Maria, the wolf’s shape distorted and jerked, a Shifter changing before it wanted to. It rose into the form of Deni, who stared at the car, her face set in horror.

“That’s the one,” Deni said, her voice barely a whisper. “That’s the car that hit me.”

Ellison, in his wolf form now, along with Pablo, had run up to Maria’s side in time to hear her. Ellison looked at Deni, understanding and rage in his wolf’s eyes.

He burst away and charged the the car, slamming into its side and forcing it to turn. Sean ran and leapt, landing on the car’s trunk, and Dylan planted himself in front of it, his lion’s roar breaking the air.

Bradley jerked the car sideways, tires sliding, choking dust rising high. His hand spun the wheel until the car came out of its skid, and he headed straight for Maria and Deni.

Ellison and Dylan tried to sprint ahead of it, Sean climbing to the roof, his claws leaving long gouges in the car’s body.

Deni, motionless, watched the Cadillac come at her. Pablo grabbed both women to yank them out of the way, but Deni came alive.

She snatched the gun out of Pablo’s hands, aimed it, and fired three practiced shots through the windshield and into Bradley’s head.

The car kept coming. Maria slammed herself into Deni and Pablo, pushing them out of the way. The car rushed past them, Bradley’s dead foot still on the gas, and crashed, head-on, into the house.

The car’s engine spluttered and died, and all was silent.