Mark of the Wolf; Hell's Breed (11 page)

Lucien shook his head. “I don’t want
to find out when they blow a hole in you. Just don’t stand at the
window. In a few days, when we’re positive nobody managed to track
us out of the city … we’ll see.”

“
But …,” Laurie paused,
trying to jump her brain into gear for quick calculations. “Didn’t
the DA say they were about to start selecting the jury? I mean, I’m
only going to be here a few days, right?”

Lucien frowned, but he didn’t
answer.

She glanced around the small cabin.
Damien was no where around but both Basil and Kane had come in.
“Right?”

They glanced at Lucien, shrugged, and
then disappeared into the bedroom at the back of the
cabin.

“
They’re going to bed?”
Laurie asked blankly.

“
We rotate, two on watch,
two off. Shift change every four hours. That way nobody’s attention
is off from fatigue.”

Laurie looked around and finally moved
to the couch and sat down. “I thought this would just sort of be
like … hiding out for a few days.”

Lucien studied her for a long moment
and finally transferred his attention to the view beyond the
cabin.

“
I’m going to lose my job
… my home … everything! How can that be right? I didn’t do anything
wrong!”

“
It’ll work out,” Lucien
said, not very convincingly. “You’ll be alive. As long as you’re
breathing you can start over.”

Far from calming her, the
comment created an eruption of anger and fear she’d been trying to
quell. “Well I don’t
want
to fucking start over!” she yelled angrily. “I
already worked damned hard to get where I am—Not that that’s such a
great place, but there’s a
lot
worse situations out there! And I don’t want to
be
in
one of
them.”

“
Don’t be stupid, Laurie!
Dead is permanent! As soon as they deal with the guy, you can pick
up your life again.”

Laurie picked up a pillow off the
couch and threw it at him. It smacked him on the side of the
head.

“
Hey!”

“
Don’t call me stupid!”
she growled. “Don’t act like this is nothing! We’re talking about
my whole
life
crumbling around me, damn it! If it was your life you’d be
upset, too!”

“
You still have time left
on your vacation,” Lucien pointed out. “You aren’t going to lose
your job.”

“
And what about when it
runs out? I thought I was going to come up here and testify and go
home again, but now I’m told I can’t until the trial and god only
knows when they’re even going to start the trial because nobody
down here seems to know! Just how long do you think they’re going
to hold my job if I don’t get back when I’m supposed to? I mean, if
they didn’t need me they wouldn’t have hired me to start with! I’m
only expendable if they can replace me!

“
And without a job I’m
sure as hell not going to be able to hang on to my apartment. Not
that that bastard landlord will hold it anyway. He’s been trying to
get me out so he can jack the rent up for the next renter! This is
the perfect opportunity!”

“
You didn’t take care of
that?” Lucien asked, frowning.

“
I called the bastard and
told him I was coming back! I made another payment via the phone,
but if I’m not there I can’t stop him from moving my stuff out to
the damned sidewalk!

“
Oh my god! This is a
complete disaster!”

“
Laurie! Calm down,”
Lucien said when she jumped to her feet and started pacing the
living area.

“
Don’t tell me to calm
down!” she snapped. “I’ve got every right to be upset!”

“
Is it helping
anything?”

Laurie narrowed her eyes
at him. How dare the bastard be so damned reasonable in the face
of
her
disaster!
“That’s it! I’m going home,” she said decisively, stomping toward
the room she’d used the night before.

Lucien followed her. “You can’t.
You’re in protective custody.”

“
Well, I’ve decided I
don’t want it anymore. I’m going home.”

“
You can’t go home.
They’ve already made at least two attempts on you that we know
of—barely averted.”

“
Well, if I’m dead it
won’t …. Wait a minute! You said two. What was the other attempt
besides the hotel?”

“
At your place … Before
you left for Atlanta. Peeples sent us down to escort you because
he’d heard word on the street that somebody was looking for someone
to take care of you before the trial. We discovered when we got
there that someone was scoping out your place. When we confronted
him, he ran—we chased. He managed to get away, unfortunately, and
by the time we got back to your place to handle the escort, you’d
left. Fortunately, we knew what the car looked like. We’d almost
managed to catch up about the time you took the wrong turn off the
freeway.” He shook his head. “You lead a charmed life.”

Laurie glared at him. “You’re just
saying that to convince me to stay.” Turning her back on him she
dragged her suitcase out from under the bed and put it on the
bed.

Lucien moved up behind her, settling
his hands on her shoulders. “I’m saying it because it’s true.” He
was silent for several moments. “If you’re absolutely determined to
go back to your place, then we’ll take it on the road.”

Laurie turned to look at him.
“What?”

“
I’m not going to let
anything happen to you. If you’re hell bent and determined to go
back to your place we’ll just have to set up a guard perimeter
there. It won’t be easy, but it can be done.”

Laurie studied his face for a long
moment. “It’ll be more dangerous, though, right?”

He shrugged. “Harder.” He considered
it. “Yeah, probably more dangerous but we’ll watch you as closely
as we can.”

“
I meant for you
guys.”

“
Don’t worry about that.
It’s our job.”

That hurt! Laurie looked away, dragged
in a pained breath. Stupid! Of course it was just a job to them!
She’d let the fact that they were so solicitous of her wellbeing go
to her head, taken it personally. “Oh. Well, I’d still hate to have
anything to do with any of you getting hurt.”

Lucien studied her expression, trying
to figure out what he’d said that made her look so hurt. “Hey!
Whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

Laurie nodded. “They must be paying
you guys a lot,” she muttered.

That dart hit Lucien between the
shoulder blades. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“
You said it was your job
to risk your lives to keep me alive. I just said they must be
paying a lot.”

Lucien’s lips tightened. “Lady,
sometimes you really piss me off.”

“
What did you mean, then?”
Laurie asked after struggling for several moments with the urge to
probe.

Lucien stared at her, feeling
cornered, trying to figure out how he’d gotten himself in such a
mess and how he was going to get out of it. “I didn’t mean that—not
that way,” he growled.

“
Then what way did you
mean it?” Laurie persisted, smiling faintly now, oddly convinced by
his discomfort that she actually had gotten it all wrong, that she
was more than a paycheck to him.

“
I tell you what … when
you aren’t a client anymore,
then
I’ll explain it. Maybe. Right now none of us can
afford the distraction. It could get somebody killed and I don’t
want that somebody to be either of us … or in fact anybody in my
pack.”

That sounded promising.

Very promising.

The reference to his pack was a little
jarring despite her preoccupation but pretty unimportant as far as
she was concerned in the scheme of things.

Laurie shook her head.
“I’m sorry. Sorry for losing it a few minutes ago and sorry for
making waves that could get somebody hurt. I just …. I’m so far out
of my league here! This is so
not
something I’m used to I don’t know how to
act.”

Lucien smiled faintly. “Don’t think
you’re the only client we’ve ever had to go stir crazy. They don’t
usually do it on the first day ….”

Laurie had the grace to laugh in spite
of her embarrassment over the comment. “Well I believe in getting
the worst out of the way as soon as possible,” she responded
jokingly.

“
If that’s your worst, I
think I can live with it.” He glanced around the room. “So … are we
packing to head to your place? Or are we set here for a little
while?”

Laurie sighed, picked up her suitcase
and shoved it under the bed again. “I think I’ll lie down for a
little bit. I’m all worn out from that little exercise.”

Nodding, Lucien moved toward the door.
He paused there. “We can lighten things up a little in a few days
if there’s no sign anybody tracked us,” he offered.

Laurie nodded. She didn’t know what he
meant by ‘lighten’ things, but she didn’t see much possibility of
feeling any better about captivity in a few days—unless that meant
the DA had called her in to testify and she could go home
again.

Kane had had a total cow when he’d
seen her pull her cell phone out. She’d only gotten it out to try
the internet—and discovered this was a dead zone. So, no phone and
no internet. And no TV. They picked up some radio station, but it
was mostly static for part of the day and the rest of the time
playing country, which she didn’t particularly care for.

Absolutely the only
entertainment besides meal time was the tablet she’d had the
foresight to bring, which had almost a dozen e-books on it that she
hadn’t read yet. And another five that she
had
.

Settling on the bed, she did her best
to engross herself in a book. The escape soothed her even though
the book was actually pretty exciting. Very improbable—but
exciting, she supposed, as much because it was something that would
never happen in a million years as it was for the
action.

Not satisfied with one
larger than life, total hunk, as a hero, the writer had thrown in
several—each one more exciting than the last. And the heroine
got
all
of
them!

Like that would happen in real
life!

She could go for it if it
was a group like Lucien and his men, she decided, thinking about
what a handsome group they were. Lucien and Damien were drop dead,
heart stopping gorgeous. She thought part of their appeal was that
neither one of them seemed aware of just how good looking they
were. It was
such
a turn off when people were conceited about their looks,
whether it was warranted or not. And it was seriously annoying when
they were conceited and had no reason to be!

And very, very attractive when they
were way above average in looks and seemed completely unaware of
the fact that they turned heads everywhere they went.

Neither Kane nor Basil were as
handsome as the twins—still not hard on the eyes at all. She
figured if Lucien and Damien were 10s, they were 8s, at least,
maybe 8.5—but they had their own brand of charm that boosted their
scores up to around 9 or 9.5.

She tried to picture herself romping
in bed with either pair and discovered it just boggled the
imagination. Truthfully, she couldn’t picture Lucien in her bed. Or
Damien, and he’d actually tried to kiss her.

The guys were way out of her league
and besides that they were in the sort of macho business that guys
got into when they weren’t the marrying/settling down kind. They
might want to screw her—and she thought that was probably
stretching it unless they were just hard up because they hadn’t had
the chance to chase skirt in a while—but they certainly didn’t have
anything else in mind. And they wouldn’t—ever—and she tried not to
get involved with guys that had no interest at all in finding a
forever kind of fit or even a ‘little while fit’. She tended to get
emotionally involved and she wasn’t crazy about the ‘love ‘em and
leave ‘em’ type of man.

It was a damned shame. She really
liked them, she realized with a touch of surprise and dismay. If
she was getting attached when she’d known them less than a week,
how was she going to feel by the time this was over? And was not
getting intimate going to save her any hurt at all?

* * * *

Basil would have been
happier if they hadn’t heard the conversation in the next room. He
supposed the damned cabin had been built for humans and probably
prevented
them
from hearing everything that happened in such exquisite
detail that it was like being in the same room, but it would take a
hell of a lot more to keep
them
from hearing with their enhanced
abilities.

If he’d just managed to get to sleep
before all hell broke loose ….

“
Poor kid,” Kane muttered
when they heard Lucien leave. “You think it’s true?”

Basil sighed irritably. “Can we not
discuss it?”