Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (4 page)

“It’s specific, Cole. Two people who were the lone survivors of a werewolf attack, who were taken into the SF before they could go through their first moon cycle and kill anyone themselves. A girl and a guy who were young when it all happened.” She set her tonic water down on an end table. “It’s us. I’m working on putting together a list of all the potential victims, but right away, I saw that you and I fit.”

Cole simply gazed at her, a half-smile playing on his lips.

She waited for him to respond. One beat. Two beats. He didn’t saying anything. “You see why it’s necessary to protect you now? I have to take you into custody.”

He sighed. “I can’t let you do that, Dana.”

“Why not? Listen, Cole, I know you think you’re safe—”

“I
know
I’m safe.” He took another rueful drink. “I have to admit I thought it would take you a little longer to put it all together.”

That was an odd response. She furrowed her brow.

“You were supposed to be the last one, the finale,” he said, running his finger around the edge of the glass of whiskey. “I wasn’t going to come for you until I was ready to take it to the next level.”

“You...?” What was he talking about?

Cole set the drink down. He took off his glasses and set them down as well. He stretched his neck, and Dana watched as he allowed part of his wolf out. His features twisted, a snout and sharp teeth pulled out of his face. Sharp claws burst from his hands. He growled at her.

It was him. She scrambled out of the chair. Cole was the killer. She hadn’t even brought her tranquilizer gun.

Half-man, half-wolf, Cole leapt across the room for her.

She tried to run, belatedly, to make it to the door.

His body thudded against hers, knocking them both against the carpet. His teeth were in her neck, his claws were digging into her upper arms, and she was bleeding. She had a vague, funny thought. That her blood was going to stain Cole’s cream-colored sweater, and he’d never be able to wear it again.

* * *

“So, he’s still claiming he has no idea what happened?” Ursula King leaned against a desk in the tracker’s office of the Sullivan Foundation. She was a tall African American woman who wore her hair in tiny, long braids. Her skin was very dark, nearly black. She was head tracker at the northeastern section of the SF—Avery and Dana’s boss.

Avery was sitting behind a desk opposite Ursula. “That’s what he says.”

Dana sat next to Avery. The tracker office contained five desks, all in one room. The atmosphere was crowded and efficient, but there was a warmth to it as well. This place was home to its workers. “It was obviously deliberate, though. He knew how to keep his wolf under control, but he chose not to.”

“Even though he says otherwise?” said Ursula.

“Why wouldn’t he say otherwise?” said Dana. “He doesn’t want to admit to doing it on purpose.”

Ursula considered and then nodded once curtly. “Probably true.”

“Murder,” said Avery. “Gray comes back and all hell breaks loose.”

Dana sighed. “Maybe it’s murder. I mean, what’s the guy’s motive? Did he really want to kill fifteen people?”

“If it’s deliberate, it doesn’t matter why he did it,” said Ursula. “He goes in solitary confinement. There’s room down there. We’ve only got Randall.”

“You don’t think we should look into it further?” Dana asked. “Try to figure out why he did it?”

Ursula shook her head. “I don’t think it matters. He admits to it. He’s dangerous, and we can’t let him out. What more do we really need to know?”

She had a point. Dana nodded. “I guess that works for me.”

“Great.” Ursula stood up. She turned to Avery. “Brooks, you get the paperwork on his transfer to solitary filed, all right?”

“Sure thing,” said Avery.

“Gray, you’re with me,” said Ursula. “I need to talk to you about something.”

Dana got out of her chair and followed Ursula. The two made their way to a corner of the tracker office, where Ursula’s desk sat. She settled behind it and motioned for Dana to sit in front of her.

“So,” said Ursula. “How was your first day back?”

“Fine, I guess,” said Dana. She wasn’t going to mention the trouble she was having keeping her wolf under control. Ursula didn’t need to know that.

Ursula smiled. “Good. We’re happy to have you with us again.”

“Happy to be back,” said Dana.

“I know you want to put this business with Randall behind you, and I completely support that. You and I had talked right afterwards, and you indicated to me at that point that you weren’t comfortable talking to the press about it.”

“That’s true,” Dana said slowly. Where was Ursula going with this?

“I wouldn’t ask, Gray, but I’m getting pressure from the higher-ups. You keep up with the news much?”

“Not recently.”

“Perfectly understandable, given everything you’ve been through.” Ursula took a deep breath. “There’s legislation they’re trying to get passed to cut funding to the SF. If it goes through, it’s probably the first step towards instituting the kind of see-wolf-shoot-wolf policies that the talk radio guys are always yammering on about.”

“They can’t do that,” said Dana. “Are you serious?”

Ursula nodded. “We’re doing what we can with lobbyists, but the upper levels of the Sullivan Foundation think we need to try to sway the people to our side any way we can. They think if you talked to the media about what happened, if people knew you as a hero, it might help sway public opinion in favor of the SF—show them that we’re the good guys.”

Dana rubbed her forehead. “You want me to talk to reporters, don’t you?”

“Maybe just one,” said Ursula. “Weren’t you dating a staff writer for that big internet newspaper?
The Jefferson Post
or whatever?”

Dana studied her fingernails. “Hollis and I haven’t been in touch much since it happened, really. I sort of pushed him away.”

“Well, can you get in contact with him again?”

She could. She guessed she could. After all, Hollis still left weekly voicemails for her, checking in, asking to see her. But she was too confused about Cole to let Hollis back into her head or her heart... Or her pants. She leaned her head back. “I don’t know, King.”

“You know I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important.”

Right. She owed the SF so much. They were asking this of her. She should do it. Take one for the team.

“He’ll be kind to you, won’t he? He cares about you? It will be a positive piece.”

“I’ll talk to him,” said Dana. It would be as positive as Hollis could make it.
The Jefferson Post
was a little biased against werewolves. Hollis had gotten some heat for dating her in the first place. But Dana was sure that Hollis would never intentionally hurt her. They had cared about each other.

“Great,” said Ursula. “Thank you so much.”

Hollis would be all over this too. He’d love to write about the werewolf serial killer. He’d asked to have access to interview Cole before, but Dana had always ignored his calls. Now she was going to have to talk to him.

* * *

Dana flipped open her suitcase and began taking out clothes to put back in drawers. She’d officially moved back in her apartment the night before, but she’d been too tired to unpack. She lived on SF headquarters, like many employees did. Some lived close by, especially if they had non-wolf spouses, but Dana had always liked being right at the center of things. Her job was her life. It wasn’t just a job. It encompassed who she was, and she thought that what she did was meaningful. She helped people.

But she’d been living offsite for the past few months, during her leave. It had been her psychiatrist’s idea. When Dana told Chantal how tempted she was to go and see Cole, Chantal had suggested that for the time being, it might be easier if she was far away from him.

Now, she was back living in headquarters, and Cole was in the lowest level of headquarters, on the maximum security level. He was just an elevator ride away.

She took a deep breath, telling herself not to think about him, and began shoving her clothes into her drawers. She needed to keep busy. She didn’t need to take that elevator ride down to Cole’s level and use her access badge to see him. She didn’t
want
to see him anyway. He was a killer. He’d tried to murder her. He’d terrorized her. She never wanted to see him again.

Except Dana knew that she was lying to herself. Cole was all she thought about. She hated him, but she was drawn to him. He disgusted her, but he intrigued her.

Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could still hear the hitch in his voice when he told her she was beautiful. Sometimes, she could swear she still felt his hands on her. Hands that had caressed her. Hands that had mutilated her. Hell, she had the scars. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him? And why did it make her clothes feel too tight every time that she did?

She needed a distraction, and the only thing that worked was physical exhaustion. Dana turned back to the drawer she’d been putting clothes in and rifled through it until she found a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. She threw the clothes on, and laced up a pair of tennis shoes.

The SF had a nice gym with varied machines. There were television screens there and music. And people.

Dana wanted to be alone.

She headed outside instead. She got the guy at the gate to let her out the first gate, and she ran between the two high chain-link fences that surrounded headquarters. It was early dark outside—twilight—and the air was cooling. There was a tiny bite to the breeze, chilling her nose. She knew she’d soon be sweating too much to feel the cold.

She started off at an even jog, steady and easy. She’d read about all the things that she’d been diagnosed with. She knew the drill. Stockholm syndrome. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Apparently, everything she was experiencing was normal for someone who’d been through a situation like she had.

But Dana couldn’t quite believe that. She knew that people who were kidnapped or captured sometimes came to sympathize with their captor. She’d read all about Patty Hearst and the SLA. Her situation with Cole didn’t seem very similar.

Chantal said that she shouldn’t give the thoughts of Cole what she called “a starring role” in her mind. “The thoughts are normal, but you know they’re irrational. Let them happen, but don’t engage with them. Accept them and move on. Eventually, they’ll go away when they see they aren’t bothering you, just like grade school bullies.”

A lovely idea in theory. More difficult when nearly every thought that crossed her brain had something to do with Cole. Even without engaging the thoughts, Cole still had a “starring role” in her mind.

The moon peered out from behind a cloud, bright, round and full. Like always, Dana felt the tug of it, its seductive pull on her wolf. That was probably why she’d had so much trouble today dealing with her beast. It had wanted to come out because of the moon. (Never mind the fact that she never used to have the problem of controlling the wolf on full moons, at least not before Cole.) There were three wolf moons a month—the full moon, and the days immediately before and after. Tonight was the true full moon. Last night had been the night before, but Arnold had still shifted. He’d given in, let the moon do what it wanted to him.

The moon gave Dana a cold, knowing grin.
Shift
, it whispered in Cole’s voice.
Shift for me. You’re very beautiful, Dana. Shift for me.

Dana’s scar throbbed on her abdomen, pulsing with the beat of her heart. She picked up the pace, pumping her legs. Sometimes, she could run hard enough that she was too tired to think. She could push her body to the point where exertion was her only reality. It was the only time she had relief.

* * *

Her hair was pasted to her forehead with sweat, which was running down the back of her neck and over her forehead when she got back to her apartment. She shut the door after herself, and there was movement out of the corner of her eye.

She shrieked.

“It’s me.”

Avery. He was in the living room. All the staff apartments in headquarters were set up the same way. They opened onto a small kitchen, complete with a breakfast bar that jutted out from the wall, bisecting the kitchen area from the living room. Bedrooms were off the left or right of the living room, depending on whether the apartment was one, two, or three bedroom.

Avery was getting up from her couch, his hands up in surrender.

She put a hand to her chest. “Brooks. I didn’t... I wasn’t expecting...”

He made his way over to her. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He looked at the floor. “I guess I shouldn’t have let myself in. It’s just that I always used to walk right in.”

“It’s fine,” she said. She crossed to her refrigerator and took out a bottle of water. She sucked on it eagerly.

“You been working out?”

“No, I’ve been in a sauna.” But her joking tone didn’t come off quite right. She sounded a little too cutting, too sarcastic.

“You always used to work out in the mornings,” said Avery.