The Covert Wolf (6 page)

Trying to ignore her delicious scent, he roped in the tight control that enabled him to endure hours of physical pain during Hell Week. He focused on the mission. She was female, and his primal instincts were to keep her safe. No matter how many would-be human molesters she could take out with her knee.

“No. It’s too risky. This wasn’t my choice, but I agreed to this assignment. I had my doubts about working with you.”

“Because I’m a civilian?” Those mossy green eyes regarded him with frank amusement. “No prob.”

Suddenly Matt faced a tall, gangly G.I. in a mesh-covered helmet, vintage cammies and worn army boots. There was a distinct smile on the G.I.’s face as he stood straight and tall and then hefted a squeaky-clean rifle.

“Hey, there, Lieutenant Dan. Is this better?” she drawled.

Saying nothing, he gave her a pointed look. She sighed and resumed her normal form. “That wasn’t good enough for you?”

“If you’re going to conjure Tom Hanks, then
Saving Private Ryan
would have proved a better argument,” he said mildly.

Her pert nose wrinkled. “I don’t like war movies.”

“My point exactly.”

Sienna made an irritated sound. “What is it, Lieutenant? You don’t like females? Or civilians? Or your tighty whities are a little too tight?”

More sass. He folded his arms, waited for her to get it. He had endless patience. Once, he’d disguised himself as a wolf and spent three nights lying in a hollow log in an attempt to catch a rogue shape-shifter. Sienna tilted her head, the long fall of her mink-brown hair spilling to one side. The move gave her an exotic, sexy look. “Oh, wait. Maybe it’s because I’m Fae.”

“Score. That’s not changing. Neither is the civilian or—” he gave her legs an appreciative glance “—the female part. And you have no experience in covert ops. So I’m calling the shots.”

“Bit of a control freak, aren’t we?”

Checking his sidearm, he ignored that comment. If he were more of a control freak, maybe Adam wouldn’t have died.

“Wait.” She caught his hand. Matt stared at the slender fingers covering his. The intoxicating scent of warm female made his senses whirl. Too long since he’d felt a woman’s soft touch. Too long since he’d had a woman in his bed.

“When you go inside, I’ll stay outside, pretend to be a curious bystander, see what I can overhear.”

“No.”

Sienna dropped his hand and sighed. “Listen, we don’t like each other, but we have to work together. With all these police around, who would hurt me?”

He fought the urge to send her back to the car. His Draicon senses screamed danger. But she was right.

“You sense anything off, you come and get me. Deal?”

She knuckle-bumped him, green eyes huge in her solemn face. “Deal.”

“FYI, I don’t wear tighty whities.”

“Oh, you’re a boxer wolf? What do you wear?”

Matt dipped his head close to her shell-like ear. A few strands of silky hair lifted with his warm breath as he gently blew.

“Nothing,” he whispered.

The spice of her female scent sharpened. Matt grinned and touched her mouth, parted in a small
O.
“Stay alert.”

Cops lingered in the back, dusting the sliding door that led into the kitchen. Black fingerprint powder smeared the sparkling glass. He waited a moment to ensure Sienna’s glamour hiding him would hold, then slipped through the opened door.

Except for a few blood splatters on the floor that had been marked off, the kitchen was neat and clean, with polished oak cabinets, a shiny black granite countertop and dish towels with apple motifs hanging from the stainless-steel stove. Dark, malevolent magick shimmered in the air. The stench of sulfur and rotting flesh mingled with the coppery scent of blood. Matt clamped a hand over his mouth as he headed into the adjoining dining room.

A young woman sat at a long maple table, sobbing. “I didn’t do it. I swear, I loved my mother. It was El Diablo. El Diablo!”

The devil?

The front door opened. The police hustled the woman outside. Matt searched with all his senses. Nothing here, no warding spells, no candles, as if someone had erased evidence a witch lived here.

He started searching the bedrooms, opening drawers quietly, checking every corner. Upstairs in a small rose-colored bedroom, he ground to a halt, catching the scent of fear.

It rose over him in a wave, crashing into his senses and making his eyes water. Matt rubbed the heel of one palm into his chest, trying to ease the crushing weight.

Stronger by the closet. He opened the door and peered inside. A miasma of terror screamed into his mind.

Methodically, he searched the closet. Sorting through layers of clothing awash with the smell of mothballs and cedar, he lifted boxes and set them aside.

A hidden recess in the closet revealed a locked file box shielded with a pentagram. He pulled it out and broke the spell locking it with a simple incantation his C.O. had taught all the team.

He combed through the files, his gorge rising as he scanned them. Then he found a business ledger. His instincts were right. No Draicon had stolen the Orb.

Yet another reason not to trust any Fae. He pocketed the ledger and replaced the files.

As he went into the room, he caught sight of himself in the dressing table mirror. His form shimmered.

The glamour was fading. Fast.

He had to sneak out. Racing over options, he started for the bedroom door and heard pounding footsteps. Matt withdrew his Sig Sauer 9 mm pistol, cupping it with one hand. Sienna burst into the room and ground to a halt, staring at the gun’s barrel.

He sheathed the weapon as she gulped down a breath, eyes huge in her face. “We’ve got to leave, right now. I was talking with one of the cops when one of them suddenly… It was horrible. His form, it just…I don’t know…”

“Wobbled?”

She nodded. “Like when you throw a stone in water.”

He glanced at the window. “Where?”

“Downstairs. But I think he knew I could see through him. He may be another Fae. Or something else. The daughter, they were leading her out, she was screaming that a demon tortured her mother for information, and went too far, then set the daughter up to make it look like—”

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “You did good. Where’s the rest of the police?”

“They’re all outside, since they’re done wrapping up the crime scene.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

The stench of sulfur grew stronger. Matt herded Sienna out of the room, grinding to a halt. He slid an arm around her waist and yanked her against him, away from the specter blocking the way at the hallway’s end.

The specter shimmered, losing the glamour of a police uniform.

They were screwed.

“Draicon. You have something I need,” the demon hissed. Then it smiled and held up a hand, tipped with long, gray talons.

Flames burned at the tip of each finger. Matt’s throat went drier than sand.

No way out past the pyrokinetic demon.

He and Sienna were going to fry.

Pulling his sidearm free, Matt screwed on the long barreled silencer, knowing gunfire would bring the cops running. He fired at the creature, hoping to slow it. But as the bullets whizzed at the demon, flames burst from its fingers.

The steel and silver-tinged bullets melted in midair. Sienna gasped. Damn it, the new ammo was specially designed to withstand the demons’ defenses. No dice.

They needed CO2. “You don’t happen to have a fire extinguisher handy in your bag of Fae tricks?” Matt unscrewed the silencer, and pocketed it with his service pistol. He pulled Sienna behind him.

“There’s a bathroom behind us. Let’s go, we need water, have to have water.”

“Water doesn’t kill them. Only puts out the fire and you need a lot of it. CO2 smothers their oxygen, keeps them from breathing.”

The ragged sound of her panting filled his ears. Panic radiated from her as Sienna stared at the demon. He could feel her pulse pounding, smell her fear. Knew the demon scented it, as well. They dined on terror.

“He’s going to burn us. We have to get out of here.”

“Stay calm,” he urged, backing her away from the demon.

Flames burst out of the demon’s fingers in a hiss, scorching the walls. A framed photo of the witch and her daughter began to burn. Then the demon turned and sprayed fire down the stairs, cutting off their exit.

Sienna whimpered, turning pale as milk. Matt gripped her hand. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You need to stay calm and don’t panic. We’ll get out of this.”

Smoke began filling the hallway. She coughed, and laughed. “We will? Okay, super
lupus,
guess it’s time for a weenie roast. Except I doubt you like having your weenie roasted.”

Putting up a brave front. Knew all about that. Had done it a time or two. His admiration kicked up a notch.

“Depends on who’s doing the roasting. Definitely not him.”

Matt turned, searching the hallway. At the end sat a cherrywood bookcase with leather-bound volumes. No good, but the covering…

The Indian weave table runner.

“Create a distraction. Talk to it. Feed its ego. Demons love having their ego stroked.”

“As long as you don’t ask me to stroke anything else,” she muttered.

“If something happens to me, get into that back bedroom and escape out the window. Drive as fast as you can to a place where you feel safe, and call that number on the card you got earlier.”

She coughed, nodded. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” she whispered.

Sienna faced the demon as Matt backed up to the bookcase. “Hey, Officer Hot Stuff. That was some glamour you pulled. Never guessed you were a demon. Fooled the cops, too.”

Matt removed the runner, folded it behind his back.

The demon smirked. “You’re a pretty one. You’ll look even nicer when I melt your face.”

Sienna blanched.

“Enough. You found the witch’s ledger, Draicon? Give it to me and the girl lives. Perhaps.”

“These?” Matt pulled the book from his back jeans pocket. He ripped out a few pages, tossed them into the flames licking the walls. “Go get them.”

Screaming, the demon dove for the papers burning out of control. Matt pushed her to the side and whispered, “Get ready. On my word, conjure a fire extinguisher in my hands and run into the east side back bedroom.”

The demon raised its hands toward Matt, its slit of a mouth yawning open, showing daggerlike teeth. Timing was everything. If Sienna dropped the illusion, his ass would be cooked.

“Now.”

Sienna invoked the image of a fire extinguisher. “Take this, hot stuff,” she yelled, pointing the apparition at him.

Screaming, the demon drew back, its hands dropping. As it looked behind for a way out, Matt tackled it in a full body slam. He jammed an arm at the demon’s throat and stuffed the blanket into its flat nostrils and oval mouth, cutting off its oxygen supply. The demon’s body heat burned through the arm of his leather jacket, cooking his skin. The metal of his sidearm began to warm like a skillet over an open flame. An eerie scream choked out of the pyro demon. The heat intensified, but Matt continued to smother the cloth, now singeing beneath the flames creeping out of its mouth.

The pyro demon tried to draw in a breath, found only woven cloth. It gasped and its reddish-yellow eyes fluttered.

Unconscious for now.

He gave a hard twist, breaking the creature’s neck. Permanently cutting off all oxygen.

Smoke clogged his lungs, heat painfully burning through his leather jacket. Wincing at the pain of his burned hands, Matt crawled the length of the smoky hallway to the back bedroom. He tried to draw air into his lungs, and coughed. Then someone yanked him into the room.

He kicked the door shut with a booted foot, buying them time. Sienna was already yanking off the bedspread, stuffing it beneath the door to block the smoke.

A distant screech of sirens sounded. By the time the fire department arrived, it would be too late. And how the hell would they explain anything?

Two stories down, but they could make it. Smoke curled into the room from the door frame. Coughing, Sienna clamped a hand over her mouth.

Matt ran to the window. Ignoring the pain in his burned hands, he jerked it upward. The wood frame splintered beneath the force.

“I’ve heard Fae can fly. Now’s a good time to find out. Me first. I’ll cushion you, but if I don’t, hit the ground in a roll, Sienna.”

He jumped, aiming for a thick bayberry shrub. Branches scraped his face, but the bush protected his bones from breaking. He rolled out, held out his arms.

“Jump.”

Sienna fell, rather than jumped. He caught her, wincing as her weight made contact with his burns. Matt set her down, whistling through his teeth, the agony in his arm graying his vision. Swaying, his eyes watering and lungs burning with smoke, he fought to remain on his feet. Sienna’s soot-covered face looked anxiously at him.

“Better get that NASCAR illusion ready, sweetheart. Because this time, I think I will let you drive.”

Chapter 4

T
he white house with the bright red shutters was quaint and small and in a quiet neighborhood near downtown Forrest Plains. Perfect place to hide and recover.

Heart pounding like a war drum, Sienna found the key beneath a statue of a grinning gnome. As she replaced the gnome, it politely lifted its hat. She blinked.

“The owner has an odd sense of humor,” Matt rasped.

He was shaking badly now. Sienna slid an arm around his waist, helping him inside. She locked the door behind them.

The living room had a large, faded olive sofa, and two green recliners. A basket of dried wildflowers sat in the hearth of a stone fireplace. Silver-framed photos adorned the cream walls. It looked like an average, middle-class house.

The only difference was a painting hanging over the fireplace. A large, gray wolf, head held aloft and proud, standing in a forest.

Her stomach pitched and rolled. Great. Portrait of ole grandpa. A wolf.

“It smells like a den in here,” she muttered.

“Belongs to a buddy. Draicon. He took his family to visit relatives. Told me I could use it any occasion I wanted. The occasion calls for it.”