The Hunted (Sleeping With Monsters Book 2) (10 page)

I grit my teeth together and
fought not to wince as my jaw wiggled.

He went for his pocket – the
one with the phone – and pulled it out to look for messages and check the time.
He frowned, not liking either answer, and then turned toward me.

“I guess I’ll have to set my
own price.” His eyes narrowed. “Everyone knows what you used to be.”

I stared at him with dead
eyes. It didn’t matter what everyone knew, only what Vincent thought.

“So you must be amazing,” he
said, stretching the word out with irony, “for V to think about sticking his
dick in you after so many other guys got there first. Maybe I should find out
and then price you myself, afterwards.”

“Anything you do to me, he’ll
do you ten times worse to you.” My voice was flat. I was ready. He wouldn’t be
the first, but Vincent would make sure he was the last.

“Oh yeah?” he said, coming
near me.

I didn’t answer him. I was
already gone.

Some girls drank, some girls
got high, but me – I just had a door on the inside. There was a space inside
myself that I was going to fall into. People talk about happy places,
visualizing beaches, listening to waves hit shore beneath a palm tree. This
place was like that, only for girls like me. It was dark and it was cold and
you weren’t yourself there. You didn’t have to be. You didn’t have to be there
at all.

I opened it up, and I went
through.

Cold cement behind me, at
head, hips, and thighs. A careless tear of fabric and then flesh moving inside
other flesh.

“Oh yeah, that’s gooooood –“

Time passing. Seconds or
hours. It didn’t matter. It didn’t count.

“Say I’m better than he is.”
Hands on my jaw. A twinge of pain, enough to bring me back. I fought to close
the door again, to get to go away.

“Say it –“ he demanded,
shaking me, hitting me again. I focus on him, briefly, his sweaty horrible face
with his stinking breath and his awful orders. “Say it,” he shouts, punctuating
himself with thrusts.

I stare up at him, dead
inside. “No.”

He shouts something and shakes
me and hits me again and I’m gone, the door’s closed. I’ve been hurt before,
but even the man I love hurts me, and I know pain can be swallowed. 

The sound of rolling
metal. Fresh air, a wave of dark humidity. The cessation of penetration, and
the beginning of his screams.  

“Sam? Sammy?”

Someone tugs me up. I’m like a
rag doll, limp, arms dragging.

“Come back, Sam,” Vincent
says.

I look for the door inside me
and the door handle slips through my fingers.

“It’s safe now, Sam.”

His voice pulls me through the
darkness like a pipe player charms a snake.

“I’ve got you. I’m not letting
go.”

I try to blink my eyes. One’s
too swollen to move, and the other’s doubled, seeing three of him. Reality
crushes in, bruises, burns and tears, a painful final blow.

“Is he gone?” I whisper.

Vincent nods and crushes me to
his chest. “Syd’s got him.”

I nod, and close my eyes.

#

I don’t know how much time passed,
tied up, surrounded by cricket song.

I could find my door
again if I had to. But who would bring me back? I waited, tears streaming down
my face, wondering when Max would return, and what he would do when he got back.

The door to the cabin unlocked
and he burst in. He was by the bed in three short strides, staring down,
enraged. He reached out for my neck with both hands and I felt the span of his
hands, his fingers touch in back and front, and knew this was it, I was going
to die.

I closed my eyes and thought
of Vincent, as he jumped back.

“You – you,” he stuttered,
holding his hands to his chest like he was hugging a child. He stared at me,
eyes wild, and then turned and went outside again.

What was wrong with
him?

What was he going to do
to me?

Minutes passed. The
crickets started up again, and the door swung with a gentle breeze.

He returned a long time later
without a shirt and with a resigned expression. I didn’t dare say anything or
move. He made a sound of strangled frustration and then ripped my clothes off
of me, tearing them along their seams, like I was wearing spiderwebs not denim.
And then he untied me from the bed, everything except the gag, and picked me up
over his shoulder to carry me out of the cabin, completely naked.

I struggled, but he was so
much stronger than I was, and faster – I couldn’t hit him anywhere, his neck or
knees or eyes. His arm trapped my waist on his shoulder, and his other arm held
my legs down as I tried to kick him in mid-air.

He’s going to take
me out into the woods and hold my limbs down with traps and pull off my head like
a rabbit’s while he dances naked under the moon.

My head bobbed against
his back and I stopped fighting – he was too strong, there was no point. All I
needed to do now was concentrate on finding my door. I hadn’t summoned it in so
long, but I knew it hadn’t gone far – it was always waiting inside me, yawning
like an open mouth. All I’d have to do is let go and fall in. Vincent taught me
how far I could bend and still come back – without him, all I’d have to do is
let go.

It would feel just like
drowning and then it’d all be over.

Max picked me up off of
his shoulder and threw me. I sailed – not for the ground, but for my open door,
ready to fall through at last and lock it behind me – when I landed with a
splash in cold water.  

The shock of the cold made
my body a traitor, gasping and fighting for air. I wrestled my way up to the
surface, coughing and panting, prying the gag out of my mouth.

I stroked away from the
creek’s edge – he stood on the bank in moonlight, and I know that he can still see
me.   

“Take a bath. And then come
back,” he said then walked away in the dark.

Chapter Eight

Silver. He’d given her silver
on purpose, to protect her from me – or others like me. I went outside before I
could do anything else dumb.

My hands burned where I’d
touched her necklace, and I could feel the silver poisoning coursing inside me
as my body tried to fight it off. My wolf was confused, angry – at her for
burning us, bereft by Vincent’s death, and at Karl for being Karl. It was
searching for release, and I tried to shove it down so I could think.

Karl’d said it was her fault –
but if it was, why’d Vincent give her my number? Had he been that blinded by
love? I couldn’t imagine that happening. Vincent was many things, but never a
fool.

It was more likely that Karl’d
been lying. Not about his death – his glee was too genuine for that – but about
the circumstances that caused it.

She knew he was dead. And as
mad as I was at her for not telling me, I couldn’t blame her, now that I was
sane.

If I was. Was I? I
didn’t know. My wolf felt awfully close – wanting to
hunt, kill, fuck
–
I could almost feel it pacing inside me, looking for weak spots.

Part of me was tempted
to give in. How many times in the past seven years had I just wanted to let all
of my humanity go, turn wolf and stay that way? Let the wild side finally have
me?

Only the hope of seeing
him again had held me back. And now? There wasn’t anything stopping me. I took
all my clothes off out of habit and crouched down in the middle of my porch.
All I had to do was finally let myself go, become a wolf, and disappear. Let it
carry me away on its four feet from this forest to the next to the one after
that – if you stayed wolf long enough, you wouldn’t come back.

But what about her?

My cabin still stank of
her – and him. I pushed back onto my knees and pressed my head into my hands,
rocking back and forth, hovering on the verge of the change.

Inside me, my wolf
gloried and cajoled, whispering simple things.
Chase, kill, fuck, chase,
kill, fuck.
Life was easier as a wolf, and both of us knew it. No one tried
to use a wolf, wolves never got confused. On all fours, I knew where my place
was in the pack, even if it was a low one. It was only when I was a human that
I felt all this agony, wanting more than I could ever get, and my wolf didn’t
understand why we tortured ourselves so. 

I concentrated on the
things I knew I could explain to him.

The pack wanted her --
and
he’d
sent her to me to protect.

My wolf remembered
him
.
Our old alpha, more than Syd had ever been. My lips pursed to form a howl and
my blood rushed low.

Protecting her was a
final order from
him
, from beyond the grave. And my wolf and I would be
damned if I wouldn’t see it through.

I got up and pulled my
pants on. No matter how much I missed him, nothing could smell like him or her
inside my house.

I dumped her in the
creek against her protests, and the second I got back I stoked the fire in the stove.
I fed her clothing to it and tried not to breathe the acrid smoke that wafted
up, then dragged her bag out from underneath the bed.

Another set of
underwear – tossed into the fire. The wig she’d worn – I’d dump it in the creek
tomorrow, burning it would make the stove stink too bad. Her robe – I tore into
shreds and shoved in.

There was cash and ID –
I could bury them. I knew how to do it right, so no one would be able to find
it but me.

The bag itself? Had to
go. I held it open and leaned my head in, breathing deep. It would be the last time
I would smell him. With a strangled sound, I pulled it apart at the
zipper-seams -- and a book fell out of the bottom.

I picked it up. It was
a small notebook, and every page was full of Vincent’s handwriting. I
immediately flipped to the front.

“Samantha – I don’t
know where you’ll be when you find this, but I hope you’re safe.

If you’re gone, stay
gone. If you’re not gone yet – go. As fast as you can. Get out of town and
never come back. Pretend that you’re being chased by wolves, okay? Run and keep
running. Don’t look back.

I want you to be
happy, Sam. Start over somewhere new and when you’re safe drop this in the mail
three states over from wherever it is you are, so they can’t trace you. Send it
to US Marshall Bren -- I’ve been working with him. I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell
you. I promise we were supposed to get out together. I never wanted to leave
you in this world alone.

Be safe, Sammy. For both
of us.

I love you. 

V.”

I knelt there, holding
the testament to how much he trusted her – Samantha, I realized now, not Sarah
like she’d said -- in my hands. I was glad I hadn’t killed her, and so jealous
of what she’d had with him it felt like silver in my heart.

#

Vincent and I were
driving away from a botched deal and I was bleeding into the upholstery of his
car.

“Take me home,” I said,
leaning against the door. My home had been his home now for a year.

“I’m taking you to the
doctor.” His voice was clipped, he’d seen me get shot.

I ground my teeth
together. “You don’t need to.”

“He’s one of us, he’ll
treat you off the books –“ Vincent went on, taking turns that drove us further
away from our house.

“No. Take me home.”

“I’m not going to watch
you die, okay? I don’t care if I go to jail – we’ve got lawyers, we pay them
enough –“ he took the next turn angry, and I grunted when I hit the door. Hands
slippery with blood found the handle.

This was it. I was going
to have to leave him now, for his own good. I should have never gotten involved
with a human, not as deep as this. I’d have to run, let him assume I’d died,
that was the only way to get out of this without telling him what I was and
exposing him to danger.

One of his hands
reached over from the steering wheel and grabbed my knee. “I care about you,
Max.” He glanced over at me, and I could see the terror in his eyes – he
thought that he was losing me.

Was he?

I didn’t want to
endanger him. But I wasn’t ready to give him up yet either.

“Pull over.”

He looked at me. “Fuck
no – we’ve got to –“

I took his hand in
mine. “Pull over.”

He yanked his hand back
and twisted the steering wheel until we were idling beside the road. “If you
think I’m going to let you die –“ he started, whirling on me.

“Did you ever have a
secret so big you could never tell anyone?”

He stared at me like
bloodloss had made me insane. Of course he had secrets, he was in the family.

I inhaled. “I’m gonna
be fine.”

“I saw you get shot.
I’m not an idiot.”

“The bullet went
through me.” I could feel the exit wound it’d left, if I reached around with
one hand.

“So?”

“I’ll heal up. Like I
always do.”

“It went through you
Max. Who knows what it hit. Peritonitis is no way to go.”

“I’ll be fine.” I sat
straighter up in the seat. The moon was half-full overhead. Under its silver
gaze, I was already healing.

His eyes were dark by
the light of the dashboard. He knew I healed fast, he’d talked about it before,
but what I was saying pressed his definitions of reality.

This was the moment I’d
been dreading ever since I’d taken up with him. I’d conned myself into believing
it’d never happen, and had turned myself into a fool.

We were at a juncture.
Leave now for his own good -- or stay for mine.

Inside me, my wolf
whined. He was the only person I’d ever loved. I couldn’t go, no matter how
much I knew I ought to. Maybe if I were more like him, I’d be that strong, but
I was just me – and I knew he’d have to ask.

“How do you know you’ll
be all right?”

I swallowed. “You won’t
want to believe me when I tell you.”