Untouched (32 page)

Pasha, surrounded by her captives, had a smug, satisfied smirk on her face. Dressed in black from head to toe, she looked every bit the villain she had become. Her hair, an untamed mass of dark curls, framed bright green eyes that glittered insanely back at him. Each hand held a gun. One was pointed at Samantha and the other at his beloved Kerry. His gaze flicked to Kerry, who paced restlessly behind the cold steel bars in her panther form. Her bright yellow eyes stared pleadingly back at him, and a low growl rumbled through the decaying room.

Dante held his ground in the open doorway and turned his harsh gaze back on Pasha. “Why are you doing this, Pasha?”

She made a soft scolding sound and shook her head slowly. “Now, now. Why are you asking questions that you already know the answers to?”

“You’re a Purist,” he spat.

“Yes, lover, I am. But you figured that out too quickly,” she taunted. “Come on now, ask me something else. A higher level query, perhaps?”

“I don’t want to play games with you.” He took one step forward, but stopped when Pasha cocked both guns.

“No, no.” She shook her head and smiled. “I don’t want to have to blow their brains out quite yet.”

He growled and gripped the knife tighter. “You sick bitch!”

She stamped her foot and pouted like a child. “Oh, you’re no fun. Fine,” she said with a huge exasperated sigh. “I guess I’ll just have to show you.”

Her gaze flicked to Dante’s left. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye two seconds too late. He took aim and threw the knife at Pasha with incredible force, but she moved with lightning fast reflexes and avoided his blade. The knife flew across the room and shattered the glass in the French doors behind her. Seconds later, he was blinded and choking on some kind of powder. Coughing, his eyes tearing, he felt the shift come on beyond his control.

The familiar tingle and prickling sensation of shifting rippled across his skin faster than it ever had. His body contorted and twisted almost to the point of pain. Before he could leap on his attacker and rip her throat out, a tremendously heavy net came down on him like a lead blanket. Snarling and growling, he fought back. Dante snapped blindly, hoping to catch one of them with his razor sharp teeth. However, the unexpected trap was more than effective, and within minutes they tossed him into the empty cage next to Kerry’s.

The heavy door slammed shut, and Dante looked helplessly at his mate as he wrestled out from under the tangled net. Kerry roared loudly and turned her attentions to Pasha. She snarled and threw herself at the steel bars, but to no avail. Pasha threw her head back and let out a loud cackle, but Dante barely heard it.

When he saw the man standing behind her, the whole world went out of focus. It was as if he was hearing everything underwater. The person helping her was the kid from the hotel—Brent. What the hell? He’d scanned the boy’s mind, but found nothing. No evidence of Pasha or the Purists. All he’d seen was fear. Why would this wimpy kid be involved with Pasha? How could he have been so completely wrong?

The boy stood there shifting his weight back and forth and shuffling his feet nervously. He looked at Dante and Kerry through sympathetic eyes. It was as if he didn’t want to be doing what he’d obviously helped her do. How the hell did this kid even know about the Amoveo?

“You see,” Pasha began. “New Orleans is the perfect place for our people. It’s colorful, loud, and possesses a good deal of magic. If you know the right people and have enough money, you can get a spell for just about anything.” She practically sang it. “I have to admit this worked far better than I thought,” she said, referring to the glass bottle in Brent’s shaky hands. “The powder that’s stinging those pretty eyes and burning the inside of your nostrils? Well, that’s part of a binding spell. Although… I did have to be very careful not to breathe any of it or get it on my pretty skin.”

She stood, grabbed the boy by the arm, and pulled him next to her. He looked at her with pure terror. “My boy Brent has been very helpful, to say the least.”

She shoved him away from her, twirled in the center of the room, and let out a maniacal giggle. Breathless, she stopped and flopped herself on the rotting floral blanket on the four-poster bed. Dust puffed up around her. She sat up swiftly and struck an innocent pose on the edge of the bed.

“You are all bound in your clan forms with none of your abilities. So really… you’re just animals.” She laughed and then sighed dramatically. “Sadly, it only lasts a month. You see, this was the only way to keep you all in one place. This way you can all watch each other die.”

Disbelief flooded his mind as he looked around the room. Dante shook his furry head and let out a low whine. This couldn’t be happening. He wanted to scream at Pasha and the boy. To stand up and choke the life out of her and ask her how she could betray their people like this. His head swam with questions. First and foremost, how the hell were they going to get out of this? With all of his abilities gone, he was as powerless as a run of the mill fox.

Pasha’s cold, calculating eyes peered at Dante. “You are really pathetic, you know that? Look at you. You are pissing your life away over this thing,” she spat with a look of disgust at Kerry. Dante snarled viciously in response. “It’s men like you that are killing our race.”

Dante watched as rage and resentment bubbled under the surface and clouded her features. Bitterness tinged every word. Pasha stood up from the bed, sauntered over, and squatted down in front of the cage, putting herself eye to eye with Dante.

She threw a glance and nod toward the glass in the door. “By the way, if you think you’re getting any help from William, you can forget it.” She leaned in closely and lowered her voice. “That knife that went flying through the window—” She smiled. “It hit poor old Willie. Yup, it knocked him right out of the sky.” She smacked her hands together. “Splat! He’s probably bleeding to death on the ground as we speak. Too bad there’s not a healer nearby who will help him.” She narrowed her eyes and made a scoffing sound. “Well, not one who can help him. He’s… otherwise occupied.”

Dante’s eyes flared bright red. He snarled at the mention of Steven. He scanned the room and quickly focused on the cage that remained covered. Steven must be in there, trapped like the rest.

She sauntered slowly over to Malcolm’s perch. “Polly wanna cracker?”

Malcolm, still blinded by the hood, shrieked and flapped his wings desperately, attempting to claw at Pasha with his razor-sharp talons. However, the short chain kept him tethered to the post and garnered a cruel laugh from her. Still laughing, she walked to the one cage that remained covered. Dante couldn’t believe that this coldhearted, evil bitch had accomplished all of this on her own.

Someone else had to be involved besides the sniveling kid. It had to be her brother, Boris. He scolded himself. How could he have been so blind? His gut instinct had told him not to trust Boris and Pasha. He looked around the room at his mate and his friends, trapped and helpless. Guilt flooded his heart. They were all here—in this situation—because of him, and at the moment, it looked as though they had no way out.

Pasha casually placed one of the guns on a wing chair by the bed and slithered next to Brent, who flinched and attempted to slip out of her embrace. He looked as though he wanted to run right out the door. She wrapped one arm around his waist and held the other gun against her belly. She glanced down at the covered cage and smiled.

“Shall we show them who else we brought to our party?” she said, placing a kiss on his trembling jaw.

Brent licked his lips nervously. “I guess.”

“You guess?” she sang. “Come on. They’ll love this.” Smiling, she grabbed the cover with both hands and made a drumroll sound. With a great flourish she tore the drape from the cage and shouted, “Ta daaa!”

A massive striped tiger stood rocking back and forth, trapped within the cold steel bars. Thick muscles rippled under an orange and black streaked hide. A long tail flicked angrily, and large clawed paws swatted viciously through the bars. His burning golden eyes honed in immediately on Pasha, and he let loose a bone-shattering roar. It was Boris. Pasha was going to kill her own brother.

The shattering sound of breaking glass ruptured the wild quiet of the bayou.

“Son of a bitch,” Peter hissed from his position by the fountain. Crouching low, he ran at full speed toward the house. Out of nowhere, Joseph Vasullus appeared in the open doorway. Peter skidded to a halt at the bottom of the porch steps as gravel spit out from under his feet. He aimed his gun directly at Joseph’s tie-dyed-clad chest. He may have been well into his sixties, but he still looked damn strong. Pete had to admit he cut a pretty imposing figure, old or not.

“Don’t move, you squirrelly bastard, or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” he said in a deadly voice. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his back. Peter eyed the wooden-handled shotgun, which dangled in the old guy’s hand unthreateningly. If Joseph had wanted to shoot him, he could’ve done it before Pete had even seen him.

Joseph slowly placed one finger to his lips. “Shhh.” He made a nodding motion toward the upstairs. Pete’s brow furrowed with confusion. He opened his mouth, but the earth-shattering roar of a big cat interrupted the standoff. Pete took the steps in one leap, but Joseph refused to move.

“Get out of my way, old man. You have no idea who or what is up there,” he said, trying to push past him.

With surprising strength and speed, Joseph shoved him against the wall next to the door. He held him there with one strong arm, preventing Pete from moving. Pete looked up and found himself staring into the bright yellow eyes of a cat. For a second, his thoughts went to that stupid black cat that Jacqueline always carried around, but it was pretty clear that Joseph was no house pet.

“Unfortunately, boy, I know exactly what is up there,” he said quietly.

Pete nodded his head in slow disbelief. “Crap. Are you going to turn into a bird or something too?”

“No,” Joseph whispered and cast a quick glance toward the inside of the house. He stepped back and released Peter. “I don’t have time to explain. Go around the back of the house. There’s a balcony outside the room they’re in. I need you to climb up there. I’m too damn old and tired to go scaling walls. We’ll have a better chance of getting them out of there if we cover the front and the back.”

Joseph pulled a worn envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to Peter. “Here, take this. You give that to Kerry when this is all over.”

Peter took the mysterious missive and slipped it into his pants pocket. He looked into Joseph’s now human eyes and found them tinged with sadness. Pete had no idea what the hell was going on or what exactly these people were, but it became quite clear that Joseph was an ally.

“Normally, I’d argue with you, but the freaky-ass thing you just did with your eyes was all the convincing I needed.”

The lines in Joseph’s forehead deepened, and confusion flickered briefly over his face. “Whatever. Get going,” he rasped.

Pete gave a quick nod, and as quietly as possible, headed around the right of the house. He crept slowly along the paint-chipped side and peered carefully around the corner. He looked up and saw the balcony Joseph was talking about. Soft light flickered in the window, confirming he was in the right place. He scanned the sky and didn’t see any sign of that bird guy, William. Maybe he was waiting for him on the balcony? His jaw clenched, and he threw a quick glance to the sky. No time to wait around and find out.

A snarl of vines and ivy crawled all the way up the weatherworn clapboard of the mansion. The mass of greens had grown unchecked for years, and it seemed they had become a permanent part of the structure. It also created a natural ladder. Pete tugged on the thick blanket nature had provided and tested its strength. Satisfied, or at least hoping that it would hold his weight, he holstered his gun and grabbed a fistful of the bulky vines.

“Like rock climbing at the gym,” he mumbled under his breath.

Just as he was about to begin his climb, a faint rustling to his left caught his attention. He pulled his gun back out, stilled and waited. The rustling emanated again from the back of the house, but this time was accompanied by the faint screech of a bird. Shit. Birdbrain? He glanced back to the light above him. He had to get up there, but if this bird guy was hurt, then they’d be down a man and quickly becoming outnumbered.

Peter inched his way to the corner and held the cool steel gun tightly against his chest. He peered slowly around the back and swore softly at the sight before him. William, still in his gyrfalcon form, lay on the ground with a massive knife sticking out of his chest.

Peter, crouching low, ran silently to the wounded, feathered beast. As soon as William saw Peter, he tried to stand and steady himself, furiously flapping his uninjured wing. He stumbled, lost his footing, and squawked weakly as he landed again on his side. Blood stained the white feathers and seeped from the wound where the knife remained.

Peter shoved his gun back in the holster and ran a hand over his face. “Great. I get to be a fucking vet.”

William’s curt voice sliced into Peter’s mind with the same cold precision as the knife in his chest.
If
you
would
be
so
kind
as
to
remove
the
knife, I believe I have enough strength to shift.
His voice wavered, revealing the severity of his wounds.
It
will
be
easier
to
heal
and
slow
the
bleeding
in
my
human
form.