EnemyMine (2 page)

Gerald pulled out his phone. “I’m going to make a call and
see what I can find out.”

“Do that.” Trey turned from Gerald and placed his hand on
Emory’s shoulder. “If she’s being tracked we’ll have to get all the information
we can from the Shepherds we haven’t killed. They might know something.”

Emory stared past Trey and studied the men lumped together
on the ground. Elijah was the leader of this particular sect. Considering
Elijah had sworn to kill Mary if she strayed, Emory knew he had to find his
mate if he wanted to protect her.

He allowed his wolf to rise to the surface. It answered
immediately, improving his eyesight and changing his fingernails to claws as he
started for the men who were born and bred to destroy his kind. Killing wasn’t
something he enjoyed but he wasn’t above it. Not if it meant putting an end to
his misery and reuniting with the one person who could give him peace.

The only woman in the world he couldn’t exist without.

Mary.

The men thrashed as he neared but he didn’t hesitate. His
pack mates surrounded him as he knelt in front of his first victim and grasped
a handful of the man’s hair.

“I want to know where Elijah is.” He growled, revealing his
lengthening canines, and grinned at the Shepherds’ corresponding, alarmed
expression. “And you’re going to tell me.”

Chapter One

“Son of a bitch!” Mary Shepherd hissed and kneeled to rub
the toe that had fallen victim to an eight-ounce can of French-cut green beans.
She was pretty sure the tin container would leave one hell of a nasty bruise.
Too bad Food Town didn’t have a policy when it came to situations like these.
Unless she slipped on a newly mopped floor and broke her back, she wasn’t
getting compensation for squat.

The pounding in her squished piggy became a dull ache and
she stood, staring at the stacked boxes of cans next to her. Stocking shelves
sucked. It meant working nights, so she never saw the sun. The pay was
laughable, so she couldn’t afford Starbucks for a caffeine boost. And there was
little to no interaction with her co-workers, so she was left to talk to
herself. She glanced around and, as usual, no one was standing by to witness
her accident. With that in mind, she reminded herself that no one was around to
witness her making a fool of herself either.

Rotating in a circle reminiscent of Michael Jackson, she
created a fake microphone with her hand and crooned, “Food Town. Always pay
less so you can buy
moooore
.”

“Relaxing on the job, Ms. Stone?”

Oh crap.

So much for a lack of witnesses.

Mortification swept through her. She wanted to sink into the
floor and die when she heard the reprimand in the store owner’s voice.

Lowering her hand, she spun around. “No sir. I was just…”

Just what? Making fun of his motto? Sticking it to the
asshole in the only way I can? Acting like a total idiot because if I see one
more can of vegetables I’m going to lose it?

“I was just stretching and keeping flexible.” She lifted her
arms above her head and rose onto her toes. “Best to stay loose.”

Hermer Montrose lowered his head and glared at her over the
rim of his glasses. She imagined it was the same look he gave to the
great-grandchildren he complained about. Although he was as ancient as Rome and
suffered from arthritis in both legs, he refused to hire someone else to do his
job. He practically lived at Food Town.

Who are you kidding? He’ll
die
at the Food Town.
It’s all the old codger has. They might as well put his plot in the cereal
aisle, bury him here and erect a damn monument. Here lies Hermer Montrose:
father, grandfather and asshole of epic proportions.

“Do you normally sing when you stretch, Ms. Stone?” he asked
briskly and sniffed in distain. “Or were you just trying to…how did you put
it…stay loose?”

Good one, you rat bastard
, she seethed.
Double
innuendo for the win
.

“That’s from too much
American Idol
,” she muttered,
hoping he wouldn’t question the lie. “The singing sneaks up on me from time to
time.”

“Well it’s obviously poison for the brain. In case no one
has the heart to tell you, you can’t sing.” He lifted the clipboard he always
carried to his face and glanced at it. No doubt going over the inventory she’d
yet to put on the shelves. “I suggest you save such antics for your own time.
When you’re here, you have a job to do.”

It was so tempting to grab a can and throw it at his face,
but she reminded herself that her job was not only safe, it kept her off the
radar. She didn’t have the luxury of telling the old fart to go to hell. Mr.
Montrose liked to pay his second shift employees under the table so he didn’t
have to worry about taxes. If she lost this job she’d have to start using the
money she’d received from her dearly departed parents. To add insult to injury,
she’d also have to find a new apartment, since she lived in the crap-ola
building just behind Food Mart, owned by the ornery old coot. The damn place
should have been condemned but she wasn’t complaining. Nothing beat the feeling
of security. After surviving hell, she wasn’t willing to go back. Even if it
meant her home consisted of walls with cracking paint, floor tiles that were
missing and windows that were cracked.

Suck it up, Princess. Lose the quality lifestyle to which
you’ve grown accustomed?

Inconceivable.

“Yes sir,” she said cheerily. She held her breath and said a
prayer that her acting was better than her singing.

He huffed, turned on his heel and stormed off. She didn’t
exhale until he vanished around the corner. Returning to work, she mulled over
her dismal existence. Once she’d had dreams—of becoming a teacher, settling
down, starting a family and having a house with a white picket fence—but
reality wasn’t as enticing or shiny.

Not when you were related to people who wanted to kill you.

A shiver ran down her spine at the thought.

If her uncle found her, he’d force her to endure the
atrocities he bestowed on the shifters he believed God had created him and his
brethren to destroy. In Elijah Shepherd’s eyes she was nothing more than a
loose end, someone to be cleansed of the taint of Lucifer’s creation before she
achieved a safe passage to heaven. He’d attempted to bring her into his twisted
fold, believing he could make her one of his flock. Her ability to act as if his
plan had worked had allowed her an opportunity to escape—an escape that had
been obtained in blood.

The memory of attacking the man who’d become her constant
shadow—one of her uncle’s closest cousins—flashed in her mind. One focused
swing and a kiss from a baseball bat sealed his fate. She’d known she’d have
one chance to get away, one opportunity. Although she’d had no choice but to
take full advantage when the time came, a part of her had hoped she wouldn’t
have to kill in order to do it. Considering where she’d hit John, on the base
of the skull—and seeing the white flash of bone after—she was pretty sure he’d
never open his eyes again. He’d probably died as he bled out all over the
carpet, never regaining consciousness.

It was him or someone innocent. Remember that.

She slammed cans on the shelf and didn’t bother making sure
the labels were perfectly aligned. Killing John was horrible but it could have
been worse. Elijah had made it clear he’d expected Mary to murder a young woman
no older than herself—a young woman whose only
crime
was being born a
shifter—to prove her loyalty and cement a place in the family. Ironically, his
ultimatum had urged Mary to action. It had been John’s life or that of the
shifter girl her uncle had trapped in his torture chamber. Given the choice of
who lived or died, she’d have made the same decision.

Her heart lodged in her throat when she recalled Dara, the
woman she’d rescued from certain death several weeks ago. Mary hadn’t expected
to exchange names or information but the girl had been so close to the edge,
almost at her breaking point. In an effort to soothe the shifter Mary had asked
her name. As they’d driven Dara had told her about her capture and the things
that had been done to her. Hearing of each atrocity was torture, making Mary’s
stomach bunch into knots. If Dara hadn’t managed to get away, death would have
been preferable. Shepherds always started with harmless physical torture,
enough to inflict harm but not maim or cause permanent damage. It wasn’t until
they learned a shifter wouldn’t break that they started removing body parts,
gouging out eyes and taking things to the final stage.

She took a deep breath and slowly released it. None of that
mattered now. She had money if she needed to run, and more importantly, the
gift her parents had left for her. They’d wanted her to retrieve it before her
twenty-first birthday to ensure she got out of her uncle’s control before too
much damage had been done. The rite of passage to become a true Shepherd
occurred when the children in the home reached full maturity—twenty-one, a
Shepherd’s magic number. Her mother and father had given her all the
information she needed to remain out of sight and hidden from the demented
freaks who wanted her dead. The detailed map with a heartbreaking note about
her parents’ past, why they ran and why it was so important she do the same
were a gift beyond measure. It told her what locations were dangerous, which
places were safe and how to avoid Shepherd hotspots.

When you couldn’t destroy Shepherds, you hid from them.
Period.

It was the only reason she’d chosen to reside on the border
of Florida and Alabama. Of the numerous areas Shepherds resided, they avoided
state lines. There was too much danger, too many risks. They thrived in rural
areas where their practices remained hidden, needing isolation to ensure they
wouldn’t be caught killing shifters who looked like normal men and women.

A surge of anger had her slamming a can down on the shelf.
The entire ordeal pissed her off. After her mother and father had met, fallen
in love and decided to marry, they’d had no choice but to run. Their decision
had placed a target on their backs, something they’d never have been able to
escape. Her parents had tried to avoid her father’s side of the family from the
moment they said “I do” and embarked on a new life together. She remembered
moving from place to place—an adventure, her mother used to say—only to do more
of the same after a couple of months. Only recently did she learn the real
reason her folks had been so determined to stay one step ahead of the killers
they’d known were tracking them.

Her father hadn’t wanted to raise a family in the crazed
lifestyle he’d been forced to experience as a child. Instead he’d chosen to
take an enormous risk. The day he’d left his family, forsaking their ways, a
bounty had been placed on his head. You didn’t abandon Shepherds. You lived by
their rules or you died by them. Her mother had known everything about her
father’s family, which meant she’d been in danger as well.

That thought brought even darker, more difficult memories to
the surface.

Mary often wondered why her relatives had asked so many
strange questions after her parents died. They hadn’t seem concerned about the
fire that ravaged her home, the demise of her mother and father or the
investigator’s suspicions that the blaze seemed to have been more than an
accident. Instead they had wanted to know how much she knew about her distant
family.

Had her mother and father told her about them? What church
did she attend? Was she religious?

The questions had been strange, incredibly awkward and, in
light of recent events, made perfect sense. Had her relatives discovered she’d
known more than she should have, she might have joined her parents on the other
side. When her uncle discovered she had no idea about his family or their
beliefs, he’d brought her home and kept everything secret. For five years she’d
had no idea of the atrocities taking place several yards away in a building
that was carefully soundproofed. She had gone about her days as a normal girl.

Perhaps she should have noticed the odd sermons on Sundays.
The way the pastor had remained fixated on the demons existing in the open, in
plain sight.

Demons…

Her thoughts drifted to the man Elijah had proclaimed a
demon, a person her uncle had stated was more beast than man. On the outside he
had appeared normal—if you considered tall, dark and gorgeous normal. He was
older than her by several years, and his confidence and easy manner had called
to her in a way she’d never experienced before. Leaving home to attend college
meant she was finally able to appreciate the opposite sex. For the longest time
however, men had remained a mystery to her. Although she’d watched them, she’d
never spoken to or approached her testosterone-fueled classmates. She was too
shy, too uncertain. It wasn’t until she’d walked into the campus coffee shop
that a man had approached her and changed her life forever.

Closing her eyes, she pictured his face.

Emory Veznor.

The first thing she’d noticed was his voice. The sound had
been like coarse gravel over satin—deep and throaty but lush as velvet—as he’d
touched her shoulder and murmured, “Excuse me.”

As she’d turned to address him, she’d gotten a full-on view
of six-foot-plus model-material male. His dark hair was just long enough to
wrap around his ears and drape across his forehead. The shadow along his jaw
and chin matched, almost an ink black. And his eyes—the color of expensive
whiskey shining through fine crystal—made her heart skip a beat. He was
beautiful enough to grace a billboard, although his rough edges had made her
think of motorcycles and leather.

At first she’d thought she’d misunderstood him. She’d seen
his lips move, had known he was talking to her, but it had taken several seconds
to realize he wasn’t asking her to step aside so he could retrieve his coffee.
Instead he’d asked if she would like to share a table and chat. He had grinned
when she didn’t answer—creating a fuzzy warmth in her tummy. She’d thought she
was dreaming until he’d asked a second time and all she could do was nod.

The first guy to notice her had been one she would never
have dreamt would be interested in someone like her. Dressed in her usual
flowing skirt, matching shirt and Keds sneakers, she hadn’t compared to the man
in snug jeans, black biker boots and chain that ran from his belt loop to the
wallet in his back pocket. Her hair had been left loose that day and flowed
down her back in a tangled mass of blonde, framing a makeup-free and totally
natural face. Usually the combination worked for her but beside Emory she had
looked like a windblown hood rat.

If he’d been aware of her insecurities, he hadn’t let on.
When they had their java in hand, they’d traveled to a booth and sat across
from each other. Within minutes a smooth, casual conversation had started.
Emory had been polite, hanging on to every word that had passed her lips. She’d
blushed at his intense stare, which seemed to slip past her face and into some
deeper recess inside that she wasn’t aware of.

One conversation had led to another, then another, and
finally resulted in a date—a date that had ruined her life and possibly ended
his.