Force of the Dark Wolf (Force of Nature Series) (27 page)

With tears in his eyes he hung up after assuring her he would.
As he had closed his phone he did something he’d not done for decades.
Phil prayed.
He had done it several times since
his
conversation and also since he’d read the book
.
It was a very terrifying story and he didn’t like the things it had to say about his kind
.

Alexis Dark Force was an oddity that even h
e,
in all his years walking this earth
,
had never seen.
Phil had never even heard of one, a pure one
,
existing any more.

~~~

Tom watched the wolf pace.
He liked it when Paddy came to visit.
If he could only let him drink from him then things would be so much better.
But Paddy wasn’t very trusting.
Not that Tom could really blame him. He’d been a bit over the top about a few things, one of them being the ex-wife.

“I want you to sit.
Why you think that I relish having the carpet cleaned after you get your fur all over it is beyond me.”
Tom smile
d
when Paddy did just what he’d told him to do with a small whimper.
“You can shift if you bothered to bring yourself other clothes.
I do not want a naked man in my house any more than I want fur all over the place.”

The shift was sudden and that startled Tom.
He’d seen wolves shift before.
It was a long and messy process and he’d been sickened by it.
But Paddy had gone from canine to human in less than a handful of seconds.
He tried to act as if he wasn’t impressed
,
but he wasn’t sure that Paddy had believed him.
And that made him sharper than he’d meant to be.

“Oh for the love of Christ, will you please get dressed
?
”
He hadn’t realized that in his musings he’d missed the man dress.
“Sit over there and try not to break anything.
There are things in this room worth more than you make in several lifetimes.”

Paddy had looked at him like he was confused
,
but said nothing as he sat in one of the oldest chairs in the room.
Tom didn’t collect antiques like most people, for their value or even for the fact that they were from a time gone by. No
,
he collected them because someone else had wanted them.
Or had owned them. He didn’t care what he’d had to do to get them so long as the other person didn’t have whatever it was.

He’d been doing things like this, buying or stealing, well
,
mostly stealing
,
since he’d been told by his mother that he couldn’t have the bike next door because Ronnie’s parents had purchased the last one like it.
It had only taken him one day to figure out that she’d lied
,
but by then he’d already stolen the bike and sold it to a kid on another block for a tidy amount.
When confronted Tom had confessed and had gotten a good beating
,
but all he’d learned from it was that the next time he stole something for a profit
he
was not to get caught.
He’d not been caught since.

“Alexis said that I can’t come on the property any more. She has a restraining order against me and if I break it I’ll end up in jail.
I’m not going back to jail, not for anything.”
Paddy looked down after he’d spoken.
“I just don’t like prison.
They don’t treat you right in there.”

Tom sighed. “Of course they don’t
,
you moron.
If they did
,
it would be called a vacation and you’d be expected to tip them.
I think it’s sort of expected for them to treat you badly.”
He handed a file to Paddy as he continued.
“Th
ese are
the specs on the alarm system in the house. The most important one is the gate.
You should be able to follow those instructions to the letter
,
am I correct?”

Tom didn’t think that Paddy could follow directions on a paper bag to open it
,
but didn’t say it.
Since he’d been working with this idiot on getting Alexis Dark he’d been more surprised than anything that he’d not been caught or killed.
Patrick Booth was by and far the stupidest man he’d ever meet.

“I can do it.”
Paddy looked over the pages
,
but Tom had already figured out that he didn’t have a clue what it was.
“Where’d you get this stuff anyway?
I thought it was against the law to give this out if you were the one who put it in.”

Duh
, Tom wanted to shout at him.
“I have an inside source. And before you ask, no I’m not going to tell you who it is.
Suffice it to say that my contact has been working with me for some time.”

And she had too.
He wondered why she hadn’t been caught either.
He would have thought that someone like Alexis Dark would have caught onto her some time ago.
He would have.
The woman was a fool if she didn’t think that someone from that pack, one of the men who guarded their alpha
,
would figure her out soon enough.

“When you want me to go and get her? And where do you want me to bring her once I get her?”
Tom nearly smiled again.
Paddy was making it sound like now that he had the codes to get inside the residence the people in the house were going to be so impressed that they’d simply go where he wanted.
“I should also have a car or something to drive her around in. The police took my other one when they raided my house.
Stupid fuckers think I murdered somebody.”

Tom nodded.
He didn’t doubt for a moment that Paddy had killed someone, probably a few someones.
But he only nodded sardonically at the wolf.

“Sure. And let me make sure that I drive you there too.”
Paddy started to nod
,
but stopped when he realized that Tom wasn’t being serious.
This man was going to get himself dead.
And very soon.

“I’ll go down there today and try and snatch her out tonight.
All right?”
Tom didn’t as much as move his fingers in answer to his question. “I’ll get
her for
you. You don’t have to worry.”

After Paddy left Tom picked up the phone.
As it rang on the other end he thought about having Alexis Dark for one night. The woman was going to be begging him if it was the last thing she did.
Even as the phone was being answered he thought it might be the last thing she did.
Begging him would make it all the more fulfilling for him.

“Paddy is breaking in today.
Kill him.”
He hung up the phone before his contact in the house could answer.
Tom was smiling as he got up and left his office. Things were beginning to look up for him and he thought that by this time Friday he’d be set in all the things he wanted.

He went to his basement.
Calling it a basement was an overstatement. He’d had it dug out just after he’d acquired the house.
It was his place of rest.
It was also his play room and his laboratory.
He sat in the chair behind the desk in the office that was far more superior to the one above him.
Not only was the desk bigger
,
but the equipment and computer system here was much more advanced.

He had a monitoring system that watched over every room in the house and every inch of the yard beyond him.
The alarm alone had cost hi
m
millions and he thought it well worth it.
Birds didn’t even land on his grass any more as they were killed instantly when they dared try.
The surrounding fence and high barred wired
had
kept out everything that thought to scale it.
The power that hummed along it was enough to fry even the largest of prey and when he turned it up to full amperage the place practically sang with energy.
This was why Tom rarely left his compound and had his dinner brought to him.
Smiling
,
he switched a few buttons and looked inside the house of Alexis Dark.

The kitchen and the living room were the only two rooms he could see. His partner had been less than helpful when he’d had her install the remotes.
But he supposed that she’d done the best she could. Alexis had been on top of every little thing that had gone on inside the renovations to the house.
Not that he could blame her. Alexis was a very beautiful and rare woman.

He glanced down at the sheets of paper that had come to him last night.
And now he knew just what it was about her that intrigued him so much.
Alexis was a shifter.
The last of her breed and
,
even better, full blooded.
Now he needed to taste her more than ever. Tom knew without a doubt that her blood would be like a fine wine and a thick steak all at once. He was looking forward to her blood like he did anything expensive he got.

Tom watched the play between the people in the room on the monitor screen. The youngest child, he thought her name was simply Sis
,
was messy and he’d be glad to have her dead.
She ate her human food like it was the best thing she’d ever tasted and
,
to his horror
,
she showed the person sitting across from her what was in her mouth every few minutes.
Tom shuddered.
He hated children of all kinds and thought that their only purpose should be to feed his kind.
Flipping the switch
,
he watched the living room.

The girl Darcy sat in there alone.
She sat with her head down and her hands in her lap. He wished he knew what was going on in her mind.
The girl frankly creeped him out since the day he’d killed her mother.
And as for her being alive, that little bit of information had been a surprise too.
He’d thought her dead like the mother.
That was another thing he had to thank Alexis for.
She’d been responsible for Darcy as well.

The girl continued to sit and he was about ready to change back to the kitchen in hopes of the little one being gone or to see that she’d choked to death on whatever she’d been eating when Darcy looked up. She didn’t look around the room
,
but simply up.
It took him several seconds to realize that she was staring at him.