Lover Claimed (6 page)

Pain shot up his leg. His wolf howled.

When Alexei went to uppercut him, Lajos
turned in a circle, moving out of his reach and making Alexei miss
his target. Lajos used the momentum from the turn to drive his fist
into Alexei’s side. It was like punching a brick wall. Lajos could
hear his knuckles crunch under the force.

Alexei laughed as Lajos pulled his hand back.
“Alexei has muscles of steel.”

“Okay,” Lajos said, trying to ignore the pain
from his hand. “Referring to yourself in the third person is not
crazy at all.”

Alexei puffed out his chest and hit his fist
in the middle of it. “Hit me. I give you one chance.”

Never one to pass up a free opportunity Lajos
balled his throbbing fist and went after Alexei with all his might,
hitting him in the stomach, trying to catch him off guard. His fist
felt like it broke into a million pieces. Lajos bit down on his
lip, holding out against the pain. He balled his other fist and
hauled back to lay another punch. Alexei ducked and, before he
could react,
Fedir
wielded a chair,
bringing it down on Lajos’ head. Lajos stumbled back as the pieces
of chair broke around him.

As they both rushed him, Lajos jumped to land
on the bloodied desk. Good thing the police had already done their
investigation, otherwise the footprints in the crime scene would’ve
caused more confusion and probably prolonged the investigation.

“Why don’t you tell me who hired you, eh?”
Lajos stepped out of Alexei’s grasp. The big shifter was slow.
“Tell me the name of the coward that lets knuckleheads do all his
dirty work.”

“Never.” Alexei tried to grab Lajos’ leg
again but was met with a mouthful of shoe. Lajos swore he heard
Alexei’s teeth crack under his kick. Alexei cupped his mouth,
giving Lajos just enough time to grab the phone off the desk and
smash it across Alexei’s skull.

His momentary joy of having gotten off a shot
was short lived when, from the corner of his eye he spotted Meisha
leaving her hiding place, inching toward them.

Go, run away
, he willed. If she left
he could shift and make mincemeat out of these two. But no, she
inched her way closer to Fedir. If she survived this he was going
to throttle her.

Lajos was getting his ass kicked, and if she
didn’t help him he’d probably end up getting killed too. While she
hadn’t found any kind of signs that the Yaruzi had been responsible
for Mark’s death, she still couldn’t be certain that these men
hadn’t been hired by them. Maybe they forgot to leave a calling
card—a message for Meisha and her family. That could be the reason
why they returned, to paint the Yaruzi gang sign somewhere.

Well, if she could help it, these men
wouldn’t be relaying anything back to the Yaruzi.

Meisha went for the smaller one, while he was
preoccupied with trying to get his hands on Lajos.

She gripped the handle of the knives she held
and crept forward as softly as possible. Her steps were light and
fast. What she planned to do was stab the motherfucker in both of
his thighs and, when he fell, stomp his face into the carpet. But
when he turned around and snarled at her she knew her plans had to
change.

“Trying to sneak up on me, bitch?” A sinister
smile crossed
Fedir’s
lips. “I can smell
you a mile away. I have plans to take care of you properly once we
finish off the Hungarian pup.”

She tilted her head. “And by ‘properly’ what
are we talking about here? Rape? Murder?” She brought one of the
knives up by her face and kept the other one aimed low.

He chuckled and his eyes gleamed. “A little
bit of both.”

“Meisha,” Lajos yelled. “Run. Get out of
here.”

She didn’t allow herself to take her eyes off
the threat in front of her to look over at Lajos. But she could
hear the strain in his voice and in her peripheral vision she could
see him trading blows with the other guy.

“Go ahead, run,” the asshole in front of her
said. “I like a good chase.”

Split them up.

She turned and bolted for the door. The guy
behind her laughed.
Fedir
was sure she
would be easy pickings. When she made it to the hallway she turned
right and continued her sprint. She allowed herself just enough
time to look over her shoulder. Just as she expected, he was coming
out of the office to follow her.

She turned around, focusing her attention
ahead.

Boots slamming on the linoleum came up fast
behind her.

She just needed to make it to the next
corner.

The sound of his boots disappeared.

Shit. Did he stop his pursuit?

Turning around to look would only slow her
down, but she had no choice. She looked.

What the fuck?

Fedir
had kicked off
his boots and was pulling his shirt off over his head as he
ran.

He’s getting ready to rape me
.

She was going to fucking kill him.

She rounded the corner and slid to a stop.
She whirled around and slammed her back against the wall, sliding
down to a crouch and readying her knives.

Click, clack. Click, clack.

She listened intently.

Her mind worked overtime trying to place the
sound.

Click, clack. Click, clack.

The noise tugged at her brain.

I know that sound, but from where?

It sounded like…Piper walking in her
kitchen.

Did he send a dog after her?

The urge to peek around the corner was great,
but she kept her position and tightened her grip on her knives.
Heavy pants came closer and closer. She would kill him and his
dog.

Sorry pooch.

As soon as the dog rounded the corner she
slit it with her knife, one time across the throat, cutting deep to
reach its windpipe. She brought up her other knife and stuck it
underneath its rib cage. The dog fell to its side. Blood poured
from its throat and chest.

Meisha took steps away from the wall. Without
the element of surprise on her side she didn’t want the asshole to
pin her against it, lowering her chances of winning. She looked
down the hall. Empty. She scanned the doors lining the hall. There
were seven, which meant
Fedir
could’ve
gone into any one of those to hide.

But why would he hide from me?

Just a few minutes ago he was hell-bent on
raping her.

She could wait where she was, hoping he would
come out and face her, or she could go back down the hall and help
Lajos. But
Fedir
was probably waiting for
her to do that. And when she walked past the door he was hiding
behind, he would jump out and attack her.

The element of surprise. Just as she had
done.

She looked down at the dog, dead at her feet,
and frowned.

What kind of dog is this?

He was black and big…no, huge. He was some
kind of Husky for sure. A big Husky. She and Lajos were going to
have a hard time trying to move this thing’s body. Leaving it in
the hall wasn’t an option. She couldn’t risk someone spotting a
dead dog in an office building. That would be enough to start
another investigation and she really didn’t need the cops coming
back to dust for prints again. While she was smart enough to wear
gloves, Lajos was not. His prints would be all over the place.

She cursed him under her breath.

She peered at the dog again.

Something was different. Was it changing? She
swore it had longer and thicker hair. Now she could see the skin
underneath. And the face. The snout wasn’t long anymore. It
looked…almost human.

She stood and watched, dumbfounded, as the
dog…changed. Her mouth went dry. Her heart slammed against her ribs
and her breaths became uncontrolled.

The dog turned into a human.

The guy who’d been chasing her lay on his
side, naked. It was Fedir. His throat gaped and he had a hole in
his chest.

“Wh-what are you?” she whispered.

Her hands began to shake. The knives almost
slipped from her grip. Heat swept across her body.

“Meisha!”

Lajos’ voice was distant and urgent, but she
couldn’t pull her eyes from the anomaly at her feet.

How is this possible?

In the back of her mind she could hear Lajos
walking toward her.

“I-I killed a dog,” she kept repeating,
trying to convince her mind that the dead man at her feet was some
kind of trick.

“You killed a wolf.”

She looked up to find Lajos next to her. He
put a hand on hers, pushing the knife that she held down to her
side. She let him do the same to the other.

“A wolf?” she asked, confusion overtaking her
brain. She looked back down at the man. “But…”

Lajos took a deep breath. “He was a wolf
shifter.”

Wolf shifter?

Her head began to swim, making her dizzy.
This type of thing doesn’t happen in real life.

“We need to get rid of the body,” he
said.

“I-I don’t believe you.” She looked up at
him. “W-Where is his friend?”

“He jumped from the office window. I wanted
to go after him, but I couldn’t leave you here with Fedir. I didn’t
want you to get hurt.”

She indicated with her hand at Fedir. “Is his
friend one of these too?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God, the Yaruzi sent freaks after us,”
she whispered.

He brushed past her. “They aren’t freaks.” He
stepped over the dead man and crouched behind him.

She stared down at Fedir. Her and her family
could get away from the Yaruzi—she’d trained most of her life in
tactics geared toward escaping them—but this… She shook her head in
disbelief. How would they escape from people like Fedir?

“He changed from a man to a wolf and back to
a man again,” Meisha said, her voice sounded distant. “H-How was
he—it able to do that?”

“He isn’t a freak and he’s not an ‘it’. He’s
a shifter, particularly a wolf shifter.”

“I d-don’t believe you. W-why would I believe
something as crazy at that?”

He leaned over and sniffed the guy’s hair.
“Because I’m one too.”

Chapter Seven

He knew he probably shouldn’t have just laid
the news on her like that. But damn was it worth it just to see the
look on her face and render her speechless. He didn’t know Meisha
well, but he was sure she wasn’t the kind of woman that could be
made speechless easily.

While she stood with her mouth open, watching
him, he inspected the shifter’s body for any pack tattoos. It
wasn’t necessary to have a tattoo to identify your pack, since most
could be identified by other means, but it was the twenty-first
century and tattoos were all the rage now. This guy didn’t have
any, and despite being able to usually place a shifter to their
pack with one whiff, he still couldn’t, which would be genius on
the part of whoever hired these shifters. If Lajos couldn’t place
them, he’d have a harder time determining who they were working
for.

He hooked his arm underneath
Fedir
’s arms. “I’m going to take the body downstairs.
I’ll need you to clean up the blood while I do that.”

She opened and closed her mouth but no words
came out.

“Meisha, snap out of it. I need your
help.”

“B-but you’re one of them,” she said, staring
at him in disbelief.

“Yes, I’m a shifter. I can change into a
wolf.”

“You can do that?”

He nodded. “Yes, but we’ll have to save the
questions for later. There’s a dead shifter in the middle of a
hallway. I’d like to get him moved.”

She looked down at the body again and wavered
on her feet. “Shouldn’t we call the police? I-It was
self-defense.”

He shook his head. “No police. We can’t risk
an autopsy. I’ll call my brother and get a security team down here
right away. We handle our own affairs.”

He took one look at her and knew she was in
no condition to cooperate. She was confused and scared. Now, he had
no choice. He had to push his thoughts to her. He stood and looked
her directly in the eyes.

Meisha. You never saw a wolf. It was just a
man with long hair. He growled at you and you were so frightened
that you thought he was some kind of animal. You killed him, a
man—a member of the Russian mafia.

He had to give a good enough reason for
Meisha not to want to pursue this madness anymore. Every human he
knew was scared of the mafia, it didn’t matter which one, but if
she somehow remembered the thick Russian accents that Alexei and
Fedir spoke with, it would all make sense to her.

“Right,” she said, with a flat tone to her
voice.

“Find a bathroom and get some paper towels.
When you’re done, make sure to put all the soiled towels in a
garbage bag and we’ll take that with us too.”

“Sure.”

He would’ve liked to spend more time with
her, convincing her that everything was still right with the world,
but he had to move quickly and get this mess cleaned up. He pulled
Fedir
down the hall, leaving Meisha where
she stood, looking at the trail of blood between her and him. Lajos
picked up
Fedir
’s clothes on the way,
stuffing
Fedir’s
socks in the holes that
Meisha had so expertly put in him. At least now he wouldn’t leave a
trail of blood down the stairs.

When she ran from the office his breath had
caught in his throat. He knew for sure she was a goner. The plan to
keep baiting Alexei for more information fell short against saving
Meisha. He was worried that he’d taken too long and imagined her
dead at Fedir’s hands. What he wasn’t expecting was to find her
standing over the Russian shifter’s dead body, holding knives
dripping with blood.

When he got to the stairs he lifted the body
over his head and looked back at Meisha. She stared his way. Her
eyes had that faraway look and weren’t really focused on anything.
“I’ll come back up to help you.”