SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits (266 page)

His tongue slipped out to wet his lower lip. “I think that as my mate you must obey me or the punishment will be swift.” The deep, gravelly tone to his words stroked over her skin like rough fingers.

He’d taken down the top part of his coveralls to let his wound breathe, leaving an open expanse of caramel skin. She ran her hands over the hard ridges, the hills of his pecs. “It’s not punishment if I like it.”

Holy crap, the noise he made. Something so unfamiliar, and yet the sound displayed a clear tone of gratification. “Sherri, you have no idea how much I like the idea of turning your ass pink with my hand before I sink deep inside you.” He lifted his chin. “Or better, maybe while I’m inside you.”

Holy crude, filthy, sexy tongue, Batman. “That sounds… tricky.”

Ash caught her lip between his teeth. “You doubt my ability to rise to the challenge?”

“I—”

The surprise of the door slamming open knocked Sherri off her perch. Not for the first time, habit had her reaching for a gun that wasn’t there.

Once again, Jojo stood in the doorway with a weapon. “Sorry to interrupt the lovebirds, but it’s time to hit the road.”

Dammit, if Ash wanted to kill this guy, he was going to have to get in line.

* * *

Jojo had tied Ash and Sherri so they couldn’t touch. If that stupid fucker thought something as basic as a few pieces of rope would hold Ash down this close to the full moon, the runt was crazier than Ash thought.

He used every ounce of his self-control to keep still and silent, only because losing his shit now would be bad for everyone. For Sherri, who despite whatever training she had, might not hold up in the middle of a wolf frenzy, and for Jett, who would want to close his murder investigation.

So Ash slid his boot over to tap against Sherri’s foot—maybe to reassure her, maybe to reassure himself. It was something. He tried to determine where they were headed by their speed and whatnot, but doing so proved difficult. He’d gone a while without sleep. In the dark of the van, he got distracted by the bright, glowing moon shining in through the windows.

Sherri pushed back against Ash’s foot with confidence, but he could smell her fear. She hid it well, under a steel spine and carefully controlled bravado, but his nose didn’t lie.

I should never have gone up to her room that night.

It was hard. Hard to be sorry when he’d loved every minute of talking to her, touching her. “You know,” he whispered, “The night we met, I ran out so quick because I’d never wanted to spend the night tangled up with a woman so much. Even on my ride home, I was thinking maybe you wouldn’t mind me stopping back by some other night.”

“Hey, shut the fuck up back there.” Jojo banged on the dashboard.

Ash could just make out Sherri’s smile in the dark. Completely worth pissing off Jojo. Well, almost. The other girl, the redhead, whimpered in her corner at Jojo’s commotion. Poor thing. She’d been acting like a frightened bunny since getting hauled into the cargo area.

Ash listened to the rumble of engines outside. He counted six more guys at least, which he suspected meant Jojo anticipated trouble. Then again, getting inside Jojo’s head had no clear path. Ash ran through the list of potential hangers-on, wondering if any might be on his side, but he had to assume they were on their own.

Even Kyle, the human who’d earlier brought food and a message from Jett, now wisely sat silently in the front seat. The young human might sympathize, but he’d pledged his loyalty to the pack. No way would he bite the hand feeding ‘im, especially not when it had sharper claws.

“Tell you what, man. That took a lot of balls coming up in there and issuing me a challenge.” Jojo was either talking to Ash or talking just to hear himself beat his chest. Wasn’t entirely clear. “I think your old man’s expecting you to work out some magical deal with our buyer tonight, and then you’re gonna have no choice but to come back home and work for the pack again in order to save your woman, huh?”

Huh was right. Ash refused to believe that plan would work.

The van slowed and came to a stop. Jojo turned, his eyes glowing from the moonlight that came in through the front windshield. “’Cept we both know that bitch ain’t your mate. Yeah,
cabrón
?” He thumped Kyle in the arm and they both jumped out of the van.

Quickly, while they had a moment alone, Ash rose onto his knees and whispered to Sherri, “All right, listen. I’m sorry for all of this shit, but we’re gonna make it out. When we do, I want to get to know you. For real. The right way, without being locked in a room and having a forced bonding ceremony.”

“I wish you’d stop apologizing. I’m a big girl, and I can hold my own. You know, when I’m not being kidnapped by werewolves.” She sounded like she was fidgeting with her ropes. “You’d really want to go out with me?”

Ash’s heart paused for a few seconds. “Is that so crazy?”

“You did say you didn’t do repeats. Anyway, I took a look around that clubhouse. Lotta ladies like Zoe with her denim skirts and her platform heels. I figured they would be more your type.” Sherri’s soft laugh vibrated with nerves. “I assumed being with me was like walking on the wild side in reverse.”

He exhaled a silent laugh. “If I wanted a tail-bunny, that’s what I’d have,” he whispered. “There’s no shortage even outside the pack. I got a dozen of those girls waiting tables at my restaurant.” He cleared his throat, pausing at one of those flippy sensations in his chest. “I like that you’re different. Question is, am I good enough for a woman like you? Look where we are now. Thanks to me, thanks to Jojo. Jesus, I want to rip out his fucking throat,” he hissed.

Her sigh sounded so loud it drowned out the talk of the guys outside the van. Which really, he should have been listening to. “It’s clear to me that you’re good,” she murmured. “If we make it out of this in one piece, though, I’m going to need you to stop threatening to kill people on my behalf. It looks bad, given my profession.”

He gritted his teeth. “Done.”

His small rise of hope at what they’d agreed to died down when Kyle swung open the doors to the van. “Time to party, guys.”

Wild Nights with a Lone Wolf: Chapter Thirteen

There were no signs of police presence, which gave Sherri a sick sense of dread. They stood at the mouth of a crudely dug tunnel shored up with a few wooden posts, and the chances were good that if anybody went down that dark passageway, they were not coming back.

It was simply too dark to tell anything. The only light came from the nearly full moon and a few pairs of headlights. Two sets pulling up from inside the tunnel, and one set from the van she and Ash had come out of. Sherri didn’t want to get inside any vehicle so how they were going to get out of there looked iffy.

She tried to whisper reassurances to the frightened girl who’d been dragged along. “Stay behind me. It’s going to be okay.” Not that there were any real promises to be made¸ but surely it sounded better than “Brace yourself, we’re all going to die.”

With crazy-eyed Jojo leading the way, they approached a cluster of men, most of whom held what appeared to be automatic weapons. She’d only seen these kinds of guns in the occasional crate in an evidence locker. This stuff wasn’t her area of expertise, but she’d put it in the “Kills stuff dead, and fast” category.

One man stood in the center, holding no gun at all. By some trick of lighting his face stayed mostly covered by shadow. This one had to be the guy in charge.

“Mr. Hughes. Lovely evening. Let’s see what you’ve brought for me.”

“You first.”

One of the gun-toting henchmen tossed out a heavy-looking duffel bag. It landed with a thud in the dead zone between both parties.

Ash caught her eye and then nodded toward Jojo. Sherri nodded back. They’d gone over a bunch of different what-ifs. Ash didn’t trust Jojo to help broker a different deal, and suspected his father’s motives as well. If they made it as far as the trade, Ash planned to attack Jojo. Sherri’s job was to protect the other girl.

So when Jojo tugged on Sherri’s arm, she dug in her now-shredded heels. In that moment of hesitation, Ash became a blur of movement. His arms freed, he swooped to the ground and came up with that refrigerator wire he’d moved to his pants leg for the trip. In her next blink, the wire had skewered Jojo’s neck.

Jojo gurgled something that sounded like “motherfucker” before he crumpled to the ground.

Sherri threw herself on top of the frightened redheaded girl, who struggled and whimpered beneath her. “It’s all right. I’m trying to protect you. Stay down, okay?”

Sherri’s wrists rubbed raw as she tried to get free of her bonds while keeping her eyes on Ash. He had about twelve guns pointed at his head. In the face of his plans to negotiate, that equation looked like an awfully big losing scenario.

The shadowy man in charge signaled his guys to hold their fire and stepped forward. “It would appear that I have someone new to do business with, but I don’t know who you are. So before I let my men go ahead and kill you, I’m going to need an introduction.”

Ash took a step. “Name’s Ash. Your contact here was my half brother, but he put my bond mate into a van to sell her to you so our blood relationship no longer holds any weight. I’m hoping you and I can work out a deal. I’ve got contacts who can get you cars, guns, prescriptions, whatever else you might need.”

Focusing on the struggling redhead and a gasping Jojo, Sherri put on a pair of mental ear plugs and pretended she couldn’t hear a word from Ash.

“Takes sibling rivalry to a new level, eh?” The man laughed a nasal, oily laugh at his own joke that made Sherri work harder and faster on the ropes holding her hands, heedless of the blood slicking her wrists.

“You don’t hurt what’s mine and get away with it.” The threat in Ash’s voice sounded icy and dangerous, given the number of guns on the field. Behind him, all the men who’d pulled up on their motorcycles ready to back up Jojo shifted and looked at each other, probably wondering whose side they should be on now.

If they were smart, they’d stay on Ash’s. Sherri’s senses told her this other guy spelled trouble for everyone.

“Here’s the snag with your proposal, young
were
.” The man stepped forward. “I don’t need guns or money. “I need the women.”

Sherri stopped for a second when his face came into the light, trying to figure out why his voice rang a bell.

Ash stepped forward. “We’ll reschedule. Bring you different girls. You can’t have these.”

“Rescheduling won’t be possible.”

“Shit. Shit, shit,
shit.
”
Sherri bit her lips together and pulled one hand free from the loosened rope, silently screaming against the burning pain.

“I see.” Ash nodded with one hand on his chin as if this line of discussion all sounded perfectly fine. “Then I suppose I’ll have to go to my backup plan.”

“What do you propose?”

Ash disappeared. Dust kicked up in front of them. Three of the gun-toting henchmen collapsed to the ground, cradling bleeding calves.

With a blur of movement, Ash stood back in front of Sherri, bare-assed naked, blood dripping from his mouth. “Now,” Ash growled, “You ready to deal? Or do you wanna be next?”

Sherri had no concept of how Ash could move so fast. The single time he’d shifted in front of her, he’d done it slowly.

Jojo groaned faintly on the ground where he lay bleeding, right next to Sherri. “He killed his own mother you know,” Jojo gurgled. “You can’t trust him.” A shaking hand moved toward his gun holster.

Sherri pulled out the rusty pliers and brought them down on the hand. “Don’t you guys die?” She grabbed the gun from its holster.

She couldn’t ignore his warning. Words spoken by a dying criminal shouldn’t be trusted, but they plunged shards of fear and doubt into her center. Nevertheless, those words hadn’t changed what was at stake. She stood and aimed at the man across from Ash, who only laughed. Laughter in the face of a gun never did bode well.

“Okay,” she called. “Who wants to see if he can hobble the rest of you before I get a shot off?”

“Come on now, Agent Walker. Is that any way to treat your new boss?”

He knew her name. Shit. New boss.
New boss
? “Oh my God.” The voice. Her mind went back… The voicemail. Her call from Zoe’s phone. No wonder he sounded familiar. “Agent Fowler.”

Even in the light of the van’s headlamps, his eyes cast no glow. They looked vacant and empty. His smile flat. “We all have secrets, don’t we, Agent Walker? Bond mate to a wolf with known gang affiliations? I don’t recall seeing that in your file.” He snaked his tongue around his top teeth. It bodes well, though. If you’ve got what it takes to bond to a
were
, there’s a good chance you’re a latent. And I will enjoy turning you.”

“Hell fucking no.” Ash growled and shifted again to his wolf form. He dug at the ground, looking ready to charge.

Agent Fowler went for the buttons on his own shirt, and Sherri fired the gun. If they both shifted, things would get messy. A dark spot on Fowler’s torso told her she’d hit, but he kept coming. She fired again, but he only dropped his shirt and belt, morphing from man to beast in one swift motion. And what came forward was no wolf.

It was some kind of monster.

The thing had fur and claws. The resemblance ended there. Horns decorated its back, and its eyes looked like bottomless ovals. No warm glow like Ash’s eyes.

The other human in the group, Kyle, uttered a “holy shit.” His surprise made him drop his gun. Great.

What they could do against that thing, Sherri didn’t know. She prayed Ash was strong enough to fight it, but she didn’t know about that either. Some of the guys from Ash’s former pack were shooting. A couple didn’t seem to have a clue.

She waved her arm to get everyone’s attention. “Get behind the van!”

One of the remaining henchmen came to his senses and fired a burst of rounds, catching that Kyle guy in the arm. He went reeling, landing backwards on top of Jojo. Yuck.

“Get to cover, folks! Fall back. Come on.” Jeez. She’d only fired a weapon on the range before today, and even she knew that one. Wouldn’t a criminal know better? She bent down and tugged on Kyle’s good arm, trying to get him and the poor frightened redhead to safety.