The Heat (29 page)

She stared at him, her gaze narrowing ever so slightly.

He raised his arm, training the gun on her once more and expertly notched the cuffs open with his one free hand. “I said lay back down, Lily.”

Lily’s fingers tightly grasped the side of the bed. “You can’t keep me here like this forever, Allan. What are you going to do? Do you have a plan yet?” she asked softly. Again, she was surprised at the change in her voice - and in her courage. She felt more angry than afraid. Which was just nuts. He could have her unconscious in seconds. And then he could take off her head. Or burn her body. Or whatever other grisly methods there might be of killing werewolves that she didn’t know about.

“Tomorrow I will go back to work and, when Daniel Kane is at his weakest – brought to that state through the death of his uncle and the abduction of his true love – I will kill him,” he smiled a nasty smile.

Lily’s eyes went wide. “His uncle?”

Jennings nodded slowly. “It had to be done. And just in the nick of time, too.” He shook his head at that, as if he was amazed at how close a call it had been, and then he shrugged, all nonchalance. He sighed and went on. “After that, I will find someone who can reverse this process within you.”

Lily straightened. Her heart skipped a beat. “That isn’t possible.”

“Oh no?” He raised an eyebrow. “There is quite probably a lot about Kane’s world that you aren’t aware of.” He studied her for a moment, as if trying to decide on something. “Do you think that he or any of his demons would ever let on to you that you didn’t have to remain a monster once they had turned you?”

“I….” She didn’t want to think about his words. Didn’t want to consider them. But they were important. She pursed her lips and then shook her head, once. “I don’t believe you.”

He cocked his head to one side, his expression softening just a touch. “Of course you don’t,” he said, calmly. Under different circumstances, his confidence and the slight smile he now wore would have been very attractive. As it was, however, she felt that he was mocking her.

And it was beginning to piss her off.

“As I said Lily, Kane wouldn’t have shared this information. But think about it for a minute. You already know that witches exist and you know what they’re capable of doing. How far of a stretch is it that they take it a step further?”

Lily blinked at that. She glanced down at her right arm and, for the first time since she’d been with Daniel, she noticed that the mark he’d placed there a few days ago was now gone. No thin blue line. Nothing.
It’s gone now. It must have disappeared when he turned me, because I don’t need it any more.

Because I’m his.

She also noticed that there was no blood on her body. She was sure that she had been covered with it after being shot.
He cleaned me
, she thought. The realization was disgusting; she didn’t want to consider Jennings with his hands all over her body.

She looked back up at Jennings, who was watching her with deft interest. She shivered. He looked like he actually knew what was going through her head. That was unnerving.

She swallowed and cleared her throat, finally pulling the sheet protectively to her chest. “I don’t understand,” she shook her head. “Why me? Why not just kill me too?” She really couldn’t wrap her head around his actions. He had killed Daniel’s uncle. His hatred for werewolves was clearly extreme.

Allan made a small bewildered sound and shook his head. “You really don’t know?”

She waited.

“Lily, everything about you screams goodness. Light. Salvation. I know you better than you think I do. I’ve – ” He brought himself up short, as if he had been about to give something away that he didn’t necessarily want her to know. Then he swallowed hard and continued. “I know what is in your heart and I can’t let Kane and his monsters take that from you. I can’t let them change you. I won’t let them win. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure that they don’t.”

Lily sat there on the edge of the bed, her fist clenching the mattress so tightly that the springs groaned beneath her grip. She was utterly thrown by what Allan Jennings had just told her.

She wasn’t stupid. She was familiar enough with men like him; had dealt with them in her line of work. The signs of obsession were clear to her. He was crazy all right, but it was worse than that. He was crazy about
her
. And he was smart and he’d been in a position of authority for a decade. She wondered exactly how much he really did know about her.

I’ve gone from Malcolm Cole to Allan Jennings
, she thought.
From the frying pan and into the fire.

Lily figured that she had two options at this point. She could fight him, which she desperately wanted to do, and she would probably lose. She might even make him angry enough to kill her.

Her second option was to pretend to be on his side. Go the Stockholm Syndrome route. Or the route of the helpless female who neither wants nor deserves the curse that the evil, horrible, no-good werewolf has placed upon her.

The second option sort of made her feel like biting off her own tongue and chewing it up and swallowing it. But it was also probably the smarter choice.

“Allan, I’m cold.” She made a show of wrapping as much of the sheet around her body as she could. “And those cuffs hurt,” she nodded toward the impossibly strong handcuffs in his left hand. “Please just let me sit here. Give me back my clothes – or a blanket.” She spoke softly and pleaded with a smooth, yielding tone. She wanted him to think that the fight in her was gone. She even glanced at the gun a few times, nervously, as if all she could think about was the fear of getting shot again. As if she would do anything to prevent that from happening.

Jennings peered down at her, his gray-blue eyes looking like stormy skies.

“You honestly think I’d fall for this, Lily? We’re both smart, remember? You’re a social worker who knows how to negotiate with people.” He gave his head a small shake. “And I’m a cop.” He smiled a wry, admonishing smile. “I’m also a Hunter, Lily. I know how the demon works inside your head.”

Lily bit her cheek. “And how exactly is that?” she asked, desperately trying to keep the conversation going. Anything to forestall the handcuffs.

“How does it work?” He laughed at that, a dark chuckle. “Like poison.” He shrugged. “But I’m a little surprised by how fast it’s working on you, Lily. I thought you were stronger than this.”

You want to see how strong I am?
she thought.
Come
on over here – without the gun.

“Still, you’re not as far gone as some of the Made wolves I’ve hunted. I could tell you some stories.”

Lily squelched the nauseating disgust she felt at his murderous admission and took the opportunity he presented. “So tell me then, Allan. What has Kane done to me? What exactly am I in for?” Her tone was even. She’d successfully kept the icy chill of hatred she felt from entering her voice. “Tell me,” she repeated.

Jennings seemed to consider this a moment. His smile was still cruel and his stormy eyes glittered in the fluorescent lights.

Lily tried to calm her racing heart.
Surrender
, she told herself.
Play stupid. Play nice
.

Then he seemed to come to a decision. The storms in his eyes darkened into thunderheads and his jaw set. “I’d be happy to. But not before you lay back down and raise your arms over your head like a good girl.” His tone had lowered. It was probably the tone he used when telling drunk drivers to get out of their cars for sobriety tests.

Lily’s own golden gaze narrowed dangerously. She felt her fangs lengthen once more in her mouth and strange lights danced before her eyes. She wondered if she was about to flash into wolf form. No one had told her how to do that. She had no idea what to expect. And she knew that if she went – he would shoot. And she wasn’t sure she would ever wake up again.

“
Now
, Lily.” He cocked the gun with his thumb. “I won’t tell you again.”

She gritted her teeth and, with one last furtive glance at the 9mm, she acquiesced, laying flat on the mattress and once more and pulling the sheet up over her body. She truly was starting to feel cold. On the inside as well as out. She really wanted a blanket. She really wanted her clothes.

She really, really wanted an Uzi.

“Arms above your head and wrap your hands around the pole.”

A muscle in Lily’s jaw ticked with suppressed resentment as she did what he instructed. And then, once more, the barrel of the god-forsaken weapon was against her rib cage and Jennings was leaning over her with the superhuman cuffs to chain her wrists into place.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to Lily. It flashed, half-image, half memory, before her panicked mind’s eye.

Now,
Lily.
You have your strength. You can’t let him win.
It was now or never. She had to get out. She had to warn Daniel - or die trying.

Lily’s head swam and her chest tightened as she prepared to do what she was going to do. It had been a fleeting thought, a quick-floating memory through her fevered brain, that had given her the idea.

It was a thought of Daniel - and his kiss.

A werewolf’s kiss had the power to make someone feel pleasure. But she also knew firsthand that it could weaken someone, and even put them to sleep. It all depended on what the wolf wanted. Lily suspected there was even more to that equation, but the sleeping thing was what got her attention at that moment.

Just one kiss
, she thought.
Just one little kiss.

Just as Jennings touched the cold metal of the cuff to the side of her right wrist, Lily raised her head and trapped his lips with hers.

* * * *

“I don’t know what the fuck to do now.” Daniel let loose the words as his soul was claimed by a despondency and despair unlike any other. He had lost much in his life, and half of it in the last twenty-four hours. But this?

He looked up at James Valentine through eyes both glowing and red-rimmed, no longer seeing the man as a threat or competition, but as a chance. A hope.

Daniel would cling to anything –
anything at all
– right now if it presented to him the least amount of hope that he would find Lily and bring her back home.

“Tell me what you feel,” Daniel demanded of the Guardian werewolf. He knew that Valentine would be able to sense whether Lily was still alive. And he wanted to know the truth. Precious minutes had passed since they’d discovered her missing from the parking lot at the Mall of Louisiana. Precious minutes that had transformed into more than a precious hour – and that was a long time. A long, long time when it came to abduction.

“I sense that she’s alive,” Valentine told him, simply. “And I would not spare you, Kane,” he continued, speaking softly and in a tone of such deep seriousness, everyone stilled around him. “No matter what you believe.”

That was good enough for Daniel. He nodded. And then turned away from the Guardian to gaze up and down the street. Everyone sped on Highway 61. Few of his officers bothered ticketing people any longer, unless they showed signs of being under the influence.

Across the street was a small brick church, its worn sign announcing 8:00 service on Sunday night. The sign was decrepit with rust and hung in its frame by a single screw. The parking lot was riddled with weeds. In the middle of the week, as it was now, the lot would be empty. A single service vehicle was parked near the back of the gravel drive and, currently abandoned. It was an older truck. As cars and trucks tended to do in the South, it was rusted along the tire rims, door and hood seams. An emblem on the side depicted an oak tree and rolling hills. A lawn and garden service.

Just in time, it would seem. The church badly needed some work.

A few hundred yards up the road from the church was another drive leading to a barbeque “pit.” Currently, there were four vehicles parked in the drive and smoke billowed from its kitchen chimney. Daniel could easily detect the scent of seasoned, cooked meat in the air.

About a third of a mile in the other direction was a gift shop-casino-truck stop. At the moment, two semi’s were pulled up alongside the back and an SUV was pumping gas at what looked like pump number two. Even at this distance, Daniel was able to narrow his supernatural gaze on the back seat of the vehicle and make out the struggling forms of two bickering toddlers.

“I don’t know,” Tabitha stated. “It’s ridiculous. I mean, the place is practically famous. Frankly, I’m amazed that none of us knew it for what it was right away.” There was a dangerous edge to the tone of her voice. Daniel recognized it for what it was. It was that note that bordered on hysterics.

Valentine had his arm around her and was holding her tightly against his side. Daniel suspected it may be the only thing keeping his sister from going off the deep end at that moment.

Daniel nodded and then shook his head, agreeing with her. “But there’s something else. Something we’re missing.” He looked up at Detective Knight and pinned him to the spot with eyes that he knew damned well were both red and glowing because they burned in his sockets. “Come on, detective.
Think.
What do we know about Allan Jennings? He’s worked with us for a fucking
decade,
for chrissake! There has to be a clue in there somewhere!”

Aiden Knight blinked and then ran a hand through his brown hair. “He’s an excellent marksman,” he offered. “Always groups his shots really close together.”