Lisa Renee Jones Read online

  “Just tell me you can help him.” Desperation rose inside her, and she repeated the command with more force, “Tell me you can help him.”

  “I can help him,” Marcus reassured her, biting his wrist.

  “Thank God,” Cassie breathed out.

  “I do every day,” Marcus assured her, pushing her hand out of the way, to allow his blood to trickle into Troy’s mouth. Cassie let her hand drop to her leg, the blood still pouring out, her gaze locked on Troy’s face. He still wasn’t actively drinking. Why wasn’t he drinking?

  Marcus glanced at her, answering the question she hadn’t spoken out loud. “He will.”

  “He isn’t.”

  “He will.”

  “Cass,” Nico said from behind her, wrapping a jacket around her. “Give him some room to work.” He pulled her to her feet, tearing off his shirt and wrapping it around her wrist. “I’d tell you to shift to heal but I don’t think that’s a good idea right now considering you’re naked, with blood all over your face, and Troy’s neck is ripped out.”

  Nothing he said registered, “I need to see Troy,” she insisted, trying to step around him. “I need to be with him.”

  “Cassie,” he said, blocking her way, his long brown hair tied at the neck.

  Cassie’s brows dipped. Where was Nico’s shirt? She couldn’t process anything. Her head spun and she grabbed his arm.

  Nico caught her. “You’ve lost too much blood.”

  She didn’t care. “I need to be with Troy.”

  “Cassie,” he ground out, holding onto her. “Try to focus while I repeat myself. You’re naked, and you have blood on your mouth. You shifted and his neck is ripped out. I need to know what happened before his brothers decide to find out themselves. Our alliance with the vampires is too fragile to bank on.”

  “What?” she asked, finally understanding his meaning. “You think I did this? You think I would hurt Troy?”

  “No,” he said. “But they might. After Sarah -”

  “I’m not Sarah,” she growled. “A wolf came out of nowhere. He attacked Troy and I attacked him. He ran. I don’t know why. I know it makes no sense but he ran. And thank God on that one too, because if he hadn’t, I doubt me or Troy would be alive right now.”

  A moan of pain filled the air, Troy’s pain. Cassie shoved past Nico and brought Marcus into view, a moment before he flashed out of sight. Marcus was gone and so was Troy.

  “Where is he taking him?” Cassie demanded of Evan and Aiden, now standing together, facing her. “What just happened?”

  “That’s what you need to tell us,” Evan said.

  Chapter Three

  Present Day

  The wolf that attacked him had been a woman. It was something he’d told no one, because he knew who they’d believe it had been, who he didn’t want to believe it had been. But it was time to find out.

  Troy leaned against the parking garage’s concrete pillar, hidden from view. It was just past two in the morning when Cassie exited the elevator of the deserted employee parking garage of the Vegas ‘Casino Italy’, one of the many Society owned properties in their headquarter city, and the one used for their Royal Guard training center. It was the same time she’d departed the hotel every night for a week. He wasn’t sure if to thank her for her predictability, or curse her for it. She was too smart for such foolish mistakes, mistakes that could get her killed, no matter how well they served him now. That he didn’t want to see her dead spoke volumes on why he shouldn’t be here, why he had stayed away.

  Troy listened to Cassie’s high heels click on the pavement, aware that there were cameras everywhere, aware of the exact angles they shot. Waiting for the right moment to snatch Cassie so that he wouldn’t be seen. Cassie might be a member of the Royal Guard, as she’d so often reminded him, both with words, and her skill in battle, but Troy was about to prove that he could still get to her.

  He counted her steps, knowing exactly when she’d be off the camera’s viewing grid, and unlike a wolf, he possessed no scent to warn Cassie that he was near, to warn her of the danger that he represented. But he could smell her, the familiar feminine spice of her natural scent, without the flowers and fruity fragrance a human might favor. She smelled good too; too damn good, too womanly and perfect for his own good, for hers, for the animal he had become. The same animal who’d denied himself any true satisfaction since the wolf that had almost killed him had done more than change his black eyes to blue, and his black hair to blonde. Since he’d finally, after months of denial, been forced to face the facts, to accept that he was something far more lethal than vampire or wolf alone. That he was some sort of hybrid monster.

  Troy stiffened as the hair on the nape of his neck suddenly prickled, his nostrils flaring automatically, seeking the source of his awareness. Cassie stopped walking and he knew she felt what he did. Anger. Malice. Danger. Wolf.

  Fuck.

  A snarl filled the air, and he was aware of what Cassie was not – that the Rebels were plotting to capture and kill the members of the Royal Guard, and they had insiders in the Society helping make that possible. Troy forgot the cameras and acted. He tugged up the leg of his faded jeans, bypassing the copper blade shoved in his biker boot that he used to kill rogue vamps. He snatched the silver instead, rounding the corner, ready to fight.

  The scene snapped into view just in time for him to watch Cassie effortlessly throw three silver stars in fast, accurate concession, without even removing her purse, which was still on her shoulder, and her aim was lethal. The blade hit the seven-foot plus hairy monster of a fanged wolf, one after the other – head, chest, head again.

  The wolf roared in pain and tumbled to his back like the Jolly Green Giant, taken out by a petite little princess warrior in a black, figure hugging skirt that squeezed her lush little ass like a glove, as if the wolf were nothing but a fly.

  Cassie whirled around to face him, another blade in her hand, her expression that of ‘warrior’, her focus complete. She didn’t even register knowing him, but then he’d changed in every way possible.

  A snarl sounded behind Troy and Cassie flung the star towards him and he ducked, then twisted around to finish her work. In a fluid movement, he was on his feet and shoving his blade into the second wolf’s chest. The wolf tumbled over and Troy yanked his knife out of the beast, whirling around to scan for another attacker, finding that Cassie had just taken out the third, and final one, with another round of well placed stars.

  They both went still, facing each other now in confrontation, and Troy was all too aware that he had lost his element of surprise with Cassie. He knew her, and he knew her well. And while she might talk to him, she’d fight him the instant she knew why he was really here. The minute he accused her brother of being a traitor, when he asked the question he prayed she answered correctly. Just how deep did blood run between her and Nico? Enough for her to have tried to rip his throat out?

  “Troy?” she questioned softly.

  He flashed into vampire rocket speed and pressed her against the concrete wall as he slapped a silver cuff over her tiny wrist.

  “What is this?” she asked, and touched his face. “It really is you. I can’t believe it. You look — “

  “Different,” he said, grabbing her hand so she’d stop torturing him with her touch. “Yeah. I am. And you don’t want to know how different either, sweetheart, I promise you. Let’s go.” He started walking, pulling her with him. Any second now they would have company. Any fucking second too soon.

  She jerked against him, as if the handcuff had just registered. “What are you doing?”

  He turned on her, barely containing a snarl. “Exactly what it looks like. Kidnapping you.”

  “You’re kid …” her brows dipped. “What? Why would you… we’re friends.”

  “You are a lot of things to me, Cassie, but mark my words, friend is not one of them. No wolf will ever be my friend again. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice – well – you don’t want
to go there.”

  She paled. “It wasn’t me.”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’ve tried to find out. I’ve tried. You have no idea how hard I’ve tried.”

  God, she was so damn believable. “It would be easy to trust you, Cassie, and nothing good has ever come easy for me.” He glanced towards the elevator, knowing the doors would open any second now as a team of security people came to clean up the mess. “Come with me now willingly, or I swear to you, Cassie, I’ll throw you over my shoulder and carry you.”

  “And if I don’t let you throw me over your shoulder?”

  “You won’t have an option.”

  “I’ll shift.”

  “And lose your hand.”

  “I’m trained to do whatever necessary to avoid capture and you know I will.”

  “Shift and watch me shift with you.”

  “You don’t shift.”

  “Try me, Cassie,” he declared. “There’s a lot more than my looks that have changed and you won’t like the monster I’ve become, I can promise you that.”

  “What?” she asked. “What does that mean, Troy?”

  The elevator dinged. He bent down and flung her over his shoulder, then took off running at supernatural vampire speed. He was out of the garage, and standing on a side street blocks away, in sixty seconds. He settled Cassie on the ground and opened the driver’s side of his Explorer, ordering her, “Inside.”

  “Are you crazy, Troy? There’s too much tension between our races after what happened to you. Too much talk of war. Nico will come for you. The Society will come for you. They’ll kill you and then more blood will follow.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Then you have officially gone crazy.”

  “I’m not only crazy, I’m a mother fucking cowboy, and I’m taking you on a long, wild ride one way or the other. If Nico wants to join us, he’ll be sorry. Now, get in the truck.”

  She studied him a moment. “I didn’t do it.”

  He stared into her honey colored eyes, the same eyes he’d stared into after his throat had been ripped out and he’d been sure he’d been dead. She’d been all that was good in that moment, maybe in his life, outside of his brothers. It tore him up to believe it was all a lie.

  “Troy -”

  His gaze lifted to her. “Get in the truck, Cassie.”

  “I’m getting in because we are going to talk,” she said. “Because I’ve wanted to talk for a long time and no matter who I left a message for you with, you ignored me. So, yeah. I’m getting in.” She turned away from him and started to climb in before saying, “And you owe me an iPad. It was in the purse I dropped somewhere between the garage and here.” She climbed into the truck.

  Troy told himself he didn’t admire her feisty spirit, and not to watch her skirt climb up her long, sexy legs. But she had him on both points ten times over. He ground his teeth, remembering the red dress in Reno, the wolf’s hand on her leg. His anger, his conflict over knowing he didn’t want another man touching her, but being afraid to trust her.

  “Is this some form of torture?” she asked, shaking her hand and his at the same time. “Because if it is, it’s working. My dangling arm is falling asleep.”

  And why was it dangling? Because he’d attached himself to the very woman he’d known to avoid, that he knew was his weakness.

  “Damn it to hell,” he mumbled under his breath and scooted into the truck beside Cassie, where he was forced to keep her close thanks to the short, reinforced chain between their cuffs. She was by his side, her thigh pressed to his, the touch like fire stoking already hot coals, scorching him inside out. His skin tingled and he grasped the steering wheel, surprised by the intensity of the animal inside him, the wolf he didn’t want to be.

  “Troy,” he heard her say, realizing he’d shut his eyes, that sweat was gathering on his brow, that her hand was on his arm, that concern was in her voice.

  He yanked the door shut with his left hand and then used his right hand, the one attached to hers, to pull the automatic lever on the steering wheel down to drive, his foot still on the brake.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, and her soft fingers stroked his hair.

  He reached up and grabbed her hand, glaring at her before releasing it as if burned, turning the classic rock station to blast and ending all conversation. He couldn’t talk to her. Not now because ‘no’, he was not fucking okay. He needed blood and he needed it now. It was too soon to be safe, too soon to not risk the kind of blood lust that turned vampires into monsters. But he could feel the uncontrollable wolf rising inside him, and if he didn’t get blood and get it quickly, he was going to shift. And the only blood nearby, until he got to their destination, was Cassie’s.

  Chapter Four

  She’d saved him from death, but it was clear to Cassie that she’d far from saved Troy’s life. His pain, his anger, his hatred of her as a wolf, were damn near palpable. But he was here now, and he was alive, and that is what mattered. That is what she planned to make count.

  Cassie turned down the volume on the radio. “Troy, I -”

  He growled, and jerked her attached wrist with him as he tried to turn the music back on.

  Cassie covered the knob with her free hand. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned, her brows knitting together as she computed the growling sound he’d just made, and how very wolf-like it had been. But that was impossible, he was a vampire. She shook off the odd thought, insisting, “We have to talk.”

  “We had a conversation back in the parking lot,” he ground out, his tone clipped. “That’s all the conversation we need to have until I say otherwise.”

  “You mean those few words we spoke right after you slapped a handcuff on me and before you gave me a piggy back ride? That’s what you call a conversation?”

  “When you need to know more, you’ll know more.”

  “Well, consider the need to know now. I came with you willingly, Troy. I’m here because I want to be.”

  “Willing or unwilling,” he said. “You were coming with me.”

  “Since when did you become the big bad caveman?”

  “I reserve my caveman side for wolves.”

  “Well then,” she said. “I guess I’ll just have to dedicate my inner bitch to the vampires. Or rather – one vampire, because you’re starting to tick me off.”

  “Next time I’ll bring you flowers with the handcuffs,” he said, cutting her with a crystal blue, unnatural stare that stole her breath.

  “How is this possible?” she murmured. Now that she could really study him, she realized that he wasn’t disguising his black eyes with contacts, as she had assumed. “Your eyes-“

  “Aren’t the only thing different about me. I told you that. Believe me, blue is a recent improvement. Before that, they glowed silver more times than they didn’t. They were a real attention grabber, I’m sure you’re sorry you missed.” He whipped the truck into the parking lot of a small apartment complex only a few blocks from the strip and pulled into a parking spot. He used their joined hands to shift the truck into park and turned to her. He shoved open the door. “Let’s go.” He snatched the key and stepped out of the truck, dragging her with him.

  Cassie slid towards him, the cloth of her skirt riding up, yet again, in the process. She slid down to the ground, trying to keep it from going to her waist with only one hand to contribute to the effort. Thanks to the chain between her and Troy, her normal wolfish grace escaped her. She fell into Troy, her hands flattening on his chest, her body pressed to his harder one.

  Powerful arms wrapped her waist, and her eyes locked with his, the familiar connection they’d always shared intensely present, but there was something else familiar there as well. “I’m done being punished for something she did. I’m not her.”

  His eyes sharpened, so blue, so angry, they cut like crystal blades. “No,” he said in a voice so soft, which was somehow more lethal. “You’re fa
r more dangerous than she ever was.”

  The next thing she knew, he was dragging her towards the two-story brick building, lined with sidewalks and shrubs. An elderly man came out of the first doorway they passed and gaped at the handcuffs. Troy glanced at the man, and compelled him to see something that wasn’t there, “I’m just taking my groceries inside,” he said, using his vampire ability to control human minds.

  “I’m not your groceries,” she grumbled, thankful werewolves were immune to vampire mind manipulation. She not only wanted to remember what was happening, she wanted Troy to remember the things he’d forgotten, the things that happened before the night he’d almost died. So Cassie followed Troy, even in his clearly rage-driven mood, more than willingly. She wasn’t afraid of him and she didn’t want to fight him. She wanted to fight the past that had made him this way, which had clearly changed him in far more ways than she’d realized.

  The minute they were inside the small, bottom floor apartment, four doors down from the old man’s, Troy slammed the door shut and locked it. She turned to inspect the place, only to be dragged past an absolutely bare living room free of furniture, to a tiny rectangular kitchen.

  He stopped at the fridge and yanked it open, then snatched a nearly empty bag of blood from inside which he instantly tilted back and began drinking. Shock, and a fizzle of unease, slid through Cassie. In the year that she’d hunted with him she’d never seen him feed or drink blood. As in, ever. Vampires had evolved to eating human food, with blood playing the role of supplement. Or, she thought with concern, a drug to gain added strength and power that, when abused, created bloodlust. That Troy was drinking blood now, in front of her, gulping it like there was no tomorrow, and that there was a primal, out of control, unnatural edge to him, where there had always been lethal calm, had her own blood freezing.

  He tossed the bag in the sink, and now his blue eyes were glowing a kind of silvery color that she’d never seen before on anyone. A chill of warning raced down her spine. He was in trouble. Big trouble, that was far worse than she had imagined possible. Or maybe she was in trouble. Maybe, she really was his groceries. Her blood was richer than that of humans, a delicacy to vampires, which had long made them targets for their rogues.