Rogue Wolf Read online

  Spotting Todd Grant and his buddies, we took a seat at a table near theirs and listened to their conversation. Apart from being pale and drawn, they showed little sign that they’d been subjected to a horrible ordeal by the Mind Sweepers.

  Todd finished off his mouthful of burger and shook his head. “I hope Reggie turns up soon. I can’t believe he wandered off like that. He should have known better than to leave the campsite to take a leak.”

  “He’ll turn up soon,” one of the others said. “That gigantic Park Ranger is out there looking for him. If anyone can find Reggie, it’s that guy. I’m pretty sure he’s part bear.”

  They shared a laugh then continued eating. They were still concerned for their missing friend, but any inkling that Todd had seen something abnormal now appeared to be gone.

  “Kurt Jorgen’s methods might be extremely disturbing, but it looks like it worked,” I said.

  He looked at me blankly. “Who is Kurt Jorgen?”

  “The half-faery Mind Sweeper,” I reminded him.

  “Half-faery? What are you talking about? Faeries are extinct.”

  I sensed he wasn’t joking and that his confusion was real. Before I could explain further, his cell phone beeped to indicate that he’d received a message. He read it then angled the screen towards me. Mark had sent him a message that Ranger Delgado had checked out. Mark advised us to continue our search and to keep working with the other shifter.

  Seemingly forgetting my comment about the Sweeper, Reece resumed eating. I hid my uneasiness from him. Kurt had said that his glamour hid his true identity from his team. Now I wondered if it did more than that. It seemed to have made Reece forget that we’d ever met the bald agent.

  I wondered why I remembered him then recalled Jorgen’s intuition that I’d need his help soon. Maybe he’d lifted his glamour for me. I wouldn’t be able to call him for assistance if I couldn’t remember who he was. That raised the question of how he could possibly know that I would need his help at all. I knew nothing about faeries, apart from the stories I’d read as a child. Somehow, I didn’t think those old tales were very close to the truth.

  Our conversation was sporadic as we concentrated on eating. We should have been worn out, but we weren’t tired when we headed back to our room. We utilized the bed for an activity that had nothing to do with sleep then changed into our sleepwear. Mine consisted of a singlet and a tiny pair of sleeping shorts. Reece wore boxer shorts. Wrapping his arms around me, he pulled me in close and I was soon falling towards sleep.

  I woke several hours later with the sense that something was wrong. I’d rolled over so my back was to Reece. His hand cupped my breast and he was kissing the back of my neck. I should have been thrilled at the contact, but instead my stomach lurched. For a moment, I thought I was going to throw up.

  His teeth grazed my skin and I had the feeling he was about to bite down. Unaccountably horrified, I jerked away. I tried to touch his mind and felt only a faint, hazy connection. With a combination of relief and shock, I realized it wasn’t Reece at all. He was the same size, but now I was aware that his scent was different. Before I could scream, he pushed me over onto my stomach and straddled me.

  “Don’t make a sound and I promise I’ll let you live,” he said in a low, menacing tone. Then his teeth were on my neck again. He bit me lightly, not quite breaking the skin. His hand slid down my side to my shorts and began to shift them downwards.

  I was momentarily paralyzed with fear when I realized what his intentions were. Then my training kicked in. A moment before he could bite down hard on my neck, I threw my elbow backwards. There was a satisfying crunch when it connected with his nose.

  “Bitch!” he spat. Flipping me over onto my back, he punched me in the face. Dazed, I saw stars and came close to passing out from the force of the blow. Reece! I screamed mentally with as much energy as I could muster. Sensing my panic, he came at a run.

  Fending off my attacker’s hands when he tried to pin me down again, I was blinded by tears of rage and fright. Hearing the elevator come to a stop and knowing Reece was about to arrive, he snarled in frustration. Leaping off the bed, he ran to the window and slid it open. “Your boyfriend won’t be able to save you next time!” he warned me with a low growl and disappeared into the darkness.

  Bursting through the door that was apparently unlocked, Reece saw me sitting on the bed bleeding from a split lip and his rage flared. Spying the open window, he crossed to it and looked outside. A car engine caught then tires squealed as it took off. Leaping outside, he landed on the ground three stories below and went in pursuit.

  Wrapping my arms around myself, I trembled in shock. My lip had already healed, but the memory of his hands and teeth on me wasn’t going to fade as quickly or as easily.

  Reece returned a couple of minutes later. He entered through the door rather than through the window. I hadn’t tested how high I could jump yet, but I doubted we could leap that distance.

  “He slashed the back tire of the SUV,” he said. Frustration poured off him in waves. “There was no point trying to chase him. He’d have been long gone by the time I managed to change the tire.”

  I pulled myself together enough to shut then lock the window. I was wide awake and nearly as furious as Reece. “It sounds like he had this well planned.”

  “What happened?” he asked, forcing himself to be calm.

  “I woke up and he was in bed with me,” I explained. Reece’s whole body tensed. “I thought he was you for a few seconds, but then I realized it wasn’t. He tried to…” my voice cracked and he folded me into his arms.

  “I’m going to kill him for touching you.” His voice was rough, but his hands were gentle as he held me against his chest.

  I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be if I told him that the interloper had intended to mark me. I suspected it would be memorable. “It was the same werewolf who left the body in the woods near Bradbury, wasn’t it?” I already knew the answer, but asked anyway. The rogue’s scent was all over me.

  “Yeah,” he said unhappily. “I’m going to call Mark. He needs to hear about this.”

  I needed to rid myself of the scent and took another shower. I turned the hot water on full blast, but shivered beneath the spray anyway. The rogue wolf had been far bigger and stronger than me. Only my training had saved me from being violated.

  Reece had made us both coffee while I’d been showering. He handed me a mug when I eventually emerged and we sat in the two chairs next to the tiny coffee table.

  “Where were you?” I asked.

  He flinched at the accusing tone that I couldn’t quell. “I thought I heard someone call my name and I went to investigate. I was only gone for a few minutes.”

  “Did you leave the door unlocked?”

  “Of course not.” He was hurt that I could think he’d deliberately leave me vulnerable for even a few short minutes. “He must have picked the lock.”

  If he’d intended to kill me, he’d have broken down the door and stormed inside. That meant he’d intended to remain unnoticed for as long as it took to carry out his plan. “Do you think he lured you outside so he could attack me?”

  He shook his head in denial. “No. The voice was female.”

  My blood ran cold at that. “Could it have been Katrina?” My undead mother had managed to draw me out from the safety of our compound near New Orleans. She might have done the same thing to Reece. Maybe she hadn’t left at all and was still stalking us.

  “It wasn’t her,” he said with certainty. “I’m pretty sure it was another shifter. She called me Garrett rather than my first name, which seemed a bit strange.”

  “I guess that means he isn’t working alone.”

  “Mark, Kala and Flynn are on their way,” he said and took my hand. “They’re going to meet us at the campsite in the morning. We need to find the succubus before we can concentrate on hunting the rogue. We’ll have a far better chance of ending this mission quickly with our whole team on
the job.”

  Our missions had overlapped, which was far from an ideal situation. I felt more secure knowing that we wouldn’t be alone when we returned to the forest to search for the missing camper. Knowing Mark, he would make sure we were paired up rather than going solo. Our safety would always be his first priority.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Eighteen

  We still had several hours to kill before we’d need to leave, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again now. I remained sitting at the table while Reece lay down on the bed. I could tell by his breathing that he was wide awake even though his eyes were closed.

  He blamed himself for not being there when I’d needed him and I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make him feel better. How could I offer him comfort when a tiny part of me agreed with him? If he hadn’t left me alone, the rogue wouldn’t have had the opportunity to assault me.

  Needing something to occupy my mind, I took my laptop out of my suitcase and sat it on the table. I’d stored about a hundred files on the computer. I’d chosen them at random so my obsession with vampires wasn’t quite so obvious.

  On the off chance that I’d copied something that contained information about faeries, I ran a search. To my amazement, the search didn’t come up blank. Opening the only file that mentioned the fae, I had an intuition of who the author would be even before I saw Thomas’s name.

  The mission that Charity and Prudence had relayed had been old, but Thomas had lived and died long before they’d been born. The priest had founded our organization over four hundred years ago. He’d killed more monsters than most agents ever saw or even realized existed. It didn’t surprise me at all that he’d encountered faeries.

  As always, his journal had been scanned to preserve it in its original form. I found his handwritten pages at the end of the file. I perused the pages, but I couldn’t make much sense of the archaic style of writing. It had been translated into more modern speech so we could study his cases and learn from them.

  Turning to the last page of the file, I stared in awe at a drawing of a faery. She had the same pointed ears and teeth as Kurt Jorgen. Instead of being bald, she had long, wild black hair. She was tiny and had a sharp chin and almond shaped eyes. She would have been pretty if she hadn’t been exuding a sly maliciousness.

  Her feet were bare and she wore a dress that was tight and cut low enough to leave little to the imagination. I was shocked that Thomas could bring himself to draw her voluptuous figure in such exquisite detail. I wasn’t sure what his religion was, but I didn’t think he was a Catholic. Maybe he wasn’t banned from sleeping with women if that was the case.

  Flicking back to the modernized version of his mission, I began to read.

  Thomas had lived during a time where magic and the supernatural were still widely accepted. I quickly realized that this was his first encounter with the dark underworld that he’d heard of, but hadn’t yet witnessed for himself.

  Only a few weeks after he’d been ordained, he’d been sent to a small coastal town that had lost its priest to old age. Too poor to be able to afford a horse, he’d headed out on foot. He slept by the side of the road each night and ate stale bread for dinner. It was an excellent introduction to the selfless life that he intended to live.

  He’d been walking for two weeks already and still had another two or three weeks to go before he’d reach his destination. Footsore and exhausted, he was thinking about stopping for the night when he sensed someone watching him.

  He looked up to see a breathtakingly beautiful woman standing beside the road. Her feet were bare, but he noted that they weren’t dirty. Young and inexperienced when it came to women, he had to fight down a surge of lust at the sight of her lush figure. Her breasts were almost too large for her tiny frame and were barely contained by her pale green dress.

  “Can you help me?” she asked plaintively. She looked barely fifteen and should have been accompanied by an escort.

  His heart immediately went out to her. “Are you lost?”

  She nodded and her long, tangled black hair cascaded around her dainty shoulders. “I went for a walk and now I don’t know where I am.”

  Her eyes were large and guileless, but he saw a flash of something that gave him pause. At first, he thought her eyes were as pale green as her dress, but the closer he got to her, the darker they became. By the time he reached her, they were as bright as emeralds and they were utterly mesmerizing.

  “Can you help me find my way home?” she pleaded.

  It shamed him, but he’d have gladly done anything that she’d asked. “Of course,” he replied, almost tripping over his own words to reply to her. He was considered to be taller than average at six foot two and was used to towering over others, but she was even smaller than he’d thought. Her head barely came up to his breastbone.

  “I’ll be ever so grateful.” She smiled and reached out to touch his hand. He recoiled from the slick feel of her fingertips. For a moment, he thought her teeth were far sharper than normal, but then the illusion disappeared. He was relieved when she removed her hand from his.

  “I think it’s this way,” she said and led him towards a meadow.

  Doubt filled Thomas as he followed her through the long grass towards a distant hill. The bedtime stories that his grandmother had told him as a child came back to him. She’d told him of beautiful, yet malicious creatures who enjoyed luring naive young men and women into their magical realms. She’d warned him that once a person stepped into the world of the fae that they could never return.

  His concerns were swept away when the girl turned and smiled. “It’s not much further,” she reassured him.

  “If you know where your home is, then you can’t really be lost,” he reasoned, but thinking was hard.

  Her smile disappeared and a frown replaced it. The sky seemed to darken a little with her ire. She stared up at him and her frown smoothed out as she studied him intently. “You are very pretty, for a man.”

  He suppressed a sigh at the compliment. Girls had been telling him that he was handsome ever since he’d been a small child. He knew what they saw when they looked at him; collar length blond hair, clear blue eyes, sharp cheekbones and a lean physique.

  He could have had his pick of women in London even though he came from a poor family. He hadn’t met anyone that he wished to spend the rest of his life with yet, but he was still young and there was plenty of time for him to marry and settle down.

  “Do you think I’m beautiful?” she asked.

  Her abrupt question threw him. “Yes,” he replied honestly. “But I’m not so sure that you’re a very nice person.” The more time he spent with her, the less he wanted to help her. He was beginning to feel as if she really was trying to lead him astray.

  “Nice?” The word seemed to insult her. “The fae care not about niceness,” she hissed. “We care only about beauty and finding pleasure.”

  Coldness entered his bones as his suspicions were confirmed. “You are a faery?”

  Tossing her head proudly, she dropped the glamour that she’d been using to hide her true appearance. The tips of her ears were pointed and her teeth were sharp. Her skin was so pale that it was almost translucent. Her beauty was now more terrible than wonderful.

  “You are pretty enough to become my consort. Come with me to the lands of fae and I will show you things that you have never even dreamed of, Thomas.”

  She held her hand out to him as a door appeared in the hillside behind her. He shrank away, frightened that she knew his name.

  “I know many things, human,” she said slyly. “I know that you are a man of the cloth, but that you harbor doubts that your God truly exists.”

  Her claim had the opposite effect to what she’d intended. Reaching into his shirt, he pulled out the silver necklace that held the cross that his grandmother had given him shortly before she’d died. “You have just proven to me that God does indeed exist,” he said. “He created men like me to pr
otect innocents from evil such as you and your kind.”

  She gave a tinkling laugh at that. “You think I am evil?” Her amusement died and her irises began to spin. “Allow me to show you true evil, man of God.”

  Mesmerized, he was unable to look away from her as she moved towards him. He cringed away, but she didn’t touch him. She smiled unpleasantly as her mind invaded his.

  An image formed and he couldn’t banish it no matter how hard he tried. Fire surrounded him on all sides. It was too distant to burn him, yet close enough for the smoke to make his eyes sting. The sky boiled with clouds that were tinged with red. The ground was dry and cracked. It didn’t look as though it had ever seen moisture.

  Something roared behind him and he spun around to peer into the flames. Holding a hand up to shield himself from the glare, he saw eyes appear above the wall of fire. They stared down at him hungrily and he sensed an evil so immense that his mind couldn’t quite grasp it.

  The creature took a step towards him and the parched ground trembled beneath its weight. The creature was the same color as the flames that licked at its legs. Its face was partially hidden from view. All he could make out were glowing red eyes that were roughly the size of his head.

  It walked closer and Thomas began to back away. He only managed to take a few steps before the heat became too intense for him to bear. Stepping out into the open, the beast was revealed in full and he felt his mind trying to tear itself loose.

  It had the arms, legs and body of a man, but that was where the resemblance ceased. Its feet were cloven and it had claws rather than fingers. Its tongue was forked and its pupils were vertically slit, like a goat’s. Horns rose from its forehead, curving backwards for several feet. It lowered its face towards him and opened its maw to reveal teeth that were nearly a foot long. The demon roared loudly enough to rupture his eardrums. He clapped a hand over his ears and screamed in pain and terror.