Читать книгу Twilight Hunter - Kait Ballenger - Страница 9

CHAPTER TWO

FROM THE MOMENT he pulled his gun, Frankie Amato knew what he was. A hunter. She’d stumbled onto a hunter. She stared down the barrel of his gun with fear and adrenaline pumping through her veins. A large lump crawled into her throat.

The rumors are true.

What had she gotten herself into? They’d murdered her kind for centuries, but as civilization progressed, their numbers had dwindled to near extinction, or so she’d thought. Shit. She hadn’t expected this. A hunter in Rochester—on her turf. How could she have been so oblivious?

In the past few months, several lone wolves who’d refused to join her pack had been murdered. As Alpha of the Rochester Pack, it was her job to protect her people and keep them out of harm’s way. But the protection she guaranteed didn’t extend to the rogue wolves, and she’d given no more than a fleeting thought to the rumors that they’d died at the hands of a hunter. Now the voices of gossip and the murmurs of trouble, which had spread like wildfire throughout her clan, smacked her in the face with a major reality check.

And son of a bitch, he’d backed her into a dead end. She’d let down her guard, and the bastard had cornered her.

She bared her canines, growling from deep within her throat. The hunter strode closer. Shadows covered his face, and his gun pointed at her head. The silver dagger he’d pulled from his coat flashed in the moonlight. Her heart pounded in fear, knowing the fate she would be subjected to if she didn’t fight fast.

Frankie’s tail hit the wall; she hadn’t realized she’d backed away in the first place. The hunter maintained the upper ground, holding the fighting advantage. Even if she lunged for him, his dagger would pierce right through her chest. Anger and rage filled her, and she snarled, dying to rip his throat out. But her sense of logic prevailed. She would shift into human form, wait until the right moment, when he thought she was weak, then speed-shift—her specialty—back into a wolf.

A shiver ran down her spine as her limbs and muscles contorted. Pleading wasn’t her style, but it was worth a chance. A loud howl escaped her lips, slowly transitioning into the cry of a woman as she shifted. She fell back against the brick wall behind her and slid to the ground, bare flesh scraping the pavement.

The hunter stepped closer. His gun barrel held steady. A streak of rage rushed through her. She hated herself for being such a moron. Why had she gone looking for the killer when she was off her game? Damn her sense of pride. She’d overestimated her ability.

On the average day, she could handle this, but now she was knee-deep in trouble and shit out of luck. Damn estrus always clouded her judgment. Hell, she’d even warned her pack against doing anything stupid. And topping the list of stupid things to do, hunting a supernatural serial killer while in her Call ranked number one by far.

She scanned the alley. Sheer brick walls, a couple of Dumpsters too far away to offer protection, and nothing amongst the garbage she could use as a weapon. Nothing that would help her escape, and there was no way in hell she could dodge around him when she was cornered like this. He’d proven he was a good shot when he oh-so-successfully corralled her into a dead end.

She lifted her hands and held them up, palms out. She wasn’t below milking the helpless-female card. Not if it saved her ass.

Draw him in. Pretend you’re weak. Then shift, finish him off and get the hell outta Dodge.

He hovered in the near shadows, a massive black silhouette, nothing visible but the width of his body and the gun still trained on her. Yeah, there was no missing that.

“I don’t know who you are,” she said. “But I’m not your enemy.”

A rough sound escaped him. Had he just scoffed at her?

“I’m serious,” she insisted. “Look at the evidence. That girl was mutilated and raped.” She gestured to her own body. “I’m not covered in blood. I’m weaponless, and I don’t have the...uh...right equipment to do what was done to that poor girl.”

Frankie held her breath as she waited for him to reply. The silence was deafening. Please let him care about her being innocent. Granted, hunters traditionally stuck to troublemaking rogues without a pack, but that didn’t mean he would spare her. Hunters were reputed to be ruthless, and he might not take pity on her. She thought of the rogue several months ago who’d been attacking random innocents just for the hell of it. She’d killed the son of a bitch personally. But even though her goal of controlling rogues aligned with his, she’d seriously played her cards wrong by coming here tonight, even if it got her out of the damn mating ceremony.

Tonight, during her estrus, she was supposed to “choose” a male to mate with, confirming him as her destined mate. Something she did not want to do. Call her sentimental, but she didn’t want an arranged mating, even though her mate had been chosen for her when she was a child. Since Alejandro was the strongest pack male and her closest friend, her parents had chosen him for her. Better Alejandro than any other pack member, she supposed, but either way, she didn’t want this mating, even though it was required of her as packmaster. Being caught by a hunter would be one hell of an excuse for skipping the ceremony, not that her current situation was preferable.

Blood rushed to her head, pounded in her ears. She opened her mouth, not really sure what she was going to say.

He took a step closer, and his scent flooded her nose.

She sucked in a deep breath. “Uh...look, you smell...” His tantalizing scent washed over her. Man, he smelled delicious. “You smell...normal. There’s no blood on you, so I know you didn’t kill her. That means we’re on the same side. We’re trying to catch the same monster.”

He didn’t speak or move. She waited several agonizing seconds.

“Stay still,” he finally muttered. “Don’t make any sudden moves.” His deep voice washed over her, and the thought of him saying her name sent a wave of heat boiling under her skin.

Damn it all to hell. Her friggin’ estrus cycle was one of the few things she hated about being a werewolf. How the hell could she be thinking about him like that when she was staring down the barrel of his gun?

His huge, black boot broke into the pool of light. Her gaze traveled up his frame as the moonlight illuminated his face. She struggled to breathe. A simmering heat rushed down her spine and lodged itself between her legs. She was suddenly aware of how very naked she was as she stared up at the heavenly hunk before her.

His raw glare penetrated her. The color of lily pads, his eyes belonged to something vibrant, complex and daring—and, if she didn’t know better, something supernatural, not a human hunter. Strands of his chin-length, auburn hair fell into his face, accenting his sharp, masculine features. His overall demeanor screamed of danger and a rough life, but his face was flawless, perfect—he looked like a model dressed in a ragged assassin’s clothing. And his body...where did she begin?

He towered over her, well over six feet, and his physique matched his height in enormity. Muscles strained against the sleeves of his trench coat, and she bet that rock-hard abs were hidden underneath the coat. An image of her kneeling in front of him in submission settled in her mind. Whoa. She’d never wanted a man to take control of her. But as she lay on the ground, sprawled naked before his eyes, the vulnerability of her situation excited her, and the thought of him having his way with her sent a rush of wet heat between her legs.

He opened his mouth, and his voice was like a growl in his chest. “Get up,” he said, his tone gruff and angry. His gun remained still.

Frankie gaped, frozen in a mixture of desire, anger and fear.

“That was an order, not a request,” he barked.

She inhaled a slow breath, found her footing and rose to her feet. Her hands shook at her sides.

“What’s your name?”

For a moment she couldn’t remember; his nearness muddled her mind. Her logical side reared its head, and her stomach churned. This man was a hunter. If she told him her name, he would know exactly who she was, and even though she wasn’t a rogue, killing the Rochester packmaster might be too sweet a temptation for a hunter to resist. She swallowed the large lump in her throat and said the first name that came to her mind.

“Francesca. My name’s Francesca.” Her mother’s name, from which her shortened version had originated. She prayed the half lie would save her. Whether now or later, if he found out who she really was, she was totally in for it.

“Turn around.”

She circled to her right and trembled harder. She imagined him taking her from behind and choked back a gasp.

“Hands behind your back.”

“What?” she asked without thinking.

“You heard me, hands behind your back.”

No way was she going quietly. “No, let me go.”

He scoffed. “Not gonna happen. You can cooperate or I can make you.”

He drew closer, and his warmth seeped over her bare skin. To hell with her traitorous body. She was going to rip him to shreds, so he couldn’t get to her first. She would let him think she was going to cooperate, then catch him unaware. She shoved her shaking wrists behind her and concentrated on her breathing. She wasn’t going down without a fight.

Now.

She spun around and lunged for the hunter’s ankles. She threw him off guard by hitting lower than he expected as she speed shifted into wolf form. He crumpled to the ground. His elbow jabbed into her side as he fell. She yelped before she sank her canines into the muscled flesh of his forearm. He let out a guttural yell.

In a sudden reaction to the pain, his grip on his gun loosened, and the weapon fell from his hand. But Frankie didn’t care if he was temporarily disarmed, if he’d lost his advantage. The asshole deserved to be ripped to shreds for killing her kind, even if they were rogues.

Shaking her head from side to side, she continued to rip at the hunter’s arm. Without warning, he shifted onto his side and slashed his knife through the air. The blade hit her skin. She released his arm as another yelp ripped from her throat. Her fur bristled as adrenaline shot through her.

Scrambling across the pavement, she bolted down the alley. He grabbed his gun and sprinted after her. She needed to gain some distance, so she could turn and get a running start to lunge again, get her momentum going back in his direction. But shit, he was fast—too fast.

The hunter threw himself through the air, landing on her back. Her nails scraped the pavement as she tried to claw away from him.

In a moment of luck, she wriggled her way free. Turning on her attacker, she jumped for his throat. Her paws hit his chest, and he slammed into the ground from the weight of the blow. She growled and snapped at his neck, but he caught her by her scruff and tossed her aside as if she weighed no more than a child’s doll. She skidded across the pavement, her skin rubbed nearly raw. A shiver ran down her spine as her limbs and muscles contorted. Damn it, because of her estrus she couldn’t hold her shift, not with her emotions running the gamut, from anger to arousal. A loud howl escaped her lips as she slowly changed back into human form.

Before she could process what was happening, he climbed on top of her. His body was flush against hers, but she continued to fight. They rolled out of the alley and into the orange glow of the streetlights. With superior strength, the hunter pinned her to the ground and shoved the sharp blade of his knife against her throat.

* * *

JACE’S BREATH POURED from his lungs in one quick rush. Adrenaline rattled his senses, and he fought to ignore the searing pain piercing his arm. The damn she-wolf had bitten him before she’d shifted back into human form. He held his knife steady at her throat, waiting for her to respond. He had to make sure she was subdued. She lay beneath him, unmoving. With him on top of her and the knife at her throat, she wasn’t going anywhere. His nerves began to calm. He stared down at her face.

Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. His cock stood at attention, throbbing and hard in a full-on salute. He salivated like a starving man as his eyes scanned over the silky, golden-brown skin of the beauty lying beneath him. What the fuck was wrong with him? A female werewolf had just tried to rip his ass to shreds, and now he was checking her out?

If that didn’t take this fiasco to a whole new level of clusterfuck, he didn’t know what did.

She was naked, every inch of her flesh bare. His eyes feasted on her body, and man, she was exquisite. As petite as she appeared, her legs stretched for miles, defined with strong yet feminine muscles. Her long ebony-black hair shone in the streetlights, barely covering a pair of high, full breasts, and he knew from his earlier view that she had a fine round ass just begging to be squeezed.

His dick twitched at the thought of those legs wrapped around his waist as he pounded into her, fisting her hair as she yelled his name with those perfectly full lips of hers. And man, did Princess have a set of eyes. But there was a look of pure fight underneath the chocolate-brown surface as she glared at him, the look of a female warrior.

A warrior who’d taken a nice big bite out of his arm with her canines and nearly escaped him twice. With his half-wolf blood, he healed pretty quickly, but given the strength of her teeth in wolf form, that bitch of a wound would take a lot longer than usual to heal.

He inhaled a deep breath. He needed to get hold of himself and clear his head, erase the burn pulsating through him. She was a werewolf, and he knew very well that whether she was an Alpha or an Omega female, she was nothing but trouble and seduction. The first female he’d encountered in all his years of hunting—his attraction to her shouldn’t have been a surprise, right? This must be how it had been for his father when he’d met the female werewolf who’d proven so irresistible that he’d left Jace’s human mother for her. It was meant to be.

The image of his mother’s tearstained face crossed his mind. She was sitting at the kitchen table of their shabby apartment, her head buried in her hands. He heard the boiling pot on the stove hiss as the contents overflowed. Potato soup. One of the only things they could afford after his dad walked out.

His father was weak, and there was no way in hell he would let himself follow suit.

Jace’s mind snapped to the present, and his gaze narrowed into a thin glare. “Don’t even think of trying to escape again.”

Slowly he eased off her, hand on his gun and knife still at the ready. Between the woman, the weapons and the prospect of her shifting into a wolf again, he seriously had his hands full.

“Get up,” he said. “Any sudden movement and a bullet is coming straight for you.”

She carefully rose to her feet, and the few shadows cast on her naked frame disappeared, revealing an even better view of her beauty. Jace kept the gun aimed as he stepped behind her.

With his knife held to her throat again, he holstered his gun, though his body screamed for him to caress her. He gripped her shoulder and drew her toward him.

Jace swore under his breath. His eyes had been treated to a prime-time view of her sweet behind, and his palm itched to touch her. He swallowed the large lump in his throat and tried to control himself. She was a damn werewolf. What was wrong with him?

He reached to his belt clip and pulled out a pair of silver cuffs. He always carried them, though he’d never needed them until now. “You know the drill. Hands behind your back, before I change my mind and kill you.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t rip your throat out, asshole.” She thrust her hands behind her, careful not to lean into his knife at her throat.

Despite her words, his dick jerked again as her smooth, feminine voice hit his ears like the call of a siren.

“This is ridiculous,” she growled.

No argument there. Ridiculous didn’t even begin to cover it. Fucked up beyond comprehension was more like it.

He slapped the cuffs on. She groaned in pain as the metal rubbed her skin. Jace’s heart panged at the sound of her agony, but his anger and frustration spiked, and self-loathing filled his mind. Aside from the fact that he didn’t hurt women, why was he being so merciful?

He shifted his dagger to his left hand. Stepping toward her, he lifted the blade to her throat and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her to him. But as his hand made contact with the skin of her stomach, every instinct in him fired. An electric charge surged up his arms and through his whole body.

Instinctively, he held her closer, and her fine ass pushed against him, nearly sending him over the edge. A low growl drummed in his throat. He tilted the knife farther, leaning her neck into him until he buried his face in her long hair. The smell of gardenias flooded his nose, and he couldn’t hold himself back from wanting her.

* * *

ROBERT LINGERED IN the shadows of the alley amidst the Dumpsters and the trash left behind by the resident lowlifes. He slipped through the darkness with the subtlety of a skilled predator. When he’d finished carving his latest masterpiece from his worthless slew of whores, he’d stuck around, and not just for his usual grind with his pale-faced pussy.

He stared down the alley. His gaze locked on to Jace and the werewolf bitch. He watched as Jace tightened the silver handcuffs he’d slipped on her wrists. What the hell was Jace’s problem? Why hadn’t he killed her yet? Robert’s blood simmered, and an impatient grin crossed his face as he waited for the moment to come. Would Jace take her like he took his whores? There were few things he would love more than to see Jace bloody his hands. The image of the mutt’s blood soaking Jace’s clothing as he loomed over her mutilated body crept into Robert’s mind, and he felt his dick stiffen. She would be so sweet lying cold and still beneath him.

Long moments passed, and Robert waited in anticipation. Still nothing. What sort of game was Jace playing? After several more moments, when the weak bastard didn’t even give the bitch so much as a paper cut, a feeling of annoyance passed through Robert. He frowned as Jace led her from the alley. Jace was weak, pathetic. Nothing but another crying, bleeding heart.

Fine. If Jace refused to serve as his added amusement for the evening, something else would.

Once Robert heard the hunter and the were-bitch retreat, he wandered through the alley until he found what he was looking for: the bitch’s scent. For fourteen blocks he followed her smell, finally ending up at a nondescript apartment building. He picked the lock with ease, a trick his father taught him when he was five. He strolled nonchalantly up two flights of stairs until he reached an apartment door that reeked of her too-sweet stench. The smell infected him, seeping into his skin like an airborne poison. After unlatching the door with his pick, he slipped inside and flipped on the lights.

A small one-bedroom apartment: nothing but a four-poster bed, a bathroom, a tiny kitchen and some random pieces of furniture. He walked over to a nearby desk and gazed at several of the pictures. He picked up one of an older middle-aged couple posed together with a young girl in front of them, smiling for the camera. The bitch and her family.

Just fucking heartwarming.

He dropped the picture and watched the glass scatter across the floor. He picked up one of the shards and pressed the flesh of his thumb against the point. A sharp pain pierced his skin, and he savored the feeling as he admired the drop of blood emerging from the wound.

Nothing interesting in this apartment, not even...

He caught sight of a flashing red light. He turned to find an old-style answering machine attached to a landline. He pressed the play button.

“You have one unheard message. First message,” said the automated female voice.

The voice was quickly followed by a momentary rustling before a man’s voice came through the line. “Frankie? Frankie? It’s me. Please, pick up.” The voice paused. “Ay dios. Our mating ceremony was supposed to start an hour ago and...”

Robert stopped listening as a slow grin spread across his face. Frankie? He let out a low chuckle at his sheer luck.

Rochester’s packmaster. Jace really was playing games after all.