Charming the Beast
Page 14
Screw that. I won’t lie to her. Not to Chloe. Not anymore.
He pulled her closer. Buried his face in the curve of her shoulder. Her arms were around him, holding tight. Her sweet scent flooded him, reassured him.
“Tell me…what happened…”
His hold hardened on her. “Baby, you died.”
***
Everything seemed too loud. Too bright. And Chloe felt far too hot, as if she were burning from the inside. Eric had taken them back to the base, but only after he’d driven what felt like hell-of-forever. She knew he’d been trying to ditch anyone on their trail, but had he succeeded in losing a pack of werewolves? Was that even possible?
When he’d gone over the mission plan, Eric had said he was sending in a small group of agents to lower the risk that they’d be followed back to base. But then, she knew he’d also planned for a successful mission. One that had him returning triumphant.
He didn’t look triumphant.
Eric was pacing in front of her. Connor—now wearing jeans and a t-shirt that stretched across his chest—was at Chloe’s side.
I died? Again?
“We need Olivia in here,” Connor said, his face and voice grim. “She’s the one who did this—whatever the hell it is.”
Chloe flinched at Olivia’s name. Once upon a time, Olivia Maddox had been her best friend. As kids, they’d been inseparable. Then their lives had been shattered. At sixteen, they’d been attacked by a pack of wolves. Those wolves had been after Olivia, and Chloe had tried so hard to protect her friend.
But she hadn’t been strong enough. So she’d been bitten, again and again.
Then the real nightmare had begun.
Olivia had been bitten as well, only she hadn’t transformed, and she hadn’t died. Olivia had healed instantly. Chloe’s father had discovered that Olivia was actually someone quite unique, a djinn. A real, modern-day genie, and he’d made it his mission to take her power.
By any means necessary.
“Olivia is on her way,” Holly said as she took another blood sample from Chloe. Chloe held herself completely still as the needle went into her vein. “But she’s…different now, so I don’t know how much help she’ll be.”
Chloe hadn’t seen Olivia in weeks, not since that last, fateful encounter.
When my father killed me, Olivia brought me back…and then I murdered dear old dad in an act that I can’t even remember!
“Her heart rate is elevated, and her body temperature is a bit higher than normal,” Holly said as she stepped back from Chloe. “But otherwise, everything is normal. She doesn’t even appear to have her silver sensitivity any longer.”
Chloe swallowed. “That’s the way it was last time.” Because she’d lived this scene—well, almost this scene—before. The first time she’d died, she’d found herself in Holly’s lab, undergoing test after test after test.
Holly’s head tilted to the side. “Since the silver sensitivity came back before, we can only assume it will return again. Maybe your body goes through some sort of stabilization period…?”
Connor cleared his throat. “You need to check her strength.”
“My what?” Chloe asked.
Connor shook his head. “Your strength, baby. Because I saw you pick up a werewolf and toss him across the room as if he were no heavier than a pillow. I can do that, Duncan can—but you already know where our power comes from.”
Super wolf. Super vamp. She nodded, but rubbed her neck. It ached a bit. “I don’t…remember doing that.” Her hand dropped. “I just remember looking for you.” At first, she’d been looking for him as a man. She’d only seen wolves though. Then she’d looked into the eyes of a big, powerful wolf…and she’d seen Connor. His golden gaze had stared back at her.
“Dies…and comes back.” Eric stopped pacing and glared at Chloe. “You aren’t supposed to do that.”
She glared back at him. “Sorry. Guess I missed the memo on that.”
He pulled out his gun.
Chloe jumped off that exam table and Connor immediately stepped in front of her.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Connor demanded.
She peaked around his body and saw Eric contemplating his gun. “Holly should see what occurs when she dies and comes back. Then we might be able to figure out what’s really happening.”
Connor leapt forward and yanked the gun out of Eric’s hands. “We don’t have any guarantee that she will come back again! You shoot her, and that could be it. She’d be gone.” His voice lowered and it sounded as if he muttered, “Then you’d be gone, too.”
Chloe wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I think you’re all wrong. I-I didn’t die.” She laughed then, and the sound was hollow even to her own ears. “Keegan must have knocked me out for a few minutes, that’s all. I probably hit my head when I fell—because I was on the floor—and that’s why things are a little sketchy in my memory.”
Silence.
And in the face of that silence, Chloe just kept right on talking. “I don’t think…maybe my father didn’t kill me, either.” Her words were coming too fast. “He was my father, after all…he probably missed my heart.” Okay, that came out desperate. “I healed. Werewolves heal faster, right? I healed and that’s all that happened that time, too.”
Connor turned back to look at her. Everyone there was just looking at her.
Chloe tucked her hair behind her ear. “What? That’s what happened. I didn’t die. I know I didn’t.”
Connor stepped toward her. He caught her hands and held them in his warm grip. “I was watching you. I saw the bastard break your neck. I heard the snap.”
She jerked, but he held her fast.
“You were falling, and I caught you before you hit the floor. Your heart wasn’t beating. You weren’t breathing.”
Chloe shook her head.
“You know it’s true, baby. You just don’t want to admit it.”
She needed to get away from them. “I-I need some air.”
His hold just tightened on her. “You have nightmares every night, don’t you? But are those nightmares about your father? Or are they about you dying?”
Her eyes were filling with tears. “Stop.” She didn’t want to hear any more right then.
“You talk about fire…”
“Stop!” She could feel the flames on her skin.
“Where do you go…when you die, Chloe?”
“I don’t die!”
The door to the lab opened. Olivia stood there. Her hair had been pulled into a long braid—a familiar sight to Chloe—and Olivia’s eyes were filled with sorrow as she stared at Chloe. “I’m sorry.”
Chloe shook her head. “You don’t need to be. My father—he’s the one who set all of this in motion. He hunted you—”
“You were bitten because you were protecting me.” Olivia strode toward her. “You were trying to save me, and it cost you everything.”
It hurt to look at Olivia. Her father had done so much to cause her friend pain.
“Chloe. Please.”
She forced herself to meet Olivia’s stare.
“I did this to you.” Olivia’s lips trembled. “He killed you, and I-I didn’t even stop to think. I just wished.”
Chloe’s breath was coming faster. Her chest hurt because her heart was pounding too hard.
“I made the wish. I wished you’d be alive, and you came back. You were alive.”
She had to get out of there. They were all staring at her with pity and confusion in their gazes. Chloe rushed around Olivia and ran for the door.
But another man was there. One who’d entered with Olivia. Big, blond, and blocking her exit.
“I can’t let you go,” he said, voice soft. “None of us can.”
She looked back at Olivia. Her friend’s shoulders had sagged. “That wasn’t the only wish I made,” Olivia said.
“Stop!” Chloe didn’t want to hear any more. She didn’t want to hear that she was now some kind of undead freak. Her life was more than screwed up enough as it was. Frantic now, her gaze locked on Connor. He would help her. Connor always helped her. “Get me out of here, please.”
Connor walked toward her.
Her breath came a little easier.
But then he shook his head.
No. “Connor?”
“You died,” he said, “and that gutted me.”
She could only stare at him.
“We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with here.” He glanced over at Olivia. “So tell me what else you wished.”
Olivia’s hands clenched at her sides. “I didn’t realize how…how the wishes would work. I’d been told that they came out darker, that you never really got the exact thing that you wanted…”
Because, according to legend, the djinn had been creatures of darkness. They took wishes, twisted them, and…well, her father had said they grew stronger with every dark wish they granted.
“I thought I had to say the wishes in order for them to come true,” Olivia continued. Her words were husky. Sad. “Later, I realized…” Her words trailed away.
Eric sighed. “All right, let’s hurry this along.” He waved his hand. “She just had to think the wishes. If she thought them, bam, they came true.”
Miserably, Olivia nodded. “I wished for you to be alive, but then…I was making another wish.” She looked over at the big, blond male—the one still blocking the exit. “Shane stopped me before I could say it, but it was still in my head.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry.”
She shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t. “What were you wishing?”
“I did wish it.” Olivia crept toward her. She took Chloe’s hand and held tight. “You are my best friend, Chloe. You were dying in front of me. No, you were dead. I didn’t think. I just wished.”
Chloe couldn’t breathe.
“I wished for you to be alive.” Olivia nervously wet her lips. “And the wish I didn’t get to voice, the one only in my mind…”
Just say it!
“I wished that you’d come back. That you’d never die.”
Chloe took a step back.
Olivia’s hold tightened on her. “I didn’t know it would mean you could be killed—that you’d die and come back in some kind of endless cycle! I didn’t know! I just wanted to help you!” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Wh-what am I?” Chloe asked. “Am I a zombie?” Like in a horror show? Was she going to go crazy and start eating brains?
“No!” That fast response came from Holly. “Your heart is beating, your brain is functioning. You’re very much alive.”
“But I can’t…die?”
“No, you die,” Connor said grimly. The faint lines on his face appeared deeper. “I saw you. You were gone.”
“I just don’t stay gone?” Her head was throbbing. Her whole body shaking. “Where do I go?”
No one spoke. Chloe’s gaze flew from one of them to another.
And her terror just got worse.
***
Chloe had been holding out on him. She wasn’t just a werewolf. She was something far, far more important.
Chloe could cheat death. Die, then come back, better than before.
Keegan kept his gaze on the nondescript building. He could see the men patrolling the building’s perimeter—acting as if they were just security guards. But security guards weren’t usually equipped with that much fire power.
He’d tracked them back to this base. With the way the men had been bleeding, it had been like child’s play. And…just in case we had lost them…I took the liberty of stacking the odds in my favor.
He doubted they’d even found the little tracking device that he’d shoved into one of Harris’s wounds.
“What now, alpha?”
He smiled. “Now we just wait for our moment to attack.” Because he had an end game of his own. Originally, many of his men had gone to Purgatory because they’d been following the orders of David Vincent. Vincent and the senator had thought their plans were so f**king perfect.
They hadn’t been.
Now Keegan needed his men back. He wanted them out of Purgatory, and the only way that would happen…I need those Para Agents to release them.
One way or another, he’d be getting his werewolves.
Even if he had to take a little trip to Purgatory in order to make that happen.
Chapter Nine
“Unwish it.”
Chloe’s shaking voice broke Connor’s heart.
“I-I shouldn’t be like this. No one should die and come back.” Chloe’s face was far too pale as she stared at Olivia. “Just unwish it. Put me back the way I was before.”
Connor already knew that couldn’t happen, even before Olivia shook her head.
“Please,” Chloe said.
“She can’t,” Connor said as he wrapped his arm around Chloe. He needed to get her alone. She was so close to breaking, he could see it. And he didn’t want her around everyone else when she was hurting so much. He wanted to take her out of there and just hold her. “Olivia isn’t a djinn anymore. Shane changed her. She’s a vamp.”
And after that change, Eric had seemed confident—fairly so, anyway—that her djinn powers were gone. A good thing because, otherwise, Eric would have needed to permanently contain Olivia. A being who could kill just with a thought? There would have been no way the government could have allowed her to run around loose. She would have been far too dangerous.
He pulled her closer. Buried his face in the curve of her shoulder. Her arms were around him, holding tight. Her sweet scent flooded him, reassured him.
“Tell me…what happened…”
His hold hardened on her. “Baby, you died.”
***
Everything seemed too loud. Too bright. And Chloe felt far too hot, as if she were burning from the inside. Eric had taken them back to the base, but only after he’d driven what felt like hell-of-forever. She knew he’d been trying to ditch anyone on their trail, but had he succeeded in losing a pack of werewolves? Was that even possible?
When he’d gone over the mission plan, Eric had said he was sending in a small group of agents to lower the risk that they’d be followed back to base. But then, she knew he’d also planned for a successful mission. One that had him returning triumphant.
He didn’t look triumphant.
Eric was pacing in front of her. Connor—now wearing jeans and a t-shirt that stretched across his chest—was at Chloe’s side.
I died? Again?
“We need Olivia in here,” Connor said, his face and voice grim. “She’s the one who did this—whatever the hell it is.”
Chloe flinched at Olivia’s name. Once upon a time, Olivia Maddox had been her best friend. As kids, they’d been inseparable. Then their lives had been shattered. At sixteen, they’d been attacked by a pack of wolves. Those wolves had been after Olivia, and Chloe had tried so hard to protect her friend.
But she hadn’t been strong enough. So she’d been bitten, again and again.
Then the real nightmare had begun.
Olivia had been bitten as well, only she hadn’t transformed, and she hadn’t died. Olivia had healed instantly. Chloe’s father had discovered that Olivia was actually someone quite unique, a djinn. A real, modern-day genie, and he’d made it his mission to take her power.
By any means necessary.
“Olivia is on her way,” Holly said as she took another blood sample from Chloe. Chloe held herself completely still as the needle went into her vein. “But she’s…different now, so I don’t know how much help she’ll be.”
Chloe hadn’t seen Olivia in weeks, not since that last, fateful encounter.
When my father killed me, Olivia brought me back…and then I murdered dear old dad in an act that I can’t even remember!
“Her heart rate is elevated, and her body temperature is a bit higher than normal,” Holly said as she stepped back from Chloe. “But otherwise, everything is normal. She doesn’t even appear to have her silver sensitivity any longer.”
Chloe swallowed. “That’s the way it was last time.” Because she’d lived this scene—well, almost this scene—before. The first time she’d died, she’d found herself in Holly’s lab, undergoing test after test after test.
Holly’s head tilted to the side. “Since the silver sensitivity came back before, we can only assume it will return again. Maybe your body goes through some sort of stabilization period…?”
Connor cleared his throat. “You need to check her strength.”
“My what?” Chloe asked.
Connor shook his head. “Your strength, baby. Because I saw you pick up a werewolf and toss him across the room as if he were no heavier than a pillow. I can do that, Duncan can—but you already know where our power comes from.”
Super wolf. Super vamp. She nodded, but rubbed her neck. It ached a bit. “I don’t…remember doing that.” Her hand dropped. “I just remember looking for you.” At first, she’d been looking for him as a man. She’d only seen wolves though. Then she’d looked into the eyes of a big, powerful wolf…and she’d seen Connor. His golden gaze had stared back at her.
“Dies…and comes back.” Eric stopped pacing and glared at Chloe. “You aren’t supposed to do that.”
She glared back at him. “Sorry. Guess I missed the memo on that.”
He pulled out his gun.
Chloe jumped off that exam table and Connor immediately stepped in front of her.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Connor demanded.
She peaked around his body and saw Eric contemplating his gun. “Holly should see what occurs when she dies and comes back. Then we might be able to figure out what’s really happening.”
Connor leapt forward and yanked the gun out of Eric’s hands. “We don’t have any guarantee that she will come back again! You shoot her, and that could be it. She’d be gone.” His voice lowered and it sounded as if he muttered, “Then you’d be gone, too.”
Chloe wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I think you’re all wrong. I-I didn’t die.” She laughed then, and the sound was hollow even to her own ears. “Keegan must have knocked me out for a few minutes, that’s all. I probably hit my head when I fell—because I was on the floor—and that’s why things are a little sketchy in my memory.”
Silence.
And in the face of that silence, Chloe just kept right on talking. “I don’t think…maybe my father didn’t kill me, either.” Her words were coming too fast. “He was my father, after all…he probably missed my heart.” Okay, that came out desperate. “I healed. Werewolves heal faster, right? I healed and that’s all that happened that time, too.”
Connor turned back to look at her. Everyone there was just looking at her.
Chloe tucked her hair behind her ear. “What? That’s what happened. I didn’t die. I know I didn’t.”
Connor stepped toward her. He caught her hands and held them in his warm grip. “I was watching you. I saw the bastard break your neck. I heard the snap.”
She jerked, but he held her fast.
“You were falling, and I caught you before you hit the floor. Your heart wasn’t beating. You weren’t breathing.”
Chloe shook her head.
“You know it’s true, baby. You just don’t want to admit it.”
She needed to get away from them. “I-I need some air.”
His hold just tightened on her. “You have nightmares every night, don’t you? But are those nightmares about your father? Or are they about you dying?”
Her eyes were filling with tears. “Stop.” She didn’t want to hear any more right then.
“You talk about fire…”
“Stop!” She could feel the flames on her skin.
“Where do you go…when you die, Chloe?”
“I don’t die!”
The door to the lab opened. Olivia stood there. Her hair had been pulled into a long braid—a familiar sight to Chloe—and Olivia’s eyes were filled with sorrow as she stared at Chloe. “I’m sorry.”
Chloe shook her head. “You don’t need to be. My father—he’s the one who set all of this in motion. He hunted you—”
“You were bitten because you were protecting me.” Olivia strode toward her. “You were trying to save me, and it cost you everything.”
It hurt to look at Olivia. Her father had done so much to cause her friend pain.
“Chloe. Please.”
She forced herself to meet Olivia’s stare.
“I did this to you.” Olivia’s lips trembled. “He killed you, and I-I didn’t even stop to think. I just wished.”
Chloe’s breath was coming faster. Her chest hurt because her heart was pounding too hard.
“I made the wish. I wished you’d be alive, and you came back. You were alive.”
She had to get out of there. They were all staring at her with pity and confusion in their gazes. Chloe rushed around Olivia and ran for the door.
But another man was there. One who’d entered with Olivia. Big, blond, and blocking her exit.
“I can’t let you go,” he said, voice soft. “None of us can.”
She looked back at Olivia. Her friend’s shoulders had sagged. “That wasn’t the only wish I made,” Olivia said.
“Stop!” Chloe didn’t want to hear any more. She didn’t want to hear that she was now some kind of undead freak. Her life was more than screwed up enough as it was. Frantic now, her gaze locked on Connor. He would help her. Connor always helped her. “Get me out of here, please.”
Connor walked toward her.
Her breath came a little easier.
But then he shook his head.
No. “Connor?”
“You died,” he said, “and that gutted me.”
She could only stare at him.
“We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with here.” He glanced over at Olivia. “So tell me what else you wished.”
Olivia’s hands clenched at her sides. “I didn’t realize how…how the wishes would work. I’d been told that they came out darker, that you never really got the exact thing that you wanted…”
Because, according to legend, the djinn had been creatures of darkness. They took wishes, twisted them, and…well, her father had said they grew stronger with every dark wish they granted.
“I thought I had to say the wishes in order for them to come true,” Olivia continued. Her words were husky. Sad. “Later, I realized…” Her words trailed away.
Eric sighed. “All right, let’s hurry this along.” He waved his hand. “She just had to think the wishes. If she thought them, bam, they came true.”
Miserably, Olivia nodded. “I wished for you to be alive, but then…I was making another wish.” She looked over at the big, blond male—the one still blocking the exit. “Shane stopped me before I could say it, but it was still in my head.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry.”
She shouldn’t ask. She shouldn’t. “What were you wishing?”
“I did wish it.” Olivia crept toward her. She took Chloe’s hand and held tight. “You are my best friend, Chloe. You were dying in front of me. No, you were dead. I didn’t think. I just wished.”
Chloe couldn’t breathe.
“I wished for you to be alive.” Olivia nervously wet her lips. “And the wish I didn’t get to voice, the one only in my mind…”
Just say it!
“I wished that you’d come back. That you’d never die.”
Chloe took a step back.
Olivia’s hold tightened on her. “I didn’t know it would mean you could be killed—that you’d die and come back in some kind of endless cycle! I didn’t know! I just wanted to help you!” Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Wh-what am I?” Chloe asked. “Am I a zombie?” Like in a horror show? Was she going to go crazy and start eating brains?
“No!” That fast response came from Holly. “Your heart is beating, your brain is functioning. You’re very much alive.”
“But I can’t…die?”
“No, you die,” Connor said grimly. The faint lines on his face appeared deeper. “I saw you. You were gone.”
“I just don’t stay gone?” Her head was throbbing. Her whole body shaking. “Where do I go?”
No one spoke. Chloe’s gaze flew from one of them to another.
And her terror just got worse.
***
Chloe had been holding out on him. She wasn’t just a werewolf. She was something far, far more important.
Chloe could cheat death. Die, then come back, better than before.
Keegan kept his gaze on the nondescript building. He could see the men patrolling the building’s perimeter—acting as if they were just security guards. But security guards weren’t usually equipped with that much fire power.
He’d tracked them back to this base. With the way the men had been bleeding, it had been like child’s play. And…just in case we had lost them…I took the liberty of stacking the odds in my favor.
He doubted they’d even found the little tracking device that he’d shoved into one of Harris’s wounds.
“What now, alpha?”
He smiled. “Now we just wait for our moment to attack.” Because he had an end game of his own. Originally, many of his men had gone to Purgatory because they’d been following the orders of David Vincent. Vincent and the senator had thought their plans were so f**king perfect.
They hadn’t been.
Now Keegan needed his men back. He wanted them out of Purgatory, and the only way that would happen…I need those Para Agents to release them.
One way or another, he’d be getting his werewolves.
Even if he had to take a little trip to Purgatory in order to make that happen.
Chapter Nine
“Unwish it.”
Chloe’s shaking voice broke Connor’s heart.
“I-I shouldn’t be like this. No one should die and come back.” Chloe’s face was far too pale as she stared at Olivia. “Just unwish it. Put me back the way I was before.”
Connor already knew that couldn’t happen, even before Olivia shook her head.
“Please,” Chloe said.
“She can’t,” Connor said as he wrapped his arm around Chloe. He needed to get her alone. She was so close to breaking, he could see it. And he didn’t want her around everyone else when she was hurting so much. He wanted to take her out of there and just hold her. “Olivia isn’t a djinn anymore. Shane changed her. She’s a vamp.”
And after that change, Eric had seemed confident—fairly so, anyway—that her djinn powers were gone. A good thing because, otherwise, Eric would have needed to permanently contain Olivia. A being who could kill just with a thought? There would have been no way the government could have allowed her to run around loose. She would have been far too dangerous.
