Charming the Beast
Page 6
“The scent is back,” he muttered. A muscle flexed in his jaw. “It’s stronger than it was before.”
“Okay, this obsession with my scent has got to end.”
He stepped toward her.
She immediately slid back.
“Fear,” he whispered and his eyes lit with understanding. “You weren’t afraid when you were unconscious, so the scent wasn’t there. You’re terrified right now.”
“Of course, I’m terrified! You’re a vampire-wolf! Any sane person would be screaming right now!”
Connor winced. “Baby, you are screaming.”
She grabbed for the chair near her and yanked it away from the table. Then she held it up, putting it in front of her. “Don’t make me stab you in the heart.”
His lips twitched. “With a chair?”
“With a wooden chair leg!”
Connor sighed. He didn’t look frightened. He—
Flew toward her, tossed the chair against the wall, and yanked her against him.
She gaped at him.
His lips firmed and then he said, “Nothing has changed. My job was to protect you. I’m still doing that job. And I’m the same man, Chloe. The same man that I was two hours ago. The same man I was two days ago. The only difference is that now you know my secret.”
She didn’t want to know his secret.
He leaned over her. “If you’d stop being afraid, I would…I would have more control…” His breath blew lightly over her throat.
Oh, no. A vampire—and her throat? She shoved against his chest. “If you’d stop scaring me, then I wouldn’t be afraid!”
“May I have…more?”
What? She shoved harder. “No! No, you cannot have more! I’m not your personal blood bank!”
“I’ve heard the bite can be…pleasurable.”
She didn’t know. She’d kind of been flipping out when he grabbed her wrist before. What with all the bullets and werewolves and the general terror that she’d felt.
“I want to give you pleasure, baby.”
He was still way too close to her throat. Her heart was galloping like a race horse. Her knees were shaking and his teeth—they’d better not be growing.
“Connor—”
The door opened. It flew open and banged against the wall. Connor spun at once, pushing her behind his back. She was afraid she’d see a pack of foaming-at-the-mouth werewolves in that doorway, but…
A man stood there.
A man with blond hair. Blue eyes. A handsome face that didn’t seem threatening at all. It should have seemed threatening because she knew that man.
Eric Pate. Leader of the FBI’s Seattle Para Unit. And, if her father’s whispers had been right, the man poised to take over the entire Para Division.
Eric looked at Connor. He looked at Chloe. He looked back at Connor. “Your fangs are out.” Eric stepped into the room. “Tell me, tell me that you didn’t drink from her.”
“There wasn’t a choice,” Connor said. “She wouldn’t leave me at the safe house—”
“Well, no,” Chloe muttered, and she knew she sounded disgruntled. She felt that way, too. “I thought you’d die if I left you. You’re welcome, by the way.” Had he thanked her? No, he’d just taken her blood.
Connor slanted her a fast glance. Then he focused on Eric again. “The silver didn’t slow me down, but then they hit me with tranqs. After the fourth dart hit, I went down. I would have stayed down, but Chloe was there. She reached for me and I….” His voice roughed. “I bit her.”
Chloe waved her wrist at Eric. “Yes, he did. Right here, see it?”
But Eric was only looking at Connor. “You know what you’ve done? The drug we’ve been using on you might not work any longer. You’ve been so careful with the karahydrelene, but what the f**k happens now? We don’t even know what she is!”
She wasn’t the one who was some strange vampire and werewolf mix.
“They were trying to take her,” Connor snapped back. “What did you want me to do? Let them have her? It was a pack—I’m guessing the remnants of David Vincent’s pack. The guy was tied up with her father, and, now that Senator Quick is out of the way—”
Chloe flinched at the mention of her father.
“They’re trying to get their hands on her.”
Now Eric turned his attention on her. His gaze seemed so cold that she almost shivered.
“We don’t know it was their pack,” Eric murmured as he tilted his head to the side. He seemed to be considering things. She didn’t really like it when Eric considered things. After a long moment, he nodded. “Connor, take a team back to the safe house. Search it. Find me a live wolf from that pack, and we’ll make him talk. We’ll find out just why she’s suddenly so important to that group.”
But Connor didn’t exactly jump to do his boss’s bidding. In fact, Chloe saw Connor’s hands clench into fists. “And while I’m gone, what happens to her?”
“Holly is here. I called her in. She can run more tests.”
More poking and prodding with needles? “I don’t want more tests!”
Eric took another step toward her. “Do you want to be sent to Purgatory?”
Her blood completely iced. She knew what Purgatory was. Her father had mentioned it to her time and time again.
Purgatory was the only paranormal prison in the United States. Modeled after Alcatraz, it was supposed to be an inescapable strong-hold. Vampires and werewolves were carefully contained there. Werewolves were fitted with silver collars so that they could be controlled. Vampires were given drugged blood. From all accounts, the place was a living, breathing nightmare.
And Eric wanted to send her there? “Why?” Chloe whispered.
“You killed your father, Chloe,” Eric said, his voice like the arctic. “There were plenty of witnesses to the crime.”
Her lips parted to reply, but it was Connor who sprang forward. He stood toe-to-toe with Eric. “That bastard had just stabbed her in the heart. He’d killed her!”
“But Chloe didn’t stay dead, did she? And we don’t really know just how involved Chloe was with all of her father’s…plans.” Eric stepped around Connor. Stalked to Chloe. “I mean, were you involved with him? Working at his side every step of the way?”
Frantic, she shook her head.
But Eric said, “Your father wanted the paranormals to come out, to take over the cities, the world. He had grand plans, didn’t he, Chloe? Only, you won’t share those plans with us. You won’t name the people who were working with your father. You won’t give us any evidence to use.”
She was shaking. Close to breaking apart. “I didn’t help him! I never helped him!” She hadn’t realized just how dangerous he was until the last few years. He’d…gotten worse. After she’d been attacked at sixteen, something had happened to him. He hadn’t been horrified by the attack. He hadn’t been sympathetic. He hadn’t sworn vengeance.
I should have been the one to change! He’d been…jealous of what she’d nearly become. But when her shifts wouldn’t work completely, her father had started to search desperately for a cure.
Not a cure to make her human again. A cure that would fully bring out her wolf.
And his. Because her father had wanted desperately to become an alpha werewolf. He’d had the DNA necessary for the transformation, so had she. But before he’d been willing to suffer the bite, he’d wanted to make absolutely sure…
That he didn’t wind up like me.
“You lived with him.”
He hadn’t let her live anywhere else. She’d had guards every single moment, and that was why she wanted so desperately to escape Eric and the Para Unit. She didn’t want her every moment tracked. She’d already lived through that hell for over ten years.
“You worked with him, on his campaign, on his projects at Capitol Hill.”
“I did charitable work.” Her father had thought the work made for good press. He’d never really given a damn about those she helped. He’d never really given a damn about her.
“You had twenty-four, seven access to him,” Eric charged, “so don’t lie to me and expect me to believe that you didn’t—”
“She’s not lying,” Connor snarled at him. And, just like that, Connor was back to her side. His arm brushed against her. “Now back the f**k off, man. That’s the last warning you’ll get from me.”
Eric blinked. She saw surprise flash over his face.
“Y-you can’t send me to Purgatory,” Chloe said. “I’m not a werewolf! I’d be dead within days.”
“I’m not sure what you are.” Eric’s gaze swept over her. “That’s the problem.”
She inched a little closer to Connor. In that instant, she figured he was her safest best, vampire-wolf or not.
Eric’s avid stare noted the movement. It almost looked as if he smiled. Almost—if that weak movement of his lips counted as a smile. “I gave you an order, Connor. I need you to get out to that safe house with a team, now. Try to pick up the scents before it’s too late.”
But Connor still wasn’t jumping to obey Eric’s orders.
“If I don’t go?” Connor drawled. “Will you send me to Purgatory again?”
Again?
Eric’s gaze darkened. “Your debt isn’t paid.”
Connor swore. “And she isn’t to be hurt, got it? I’ll go, but only if you f**king swear she stays safe until I get back here.”
A muscle flexed in Eric’s hard jaw.
“Not so much as a needle prick, understand?” Connor’s voice seethed with fury. “No one touches her until I get back.”
Oh, that sounded fair to her. A good plan. No needles. No touches. Nothing.
And Eric…nodded. “Bring me back a live wolf.”
“Keep everyone away from her,” Connor fired back.
“Deal.”
Chloe’s breath rushed out in a relieved sigh.
***
Ten minutes later, she wasn’t feeling so relieved. Eric had just put her in a cell—a cell lined with silver bars. “This wasn’t part of the deal!” Chloe yelled at him.
Connor was nowhere around. It was just her and Eric and he was shrugging.
“No one can touch you in there. You’ll be safe in containment.”
Containment?
She inched toward the silver bars. Would they hurt her if she touched them? Chloe was so sure her beast was dead. And, back when Eric had first been running his tests on her, he’d put silver against her skin.
Back then, it had done nothing.
But…what if something had changed? What if…?
“The cell is for your protection. Connor keeps telling us that your scent is acting as some kind of lure for werewolves. By putting you behind the silver bars, I’m ensuring that no werewolf can gain access and hurt you.”
She’d realized—once she saw the cell—that she was in one of the secret Para bases. A place used for field work operations and for temporary containment of prisoners. “Are there other werewolves here?” Her voice came out softer than she’d intended. The area behind her cell was dark and she hadn’t wanted to take her eyes off Eric long enough to look back there.
Eric stared at her with a guarded expression on his face. “People are never who we actually think they are.”
What? That wasn’t an answer to her question!
“Sit tight. Once Connor is back, we’ll…revisit…your involvement in your father’s business plans.” He turned on his heel and headed for the exit.
She almost grabbed the bars. Fear held her back. “I wasn’t involved!” Chloe yelled after him.
Eric didn’t look back. He yanked open the door and headed outside. Chloe was left in her prison, a cot behind her and a toilet to the right.
She looked down at her hands. Saw her small nails. Nails, not claws. She hadn’t been able to grow claws since her “death” at her father’s hands. Was her werewolf truly dead?
She reached out to touch the bars. Her fingers were shaking. She should be fine. She hadn’t burned before when Holly and Eric had tested her. She should be—
Her fingers curled around the silver.
Chloe screamed as her flesh burned.
***
Connor tensed. He glanced back at the Para Unit’s base. From the outside, the place just looked like some rundown factory. Inside, well, that was where all the real action was.
“Problem?”
He turned at that voice—his brother’s voice. Duncan was just a few feet away, studying him with a worried gaze. Connor had spent most of his life hating Duncan, blaming him for the hell that Connor had endured at their father’s hands.
When it was all my own fault.
He’d originally hunted Duncan with the intent of destroying the guy’s life, but then…well, shit, Duncan was his brother. Duncan was also one of those unfortunate true-blue types. It was because of Duncan that Connor wasn’t rotting in Purgatory, though he probably belonged there. Duncan had been the one to work out the deal with Eric.
In exchange for helping the Para Unit, Connor’s past was being erased. A past that included a rather bloody pack life.
“Connor?” Duncan pressed. “What’s wrong?”
“I thought I heard a scream.” It shouldn’t have been possible. He knew the walls to that building had been reinforced. The whole place was sound-proofed, but, for an instant, he could have sworn that he’d heard Chloe’s cry.
“Okay, this obsession with my scent has got to end.”
He stepped toward her.
She immediately slid back.
“Fear,” he whispered and his eyes lit with understanding. “You weren’t afraid when you were unconscious, so the scent wasn’t there. You’re terrified right now.”
“Of course, I’m terrified! You’re a vampire-wolf! Any sane person would be screaming right now!”
Connor winced. “Baby, you are screaming.”
She grabbed for the chair near her and yanked it away from the table. Then she held it up, putting it in front of her. “Don’t make me stab you in the heart.”
His lips twitched. “With a chair?”
“With a wooden chair leg!”
Connor sighed. He didn’t look frightened. He—
Flew toward her, tossed the chair against the wall, and yanked her against him.
She gaped at him.
His lips firmed and then he said, “Nothing has changed. My job was to protect you. I’m still doing that job. And I’m the same man, Chloe. The same man that I was two hours ago. The same man I was two days ago. The only difference is that now you know my secret.”
She didn’t want to know his secret.
He leaned over her. “If you’d stop being afraid, I would…I would have more control…” His breath blew lightly over her throat.
Oh, no. A vampire—and her throat? She shoved against his chest. “If you’d stop scaring me, then I wouldn’t be afraid!”
“May I have…more?”
What? She shoved harder. “No! No, you cannot have more! I’m not your personal blood bank!”
“I’ve heard the bite can be…pleasurable.”
She didn’t know. She’d kind of been flipping out when he grabbed her wrist before. What with all the bullets and werewolves and the general terror that she’d felt.
“I want to give you pleasure, baby.”
He was still way too close to her throat. Her heart was galloping like a race horse. Her knees were shaking and his teeth—they’d better not be growing.
“Connor—”
The door opened. It flew open and banged against the wall. Connor spun at once, pushing her behind his back. She was afraid she’d see a pack of foaming-at-the-mouth werewolves in that doorway, but…
A man stood there.
A man with blond hair. Blue eyes. A handsome face that didn’t seem threatening at all. It should have seemed threatening because she knew that man.
Eric Pate. Leader of the FBI’s Seattle Para Unit. And, if her father’s whispers had been right, the man poised to take over the entire Para Division.
Eric looked at Connor. He looked at Chloe. He looked back at Connor. “Your fangs are out.” Eric stepped into the room. “Tell me, tell me that you didn’t drink from her.”
“There wasn’t a choice,” Connor said. “She wouldn’t leave me at the safe house—”
“Well, no,” Chloe muttered, and she knew she sounded disgruntled. She felt that way, too. “I thought you’d die if I left you. You’re welcome, by the way.” Had he thanked her? No, he’d just taken her blood.
Connor slanted her a fast glance. Then he focused on Eric again. “The silver didn’t slow me down, but then they hit me with tranqs. After the fourth dart hit, I went down. I would have stayed down, but Chloe was there. She reached for me and I….” His voice roughed. “I bit her.”
Chloe waved her wrist at Eric. “Yes, he did. Right here, see it?”
But Eric was only looking at Connor. “You know what you’ve done? The drug we’ve been using on you might not work any longer. You’ve been so careful with the karahydrelene, but what the f**k happens now? We don’t even know what she is!”
She wasn’t the one who was some strange vampire and werewolf mix.
“They were trying to take her,” Connor snapped back. “What did you want me to do? Let them have her? It was a pack—I’m guessing the remnants of David Vincent’s pack. The guy was tied up with her father, and, now that Senator Quick is out of the way—”
Chloe flinched at the mention of her father.
“They’re trying to get their hands on her.”
Now Eric turned his attention on her. His gaze seemed so cold that she almost shivered.
“We don’t know it was their pack,” Eric murmured as he tilted his head to the side. He seemed to be considering things. She didn’t really like it when Eric considered things. After a long moment, he nodded. “Connor, take a team back to the safe house. Search it. Find me a live wolf from that pack, and we’ll make him talk. We’ll find out just why she’s suddenly so important to that group.”
But Connor didn’t exactly jump to do his boss’s bidding. In fact, Chloe saw Connor’s hands clench into fists. “And while I’m gone, what happens to her?”
“Holly is here. I called her in. She can run more tests.”
More poking and prodding with needles? “I don’t want more tests!”
Eric took another step toward her. “Do you want to be sent to Purgatory?”
Her blood completely iced. She knew what Purgatory was. Her father had mentioned it to her time and time again.
Purgatory was the only paranormal prison in the United States. Modeled after Alcatraz, it was supposed to be an inescapable strong-hold. Vampires and werewolves were carefully contained there. Werewolves were fitted with silver collars so that they could be controlled. Vampires were given drugged blood. From all accounts, the place was a living, breathing nightmare.
And Eric wanted to send her there? “Why?” Chloe whispered.
“You killed your father, Chloe,” Eric said, his voice like the arctic. “There were plenty of witnesses to the crime.”
Her lips parted to reply, but it was Connor who sprang forward. He stood toe-to-toe with Eric. “That bastard had just stabbed her in the heart. He’d killed her!”
“But Chloe didn’t stay dead, did she? And we don’t really know just how involved Chloe was with all of her father’s…plans.” Eric stepped around Connor. Stalked to Chloe. “I mean, were you involved with him? Working at his side every step of the way?”
Frantic, she shook her head.
But Eric said, “Your father wanted the paranormals to come out, to take over the cities, the world. He had grand plans, didn’t he, Chloe? Only, you won’t share those plans with us. You won’t name the people who were working with your father. You won’t give us any evidence to use.”
She was shaking. Close to breaking apart. “I didn’t help him! I never helped him!” She hadn’t realized just how dangerous he was until the last few years. He’d…gotten worse. After she’d been attacked at sixteen, something had happened to him. He hadn’t been horrified by the attack. He hadn’t been sympathetic. He hadn’t sworn vengeance.
I should have been the one to change! He’d been…jealous of what she’d nearly become. But when her shifts wouldn’t work completely, her father had started to search desperately for a cure.
Not a cure to make her human again. A cure that would fully bring out her wolf.
And his. Because her father had wanted desperately to become an alpha werewolf. He’d had the DNA necessary for the transformation, so had she. But before he’d been willing to suffer the bite, he’d wanted to make absolutely sure…
That he didn’t wind up like me.
“You lived with him.”
He hadn’t let her live anywhere else. She’d had guards every single moment, and that was why she wanted so desperately to escape Eric and the Para Unit. She didn’t want her every moment tracked. She’d already lived through that hell for over ten years.
“You worked with him, on his campaign, on his projects at Capitol Hill.”
“I did charitable work.” Her father had thought the work made for good press. He’d never really given a damn about those she helped. He’d never really given a damn about her.
“You had twenty-four, seven access to him,” Eric charged, “so don’t lie to me and expect me to believe that you didn’t—”
“She’s not lying,” Connor snarled at him. And, just like that, Connor was back to her side. His arm brushed against her. “Now back the f**k off, man. That’s the last warning you’ll get from me.”
Eric blinked. She saw surprise flash over his face.
“Y-you can’t send me to Purgatory,” Chloe said. “I’m not a werewolf! I’d be dead within days.”
“I’m not sure what you are.” Eric’s gaze swept over her. “That’s the problem.”
She inched a little closer to Connor. In that instant, she figured he was her safest best, vampire-wolf or not.
Eric’s avid stare noted the movement. It almost looked as if he smiled. Almost—if that weak movement of his lips counted as a smile. “I gave you an order, Connor. I need you to get out to that safe house with a team, now. Try to pick up the scents before it’s too late.”
But Connor still wasn’t jumping to obey Eric’s orders.
“If I don’t go?” Connor drawled. “Will you send me to Purgatory again?”
Again?
Eric’s gaze darkened. “Your debt isn’t paid.”
Connor swore. “And she isn’t to be hurt, got it? I’ll go, but only if you f**king swear she stays safe until I get back here.”
A muscle flexed in Eric’s hard jaw.
“Not so much as a needle prick, understand?” Connor’s voice seethed with fury. “No one touches her until I get back.”
Oh, that sounded fair to her. A good plan. No needles. No touches. Nothing.
And Eric…nodded. “Bring me back a live wolf.”
“Keep everyone away from her,” Connor fired back.
“Deal.”
Chloe’s breath rushed out in a relieved sigh.
***
Ten minutes later, she wasn’t feeling so relieved. Eric had just put her in a cell—a cell lined with silver bars. “This wasn’t part of the deal!” Chloe yelled at him.
Connor was nowhere around. It was just her and Eric and he was shrugging.
“No one can touch you in there. You’ll be safe in containment.”
Containment?
She inched toward the silver bars. Would they hurt her if she touched them? Chloe was so sure her beast was dead. And, back when Eric had first been running his tests on her, he’d put silver against her skin.
Back then, it had done nothing.
But…what if something had changed? What if…?
“The cell is for your protection. Connor keeps telling us that your scent is acting as some kind of lure for werewolves. By putting you behind the silver bars, I’m ensuring that no werewolf can gain access and hurt you.”
She’d realized—once she saw the cell—that she was in one of the secret Para bases. A place used for field work operations and for temporary containment of prisoners. “Are there other werewolves here?” Her voice came out softer than she’d intended. The area behind her cell was dark and she hadn’t wanted to take her eyes off Eric long enough to look back there.
Eric stared at her with a guarded expression on his face. “People are never who we actually think they are.”
What? That wasn’t an answer to her question!
“Sit tight. Once Connor is back, we’ll…revisit…your involvement in your father’s business plans.” He turned on his heel and headed for the exit.
She almost grabbed the bars. Fear held her back. “I wasn’t involved!” Chloe yelled after him.
Eric didn’t look back. He yanked open the door and headed outside. Chloe was left in her prison, a cot behind her and a toilet to the right.
She looked down at her hands. Saw her small nails. Nails, not claws. She hadn’t been able to grow claws since her “death” at her father’s hands. Was her werewolf truly dead?
She reached out to touch the bars. Her fingers were shaking. She should be fine. She hadn’t burned before when Holly and Eric had tested her. She should be—
Her fingers curled around the silver.
Chloe screamed as her flesh burned.
***
Connor tensed. He glanced back at the Para Unit’s base. From the outside, the place just looked like some rundown factory. Inside, well, that was where all the real action was.
“Problem?”
He turned at that voice—his brother’s voice. Duncan was just a few feet away, studying him with a worried gaze. Connor had spent most of his life hating Duncan, blaming him for the hell that Connor had endured at their father’s hands.
When it was all my own fault.
He’d originally hunted Duncan with the intent of destroying the guy’s life, but then…well, shit, Duncan was his brother. Duncan was also one of those unfortunate true-blue types. It was because of Duncan that Connor wasn’t rotting in Purgatory, though he probably belonged there. Duncan had been the one to work out the deal with Eric.
In exchange for helping the Para Unit, Connor’s past was being erased. A past that included a rather bloody pack life.
“Connor?” Duncan pressed. “What’s wrong?”
“I thought I heard a scream.” It shouldn’t have been possible. He knew the walls to that building had been reinforced. The whole place was sound-proofed, but, for an instant, he could have sworn that he’d heard Chloe’s cry.
