Chapter Twenty-five – Angela
Chapter Twenty-five
Angela
Mark was still holding me when there was a knock at our door. I felt his arms tense, as if he might have to protect me personally.
“What is it?” he barked.
“There’s someone here to see you, Miss Wilshire.”
“Who?” he asked.
Oh shit. I’d completely forgotten. “Jack,” I answered, before security could.
“What?” Mark asked, twisting toward me. “Why?”
“He’d asked to talk to me alone.” I started to move away from Mark, disentangling myself from the sheets. I’d left the duffle full of my clothes in Rabbit’s room, of course—I’d have to sneak down there and get it, or just wear what I’d had on.
“That’s not going to happen,” Mark said, and I didn’t know if he was talking to security or me.
“I told him I would.”
“You’re in grief right now. He’s taking advantage of you.”
“To be fair, I did just tell him today that Dark Ink was closed, and he should start looking for a new job.” I guess it didn’t matter if my clothes were dirty, all of me needed a shower after that fucking.
And speaking of fucking—I knew exactly what Paco and I had interrupted at Jack’s house earlier on. “Plus, he’s gay.”
Mark sat up on the edge of his bed. “Gay-gay, or gay like you are?”
I paused, bra halfway clasped. “Good question.”
“Look, Angela, I get that you want to keep doing things so that you don’t have to slow down and feel your feelings. I’ve had people die, I’ve been there myself. It may feel important at the time, but believe me, you’re just postponing the inevitable.”
I sighed. “Trust me, I already feel plenty bad. And I know about postponing things, all right?” I pulled my shirt back on over my head. “Postponing things is like my superpower.”
“Hmm?”
“Never mind. Just—he saved Rabbit’s life. Let me do this, and then it’ll be done, okay? He drove all the way out here.” I pulled my hair back into a knot, and went for the door.
Paco was waiting politely outside, and he made no comment about my appearance as he wove us through Mark’s mansion and down into the wine cellar.
“Here?” I hugged myself. It was cold—and maybe Mark was right to worry.
As if reading my mind Paco said, “I promise nothing bad will happen to you. I give you my word.” His handsome face was solemn and he seemed sincere.
“Sure.” Why not? What else could possibly happen to me today? He left the room, and I started reading dusty wine labels in French, one eye on the door.
And even then, I didn’t see him. It was like one moment the room was empty, and the next he was there. “Hey, Ang.” Jack had on a black leather jacket—it was a new one, I hadn’t seen before—and jeans and a shirt and a troubled stare.
“Jack,” I said with a tight smile. In normal times we might hug—but for whatever reason, this time did not feel normal. “Thanks again.”
“I only wish I’d gotten there sooner.”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think you could’ve saved her and him.” He’d gone up against a werewolf for me—without knowing. “You’re lucky to be alive. Honestly.”
“Yeah?” he asked and then paused, as if waiting for more.
“Yeah,” I said, closing the book of his question. “What’d you want to see me alone for, Jack?”
It was a small room—but that didn’t stop him from pacing. Then, deciding something, he stopped and looked at me. “I don’t think we have much time, so I’m going to cut to the chase. What would happen to you if I touched you with silver?”
Oh God. He’d managed to injure a Pack member—I should’ve thought to wonder how, but I’d been so busy with Rabbit and with crying and with Mark. “What?” I laughed, trying to play the question off as silly. “Why would you ask?”
“Please. Cut the crap, Angela. I know. About you—and Rabbit. I know.”
“Know what?”
Jack pulled a knife out of his pocket and set it down on the stone table in the center of the room. “Touch it then. Or, keep playing games.”
And that was how. Who carries a silver knife with them, and why? But we’d worked together for years and he’d never suspected—or, had he? I didn’t know.
“Just touch it, Angie,” he said, grabbing my wrist to yank it forward—before letting me go and jumping back to look at his hand, mystified. “You—you stung me.”
“What the fuck Jack, this isn’t funny,” I said, sidling toward the door, ready to run.
“Goddammit Angela,” he said and grabbed my shoulders to hold me back, carefully only touching where my shirt was. “Just—look at me.”
I scrunched up my eyes and inhaled to scream.
“Be quiet and look!” he hissed.
My scream withered and my eyes snapped open and—there was Jack, my employee, and friend, standing in front of me with fangs.
And suddenly so many things made sense—the way I’d never gotten him to work a shift before sundown, the way he’d never come to any of Rabbit’s birthday parties, how if you called him during the day he’d never, ever, answer.
His fangs retracted slowly. “You can talk now. Sorry. I just had to show you. And I can make you forget, if you want to.”
“No,” I answered quickly.
He nodded at that. “Okay.”
I looked between him and the knife. “So…you know?”
“I guessed. Not until recently. And I still don’t know why touching you burns me—it didn’t that first time we met, back in the day.”
I walked over to the table. “I take silver. So does Rabbit. It keeps the wolf down.” That was the first time I’d as much as admitted it, to someone who might believe me.
“That explains it then,” he said.
“Are there others?” I asked him.
“Like me and like you? Yes. And there’s people that use magic. Past that, I’m not sure, but I don’t take anything for granted anymore.”
I nodded. The silver knife was mesmerizing—my hand darted out and touched its blade. It stung like a hot curling iron, and I bit my lips to stop from screaming. “Shit.”
“Yeah. It burns me, too. Maybe not as bad though.” He rounded the table to be across from me. “Angela, if the Pack is after you because of Rabbit—they’re not going to let you go. And you’re not safe here. You have to know that.”
“I do. But I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“I’ve been kind of working on that. I have a plan. But I need your help to pull it off.”
“You? Have a plan?” I gawked at him. “I’m sorry, that sounded bad—I mean—it’s the Pack. Who can stop them?”
“The person who made me can offer protection, for a price.”
I shrank back, trying to figure out what I could sell Dark Ink for, and how fast I could be liquid. “How much?”
“More than you could ever hope to pay. But your boyfriend—would he really do anything for you?”
I nodded. Mark had put a hit on Gray for crying out loud. “Yeah.”
“Who the hell does he work for?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know who—but I know where.” We’d been there often enough. “The Fleur De Lis.”
Jack rocked back. “Fucking-a. If he’s willing to deal with some business people I know, you can get guards—like me.” He pointed to where his fangs had been. “Or a bunker to hole up in, somewhere even the Pack won’t be able to find.”
“Jack, they’ve scented me. They can follow me anywhere.”
He looked worried for a moment, but then shook it off. “I refuse to believe that. Or if they can, I’m sure my boss can figure a way to set you free.”
“Your boss?” I asked.
“My other boss.” He gave me a sad half-smile. “I don’t like her as much as I like you.”
The words were…honest. And it was just the two of us in this tiny space—and I remembered the night we met, the way we’d been all over each other. Somewhere deep inside me my wolf swung her tail like a slow drum’s beat.
She’d always known what Jack was—the biggest, baddest guy in the room.
Who would’ve guessed my knight in shining armor would have quite so many tattoos?
I heard a scuffle from outside, same as Jack did, but he turned to me more quickly. “You are forbidden from telling anyone else of my kind,” he said, and suddenly I felt compelled to silence, at least where vampires were concerned.
“Same, same,” I said as Mark burst in, Paco close behind. “I’m firing you,” he growled at Paco.
“Sir,” Paco protested, as Mark took in the room, Jack’s presence, and the silver knife.
“Mark, don’t,” I said.
“Somehow he takes you to the only room in the house where I can’t see what’s going on?” Mark pointed between the two other men like they were in cahoots.
“I was making the lady an offer,” Jack said. Mark’s eyes flashed—not threatened, just pissed.
“Which was?” he asked archly.
“As you suspected, Jack’s involved in some stuff,” I cut in, putting myself between them, resting my hands on Mark’s broad chest. “He knows some people, who know some people, who have a bunker in the desert.”
“For a price,” Jack corrected.
“What a true friend,” Mark sneered.
Jack shrugged, pretending that Mark wasn’t getting to him, no matter how much I could feel the tension ratcheting. “It’s not my bunker.”
“She doesn’t need a bunker—I have my house, and my men.”
“One of whom you just fired,” Jack said.
“Paco!” Mark shouted, apparently ready to rehire him now—if only to escort Jack off the premises. When Paco didn’t readily respond, he shouted again, louder. “Paco!”
I’d only known the man for a few days, and I already knew disobedience wasn’t like him—and I saw something akin to abject worry momentarily cross Jack’s face—until Paco appeared on the stairs to the room.
“Sir!” Paco shouted back, with one hand on his ear piece. “There’s been a fight at the prison. Gray’s been injured—they’re moving him to the infirmary.”
Was this it? I gasped and looked to Mark, watching his jaw clench. “That wasn’t me,” he said, all but admitting to everyone in this small room that that’d been his plan. “After your mother’s murder, there would’ve been too much heat—I called it off.”
“But, maybe?” I asked.
“No. I’m sorry, Ang. I meant to tell you—we’ll have to figure out another way—or use the legal system, God help us.”
“That’s good though, right?” Jack said.
“Yeah, anyone who stabs that fucker deserves a medal in my book,” Mark said.
They kept talking as my thoughts faded out, staring at the silver knife in front of me.
Gray wasn’t stupid, he’d always be using the minimum amount of silver he needed just to get by—to keep his wolf down around the full moon.
While a full moon was coming up—there was no way just anyone had stabbed him.
He must’ve wanted to be stabbed. But why?
“Are prison infirmaries as secure as the rest of the place?” I asked, interrupting Mark and Jack’s continued conversation.
Paco’s eyes met mine over their heads, from the stairs. “Notably less so.”
“They’re going to break him out of prison.”
I’d said it mostly to myself, but both Jack and Mark’s heads turned as what I’d said sunk in.
“Shit!” Mark cursed.
Jack instantly reached out his hand to Mark. “Whether you believe it or not, we both have Angela’s best interests at heart. Let me put you in touch with my friends.”
Mark hesitated.
“If I’m not still fired, I’d recommend that you listen to him,” Paco said.
“Please, baby,” I added.
Mark looked at me, and then shook Jack’s hand. “All right.”
Both of them stood there for a moment, sizing the other up just in case. The second their hands released, I took Mark’s and turned to Jack. “How soon can we get there?”
The story continues in
Blood by Moonlight: Dark Ink Tattoo Book Four
Read on for a sneak peek.
Angela: My secret is out, and now both Mark and Jack know that I’m a werewolf.
Worse, my abusive ex-boyfriend, the one who made me this way, has escaped from prison and he’s after one thing: our son.
The Pack is a brutal, criminal motorcycle gang: I don’t want that life for Rabbit.
Jack says he can protect us, but the Pack is strong and if they catch us, they’ll kill me and take Rabbit.
But if I’m going down, I’m taking Gray with me.
Jack: She’s a monster like me, but that doesn’t change how I feel about her.
I’ll do everything I can to save her and her son.
When old enemies reappear and my Mistress betrays me, I might have to give up everything to protect them from the Pack.
Angela’s entrusted me with her son, and I won’t let her down.
A werewolf ready to make her last stand.
A vampire who will do anything to protect the innocent from the unholy.
Welcome to Dark Ink Tattoo, where needles aren't the only things that bite.