Chapter Nineteen #2
The idiot on the floor pulled a throwing knife from his belt and hurled it towards me. I stepped sideways, letting the blade whizz past my shoulder and embed itself into one of the wooden crates behind me.
I loaded my gun again with a bullet full of a shifter suppressant and shot him straight in the side of his neck. Didn’t want the guy turning into a tiger or something. That would make things a tad more challenging considering I wanted to ask some questions and get some answers.
I pressed my boot down on the guy’s shattered kneecap and he let out an agonising scream.
“Stop! Please,” he cried. His face was bright red, burnt by the silver dust, and his eyes were streaming with bloody tears.
“How many other guards are there?” I pressed down on his knee again.
“Fuck you,” he spat.
I pushed my foot down harder. “That’s not very nice. I’ll ask again. How many guards?”
“F-four,” he sputtered. “Two outside a-and two near the… office.”
Two by the office. Wonder what they were keeping in there?
I crouched down and gently brushed his damp hair away from his forehead. “Do you know what’s in the crates or the containers?”
“No,” he whimpered.
“What’s your name?”
His eyes met mine, full of fear and they shifted between the muddy brown and the yellow of his big cat. “Caleb.”
“Okay, Caleb, let me tell you how this is going to go.” I brushed some of the silver dust off his bullet-proof vest, enjoying how he flinched beneath my touch.
With the potion still running through my veins I could hear how rapidly his heart was beating.
How hard it was working to keep the blood pumping around his body.
“You’re going to die. Whether you want to or not.
The choice you have here is how quickly or painfully your end comes.
So, Caleb, do you know what’s in the crates? ”
He shook his head.
“Oh, Caleb. That’s not the answer I wanted.” I pressed my finger into the bullet hole in his left knee.
He screamed as I pushed my finger deeper and twisted. I could feel the broken shards of bone separating and moving as I jabbed my finger in there.
“I don’t know!” he yelled. “I was only hired to watch them. I never saw inside them.”
I pushed my finger even deeper, and he shot up, reaching for my hands, but a pair of hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back to the ground.
“What are you doing, kitten?” Wilder asked, a playful smile curling his lips.
“Oh, just a little light torture.” I took in his appearance, glad that he didn’t have a scratch on him. “How did you get on?”
“Fine,” he replied with a little shrug. “Left him out cold, hanging from one of the loading hooks, but please, don’t let me interrupt your conversation.”
I turned my attention back to Caleb, a sudden sense of urgency pushing me to get the information and kill the guy now that Wilder was back. I wanted to play with him, not this douchebag. “Come on, Caleb. Surely you must know something.”
I yanked my finger out of the wound in his leg and pulled my gun back out, resting it on his dick.
“No! Please, I don’t know anything.” The guy sounded frantic, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. I was more interested in the way Wilder was watching me than the way the guy was screaming.
I cocked my gun. “You must have seen something?”
“No,” he screamed again.
I snarled, frustration nipping at my patience.
“Can I try something?” Wilder asked.
My answer was immediate. “Yes.”
Excitement spurred to life inside me at the prospect of watching Wilder—my Wilder—cause someone pain.
Fuck, I think I might have developed a new kink.
His eyes brightened as he pulled his magic to the surface and he tipped Caleb’s head back so he could look into his eyes. “Sorry, but this is going to hurt.”
Be still my beating heart.
Wilder slammed his hands down on either side of Caleb’s face, purple sparks flickering under his skin from Wilder’s magic. Caleb’s body started to seize as Wilder searched through his mind, or at least, that’s what I assumed he was doing.
Caleb’s eyes turned bright purple as a hazy image started to appear and hover above his face.
“He seems to have been telling the truth,” Wilder said, his voice strained. His eyes had changed to the same shade of muddy brown of Caleb’s which made him look strange and a little off.
The images hovering above Caleb shifted like a movie on fast forward and I saw moments of his life like a picture book. I’d never seen any magic like this before, and I was fascinated.
The picture of the warehouse came into view, and I was suddenly watching through Caleb’s eyes as he patrolled the building. Wilder was flicking through the memories quickly, but something caught my eye. “Wait. Go back.”
“Hang on,” Wilder said through gritted teeth. His jaw twitched and his arms trembled.
“There,” I said, as the dark figure appeared again.
Wilder froze on the image of a man dressed in black, with slicked back dark hair and round black sunglasses.
Which was odd, considering it was nighttime.
That’s what caught my attention. Who wore sunglasses in the dark?
He stood with Lawler, clearly chatting and—
“I can’t hold it much longer, Byron,” Wilder said as his body trembled. There was a deep frown above his eyes, and his lips were pulling back in a grimace as he tried to hold on to Caleb’s mind.
I grabbed my phone and snapped an image of the strange man. Hopefully Bishop could run it through his fancy facial recognition software he’d been designing and figure out who this mystery man was. “Okay, you can let go now, Wilder.”
He whimpered as he tried to claw back his magic, and Caleb’s body jerked violently, blood pouring from his eyes, nose and mouth.
“I’m trying, there’s something else here,” Wilder gasped. “Something buried… deep.”
“Leave it, Wilder. Come back to me.”
His eyes flickered between Caleb’s muddy brown and his own bright violet, but then something shifted. Something darker.
Power surged in the air, and it prickled against my skin uncomfortably. I’d felt this before.
Wilder’s eyes bled into two black orbs.
“Byron…I see you,” that dark raspy voice I’d come across in the abandoned house whispered through Wilder’s lips.
“Wilder,” I shouted. “Can you hear me?”
“He’s not here right now,” the voice said, and this was the closest I’d ever been to fear.
“Who are you?”
Wilder’s mouth pulled into an unsettling grin. “I am the King.”
Purple lightning started to flicker through the black orbs, and I could sense Wilder fighting back.
Come on, baby. Come back to me.
Wilder slammed his eyes shut and yelled an almighty scream as he wrenched his hands away from Caleb.
There was a large squelch and pop as Caleb’s eyes exploded and Wilder fell backwards. I darted towards him, catching him in my arms before he could hit the ground.
I cupped his jaw with my free hand and for the first time in my life, I willed my stomach to stop churning. “Wilder?”
He was so still and his skin was so pale.
Finally, he took a deep breath after what felt like minutes. It was probably only seconds, but the adrenaline made time stand still.
Wilder coughed and sputtered in my arms, dragging in several deep breaths.
“What the heck was that?” a soft voice said from behind us.
I grabbed my gun and pointed it in the direction of the intruder, ready to shoot. “Orson? What the fuck are you doing here?”
He held his hands up in surrender. “I mean you no harm, and this is purely a coincidence.”
“There’s no such thing as a coincidence,” I replied.
Wilder huffed a shaky laugh and sat up. “No, Byron thinks they’re fishy.”
He still seemed to be a bit unsteady, but he didn’t move from his position on the floor between my legs. I kept my hand curled possessively around his hip while the other held the gun pointed at the mysterious vampire.
“Who are you?” Wilder asked as he leaned his shoulder into my chest.
“Orson Aldworth. Did you not find my business card?”
“Yes,” I clipped. “But what’s a history professor from Brackley Hollow doing in a warehouse all the way down here in Misthaven?”
Orson was quick to smile. “Have you been reading up on me? I feel like a notorious criminal.”
“There wasn’t much else to find,” Wilder added as he burrowed deeper into me. I liked that he was taking comfort and support from me. It was an alien sensation, but I didn’t hate it. In fact, I wanted to revel in it.
Orson tucked his hands back into his pockets. “Good. That’s how I like it. You don’t have to keep pointing the gun at me. I’m not here to harm you. I’m here to save them.”
He looked over his shoulder at the containers that lined the walls and suddenly all the magic wards and silencers made sense. I lowered my gun and holstered it. “They’re full of magical creatures, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Orson replied solemnly. “I’ve been part of the Hollow Thread for decades interfering where I can and saving who I can.
” He looked down at Wilder, a sorrowful expression on his face.
“I couldn’t save you. I was outbid at the auction and when I came to rescue you, you’d disappeared. I’m so sorry, Wilder.”
“Who outbid you?” Wilder asked as he got to his feet, his eyes focussed on Orson.
“I don’t know. We use codenames. Mine is the Historian but the man who won the auction was called the King.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I hissed as I jumped up. I pulled the image I’d taken of Caleb’s memory up on my phone. “Is this him?”
Orson’s brow furrowed as he peered at the image. “It’s a little fuzzy, and it’s been a few years since I’ve seen him, but yes. That’s him.”
I fired the image over to my twin and told him to delve into him.
I wasn’t holding up much hope of him finding anything, but you never know, he might find something that leads us a little closer to him.
For now, we needed to focus on Lawler Rowan.
He was at least tangible enough that we could bring him down.
And I was going to enjoy cutting him up into tiny little pieces. So, there was that too.
“So, how do we get into the containers?” Wilder asked as he stepped towards them.
“My team is on standby,” Orson said as he pulled out his phone and typed something into it. “We will handle this.”
“How do we know you’ll take care of them?
” I asked, taking a few predatory steps closer to Orson.
He seemed so out of place, with his fancy suit and gothic coat but I could feel how powerful he was.
He was probably more powerful than Damyr.
I didn’t want to underestimate him, despite his casual stance and Victorianesque clothing.
The vampire just looked amused and held out another damn business card. “You can’t, but here’s a card with my personal details. I don’t give that out to just anyone. Feel free to pop by if you’re ever in Brackley Hollow.”
I tucked it away in my pocket and then laced my fingers with Wilder’s. “There are still two guards near the office. Can you send any information pertaining to Lawler Rowan over to us? If you’re as good as you think you are, I’m sure you can find a way. I don’t carry business cards.”
Orson smiled wide as he typed something into his phone. “Already done. I’ll send you what I find.”
Smug bastard.
“Thanks.” I turned to Wilder. “Ready to go home?”
“Yep,” he said with a warm smile.
The warehouse shutter doors started to open, and an army of men and women filtered through. Orson wasn’t lying when he said he’d take care of everything.
“Right, well, we will leave you to it.” I tugged Wilder in the direction that we came, looking forward to some alone time with him. Ooh, perhaps we could run a bubble bath or do something else that normal couples do.
“Before you go,” Orson called after us. “You haven’t come across a wendigo, have you?”
“Nope, don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied.
Orson’s left eyebrow raised in a supercilious arch. “Well, if you do, be sure to pass on my details. I’d like to help him, if I can.”
“Will do,” I called back with a little wave before finally getting out of the building and all the way back to the SUV.
“Why didn’t you tell him about Vee?” Wilder asked as soon as we were back in our seats.
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to put him in a position where he might be captured again. With us, I know he’s safe, and he has the option of reaching out to Orson if he chooses. If Orson knows where he is, he might not have a choice.”
Wilder eyed me curiously.
“What? Is there something on my face?” I asked.
“No. I’m just surprised that was your thought process. You barely know Vee and yet you were willing to lie to keep him safe.”
I grinned at him and fired up the engine. “Perhaps that’s your influence on me.”
Wilder laughed, a rich warm sound that I wanted to hear again. It had been too long since he’d been relaxed enough to enjoy himself.
“So, how do you want to end your date night? I’m thinking a bubble bath and some fucking?” I really hoped he said yes to the fucking.
“Date night?” Wilder snorted. “This was a date?”
I shrugged. “May as well be. We went out and did an activity together. Isn’t that what couples do?”
“Couples go out for dinner and go to the movies so they can make out in the dark in a room full of strangers. They don’t go breaking and entering together.”
Ooh, the movies sounded fun. Especially if there were mutual blowjobs involved. “If I buy you some popcorn, will you suck my dick in the back row?”
Wilder snorted and tilted his head as if he were giving the idea some real thought. “Sure thing, kitten. You’ve got yourself a deal.”