Chapter 10 #2
“Not thank you, ass-wipe,” a deep male voice sounded behind him. “You need to say goodbye.”
And with that, Declan rose up behind McCoy, grabbed his head with clawed, bloody hands and snapped it to the side like it was a bottle top.
A sharp crack shattered the air. McCoy’s body went limp and Declan yanked it backward, flinging it from the van in a savage throw.
He turned to Regan, silver wolf eyes steady. He held out his right hand, wrist still encased in a now dented steel shackle, the wicked claws at the end of each finger retracting until they were but blunt human nails. “Did he…?”
Regan shook her head, colder than ice. She felt sick.
Sick and angry and numb. “No. You stopped him.” She stared at him.
Wondering if he really was there. Blood splattered his body and numerous gashes littered his face, neck and chest. The black shirt he’d procured from the mansion back in Sydney was now a tattered rag, hanging from his shoulders in strips, barely intact.
The wound in his side seeped fresh blood, his chest heaved with each ragged breath he drew and his hair was a stringy, tangled mess.
Ignoring his hand, she climbed from the back of the van. Her stare slid to McCoy’s inert form, lying prone in the long, dry grass. Sick contempt flooded through her. She swallowed, turning back to Declan who watched her with such intent her skin prickled. “Is he dead?”
He looked at her with human eyes once again, their grey depths swimming with concern and anger. And something else. Something shadowy. “We have to go.”
She hugged herself, the hideous memory of McCoy’s touch on her flesh like acid eating her skin. Her muscles ached, like her body had been through a senseless war. But the ambiguous shadow in Declan’s eyes…It made her scared. “Is he dead, Declan?”
Without a word, he skimmed his hand down her back and she flinched.
“Don’t,” she murmured, hugging herself tighter, returning her stare to McCoy once again.
The ice encasing her limbs cracked and suddenly, boiling, savage rage roared through her.
She spun around. Fixed Declan with a hard stare. “Is. He. Dead?”
Declan shook his head. “Regan, you’re not ready to—”
She snapped. Fear, fury, helplessness and shame erupted in her soul.
Devoured her. “Don’t tell me I’m not ready!
” she screamed. “Don’t tell me I won’t understand!
” She hammered his body with her fists, glaring at him through hot, stinging tears, hating herself, hating him.
“Don’t.” She struck his jaw. His chest. His shoulders.
“Fucking tell me…” He stood still. Took it all.
Every blow. Every screamed word. Watching her.
She thumped at him. “I’m not ready!” She stared at him, blinded by tears and agonized grief.
“He almost raped me!” She smashed her fists against his chest, choking on the air.
Tears ran down her face, burning trails of inexplicable shame.
“He almost raped me,” she sobbed, and suddenly she was burying her face into the chest that only seconds ago she’d been punishing.
“I know, Regan.” Declan slid his arms around her body and held her, his breath soft and warm on the top of her head, his presence as solid as the ground on which they stood. “And I will never forgive myself for not being there.”
For a still moment, he did nothing but hold her, his heart beating against hers, his lips pressed gently to her forehead.
Before, with infinite care, he scooped her up and carried her to the driver’s side door, the feverish heat of his body a furnace against hers.
More comforting than anything she could imagine.
He lowered her into the seat, buckled her in and placed a soft kiss on her forehead, brushing the strands of her hair from her face.
Regan curled her fingers around his wrists, stilling his hand. “I’m sorry I chained you.”
He chuckled, the sound low and soothing. “Apologize later.”
Empty numbness still holding her like a shroud, she watched him walk around the front of the van, following his every step. Heavy guilt unfurled in her stomach, cold and fierce. Jesus, he was hurt. Hurt so bad he could barely walk.
He climbed into the cab, a stretched tightness around his eyes, his skin slicked with sweat.
“Declan, you’re hurt. I need to—”
“I haven’t got time to be hurt, love. We have to go.”
“But your side? Your head?”
“Don’t argue with me, Regan.” Declan buckled himself into the passenger seat. “Just start the car.”
“Let me at least look at your wounds first.”
Grey eyes turned to her, worry like a cold flame in their depths. “There’s no time. He’ll be after us.”
“Who? Epoc?”
Declan didn’t answer.
Fear tickled at Regan’s chest and her throat squeezed tight. “McCoy?” The name tasted like bile on her tongue. “But I saw you break his neck. I heard it!”
A shudder wracked Declan’s body, but he kept his gaze on her.
“Most of the myths are crap, love,” he said, his normally deep voice rough and somehow scratchy, “but Hollywood got two right. Silver bullets work really well if you want to kill a werewolf, as does decapitation. Anything else just pisses us off.”
Regan swallowed. “Then McCoy is…”
She swung her head around. Stared out the window at the body of the massive man, lying face down in the long, dry grass. Watched it twitch. Watched wide shoulders bunch, elbows bend. Watched as McCoy began to move, to lift his torso from the ground. An inch. Two.
Ice ripped through her and she spun back to Declan, mouth dry, chest tight. “What…what? The other men? Wolves…werewolves? Did you kill…Are they…?”
The worrying tautness around his eyes stretched and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Turn the key and get us out of here, love.” He coughed and Regan gasped as a spurt of blood left his mouth.
He wiped it away, hands shaking. “I’ve little left in me and if we’re both to survive the next few minutes we need to go. Now.”
Regan turned the key.
She flung the van along the freeway, the stench of McCoy in the cabin threading through her every breath, an insidious reminder of a nightmare she hoped to forget.
You’ll never forget that. Never.
She shot Declan a quick look. He slumped in the seat beside her, sweat pouring down his face, his body wracked by violent shudders. If he hadn’t arrived when he did…A cold weight pressed on her heart and she turned back to the road, pushing her foot harder to the accelerator.
“North’s the other way, love,” Declan mumbled, voice weak and shallow. “Where are we going?”
“I’m taking you to see a friend of mine.”
Heavy silence followed until Declan asked, “Who’s Rick?”
Regan ground her teeth, gripping the wheel in a death vice. He was in her head again. “How do you do that?”
“Who’s Rick?”
She swerved around a 4x4 moving at a snail’s pace. “A vet in Sydney.”
Declan growled. “It’s not safe. I need to deal with Epoc before you can go back home.”
She studied him, eyes narrowed. “Declan, we’re almost a hundred kilometers out of Sydney and I’ve just been attacked. Do you really think we’re safe anywhere?”
He opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head. “After we get you better, than we can talk about how we’re going to take out Nathan Epoc.”
She heard Declan shift in his seat and a whisper of a word floated through her head. “Yes, we.” She grinned bleakly at the road. “I’m a farm girl, remember. I know every way possible to kill a feral animal causing trouble.”
The car was a wreck. Peter stared at it, taking in the crumpled metal and shattered glass.
The powerful state-of-the-art engine now nothing but a mangled tangle of steel and hose, pissing oil and fluid and smoke.
He ran his inspection over the splintered mess of bark, branches and leaves before returning it to the Jag, his nerves and chest so tight he could barely breathe.
Shit, his sister had been in that. If it weren’t for the one lone eucalypt, she’d probably still be in it.
At the bottom of the ravine, her lifeless body as broken and shattered as the car itself, her blood soaking into the cream leather upholstery, staining it forever with her life. His gut twisted.
“She was not driving.”
Yolanda’s shoulder brushed his and he started, flicking his gaze from the stolen Jag to his partner. “That meant to make me feel better?”
She shrugged, a distant look in her eyes.
Peter released a long, silent sigh and approached the open driver’s side door, studying the confined area within.
Blood splattered the cracked side window, dry and dark.
Whoever’s head had smacked into the window would have a bloody big headache right about now.
A grim smile stretched his lips, cold and mirthless. Good.
He studied the thick patterns of red on the broken glass.
By his estimate, at least eighty-odd minutes had passed since the Jag left the freeway and hit the tree, maybe more.
Long enough for whoever had been driving to now be nowhere about.
Squinting into the blazing sun sitting low in the western sky, he scanned the area around the crash site, taking in the rolling hills, stretching fences, un-fleeced sheep and the occasional barn dotting the shadow-covered landscape.
Hobby farming territory. The perfect place to lay low while recovering from a car accident.
If Reggie’s abductor hadn’t decided to highjack another car, that was.
If he was still alive.
If he wasn’t, wouldn’t Reggie still be here? Or maybe trying to hitch back to Sydney?
Not if more than one person was involved in her disappearance.
Peter scowled at the dark thought and two names floated into his mind: O’Connell. McCoy. Two men. Who had her now?
“There is nothing here.” Yolanda spoke at his elbow, agitation making her normal husky voice somehow sharp. “We are wasting time.”