Chapter 14 #2
He lurched to his feet. Stared in horror as the massive creature thrashed its head from side to side, ripping Yolanda’s throat apart, blood and saliva coating its muzzle, the walls, Yolanda, in glistening red splatters.
Blue eyes bulging, body wracked in spasms, Yolanda hung in McCoy’s grip, growing more limp with each violent shake of his jaw. She reached out a hand to Peter, fingers spread.
Heart squeezing, breath rapid, Peter spun around. Fuck! The revolver was too far away. His frantic searched fell on…
Leaping forward, he snatched one long-bladed sword from the wall with his left hand. Turned back to McCoy. To the sight of the creature bathing itself in Yolanda’s blood. “Hey, dick-head,” he shouted.
McCoy lifted his blood-soaked head, twin orbs of glowing red insanity turning to him…
And Peter swung the sword, its weight heavy and powerful, slicing its long, deadly blade straight through McCoy’s neck. Decapitating him.
McCoy’s head fell one way. His body another.
Both returning to human form before they hit the floor. Both motionless. Dead.
For a split second, Yolanda hung suspended on the blood-soaked air, before, with a wet and seemingly boneless thud, she fell to the ground.
Peter dropped the sword and leapt to her side, his knees slipping in McCoy’s, Yolanda’s and probably his own blood. “Yolanda,” he cried, grabbing at her still hand with his left, threading his fingers through hers. “Yolanda?”
He stared at her, refusing to look at the gaping mess of her throat.
“Damn it, Detective,” he ground out, squeezing her hand harder. “Don’t fucking ignore me!”
“Found it impossible…ignore you.”
The gurgled words were soft, almost impossible to hear, but Yolanda’s all the same. Peter swallowed, staring at her. “Jesus, Yolanda. Your throat—He almost tore it out.”
She shook her head. Ever-so slightly. “Will heal,” she whispered. “It may…while, but…will heal.”
“Jesus, Yolanda,” he murmured again, dropping his forehead to her chest. “I don’t know…”
“You are…not allergic…puppies, are you?”
Her husky question made him lift his head and he squeezed her hand. Relief and pain and worry crashed over him. Tears threatened to fill his eyes. “Jesus, I hope not.”
“This…good.” She smiled softly. “I told you you should trust me, Detective,” she whispered, fingers weakly squeezing his hand back. “You…listen to me from now on, yes?”
He returned her smile, incapable of doing otherwise. “Yes.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed, the grip on his fingers growing stronger by the second, and her smile stretched a little wider. “Finally, you see reason.”
Declan sniffed at the steel table centered in the middle of the almost empty room, his tail swishing in agitation.
Regan had been there. Her delicate scent teased his senses.
He moved his muzzle down to the manacles, her sweat strong on the cool metal arc.
She’d been angry. Very angry. He tasted her rage not just on the air, but on the steel as well.
His tongue lolled past his teeth in a bleak grin.
Good. Hopefully, even Nathan Epoc would be wary of an angry Regan—whether strapped to a table or not.
He turned, studying the open door on the far side of the room.
The Eudeyrn Alpha’s arrogant stench permeated every molecule he pulled into his lungs, like an acrid mist that made it difficult to breathe.
He snarled, detecting a concentrated band leading from the table to the door.
Focusing his nose on its path, his tail thumped once, wolfish grin growing wide with satisfaction.
Under the thick conceit of Epoc’s scent lay a tinge of apprehension. Cold and niggling.
He crossed the small space to the door, the click-click of his nails on the chilly, marble floor the only sound in the room.
It hit him. Abruptly and inescapably.
As he passed the threshold into a long, dimly lit corridor.
Fear. Absolute fear.
Regan’s fear.
Whatever lay at the end of the corridor, whatever Epoc was doing to her there, she was petrified.
He burst into a dead sprint, ears back, teeth bared.
His right hind leg began to throb, rivaling the pulsing ache in his chest from Peter’s bullet, but he ignored both.
Worry ate at him. Took massive chunks from his control with each pounding beat of his heart.
The corridor twisted, grew darker, and then he rounded a corner and a sprawling room opened up before him.
The main wall was made entirely of glass revealing the moon-reflecting waters of Sydney Harbor beyond.
Two enormous, low-hanging crystal chandeliers flooded the room with warm, golden light, illuminating the large four-poster bed standing on a centre dais.
Beside which stood Nathan Epoc. Holding Regan, naked and trembling, close to his wiry body, a large syringe pressed into her neck just below her right ear.
Declan skidded to a halt, his paws slipping on the smooth floor.
He stared at Epoc, locking his focus on the smugly smiling man.
If he looked at Regan he would lose all control.
The overpowering tang of her horror filling the room almost pushed him to the next stage of his transformation as it was.
He had to keep it in check. For her sake and his own.
“We’re so glad to see you, O’Connell.” A smirk creased Epoc’s smooth, unlined face. He moved slightly, pressing the syringe harder into Regan’s neck. “I was just telling this delightful young woman here how boring it was without you.”
Epoc gripped Maggie’s elbow, his claws sinking into her flesh, his canines lengthening with each chuckle slipping past his lips.
“She’s been a wonderful test subject, Onchú,” he said, eyes boring into Declan’s, “but now with you here, finally in my control I don’t need her anymore.
” He flicked a silent message to McCoy and the loup garou lashed out, ripping Maggie’s throat out with his claws.
Time froze. Maggie’s eyes met Declan’s. And then her head lolled forward.
There was a sickening, wet tearing sound and, with a dull thud, it dropped to the floor, her beautiful, blue eyes staring sightlessly up at Declan.
“NO!” he screamed. He leapt forward, the primeval werewolf, the ancient monster, bursting free.
Gone was the world. Gone was Declan O’Connell.
All that existed now was heart-crushing pain.
And the hungry, demanding, insatiable blood-lust for revenge…
Declan held himself still, ears flat, tail motionless.
His blood boiled. His muscles tensed, the monstrous beast pushing at his control, fighting for release.
Epoc returned his level stare, the hand on Regan’s arm closing tighter on the smooth column of her biceps.
From the corner of Declan’s eye, he saw Regan flinch, but he didn’t move. He needed to focus.
He concentrated his strength—his croí—on his form. A ripple went through his body. His limbs tingled. His muscles shifted, and he stood. On two feet.
“Ah, the man of the moment,” Epoc sneered. He flicked his gaze over Declan’s body. “You seem to be missing some clothes.” His eyebrows shot up. “But gained some new wounds to go with the scars I’ve already marked you with.”
Declan gave him a toothy grin. “Well, you know me, Epoc. I’ve never been one for material possessions.”
Epoc puckered his lips, his golden eyes turning to Regan with deliberate malice. “No, you’ve always been one for possessions of the heart, haven’t you.”
Hot anger crashed through Declan but he remained motionless.
Epoc laughed, the sound soulless and smug at once.
“Such a familiar situation we find ourselves in, isn’t it, Onchú.
Me, holding the woman of your heart, you standing there, as useless as ever.
” He pulled Regan closer to him, and for the first time since entering the room, Declan let himself really look at her.
She appeared almost catatonic, her eyes glazed, her body somehow limp, despite standing.
He sucked in a sharp breath and turned back to Epoc, jaw clenched, fists balled. “You know I’m going to kill you, right? I mean, surely you’re not that dumb?”
Epoc’s smile grew wider, teeth glinting in the warm chandelier light.
He moved his head, ran his nose slowly up the side of Regan’s face until his mouth drew level with her cheekbone, his amber gaze still locked on Declan.
“She smells almost as good as your sister, O’Connell.
For a human. Just as feisty too, I must say.
” He flicked out his tongue and ran it in a small line up to Regan’s temple.
She flinched—the only sign she registered he was there at all.
Declan suppressed a growl. He couldn’t move. Not until he knew she was safe. Regan…?
He strained to hear, to feel a response. Nothing.
“Did you know I passed Maggie around my clan?” Epoc commented, returning his full attention to Declan.
He unfurled one finger from his hold on Regan’s arm and drew a tiny pattern up and down her arm.
“She was a tasty bitch. And a wanton one. She begged for every sexual depravity known to man and lycanthrope.” He smiled again, canines now long and curved.
“But you would know that, wouldn’t you, being her brother and all. ”
Fury, like a scalding river of lava, flooded through Declan.
The primal beast locked within his body roared for release.
He clenched his fists harder, struggling to control it, the stinging puncture wounds of his own lengthening nails in his palms only feeding the creature’s rage.
He narrowed his eyes, studying the man before him.
Epoc was baiting him. Taunting him to react.
Don’t let him. Focus. You lose control, Regan will die.
“Pity you couldn’t save her,” Epoc murmured. “The same way you’ve failed entirely to save this female.” He smiled, saliva-slicked incisors flashing. “Have you truly smelt her since slinking into this room, O’Connell, or have you been too focused on me?”