Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels Page 20

  “You’re seeing a psychiatrist?”

  “I’m hot for the guy who kidnapped me,” said Dana. “It’s kind of abnormal.”

  Cole chuckled. “Is it working? Is the therapy driving me out of your head?”

  She glared at him. “The point is that he knows now, but he doesn’t have a source he can use to back himself up when he publishes. He’s going to ask you to tell him what happened. And if you tell him, then... it will ruin me, Cole. I’m here to beg you. Whatever—”

  “Dana.” He shook his head in disapproval. “You know I would never do something to hurt you.”

  “I don’t know that,” she said. “You tried to kill me.”

  He shrugged. “Well, there is that, I suppose.”

  “You said you wanted to make him squirm.”

  “Do you want to protect him?” asked Cole. “Do you still have feelings for him?”

  “No,” said Dana. “He’s horrible. He threatened me. He made me feel... awful. Like I was damaged and useless.”

  Cole’s eyes flashed. “Don’t worry about him anymore.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Cole smiled. “That was the only reason you came to see me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “No other questions about the rogues?” he asked. “I have to say I’m a little disappointed. It seems you’re not making much progress.”

  She glowered at him. “Maybe I’ve got it all figured out, and I no longer need to talk to you anymore.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. Of course, you haven’t figured it out.”

  “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I wasn’t saying that you were.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Did you somehow have Tom Hathaway killed?”

  “Tom Hathaway? Why on earth are you bothering anything with Tom Hathaway?” Cole looked genuinely perplexed.

  “We cross-referenced a list of potentials with a list of people you’d exchanged letters.”

  “Potentials?” He furrowed his brow. “Wait, did you say Tom Hathaway is dead?”

  Dammit. This was all going badly. She was giving Cole information. He wasn’t giving her anything. She should have known better than to try to go digging. She should have left it alone.

  “How did he die?” asked Cole. “Was it another wolf?”

  “There hasn’t been a full moon.”

  “That’s a no?”

  “I’m not here to try to give you answers. You need to tell me what’s going on.”

  He stood up. “Well, I have no idea. I certainly don’t want Tom dead.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s a young man,” said Cole. “He wrote me letters. I wrote back. He’s not part of this.” He took off his glasses and began to clean them. “If you’re looking for someone with motive to kill him, I’d look at his father.”

  “I wasn’t,” she said. “Not unless it had something to do with you.”

  He shot her a look, and it was almost fearful. “Nothing to do with me, I’m sure.” He swept across the room, and before she could do anything, she was in his arms.

  “Cole, please don’t,” she said. But he was close now. It was hard to resist when he was so close. There was something about him—the feel of his body against hers, the way he smelled—that made her feel so drawn to him, like she belonged with him. It was so hard to fight.

  He tangled his hands in her hair. “Dana, you can’t honestly expect me to have you right here and somehow keep my hands off you, can you?”

  “Yes,” she choked out, but then she was kissing him or he was kissing her or... She didn’t know who had started it, but it was happening. Blisteringly sweet, blazing through her, radiating into the depths of her, and waking up something deep down.

  She ran her fingers over his shoulders and arms. He was firm and unyielding under her touch. She hadn’t ever touched him very much. Maybe she’d never admitted to herself that she wanted to. But she liked the way he felt under her fingertips. She pressed her palms against his chest, exploring him.

  Cole’s hands moved in her hair, tugging at it. Pain shot through her, but it only urged her on, excited her.

  She slammed him against the wall of his cell, trapping his body between the wall and her own. She kissed his chin, his jaw, his neck.

  He sighed.

  “Fuck,” she muttered. What was she doing? She tried to push away from him, to get free.

  But he moved his hands to her waist and crushed her against him.

  She struggled. “Whatever this is, I don’t want it.”

  “You want it,” he said. He kissed her. “You want me.”

  “No.” She tried to make her voice fierce, but there was something else in it, a thickness that came from desire.

  One of Cole’s hands moved down to caress the curve of her backside. “There’s no way to fight it, beautiful. I’ve tried. You and me? We’re connected now.”

  His statement filled her with a thrill of joy and a surge of horror. She couldn’t be connected to Cole Randall. She couldn’t continue this way, not really. Not when she kept sneaking away for clandestine trysts with her demon lover. She gazed into his dark eyes, and she realized that she was doomed. There was no hope for her.

  And God help her, if some part of her wasn’t completely okay with that as long as it meant she got to kiss him again.

  He turned her, moved them so that their positions were switched. Now she was against the wall, and his body trapped her there. She bit her lip. She was tingling in all the right and wrong places.

  He put his mouth to her ear, nibbled the lobe. He ran his tongue down her neck.

  She broke out in shivers. A moan burst from her lips.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “They’ll hear you in the hallway and wonder what we’re up to.”

  And she suddenly felt drenched in shame and embarrassment. She lurched forward. She had to get out of here.

  But she only collided with Cole, and he was stronger than her, and his mouth was wet and sweet, and the sensation of his lips and tongue on hers undid her. She sagged back against the wall.

  He drew back, holding her at arms’ length. “I want to see you, Dana.”

  She didn’t know what he meant. He could see her.

  “Lift up your shirt.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but instead she found herself reaching for the edge of it.

  “Show me.”

  She did.

  “Show me everything.”

  She pushed her bra out of the way. The cool air hit her bare breasts. Her nipples tightened.

  Cole drew in a slow, noisy breath. He stood stock still for several seconds, doing nothing but looking at her. “Beautiful,” he finally said, his voice hoarse.

  Dana swallowed. She felt vulnerable and exposed, and the force of it was arousing her, exploding through her, ripping away her inhibitions.

  “You said you touched yourself here,” he said. “Show me.”

  She put a hand to her own breast, massaging herself, teasing her own nipple.

  Cole licked his lips. He put his hand on her hand. He moved closer, and she could feel the fabric of his jumpsuit against her skin. “I want you to do something for me.”

  “What?” She let her fingers drop away as Cole’s took over stroking her.

  “I want you to touch yourself like that, at midnight, on the next full moon.”

  It was hard to think. She only gasped.

  “Go to my house,” he said. “Lie on my bed. Think of me.” He lowered his mouth to her nipple.

  She moaned again, but she tried not to do it too loudly. “I... I can’t. I always have to work on a full moon. Rogues...”

  He looked up at her, fixing her with his dark gaze, his mouth still around her flesh as he ordered, “Find a way.”

  * * *

  “This guy is an utter slob,” muttered Avery as Dana joined him in the living room of Tom Hathaway’s trailer. True to her word, Ursula had been able to pull some strings
to let them into the trailer to search for letters. Sheriff Hanley seemed resigned to it, although not particularly happy.

  “Don’t worry,” said Dana. “You can stop. I think I found the letters.” She held up a stack of four envelopes.

  “Where the hell were they?”

  “In the bathroom,” said Dana.

  “The bathroom?”

  She shrugged. “Some people like to read magazines. I guess Tom liked to read letters from Cole Randall.”

  Avery grimaced. “That’s gross.”

  “True,” she said. “But we’ve got some letters to look through.”

  “Hell,” said Avery, “I’m glad to get out of this place.” He headed to the door of the trailer and Dana followed. “You think we’re going to find anything?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dana. In retrospect, she’d realized that Cole had started making out with her in order to distract her from asking anymore questions about Tom Hathaway. But she didn’t want to think about Cole, because the request he’d given her made her feel disgusted. And turned on. Really fucking turned on.

  Yuck.

  She closed the door of the trailer behind her.

  Avery was already halfway to the car. “We need a break on this Randall thing. We’re getting nowhere, and the full moon is in two days.”

  Dana’s stomach turned over. In two days, she could drive to Cole’s house, lie down on his bed and—

  Yuck.

  “I hope there’s something here too,” she said. But she wasn’t counting on it.

  A red pick-up truck pulled into the driveway behind their car, blocking them in.

  “Great,” said Avery. “You think that’s someone the Sheriff sent to fuck with us?”

  Dana rolled her eyes.

  He trotted over to the truck. “Hey, buddy, you think you can back up and let us out?”

  The door to the truck opened, and a man with a long gray beard got out. He was wearing a dingy camouflage ball cap. “You the police?”

  “No, sir,” said Dana, coming up next to Avery. “We’re the Sullivan Foundation.”

  “You think you could move your car?” said Avery.

  “What are you folks doing here?” said the man. “Tommy never hurt no one with his wolf.”

  “No, we know that, sir,” said Dana. “It’s unrelated.”

  “The car?” said Avery.

  The man looked at the trailer. “I never wanted him to move in here, you know. I didn’t see why he couldn’t stay on the farm with his mother and his sisters and me.”

  “You’re Tom’s father?” said Dana, remembering what Cole had said. That he thought Tom’s dad could have been the one to kill him.

  “Was,” said the man. He adjusted the cap on his head. “I never wanted him to move out or start acting all funny, but that Randall character. He got inside my poor boy’s head. Changed him.”

  Avery looked at Dana in alarm. “Cole Randall? Are you talking about Cole Randall?”

  Dana was surprised too. She wondered if Cole had only said what he said to falsely implicate the man. What was going on here?

  “Sure am,” said the man. “Randall understands the old ways. You folks at the SF don’t have a clue.”

  “The old ways?” said Avery.

  “Sir, Tom’s connection to Cole Randall is the reason we’re here,” said Dana. “Would you be willing to talk to us for a few minutes, answer a few questions for us?”

  The man stroked his beard. “I don’t know about that. I didn’t expect anybody to be here when I showed up. Got things I was planning on taking care of.”

  “Please,” said Avery. “It could be important. We’re talking about innocent lives here.”

  The man looked back at his truck and then at the two of them. “I guess it couldn’t hurt. What I got to do can wait a while. What do you want to know?”

  “How did your son know Randall?” said Dana.

  “Randall came by the farm once,” said the man. “He stole my boy from me.”

  “He kidnapped him?” said Avery.

  The man laughed. “No. Nothing like that. Something worse.”

  They waited, but the man didn’t elaborate.

  “Can you explain to us what you mean by that?” asked Avery.

  “I don’t know if I can,” said the man. “I mean, I don’t so much think it matters if I tell you about myself, but I don’t want to give up my girls. I don’t want them on some list, and I don’t want them locked up. There’s a way we been doing things here, for generations and generations. Way before that man Sullivan started trying to change everything.”

  Dana’s jaw dropped. “Mr. Hathaway, are you a werewolf?”

  The man shook his head. “I’m not saying another word.”

  “Then that means that Tom was a genetic werewolf. He inherited it from you. He wasn’t bitten.”

  “Wait,” said Avery. He lowered his voice. “Dana, where are you going with this? There are reports of his attack. He’s in the system at the SF.”

  Mr. Hathaway clutched his elbows. “Oh, Tom was not an easy boy to raise. He was hell-bent on finding some other way to do things. He didn’t want to keep to the old ways, like he was meant to. He faked his way into the SF when he was only fifteen. Said he didn’t want to shift every month if he didn’t have to. I warned him. I told him that you folks would only make him suppress who he was. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He wouldn’t listen to his own father.”

  Dana’s mind was churning. “You and your family are wolves. You’ve passed it down over generations, along with your ways of handling it.” They were like one of the families that Sullivan had studied all those years ago. They still existed. She couldn’t believe it. She thought the SF had reached all the werewolves.

  “Look, lady, I’m not confirming that,” said Mr. Hathaway. “And you got no way of proving it.”

  “We could smell you,” said Avery.

  “Brooks,” Dana admonished. “Your family is safe. Don’t worry.”

  Avery raised his eyebrows.

  She shot him a meaningful glance.

  He sighed. “All right. We’ll leave your family out of it. But honestly, the SF doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “You people break the bond,” said Mr. Hathaway. “You break the natural bond between a father and a son. Between a mother and a son. And we had to work hard to reestablish it. Then that Randall came in, while it was all still weak, and he bonded that boy to himself.”

  Dana didn’t understand. “We don’t break any bonds, Mr. Hathaway. We simply teach people to control the beast inside them. That’s all.”

  “That control does break it,” he said. “Clean messed up my Tommy. Messed him all up. I couldn’t reach him. He was bonded to that Randall. Hooked to him the way a boy should only be hooked to his father. And I had to do it, you see. Because that Randall, he was a bad one. I don’t know what he would have made my Tommy do.”

  “You had to do what?” said Avery.

  “He was as good as gone already,” said the man. “He was lost. It’s what the old ways demand. You leave your family, you’re a threat.” The man opened up the door to his truck. “Now, if you excuse me, I got something I need to take care of. Reason I came here.” He pulled out a shotgun and shut the door of the truck.

  Dana and Avery both stepped back at the sight of the gun.

  “Hold on, sir,” said Avery. “We don’t mean—”

  “Ain’t for you,” said the man. “For myself. Did what I had to do. I took care of poor Tommy. But I can’t live with myself now.” The man stalked off towards the woods.

  Avery took a step after him, then turned back to Dana. “Do you think he...?”

  Dana nodded.

  “We should call the police,” he said. “He’s a murderer.”

  The man disappeared into the trees.

  “They wouldn’t make it in time,” said Dana. “We should go after him with the tranq gun.” She looked at the car.

  There was a loud s
hot, echoing through the trees, reverberating off the cabin.

  Dana cringed.

  Avery winced.

  * * *

  Sheriff Hanley eyed them with suspicion. “I just gotta say that it’s a little strange the two of you being around every time a Hathaway dies.”

  Dana sputtered. He wasn’t really accusing them, was he?

  “But I guess you two can go,” said the sheriff.

  Dana and Avery gratefully made their way to their car. Avery had to pull out into the yard to get around Mr. Hathaway’s truck. He didn’t bother asking the sheriff if it was okay. He just did it. It had been a long afternoon. After calling in Mr. Hathaway’s suicide, they’d been detained for questioning. But no one had bothered to question them for over an hour, so she and Avery had been wandering around, trapped there. It had given them some time to read the letters from Cole, so that was something.

  But the letters didn’t say much. Mostly, Cole seemed to be reassuring the kid that it was okay to strike out on his own, away from his father. It was a fine sentiment, but it didn’t much help them figure out how Cole was getting these rogues to shift. If Cole was even doing it at all. They couldn’t find a shred of evidence to connect him to all of it.

  At any rate, it seemed like all of this was a dead end. But it was still puzzling.

  They had been driving down the road in silence for ten minutes when Avery asked, “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m wondering about the stuff Tom’s dad said,” Dana said. “I know it doesn’t really have anything to do with finding out how Cole is communicating with these rogues, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I can’t help but think about it either,” said Avery. “I had no idea that there were still wolves living out here that the SF didn’t know about. And that they actively resisted the SF’s training. Are they crazy?”

  “Well, they must be doing something to keep from killing people on full moons,” said Dana, “because otherwise, we would have known about them.”

  “Right,” said Avery. “Maybe they lock themselves up or something.”

  Dana fiddled with her seatbelt. “It’s weird all right.”

  “And he kept going on about the old ways. I mean, what the heck is that?”

  “I don’t know. But I guess he and his family must have traditions or something.” She shifted in her seat to face him. “I was reading some of Fredrich Sullivan’s articles from the early twentieth century, and when he was studying wolves then, they had really intricate rituals and things. So maybe these guys are just like those old wolves from back then. They never embraced the SF, and they never tried anything different.”