Her Perilous Wolf by Julie Steimle (free e books to read .txt) 📖

Come on. Just say it.”

She glared at him, clamping her mouth shut.

“So much pride.” He laughed to himself. “You’ve been visiting his friends all this time—”

“My friends!” she snapped back. “I have been visiting my friends!”

“So… you share the same friends? Interesting.” He smiled that perfect pearly smile at her. She wanted to kick his teeth out.

“Now, all we have to do is arrange for the proper exchange.”

“You are insane!” She swung an elbow into the neck of the Special Op’s thug, missing his face, unfortunately. He clamped down on her again, struggling to hold her still the way one would a flopping fish fighting to get back into the water.

The toothpaste creep chuckled. “You call me insane, and yet you won’t say he won’t come?”

She remained pale. Of course Rick would come. She knew him. He would come. He would come for his roommates. He would come for a former witch like Silvia whom he was averse to. He would come for anyone connected to him to protect them. It was simply his way. He would blame himself if she got hurt.

“Come on. Let’s bring her inside,” the toothpaste jerk said to his meathead thug.

The thug clenched his thick arms around her torso tighter, heaving her up the curb toward a building which Audry began to see was on a desolate street. No one would have come to rescue her. Who was around? She was on her own.

“How much do you know about him?” Toothpaste guy eyed her with pleasure as he led the way to the entrance, clearly enjoying this.

“Him who?” she snapped, seeing no point in giving him what he wanted.

“Oh, come on, you know who.” He chuckled to himself. “The wolf.”

Shivers went through her. That was how they saw Rick. The wolf. They truly did not see him as a man. How odd to her, though, that they saw that as a defect.

“We know he likes you. You are exactly what he’s looking for in a woman,” toothpaste jerk murmured, holding open the door for the thug, hefting Audry up the stoop. “And you don’t care at all that he is a wolf.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about!” She kicked the door, causing it to bang hard against the wall.

“Oh no?” He caught it, easing it out of the way so it would not hit either of them.

“I am not what he is looking for! His last girlfriend was nothing like me!” this time she elbowed the thug in the mouth. She felt teeth in her skin.

The thug dropped her. She tried to run past toothpaste man, but he lifted up a gun, pointing it at her. She lurched to a halt, eyes fixed on it. Her heart thundered. His grin widened.

Special Ops thug muttered, wiping his bloodied mouth. “You could have done that earlier.”

“I wanted to see what she was made of,” the toothpaste jerk said. He lifted his gun more. “Walk.”

He could kill her. In fact, if he was SRA, he probably would. Audry knew they would consider her a collaborator for merely acknowledging the humanity in Rick Deacon. She backed up. As long as she was alive, she could still escape. Thug man pushed her, making her walk the rest of the way into the building, nursing his bruised and bleeding lip.

“You are one tough cookie,” toothpaste jerk said at a sauntering pace behind them. “And the fact that you know who his last girlfriend was, is telling.”

Trembling, Audry shook her head. “I met her. Ok?”

“Really? The she-wolf?” He emitted a short laugh. “What was her alias? Daisy MacTire?”

Audry stared at the ground as they pushed her onward. It was irritating that they considered the name of a werewolf an alias. Even that slut Daisy did not deserve that. Peeking around, she noticed they were in some derelict factory, the main office floor. It smelled musty, old, and of animal droppings.

“I suppose he protected you from her,” the man muttered. “Did you know what she was when you were introduced?”

“We weren’t introduced,” she ground out. “Like you, they were hunting for Rick. I was minding my own business.”

The toothpaste jerk beamed. “Ah ha! So you admit it. You and the wolf.”

“There is no me and the wolf,” Audry groaned, staring up at the mildew all over the walls and collapsing ceiling. There was so much water damage. Rusty stains on the soft ceiling tile were splotched with black moldy ones. “It’s my bad luck that I keep crossing paths with him. He wants nothing to do with me.”

“Ah ha.” The man laughed, shaking his head. “Actually, I am sure there is a lot of things he’d like to do with you. But the wolf is coy. And he knows we’re watching.”

“You’re disgusting.” She whipped around.

The thug grabbed her neck and pushed her into a room. Three men were already there. One looked like he could play Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing. The other two were more thuggish, with leather, almost steam-punkish in design. They were sitting at an old office desk, using the left behind chairs, playing cards. Thug man pushed her again.

Seeing her, all the men in the room rose.

“Hey. I got word the kid and Whitefeather are here, east coast,” one of the leather-clad thugs said to them.

“What brought ‘em?” Special Ops man asked, his expression alarmed.

One of them shrugged.

But the Van Helsing lookalike sauntered up to Audry, standing tall as he peered down at her. He grabbed her chin, turning her face. “This is her?”

Audry jerked back.

Toothpaste man nodded. “Yep. She’s the one.”

The Van Helsing wannabe reached into her shirt front, unbuttoning it as he stuck his hand inside.

Audry screamed, pulling away, but the Special Ops thug grabbed her neck again, holding her still.

“OW!” Van Helsing wannabe yanked back his hand. He stared at it. And so did the others. On his palm was a burn the shape of her silver bullet. Even the name Deacon was written in mirror image there. He stared at it. Pulling out his knife, he pointed the tip at Audry’s neck. Yet instead of cutting her, he lifted up the three chains she was wearing. The white crystal was glowing.

“Witchcraft.”

“This is stupid,” said toothpaste guy. He immediately drew out a knife and with a flick, cut the chains of all three. They dropped to the floor. Audry felt the bullet fall into her bra, the chain sliding off the O ring like a snake. The crystal dropped to the ground, light on it going out. The fishhook stone fell, striking the damp tile with a distinct ping. It echoed in the room.

“There. No more magic,” toothpaste man said.

Special Ops thug grabbed the back of her neck again. “You made a deal with a witch?”

Audry moaned, clenching her teeth.

“Calm down,” toothpaste man said, gingerly picking up the chain to the white crystal, examining it. He handed it to someone else to get rid of. “You should know her old roommate was a Middleton Village witch. We already knew she was exposed to witchcraft.”

Yet the thug shook Audry as if she had attacked him. He had the mentality of a pick-fork-and-torch holder—no brains, but lots of contempt.

“There are people waiting for me to come back,” she said. “They’ll come searching for me.”

“You snuck out a window, and nobody knows when you are coming back,” toothpaste man said.

“I wasn’t talking about that,” she said. “My dog. I left my dog with two friends. They are expecting me.”

He stiffened a little. Yet he shrugged it off as if it were a tiny hiccup.

“If I don’t come back,” she said, trying to keep the shaking from her voice, “They’ll come looking.”

“Like they can find you.” Van Helsing fake said, picking up the fishhook stone from the floor.

She glared directly at him. “She can scry for me.”

Their eyes widened.

But one of the leather clad men said, “Don’t worry. I made this place unfindable by witchcraft.”

A shudder went through her. He was too confident. Were there counter measures? Did he have the equivalent of a shadow spell going on?

Van Helsing faker smirked at her. “You just need to hold tight, sweet cheeks.” He then looked to toothpaste man. “You got her phone?”

Toothpaste man was nodding yet frowning. “But I can’t seem to find his phone number.”

“That’s because I don’t have it,” Audry snapped out. “Like I told you, I’m not his girl. He wants nothing to do with me.”

Yet Van Helsing fake stepped closed to her. “No…. He will definitely come for you. They’ve been protecting you on his orders.”

She could hear the capital T in that ‘They’.

“We don’t need her phone to get his number,” one of the other hunters said. “I’ve got it right here. I told you, my source is true.”

“Alright,” toothpaste man said. “We’ll make the call tomorrow. I want you to do it. But do it delicately. He’s got that imp friend and that psychic cop around him a lot.”

“He’s been with them lately. Real on edge,” reported one of the leather clad thugs.

Audry’s head was feeling light. Either the Special Ops jerk was squeezing too hard, or the smell in the room was making her sick.

“What if either one is there when I call?”

“You shoot him. They’re all collaborators.”

“He’s NYPD.”

“We’ve put up with them long enough.”

“Murder is still murder,” Audry muttered. “If you shoot Matthew or any of Rick’s friends, you’ll pay for it.”

Toothpaste man laughed. Propping his hands onto his hips, he gazed into Audry’s face with that stupid smirk. “Like how? We are government. This is for the greater good.”

“The what?” She pulled back, or tried to. “You are insane. You hurt all sorts of people just to catch your wolf.”

“We’re not trying to catch it,” the man said, getting closer to her, his eyes raking over face, especially resting on her mouth. “We’re trying to kill it. To make the world safer. It is a monster.”

“Him!” Audry shouted back. “And he’s not a monster.”

The group of men laughed. Their mockery echoed off the walls with smug disdain. Fake Van Helsing stuffed his hands into his pockets and said, “Say that to all the people who have died because of him.”

She shook her head, way too familiar with this argument. She had read it on a number of their sites. “He’s killed nobody.”

“His steward,” the man replied casually.

“You killed his steward! The SRA!” She snarled back. “To frame him!”

“Lies,” toothpaste man retorted as if he didn’t care anyway.

She shook her head, huffing. She knew it wasn’t. A man like Matthew would not have stuck by Rick if he had. And she knew Matt knew about the steward.

“My friend George Zeballos was killed by him in Alabama,” Van Helsing fake continued.

She lifted her eyes to him, shaking her head. “Your stupid friend knowingly stepped into what you call a black hole.”

Murmurs passed through the group. “She knows about black holes…”

“She knows about that one?”

“Of course she does. She met them.”

“He led George in there,” Van Helsing creep said, getting closer to her face.

Audry shook her head. “Bull crap. You guys hunt him and his father every month. Only an idiot would have followed him into a dangerous place. I wouldn’t!”

“He attacked his own mother,” Special Ops man said.

“He never did!” she snarled back. “I met her! He never did any of that!”

“Oh… we’ve got a ripe one! Someone yearning to be his bitch,” toothpaste man said.

She punched him in the face with both hands.

Blood spurted. She had broken it—his nose. Too bad she had missed his teeth.

Special Ops man and Van Helsing wrestled Audry away, shoving her down into a chair.

“Put her out,” toothpaste man moaned, clutching his nose. “And gag her.”

“Yeah. Will do,” said Van Helsing jerk. He took out his knife and cut her zip-tied hands. But with Mr. Special Ops, they just yanked her arms behind her back and bound them again.

One of them men pulled out some duct tape. In just a few seconds, Audry was left breathing only through her nose, the sticky tape mashing her lips