Successors (20 page)

“At least he hasn't hurt me.”

“That's bullshit! The first time you met him you got scratched up in the basement.”

“I meant my heart!”

“Yeah, well the feelings mutual!” he yelled back at her.

Cori groaned and turned away. “Damn it, Ethan, I didn't come here to end up in a yelling match. I came to give you a chance to apologize.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you! You fed me to that damn harpie!”

“Yeah, and I'm gonna be on Danato's hit list for a month because of it.”

“I didn't rat you out! You did that to yourself!”

“I was trying to protect you!”

“No, you weren't. You were trying to control me.” Ethan opened his mouth to respond, but he couldn't defend himself. “Oh, come on, you're the one with the psychology degree. Is any of this really about werewolves and men? Don't you think this is more about an abandoned boy feeling more abandoned.”

Ethan closed his mouth and shifted his chin a little higher. The ire in his eyes shifted into something Cori had never seen before. His hard stare was cold. She might have made a mistake by trying to use his psychoanalysis against him.

“You're right, this isn't about werewolves and men.” His voice was calm, but laced with a condescending threat. “It's about a girl. A broken girl who wants to feel safe. So she seeks out the biggest scariest monster that she can to keep her safe.” Ethan tucked his gloves into his pocket and moved closer to her. “Do you even love him?”

She gritted her teeth against the implied accusation. He wasn’t wrong. Although she couldn't deny a natural attraction to him love was not what was driving her pursue him. Much as Ethan suspected, she was using Vince. She resented that he could still read her like a billboard.

“Maybe I dodged a bullet,” he added.

Cori’s stomach clenched at the hurtful remark. She knew he was trying to hurt her. He was trying to sabotage their relationship, so he had a reason to hate her—other than her not loving him back.

He looked her over, no doubt seeing the controlled pain in her eyes. Sympathy pushed back into his hard eyes and he shifted away from her. “I wish I hated you enough to tell you why you shouldn’t choose him,” he muttered before he stormed out.

In the solitude of the gym, her true emotions spilled to the surface and she wept quietly. She had never known Ethan to be so unkind. She shouldn't have even come to see him. She should have just written him a goodbye letter.

36

Cori pulled herself together, dried her eyes, and found her way to the part-time level. The reduced guards took no notice that she brought her janitor’s keys with her. No one bothered to follow her in, since she knew the visitor’s routine.

Vince was resting on his bed when she unlocked the door. He didn’t even look up when the door creaked open. When she touched his arms, he jumped. “Cori.” His voice was hoarse. His eyes were bloodshot and yellow. He tried to sit up, but he fell back, panting at the small effort.

“Cori.” He looked panic-stricken by her presence. “It’s too early, I could still hurt you.”

“You seem weak as a mouse,” she said, straddling his hips.

“Yes, but so is my mind. I can’t resist my animal instincts in this state.”

“You don’t have to.” She leaned in and kissed him.

“Cori.” He protested only once more.

She plied her most natural strengths, knowing that feminine wiles were as dangerous to men as bullets. It should have been beneath her to go to such lengths, but she always pursued her goals with persistence. No matter how outrageous the route or the endpoint.

At first, all she could think about was her last encounters with men: violent and forced. In his debilitated state, however, Vince was more of a spectator than a participant. Wielding her body as a weapon, she found the confidence she needed to carry out her plan. Her own pleasures rapidly doused her fears and ignited her desires.

Her mind slipped into the vacuous world of ecstasy where there was no shame, no regret, and no schemes. For the time being, they were only lovers.

Cori collapsed onto Vince’s chest in a heap. Slightly sweaty and panting, she listened to his heart race beneath her ear. Though it was all part of her plan, she wasn’t prepared for how much she enjoyed it. She also hadn’t anticipated how much she would relish being enveloped in his arms afterward.

His fingers traced her back along the spine. It was soothing and made her want to confess her love to him. Before that moment, she had never understood love. She had no idea what compelled one to say it to another person, outside of her family.

A smile twitched at her lips, as she lay wrapped in her new lover’s arms. All it took for her to understand love and its expression, was to sleep with a werewolf.

As the sweat dried, and the cool air goose-pimpled her skin, Cori got herself back on task. She may have found a new understanding of love in his arms, but she wasn’t going to let it stand in her way. What she wanted more than love was freedom.

She spoke somberly against his chest about them being far away from the prison, together, in a home instead of a cell. She traced her finger along his chest, occasionally tangling in his mat of chest hair, which she found surprisingly soft. His mind was still intoxicated by her and unrestrained by human logic. She could see the gears in his mind clicking into place. He suggested that they run away together and she was more than prepared for the idea.

They dressed and waited for the guard to come and release him. She offered to walk him to the dock, and the guard never questioned it. A bit of violence to the dock manager and Vince’s ride out of the prison left early, with one extra passenger.

37

The next morning the prison was a melee of alarms and running guards. Ethan found Danato in amongst it all, barking orders. His small assistant, Belus, was no less agitated, also yelling orders.

Ethan came in on the middle of it, dodging guards that were running to their newly appointed tasks. “What’s going on?” He joined Danato and Belus in the prison’s main floor vestibule. “Can I help?” He was eager to join the fight. Up to this point nothing truly exciting had happened at the prison, though he had been bombarded by the many stories both Belus and Danato regaled him with. It was probably something he shouldn’t have hoped for, but he valued some kind of change in his schedule.

“Cori’s gone AWOL,” Belus blurted out, followed by a
‘what the hell?’
look from Danato.

“What?” Ethan’s eyes widened as he thought of the many treacheries that could have befallen her.

“Belus,” Danato muttered as he pulled Ethan away from the chaos and down to his office, which was apparently soundproof, since the noise of the alarms stopped the instant the door shut.

Danato leaned against his desk, which to its credit didn’t budge against his weight. Ethan didn’t sit. He could hardly hold still. All he wanted to do was run around the prison screaming her name. It would have been fruitless with the alarms blaring, but the desire was still gripping.

“Vince left late last night. He usually waits until the morning after his transformation.” Danato paused as if Ethan should have gleaned some grand conclusion from this information. “We think he took Cori with him.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed and Danato stood, apparently readying himself for an explosion. After a long pause, he asked, “She escaped with him?”

“Yes, but Vince is an impulsive man, I don’t know if he took her away for the day or if he actually just took her.”

“You mean they might just come back on their own.” Ethan said it aloud, trying on the words. They didn’t fit any better on his lips than they did in his mind.

“Vince is obligated to be here, and violation of his contract would generate a retrieval operation. However, I don’t know that Cori would agree to return with him.”

“Can’t you just retrieve her too?”

“I have no legal right or authority to do that,” Danato said.

“You don't have any legal right to hold
me
here. What difference would bringing her back make?”

Danato’s face turned sheepish. “Cori is not officially on the books yet, so I can’t send hunters after her. I can’t send the collectors after her, because she isn’t of supernatural origin.”

“So, send out some guards,” Ethan suggested.

“They can’t leave the prison. They are restricted, and besides, where would they go? Vince isn’t likely to head to his apartment. We have no way of knowing where they will go, or if she’ll even stay with him.”

“Then you might as well give up. I mean, you already have, haven’t you?”

“No, but it's complicated. You have to understand Ethan, Cori's knowledge of this place makes her a liability. Reporting her now would be like signing her death warrant.”

“She could be killed just for knowing about this place?”

“Yes.”

“This is all your fault. You should have just left her behind.”

Danato’s thick finger sprang into Ethan’s face. “Don’t pretend with me, Ethan. I know how much you care for her and goddammit if I don’t too. I may not know what it is like to have children, but I can’t imagine my distress would be any different if she were my own daughter. I also don’t think for one second that within your bitterness you don’t know how wrong it is to suggest that I should have left her there with
those
…” Danato’s lip twitched. “…vermin.”

Ethan hadn’t really meant to suggest that he leave Cori in the slave trade, he only meant that he should have taken her elsewhere. He shook his head and removed every ounce of animosity from his expression. “No, Danato, I would never suggest that.”

Danato’s finger sank along with his tensed shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said. “I’m bitter about the situation, but I shouldn’t have suggested that you are to blame for it.”

“Of course I'm to blame.” Danato looked away. “This position doesn’t offer many contentions.” He stood and moved around his desk. He looked at his rolling desk chair as if it were a symbol of that position. The gray metal frame and faded green vinyl cushions barely offered a seat to the large man, let alone a representation of the burdens he faced. “I have to make decisions that don’t always please my conscience. You know I wouldn’t have forced you into this life if I had any better solution. As I said, I have no children of my own.”

Ethan could see the veiled pain in his admittance, and wondered if the great man regretted his lonesome bachelor life. “My mother and father died early on,” Ethan said. “If my life had progressed on the path I was going, I would be in prison by now. I find it karmic that on this new path I am confined to a prison anyway.” He smiled, but Danato didn’t share in his amusement of the irony.

He took a step toward Danato, raised his chin, dropped his smile, and spoke firmly. “I don’t resent being brought here. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I feel like I was meant to come here. I can do this job and I can make you proud. I don’t know what it’s like to anticipate the approval of a father, but I don’t imagine that it would feel any different than what I feel with you.”

They stared at each other, locked in an emotional stalemate. Propriety of male restraint left them silent and observant to the moment. After the pregnant pause, Danato nodded. “I will do what I can to bring Cori back...safe.”

Ethan nodded and left.

38

Ethan wandered about his day trying not to think about Cori and how angry he was that she had left. He had not anticipated living this life here without her. He had made his peace with only being her friend, but to lose her entirely? It was too much.

He made his way to the gym to start his usual routine, but ended up sitting on a bench, gloves in hand, brooding instead. He thought about his last encounter with Cori and a painful enlightenment stabbed his heart. He had tried so hard to wound her but in retrospect he realized he had wounded himself.

She had remained so reserved, a skill she rarely used. She found a new talent for revenge served cold, though. He would now have to live with those cruel things he said to her as his last conversation with her. What was worse, she would remember him for those remarks as well.

He cursed and threw his gloves. His cuss echoed in the gym, bouncing off the useless depth. He cussed again, a long loud blasphemy that made his throat hurt. It didn’t make him feel better, but it released some pent-up energy.

He wished he could go back in time and rewrite the last two days. Undo his horrible words. Undo his trip to Mezula.

Ethan’s head snapped up. Mezula had read her. She would know where Cori would be going. He jumped up and raced away to see her.

Mezula sat in her usual spot on her bed, in her mansion cell. She wore her green dress that made her red hair pop
.
She looked like she was waiting for her next customer, which just so happened to be a return customer.

Ethan slid to a stop in front of her cell. He found answers to questions he hadn’t even asked yet on her face.