Twilight Hunter (The Execution Underground) (10 page)

“You need to back off,” he said in the calmest voice he could muster. He stared Damon straight in the eye, daring him to continue. But Damon never knew how to stop when he was ahead.

“The only thing that needs to be done around here,” Damon said, stepping toward him, “is you need to get your act together—” he leaned in until he and Jace were nearly nose to nose “—or get the fuck out. You’re on probation. You’re not on this case anymore, and this is your last warning before I feed you to headquarters. Fuck up and you’re done for,” he snapped. “Now take your homework and get out of my sight.”

Jace didn’t need to be told twice. Without a word, he picked up the stack of papers, stormed out of the underground control room, through the warehouse and out to his car. When he reached the Hummer, he stopped and forced himself to breathe.

Shit.

He had royally fucked up. Dropping his cigarette butt at the crime scene because he’d spotted Princess in her wolf form?

Damn rookie mistake.

The image of her beneath him crept into his mind, and he let out another curse. Why wouldn’t the thought of her leave him? How many women had he been with who he never even thought twice about the next morning? But something about her lingered with him.

He glanced at the workload in his arms. He wanted to throw the papers into the air, watch them scatter across the street. That would be the final fuckup, but damn, it would feel good. He cursed. As much as he hated having his balls busted, this was the only job he knew, and no matter what Damon said, Jace knew he was a damn good hunter, and he wasn’t about to lose his job. He got inside the Hummer, revved the engine and burned rubber.

After driving for several blocks, he parked the car outside a liquor store and stared out the windshield. He wasn’t even fifty feet away from where he’d found Francesca last night. “Damn it all to hell.”

He got out of the car and immediately detected the trace of her scent. He strode down the nearest alley. His bitch fest with Damon had scraped at his already raw nerves. He’d been punished over a stupid mistake—and damn if he hadn’t done the same thing to Princess. He couldn’t blame her for running away at the first chance she got. He really was a worthless bastard.

He followed her scent for several blocks and paused. He told himself he just needed to be sure she was safe. That was all. But his heart jumped in his chest at the thought of seeing her again.

Hung up on a werewolf? God, help him.

* * *

H
E
STARED
UP
at the building and repeated his mantra of curses.

He was a complete idiot. He’d stooped to a new level of stupidity with this one, and he was past the point of no return.

Digging around in his coat, he found the lock pick he always carried and let himself into the building. He waltzed in like he owned the place, right past a bewildered-looking family. They eyed him up and down, and the mother squeezed her baby just a little closer as they hurried past.

The door slammed behind them as he walked toward the stairs. “Nothin’ to worry about, folks,” he said under his breath. “Just your friendly, neighborhood werewolf executioner.”

He sniffed the air. The smell of her perfume lingered, mixed with something he couldn’t quite identify, but the familiar trace tormented him. He followed the scent of gardenias up two flights and to the second apartment on the left.

Was he really going to do this?

He knocked hard. “Francesca?”

He listened for a long moment, but no one answered. He let out a loud sigh and pounded on the wood again. “Hey, Princess, you in there?”

He rocked back and forth on his heels, praying she would answer the door and make it easy on him. With all his senses on edge and his adrenaline pumping, he knew she was in there. But there was that other scent mixed with hers. The rank smell of...

Damn it.

Jace smashed open the door and burst into the room with his Mateba pulled and ready to fire. The door hit the wall in an echoing bang. He charged through the entryway and tightened his finger on the trigger. He would blow the fucker’s head off.

A small sniffle came from the middle of the room and Jace’s eyes locked onto the woman he already thought of as his. She was sitting on the floor with her legs tucked underneath her, and she was clutching a broken picture frame. The shattered glass cut into her hands, and drops of her blood speckled the hardwood.

Holy hell.

He holstered his gun and stood at her side. “Are you okay?”

She gave a small nod. Clutching the broken frame tighter, she glanced to the wall and back to the mess around her.

The apartment was trashed. Pieces of broken glass, torn fluff and splintered wood from the furniture were scattered everywhere. Jace walked to the wall and saw what she’d been looking at. Dried blood. He’d written the words in blood.
Take it like a bitch.

Taped underneath was a professional, full-length photograph of Francesca with two people whose faces had been scribbled over with a permanent marker, blacking them out. Pasted over her photographed body were pictures of torn flesh, the killer’s way of making sure she knew how she would look after he got hold of her. After her death. Jace ripped down the picture and examined it more closely. He knew whose bodies had been pasted over hers—the women that sick fuck murdered.

He stared at Francesca sitting on the floor, a look that was half defeat, half rage contorting her face. Though she didn’t fit the usual profile, he was sure she knew she was the next victim. He’d made a huge mistake in so many different ways by taking her back to his apartment. He had a feeling that was exactly why she’d been targeted. He needed to fix this. He would not let that psycho destroy any more lives. Especially hers.

“Was the room like this when you showed up?” he said.

Her hands trembled as she nodded.

Jace’s anger peaked, like a bomb ready to explode.

No one hurts my girl.

Where the hell had that come from?
He shook his head. No, she wasn’t his.

“He’s not going to hurt you, Princess. Not even over my dead body. I’ll rise from the grave just to drag his ass down to hell. You got me?”

Her eyes widened, shining with unshed tears, and all the color washed from her face. But then her mouth drew taut with underlying anger. His arms itched to wrap around her. He wanted to torture the SOB who’d done this.

“My parents...” She opened her mouth to say more, but nothing came out.

His attention captured, he asked, “What about your parents?”

“The photograph.” Raising her bloodied right hand, she pointed to the picture he was holding.

His palms clenched into fists, and he swallowed down a feral growl. “Where are they? Did that damn psychopath go after them, too?”

“No, my...my parents were murdered three years ago.” She stopped trembling, and some of her color returned to her cheeks. Her eyes glazed over, masking her emotions as she collected herself.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. They wouldn’t want to be the object of anyone’s pity, and don’t be sorry for me, either. I don’t remember much of that night. The pack shrink says I’m lucky that my mind blocked out the memory.” She stood and walked toward him, still clutching the frame. Her gaze returned to the picture. “He ruined my only portrait of us, all three of us, together as a family.”

She stared at the photo with such calm resolve, her sadness dissipating and shifting into another emotion he couldn’t quite identify. The silence hung thick in the air, suffocating him.

“I don’t know what to say. I’m not used to dealing with...”
Living victims.
“Do you... Is there somebody I can call for you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Jace raised a single brow. “You’re sure? You don’t have anyone?” He regretted the words as soon as they escaped his mouth, and he wracked his brain, trying to think of something to say. Preferably something that didn’t make him sound like an insensitive moron.

“I don’t want to put anyone in danger,” she said. “All I want right now is to find this low-life piece of shit and tear him limb from limb.” Her volume escalated until she sounded powerful and firm.

He cringed as her hands tightened on the broken glass, not a single trace of pain on her face. He reached out and cupped her hands in his. An electric jolt shot up his arm and down his spine. She jumped and pulled back.

“Whoa. If you want to rip him apart, then you better stop cutting up your hands. You’re going to need them.” He rubbed his thumbs in gentle circles on her skin until her hold loosened.

Taking the frame from her, he placed it on the ground. Shards of glass protruded from her smooth skin.

“Sit on the bed.”

Without another word, she walked to her swanky four-poster, slow and lifeless like a zombie, before resting her hands on her lap.

He scratched his head, not really sure of his next move.

What would I do if she were another hunter? What would I do for an ally? First aid?

“Do you have any peroxide?”

“There’s some under the bathroom sink.” She gestured to a door on the other side of the one-room apartment.

He rushed into the bathroom and stepped around the mess. The brown peroxide bottle had rolled behind the toilet in the midst of all the vandalism.

Snatching the bottle and some spare toilet paper, he hurried back out. If Princess was anything like him, her werewolf genes would kick in and she would start healing in no time. The glass needed to be pulled out pronto, before the wounds started healing around it.

He knelt in front of her, and she stuck out her hands.

“Ready?” He looked her in the eye.

She gave him a single nod, and he plucked the first piece of glass from her palm. She winced.

“You okay?”

She inhaled sharply. “Just get it over with.”

Trying not to be too rough, he picked the shards from her skin one by one and tossed the bloodied pieces onto her bedside table. When her hands were glass free, he screwed the cap off the peroxide. “This may sting a bit.”

She gave him a rueful grin. “I know.”

Jace poured the liquid over her flesh. The chemical sizzled and popped as soon as it hit the wounds. She hissed in pain, but her gaze didn’t falter. She took it like a pro.

“You do this often?” he asked.

A little smile curved her lips. “More than you’d think.”

“No offense, Princess, but you don’t really seem like the fighting type.” He paused as he patted the toilet paper across her skin, cleaning off the blood and excess peroxide. “You’ve got the attitude, but you just don’t look the part. I’ll have to see how you handle yourself in a fight.”

She cocked her head to the side and eyed him up and down. “You’re not going to pull the whole ‘I’m a big bad wolf’ and ‘I don’t need any help hunting this monster’ crap?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need any help. But considering you want revenge and someone needs to be by your side protecting you, I think taking you with me is the best solution.”

Her eyes lit up, a beautiful burn behind them like when they’d...made love? Was that what they’d done? His stomach dropped down into his feet, and he looked away. Son of a bitch. “Although, who am I to make your choices for you?”

“Un amante.”
Her voice barely registered above a whisper.

Jace froze. He didn’t speak Italian, but he sure as hell knew what that meant.
A lover.
His mouth went dry, and his stomach churned as if someone had grabbed his insides and twisted his intestines into knots. He released her hand.

Rushing to the other side of the room, he searched through his trench-coat pockets for his cigarettes. “You mind if I light up in here?” He pulled one out and stuck it in his mouth before she could answer.

“I guess I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Flicking the lighter, he puffed out his sweet smoke.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He glanced in her direction and his stomach flipped again.
Just a quick bang, that’s all it was.

He burned halfway through the cigarette, sucking the gray fog into his lungs. The smoke gave him just enough calm to keep his cool. A bucket of ice dumped over his head would have been better.

He took another drag. “Pack your bags. We need to get out of here.”

Her head snapped toward him, her eyes wide-open and attentive. “We’re going hunting
now?
Don’t you think that’s a little stu—”

“Don’t get your panties in a knot. We need to get our shit together first. But we can’t talk here. We need to be prepared before we go at him, and because he’s a sexual sadist and gets off on all this, it’s likely he’ll come back here to...” He shrugged.

She walked over to her wooden wardrobe and sifted through the clothes. “To what?”

Jace sighed. “Flog the bishop.”

Her long hair whipped through the air as she spun to face him, gaping like a waterless fish. “You can’t be serious?”

“Who knows what this bastard is capable of? You’ve heard of crimes of passion? There isn’t much that’s more passionate than sex, and everything this guy does is so he can yank his own chain. Much as I’d like to camp out here and stake him out, we’d be just as likely to trap ourselves. We do this, we do it right.”

She bent down to grab something from the bottom drawer, treating Jace to a prime-time view of her tight, round ass squeezed into a pair of low-cut jeans. His cock jerked, bulging against his pants.

Damn.

He ripped his eyes away and shook his head. He was a sick pervert for ogling her in the middle of a crime scene after she’d been traumatized by a serial killer. He scanned the room. The sound of Damon’s voice mocking him earlier that morning pounded in his head.

“That’s disgusting,” she said, interrupting his self-loathing.

He shifted and rearranged himself. The last thing he needed was for Princess to think he was some creep who got his jollies off scared women. “You bet. Now grab your things and let’s get outta here.”

When she finished stuffing everything into a purple backpack, she threw the bag over her shoulder.