Walk on the Striped Side (19 page)

She had her gun
up and ready to shoot at a moment’s notice while she swiveled her head around
to take in the interior. It was too quiet and she didn’t like it. Where were
these wolves? Sure it was about three o’clock in the morning here, but Elena
had thought that at least one person would be up and about.

Looking for any
threats and making sure none of the Corvus wolves snuck up on her, she
continued in her attempt to take in the details of the space. Low lighting
throughout the first floor caused her eyes to strain, but she guessed it was on
that low because shifter eyes wouldn’t need a lot of light to see at night.
Everywhere she looked, Elena saw old world charm, rich fabrics and opulent
paintings. Knowing that shifters were immortal and sometimes lived thousands of
years before they went crazy and had to be put down or were killed off by a
rival, she wondered how old some of this shit was. If she had to light up
Sparky, she really hated the idea that she might roast some
five-hundred-year-old painting or some antique piece of furniture that could be
worth a fortune.

She did another
visual sweep in the opposite direction. They’d now been in the house a minute
tops. Surely something would happen soon.

Her scan of the
area brought Gage into view where he stood on the other side of the stairs. He
was also scanning the area, but she figured he was doing a much better job with
his superior senses acting as an earlier warning system compared to her
inferior sight and hearing capabilities. She glanced down to his hands resting
at his sides, and she couldn’t be sure because of the dim lighting, however she
thought the tips of his fingers looked quite a bit longer and pointer than
normal. Were those his claws?

He turned his
head to glance at her, and Elena inhaled sharply when she caught sight of his
eyes glowing a little in the dark, kind of how a dog or a cat’s eyes glowed at
night. The effect was both beautiful on the fierce man and just a wee bit
creepy.

Knowing she
couldn’t let herself get distracted by the titillating sight of Gage, she
returned her visual sweep in the other direction. Bringing her back around to
the basement door which was still closed with no light shining from underneath
it. Maybe the Corvus Pack had made sudden vacation plans and bugged out?
Because this house was too quiet and surely someone would have sensed or
stumbled upon them by that point.

Elena figured
they’d been in the house for a minute and a half now, yet it had felt like an eternity
waiting for something to happen. Hopefully in just a couple of minutes, her
comrades were going to come back down those stairs plus one more person and
they could bug out of here.

She was just
about to return her visual sweep back to Gage’s direction when a small movement
caught her eye. She kept her eyes glued to that area, trying to figure out what
it was that had inadvertently caught her attention, when she heard a low,
menacing growl from behind her.

Gage.

He sensed
whatever it was, too, and that’s when she saw it. The basement door handle was
turning oh so slowly, as if the person opening it was trying to open the door
without getting their attention. Elena’s eyes were locked on the doorknob while
she watched the handle stop turning, then start once more. She flipped her
ignition valve on the top of her gun nozzle, placed both of her fingers on the
flamethrower’s triggers and then physically braced herself for whoever it was
that was about to come out of that door.

Gage was still
growling lowly behind her. All of the hairs on her arms and the back of her
neck were standing on end, and sweat was beading on her forehead. She felt the
tingles of anticipation throughout her body as if she were being electrified as
the doorknob finally stopped turning. Her breaths were coming in small, fast
pants as she pulled the ignition trigger, causing a small flame to appear at
the end of her gun nozzle. The door eased open bit by bit and her finger on the
fuel trigger actually twitched, almost causing her to let out her first load of
devastating flame, but she stopped herself before it happened.

Which was a good
thing because the a pale, little hand the size of a small child’s eased out of
the open crack of the door to grip the door frame. Elena was stunned speechless.

Good God, she’d
almost pulled the trigger and killed a fucking child.

CHAPTER-TWENTY-ONE

Gage

He heard Elena
gasp when the small hand appeared from behind the door. Though he wanted to go
over and stand at her back against any perceivable threat that might come, Gage
had to stand his ground until they figured out what was going on. If the
enforcers figured out they were there, they might have sent the child out as a
distraction while they attacked from another direction. So he stood on his side
of the ridiculously over-sized staircase with half of his attention on the door
to the basement and the other half facing the opposite direction.

The door eased
open incrementally until a little head peered out from behind it, and what he
saw made him want to roar in rage. A little boy with big, brown eyes rounded in
fear and a massive bruise covering his right cheek stared at Elena. Who would
hit a child in such a manner? Gage felt his blood boil at the thought of how
hard the little boy would have had to have been hit to receive a mark that big
and colored such a deep purple. He saw the little boy’s bottom lip tremble and
a tear drop down from his left eye as he looked from Elena to Gage.

Was he afraid of
them? Or was he afraid of the person who had hurt him? Would the child’s
protective wolf parent be right behind it? That thought didn’t ring true to
Gage because, if the child had a protective parent, the boy would have yelled
for them already to come and protect him from two people who were obviously
intruders. Or was the child’s abuser standing behind the boy, ready to use him
as a deterrent to Elena using the flamethrower against them?

Gage’s mind was
racing a hundred miles an hour at all of the possible scenarios. When the boy
unfroze from his surprised position, he soundlessly slipped out from behind the
door and took a step away from it. Elena took a matching step backwards from
the boy, and he could tell it was because she was unsure of what might happen
with an innocent civilian put in front of her.

The boy glanced
back at the door and then took another hesitant step in Elena’s direction. This
time his wary mate didn’t take a step back, though. She stood her ground,
waiting to see what would happen.

Although he was
halfway across the expansive room, Gage heard the little boy suck in a small
breath before he whispered, “Will you help me?”

He could almost
feel his mate’s hesitation across the room at the small child’s plea, and he
didn’t like it one bit. This could be a trap.

Gage quickly
looked about to make sure no one was trying to sneak up on them as he heard
Elena whisper back hesitantly, “Help you with what?”

Not seeing any
danger around them, he’d just looked back in her direction to see the little
boy, whom he was guessing was around ten-years-old, take another step in her
direction. “Take me away from here? Please?”

The terror in
that boy’s voice shredded Gage’s soul. It was tortured, that voice. No one that
young should sound like that.

“Why do you want
us to take you away from here? Isn’t this your home?” Elena asked him quietly.

He whispered
back, “No.”

“You’re going to
have to help me out here, kid, if you want me to help you. Have you been
kidnapped? Is that why you can speak English; because you’re not from here?”
Elena asked the questions quickly and quietly, seemingly aware of the possible
danger of taking the time to talk to the child when she should be on alert for
trouble.

The boy shook
his head. “I haven’t been kidnapped, but please take me with you!” When his
voice cracked loudly on the last word, his head jerked back to look at the door
to the basement, as if afraid someone had heard him.

“If you haven’t
been kidnapped, and this is your home, why would you want to come with us?
Don’t you want to stay here with your mommy and daddy?”

Gage watched as
the boy shook his head again, only this time it was frantically. The child’s
fear must have won out over his wariness of them as strangers because he
covered the distance separating him from Elena until he stood right in front of
her. Elena moved the nozzle of the flamethrower to the side so that it wasn’t
directly in the kid’s face, pointing it again at the basement door.

The boy sobbed,
but it was in a manner that you could tell he was still trying to be as quiet
as he possibly could. “This isn’t my home. My mom and I lived in Arizona. She
brought me here a month ago to meet my dad for the first time. She said it was
important because I was different.” Tears poured down his face and snot ran
down his nose. He used the sleeve of his ratty, long-sleeved shirt to wipe his
face. “As soon as Mom told him who I was… he… he… he killed her!”

Gage watched as
Elena dropped down into a crouch in front of the child and then reached her
hand out to wipe away some of his new tears. “Who killed her, honey? Your dad?”

The boy nodded
again.

He couldn’t see
his mate’s face, however he could tell Elena was trying to soothe him by
putting her hand on his shoulder and using a gentle tone of voice. “Why did he
do that? Do you know?”

The kid stepped
closer to Elena, into the space between her legs, seemingly looking for
comfort. Looking over his shoulder one last time to check the basement door
that he was obviously so afraid of, he then looked back to Elena. “He said she
had to die because she was human. I didn’t understand what he meant at first,
but then later that day, he changed right in front of me. He became a monster
and all of his friends laughed at me when I screamed!”

The boy had the
bottom of his shirt all knotted up in his hands, fidgeting. “Please, lady,
please, please, please take me away from here.”

Gage watched his
mate run one of her fingers gently over the bruised side of the kid’s face.
“Did he do this to you, honey?”

When the boy
meekly nodded once more, Gage was filled with fury. To hear that the child’s
own father had hurt him in such a way was despicable. Parents were supposed to
protect their children, not torture and batter them. Besides, shifter children
were so rare that it was considered a blessing to have one. Who could treat
such a gift that way?

As much as his
heart broke for the child, though—and this scene bothered him beyond
measure—Gage didn’t like the timing of all of this. Sure, it wasn’t the kids
fault, but they had to be alert. Anything could happen at any moment, and you
could never be certain when things were going to go to shit on a mission.

Elena smoothed
the boy’s dark hair back from his forehead. “Can you tell me if there are any
other children in the basement? Any women?”

“Only my dad and
the men he works with are down there. I didn’t see anyone else in the basement
when I snuck up here for some food because they didn’t feed me dinner.” And as
if on cue, the kid’s stomach rumbled loudly.

“Okay, little
man, what’s your name?”

“Zane.”

“Okay, Zane. I
need you to go stay by the front door behind me. Squat down and try to make
yourself look as small as possible. My friends and I are here to do something,
but we’ll be leaving in just a couple of minutes. ‘Til we leave, I need you to
do what I say and don’t move no matter what happens. Can you do that for me?”

The boy nodded
enthusiastically. “Thank you, lady!”

Elena pushed the
boy in the direction of the front door. “Go now, do what I—”

An enraged roar
ripped through the house from the second floor and Gage could feel the
vibrations of it through the soles of his boots. Instinctively, he knew that
was Alec.

Instantly alert
for whatever was about to happen, he saw Elena push the terrified kid towards
the door again.

“Now, Zane! Go;
do what I said NOW!” she snapped.

She gave him a
quick once over, and Gage took the opportunity to say what needed to be said.
“Burn those bitches like bad barbeque, babe.”

A small flame
popped up at the end of her nozzle again as she pulled the ignition trigger and
then turned back to focus on the oncoming threat.

The whole house
was suddenly clamoring with noise. Gage could hear fighting upstairs and feet
thudding on the basement stairs. Trouble was closing in fast from two different
directions. He looked over his shoulder at the front door to check on Zane and
found the kid exactly where Elena had told him to be, squatted down with his
arms thrown over his head to protect himself.

As the
thunderous sound of fighting and running footsteps became louder, he looked
toward the top of the staircase. Three wolves were vaulting over the bannister
of the second floor, forgoing the stairs altogether, dropping down to the
ground floor with their sights set on him. He heard a loud banging sound to his
left where Elena was, like a door hitting the wall hard, followed shortly by
the hissing blast of Elena’s flamethrower and agonizing screams, but he
couldn’t look over there.

As his three
opponents landed on their feet, Gage quickly took in their state of dress, or
in one of their cases, lack thereof. It was apparent that they’d been in bed
because one wolf was in his boxers, a second wolf in some sleep pants and the
third wolf was butt ass naked. Not that being naked was unusual for shifters,
yet that didn’t mean Gage enjoyed seeing other men with their dicks swinging
free.

They launched
themselves at Gage with claws and teeth bared to fight. He caught the wolf in
his boxers by his throat and immediately threw him into the wolf with no
clothes on. Both of them flew backwards several feet and smashed into the wall
violently from the power of Gage’s throw.

The third wolf
in his sleep pants took advantage of his preoccupation with the other two and
wrapped his beefy arm around Gage’s neck, placing him in a choke hold. He was
probably hoping to hold him there until his comrades picked their dazed asses
up off the floor and came back to the fight, however Gage wasn’t going to wait
around for that.

Gage used his
right hand to grab the man’s elbow while bending them both down and out to the side
a bit, using his opponent’s leverage against him. Once they were bent over, he
turned his head in the lock, grabbed the man’s wrist with his other hand, and
flipped the wolf over his shoulder while also securing the arm that had been
holding him in a submission lock. After Gage’s maneuver, he used his knee and
braced it in the armpit of the wolf, leaving the wolf exposed for Gage to
retaliate in an attack by smashing his fist into the wolf’s fat head several
times, knocking him unconscious. The whole thing might have taken ten seconds
to happen, which was long enough for his two friends to get back up on their
feet and attack again.

Chaos had
erupted all around him, and as he watched the two wolves circle him, he hoped
the rest of their group was okay upstairs since he hadn’t seen them come back
down yet. There were roars of rage, shrieks of pain, and Elena’s flamethrower
had just gone off for the second time.

His two
remaining opponents started striking out at him as a team. One would lean in
and swipe at him with his claws, and while Gage blocked the attack, the second
wolf would hit him from the other side. Gage would then turn to fight off the
other attacker, and the hits would reverse so that he was getting punched,
kicked or clawed on his unprotected side—much like wolves attacked while
hunting with their pack. He had to kill off one of these assholes, and he
needed to do it now so that he could check on Elena and the kid.

Having figured
out their tactic, he waited for the blow to come at his front. When it did, he
dodged to the left instead of blocking the attack as they expected him to do.
Moving in on the attacker in front of him, he grabbed the man by his
outstretched arm and spun him around so that Gage had the wolf’s arms pinned
behind him. He placed the man in front of him as a human shield when he felt
the second wolf move behind him.

Spinning both
himself and his captured wolf around, he placed his hostage right in the path
of his comrade’s claws, which had been meant for Gage’s back. As the naked
German wolf’s claws sank deeply into his pack mate’s chest, Gage wasn’t sure
who was more surprised at the turn of events, the man with claws in his chest
right above his heart, or his friend. It didn’t matter to Gage, though, because
it served as the distraction he needed to take them both out.

He placed one
hand on the injured wolf’s chin and his other on the back of his head then
snapped his neck like it was a twig. When he let go of the head, the wolf’s
entire body collapsed to the floor in front of him, pulling the second wolf’s
hand out of his chest cavity with it.

His pack mate
stared at the dead man and then the heart clutched in his hand, in panic. When
he looked back up to Gage with murder in his eyes, Gage took his claws and
swiped them across the man’s vulnerable throat as easily as a knife through
warm butter. Placing both hands on either side of the wolf’s head, he twisted
and then pulled with all his might until Gage had ripped the man’s head clear
off his body.

He didn’t even
flinch when the dead wolf’s arterial spray spurted on him before the headless
body fell to the floor. Gage threw the head next to its body as he heard
Elena’s flamethrower go off for a third time, so he turned around to check on
his mate. What met his eyes could have come straight out of a horror movie.

Elena stood
there with fire shooting out of her weapon at the already blackened doorway and
surrounding wall to the basement. Flames were licking up the sides and
spreading down and out to cover nearby paintings and some of the floor.

When her flame
shut off, there were several blackened bodies burning in the doorway. Facial
features were no longer discernable except for holes where the eyes and mouth
had once been. Amazingly, the teeth were still intact and white as can be,
almost smiling out of their owner’s corpse at him as if they were laughing at
death. A couple of the bodies had fallen to the floor, but a few of them seemed
fused to the walls behind them by the extreme heat they’d endured. Arms were
missing, skin was sizzling and massive boils were already rising.