Wolf Hunter (10 page)

“
Who asked you to? Jesus, Jaylen. Jump the gun much?” Westley sounded more let down than annoyed, despite his words.

“
Right. Sorry.” Jaylen struggled not to feel bad.
Eye on the prize. You’re here to kill Denton, not to fall in love, or lust, or whatever the hell this is.
“Breakfast?”

“
Please.” Westley sounded relieved to end the subject.

The omelette had finished cooking using the heat of the skillet. They ate quickly. Westley was fascinating to watch. He cut his food first and then shoveled in four bites at a time. “I have to go after this,” Jaylen said. It felt like ripping off a bandage.

“You have to?” Westley looked alarmed. “I thought we could hang out here.”

“
I’m sorry, I have things to do.”
People to see, super Alpha wolves to kill....

“
Are you leaving town soon?”

“
I’m not sure yet.”
Depends on how long it takes to give Denton a bloody send off.

“
Well, why don’t you stay here?”

“
Because I told you, I have things to do.” Jaylen wasn’t sure if it was Westley’s question or the fact his insides were doing an unhappy dance making him snippy.

“
Well, do them here.” Westley was almost whining.

Jaylen put his fork down. “If I could, I would. But I have responsibilities. I don’t usually even bother explaining this to people.”

“So I should feel special?” Westley asked, with bitterness.

“
No, yes. I don’t know. Look—we just met. So, what you’re doing here, it’s a little weird.” Now Westley was definitely on his nerves. It was a rehash of the night before. What was Westley’s problem? No way he wanted Jaylen’s hot bod that much.

“
Do you want to fuck me over the kitchen counter?”

Jaylen blinked. He hadn’t expected that redirective. Westley stared at him, full of hope. “Tell you what. I’ll take a raincheck. I’ll come back tonight and fuck you on whatever surfaces you want.”

Westley didn’t answer for a long time. He sat in silence so long that Jaylen went into the bedroom to get dressed. When he returned, Westley hadn’t moved. Christ, what the fuck was wrong with him?

“
Westley—” Westley ducked away and wiped his eyes. “Are you crying?”

“
You won’t stay?”

“
Honestly, this is not normal what you’re doing.” He cursed himself. Usually he was better at avoiding the clingy ones. Westley’s appearance and dopey smile had blinded him. “Well, uh, I’m going to go before you decide to chain me in the basement.”

“
I wouldn’t do that,” Westley said dully.

“
Right. Okay. Um.” He debated giving Westley a parting kiss and decided it was best to run.

Which he did.

His hands started trembling on the drive. He reached the motel as the first wave of strong cramps hit. A few cars were parked in scattered places along the front of the motel as Jaylen pulled in. He recognized most. There was a red truck he hadn’t seen before. He parked and got out of the car. As he walked toward his room, his tongue dried and the veins in his arms burned. Wolves. Fuck. His body needed to get clear of the drug, but he couldn’t think about that now. Had to figure out where that wolf was and get safe before his body’s reactions put him into more danger.

“
Got you.” It grabbed him from behind and shoved him against his own door. He dropped to his knees, pulled his knife from his boot and came up swinging. The wolf didn’t have a weapon, but it had a smile that started with lips and ended with a bloody stripe of slashed skin.

“
Thought I killed you last night,” Jaylen said.

“
Thought wrong,” it said. Its stringy brown hair flopped in its face. Jaylen stabbed and slashed before it could grab him again. He cut its throat and shoved the shaking corpse away.

“
Hate it when they don’t stay dead,” he muttered. With the knife still at the ready, he shoved his key into the lock.

“
Austin!” He jerked up at the sound of the howl. Goddammit, should have known that was why his veins still raged with the drug’s fire. Fucking cramps distracting him. There were more of them. He spun around, back to the door. Fucking hell. One of them was huge. “I told him to wait. He never was a good listener.” Its eyes flashed gold, evil in a beautiful face.
The bigger they are...

Jaylen sprung at it.

The other one, a blond about Jaylen’s height with spiky hair and a pissed off smile, grabbed his arm and knocked him back. It thrust his arm up and banged Jaylen’s hand on the door until the knife fell free. Jaylen scrabbled for the door knob. Suddenly, the wolf looked confused.

“
Tom?” It said, glancing to its partner. The other wolf closed in. It, too, stopped and peered curiously at Jaylen. Its mouth opened stupidly and its nose wrinkled. Jaylen took the distraction for the offering it was and twisted the key in the door knob. He fell backwards into his room. The wolves recovered themselves and attempted to dive in after him. The blond one fell backwards screaming. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“
Wolfsbane, fuckers,” Jaylen crowed from the floor. “Tom” picked its friend up. Jaylen expected they’d stake him out now, but after a short, frenzied conference with a lot of yellow glares in his direction, the blond one picked up the dead one, waving off the huge wolf’s attempt to help, and carried it back to the truck. Jaylen watched the truck tear out of the lot before he stretched a hand across his threshold to grab his knife. He shoved it back into the ankle sheath.

With the wolves gone, his body settled back into the pain of pre-detox. He shut the door and stood for a moment, trying not to collapse. Finally gathering himself, he limped into the bathroom and puked up his breakfast. It might be better to find a new place to stay, since they knew where he was, but he wouldn’t get far in his condition. At least he had the door warded. He didn’t know why those wolves had run off instead of waiting him out, but he was damn sure it wasn’t a reason that would turn out good for him.

They might return any second. He pulled a chair up to the door and sat with a knife in his lap. He’d left his arsenal spread out on the bed, and it was there now, waiting with silver promise to slice and kill. The knife he held against his thigh was five years old, purchased at a pawn shop in an unmapped Texas town. It had a polished wooden handle with the initials “R.W.” carved along the side. If he held it just so when he twisted it in a wolf’s gut, he could feel the carving in his palm. He had no idea who “R.W.” was and had never cared. He’d twisted this knife into the bellies of fifty wolves. If the two from today returned, he would make it fifty-two. A cramp clamped down on his stomach like a fist. He surged forward until he was bent in half, the unsheathed knife caught between his thigh and his chest.

“
Christ, fuck fuck fuck.” He clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t shout, and the resistance brought tears to his eyes. Finally, the pain eased enough that he could sit up. The knife lay flat, promise of harm unfulfilled. So sitting vigil waiting on the monsters’ return was a bad idea. He was lucky he hadn’t stabbed himself.
Moron.
Staggering to his feet, he made his way to the bed. With shaking hands, he folded up the towel the knives lay on, making a parcel of them, and shoved it into his weapons bag. His thoughts raced and tumbled, chasing logic—how long could he let himself be confined versus how much time he’d need to detox—and found contradictions and confusion in his half-formed answers.

Maybe he’d be lucky and they wouldn’t come for him until the time he’d calculated had passed. He yanked the ropes out of his bag and tossed the coil onto the bed. Then he stripped out of his jeans. Detox was a hot business. Even his favorite, oldest pair of jeans tortured his sensitized skin.

He couldn’t hold back a broken chuckle as he unraveled them.

They’d come, and they’d find him trussed up like a turkey.

And what could he do?

He set his “R.W.” knife under the pillow.
Keep it near. Keep it ready.

He tied his ankle with the knife still strapped to it. The night before, he’d taken the ankle sheath off without Westley seeing, although in a small town Jaylen had found such a weapon didn’t raise many eyebrows, and he’d strapped it back on while Westley was busy acting like an obsessive weirdo. Now his fingers wouldn’t work to loosen it, even if he’d wanted them to. A weapon at his head and another at his feet to keep him safe. Paltry prayers, but prayers nonetheless. With the faith of a man who believed only, unquestionably, in himself, he dropped his head on the pillow as the hallucinations and headaches began.

WESTLEY SAT AT the dining table for a long time after Jaylen left. He stared down at his empty plate.
You did the best you could.
Jaylen was right; short of chaining him up, there was nothing else Westley could have done to keep him. Now Jaylen was out there, free for Westley’s friends to kill or, if what the Alpha said was true, free for Jaylen to kill them. At least he’d kept Jaylen safe for the night.

Why had the Alpha decided to come to La Mer-sur-Plaines? Why now? The Alpha was a
fairy tale
. Westley had never believed in him. Hell, he’d never known anyone who believed in him, but suddenly here he was, and everyone was acting insane.

His crying out probably hadn’t helped Jaylen feel he could stick around, either. The increased dosage of tea was doing every bad thing Westley had imagined. Jaylen, thankfully, had been asleep when Westley had dragged himself into the bathroom in the middle of the night for a long visit with Brother John. Nothing said romance like diarrhea. Of course, if the situation were switched, Westley would’ve offered him water and soothing back rubs because Jaylen was clearly an alpha. He was more alpha than the wolves Westley knew.

And what a connection he’d felt. He hadn’t expected that at all.

Westley pushed away from the table and headed for the kitchen with his and Jaylen’s plates. He was acting like a moron. So Jaylen made him want to submit. So what? So did Tom. He was omega. Submission was what he did. The best thing he could do now was find distraction for himself. In distraction, he would find reprieve from how sick the tea was making him, and in that reprieve, he might find the answer that would keep Jaylen and his friends safe. He washed the dishes with focused thoroughness and set them in the drying rack. A few hours weeding in the garden should do it. Nothing centered him better than feeling the dirt under his knees. He nurtured the garden as he might a child one day, coaxing each plant into its best potential, a potential of promise, sustenance, beauty and purpose. This was what had drawn him to gardening in the first place, and to plant husbandry when he’d entered college. In the garden, Westley didn’t have to explain himself. He didn’t feel judged. In the garden, Westley had everything he was missing in the rest of his life.

At least, he’d thought so until Jaylen had turned up.
Don’t think about him like that.
Finished in the kitchen, he put his shoes on and jogged down his porch steps to the yard. The air was brisk and crisp, the sun bright. He dropped to his knees between the rows of potatoes. “Hey babies,” he said. “Miss me?”

As he reached out to check on how his spuds were sprouting, his torso jerked. The motion flung him forward onto his belly, and his feet kicked out. He screamed as the pain reached crescendo.
Don’t change, don’t change, don’t change.
Tears rolled down his face; he couldn’t move, pressed in the dirt with broken bits of roughage scratching wherever he touched the ground. But he didn’t shift. The tea had worked; the wolf stayed trapped inside him.
I beat nature.
He licked dirt when he smiled. It was still on his lips when he passed out.

CHAPTER FIVE

“CODY—” CODY WAVED Tom off when he stepped forward, arms out, to help carry Austin. Tom kept one eye on the hunter’s open door. He wouldn’t dare come out now, but that didn’t mean they could let their guards down. Sure enough, the hunter watched them from behind the wolfsbane border. With six yards between them, Tom could hear the dizzying pace of the hunter’s heart. He bared his teeth in warning as Cody scooped Austin up—one arm beneath his knees, the other at his back—and cradled him. One of Austin’s arms fell free. It hung, four fingers pointing at the asphalt, loose and despondent. Tom stared at it. He’d seen dead people before; of course he had, as both a wolf and a cop, but this was his friend. This was someone he’d watched die.

“
Get the truck open,” Cody said, and Tom snapped back to his senses.

Now was no time to hold onto showmanship about who the head alpha was between them—not that he would have anyway—so Tom ran ahead to open the passenger door on Austin’s truck. Despite being half a foot shorter than Cody, Austin outweighed him by twenty pounds. However, Cody’s face showed no strain. Tom was running on adrenaline too, hyped up with rage over Austin’s murder and the unmistakable scent he’d picked up from the hunter. Running to the driver’s side, he got in as Cody pulled his door shut. He balanced Austin’s body on his lap, nestling Austin’s head beneath his chin as if he were napping.