Page 5 of New Blood (Werewolf Alliance #1)

R ansom Howe was standing in the impressive foyer of the Gallagher mansion, when his colleague and friend, Wendell, looked up from his cell phone.

“Ransom, we’re missing one of the females.”

He glanced at Wendell’s phone. “Which one?”

“Eve Gallagher.”

“Crap,” he let out.

Eve was William Gallagher’s daughter. If she was missing, it was likely that she was trying to do something to avenge her brother. It was imperative that she be found quickly.

“You and Parker search the two upper floors. She’s not on this floor, so I’ll take the basement and the garage,” Ransom suggested.

Wendell nodded while pulling his cell phone from his pocket. By the time he was at the stairs, the call had already connected.

“Parker, I’m coming up. Eve Gallagher is unaccounted for. Watch out up there. She might be planning an ambush.”

Ransom headed for a door in the foyer that was closed.

He’d already made himself familiar with the first floor and guessed that this door led to the basement.

He was right. Stale air hit him when he opened the door and entered the stairwell.

With the smell of stale air, other scents assailed his nostrils: vampires had been down here not too long ago, though their smell was faint and waning.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he picked up the scent of another werewolf, which wasn’t unusual since any one of the Gallagher pack could have come down here at any time, maybe fetching a bottle of wine or some firewood.

Passing the wine cellar, he headed deeper into the bowels of the mansion, pulling his silver knife from its sheath now, prepared to use it should he encounter a hostile pack member, specifically Eve Gallagher.

At an open door, he paused for a moment and remained entirely still.

He heard the distinct sound of somebody breathing.

He pulled in a deep breath of air and noticed that the scent of a werewolf was now more intense.

A female, he realized. Was Eve standing behind the door, ready to ambush him the moment he set foot in the room?

He’d be prepared for it, and if she tried to attack him, she’d find out very quickly that he was trained in several hand-to-hand combat disciplines and excelled at every one of them.

Readying himself mentally, he decided not to stall any longer.

With a few quick steps, he stormed into the room, spinning to his left to attack whoever was lying in wait behind the door.

To his surprise, there was nobody. Pivoting in a split second, he let his gaze sweep over the entire room, taking in his surroundings.

A massive iron cage welded to the ground was the room’s most prominent feature.

He knew it was built to hold a werewolf, its rods so thick that even the superior strength of a werewolf couldn’t bend or tear them apart.

Many packs had similar cages in order to lock up rogue werewolves who’d become a danger to their pack or themselves.

The cage wasn’t empty. A naked female was curled up in a corner, her aura and scent identifying her as a werewolf.

“Eve? Eve Gallagher?” Ransom asked as he approached.

She stirred, suddenly awakening from what appeared to be a deep slumber, when she seemed to finally see him. She shot up and lunged forward, but the bars on the cage stopped her. She gripped them, rattling them, ostensibly only now aware of where she was.

“Motherfuckers!” she cursed in a tone that would have made any longshoreman proud.

“You’re Eve Gallagher,” Ransom said again, while he swept his gaze over her naked body.

She was muscular but had enough soft curves that could make any man feel welcome.

Her breasts were full and tipped with dark pink nipples that were hard as a result of the cold air in the basement.

Her legs were shapely and toned, her skin bronzed and smooth.

Damn, this woman was beautiful. And absolutely unattainable.

After all, he wasn’t the new alpha. He was an ordinary member of the Werewolf Alliance, and as such, he had sworn to obey Jude Beaumont.

“Seen enough, you perv?” Eve ground out, her eyes now glowing like fire, not the kind that warmed, but the kind that destroyed.

Ransom cleared his throat and averted his eyes when he noticed clothes lying on the ground a few feet away from the cage.

“Who the fuck are you? Get me out of here!”

“Looking for the key,” he replied, pissed about her attitude.

“On the wall, there!” she said, pointing to the opposite wall.

Ransom reached for the key, then picked up the clothes from the floor, before he approached the door to the cage. To his surprise, Eve retreated, watching him with suspicion.

She narrowed her eyes. “You with the vampires?”

“Are they the ones who locked you up?”

He didn’t need to hear an answer to know he was right and simply nodded before unlocking the door.

“I’m with the Werewolf Alliance. The vampires are gone.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “We defeated them. Thank God!”

She reached for her clothes, and he handed them to her before stepping away a few feet to give her some semblance of privacy to get dressed.

“No, we ended the fight. We made peace with the vampires. They won’t bother you anymore.”

Fully dressed now, she stared at him in disbelief, her forehead furrowing. “My father would never make peace with fucking vampires. Those bastards were attacking us!”

“Your father isn’t in charge anymore.”

Eve glared at him with open hostility. “You don’t seem to know who my father is. He’s the alpha. He decides what—”

“Like I said, he’s not in charge anymore,” Ransom interrupted, taking another step toward her now. He wouldn’t let this enticing but willful beauty run roughshod over him. “The Werewolf Alliance is taking over this pack.”

Her eyes widened. “My father and my brothers will never let that happen.”

Ransom inhaled a deep breath and with it the tantalizing scent of the female werewolf who could get his blood boiling if he allowed it. But he wouldn’t allow it. He needed to have himself under control.

“Your father is under arrest. As for your brothers…” He stopped himself.

Damn! If Eve had been locked up by the vampires, it meant that she had no idea that her brother Cameron was dead.

Fuck! He didn’t want to be the one to give her the bad news.

But he also knew it was best to come out with it in the basement, where nobody would hear her wails, her curses, and whatever other reactions she would display or things she could hurl at him.

“What about my brothers?”

Uneasy with the task before him, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Yet, he still hesitated, trying to find words that wouldn’t make him sound like a callous ass.

He had siblings himself. He knew that losing one of them would be devastating, and he’d grieve deeply.

Werewolf families were tight-knit and patriarchal, bound together by blood and the need to keep their secrets from outsiders.

“What are you not telling me?”

He snapped his gaze back to Eve. Her facial expression told him that she knew that the news he was about to impart was bad. He couldn’t back down now. Stalling any longer would be cruel on his part.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but your brother Cameron is dead.”

For a moment, there was complete silence in the dusty room. It was now that he could hear footsteps from above. Everybody was assembling to listen to what Jude had to say.

“You’re lying!” Eve cried out, anger flashing in her beautiful eyes, shining yellow, a sign that her inner wolf wanted to emerge. “No! No! Say you’re lying! Say it!”

With every word her voice grew louder, her tone more agitated. A wet sheen drew over her irises, and she blinked as if trying to wipe them away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, keeping his voice calm and low. “But Cameron is gone.”

“No!” she wailed.

Suddenly, she raised her arms and curled her hands into fists, pounding them into his chest with such force that he nearly tumbled backwards.

It took a second for him to find his balance again, while she continued using him as if he were a boxer’s punching bag and she an MMA fighter.

She was strong, which wasn’t unexpected.

Werewolf females were just as strong as their male counterparts, and if the adage was true that the female of the species was more dangerous than the male, then Eve was living proof of it.

For a few seconds, he didn’t react, simply allowed her to work through the pain the news had caused. But even he couldn’t stand here forever, letting her punch him to her heart’s content. It was time to stop her.

He grabbed Eve’s wrists, wrapping his hands around them tightly, before pushing her back and shaking her so she would come to her senses.

She stared at him then, tears streaming down her face, her mouth open as if she wanted to scream again, yet no words came out, only the gurgling sound of a sob that worked its way up from her chest.

When the sound of the first sob finally echoed against the bare walls, Ransom pulled her against his chest to comfort her.

He felt her warm breath against his skin, her tears soaking his shirt as she wept.

Hesitantly, he stroked his hand over her back in a comforting gesture he’d used many times on his own sister.

It had always helped her. Maybe it would help Eve, too.

All of a sudden, he felt Eve’s hands on his chest, and before he could figure out what she wanted to do, he found himself pushed back with such force that he hit the wall behind him.

Eve glared at him with tearstained eyes. “If you tell anybody what happened down here, I’ll cut your throat, I swear it!”

Her threat sliced through him. So much for trying to offer comfort to a grieving woman. He should have known better: a woman like Eve would never want to be seen as weak.

He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t want anybody to know that I actually cared enough about your grief that I touched you. Trust me, I won’t make that mistake again.”

She tipped her chin up, her eyes still blazing with anger. “If you do, it’ll be your last one.”

Uppity bitch!