Page 29

Chapter 28

Fight in Progress

LENNOX

N o! Charlie’s cry echoes through my mind as she sees her son through my eyes, dangling off the side of a building, his terrified shout tearing at her sanity. I ruthlessly shove her out, narrowing my concentration on Edie and Luke.

If I’m to save Luke, I have to give my wolf free rein, allow his instincts to guide us. Not something I’ve done since the Human-Shifter war. Even in my wolf body, I always maintain some level of control over him.

Not this time.

He knows what needs to be done and will be far more effective than his human counterpart.

Go , I tell him, allowing my human mind to sink into the shadows of his mind.

He zeroes in on Edie, marking her.

I push off, my paws grinding on the concrete roof as I jump onto the ledge of the next building, Edie is now forty feet away from me across a rooftop terrace.

“Stop or I’ll drop him!” Edie screams, shaking Luke.

It’s too late, there’s no stopping a wolf whose mate’s precious world has been threatened. I race toward Edie, my gaze never swerving from my prey.

“I mean it!” Edie steps onto the ledge with Luke, lifting him off his feet and holding him over the edge. The drop is over a hundred feet. He won’t survive it. “Tell your mate this was your choice!” she screams, rage twisting her features.

She opens her hand, letting go of Luke.

He plunges toward the street below, his scream of terror echoing against the surrounding buildings as he falls.

As I narrow in on Edie, for one heart-stopping second, I worry my wolf won’t make the right choice, is too focused on his prey. As I take the final jump, lunging toward Edie, I swerve, leaping off the building after Luke. Air rushes past my fur as I head straight for him, my body straight as an arrow whizzing toward my target.

We’re around 40 feet off the ground when I reach him, wrapping my body around his. The moment I touch him, something inside me alters, my essence reaching for his, wrapping it protectively inside me, holding it safe. I refuse to let his spark go out.

I twist in the air, hurling my body toward a balcony, hitting the metal railing hard with my back before rolling onto the grated floor. Pain radiates through me, but I ignore it, unfurling my body from Luke’s and looking him over.

“L…Lennox?” he asks fearfully.

I dip my head in a nod and snuffle his injured shoulder, licking it. My saliva should help it heal faster.

“Ouch!” he jerks, but wraps his arms around my neck, hugging me, his tears soaking my fur. “I want my mom!”

I want to shift to human, to reassure him, to take him safely down to street level, but I can’t. Not yet.

As the thought leaves my head, Luke shouts, “She’s coming!” and scrambles backwards, his terrified eyes focused over my shoulder.

Before I can turn, sharp teeth sink into my shoulder and I’m dragged backward. I scramble against the metal, twisting and clawing, trying to dislodge her.

Luke yells for me, but there’s nothing he can do. He clings to the building, peering at us with wide eyes. I silently promise to come back for him and let go, allowing Edie to drag me off.

We plunge toward the street together, her teeth buried in my shoulder. We bounce off the railing of a second-floor balcony, then land on top of a closed dumpster.

I jump off, my paws splashing in a puddle as I land on the street. I glance up, seeing Luke staring at me over the railing.

Edie stands on the dumpster and shakes, flecks of water flying off her black fur. She bares her teeth, hunching her shoulders, low growls issuing from her throat. Her gaze follows mine and she pins Luke with a hungry stare. She wants to go after him, finish what she started.

She goes for him, pushing off the dumpster and leaping at the building. I hurdle after her, sinking my teeth into her back leg and dragging her back to the street.

She snarls and turns on me, swiping her paw at my face. She glances toward Luke, but knows she has no chance of getting to him while I’m alive. Her only option is to fight me or run away, try to save herself.

Her indecision costs her a few precious she doesn’t have. I pounce on her, grabbing her by the scruff of her neck. She twists free and we tumble together, then separate.

We circle each other, hackles raised, teeth exposed. A low growl comes from my wolf, and she responds with a vicious bark.

Then she comes at me, but I’m ready. I catch her mid-leap and slam her into the pavement, going for her throat. But she’s fast, locks her teeth on my ear as she claws at my face. The pain forces me to loosen my grip and she twists out from under me.

Before she can scramble far, I viciously sink my teeth into her flank and rip her flesh open.

Blood oozes as she yelps and jerks backwards, then turns and races through the rainy streets.

I pursue her, thankful she’s taking us in the opposite direction of Luke. I allow her to run until I know we’re out of Luke’s sight. I don’t want him to watch me kill her.

Instead of continuing our race on the ground where her lighter weight and maneuverability is to her advantage, she surprises me by using one of my tactics. She goes high, jumping on a car and from there, on top of a truck, then onto a first-floor window ledge.

I follow close behind, keeping her in sight. She’s more agile than I am, rapidly scaling the building to the top before turning and running back toward Luke. Though I’m heavier, I’m still faster and she only makes it across a couple of rooftops before I catch her.

Grabbing hold of her tail, I toss her to the rooftop patio where she rolls before coming back up to her feet.

She stares at me with gleaming eyes, her nose wrinkled, vicious growls erupting from her throat. This is it and she knows it. She’s ready to fight me to the death, but I see the frustration in her gaze. She didn’t accomplish her goal. Both Charlie and Luke are alive, and while Luke is injured, he’ll recover. She didn’t hurt me, didn’t force me to feel the pain she’s endured for 140 years.

She throws her head back and howls with rage before launching herself at me, teeth bared. I swipe at her, but she manages to bite my injured shoulder, drawing a yelp from me. I shake her off and then jump on her, seeking her throat with my teeth but she squirms, snapping and clawing, adding fresh wounds. I hold my ground this time and finally clamp my teeth on her neck. Jerking my head, I tear through flesh, her blood spraying on me. But I haven’t killed her.

She screams in pain and then whimpering, crawls away from me, dragging herself to a corner of the roof where she shifts into her human.

Confused, I pad toward her. She’s far more vulnerable as a human than as a wolf. She doesn’t stand a chance of fighting me this way.

I realize her tactic when she holds a trembling hand out, her other going to her bloody throat. “You would really kill me?” she asks, her voice soft and vulnerable.

I stare into her eyes, see the hatred, the desperation. If I allow her to live, she’ll never stop hunting the people I love. Her feral side has taken over. It was the same with her mate and now history is about to repeat itself.

I shift to my human, growing to my full height.

She seems to take this as capitulation, relief suffusing her features. “Thank you. I promise, I’ll leave and never come back. You can have New York. You can have your mate. I won’t touch you.”

“Not good enough, Edie.”

“I’ll do anything.” Her lips are trembling and she’s putting on a good show, but I don’t need to read her mind to know she’s lying.

I stalk toward her, stopping before I reach her. “You killed Greystone Boulder-Wolf and Catherine Grant.”

Her gaze darts around me, but there’s no way past. “I had to,” she finally answers. “They were spies. They risked exposing the organization.”

“An anti-shifter organization,” I scoff. “I don’t believe you hold anything in common with ASHRA except your hatred toward me. Why did you infiltrate them?” When she refuses to answer, I add in a low voice, “You’re not getting out of this alive, Edith. You may as well tell me.”

She blinks rapidly at my use of her 19 th century name. “They gave me access to you.” At my confused look, she explains, “I knew you would be lead investigator in any shifter-related crimes, so I affiliated myself with them almost at their inception. I convinced them I hated others of my kind and let them see my very real hatred toward you, told them I was planning on bringing you down. Then I laid low and waited.”

“Until I found my mate,” I conclude grimly.

She nods, her eyes reflecting pain as blood drips steadily down her neck and chest. “Boulder-Wolf wasn’t even my original target, but when ASHRA discovered he was a mole, I jumped on the opportunity. He gave me the vessel I needed to draw your attention.”

“That doesn’t make sense, I didn’t know Charlie until after Boulder-Wolf’s death. We met when we were assigned the case together. You couldn’t have known I had a mate.”

“Your twin found his mate,” she points out.

I shake my head at her logic. “While twins often find their mates close together, it doesn’t always happen.”

“I was willing to gamble,” she hisses.

“You were done waiting.”

“Maybe, but if you hadn’t found your mate, there were other ways to cause damage. I could have continued killing shifters, driving you insane while pretending to be an ally. I could’ve had one of your brothers killed, or one of their mates.” A gleam enters her eye when she asks, “By the way, what was it like in your head after your twin’s mate almost died? From all accounts, Keenan was inconsolable.”

I should have realized Edie was responsible. “You ordered the theatre bombing in L.A.”

She tilts her head, as if to say it was her pleasure. I dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from beating her to death before she finishes her confession.

“I was getting tired of waiting for my revenge. I knew Keenan’s despair would drive you insane, weaken you. I would have continued to wait for your mate to show up but torturing you in the process would have been a bonus.”

Her plan was to cause maximum damage to my life in as many ways as possible. It’s diabolical, but then, she had over a century to plan.

I try to reason with the woman who shared a bench with me in Central Park 140 years ago. “I was doing my job when I killed your mate.”

“You murdered him to makes humans safe!” she screams. “Humans are nothing to us and you betrayed one of your own for them. I will never forgive you, Lennox. Never.”

I watch her passion, feeling a hint of remorse. In the old days we put our rogue shifters down, thinking it our duty. A distasteful duty, but necessary. These days, we try to find other paths for containing our rogues, violence now a last resort. Perhaps if wolf shifters as a society had found our compassion for the more disturbed among us earlier, I wouldn’t be in this situation, faced with having to kill another of my kind.

Gently, I say, “You don’t need to forgive me, Edith. I don’t expect or deserve it. I killed the man you loved.”

“Love!” she shouts, blinking furious tears. “I still love him and living without him hurts every single day. I just want…”

“You want me to feel the same.”

She nods and pushes herself unsteadily to her feet. “Kill me. I’m ready.”

Even at the end, she has to be in control.

I square my shoulders, shoving my sympathy for her into a box and closing the lid. “You threatened my mate and her child, a grievous crime in our world. For this, and the murder of Greystone Boulder-Wolf and his human companion, Catherine Grant, I sentence you to death.”

“Jury and executioner,” she snaps bitterly, dropping her hand from her neck and allowing the blood to flow freely.

“It’s my job.” But for the first time I’m questioning it. Would we be here in this place if I hadn’t killed her mate? I’m a protector, but I didn’t protect Edie.

I shift to my wolf, my muscles tight, waiting for her to change to her wolf and fight me. She doesn’t. She continues to stare at me, her human eyes reflecting hate, her chin tilted proudly.

I’m sorry , I whisper to my old friend. I jump at her, knocking her over as I tear out her throat. Her body hits the wet pavement.

Without another look I leave, climbing down to where Luke is still cowering on the balcony. When he sees me, he shouts and when I join him on the balcony, he flings himself against me, crying as he buries himself in my fur.

I shift and hold him against me. Tears gather in my eyes at his distress and I do my best to sooth him, rubbing my hand up and down his back.

When his sobs lessen, I say, “We need to get back to your mom.” She knows everything that’s happened and is in my head demanding I bring Luke to her. “Can you climb onto my back and hold on real tight?”

He hesitates, then asks, “Is that lady gonna come back?”

“No, she’s never coming back. I made sure of it.”

He looks worried for a moment, then nods, trusting me. “Okay, I can hang on tight.”

I shift to my wolf and lower myself to my stomach so he can climb on. When I feel his arms wrap tightly around my neck and his knees squeeze my ribs, I take off, my new mission reuniting him with his mother.