Darkness Bound (8 page)

Morgan stepped forward from her place at the table, her hands clasped against her chest, her face full of fervent emotion. Every eye in the room was trained on her.

“My Lord,” she entreated in a low voice that throbbed with emotion, “let us lead the revolution. Let us be the ones who finally have the courage to step into the light. Let us be the bringers of hope to a world that so desperately needs it.”

Hearing these words, Hawk was moved to the core of his soul.

He was moved by Morgan’s bravery and her eloquence, by her passion and idealism, but most of all by the inescapable realization that she had indeed planned this entire scenario, right down to the words she would speak.

She was risking everything, including her life, for the cause of peace. For people who misunderstood her, who because of the actions of a madman actually
hated
her, Morgan was risking death.

This might have been the most blatant display of sheer courage he’d ever seen. It was a small thing, just standing there alone, but colossal in scope in the effect it might have.

It was genius.

“Alexander,” said Alejandro in a flat tone, without looking away from Morgan, “your wife continually surprises me. What a warrior she would have made had she been born male.”

In exactly the same tone Xander replied, “She’s twice the warrior of any male I’ve ever met.” He added a curt, “Brother.”

Alejandro cut his gaze to Xander. “I’m sure you meant ‘Sire,’ ” he said, deadly soft, his fingers white around the stem of his wineglass.

The smile that spread over Xander’s mouth was grim. He inclined his head and said nothing, the muscles in his broad shoulders rippling with tension.

Morgan, sensing an impending disaster, intervened. “My Lord, please forgive me if I’ve overstepped my—”

“No.” Alejandro’s voice rang out through the open-air space. “You’ve done the right thing. There’s nothing to forgive. From
you
.” His icy gaze swept over the gathered men, who’d frozen at the anger ringing in his voice. “I expected more, however, from the rest of you. How is it that Morgan—a new addition to our colony, I might add—has my best interests at heart, and shares my exact thoughts on the proper way to proceed with this Dolan woman, yet the rest of you do not?”

The silence that echoed throughout the Assembly room was cavernous and fraught. Everyone present knew there was no correct answer to this question. Judging by the way tension ebbed from Xander’s shoulders, however, Hawk realized that Morgan was out of imminent danger.

Alejandro had decided to pretend the entire thing was his idea, his earlier disagreement only for show.

“My apologies for my short-sightedness. You’re right.”

Alejandro’s eyes raked over Hawk with a fury that was palpable. “Of
course
I’m right,” he hissed. “I. Am. The. Alpha!”

“Yes. You are.” Hawk kept his voice devoid of emotion or inflection. “And I’m sure you’ve already thought of how we should next proceed.”

The Alpha paused just long enough so the tension in the room rose to a new high. He said, “Naturally.” Then he smiled with such malevolence it sent a tingle of sinister premonition down Hawk’s spine.

Whatever he was going to say next wouldn’t be good.

“You’re going to get this Dolan woman. You’re going to bring her back here—unharmed, mind you—and she’ll stay with us for a period of time that I’ll determine.” His ugly smile grew wider, and so did Hawk’s certainty of impending doom.

The Alpha proved him right with his next words. “And during her time here . . . she’ll be living with
you
.”

Hawk’s heart screeched to a stop inside his chest. The thought of sharing his home—his sanctuary—with a woman was about as appealing as having all of his teeth pulled out with a pair of pliers, one by one. Without anesthesia.

Which Alejandro undoubtedly knew. Everyone knew it: Hawk was a loner. He hated petty conversation almost as much as he hated any kind of obligation, and women were chock-f of both. Of all the females he’d wooed since he was a young man, not a single one had ever been inside his home. He went to theirs or they met in the forest or, in the cases of the human females he met in the city on the procurement trips he was regularly assigned to, at hotels with rooms rentable by the hour. Anywhere he could make a quick, clean getaway once the fun had been had.

And after what he’d done to her, Jacqueline Dolan would, no doubt, make regular efforts to kill him in his sleep.

Disaster.

Morgan was blinking in surprise. Beside her, Xander gazed at him in sympathy. The other Assembly members looked as if they might break into hysterical laughter.

The loner, the outsider, the infamous Bastard, forced to share his own personal space with a
human
female who despised him as much as he despised her, for an indeterminate amount of time, under the watchful eyes of the entire tribe.

Hawk couldn’t think of a worse fate.

But Alejandro wasn’t done. “You’ll be in charge of making sure everything goes according to plan, and that this reporter forms a more favorable opinion of us. You’ll be in charge of ensuring that article is written—”

“And in return?” he interrupted, seething. “If I successfully bring her here and convince her that not only should she not
kill
me because of how I used her, but that she should also produce an article in direct contradiction to the one that won her such fame, what do I get?”

Alejandro grinned. “You get to keep your head attached to your body.”

Morgan went white, Xander turned red, and Hawk wished, for not the first time, he’d been born anyone else, in any other time, in any other place than this.

“Run along now, Hawk,” said Alejandro, still grinning. “And try not to cock it up.”

Having survived the dreaded annual birthday pilgrimage to her father’s house, Jack returned to her apartment in the city. Exhausted and in dire need of a shower, she greeted the stark stillness of her empty apartment with the same level of enthusiasm one approaches a trip to the gynecologist.

Standing in the dark foyer—the overhead light had burned out again—she looked around, weighing the silence.

High ceilings. Tall, uncovered windows across the length of two walls. Yawning space, devoid of furniture or even rugs to muffle the walnut floors that echoed with every step. Hoping a home of her own would help fill the gaping hole inside her chest that seemed to grow larger with every passing year, Jack had purchased the loft three years ago with the idea of putting down roots, of making a welcoming space she could return to from her travels, a spot uniquely her own.

The roots she hoped to grow had failed to flourish. She’d never had the time—more honestly the inclination—to decorate beyond the mere basics. Bed. Desk. Chest of drawers. She didn’t even have a dining room table. After three years the place was almost as bare as the day she’d moved in.

It
fits
though
, Jack thought wryly. Unembellished and unwelcoming, the space was undoubtedly hers.

She dropped her duffel bag on the floor just inside the door, and stripped off her jacket and T-shirt. She left them both atop the bag, kicked off her shoes, and headed to the kitchen in her bra and jeans. The fridge revealed its usual array of barren shelves and empty drawers, with the exception of a single bottle of Stella Artois.

“Hello, beautiful,” Jack said, reaching for the beer. She made quick work of popping the top, and leaned against the counter to drink it, swallowing in long, greedy gulps.

Thank you, God, for getting me through today.
The bickering of car horns in traffic drifted up from the street twenty stories below, and Jack enjoyed a moment’s peace.

Until the phone rang.

“Not home,” she said aloud, hearing her voice echo through the loft as if through the walls of a canyon. “Leave a message.”

When the machine on the kitchen counter clicked on—she still kept the bulky answering machine she’d had since her freshman year in college—Nola’s voice broke the silence.

“Your cell is off. Just checking to make sure you didn’t get shot in Brazil. Because, you know, with you that’s always a possibility.”

Smiling, Jack picked up the phone.

“Shot with a sex pistol,” she drawled, her smile growing wider. Hearing her friend’s voice, and thinking about the handsome stranger named Hawk, both managed to lift Jack’s spirits.

“Hey! You’re home! When did you get in?”

“Literally right this second.” Jack looked at the half-empty bottle in her hand. “I was just getting something to eat.”

“Let me guess. Beer and veggie pizza.”

Jack laughed. “Minus the pizza. You know me too well, lady. How are you?”

“Just making sure you’re not dead in some jungle somewhere, like I said. And calling to wish you a happy belated birthday. Did you think I forgot?”

“Oh, you
obviously
didn’t forget! I gotta hand it to you, No, that was one hell of a birthday present. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you. The guy was like some supermodel assassin rock-star sex god. Unbelievable. I won’t ask you how much you had to shell out for that kind of quality, but whatever you paid, he was worth it. I think I’ll be sore for a week.”

A beat of silence. The siren from a police car several blocks over screamed loud in pursuit, then faded away. Then Nola asked, “What are you talking about?”

Hearing those words, spoken in the flat, interrogating lawyerly tone Nola used when she wasn’t kidding around, Jack’s stomach dove toward her feet.

“You didn’t buy me a guy for my birthday.”

It was a statement, not a question, spoken in a tone to match her friend’s. A movie began to play in Jack’s mind. Images flashed by with lightning speed, and unforgiving clarity.

Sweat soaked sheets, naked bodies, tangled limbs, hunger.

Camera flashes.

Pictures.

“Buy you a guy for your birthday?” Nola echoed with a snort. Then she gasped. “Oh God, Jack, don’t tell me you hooked up with some guy you . . . you thought I . . .”

At Jack’s answering silence, Nola began to laugh. “You did! You so did! I need details, right now!”

Do you want something to remember me by?
Hawk, beautiful and coy, holding up the camera.
Jack’s
camera.

Her gaze flashed to the duffel bag, discarded by the front door. “
No, I’ve gotta call you back.”

Jack hung up before Nola could reply. She launched herself across the room, fell to her knees, and ripped open the bag, panting with panic.

The Canon was there, in its hard leather case.

The memory card, however, wasn’t.

As she stared down the empty slot in the side of the camera, horror—cold, slimy, and total, like being submerged in a tank of eels—washed over Jack. She broke out in a sweat. Her hands began to shake. Her heart started to race as if she’d been injected with adrenaline.

Set up. Jesus Christ, I’ve been set up!

But by who? And why? She sagged against the wall, hardly feeling the cold plaster against her bare shoulders, and stared down at the Canon in her hands.

She knew she’d made enemies over the years; she’d never shied away from controversy in her career. It could be a politician, angry about one of her scathing op-ed pieces, or one of the many military leaders she’d met during an assignment, and pissed off with her attitude or refusal to listen to orders. It could be a colleague; she knew she wasn’t particularly liked among her peers, for a whole host of reasons, which mainly boiled down to her inability to trust anyone.

It could even be one of the more vocal critics of her anti-Shifter article. Not everyone was on board with the idea that Shifters were mankind’s enemy.

Who was it who’d warned her someone might try to retaliate if she took such a strong stance against the newly discovered threat of Shifters? Who had said to her, “You’re just putting a big bull’s-eye on your back, missy. You see what those crazy animal rights activists do to celebrities who wear fur coats—what they’ll do to you will probably be a lot worse than throwing some red paint.”

It came to her in a blinding flash: old Mrs. Weingarden on the third floor. They’d ridden up the elevator together just after the article had come out a few months back, and the elderly woman had clucked her tongue and shaken her head, wondering why Jack needed to get on a soap box and rant and rave about patriotism and the American way of life. “Warmongering” she’d called it.

Jack understood in a bitter, wish-it-wasn’t-so way that the urge to fly her patriotic flag was tied to her loyalty to her father. He was her only remaining parent, her only remaining link to the time before she was the hollow shell she was now. He’d paid for the best therapists, and put her in private schools, and got her involved in sports, though none of it served his hoped-for purpose of making her forget what had happened.

But he’d tried. He’d tried everything he could. So she did her damndest to make him proud of her, even though she knew it was only a futile attempt to remake a past that had died long ago, and taken her heart with it.

Denial set in.

Jack began to rummage frantically through the duffel, tossing out clothes, feeling all around the bottom, scavenging through the smaller bag of toothpaste and tampons and ChapStick, ripping the whole thing apart.

Finally, the bag was empty. There was no memory card.

She sat staring in shock into the gaping opening.
It can’t be.
This can’t be happening.

In response to her voice in her head came her mother’s, sneering and quite decidedly filled with glee.

Serves you right.
You little whore.

Jack shook her head, shoved away from the wall, jumped to her feet. “Think. Just
think
,” she said, beginning to pace. “When those pictures get out—because of course they’re going to get out, don’t kid yourself—what am I going to say? How can I spin this? I was drunk? Taken advantage of?”

She paused, considering it. Remembering the total abandon with which she’d participated in the best sex of her life, the brazen way she’d posed, clearly enjoying herself, clearly lucid, she began pacing anew. “Okay, you obviously weren’t taken advantage of. You just had a lapse in judgment. Stress of the job, that sort of thing. I mean, I was shot at yesterday! Of course I wasn’t in my right mind! This kind of stress reaction happens to men all the time, right?”

Even to her own ears, this argument sounded lame. Women were held to a different sexual standard than men, that was the harsh reality. It didn’t matter that she was single and had every right to sleep with whomever she wanted; the press would crucify her. Her judgment, morals, and entire character would be excoriated. A sexy romp with a total stranger while on assignment in a foreign country, with graphic pictorial evidence that she loved every minute of it to boot?

She would be fired. Her career would be over. She would lose everything she’d worked for so long to build. If she were lucky, in six months she’d be working at a fast-food drive-through.

If she were lucky, in a few years everyone would have forgotten that the woman who pushed the President’s anti-Shifter agenda through Congress was a total slut.

Jack’s gaze fell on her laptop. Her heart throbbed inside her chest.

She crawled on her knees to the computer, flipped it open, and turned it on. With a whir it was awake, awaiting her command. With trembling hands, anticipating the worst, she Googled her name.

Nothing new. No headline news, no breaking scandal.

The relief was so palpable she felt as if someone had showered her in cool water. But anxiety quickly rose again as she realized the lack of news might mean nothing at all. It might mean the pictures were just sitting on her editor’s desk, at this very moment, but she just hadn’t gotten the call yet. It might, in fact, mean any one of a million different things, all of them bad.

Because whatever had prompted Hawk to take those pictures and steal the memory card had to be bad. There were no two ways about it.

Jack got her first glimpse of exactly how bad it was when an electronic chime notified her that she had a new email message.

With clammy, trembling hands, she opened the email. A timer popped up, along with a notice, “This email will be deleted in ten seconds.”

She read the sender’s message, saw the picture attached, and let out a scream of anger so primal and raw the overhead light in the foyer flickered on.

Above a photo of Jack kneeling between a man’s legs with his huge, jutting member shoved straight down the back of her throat, her cheeks hollowed, her upturned eyes glazed with lust, were the words, “This one’s my favorite.”

It was simply signed, “Yours, Rock. As in, head like a . . .”

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Oh no, the worst was just about to rear its ugly head.

Another email arrived from the same anonymous address. She clicked on it, her hands now shaking so badly they looked palsied. It was a video file, again with a self-destruct notice, this time set to one minute. When she opened the video, Jack felt simultaneous urges to vomit, faint, and beat something bloody.

Hawk, clothed all in white, beautiful and somber, stared straight into the camera. Behind him it was dark, but she could make out the vague outline of furniture, some kind of gauzy curtain, the branches of a tree. For a moment he did nothing, just stood unmoving with his hands hanging loose at his sides.

Then—unbelievably, horribly—he began to change.

First it appeared to be a trick of the light. There was a shimmer, a glow appeared around him as if emanating from within. The glow grew brighter, the shimmer more distinct, until all at once the flesh-and-bone man that was Hawk dissolved into a floating plume of glittering gray mist, ethereal and insubstantial, floating halfway between the floor and the ceiling like a disembodied spirit.

His clothes fell with a soft rustle of fabric to the floor.

Jack made a strangled sound. She went hot then cold, and found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

Breathing became next to impossible when the floating gray plume of mist gathered in on itself, and coalesced into the largest, most beautiful black panther Jack had ever seen.

It padded toward the camera. It paused, sat back on muscled haunches, staring into the camera with those eyes of vivid yellow-green, and let out a low, rumbling growl that stood all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck on end.

Oh God, oh God, oh God . . .

She’d been set up and used by . . . by one of
them
.

Bile rose in her throat. She clapped both hands over her mouth. Memories again swirled in a Technicolor tangle in her mind, vivid images of the two of them in every possible sexual position. Memories of his words, both harsh and tender, as he pushed himself inside her and brought her to orgasm, over and over again.