Every Angelic Moment Page 18

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  A creaking sound woke Brierley a few hours later. She held her breath and listened intently, wondering if she’d dreamed the noise. Then she heard it again, closer to her bedroom. Her owl’s first impulse was to open the window, shift, and fly to safety before whoever was making her floors creak got to the bedroom. Even though she knew that was smart, something kept her on the bed. She sat up and drew the covers to her waist, staring at the closed door.

  The door creaked loudly as it opened, and she heard a man grunt in annoyance. The barrel of a gun appeared, and her heart began to beat out a staccato rhythm in her chest.

  She said loudly, “You don’t have to shoot me. What do you want?”

  The door opened fully and a man stood in the doorway, pointing the gun at her. “Are you Ian’s mate?”

  They had come to kidnap her friend? How rude!

  “His mate doesn’t live here, but I do. So I’ll ask again, what do you want?”

  The man moved into the room, followed by two others. “I’m Wallace. Do you know Ian?”

  He didn’t put the gun away, but he did drop it to his side, which made some of the nerves rioting in her belly settle. She suspected he didn’t see her as a threat, and to be honest, she wasn’t going to be one. He was big, and so were the two guys behind him. Even if she could shift and take flight, she’d still have to go over their heads to get out and they’d catch her for sure.

  “What do you want with him?”

  Wallace snapped his fingers, and the males rushed the bed, grabbing her arms and hauling her onto the floor. Pain swept up her legs as she landed on her knees in front of Wallace. She hissed out a breath and lifted her head to glare at him for the rough and unnecessary treatment.

  It was then that she caught the scent of leather and vanilla. She inhaled, and found the scent on Wallace’s clothes. Was her mate with Wallace? Was he being held against his will?

  She rose slowly to her feet. “I’ll come with you, willingly.”

  Wallace said, “I want you to get a message to Ian. Tell him that he shows up to fight next Friday night, or I’ll kill you. I’d planned to take his mate to ensure that he’d fight, but you’ll do.”

  Ian would definitely kill Wallace if he’d kidnapped Angel. Brierley didn’t know Ian very well, but she knew the possessive look of a male who would kill or die before he let anything happen to his mate, and Ian looked at Angel that way. She felt that way about her own mate already, and she’d never even met him in real life. She would go willingly with Wallace because she needed to get to her mate. Wallace was using her to get Ian to fight, but she was going to use him, too. Once she found her mate, then she’d think about escaping.

  It didn’t really matter if she called Ian, because he was in the throes of his mating time with Angel and all of their cells were off. As she went to her cell on the nightstand, one of the males grabbed her phone and said, “Not so fast.”

  He handed the phone to Wallace, who clicked around on the screen and then typed. “I’m telling him you’ll be safe until Friday.”

  “Thanks for the reassurance,” she said dryly.

  “You’re not crying for help or panicking.” He tossed her phone to the bed and gave her a curious look.

  Wallace was clearly psycho. And she knew intimately what psychos looked like, because of the crazy males she’d grown up with, who thought nothing of using females like bargaining chips in power plays. It didn’t really matter that Wallace was a wolf, he was the same kind of despicable crazy as the males in her nest. He had a plan and he’d use anyone, innocent or otherwise, to accomplish it. She didn’t really care what his end game was, because he smelled of her mate and she was going to get to him, come hell or high water.

  She stared at Wallace. “Would it change anything? Would turning into a puddle of weeping goo do any good?”

  It crossed her mind to ask him about the scent on his clothes, but she opted to keep her mouth shut. She didn’t trust him as far as she could kick him, and she absolutely didn’t want to give him any leverage on her.

  Wallace chuckled. “I like you. I hope you survive.”

  Someone touched her neck, and then everything went dark.

  Chapter 4

  Saturday night, Axtyn woke from a troubled sleep, his skin prickling like it was crawling with biting ants. His beast roared in his mind, and his muscles were stretched taut. For a few heartbeats, he thought that this would be the moment where he would shift into his minotaur form and forever be a monster. His dreams had been filled with nothing but blood and death.

  Had he lost his mate before he’d even found her? Were the dreams about her death?

  His thoughts were a jumble, and his beast was rioting. Heaving himself upright, he rested his head on his hands and waited for the pounding headache to disappear, or for the end of his humanity to make an appearance. But just as quickly as he thought he might be shifting permanently, he sensed a presence that he couldn’t explain or ignore. There was…something very good nearby. He had no idea what it might be, but every ounce of his focus became trained on finding the source of the feeling.

  He stumbled to his feet. He didn’t bother dressing, staying in only the sweatpants he’d gone to bed in. Unlocking the bedroom door, he opened it slowly. When he determined that the hallway was clear, he took one step outside before returning to his room for his swords. He didn’t normally walk around with his weapons, but something was going on in the warehouse, and he wasn’t about to walk out unarmed.

  Adjusting the sheath on his back, he slid both swords into their holders and left his room. He approached the room where the fights were held, slowing his steps as he heard muffled voices through the door.

  Axtyn opened the door and stepped into the room to find Wallace and two of his guards in the center of it. One of the guards had a woman over his shoulder, struggling and kicking her legs.

  “Put me down, you ass!” she yelled. “I said I’d come willingly, you didn’t have to drug me or manhandle me!”

  “Drop her, Stan,” Wallace said. Then he saw Axtyn. “What are you doing here?”

  Stan dropped the female on the concrete. She shouted in pain as she landed hard on her side. She had long, white-blonde hair, and when she brushed it away from her face and looked at him, he knew he was in his mate’s presence.

  “Mine.”

  Her brows rose, and her eyes flashed from blue to gold. He swore he heard a soft, hooting sound.

  “What’s yours?” Wallace asked.

  Axtyn ignored the question and held out his hand. “Come to me.”

  She rolled to her knees, holding her arm, which was bleeding where she’d scratched it when she hit the floor. As she moved to stand, Wallace put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down.

  “What do you think you’re doing? She’s my leverage. She’s not going anywhere but to my room.”

  His beast rolled under his skin, his temples aching where horns were pushing to break free. “Mine.”

  He took a menacing step toward Wallace, and then saw the knife that the other guard had suddenly pressed to his mate’s throat. She swallowed audibly, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed.

  “Let her go. She’s not leverage, she’s my mate.”

  “She’s important to Ian. He’ll fight for me to make sure she’s safe. Go back to your room.”

  Axtyn was aware of noise behind him as the guards who called the warehouse home came out into the main room because of the commotion. They joined Wallace, unsure of what the issue was but standing with their leader.

  “I’ll kill you if you harm her,” he told the male holding the knife. To Wallace he said, “Let her come to me now, or else.”

  Wallace snorted as he pulled a gun from his waistband. “Or else what? I promised Ian I’d keep her alive until Friday, but if you push me then her blood will be on your hands.”

  His body began to change, his beast struggling to take over to
protect their mate. He could tell by the glint in Wallace’s eye that he had no intention of letting her go. Knowing he had to get her to safety, Axtyn let his shift come over him. His body bulked out, dark fur covered his skin, and his hair darkened as it lengthened. His feet turned to hooves, and his head changed to the shape of a bull’s, with large horns sprouting from the sides. He bellowed a war cry as he grasped the handles of his swords and drew them free of their sheaths.

  Guns fired, the bullets grazing his skin but not penetrating it as he rushed the group to defend his mate. In the commotion, the male holding the knife to her throat pulled it away to defend himself, and she was able to run to Axtyn for cover. She ducked between his legs and covered her head with her hands. He stood over her, slashing at the males who came at him with knives, guns, chains, boards, and anything else they could find. The air was heavily scented with blood, and the screams of anguish as males were slaughtered was a background noise he didn’t care about. The only thing that mattered was that his mate was safe, and he knew the only way to ensure that was to kill them all.

  Every single fucking one.

  Wallace lifted his gun and fired, the bullet glancing off Axtyn’s side. “You’re so fucking dead!”

  “Not me,” Axtyn said, his voice low with his beast. “I told you to let her come to me.”

  “She’s mine, not yours!” Wallace’s voice rose to a screech as he fired again and the chamber clicked loudly, signifying that it was empty. He shoved his trembling hand into his pocket and removed it, bullets clattering to the concrete.

  Axtyn leaped forward, taking Wallace to the floor. His hooves pressed him into the concrete as Wallace beat at his legs with his fists. “You’re dead! You leave with her and I’ll hunt you both down. You’ll never be safe!”

  Axtyn sliced both swords down, severing Wallace’s head from his neck. It rolled to the side, his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. Turning slowly, Axtyn listened intently to see if he could hear anyone moving. No one had been left alive, because they’d all tried to kill him and his mate.

  Hearing a sniffle, he spun, sheathing his swords and rushing to his mate. He dropped to his knees, too keyed up to shift back to human form.

  “Don’t be frightened.”

  She brushed at the tears on her wet cheeks. Then she threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. “I knew I’d find you! You smell like leather and vanilla. You smell like home.”

  She buried her face in his neck and wept, and the sound of her happy tears was enough for his beast to relax and allow him to take back his fully human form. He drew her close, inhaling the scent of snow that surrounded him, just like in his dream.

  “My beautiful mate,” he said hoarsely. “I thought I’d never find you.”

  “Me, either.” She leaned back and smiled. “My name is Brierley.”

  “I’m Axtyn.”

  She peeked around him and grimaced. “You killed everyone here. Were…they your friends?”

  He shook his head. “I guess you’d call them coworkers? Wallace was the leader. He owned this warehouse and hosted the were-fights.”

  “He said that Ian was supposed to fight on Friday or he’d kill me.”

  “Who is Ian to you?”

  “My friend’s mate. I live in a cabin at the Clear Water Campground, where I work. Angel and her mates live on the other side of the campground. But before she mated them, she lived with me. They came to my cabin looking for her and took me instead.”

  “I wish you hadn’t been caught. You must have been terrified.”

  “Well, I actually went willingly.”

  His brow arched. “What?”

  “I smelled you on Wallace’s clothes. I knew that he’d been around you, so I told him I’d go with him on Angel’s behalf. He texted Ian from my phone, but they’re having their mating time so they won’t get the message until Sunday night sometime.”

  His eye ticked. “You willingly came? What if he’d killed you?”

  “I had to get to you. I didn’t trust him – I mean he was clearly a whack job – but you’re mine. Whatever I had to do to get to you was worth it.”

  A growl rumbled in his throat. “It wasn’t worth endangering your life. I would have found you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Did you have any idea how to find me?”

  He wanted to tell her that he had, but he wouldn’t lie to her. “I looked for you. Every spare minute I had, I drove around and looked for you. I didn’t have any clue where to find you, but I hoped that my beast would let me know when we were close.”

  “What are you?” she asked, her head tipping to the side as she eyed him curiously. “You’re like a bull, but also like a man.”

  “I’m a minotaur shifter. I can go to the minotaur form that you saw, and also to a full bull. What are you? You smell like snow.”

  “Owl.”

  “I’ve never met an owl before.”

  “I’ve never met one of you, either. I thought you were a myth.”

  He smiled, something he hadn’t much felt like doing until he found her. “Rare, not a myth.”

  She looked over her shoulder and shuddered. “What are we going to do?”

  He looked at the bodies, realizing that he wasn’t being a good mate by letting her sit in a room with a bunch of people he’d recently killed. “Let me take you to my room. I’ll deal with this.”

  She blinked a few times. “You don’t want me to help?”

  He snarled. “Of course not.”

  She didn’t say anything, just snuggled closer. He loved how she fit perfectly against him; her soft curves and sweet scent were his new favorite things. Wrapping his arms around her, he lifted her up and carried her to his bedroom, where he set her gently on the bed. He straightened and took a step back, trying to clear the wave of arousal that spiked through him. Being close to her made his beast go crazy with need.

  She leaned back on one arm and rested her free hand on her stomach. She was wearing a sexy blue nightie, the color a perfect match to her eyes. He was tempted to forget about the bodies, but then he caught a glimpse of the dried blood on her arm.

  “You’re injured.”

  He moved to the bathroom and grabbed a first aid kit he kept under the sink. Returning to the bed, he dropped to his knees, holding her arm gently and inspecting the wound. It was a rough gash from where she’d scraped it on the concrete, but it was already healing.

  “I’m fine,” she said, brushing her fingers lightly through his hair. He shivered at her touch, so sweet and light.

  He gently cleaned and bandaged the wound, and then pressed a kiss to the top of her hand. “I’ll be back.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  He snapped the lid closed on the kit and stood. “This place used to be a meat packer’s. In the sub-basement there are old walk-in freezers where they used to keep the carcasses. I’ll take the bodies down there.”

  “Are there people who would come looking for Wallace?”

  “No. He didn’t have any family, and he was an asshole, so I don’t think anyone would mind if he just disappeared. The fights are Friday and Saturday nights, so no one would show up here until next week anyway.”

  He kissed her swiftly and left, closing the door and heading down the hall to make sure the other rooms were empty. When he’d swept the building and found it empty save for him and Brierley, he headed up to the ground floor and locked the front door. Then he moved the bodies two at a time to the sub-basement. As he tossed each body into one of the walk-ins, he checked their pockets for phones and ID, which he put in a pile on the floor. When the last body was tossed into the walk-in, he closed the heavy door and locked it, leaning back against the cool steel and taking a breather. He was covered in sweat and blood, and he wanted to shower about ten times. After catching his breath, he headed back to his room to clean up and tend to his mate.

  Even though he’d killed a dozen males, he didn’t regret a single death. Brierley was his now and she was
safe. He would’ve slaughtered a thousand to ensure she was protected. She was worth anything that he had to do to secure her in his life. He just hoped she thought he was worthy of her love. He’d never cared before what anyone thought about him, but he cared now. She was everything to him; he wanted to be everything to her.

  Chapter 5

  Brierley sat on the bed for a few minutes before deciding to check her reflection in the bathroom. The bedroom was sparsely furnished, with a large bed and nightstand, a TV, and a weight bench. The bed smelled like him, and just sitting on it made her incredibly turned on. She wished he hadn’t needed to go take care of the bodies, but she knew it was smart for him to put them somewhere so they weren’t just hanging out in the open.

  The bathroom had a toilet, a sink, and a stand shower with a plain black curtain. She turned on the light, blinking at the brightness, and then gasped at her reflection. Her hair was a disheveled mess, and she had light bruises on her arms from where those assholes had manhandled her. On one side of her neck was a round bruise surrounding a puncture hole, which was healing. Whatever they’d injected her with had knocked her out cold, and she shivered to realize how helpless she’d been.

  Axtyn had cleaned her wound and bandaged it with the efficiency of a male who had done it many times before. Because he was working for Wallace, she suspected he was a fighter, and probably got very good at taking care of his injuries. Deciding she could use a shower to get the dried blood off her skin, she turned on the shower and stripped, stepping under the spray. She washed her hair and skin twice, making sure she’d scrubbed every inch of herself, and then dried off and brushed her hair with a brush she found under the cabinet. When her hair was as dry as she could get it, she hung the towel on the rod and picked up her nightie. She could see blood splatters on the fabric, and wrinkled her nose at the thought of putting it back on.

  Since they were mates, she hoped that Axtyn wouldn’t mind her finding something to wear in his closet. She pushed the closet door open and pulled out a worn red plaid shirt. After slipping it on, she returned to his bed and climbed in, hoping he would return to her quickly. She wanted to get to know him, and mostly she wanted to make love to him. Her whole life, she’d been told she didn’t have a choice in who she mated. The idea of truemates was foreign to owl shifters. They didn’t believe in fate or true love; they believed in the king’s sovereign right to arrange matings that benefited him and the nest as a whole. She knew she wouldn’t have had a nice life if she’d stayed in the nest, and every day she was thankful that Bliss had set her free. And now, she was particularly thankful to Angel for bringing her to Pennsylvania. Because of her, Brierley had found her truemate – a fearsome, protective minotaur shifter, who’d slaughtered a building full of males to keep her safe.