Part 30 (1/2)

”You're lying. He would have told me. I would have known. It wouldn't have been a secret.” The gun in her hand wavered a fraction. She fought the threatening tears.

”Jason was part of a group of top secret eliminators. No one knew who he was but me. He, on the other hand, knew who you were long before you broke protocol and told him.”

Tess heard the words but couldn't make sense of them. Jason had known about her all along and still kept his occupation secret? She let her mind race back to the time they'd spent together. He'd always kept her at arm's length, never divulged his deepest thoughts or desires, no matter how often she'd prodded him. She'd attributed it to them being displaced as children, thought he was still piecing together his purpose. She sure the heck was. But she knew now that wasn't it. Jason purposely never let her all the way in.

He'd lied to her. Just as she'd lied to him.

But his lie was worse.

She locked away Jason's memory for good. Whether he'd truly loved her or not, she didn't know. But she didn't need to kill Dobson anymore to clear her conscience.

”Why is this all coming to blows now? What does this have to do with Hugh and the Night Runners?” Her mental frame s.h.i.+fted one hundred percent to Hugh and getting him out of here alive.

”With Hugh out of the picture,” Dane said, ”I take over as leader of the Night Runners. A position I'm ent.i.tled to. A position that will allow me to grow and integrate the pack with other wolves and make sure we're a force to be reckoned with.”

”So this whole elimination is your doing? You came to P.I.E. and ordered the hit because there was no way in h.e.l.l Hugh was going to make you next in line?”

Dane fumed. ”Fu-”

”Why didn't you let the Banoth's poison kill me?” Hugh said, calm, steady.

”If the pack had found out I wasn't carrying and let you die, they'd never support me as the next alpha. They will when I tell them I tried to stop the hit and your last words were for me to take over.”

”What about Trey?” Hugh asked.

”He's also meeting an untimely demise,” Christian said. ”And Dane didn't come to me. I went to him. P.I.E. is moving into the future. A future where eliminators will be virtually unstoppable.”

”Because they'll be s.h.i.+fters?” Tess's arm tired. Sooner rather than later, she'd need to shoot or run like h.e.l.l.

”Exactly. It's no longer about Veiler or human. It's about good versus evil,” Christian said.

”I thought that's what it was always about. What you want to do is enforce your version of good and evil. You want power, not justice.”

Daylight barely trickled into the room now, and Tess blinked several times to adjust her vision. The eerie red glow streaming in from the window allowed enough visibility to make out whole bodies, but little detail. If someone didn't take action, they'd soon be in total darkness. Fine for wolfen-not so good for her.

She glanced at Hugh. He'd remained uncharacteristically quiet, but with such little light she couldn't see him well enough to read his expression.

”Precisely,” Christian admitted.

”Where's Trey?” she asked, even though she had the sinking feeling it didn't matter But if there was a chance they got out of this alive and could save him, they needed to know.

Quiet filled the room.

”He's under attack as we speak.” Dane took a few sidesteps toward the couch, aligning himself with Christian.

Tess felt heat radiating off Hugh, and knew the mention of Trey took away any control he had left. A split second later, the wolf in him emerged and he lunged toward Dane. Dane s.h.i.+fted and the two collided in midair. Ferocious growls spilled from their mouths. They hit the floor and rolled, filling the empty s.p.a.ce between the sitting area and bed. A sick feeling hit Tess in the gut. Dammit, Hugh.

Suddenly, a gunshot sounded and both wolfen stopped, stiffened. It took Tess a moment to realize it wasn't her gun that fired.

She lowered her arm. Pain and discomfort radiated through her shoulder. She'd been shot. Christian had shot her.

It was hard to tell in the dark, but she was certain the bullet had only grazed her. The spot burned but didn't pulse. She lifted a hand to touch the laceration and felt blood trickle rather than spurt. A Band Aid and Tylenol would fix the wound.

”Don't even think about it,” Christian hissed. ”If anyone moves a muscle my aim will be much better next time.” He kept the weapon trained on her as his disposition wavered between frustration and satisfaction. The thin smile she barely made out on his face irritated the h.e.l.l out of her.

He'd pay for making her bleed.

”What do you want?” she breathed, even though she felt she could run a marathon if she had to.

”You've got a job to do, Tess. Or am I to take it the reason you didn't answer my earlier question is because the wolfen means more to you than Kensie and Francesca?”

G.o.dd.a.m.n him. Bitterness wove through every muscle in her body. If something were going down in L.A. with Trey, she could bet the same held true for Kensie and Francesca. And there was no way she'd be able to save them if she didn't follow through with her elimination.

That had to be the master plan. Get Hugh and herself to San Diego, make sure she eliminated him, then get back home to a nice, neat, new partners.h.i.+p between P.I.E. and the Night Runners. What an idiot she'd been not to see it.

”I had your word we'd keep to our deadline,” she said.

”Time's up.”

This was it. The moment she'd dreaded. The moment she wished would never come. She forgot about the pain in her shoulder and felt a swell of anguish in her chest instead. Her lips went dry, her eyes burned.

Showtime.

She lifted her arms, pointed the gun at Hugh and pulled the trigger.

Hugh felt the impact of the shot and fell to the floor. His eyes shut. Dizziness filled his head. Not from the blast, but from the fact that Tess had actually followed through with her a.s.signment. It had taken her all of ten seconds to act on her boss's ultimatum.

Guess he didn't mean much to her after all.

He heard the scuffing of furniture, registered heavy breathing and grunts from Dane in the near-dark room. Tess had shot him in wolfen form, which meant his superhuman strength and tissue regeneration immediately got to work repairing internal damage. But like the Banoth's poison, those attributes wouldn't help him now. This time nothing could help him. He remembered the pain after the Banoth's poison had infiltrated his system and expected this to be the same.

But this pain was entirely different than final suffering. This pain radiated through his body, but wasn't unbearable. In fact, he could swear his body fought the intrusion. Recovery sensations swam through his blood, and a jolt of warmth spread out from his chest like he'd been given a shot of epinephrine.

Because, he realized, the pain wasn't in his chest, it was lower, near his hip. And he'd bet money the bullet hadn't been tipped with mercury.

Tess had shot him to save him.

She did care.

And he'd fight for her to the bitter end in return.

He opened his eyes and, wavering slightly, got to his feet. It would take a few minutes to regain his full strength, but his determination to get Tess to safety trumped physical limitations. The wolf in him had never been stronger than at that moment. Savagery, unlike anything he'd ever experienced before, flooded his body and mind.

His predator instincts took over and uncivilized vengeance erased any hint of humanity inside him. Tess was his mate-different enough, special enough, to tame him-and no one would take her away.

Thankful for the dark filling the room, he took in his surroundings unnoticed. Tess and Dane were in a fistfight. Hugh smelled the blood leaking from her arm, heard the labored beats of her heart. She wouldn't last much longer. Christian sat at the computer, light from the screen outlining the back of his head. Hugh didn't know if he was planting information or looking for it, but neither mattered. The man had a gun and needed to be taken care of first.

He snuck behind Christian in a silent second, wrapped his arms around the man's neck and rendered him unconscious. With a nice easy push, the guy slumped forward onto the keypad. A quick glance at the screen and Hugh noticed that his personal records were uploaded and Tess's name appeared more than once.

It looked like the a.s.shole had every intention of framing her by connecting her to a Veiler and thereby making her death justifiable. Hugh's blood boiled at the thought. Christian must have figured out there was no chance in h.e.l.l she'd go along with the restructuring of P.I.E, which meant the organization that trained her couldn't trust her to keep her mouth shut. Dane had no doubt used his human-sentient abilities to sense Tess's skepticism, her doubts about killing him. And once it became clear she wouldn't eliminate an innocent man, she went from ally to enemy. That had left one option. Kill her too.