I didn’t bother to answer, since I was already running down the hallway toward my bedroom.
My bed had been well slept in and the floor was littered with takeout bags and empty plates. It seemed poor Danny hadn’t been without resources after all.
I approached the closet doors slowly and stood there for a full minute gathering myself. I wasn’t sure what I was going to see when I whipped them open, and visions of the recent dead man in my bathtub gave me pause.
My fingers grazed the knobs and in one motion I yanked the accordion doors back. To my immediate relief there was a very angry, but very alive, detective sitting on a pile of my shoes.
He was gagged with what looked to be a pair of my pantyhose. Both Ray’s hands were tied behind his back with something I couldn’t see, but it seemed to be holding him well enough. He glowered at me with so much hatred and loathing—if he’d been a wolf, I might have shied away for a second.
But he wasn’t.
I squatted down to his level. “Hi, Ray. So glad to see you’re alive and well. Are you enjoying your little stay in my closet?”
He didn’t try to move, which meant he must’ve been sufficiently freaked out by what he had witnessed with Danny and the canine-sized wereweasel. Instead, he unleashed a string of curses I couldn’t fully understand due to his gag but immediately recognized in their entirety anyway. His faced turned beet red with each effort and saliva pooled along the corners of his mouth.
“Ray,” I chastised. “I’m going to need you to calm down. I know you’re incredibly agitated right now, but look on the bright side—you’re still breathing. That’s a very big accomplishment at the moment. Most people in your current position wouldn’t have breath left in their bodies after what you witnessed.”
More swearing and some agitated movements.
“Listen, as much as I’d love to have a big heart-to-heart, you’re going to have to hold on to those thoughts for now,” I told him. “I just came back here to make sure you weren’t dead. Now that I’ve seen you with my own eyes, I’ve got to get back to my living room and sort out another round of chaos that’s become my normal life. If you can believe it, I have bigger things to attend to than you right now, so you’re just going to have to hold tight.”
I stood up right as Ray’s leg struck out, connecting solidly with my knee.
The blow staggered me back a foot, but I recovered in a snap. Furious didn’t even come close. I sprang at more-than-human speed right into Ray’s personal space. His eyes widened in surprise and fear leaked out of him like air from a punctured tire.
I growled to enhance the effect. “Listen to me very carefully, Raymond Hart. You have forced your way into something that was never any of your business to learn. Do you understand me? You’re a self-centered, egotistical, thick-necked, mean-assed cop. One who could never leave well enough alone.” He winced at the force of my words. “I never, and I repeat never, deserved your dogged pursuit of me. Nothing has warranted your extreme hatred of me, and now you’re in way over your head, and guess what? It’s become my fucking job to dig you out. Do you understand the irony of this whole situation? It’s certainly not lost on me.”
He blinked.
“Now, in a normal scenario you don’t live to see tomorrow,” I said, my voice icy calm. “That’s just how it works. So if you don’t want to end up dead, you’re going to have to start treating me like I’m your best friend until I have a chance to figure this out, and it’s going to take me more than seven seconds to do it. Understood?”
More fear swirled in the air, accompanied by slight annoyance. Ray gave me a few more rapid blinks. He was a piece of work, that was for damn sure.
“Contrary to what you might think, I don’t want to kill you.” He deserved to know that much from me. “You can choose to believe me or not, I don’t really care. But right now, you have no choice but to wait patiently. If you make any move to escape, or do anything stupid, we will know it immediately. Don’t test us. The big guys in the other room won’t hesitate to take you out, and I won’t be able to stop them.” I couldn’t resist adding, “Blink twice if you understand me.”
If he could’ve killed me with his brainpower alone, I’d already be dead. But very slowly he blinked twice.
“Good. See you in a few minutes, Ray.” I shut the closet doors. Garbled curses followed me back into the living room.
My brother was on the phone calling for a cleaning crew to deal with Jeff.
I got down to business. “Okay, Danny, were you able to get anything off of Jeff before Juanita came in? We’re going to have to figure out who he’s working for and why he was here in the first place.”
“His pockets were clean and other than some low-level surveillance equipment and a few cheap bugs, there was nothing of value in the bag he carried. I’d planned to sneak down to his apartment as soon as the detective was settled, but your lovely neighbor waylaid my carefully made plans.”
“His apartment’s a good place to start. I’m assuming it shouldn’t be too hard to piece it together. Jeff was not the brightest bulb—” A force slammed into me, knocking the breath out of my body as I hit the living room wall. My wolf howled, springing at the red lines that had suddenly emerged in my mind, snapping her jaws fiercely.
It was one of Selene’s spells.
Why now? No time to ponder, we had to get rid of it. We conquered the last one, we need to get this one too. My wolf growled and lashed at the red amassing quickly in my mind.
I gasped for air, sliding down the rough brick into a sitting position, trying my best to breathe. The spell was cutting off all my bodily functions.
“Jess, Jesus Christ, look at your hands.” Tyler knelt beside me and grabbed a hold of my wrists.
Danny squatted next to him. “That looks like trouble if I’ve ever seen any.”
I forced my neck down so I could see my hands lying in Tyler’s grasp. Red veins were spreading upward at an alarming rate, starting from the very tips of my fingers like an oil spill, slowly seeping up my forearms. Pain raced up to my shoulder, ahead of the spell, and back down my spine, zinging it with fire. This wasn’t the same spell she’d hit me with in the clearing. This spell was different.
The bitch gave us two.
She must have snuck one in under Valdov’s nose. This one must have had a waiting period before activation. If the vampire knew she’d put a spell in my body to kill me, there would’ve been backlash. Sneaky witch.
All my limbs stiffened; I couldn’t move anything.
Inside my head, my wolf kept hacking at the spell. I pushed power into her, trying to feed her control. My arms throbbed and burned with a searing heat. My body’s instinct was to change, but it was too risky. The spell would probably kill me before I could shift. I had to defeat it now.
“Jess, can you hear me?” Tyler voice echoed in my ear. “What’s going on? You have to answer me.”
My eyes were open, but I couldn’t blink.
Tyler turned to Danny. “Get my father on the phone. We need help.”
No. “No,” I managed on a harsh breath. Both boys turned to stare at me. “Don’t.” I had to deal with this on my own. If my father found out, there was no way he’d let me leave town. I had to find my mate. At all costs. No matter what was going on with Jeff, or any of the other craziness, finding Rourke was my priority. My only priority. “No.” It came out slowly. “Please.”
My brother and Danny waited, both of them crouched next to me, concern on their faces.
I battled the insidious spell, pushing more control at my wolf, trying to draw power from my body and direct it at her, pumping her full. She ripped and struck at the red mass in a fervor, too fast for me to follow. I gasped for more air, my lungs barely inflating. We have to do this, I told her. We have to be stronger than her or we lose him forever. It’s giving a little, I can feel it. We’re almost there. I promise you she’s not going to win this. We are stronger. My wolf snarled, gnashing her teeth, forcing the lines back into submission, tearing the spell apart before it could fully metastasize in my body, which was exactly what it was trying to do.