KNIGHT
Chapter 3
When no one else appeared, Alexia realized Duran’s threat of extra men nearby was a bluff. Still, there was something in his bearing that said he wouldn’t just leave her to these nightmarish things either.
Screaming, she scrambled to her feet as both monster-wolves launched at them. Duran moved to take the full impact of one, landing hard against the left wall. He managed to get a grip on its enormous, furry shoulder and hold it at arm’s length as it snapped its sharp, drooling jaws again and again like a lethal bear trap.
Alexia braced for the other to attack her, but instead it circled behind Duran and bit down hard on his shoulder. Duran threw his head back with a painful yell, then fought to pry it off, while rounding a hard kick at the first with his black combat boot.
Her protector was toast. There was no way anyone could survive this.
And when these beasts were done with their first meal, Alexia knew she was next.
Suddenly Duran twisted positions, then grabbed and lifted the second beast high above him, while rounding another kick to the first’s snout, the beast whining painfully. With incredible strength, he banged the second’s muzzle against the building again and again, brick, mortar and stucco crumbling and leaving huge dents.
Finally, he tossed it to the concrete ground, and it slumped lifelessly near Moustache’s unconscious body.
Alexia turned to see the other growling beast recovered and crouched on all fours ready to charge Duran again like a battering ram.
“Look out!” she screamed.
He shifted and ducked from the creature’s opened jaws at the last second, then gripped its hind legs, yanking it on its side with a heavy thud. Instantly the beast twisted up to its massive claw paws and launched again at Duran, its jaws clamping down hard on his left shoulder in the same spot as before.
Duran wrestled with it in a spiral death roll over and over, the monster clawing and snapping while he threw punch after punch to its drooling muzzle. Blood poured from Duran’s shoulder wound. His shirt and jeans were now shredded in several places.
Alexia noticed Red’s bored expression as if waiting for this inhuman battle to wind down so that he could get back to business.
That didn’t make sense. With Duran distracted, why didn’t the man just circle around the fight and overpower her himself? Instead he held back, as if not wanting to get his stylish clothes dirty.
Which meant he was that confident of the outcome.
And Duran was losing.
The creature got in more deep bites and claw scratches, leaving her protector wracked and bloody.
Alexia wanted to help him.
No. She needed to help him. Everything within her vibrated hotly with this overpowering instinct. It was a primal, unreasonable sensation she had never felt before.
But what could she do against these nightmares come to life?
Frantically, Alexia checked around, spotting an empty liquor bottle in the corner. She dove for it. Gripping the nose, she smashed it against the building, rewarded with a sharp, jagged edge.
Duran was on his back, barely holding the snapping beast at bay with his hands and feet. Alexia ran over and jumped up with a warrior yell, jabbing the wolf monster in its ear with her makeshift weapon.
It reflexively shook off the annoying prick, then snapped its focus around to her. She jabbed again, aiming for its glowing amber eyes, getting its snout instead.
Not that it hurt it any. Still, it distracted the creature long enough for Duran to jump up, grab and flip the thing on its side.
The man’s own rapid-fire fists hammered down on the best’s face again and again with a speed and force that any prize fighter would envy, until one final powerful blow knocked it completely out.
Alexia’s entire being eased, believing the fight was finally over.
Until she saw both Duran and Talanov now facing off.
The Russian smiled thinly, his wrists expertly circling two daggers he gripped by their wooden handles. His own eyes then glowed bright amber as he grinned wider, displaying his slowly enlarging canines.
Holy crap on a cracker, he was one of them too!
“Just you and me now, old friend, yes?”
Duran gritted his teeth. “We were never friends, Talanov. Never will be.”
“So be it.”
With lightning speed, Talanov flung his left dagger hard and fast, but Duran dodged it with impossible agility, then charged him like a locomotive.
The two men struggled, both throwing punches, Red biting with his now sabre-teeth canines. Duran painfully yelled out as Talanov stabbed his side with the remaining knife and yanked it out to stab again. Duran gripped his wrist, holding the knife at bay, then twisted so hard that bones crunched and Talanov yowled in agony.
Did he win then? Was it over this time?
“Alexia, the dagger!” Duran called to her. “Throw the dagger!”
She frowned, spotting the second knife inches from her foot.
“Throw it!”
Talanov’s eyes glowed a deep, furious red that matched his face as he struggled harder with Duran. Although his wrist was now grossly contorted, somehow the Russian was fighting even harder than ever before.
Stomach gripping, Alexia grabbed the knife and flung it at the Russian, but it went wide and away from them. Still Duran impossibly reached out and caught it by its handle, driving it into Red’s chest in one fluid motion.
Blood spurted out like an erupted volcano. Alexia watched in morbid curiosity and utter horror as it poured from the wound, saw the Russian’s eyes widen, the red glow dimming, his canines shrinking back to normal, human teeth. His body shook twice as he gurgled blood from his lips, then slumped backwards onto the ground, staring unblinking at the night sky.
Duran yanked the dagger out of the body, wiped and sheathed it inside the waistband of his jeans, then rushed over to grip her shoulders. “Alexia, are you hurt? Are you alright?”
Alright?
She blinked up at his dark gray eyes.
No. Not alright. Not in the least.
She frowned down at the wolf monsters, sucking in a breath as dark fur retracted from their torsos and limbs, their bodies deflating, their arms, legs, faces reshaping back to nude human forms. If someone were to happen by, it would just look like some perverted drug deal gone bad, not the horror film it was.
“Alexia!” Duran shouted, his palm cupping her cheek, pulling her eyes away from the gory slasher scene and back to his face. “We have to get out of here!”
“W-what are they? Where did they come from?”
“Now, Alexia!” Duran yelled. “They won’t be out for long!”
He must mean the naked men he knocked out. Not Moustache who drugged himself and would probably be out for a long while. Not the redheaded Russian who was lying in a thick, growing pool of his own blood, his eyes blank and glassy.
Fixed. Dilated.
Dead eyes.
Like Ryan McCormack’s slumped at her feet, the gleaming steel ten-blade scalpel protruding from his blood-drenched throat, his warm fingers still clinging to her stained scrub pants, while she stared down at his lifeless, glassy appeal to help him, forgive him…
“Alexia, we have to go!”
Duran’s quick shake of her shoulders jolted her back to their present nightmare. She blinked hard at him and nodded.
The arcade door opened, and a lanky employee exited with a bag of trash.
“There!” she said, pointing.
Duran pushed her and surfer boy inside, pulling the thick, metal door shut. There was a key in the lock, and he easily twisted and broke it off in the chamber. Alexia gaped at his incredible strength and ingenuity, impressed by both.
“Dude!” surfer boy protested.
Ignoring him, Duran grabbed Alexia’s forearm and pulled her through the tight maze of noisy, flashing video games and Friday night gamers. He pulled his cellphone out and was shouting instructions above the din while they dodged around and through the crowds. Finally, they pushed out the glass double doors to the main street just as a black sedan raced up to the curb, squealing to a dusty stop.
“My guy,” he shouted. “Inside, quick!”
Duran opened the back door and jumped into the backseat after Alexia just as the driver hit the gas. Both of them looked behind through the rear window, waiting, watching.
Thankfully no one exited the arcade as it grew smaller and smaller into the distance. Only when the car rounded a far corner out of complete sight did Alexia feel safe enough to turn around and relax back in the seat.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “I don’t know where you came from or how you knew I needed help, but thank you.”
Duran grunted, still checking behind them.
The driver snorted, drawing Alexia’s attention. He looked to be in his early thirties, the same as Duran, with blond hair and attractive features. “Neil, the lady is offering you her appreciation. Say something.”
“Like what?” Duran grumbled, still checking behind them.
“Something, I don’t know, human?”
Duran narrowed a stare at the driver, then jutted a chin at Alexia. “Welcome.” Then turned back to the driver, “San Diego International is out now.”
“I know,” the driver said grimly. “They probably have John Wayne covered too. Tom spoke to the coyotes earlier, and they agreed to let us use their plane at their Palm Desert FBO.”
“Since when do they help us do anything?”
“There were some quid pro quo exchanges. Major ones. Dirty coyotes.”
“How long ‘til we get there?”
“Few hours tops if we take the backroads, but it’ll definitely shake the Talanovs off our tail until we’re up in the air and across the border. Talanovs won’t even think of going into coyote territory after their last confrontation. Juarez’s pack may be smaller, but they’re heavily armed and they’re here. It’s our best shot.”
“Do it,” Duran ordered, and the driver spoke into his Bluetooth to make the arrangements.
Alexia blinked hard. What kind of international espionage had she stumbled onto?
She shook her head. Leave it to her to walk into a Starbucks for a latte and land in some James Bond movie. In any case, she was just glad that her part in it was all over, and she could finally go home and soak in a long, hot bath until her skin pruned.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut, wishing she had never gone into the stupid coffeehouse in the first place. As usual, her timing in life just sucked. No one would ever believe her if she told them half of what happened.
If she wasn’t already asleep and dreaming this whole thing. This whole thing was so bizarre that she pinched herself to be sure.
“You can take a left at the next light,” Alexia told the driver. “My street’s only two more blocks after that. And thank you again. So much.”
He looked at Duran’s reflection in the rearview mirror.
Duran shook his head at her. “You can’t go back to your place, Miss Raine. If the Talanovs don’t already have collectors waiting there, it’ll be the first place they’ll reacquire you. And they won’t be gentle about it next time, trust me.”
Back in the alley was gentle?
“Fine, then take me to my uncle’s home. He lives downtown on Baker Street. Just take the next—”
“That’ll be the second place they’ll pick you off. Your office after that, and any other relatives or friends or hangouts. They’ve obviously been watching your movements for a while now, waiting for the right moment to act. You have no choice but to come with us to our safe house.”
“And where would that be?” she asked suspiciously.
“Washington State. That’s all you need to know right now.”
“Uh, hell no, I’m not going out of state with you guys. Take me home now, or I’m calling the cops and having you arrested for kidnapping!”
The driver chuckled, and Duran sliced him a venomous glare. “She’s a fighter, Neil. Gotta give her that.”
They had no idea. Because Alexia wasn’t about to trade one set of kidnappers for another.
The car slowed down to round another street corner, and she opened the door, ready to dive out and land in a tuck-and-roll. But Duran was blindingly faster as he grabbed and yanked it closed. The driver winced, apologized and locked all the doors.
Spotting an oncoming car, Alexia waved and screamed, “Help, I’m being kidnapped! Help me, please!”
Duran grabbed her wrists and held them down. She viciously tried to fight off his hold, but his grip was like an iron vice.
“Hold her down already, Neil, before she gets us pulled over!” the driver called back, whipping around a corner, then racing up a long, empty straight-away. “Please, Ms. Raine, we’re only trying to help you!”
Duran banded Alexia back to the seat. When she realized she couldn’t squirm out of his vice grip, she feigned hostile resignation, remaining quiet and still. The corners of his mouth twitched, letting her know that he wasn’t buying her cooperative act.
She waited a long five minutes, knowing he couldn’t keep this up forever. When his grip loosened slightly, she wrenched one arm free and pulled the knife hanging from his belt.
He cursed and gripped Alexia’s wrist holding the blade inches from his face, then he easily overpowered her, prying the knife from her fingers. Reflexively her other palm shot up and rammed his nose, and his head snapped back hard.
There was a stunned two seconds. Then he wiped away a few drops of blood, narrowing a dangerous glare at her as he tossed the knife upfront to the driver.
“Don’t do that again,” he stated, enunciating every word quiet and deadly.
“Whoa, Neil! No female’s ever got the best of you before,” the driver said. “That’s one for the books.”
“Shut up,” he growled back, not taking his eyes off her. “We should tie her up. Gag her.”
Alexia’s stomach gripped, knowing it wasn’t an idle threat.
The driver shook his head. “That’s why I’m the mouthpiece and you’re the muscle. You have no diplomacy. Hey, is this..?”
He picked up the dagger by its wooden handle and examined it.
“Yes,” Duran stated hard, narrowing his steel gray eyes at Alexia.
Cursing, the driver dropped it as if it burned his fingers, then looked back at Duran in the rearview mirror. “Anyhow, she deserves to know what going on. I told you before she’ll cooperate when she does.”
Duran sliced him a look of doubt.
“Trust me,” the driver argued. “Alexia, I’m Jake Bryant. This uncouth guerilla is Neil Duran. And we were sent here to protect you by your father.”
Alexia’s eyes shot to his reflection in the mirror. “Nice try. Both my parents died two years ago.”
“Not Dr. Jonathan Raine, the man who married your mother. Erik Leonid, your mother’s college boyfriend. Your birthfather.”
“Erik Leo—?”
Air rushed from her lungs, recognizing the name. It was something she stumbled across six years ago when rifling through some old photos to put together an anniversary collage for her parents.
Her mom acted odd, even guilty when Alexia displayed the aged photo of her with some blond, good-looking college guy.
His name and the date had been written on the back of the picture. Rebecca Raine blew it off as someone she casually dated when her dad was at medical school back east and she was finishing her own degree up north in Washington State. She said the guy had died in a car accident and had assured Alexia she confessed her fling to her dad when he returned some months later. Their relationship picked up where it left off, they married, had Alexia, end of story.
She didn’t judge. Maybe Jon Raine dated others too while they were separated and doing their own thing. Not that either would confess it to Alexia since personal information was often censored in their family. None of them were the touchy-feely types.
“No,” she said. “No, my father is…was Jon Raine. My parents were married a full year before I was even born, long after Erik Leonid was killed. I’ve seen my parents’ marriage certificate.”
“Then your mother had the date changed on the document,” Jake Bryant said. “And Erik Leonid is very much alive. We’re taking you to meet him now.”
Alive? Mom’s boyfriend…my birthfather?
“You’re lying,” she accused.
“Show her the letter,” Neil ordered.
Jake reached into a file folder sitting on the front passenger’s seat and handed back a piece of faded stationery. Neil took it and offered it to her. Stubbornly Alexia waited a few beats before ripping it from his fingers. He turned the dome light on so she could read it.
It was written on pink linen paper with delicate flowers edging the bottom corners, worn and dingy with age. She had seen this particular stationery before, a very long time ago when she was five or six years old. But it was the handwriting Alexia couldn’t deny. It was definitely her mother’s unique script.
Please Erik, it began.
Not “Dear Erik” or Dearest Erik”, but “Please Erik”.
Desperate.
And her mother was never a desperate woman. She was thoughtful, meticulous, and was never, ever emotional or impulsive. That was something Alexia had always admired about her.
Please Erik,
This is your last chance. I’m having Jerry give this letter to you since you won’t take any of my calls or won’t see me or anything.
I meant what I said. I love you and don’t care what you are, as long as we’re together. We can work it out. Please, please, I just want you to be in our lives in whatever way possible.
But this is the last time I’ll ask you. Jon called last night and says he wants me back. I haven’t told him about the baby yet, but I know he’d be willing to marry me anyhow. I don’t want our child growing up without a father, but I want that man to be you.
I’ll wait tomorrow at Rueben’s until 2:00 pm. If you don’t show up, I’ll have my answer and never bug you ever again. You can forget all about us, pretend as if we never existed.
Erik Leonid, you’re my one truest love, and I’ll never give up hoping that someday you’ll come back for us. I said that I would love you forever, and I meant it.
So please don’t give up on us. Please come and claim me, claim us. Claim our love.
Love forever, Rebecca
The note slid from her fingers.
Her parents lied to her all these years? Then went so far as to forge the date on their marriage certificate to cover up the truth?
For what purpose?
No, this was crazy. It wasn’t like they lived in the middle ages where unwed mothers were stigmatized or stoned to death. Family connections were complicated these days.
Besides, who cared about genetics? Alexia loved the man who raised her, who gave her his name, who stood awake half the night Christmas Eve putting together her first bicycle, who read her bedtime stories and fed her ice chips and Tylenol when she had the flu.
So why the extensive cover-up? She would have understood. People aren’t perfect. They make mistakes. God, if anyone knew that, she did.
If only both of them would have trusted her with the truth, trusted her love and devotion to them. It was rock solid.
Was.
Alexia looked up to Jake’s reflection and saw sympathy in his blue eyes. Then she turned to Neil whose expression remained hard and even, although there was something softer there too. Not sympathy though—empathy. As if he knew firsthand the confusion, conflict, denial and betrayal she was experiencing.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You say he’s alive? This Erik Leonid?”
“Yes,” Jake answered. “He’s there at…my father’s house.”
“Why hasn’t he ever contacted me then?”
He exchanged a look with Duran who said, “That’s a good question you should ask him yourself when you see him.”
Jake nodded. “He’ll be able to give you more specifics then. He’s very anxious to finally meet you.”
Alexia picked up and read her mother’s note again, then shook her head. “No. No, I don’t want to meet the man. He obviously abandoned my mother when she was pregnant. And he didn’t think it important enough to contact me my entire life, so he doesn’t deserve to know me now.”
She tossed the note back to Duran. “Take me home. I just want to forget about this entire horrible night. I swear I won’t call the cops on you for kidnapping me.”
“Rescuing you,” he corrected.
She sneered at him. “Take me home. Now!”
“No,” he said.
“What my diplomatic partner is trying so hard to say,” Jake added, “is that it’s too dangerous for you there right now. We’ve been ordered to protect you, and we can’t do that until we’re within our own territory again.”
“Your territory?”
“It consists of most of the Pacific Northwest,” Jake explained. “Oregon, Washington, Idaho, some of Utah. We’re vulnerable right now until we get past the Siskiyou mountains, right before you get to Shasta Lake in Northern California. Fortunately, so are the Talanovs who are out of their territory as well. We at least have local U.S. friends and resources that’ll help us until we’re across our own borderlines.”
“What borders?” Alexia shook the convoluted references from her brain. “Wait, who were those thugs anyhow?”
“The Talanovs are the main Pack that holds most of Russia, Alaska, and a little of western Canada,” Jake continued as if she now understood. “Yes, they’ve managed to gain ground onto North American and even U.S. soil. Your father, Erik Leonid, is a former Talanov Pack member. A very important member, in fact. Twenty-seven years ago, he defected from them and came to us seeking asylum. We Bryants are a very large and powerful Pack, holding a lot of territory and assets and even sway with the Were High Council.”
“Nothing you’re telling me makes any sense!” she snapped.
Jake continued as if he didn’t hear her. “The Talanovs tried many times to convince Erik to return, promising to pardon his betrayal. That’s unprecedented, of course. Treason from your birth Pack is never a forgivable offense. But your father has a rare gift that’s very valuable. Erik refused, of course, so they’ve tried several times throughout the years to kidnap him in order to force his cooperation. But our Pack is too large and too strong, and he was smart never to leave the sanctuary of our territory. So all their attempts thus far have failed.”
Neil took Alexia’s right hand, his grip tightening when she tried to pull away. Carefully he dabbed her blood-stained palm with a cool antiseptic cloth he had pulled from a first aid kit, then bandaged it. His touch was surprisingly gentle as he methodically patched her up scrape by scrape as Jake continued his bizarre explanation.
“Early this week Erik approached my father, Rob Bryant, and confessed something that shocked us all. He had a daughter that he had kept secret all these years in order to protect her identity. Which he’d been able to do, until someone, somehow broke into his office and stole several important documents. One of them being an old copy of your birth certificate.”
“My birth certificate? How would he even get that? There are privacy laws.”
Neil lightly blew on one of the cleaned scrapes, drawing Alexia’s attention back to him as he continued his soft ministrations. His eyes were definitely a dark, steel gray, but with a warmth that she could see even in the darkness.
To say that he was male model attractive was too shallow a description, and incomplete. There was also a menacing quality to his sensuous, earthy features, something Alexia had seen from time to time in the Navy Seals who frequented the San Diego area. But more. Much more.
His large hand holding hers burned warmth through the rest of her like slow flowing lava. She didn’t like it. And she did.
Alexia jerked out of his hold.
“Trust me, there are ways,” Jake continued. “Anyhow he pulled a copy right after you were born for reasons you’ll have to ask him about. He would’ve been smart to destroy it, of course. It was irresponsible to keep it all these years.”
Duran lightly took her chin and dabbed ointment on her scraped jaw. It sparked and tingled all the way down to her toes, making her feel all sorts of unwanted sensations until he released her. He gave her a slight, cheerless smile, making her heart pick up speed, forcing Alexia to look back to the driver who continued his bizarre explanation.
“Because of the content and nature of the other documents, we know it must have been a Talanov spy or informant who broke into his office. That’s a different and very long story. In any case, that’s how they accidentally discovered your existence and sought to locate and kidnap you.”
Like a magnet’s elemental pull, Alexia unwillingly shifted her stare back to Duran’s that held her motionless for several seconds. Her eyes then moved down to the interesting tattoo on his right inner forearm. It was a Greek letter “alpha” in red, and it had some kind of a knife slashing across it, four small gold stars, two on each side of the symbol.
He raised his chin, observing her inspecting it. He turned it out slightly so that she could get a better look, and she jerked her focused away, pretending she wasn’t curious or interested.
“Okay, so they took a copy of my birth certificate, so what?” she said to the driver. “It only has my dad’s name listed on it. My real dad, Jonathan Raines.”
“Timing,” he said. “Your mother went to the University of Washington the same time that my father sent Erik there to complete his business degree. My dad has a keen sense for finding business talent and recognized Leonid’s potential. Erik’s run one of our main corporations ever since. Very successfully, I might add.
“Anyhow, that’s where Erik Leonid and Rebecca Hartford met. Sparks flew, bada-bing, and you were born. Finding your birth certificate only confirmed his interest in you, and the Talanovs would’ve questioned why and did the math. They also have their own experts able to verify their suspicions, then locate you.”
“Again, so what? Why do they even care? What do they want with me? I’m nobody special.”
Jake looked back at her in the rearview mirror. “To claim you, Alexia. Because you’re very special. You’re the sole biological child of Erik Leonid. They believe it’s their legal right to find and claim you before any other Pack tries.”
“Claim me? Pack? You’re talking like they’re all some kind of animals or…”
And then Alexia put the pieces together.
“Those men—Oh God, they looked like…turned into..!”
“Lycanthrope,” Neil Duran finally said. “Werewolves. Just like you.”