Chapter Fifty
Jake swallowed hard, but barely made it past the mounting mixture of rage and panic rising within him. He felt his gaze heat up painfully. But neither rage nor panic would not help him here. He needed to think clearly and get out of this. He needed to help Angel.
So he closed his eyes and tried fiercely to rein it all in. “You’re a Terror, aren’t you?” he asked, eyes still shut. A Terror was the only thing he could think of that could resemble another creature so completely, right down to the scent. It was why they were sometimes referred to as doppelgangers.
He flinched when she managed to touch his cheek after all, and every muscle in his body went rigid. His eyes flew open. The world appeared to him in sharp contrasts of black and red. He’d slipped into vampire mode.
She laughed softly. “Absolutely stunning. Gorgeous and smart as a whip.”
She sighed again, and gracefully used Angela’s pretend body to straddle him on the chair. He found himself gazing into her eyes, and he had never felt more at odds with himself than he did in that moment.
“What’s your game, Terror?”
He’d never come across a Terror he hadn’t killed. But every one of them had been male. So he couldn’t help but wonder. What did the monster dressed as Angela Clemens really look like? And what the hell was the meaning of what she was doing right now?
“Poor baby,” she said softly, cupping his cheek again. “I can see the wheels spinning in that handsome head of yours. But you don’t have the information you need to figure this one out, muscles.” She leaned forward until her lips were at his ear. “So let me fill in some blanks for you.”
Jake felt his teeth prick his bottom lip.
“The male of our species are the hunters. They’re the ones you wardens are always slaughtering without a second thought. The females, on the other hand? Well, it’s like the song says. We’re lovers, not fighters.” She laughed softly and leaned back again to catch his eyes. “We’re made for mating. And right now Jacob Crow, it’s my time. The Taal King made me a deal….” She laughed again, the sound deliriously perfect. “And here I am.”
Jake’s canines throbbed painfully in his gums. He twisted and pulled at his ropes, to no avail of course.
The Terror sat up, grasped the front of his button-down shirt, and ripped it open, revealing a vast expanse of sculpted muscle. Jake’s heart leapt into overdrive. Now he was straining in all kinds of places, and all he could think about was the fact that while this bitch looked and smelled and felt like the woman he loved, that woman was actually with the bastard Taal king, and the gods only knew what he was doing with her.
Curses spat from his mind, every single word short and sharp.
The Terror gazed down at him with those beautiful brown eyes shining with lust, and Jake’s throat grew very tight. Bases loaded, damn it. Two outs… two strikes….
“You don’t have to be so nervous, big guy,” she said with a small laugh. “I’ve cooked you up something to help make this easier for you.” She slid off him nice and slow, working Angela’s copied body the way she moved in his day dreams, then stood and turned to the dresser where her concoctions waited.
Jake pulled at the ropes again, yanking so hard he drew his own blood. But they held. He had to give the Terror credit; everything had been very well laid out.
When she turned back around with a new vial, this one the color of blood-red wine, he bared his teeth, showing her his fangs. “Not a chance in hell you’re getting that down my throat, bitch.”
She stopped and grinned. “Now why did that just suddenly turn me on so much?”
The bedroom door crashed open then, splintering like tinder under the brute force of a single engineering boot. Half a dozen men in motorcycle gear and patched leather jackets poured into the room.
The Terror dressed as Angela Clemens backed away toward the dresser, her chest rising and falling in new fear, her eyes suddenly glowing red.
Cain was at the forefront of the invading group. Jake was beyond grateful when the leader left his gun in the holster at the small of his back. Cain must have been thinking the same thing Jake was thinking: Take the bitch alive. She knows where Angel is.
But just in case the others hadn’t yet figured it out, Jake issued the order aloud. “We need her alive!”
One of the men drew a gun anyway, and aimed it at the Terror. But Jake could immediately see that it was the Tranquilizer, magic markings carved into every millimeter of its metal. The damage the gun inflicted was minimal and healed fast, but its bullets packed a wallop of a sleep spell.
In response, the Terror reacted lightning-fast. She turned and jumped atop the dresser behind her, then took two running steps across its surface to the window on the other side.
“Stop her!” he shouted.
Ace Logan, the Monsters clan sharp shooter, was the man with the Tranquilizer, so it was in good hands. Ace took quick aim and pulled the trigger. The sound of a bullet leaving the chamber split the air, but Angel was already gone, having shoved through the glass and dropped below their field of view.
Jake watched her break through that glass, and a part of him inside was sliced up at the thought of what it might have done to her. It’s not her, Jake, he had to remind himself.
Cain knelt behind Jake and dealt with the ropes strapping him down. Words of magic hissed from between the leader’s lips, negating the powerful binding spell that had kept him in the chair. Jake at once felt them loosen, and two good yanks had them shredded on the carpet.
Cain’s voice rang out. “Sykes, Mace, and Val you three head down to the gardens and bring back that Terror in one piece,” he commanded as he rose once more to his feet. “The rest of you hunt down any remaining witnesses who might be able to fill us in.” Everyone scattered at once to do his bidding.
Jake bent at the waist to rip the rest of the ropes free from around his ankles, then jumped to his feet. “Malek has her, Cain.”
“I know,” said Cain. “I found Sharpe passed out on the couch and recognized Malek’s fucking fingerprints all over his cantaloupe.” He looked Jake square in the eye and added, “You’re filthy with them too, by the way.”
“Don’t remind me,” Jake hissed. “Angel’s with him because of me.”
Jake leapt up onto the windowsill, bracing each side in a strong grip despite the glass that sliced into him. “How the hell did you find me?” He peered down at the dark grounds below.
“Sharpe told me,” Cain said. He was just behind him. “Eventually.”
They leapt from the window and landed on strong legs together.
“Angel is in Taal territory,” Cain told him. “Once we know her exact location, we have what we need to break through.”
Jake was impressed. Cain had apparently procured what was necessary to transport into an unseelie fae realm that was probably ripe with transportation wards put up by none other than the leader of the entire Taal nation.
Only Cain could do such a thing. But Jake was used to it. “Good,” he said simply as he let loose with his vampire power to scent the wind. Once he found the scent he wanted, he looked at Cain. The two shared an unspoken thought and blurred in different directions to cut the Terror off.
When he found that Terror, Jake was going to get Angel’s location out of her one way or another. And then he was going to transport into Malek’s world and thoroughly enjoy taking the fairy apart limb from fucking limb.