Her Billionaire, Her Wolf--The Novel(25)

It would have to wait. And that was because he would have lots to do soon.

“But, not ‘til dark, not ‘til dark....”

Despite the unease he felt as the skies slowly darkened around him, Jackson Woodard felt an erection growing behind his zippered standard issue pants.

A very thin, a very scary man, a man for whom Jackson Woodard had no recollection of his face, had promised him he would see her again and that he could do anything he wanted to once he had her.

He groaned as his hand went to his crotch, pushing at the ache there.

“But, not ‘til dark...not ‘til dark.”

The deputy sheriff grinned a horrible, lopsided smile and waited for the darkness to come.



~~~



Braze held the phone to his ear, but the words his lawyer was saying were not the ones he had hoped to hear.

“...no, no...they’ve got it all tied up, Mr. Abraxis. There’s no point in going down there.”

He heard real frustration in the man’s voice. Braze had promised him a handsome bonus to make short work of this. And it was understood by both of them the other side of that shiny coin meant that the lawyer and his entire firm would be cut loose from future dealings with the company if they did not meet expectations.

What he was saying to Braze did not sound like they had.

“Apparently, the Fresci woman has people in city hall. Family, actually. And highly placed.

“I’m just on my way back from trying to get in to see Miss Renardine, but the police won’t budge and they’ve got the backing from some judge who’s in the family’s pocket.”

Braze hammered his fist down upon his office desktop making everything on it jump.

He took a breath and let it out slowly, then said, “You realize that this is not the result I asked for..?”

The man on the other side of the phone call replied with a shaken voice, “I know...I know. But our hands are tied until tomorrow morning. They tell me eight a.m. at the latest.”

Braze could hear the fear in the man’s voice and it sickened him. All weakness was disgusting. Especially now, when it mattered most.

“Tomorrow morning is not good enough. I am going to her...right now.”

The lawyer stuttered something then found his words.

“But, the police, sir...they will stop you before you even get past the front desk.”

A smile slipped onto Braze’s lips and there was no humor in it. Rather, it was a promise of violence and ruin to anyone who got in his way.

“Let them try,” he growled before stabbing the button that ended the phone call.

The huge man stood up and walked to the plate glass windows that made up the office’s walls on all sides.

The city was beneath him. All of it, including the people punier than the smallest ants, was beneath him, yet here he was powerless to free Sara from their system. But only if he played according to men’s rules. Rules meant to corral the weak.

Then like a whisper that tickled along his spine, Braze heard someone speak.

The weakness is yours.

It had been for so short a time, but he had always known that it had merely been but a respite and not a reprieve.

With a voice that echoed through corridors of death and dust covered bones, the voice spoke again.

I warned you. And now she has made you weak...divided.

Braze brought his hands to his head, knowing it would do no good. Covering his ears would not shut out the voice that came from within.

“You lied to me, father. Clement is alive. You knew it all along.”

Silence followed, but Braze knew the presence had not left him. He could feel it crawling in his skin, slipping along the twisted lines of the tattoos upon his body.

It was necessary, Braze, said the voice at last.

He would have been a distraction to you. And, now despite all my efforts, all my sacrifices, you have chosen the same path of weakness. The woman has left you open for a blood letting, and you allow it. Despite all that I have taught you.

Braze growled.

“There is no use in trying to divert me from the subject. You lied about Clement. Which begs the question...what else you have kept from me?”

He forced his hands down from his head, then seized his shirt and ripped it open. Buttons scattered to the floor while upon his chest black patterns and figures crawled and twisted.

“What other lies have you told, Father?”

Braze’s voice twisted in bitterness as he continued.

“What else have you hidden from me with all your scheming?”

Silence...boy. You are not yet the wolf that I was. You go too far in your reproach.

Can you deny that I have been right at every turn? Can you deny that I made the ultimate sacrifice to bring our kind into the modern world of men and that because of me, we are not far from becoming alpha of them all?

My choices were never easy ones. Not for your mother, nor for your brother.

But, I made them. It was necessary. No less necessary than the research I carried out the world over, turning over the least rock to winnow out rare arcane knowledge that would allow us to tie our souls together for all time.

You were not the one who slipped his head into the noose and kicked the chair out from under himself.

I knew fear in that moment, but I mastered it in the name of our cause. And as the runes upon your body held fast to my spirit, doors opened upon patterns and prophecy that are ours for the taking.

The company has flourished ever since. You have flourished ever since.

Where is the deception in that, my son? You who willingly took the writing of long dead languages upon your very skin. You did so with your eyes wide open.

Braze trembled with the truth in his father’s words. He had allowed it. Accepted it.

But how he had come to hate it.

“Leave me be. I am going to her and will bring her back here. She will be my mate, father, whether you will it or no.”

In his mind, Braze heard the grumbling of a hoary throat. A growl issuing from the jawbone of a long dead beast that sifted into dry, ash covered laughter.

And this, too, was necessary. While we argue, the woman has been taken by a minion of the would-be usurpers.

Braze froze, then said, “What did you just say?”

She has fallen into the hands of the vampires, Braze, and has passed beyond your reach.

Will you now, at last, accept the futility of this pursuit and come back to your true purpose?

He understood, then. His father had never been so long-winded. Only this time he had charmed Braze into listening while Sara was spirited away by the enemy.

Braze bowed his head in apparent defeat, then said, “Yet another lesson for me from my wise father. He who would see the world ruled by wolves and was willing to take his own life in exchange for the power of seeing just enough of the future that we prosper upon every choice we make. We have traded fang and claw for board rooms and committees, all in a bid for a dominance undreamed of by our wild forebears.

“Alas, I would hazard you have not foreseen at least one thing. And that is that your lessons have taught a dutiful son how to hate his own father.”

He rushed across the room and seized an overcoat from within a closet, then slammed his thumb down on the elevator button.

“A hard lesson,” he whispered into the sudden silence, “...but a necessary one. Just like so many others you have taught me. This one, however, is not one I shall soon forget.”

The elevator doors whispered open and Braze quickly tapped the code that would take him to his private parking garage.

He would find her and take her back. Even if it killed him.



~~~



Officer Branson checked the duty roster again and groaned. He had just pulled two weeks straight of third shift and here he had been put down for another two weeks.

“What the fuck did I do to deserve this?” he grumbled to no one in particular then went to take his place at the front desk. Granted that third shift was not as long as most shifts in the police barracks, but anyone who thought the front desk job was easy was someone who had never had to plant their ass behind it and listen to the crazies as they rolled in through the night.

Three a.m. can’t come soon enough, he thought. That’s when he would have his lunch break. At that time of day, or night to be exact, he was never very hungry, but he could coffee up hard and down some empty carb’s to get him through until his relief showed up at 7 a.m.

It was already past 11 which meant the usual rush of weirdos in about an hour. They were mostly harmless, but sometimes there was serious trouble blown in the door with them and it would be up to him to sort it out.

He thought again about being forced to keep at it for a month straight and murmured, “Fucking fuckers...if I have to, I’ll have a word with the union   rep. I’ve got seniority for chrissakes.”

It would be nearly a year and half before the hour of his retirement would sound, but he felt like he had already been put out to pasture. He sighed, then said under his breath, “Rat bastards think I don’t deserve better....”

And then, just as quickly, he felt bad about cursing. His Rosie would not have liked it. Two years earlier Officer Branson had found his wife lying on the living room floor when he had gotten in late one evening from work.

He remembered how strange it was to hear the vacuum cleaner humming away at such an hour and that led him straight in to see what Rosie was up to.

She liked a clean house and she liked a clean mouth.

A saint is what she was, he thought as he remembered her frown each time a curse word slipped by his guard.