Replica(65)

“Fuck, this is going to get ugly.”

Unraveling the rope from my waist, I tied it around both sides of the doorknob behind me and then made a slip knot on the other end. I grabbed the knot and tightened it around my wrist, grabbing the rope as well.

I gritted my teeth and walked toward the image of Ivan’s wife. Each step I took shuddered beneath me—a portent of what I knew was coming. Ivan would have run to her, never noticing the shift in the floor.

As I reached her, the image flickered and went out, and the floor dropped out below me. I swung down into the darkness. The jerk at the end of the line snapped my body sideways and I slammed into a slick metal wall.

“Ivan.”

Something shifted below me, and I looked down. There were four werewolves, three with glowing red eyes. Their bodies were hulking, huge and covered in dark fur. Except for the one whose coat was several shades lighter. He looked up at me with a pair of chartreuse eyes I had grown rather fond of.

“Ivan, move it, wolf. Despite my propensity for a long life, I’m not going to wait forever.”

He leapt up to me, his claws digging into my hips. I gritted my teeth, biting the words out. “Get your ass up here.”

He climbed up my body, pausing only to lick my cheek before continuing up. A lick from a werewolf should not have made me smile.

Damn the grin on my face.

As soon as he was above me, I started up after him. And was grabbed from below by a set of teeth that clamped into my left foot. “Let go, you fucker!”

I lifted that one foot high enough that I could slash at the werewolf with my free hand. The silver stake cut across his face diagonally, popping one of his eyeballs. Screaming, he fell back to the ground with a thud.

Then the rope jerked upward and I was out of the hole in a matter of seconds.

Ivan’s body had returned to his human form. And he was buck fucking naked. I snapped my eyes upward, doing my best to un-see what I’d seen.

“Come on, we have to get back to Rachel,” I said. “Knowing her, she’s already on her way. I’ve been gone for almost forty-five minutes.”

“Why did you come for me?”

I untied the rope and pushed past him. “We’ve got to move.”

“Lea, why did you come for me?”

I could have lied, could have told him he was just a part of the team. That Rachel had made me come after him.

I spun around, grabbed his face and kissed him. His arms wrapped around me, crushing me to him. I pulled back after a few seconds. “Because.”

“Because?” He grinned, and there he was. The wolf I’d first met in the taxi.

“Yeah. Because. No gloating. Let’s get Rachel, kill Stravinsky and blow this place the fuck up.”

“I notice there was no mention of finding clothes for me,” he said.

“I assumed that was automatically on the list.”

He snorted. “I think you like the show.”

“Well, you certainly like giving it.”

He burst out laughing. “Oh, Lea. Every time I think I have you pegged, you surprise me.”

We were already out of the ballroom, headed back the way I’d come. He grabbed my shoulder and tugged me back toward the last intersection, his nose in the air. “Wait.”

Oh, fuck no. “Don’t tell me she’s in here already.”

He grimaced and shrugged. “Both of them. She’s got Antonio with her. And there are wolves on her ass if I’m smelling right.”

I pushed him. “Go, go!” Another time I would have enjoyed the view, but fear coursed through me. Rachel was already in here, and with only Antonio to help her...Madre de Dios, we were all going to die.





CHAPTER 30





RACHEL



“We have to set those explosives and get the fuck out of here,” Antonio hissed in my ear.

“Not until we stop them from killing those people.”

He grabbed my shoulders and leaned back to look into my face. “How do you propose we do that?”

“I don’t know, but I have to at least try.” I tried to jerk loose, but he held me in place.

“Stop and think this through. There are only two of us against all of them. It’s one thing to sneak in here and set explosives, but it’s another thing entirely to take them head on.”

“Then you go set the explosives, and I’ll take on the other mission.”

He cursed in Spanish, then pulled me closer. “And if I drag you out of here?”

I snorted. “You can try, but I highly doubt you’ll be capable of fathering children if you do.” His hesitation irritated the shit out of me. “You would seriously let them kill those people?”

“It’s not like I’m pulling the trigger,” he said defensively. “And if the odds were even slightly bent in our favor, I would consider it. But it’s a suicide mission. If we do this, then we run the risk that we won’t get to set the explosives. If we don’t destroy this place, a lot more villages will be destroyed.”