he?”
He glanced over his shoulder and gave me a crooked smile. “I’ll tell you... if you share your burger. I haven’t eaten all day. Been busy, tracking the bastard and storing him in a safe place.”
“Storing him?”
“Yeah, he’s waiting for us.” As he said this, his voice rang with malice, making me wonder what he had in mind.
I gestured toward my burger. “You can have it all. The rings and shake will hold me.”
Jake swaggered back toward the armchair and sat. Smiling as if he’d gotten away with murder, he slid the burger his way and began eating. He devoured the whole thing in a few bites.
I watched him closely, wondering if this was a good time to tell him about Stephen. He needed to know that the man he called his friend might be the son of a bitch behind the impending war between vampires and werewolves. But would he believe me? Maybe it would be better if I got the truth out of Blake instead.
Jake patted his stomach. “That was better than the pizza I had earlier.”
I stopped mid-chew. “I thought you said you hadn’t eaten anything all day.”
“I lied. You were enjoying that far too much. I couldn’t allow that.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I’ve been called that more than once.” He dropped his satisfied smile and grew serious. “I came because I got a sense that you wanted to settle the score with Blake, but you don’t have to come with me. I can take care of it.”
“Oh, I’m coming with you.” My voice was a chilling whisper that made Jake peer at me closely. He looked surprised and worried when he noticed my expression.
My seething anger had worked itself to a boil at the thought of taking revenge on Blake for what he’d done to my mother. The bastard would pay.
It seemed I finally had a good use for my rage.
Chapter 12
Crickets chirped loudly, and a waning crescent moon hung high in the sky. Jake walked in front of me, his boots crunching leaves and branches without care. Tall trees loomed above us, some of their branches almost bare as leaves were only beginning to sprout. It was a cool fifty-eight degrees, nice for a walk in the woods.
I glanced around, feeling a dreadful sense of déjà vu.
“Wait,” I said, “I know this place. This is where we found Emily Garner, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
The perverted vampire who had kidnapped the little girl had brought her here and left her tied up in a cave, hoping to eat her for dessert after a night of hunting in the city. Except, I had tracked her just in time, and Jake and I rushed here to save her.
I shivered at the memory. We had almost been too late, and only Jake’s werewolf speed had stopped the vamp from harming her. The monster had been poised to drain her dry when we entered the cave. Jake leaped on him, clamped his jaws around his neck, and hurled him against the cave’s rock wall. The vamp had been no match for Jake, though the blood leech rose from the ground to attack me and raked his claws across my stomach before Jake did him in for good.
Up ahead, the outline of a craggy hill appeared. My body began tingling with anticipation, and my wolf stirred restlessly under my skin, ready to burst out into the open.
The cave’s mouth was pitch dark. An edge of fear sliced through me, and I went for my cell phone, thinking of turning on the flashlight. The cave was shallow, and dim moonlight seeped into it, enough for my werewolf eyes to see by. I let the phone be.
Jake walked ahead of me, holding up an arm to pause me long enough to look into the cave and make sure it was safe to go in. After a quick check, he put his arm down and I followed.
Blake was kneeling on the rocky ground, straining against two thick chains anchored to the wall. His right eye was swollen shut, making me wonder if my little sister had truly succeeded in putting it out for good. Black veins stretched across his chest, a sign that he had wolfsbane in his system, the poison Jake had used to subdue him and get him here. Sweat dripped down his forehead and bare chest. Clearly, he’d been fighting to get free.
“I told you not to waste your time trying to escape. Those chains are special,” Jake sneered.
“You fucking bastard. You will pay