He glanced over his shoulder to the door that had been broken down by that animal. “I’ve got to get us a car—”
“Mine is . . .” Back at Mozart’s—no, at her apartment. Which was miles and miles, and a lifetime, away. “Gone.”
“I’ll figure it out.” He set her back a little. “I’m going to lay you down, okay?”
After he’d lowered her onto the floor once more, he got to his feet and went over to a pack of some sort. “Maybe there are keys in here.”
“What . . . happened . . . dog?” What if the thing came back—
“He’s gone.” Luke spoke absently as he continued to rifle through whatever was in the bag. “He’s how I found you, actually.”
It was then that she turned her head—and retched. Across the room, looking like he’d been holding a bomb to his chest when it exploded . . . was the white-haired man: His naked body was sprawled in the far corner, a bloody smear pattern tracking across the dirty floor like he’d been dragged over there.
“Dear God,” she mumbled.
Whether it was the desecration of that body, or dehydration, or that cloth gag, her mouth was like steel wool, the inside of her cheeks chewed raw, her tongue nothing but a dry slab between her rows of teeth.
“Okay, I found a car key, but it’s not safe. I’ll bet they’ll have a tracker on it . . .” He tossed a key fob at the mangled remains. “Fuckers.”
Luke rose to his full height and stared at the wall, and that was when he properly registered to her for the first time. He was wearing black pants that didn’t reach his ankles and were tight around his thighs, and a black leather jacket that was zipped from hem to collar. The jacket also seemed too small, a gap of taut flesh around his hips and lower belly showing. And he was barefoot, too.
But like she was going to argue with the sartorial choices of her savior?
Or the wet hair, she noted numbly as he pushed the waves back again.
When he returned to her, he looked away sharply and she worried he’d been wrong, that the dog had returned. But then his gentle hands realigned her cut-open fleece and shirt, making sure her breasts were covered.
“You need to take this.”
Her eyes refused to follow her command to focus. But eventually, she recognized what he was holding out to her. A gun.
“I have to go find us a car,” he said. “And I know there’s no one in the building. You’re safer here than you are down on the street, especially if armed.”
It took everything in her not to beg him to take her along. But he was right.
“Help me . . . up. Prop me on the wall.”
Luke closed his eyes briefly. “Yes.”
Bending down, his hands, his big, careful hands, slipped under her arms. As he lifted her, she hissed in pain, and his face paled.
“I’m so sorry—”
“Move me,” she ordered, “just move me.”
Biting down on her molars, she endured the agony of a change in position, her arms and legs screaming as the joints, which had become locked, were forced to bend. And then, when she was leaned on the flat wall, her torso just slid to the side, her energy spent, her body refusing to work.
Luke ended up having to relocate her so she was in a corner.
“Gun,” she grunted.
She tried to lift her hands to hold it. She couldn’t.
Luke got the pack thing and put it carefully in her lap. Then he situated her forearms on the bundle and set the gun between her palms, training the barrel at the door at what would be chest height on an average man.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “You go . . . I’ll take care of myself.”
There was a pause. And then Luke surged forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
He was gone after that, rushing out the wide-open doorway.
As Rio took a deep breath, her ribs were like a steel cage around her lungs and nausea rose again. Then her vision receded to a fine point—although it came back quick enough.
Shifting her eyes over to the dead body, she swallowed compulsively. In the light that shined in from the stairwell’s fixture, the gleam of blood seemed evil—and then something moved.
Or . . . at least she thought it did. Probably just an autonomic jerk of muscle fibers.
Well, no doubt, it was that—considering most of the muscles of the chest were gone, and she wasn’t even sure which part of the glistening remains was the face.
She refocused on that open door and trained all her strength on her trigger finger.
In case she needed it to pull hard.
Lucan hit the walk-up’s staircase on a leap, jumping down landing to landing, swinging himself around by the banister. At the ground floor, he ignored the front entrance and shot to the back hall. Breaking out through the battered door at the end, he found a series of parking spots in the alley, but they were empty—of cars, that was. Discarded mattresses, a broken TV, and a couch that had its inner stuffing exposed to the elements took up the shallow asphalt square.
As he cursed out loud, he tasted anew the blood of the man he’d eaten.
Even though his wolf had done the chewing, as usual, he was left with the aftereffects, his full stomach not the kind of third wheel he needed right now.
Taking off at a jog, his bare feet were silent over the damp, cold pavement of the alley. When he got to the first intersection of a proper avenue, he looked left and right.
And jumped out in front of a car.
As the headlights splashed across him, he put both his palms forward like he was Superman and could pick the thing up by the front bumper—and then, because he was no hero at all, much less one that was super, he had to jump out of the way when the tires locked and the skidding started.