Cold Mercy (Northern Wolves) (29 page)
“She thinks she knows me? This bitch doesn’t know shit. She’s here just like you. Mine.”
“I do know you.” Ollie tensed. Desperation and anger made her voice low, harsh. “I study bastards like you for a living. I know every case. I know what makes you tick. I know if she doesn’t run and the sun comes up, you’re fucked.”
His hand slammed down against Rosalie’s back, claws sprouted from his fingertips, and he raked them down the woman’s spine before pulling back, barely keeping the wolf under his skin. “Run or die.”
His boot swung back, and Rosalie threw one last desperate glance at Ollie hanging above her. She couldn’t blame the woman at all. Rosalie Myers didn’t have the luxury of confidence. She was running and hoping that the lies he was feeding her were true. That running gave her a shot. That maybe as a tiger she could beat him.
“Don’t,” Ollie managed to whisper right before the woman darted out the front door.
The grin that slid over the Hunter’s face was triumphant, the harsh edge of his dimple suddenly carved into his face. Mocking. He turned those gold eyes back towards her. I win, that gaze told her, screamed it at her. Then he shuddered as fur washed out over clothing and in a blink of an eye, the monster that was the Hunter—the man who had killed fourteen people over the past two years—became a lean, black wolf.
Dark and deadly, he slipped out the door into the dwindling evening light, and Ollie Lawrence knew that, tiger-shifter or not, Rosalie Myers didn’t stand a chance.
***
“Damn. Dammit.” Ollie squeezed her eyes shut against the rush of tears. Crying wouldn’t get her down from the rafters, it wouldn’t get her out of this shack, and it damn well wouldn’t save the fool woman running through the woods. Her arms were going numb from the lack of blood and the pain. She didn’t have long to come up with a plan.
Breathe. Unlike the last time she’d tried this, the Hunter wasn’t standing in the room to beat her for trying to escape, and the man had been just stupid enough to use normal rope. No, not stupid. He wanted his victims to escape. To run. “Gonna get what you wish for, then,” she muttered and called up her inner dog, felt the shape-shift start in her bones.
The faint tingle of magick slipped through her, and Ollie focused on her wrists. Her limbs thinned, her normally chubby body twisting into the lean form of an Irish wolfhound. Even as big as her shaggy dog-self was, the noose wrapped around her hands was too big. She slipped loose and hit the ground with a yelp. She gave the broken cell phone one last look of longing, then shook off her fall and bolted out the door. Scruffy gray muzzle pressed to the ground, she loped after the combined scent of woman and wolf, smelled the moment Rosalie Myers became a tiger. Please, please don’t let me be too late.
About a mile from the shack she heard Rosalie roar, the sickening snarl of a wolf after that. They were close. A hundred yards out, max.
Ollie shifted back, her empty gun holster swinging at her hip. She wished he’d left her gun. But as much as he’d wanted his victims to run, wanted them to fight back, a still-armed Hound from Shifter Town Enforcement was apparently a bit too much for the cold-blooded bastard.
Her boots broke through the layers of dried leaf litter on the forest floor, acorns cracking under her weight, just as a gunshot ripped through the darkness. A sharp, piercing boom that eroded the peaceful quiet of a summer night and left it hollow. Barren. Even the crickets stilled in the grass. Ollie heard the tiger give one last snarl, and the gun fired again, followed by the heavy thud of Rosalie Myers’s dead body hitting the ground.
Too late.
Ollie stood in the darkness, the black arms of the trees waving in the wind as she listened to the Hunter’s boots crunching over the forest floor. She heard his low, satisfied chuckle. The deep bass of a howl tearing out of his throat. Wrong coming from a man rather than a wolf.
“Your turn,” he called out of the darkness, but Holly didn’t move.
The crack of his gun sounded again and pain lanced through her upper arm as the bullet ripped through fat and spun her around, knocking her to her knees. But there was no burn of silver on top of the pain. It was about the only luck she had going for her tonight. He hadn’t been out here to maim. He’d intended to shoot Rosalie Myers dead with the first shot, he didn’t need the torturous, slow burn of silver eating through her blood like poison.
And while a normal bullet hurt like hell, Ollie could work through this.
“Run.”
She gritted her teeth against the pain.
He wanted her to run. She couldn’t give him that. Another gun shot rang out and the ground spit dirt in her face as it swallowed the bullet. Another shot, and she jerked as it hit the ground again, this time to her other side. “Run, run, run.”
Ollie forced a smile to her face. She breathed out a slow breath. He could only kill her if she ran. “I told you. I know you.”
Black boots appeared out of the shadows in front of her, and she could hear him breathing heavily, feel him staring down at the back of her head. She refused to look up.
“It’s not fun for you if I don’t run.”
His knees bent as he reached down to drag her to her feet. To beat her. She didn’t give him the chance. Ollie launched up and into him, ramming into his midsection hard enough to send him toppling backwards. Her hands scrabbled for the gun, wrenching it out of his hands as she stumbled. She whirled, catching herself before she fell, gripping the Glock firmly as she lifted it to aim.
A black wolf split the night shrubs and was gone.
One shot rang out, followed by the hollow thud of a bullet biting into the trunk of a tree.
Gone. A cold vise clamped her heart as Ollie stood there alone in the dark, Rosalie’s still-warm body somewhere nearby, the only company left in the forest. It would be a long hike back to the nearest road, but at least she could show them the body. Give a description to a sketch artist. Have another chance to catch the bastard.
Exhausted, Ollie headed for the clearing in front of her and found the gold and black body of Rosalie sprawled out over the forest floor. Once magnificent, the tiger lay there broken and bloody. Ollie stared down, grief filling her as she thought of Rosalie and the fourteen other victims. She should have had him. Should have saved Rosalie Myers from becoming number fifteen. She should have done more. Instead, he was free to kill again.
To hunt again.
Find out more on Cry Sanctuary
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