The Dark-Hunters (309 page)

Nick had held a unique view of the world.

Wren pulled his wet shirt off as he headed up the stairs. Marvin came bounding up behind him. He’d only climbed halfway up when a bad feeling went through him.

The woman …

She was in trouble.

Wren mentally willed a black T-shirt on his body as he sensed imminent threat for her. Without a word to Marvin, he flashed himself out of the building, onto the street.

Chapter 2

Marguerite slowed as she again felt the sensation of someone watching her from the shadows. She was heading down Chartres, toward Jackson Square, so that she could grab a taxi and get home before it got any later.

Looking around, she half-expected to find Wren there.

She didn’t. What she found was four scruffy-looking men who were eyeing her with an unfounded interest. They were keeping to the shadows as if they didn’t want her to identify them. Fear assaulted her. Their attention was just a bit too focused. A bit too intense and threatening as they made their way straight for her.

She glanced about, looking for other people, but this time of night, there weren’t any around.

Not even a tour group.…

It’s okay. Stay in the light and keep heading forward. They won’t hurt you if you stay in plain sight.

She sped up as she heard the sound of running feet. Just as she was sure they would run past her, one of the men grabbed her and slung her into a partially opened courtyard.

Marguerite tried to push him away to run.

He slapped her hard. “Give me your purse, bitch.”

She was so scared, she couldn’t even think to pull it off her arm.

The other men ran into the courtyard and slammed the gate shut. One of them grabbed her bag and tore her shirt in the process of ripping it off her shoulder.

“Hey,” he said to the other three. “Y’all want to have some fun with her?”

Before they could answer, the one speaking went sprawling to the ground. Someone came out of the darkness and handed the purse back to her.

Marguerite looked up at the newcomer and wanted to cry as she saw Wren there. No longer slumped, he stood at his full height … and it was commanding. Intense. There was a feral gleam in his eyes that wasn’t quite sane as he put himself between her and the others. He looked as if he could easily kill everyone there and not even wince.

The men attacked.

She staggered back and watched in awe as Wren fought them off with an incredible skill. One mugger came at him with a knife. He caught the man’s wrist and twisted it until it snapped and the knife fell from his hand. Then Wren backhanded the man so hard, the attacker rebounded off the wall.

Another came at Wren’s back only to be flung over his head to the ground while another rushed him from behind. He hit Wren full force, but Wren didn’t so much as stagger or flinch. He turned on the man and knocked him back.

Marguerite was relieved until one of the muggers pulled out a gun and aimed it at them.

Her breath caught as Wren froze.

A heartbeat later, the man fired the gun. Wren rushed him and knocked it out of his hands. The other three ran off as Wren slugged the one who’d held the gun. The man fell to the ground, then scurried away.

“Are you okay?” Marguerite asked as she ran over to Wren. “Did he shoot you?”

“I’m fine,” he said, picking up the gun from the ground. He opened it up and removed the bullets before he smashed it to pieces against the old stone wall. He dropped it, then turned to look at her as he tossed the bullets into the darkness. “Did they hurt you?”

“No. Thanks to you, I’m fine.” Relieved beyond belief, she was shaking so badly that she wasn’t even sure how her legs could continue to hold her upright. She ached to reach out to touch him in gratitude, but there was something about him that said he didn’t want to be touched.

Anger darkened his eyes as he glanced to her torn shirt. She could sense that he wanted to chase the muggers down on her behalf, and it warmed her greatly.

“I don’t normally do things this stupid,” she said quietly. “I tried to call a taxi on my cell phone, but they said it would be a thirty-to-forty-minute wait. I thought I could make it to the Square to hail one down there or to at least wait at the Café du Monde, where it would be safer. And then the next thing I knew they were after me.… Thank God you came when you did.”

Her gratitude seemed to make him uncomfortable.

“C’mon,” he said, tilting his head toward the street. “I’ll walk you home.”

She hesitated at his offer. “I live down by the zoo. It’s too far to walk.”

He looked as if he might argue. “I’ll get you home. Don’t worry.”

Marguerite put her purse on her shoulder as he tucked his hands into his pockets and led her out of the courtyard, back to the street. His white shirt was gone and instead he wore a black T-shirt that hugged a fit and tight body. Even though he wasn’t overdeveloped, like a bodybuilder, she could see every muscle clearly defined on him.

He was incredibly hot and sexy. And at that moment, he was her hero. She’d never been more grateful to anyone. Little did he know that he could do anything he wanted to with her right then and she wouldn’t mind in the least. In fact, she wanted him to hold her to help calm her ragged nerves, but he didn’t appear interested at all.

She felt the familiar pang of being nothing but a friend to guys. Just once in her life, she wished that a man would look at her with passion in his eyes. That a man would find her sexy and attractive. But they never did, not unless they were courting her father and were using her to get to him.

She might as well be invisible. She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed as the familiar grief settled deep in her heart.

As they walked, Wren didn’t speak. In fact, he kept his head bent low and his gaze on the ground. Even so, she could tell that he was very much aware of everything around them.

She just wished he was every bit as aware of her.

Wren kept his teeth clenched. He could smell her desire and her uncertain nervousness. But he didn’t know how to make her more at ease. He’d never been one to talk very much to anyone. Most people seemed to prefer him silent, or they ignored him entirely. Which was normally fine by him.

Not to mention it was taking a lot of concentration to remain in human form while he was wounded. The gunshot hadn’t missed him. It’d hit him in his right shoulder and it hurt like hell. He was burning a lot of extra magic energy to hide the tear in his shirt and the blood.

But he didn’t want her to know. It might make her feel bad to realize he’d been hurt defending her. Or, gods forbid, she might want him to seek medical help, which was the last thing he could do.

Or even worse than that, she might feel nothing at all, and that would make him angry. Humans could have strange emotions that he didn’t quite fathom.

“Have you worked at Sanctuary long?” she asked.

“A little while.”

That didn’t seem to quite placate her. “Do you go to school anywhere? Or do you just work full-time at the bar?”

“I go to school.” It was a lie and he wasn’t even sure why he’d told it. Kyle Peltier—the youngest member of the Peltier bear clan—and a couple of the other waiters went to college, but Wren wasn’t the type to mingle enough with humans to bother.

What he needed to know to survive had never been taught in a classroom.

But for some reason he didn’t understand, he wanted to appear normal to her. He wanted her to think of him as just an average guy whom she might have met.

Being different had never bothered him before, but tonight it did. It was really stupid. He was odd even in the Were-Hunter world. When it came to the human world … they would lock him in a cage if they ever learned of him.

“Which school?” she asked innocently.

“UNO.” The University of New Orleans was always a safe bet. Two of the waiters, Tony and Mark, went there, and Wren had overheard them enough to be able to lie about classes, professors, and the campus if he needed to. Not to mention, she looked a little too upper-crust to go to a state school. She most likely attended Tulane or Loyola.

She stopped and offered him a smile that made him instantly hard. “I’m Marguerite Goudeau, by the way.”

Recognition hit him at the mention of her name. It was one he’d heard a lot in the past couple of years. “You’re Maggie, Nick’s study partner.”

Marguerite smiled again. “I take it Nick must have mentioned me.”

Yeah. Nick’d had a tremendous crush on her. He’d wanted to ask her out but never had.
“She’s like Venus, and having met Venus a time or two, I know that no mere mortal man has a right to touch her.”

Wren supposed that went for tigards as well. Nick had been right, there was something about Maggie that was very special.

“He said you were the most intelligent woman he’d ever known, but that you couldn’t study for shit.”

She laughed. The sound was musical and soft, and it warmed him more than it should. “That sounds like Nick.”

Marguerite cleared her throat as Wren pierced her with that intense stare of his. There was something so animalistic about him that it was almost frightening. She felt like someone in the jungle, cornered by a hungry beast.

“Sorry,” he said, dropping his stare back to the ground. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous again. I know people don’t like for me to look at them.”

She frowned at his deadpan tone. Even so, she sensed that it hurt him. “I don’t mind.”

“Yes, you do. You’re just being polite.” He started back down the street.

How did he know that? Most men were far from intuitive.

Marguerite rushed to catch up to him. “Is the monkey I saw you in the bar with your pet?”

He shook his head. “Marvin owns himself. He just likes to hang out with me.”

She laughed at the sweetness of Wren’s words. “I’ve never met anyone who had a monkey for a friend before.”

He snorted in disagreement. “I don’t know. I think those two guys you were with would qualify as primates, but then, that’s an insult to the primates and I don’t want Marvin to get pissed at me. He has higher sensibilities, you know?”

Wren’s words amused her. “You might have a point with that. But they’re not my friends. I only study with them.”

She saw his frown as he glanced at her. “Why do you study with assholes?”

Maybe she should be irritated at him for insulting her group, but then, why? She actually agreed with him. “Habit. I’ve known Todd and Blaine since we were kids. You have to understand that they haven’t had an easy life. They both have severe bonding issues brought on by apathetic and absent parents.”

He looked less than impressed by her excuses for their rudeness. “Did their parents ever try to kill them?”

“No,” she said, stunned that he would even ask such a thing, “certainly not.”

“Did their mothers ever tell them that they were abominations who should have been eaten the minute they were born?”

“Of course not.”

“Did their parents ever try to sell them to a zoo?”

He was being ludicrous now and it was all she could do not to roll her eyes at him. “No one’s parents would do such a thing.”

The look he gave her said she was a fool if she believed that. “Then trust me, their life wasn’t so bad.”

Marguerite paused as he continued walking. Was he serious? No, he was just toying with her. He must be. No one’s parents would try to sell them to a zoo. That was stupid. Wren was throwing out random weirdness just to prove a point.

She rushed to catch up to him. “What about your parents?” she asked, trying to make light of his words. “Did they ever do any of that to you?”

He didn’t respond, but something in his manner said that it might not be a far-fetched conclusion.…

No, no parent would do that to their child.
Her father was a total jerk most of the time and not even he’d ever been
that
bad.

“Wren?” she said, pulling him to a stop. “Be honest. Did your parents ever really try to sell you to a zoo? C’mon. Be real.”

He immediately twisted his arm out of her hold. “There’s a Dead Milkmen song that the Howlers cover a lot when they play at Sanctuary. It’s called ‘V.F.W.: Veterans of a Fucked Up World.’ You ever heard of it?”

“No.”

“You should. There’s a lot of truth in it.” Something flashed in his eyes like a nightmare he was trying to banish. The deep sadness there tore through her. “Everyone has scars from their life, Maggie. Just forget I said anything and let’s get you home so you can get cleaned up.” He turned and continued on his way.

She followed after him, wondering just what his scars were. For a young man, he had an ancient wisdom in his eyes. One that said he’d lived far beyond his apparent twenty-something years.

“You know, it helps to talk about it. It really does. It’s a lot easier to let go of the past when you share it with someone else.”

Wren arched a brow at her. “I notice you’re not reminiscing your childhood with me, Maggie. I definitely don’t know you well enough to reminisce about mine.”

He had a point. There was a lot of pain she kept hidden inside her, and it made her wonder what he had inside of him. He wore the look of a street kid. The kind who’d been thrown out to fend for himself far too young. He had that fierce toughness that often marked them. That jaded look of someone who expected to be used and then cast aside.

It was what made her want to reach out and hold him. But she’d seen enough of his anger to know he wouldn’t welcome it. All things considered, she had to give him credit. He hadn’t turned completely mean. He did work and he went to school. Those two things said a lot about his moral fiber. Most of the people she’d ever heard of who’d been thrown out had ended up as criminals who preyed on others.

Wren had saved her life, and now he was making sure no one else bothered her. He was a decent human being.

He led her to Decatur Street, in front of the Square, where he quickly hailed a cab to take her to her renovated condo, which was only two blocks from the Audubon Zoo.

As they rode through the Quarter, she could sense Wren watching her even though she couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness. The sensation was hot and unsettling.