After he turned off the engine, they got out and met at the front grille—and he pressed the keys into her palm.
“You take these. If anything goes wrong, I want you to get in and drive away. Don’t worry about me.”
Her eyes bored into his own, and he had a feeling she had questions, so many questions. But now was not the time. Never was the time.
“All right,” she said after a moment. “I will.”
Lucan made a move like he was going to kiss her—and stopped himself in time. Stepping back, he nodded.
And dematerialized away. Right in front of her.
When he re-formed on the far side of the locked gates, she was covering her mouth with both hands. He hated the fact that he’d freaked her out again, but they needed to get inside and it was the work of a moment for him to—
Two German shepherds came barreling around the side of the pool house, the dogs trained to not bark when attacking. Their scents gave them away because he was downwind, however, and then there were their pounding paws over the short grass.
Lucan wheeled on them and crouched down. The growl that came out of his throat was not from him. It was his other side talking.
And that pair of perfectly trained killers pulled up like they were about to go off the edge of a cliff.
Moving forward, he backed them away, his snarl submitting them, his eye contact promising them what would happen if they misbehaved: He would school them like they were pups. Instead of eighty-to-ninety-pound fully grown males.
After he’d driven the dogs behind the pool house, he turned around and jogged to the gate—and that was when a guard came out of the side door of the cottage. The guy was pissed off and out of uniform. Or maybe he was just a paid caretaker.
The man noticed the Monte Carlo and Rio right away.
Meanwhile, Lucan stalked up behind the human male. And just as the man said, “Can I help you—”
Subduing him was the work of a moment. Lucan just threw an arm around that throat and hauled the torso back against his own.
Which was when he discovered that the “caretaker” was, in fact, armed.
Lucan caught the gun that came up, took control of the weapon, and calmly put the muzzle to the man’s temple. “You’re going to let her in now.”
There was a little too much going on in his own brain for him to get into the guard’s noggin and grab access codes or some such. So the Smith & Wesson worked just fine. Or should have.
When there was some argument, Lucan bared his fangs—
“No!” Rio said. “Don’t kill him! Everyone on-site is taken alive. They could all be in on the enterprise. Everybody lives.”
Bummer. And inconvenient.
But like all bonded males, he did what his female said—and put his sharp-and-shinies back in his upper jaw.
Shit, he could really have used a nice bloody fight to take his edge off.
As the gate started to open, Rio slipped in as soon as there was a space big enough to fit through. On the far side, she looked into the wide eyes of the guard and knew this was madness. But she wasn’t turning back.
“Let’s go,” she said.
As Luke brought the guard along, he handled the other man like he didn’t weigh a goddamn thing, and when they passed by the pool house, she glanced around, wondering where the dogs were. God, she remembered the attack on that hit man back at Mickie’s apartment building, the ferocity of it all had been so shocking, from the flashing teeth to the grinding jaws, the muzzle running red with blood, the victim’s midsection ripped open, his throat a raw wound.
Abruptly, she recalled coming to, just as it was all over. The wolf had wheeled around on her.
Tears had run from her eyes, both for what she had seen . . . and for what was going to be done to her.
The wolf had approached her, its massive body moving in a coordinated prowl. But instead of attacking her, it had whimpered. Nuzzled at her legs as if it wanted to get her loose if it could. And then it had lain down beside her, like it was protecting her, its regal head up, its eyes shifting to the door, its nose sniffing like it was testing the air for the scents of enemies.
She clearly had passed out again at that point. Because the next thing she remembered was Luke releasing her from all the ties.
“You took the clothes of the attacker,” she said. “Back when you saved me . . . you needed something to wear, and that’s why everything was too small on you.”
Luke looked over. And so did the guard—who, she realized abruptly, was in flannel pajama bottoms and a SUNY Caldwell t-shirt.
“Yeah,” Luke said with a nod. “And I didn’t want you to know what I was.”
On that note, they arrived at the mansion’s rear flank. There was a terrace that ran all the way down the back of the house, but there was no outdoor furniture on it. Obviously, things had been put away for the winter.
And inside, everything had been shut down for the night: All the rooms were dark, no lights on in the lower level. Up on the second floor, however, there was a bank of fixtures still glowing.
“Where are we going?” Luke said to the guard. “How are we getting in.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Yeah, you can.”
The guard threw out his proverbial anchor. “You’re going to have to kill me now. Because if I let you into his house? He’s going to do so much worse to me. Just . . . fucking shoot me.”
Well, Rio thought, at least they knew they were in the right place.