Immortal Danger (Night Watch 0.5)

One that sorely needed to be eliminated.

"I shouldn't have attacked you," the wolf said. "I'm sorry."

Maya blinked, caught completely off guard. "Er, what?" No way he'd just apologized.

"Uh, you're cutting into my flesh." Spoken calmly, with not a hint of pain in the words.

Glancing down, she saw that her claws were, indeed, buried in his chest. "Oh, my bad." But she didn't feel particularly bad about the slip.

She hadn't dug nearly as deep as he had.

But still-she stepped back.

He exhaled.

"Who are you?" she asked him softly, keeping her body tense, ready. Just in case this was all an act and she had to attack.

"My name is Lucas Simone. I'm the leader of my pack."

Yeah, she'd guessed he was the boss.

"Why have you been hunting me?" she pressed him, eyes narrowing.

"He wasn't." A softer voice. Male, but younger. Not as hard.

Maya slowly turned her head. She'd caught the other wolf's scent just seconds before he spoke, but since she didn't particularly view the kid as a threat, she hadn't reacted.

The teen looked cautiously at Lucas, then glanced back at her. "He was following me."

Her gaze darted between them. Same dark hair. Chin. Nose. Hell, subtract about twenty years from the alpha and he and the kid would almost be twins. "So what's the deal?" she asked. "You his son?"

"Jordan is my brother."

Ah.

"I thought you'd attacked him, tried to kill him, and I-"

"I did," she said. Hell, no sense lying over that one.

Lucas stiffened.

"But she also came back for me and carried me out of that hellhole," Jordan whispered.

Yeah, but she had shot him.

She didn't look at the alpha, just kept her eyes on Jordan as she said, "I didn't want to hurt you."

Damn, those words sure seemed hollow and he looked so young. He was pale, but his injuries, like her own, seemed to have healed. "I had to rescue the girl and it was obvious you weren't going to let me pass unless I'd either killed you or incapacitated the hell out of you." A touch of admiration filled her tone.

The kid was a fighter.

She liked that.

"I thought you were gonna hurt her. Thought you were just another vamp come to make her scream." He swallowed. Glanced down at the floor. "They were always coming to make us scream."

Bastards.

"Well, I've got to say, you sure managed to hold your own against me." She tapped her right foot. The ankle was fine now. "You were about five seconds away from taking my foot off."

"Kill or be killed," Jordan said, the words cracking slightly. "I was ready to die."

To protect Cammie.

The kid was gonna grow up into one fine man.

"I think we're even," she murmured, then pointed a claw at him. "But don't ever so much as think about coming at me in wolf form with those teeth again."

His lips hitched into a half-smile. "I-I won't."

"Good." Now she looked back at Lucas. So he'd been tracking his brother. Good cause. But she still didn't trust the ass**le. "The first night, at Marie's place, you should've just told me you were looking for the kid."

"You didn't give me a chance."

Because the pack had been coming for her, fangs bared, talking and playing nice hadn't exactly been on her mind.

He rubbed his shoulder. "But you sure as hell gave me something to remember you by."

"I don't like to be forgettable."

"You aren't."

The floor squeaked just beyond the door. Hell, someone else? The room was getting too crowded as it was. She inhaled, expecting another wolf, but she caught the scent of-

Nothing.

No one.

The floor squeaked again and Adam strode inside. His eyes narrowed when he caught sight of the wolves.

"I-I should go," Jordan muttered, ducking his head and then brushing quickly by Adam.

Lucas sighed. "You scare him," he said to Adam.

"Smart kid."

Adam's eyes darted to Maya's bare feet. Then back to the wolf. "Am I interrupting something?"

A hard edge sharpened the words. A hint of anger.

She shrugged. "Just trying to figure out why wolfie here has been trying to kill me."

"Um." Adam was still staring at Lucas. "Damn good thing he didn't succeed."

Lucas held his gaze. "I told you what happened. I came here to clear things up with her."

He'd been trying to find his brother. By tracking her. "What made you think I'd even know where your brother was?"

It was Adam who answered. "Because he heard you were working with me."

Lucas nodded. "I knew the same vamps who'd taken his niece had also taken Jordan."

Her breath expelled in a rush. "Shit. They were planning some kind of special feast for Nassor, weren't they?" Two shifters. So much power.

They would have been drained dry.

What a great Welcome-Back-to-the-Undead-Life gift for Nassor.

"Once you started helping Brody, I figured you had to be blood linked to that bastard Nassor."

Yeah, like she could help that.

"I knew you could lead me straight to him." One brow lifted. "Then that fool demon sent me chasing shadows."

Ah, Tim. She'd known to count on him to sell her out. "But then you smarted up, didn't you? You went to the hospital, threatened Sean, and found out exactly where I'd gone."

Adam's head jerked toward her. "What?"

Maya pursed her lips at the surprise on the wolf shifter's face. "What? Damn, give me some credit, would you? I knew you were there when I called him."

"How?" Lucas looked pissed. Poor wolf. He'd probably thought he'd been so smart.

Not smart enough.

"Sean warned me."

"No-I was there, I heard everything."

" I heard his heart, beating too fast." A deliberate tip, a method they'd used in the past. "I told him where I was, knowing that you'd come." She'd just hoped to have a little more time-enough time to free Cammie and disappear. "You got here faster than I thought." And her grand plan had gone to hell.

But at least she'd gotten the girl out.

The fact that Maya had nearly gotten herself killed, well, that had definitely not been in the master scheme.

"You should have told me," Adam snapped, taking a step closer to her.

She winced. Yeah, she'd known he wouldn't be too pleased about her keeping that fact secret.

"We had to move, Adam. The fact that the pack was coming-it didn't matter. We had to get into that feeding room."