Pack or Prey (Wolfblooded book 1)

Chapter 5, Part 4

A crash jolted me awake. For minutes, though it seemed longer, everything sounded distant.

Dull. The first thing that felt real was the cold, dirty floor under my cheek. The coolness against my face felt great in the muggy air of the woods. If I could just stay here and keep my eyes closed, then nothing could hurt me anymore. It was a foolish hope. A hope that was destroyed as the rest of my senses returned to me.

Another crash, the grunt of men struggling, and the underlying smell of something sickly sweet forced me from my self-made escape and thrust me back into reality. I opened my eyes and saw a puddle in front of me. It was dark and wide and spread larger as I watched it. It spread itself wider and wider until it reached my outstretched hand and pooled around my fingertips. It was hot and thick; much thicker than water. I lifted my hand and watched it drip back to the floor.

Blood. It was blood. It wasn't mine. I finally found the strength to lift my head, my vision blurring in and out of focus. My eyes followed the trail of blood to the man only a couple of feet away. An older man with gray hair and deeply tanned, almost leathery, skin lay sprawled on the floor. A familiar man. A naked man.

"Theo?" I whispered.

His eyes were open, staring straight at me, looking at me as if he had been looking to me to save him in his final moments. I had seen many things in those eyes. Laughter. Anger. Disgust.

Now they were empty.

Before I could stop my eyes, they wandered down his naked upper body to the source of the bleeding. His insides had become his outsides. Thick, meaty ropes dangled out of ragged flesh. He had been completely disemboweled.

Somehow managing to not shriek in horror, I threw myself back from the still-advancing blood. My brain pounded from the onslaught of questions. At first, I thought that D'Angelo had killed him, but then I remembered they'd been working together. He'd said that Theo had been the one to chase me into a trap for... Frank.

I shot to my feet. More crashing and shouting came from deeper in the room, and I made my way towards it using the wall behind me as a guide. As I rounded the line of benches that blocked my view, I saw Niko and Paulie near the back wall laying into another man.

Niko was decades younger than Paulie and almost a foot taller. He stood at a staggering six foot five, the tallest man I had ever known, and slender. Most people I've met above the six foot mark were either built like brick shithouses or were lanky and awkward, especially if they were young. Niko was just barely twenty one and there was nothing awkward about him. I could see every muscle in his arms, chest, and abdomen flex and ripple as he fought. He was like a statue of a gladiator, each contour of muscle carved deeply into toffee-colored marble.

He was also deceptively dangerous. Where Paulie just let his danger roll off him like a heavy cologne, Niko made people think he was a boy scout before shoving a knife into their back. At first glance, he came off as a great big flirt, a womanizer above all else. But there was something dark hiding behind those light brown eyes of his. Something evil.

Niko had something long and thin gripped in his hand. As he raised it over his head, ready to strike, the light caught the metal just enough so I could make it out. It was a tire iron, and by the looks of it, it had already made a messy introduction into someone. I winced and pulled into myself as he brought the piece of metal down on the shoulder of his opponent.

A flash of something in the corner of my eye pulled my attention back to the middle of the room. I saw Frank being tackled to the ground. Panic flooded through me, but even the impact of a man twice his size landing on top of him didn't stop Frank from fighting back.