Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8)(48)
What did it say about Christy’s stalker that he risked breaking into my garage with a crowbar when it was still light out? Was he stupid? Or did he think he had enough money, enough power, to escape the consequences of his actions?
I closed my eyes and stretched my neck and rolled my shoulders to loosen them.
The front door gave with a tremendous crack—but my ears are more sensitive than most. I leaned on the front of the Passat and left the gun resting on the hood, though I kept my hold on it. Lifting the gun up too soon would cause my arms to tire, and I’d lose accuracy. I didn’t worry that he would be too fast because I was as quick as any of the werewolves—and they were a lot faster than any human.
It was probably only seconds between the time he broke down the door and when he came into the garage bay, but it seemed like hours. I spent the time reminding myself that I wasn’t drugged up on some fae-magic concoction that prevented me from disobeying orders. That Tad was coming, that Adam was on his way.
That if I shot him, then Christy would have to leave.
I’ve killed people before. If I’d felt like I had a choice, I wouldn’t have killed them. No choice meant I had no regrets for those kills. Maybe I should have felt worse about that; maybe it was being a walker or maybe being a predator. I didn’t think it would bother me to kill this man who had killed four innocent people—five if you counted the man who’d dated Christy a couple of times. Even so, I wasn’t going shoot him unless he made me do it, I told myself sternly.
Not even if it meant getting Christy out of my home.
I concentrated on keeping my expression cool, and when he stepped into the light, I said, “Mr. Flores, I presume?”
He stopped, and the big dog stopped, too, his shoulder precisely at his master’s leg. The dog’s gaze was alert, intelligent, and primal. Ancient.
I blinked, and the dog was just a dog. My first impression was probably a product of the stress of the moment, an accident of shadows.
Flores smiled and raised both hands to his shoulder height, palms out, dropping the crowbar as he did so. I flinched a little at the noise of the crowbar hitting the floor.
“I see that you were expecting me, Mrs. Hauptman.” He glanced at the monitors, and his smile widened. “I am not here to hurt you or yours, but your husband has something that belongs to me, and I want it back.”
Looking at his face under the light, and I knew why Christy had climbed right into bed with him. If Adam was movie-star handsome—this man was p**n -star material. Eyes so dark blue they could only come from contacts, skin either tanned or naturally Mediterranean dark, and even, well-defined features with sensual overtones. Bright gold hair whitened in streaks by the sun or a skilled hairdresser swept back from his face in an expensive cut. But the most noticeable thing about him, the thing that Christy had never described, was the air of sexuality that he brought with him. No one would look at this man and not think male, sex, and dangerous.
“Christy appealed to us for protection from you,” I told him steadily. “If you know where she ran, if you know where I work, then you know what Adam is. We granted her protection, Adam and I and the whole pack. She doesn’t belong to you, she belongs to us. She never belonged to you. You need to leave. If you leave right now, my mate won’t kill you where you stand.”
“I don’t want to cause trouble,” he said, and he lied. His dog took a step forward.
I had the big gun out and aimed before the dog took another step.
“I might regret shooting the dog, but I won’t hesitate,” I told Flores.
He did something with his hand, and the big dog stepped back. The air-conditioning kicked in, and the air blew past them and to my nose, bringing with it the faint scent of magic. A faint scent that altered everything because I’d smelled that scent yesterday while I stared at a dead woman in a hayfield. I fought to keep my expression from changing and angled my face a little to the camera.
“You caused a lot of trouble in Finley,” I said, knowing the powerful little lens would catch my lips. Someone would figure out what I had said because there was not a chance in hell that I was coming out of this alive unless Tad or Adam made it here in time. “I saw what you did. Enjoy horsemeat, do you?”
A puzzled look crossed his face as if he were going to deny knowing what I was talking about … and then he smiled. His body language changed as he straightened, like an actor shedding a role. He licked his lips. “Horsemeat is not my first choice, no, but it sufficed at the time.” He liked to talk with his hands. “He understands the message I left in that field, your husband, does he not? I do not recognize his territory, and I hunt freely therein. He has taken she who is mine, so I shall take from him she who is his. Balance. Only then will I take his life—and that is vengeance. There is no one safe from my—”
I shot the dog. A clean killing shot to his head. He dropped without a sound. Alive one moment, dead the next.
Flores staggered back a few steps, clutching his chest almost as if I’d shot him there instead of his dog. He twisted to look at the dog, then turned to me, crouching a little with rage in his face. “You dare.”
“Your fault,” I said coolly, aiming steadily at him and not looking at the poor dog. “You signaled, and he gathered himself for attack. I warned you.”
“My children are immortal,” he told me in a breathless hiss and with theatrics that belonged onstage rather than in the mundane environment of my garage. Christy had been right, there was something European in his accent, but not anything I’d heard before. Vaguely Latinish, maybe, but not any Hispanic accent I was familiar with. The accent added melodrama to his already melodramatic words. “Tied to flesh that can be killed, but that mortal flesh is easily replaced. My son will not die but rise again, and so your efforts to defeat me and mine fail. Even so, you will suffer for this before you die.”