He snorted, coming to a stop again a few feet away. “We both know that’s not what I’m doing down here any more than you’re here looking for some fun. So, as entertaining as this banter is, I think it’s time we get on with what really brought us here.”
Harley was almost disappointed but knew the man was right. While she’d enjoyed their verbal jousting, she was here for more important things.
“Do you know if the men you followed down here are supernatural in any way?” she asked. “Or are they normal bad guys holding supernatural victims captive?”
The British werewolf’s eyes narrowed, and Harley was worried she’d made a big mistake assuming he was aware of creatures besides werewolves out there in the world. But then he shrugged. “I’m not sure how much you know, but the situation is more complicated than that. While those two guys you saw weren’t anything special, I’m almost certain there are other supernaturals involved and that at least one of the people they kidnapped is, too.”
There was a lot to unpack there, but the implications were staggering. Supernaturals working with humans to kidnap other supernaturals?
Harley was about to ask him that exact question when she was interrupted by a loud scraping sound coming from the far end of the room. She stared in shock as the whole wall slid to the side. What the…?
The werewolf immediately lifted his weapon and pointed it in that direction. She did the same, grimacing as a smell hit her in the face so hard she almost choked. With her nose, that was saying a lot. But it was hard to ignore the stench of mud and stale blood. It was nasty as hell.
Three men stepped into the room. Two of them were the guys the Brit had said were nothing special. The third guy, on the other hand, was definitely supernatural. Not quite as big as Caleb, he was damn close. But the thing that nearly froze her solid as she stood there were his flat, black eyes. Cold and dead, they reminded her of a shark’s. Before she even saw him move, he took a gun out of his jacket pocket and pointed it in their direction with a hiss, displaying more teeth than any human should have.
Because the thing obviously wasn’t human.
Gunfire lit up the darkness, bullets filling the air. Harley felt one slice through her waist and another burn a line of fire across her right shoulder. She ignored the pain long enough to put a round through Dead Eyes’s chest, then she was diving to the floor, rolling as she hit and coming to a stop behind a knee-high crate before emptying her magazine into the other two men with him.
Her werewolf partner had focused on Dead Eyes, too, putting five more bullets in the creature. It didn’t seem particularly bothered by the holes in its body or the dark blood pouring out.
Harley scrambled for the extra magazine strapped to the inside of her thigh along with the gun holster, then called for backup over the sounds of gunfire, warning teammates about the creature she was up against. As Caleb and Jake asked for additional details, she popped up from behind the crate to put a few more bullets in Dead Eyes. That was when she realized the British werewolf was calling for backup on his own radio.
She hadn’t expected that but was secretly thrilled at the possibility he was one of the good guys.
The two men who’d come in with the creature were dead, but Dead Eyes didn’t seem to care as he leaped over them and ran through the doorway, the wall beginning to slide closed behind him.
Harley and the British werewolf ran for the door at the same time. Instead of trying to slip through the opening that was getting tinier by the second, he grabbed the two dead men and shoved them into the door’s path, stacking them on top of the other. There was a crunch and a pop, but the wall stopped, leaving a foot and a half gap.
“What the hell was that thing?” Harley asked as the werewolf scooped up one of the dead guy’s weapons and handed it to her, then took the other man’s before searching them for spare magazines.
“I have no bloody clue.” He tossed her one of the magazines he’d found, then darted his head through the gap in the wall to look into the darkness beyond. “But we don’t have time to wait around and figure it out. Whatever that thing is, we have to assume it’s involved in these kidnappings.”
Harley didn’t hesitate to follow when he slipped through the opening and into the stairwell, knowing he was right. The creature they’d filled full of holes was down there somewhere right now, either trying to escape with his victims or killing them to clean up the evidence. Either way, they couldn’t wait for backup.
As they ran down the long, uneven staircase, sounds and random scents from below bombarded her senses. Shouts of anger and confusion were interspersed with screams of terror and pain. The smells were myriad and unusual, and there were way too many of them for her untrained nose.
“We’re on our way, Harley,” Jake said over the radio. “Hold your position.”
At least that’s what she thought he said. The reception got crappier the farther underground they went, and she couldn’t be sure of anything that came through her earpiece, but Harley swore her pack alpha said something about chopping off the creature’s head. Or maybe he’d said hand? Both options sounded extreme.
It was pure bedlam at the bottom of the stairwell as a handful of heavily armed men moved to confront her and the other werewolf. Behind them, more bad guys were dragging half a dozen prisoners out of a row of cells along one wall. Two of the captives were resisting, but the others seemed completely out of it, like they were drugged. Dead Eyes was standing in the middle of it all, shouting orders in a deep voice that echoed off the stone walls even as blood continued to pour out of him in black, sluggish rivulets.
Harley and the Brit were forced back into the stairwell by a storm of bullets. A werewolf could take a lot of punishment and still keep going, but a bullet through the head or heart would kill them as quickly as anyone else. And unlike the fairy tales, the aforementioned bullet didn’t have to be silver. But retreating wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. All they needed to do was hold the stairs and keep Dead Eyes and his buddies from getting past them with the prisoners. It wouldn’t be long before Jake and the rest of her team found them, then they could finish this.
But the next time Harley poked her head out to take a quick look, that hope died. The bad guys were headed to the far end of the long room with their captives, and if her faulty nose wasn’t lying to her, there was a scent of fresh air coming from that direction.
“Crap, they’re getting away!” she shouted. “There must be a back exit out of this place. They probably have transportation waiting for them.”
The Brit snarled and cursed, which sounded almost sexy with that accent of his.
“Cover me,” he said.
Before she even realized what he was doing, he was up and running out of the stairwell straight into the hail of gunfire. Cursing, she loaded a fresh magazine in her weapon, then followed, firing rapid shots at the armed men facing them, focused on trying to hit as many as she could.