N. Walters - Quinn's Quest

Ignorance was sometimes bliss. She hadn’t known that before.

“I’m fine.” She had to be. There was no other choice.

But Hank wasn’t listening to her. All his attention was on the bed behind her. His hands fell away from her arms and he walked around her, heading straight to Chrissten’s bunk. He picked up her pillow, put his nose to it and inhaled.

She knew he was getting Chrissten’s scent to help him track her better. Bethany understood that. Yet, watching him, she was struck by how intimate an act it seemed to be. Unlike Quinn, he didn’t toss the pillow away, but tucked it under his arm.

“You ready?”

He appeared larger than he had even a few moments before. More determined. Dangerous. She couldn’t forget for even one moment that all these men were deadly predators beneath their human exterior.

She nodded and they left the small room behind. Bethany followed Hank into the laboratory area. She shivered when she came face-to-face with the stainless-steel table with its metal arm and leg straps. She bit her bottom lip to keep from crying aloud as the memory of being strapped down, helpless to do anything as the doctor poke, prodded and experimented on her assailed her. She wanted to find something heavy and beat the table until there was nothing left of it.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around herself and held it together as the other members of their group opened drawers, searching for clues. Quinn rifled through Doctor Morton’s desk, but it was empty except for some blank sheets of paper and a few disposable pens. Everything was gone.

“I’m sorry.” She blurted it out, unable to keep it inside her any longer. “It’s all my fault. If I’d acted quicker. Done more.” She really didn’t know what else to say. Chrissten was still missing, still held captive by a crazy man and a werewolf and it was all her fault.

Quinn crouched in front of a stainless-steel cabinet searching for clues. He stopped what he was doing, stood and came to her, his stride fluid, the lines of worry around his eyes deeper than they’d been only a few hours before. “It’s not your fault.” He cupped the side of her face and rubbed his thumb over her cheek. The small gesture of kindness almost broke her.

She sucked in a breath and blinked back the tears that threatened to fall, not wanting to break down in front of everyone. “It is.”

“No. It’s the fault of a few crazy people. You’re an innocent victim too. We know more than we did before. We know she’s still alive. We can find out who owned this property and if they have more in the city and beyond. We have names to search. If there’s any records out there, Craig will find them.”

Isaiah walked over to stand beside them. His expression was grim. Fury emanated from him in waves even as his face remained a mask of outward control. “Damek will be able to help as soon as we get word to him about what we know. He has resources we can tap into.”

Bethany took a step away, not wanting to be so close to the angry werewolf. “Who is Damek?” Was he another werewolf? A human?

One corner of Isaiah’s mouth quirked upward. “I’m not sure you want to know.”

The nightmare came slowly, creeping into his exhausted brain. He didn’t want to dream but he had no control over his sleeping hours. After having the nightmare so many times, it was almost like an old friend. Guilt was a powerful emotion and it clutched Quinn tight in its icy grip.

He crept along the narrow wood trail. Jones was on his right and Collins was farther ahead on the trail. They were tracking werewolves. Purebloods. Quinn would have been more than content to live and let live, but he knew his fellow bounty hunters wouldn’t see things his way. In their world, the only good wolf was a dead one.

The group was tight knit and existed only to kill the paranormal creatures they hated so much. They had no idea they had a half-breed in their midst. If they did, they’d kill him in a heartbeat. Quinn didn’t want to be here but he had no other choice. He had to find his sister. Any scrap of information that might lead him to her was worth pursuing.

“Up ahead,” Jones whispered.

Quinn knew he had to get his head back in the game. A pureblood werewolf was nothing to screw around with. This one was especially vicious. He’d killed a woman back in Kentucky. Quinn knew that for a fact so he wasn’t particularly upset about hunting him. He also knew this particular wolf belonged to a pack that believed anyone or anything other than a pureblooded werewolf was fair game. Quinn had hunted his kind before, and while he hated to kill another werewolf, sometimes there wasn’t any choice.

He moved his feet slowly, careful not to step on any twigs or dried leaves. Werewolves had exceptional hearing. He should know. He could hear Collins stomping around like an elephant up ahead.

Thankfully, they were downwind so their scent wouldn’t carry. Werewolves also had a superior sense of smell.

An eerie silence suddenly settled over the woods. Quinn froze and sank down behind an oak tree. He motioned to Jones to do the same. The birds had gone quiet around them. A sure sign a predator was nearby.

Quinn scanned the area, using his preternatural vision to try to find the wolf. The fine hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Instinct had Quinn rolling and firing his rifle at the same time. He hit the wolf straight in the chest with a powerful round, blowing a large hole in the beast.

It fell, hitting the dirt ground with a dull thud. The wolf growled as it started to bleed out. Quinn rolled to his feet, walked over to it and stared down into very familiar eyes. Sorrow hit him like a thunderbolt. He gave an anguished cry and dropped to his knees, gathering the wolf to him. “Chris?” The creature changed, morphing not back into a large male pureblooded werewolf but into his beloved sister.

He’d killed her.

“What the hell are you doing, Quinn?” Jones asked. “Finish the bitch off.”

The sound of a gun being cocked brought him to his feet. With a roar, he lunged at the other man, yanking at his clothing and changing as he flew through the air. His sharp fangs bit through bone. Blood splattered over him, coating his fur. Some hit his eyes, temporarily blinding him.

He blinked to clear his vision as Jones continued to struggle. But his attempts to free himself from Quinn’s strong jaws were feeble at best and eventually stopped all together.

The sound of boots hitting the hard-packed ground reached his ears. Quinn dropped Jones and let his body shift back to human form. He grabbed his rifle and shot Collins as he came through the trees.

“Quinn,” his sister called his name. He flung the rifle aside and fell to his knees beside her.

“You can’t die. I need you, Chris.” He buried his face in her hair and breathed in her familiar scent. It was tainted by the stench of blood and the other bodies that lay scattered around them.

“Too late.”

“No. It’s not too late. I promise. You’ll be fine.”

She shook her head and, as he held his sister, the life slowly drained from her body. He threw back his head and howled.

Quinn sat straight up in bed, sucking air into his lungs. The sheets fell to his waist and he stared down at his hands and chest, expecting them to be covered in the blood of his sister and the men he’d killed.

“Shit.” He dug the palms of his hands into his eyes, desperately trying to erase the memory of his dream. It was always the same. He was working with the bounty hunters, living a lie as he tried to find his sister. Somehow he always ended up killing everyone around him and Chris always ended up dead. It sure as hell didn’t take a psychologist to figure out the symbolism of the dream—Quinn had failed his sister and he was a ruthless killer. Plain and simple.