N. Walters: Quinn's Quest

Teague’s mate was his opposite in every way. With her café au lait skin and warm brown eyes she was as gentle as Teague was tough. Neema was clearing glasses from tables and ferrying them into the kitchen. She offered him an encouraging smile and a pat on the arm as she passed him.

Behind the bar, Michael and his brother, Benjamin, were chatting as they put everything in order. They both resembled their mother with their black hair and blue eyes. Quinn turned away from them. He’d often wondered what his life would have been like if his mother had lived. She might not have had the best taste in men but she’d been a hell of a mother, putting her kids first. Always.

Hank glanced at Quinn but said nothing as he and Kevin helped him stack chairs. Quinn watched Meredith and Isaiah chat in low tones as they dealt with the daily paperwork and the cash register receipts.

It was all so damn normal. Fury flooded Quinn and he had the urge to smash the chair he held in his hands against the far wall. It wasn’t fair. Chris had never hurt anyone in her life. All they’d wanted was to be left alone to live their own lives.

Wood cracked. Quinn looked down to find the back of the chair splintered where he’d held it too tightly. His knuckles were white with the strain. His arm muscles tense.

He sensed Hank coming up beside him. “Let me take that for you.” The other man’s expression gave nothing away. There was no sign of pity or judgment. He simply waited patiently, his hand extended.

Slowly, carefully, he released his hold on the chair. Hank took it and set it aside to be disposed of later. Then he went back to work stacking chairs as if nothing had happened. Hell of a steady guy. Quiet. Quinn wasn’t quite sure what to think of him. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to find his sister.

He also had to get a grip on himself or he wouldn’t be any good to anyone, especially not his sister.

Isaiah stirred, headed out from behind the bar and walked toward the door. Tension flooded Quinn and he set down the chair he was holding. This was it. Damek was here. He was about to meet the person who might be able to help him find his sister.

Quinn didn’t care if Damek was the devil himself. Not if he could help him find Chris.

The locks on the door began to open before Isaiah reached it. Quinn watched in amazement as the handle slowly turned. A dark shadow filled the doorway and flowed inside, bringing a tsunami of power with him. The heavy panel door shut with a thud.

Oh shit . Quinn knew this guy. Had seen him once before, back about six months ago when Quinn had still been working with the bounty hunters. Damek was a powerful and elusive creature. A vampire. Traditionally, a natural foe of the werewolf, at least until the bounty hunters had started stalking them all and their populations had started dying out. Then all the rules had changed.

How did the saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Quinn had watched from the shadows that fateful night as the vampire had taken control of another hunter’s mind as easily as a mortal might pick up a cup of coffee.

This creature was beyond dangerous. He was also Quinn’s only hope.

“Good evening, my friend.” Damek inclined his head slightly in Isaiah’s direction. The vampire was wearing a dark suit that had obviously been tailored to fit his lithe build. His shirt was silk and he had a Rolex on his left wrist. Shoulder-length black hair was pulled away from his face and tied neatly at his nape with a leather thong. His features were strong, his skin pale. Power seemed to leak from his pores, filling the air around him.

“Ah, you look as beautiful as ever, my dear.” Damek flowed toward Meredith, his stride fluid. Isaiah growled and pulled his mate closer to him. Quinn tensed, ready in case a battle broke out between the two alpha males.

The corner of Damek’s mouth turned up slightly. Quinn couldn’t quite call it a grin, but he sensed the vampire’s amusement.

Damek cocked an eyebrow at Isaiah. “Really, you Striker brothers are very possessive. It’s rather annoying. But you do have exquisite taste in women.”

“We need your help.” Isaiah’s voice was low and guttural.

“So you said.”

Quinn decided it was time for him to make his presence known. “I need your help.”

Damek turned toward him and Quinn felt pinned by the vampire’s black stare, felt dark tentacles of power reaching inside him to his very thoughts and memories. He slammed the door on his mind, desperately trying to shut out the invasion. A cold sweat broke out on his skin and his heart began to pound. His wolf stirred inside him and with it the primitive urges of fight or flight. He did neither. By strength of will alone, he fought his very basic nature, straightened his shoulders and met Damek’s penetrating gaze.

The creature casually strolled toward him, a wave of menace rolling before him. “I know you.” He tapped his finger against his chin. “You were involved in that debacle last fall.”

“You knew I was there.” His voice was steady and sure.

“Hmm.” The humming sound was Damek’s only reply.

Quinn took that as a yes. At the time he’d felt as though the vampire had sensed his presence but had let Quinn go for reasons only he understood. It had never once occurred to him that the person he was going to meet tonight might be the powerful vampire he’d encountered last fall.

He honestly didn’t know all that much about the species. All his efforts while he’d been growing up had been focused on understanding what was happening to himself and his sister. After Chris had disappeared, he’d been hell-bent on finding her. If he was going to be working with a vampire he wanted to know everything there was to know about the species. He’d set Craig to work on unearthing details as soon as Damek was done. Knowledge was power and Quinn needed every edge he could get with the powerful male. If there was anything to find online about Damek and others like him, his brother would unearth it.

“Tell me,” Damek demanded.

Quinn ignored the arrogance of the command, knowing he needed Damek’s help. He swallowed his pride and gave a quick recounting of his childhood, of growing up knowing he and his sister were different and how they’d tried to live a normal life.

“I don’t know why they took her. Or who. How they knew she was different.” That question frustrated him most of all. They’d always been careful, keeping to themselves as much as possible. They’d gone to regular school until they’d hit puberty and then they’d been homeschooled, basically doing it themselves while their mother worked.

Craig had been the only other person to know what they were. And Quinn trusted Craig without question. “At first we thought she might have been taken by some crazy human, some sick psychopath. But she’s strong and smart. She would have escaped if that was the case. I know she would have.”

“How old was Chris when she was kidnapped?” Damek’s question made Quinn frown. What did that have to do with anything?

“Twenty-three, almost twenty-four. Why?”

“Fuck.” Quinn glanced over at Isaiah who spat out the oath. “Ah, I’m not sure how much you know about females of the species, but Chrissten was at the age where she’d go into heat for the first time. If that happened, any male wolf getting within twenty feet of her would have smelled her and gone right for her. You wouldn’t have been affected by it because you’re her sibling.”

Quinn felt as though he’d been hit up the side of the head with a two-by-four. All those months he’d wasted on the hunters, thinking they must have found out what she was and taken her. He’d never once considered some horny werewolf might have abducted her. That would explain why Chris had acted so strangely in the few months before she went missing. She’d kept to herself more and had become quieter, shrugging her shoulders and putting him off whenever he asked her what was wrong.