CHAPTER THIRTEEN

She wondered where he lived. She bet it was a disgusting hole underneath a rock. A dirt cave he decorated in children’s bones and chicken legs, like Baba Yaga.

He led her to a motel. Not cheap. Not nice. Just a thing. A place. An anonymous hidey hole squirreled away in an odd corner of the city.

“This is where you live?” she asked, trying to keep her nose from crinkling.

“No,” he said simply.

And her heart dropped. How was she to lead police triumphantly to his home if they weren’t going there? She had worked hard on memorizing the way, the street numbers, but they were just In The Middle Of Nowhere, USA.

“Do you . . . stay here often?”

He stopped and dropped her wrist abruptly. The look in his eyes made her swallow. Hard.

“I don’t bring people to my home and I don’t answer questions. Do you understand?”

She nodded. He was suspicious. She was losing him. She knit her fingers together and bit her lower lip.

“I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m nervous. This isn’t . . . I mean, I don’t-”

“You are married, then?”

It didn’t take much for her to flush. The idea of sleeping with this monster mortified her. But if she couldn’t find his home, she needed his DNA somehow.

She nodded. He looked amused. She tasted hot sickness in her throat and swallowed it back down.

“I’ve never done this before,” she confided, and again. Truth. She had never slept with a man she wasn’t married to. And now, a monster. Two of the three men had been monsters.

His eyes rounded. She knew they would. Suddenly she was desirable again, a conquest. Something sweet and innocent to crush. His little bird.

“I won’t promise to be gentle,” he said, and grabbed her hand again. She nearly wept with relief as she hurried into the lobby after him.

He paid for his room in cash and gave his name as Tom Jones.

“Tom Jones?” she questioned, and he winked at her.

“Is that what you want me to call you? Tom?”

“You don’t have to call me anything. In fact, it’s better if you don’t, little bird.”

He groped her in the elevator, sliding his hands roughly up her skirt and sticking his tongue in her mouth. She nearly gagged, but thought of Aleta, and squeezed her eyes shut.

“I can hardly wait for this, baby,” she whispered in his ear, and then bit the lobe.

“You’ve been thinking about this?” he asked. His breathing was already strained, and Marie thought this was a very good sign. No turning back, she hoped. No suspicions. She just needed to play her part and endure this. She could do it. Could she do it?

Aleta.

She could do this.

She moaned and nibbled The Wolf’s ear again. The elevator stopped and the door dinged open. She pulled herself away from him and smoothed her hair.

“Come.”

She hated the way he tugged at her, pulling her down the hall like she was a child. Like she was Aleta. Had he dragged her into a motel? Had she been awake or drugged?

She dashed at her eyes. Turned her head away from him and wiped the tears again. She couldn’t do this. Not now.

He slid his card key into the reader. It beeped and turned green. Marie had never seen anything so ominous. She had never seen anything quite so hopeful. She felt her eyes flood with color, felt the carnivorous need spark and shine behind them.

The door opened into a dark room.

The Wolf turned to her and grinned.

“Are you ready? Step into my lair.”

No, it was her lair.

Marie stepped inside, grasping The Wolf’s hand tightly.