HURRICANE (Beasts of Prey Book 2) Read online

  His hand works magic on my soaking surface, coaxing moans out of me. And I deliver, while my rational part of the brain goes through the plan. I need to make him trust me.

  "Levi," I whimper out his name, swaying my hips against his hand. "I need you inside me."

  It makes him move. He gets up on his knees, the massive bulge in his jeans right in front of me, but it's not the thing that catches my attention.

  It's the Swiss blade he pulled out from his back pocket.

  With a click, he gets the blade out and cuts the ropes from my ankles, releasing my legs. I keep my eyes on him, but from the corner of an eye, I watch like a hawk where he puts the blade—the same place where he took it from.

  Levi jerks his T-shirt off, revealing the ups and downs of his abs, but even though he is muscled and in sickly good shape, he is nothing like Tiger, who is ripped.

  Focus. Focus. Focus.

  I bend my knees, planting my feet to the bed and buckle my hips, pulling a smile on my face. "C'mon, boy." I need to distract him. Whether it was the name or my wiggling, either way, he makes his way between my thighs, sitting on his knees.

  "I love you," he tells me again, his hands coming down my thighs to my waist. I don't say shit to his confessions, just lift my ass so he could get on with it. Levi does precisely that and pulls my underwear off.

  I have to do my very best to keep my head in the game. I hear Tiger's words in my head. You'll always rise, baby. You're like a fucking phoenix.

  He is right. I can fucking do this because there is no other way. I can't find any other way.

  Levi's fingers trail on my scarred belly, and he looks… miserable. "They shouldn't have done this."

  Yeah, well, you know what, asshole, there's a lot of things you should've left undone.

  Like reading my mind, his eyes come to mine. "I've done everything to keep you alive. Everything. Can you learn to love me?"

  "Of course, I can, baby," I lie through my teeth, buckling my hips again. "Fill me up, okay?"

  His face lights up, an enamored smile reaching to his heated eyes. Then he bends down, placing a kiss to my lower belly. My brows pop up from the move because what the fuck, but I fix my face before he straightens and opens his jeans, pushing them down to his knees with his boxers.

  I hate myself when I feel the throbbing in my core as his hand comes to his dick, and he slides the tip up and down on me, spreading the wetness. The human body is a strange thing. I don't want him on any level, but when it comes to survival, my body is ready to do whatever it takes to survive.

  "I'm gonna make you happy, I promise, darling," he breathes out while pushing into me, eyes glued on mine. My hands curl into fists, from the hate and the sensation at the same time. I hate him and the fact he feels good, so fucking good. I hate myself for enjoying any of it.

  Levi stays on his knees, lifts my waist to hit deeper, and starts to fuck me, ping-ponging his gaze between my eyes and his dick driving into me. "You feel so amazing," he groans, muscles tightening on his sculpted upper body. I don't want to admit it, but I agree. After all the pain I've gone through these weeks, this feels sensational.

  My insides are burning from the heat, and part of me wants to close my eyes and rest, let go. Give up under the weight which has been on my shoulders the past weeks.

  But who am I?

  I'm Cobra motherfucking Hayes, and I will not bow.

  Pushing the feel-good aside, I jerk my hands. "Levi," I gasp, voice hoarse. "I want to touch you, please."

  He slows down a bit, conflict coloring his face. "Cobra… I—"

  I sway my hips to match his rhythm, lingering my body on the mattress like an enchanter. Tiger told me he loves it, that it's the most captivating thing he'd seen. I've never realized doing so, but now I use what I have, and hope Levi likes it. "Let me love you too, baby."

  "Oh, shit." He drops his head back, stopping his movements. I don't wait for his answer, just keep swaying my hips, so he is still sliding in and out of me. His fingers dig into my waist, and I feel that he is close.

  After a moment, he takes something out of his back pocket again, and my breath catches. But it's not the knife. It's a key.

  Levi leans to me, working the other handcuff open, and tosses the key to the floor, far away from the bed. My eyes almost bulge out, and it takes everything from me to keep the gasp inside me. He released only one fucking hand. I want to scream.

  I don't.

  He moves us closer to the corner where I'm still handcuffed and lifts me to straddle him, riding him as I've done before, in his car. Well, fuck it. I need to improvise. Moving up and down on his lap, I wrap my free hand on his neck. If I'd been a fucking She-Hulk, I could snap his neck, but me with one hand? Yeah, dream on. And the key is out of my reach. If I somehow manage to kill him, how the fuck does that help me? Someone just walks in here, me still handcuffed and a dead body beside me.

  I can't start a fucking fight while I'm cuffed to an iron bed. So, I keep fucking him, waiting for my brain to take action and give me a new masterplan.

  "I love you," Levi says again, assuring me. Almost like begging me to say the same. Tell him that I love his fucked-up mind.

  I can fake love for him if it makes him trust me.

  "I will learn to love you, baby," I convince him before kissing him hard, and clench my walls around him, riding him harder. I've been faking all day, so why stop now. He buys it, and with a stretched groan, releases inside me.

  I take my time, leaning my head to his shoulder, and like before, his hand caresses my back in a circular motion. He holds me close, tight but not too hard, just like keeping a bird inside the fist without killing it.

  What he doesn't know is that I'm not a fucking regular bird. There is only one who can hold me without getting burned, and it's because he is the fire inside me.

  "I need to use the bathroom," I purr to Levi's neck. "Do you want to bathe me, baby?"

  "Yeah, I do." He leans back with a beaming smile on his face. "Wait." He places me on the bed, gets up, pulling his pants back on, and walks to get the key. When he comes back to me, I can see he's pondering what he should do.

  Trust is what I need.

  I smile at him. "If you don't feel comfortable to set me free yet, we can take it step by step. We're not in a hurry, right?"

  Levi bites his lip. "Yeah, no hurry. I just… I really want to trust you."

  "I know, and I don't blame you that you don't. Do what you feel is best."

  And he does exactly what I expected him to do. Cuffs my wrist to my front but doesn't get his gun. I know he doesn't keep it in this room except for those bathroom trips.

  Levi helps me up from the bed and brushes a strand of hair from my face, looking down at me. "One day, we can be somewhere else than here. You'll learn to be happy with me. Right?"

  I nod. "Of course, one day, baby."

  He kisses my forehead and leads me to the bathroom. My entire body feels like exploding, ready to ignite any second now. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, pounding like a drum.

  Levi walks to the bathtub, leaving me to do my thing on the toilet. I wait until he plugs the tub and turns the water running. Then I move—fast.

  The sound of the water covers my steps as I leap behind him and fly my arm over his head, taking him into a chokehold. It's fucking difficult with cuffs, but I don't care about how they cut into my skin. Irrelevant.

  "Motherfucker," Levi growls, taking hold of my arm, trying to jerk it off. I jump up, wrapping my legs around his torso, and squeeze with all my powers. "Don't—" his voice gets cut off as I tighten my hold even more, giving it all I have.

  He backs us to a wall, hitting me there hard, but I grit my teeth, swallowing the pain. I count the seconds in my mind, focusing on it, so I don't feel anything. Levi tries to gasp for air, tries to hit me to the wall again, but I feel him swaying on his feet.

  Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six.

  Levi is surprisingly tough.

 
"Give up, goddammit!" I huff, feeling my strength decreasing from two weeks of doing nothing.

  Twenty-nine.

  And then we go down like a tree. I try to jump off from him, but with cuffs, I fail. He takes me right down with him, and I see the edge of the tub coming closer, really fucking fast.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The warm blood drains down my fingers, to my arms, and inside my hoodie as I twist the knife in the motherfucker’s lungs. I keep my other hand clamped over his mouth while I listen carefully and glance around.

  Silence.

  The bathroom where I found this lucky fellow isn't the best place for listening because I'm probably on the other end of the house than Puma and Leo, but still, I've only taken down three, so there should be other living souls than us too.

  The fucker who shot towards us was the first one I eliminated. He was having a smoke outside and decided to open fire without questions. The second one rushed out as soon as the gunfire went off. The rest of them chose to play cat and mouse with us inside of this big house.

  Finally, the guy goes limp, and I grab hold of his armpits, placing him quietly on the floor. When I straighten, I feel my pulse skyrocketing, and adrenaline coursing through my veins, making me sweat.

  This is not what we fucking expected, but it doesn't mean we can't handle it.

  I tiptoe my way to the door, listening. Just when I place my hand on the handle, a shot echoes behind it. A heavy thud and clang. Chills run down my spine as I open the door, gun pointed.

  "Hiding in the bathroom? Very unlike you, bro," Puma taunts and nods towards the hallway. "C'mon, little chicken, others are cold already, and Dad is starting with the driver."

  I smack the back of his head, starting to walk beside him. "I wasn't hiding, you idiot. There was a guy."

  "Sure, whatever you say."

  I can see from his eyes that he is smirking under the skull bandana. It makes me want to mop the floor with him.

  The living room opens up from the threshold we step through, vast space decorated as a bachelor pad: pool table, dart boards, leather couches, and empty beer cans all over the place. In the middle of it, there's a true hipster with a fucking man bun taped to a chair.

  Leo gives us a glance over his shoulder, a gun in one hand, and a knife in the other, and its dripping blood on the floor. The source must be a couple of bodies next to the pool table because other than the blackening eye, the driver seems fine to me.

  "Everything okay?" he asks, taking in our appearance.

  "Yeah—"

  Way too familiar sound booms through the air, and time doesn't fucking slow down. Blink of an eye and Puma collapses from my side. My stomach drops, and I spin around, but now my movement feels like slow-motion. Another gunfire, and I was already prepared to take the blow, but nothing happens. To me, at least.

  A pair of feet is halfway through the threshold, body on the other side. Leo's gun hand is still up, ready to shoot again.

  "Fuck, no, no, Puma…" I drop to my knees, panic thundering inside me. Less than a second, and Leo is on his other side, turning Puma around before I had a chance. He rolls to his back, the body completely lifeless. I cup his face in my hands, shock hitting my system full force as I chant his name like a prayer, needing him to stay with me.

  "No, no, no, no…" I hear Leo talking something about an ambulance, but I can't focus. All I see is my brother. Dying.

  Puma coughs, and his eyes open a little. "Oh, holy shit…"

  "Stay with me, bro, you'll get through his," I assure him, or maybe me. "Leo called an ambulance, and we'll get you patched up. Just breathe. Just breathe."

  "Wait, I…" He starts to fumble his hoodie open. I stare down at him, dazed. "I have the vest," he huffs, pulling the zipper down. "Bulletproof."

  "Oh, god," I let out a sigh, relieved. He is not going to die. My brother is not going to die.

  "That's my boy," Leo bends down, pulling Puma into a bear hug, ignoring the oomph sounds Puma makes when he's moved. I let my head drop back, trying to steady my racing heart.

  "Tiger," Leo's now steady voice calls me. "Help Puma to the car and check out the house one more time."

  I get up and give Puma my hand. He takes it, pain twisting his face—even with the vest, taking a bullet this close hurts like fucking hell. I wrap his arm over my shoulder to help him, and we make our way to the car in silence, the only sound is Puma's gritted teeth. I assist him to the front seat. "You okay? No internal bleeding you're not telling us?"

  Puma snorts. "Nah, I'm cool. These vests came yesterday, and I decided to test drive." He slaps my shoulder. "Go help Dad. I'm fine."

  I'm already leaving until I stop and give him a stern look. "You scared the shit out of me. Next time tell me before the gig details like that. I don't want to die of arrhythmia. It'd be embarrassing."

  I take a look around the house, confronting only dead bodies. Whimpers and begging carry from the living room, and I feel my blood pressure rising again.

  "…pick him up?" Leo's calm and collected voice fills my senses as I step inside the living room.

  "Different locations, I told you!" the guy yells at Leo.

  Mistake.

  Leo cocks his fist back, and it shoots to the hipster's face like a cannonball. The crack reveals his nose shattered like a porcelain vase. The guy barks out from the pain, jerking his hands and legs, but they won't budge from the chair.

  A phone starts to ring to the tune “Awake” by Godsmack, and Leo lifts his index finger in front of the guy. "Not a sound. Understood?"

  The blood from his nose spills all over his gray shirt as he shakes his head for dear life. Like it could save him in the end.

  It won't.

  "Hayes," Leo answers the call, but he spins to my direction in a nanosecond. "Angel?"

  My heart stops at his word. Cobra?

  I close the distance between Leo and me, fisting his shirt into my hand on his chest. "What's going on? What's going on?"

  "It's okay, don't worry about it. Just tell me where you are? We're coming to get you," Leo rushes to say, grabbing me from the back of my neck and pulls me to his chest into some sort of hug. My legs feel like giving up. She's alive. Every fucking emotion thunders inside me, and I don't know what to do with all of them.

  "Look around, Angel. What do you see from the window?" Leo keeps talking, and then something Cobra says makes him jerk his gaze to the driver. "Talk with Tiger, I'll get us an address. I love you so, so much, little one. Kill everyone you see, okay?"

  My hand shakes as he hands me the phone, and turns to the guy, now with a menacing scowl on his face.

  "Baby?" I whisper, unable to believe she could actually be on the other end of the line.

  "Tiger, oh my god, are you okay? Dad didn't fuck you up?" Her hoarse, vibrating timbre melts my insides, and I drop to my knees on the floor. Feels like I could fucking die. My chest heaves, and I lean on my knees, unable to keep myself together.

  "I'm fine. Where are you, baby?" I manage to gasp out, black dots dancing in my eyes.

  "I don't know, it's some kind of a hotel but not ready yet. There are a shit ton of guards, and I—"

  Her voice cuts off with gunfire, and my heart stops beating. I jump up, fear reverberating through my body. "Cobra? Cobra!"

  Indistinct grunts and thuds come through the line. Leo turns to look at me quickly but turns back to the driver. He asks something before sticking his knife into his thigh, hilt-deep. The driver yells, but I can't hear them over the hurricane in my head.

  What happened? Where the fuck is she?

  "I'm back," Cobra gasps, and I feel like I'll start to cry from this pressure any second now. "I can't get out, Tiger. There are so many of them."

  Oh, my fucking god. She sounds desperate and exhausted, and I know I need to gather myself up. She needs help, not me whining on the phone. I take a breath, focusing.

  "Baby, you said it's a hotel?"

  "Yeah, unfinished," she whispers.

&nb
sp; "Go up. Gather as many guns as possible and go to the east corner. We'll find you." I glance at Leo, who pulls the knife out, now from the driver's skull.

  "I have an address," he speaks as he turns and jogs out. "Keep her on the phone!"

  "Heard that, baby? We're coming to bring you home," I tell her, running after Leo. "Remember, east corner. Are you hurt?"

  "Nothing I can't handle. Holy shit, I'm so relieved to hear your voice. I love you, kitty."

  My heart swells out of my chest as I jump to the backseat of the Dodge. "I love you too, baby girl. Do you have a gun?"

  "One with only a few bullets, and a Swiss blade. Fuck," Cobra curses quietly. "The phone is running out of battery. I'll go—"

  The line goes quiet, and I feel my hand tremble as I hold the phone in my hand.

  She has to make it.

  She just… has to.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  An army of ants is tickling under my skin as I try to keep a steady heartbeat and not have a heart attack from the anxiety. Leo is not holding back with the speed when he drives through the city, but it's still not enough. There's a group call going on in the car, and Wolf's and Romero's voices come through the speaker. Romero is gathering Pronto Muerte and sends them to the hotel where Cobra is. Wolf is on his way there too with Bear and Falcon.

  We have no idea how many guards there actually are, but Cobra said a lot, so that's what we're gearing up for. Still, it doesn't make me feel any better. I want a fucking army with bazookas and flame throwers.

  It feels like my bloodstream is overheated, and boiling bubbles fill every inch of my flesh.

  "How 'bout the girl in the trunk?" Puma asks while loading his Glocks.

  "We'll deal with her after this," Leo retorts, changing gears and flying the enormous Dodge through the city. It's a miracle we don't have cops behind us yet.

  I bet Red in the trunk will pick her future boyfriends better from now on.

  We arrive in a construction area at the edge of the city. The sign beside the first unfinished building tells that there's going to be a casino and some shit. It must be Crusador's but clearly operated under a fake name.