Eclipsed Hearts

Busting Through

[Bailey]

In the moments before the door busted open, I had a nagging feeling that I’d missed something, but I shook it off. I needed to focus on staying alive. I could figure it out later.

Three men came into the room. None of them had masks on, so they didn’t think there would be witnesses or survivors to identify them. I recognized one of them as a man who’d come up to talk to Keaton and me at the mixer. He must have been trying to assess us.

That was a failure on his part. If he thought Keaton was human, he would have tracked him as someone who could fight, but he wouldn’t have been able to tell his skill level. Keaton was a pro at hiding himself in the guise of being human.

I watched as Keaton’s demeanor shifted subtly, a dangerous glint in his eyes that I knew all too well. He was ready to fight. They were so full of themselves as they approached us. Little did they know, they were playing right into our hands.

“Just give us the girl and we’ll leave you two alone,” one said.

“This offer is a courtesy. We have no problem killing innocents or witnesses,” another added.

Ian stepped between me and the men. They took a step back as he clenched his fists and growled again. I also took a step back, because that wasn’t a human growl.

Glancing at Keaton, I realized what had been nagging at me. Keaton said they were both werewolves….

Ѕhit.

I didn’t have time to focus on that. I could do whatever I was going to do. There was no time to consider the future. I needed to focus on the present.

“You touch her and you die. She belongs to me,” Ian snarled.

The men exchanged uneasy glances, clearly hesitating as they weighed the odds. They looked at one another, searching for a sign or a clue that would give them an advantage. But I realized they had underestimated the two of them.

Keaton and Ian were far more than just two werewolves. They were a force to be reckoned with.

It was difficult to ignore their obvious skill and training. Both had to think of ways to fight that differed from both werewolves and hunters. They had to play to their strengths, but not rely on them.

Of course, I wasn’t exactly a wilting lily. I came from one of the most formidable hunter families, had trained to kill since I was a child, and had been hunting and killing werewolves since I was about nineteen. Sure, I hadn’t fought a lot of humans, but there was a first time for everything.

“You think we’re afraid of you?” the third man scoffed. “Posture all you want, in the end, we’ll be killing all of you.”

As if that were their weird ‘movie bad guy fight cue,’ they all lunged at the men, pulling out batons and hitting the werewolves as hard as they could. The baton bent when it hit Keaton’s arm while he was defending his head. That’s when it hit them that they were fighting something non-human.

When you’re a hunter, you pay attention to the insignificant details about people. It wasn’t just about their actions, walk, and talk. It covered everything from their breathing to their eye movements when surprised, and even their scent. People actually have a faint gamey smell when they’re scared, but not everyone realizes it.

We tried to counter that when hunting werewolves. They had a better sense of smell than us. They were perceptive, able to sense our fear. When Keaton turned his head and sniffed, then smiled, it was a sign that he enjoyed that fear.

Realizing their mistake, the three men hesitated, exchanging uncertain glances as they scrambled to devise a new plan. But it was too late. Keaton and Ian had already closed in, ready to strike.

Their speed was astonishingly fast, and if I didn’t have prior experience battling werewolves, I wouldn’t have stood a chance of following them. In a battle against Ian or Keaton, three humans with no prior werewolf fighting training or experience would stand no chance. As I stood back, I couldn’t help but watch in awe as the werewolves effortlessly made quick work of the assassins.

I wasn’t just pretending to be a weak princess. I was also monitoring the windows and the doorway for any latecomers. Someone could easily take this opportunity to come in and join the attack.

In a display of remarkable speed and skill, Keaton and Ian unleashed a relentless flurry of punches that struck the men with both brutality and precision, leading to the fight’s rapid conclusion. Those three didn’t have a chance against the well-trained werewolves. The game they had played was an expensive one, and their overconfidence ended up being their downfall.

“What the hell are we going to do? The whole reason we weren’t going to kill our target here was because we didn’t want the attention of law enforcement. Now we have three bodies,” I said.

Perhaps the men who planned to kill me had something arranged, but we didn’t know what it was. That wasn’t helpful. I looked at the bodies on the floor.

They had some blood on them, but not too much. No claw marks. Neither of the werewolves decided they needed to use claws. That made for less of a mess.

“Don’t worry. I already figured something like this could happen. I have things in place,” Keaton replied. “Ian, here is my room key. I want you to take Mari to my room via the stairs. The room number is on the key. Lock the door when you get there and I’ll join you shortly.”

Ian took the key from Keaton and glanced at me before turning away. It looked like he hadn’t realized what Keaton said before the fight started. I didn’t even know if Keaton realized it. For now, I would keep it under my hat and watch Ian a little closer. No wonder he was so focused on the werewolves I killed and my family’s reputation.

We gathered my things and started moving. That was a fairly quick fight, so it looked like no one had time to catch it. They didn’t realize how much information I got from watching them. Their desire to protect me gave me a chance to know what I would be up against.

They were both savage and effective. It was obvious they already knew they wouldn’t want to use claws even without talking about it. It was like they both knew without having to say it. I knew if they weren’t in the same pack, then they couldn’t talk telepathically, but I was fairly certain this was the first time they were meeting.

As we approached Keaton’s room, the dimly lit corridor made Ian uneasy, his eyes constantly shifting and searching for any signs of danger. We finally arrived at Keaton’s room, tucked away in a tranquil corner of the hotel’s top floor. Ian locked the door, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized my face for any sign of emotion.

I turned away, taking my bags further into the room. Keaton had gotten one of the more expensive rooms. Rum runners used this hotel during prohibition. They would bring the booze from Canada and store it in the hotel until the curriers could come to take it to its final destination.

The room Keaton picked was large because it had once been two rooms that were joined, the second door removed, and a false wall put up to hide the liquor room. A couple of decades ago, the owner remodeled and found there were four rooms like that. I remembered reading about it while I was researching the place.

He turned each of those into suites named after types of alcohol. They went fast according to the things I’d read online. Keaton must have been one of the first people to book. He picked the best one.

Well, not the best one for the people who wanted the large balcony or views of the lake. Most people would expect a rum runner room to be on the ground floor, but that was why the owner during prohibition put them on the top floor. There was an elevator that went up, even then, but none of the police who went looking for the alcohol ever thought to go much above the ground or first floor.

The room was perfect. When I was looking through the website, I decided it was the one I would want if I stayed here for any other reason. I liked that it had a view of the trees on the island instead of the water. It was secure. The windows were smaller; the door was sturdy, and it wasn’t easily accessible to everyone. Only three other people had rooms on this floor.

I set my bags down and sat on Keaton’s bed. Ian looked at me hungrily, making me nervous in a way that it shouldn’t have been. I realized I was alone with a werewolf who had already kissed me, carried me around naked, and hidden what he was from me. I couldn’t bring it up, though. If he thought I missed it, he might give away his plan.

He was serious about the werewolf, but I wondered what he might still be planning. For some reason, I didn’t feel upset about him being a werewolf, only about him hiding it. Then again, it wasn’t like my family had the best history with werewolves. If he was hunting them, though, then he couldn’t be all bad… right?