Chapter 11: You Can Run But You Can’t Hide

For a week Natalie had been sneaking out of the house under the guise of going to rehearsal. Losing Brody stopped becoming an issue for her as she continuously invented new ways to evade his guard. She and Blake had a method for when she was coming to see him. He watches for her from the top of the building and when the coast is clear she does something with her hair; toss it over her shoulder, fix her bang and he comes to open the door.

The two were becoming quick friends but it never stopped his wolf from scratching up his insides the more that word was being used; he craved more. “Those ladies I saw you with in your backyard, are they going to be at this masque you mentioned before?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” he shrugged and leaned back in his seat. “They looked stiff; kind of like walking dead stiff. It was a little scary.”

“That’s the miracle of Botox. They are all very well preserved I should say,” Natalie laughed. “I don’t think Mercedes, the redhead, can show emotions anymore though. When she laughs her face barely moves; talk about scary.” 

Blake laughed and reached for a new charcoal pencil and Natalie adjusted slightly. “Your hair, it’s in your face now; wait, here,” he stood and brushed the tendril of hair back over her ear ever so lightly, allowing his touch to linger on her soft skin for a moment. Natalie looked up at him and he smiled before quickly returning to his seat across from her. “So what was the lie you told today to escape your gilded cage?” Natalie laughed at the question and Blake peered over his sketchpad towards her with a grin. “What’s so funny?”

“A friend of mine describes my home the same way; the ‘gilded prison’ he calls it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah he asked me to go to a show with him but wasn’t sure I would be able to get away from my warden.”

“I see,” Blake replied solemnly. Hearing anything about her romantic life was always a damper on his mood but he did his best to hide his feelings over it. “So did you go with…?”

“What was that?” Natalie asked interrupting his train of thought. Blake listened closely to what had caught her attention and very quickly picked up on the sound of footfall in the northern staircase and jumped to his feet.

“Stay here,” he ordered and started up towards the main tunnel. Moving hurriedly across the trisection of drainage pipes until the echoes of the intruders was clearer he leaned against the wall and waited to hear them again. This way, he heard the gruff voice instruct the others in his company. Instantly he began shifting; his claws and fangs extending to their sharpest points. Whoever was in here weren’t there by accident, they meant business and from the heft in their footsteps they were carrying an arsenal.

“NO!” Natalie screamed and Blake turned in anger hearing the fear in her voice. With startling speed, he rushed back towards the unit room and through the opened doorway. Three men stood in his living room and one of them gripped Natalie against his chest as she struggled to get away.

“Let her go!” Blake roared and started forward. Gripping tightly the neck of the man nearest him, he lifted him with one hand and slammed him hard onto the concrete ground. The man’s head impacted cement forceful enough to crack his skull with a thud and Blake continued moving forward until he was face-to-face with another. By now Natalie was able to get a little distance from her attacker with a heel to his crotch and fell to the floor.

  

“Get out of here!” Blake yelled in her direction noticing her huddled beside his bookcase with her hands defensively protecting her face. One of the men came up behind Blake with a large crowbar and slammed it hard between his shoulders. He grunted at the force of the blow and fell forward on the ground in front of Natalie.

As much as he tried to keep himself from shifting, the more the men kicked and punched him the harder it became to remain in control of the monster. He was sure that if Natalie saw him change she’d be forever scarred and definitely keep her distance at that point. He couldn’t let that happen; he wouldn’t.

Blake closed his eyes and took the beating as he tried to fight his way to his feet. The men were strong, stronger than normal and he could feel each new jolt to his body with every ounce of power used to produce them. Yet the pain was nothing compared to that of a forced shift, the punches and kicks to the ribs he could withstand it was the fear that emitted from Natalie that hurt the most. 

Natalie crawled towards the door as the two men continued beating on Blake who was on all fours on the ground beneath them. Shot after shot he took from the crowbar, and their feet as they stomped him mercilessly into the floor. Grabbing a lamp from the sideboard, Natalie came up behind one of them and caught him on the back of the head shattering the glass against his skull. He fell forward, knocking his head against the coffee table as he landed.

Blake rolled to his back and gripped the other one’s foot as it came down again on top of him. With a quick yank, he twisted the man’s ankle breaking it in two. The man yelled and fell back against the sofa and instantly Blake was on top of him pounding his fist into the man’s face until he was out cold. “Blake?” Natalie called watching him batter the man even after he’d stopped moving but her voice went unnoticed. “Blake he’s out,” she tried again with the same result. “Blake stop!” Blake leaned back and swallowed down a roar of victory as he saw Natalie standing beside him with a scared expression on her face. 

The man beneath him was the one that had grabbed her and the thought of mercy had gone out the window the second he saw his hands on her. Thanks to her though, he left him breathing. That was much more than he’d wanted to do the moment his fists began slamming into his face. Standing from the floor he moved towards her, wrapping her against his chest as he took in the carnage around his home. “Are you ok? Did they hurt you?”

“No,” she cried realizing they must have followed her in. “But this is all my fault; I brought this on you Blake.”

“What? How? Did you tell anyone about me?” he asked and pushed her away as he sniffed the air around them. Something was off but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. These men were here for a reason and if it had anything to do with what he thought then that only meant more would come. And he’d be damned if he was there when they arrived.

“No, I promised I wouldn’t and I didn’t.”

“Were you followed at any point when you came here?”

“No, I don’t think I was. I don’t know! I did everything you told me to in order to keep the eyes off this place, Blake I swear.”

“Well someone knows Natalie. Men like this don’t just show up out of the blue and attack people!” More sounds in the tunnel drew his attention; more of them were on the way but still a distance off. “Come on, we have to move.”

“Where? Who are they? What is going on? Why do we have to…?”

“ENOUGH! There’s no time to explain but just trust me when I say there will be more coming and already on their way. Now I’m taking you somewhere you’ll be safe. Get your stuff and let’s go,” he growled without looking back at her. The constant questions were already getting on his nerves. He hadn’t fully thought this through and now he was regretting getting her involved in this. He should have pushed her away when he had the chance but now he feared it was too late.

Grabbing her bag, Natalie darted after Blake through a small tunnel entrance on the wall nearest the stairs. He held the door opened for her until she was completely through. Grabbing a thin piano wire, he latched it around the handle that was connected to some device she recognized as one of the traps she’d previously encountered. Blake took her arm and rushed through the shallow water of the sewer towards a lighted area. Marking the door with his scent, he pulled Natalie through a different tunnel and out into the cool air of the night.

“It was him,” a deep voice announced as he handed a dirty shirt to another man stepping into the door. The dark figure sniffed the shirt inhaling Blake’s scent and growled fiercely. “What do you want us to do?”

“Find him; he couldn’t have gotten far.” Walking deeper into the living room, the man retrieved the sketchpad from the floor and traced the curves of Natalie’s face. The picture was drawn with such care that he could easily sense from the softness in the strokes she meant something to Blake. A sneer curled his lip upward and he tossed the picture to another in his company. “I want to know who this is. If she has anything to do with our guy then I want her brought to me as well! She may prove very useful.”

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