Mark of the Wolf; Hell's Breed by Madelaine Montague Read Free Book Online

in or out of the door, they scanned them
from the tops of their heads to their toes, assessed them, and then
returned their attention to the magazine.
    That was her impression
anyway and she was attuned enough to them to feel like she didn’t miss a
lot.
    They came to attention when she was
called back to talk to the DA, dragging their long legs in and
sitting up straighter. Neither of them actually got up, however,
since the receptionist directed them to wait there.
    The deposition wasn’t the nightmare
she’d expected, never having experienced one before. It was still
grueling. The DA put her through her paces, asking her the same
questions, each phrased a little differently, over and over until
she began to think of him as the ‘enemy’. He kept reminding her
that the defense was bound to ‘batter’ her once she got on the
stand in an effort to rattle her so that he could discredit her
testimony and obviously the DA was hell bent on testing her medal
himself.
    She had a headache by the time they
broke for lunch and not much appetite. The guys escorted her to a
sandwich shop nearby and settled around her, giving everyone that
came anywhere near them such cold, assessing looks that most of the
traffic simply took a different route to and from the ordering
counter. “Like Moses and the Red Sea,” Laurie murmured. “Where are
you guys from? Originally, I mean?”
    That caught their attention, riveting
it firmly on her. All four of them stared at her as if she’d asked
them to strip naked in the middle of the restaurant—suspiciously,
with speculation, as if it was an interrogation. Irritated, Laurie
shook her head. “Never mind. I was just trying to make
conversation.”
    “ In our line of work, it
isn’t a good idea to get too personal,” Damien volunteered after a
few moments, earning a deadly look from his twin.
    He grimaced and shrugged. “No sense in
being impolite,” he muttered, this time in response to the look his
brother had given him.
    “ And that comment was so
polite,” Basil responded dryly, blushing when Laurie glanced at
him.
    “ Like I said—never mind,”
Laurie said a little stiffly. “It hadn’t occurred to me that you
might want to keep your distance, emotionally speaking, since I
have a target painted on my forehead. That was just downright
inconsiderate.”
    “ We’re from Wyoming,”
Lucien said tightly.
    Laurie held up her hand. “No! Don’t
tell me! Obviously divulging deep dark secrets like where you were
born is giving me dangerous information. I don’t want to get bumped
off for asking questions that are too personal!”
    They finished their lunch in
uncomfortable silence and headed back to the courthouse complex for
a cheerful afternoon of rehashing the murder. The DA finally
released her into the custody of the four horsemen around five and
she was escorted back to the hotel to collapse. Exhausted, more
emotionally, she thought, than physically, Laurie literally
collapsed on the wide king sized bed and dropped off the face of
the earth. She felt drunk when she woke some time later and
completely disoriented. It was dusk-ish outside but she couldn’t
decide if it was morning and she’d slept through the evening and
night or if it was evening and she’d only slept a little while. The
clock beside the bed was no help. The display showed 8:00 but it
could’ve been AM or PM and looked pretty much the same light-wise
outside. She finally decided that it must be PM and she’d only
slept a little while.
    She was starving. She’d barely touched
her sandwich at lunch because of her headache and the tension of
the guys that had made her own tension that much worse. Turning the
TV on, she sat down with the local attractions books the hotel had
provided, trying to decide whether she wanted to go out to eat or
stay in. It was bound to be expensive either way. This was the big
city, after all, and although it offered way more than the small
town, it was pricey. Beyond that,