by Amy Pennza
She kept unbuttoning.
“Bard ordered me to keep you here.”
She slipped the shirt off her shoulders and let it drop to the ground. Shifting in front of Ben was out of the question. The mudroom was right off the garage. She could crack the door, shift, and leave the house that way.
Mind made up, she gave a small nod and headed for the hall. As she passed him, he grabbed her elbow.
“Haley, hold on a second.”
Instincts flared and all her years of training rushed to the fore. Without even realizing what she was doing, she dipped her shoulder. It caught him off guard, and he lurched into her. She countered, shoving her shoulder back up and smacking him under the chin.
He staggered back, one hand clapped to his mouth. When he lifted it away, blood dribbled from his lip and stained his palm. He studied it, the bewildered look on his face almost comical. The tiny cut on his lip healed quickly, sealing itself before her eyes. He lowered his hand, anger stirring in his eyes.
She stepped back, every nerve ending primed. She was no match for Ben. He was bigger and stronger. He was also a Stalwart.
She was Haley the Giftless.
Remy’s French-accented voice whispered through her mind. “You don’t always gotta be the bigger wolf, chère. You just gotta know where to hit ‘em.”
Ben’s eyes lightened a shade, and his voice dropped an octave. “Bard said to stay here.”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to fight with you—”
“Then don’t.”
“—but I’m leaving and you can’t stop me.” She flicked her gaze to a point on the side of his neck. Her vision sharpened, her wolf rushing forward.
“The hell I can’t.” He reached for her.
She whipped her arm up, her palm flat like a blade, and struck the side of his neck. It was a move she worked on over and over again in training. She never got it right.
Except this time.
He stayed upright for a second, his jaw slack. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he crashed to the floor, his big body making a sickening thud against the hardwood.
Her breath caught. Oh god, she killed him! She knelt and touched the side of his neck. His pulse throbbed under her fingers, the beat sure and steady. She sat back on her heels, relief pouring through her. A smile pulled at her mouth. She’d done it! She took down a wolf twice her size using Remy’s karate chop move.
“Haley Michaels, badass,” she murmured.
Cold air from the broken window rushed over her, raising goosebumps on her arms.
She stood and started for the hall. After a couple steps, she stopped and reversed course. Cursing, she dashed to the sofa and grabbed a throw pillow. She rushed back to Ben and stuck it under his head. “Sorry,” she whispered. He’d understand.
Once he regained consciousness.
She patted his cheek, then stood and rushed to the mudroom, where she opened the door before dropping to all fours. Her shift this time was agonizingly slow and painful—the result of Turning three times in one night. When she finished, she stood on shaking legs, her sides heaving as she struggled to control her heart rate. Her stomach cleaved to her ribs. When this was all over and she found Bard, she was going to eat a steak and a huge-ass baked potato.
Hunger pangs rocked her, and her belly growled loud enough to make an echo in the small room.
Okay, so maybe don’t fantasize about potatoes right now.
Using her snout, she nudged the door wider and leaned around the jamb. The garage door button was next to the door. She stood on her hind legs and pressed it with her paw. After a second, the door shuddered and lifted, the gears emitting a low groan.
Ha! Who needs opposable thumbs?
She was down the steps and out of the garage before the door finished rolling up. Time was of the essence. There was no way to tell how long Ben would be out. She got lucky with Remy’s karate chop trick once. She wasn’t about to kid herself it would work again.
Snow pelted her, stinging her eyes and flying up her nose. But the snow was tightly packed after a full day of winter storm, and she skimmed over the frozen surface without falling through.
Bard’s scent was easy to pick up. Arrogant Alpha. He hadn’t bothered to cover his trail because it never occurred to him she would flout his orders and overpower Ben.
She kept her nose close to the ground, letting the scent of sandalwood and juniper guide her. Bard’s path followed the road for what felt like forever, and she adjusted her pace, slowing to a steady lope so she could conserve what little remained of her energy. Just as her feet grew numb and her tongue lolled from her mouth, the trail took a sharp right angle.
Straight into the forest.
She stopped, ears perked for any sounds or sign of Bard. The wind whistled. The trees shifted and rustled. Branches creaked.
Beyond that, nothing.
Wind moaned around her, ruffling her fur. Now that she stopped moving, the cold nipped at her. The muscles in her legs fired in a sporadic rhythm, and she shivered. Her belly rumbled, and her mouth filled with saliva. She opened her jaws, letting her tongue loll.
Her gaze fell on the expanse of snow leading into the forest—a pristine sheet of powder like icing on a cake.
I should eat some. She needed the hydration. But for some reason she couldn’t summon the energy to lower her head to the ground.
Her vision blurred, and a high-pitched ringing filled her ears. A wave of lassitude swept her. She needed to rest. Her head dipped toward the snow. It was cold but, oddly enough, she didn’t feel it as much now. Maybe she’d grown used to it.
Rest. Just for a minute. Yes, that’s what she needed. Her legs shook, and she started to sink into the snow.
A muffled shout reached her.
Bard. His voice was unmistakable.
The sluggish feeling evaporated. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She leapt forward, her paws kicking up snow. She hit the forest at full speed. The shout had come from directly in front of her, so she charged straight ahead, leaping over fallen logs and ducking under evergreen branches laden with snow.
Go, go, go, go. The chant thrummed in her mind, pushing her to race toward the sound of Bard in distress. The latent killed Joel—gnawed his neck open like a sausage casing.
An image of a bloodied Bard, his clear blue eye gazing sightlessly at the sky, snapped into her mind.
She stumbled, caught herself, and kept going.
She had to keep going. There was no time to let fear distract her.
Another voice—a young man’s—sounded to her left. She skidded to a stop, chest heaving, all her senses on high alert.
The voice drifted toward her again.
And it was raised, the tone one of anger.
It was also close.
She ran, cleared a ditch streaked with muddy slush and dead leaves, and landed so hard she almost fell. Her jaws snapped together, making her skull vibrate like a tuning fork.
But that didn’t matter, because Bard and the latent stood about thirty feet away. They faced off like gunslingers in the Old West, their arms loose at their sides.
Ready for a fight.
Can’t let that happen.
She didn’t think. She just sprinted at the latent, her jaws open and ready . . .
“NO!” Bard appeared in her path, one hand outstretched.
It took everything she had to pull up short. She dug her claws into the ground, sliding so quickly her rear hit the forest floor as she rocketed toward him. Sticks and what felt like rocks poked at her backside, and she let out a yip as she shuddered to a halt.
Behind Bard, the latent growled. A line of shiny drool hung from his chin. His hood was thrown back, and his red hair stood up in sweaty spikes.
Bard angled his body sideways and stretched his other arm toward the latent. In a low voice full of power, he said, “Easy, son. She means no harm.”
Magic. There was magic in Bard’s voice. It rushed over her and wrapped arou
nd her, holding her in place. She couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. There was only one other Alpha who had that sort of power. Maxime Simard, ruler of the New York Territory. He could stop a charging wolf in its tracks through sheer force of will.
It seemed Bard had that power, too. And he was even better than Max at hiding it.
The latent’s body jerked, as if he fought invisible bonds. His gaze met hers, and while his eyes burned wolf blue, there was no intelligence behind them. He was totally, completely insane, his higher reasoning ability destroyed by the beast trapped inside him.
Her heart clenched. He was someone’s child, someone’s friend. Someone important to somebody. Ben’s voice drifted through her mind. “His name is Sam. He’s fourteen.”
Arms stretched in both directions, Bard turned an angry gaze on her. “What are you doing? I ordered you to stay put.”
Instinct pushed on her shoulders, urging her to duck her head. The Alpha was furious, and the only way to make it better was to show him submission. But she was locked in place, her rump on the ground and her front paws covered in dirt and snow.
The best she could do was whine, a pitiful sound snatched away by the wind.
He held her gaze, and when he spoke the tips of his fangs showed. “I can’t hold you both.”
Abruptly, she realized he was using every ounce of his power—and he was at his breaking point. His arms were steady, but lines of strain bracketed his mouth. Despite the cold, sweat beaded at his temples.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
He meant he didn’t have enough power to stop both her and the latent from rushing him. If he was forced to drop his hold on Sam, he could be killed. She managed a nod.
He lowered his arm, and the force holding her in place fell away. The change was so sudden, she almost pitched forward. Dizziness swept her, and she dug her claws into the ground to keep herself upright. Even with the latent steps away, exhaustion tugged at her, urging her to curl up on the forest floor and sleep. Her eyelids grew heavy.
“Haley.”
She straightened, Bard’s voice jerking her back to full consciousness.
His stare bored into her. A second later, soft voices seemed to whisper around her. The words were unintelligible, but she sensed they were kind. Warmth spread through her, as though someone had lit a candle inside her chest. The fatigue lifted, and the ache in her muscles faded.
When Bard spoke again, his voice thrummed with power. “Do not interfere.” The words snapped around her like manacles.
He’d given her a direct order with all the power of the Alpha behind it. She could no more disobey than she could stop breathing. All she could do was sit, helpless as he turned and walked to the latent.
Her heart sped up, the thumping rhythm almost painful as he stopped in front of the boy and put a hand on his shoulder.
No! What was he doing? Her throat went dry. She wanted to yell at him to stop, but she could only scream it in her mind.
He moved his hand from the latent’s shoulder and cupped the boy’s cheek.
She tensed, but the latent turned his head into it, his eyes closing.
Bard stroked the boy’s face. Even from a distance, it was easy to see his touch was tender.
Haley held her breath as another scene—one from her memory—entered her mind. Bard had touched his patient in the ER the same way, his hands gentle and reassuring as he comforted someone in pain.
As snow flurries blew and the trees swayed in the wind, Bard pulled the latent into his arms. The boy rested his head on Bard’s broad shoulder, his eyes closing as his body relaxed. His expression smoothed out, the mix of anger and rage fading into something like contentment.
Wonderment filled her. No one knew for certain what a latent felt when moon madness took them. It was always fatal, and none stayed sane long enough to communicate. But based on the stories she heard, it was an agonizing existence. When the wolf took over completely, latents lost their humanity. They were animals trapped in a body that didn’t match their primitive brain. Instinct drove them to hunt, but they lacked the ability to find and kill prey. As they slowly starved to death, they attacked anything that got too close.
The pair turned a little, giving her a view of their faces in profile. Bard passed a hand down the boy’s hair, holding him as tenderly as a father.
Or an Alpha with one of the wolves entrusted to his care.
He bent his head, and his lips moved as he spoke into the boy’s ear.
The boy let out a sob, his shoulders heaving, and wrapped his arms around Bard’s waist.
For a second, utter despair shone on Bard’s face. Then in one fierce, violent motion, he grabbed the boy’s head and wrenched it sideways.
A pop echoed across the forest, the sound as loud and startling as a gunshot.
The boy slumped, and Bard caught him and lowered him to the ground.
Stunned, Haley could only watch as Bard knelt next to the boy, his touch reverent as he pulled the gray hood over the boy’s head, smoothing the red hair down. Then he drew the hood down the boy’s face as far as it would go, covering eyes that would never see again.
Her stomach twisted into knots. She couldn’t go to him. Couldn’t move. But even if she could, she didn’t know what to say.
“Being Alpha isn’t the glamorous job some imagine it to be, Miss Michaels.”
She hadn’t really understood that when he said it.
Now she did.
At last, he stood. He waited a moment, his head bowed, the boy at his feet. Then he turned and walked to her. As he approached, the weight of his order lifted, releasing her. The energy he gifted her faded, too, and exhaustion rushed back in. As the wind buffeted her, she struggled to stay upright.
He crouched in front of her, moonlight showing tracks of tears over his scarred cheeks.
A whine wound its way up from her chest, and she bumped his shoulder with her snout.
He caught her head and held it against his chest. “You little fool,” he said, but there was no anger in it. He buried his fingers in her fur. “You were supposed to stay with Rupert.”
She pulled back and tilted her head. I told you I’m not very good at following orders.
He ran a hand over the ruff around her neck. Then he did it again, as though he savored the feeling and wanted more of it. “You could have been killed.”
She looked over his shoulder, to where Sam lay motionless on a carpet of dead leaves. A lock of red hair showed from under the hood. It fluttered in the wind, a spot of color in the black and white night.
Bard made a sound—a deep sob that made her jerk her gaze back to him.
“It’s such a waste,” he said, his head lowered, the strap of his eye patch bisecting his scalp. “Such a fucking waste.”
What was? Sam’s life? Frustration rose in Haley’s mind. Stuck in wolf form, she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t comfort.
Head still down, Bard braced his weight on the fingertips of one hand. Crouched as he was, his leg had to be killing him.
“I didn’t know,” he muttered. “If I had—” He sucked in a breath and went silent.
She slipped from his side and trotted to a nearby tree, where she huddled on the ground and squeezed her eyes shut. For a second, she wasn’t certain the Turn would come. Panic clawed at her—the thought of being forever trapped in wolf form streaking through her mind. Then her fangs slid back into her gums and a dull ache started in her bones.
Leaves crunched, but she barely registered the sound. She was vaguely aware of Bard in her peripheral vision as the transition took her. It was the slowest she could remember—slower even than her very first shift, when she shocked both herself and Lizette by Turning in the middle of Lizette’s living room after a night of movies and pizza. That time was different than most werewolves’ first shifts, which typically took place in front of a cadre of Hunters ready to grant a merciful death if the fledgling wolf couldn’t finish the transformation.
Or went mad
in the process. Latents weren’t the only ones who could be destroyed by their inner beast.
Bard watched her now, but she sensed it was out of concern rather than doubt about her ability to regain human form.
At least one of them believed in her. About halfway through, her head pounded, the bones in her face stuck between human and wolf.
Booted feet appeared next to her head, then Bard spoke in a low voice. “You’ve got it, baby. Just push a little harder.”
He didn’t touch her, of course. No werewolf would ever lay hands on another mid-shift—not when nerve endings were exposed. But his words were like a caress over her skin, giving her just enough of a nudge to complete the change.
As soon as she did, he grabbed her wrist in one hand and lifted his arm, his gaze on his watch.
“What . . .” Her voice was like sandpaper, and she had to swallow a few times before she could speak again. “What are you—”
“Hush. I’m checking your vitals.”
He would. It didn’t take much to snap him into doctor mode. She preferred it over Alpha mode. That only made him sad . . . and unreasonable.
She watched snowflakes settle on his shoulders, which were covered by a dark jacket with a North Face logo. He must have changed out of his scrubs after she escaped through the window, because he also wore jeans and a pair of hiking boots. She hadn’t noticed during their standoff with Ben. She’d been too worried about him dying.
“I’m supposed to be mad at you,” she murmured.
He glanced up, his expression startled. Then his face changed, cool professionalism sliding into place. “Later. Right now we need to get you dry and fed.”
Oh no. She hadn’t thought of that. It would have been better to stay in wolf form. Shifting had sapped the last of her strength. She couldn’t stand. Her eyelids seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. Walking was out of the question.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She tried to lift her hand, but only managed to twitch her fingers.
He raised an eyebrow. “For disobeying my order?”
“You can’t carry me. Your leg—”
“It’s fine. For a little while longer, at least.”
Ah, yes. He’d taken the brakes off his power. So he could kill.
