Slip the Skin

by Shanley, Tera

  He rubbed a hand roughly against the back of his neck until the blood in his veins cooled. No point in picking it apart now. The deed was done and she wouldn’t survive. Humans so rarely did, and female Lycans were almost non-existent. Add that to Linden already being sick, and her fate had been sealed the moment she’d said yes to his offer.

  A pained noise came from her in the bedroom. Palms pressed against his eyelids, he tried to drown out the sound of her death chant. He had to get out of there before he lost it again and changed into the wolf scratching just beneath his surface. Padding back to the bed, he kneeled down and brushed across her moisture-laden forehead with a finger.

  “Goodbye, Linden.” His voice echoed through the room, broken and possessing a thousand ghosts in it.

  ****

  “Holy moly,” Linden groused against the streaming light of the window. Her head was so full of pain, if she moved it would explode into a thousand tiny pieces. The dim dawn light burned like a blowtorch against her eyelids. Every muscle ached as if she’d been trampled by a hundred angry horses. When she tried to move, nothing wanted to work right. Maybe it was happening. Maybe she was dying. She hadn’t even told the girls goodbye or said farewell to Mom.

  A sudden wave of queasiness took her. Stumbling, she made it into the bathroom. Retching over and over, her body ridded itself of everything, as if expelling all the toxins she’d ever absorbed. Spent, she stood and washed her face with cold water. She reached for the towel but her hand landed on her razor instead.

  “Ouch!” She pulled her hand to her dripping face. Two gashes made an equal sign on her fingerprints. A drop spilled into the sink, red on porcelain white. The drop was all the tiny wound parted with before it closed up before her eyes. “What the hell?” she breathed.

  Though in the mirror she appeared wide-eyed, her focus had returned. She didn’t have that barely present feel of previous weeks or the drunken haze that accompanied her meds. She could see everything. Every microscopic blond hair sprouting from her skin, every pore, each dust mote dancing little tornados in the light between her and the mirror.

  Graham. The memories of his tenderness crashed into her like a gale force wind. She searched desperately for the bite he’d given her when they’d come together in that glorious rush, but only found smooth flesh. Rubbing a finger over the unmarred skin, she ran for her purse and dug around for the card he’d given her. Frantically, she dialed the number, but just as she was about to hit Call, froze. What if she was imagining all this? What if this was a side effect of the growing mass pressing against her brain?

  Her knees buckled and she folded onto the edge of the bed. The feather soft mattress sank in under her. What if she’d imagined Graham last night? Other than the bent up card she clutched in her white-knuckled grip, no trace of him existed in the room. What if she’d just wanted a connection with another human being so badly, her damaged brain had made up a romp with Graham to satisfy her last wish?

  A knock echoed against the door. “Housekeeping,” a woman sang.

  “I’m not checked out yet. Can you come back in an hour?” Linden called.

  She dressed in jeans and a thin gray sweater under her jacket and threw her things into the floral canvas bag she’d brought, then rushed for the elevator. “I need to check out,” she told the kind-looking older woman at the front desk downstairs.

  “Sure thing. What room number?”

  “Eight fifteen.”

  “Alright, just a second.” The lady tapped away on the computer.

  The volume of the clicking sound made Linden hunch inward against the onslaught. It was like listening to a machine gun from close range. Geez, could the lady type any louder?

  A man in a suit similar to Graham’s stood yawning by the front door. Tall and well-built, he wore his long hair tied with a leather band. Maybe he was a bodyguard too. Did Graham work with him?

  “Here you go,” the woman, Rita by her nametag, murmured, handing her a receipt.

  When she turned to leave, the man in the suit jerked his head toward her and followed her escape with a wide arc of his dark gaze. A chill trembled up her spine but she stayed her course. She had to pass him to leave. Just as she touched the door, a steely grip latched onto her arm.

  “You,” the man breathed. “Do you know what you are?”

  She stretched her neck back to glare at the crazy creeper. “Yeah, I’m about to call the cops if you don’t get your paws off me, you psycho.”

  Slowly, he released her and she scrambled to hail a cab. The taxi that stopped smelled of gasoline, unwashed bodies and rotten food. She covered her mouth with a hand to stifle the gags that were threatening to bubble forth. It was the worst smell she’d ever encountered, and lucky her, she was riding in it all the way across town. The blaring music only drowned out her discomfort a little but at least it helped.

  She checked her phone and found eighteen missed calls from Meredith and the girls. Oops. She punched a quick mass text apology about how she’d had so much fun, she’d forgotten about calling them last night. They’d probably buy it. She’d make it up to them, take them out for a nice lunch, catch up on what she’d missed at the party and say a proper goodbye.

  The cab driver pulled up to her one bedroom bungalow. “Thanks,” she said with her politest smile as she paid him through the window. And grumbled as he sped off, “For almost killing my sense of smell.”

  A small fence surrounded her tiny house and as she hefted the floral bag over her shoulder, loud screeching erupted down the street. A black pickup sailed toward her, and so enamored was she with its speed, she failed to move until it skidded to a stop beside her. Crap!

  She ran, and made it exactly two steps before a beefy, bald man in a biker vest was on her. Struggling and kicking at his shins, she tried to scream but only got a gurgle out before he clamped a meaty hand over her mouth. Her struggles were useless against the behemoth. He threw her bodily into the middle seat between him and another man with sunglasses. She punched and flailed until The Hulk pinned her arms down. The driver took off.

  “Now I’m a kidnap victim? This is awesome, you idiots. What could you possibly get from me? My mom is poor as dirt, so ransoming me is out of the question and I’m freaking dying.”

  The bald man growled. “Pipe down, woman. You ain’t dying.” He pulled a knife from his leather belt and cut a slice down her forearm before she could say fried pickles.

  She would have screamed, really she would’ve, if her dadburned arm hadn’t started healing itself instantly. “But,” she said in a very small voice, “I have a tumor.”

  “Not anymore you don’t,” the driver said.

  Three muscle bound, stern-faced men in biker cuts, each with the same expressionless expression. “I don’t understand.”

  Behemoth Shoulders sighed like she was a dimwit. “I’ll put it real simple for you, darlin’. You’re. A. Werewolf.”

  She giggled. Then frowned. Then burst out laughing. “Alrighty then. I’d like out at the next light, please. I think the crazy bus is full.”

  Silence.

  “Hello?” she said.

  The biker leaned his head against the window. “Look, shut up or I’m going to cut your tongue out and we’ll see if that one grows back, you hear?” He’d said the words as easily as if he were flicking away a fly, but she didn’t doubt he’d do it.

  She clamped her mouth shut with a clack.

  Escape.

  It was time to start planning her escape.

  Chapter Five

  Graham’s phone had been ringing off the hook. Even on vibrate it was obnoxious, like a splinter he couldn’t reach. He’d already called in a replacement for work, and since he took a day off...mmm...never, he refused to feel bad for needing a mental health day. The shot of Jim Beam rested coolly against his forehead as he leaned over the bar top. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d needed a drink but since the early hours of the morning, something had changed with the animal inside h
im. Now he was about as broken as a monster could get.

  The dusty bar housed him and one other old-timer, who’d fallen asleep cradling a half empty bottle of whiskey on the bar top an hour before. Not the nicest place, but nobody asked questions about a silver-eyed man drinking at ten in the morning, which suited him just fine.

  The phone vibrated against the sticky counter, and he slid a death glare at the diversion. Tristan. Again. He downed the scorching amber liquid and picked up the phone. “What?”

  “Hayes, you need to get to Ned’s right now.”

  “Meeting?”

  “Yep.”

  Graham rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I’m on my way.”

  Ned’s was the biker bar where all pack meetings were held. And pack meetings weren’t optional. If the alpha, Ned himself, called in the troops, a smart wolf got there in a timely manner unless he wanted the fur fileted off him.

  Taxis were a rare sight in that part of town, so he called one to him. His Harley was parked at Ned’s. Maybe if he’d sobered up enough by the time the meeting ended, he could ride his bike back to his house. He downed a giant glass of water offered by the bartender to encourage the process, and tipped the man.

  This pack meeting was harshing his shot-slamming sick day. It had damn well better be for something important.

  ****

  Fantastic. Not only had Linden been forced to sit squished between two burly bikers all the way to the border of the dadgummed city, now she had a legitimate black canvas sack over her head like the victim of a mob hit. She tamped down another ripple of cold fear. She was dying anyway, right?

  Oh God, who was she kidding? She didn’t want to go at the hands of a biker gang!

  The air smelled of alcohol, moisture and the fibers of the sack over her face. She sat in a chair in the middle of what sounded like a crowd of murmuring men. She was feeling awesome about where this was going. If they were after boobs, hers were miniature, so the joke would be on them. Crap, crap, crap! What was she doing there?

  Someone tugged the bag from her with a very ungentle hand, and she blinked against the contrasting light. She was in a bar, and the bar top was surrounded by a row of creaking chairs. Round tables littered the space around a make-shift dance floor. Two pool tables stood near the wall to the left, and an old jukebox blared a Neil Young song. A stuffed beaver backside decorated a hallway with a sign that said Bathrooms. Classy.

  A shorter man with an American flag bandana stood on the table nearest the stage her chair was perched upon. “Shut it.”

  He didn’t say it loudly or forcefully, but the reaction to his words was like the wind had died to nothing after a tornado. Some kind of leader.

  He gestured lazily in her direction. “You all know what she is, so who done it?”

  She raised her hand and he leveled a dark look at her. “What?”

  “Who done what?”

  “Who bit you. You could save us the trouble and just tell us.”

  Who bit her? Fear coiled in her gut like some cold serpent. Why did she get the feeling this wasn’t all some hallucination brought on by the sickness? She raised her hand again.

  “Whaaat?” he growled.

  She squinted at the name patch on his leather biker vest. “Ned, is it? Just curious. What happens to the person who, um, bit me?”

  “We flog him. Turning a wolf is a punishable offense.”

  “Oh.” They were going to flog Graham? Like, whip him? Freakin’ barbarians. “Uh, carry on. I don’t remember who done it.” She gave him what she hoped was a charming smile and swallowed down the lump in her throat.

  No one raised their hand, which wasn’t surprising because A, the whipping, and two, Graham-the-rat-fink-culprit was nowhere to be seen. Her stool on the stage was becoming a very lonely place.

  “That’s what I thought, you cowards,” Ned said. “So if no one is admitting it, fine. I will find out and your punishment will match my frustration for you not stepping forward like a man. Until then, she needs to be claimed so you jackwagons don’t kill each other over her carcass.”

  She raised her hand again.

  “For Chrissakes, what now?” Ned asked. “This, boys, this is why we don’t turn women. They asked too many questions.”

  Ignoring the rumbling chuckles from the thirty or so dangerously grinning and unsettlingly handsome men, she asked, “and what is ‘claiming’ again?” She used air quotes.

  “One of these fine wolves is going to get to be your man, the lucky devil.”

  She grimaced at his sarcasm. “No thanks. I choose none of you. Politely decline.”

  Ned shrugged. “Suit yourself. You die then.”

  “Mmm, excuse me? Die, you said?”

  “Yeah, you either take a mate so they can make sure you don’t go blabberin’ your mouth to every newspaper around about us, or you die.”

  Awesome.

  “I piiick,” she said, pointing to each tough looking man like she played eeny, meeny, miney, moe.

  “Stop it. You don’t pick. They pick you. Multiple bids for you means they fight for you. Strongest Lycan wins. Who wants her?”

  A slew of meaty hands shot into the air. Her thundering heart was going to explode through her rib cage at any moment. Her fear smelled bitter and acrid against the newly sensitive lining of her nose.

  Okay, so they thought she was a freaking werewolf. She’d seen enough movies to be terrified of the slobbering mangy animal she would turn into if what the legends said were true. She clenched her clammy hands in her lap and pursed her lips against the urge to flee screaming from their midst. They’d catch her before she exited the stage. She was utterly and unerringly screwed and was about to become the sexpot love slave to one of these strangers. Sure, most of them were actually pretty awesome looking, in that chiseled he may kill me, he may spare me type of way, but still… Strangers!

  Damn Graham, for whatever he’d done, and damn him twice for not being there to fix this colossal misunderstanding.

  The door flew open, letting in a current of streaming light.

  And there he stood, trouble himself, wide-eyed and slack jawed, and completely and utterly delicious.

  Chapter Six

  “What the hell is going on here?” Graham breathed.

  The unsettling part about his whisper was that Linden could actually hear it over the murmur of the crowd. She ignored the chills that raised gooseflesh from her arms and raised her hand once again. Ned dropped his head into his hands and groaned. “I believe I’m about to be claimed by one of these fine gentlemen,” she offered.

  “You’re alive,” Graham said.

  Well, that was an unexpected reaction. “Obviously.”

  “Graham,” Ned warned.

  “No one’s claiming her. This was a mistake,” he said, weaving through the bodies toward her.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell them. Finally,” she said to the crowd, “sense has entered the building.”

  He hopped onto the stage in a move so graceful, it couldn’t be human. His nostrils flared, and he jerked back. “Oh, shit. You’re a Lycan.”

  She dropped her head back and groaned. “Not you too.”

  “Did you do this to her?” Ned asked in a flat and careful tone.

  “Say no,” she whispered. “Apparently they whip people around here.”

  Silver churned in the depths of his eyes like lava as he searched her face. Her breath caught and her eyes went wide. Nope, that color was definitely not human. How had she not realized something was wrong with his eyes last night? Okay, so if legends and monsters were real, she’d boinked one of them last night. Her chest felt too heavy to allow a breath, like something enormous was sitting on her torso. Inch by inch, she leaned back into the chair, and farther away from him.

  He turned and faced the crowd. “No one will claim her. I made her, she’s mine and I accept the punishment for turning her.”

  “You understand you’re claiming her, right?” Ned ask
ed.

  Graham spared her a hard glance over his shoulder and turned to the men. “Yes.”

  The butterflies that had been fluttering in her stomach ever since her unfortunate kidnapping turned into a herd of riotous dragons. She hadn’t ever really thought of settling down with someone, and especially not in some kind of arranged marriage to a wolf-man. Even more important, somehow, was that he was about to be whipped. “Graham,” she warned. Dealing with tragedy by joking had always been her way, but this? This was real flesh and blood pain, going to be inflicted on someone she cared about.

  He turned and pulled her from the chair. “She’s mine,” he growled, wrenching her hair roughly back, exposing her neck, and kissing her until her lips throbbed. Seconds drifted lazily by as he slowed, sucking gently on her swollen bottom lip. Only when she gasped with wanting him did he release his hold on her.

  Head dipped until his teeth were against her wrist, he hesitated. With a painful ripping sound, he tore the flesh with sharpened teeth and did the same to his arm. Then he pressed the wounds together. She jerked at the unexpected burning pain. “Blood and bone, together as one, you are mine, and I yours. Say it.”

  She floundered.

  “Say it before the wounds close,” he said. “Say it now.”

  Swimming in the dark, churning waters of his silver gaze, she murmured, “Blood and bone, together as one, you are mine, and I yours.”

  “It is done,” he said, turning to the silent crowd. “Anyone lays a hand on her, I’ll kill you.”

  He jumped from the stage and followed Ned and a couple of the other bikers to a room at the back of the bar. And there she sat, fighting the urge to lick Graham’s blood from her healed wrist and listening to the hum of the agitated bar patrons.

  ****