Slip the Skin

by Shanley, Tera

  “I don’t watch television much, Ned. I was a court reporter in a different life though, you know, before my brain went kaput. I’ve seen many things in those courtrooms, and most of them lead back to the who and why.”

  “My wolves wouldn’t do that.”

  “Didn’t say wolves, plural. All it takes is one bad apple to ruin the bunch. Your apples just have fur and hike their legs on trees.”

  His dark eyes narrowed and she could actually see a vein throbbing in his neck. “I take it you’ve ignored the information I gave you this afternoon completely?”

  “Yep, get used to it, Neddy boy. Ladies are different. We aren’t easily bullied,” she explained, unloading the steaks one by one. Graham’s focus had shifted ever so slightly to the meaty treaties.

  “I could just command you to go and your wolf would make you.”

  Linden sighed and fixed him with a patient look. “But you wouldn’t. I’ve watched the way you are with your wolves. You’re a hard ass where you need to be but you do what’s best for the pack. And right now, you’re thinking, what if she can? What if she can bring him back? And I don’t know. Maybe this is useless and won’t help anything. But give me a week with him. He’s mine until Saturday. Then the wild can have him back again if Graham really isn’t in there. Ned,” she pleaded, “I have to try. If I don’t try, this will shatter me. I won’t ever get over this and I’m not just saying that to get what I want. I mean, I can feel what the broken bond is doing to me, and there’s no coming back from this. Not whole. Just let me try.”

  “Linden,” he said softly. “Don’t think I don’t know what a broken bond feels like. I lost four of my wolves last night. Four bonds, all snapped. I just don’t want you hanging onto something you can’t fix. He’s gone.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says every text since the beginning of werewolf records. Says history. No one has ever come back from this.”

  “Were any of the wolves in that text mated to another female werewolf? No? I’m not leaving, Ned. He’s mine and I’ll be damned if the wild takes him without a fight.”

  The alpha wasn’t overly tall, but was striking in his features. Medium brown hair hung to his chiseled jaw line and his eyes were dark and serious. The taut muscles in his arms flexed as he crossed his arms even tighter against the agitation that showed in face. For a moment, he winced as if he were in pain before he rearranged his features into a more careful expression.

  “Who did we lose?” she ask quietly. Until now, she’d been too chicken to ask. Didn’t even want to know. Until now, she’d been perfectly content to pretend everyone was still well and alive so she could deal with the shit storm of losing Graham. But standing there, watching her alpha suffer, she couldn’t avoid the tragedy anymore.

  “Wayne, Driscol, and Old Frankie.”

  Closing her eyes against the pain, she exhaled a shaky breath. She’d only known the pack two weeks, and sure, they’d kidnapped her, threatened to kill her, and whipped Graham for turning her, but she’d grown to like every single one of the fifteen members. The loss of Wayne and Driscol, two of the pack submissives, was tragic enough. But Old Frankie was a kind soul, who talked to anyone and everyone who would listen. Despite the cut of his Rebellion jacket, he wouldn’t have hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. And those hunters had slashed his life short. And for what? The pack wasn’t hurting humans. They stayed under the radar, hunted animals when the moon was heavy. What had Old Frankie, Wayne, Driscol, and Graham ever done to deserve such an awful end?

  “Linden,” Ned warned. “You can’t be turning in here, girl. I’ve got one cage and trust me when I say, you don’t want to go in there with him right now. And I’ll be pissed if you tear up my house.”

  Clenched hands at her sides, she tried to think calming thoughts, but the wolf inside of her was worked to a furious frenzy, immersed in the agony of mourning for the loss of life in her pack.

  “I’ll let you have Graham’s wolf for a week. One week and then we set him free. It’s not kind to keep him caged like this. You understand?”

  She nodded stiffly.

  “One week,” he reiterated, climbing the stairs and leaving her to calm the Bering Sea of rage that had filled her until she couldn’t breathe.

  Crying out, she dropped to her knees.

  Graham went berserk, baying, snarling, and snapping his teeth, until the wolf inside of her calmed out of fear. She didn’t want to be around Graham’s infuriated wolf any more than Linden wanted to stick her hand through the bars of his cage again. It was Graham who stopped the change.

  Maybe he was trying to help her out, but when she looked into his hate-filled eyes, she knew that wasn’t the truth. Such a look of disdain added another strike against her insides. Perhaps he was lost and irretrievable. The comforting arms of Graham seemed such a stark contrast from this thundering beast whose expression vowed a slow death.

  But if he was in there somewhere, behind those empty eyes, she’d find him.

  Even if it destroyed her to do it, she’d give him everything.

  Chapter Seven

  Steak wasn’t working.

  After three days of trying to coax Graham’s wolf to trust her, he was no closer than on day one.

  Physically, he looked better. The bleeding had stopped, though he remained scarred. His face had taken a shot up the side of it and his ear was split, but healing.

  Mentally, he was just as stunted as ever. Bracing herself, she descended the stairs to the basement and got the exact reaction she had every other time she’d come down. His animosity hurt worse than she could’ve imagined, and the memory of her mate faltered. How could he have kept his wolf, one so enraged, pinned up inside of himself so tightly? Maybe it had to do with his dominance. Her wolf was lower in the pack rank, not because she was female, but because of her wolf’s natural personality and unwillingness to fight. Graham, on the other hand, had been housing a Death Bringer.

  Just like the days before, she positioned herself by the cage, too far for the danger of his jaws to reach her flesh. Could he smell her fear? He had to. Bitter and acrid, it filled the air until she wanted to gag at her weakness.

  She’d cut the steak into chunks in the kitchen and now tossed one into his cage. He ignored it.

  “I’m going to your funeral today.” Swallowing hard, she tossed him another, careful not to get any on her dress. It was black with a layer of lace that would hide a stain well, but she didn’t want to go to a werewolf gathering smelling like dinner. She lifted her voice to be heard over the growling. “Wayne died the night you did. So did Driscol and Old Frankie. Ned and the others brought them back to the house, but they’d already passed away before the healer could even look at them. You held on longer. Tristan thinks you held on for me, but you just couldn’t wait long enough for me to find you. He says you got stuck in the In Between.”

  If he understood, she couldn’t tell. His rage was black and infinite, seeping from him until she’d choke on his hatred.

  “Tristan says if you were in there, you would’ve responded to me by now. Graham? Please. Come back to me if you’re in there. I’m scared and alone, and you turned me into this wolf, and it was fine when you were here. Being turned was easy to deal with when you were talking me through it, but I’m falling apart now. I’m terrified of changing. I don’t want to do it and the animal inside unsettles me. I can’t ask anyone else in the pack to explain what is happening to me because they aren’t you. It doesn’t feel right. So please,” she begged. “Come back.”

  With a quick toss of the remaining meat into his cage, she turned and left to the music of his snarled, inhuman madness.

  “You ready?” Tristan asked at the top of the stairs. He and Ned wore dark suits and matching expressions of melancholy.

  “Just let me get my gloves and coat.”

  The entryway mirror offered a shocking reflection. The stress of the last few days had paled her skin. She looked tired. Sad. She’d pulled her long, dark
hair back in a French twist and fastened it with three pearl pins. Her gray eyes looked hollow and the angles of her face sunken. This is what someone who was supposed to bury their mate looked like, she guessed. Dropping her gaze, she shrugged into her black wool coat and took Ned’s offered arm.

  The pack had gathered in front of Ned’s house in a waiting caravan, and cars and motorcycles dotted the street, waiting. Inside the alpha’s black mustang, Tristan slid into the back seat and she asked Ned, “Why aren’t you riding your bike out there?”

  His smile was kind. “We thought you could use someone to ride up with and you’d rip that pretty dress of yours up on a bike.”

  “And you’d freeze to death,” Tristan murmured, staring out the window thoughtfully as Ned turned the ignition.

  He had a point. Snow flurries drifted lazily down to kiss the earth and the pitchy clouds promised more frigid affection. The weather was fitting.

  The drive was long, and quiet. Ned said they needed to get away from the city in case Hell Hunters were watching the cemeteries and when they pulled through the woods, three hours later, Linden gave a small smile of reverence to the place they’d picked. Graham would have loved it.

  A man, dressed in a black suit, stood with his back to the parking cars and bikes. There was no parking lot, or stone angels marking graves. There were no rows of headstones or mausoleums. There were just simple wooden crosses, twelve of them, and four with freshly dug graves. A resting place fit for a werewolf. Simple, understated, out in the woods where the wolves who’d passed had spent their most joyous moments. This place wasn’t haunted like the bloody meadow. It was home to the legends who’d moved on.

  The man in the black suit turned as she approached and Ned’s hand against the small of her back pressed her forward. His eyes made her gasp and stop in her tracks. Graham’s eyes stared back at her from the older gentleman’s face.

  “Linden?” the man asked in a voice that cracked with emotion. “I’m Graham’s father, Michael.” He held his hand out and she pressed her gloved one into the expanse of it.

  “He spoke of you often,” she said.

  Water rimmed the bright cerulean color of his eyes and his mouth twitched in a silent thank you before he pulled her hand into the crook of his arm and turned around. His gaze stayed on the cross with a nameplate that simply read, Graham.

  Breath caught in her throat as she looked into the depths of the dark resting place. They hadn’t a body, only his personal effects, but the loss of her mate became heavier.

  As the ceremonies began, she glanced up to Michael Hayes’ face just as a single tear fled his solemn cheek. Unable to witness his pain, she stared at the tiny marker of a good man’s life, and swore silently that she’d bring him back. Not just for the pack, or his father, or even for her. But because this world was darker without Graham in it, and it deserved better.

  Chapter Eight

  Other than the rustling of the black lace of her dress as she moved through the house, Ned’s place was quiet. Not just quiet—silent.

  With a sense of dread tugging her toward the stairs, she descended them in a wide-eyed haze. Where she’d been met with the fury of a wild and mindless animal before, now she was met with nothing.

  Graham lay against the blood stained bars of his cage, barely breathing. “Ned!” she screamed, rushing for the set of keys that hung from the wall.

  “What’s wrong?” he called, though the first one down the stairs was Tristan.

  “Something’s happened to Graham. He’s not moving!” Panic tainted every syllable.

  The alpha appeared at the bottom of the stairs just as she reached the keys and set a horror-filled gaze on Graham’s still form. Pulling a phone from his suit jacket pocket, he said, “I’m going to call the healer.”

  Tristan reached her in three long strides and yanked her wrist. “Are you insane? You can’t go in there with him. What if he’s pretending?”

  Wrenching her hand from his steely grasp, she spun and shoved the key in the lock. “If he’s pretending, then he isn’t the mindless animal we left in here earlier. It would mean Graham’s in there somewhere and he won’t hurt me.”

  Slamming the door closed as she tried to open it, Tristan said, “That’s insane. You’re seriously doing this? You’re not immortal you know.”

  Red caressed her mind until she’d burn of it. “Tristan,” she growled slowly. “Let go of the door, or I’ll claw your eyeballs out. You’re a fucking werewolf. Quit acting like a Chihuahua and help me.” Holding her hand up to reveal not even a red spot where Graham had torn into it, she said, “You’ll survive a bite.”

  His lips pulled over his teeth and silver churned in the shadows of his eyes. A low rumbling sounded as he loosed his grip on the iron bars. “Yes, you can survive a bite. It’s when you have to regrow a new throat when he rips yours out that I’m concerned about.” His lupine gaze drifted to Ned, who spoke quietly on the phone across the room, and he frowned.

  She didn’t have time for this. Shoving him in the chest, she bolted through the cage door.

  Graham’s fur was course at the tips, while the under layer was softer. She’d dreamed of touching him these past days, but not like this. The rise and fall of his chest was shallow and labored. She had to think.

  He was fine that morning. The routine had been the same. The wrongness of this situation was too much and her new senses were screaming to be wary.

  Ned said, “Healer won’t be here for an hour. He’s a ways out.” Head shaking in a slow apology, the haunted planes of his face deepened as he murmured, “Linden?”

  “No,” she said. Whatever he had to say would be useless to her cause.

  “Maybe this is the part where we should let him go. Forcing him to stay like this is cruel.”

  “Get out.”

  His throat worked as he swallowed, adam’s apple dipping to invisibility and back. “I’ll go try to find anyone else who can help.”

  When he’d gone, her hand on Graham’s chest stayed still for too long. “He was poisoned,” she whispered, with such certainty it was frightening. Down to her core, she knew she was right. Someone wanted Graham dead, and they’d used her distraction with his funeral to seize the opportunity.

  He wouldn’t last the hour.

  “Tristan?” The imposing man dragged his eyes from the stairs Ned had disappeared on and dropped his sterling gaze to her.

  “I have a pill bottle in my purse upstairs. Bring it to me.”

  He swayed, as if his wolf couldn’t understand the order.

  “Now,” she gritted out.

  He ran for the stairs and was back in moments with her purse. Capsizing it, he plucked an orange pill bottle Dr. Latham had prescribed before she’d been turned. Back when she was a frail and dying human.

  “And your knife,” she said, as she accepted the offered plastic gift. Oh, she knew he carried one. The entire pack did, and they weren’t the tiny Swiss Army Knives like the one she carried around freshmen year of college. The wolves carried knives that made a wise man cover his vitals when they pulled them.

  Flicking open the blade, he handed it to her hilt first and she pressed the edge against the massive pill. “This is the grossest stuff known to man. I mean, imagine you converted a rotten pickle into metal, and then you covered it in fecal gravy, and you’re close. Smartly,” she said, prying Graham’s teeth apart with one hand, “they encapsulate the horrid stuff, so you don’t taste it. Unless you get sick afterward. In which case, you can’t help but gag while it sears your taste buds to nothing.” She poured the white powder on his tongue and smoothed it with her finger.

  His mouth started working in the first stirrings of a retch and she said, “Hold him up. I’m going to get him some water.”

  Swishing up the stairs, she ran for the kitchen and threw open the refrigerator. Seven water bottles lined neatly in a row were illuminated, and she grabbed three before kicking her heels off and moving toward the basement again. On second thou
ght, she pulled the cold storage door wide open and lifted the plate of meat she’d cut for Graham’s next meal. With a long inhalation, she frowned. It was faint, but the smell of chemical was there. Whatever it was that had been put in the meat was a subtle destroyer of life. Silent and quick.

  “Not quick enough,” she muttered with determination.

  The iron gate screeched as it swung closed. “What are you doing?” she asked Tristan as she hopped over the last stair.

  “Your magic pills did the trick. Hand me a water bottle and I’ll fill his dish.”

  Graham lay shaky and weak on his side, but the hatred was back in his eyes, and his lips pulled back to insult her with a low rumble. She’d probably never be so happy to see that expression as long as she lived.

  With the handle of a broom, Tristan shoved the filled water bowl until it was right beside the wolf. Twitching, he leaned forward enough to drink until it was all gone.

  “Why do you still carry those pills around, Linden?” Tristan asked, watching Graham’s slow recovery.

  “Because I’m having trouble with all of this, and the one I talk to about it isn’t really a great listener right now. Because I’m a freaking werewolf. A werewolf, Tristan. Like, I sprout fur and claws and eat tiny mammals and squat in the woods. That,” she said, jabbing her finger at the pill bottle in his hands, “reminds me of the alternative. Which was death. It’s easier to control the panic if I can remember that. Did you do this to him?”

  He pulled an offended glare to her. “No.”

  “I smelled the meat, Tristan. Someone poisoned him and did it thoroughly. You were here, with access to the food this morning, and I know I didn’t do it, and I know Ned didn’t do it.”

  “You also don’t know if it was poisoned this morning.” He stood to his full height which would’ve been completely intimidating if she wasn’t pissed about someone trying to murder what remained of her mate. “Everyone had access to his food. Most of the pack has been through here over the last few days preparing for the funerals. Listen, and do it carefully. Your wolf can sense a lie. I wouldn’t ever hurt Graham.”