Slip the Skin

by Shanley, Tera

  “I told you. My house is down this road. It’s a little cabin, not much, but I like the solitude.”

  “So you can kill people!”

  “Fine, we won’t go to my place.” He held his hands up in surrender. “I was going to answer all of your questions, but to do that, I had to have space to show you something or you wouldn’t believe me.”

  She crossed her arms. “You’ll answer any question I have and not tell a single lie?”

  “Yes, but you have to do something for me first.”

  “Oh here it is. Yeah, no. You’re not getting in my pants.”

  “Okay, cool. You have to promise to take the information I tell you to your grave. It’s what Linden is trying to do by lying to you. She’s trying to protect you, and now it will be up to you to protect others.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you can’t talk to you parents, sister, uncle, nephew, friends, dog, no one. Nobody can ever know what I’m about to tell you, because it will get people killed.”

  She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Are you in some kind of mafia?”

  “No. Kind of. Swear.”

  Leaning further into the seat cushion she nodded. “I swear.” She’d say anything to get a straight answer.

  “Meredith. I can hear the lie in your voice. What I’m about to tell you is going to get me hurt really badly, but that’s okay. As long as you keep your word, I can live with the consequences.”

  Fear snaked up her spine as a hundred imagined scenarios played out in her head. “Like what kind of hurt?”

  Turning his shoulders, he leveled her with the most serious expression she’d ever seen on a man’s face. “When Ned finds out I told you, he’ll flog me. It’ll suck, but I’ll heal. That is the price of my secrets.”

  “That’s horrible,” she breathed. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he has to protect us. Do you swear?”

  Her gaze dipped to the grim line his lips cut and then back to his green eyes. She wouldn’t ever willingly hurt another human being, and right then, in that moment, she’d go to great lengths to protect the stranger who studied her from the other side of the truck.

  “I swear.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “A werewolf?” Meredith asked in utter disbelief. “Is this all some kind of joke to you people? You seriously acted like you were going to be a decent human being and be honest—”

  “I’m not a human being.”

  “Stop it. You’re a real jerk, you know that? And I’m not a name caller so you should feel really offended that I just said that, and meant it. Take me home.”

  “Linden’s a werewolf too. That’s why she isn’t sick anymore. We don’t get sick. We just get old and turn into wolves and die one day. Graham saved her by biting her.”

  All she could do was glare at him. No words could even describe the ridiculousness that was tumbling from his lips. “Seriously, just take me home. This is a stupid game.” Holding up her cell phone, she said, “Do it now or I’m calling the cops and reporting a kidnapping. Of myself. I’ll call them and report myself kidnapped,” she rambled.

  “Yes, I got that. Think about it, Meredith. Why else would Linden be hanging out in a bar with a bunch of tattooed bikers? When you talk to her, does she sound sick anymore? Does she get a vacant look in her eyes or stumble over her words?”

  Okay, so that was actually a good question. The fact was, she had noticed a difference. Enough of one to even start to believe maybe Linden had stumbled onto some miracle cure that fixed the mass in her brain. But surely not this. “Werewolves don’t exist.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they’re freaking fairy tales, Tristan! They aren’t real. They’re just stories mommies and daddies made up in the olden days to make sure their slutty teenagers would stop sneaking out at night!”

  He closed his eyes and opened them again and she gasped at the churning silver color that had replaced the forest green. Stumbling backward, she fell out of the truck and onto her back. A panicked sound wrenched from her throat and she skidded away as he approached around the other side of the pick-up.

  Werewolves weren’t real, they weren’t! The world was easy; pandas and tigers and humans. Not men who could push their teeth longer and longer like Tristan was doing. Terror coursed through her veins, shooting her upright and into a dead run for the shelter of the woods.

  She had to get away, as far away from him as she could. Gasping for air, she pumped her hands harder and harder, pushing her legs to run faster than they ever had. Roots, limbs, and leaves rushed by as she frantically ducked around trees. Screaming, she flew forward as she tripped on the uneven ground. Hitting a rock with all of that momentum, she lifted her hands in front of her face at the last possible moment. She’d saved her face, but her forearms screeched with pain. Everything else but the burn was forgotten as she rolled over, clutching them to her chest like it would repair the open skin.

  “Meredith,” Tristan said, concern touching his words. “Shit. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” Kneeling beside her he held her wrist gently and kneaded the uninjured area along the bone. Ignoring her pained groans, he said, “I don’t think they’re broken. We have to get them cleaned up though.”

  He pulled her from the ground with an ease and grace that couldn’t be human. If she’d had her doubts before now, they shattered with his easy gait as he made his way out of the woods with her gathered in his arms.

  “Are you going to hurt me?” she asked, squeezing her eyes tightly closed against the warm twin trickles that ran down her elbows.

  “No. That’s not what we do, Meredith. We’re just trying to get by, same as everybody else.”

  “And Linden. Is she happy being a…you know?”

  He sighed and pulled her more tightly against his chest. “I don’t think so. She says it’s better than the alternative, but something bad happened last week and she doesn’t feel like she has anyone to talk to anymore. I don’t know what she’s going through. I’m a legacy, born with the gene. I wasn’t ever human, so I don’t know the difference between what I am and what I could be.” He dropped a gray gaze on her. “She could probably use a friend right about now.”

  “The wolf in the cage. Who was it?”

  “It was Graham. You know how we waited by the basement door until the snarling stopped? I just wanted to make sure Linden was alright before we left. He almost died. I mean, it was really, really close. And now he’s pretty messed up from it.”

  At the truck, he pulled her door open with his fingertips and set her in the seat. “I’m sorry,” he said, pulling his dark thermal shirt over his head. “I didn’t mean to scare you into thinking you had to run for your life. I’d never hurt you.”

  Holy. Guacamole. One of Tristan’s upper arms was almost completely covered in flowing tribal ink, and it dipped down to adorn one of his pectoral muscles. The rest of his skin was bare and smooth, but the tattoo had been done so tastefully and in a way that perfectly accentuated his muscular chest, she couldn’t stop staring. Stone like abdominal muscles flexed with his movement and stretched down into low riding jeans. “Where did you get those?” she said, pointing to two black slash marks across his ribcage.

  “I was shot last week with silver. The marks won’t stay that dark forever, but they’ll take a while to heal.”

  “So silver, huh?”

  “Yep, and beheading, though I can’t really imagine many creatures not dying when you behead them.” He pressed his shirt against her forearms and closed the door.

  Around the driver’s side, the truck rocked under his weight as he settled and turned the engine. For the life of her, she couldn’t draw her eyes away from his perfectly puckered nipples, complaining against their treatment in the frigid winter air. That was, until the dark marks across his rib cage begged a closer inspection. “Is that bone?”

  In the charred folds and red edges, white, smooth and clean shone through. “P
robably. That’s why it is important you don’t utter a word about us to a single living soul. Hell Hunters have been after our kind for centuries and now they’re circling our pack. It’s why Linden tried to shield you from this. Your life is in danger now because of what you know.”

  Frowning at an injury that had to be excruciating, she couldn’t honestly decide if she would take it back or not. Finding out legends had come to life sometime in history was a lot to take in. But at least she knew what was going on with Linden now. And if she needed a friend like Tristan seemed to think she did, well no one was more equipped for the job.

  She and Linden could deal with it together, just like they had everything else.

  Tristan rocked in the seat and pulled a cell phone from his back pocket. Slight vibration rattled the tiny thing, and he flipped it open. Dark eyes lifted to the road, and his foot pressed the gas to the floorboard.

  “What is it?” she asked, sinking into the seat with the acceleration. “What’s wrong?”

  Tossing the phone into her lap, he said, “Linden’s in trouble.”

  Ice filled her veins, folding, crumbling, and advancing until she found it hard to pluck the phone from her thighs to read the text that illuminated it.

  A terrifying combination of letters fanned the screen.

  Help.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Linden clenched her hands against the fear threatening to suffocate her. Hiding her phone under Graham’s unused shirt, she stood beside him as Ned descended the stairs with a sawed off shotgun held tightly against his shoulder.

  “Get in the cage, Linden,” he commanded.

  “What are you doing?” Strain and fear seeped into her question and Graham wrapped his hand around the smallest part of her wrist, clenching until the bones promised to snap in two.

  “Now!” Ned yelled, alpha’s order brushing against her skin like a gale force wind.

  Her wolf cowered, shifting deep within her, but the instinct to obey was missing.

  Chest heaving, she dragged her gaze from the barrel of the weapon pointed at her torso to Graham’s inhuman gaze. What had he done?

  With an almost indecipherable nod of his head, she could almost see the order in his gesture and her wolf pushed to obey.

  Clever wolf. He’d plucked her alpha bond from Ned and placed it on himself during his thorough seduction. Graham wouldn’t have been strong enough to do such a thing, but looking into the billowing smoke of her mate’s eyes, she couldn’t deny it any longer. This wasn’t Graham. Not anymore.

  From the look of furious triumph on Ned’s face as she slunk into the cage, he hadn’t figured out he’d been robbed yet.

  “Kneel down,” Ned commanded, swinging the shotgun in the general vicinity of Graham’s forehead.

  Shirtless, it was easy to see the strain of Graham’s muscles as he lowered himself to his knees.

  “Lock the door, Linden.”

  No, no, no. She had to stall for time. She’d texted Tristan the second the crack of metal on metal sounded from upstairs as Ned loaded the shotgun, but he could be back in the city for all she knew. “You poisoned Graham, didn’t you?”

  “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” he said, eyes seething with hatred. “You meddling bitch. Everything was in place to annihilate the Hayes bloodline, and you ruined it all. Entitled, spoiled legacies, genetically superior to everyone and born without an ounce of appreciation for the gift they’ve been given. Lock the door!”

  “Do it,” Graham’s voice caressed her mind, more perception than words.

  He hadn’t moved and her fingers trembled as she clicked the lock into place. Now, she was trapped as thoroughly as any wolf snared by hunters in the woods.

  “I could see what was coming.” Ned swung a dark gaze to Graham. “You’d take my pack long before I was ready. I was born to lead. Unlike your bitch over there, I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when I took the bite. I’d researched werewolves for years, stalked and hunted until I found one who would take enough money to turn me. I trained my body, disciplined my mind to be ready to hold a pack and I inherited you and Tristan when I challenged Old Walt. Just my fucking luck. Two legacies in one pack.” He spat and a low growl rippled from his throat.

  “It was you,” Linden breathed, gripping the bars of her prison. “You took off before the shots rang out.” Memories of his treachery invaded her mind, playing faster and faster until she panted with the pain of her alphas betrayal that night in the forest. “You ran, and when we turned to follow, we were massacred. You betrayed your own wolves. Driscol, Wayne, and Old Frankie’s deaths are all on you.”

  Ned’s lip turned up into a snarl and he shook his head. “Collateral damage. The human’s I hired got it wrong. They had descriptions of the wolves we needed thinned, and they missed. You, Graham and Tristan were supposed to die a warrior’s death that night. I’d given you a kindness, and now it’s going to have to be a lot messier. It would’ve given the other wolves more reason to be wary of the humans, and it would’ve secured the pack as my own for years to come.”

  “Your hunt failed, Ned. Let us go and we can put this all behind us. Please. We don’t want any trouble.”

  “Pity,” Ned said, jerking the shotgun to her. “Trouble’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

  He pulled the trigger.

  Graham lunged with a roar of undiluted fury and jerked the barrel of the gun upward just as it blasted silver shot through the air.

  Linden screamed as burning pellets of hellfire ripped through her arm. The smell of scorching flesh assailed her nostrils and in desperation, she pressed the wounds to try and extract the maiming irritants.

  Chaos and violence erupted like the explosion of a long dormant volcano, filling the basement with a scent of dominance and power as thick as ash. Electric currents rode the air as the two wolves battled in desperation to end the other’s life.

  Her eyes stung with tears of pain and she struggled to stay upright. Graham was swift, ruthless, and fought with the anger of a wounded animal. But Ned had the advantage of the weapon, which he had brought deftly down onto Graham’s temple before it had been flung against the wall. Blood ran rivulets down his face, blinding him on one side.

  The pain was too much. A large pellet was burning her from the inside and no amount of pressure would release it of its triumphant hold. Gritting her teeth and growling until her throat scratched raw, she dug her finger in the wound and ripped the silver out.

  Body contorting, she bent forward and groaned as the swaying light bulb illuminated violent shadows against the wall. Gasping, the ceiling closed in on her as her arm simmered like it was on fire. She’d pass out, and soon.

  Desperately, she clung to the view of Graham, fighting for their lives.

  He turned, face contorted with rage and eyes churning with silver to match the billowing smoke that drifted from her flesh. “Change!” he roared just before Ned lashed a whip he’d snatched from the wall across Graham’s shoulder blades.

  He needed her conscious. With every molecule of remaining energy, she gave herself to the howling wolf that flooded every vein.

  In a blinding moment of torment and relief, she retreated to the safety of the beast.

  ****

  Never in her life had Meredith witnessed so much blood. The basement of Biker Ned’s house had been bathed in it. She and Tristan had pulled up just as three stone-faced men on bikes did. They must’ve been who he was calling on their drive in. When she remembered the events of that day, everything seemed to slow. Every moment assumed importance.

  She’d run behind Tristan and slid down the stairs as fast as she could. He’d stopped so suddenly in front of her, she stumbled to try and avoid him. His hair flew forward, not quite covering the shock and horror in his eyes as he watched the two men fighting before him.

  That look pulled at her—haunted her.

  Graham was coated in red, but he held Biker Ned against the wall as if his injur
ies left him unaffected. Every muscle in his scarred body was flexed and ready, and as the other men filed in behind them, he flicked an empty gaze toward them.

  “Here’s your traitor,” he’d said, flashing a bloody smile before snapping the man’s neck.

  Tristan had dropped to his knees along with the others like they’d been slain. Turning his head, he’d showed Graham his neck and a dark wolf howled a long and haunting note from a cage against the wall.

  Meredith hadn’t a clue what it all meant at the time, but a warm tear had slid down her face as the tragedy of it all transformed something naive and innocent inside her.

  Graham had dropped the body and his nostrils flared as his glassy gaze drifted to the seeping injuries on her arms.

  Tristan had tugged her down behind him and she’d leaned her face against the tensed expanse of his back and closed her eyes as Graham approached. Long seconds had passed and she could almost feel him standing over her, and then his shadow was gone.

  The click of the lock and grinding of the cage door had signified the release of the wolf.

  Tristan’s arm had snaked around her back, pulling her closer in behind him as the wolf passed.

  The creature, large and dark, had stopped, then whined as she sniffed at Meredith’s arms.

  It was the first time she’d seen Linden as a wolf.

  Now, Meredith sat across from her friend at an iron table overlooking a small pond near Tristan’s house.

  Her arms were on the mend, and Linden was in her human form once again. Tristan had offered his cabin to Linden and Graham to escape the city, but the risk of the new alpha’s wrath kept him away from his own home. Since Graham didn’t seem to have a problem with her, she visited Linden daily.

  The pack had buried Ned in a human cemetery with an extravagant headstone. Linden explained it was a slight to him as a consequence of his betrayal of the pack. He wasn’t allowed to grace the same sacred ground as the wolves he’d put in it.

  Most things had changed, but one thing remained the same. Graham.