by Kat Kinney
I raised an eyebrow.
Brody rubbed his jaw. “Topher’s wrist cuff has a built-in tracker. The room downstairs is wired remotely, too. It’s how West and Cal caught up to him last night when he tried to run.”
“Again,” West added dryly.
“Wow. Thought he was doing better.”
“He overheard us talking to River. And completely lost his shit.”
Brody leveled him with a stare. “If staying here with us isn’t going to work out—”
West rubbed his eyes, starting to get back up. “Can we not do this? Can we go even twenty-four hours without you wanting to rehash all the reasons we should send him packing?”
“Sit. This conversation isn’t over.”
Fists clenched, my brother dropped back into the chair.
“None of us asked for this. I get that having him here has put a lot of pressure on you. But I have to look out for everyone in the pack. No offense, but you both look like hell. And I get that it was messed up, what with the way this siring business started. So if it needs to be someone else—”
“Don’t you get it?” West’s voice was raw. “It can’t be anyone else. Not when he’s imprinted onto me.”
“Okay, time out,” I cut in. “Not following here. He imprinted on you? That’s—”
I trailed off when my brothers exchanged a look.
Brody lowered his voice. “This doesn’t go any further—”
“You’re serious.”
West didn’t smile. “Do you remember that summer you and Ethan were constantly at each other’s throats?”
“Yeah, gonna have to narrow that one down.”
“I’d just turned twelve, I think. Things were bad, all the time. Ethan was always doing sneaky shit, hiding your stuff. You wouldn’t stop needling him. Sharing a room with the two of you was a complete dumpster fire.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Fights. Shouting matches. My dad dropping me to the floor, my limbs turning to jelly until at last I submitted to his dominance. Ethan fighting for hours longer, often until he made himself sick. And West, who’d been caught in the middle every time. I opened my mouth.
“Save it. I’m not telling you any of this because I’m looking for an apology. What you need to know is that on one of those nights that you probably don’t remember I sort of… lost it. You and Ethan were going at each other, clawing and punching, wild with moon madness, and I’d had it. I screamed at you to shut up, to just stop.” He swallowed, eyes distant. “And then, you did. In fact, both of you did. As if I’d willed it so. Because I had.”
“Yeah. Still not following, bro.”
“I’m an Omega.”
Everything out on the patio went silent but for the shh-shh of oak leaves stirring over the flagstones. I waited for either of them to laugh. Neither did.
“The hell. If you’re screwing with me right now—”
West laughed bitterly. “You don’t know how much I wish this were a joke. That day, Mom felt my abilities manifest. She knew it the instant I was able to shut off your emotions and manipulate the pack bonds to get you to do what I wanted. She knew I was way too young for something like this to be happening, and that made my powers especially dangerous.”
Major returned with the tennis ball. West lobbed it back across the field, then slumped back in the wrought iron chair.
“Okay,” I said. “So why didn’t Ethan and I imprint on you?”
“Because the family bond is already so strong, siblings are generally immune. If they do imprint, it wears off within days. As happened with the two of you.” West rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Omegas are a closely guarded secret within the shifter world. Many people believe most of the powerful urban packs have one, someone close to the Alpha manipulating pack loyalties just below the surface. If you’re careful to stay below a certain power threshold, your target doesn’t imprint.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been holding this in, all this time.”
“Mom warned me how dangerous what I could do was, that I would have to train very hard from that moment forth to learn to suppress my powers.” He closed his eyes. “And for the most part, I have.”
Special talents among shifters usually made themselves known by sixteen. They were extremely rare and tended to follow the Alpha bloodlines. All along, we’d believed only River and Brody were gifted, Brody’s abilities mirroring our dad’s, but at only a fraction of his power.
“So how did things go so sideways with Topher? I’m assuming this was the night you and Ethan tracked him out to Bluff Point.”
“It takes constant mental vigilance to suppress my power. It’s the same for River, when he needs to switch off, get the voices to stop screaming in his head. That night, Topher was getting ready to jump. I could feel that he wanted to die. And in that instant, I was so desperate to stop him that my concentration slipped, just for an instant, and from that need to save him—” West cleared his throat. “He ended up dragging us both over the edge anyway.”
“It was an accident,” Brody said. “The Council wasn’t going to try to rehabilitate Topher at all until we offered to take him in. Quit beating yourself up.”
“You think that makes me feel any better?” West sighed. “I let my emotions get in the way and forgot that no matter how much I might think I’m doing something compassionate, I can never escape what I am. Omegas are the sirens of the shifter world. No one can resist our call, and now I’ve bonded Topher to me against his will.”
I raised an eyebrow. “No offense, bro, but I think your magic wand might be broken. Topher thinks you’re public enemy number one.”
“Yeah. Thanks for taking this seriously.”
“I am. It’s just—”
“One, you don’t see him when we’re alone. Of course Topher despises me. I forced this unwanted connection upon him. So naturally that’s the primary emotion that comes through. But it’s more complicated than that. We’re bonded, and below the surface.” West hesitated. “Below the surface he’s very messed up over what I did to him. Cal’s been trying to help him sort it out, but progress has been slow, and if the Council discovers what I am—”
“They won’t,” Brody growled. “You think Cal and I forgot the promise we made to Mom before she left?”
“So why did Topher run? You said it was something he overheard between you and River.”
“Council surveillance out in the field has been picking up a lot of vamp chatter in the area. He got really spooked.”
“Any details?”
“With our luck lately?” Brody threw his bottlecap at the trash.
My phone buzzed. Lacey. I swiped to answer.
“Hey—”
“I can’t get a hold of Naomi.” She was breathing hard, voice so faint it was barely audible. “There’s something wrong with me. It’s back. The dizziness. The vision changes—”
“Slow down. Where are you?” I grabbed for my keys, elbowing past Brody, who had his phone to his ear. “West and I will come to you—”
“You can’t.” Panting, she paused. “I think London Blake infected me with something. And I’m pretty sure I’m contagious.”
“Lacey,” I snarled into the phone. “Lace—”
But it was too late. The connection was dead.
* * *
It took me twenty minutes to get back to town. Lacey wasn’t picking up her phone. Naomi was out on a house call, something to do with a sick emu (because good luck getting one of those bad boys into a cat carrier), and I was this close to losing control.
“Lacey,” I barked, pounding on her door. No answer. A dog howled somewhere down in another unit. With a quick check of the parking lot behind me, I kicked in the door.
On the other end of the phone, Brody cursed. “What part of don’t make a scene didn’t you understand?”
“I’m in,” I growled, cutting him off. “Her place is trashed.” Which was an understatement. A broken lamp lay in pieces just inside the entryway. Shredded couch cushions a
nd a mangled bag of Doritos were strewn like fallen leaves across the floor. At the top of her cat tree, Fancy mewed plaintively.
A whine sounded to my right. Whirling, I cursed, nearly dropping my phone. A small cinnamon-brown werewolf crouched over a recently destroyed box of cupcakes. Destroyed was putting it nicely. Picture what a velociraptor would do if you spread strawberry frosting on a herd of goats and go from there.
“Yeah, uh, I’m gonna need to call you back.” Ending the call, I held up both hands. “Don’t bite my face off.”
Shooting me a dark look, the velociraptor in question stalked over to the refrigerator and began gnawing at the handle.
“Okay, Cujo. But it works a lot better with opposable thumbs.”
Baring her fangs, she sat down in front of the door and gave me a pointed look. Yeah. Totally understood that one.
“I’m opening the door. Maybe this time, try to point with your nose like those cute retrievers do on the duck hunting shows and I can pass you down stuff—”
Another growl. Pretty sure I was sleeping on the couch.
I opened the door and cursed again. Meanwhile, Cujo helpfully gave herself a concussion by diving headfirst into the vegetable crisper. The refrigerator contained an empty orange juice bottle and a jar of peanut butter. This, from a girl who cooked for a living. Not good. From her perch at the top of her cat tree, Fancy flicked her soot-black tail imperiously.
“I know. I promised we could watch Chopped next time I came over. First I have to keep Mommy from eating you.”
“Mrreow.” Godiva blinked giant green eyes at me in obvious kitty concern.
Another whine. Cujo scrabbled past my leg, getting marshmallow cream cheese frosting all over my jeans, thank you very much, in her attempts to extract something from the side door. With my luck, it was probably the tabasco sauce, which she’d drink, then cry sad little wolf tears while I had to brush it out of her fangs in the bathtub.
“Give that to me.”
Cujo sat down at my feet like she was the best-behaved werewolf in Major’s Saturday morning remedial obedience class, and we were going to pretend she hadn’t just totaled her apartment. Setting aside the jar of peanut butter, I texted The Spoke, telling Javier to put a rush on a takeout order. Brisket. Ribs. Potato salad. Mac and Bleu. Then I dialed Brody.
“You’re thinking this is some sort of delayed reaction to the biologic agent, the wolf’s counter response to being forcibly subdued all this time?” he said at last after I’d filled him in.
“Maybe. This seems like your typical bad post-shift reaction. I’m going to try to get some protein into her, see if she’ll be able to shift back.”
Shifting burned a crazy number of calories. Bittens always had more trouble than Borns learning to control their shift, but Lacey had been a werewolf for nearly a decade. Whatever was going on had to be due to the biologic agent she’d been dosed with.
“If she’s been trapped in here for days, transforming uncontrollably at the mercy of her wolf due to some freak overreaction to the drug—”
“She might not have even been fully aware of what was happening,” Brody finished.
“She said something just before we got cut off, that it might have been London who reinfected her.”
Brody was silent for a full minute, and I could almost picture him pacing back at the ranch on the back patio, trying to work the variables out in his head. “Here’s what doesn’t make sense,” he said at last. “When Lacey got dosed the first time, it was by vampires. We don’t know how this biologic agent is even delivered. There were multiple prototypes they were testing in the information on the thumb drive River went over. Is it injected? Delivered as an aerosol? Ingested and breathed onto the face of the target? Absorbed through the skin? Water supply?” He paused. “You want me to go on?”
“You’re saying London couldn’t have infected Lacey without being affected herself.”
“I’m not ruling anything out. We’ve dropped the ball too many times with this already. I’m calling her in. Either she’s got an answer I buy for what’s going on, or I’m going to have to tell River we know where she is.”
I thought back to what London had said at the park.
The best we have to go on is that we think the bloodsuckers were originally trying to develop a drug that would spike viral loads in our people. Something that would drive werewolves mad at the full moon and cause mass chaos in the process. Maybe even be the catalyst that turned some of them permanently feral.
Maybe we’d all been wrong. It wouldn’t matter if in the initial stages the drug lessened viral load if it triggered such a cataclysmic overreaction from our wolves that we couldn’t keep from going mad.
“Call me back the minute you know something.” I slid to the floor. Cujo padded over and put her front paws in my lap, regarding the jar of rich and creamy hopefully. “One, you’re not getting all of this. I don’t care how hungry you are. Pretty sure all that salt can’t be good for wolves. Two, if you bite me, I’m stuffing your fluffy butt in the bathroom for timeout and getting out that plastic cone Brody uses on Major.”
She wagged her tail, blinking innocently like it had been Fancy who went all Slayer on the sofa cushions. Letting my head thump back against the refrigerator, I unscrewed the lid, which would have been easier without a hundred-pound werewolf up in my grill.
“No. Teeth.”
10
Lacey
I AWOKE SHIVERING ON MY KITCHEN FLOOR in a pile of half-eaten bones and empty cupcake wrappers. Something sharp pinched the crook of my elbow. I struggled against the hands pinning me down, blinking to block out the light strobing overhead like a sun about to go nova.
Worst. Hangover. Ever.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Naomi sang from behind a protective mask and shield. She twisted a tube of blood free from the needle in my arm and snapped off the tourniquet. “All set. Any dizziness? Nausea?”
I groaned. “Less. Talking.”
After shining a tiny penlight in my eyes that I unsuccessfully attempted to bat away, she performed a quick physical exam that determined I could probably be taken out by the nearest squirrel, but was otherwise okay. “I’m going to get this blood out with a courier right away. I’ll run some tests at the lab here in town in the meantime. Get you preliminary numbers.”
“You talked to Brody?” Dallas said from the doorway.
In the two days since I’d seen him, Dallas had somehow managed to go from promising me the world under a starlit December sky to looking like your everyday brooding bad boy. A faded gray Henley fit tight across his pecs. Ripped jeans hung low on his hips. And of course he had on those damn flip-flops like the forecast wasn’t calling for sleet.
My gaze traveled up the length of his body, everything south of my navel going tight and tingly. Quickly, I looked away. I’d spent the last two days reminding myself why we couldn’t be together. I’d made the mistake of letting things go too far. It was time to end this before we wound up in a place from which our friendship could never recover.
Naomi hoisted the bag containing her medical gear over one shoulder, smoothing her braids back with one slim brown hand. “I won’t know anything for sure until we get the lab work back, but this presents differently than what we saw a few weeks ago.”
My pulse quickened. “How so?”
She shook her head, halfway to the door. “I don’t want to guess at this point. I’ll call as soon as I know more. In the meantime, stay inside and rest.”
I staggered to my feet, heading for the shower.
Blue eyes pierced mine. “Need help?”
“Please. I’ve so got this.”
Godiva darted between my legs, mewing as if to remind us both she knew man-who-brings-chicken had arrived and why wasn’t anyone feeding her?
I bent to scoop her up. Without warning, the edges of the room blurred. A hollow scream filled my ears like the roar of an oncoming train. The lights overhead began to spin, Dallas’s shout coming
from the far end of a tunnel.
Blackness swallowed me.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor blinking back tears, the light overhead blindingly bright. The twitching was back, my arms jerking uncontrollably like I’d gotten up close and personal with a light socket.
“Are you even listening? I need Naomi back here, now,” Dallas snarled. A pause. “So track her phone. Do whatever you have to do.” Another pause. “Goddamn you, River.”
He dropped his phone, slamming a fist into my cheap Formica countertop.
“Wait.” I started to stagger up, vision graying out the moment I was vertical.
Dallas swore, charging across my living room in two strides and catching me before my knees could give out. “Just lie down. West is on his way. River’s being a little shit, but he’ll get a message to Naomi—”
“No,” I said more forcefully. “I don’t want any of them here.” Gripping his arms, I forced myself to focus on the depthless blue of his eyes, azure bright as a summer sky. “No one can come near me. I shouldn’t have even asked you to come. It’s why I haven’t been returning your calls.”
Understanding dawned in his expression, quickly followed by anger. “How long have you known it was back?”
“I wasn’t sure until this morning.”
He cursed. “And you waited this long to call why exactly?”
Because I knew you’d come running. Because I knew you’d never listen if I told you to stay away. Because love was giving up the last life preserver. Not grasping onto someone’s hand and pulling them under as you drowned.
I backed away, putting space between us. “We’re not sure about anything. Has any of the information on the thumb drive been independently confirmed?”
“Brody and River are working on it. But River doesn’t have a lot of people he can trust right now given the fanged clusterfuck of having a mole on the Council. And Brody doesn’t want this getting out until we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“They’re right to be cautious. But until they get confirmation, I can’t be sure anything London told us was the truth. Which means we don’t know it isn’t contagious.”
