Howling Mad: A paranormal wolf shifter romance (Badlands Book 2)

by Rebekah Blue

  “Byron!” she called, but her voice was drowned out as he revved the bike’s engine and flipped up the kickstand. “Byron!” Clouds of greasy gray-blue smoke billowed up around him and the heavy smell of machine oil hit her nostrils.

  A large, callused hand clamped over her mouth and she was yanked off her feet.

  Chapter Eleven

  Naomi kicked and struggled but it was no use – the man who’d grabbed her was incredibly strong, and his arm was like a band of iron around her chest, making it difficult to breathe. His hand over her mouth muffled her shouts – not that yelling would do her any good anyway. She’d lost Byron’s trust, and as far as everyone else was concerned she was a dangerous criminal being taken in by the authorities.

  She fought anyway. If she was enough trouble to take in, it might give Byron a chance to escape. Even now she didn’t believe her father would allow any real harm to come to her…but she believed Byron when he said they’d have him killed.

  She could hear the rising roar of the motorbike, and she dug her fingernails into her captor’s beefy forearm, yanking his hand away from her mouth so she could scream and swear. She left bloody furrows, and he bellowed his rage, dropping her. She managed to find her feet before she fell, but he grabbed a handful of her hair in his gigantic fist and yanked hard, dragging her to her knees. He shook her hard, like a dog with a rat, and she whimpered…then gasped as he used her hair to drag her up against his body.

  She opened tear-filled eyes as he turned her, and adrenaline jolted through her body like an open-handed slap. Byron dragged the roaring bike around in a tight arc, throwing up dust and gravel, and opened the throttle, heading straight for Naomi and the thug holding her.

  The Dynamic Earth tracker thrust her forward, his message unmistakable. You wanna run me down, you’ll have to go through her. The pain in her scalp was unbearable.

  Byron crouched low over the handlebars and kept coming. It was like a grim game of chicken…except in this version, Naomi was pretty sure someone was going to die. Maybe all three of them. The vertebrae in her spine seemed to fuse as every muscle in her body clenched, bracing for bone-breaking impact. The thunder of the oncoming motorcycle filled the world.

  At the very last moment, Naomi’s captor pushed her aside and scrambled out of the motorcycle’s path. She skidded across the ground, skinning her palms on the gravel, and Byron swerved to avoid her, steering the machine around and away, leaning into the turn with the full strength of his body. The bike screamed to a stop at an angle so acute it was almost on its side, and he leapt clear to avoid his leg being crushed beneath it. He was on his feet at once, running full-speed towards the Dynamic Earth thug.

  He hit the guy at waist height in a head-down tackle. They went over in a rolling, head-over-heels tumble. Byron pinned the other man beneath him, punching him again and again in the face. Blood splattered in a gory arc. Byron yanked his opponent’s head up by the hair and smashed it back against the ground, hard.

  There was a sickening, gristly cracking sound, and for a moment Naomi thought Byron had broken the man’s skull. Then she realized the thug was shifting. His face pushed out into a snarling muzzle and fur rippled over his musclebound arms like a shaggy dull-brown shiver.

  A crunch behind her, and Naomi whipped her head around to see another stranger approaching stealthily across the parking lot. She backed up, hissing furiously at him. She could feel her hackles rising and her eye teeth lengthening to needle points. She could smell wolf on the guy, though – she’d never beat him in a fair fight. But he knew that too, and she’d bet he was macho enough to think that meant she wasn’t a threat at all.

  She raked her claws across his eyes and he clasped his palms to his face. Dark, gooey blood oozed between his fingers and he howled. She took the opportunity to kick him as hard as she could in the balls, then darted around him. As she glanced back he was struggling to shift and heal the damage, but the pain hobbled him, trapping him between forms. He crouched and cowered, clawing at himself, a grotesque parody of a horror-movie werewolf with a stunted snout and twisted limbs.

  A third man was running towards Byron and the bear shifter, fumbling at his waist for a gun. If he had silver bullets, Byron was as good as dead. She froze, torn between calling out to warn him and her fear of distracting him from the brute of a bear he was grappling with.

  The crossword-solving trucker from the diner barrelled outside, with the waitress hot on his heels. They took in the situation, and the waitress called out to Naomi, “Hang on, honey – I’m calling the cops!” As she turned to run back into the building, Naomi seized the pot of hot coffee from her hand.

  The guy with the gun was fast, but he was focused on Byron and his colleague – he didn’t register the trucker, who stuck out one big, booted foot and sent him flying ass over tip. As he sprawled on the ground, winded, Naomi dashed the scalding-hot coffee into his face.

  His scream was hoarse and shrill. He clawed at his face as the syrupy-thick coffee raised angry scarlet welts on his skin, and as she turned away the trucker was rolling him facedown and planting a big foot in the small of his back as he relieved him of his weapon.

  She felt sorry that the bearded, big-bellied dude was fighting on the wrong side, at least as far as the cops were concerned. It took a lot of bravery for a human to go up against shifters like that. But she didn’t have time to think about that now.

  She ran across to the bike where it was lying on its side. It was incredibly heavy. At first she didn’t know whether she’d be able to get it upright, but she pulled until black stars flashed behind her eyes, then threw her weight forward to stabilize it when it threatened to tilt the other way and pin her down. She straddled the bike and struggled to kickstart it. On the third attempt it caught, choking uncertainly to life.

  A group of bikers had pulled into the parking lot and were in conversation with the trucker, helping him to restrain the guy he’d disarmed. They were all leather and tattoos, and their expressions were not happy. A couple of them wore battered leather jackets with Road Wolves emblazoned across the back.

  Marcus had gone wolf. He and the bear were locked in a ferocious fight – fur and fang and claw. The bear was bigger and stronger, but Byron was smart and fast. And he was angry. Every time the bear brought a massive paw around in a ponderous swing that would knock him across the parking lot, it hit nothing but thin air. With each lumbering turn it made to escape his jaws, he was there, relentless in his savagery.

  His jaws raked gouges across the creature’s snout, and the bear reared back, snarling. Before it could retaliate, a motorcycle powered between them, followed by another and another. The riders formed a cordon around the wounded bear, revving their engines aggressively. As sirens sounded in the distance, Byron shifted. One of the Road Wolves scooped up Byron’s clothes and tossed them to him.

  “Go, man – go!” he yelled, and Byron sprinted across the parking lot, half hopping as he struggled to pull on his jeans, and mounted the bike behind Naomi.

  She headed out of the parking lot, wobbly at first but gaining confidence with the motorcycle’s momentum as balancing became easier. She hit the road with Byron’s arms wrapped around her waist and what sounded like a full-scale riot breaking out behind her between the shifters, the bikers and the cops.

  Chapter Twelve

  They rode all day and into the night. After dusk had fallen, the air was cold, and Naomi snuggled against Byron’s spine, wrapping her arms around him for warmth and security. But even as he steered the monster of a bike around hairpin bends as they travelled up into the mountains, somewhere rural and remote, she could feel the tension in his spine. He thought she’d conspired with her father to find out what he knew about multi-shifting. And what made her want to cry her heart out was that she thought he was partly right – she had been part of a trap. She just hadn’t known it.

  And he’d still come back for her.

  But he didn’t trust her. Maybe he never would again.

/>   The moon was a pale alien world creeping up the sky when they pulled up against a fence somewhere in the middle of nowhere and Byron killed the engine. Naomi clambered stiffly off the bike. Byron swung his leg effortlessly over the machine like the long ride hadn’t bothered him at all.

  “Byron…” Naomi began.

  He shut her off before she could say what she needed to. “Don’t,” he said, and his tone was eerily flat, stripped of all emotion. “Just because I came back for you, it doesn’t mean I think you’re a good person. It just means I know I am.”

  There was no way to reply to that.

  They’d stopped alongside what looked like a massive open field. In the pale moonlight, Naomi could see bulky, strangely shaped shadows. The night seemed muffled after long hours filled with the sputtering roar of the motorcycle, and Naomi felt very lonely.

  Then Byron gave a shrill, three-toned whistle, like a bird-call or a code. A few seconds later, the lights snapped on.

  Thousands of them.

  They were at the edge of a fairground, the old-fashioned rides festooned with strings of bulbs. Red-and-white striped tents were fronted by brightly painted flats showing weird and wonderful acts and attractions. The big top. The ghost train. The hoochie-coochie show. A poster tacked to the fence was peeling at the corners, and Naomi tore it off and examined it. It was written in bright, blocky mixed fonts and it advertised The Incredible Tattooed Lady! And Lions and Tigers and Bears! And Clowns! Clowns! Clowns!

  A lot of shows had gone out of business back in the 1930s when government experiments and a terrorist plot had produced a perfect storm of fuck-uppery and the poisoned water supply had left whole swathes of the population with the ability to shift into animals. Trained animals jumping through hoops kind of lost its thrill when the animals in question nipped around in human form to sell you popcorn during the intermission. But a painting of a lion and a tiger snarling at each other on a high wire suggested that this circus had just looked at the new world it found itself in, shrugged its shoulders and turned all the dials up to eleven. Even so, the rides were old-fashioned and the canvas of the tents well-patched.

  Byron said, “Your mouth’s open,” and there was just the faintest hint of amusement in his voice. “I did tell you I grew up among carnival folk.”

  She closed her mouth and said, “Will we be safe here?”

  “Safer than anywhere else. The carnival has its own rules. Nobody asks where you came from unless you want to tell them, and if someone comes calling asking after one of theirs, they’ll close ranks like a steel trap. Come on – I’ll take you to meet my folks.”

  Beyond the razzle-dazzle of the rides and attractions, there were mobile homes, trailers, and at least one old-fashioned gypsy caravan painted with flowers. A horse with shaggy hooves was grazing peacefully alongside it, and it snorted and tossed its head as Byron and Naomi passed.

  They stopped outside a trailer at the edge of the field, with a sign over the door that said “Office”. Byron raised his hand to knock, but Naomi hissed, “Won’t they be asleep?”

  He snorted. “It’s not a way of life that lends itself to early bedtimes.” Then he rapped hard on the door and swung it open.

  A plump woman in late middle age enveloped Byron in an enormous hug. She fussed over him like a mother hen, tutting over his stubble and trying to smooth down the makeshift haircut Naomi had given him. She was covered from head to foot in elaborate tattoos, every inch of her skin including her face and hands decorated with vivid images in red and blue and emerald green.

  She swept Naomi into a hug as well, then urged them to sit as a thin, morose-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair brought them coffee. He wrapped Naomi’s chilly fingers around the mug, his long face earnest and unsmiling.

  “Naomi, this is my Auntie Mae and Uncle James. They took me in when I was thirteen and haven’t been able to get rid of me since.”

  “He was a holy terror,” Mae said fondly, “but he’s improved with keeping.”

  James folded himself onto the couch next to her. “You’ll want to know about the pickpocket girl, Kathy,” he said. His voice matched his face. “You did right to send her to us. She's scared of her own shadow.” He shook his head mournfully. “And it seems you two have got yourselves into quite a pickle.”

  Naomi glanced around the trailer. There was the couch and a coffee table, plus a couple of easy chairs. Battered filing cabinets in one corner. On top of one stood a huge, beautiful crystal ball. On the coffee table, Tarot cards were spread in the shape of a Celtic cross. “I suppose you have ways of finding things out,” she said uneasily.

  “Yes,” James agreed in an uninflected voice. “Television. It’s been all over the news. You’d better tell us everything so we can work out what to do.”

  “And take your feet off the coffee table,” Mae added to Byron.

  Byron gave them a brief rundown of the situation. They didn’t react with any surprise – it seemed they’d been following the story since it had first started. Finally he said, “You know, we could have used your help earlier if you realized we were in trouble.”

  Mae gave him a motherly look – the kind that says you shouldn’t cheek your elders, and have you done your homework, and by the way your bedroom is a pigsty. “Who do you suppose sent the Road Wolves?” she demanded. “The Biker Fairy?”

  James patted her hand soothingly. “We’ll sleep in the office tonight,” he said. “You kids can take our trailer.”

  “Oh no,” Naomi protested. The thought of being in close quarters with Byron all night, feeling his pale gaze fixed on her as the clock ticked with painful slowness towards dawn…it was unbearable. “Please, I don’t want—”

  “We insist,” Mae said. “We don’t sleep much anyway, at our age.”

  “Indulge an old man,” James agreed. “We won’t hear of anything else.”

  Naomi glanced at Byron. His gaze was fixed on his boots, his jawline tense. No help there. He obviously wasn’t going to tell them he thought she’d been involved in a plot to kill him…or at least not until the morning. Maybe it was better for the lions’ digestion if people were thrown to them in the daytime – or he just hadn’t decided yet what to do with her. It was hard to make light of it, even to herself. Tears burned behind her eyes as the wretchedness of the situation hit her all over again, but she managed a faint, polite smile.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The trailer was large, but outer space wouldn’t have been big enough for Naomi and Byron to spend the night comfortably together. Tension seethed and sizzled between them, and a horrible silence descended as soon as Auntie Mae and Uncle James wished them goodnight and withdrew back to the office.

  Byron felt prickly and raw, and he longed to shift into wolf form and go for a run in the moonlight, letting the night breeze ruffle through his fur, but he couldn’t. However badly Naomi had betrayed him, he’d promised to keep her safe. He wouldn’t break his word.

  He didn’t know how to handle it. He’d spent years keeping Naomi at arm’s length along with everyone else, fighting the intense attraction he felt to her. Some days he’d felt almost as if his crazy act wasn’t pretend at all – he’d felt halfway insane, he’d wanted her so badly. And then he’d weakened and he’d opened himself up just a chink, letting her bring a little warmth and brightness in. And she’d transformed everything and left him exposed and naked and blinking in the pitiless light. And it burned.

  He’d been hurt and betrayed in the past. Before he’d found a home with Mae and James and the carnival, he’d been not much better than a starving stray. And his years at the Zoo hadn’t exactly been a picnic. Acting crazy to keep from being tortured, knowing Dr. Atkins would stop at nothing, however cruel, when it came to Dynamic Earth’s experiments.

  This hurt more. Knowing that he’d given Naomi his trust and all the while she’d been wearing a listening device for her monster of a father…that was like a knife in his gut.

  He didn’t mean to confront
her with it. What was there to gain? Either she’d lie, and twist the knife further, or she’d tell the truth, and he’d hear from her own lips how little he meant to her. How he was nothing more than a lab animal. Barely human. Utterly disposable.

  But he couldn’t help himself. The pain welled up inside him and the words spilled from his lips. He said, bitterly, “All those times back at the Zoo, when you were trying to get me to talk to you.” He didn’t look at her. He didn’t think he could. “You kept telling me that I could trust you. That anything I told you would be our secret. That you just wanted to help me.”

  “And I meant it!” she cried. The pain in her voice was so raw, so convincing, that he almost believed her. “I didn’t know about the bug – Byron, you have to believe me.”

  He turned on her, snarling. “Liar! It was a set-up from the very beginning. Who’d have thought a guy who’d been locked up without female company for three years would be able to resist a pretty, sweet-smelling little thing like you, right?”

  He slammed his fist against the wall beside them and hung his head for a moment.

  “You bitch,” he said hoarsely, then forced himself to lift his head, to look at her again. “When your daddy’s honey trap didn’t work, he had to come up with a plan B. How convenient that you were right there when the alarms went off. How lucky that a security fault left my cell door wide open. Oh, and the gatehouse guards were called away? Well the coincidences just keep on coming, don’t they?”

  “Please, Byron, no…” Tears quivered in her big, dark eyes, ready to spill over. “I didn’t know, I swear.” She raised her hand to touch his cheek, but he caught her wrist when her fingers were inches from his skin.

  “Don’t,” he told her. He leaned in towards her. “The only reason you’re here right now is that your daddy isn't as smart as he thinks. He's lost control of the situation. It's not just his trackers after us now – it's lowlife bounty hunter scum like that bear who grabbed you. You could have been killed.”