She hated for a man to look at her like that.
“Come here,” he ordered. “You have questions, don’t you?”
Questions. Despite her brave intentions, having him know what she’d been thinking made the words stick in her throat.
Unwilling to let him see how uncomfortable he’d made her, she went and sat, well out of his reach, affecting an insolent air, dropping her bottom on the cold cave floor with a thud.
It took everything she had to keep from wincing.
Clearing her throat, she tried to sound as though she didn’t much care. “Questions? Maybe a few. I didn’t realize there were others like me, until I saw you. Of course, I only learned what I could do, what I could become, completely by accident.”
His sympathetic gaze made her hate him. “No one taught you?”
Though her cheeks heated, she kept her anger in check, knowing it was irrational. “No. I don’t think they knew themselves. Have you always known what you were?”
He nodded. “You know nothing of our people’s history, then, of how we came to be?”
“No. How could I? I’ve always been alone.”
“Always?” He frowned. “What about your parents? I don’t understand. They had to know. Why didn’t they teach you?”
“Both my parents died in a car accident when I was small. I barely remember them. Child Protective Services searched, but they couldn’t find any relatives. I went to live in one of their homes. Human homes,” she emphasized.
Again, he smiled. She felt the power of that smile like a punch in the stomach.
Pretending not to notice, she held herself absolutely motionless, staring into the distance at nothing.
With a sigh, Simon’s smile faded. “Are you ever happy?”
“Of course I’m happy. Why?”
“Are you always so serious?”
“Do you always answer a question with another?”
“No.” Again that flash of a smile and the clenching of her gut. “Sorry. You’re right. I like you, Raven. Let me tell you a bit of our history.”
She didn’t want him to like her. But she did want to hear what he had to say, so she nodded.
“This is an abridged version of pack history.”
“Pack?” Startled, she emphasized the word. “Like my wolves?”
“Yes. And like our kind. Centuries ago, when humans roamed the earth in tribes, our kind roamed the earth in packs. Our histories suggest we were some kind of freak mutation, if one takes the stance that all mankind evolved from apes. If not, then we were divinely created. Just like with pure humans, there are two schools of thought. Both are hotly debated. Many believe we shifters were created in glory, specifically made by the finger of God.”
Despite her completely nonsuperstitious nature, Raven shivered. For so long she’d considered herself closer to a spawn of hell, one of the names the professor had called her; hearing her natural abilities described as heavenly felt akin to blasphemy. She snorted. She wasn’t entirely sure she even believed in the existence of God.
“Either way,” he continued. “Our people have been around as long as pure humans.”
This made little sense. “Then why haven’t skeletons been found? Or tombs? Archaeologists would have announced such a thing, and the world of humans would know and accept us.”
She continued to watch him closely, wanting to know the instant he began lying to her. She knew he would, sooner or later. Humans lied. They all did. Why should this one be any different?
“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Before she could retort, he continued. “When we die, no matter what form we’re in at the time of death, our bodies revert back to human. And, besides old age, if you’re a pure shifter, there are only two ways to kill us—fire or silver.”
One word stuck in her mind. “What do you mean pure? How can you be anything else?”
He flashed yet another quick, beautiful smile. “Humans and shifters have been known to interbreed. Someone with even one-fourth of shifter blood can still change. We call anyone who is part human a Halfling.”
“Halfling.” The word sounded almost foreign on her tongue. “How do you know which you are?”
His gaze sharpened. “Who were your parents?”
Somehow she managed a careless shrug. “No idea. All I know of them are from vague memories. Like I said, they died when I was five. I barely remember them. I don’t even know their names.”
“We can find out.” Unknowingly, he dangled her most secret desire in front of her like a T-bone steak. Or maybe he did know, with the mind-reading thing and all. “Our kind keep detailed records. Your birth is sure to be recorded somewhere.”
Despite this, her heart continued beating, steady and sure in her chest. Concentrating on breathing normally, she frowned. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to look. Or how.”
“Anything you can remember will help. The pack is very organized. We’ve organized ourselves into Councils at local, state and national levels, all operating under the humans’ radar.”
Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t contain her shock. “National? How many of you—us—are there?” All the time he’d been talking, she’d pictured a few thousand, no more.
One corner of his mouth curled and she could tell he was trying hard not to smile. She silently thanked him for that. “Hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions. Since we don’t list shifters as an ethnicity on the U.S. census, we don’t really know. And that’s in this country alone. There are more overseas, in every country on the map.”
Hundreds of thousands. Millions. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. While she sat stunned, trying to digest his words, the next thing he said was like an arrow straight through her heart.
“You might have family somewhere, you know.”
Her heart fluttered in her chest. She stared. “Family?”
“Yes. Your parents surely had brothers or sisters, parents of their own. You might have grandparents and a whole slew of aunts and uncles and cousins, ready to welcome you with open arms.”
Damn this man. How dare he dangle in front of her like a carrot her secret dream, her most heartfelt desire? She could scarcely breathe, so heady did she find the notion. She’d never dared to think, to hope, that there might be anyone out there who cared whether she lived or died.
Yet even now, part of her, the wild, aloof, lupine half, scoffed at the idea. Preposterous.
She had her wolf pack. Why should she need anything more? Besides that, if she truly had family, why had no one ever rescued her from the hellhole of her past?
“I doubt that,” she told him slowly. “No one has ever tried to find me.”
“Maybe they don’t know about you.”
A second passed while she considered. During her years of captivity with the professor, he’d often gloated that no one was looking for her.
So either they didn’t know about her or she had no family. She couldn’t let this stranger know how much she had hoped and dreamed for the former to be true.
Stupid, stupid girl. This was part of the reason she preferred to be wolf. The only time she could entirely erase these foolish longings was when she was in her animal state.
Time to change the subject. She still had more questions.
“I try to stay wolf all the time,” she told him, ready for different types of answers. Still, it was hard to choose what to ask when she had so many questions swirling around inside her head. “But my body won’t let me. Worse, I have little control over it. After a few days tops, my body keeps changing back. Why is this?”
“Because you’re primarily human.”
“I don’t want to be!”
Ignoring her outburst, he continued doggedly, as though reciting from a textbook. “You were born human and when you die, your body will die as a human. Look at it this way—” he waved away her protest before she could voice it “—the wolf part of you is a bonus.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“As though you’re telling me something you’ve memorized, something you must state exactly the same way you were told.” She took a deep breath. “Something you don’t entirely believe in.”
“Believe? That’s not even a choice. I’m telling you facts, nothing more, nothing less. That’s all I have to go on. You might want to stay wolf longer, but wanting won’t make it so.”
Sullenly, she crossed her arms. “Too bad. Life is easier as wolf.”
A weird expression crossed his face, a look of shock, of recognition, as though he himself had thought the same thing. “The ones who try to stay wolf too long go mad.”
“What about the ones who try to stay human?” She had no idea if anyone ever did such a thing, but it only seemed fair.
“Same deal. There are numerous documented cases of shifters who refuse to change. They also go insane.”
“What happens to them?”
Apparently the open, sharing part of the conversation had abruptly ended. He shut down. There was no other way to describe it. As though her last response had flicked some sort of internal switch.
“How long are you able to keep your wolf shape?” he asked, his tone neutral.
“Why? Do you think I’m crazy?”
After a startled moment, he laughed. “No. But I myself have tried to push the limit. I can remain in my wolf shape for six days.”
“And that didn’t make them label you a nutcase, worthy of being shot or carted off or whatever the all-powerful pack does with their mentally unstable?”
He laughed. “No. What about you? How long?”
“I’ve stayed wolf a few times for three days.”
“That’s pretty good.”
“Really? When I do that, I’m wiped out. How do you manage six? When I try to stay wolf longer, my body revolts and changes back.”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I just can. When I was younger, we trained to try and remain wolf longer.”
“And when it’s over? What happens then? After six days, is the shift back to human violent?”
“Not really. Just involuntary.”
“Like mine.”
“Yes.” Again he studied her, considering. “You seem to have a pretty clear understanding of your nature for someone like you.”
“Like me?”
“You know.” He waved his hand. “Wild. Unschooled.”
Clenching her teeth, she had to work not to show anger. “I live like this by choice, not because of mental illness or drugs or anything like that. I lived around people for most of my life, until recently. And just because I wasn’t raised by my natural family doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“Ah, yes, I forgot. I apologize.” He sounded unrepentant.
She shrugged. “I had little formal schooling, but I’ve always read a lot. I guess you could say I’m self-educated. I’ve been on my own a long time.”
A moment passed. Then Simon cocked his head. “I’ve read your file,” he said softly. “I know about the professor and what he did to you.”
Chapter 4
I f he’d claimed he could fly, he couldn’t have shocked her more. “You know…what?”
“Everything.”
She winced. She couldn’t help it. “Then you know he lives in North Boulder and works at CU, right? That he’s a highly respected man?”
“Yes.” The way he watched her told her there was something more, something he wasn’t telling her.
She didn’t care. She shot him a defiant look. “Are you aware if he learns that I’m still alive, he’ll send someone to kill me? Did you know that?”
“I told you, the organization I work for is thorough. We know what he did to you.”
“No. You can’t.” She closed her eyes, hating the shame washing over her, but powerless to deflect it.
“I’m afraid so. I know about the cage, the experiments. The videos.”
Rage filled her, a fury so deep and powerful her entire body vibrated with anger. “If you know all this, then why hasn’t he been arrested?” She clenched her fists, her inner wolf snarling and snapping. “So help me, if you tell me what he’s doing is not against the law, I’ll kill you.”
“Because he’s dead.”
Just like that, her antagonism evaporated. “What? Dead? When? How?”
“The police think he was murdered.” Again, the way he watched her made her uncomfortable.
Then she realized why. “Ah, so you think I killed him, don’t you?”
“Did you?”
“No.” She clenched her hands into fists, deciding to tell him the truth. “But I would have if I could. I despised that man.”
“That’s understandable after what he did to you.”
“Tell me how he died.”
They stared each other down. She could hear the snow melting outside in the absolute silence.
Finally, he nodded. “He was killed at his laboratory. Someone broke in. That’s how we learned about you. When the police searched the lab, they found a hidden room, a large cage. There were journals chronicling your time there.”
“Of course.” She shuddered. “He was a vile, filthy bastard.”
“How long?” he asked softly. “How long did he keep you?”
Old habit made her want to hang her head with shame, as though she’d done something wrong. But she hadn’t and she wouldn’t, so instead she lifted her chin and held on to his gaze like a drowning swimmer holds on to a raft. “Three years.”
He swore, that deep voice of his so low and fierce it sounded like a growl. Several of her pack raised their heads and watched them more closely.
“How did you survive?”
She shrugged, pushing back a stab of anger. A question like that didn’t really deserve an answer, but she answered anyway. “I just did. You learn to do what you have to in order to live.”
“You escaped?”
“No. He freed me. Actually, he planned to kill me, but at the last minute couldn’t do it. Instead, he dumped me high up in the mountains, above the tree line. It was the middle of winter and he didn’t leave me a coat.”
“You should have died of exposure.”
“I know.” She remembered that long afternoon and night vividly. Of course, she would—that nightmare still haunted her dreams. “If I’d stayed human, I would have. But I changed. As wolf, I knew enough to move down the mountain into the trees. I found a sturdy evergreen to shield me from the wind, and burrowed myself a nest below the snow. I stayed there until the first blizzard had passed.”
He nodded, his expression bleak.
Even speaking about it made her shiver. During that first week, she hadn’t thought she’d ever be warm again. But she’d survived, she’d lived and become stronger. That was the important part.
“How?” he asked, making her realize she’d spoken out loud. “How did you survive?”
She gestured at her wolves. “Them. They found me. Apparently I’d stumbled onto their hunting grounds.”
Studying her pack, who watched them with intelligent eyes, he swallowed. She found the small movement of his throat inexplicably fascinating.
When his gaze returned to her, the bleak anger had vanished. Either that, or he’d pushed the rage deep inside him, as she did. “You’re Alpha. Did you have to fight them?”
“Of course. And yes, I was wounded, and yes, I fought more than one. But I won and I healed and I became part of their pack. Their leader. They trust me and I trust them. I’ve been here ever since.”
“Six years.”
“Yes. But I still don’t feel entirely free of him.”
“The professor?”
“Yes.”
“Back to him.” He took a deep breath. “There’s more. After you, there was another.”
Stunned, she stared. “You mean he…?”
“Another little girl.”
All the horrible things
he’d done to her…Raven closed her eyes against the pain. “How little?” she whispered.
“Younger than you. Maybe ten or eleven then.”
Her stomach churned. “What happened to her?”
When he didn’t answer, she turned on him, letting him see her agony. “What happened to her?” she repeated, wiping at the tears spilling like a silver stream down her cheeks.
“We don’t know. We think she escaped.”
Turning her back to him, she let herself cry. She wept for the poor child—or children—after her, and prayed they hadn’t had to endure the same horrors she had. She suspected they had. Caught up in her torment, her chest felt like it would burst.
Then he touched her. Turned her and drew her into his chest. “Please. Don’t cry. He’s dead. He can’t hurt you or her ever again.”
Such a simple human kindness from a stranger could have been her undoing, she who’d been without touch or compassion for so very long. Instead, him holding her somehow gave her strength, enabled her to pull back from the black abyss of her past.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, moving away. Then, as realization dawned on her, she rounded on him. “You’re standing. You can get up. You can walk.”
He nodded, his intent gaze never leaving her face. “Yes, barely. But I am regaining my strength. I should be able to get out of your way by tomorrow.”
She debated making him leave right then, but night had fallen and there was no moon. “Thank you for telling me about the professor. Because of that, I’ll let you stay.”
“If I leave now, they’ll only send another.”
“Why? I’ve lived up here for a long time. My pack and I keep to ourselves. Why do you people think you need to bother me?”
Now he looked away. “When we learned about the professor, we learned about you. There are more like me, searching for the other girl. When they find her, she will be evaluated, just like you.”
“Evaluated how?”
“I make a report.”
“Then what happens?”
“That depends on what I say in my report.”
“I’m extremely uncomfortable having you judge me that way.”
Wild Wolf Page 5
