“I don’t know.” To her credit, Cassidy seemed to be seriously considering the question. She scrubbed the tear tracks off her face and inhaled deeply. “It would have seemed pretty crazy. But if she’d proved it, we would’ve believed her.”
“Then what? Would you have been able to keep quiet about what she was doing? No one knows about us, at least not officially.”
“I suppose.” The questions weren’t sitting well with Cassidy. She kept shifting her weight. It was like she was sitting on a rock, which was unlikely on the hardwood floor.
“You wanted her to make an exception for you.” Ruri held her close for a second longer then let Cassidy go. “You’re the reason she couldn’t make an exception. You and your mom.”
Cassidy rose to her feet in one motion and started pacing the length of the small living room. She slowed to peer out the windows each time she passed. “I know. And yet.”
They were getting nowhere. It was time for a change of subject. “You’re nervous. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure. The wolf feels like we need to run, like someone’s closing in.”
“It’s normal to have problems keeping your wolf down at the beginning. You need to work off some extra energy, that’s all.” Ruri wasn’t feeling threatened. She was a little unsettled, that much was true. They hadn’t had a chance to sit and breathe since the previous morning, and the way Malice had burst in and uprooted them again didn’t bode well. But there was no immediate danger that she could sense. What she did sense was an absence. The absence of her packmates still ached, and the absence of Malice even more so.
“I would like to go for a run.” Cassidy turned away from the window with a rueful grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that before in my life. I hated P.E. in high school, and I’ve never been into sports. Mary was the sporty one. Until she was kicked off the basketball team her senior year, that is.”
“I don’t know this area, so I can’t say where it would be safe to do that. We should wait until night, anyway. It’s dangerous to go out as wolven during the day.” Ruri got to her feet with the same economy of movement as Cassidy. The girl was learning quickly. “That doesn’t mean we can’t go look around and get the lay of the land.”
“Yes, let’s!” Cassidy darted across the room toward the front door.
“Don’t!” Her strangled shout had the intended result and Cassidy skidded to a stop. “Look.” She shouldered her way past her and indicated the rolled plastic around the doorframe. The end of a small wire was taped to the top corner of the door. It led to a piece of copper with wires coming out of it and jammed into the plastic. A familiar scent rose off it and scraped lightly at her nasal passages.
“Is that a booby trap?”
“It sure is. I’d recognize that smell anywhere. It’s C-4. I had it strapped to my ankle for long enough.”
“Jesus.” Cassidy backed slowly away from the door. “She’s crazy.”
“Of course she isn’t.”
“Who booby-traps a front door with explosives?”
“Someone who has good reason to think she’ll eventually have to go on the run. Someone who knows exactly what lurks in the dark.” Ruri smiled slowly, her lips spreading off her teeth. The grin was predatory, and she didn’t care. It’s what she was, a predator, and one that humans did well to be terrified of. “There’s worse out there than us, never forget that.”
Cassidy shivered. “Let’s go for that walk.” She was only a few days removed from humanity. Her primitive hind brain must have been screaming warnings at her. One day, probably soon, the predatory side would be second nature. All Ruri had to do was make sure she lived long enough to get there.
“I suggest we take the back door.”
“Good call.”
Enough time had passed that the sun was well above the horizon, casting shadows through what trees remained to line the streets. The city’s ash trees had been hard hit the past couple of years by parasites and were being cut down by the dozen. It was hard to tell if the trees still standing were bare because they slumbered in fall’s grip or if they were dead, never to awaken again. Ruri supposed spring would tell. It was a melancholy thought, one she had practically every year. The steady trek of fall into winter always made her sad. She loved warm weather and couldn’t wait until she could bask under a sky that warmed instead of one that chilled. Her wolf didn’t understand. To her, summer was to be tolerated, while winter was time to play as the sometimes-bitter cold had no effect upon her thick pelt.
Memories of frolicking in the snow with Dean sprang unbidden to her mind. Her Alpha had loved the snow both in human and wolven form. The cold didn’t seem to bother him at all. She’d seen him get into a snowball fight with pack young wearing nothing but a pair of pants as clouds from his laughing breath wreathed his chest and head. Would she hear the laughter of young wolven again? She hoped they had all survived MacTavish’s usurpation.
“What’s wrong?” Cassidy’s soft question pulled her from her contemplation.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Your scent went low and blue.” She shrugged self-consciously. “It seems like you’re sad. You feel sad in my head.”
There was no way Cassidy should have been sensitive enough to distinguish emotions, not yet. Her presence in Ruri’s now-diminished web of awareness was only starting to coalesce. While she could have found Cassidy in a crowd, she certainly wouldn’t have been able to make a judgment about how she felt, not without being able to smell her. Chalk up one more way she’s different, Ruri thought.
“I miss my pack. My family.” No point in burdening Cassidy with how different she was. She would learn soon enough. “I know some of them went with MacTavish.” At Cassidy’s raised eyebrow, Ruri elaborated. “The loner who killed my Alpha. He took over my pack then sicced his dogs on you.”
If any of the pack members who had turned Cassidy had been there to hear the slur, she would have been attacked for sure. Calling one of the wolven dogs—implying they were domesticated by human hands—was about as mortal an insult as could be leveled at one of them, worse even than calling one a werewolf.
“Sounds like a great guy.”
Cassidy’s dry comment startled a bark of laughter from deep within Ruri. It seemed both sisters had a knack for making her smile: Cassidy by insisting on moving forward and getting answers, no matter the obstacles in her way. Mary Alice for…for what exactly? Ruri wasn’t certain why she felt the way she did for her people’s executioner. By all rights, she should have hated her. The human had kidnapped her and held her against her will. Her wolf should have been ready to rip her throat out, and yet she seemed like she wanted to curl up around her. She was so serious, so committed to providing for her sister, and without any support from those who mattered most. She labored alone in a very dark place. There was something admirable about her dedication, for all that it seemed sorely misplaced.
Sure, there were those who wreaked havoc upon their community, and they needed to be dealt with. MacTavish was case and point on that one. He’d broken their own tightly held rules and traditions and he was getting away with it. The wolven needed an arbitrator on occasion, both within their packs and without, against other groups of wolven and the vamps. And the other things that went bump in the night.
“So what are you going to do about him?” The question was uncharacteristically direct for someone so recently turned. Cassidy didn’t waste time, it seemed. “What are we going to do? This asshole has destroyed my life. I’d like some of my own back, too.”
“The pack might have been taken over, but not everyone stayed. I caught the scent of one of my packmates in the park last night. I didn’t smell other wolven there, so I think he was alone, but I’m not sure. If he’d stayed with the pack, it’s unlikely he would have been hunting alone so far from their new den.”
Ruri stopped walking and stared into the distance. With one more they would be four, enough to start considering themselves a proper pack, though
a small one. “I say we track him down and see if there are any more left out there. Let’s rebuild the pack as well as we can from what’s left, then we can go take back what’s ours.”
The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. Ruri was getting strong again, almost back to her original condition. With the strength of a pack around her, she would be in fighting form in no time. Cassidy was insanely strong, that much was already evident. Mary Alice would round out their little group and they would be formidable indeed. Her cheeks stretched and she realized she was grinning from ear to ear.
Cassidy stood in front of her, fists balled, a matching smile upon her face. “Let’s do it.”
Her wolf shifted in her breast, exultant energy washing through her and leaving a fading tingle behind it. Ruri had to hold herself back to keep from throwing back her head and howling her exuberance. The neighbors would talk surely if two women started baying at the clouds. She hoped that somewhere out there MacTavish felt the shift in the wind and was quietly alarmed.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The light streaming through the windows proved too bright to ignore any longer. Mary Alice opened her eyes and stared at the edge of the pillow. When was the last time she’d slept in her own bed? It seemed like she hadn’t used it since before Cassidy had been bitten, but that couldn’t be right. Could it? Since then, she’d been snatching bits and pieces of sleep where and when she could, most of them while seated and within eyeshot of the box. Groaning, she pushed herself up and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Almost noon. Great.
“Not even six hours of sleep,” she said aloud. The words echoed hollowly through the space. The loft felt empty, emptier than it had before she’d brought Ruri in. “Time to get to work.” There she went again, still talking to herself, but it made the room feel like it had a little more life.
With a yawn that felt like it was going to pop off the top of her head, Mary Alice swung her legs over the bed’s side and pushed herself up. The lure of warm covers tempted her. The room had gotten quite cool with all the windows open and the breeze rustling through. If any scent traces of lycan remained, she couldn’t tell. She closed them all, which took a while. Walking the perimeter of the huge space she had up there only reminded her of how alone she was. Breakfast was a couple of eggs scrambled with green peppers and onions and stuck between two slices of bread. She devoured the sandwich on her way down the stairs.
She didn’t need many lights for her sparring exercises. Darkness shrouded the rest of the first floor and Mary Alice stared through it as she ran through her forms with the practice blade. She lost herself in the flow from one stance to the next.
A change in the darkness brought her back to herself. It was nothing she saw. It hadn’t been a sound either, more a change in the way the air moved. She flowed into a crouch, the wooden katana held at the ready. Somebody or something was in there with her.
A form dropped from the rafters to land behind her with a soft thump. Mary Alice whirled and lunged. She didn’t come close to making contact. It was like trying to catch a cloud always drifting out of the reach of her sword.
Whoever it was had to be human or at least humanoid. It was almost impossible to catch a clear glimpse. They never stopped moving. All she could see was black clothes, tight to an androgynous body that was slender as a rail. Her visitor wasn’t attacking and Mary Alice rapidly tired of the game.
“Can’t you knock on the front door like a normal person?”
“I’m not a normal person.” Her visitor came to a stop and folded her arms. “Neither are you, Malice.”
“Would it hurt to act like it just this once?”
Mary Alice’s grumbles didn’t faze the other woman. She pulled the hood off her head to reveal close-cropped curls and dark skin. A wide smile split her face but didn’t quite warm obsidian eyes.
“Then again, for you, it probably would. Hello, Stiletto.”
“It’s good to see you. How surprised were you?”
“Plenty surprised when I got word you were coming.”
A small frown creased the skin between her eyebrows. “Uncle Ralph said he wasn’t giving you the heads up.”
“I have ways of staying up to date.” Stiletto cocked her head questioningly, but she refused to elaborate. “What I don’t know is why he saw fit to bring you on. Things are just fine here. I don’t need your help.” She moved to the side of the cage and placed the practice sword back in its holder, then grabbed a towel. On its own the workout hadn’t been quite enough to work up a sweat, but her faceoff with Stiletto had perspiration rolling down the sides of her face and dripping along the small of her back.
“He seems to think you’re not on top of the situation with that pack of lycans.”
“That’s insane. I checked up on them. They’ve moved to a different den location, but they aren’t bothering anyone.”
“But that’s not the full story, at least not from what Uncle Ralph told me.”
“What do you mean?” Mary Alice stopped toweling her face and stared at Stiletto, dreading what came next. Had Uncle Ralph somehow found out about Cassidy? She shifted her glance back to the practice blade. Stiletto was incredibly challenging to get a touch on with a blade, but if she could get the drop on her, Mary Alice could kill her with the wooden sword. It would be difficult, but she could manage. But only if she wasn’t expecting anything.
“Your pack that isn’t bothering anyone has taken to hijacking trailer trucks and stealing then selling the contents.”
“What?” Her eyes shifted back to Stiletto in shock. She stared at the woman, hoping she’d misheard.
“You really didn’t know?” Stiletto closed the gap between them and placed her hand on the practice katana. “How could you have missed that? They’re being incredibly brazen about it. Uncle Ralph has video footage of them. Half of them were in wolf form. Fortunately, the local cops seem to think they’re just large dogs.”
“Of course I didn’t know,” Mary Alice said. She stepped away from her squadmate. “I would have put a stop to it if I’d known.”
“He thinks you’re being distracted. A new girlfriend or something. That’s not a good idea. You know the program forbids it.”
Mary Alice barked a dry laugh. “The program forbids a lot of things. You know, like getting blind drunk every night or shooting up. Let’s not forget killing supras who haven’t done anything?”
A lift of the shoulder was Stiletto’s only response. “None of those are my problem, and I haven’t broken any of those regs.”
“I know.” It would have made sense to assume Stiletto’s handle had been given to her because of the way she looked. She was one of the most physically strong women Mary Alice had ever known, but there was no trace of it anywhere on her slender frame. Certainly, her slenderness had been a factor, but Mary Alice had always thought she must have gotten the name as much for her unerring aim and focus. She never missed a mark. She simply wouldn’t allow it to happen. As far as Stiletto was concerned, the rules were there for a reason and should always be followed. She wondered what the woman would have done in her situation.
“Good.” Stiletto rubbed her hands together. “Let’s get your lycan problem under control.”
“I can show you where they’re staying, and we’ll go from there.”
“So a badass werewolf lives here?” Cassidy looked skeptical.
“Wolven,” Ruri corrected absently. She understood Cassidy’s disbelief, but this was where her nose had led. Lewis’s trail had faded somewhat by the time they got back to the park, thanks to Ruri’s hotwiring skills. Cassidy had been more than a little horrified about stealing a car. Only Ruri’s reassurances that they would return it had mollified her, though she’d been nervous the entire drive up. It certainly wasn’t Ruri’s first time driving a stolen car, though the way Cassidy was reacting, it might be her last. She knew better than to stick out when driving a hot car. That meant acting like everyone else and breaking the spe
ed limit. Being the slowest car on the road was almost as damning as being the fastest. If they did get pulled over, Cassidy would give them away for sure. Then they’d get to explain why Ruri didn’t exist.
It had taken a while to retrace their steps once they got to the park. While the day wasn’t far on by human standards, there were still enough of them in the park that Ruri hadn’t felt it prudent to shift to wolven form. They parked not far from where they’d been the night before and watched as a trim human woman jogged past them down the trail. She paid scant attention to them, more interested in what she listened to on her headphones. She would have been easy prey if they’d been looking for a snack. From the voices that filtered out around the headphones, the jogger was listening to some sort of podcast then, not music. The brush with a human convinced her she’d been right to be leery of shifting, and they’d set off through the underbrush on foot.
The going was a lot rougher on two legs than it had been on four. Cassidy hadn’t complained, but it was clear she still hadn’t completely recovered from her days’-long ordeal. Her panting had sounded heavily in Ruri’s ears, though she’d slowed their pace a few times to compensate. Still, when they paused to rest, Cassidy had recovered quickly enough.
Her human nose was no match for that of the wolf’s and she chafed at not being able to shift. It took some doing, but by the time the sun had risen above the trees she had recaptured Lewis’s scent.
He’d obviously been hunting the night before. His scent meandered through the woods until they happened upon his kill. What was left of a rabbit carcass had been stuffed into a hollow log, possibly for later. After that, he’d wandered the periphery of the trees overlooking expanses of lawn where even now, suburban men and women gathered for their morning exercise. What had interested Lewis so much the night before? Ruri had no way of knowing for sure, but she’d seen deer scat at the edge of the grass.
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