The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy)

by Lilly, Adrian

  “Tell me what?” Alec’s rough voice came from the door. Red rimmed his eyes.

  Lucy’s panicked eyes shot to Ilene. Ilene turned to Alec. “False hope is the most cruel hope,” Ilene mused. “But sometimes a chance is all that keeps us alive.” She crossed the room to Alec and placed her hands on his cheeks. “We think Jared might resurrect.”

  “What?” Alec choked, pulling away from Ilene. He cut his eyes to Lucy. “Why?”

  “Vincent did, in Portland. Darius did, after you killed him.” Lucy saw Ilene’s head jerk involuntarily at the mention of Darius’s name.

  “Let’s go,” Alec commanded. He spun and sprinted toward the door.

  As Ilene and Lucy caught up with him, he was hopping on one foot as he pulled shoes on. Ilene clasped her hands to her mouth, hoping she did the right thing. Alec’s hair was matted and his face greasy. She could tell he had not bathed since Jared’s death. The most cruel hope, she thought. She grabbed her coat. “I’ll drive.”

  * * * *

  Complete darkness.

  And cold.

  Suddenly—Jared sucked in a long, deep breath. His back rose off the cold metal under him as his chest inflated with air. Slowly he could hear his own breathing. His mind told his arms to move, and then, languidly, they obeyed. His knuckles struck against something hard, smooth, and cold like a sheet of ice. He pressed his palms to it, judging the space around him, feeling, suddenly, that it was a coffin, that he had been buried alive. And he was trapped in this utter cold darkness. Panic set it instantly. He tried to voice his panic, but his words caught in his throat, and he was as silent as a nightmare. His hands flailed around the cubical. He took a deeper breath and coughed. The coughing fit seared in his chest—and he suddenly remembered.

  Being shot. Seeing Alec holding his hand. Feeling darkness close around him, as a flickering beam of a flashlight fades to black.

  Jared brushed his hand over his chest. He felt no wound. But the pain, he thought. He realized then that he was naked and that a sheet clung to his legs.

  Where’s Alec? The thought suddenly spun through his mind with the virulence of a Chinese star. Had Alec been shot—and the others? He tried to recall the night more fully, but he could not extract the images from the fog. Jared began to kick at the end of the coffin-like enclosure. “Please let me out.” His voice choked out of his mouth, and he knew no ears could hear it but his own. He kicked at the metal, his bare heels thudding against it repeatedly. Jared felt his strength coming back into his limbs as his blood pumped with fear and anger. And suddenly, he felt something else.

  He felt the beast within him awaken.

  Jared froze. He could hear the beast already in his heavy, labored breathing. Can I stop it? He wondered, feeling how close to the surface the werewolf was. He was glad, suddenly, for the complete darkness he lay in. He feared that if he could have seen himself, could see the beast in his eyes or face, he would lose control. Jared took measured breaths, forcing his body to relax. He thought of Lucy, of her meditation. He crossed his legs at the ankles and folded his hands over his chest.

  But he could feel the beast, rattling the cage of his flesh, as it paced back and forth.

  * * * *

  The car’s headlights scattered the darkness as Ilene drove them toward the coroner’s office. “Children, we need a plan,” Ilene announced in the calmest voice she could muster. She cut her eyes from the road to Alec in the passenger seat and then to Lucy in the backseat. “They aren’t going to just let us waltz in and take Jared’s—take Jared. Or see him.” Her face tightened as she stumbled over her own words, not wanting to plant anymore false hope.

  “I just want to get there. I can’t think. I can’t think.” Alec muttered, his voice tight and quivering. His eyes were wide open, manic. Ilene could feel his tenuous grasp, how close to falling over the brink he was. His anxiety radiated off him like heat.

  Ilene dared to reach her hand out and rest it on Alec’s leg. “We’re almost there.” She looked in the rearview mirror at Lucy. “If we’re right, we cannot try to explain this to the coroner and then to the doctors and then the police and then—I don’t know who else.” Ilene took a deep breath. “We have to sneak in. If Jared’s awake, we need to get him without anyone noticing.”

  “You’re right, but how the hell do we do that, Mom?” Lucy asked.

  Ilene could smell the tension in the car then, the pheromone of fear and agitation, like a dog when stressed. I have to calm them down or this will explode. “Lucy, I actually have a plan. And, it’s a good one.” She tried to form a plan in her mind quickly. “You and I will distract the guard, and Alec will sneak into the coroner’s office where the bodies”—and she flinched at the word—“are stored.”

  “Where’s that?” Alec asked.

  Ilene recalled her trip to the morgue to see Adam, and she felt the heat of the memory rise in her cheeks and make her arms tremble. “It’s in the back, down a corridor.”

  “I need more specifics,” Alec snapped.

  Ilene could hear the change in his voice, the subtle deepening, like a low growl slowly rising. “Change of plan. You two distract the guard while I sneak in.”

  “What?” They both asked.

  “You two are not able to focus,” Ilene said, trying to keep her voice even as she pulled into a parking spot. “You distract the guard, and I will head to the back. I know where I’m going.”

  “If it’s locked?”

  “It will be,” Ilene confirmed, “but I can get in. Trust me.” She turned off the engine. She grabbed Alec’s hand, and it felt feverish. She reached into the back and grabbed Lucy’s hand, too. “I would do anything for the two of you. My love for you both knows no constraints. It knows no boundaries, and nothing can stop me.” Alec and Lucy looked into her unwavering, loving face, and they believed her, believed in her. “Let’s go.”

  Ilene fell behind Alec and Lucy as they headed for the front entrance of the coroner’s office. As they walked inside, she ducked out of sight on the sidewalk, and watched through the window.

  * * * *

  Hidden in the darkest coroner of the parking lot, Carmen watched through her car window as Ilene slowed her pace behind Alec and Lucy. She hated this crazed-stalker obsession that had blossomed within her, but she knew each time that she saw them that there was something more—and tonight, she felt she would find it.

  “Why the morgue?” She asked aloud, her breath fogging the window. She knew Jared Kincaid was in there, but why they were rushing to the morgue in the middle of the night was beyond her. She rolled her head on her neck, trying to ease the tension she felt collecting in her shoulders. Lance’s words repeated in her head, and the image of the werewolf—no, animal, she told herself—replayed.

  She stared at Ilene, hovering by the door. Carmen felt a strange kinship with her, mother to mother. She knew the lengths a mother would go to protect her child. Ilene leaned forward, looking through the window, and then stepped in, easing the door closed. And, then, she darted out of sight.

  Carmen settled into her car seat, her eyes trained on the door, determined to wait until she knew what they were doing.

  * * * *

  Ilene checked that Alec and Lucy had fully distracted the guard—but she couldn’t hear what they were saying—before she breezed in the door and slipped unseen down the hall to the morgue. She felt a twinge of panic as she heard the familiar echo of her shoes on the cement floor. She braced against the sharp memory of identifying Adam, fought the bile churning in her stomach. She had to keep her head and move quickly. When she reached the door to the morgue, she twisted the handle, but it was locked. I told Alec I’d get in, she thought. She glanced around senselessly, as if she’d find a means to get in just lying on the floor.

  She stared at the door handle, as if willing it to open by telekinesis. She tugged on the handle again and pushed against the door. Ilene suddenly stood rigid and collected herself. This was the public entrance, so, of course it was l
ocked! She turned and walked back down the hall to the reception area. The guard had his back to her as he escorted Alec and Lucy out. Ilene darted past the guard desk and down the hall toward the swinging doors marked personnel. They swooshed open as she ran through. They swung a few final swings then shuddered to a close. Ilene peeked through the window in the door to see the guard returning to his desk. She took two steps and then thought of her cell phone. She dug in her coat pocket and turned it to silent. She heaved a sigh, thinking she had just avoided a mishap.

  Ilene looked around the hall and spotted the door marked morgue. She closed her eyes for a quick prayer and approached it. The handle turned and she slipped inside. Light from the hallway cut a cut a sliver from the dark room. Ilene held the door open for light as she searched on the wall for a light switch. She flipped it. An overhead light fluorescent light flickered to life. Ilene released the door, and it pulled closed. She raised her hand to her nose, grimacing at the chemical smell of the room. She took a tentative step toward the drawers where she assumed Jared was held.

  I could really use that intuition right now, she thought as she approached the drawers. The idea of opening—violating—the drawers where others were held made her freeze. She felt the drawers looming, seeming to stretch infinitely in all directions with nothing but wrong doors to open. She took a tentative step to the left, and then to the right. She closed her eyes. Ilene envisioned Geraldine, and she could almost hear her whisper, “Allow yourself to feel.”

  Ilene walked to the right again, past a few rows, then stopped. She reached for the door at chest level. She pulled it open. A sheet hung loosely to feet. She pulled and the drawer rolled out in front of her. “Jared?” She whispered.

  “Y-yes,” he replied, his teeth chattering.

  Ilene screamed. She knew it was foolish, and she clasped her hand to her mouth and looked at Jared as the sound echoed around the room. “I have to help you down,” she grabbed his arm. He shivered violently, and his flesh was covered in goose bumps and cold to her touch. “Lean on me,” she said, and she tried to help roll him off the table.

  Jared more plopped to the floor than climbed out, and he huddled into a fetal position, naked, and trembling. Ilene pushed the drawer in and shut the door to the morgue refrigerator. She slipped her coat off her arms and draped it over Jared, saying, “Here.” She helped him stand and pulled his arms into her coat. She buttoned the coat and looked toward the door. She rubbed her hands over his face to warm his cheeks. “We have to run for the car, and then we’ll get you warm.” For the first time, she studied his face. The bluish tint was from the cold, she knew, but his brow was deeper, darker. His eyes were set deeper, angrier than she remembered. She smiled to hide her concern, her realization that the beast within him had awakened. “Alec is waiting for you.”

  A weak smile parted his blue lips. “Alec,” he rasped. A softness began to grace his face as he spoke Alec’s name. “He’s okay?”

  “He’s fine. He’s waiting for you. Desperate to see you.”

  Ilene looked around the room, and seeing a metal tray, thought of an escape plan. She walked Jared to the door leading to the employee door. “Wait here,” she said. She sprinted across the room, grabbing the tray on her way to the public door. She opened the door, glanced down the hall, and then whipped the tray as hard as she could toward the back of the building. It landed with a satisfying clatter. She shut the door and sprinted back to Jared.

  “Let’s go.” Jared leaned on her—and he was heavy and slow—as they plodded through the door into the hall. At the swinging doors, Ilene peeked through the window to make sure the guard had left his desk. She pushed the doors open and, pulling Jared along, ran as quickly and quietly as she could for the doors. The frigid night air felt like freedom sliding across her face as she pushed through the exit door. Jared staggered alongside her. Alec and Lucy leaped from the car. Alec tore across the sidewalk, nearly plowing into them. He grabbed Jared in an enormous hug, tears streaming down his cheeks. “We have to hurry,” Ilene cautioned.

  Alec scooped Jared up in his arms, barely seeming to notice the burden, and raced to the car. He slid Jared in and jumped in beside him, pulling the door shut as Lucy and Ilene climbed in the front seats. Ilene slammed the car into reverse and drove toward the exit without looking back. If the guard spotted them, she didn’t want to know.

  She looked in the rearview mirror at Alec cradling Jared in his arms. Alec patted Jared’s face and hugged him close. “I thought I’d lost you,” Alec kept repeating in broken, fragmented breaths. Ilene felt her own tears streaming down her face as she witnessed the love and overburdened joy between her son and the man he loved. “We have to get him warm,” Ilene said, her voice breaking. “We have to help him heal.”

  * * * *

  Carmen lowered her camera and fell back in her car seat, silent. She took a few deep breaths to collect herself. She squeezed her steering wheel to try to stop the tremors racking her arms. But she could not control herself; what she had witnessed demanded to be screamed into the night.

  She screamed at the top of her lungs and then collapsed onto the steering wheel sobbing. Terror filled her and she wanted to flee, to rush home, pack up Mona, and just run as far from the Runes as she could. She screamed again and smacked the steering wheel. She glanced down at her phone, regarding it like a snake. She grabbed the phone and hit play. Shaking footage—her arms didn’t stop trembling the whole time—showed Ilene sprint out of the morgue with Jared.

  I saw him dead. I saw the bullet hole in his chest.

  She felt herself about to descend into hysterical sobbing and stopped. She clenched her eyes closed and took a series of deep breaths. “You can handle this,” she said. She looked down at the video on her phone. The screen glowed red as Ilene’s flaring brake lights filled the screen. “What are you people?”

  * * * *

  Collin looked up from the textbook he was reading on his bed. The room was draped in shadows, the only light coming from his bedside lamp. He asked Tony, “Have you seen Mark since they took him away this morning?”

  Tony shook his head. “Nah. It’s got me freaked out, too.” Tony peeled off his clothes and draped them on the end of his bed. Tony took a moment to admire his physique in the mirror on the closet door. He did this every night, to see the definition maintained by an aggressive daily workout. Collin had to admit Tony was built. Collin looked down at his own thin arms holding his book. Tony slid under the covers without saying anything else.

  Collin slung his legs off his bed, also giving them a scrutinizing review. He had to face it; he was a beanpole. “Should we look for him?”

  “It’s almost lights out.” Tony dropped his arms heavily to his bed. “Maybe he’s in his room. It’s not like they let us have cell phones to call each other.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Collin concurred and sat back down. “What if we don’t see him tomorrow?”

  “We’ll figure that out tomorrow. You worry too much.” Tony pulled the sheet over his chest and rolled over, signaling the conversation was over.

  * * * *

  Outside the Cook County Morgue in Chicago, Vincent cut the engine to his motorcycle and kicked the kickstand into place. He threw his leg around the motorcycle as he hopped off. His thighs and ass ached from the ride from Las Vegas. And he was tired. He had slept for a few hours here and there at rest stops but never a full night’s sleep, never in a bed. And now he had to go free Griffin from the meat locker. Vincent took a whiff of himself and grimaced. I smell like a wolf.

  The shadows of buildings and leafless trees cascaded onto the street as the sun slipped beyond the horizon. Vincent’s timing was impeccable. He was showing up at the morgue as most of the employees left. At the reception desk, Vincent flipped his sunglasses off and smiled at the receptionist. She looked delicious. “I’m here to identify a body,” he said as if it was something he did every day.

  “I’m so sorry,” she recited, as if it was something sh
e said every day. “Let me call back to the morgue.” Vincent paced toward the vinyl-clad waiting seats. He glowered down at them with disdain, smelling the sweat and tears of the multitude of humans who had marched through the office. “You can walk back now,” the receptionist droned. She pointed down the hall. “It’s right that way, on the left.”

  Vincent pushed the door to the morgue open, and immediately he could smell the rot and decay—and Griffin. A bright smile spread across his face, and he sniffed a little deeper. Yes—Griffin was awake and waiting patiently. “I’m here to identify a John Doe,” Vincent announced. “He got his throat ripped out by some animal,” he added with completely inappropriate hand gestures to mimic the act.

  The coroner blinked at him silently, before saying, “Sure. Over here.”

  Vincent strolled behind him in a loopy, careless pace. The coroner pulled the door to the locker open, and the smell of Griffin grew stronger. He rolled the table out and pulled the sheet off Griffin.

  “That’s him,” Vincent beamed.

  “Then you can identify him?” The coroner asked perplexed.

  “Sure. Take a look at him,” Vincent instructed.

  The coroner turned his head slowly, knowing already that all was not well.

  Griffin popped his eyes open. “Boo.”

  The coroner jumped back with a start. He bumped into Vincent.

  Vincent shoved him, forcing him into the table where Griffin lay. The coroner recoiled, as Griffin tossed off the sheet and jumped to the floor.

  “What’s the matter, doc,” Vincent jeered. “You look like you just saw a monster.” Vincent grinned as his eyes flashed with rage. His canines protruded from his mouth, and he laughed at his own joke.

  Griffin snaked his arm around the coroner’s head and covered his mouth with his hand. He sank his teeth into the delicate flesh of the coroner’s shoulder. Griffin closed his eyes in ecstasy as he tasted the blood and felt the vibration of the man’s stifled scream against his palm. He jerked his head back, taking a sizable chunk of flesh.