The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy)

by Lilly, Adrian

  Maxwell used her confusion to run for the animal door. He dived across the floor and dived under the door. His belt caught on the lip of the door. He felt like a turtle on its back as he pulled at the slippery cage floor to unhook himself from the door. His belt unhitched from the door and his legs slid through. Suddenly, the fist of the werewolf reached under the door just inches from him. Yelping, Maxwell rolled outside her reach.

  The werewolf grabbed the cage door and thrust. The door inched up. He could see the werewolf’s scarred muzzle pushing under the door and snapping at his feet.

  * * * *

  Growls and muffled screams reverberated through the wall from the room where Maxwell and Nadia were locked. The werewolf Alec turned his head toward the door to the room. He turned his attention back to the werewolves pinning werewolf Jared and lunged, digging his claws and teeth into the creature’s back.

  Outside the hallway, Mitch kept his gun level as he crept toward the howls and growling crackling through the night air. He approached a door ripped from its hinges, gouged with claw marks. In the dim light of a flashlight, he could see the silhouette of wrestling figures.

  He leveled his gun on the tangled knot of werewolves as he stepped through the doorway. The werewolves all noticed his presence. Roaring, two werewolves charged him. Mitch fired six rapid shots, three into each werewolf’s head. The shots slung the werewolves into opposite walls. When he turned his attention back to the other two werewolves, Jared and Alec were standing in the corners naked. “Mitch?” Alec asked.

  Mitch kept his gun leveled on them. He turned his eyes to the two locked doors and the snarling from inside. “Lucy in one of those rooms?”

  “What?” Alec said.

  “Clearly I know about you. Let’s not play games.”

  “Yes,” Jared said. “We lock her up every full moon to keep her from hurting anyone.”

  “And the other door?”

  “Once we open it, we’ll all know what’s going on,” Jared replied. “Are you going to shoot us?”

  “Shooting you in the head only knocks you out for a couple days. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “Burn all the bodies while they’re—asleep.”

  “Does that include us?” Jared baited.

  Mitch snorted. “I hope not.” He kept his gun trained on them. “So you can control it.”

  Jared smiled. “Apparently. This is the first time I’ve ever turned.”

  Mitch nodded. “Okay. Open that door.”

  “Are we sure we want to?” Alec asked. Low, under the growling, they heard Maxwell screaming. “Oh, shit. Open it.”

  Jared unlocked the padlock and flung the door open. As toxic smoke filtered out into the hallway, Jared choked and stepped back. Through the smoke, a werewolf darted from the room. Burns encrusted its face; blood poured from the sockets where teeth had been. It stopped in the middle of the hallway, turning in circles, looking from Alec to Jared to Mitch. The werewolf scratched at the ground, nervously, seeming to calculate its position. It turned toward Mitch.

  It charged.

  Mitch fired repeatedly until the werewolf fell to the ground. Alec, Jared, and Mitch watched as the beast slowly morphed back to Nadia. Jared turned to Alec, confused.

  “A little help?” Maxwell called as he tried to crawl under the animal gate. Alec and Jared rushed to him and yanked him under the gate. “She was never on our side,” he explained. “Neither was Helena.”

  “Haley?” Jared asked.

  Maxwell shook his head, tears washing down his cheeks.

  “How did you—” Jared gestured toward Nadia.

  “I had a premonition that I would be locked in a room with a werewolf. That’s why Haley made you buy a lithium flashlight.”

  “When the werewolf bit the flashlight, it exploded in her mouth. Smart,” Mitch conceded.

  “So now what? What do we do about the city?” Maxwell asked, looking from face to face. They looked at him quizzically. “Oh, God, you don’t know.”

  “What?” They insisted.

  “Werewolves are all over the city.”

  “What do we do?” Mitch asked, seeming for the first time to trust his unlikely allies.

  “My parents are out there.” Tears welled in Alec’s eyes.

  “And Haley.”

  Jared looked Mitch in the eyes. “We can’t stop a city full of werewolves.”

  “So...” Mitch scowled. “We do nothing?”

  “There will be plenty to do in the morning,” Alec muttered. “Until then, I have to keep an eye on my sister.” He walked to his discarded clothes and dressed as Jared did the same.

  Dressed, Alec slumped against the wall, dangling his hands between his knees. He turned his eyes toward the ceiling—and the heavens. “Please let my Mom and Dad be safe.”

  Project Conflagration

  Nigel Rathborne sat behind his desk watching monitors reporting from around the world. Screens filled with news reports. Tickers across the bottoms of each screen screamed new, horrific headlines. Other monitors shouted progress reports from operatives in the field: assassinations, casualty counts, military bases overthrown, power stations blown up, and communication towers disabled. The largest terrorist strike in all of history happened simultaneously, around the globe, because it was committed by neighbors, friends, and loved ones infected with the same virus.

  “We’re blasting humanity back into the Dark Ages,” he laughed. “And we’re the new feudal kings.” He craned his neck, listening to the symphony of sirens bleating in the night. “They can’t nuke us, because we live on their soil. They can’t bomb us, because we stand too close to them. They can’t kill us because we are their loved ones.” Nigel stood, spinning in victory with his hands in the air. “The human cattle are ready for the slaughter.”

  “Tonight was a complete success,” Griffin gloated. “Casualties were high but no one important.”

  Nigel turned his attention to the monitors again as the screens blared.

  Around the world bridges exploded. He watched the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges tumble into the ocean; the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark snapped, and its pylons sank into the abyss; an explosion on the Pearl Bridge in Japan flared in the daytime sky; the metal of the Sydney harbor Bridge twisted as the metal arch fell toward the water.

  “Airports around the world will be offline in a matter of minutes,” he announced. “By this time tomorrow, humans will be so stunned, in such chaos, they will have no idea whom to trust. They will turn on each other, neighbor against neighbor, corralling each other straight into our butcher shops.”

  Nigel nodded. His eyes turned to the final monitor. On the screen a werewolf thrashed madly in a room. It roared and clawed at the walls. “The Runes,” he said, trailing out a sibilant s. “Jason has had no idea how important his DNA has been to all of this.”

  * * * *

  The morning sun glittered on the broken glass from the shattered windows in the old building as Alec awoke. His breath came out in white clouds in the cold air. Jared rested against him on one side and Maxwell on the other as they huddled to keep warm overnight. Mitch leaned his back against the opposite wall, his butt on the floor and his hands dangling between his legs. “Did you sleep?” Alec asked.

  “No. Didn’t need to.”

  Alec nudged Jared and Maxwell. Maxwell awoke with a start and then realized Alec was merely waking him.

  “Wonder what we’re waking to,” Jared stated.

  “When you let Lucy out, I’ll have some explaining to do,” Mitch contended.

  Alec stretched. He rapped his fingers on the door to Lucy’s room. “Lucy?”

  Silence.

  “Unlock the door,” Mitch ordered.

  Alec fumbled with the lock as worry coursed through him. He pulled the door open. An empty room greeted him. “Fuck! Where is she?” Alec panicked. He flung the door open so they could all see the empty room.

  Mitch st
rode into the room. “The back gate’s open.”

  “I locked it,” Alec declared.

  “It’s open now.”

  “Did she get out?” Alec questioned, but Mitch didn’t answer him. Alec, Jared, and Maxwell followed Mitch as he passed through the animal door to the outside cage. Discarded bars littered the ground outside the cage.

  “Someone cut these with a blow torch,” Jared pointed out.

  Mitch jabbed his finger at tire tracks in the dirt. “Someone corralled her and took her.”

  “The attack was a distraction.” Alec fell to the floor. “Where is she?” Jared consoled him as Maxwell and Mitch stared at each other, wondering what to do next.

  “I want to know who took her and why,” Mitch whispered to Maxwell.

  A car’s engine revved to life around the side of the building. They jumped through the opening in the cage and tore around the corner in time to see a car retreat into the distance.

  “Who was that?” Alec asked.

  “Back inside,” Jared commanded. When they entered the hallway where they had spent the night, Nadia’s body was no longer among the others. “So they came back for her.”

  Alec turned his eyes into the distance where the car had absconded. “I’m going to get that bitch and make her pay.”

  A Letter from Adrian

  Dear reader,

  Thank you for joining me on this journey along with all the characters in The Runes Trilogy. I am currently working on Book Three: The Wolf at War!

  With so many books out there, books like The Runes Trilogy aren’t always easy to find. But you can help your friends find The Runes Trilogy. Just post about The Wolf at His Door on Facebook or Pinterest or Twitter. It really helps get the word out. Reviews also help readers on sites like Goodreads or where you purchased the book know what other readers think. If you take the time to leave a review, I sincerely thank you.

  I have many more adventures in my head, and I plan to keep sharing them for years to come. If you have questions or comments, I’d be delighted to hear from you. Here are some ways to reach me:

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/adrianwlilly

  Website: www.adrianlilly.com

  Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/6545875.Adrian_Lilly

  Google+: plus.google.com/u/1/+AdrianLilly

  Twitter: @AdrianLilly1

  Email: adrian@adrianlilly.com

  Take care and many happy reading adventures,

  Adrian W. Lilly

  Also by Adrian W. Lilly

  The Devil You Know

  A haunting in October...

  Seventeen-year-old Julie Collins has moved to an isolated new world that is as haunting as it is beautiful. She and her mother are spending their final days with Julie’s dying father in his boyhood home in the isolated woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

  But the ghost of a teenage boy walks the halls of the old mansion. He appears from flames and shows Julie horrible visions of murder.

  A sacrifice on Halloween...

  As the days of October slip past, Julie realizes the murderous visions are real. She has no way to escape—so she must fight to save her life...or become the next victim of a century-old demonic ritual.

  Red Haze: Toxic Friendships Book One

  Some nights the woods on the edge of campus glow with a spectral, shimmering red haze. Marne Montgomery knows—she’s seen it.

  She also saw a figure in the haze. He beckoned to her and then vanished.

  Marne shrugs off the incident until her roommate, Sara Murdock, shows her a picture of a student. The one Marne saw in the woods.

  But he’s been dead for more than a year.

  Suddenly, Marne and Sara are tangled in a secret that threatens their college careers—and their lives. Their only hope is to find the cause of the red haze…

  Before someone else dies.

  Red Haze is a haunting psychological thriller that hovers between the spectral and the natural, blurring the lines between remembrance and regret, dedication and obsession, justice and revenge.