Wolves and Roses

by Christina Bauer

  “The Denarii are good people. They’re humans who are trying to save magic.” I pull back the hammer on the gun. “That’s not you.”

  “Oh, I’m a true Denarii all right. And you, my dear, are ridiculously naive.” Madame slowly rises to her feet.

  “Stand still, or I’ll shoot.”

  The crazy lady steps closer to me. “I don’t doubt it.”

  “Stop!” The room starts to go hazy around me. Silver spots appear in my vision. All my limbs turn rubbery. That locked-down container inside my soul rattles. It’s that damned spell from Colonel Mallory trying to break loose.

  Oh, damn. My last dose of medicine wasn’t enough. Now, on top of everything else, I’m about to have an episode. If that happens, I’ll really be dead.

  It’s an effort to keep my eyes open. “I said, stop!”

  “Never.” Madame moves closer.

  “Don’t take another step!”

  She does just that.

  The world seems to move in slow motion as I squeeze the trigger on my Glock. BOOM! Once I start, I can’t seem to stop. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! Spine-wrenching blasts echo through the cabin. A small hole appears in the center of Madame’s forehead as she gets thrown backward. Crashes sound as bullets ricochet around the room.

  With trembling hands, I set the gun aside. “I told you to stop!”

  Madame lies at my feet, lifeless. This is terrible.

  The next thing I know, silver spots start clouding my vision again. Inside my soul, the lockbox that holds my curse begins to fracture. No, no, no. I cannot have an episode with a dead Madame on my floor. I race over to my bag, pull out my inhaler, and suck in a few breaths. Every breath feels better than the last.

  The medicine tastes like hell, but it soon does the trick. My vision clears, but my body still feels like a wet noodle. I slump onto the floor by Madame’s feet and force myself to look at her. The odd thought occurs to me that for a head wound, she really didn’t make too much of a mess on the carpet.

  She didn’t make too much of a mess? What is wrong with me?

  I just killed a fellow human being. Sure, Madame called herself a true Denarii and came after me, but that didn’t mean she deserved to die. I just…panicked. My skin chills with shock and fear. What do I do with a dead body anyway?

  One name appears in my mind. Elle. I need to contact my best friend. She might know someone who specializes in this kind of thing. I set my hand on my chest, trying to force my breaths to slow.

  That’s a good plan. Call Elle.

  My stomach sinks. I would call Elle, except for one fact. My cell phone got destroyed. Madame crunched the thing to bits.

  I glance over my shoulder at my computer setup. The monitors are all dark. A huge bullet hole peeps out from the hard drive. Damn. The system was damaged when I shot the gun at Madame so many times. That sucks. I could have used the computer to patch through an IP line and get to Elle’s phone.

  Suddenly, Madame twitches. Now, I’ve read about how bodies do strange things during rigor mortis, but that takes a long time to set in. There’s no way Madame should be moving right now.

  She flinches again. Huh. It actually seems like Madame is still alive.

  In one single movement, Madame rises to her feet. Although, it’s more like she’s levered up by some invisible board, rather than actually shifting her weight like a normal person would. Shock charges through my nervous system. I scream my head off.

  Madame is alive and coming for me, even though she has a bullet hole in her head and everything.

  My mind blanks. How do I kill someone who’s already dead?

  I watch her approach and think through all my lessons with Miss Chang. Madame may be magical, but I’m stubborn. Whatever’s going on, I won’t go down without a fight.

  Chapter Six

  Knox

  My throat tightens with another held-in growl. For the last ten minutes, I’ve done nothing but drive up and down this same damned road. All I’ve got to show for it are a lot of trees, darkness, and frustration. No sign of Bryar Rose and her cabin. Yeah, my GPS app tells me that I’m at the right address, but there’s nothing here. I grip the steering wheel of Alec’s Mustang with extra force.

  Get a hold of yourself, Knox. Chances are, Bryar Rose is fine. Whatever feelings you have for this girl are just hormones, pure and simple.

  That thought should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. I can feel my wolf inside me, pacing the inner walls of my soul. He wants his mate, and he thinks Bryar Rose is it. What a shit show. Not to mention that the marks on my back—marks that every warden has—are now pulsing with power. It’s what happens when my wolf is really upset.

  Well, my inner wolf may be losing it, but my mind is still intact. There’s no way Bryar Rose is my mate. She’s human. Weres only mate with our own kind. And then, there’s the fact that I can’t mate with anyone.

  I’m one of the three, just like Alec.

  But my wolf is having none of it. He howls inside me, calling for me to find her. I punch the roof instead.

  “Shut the hell up, will you?” Sometimes yelling at my wolf helps. This isn’t one of those times. He only howls louder.

  I slam my skull back against the headrest. “Come on, man. You know who we are. Wardens never find a mate.” I scrub my hand down my face because, damn it, my wolf is freaking out worse by the second. I jam on the gas and pull over into a clearing. It’ll be a bitch getting the Mustang out of here, but my wolf is howling for me to stop.

  I kill the ignition and step out into the night. The air’s crisp and still. Good. If Bryar Rose is anywhere nearby, then I’ll scent her easily enough. Normally, I strip down before making the change to my animal form, but my wolf isn’t having any of that. The second I step away from the car door, he rips through my skin.

  Damn, this part always hurts.

  My bones snap and realign. Fingers stretch into talons. Muscles contort, and every inch of me hurts like hell. Within seconds, I’m a huge badass black wolf with golden eyes. This was not how I planned to spend my night. I snort in a deep breath, checking to see if my wolf is right or crazy.

  There’s no scent of Bryar Rose on the air. Crazy it is, then.

  “See?” My logical self rails inside my head. “Told you there was nothing. We were just going to drive past her place, and now I’m all wolfed up, you freak. Don’t get any ideas. I’m not chasing rabbits around just to placate your sorry ass.”

  My wolf’s guttural voice echoes through my thoughts. “Danger,” he growls. My wolf isn’t one for long sentences as a rule. “Mate.”

  I’m about to launch into a long lecture about how we can never have a mate when it happens. A scream breaks the quiet. My wolf-strong hearing knows the voice instantly.

  By the three. It’s Bryar Rose.

  I speed off in the direction of Bryar’s cries. Whatever control I was trying to wrest back from my wolf, I hand it all over to my animal side. Everything becomes sensation and instinct. Rocks jut into my paws. Low-hanging branches scrape against my fur. Bryar Rose’s yells grow louder. A guttural growl escapes my throat.

  Whoever makes her scream, they will bleed.

  A small cabin appears through a clearing of trees. Figures move just beyond the windows.

  Bryar Rose.

  The door’s shut, but that means nothing to me. I leap high into the air and slam my bulk against the barrier. In my wolf form, I’m twelve feet long from snout to tail, not to mention tall as a horse. The door shatters like kindling. I land on the cabin floor with a thud.

  Bryar Rose is here. Her skin is all scratched and bloody. Some fucking Denarii is parked on her chest and trying to choke the life out of my girl.

  Oh, hell no.

  I leap forward, grip the Denarii by the throat, and toss her through the air. She lands against the wall and slumps to the floor.

  Bryar crab-walks backward, staring at me with wide eyes. “She won’t die. I shot her in the head.”

  My wolf huffs out a
growling laugh. His rumbling voice echoes inside my head. “Strong mate. Good for pack.” Damn, my wolf is in deep.

  Not that I can worry about that now. I have a Denarii to kill.

  I round on the undead freak who’s lying motionless at the bottom of the wall. Her head sits at an odd angle, which means I snapped her neck. That won’t stop her from coming back, though. The Denarii are easy enough to down, but unless you chop off their heads, they always return to life. And to be absolutely certain they won’t regenerate, you need to burn them in a bonfire. I should know. I’ve destroyed hundreds of them and have the scars to prove it.

  I prowl back and forth in front of the prone woman. I don’t kill the Denarii unless they attack. And they always attack.

  Sure enough, the woman’s eyes pop open. She lets out a howl of rage and leaps toward me. I jump up, grip her head in my jaws, and extend my razor-sharp talons. With a few swipes of my claws, the Denarii’s head is separated from her body. I fling her skull far from the corpse. I’ve seen heads reattach if you leave them too close to their bodies. Like I said, the best solution is to burn the corpse. Even so, things are safe enough for now.

  I round on Bryar, who stands against the far wall. She holds her gun straight at me. It’s not likely that she’d kill me with a Glock, but she could make things pretty uncomfortable.

  “Out the door, wolf.” Bryar Rose wiggles the gun toward the busted-open doorway. “Now.”

  Before I can stop myself, I let out a whine that would make a hungry dog proud. “Mate,” whispers my wolf inside my head. “Want mate.”

  Now, I’d like to punch my wolf in the muzzle, but I can’t. So I settle for mentally reminding him of a few unpleasant realties. “You can’t have her.” I don’t even get into the fact that a true mate bond with a human is impossible for anyone, let alone me. Instead, I go with logic. Sometimes it works. “A half-ton black wolf just burst into her cabin. How about we back off?”

  “We go human. For now.”

  My body realigns once again. Agony tears through my limbs as my muscles reform. Bones shrink. Fur disappears. Claws retract. Soon, I’m back to my human self. And buck naked.

  Bryar Rose’s hand pops over her mouth. “Oh, my God. Knox.”

  “Hey.” Werewolves spend a lot of time naked, so it isn’t a big deal to us. Humans, however, can get a little freaked.

  She stares at the ceiling, clearly averting her gaze from my nakedness. It’s cute. “Watch out for Madame.”

  “The Denarii?”

  “Yes, she could wake back up.”

  “Nah. Once their heads are off, they stay down. We do need to burn her body, though, just to be safe. If her head reattaches, then she could regenerate.”

  “Oh.” Bryar Rose glances down from the ceiling, and her gaze spikes right to my waistline. After that, her cheeks burn bright red. It’s even cuter. “You want to—” She clears her throat. “Put something on?”

  “Other than this, yeah?” I’m such a smartass, I lift the pendant around my neck. It looks like a black opal shaped like a wolf claw. Alec gave it to me ages ago as a failsafe. It’s an all-purpose escape spell from wizard attacks. It’s a long story, but witches and wizards infight like crazy, and Alec and his family have their enemies. He gave this to me to protect me. But right now? It’s just a fun way to tease Bryar Rose.

  “No.” She starts staring at the ceiling again. “A necklace doesn’t count as clothing.”

  “It’s a pendant.” I’m not a necklace kind of guy. “How about you set that gun down first, and we can talk about it?”

  “The gun?” She looks at the firearm in her hands. “Oh, the gun. Right.” She places it on a nearby table and turns to face me. “So…well…um…clothes?”

  “Yeah. You got any?” I look around. “I didn’t bring stuff with me.” I point at the dead Denarii. “Unless you want me to…” I leave the logic out there for her to catch up.

  “NO!” She clears her throat again. “I mean, no. Don’t touch Madame’s things. This is Elle’s place. She’s got some disguises here—” Bryar face-palms herself. “I mean, she’s got some clothes around that might fit you. Don’t move.”

  “No plans to.” I lace my fingers behind my neck. Bryar is so shy and blushy, it’s totally adorable. My wolf likes it, too.

  “No mates. No cubs.” In the logic of my wolf, he thinks Bryar’s awkwardness is a sign that she hasn’t dated much, if at all. No mates to compete with, no previous cubs to parent. He’s still stuck on that crazy idea that she and I belong together. He’s nuts, but I’ll deal with it later. Besides, it’s easy to ignore my wolf when Bryar is still standing there, trying not to stare at my dick.

  “You gonna get me something?” I’m smiling, which is a somewhat bastard move, but I can’t help it.

  “Right. Clothes.” Bryar steps off to the bedroom. She rustles around in there for a minute or two before coming out with a pair of loose sweat shorts and a T-shirt. She tosses me both.

  I pull on the shorts and read the wording on the shirt. “FBI Secret Operation: Domino?”

  “It doesn’t really say that.” Bryar Rose steps closer.

  I hold up the shirt as evidence. “Last time I checked, the FBI doesn’t do theme shirts for their secret ops.”

  “That’s Elle. I’m sure there’s a reason.” Bryar Rose looks away. “Why don’t you get dressed, and we can talk about the decapitated body on my floor?”

  “What? I’ve got on shorts.” She’s too easy to tease, this one.

  “Knox. This situation is tough enough without nakedness being brought into things.”

  I slip on the T-shirt because even I know my limits on giving pretty girls a hard time. Now that I’m clothed, I can’t help but notice that Bryar Rose is almost naked herself. She’s wearing these mini sleep shorts and a camisole that leaves little to the imagination. Man, is she ever gorgeous. Wolf likes the way she looks, too. I’m not dumb enough to tell her to put anything on, though.

  I nod toward the dead Denarii. “You know her?”

  “She ran my Teen Magicorum Therapy Group.”

  “Denarii, yeah?”

  She nods. “They’re evil. She told me.” She tilts her head. “But you know that already, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Bryar hugs her elbows. “Why was she coming after me?”

  “You don’t have any magic, right?”

  “None.”

  “Then I don’t know.” I rub my chin. “It’s also strange that you know her. She must have been acting alone. Assassins are almost always strangers. Did she have any reason to carry a grudge against you?”

  “Her? Tons. We don’t exactly get along. The only person she might hate more than me is—” Bryar Rose’s eyes widen. “Oh, no. Elle! If Madame came after me, maybe someone else went for Elle, too.”

  “Don’t worry. Alec went to check on your friend.”

  Bryar Rose gives me the side-eye. “Somehow, that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “He’s good people. I could call him and find out what’s up. You’ve got a phone around here?”

  “I did, but Madame broke it. There’s my computer, but—” She turns to the wall of computer monitors. All of them are dark. She rushes over to them. “Oh crap, I forgot. My system got shot.”

  “Like with a gun?”

  “Yeah. It happened in the fight. I save everything in a private cloud, though, so I can get it back.”

  My wolf doesn’t understand what she’s saying, but I do. And as much as I hate to admit this, I like that Bryar Rose can fight the undead and geek out on computers. Alec sure was right about Bryar being different from werewolf women. Female weres are rare. Many get so spoiled they act like pretty princesses. Lots of demands. Not a lot of self-sufficiency. In the long run, that behavior is the definition of “turn-off.”

  I take another long look at the setup Bryar has here. It’s pretty impressive. “You a hacker, too?”

  “Let’s just say that I’ve had a
lot of free time on my hands.”

  I nod. There’s a story to this girl; that’s for sure. I might even want to hear it. Still, we can’t hang out at this crime scene. I glance around the room. “You got anything in here you need, you should box it up.”

  Bryar Rose tilts her head. It’s a canine move, which I like. “What do you mean?”

  “Even if she went rogue, her superiors will figure out that she came here to kill you. They’ll expect a fire. It’s standard procedure after they kill a non-Denarii. If we burn her body here, it will buy us some time.” I brace myself, waiting for the whining about all the things she needs.

  “Sounds like a plan.” She grabs her bag. “I’m ready.”

  My brows lift. “Really?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Really and for truly. Everything of mine that’s important is online, and that’s—” She points to the ceiling. “All in the cloud.”

  “Because you’re a hacker. Right.” I shake my head. This girl. “You got any kerosene around?”

  “It’s by the fireplace. Matches, too.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Matches, too.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just… You’re handling this really well.”

  “I live with three fairies and got cursed by Colonel Mallory the Magnificent. I’m used to crazy.” She sets her fist on her hip, daring me to disagree.

  I lift my arms and flash her my palms. “I get it. You’re tough. Just get yourself ready. I’ll see you outside.”

  “You’re going to get rid of the body?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Well, I can help.”

  I like that she’s tough and all, but getting rid of bodies is a nasty business. I’ve done it before, but Bryar? Living with fairies doesn’t prepare you for everything. “Look,” I say. “You can help by double-checking that there isn’t anything here that you or Elle need. I’ll take care of your dead friend here.”

  “If you’re really sure.”

  I use her own line back at her. “Really and for truly.”

  Bryar Rose chuckles, and I like the sound. “Okay, fine.” She checks all her drawers and finds a few other trinkets that she’d like to keep. While Bryar Rose waits outside, I drag the body onto the couch and douse it with kerosene. The head goes into the fireplace. I also find some matches and pocket them.