“And me, I set off into the dark woods after him. I was going to kill him and bring home a wolf pelt to hang on the vardo door. But I was only a child myself and got this for my trouble.” He pulled up his shirt, and he was scarred from shoulder to hip bone. By all rights, it should’ve killed him.
“I haven’t seen those before.”
“I hide them with magic. Always.”
Yet something else she didn’t know about him. Beth thought that at least she’d known his body, but she hadn’t. Not really. She held out his grandmother’s ring. “Here.”
He didn’t take it. “She likes you.”
“She hasn’t met me.”
“Oh, she’s met you. She’s the one who told me to give you the ring. She wanted you to have it. So keep it.”
Beth wanted scream at him to stop sending her mixed signals. It was either all or nothing, even with the story he’d just told her. Her wolf didn’t understand. In fact, her beast wanted her to lick those scars. She couldn’t get the imagery out of her head—him flat on his back and at her mercy, her tongue laving over him.
Her sex twinged thinking about all the things she’d do to him.
Not mine, she reminded herself. The beast was curiously silent.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you and your family.” She pursed her lips. “If you hate werewolves so much, how can you stand for me to have the ring?”
“Zoranna does what she will, and it’s not my place to question her. I may be a prince, but she is the Eve.”
Beth remembered the training about all of the new creatures the facility provided, the social hierarchy and what she’d learned from Konstantin. The Adam or Eve was akin to the progenitor of a race or species, but it was a role that could be transferred upon death and it came with all the memories and the power of those who’d come before.
Watching him sitting there on the bed—their bed—and knowing he was a total stranger made it hard for Beth to breathe, to think. Her wounds were still too raw. Being here with him hurt. Beth’s humanity was at odds with her beast.
The primal brain told her nothing that had happened before mattered. Only being with him, claiming him because he belonged to her. Human Beth still couldn’t get past the fact that he was a stranger who’d betrayed her.
Neither of those things changed the way her body ached for him. She wanted his touch—wanted to be curled in his arms, because that was what she’d been taught was safe. He was a shield against the world, but he was what she needed shielding from.
Suddenly, everything went dark—even the solitary streetlight outside.
“They must’ve tracked us somehow. Stay close to me,” Stefan demanded.
“You forget. I’m as dangerous as you are and I can see in the dark.” Beth threw off her human skin with ease.
If she’d been paying attention to her surroundings instead of being lost in a past she couldn’t change and a future she couldn’t alter, she would’ve smelled their approach. They stunk of fear.
Soldiers on rappelling lines swung through the windows and a blast of light shot through the space. Stefan raised his hands as he had before to call his magic, but nothing happened. He didn’t let that stop him. He was quick to engage the enemy. When his magic didn’t burst from his hands, he grabbed the AK-47 out of the hands of a soldier and broke the man’s nose with the gun before unleashing a spray of bullets.
Beth launched herself into the fray, snapping her jaws around whatever flesh was nearest. They fired their guns, but even the silver bullets did nothing to slow her down.
Nothing did, until a choke collar was snapped into place around her neck. She was yanked back down into her human form and quickly subdued. Needles pricked her arm, her neck, her thigh. Her vision grew dim and the world in front of her swam like the swirling of watercolors on a child’s canvas. Sounds blurred into the hum of cicadas, nothing more than meaningless buzzing.
She drifted on a turbulent sea of semiconsciousness. Strange hands moved over her body in sterile motions, checking her pulse, her blood pressure, pushing more needles into her.
“Use her for bait...”
“...gypsy phenomena.”
“...she’ll mark him.”
“...magic.”
“...silver ineffectual...”
She wondered, groggily, if this was how her test subjects felt. If they’d still had a self-awareness while they’d been transported to Blue Ridge.
Another voice in the ether spoke to her, a siren’s call of peace and tranquility—if only she’d let go. If only she’d surrender to the waves that fought to drag her away from the shore of awareness.
The choice was taken from her when another dose of something was injected into her veins. Beth didn’t just slip away from the shore—she rocketed out into the black space beyond the sea where the skyline met the horizon.
Among all the black, a woman rocked gently in time with the waves in a hand-carved chair. Her white hair fell long and silky around her in pools of clouds.
“Come closer, child.”
Beth knew she was dreaming, but she couldn’t resist creeping closer to the woman. In her hands, she used strands of her white hair to knit the most ornate webs, like a spider. Rather than being frightened, Beth was intrigued.
“Closer.” The woman reached out and draped a veil of the webbing over her. “There. As it should be.”
“Zoranna?”
“That’s Grandmother to you, little one.” She smiled, the lines of her face changing just like the sand on a beach—ebbing and flowing with the tide.
After what she’d read about the Gypsies and their powers, she knew this was no dream. It was a visitation. Sorrow, joy, guilt and hope all welled up together in a bittersweet brew.
“Everything shall be fine, child. You’ll see. Only now you must be strong. Stronger than you’ve ever been before. This is the last of my magic, and Stefan will ascend to my place. He will need you.”
Zoranna faded, and with her, the dark. Everything grew brighter, louder, until she found herself staring into what seemed like a spotlight, until it, too, faded and was nothing more than a sodium light inside a terrarium.
The terrarium looked just like the one at Blue Ridge.
“Where am I?” she mumbled as she attempted to orient herself.
“Can’t you guess? Another Aeternali research facility,” Stefan supplied.
“How long was I out?”
“Two days. They hit you pretty hard with that stuff, but you kept fighting.”
She struggled to sit up and realized she was wearing only his T-shirt. It comforted her and irritated her at the same time. “They couldn’t be bothered to give me any of my own clothes?”
“No. Apparently they want to see what it will take for you to mark me. How long you’ll resist and if my blood will neutralize the infection like my sister’s did.”
Her head felt like someone was using it as a bongo. “What?”
“I only overheard part of the conversation. Enough to know that Luka Stanislav wiped out the infected in Europe, but that he was infected, too. My sister cured him. They want to know if my blood can cure you,” he spat.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and settled into his lap, close to his ear so that she could speak without anyone else hearing. Beth kept waiting for him to push her away, but he didn’t. So she whispered, “I don’t know how they’re managing to keep us here or what they’ve done to your magic, but none of that crap works on an Adam, right?”
His hand slid down to her hip and Stefan pulled her more tightly against him. “It shouldn’t. There is no magic on earth that will hold an Adam, although Luka is an Adam and the virus infected him.” Even as he finished his sentence, she could see awareness dawn on his face as to why she was asking about the powers of an Adam—as he realized his grandmother was gone.
Her mouth was dry and she couldn’t find any more words to express what he already knew. Their eyes met, and the blossoming sorrow in his spoke volumes.
“Did she come to you?”
“I’m sorry, Stefan.”
The collar around her neck came alive and hit her with fifty thousand volts. Every muscle flexed and strained as the electricity pulsed through her. Her teeth clenched together and her body spasmed.
“No whispering, you two. Out loud so the whole class can hear.” A voice echoed over an intercom system.
“I’m going to kill you,” Stefan said conversationally.
“See that you try, Princeling. Zoranna will have to find you first, and you’ll be long dead by then. That pretty girl you’re holding is going to tear out your insides. Just like your mother.”
Stefan’s body tensed as if he’d been the one wearing the shock collar.
“Say you’re mine. Just say it,” she hissed.
“Why, so you can get the marking over with?”
“Trust me.”
“Don’t do it, Gypsy,” the voice warned.
“I’m yours,” Stefan declared in a defiant tone.
Just as the first phase of the mating bond clicked into place, another fifty-thousand volts shot through her. This time, it didn’t begin to ebb as soon as it hit. The jolt before had been a warning—this was a punishment.
Her beast could’ve combatted the pain easily, but the same collar that jolted her also kept her from turning. Her teeth clamped together; her whole body spasmed. A low guttural sound was torn from her as the volts kept coming.
Her toes curled, her fingers were knotted into claws and she began to convulse into unnatural poses.
“Enough!” Stefan demanded.
“You’ll wish she had that collar on when we let her change to mark you.”
“And you’ll wish for an easy death,” he returned.
The voltage stopped, but her flesh continued to contort and she could smell the scent of her own skin burning where the collar made contact. The wounds healed almost immediately.
The look on Stefan’s face was one of pure rage.
It was worth it. Now we can talk without them hearing us or even knowing we’re talking. Beth spoke across their new mind link.
What did Zoranna say to you?
That you’d need me while you ascended.
“Are you okay?” he said aloud.
“Yeah.” She nodded and slid from his lap, looking around the enclosure. Beth noticed cameras everywhere. “Looks like Big Brother is always watching, huh?”
“Seems to be the case.”
“What’s to stop you from disabling them? They don’t look rigged.”
“I thought that would be kind of obvious. They’ll shock you.”
Beth cast a glance over her shoulder. “So what if they do? I’m just a mark. An asset, I believe is how you thought of me? Doesn’t matter. I’ll heal.”
“Beth—”
“No.” She held up her hand to silence him. So much had come through the link when they’d joined. She’d wondered how he thought of her and now she knew. It was as if that bit of knowledge had been drawn to her like a magnet. She wanted it and it erupted to the forefront. Part of her wished she didn’t know, that she could stuff it back down inside of him so deep she never had to see it again.
But hiding it didn’t change the truth of the matter.
She dealt in facts, not “would have” or “could have.”
It was what she deserved for poking through another’s private thoughts. He didn’t allow her inside because he had some unexplainable drive to join with her, it was simply because she’d asked him to trust her.
Beth, if you’re going to look, you should see everything, he said through their link.
She didn’t want to, and she scrambled for a way to close their connection, but it was too late. Memories kept slamming into her like a wrecking ball, familiar, but foreign—just like their cabin had been. They were his memories of her, his perceptions.
Burning in the fire of your hair...
Beth saw herself as she’d been the night of the raid, splayed out before him. That wasn’t a view she’d ever wanted, but seeing herself through his eyes was something altogether different. She was...beautiful.
To him.
His want of her had been real enough—his desire.
Sensation shot through her, stabs of lust twisting through her body, and she experienced what he had. Her tight sheath around him, her sounds of pleasure, the weight of her breasts in his hands—it was all so decadent and just a little bit debauched.
She loved it.
I think about that all the time, Beth.
Her body responded, nipples tight and beaded beneath her T-shirt, heart rate skyrocketing as she thought about doing those things with him again.
Even with the collar on, she thought about sinking her teeth into his shoulder, marking him. She tried to push the thought out of her head, but it was as ingrained in the sex act as kissing. Or it would be until she finished the mating ritual.
She couldn’t risk infecting him, even if by some chance he would allow it. He’d given her those bad memories, too—what had happened in the woods when he’d chased the beast that had killed his mother. Beth didn’t want those, didn’t want to feel that terror.
But maybe she owed it to him to look.
A telltale beeping told her that they were monitoring the pheromones in the room. As if they were animals who would couple in plain view for anyone to see.
Her beast liked that idea. It growled in her head with satisfaction. Let them look, let them see her take her mate and mark him as her own. The collar around her neck loosened just as the scent of poppies and a red fog filled the air.
The beast didn’t like the smell and couldn’t see through the fog. In fact, there was something about the fog that made the beast rage. It welled up out of her, the wolf’s venom filling her veins and splitting through her skin until there was nothing left of Beth, only the animal.
And a hunger that could only be sated with flesh.
Chapter Five
No word existed in any language Stefan knew to describe exactly the profanity he wished to utter. Dread knotted in Stefan’s stomach as he watched the change overtake her. It was no natural thing.
When he’d watched her transform before, it had been a smooth series of motions like flexing a muscle—a bird spreading its wings. This was like slicing into the bird and pulling out its bones. Muscles convulsed and shifted, caught somewhere between human and beast. Just like the zombie beasts and the virus.
“Surrender to it, Beth. Let it happen so it doesn’t hurt.” Stefan knew she fought it for him and it was tearing her apart inside and out. She didn’t need any more pain—not because of him. He’d already hurt her enough.
“You shouldn’t be so quick to encourage her, Gypsy trash.” The voice came over the intercom and a small table emerged from the floor of the terrarium offering up an array of silver blades. “She’ll rip you open. Unless you rip out her heart and cut off her head. Your mother couldn’t do it. Can you?”
The sound of a woman screaming was piped in like elevator music, and this seemed to enrage the beast further. It snarled and slavered, jaws snapping at him even before it lunged.
No, not it, a small voice in his head reminded him. This was still Beth. She’d already proven she was the same person no matter what her skin looked like. This wasn’t her fault, and even though he deserved all of her rage, she’d never do this on her own.
The killer in him reached for the silver blades before he could think better of it, and he’d already armed himself when she roared.
Stefan knew he’d have to make a choice.
Even if her bite didn’t kill him, it would change things between them. It could infect him. It would bind them forever.
He had more than just himself to think about. He was going to be an Adam. His people depended on him.
None of his options were acceptable.
She sprang, her powerful legs propelling her through the air toward her prey. Stefan leaped and found himself with h
is back against a wall. Close quarters made it hard to evade her, but it was designed that way.
The screaming kept pounding at his temples, digging around inside of him from some thread of fear, something to drag to the forefront and make him weak, but he refused. The beast he’d faced in the woods hadn’t been mindless and ravenous like Beth was now. He’d been thinking, sentient, and all the more awful for it.
Beth loved him.
He knew she was still inside even if she wasn’t the one in control.
She pounced again and he was able to leap over her back to land behind her. He remembered that first night when she’d put herself between him and the other werewolves. The animal wouldn’t hurt him either—if it knew what it was doing. It’d been her beast that sought to protect him and mark him, not hurt him.
That knowledge was contradictory to everything he knew to be true. To everything he’d been taught and everything he’d lived his life for.
Everything he was ready to die for.
But the answer that kept repeating over and over in his head, louder than the piped-in screaming, louder than the denial his brain kept firing off like a cannon was: it’s Beth.
It came from a place deeper and stronger than his logical mind, something that was irrefutable as a mountain of stone.
The thing that spoke to him was his heart.
He dropped the silver.
“You should really pick those back up,” the faceless voice warned.
Stefan wasn’t going to tell them the silver wouldn’t do any good anyway, that the infected, or at least Beth, was immune to silver.
“Beth,” he spoke quietly.
The beast roared, her eyes empty, glittering pools.
Beth. He reached out across their mind link.
She didn’t answer in words, but images. Horrible, slow-motion pictures of her tearing into his flesh followed by the equally horrible vistas of what he had to do to ensure that didn’t happen.
The worst of it, though, was the warmth that filled him afterward—her approval and acceptance of her fate.
Claimed by the Wolf Page 3
