First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series)

by Dani Harper

  Eventually she spotted a brand-new SUV with out-of-state plates, and followed a young couple into El Lobo Oscuro. Their clothing was casual but expensive—the woman’s purse alone was easily worth five hundred dollars—making them exactly the kind of folks that Neva was looking for. She couldn’t stand the thought of taking money from someone who would really miss it.

  The pair sat up at the bar instead of getting a booth or a table—and there was an empty stool right next to the woman. Neva couldn’t have asked for a better opening—maybe the Dark Wolf was a lucky place. “Hi, I’m Janet. Are you new here?” she asked.

  In less than a minute, she knew all she needed to know. Jack and Linda Ballister, a tax attorney and a software programmer. Heading home from a three-day business seminar that had featured an open bar, they’d stopped at ELO simply to maintain their buzz.

  Thirty minutes later, she escorted a very tipsy Linda into the cramped restroom and offered to hold her purse for her. As soon as the stall door closed, Neva began rooting through the large handbag for a wallet. Fumbling badly from nerves, she almost dropped it twice. Finally she found what she was looking for and selected a single credit card from a large repertoire of them, hoping its absence wouldn’t be noticed. On second thought, she took the driver’s license, too. Just in case I get asked for ID. The photo was bad enough that it could be almost anybody, and Linda had dark hair. Besides, Linda definitely should not be driving. Neva nearly snorted at the irony—here she was, a thief, passing judgment on what somebody else should or should not do.

  She managed a smile when Linda emerged from the stall, and handed the purse back to her. They returned to the bar together, and Jack bought another round of imported beer. As before, Neva made small talk and only pretended to drink from the cold, green bottle. When she judged that enough time had gone by, she stood up and stretched. Had to get going, she said, had to get her errands done and go home. Linda hugged her before she left.

  And didn’t that just make her feel like crap.

  Heat rose in Neva’s face as she left El Lobo Oscuro. She knew that two telltale spots of color marked her cheekbones, signaling her embarrassment and guilt to the entire world. Stealing and lying were Meredith’s specialty, not hers. She assuaged her conscience somewhat by reminding it of future lives she hoped to save by her actions now—and hoped her conscience didn’t bother to calculate her pathetic chances.

  Three doors down, she entered the farm supply store and bought the highest-fashion items she could find for Baker: loose-fitting work jeans, wool socks, a plaid flannel shirt, a black tee, and some dark construction boots. She rounded out the outfit with a denim jacket sporting a black corduroy collar, plus a black baseball cap that announced Farmers Do It in the Dirt. There wasn’t much for chow in a place like this, so she threw a half-dozen chocolate bars and a fistful of beef jerky sticks onto the pile on the counter.

  At the edge of town, where Main Street officially became US-20 again, Neva crossed a field and entered the small stand of trees where Baker was hiding. Her knees jellied the moment she was safely out of sight, causing her to sit abruptly on the ground.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I have no future as a thief, that’s all. Here, get dressed.” She thrust the bags at him, and he began going through her purchases and laughing.

  “Jesus, I’m going to look just like my dad.”

  “You don’t like what I picked out, you do the shopping next time.”

  His favorite item seemed to be the hat, which he promptly put on backward, skater style, and began yanking tags and stickers off the clothes. He held up the jeans and looked around. “What, do I have to go commando?” He grinned.

  “Don’t paint pictures like that in my head,” said Neva. “I’m afraid the only underwear that Sandhills Farm Supply stocks is thermal long johns.”

  “Check. None is better. I like to be cool in the crotch anyways—”

  Ugh. She stuck her fingers in her ears and turned her back to him. “La la la la la la…” When she figured he’d had enough time to dress, she glanced over her shoulder.

  Baker didn’t look half bad. She’d chosen the colors of the outfit well. The black tee and hat highlighted his dark hair. His deep-gray eyes borrowed some blue from the plaid shirt and denim jacket. In that outfit, he looked like a typical farmer’s son: big, muscular, and unfailingly cheerful—unless you knew what to look for. She guessed that the humor he displayed so readily was only partly due to his nature. The rest was likely a way to cope with the horrors he’d witnessed.

  “Well, am I gorgeous or what?” he asked as he bit off half a Butterfinger at once, narrowly leaving the wrapper. Jeez, he looked young, much younger than she was—or perhaps she was just feeling old these days. Destiny’ll do that to you.

  “Stunning. Let’s go.”

  “Where?” he mumbled with his mouth full.

  “We gotta get back to the bitch queen’s palace.”

  “All right. How?”

  “Right through the front door.” She told him what she had in mind, and watched his eyes widen.

  “It’s crazy. Brilliant, simple, but totally crazy. Of course we haven’t got a chance, but—shit, that’s not a bad plan at all.” He swallowed hard then, and cleared his throat. “So I gotta ask, you’re not thinking of turning me in for a bounty or something, are you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I’m worth a fortune, being so good-looking, but…”

  The joke fell flat as she fisted her hands on her hips and kept them there to keep from hitting him. “Listen, mister,” she said. “We both have people we care about who are in Meredith’s nasty hands. And there are a lot more people whose lives are being stolen by her every day.”

  “No shit?” Baker snorted and spat at her feet. “Riley and I went out for drinks, just to blow off a little steam. We’d been working like crazy on a project, lots of overtime, no days off, for almost a month. So we put away a lot of beer. And we’d been chatting up a couple cute girls all night, and they invited us to a party after the bars closed. Sounded like fun, you know?

  “Only when we got outside, we were jumped by a half-dozen guys who threw punches like fucking anvils. Last thing I remember was being thrown onto the floor of a van. I woke up in your sister’s complex—and not in the goddamn penthouse, either.”

  “I was a prisoner, too!”

  “Oh yeah? I was kept with the newbies, the ones that hadn’t turned yet, just one level up from the prisoners. I never saw you there, anywhere, not once. You lived in the great wide above. As in aboveground, above servants, and definitely above any of us. You’re blood to that crazy bitch, and you watched everything she did. So excuse me for being a bit cautious about what your real motives are. How do I know that you’re not her partner?”

  Neva erupted. “Meredith doesn’t want a partner! Jesus, the last thing on earth she’d want is to have to share any of her power. And I sure as hell wouldn’t want it if she did.” She banged a fist on a tree, hard enough to bring down a shower of leaves and leave a slight depression in the bark. Hard enough to bloody her knuckles as well, but she welcomed the pain. She had no tears left for the things she had seen, but that didn’t mean she didn’t remember every last one of the people, or the wolves who had once been people, who had died horribly in front of her.

  She had told Travis the truth—she saw Meredith’s face in her dreams, her triumphant smile sharply edged in red lipstick and dripping with blood. But she hadn’t told him about all the other faces that haunted her dreams, too. The faces of the dead.

  Slowly, carefully, Neva recited her twin’s efforts to impress her, to win her over—or corrupt her. Either would have been fine in her sister’s dark books. She didn’t know if Baker would believe her or not, and maybe it didn’t even matter, but going over the horrendous checklist of homicides jogged loose a sudden insight…

  “What Meredith really wants is an audience to show off to. And for some reason, she thinks I’m the ideal spectator. Maybe because
we’re alike in looks, maybe because I’m so different from her at heart. Whatever the reason, she needs me to see the sick and twisted things she does. She doesn’t even want my approval. The more I’m shocked and horrified and sickened, the more she likes it.”

  “That is seriously fucked up,” said Baker.

  “Tell me about it. What it comes down to is that I’ve seen as much blood as you, maybe more,” Neva said at last. “So I’m going there to do whatever I can do to stop her. I think we’d be more successful together, but either you trust me or we call it quits right here.” She realized with a sharp pang that those had been Travis’s exact words, but she managed to keep it from showing on her face.

  Baker held her gaze for several moments, then nodded at last. “Okay, I’m in. You didn’t have to get me out of that hole, and you didn’t have to come back here with clothes and shit. I figure you could have just left me several times over. So you’ve got my trust until you break it. But”—he folded his arms over his chest—“if you sell me out, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  “Good. Same here,” she declared. “By the way, tough guy, you have chocolate all over your chin.” She stalked toward the highway. She didn’t need heightened senses to hear the crackling sounds of Baker hastily picking up his treats and stuffing them in his pockets.

  Travis’s internal clock said it should be about dawn. With no outside light, however, he wasn’t 100 percent certain. How many days before he couldn’t even hazard a guess? Best to assess his surroundings and check again for a way out. The steel bench that jutted from the wall was harder and colder than anything had a right to be, but still he had to force his aching body to get off of it. As he sat up, he gripped the edges with his hands for a while until his head stopped spinning and his eyes focused. His olfactory nerves perked up right away, however. There were new scents in addition to the thick, industrial-strength cleanser that permeated the atmosphere and every surface in it. He glanced over in the direction of the door, and didn’t know which was more surprising—that there was food inside his cell, or that he hadn’t heard it arrive. The metal tray on the floor held four items—a squat tin cup of coffee, a large bottle of water lying on its side, a cold beef roast, and a crusty loaf of bread.

  He only hesitated a moment. Sure, Meredith could have poisoned it all, but if she wanted him dead, she’d already had ample opportunity. Besides, the bitch would probably want to watch. He sipped the coffee. It was warm rather than hot, but strong, and his head cleared a little. Rather than chug it down his dry throat, however, he set it aside and swigged down half the bottle of water first.

  Better.

  Travis took a bite from the roast. The savory meat was a surprisingly decent cut and very lean. Hefting it in one hand, he estimated it approvingly at about three pounds—somebody obviously knew how to feed Changelings—

  No. No, they don’t. They know how to feed frickin’ werewolves. Monsters. Killers.

  Travis suddenly felt like heaving the roast against the door. He wasn’t anything like the murderous creatures that lived here. Or was he? He’d killed, but…ah, hell. What made him any better? He sighed deeply as the same old misery kicked him in the gut. His first impulse was to refuse the food, refuse to eat. Damned if he wanted to cooperate in any way, shape, or form. But common sense prevailed. He needed every last bit of energy he could get in order to survive and escape. Even if he didn’t give a crap about his own life, he had to get back to Neva. Intentionally or not, she was his mate now, and he was quickly becoming aware of some significant changes in his being—as if something of her essence lived within him, surged through his soul and beat in his blood. Like natural wolves, Changelings mated for life. Whether she accepted him or not, he would live for her, die for her, and, if he had any choice about the matter, drag her off to Outer Mongolia.

  Anything to keep her safely away from her deranged sister.

  He took another bite.

  TWENTY

  In her glass-walled penthouse, Meredith lolled between red satin sheets, but sleep eluded her. Conjuring demons was difficult, demanding work, and keeping them in this dimension so long had left her utterly drained. She’d recorded what she’d done and how, as she always did—she hadn’t gotten this far without taking the scientific method seriously—but the spell she’d created needed a number of refinements. The blood of that big blond werewolf had given her amazing personal endurance and high energy, not unlike a drug—but also like a drug, she’d crashed hard afterward and was now far too tired to fall asleep on her own. She would allow herself just a little while longer to think through her spells, make her plans for the next session—and then she simply had to get some sleep. It would probably take a couple of days’ worth to restore her. She’d call Zarita to bring her lovely little bag of tricks upstairs. A shot, a pill, or both—her kindhearted doctor would find something that would work. Really, what would she do without her?

  Meredith watched the sun rise over the ocean. It should have soothed her, but she only wondered how to harness its power. She simply had to find more power for her spells. The new werewolf’s blood was interesting, but still not strong enough. She had finally breached the demon dimension, but she had yet to achieve her goals.

  Blood contained life, but by itself it just wasn’t strong enough. She would have to kill something, no, someone, to get the kind of energy needed, to take her spells to the next level. The only question was, who to choose? She supposed she could make use of that insolent werewolf, Riley. After all, she had a replacement for him now. Or she could send the pack to gather up a few more humans. If she cut the throats of several of them at once, it might give her what she needed.

  Decisions, decisions. Her head hurt and she was so, so tired. She patted the shelf of the hand-carved walnut headboard until she found her phone, its gold casing reflecting the brightening light. The power button was set with a large square-cut diamond, and she pressed it now. Immediately the screen sprang to vibrant life, its crisp white light a beacon of hope.

  “Zarita? I need you right away, darling. I’ve had another one of those terrible nights.”

  Hitchhiking had brought Baker and Neva all the way back to Oregon, but he didn’t like having to head north for Portland instead of straight south to Meredith’s lair in northern California. Neva had insisted that what she needed couldn’t be found in any of the small towns they’d passed through, and definitely not on the way to her sister’s isolated mansion. It was only the fact that Neva’s idea was all the advantage they would have against the bitch queen that made Baker finally agree. Concern for Riley, though, was eating him up—was his friend even still alive? This was all taking too damn long. Hang on, bud, hang on.

  They were in the Pearl District, an artsy place with high-end shopping. He’d gone into the first store with Neva, but felt he was risking whiplash from doing double takes at the price tags. He left within the first few minutes. From that point on, he let her do the shopping, and he went in search of chow. Baker had always been a big eater, but becoming a werewolf had definitely revved up his metabolism. Jesus, he was taking in more calories now than when he was a linebacker for the Bobcats in college. It wasn’t a bit like Christmas dinner, though—his waistband never felt too tight for a moment.

  Still, the waiting was killing him. He was antsy to get going, to head south and do whatever they could to free their friends. They probably didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but he had to try, both of them did. The only thing that helped him keep his shit together was the fact that Neva didn’t seem to be dawdling. It was only a couple of hours before she sought him out and handed him an armload of fancy shopping bags. The hair salon was next. She’d warned him it was going to take a very long time, and assigned him to get them a place to stay for the night.

  He almost lost it then and there. Stay? He didn’t want to fucking stay! Baker stomped away and tried to walk off his impatience and his frustration. His thoughts were as ferocious as his pace. Riley could be dead already, a
nd here I am fucking off in yuppie land. I should go on my own. I should have gone a long time ago. I should never have fucking left him there in the first place.

  Fortunately the Pearl District had no shortage of green spaces. At last he came upon an enormous stepped fountain in Jamison Square and sat on the edge overlooking it. Eventually, the sight and sound of running water helped him chill out. Neva’s plan was a good one, if they could pull it off. And he knew damn well it would be better to storm the bitch queen’s castle during the day—Meredith was definitely a night owl. It wouldn’t hurt if he and Neva were fresh. They would need all their strength, both mental and physical, if they were to succeed in freeing their friends—

  Water. Like.

  Baker jumped to his feet, startling a couple of teen girls with a laptop a few yards away. “Sorry, sorry.” He held up his hands in a calming gesture. “Just nearly fell asleep, that’s all.” They giggled and returned to their shared screen, talking a mile a minute. His acute hearing picked up the words cute, which pleased him, and crazy, which didn’t.

  He settled back down, wondering if the excuse he’d given the girls was true. Maybe he had been on the edge of sleep—why else would something so weird pop into his head?

  Not strange.

  And the girls had been right. He was now officially crazy. Wait—Neva had talked in his head with some kind of telepathy when they were both on four feet. It had taken some doing, but he’d managed to answer her. Was there another werewolf around here? Hello? Um. Who am I talking to?

  Wolf. Baker wolf.

  Holy shit, he was talking to himself. Where the hell did you come from?

  Always here.

  Baker felt the color drain from his face. He thought he was doing pretty damn good at coping with the whole werewolf gig. But he didn’t expect the four-legged side of him to have a personality of its own. Wait, wait, if he was hearing voices, then maybe he was schizophrenic. Maybe that was a side effect of the whole shape-shifting thing. The transformation had scrambled his fucking neurons.