by Michelle Fox
"What the hell happened in here?" asked one of the men.
"We don't know yet, but we think there might be a survivor in the air ducts," Talon said. "It turns and runs along the back wall of the basement. We need to track it and see if we can find whoever is up there."
"We'd have to break down all the doors to check the vents."
"I know. We have no choice. We have to look in the vents." Talon pointed to a short, stocky man with a blond crew cut. "Go up and check on Dixon. If the healer is here, bring her down. Whoever is hiding down here is bleeding."
"Got it, sheriff." The men filed out of the room. Within seconds the sound of doors being broken down filled the air as they got to work.
"Let's get out of here," Ryder said, catching Lia's elbow and nudging her toward the door.
She nodded and gingerly navigated the bodies, eager to get into the hallway. Blood squelched under her feet, but she tried not to think about it. Her heart throbbed in her chest if she let herself dwell on how the dead around her had once been full of life and possibility. Someone had ripped that away and dumped it on the floor like so much trash.
And her sister. Moon help her. What about her sister? All Lia could do was believe she hadn't been part of the massacre, that she'd gotten away. Maybe she was even up in the duct. Her gut seemed to feel that was the case, but Lia didn't know if she could trust it.
"Sheriff," came a bellow from the other end of the basement. "We've got something."
Talon pushed past Lia and Ryder, first jogging and then breaking into a flat run, his flashlight leading the way. Lia started to run, too, but Ryder held her back.
"I-I can't," he said, his voice more air than sound. He let her go suddenly and stumbled into the wall.
"Ryder!" Lia reached for him, but it was too late. The man who'd been her protector and her solace was already sliding down, his eyes unfocused, the lids sagging.
"Everything okay back there?" This was the sheriff.
"Ryder's down," Lia called back. She kneeled next to him, pressing a hand to his forehead. A damp coolness filled her palm. Not good. Shifters ran hot. Cold meant bad things were happening.
Static crackled as Talon barked orders to Dixon via his radio. "We need that healer now. Not in five minutes. Now. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, sheriff," Dixon's voice responded. "We're coming."
"Faster, Dixie. You're slow and we don't have time for that." To Lia, Talon said, "Just hang tight. They'll be here soon."
A scream sounded and feet shuffled on the floor as if there was a fight or struggle of some kind. Lia squinted down the hallway. She could make out the flashlights, which moved in a strobing pattern, and the glow of the useless red lights on the wall, but not much more. The basement ran a good fifty plus feet and the flashlights didn't have enough strength to beat back the darkness.
"What is it? What's going on?"
"Lia?" Her name was screamed so loud it echoed.
"Adele? Is that you? I'm here. Over here." Lia waved her arms, and then let them drop. Her sister wouldn't see her at this distance.
"Let her go," said Talon.
There was a sharp yip and nails tapped on the floor mixing with the sound of humans wearing boots. Someone had shifted. The nails danced faster and faster. They were running. Lia strained to see who it was and made out a shadow, one low to the ground and streaking toward her.
"Adele?" she asked, bracing herself for a hit.
A ball of fur slammed into her and a warm tongue licked her cheek. The scent of lilac filled her nose and she knew exactly who it was. Her brain gave her the memory of her sister on their last birthday. They'd shared a cassata cake like always, followed by a run at their family's favorite patch of woods. Adele had howled at the moon, one howl for each year they'd been alive. She'd smelled just like this that night, minus the blood, which had since dried and barely marked her scent at all now.
Hugging her sister close, she sobbed into the scruff of her neck, allowing herself to sink into the soft fur. Her sister whined and nudged her.
"I didn't think I'd find you, or if I did, that you'd still be alive." Lia tightened her arms around her sister and struggled to breathe as she let herself realize that Adele had almost been one of the bodies in the basement.
Ryder gave a loud groan, and then fell silent. The quiet made her pause. Lia lifted her head, still holding tight to her sister—she didn't plan on letting her go anytime soon—to see Ryder had fallen completely to the floor. His chest barely moved, and that scared her.
Keeping her sister with her, she scooted closer to Ryder. His eyes had closed and his dark-as-night lashes shadowed his pale face. She touched his shoulder. "Ryder?"
Her sister whined and licked her chin with short, fast strokes of her tongue.
Lia shook him. "Ryder? Are you awake?"
Without warning, his back arched off the floor until his hips reached as high as her waist. For an unbearably long second, he stayed suspended in the air. Then, without warning, he crashed to the ground with a loud thud, limp as a body missing its soul.
"Sheriff," Lia screamed. Her sister tried to pull away, but she refused to let go. Digging her hand into Adele's fur, she screamed for the sheriff again. Footsteps pounded the floor as they ran to her.
"What happened?" Talon came running and kneeled next to Ryder.
"He had some kind of seizure. He's not breathing. Do something," she babbled at them, her voice spiraling into a high-pitched shriek as the men around her failed to move fast enough.
Adele howled and growled at them, supporting her sister. They'd had each other's backs since they were kids, Lia remembered. One always in trouble, one to save the other. Her mother's words echoed in her head along with her light laughter.
Lia hit Ryder's chest. "Breathe, dammit. I'm not going to let it end like this." Sobs choked her words, making them thick.
Adele leaned down and sniffed Ryder. Looking at Lia, she gave a soft, mournful howl that raised the hair on the back of her neck.
"No, you're wrong. He's going to be fine. He has to be." She looked down the hallway. "Where the hell is the healer?"
Talon just shrugged at her.
Didn't they understand? She was dying, too, right there in front of them. There wasn't going to be a life without Ryder.
"I'm here, child," came a female voice, calm and focused. Her short, bowed form shuffled toward them. "Don't let the panic take you. That's not what he needs right now."
"You're almost too late, Marie," said Talon stepping out of the woman's way.
The woman, who smelled faintly of roses and pine, came to kneel next to Lia. Someone shone a light on Ryder so she could see him. She checked his pulse. "Very weak. You said he was poisoned with silver? How?"
"It was injected," Talon said.
"When did this happen?" Marie peeled one of Ryder's eyes open and stared into it.
The sheriff considered her question for a second. "I would guess it's been several hours by now."
"Will he be all right?" Lia's voice quavered.
The healer looked at her, the flashlights casting her face half in light and half in shadow. Kindness ran in soft lines along her aged faced. Giving Lia a warm smile, she said, "I think so. He's hurting, but I know how to treat him."
Lia let out the breath she'd been holding.
"He'll need you, though. He'll be weak for a while." She pulled small packets out of the satchel slung across her chest, followed by a bottle of water.
"Yes." She would do anything for him.
"And," Marie narrowed her eyes and studied Lia's face, "you'll need him to help find that wolf hiding inside you."
Lia cocked her head, watching as the woman dumped the contents of the packets into the water bottle and shook it. "What do you mean?"
"If the sheriff here had called me that night, I could have saved you from being so lost." The healer shot a stern glance at the sheriff. "Now you're stuck."
"You mean my memory won't ever come back?" She
frowned. "Am I going to be left with bits and pieces the rest of my life?"
The healer tilted Ryder's head back and dribbled some of the water into the corner of his mouth. "I can give you medicine, but it works best when the injury first occurs. Now you have to wait for your other half to make you whole, and judging by his condition now, it'll be a while before he has the strength for that."
"Ryder can bring back my memory? How?" Lia touched Ryder's shoulder, wincing at how cold it felt. She wanted to lay on top of him and give him her body heat, but that would just put her in the healer's way.
"Simple. None of us are whole until we find our mates." The healer tapped her nose. "And if my smeller hasn't lost its mind, you two belong together. Once you join, I wouldn't be surprised if everything snaps back into place, both your mind and your wolf. You just need this guy to wake up."
Lia blinked and shook her head. Ryder was her mate? Something deep inside her echoed the word. Mate. It had the weight of truth, of something that could only be right and never wrong. So that was why she'd felt pulled to him this whole time. She'd found her mate even though she'd completely lost who she was.
Would Ryder even want someone as messed up as her? He was a powerful wolf. An alpha and what was she? An amnesiac whose wolf had gone MIA. She didn't need her memory to know that was not a winning combination for a mate.
The healer thrust the water bottle into Lia's hands. "Here, you take over. I need to talk to this one." She pointed to Adele who ducked her head and gave a whispered whine.
"I don't deal in pity, child. You'd best shift and face what you are. You've been running from it so long, you have no place left to go."
"What?" Lia maintained her hold on her sister.
"Let her go. You've found her, but you don't get to keep her. She's not a pet." The healer's tone was gentle, but also firm and Lia released her sister. "Now give your mate his medicine. Let me worry about this wolf."
"She's my sister," Lia said, torn between two people who meant so much to her. But he's my mate. How could she choose between them?
"I know. I can see the bond between you, but she's not like you, is she?"
Lia exchanged a confused glance with Adele, who still hadn't shifted. "I-I don't really know. I don't remember anything much except that she's my sister."
"Give him more medicine and I'll see if I can explain while your sister shifts." She pinned Adele down with a piercing gaze. "And you will shift if I have to pull the human out of you myself." To Lia she said, "Your sister is an addict because she has no idea how to be anything else. My guess is your pack must not have healers, or they would have stepped in right from the beginning."
"What does that have to do with any of this?" Lia's hands shook as she dribbled more of the healer's solution into Ryder's mouth. To her relief, he swallowed, and followed that with a deep breath.
"Healers are special and if the pack doesn't recognize them, they can get lost. So very lost. You see, we feel everything in the pack. Every joy. Every sorrow. All the danger. And when death comes, that rips us almost in two. If no one teaches us how to bear it all, we'll do almost anything to make it stop."
"Our parents died and..." Lia trailed off wishing she could remember what had happened. Nothing really made sense to her because she didn't have any true memories. Just second-hand information about that part of her life. Ryder was real to her. She remembered him and that was why it had been so terrifying to think he might leave her. But her sister? Was a concept more than an actual person. Her home pack? She didn't even know them anymore.
"And that probably broke your sister. If your alpha didn't understand what she was, she would have fended for herself. So it is, of course, natural that drugs seemed like an answer to her. The high would have taken her away from all that pain. Not only did she lose her parents, she felt the loss of the pack on a deep level. Healers are supposed to heal that pain, but without training, she couldn't move beyond it."
At that, Adele shifted into her human form. She didn't stand though, she huddled on the floor, her body shaking with sobs. "I didn't know. I thought there was something wrong with me." She turned her head and reached a hand out to Lia who grabbed it and held on. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Why don't you remember?"
"I got caught up in a bar fight at the Rowdy Howl and took a bad hit to the head. I remember almost nothing."
"Oh, the moon help me," Adele moaned. "It's all my fault."
"Perhaps," said the healer. "But you dig out of the guilt by helping her, not by burying yourself in drugs."
"I've been clean for weeks. I'm not buried in anything."
The healer shook her head. "No. You haven't. You just switched one drug for another. I can smell the vampire on you."
"It's better than where I was," Adele said, bitterness souring her voice.
"Don't you understand? I have the way out, child. You just have to follow it." The healer extended her hand. "Here, I'll show you. Lend me your strength and we'll share it with Ryder."
Adele hesitated, moving only when Lia hissed at her, "Do it. Please."
The healer took Adele's hand, and then grabbed Ryder's. Closing her eyes, she said, "You'll feel a pull but it won't hurt. Just let go. And just so you know, I like to use singing as my focus." The healer hummed a few notes before launching into a folksy, lyrical song, her voice strong and clear.
Moon bright,
Moon's light,
Take my might,
Make things right.
This soul is weary,
the blood is slow,
but 'tis not time to go.
There's running to do,
Lots of living left,
The pack's strength
Howls to you...
Moon bright,
Moon's light,
Take my might,
Make things right.
This life's not done yet.
Lia closed her eyes and swayed with the song. The lyrics were simple, but they carried power that radiated peace and calm. She relaxed into it, letting her troubles fall away. The song wasn't meant for her, but some of its magic washed over her anyway.
Light flickered on the backs of her eyelids and disjointed memories danced in her mind. She saw her mother, who had the same dark sable hair and hazel eyes as her. Celia had been her name and she carried herself with a quiet gentleness.
Her father had been tall with shoulders so broad he'd always entered rooms sideways. His strength had thrown her up in the air when she was little. For a second, she was airborne and a bubble of laughter rose in her throat. Lia swallowed it down, not wanting to interrupt the healer. The deep boom of her father's laughter echoed through her mind and tears burned her eyes because she knew that would be the only place she would hear it anymore.
Squeezing her eyes tight to push back the tears, her memories darkened. The day they'd lost their parents, towering black clouds had blotted out the sun. They were supposed to just run into town so her mother could pick up some groceries and for her father to discuss some pack business with the alpha. Their cabin sat in the middle of vast wilderness and it took an hour of driving on winding roads flanked by massive oak trees to reach their pack's town.
"You two stay here," her mother had told them. "We'll be back soon. Be good."
Lia smiled. Being allowed to stay home alone was a new thing. She already knew which cartoons she was going to watch, if the wind didn't knock out satellite signal.
"Clean your rooms and we'll make brownies when I get back." She'd pressed first Lia, and then Adele into a quick hug. "Luke, are you sure we have to go into town today? I don't like the look of this weather." Her mother peered out the window, her brow furrowed.
"The alpha's been waiting on my response for a week." Luke chuckled. "Don't worry, Celia. I'm too big for the wind. We'll be fine."
"You know, if you accept and become the pack second, you'll never be home," said Celia.
"I know, beautiful. But pack's pa
ck. If the alpha needs me, the pack needs me."
"I'm just glad I don't have to go," said Adele, clapping her hands over her ears. "The wind would howl into the car." She always complained about car rides, oddly sensitive to the noise of the engine and the way the tires ground into the road. According to their mother, she'd screamed non-stop as a baby, only just tolerating it as she got older.
"And that's why you two stay here." Their father gave them warm pecks on the cheek, being sure to tickle them into laughter with his wiry beard. "Be good pups. All right?"
"Yes, Daddy," Lia and her sister said in unison.
After their parents left, Lia wrestled Adele for the remote and set it to Animal World. Cleaning her room could wait, the newest episode of Animal Babies was on. Adele slumped on the couch, arms crossed, her eyes narrow slits that shot daggers at Lia.
"What is it with you and this show? It's like watching your favorite snacks but never eating them."
Lia shrugged and turned up the volume.
"No," shouted Adele jumping to her feet. She clutched her head and spun in circles. "No, no, no."
"Chill, Adele. Sheesh." Lia pushed the volume higher. She loved her sister, she really did, but these weird fits she had got on her nerves. They came on without warning and could last for hours. Sometimes her sister even shifted and ran off, forcing their father to go look for her. Once she'd been gone so long it took three days to track her down.
Adele kept moving, her body jerking as if someone had pulled her puppet strings.
"What is your problem? Sit down, okay?" Lia patted the couch. "Just sit."
"No," howled Adele. She threw her head back and unleashed the full power of her wolf's voice.
Lia pulled on her sister's shirt, trying to force her to sit. "Be quiet. The whole pack will hear you and think something's wrong." Their closest neighbors were a half hour run away, but howls could travel even further. On full moons, the pack came out and howled back and forth at each other all up and down the west coast. "Do you want Mom and Dad to hear? They'll think something's wrong and come home."
