by Mary Lindsey
The belt. It had worked even though he’d been fatally bitten. Mrs. Goff had said the bite had to be superficial. The black wolf had bitten Rain’s leg before he’d ripped out his throat. Maybe that was the reason. Eyes closed, he grasped his throat, running his unnaturally rough fingertips over the fur and sticky skin. It should have been gaping open, with chunks of his esophagus and trachea missing. He’d seen them in the black wolf’s mouth. Instead, it was rough and wet but closed.
He should be dead. A whimper… His whimper.
Holy shit. He was a werewolf.
He called out for Freddie, but it came out as an eerie howl.
Sonofabitch. She was out there in the vineyard bleeding with broken bones and he had no way to talk. She might even be dead. A flash of scorching pain raged, moving from his bones to his heart, and he held his breath to keep from crying out.
He had to do something. With a gulp of air, he rolled over, snarling when Ulrich attempted to restrain him.
“Don’t try to regain your human skin yet, Rain.” Merrick had sprung to his feet, eyes wide and frightened. Clearly Rain was only partially shifted and must look like something out of a nightmare. No. This was a nightmare. “You heal thousands of times faster in Watcher form,” he added, shuffling foot to foot.
No problem there. He had no clue how to regain his mind, much less his human form. When he looked down, his fingers had shortened and his hands were almost paws. His skin showed through the hair, but it was thicker on his arm than it had been moments ago. And everything hurt. Freddie had said it felt good to shift. Way wrong, there.
He twisted his head and took in the horrifying, raised knobs he’d seen on Freddie’s spine when she transformed. And a tail with black fur tipped in the color of ashes.
This was what he’d wanted. To be a part of them. To be with Freddie. To belong.
Too late.
The main door slammed open, and Grant and Petra burst in. Grant wielded a baseball bat and Petra had a giant blade that looked like a curved garden tool—or that thing Death carried in the movies, which suited her. She raised it in front of her with two hands, eyes narrowed on him.
“It’s Rain,” Kurt said. “Back off, Xena: Warrior Princess.”
Her eyes widened, and she lowered the blade.
“Wolf belt,” Ulrich supplied, still holding the bottle of Full Moon wine they’d been pouring down his throat. “He’s only a quarter of an hour into the transformation. We’ll have to chain him up soon.”
Like hell, they would. He had to get to Freddie.
“Wait a minute,” Grant said. “This room is completely warded. It’s the pack safe room. It’s impossible for a Watcher to shift in here.”
“Well, behold your handiwork, Weaver,” Ulrich said. “Clearly something went terribly wrong.”
“Or terribly right,” Petra said.
Nothing would be right until he found Freddie. What he’d intended to be a surprise sprint to the door turned into a face-plant when his partially formed paws and legs didn’t work as intended. With a groan, he rolled to his side and gnashed his…fangs?
“Where is Friederike?” Petra asked. “And Thomas.”
At least someone in the place had her wits about her.
“We don’t know where Freddie is. Thomas is out looking for her now.”
“How can you not know where the Alpha presumptive is?” Grant’s voice was harsh. “You should be witnessing the culling. Her family should be present.”
Merrick shuffled his feet. “Yeah, well, the pack met and decided she wasn’t strong enough to step up. Then, Klaus Weigl locked Uncle Ulrich and me in the cellar. Kurt pretended to be down with his plan, so he wasn’t locked in with us. He doubled back and let us out.”
“He was going to kill me anyway,” Kurt said. “Thomas heard him on the phone with someone. He plans to kill all of the Burkhart family. Tommy and I came up with a better plan. He’d pretend to fight Freddie while I freed Merrick and Dad.”
“I’m proud of you boys,” Ulrich said, squeezing his son’s shoulder.
Enough self-congratulatory bullshit. The plan had only partially worked. Freddie was out there somewhere, in pain or dead. “Find Freddie!” Rain shouted. It came out as random garbled snarls.
Thomas ran in from the door at the back that opened from the hallway lined with offices, sucking air in wheezing gasps. “Can’t find her. Or my dad.”
“Maybe you didn’t really want to find her.” Grant, bat in hand, advanced on Thomas. “Maybe you’re working with your dad so you can be Alpha.”
“Maybe you’re gonna kill me so your dad’s agenda is possible,” Thomas shot back.
“What agenda?”
“He wants Kurt to be Alpha.”
While the two circled each other, Rain struggled toward the back door on four wobbly legs. He had an agenda, too: rescue Freddie.
“We’re going to play it safe here,” Ulrich said, banding his arms around Thomas’s arms and ribs and lifting him from the ground.
Thomas struggled against the much larger man, legs kicking out and head thrashing from side to side, but he was still too winded to break away. “No. I’m not with him. I would never hurt Freddie. I tried to stop h—”
His last word was cut off when Ulrich shoved him in the cellar and slammed the door.
Glances were exchanged as the three Watchers and two Weavers sized one another up. The huge room seemed to swallow sound, like being underwater. Rain took another couple of steps toward the door, feeling a little more stable on his feet…paws.
“What do we do now?” Petra asked.
“We round up the pack and someone goes to get Wanda Richter,” Ulrich said.
“No!” Grant, Petra, Kurt, and Merrick answered in unison.
Another five or six steps closer to the back door—and Freddie—went unnoticed by the others.
“The chief needs to be notified,” Ulrich said. “And all phone calls are monitored. We don’t know the extent of what’s going on here, so we can’t phone her. Do the right thing, Grant, and go get your aunt. You know I’m right. She’s head of the coven.”
“What if she’s allied with Klaus?” Kurt said. “What if Freddie’s dead?” His voice broke on the last word.
Two more steps. Almost there.
“Then we’ll take appropriate action.”
They should take appropriate action right now to find Freddie, not stand around talking.
When Grant pulled his car keys out of his pocket, Rain took the opportunity to dash the short distance to the door. Pain still turning his insides to cinders, he headed down the paneled hallway lined with offices, straight through the back door of the building that led to the pavilion.
Once outside, his senses were assaulted. Too much sound—leaves rustling, wind whistling as it hit the wires holding up the vines in the vineyard beyond the pavilion, bugs and who knew what else crawling around in the soil. Intense smells that churned his gut more—decaying vegetation, smoke from the torches out in the vineyard, and the copper tang of blood. He sniffed the air but got no sense of Freddie. He reeled momentarily at the overload, shaking his head to clear it.
“It takes getting used to.”
Rain’s hackles prickled all the way down his spine as he wheeled to find Klaus Weigl leaning against a tree in human form, completely at ease, as if he were observing a game of checkers, not standing half naked with bruises and blood covering the front of his body. His black pants were torn in several places. The skin of his shoulders almost glowed in the speckles of moonlight filtering through the tree.
“Too bad you won’t be around to get used to it.” Still, Klaus didn’t move. “She thinks you’re dead, you know.”
Thinks, not thought, which meant she might still be alive. On its own, a deep, feral growl rumbled through Rain, his body running on adrenaline and instinct rather than choice.
“We are going to make a deal, Friederike and I.”
Rain’s mouth filled with saliva, as if preppi
ng to bite.
“In exchange for my letting her family live, she will waive her right to become Alpha, abdicating to my son, Thomas, who, being newly of age, is next in line. No one in the pack took her seriously anyway.”
Still, his chest rumbled, and he clamped his jaws shut to keep from snapping them together. A glance down confirmed he had turned full wolf.
“Once her family is out of the way”—he extended the last word menacingly—“safely in another pack, of course…” He cleared his throat. “She’ll become Thomas’s mate.” He stretched out the last word, ending it with a T like a finger snap. “That will placate the few pack members who believe she should step up. We have a problem now, though, because she’ll never make this bargain if she thinks she can still have you. Good thing that’s easy to take care of.” The asshole was clearly enjoying himself. So much, in fact, he didn’t notice the gray and white wolf limping silently among the moon shadows under the grove of oak trees behind him. Freddie paused momentarily, staring at them, then slipped behind the far side of the building.
If she recognized Rain in his wolf form, she’d know he wasn’t dead. She wouldn’t agree to step aside for Thomas. She’d fight, just like Rain planned to fight.
From the other side of the building, gravel crunched. In human form, Klaus couldn’t possibly have heard it. A car door opened, and Grant’s and Petra’s muffled voices were cut off by the door closing. Good, they were leaving before anything else went down.
“Thomas and I will go warn the pack,” Ulrich said from somewhere inside. “You stay here with Freddie until we get back.”
Rain’s chest tightened. She’d made it inside safely.
“What about Rain?” Merrick asked.
The metallic groan of a door hinge cut off the first part of Ulrich’s response that ended with, “…can’t get far partially shifted.”
For once, Klaus was quiet, which was a lot more disturbing than when he shot off his mouth. His eyes narrowed on Rain. “You heard something inside the building, didn’t you?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“The head tilt gave you away. She’s in there, isn’t she?”
Rain didn’t know if his wolf face showed expressions, but he focused on not reacting from head to tail, just in case.
Somewhere in the vineyard, a chorus of howls erupted. From closer, a larger group of wolves answered back.
Klaus stiffened, then reached behind him and pulled a gun out of his waistband. It was small and dark, glinting almost blue in the moonlight. “Get inside.” He opened the door and gestured for Rain to enter.
Somehow, he had to let Freddie know Klaus was coming and give her time to get away. Pulling his lips back from his teeth, he growled, relieved it came out exactly as planned—and loud. Surely Freddie had heard him through the open door.
Klaus gave an exasperated growl of his own. “I don’t have time for this. It would be so much easier to shove you in a barrel like that other mongrel, but I can’t kill you right now or she won’t cooperate.”
The wolves howled again, closer still.
Holy shit. This guy had killed Gerald. Rain’s stomach churned. And despite the fact he’d told Freddie otherwise in the vineyard, he’d probably killed Hans Burkhart, too.
“Move it, Ryland.” Klaus had totally lost that casual demeanor, and the gun tip vibrated slightly. Whatever he made of the wolf howls had shaken him. He probably wanted to get inside where the pack couldn’t keep wolf forms, and he’d stand a better chance if they turned on him.
Rain slunk toward the door and stopped short. Freddie. Her smell was everywhere. He’d never been close to her in his wolf form, and it took everything in him to not lower his nose to the ground and track her.
An odd tugging sensation shuddered through him the moment he set foot over the threshold. The wards on the place were trying to force him into his human skin, but for some reason it didn’t work on him, which Klaus didn’t know. Rain planned to keep it that way. He needed every advantage. How the hell was he supposed to force a shift back to his human shape, though? Glancing down at his fully formed paws, he silently bid himself to change form. No luck.
When Klaus locked the door behind them, Rain could actually hear the tumblers rolling over inside the doorknob.
Shift, Rain ordered his body. Still nothing. He sat and closed his eyes, imagining himself in human form, but didn’t feel any different. He had to hide his secret from this asshole. He had to shift. Had to do it for Freddie. This time, he pictured her instead. Long, wild hair. Unearthly pale eyes. Strong, sexy body… Strange aches crept through his limbs. Freddie’s mouth… More pain in his limbs. Her mouth on his skin. Yep. It was working. In amazement, he watched his fingers elongate and the black claws recede.
Then, the raging pain from before seared him from deep inside, bones shifting and contracting. It’s like crack, Gerald had said. No. It was like torture. Bowing his head to bear the pain, he thought of the guy. Disposable. Gerald wouldn’t even have a funeral. Bones crunched in Rain’s nose as it shortened. And this man, Klaus, had killed the poor guy. Whatever it took, he was determined to not end up like that: in a barrel to be disposed of without a trace.
“I don’t have time for this,” Klaus growled.
Neither did Rain. With a final shout of pain, he pushed to his feet—his two human feet—and staggered several steps.
Klaus flipped the switch, and Rain blinked as the fluorescent light vibrated and bounced off the dark paneling in the hallway. “Friederike!” he shouted, gun pointed at Rain. “I know you’re here. I have something that belongs to you.” From a hook on the wall, he grabbed what looked like doctor’s scrubs and tossed them to Rain. “Put those on. Nothing more humiliating than dying naked.”
Good thing Klaus had on pants, then, because Rain fully intended to turn this thing around.
Forty-Three
With a growl, Rain pulled on the scratchy garment and tied the waist with clumsy, aching, newly formed fingers.
Klaus gestured to a support beam running from the concrete floor to the apex of the ceiling with the gun while he grabbed a roll of rope off a hook. “Stay calm and I won’t kill you.”
Scanning the room, Rain moved to the beam. He’d lost his keen wolf senses when he morphed into a human again, and he couldn’t see anyone else in the room. Maybe they’d left or were hiding behind the gigantic stainless tanks. Either way, it was best to go along with the guy to buy them more time. Klaus was clearly on the edge of losing his shit completely, and compliance seemed the best tactic.
With a shove to Rain’s bare chest, Klaus slammed him against the beam and lashed his arms together behind him with the rope so tight it made his eyes water. “My best bet is to turn you over for the Weavers to euthanize.” He pointed the gun at Rain’s gut. “Move or kick, and I’ll kill you.” He then wrapped the rope around Rain’s ankles, tying it off impossibly tight as well. “Charles signed your kill order yesterday, but I told him he wouldn’t need it. You were supposed to die out in the vineyard.” He gave a dramatic sigh and stood so that they were eye to eye. “I hate being wrong.”
“You’re going to hate being dead worse.”
Klaus leaned back against a fermenting tank, gun still trained on Rain. “If you had stayed out of it when Gerald’s body was found, none of this would have happened. Kurt and Merrick would have already been in custody. Instead, I killed that failed experiment for nothing.”
Rain’s gut churned. How could anyone be so heartless? Again, he pushed back an animal rage he wasn’t used to and focused instead on figuring out a way to get out of this mess. He tested the rope on his wrists, but it was so tight his fingers were doing that pins-and-needles thing that happened when he slept funny.
Klaus, obviously feeling safe now that Rain was tied up, lowered his gun. “Then, when that fell through, I had a plan B, which was no easy feat. I had to threaten to kill my own son if he couldn’t convince Kurt to go with him to the gas station. They both thought they wer
e simply going to scare the boy.” He began to speak faster, his words flowing like an ordinary conversation. “This whole culling could have been avoided if you hadn’t interfered. I would have killed the boy and Thomas would have implicated Kurt and Merrick, who would have been kenneled for the boy’s murder. Ulrich would have been wrecked, which would have affected Friederike, and she would have had even more trouble shifting. Voilà. Instant discredit in the eyes of the pack. Brilliant, yes?”
Brilliantly evil. This asshole was going down.
“It was a fantastic plan, right, Friederike?” Klaus shouted.
From the corner of his eye, Rain caught a flash of blue reflected in the tank on the back wall. He kept his gaze straight forward so Klaus wouldn’t notice. The bottom fell out of Rain’s stomach when Klaus raised the gun and pointed it at Rain’s head and shouted. “I saw you. Come out or he’s dead.”
“Don’t do it!” Rain called. “He’s bluffing.” Before he’d even finished the last word, a deafening bang and searing pain ripped through his thigh. Sonofabitch. Klaus had shot him. The pain was so intense, he had to close his eyes and grit his teeth through the waves radiating from the outside of his leg. At least it was only a flesh wound and hadn’t shattered a bone or hit a major artery.
“That was just a warning. Come out or I’ll get serious.” He raised the gun to Rain’s crotch.
Game over on this one. Rain took a deep breath and readied himself, praying Freddie had made it out safely.
“Stop. I’m coming out.”
His frustrated groan turned into an inward sigh of relief when Rain realized the flash he’d seen was Merrick. Hopefully Freddie was long gone, because this kid wouldn’t hold out under pressure.
He emerged from behind a tank with his arms up, visibly trembling.
“Where’s Friederike?” Klaus swung the gun to point at Merrick, who was now in the center of the room.
“Dunno.” Even his voice shivered.
“How did you get out of the cellar?” Klaus was shaking, too, but not from fear.
