Shifters After Dark Box Set: (6-Book Bundle)

by SM Reine

18. Astrid

  The first few days are more about humiliation than anything else.

  Caroline sits with me while I heal, and when Luke finally shows up to make sure I’m dead, she calmly explains that I have decided to capitulate. That I give up. His eyes narrow, and even if I couldn’t smell the confusion and anger radiating off him, I can see it in his body language. He’s still thinking about killing me.

  Of course, I can’t entirely blame Luke for not trusting my surrender. I did, after all, do my damnedest to kill him first.

  But Caroline goes to bat for me, and after a lot more arguing, which I sit through meekly, trying to look harmless, Luke relents. Instead of killing me, he makes me grovel for my life. Then he goes away and lets me finish healing—it takes days, longer than I’ve ever needed to heal anything since becoming a werewolf. When he comes back I have to crawl over and show him my belly. Literally, and then metaphorically.

  This goes on for a while.

  After a few days, though, Luke starts treating me more or less like a human wife—or at least, a human wife in the 1950s. He makes it clear that he expects certain things from a mate, and that includes taking care of his home.

  We fall into a routine. Every day when he’s done at his current construction job, he comes home to the duplex, smelling of sawdust and earth and sweat. I make him dinner—I’m not a great cook, but I can handle simple things like pasta and steak—and then we watch television or go for a walk. We both have jobs that start early, so we usually go to bed by nine or so. Most nights he wants sex, and I submit without protest. My mantra goes from “don’t start a fight” to “never say no.”

  The benefit to all this is that Luke’s wolf begins to calm down, little by little. He goes from being explosive and mercurial to short-tempered and irritable, which is pretty much on par with most werewolves. He stops hitting me entirely after a week or so, a sure sign that whatever messed-up magical instincts were telling him to get a mate have started to relax.

  Time passes this way. I can see that Luke’s wolf doesn’t completely accept me as its lifelong mate; this little bit of him is always sort of…detached from me. I understand, and even Luke seems to understand, that this is because I haven’t given my heart to him. My body, my energy, my soul, even—but Luke cannot make me love him. I wish he could.

  It’s an odd existence. As long as I say yes to anything he wants, Luke is perfectly tolerable, even nice to me. He starts talking about moving me into his house, and I nod and smile. I am starting to get confused about my place in the world, in the pack. About who I am. Is it rape if you never say no, if you even participate sometimes? Is it abuse if he never hits you, doesn’t yell at you, just quietly expects your complete submission?

  The thing that throws me is that really, it’s not a bad life. In fact, a lot of people would love to have a stable financial situation and a solid commitment from an employed man who doesn’t hurt them. I have a place to live, where there’s always enough food, and the women in the pack are starting to invite me to brunches and barbecues, so I even have friends.

  It’s a perfectly good life; it’s just not one I ever wanted. I dreamed of going to New York or LA and trying to be a musician. I wanted to play in a band and go clubbing every weekend and maybe try sleeping with women, just to find out if I like it. That’s where I thought I would be at twenty-eight. Not here, making fried chicken and mashed potatoes for my alpha at 5:00 on a Wednesday.

  I moved in the weekend before, although you can hardly tell—most of my surviving possessions are still at the duplex, waiting to be packed up. Luke’s house is bigger, nicer, and better lit than the duplex, but I miss my shitty little hole anyway. Mostly I miss being alone. I am always self-conscious now, always aware that I am being watched. Luke mostly trusts me at this point, but every once in awhile he still eyes me like I’m going to try to kill him. After the last time, though, I have no intention of attacking Luke again, ever.

  Well…maybe a better way to put it is that I will hold off as long as I can. Because the next time I go up against Luke, he’s not going to let me survive. If I ever attack him again, it will probably be years from now, and it will be a suicide mission.

  Luke gets home at quarter after five, and he comes straight in the kitchen, bringing his work-scent with him. I actually don’t mind the smell of the construction site; it reminds me of new beginnings and good honest work. I say hello, and he kisses the back of my neck as I work over the stove. I smile and do not flinch. It only took me a couple days to train myself not to recoil every time he touches me.

  The doorbell rings a few minutes later, and we look at each other in surprise. “Did you invite someone for dinner?” I say lightly, glancing at the amount of chicken I’ve done so far. Probably not enough for a guest, not the way we eat.

  But Luke says no. “Wait here,” he instructs. “I’ll go see who it is.”

  A moment later I hear the doctor’s voice coming from the foyer. Since it’s not any kind of pack business, I continue working on Luke’s dinner. I can tell when they move into the living room, and hear the creak of the couch as they sit down. I’m not trying to eavesdrop, but I start catching a few words, and then I am listening in earnest.

  “Why?” comes Luke’s voice. He sounds curious but distant. If Noring doesn’t know him well, she might not realize that means he’s already made up his mind about whatever she’s asked. Now he’s just toying with her.

  “He’s ill,” she says. Her voice is brisk, businesslike. “Cancer.”

  There is a long pause, and I can imagine Luke leaning back on his couch, stretching his arms out to either side. “You’ve been at the Mayo for…what? Twelve, thirteen years? And you’ve never asked me to change a patient before. Not once.” I flip off the burner and go still, my whole body tuned in to the conversation. Noring asked Luke to change someone? That’s…that’s just not done.

  “So what makes this kid different?” Luke continues.

  A pause, and then Noring says in a tight, reluctant voice, “He’s dating my daughter.”

  Luke laughs. “Sashi’s going out with one of your patients? That’s rich.” He’s quiet for a second, then adds, “Wait, is it that snot-nosed kid, the one with the shitty pickup truck and the bad manners? Will, right?”

  I remember the boy who drove Sashi to my house to check on me, back at the beginning of the summer. He had looked so strong and capable. If you didn’t know that Luke had a supernatural advantage, it had actually looked like the kid could take him.

  That seems like such a long time ago now.

  Noring must have nodded, because Luke laughs again, even louder. “Then definitely not. I’m more than happy to let that kid die. Hell, I’d do it myself if he looked at me twice.”

  Noring doesn’t speak for a moment, and I wonder if she’s considering asking Luke to kill the kid. But no, that’s not her style. She’s all about saving lives, not taking them.

  “Please, I’m…I’m desperate.” I feel my eyes widening. What the hell? Noring is begging Luke for something? Did the whole world lose its mind while I wasn’t looking? “I just want him away from my daughter. She’s considering drastic measures to help him, when she should be going back to school and focusing on her future.”

  “What drastic measures?” Luke asks, his voice dangerously interested.

  No, Noring! Run away! I yell silently.

  She must pick up on the note of menace herself, though, because I hear the rustle as she stands up from the couch. “I should let you get back to your dinner,” she says in her crisp British accent. “You’ve given me your answer. Thank you for your time.”

  “Sit down,” Luke says. He does not raise his voice, but the command is so strong that I almost plop down on the kitchen floor just by force of habit.

  The couch cushion exhales as Noring drops back onto it.

  “What drastic measures?” Luke repeats. “Do not make me ask a third time, Doctor.”

  Noring hesitates, but all three of us kn
ow she doesn’t have a choice. When you dance with the devil, he gets to lead. “She dropped out of school, is all I meant.”

  “No, it’s not. Last chance, Stephanie.”

  A sigh. “The boy needs stem cells, preferably a bone marrow transplant, but there aren’t any donors who match him. I found Sashi’s birth control pills this morning, and she hasn’t taken any in two weeks. I think she’s trying to get pregnant in the hope that the baby will be a match.”

  “Huh. Will that work?” There is simple interest in Luke’s voice now, like they’re discussing a new vacuum cleaner.

  Reluctantly, Noring says, “It could. It works better in the other direction—a parent donating to a child—but it could. If it doesn’t, though…she’ll be left alone, with a baby.”

  There is another momentary silence. I realize I’m just standing there holding a spatula. Should I be making noise, sounding busy? Will Luke be mad if he catches me listening, or will he understand that I can’t help it?

  “That’s not why you want to stop her though, is it, Doc?” Luke’s voice is amused now, which is no less scary than when he was openly threatening her. “This is part of your big plan for xenophobic world domination.”

  If Noring is smart, she’ll walk out now. Then again, I wouldn’t walk away while Luke is speaking either. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. You think you’re the only witch who’s obsessed with keeping witchblood in the family? Your kind are all bigots. This is about you not wanting your pretty little witch daughter with her strong bloodline to make a mongrel baby.”

  Noring is at least gracious enough not to bother denying it. “I also don’t want the boy to die,” she manages to argue. “If he becomes a werewolf—”

  “If he becomes a werewolf, in my territory, he is my responsibility,” Luke growls. “And I would kill you myself before I turned that little shit into a member of my pack.”

  I hear feet on carpet as Noring gets up to leave, and I busy myself with dinner again. Luke approaches and leans in the doorway. “You hear all that?” he asks me.

  No point in trying to deny it. I nod. “Most of it.”

  He shakes his head. “I cannot believe that woman and her bullshit. Say what you will about our kind, but I don’t know a single one of us who’d sentence someone to being a werewolf just to keep him from fucking our kid.”

  I nod, and very deliberately, I turn my attention to dinner. I can’t risk thinking about this in front of Luke. “So how was your day, babe?” I ask.

  19. Astrid

  It takes me a little over a day to work up my courage, and then I go see Dr. Noring at work.

  This is much more complicated than I imagined. Of course I’ve driven past some of the Mayo buildings, but it turns out they’re scattered all over the place. Even after I park, I’m at the wrong side of the campus. I have to take a walking tunnel, which they call a subway, to the right building, and then I go to the information desk and persuade a volunteer to page a nurse, because you can’t just walk into the Mayo Clinic and demand to speak to a world-famous oncologist. I hand the nurse my pre-written note, and fifteen minutes later, she comes back out and leads me through the staff-only doors to an office suite where Noring is waiting.

  The doctor gets up from her desk to usher me in, closing the door behind us. “Astrid,” she says, circling the desk, “what are you doing here? You can stop by the house, or preferably, go through Luke, if you have an injury.”

  “I’m not injured,” I tell her, my voice matter-of-fact. “And I didn’t want to bump into Sashi.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  “I heard what you said to Luke yesterday,” I tell her. “I’m here to accept your offer.”

  Her expression goes from benign surprise to outright shock. “You mean to say…”

  “I’ll bite the kid. Yes.”

  Noring leans back in her desk chair, absently tapping a fancy silver pen against her desk calendar. “You would be going against Luke’s direct orders,” she points out. “He could kill you for that.”

  “Not if Will kills him first.”

  She gives me a shocked look. I rush to add, “Look, if I want to take down Luke, I need a champion. No one in the pack will help me. But if I change Will for you…” I trail off, letting her fill in the blanks.

  She frowns. “But why would Will be willing to attack Luke just because you say so?”

  “He doesn’t have to attack Luke. The second Luke sees him, Luke will go after him.” I shrug. “All I have to do is wait until that happens, and then help Will win.”

  I still had a silver letter opener hidden above the ceiling tiles in my living room.

  It’s a hell of a risk for me, because I would be breaking not one, but two unbreakable pack laws: thou shall not disobey the alpha’s orders, and thou shall most definitely never, ever bite someone. Werewolves are not allowed to change people willy-nilly; otherwise you’d have a friggin’ shifter epidemic. On the rare occasions that one of us, say, wants to bring a human spouse over to the magic, we have to go to the alpha and he has to do it. Trying to bite someone myself is the pack equivalent of a five-year-old climbing behind the wheel of a cement mixer.

  Noring is silent for a long moment, considering this. I wait patiently. One thing I know for sure about this woman is that she doesn’t like to be pushed.

  “It takes, what? Forty-eight hours for someone to make the transformation?” she says, thinking it through. “What if Luke figures out what you did during those two days?”

  “He won’t,” I promise.

  She nods. “How soon can you do it?”

  I think that over for a second, and smile. “Tuesday is Luke’s poker night.”

  20. Sashi

  After he checks out of the Mayo, Will and I spend every day together.

  We mostly stay at his apartment in Winona, watching movies and playing board games. He doesn’t feel well for the first few days, but when my magic finally returns to normal I start secretly easing the symptoms of the leukemia. Soon he’s well enough to go for long walks, or out to dinner.

  He asks me, the first night we are together, why it’s okay for us to be together now when it wasn’t a week ago. I know he thinks I’m only with him because he’s going to die anyway, so I tell him the truth: I didn’t know that I loved him until I found out he could die.

  “Funny,” he replies thoughtfully.

  “What?”

  “I never thought I’d be grateful to the cancer.”

  Sometimes we get crabby with each other and spend a little time apart, and sometimes neither of us feels like talking so we just read separately in the apartment. But when this happens we don’t mind, because we know that the occasional argument or need for breathing room is part of what makes it real.

  In October, Will brings me to Goodview for dinner with his mother, Gail, and his sisters. Jody is twenty-eight and stays at home with her six-year-old twins. Her husband seems perpetually harried and distracted, spending most of the evening talking on the phone to someone at his job. Amber is twenty-four, and she is a water analyst for the Minnesota DNR. She brings her long-term boyfriend, who smiles a lot and rarely speaks. It’s fun to watch Will interact with them—throwing the kids over his shoulders, teasing his sisters with childhood nicknames, setting his mom’s table without being asked. But it’s heartbreaking, too. Every now and then I see one of his family members send him a look full of grief and yearning and fear. I don’t blame them. They want to help him as much as I do: Jody is organizing a bone marrow drive at her kids’ school, and Amber has started training for an upcoming benefit marathon in Rochester. Of the three of us, though, I’m pretty sure I’m the one with the best shot at saving Will’s life.

  His whole family is very curious about me, especially because I am the daughter of the great Dr. Noring, whom they all remember as Will’s childhood savior. Gail asks me all about school and my activities, and Jody and Amber chime in with questions about how we met. I can tell they are all surp
rised that I would stand by Will even though he’s not doing the chemo, particularly since we haven’t been together long. They are too polite to come out and say so, however, so instead we make small talk about how I like Chicago and where I got my blouse. Then one of the six-year-olds asks me where I got my pretty brown skin, and her mother is so mortified that Will and I laugh until tears come out.

  It’s a good night.

  I watch how Will is with the kids, and I’m positive he’ll be a great dad. It’s been nearly a month since I stopped taking the Pill, and I will be ovulating soon. My magic has been helping Will, I know, and I am starting to feel hopeful that this plan could work. I can keep him functional and pain-free until we have a baby. The baby’s cord blood and hopefully bone marrow will help cure the cancer. I’ll monitor Will closely for any signs of his illness returning, and we’ll raise the baby together.

  I know I haven’t figured out things like money and jobs and where we’ll live, and I am absolutely certain that Mum would scream and yell if she knew, telling me I am being young and naïve. But I don’t care. I always figured I’d have kids eventually, and if having one when I’m twenty-two is the cost of keeping Will alive, it’s a price I’m happy to pay.

  Meanwhile, we get to be together.

  I know that we have to stop burning through our savings, though, especially if I do get pregnant. Luckily Will feels well enough to go back to bartending after a few more weeks, and I start looking for a job of my own. A few days into the new routine, though, Mum calls with good news.

  She has a treatment for Will.

  21. Astrid

  I’ve never actually mauled someone before.

  Not that this is a mauling, exactly. I have to hand it to Noring: she knows how to plan a werewolf attack. She tells her daughter and Will that she’s gotten hold of an experimental drug that the FDA hasn’t approved yet, which means it’s technically illegal. She says she is willing to steal some for Will, but she has two conditions: it has to be done at her house, rather than the clinic, and Sashi can’t be there. Her daughter fights her a long time on the second point, but Noring insists that being present for the exchange of illegal drugs would make Sashi an accessory, and she absolutely will not bend on it. Of course, Sashi caves eventually. How could she not?