“What did she even do that week?” Mallory asked.
“Hell, if I know. I hooked up with one of the guys from the bar, you had Dice, Amy… I think Amy slept with everyone. Mary Beth just sort of hung back. She was really into the werewolf thing.”
“What if she found something out? I mean she did a pretty quick change when she got home. She dropped the science stuff and all the werewolf stuff and just got married. It really is strange. Maybe she found something out that scared her.”
Nancy let out a shaky breath. “Will you tell me something?”
“If I can.” Mallory answered.
“All this shifter stuff is freaking me out a little, but I really like Nick. He’s one of them, isn’t he? You can tell me.”
“I think you need to ask him Nance. I don’t know the rules, but I think that would just be best. I really don’t know anything about him.”
“I did. He looked so sad. I didn’t push it. I’d like to know. I really like him, but if he keeps this from me, I can’t trust him.”
Mallory knew she couldn’t tell, but she could ease her friend’s mind. “He will tell you in his own time, but I will tell you this, Books knew the name right off and said he was a good guy without thinking about it. If you two hook up, you’ll never have to worry about being safe, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t really care too much. I’m pretty sure I love him Mal. I have never loved anybody in my life other than you and Sam. He’s out there, out there with Dice because he feels he needs to be, for me. I just want him safe. I’d live in a cave in the middle of nowhere if I had to if it kept us safe.” there were tears in her words.
Mallory snuggled up with her friend. “Pretty sure you love him and if he is out there, pretty sure he loves you too. Whatever is going on is big, I don’t even know how big, but I’m scared.”
“I’m scared too. I’m so scared I can barely close my eyes anymore. What is happening to the world Mal?”
“I don’t know, but I’m afraid it will get worse before it gets better. I just hope Sam is safe when that happens.”
“He will be. If there is one thing I’ve learned since I came here. These people love that kid almost as much as I do.” She leaned up to look at Mallory. “His daddy loves him Mal. That man will make sure Sam is safe.”
Mallory knew that. “He’s a good man.” She choked out around the lump in her throat. “He’s the best man I’ve ever met.”
Nancy pulled her into a hug. “He will come back to you Mal. He’d be a damned fool not to.”
“I hope so.” She whispered.”
They shared the food Trish had brought in and tried not to think about what was happening, but the minutes crawled by and Mallory thought she would lose her mind. The old saying no news is good news was total shit. No news was torture. No news let her imagine things far worse than reality could possibly be, so she thought.
14
Dice followed behind River as he led him deep into the belly of a group of caves that ran under Lake Michigan. Water dripped in steady streams from the rocks above and Dice worried that the whole thing would just crash down on their heads. He didn’t ask River how he knew the way through the twisting labyrinth of caves nor why the monsters who lived there gave him free passage, and there were monsters, Dice could smell them. They peered out of caves with yellow eyes and snarled at their passing, but none offered to reach out and make River and Dice their dinner.
“What the hell kind of place is this Riv?” Dice whispered.
“A place where you go when you have no other place.” He said simply. River was a man of secrets and this was just one more of them to add to the list.
Dice wasn’t a man to fear anything, but the sounds of claws on stone and the smell of death and rot, made even him look over his shoulder and quicken his pace.
They heard the echoes of screams and voices as they neared the glow of light up ahead. River quickened his pace and a snarl ripped from his throat when he came to a stop in the doorway.
“What the fuck are you doing to her?” River’s voice was inhuman.
Lucian looked up from his work to give River a bored look. “I’m saving her life and I only have about five minutes.”
Dice stepped into the room and his stomach turned. There was blood dripping onto the floor and the woman was white as a sheet. Lucian had a strange way of saving people.
“Hurry.” She urged and let out another gut-wrenching scream when Lucian cut deeper into her chest.
She was a hyena, but she smelled different from the ones Dice had encountered over the last few years. She smelled like the animal, but the stench of rot and insanity that followed the males, was absent. It confused him and when he looked at River he saw the same confusion on his face.
Lucian ripped a glowing device from the woman’s chest and quickly dropped it into a glass container and secured the lid. The woman was bleeding more than she should and even Dice knew she wouldn’t last long. Lucian concentrated on the opening in her chest, but she smiled and shook her head. She gripped his forearm with her small bloody hand and pulled him away.
“Thank you, Lucian. My death is now my own. I hope you will make it worth something.” She whispered. “Remember me as brave and beautiful here at the end.”
“Stay with me now Joy, I can fix this.” Lucian vowed, but she shook her head.
“I’ve seen too much. I want peace. There is no place I could go that he wouldn’t find me. Please, let me have peace. I beg you.”
Dice had only seen kindness from the monster once before, when he had spoken with Trish’s daughter, but now he looked heartbroken.
“I will protect you. I will keep you safe for the rest of your life.” He vowed, but she only smiled and shook her head again.
“You already have. Find Hope. Set her free and save us all. Stop him Lucian. Please stop him. Stop the rot that is infecting my people.”
“I swear it. Rest my beautify, brave friend. Be at peace.” Lucian said and Joy closed her eyes. There were no sounds of death, no pain, she just slipped away.
Lucian bowed his head and wept, but when he lifted it his eyes were on Dice and they held no more compassion.
“This is your fault. None of this would have happened if you’d done as you were told, none of this would have happened!”
There was a loud pop and the mechanism Lucian had pulled from Joy’s chest began to bubble. A green liquid spewed out and filled the jar with smoke.
“What the hell is that?” River asked and stepped closer.
“It’s a kill switch. Happy has them implanted in his women. If they do not report to him at their designated time, they are killed. All hyena women have them. The vial delivers a poison directly into the heart. The death is agonizing, but fairly quick.”
Lucian pulled a crisp, white sheet from a cabinet and draped it over Joy’s body.
“She gave her life so that we might have this information and this.” He lifted the case along with several folders and started to walk away.
“Where’s Sam?” Dice stepped into his path.
“I should do nothing. I should let his wolf eat him alive. You can blame yourself for it. You could die in misery knowing it was your fault. You could watch your mate suffer for your mistakes. If it weren’t for you none of this would be happening. I should crush this under my boot.” He took a long breath. “But I won’t.” He closed his eyes as if to gather his strength.” Because without you I would not have the cure at all, oh I might have decided to look in that direction, but my studies were not in that area, not until you came along.” He shook his head. “Sam is precious to me for reasons I will not explain to you and this is his only hope.”
“What about Creed’s niece?” Dice snapped.
“She isn’t viable. I knew it, but Creed… he wants to help, be useful, so I tested her. She isn’t an option.”
“What does that even mean?” Dice felt his heart hit his boots.
“It means that the serum made from
her blood is not compatible with your son. If I gave it to him, it would drive him insane and he would still die, just much more slowly and painfully. None of the samples I have are a match for him, none but Hope. so, you see, if you hadn’t lost her, I would be able to cure your son. Instead, I will only be able to treat him for a short time, after that if she hasn’t been recovered, he will relapse and he will die.”
“How? How can you do this when no one else can? It makes no sense. If you can do it, so can others.” Dice insisted.
“There is a cure for anything if you are willing to find it and willing to sacrifice for it.” Lucian looked to Dice. “What do you remember?”
Dice growled. “I remember pain. Years of it!”
Lucian nodded. “That was unavoidable. I had to weaken your wolf to keep him from devouring you. I knew if I could just keep you alive, that I could find a way.” He shrugged. “And I did, eventually.”
“Why me? There are hundreds of kids with the Sickness. Why me?” It was a question that had haunted Dice since he’d woken up in a cage.
“I was asked to.” Lucian said simply.
“By who? Who would do such a thing to a little kid?”
“By my mate.” Lucian growled viciously.
Dice sat down hard in a chair that sat by the wall. “Why would she do such a thing? Who was she to me?” Something felt odd to Dice. For some reason, he knew that this woman had mattered to him.
“She considered herself your mother, in reality she was your aunt. She’d followed your mother, her sister. She knew her sister had been hiding something painful, she followed her to try to talk to her. She found your mother lying by the river with her wrists cut. You lay beside her in the sand. My Grace found you and took you home. Her uncle had married a woman who’d been a shifter and she knew what you were when she saw you. When you became ill she searched for someone to help you. She found me. In the way we do for mates, I swore to her that I would make you well and I did.”
Dice shook his head. This made no sense. “What about the hyenas? I remember smelling them. They were there. I remember a room with boards on the windows, being trapped. I have flashes that make no damned sense.”
Lucian took a deep breath. “Darious came to me, he was the king back then. His son had the Sickness, Happy. He begged me to treat him. He stayed with us in the facility. I ran tests, but the treatment I had designed for you was not compatible with Happy. His father was livid, he accused me of discriminating against his son because of what he was. He left in a rage, but I knew he would return and I prepared for him. When he did I sent you out, you and Hope. I sent you out to safety while I killed Darious and his army, but there were too many of them. they killed my Grace and you lost Hope. they took much of my research and they took Hope.”
“Who is Hope?” Dice asked. His head was pounding as new images flooded into his mind.
“You know who she is!” Lucian shouted. “How could you forget her?”
Dice shook his head. “Don’t tell me what I know. I can’t remember! Tell me what I need to know.”
“She is my daughter. Her blood made your serum and it would save Sam. the hyenas have been using that same serum to cure the Sickness, but it isn’t a match. The serum only slows the Sickness, it drives them insane while they literally rot from the inside out. It takes years. That is how Happy has such large numbers and that is why they all fight so hard. They know nothing but loyalty to him. He controls them with drugs to dull their pain.” Lucian held up something that looked like a large padded wallet. “Joy took enough serum to keep Sam alive for twelve weeks. It will take a year of treatment for him to be fully recovered, but it is better than nothing. That means you have twelve weeks to find Hope or there will be no stopping this disease from taking away your son.”
“Maybe we can steal more.” River tried, but Lucian shook his head.
“That is the last of it. It was Happy’s personal supply. Since the serum is not a match, he needs a shot every day to keep his animal in check. Joy took all he had left.”
“How. How did she gain access to Happy’s personal medications? How do we know it isn’t poison?” River didn’t trust easily.
“She was his sister. He trusted her. She gave him the injections every day. She injected him before he raped her, every day. After that, he would give her the shot to keep the capsule from bursting.”
Happy was worse than they’d thought and he would only get worse without the medicine he needed.
Dice laced his fingers behind his head. His memories were clearer now and falling into place. He remembered voices, he remembered Grace reading to him and little Hope singing. He remembered the smell of Grace’s hair. She’d always smelled like jasmine.
Tears filled his eyes as he remembered the kindness she’d given to him. He’d bitten her and still she’d smiled and sang to him. She was so much like Mallory. Grace had loved him.
“It took me years to develop your serum. You suffered for years and that tormented me. I had to watch Grace suffer because I kept failing. Now we know how to cure it. We need to build a data base of hybrid donors, like the humans have for organs or blood. We could cure the Sickness with a few shots. Happy knows it. He is killing Hybrids to keep them from curing our children. With a pint of blood, I can create enough serum to cure a child. Only a pint of blood! This is a needless illness. It is time to stop it.”
Lucian pulled out a new folder. “Something changed six months ago. Happy started draining them instead of just killing them, something happened. I think that something is that Hope escaped. He is now using their blood to somehow sustain his masses. He must have a scientist. He must have someone who is able to decipher my work and make a serum. If Hope escaped they are working with new materials, that takes time. If we had time to wait it out, we would see more of his troops dead, but we don’t have that kind of time.”
“How long?” River asked.
“If we could wait six months, I estimate that the hyena population will be decreased by half, maybe more. They have so few females and such a need for hybrid blood that they have started taking humans in hopes that they can breed them. There have been signs that a few have been fruitful, but the offspring are insane. Happy has mated all of his females and the Sickness is spreading. I cannot be certain as to why it is infecting the hyenas at such a rate, but I honestly do not care enough to look into it. The females seem to be immune, but fewer and fewer female children survive past the age of two. Males, I believe are killed by the others. If they aren’t sick, then they aren’t insane enough to protect themselves at such an early age.” Lucian shrugged. “It is all theory at this point.”
“Pretty good theory.” River said thoughtfully.
“Regardless, we must find Hope.” Lucian insisted.
“You said something changed six months ago. It could be that Hope died, that they killed her.” River said.
The snarl that ripped from Lucian’s throat was enough to raise the hair on Dice’s neck.
“I will not consider that. She is alive!” His fist slammed down on a stainless-steel table, denting it. “We need to recover Hope. Do that and I will cure Sam. Fail and he will die as soon as we run out of treatments.”
“Why can’t you use my blood?” Dice asked. He would give every drop of blood he had to save his son.
“Because you are tainted. If I tried to give him your blood his wolf would lose his mind. This is the only way.” Lucian looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Only female hybrids are viable. Their human side is able to suppress the animal. We need the ability to suppress the animal until the child can grow strong enough to hold him off. That is what the serum does.”
“What is the Sickness?” River asked. “What causes it?”
Lucian met his eyes. “I do not know the cause, but it happens when the animal rejects the human side of himself. It is closely related to a body rejecting an organ. He fights it off as if it is foreign. It happens mostly in hybrids, but it can occur in shifters if there
is a trigger. Sometimes it is when a child is living in a hostile environment. I am looking into it, but there are too many factors.”
Dice felt sick. He slowly lifted his head to look at the man he’d hated his whole life. “My mother...she was a human.”
Lucian looked almost sad. He nodded and Dice’s whole world started spinning. He was a hybrid. His eyes shot to River’s.
“Did you know?” He insisted.
River shook his head. “You smell the same man, I had no idea.”
Lucian exhaled. “You really can be foolish. You can’t really be hybrid. If you have an animal, you are a shifter. Hybrid refers to the females with abnormal features. Shifters all have a human half so they are all half human. You can’t have half an animal.”
It made sense. It was funny how simple it really was, but Dice hadn’t thought of it until then. He looked around and saw that the others hadn’t either. They had assumed that it would be obvious. They had assumed the scent of a hybrid would be different, but it wasn’t, they were all shifters. It was why no one had known about hybrid males.
Dice laughed. “Damn, we are stupid.”
River didn’t seem surprised and that made Dice wonder if he’d always known.
“I need to give this to the boy.” Lucian breathed in frustration.
Dice wanted to scream. “I want to see him.”
Lucian nodded and led him to a room. Sam lay on the bed, he slept peacefully, but his chest rattled with growls.
“How is he?” Dice asked and sat down on the bed.
“It’s hard to say. He is stronger than you were. I credit that to his mother. Human or not, she has a strength.”
There was a fondness in Lucian’s voice when he spoke that settled something inside Dice.
He looked up at the man he’d spent most of his life hating and saw him in a new light. He’d saved Dice because he’d loved a woman. He’d gone through years of frustration and heartache to find a cure. Now Dice had to find a woman because he loved his son.
Dice: Howlers MC Page 7
