by Michele Hauf
Not looking at the female wolf, he slapped one around her wrist and the other around his.
Now, if she wanted to get to her pack, she would have to drag his soon-to-be-lifeless body along with her.
* * *
CeCe shuddered. So close. She’d been so close to falling into the dark pit. She still was at risk. The vampire was still near, could with one good kick shove her back toward the hole and watch as she clawed to keep from falling.
Images flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes, but they kept coming. Damp earth under her nails, rocks gouging into her palms, nothing to hold on to, nothing to keep her from falling...no one to save her...no one who cared.
Something snapped and cold metal wrapped around her wrist. Her skin itched.
Her eyes flew open. She jerked her arm, only to have it jerked back. Confused, she spun to a sit.
Marc sat two feet away. A steel bracelet shone from his wrist. CeCe blinked and moved. Marc moved too, or his arm did. Stupidly, she stared at her own wrist. Silver metal glinted and winked in the increasingly strong rays of the sun.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She pulled her hand toward her chest. Marc’s arm moved closer.
“You...chained us together,” she muttered. “Like dogs.”
“We need to go.” He stood and held out his hand as if he expected her to take it.
She shook her head. “You were going to throw me into the pit.”
He shrugged. “Should have, but I didn’t.”
If he expected her thanks, he expected too much.
“I’m not going with you.” He might think he had her trapped, but he’d forgotten what she was. Her hand might not fit through the cuff, but her paw most certainly would.
She smiled and called to her wolf. The creature edged forward. Then ears folding backward and legs stiffening, it stopped.
CeCe frowned and called again. This time her wolf didn’t move, not at all.
Instead, pain wrapped around her like a snake squeezing her from inside. She gasped and rolled onto her stomach, and, desperate, called again.
A new wave of pain rolled over her. Her wolf yelped and pulled back. CeCe’s legs curled up toward her core.
“Stop. The cuffs aren’t mundane.” The vampire knelt beside her and yelled into her ear.
Not mundane. For a moment, the words made no sense, then as the latest wave of pain faded, the meaning became clear. “Silver. You used silver on me.” She spit out the words.
She knew she couldn’t trust him. What did he have planned for her now?
He grabbed her by the shoulder. “As if you give me any choice. We made a deal, but you meant to break it. Do you deny that? Do you expect me to believe that when I fell asleep, while I was helpless, you didn’t plan to call your pack? Break our pact?”
A pact with a vampire had no meaning. Only the pack mattered. Only her duty mattered. It was a truth that her father had pounded into her from the time her mother was killed by one of the undead beings.
She lifted her lip to snarl, then called for her wolf again. She was strong. She’d been trained. She’d gone through worse. She could beat this.
Agony like a boot in the snout knocked her back down.
Somewhere nearby the vampire cursed, then he lifted her into his arms and slung her as he had slung Russell over his shoulder and strode through the woods.
She bounced against his shoulder, hard. The world moved up and down with each step. She clawed at his back, cursed him to death and beyond, but he kept moving and her wolf refused to come out, refused to save her.
Through the woods and away from the cave, he walked. Whatever he had planned for her, it wasn’t the pit.
Exhausted, she thanked God for that. Then she passed out.
Chapter 8
CeCe awoke in the dark. Cave-dark.
The vampire.
The hole.
Her heart rate surged; a cold sweat broke out on her body. Unsure where she was, what position she had landed in after being tossed into the cave, she lay still.
Near her a hum sounded. She sucked in a breath and struggled to identify the noise. Steady, loud and man-made...a machine. What the hell? Then the noise clicked off and recognition hit...an air-conditioning unit.
Relief swept over her like a reassuring breeze.
She wasn’t in the cave...wasn’t even in the woods. She was instead in a room, windowless or with blackout coverings on the windows, but a room.
Her pulse settled and as her panic subsided, her other senses kicked in.
Wherever she was, it was cool, but the air was stale as if sometime in the past someone had smoked here. Like an old motel room.
She moved; beneath her springs creaked. A mattress. Her guess was right; she was on a bed. She dragged her hands over the surface, double-checking. Cheap quilted polyester brushed against her palms and a weight—the cuffs—dragged at her wrist.
She rolled onto her side toward her restrained wrist and felt for the metal bracelet.
It was still there. She followed the chain with her fingers and felt the cold skin of the vampire.
She held his wrist for a second, unsure if he was awake, asleep or dead.
He didn’t move and her fingers, now pressed against the underside of his wrist, felt no pulse.
She jerked back her hand. Then, curious, she reached out again. His skin was still soft and pliant, cold to the touch but without the dead, unresponsive feel of a corpse. She rolled closer, so the front of her body touched the side of his. He lay on his back, his hands at his sides.
She ran her fingers up his torso and over his chest. He still wore a shirt, the cotton stiff and formal feeling, but through the material she could feel his body. He was muscled, as were wolves, but he was bulkier than a wolf.
The cut of his clothing had hidden that from her when she was depending on sight rather than touch, but as her fingers traced over raised pectoral muscles, there was no denying this vampire was in shape.
An image of him without his shirt flitted into her mind. She lifted her hand. Guilt lanced through her. She curled her fingers into her palm and moved to roll onto her back.
The handcuff he had snapped around her wrist got caught on the quilt, pulled at her, reminded her that she wasn’t lying here in a place unknown of her own choice. She’d been trapped, and if she wanted to escape, she needed to find the key—now—while the vampire was still out.
Slowly, her fingers unfolded and she let the pads of her fingers graze over his chest again. Her palm touched the space where his pectorals met...the area over his heart. Suddenly, she had to know, had to listen for herself to see...was he truly dead, did he die and rise each night as her father said, or had he, like some animals, slipped into a short if deep hibernation?
With her free hand, she unbuttoned the vampire’s shirt and pushed the material aside. Then she pressed her ear to his heart.
At first there was nothing, no sound, no sensation. Then as her skin warmed his, as she felt herself relax against him, she heard it...the faint and slow but steady thump of his heart.
She froze, contemplating what this meant.
Her father was wrong. Vampires weren’t dead. They weren’t even that different from many wild creatures. Yes, they slept, hibernated at least to some degree during the day, but in the animal world that was far from unnatural.
Her father was wrong.... She had never considered the possibility before.
She thought of Marc, of his offer, his reasons why she shouldn’t call Karl.
But then she thought of Karl.
So what if her father had one tiny fact wrong? It didn’t change that a vampire had killed her mother, and it didn’t mean that what this vampire asked of her was right. She shook her head.
Vampires weren’t truly dead. Interesting, but not significant. Not a fact that changed anything she believed or had to do.
She pulled back and continued her search. Ten minutes later she had searched every logical place on the vampire’s body where he might have stashed the key. His pockets were empty, there wasn’t so much as a grain of sand in his socks, and he wore no chain around his neck. The key wasn’t on him.
She rolled onto her back and stared into the darkness. She was alone in a space she couldn’t see, shackled to one hundred eighty pounds of, for the moment, dead weight.
Dead weight that had taken every precaution to eliminate all light. She thought back to his long pants and long sleeves.
Her father and the legends weren’t totally wrong. Vampires might not be dead, but sunlight did harm them...weaken them.
It’s what every cut-rate monster flick taught. Find a vampire where he sleeps, destroy him with a stake through the heart or drag him into the light. If just being in the light, while his skin was fully covered, had weakened him, what would being exposed to the sun, without his layers of clothing, do?
The room, no matter how big, had to have a door, and beyond that door there had to be sunlight.
If she wanted to escape, all she had to do was find it.
If the exposure did kill him, it would be breaking a law, but the law had already been broken and she would be justified.
He’d taken her prisoner and killed Russell.
He’d convinced her for a time that he hadn’t killed her pack mate, but trapping her like this showed how stupid she had been to believe him.
Karl would approve of her decision. The pack would approve. They wouldn’t turn her over to the vampires; they would celebrate her victory. They would, perhaps, even accept her.
She rolled over to face Marc, and then sat up with every intention of shoving him off the bed. Leaning over him, she paused. Her hand lowered and her fingers brushed over his bare chest where she had pressed her ear earlier.
His pulse might be too light to feel, but he had a heartbeat. Her father had been wrong.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose. A growl escaped her throat. Her hand shaking, she touched the vampire again.
Alive...
Another growl...her wolf, its loyalty to the pack, objecting to her thoughts.
She grabbed the chain that connected her wrist to the vampire’s. He’d done this. He’d trapped her and dragged her into the dark. Another vampire, like him, had killed her mother. She couldn’t trust him, couldn’t let this opportunity pass.
She growled, but the noise was faint...false, just an attempt to push her body to move.
A wolf, a real wolf, wouldn’t hesitate. A real wolf would attack its enemy. No regrets. No weakness.
She ground her teeth together and wrapped her free arm around the vampire, surging forward before she lost her resolve.
As one they fell off the bed. She hit the floor first, landing on her back. The vampire landed on top of her.
She placed her palm on his chest and levered her leg under his, to shove him aside so she could get under his arm and drag his weight as she searched for an exit. Again they tumbled as one, coming to a stop with CeCe on top...her ear pressed against his chest.
And there it was again...the steady soft beat of his heart.
Defeated. She closed her eyes.
She couldn’t do it. She would have sworn a thousand times over that she could, but she couldn’t.
She just couldn’t.
* * *
Hours had passed since CeCe had faced her failure. She had moved, but only slightly. She had simply rolled off Marc’s body and onto the hard floor. Some kind of indoor/outdoor carpeting was all that lay beneath her and concrete.
Her body was stiff and her back ached. She’d lost track of time, but hadn’t drifted into sleep.
The room was still dark. Pitch dark, and the air conditioner had come back on, then shut off again, leaving the space silent.
She had nothing to do, nothing to occupy herself except memories. Memories she wished she didn’t have.
They rolled over her, pulled at her. She closed her eyes as if that would shut them out.
Learn. Train. Be strong. Be ready.
She gritted her teeth, but a growl escaped.
Frustrated, she rolled toward the vampire and straddled him. She had to get out of this room.
One way or another, it was time for Marc to wake up.
* * *
Fingers twisted into the front of Marc’s shirt. His body was jerked upward then dropped onto a hard, flat surface. His back and then his head hit too. A weight straddled his waist and curses flowed over him.
“Damn you for being alive. Damn you for not being what you’re supposed to be.”
Another jerk upward. This time, fully awake, Marc kept his body from dropping again. He surged to his feet, taking whatever clung to him up too.
“Damn you—” The words stopped, cut off with an umph as Marc plowed forward into a wall.
With his assailant trapped between his body and the cinder block walls of the room he’d rented, he snarled, revealing his fangs.
“You’re awake.” The words startled him.
He’d expected fear and alarm, instead he got exasperated relief.
“Put me down and unhook these damned things.”
Adrenaline poured through his body as he struggled to focus. Finally, his mind cleared and the feminine face of the werewolf, CeCe, came into clear view.
The need to bite, to savage, didn’t, however, recede as quickly. The need for blood pounded through him and CeCe’s scent called to him, stronger even than it had in the woods. He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose and tried to leash the monster he was at risk of becoming.
His head ached and his body shook. As his fangs sank into his own lip, he tasted blood. It wasn’t enough; he needed more. Needed to taste the sweet blood of the wolf pressed tight against him.
But he couldn’t, not now, maybe never.
He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached and concentrated on things outside of this room, duties and responsibilities, his job for the Fringe.
Finally, he was able to breathe.
“What time is it?” he asked.
Based on the pounding in the back of his head he guessed he had not had the full eight hours he needed after four days without rest.
But then, of course, the pounding could also have been from having his head bashed into the floor. He grimaced and moved backward. As he did, CeCe slid lower, reminding him of the intimate position of their bodies.
Suddenly, the ache in his head was gone. He leaned toward the female wolf, inhaling her scent. Thoughts of biting her returned, savaging, too, but in an entirely different manner. “Do all wolves smell like this?” he murmured.
“Like what?” Her voice was harsh, almost hoarse.
“Wild, like a creature that roams the night, but with...spice.” He could think of no greater compliment, but at his reply, she shrank back.
“Wolves are nocturnal,” she replied. “Werewolves aren’t.”
He realized then that her face was strained and pale. “You don’t like the night.” It was a comment as much as a question. The idea was foreign to him. “But I met you in the night—”
She frowned. “The night is fine. It’s this unnatural—” She cut off her own response, pressing her lips together.
The dark. She was afraid of the dark. It explained her response to the cave.
He had never met an adult who was afraid of the dark and certainly wouldn’t have expected the phobia from a werewolf. He glanced at CeCe, but her face was turned to the side, and she avoided his gaze.
He stepped away from the wall, cradling h
er in his arms. She didn’t fight him, telling him more than he wanted to know. Her hair brushed against his check and her scent called to him. More than anything, he wanted to lower her onto the bed and investigate her scent, her body, her.
Based on how he felt, there was, he guessed, still an hour or more of day left. Without his full rest or feeding, he wasn’t ready to go out in the sunlight again yet. Which meant, they had plenty of time with nothing to do. However, tempting as the idea of lowering her onto the bed and joining her there was, her current cooperation wasn’t real, was instead a product of her discomfort. A discomfort he was responsible for creating.
Slowly, he let her body slide from his, forced his arms to loosen as her weight made contact with the mattress. Then he found her hand and pulled her to her feet.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. With her fingers tucked into his, he led her across the room. Within seconds, the yellow glow of cheap lighting glared overhead.
Pain shot through his ill-prepared eyes, but beside him CeCe released a breath.
It was his turn to look away, to hide how he knew his eyes would appear until they had time to adjust.
“A light switch,” she murmured. “A stinking light switch.”
He didn’t understand her disgust, but with his eyes and head throbbing, he also was in no state to analyze much. He walked back to the bed. With no choice but to follow him, CeCe trailed behind.
“No phone at least,” she commented, gesturing without purpose around the room.
“I removed it.” He pointed to the door, which he had padlocked from the inside before losing consciousness. The lights he had never turned on, but he’d known they were there. He realized now that she hadn’t, or hadn’t thought to look for them.
Her fear, then, was strong. He was in the habit of storing such information to use later if needed, but for some reason his only reaction to this tidbit was regret.
“What’s that?” Her finger traced over his arm, over the quarter inch of his tattoo that had become exposed when his sleeve edged upward. It was a casual gesture that emphasized how she’d changed from the wolf he had met in the woods. She seemed tired...resolved...as if the fight had left her. At least for now. He didn’t trust that it would stay away long.
