by Amelia Jade
“But you’re a werewolf,” he said.
Hannah had to choke back a smile at the halfhearted protest. Maybe her words had been more effective than even she thought.
“Yes, I am. And?”
Josh frowned, sitting up a little straighter. She could tell he was beginning to recover his strength from their fight. Even some of his smaller cuts were starting to heal, fresh pink skin knitting closed the jagged lines of his opened skin. If he began to regress, to decide that she wasn’t as normal as she claimed, Hannah would have to depart, and quickly.
“But werewolves are supposed to be…”
“Crazy?” she pressed. “Have I really struck you as crazy? And think about your answer there,” she said sternly. “This is not a time to joke around.”
Behind her Chad let out a low growl, still pacing back and forth in his wolf form. Hannah ignored him though, content to see what she could convince Josh of at the time.
“But what about the werewolf virus? It was supposed to have infected all of you and made you go insane. That’s why you were practically wiped out a few centuries back, wasn’t it? Because the disease couldn’t be allowed to transmit to other races?”
“That’s the popular story,” she said dryly. “But do I seem infected with some sort of disease that makes me go insane to you? Think about how stupid the reason you’ve been given is,” she said. “Some magical disease that somehow did what, made us want to kill everyone around us?”
Josh arched an eyebrow. “I mean, there was that big explosion right over there,” he said. “That almost killed everyone around you.”
Hannah glared at him. “Not funny. Do you really think, after all we’ve been through, that I’m still infected with something?”
The shifter wiped away some of the blood as rain continued to fall around them, tinging the clear liquid red as it washed off him. “If I was asked ten minutes ago, I would have to say no,” he told her truthfully. “But that doesn’t mean I was wrong. If everything I know about you is wrong, then why is nobody out there telling the truth? Why is the lie propagated through so many generations?” he said, rising to his feet, but not advancing toward her.
Hannah studied him for a moment. “I can tell you if you’re willing to listen.”
Chapter Eleven
Josh
“I can tell you if you’re willing to listen.”
The words were spoken in half-challenge, half-begging. Hannah desperately wanted to convince him of her view of things, he could tell. But there was more to it than that. She also—unless he missed his guess—was aching to try and prove that she wasn’t something that she had been labeled as. This was as much for herself as it was for him, he surmised.
“Very well,” he said, splaying his hands out in front of him to indicate agreement.
What the hell are you doing? She’s a werewolf! You need to kill her before you get infected!
The war going on inside of Josh was at a fever pitch. The feral entity of his bear, recognizing what it believed to be its primal enemy, was ballistic, hammering itself against the mental block he had put in place to keep it safely held within him. It wasn’t easy though, and the strength of its desire to kill when he had seen the first werewolf—who he assumed to be Chad—had caught Josh completely by surprise, overwhelming him and sending him into a frenzy.
And like Hannah said, apparently she’s the crazy one?
All of his training, all of the education he had ever possessed, had told Josh that he was supposed to kill any werewolf he saw on sight. Immediately and without hesitation.
Yet Valen assigned me to protect one with my life. There is no way he didn’t know about this. Hell, Chad couldn’t have contacted him otherwise. So Valen and Marcus must know the truth about werewolves. Why haven’t they spoken up then?
He suspected the answer was a lot more complicated than he would ever understand.
At least I know now why she smelled so…different, compared to a normal human. Not bad, but definitely singularly unique.
“Werewolves used to be the most populous of all the shifter species,” she explained. “More so than bears are now, believe it or not.” She shrugged. “Now we’re more rare than a dragon. There are perhaps two or three dozen of us left that I am aware of. Possibly less now, as many around the world still hunt us down.”
Josh frowned. “Why would you ever let yourself be caught then?” he asked. “It’s not hard to live off-grid and undetected with the ability to shapeshift.”
Hannah grimaced. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Long ago, some of our kind were caught in the act of shifting, revealing us to the world at large. Everyone thought we were a myth of course, but word got to some religious official, who decreed that we should be hunted down and exterminated. This grew worse and worse over the years, but of course back then without electronics, remaining undetected was fairly easy.”
“Something happened though, didn’t it?” he asked, fighting back another surge from his bear.
She shuddered, nodding agreement to his question. “You see, Josh, we did get sick. Nobody knows how, but at some point it was introduced into our bloodlines.”
Josh tensed as she suddenly went back on her earlier word about not being infected, but nothing else happened.
“It’s not contagious,” she told him. “And it doesn’t make us go crazy. At least,” she added, “not by today’s standards of crazy.”
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
Hannah pursed her lips, looking away for a moment, then shrugged. “When we experience strong emotions for the first or second time, or in a new, different way, it does something to our mental ability to rein in our wolves. It allows them to come free. So we went crazy, because all of a sudden none of us could stop ourselves from shifting. As it spread through the population, more and more werewolves were suddenly being discovered.”
He stared at her in horror, fully able to comprehend what that would have been like in a primitive medieval society. “They would have slaughtered you,” he whispered in shock.
“They did,” she said angrily. “In the span of a century, our population was reduced to a fraction of what we used to be. Anyone who tried to stick up for us was labeled infected or a traitor and also put to death. That is why today there is such a strong stigma against us, in both human and shifter culture. That,” she said, crossing her arms, “is why you are taught to kill us.”
“That explains then why the other, older races of shifters haven’t fought to reintegrate you,” he said slowly. “They would be ostracized by others, and at odds with the human government.”
Hannah only nodded.
Josh fell silent. His bear didn’t believe a word of it, and the giant wolf creature that still padded back and forth in the downpour behind Hannah wasn’t helping the situation. Chad’s eyes stared him down, challenging him, and Josh had to use a great amount of mental strength to keep his bear from going berserk once again.
Calm down, you idiot. They took you apart with almost casual ease the first time.
Josh was stronger than either of them, of that he had no doubt. But their agility and speed had caught him by surprise, leaving him flat-footed. Another bout with them was not in his best interest. He was still recovering from the first one. Most of his wounds had healed now, though a deeper one on his left side and one near the top of his right leg would take a bit longer to fully close up.
“And Valen knows all of this?” he asked, seeking confirmation once again.
“Yes,” Hannah said simply. “Though I didn’t expect Chad to go to him, but apparently even I can still be kept in the dark about things,” she said with a glare at her brother. The wolf just shook itself, sending water spraying in all directions.
“So let me get this all straight,” he said, trying to tie up some more loose ends. He wasn’t convinced that he should trust them yet, but too much lined up for him to want to continue trying to kill them. Josh would need to seek more answers first.
“You’re hunted by just about every human and shifter on the planet who knows about you. Yet you go around giving public speeches, showing yourselves to anyone and everyone. Does that not seem…suicidal?” he asked, shaking his head.
Hannah shrugged sheepishly. “Perhaps from that point of view, yes,” she admitted.
“Why do it then?”
“Because, Josh, if we can convince people to treat shifters properly, then perhaps we can also convince other shifters to treat us properly.”
Josh stared at her. “Oh,” he said slowly. “That…actually makes a lot of sense.”
His head was spinning, and the constant splatter of raindrops soaking him wasn’t helping his thought process.
For the first time since appearing, Chad finally shifted back to his human form, stepping forward toward Hannah. “Come on Han, he needs some time alone to think and digest all you’ve told him.”
Josh found himself nodding, though he didn’t want to see her go. There was too much information for him to process in such a short period of time. His brain was overloaded and on the verge of freezing up.
“I’ll be at the hotel,” Hannah said, before letting herself get dragged away, until she rounded the corner and was gone.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to calm himself.
“Holy shit, what a fucking evening,” he muttered, giving them a few minutes before he walked out of the alleyway and into the open. The rain had been coming down hard in between the two buildings, but here, in the open, it was a solid, continuous sleet of water that found any remaining dry spot and immediately soaked it. With his mind elsewhere, Josh found it easy to ignore the way his clothes plastered to his skin as he walked. He slowly headed back across the open park and toward the ruined stage, where the last of the fire was now being extinguished by a combination of water pouring from the sky and through a pair of hoses held by firefighters.
Police officers scoured the scene as well, though he could see by their body language they weren’t overly concerned with anything more than keeping civilians away from the site. He snarled to himself, knowing there would be no real investigation into the explosion. That was a common theme in the city, where anything pro-shifter was practically ignored. Oh, it would be in the newspapers and online. The media would enjoy it, and the police would say they’re hot on the trail, pursuing justice.
But as the media frenzy died down, the police would be quick to bury the report. They were as corrupt as they came in the city. It boggled Josh’s mind to realize that all of this had been orchestrated behind the scenes to create a practical paradise for the Agency to operate.
And yet, tonight it wasn’t the Agency. It was some other group that apparently hates Chad and Hannah.
He wondered now if it was a group that knew what they were, and had tracked them down from wherever the pair of werewolves had come from before they arrived in King City. That would make a lot of sense, and explained another reason for the need of a bodyguard.
Now he just had to make sure they didn’t decide to team up with the Agency. That would be bad news.
A gust of wind sent the rain sideways, picking up light debris and sending it skittering across the ground as he watched, his mind moving in a thousand directions at once.
Hannah was a werewolf.
“Surprise!” he said aloud with a laugh, still coming to terms with that explosive fact. Josh had thought she was hiding a child from another relationship perhaps, a crazy ex-husband, any number of things. The truth had not been on his list of expected secrets that she was holding.
So all I have to do is accept her, and believe that her side of things is the truth.
That would be easier if what she had told him hadn’t gone against every single thing he thought he knew.
The wind picked up again. Something wet and slick draped itself over his back, the end of it coming up and over his shoulder as the wind caused it to flap. With a frown he reached up and pulled it off him. It was a banner that had been hung near the stage.
We Are All Equal it read.
The words resonated within him, conjuring up powerful memories of a time in his past when Josh had been anything but equal. Unwillingly his childhood came back to him, forcing him to remember things he had long thought behind him.
This is how Hannah has felt all her life, carrying the burden that she does.
The charred remains of the stage caught his eye.
Just another reminder of everything that is happening because people can’t, or won’t, tolerate each other.
This was the playground antics of children, pointing fingers and laughing at the person with glasses, the fat one, the first to get braces, or the one who came from a family that had less to give. The difference was it was now being carried out on a global stage, and instead of pointing fingers, the method employed was murder.
“Josh?”
He spun at the familiar voice.
“Jared,” he said, frowning. “I thought you guys had headed back to base?”
The big Alpha shifter emerged from the rain, looking concerned for his young team member. “When you and Hannah didn’t return shortly after, I came back to look for you to make sure everything was okay.”
Josh smiled. His leader was a good guy.
“Things are...” he paused, searching for the right word. “Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Jared to his credit didn’t laugh, only nodded sagely. “I figured. Tell me as much or as little as you wish,” he said, gesturing for Josh to follow as he guided them back toward the parking on the side of the street.
They walked through the debris, ignoring the looks from several of the police officers, their size and determined gait indicative of a pair that did not wish to be bothered.
“What would you do if everything you knew about something, or someone, or both, was suddenly turned on its side with an explanation that was simpler than what you had been told?”
Jared looked thoughtful. “Is there anything against you accepting the new truth?”
Josh snorted. “Pretty much everyone else in the world.”
“Oh,” Jared said. “I see.”
“Exactly. I thought I knew something. It’s what I’d been told my entire life, by everyone I ever met when the subject came up. Now I’m finding out that not only have I been lied to, but so has the vast majority of everyone I know, all in the name of a giant cover-up of some dead person’s over-the-top reaction.” Josh seethed as he realized how many people had been killed over the centuries, all because someone, somewhere, couldn’t accept that a shapeshifter wasn’t the devil’s creature.
Many bear shifters and other types had been hunted as well. The legends of knights hunting down fire-breathing dragons had their origins in truth as well. Even the legend of vampires was born because of a shifter—though in that case, the shifter had been mentally ill. Most bat shifters weren’t into eating their victims.
But the werewolves had suffered the worst. All because of a lie. One that was now so ingrained in people, that Josh’s bear had almost forced him to commit a grievous mistake before he could recover.
“How do I deal with that?” he asked his Alpha.
“Tough question,” Jared said, stopping in front of Josh’s truck. His own vehicle was parked two spots down.
“Right? If there was any doubt in me that they lied to me, I would be better able to handle it. But sometimes you just know when a person is speaking the truth. When what they’re saying would be too big of a lie, one that would serve no real purpose in telling, because they could have gotten away without telling it to me. They could have just continued to ignore my questions if they wanted.”
Josh knew that Jared was no idiot. He might not know what Josh was talking about, but it was clear he was referring to what Hannah had told him.
“Tough question,” Jared repeated, “but easy answer.”
“Wha—?” Josh said in surprise. “How so?”
Jared smil
ed. “Do what you believe to be the right thing. Not what they tell you,” he said with a wave around them to indicate the world at large. “But the right thing,” he said, poking a gentle finger at Josh’s heart. “The right thing,” he repeated, then turned to go.
“Hey,” Josh called.
Jared turned halfway, giving him a questioning look.
“Thanks.”
“For what?” Jared said. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You didn’t ask me what it was all about. Thank you for that.”
Jared smiled and nodded. “Make sure you’re back tomorrow. We need to know who these new people are.”
Josh nodded. He would. But for now, he had somewhere else to be.
Climbing into his truck, he visualized the quickest route through the city to Hannah’s hotel.
Chapter Twelve
Hannah
She sat in a chair, the wet clothing still stuck to her skin as she stared blankly out the window.
Chad hadn’t skimped on their hotel rooms this time around, and now Hannah was taking full advantage of that fact. The long, rectangular room had a full wall of windows at the far end, overlooking the downtown core. Bright lights and colorful neon signs blazed, driving back the shadows of the rain and darkness, proclaiming their goods for anyone to see.
Girls!
Two-For-One Pizza Special!
Oil-Change Deal on Now!
Bottle Service—Call for Details!
Then there were the numerous signs that had nothing but logos on them. Fast food joints, convenience stores, at least half a dozen various clubs that had nothing but their name in lights. Even at this late hour, there was still enough light shining through the rain to allow her to see easily, despite the lights in her apartment being off.
“What am I doing?” she said softly, looking out at the landscape from the plush chair she had dragged over from its spot by the television.
The last person she and her brother had revealed their secret to had been Valen Kedyn, a gryphon shifter from Genesis Valley, who had discovered them while he too had been on the run. It had been a partnership born of desperation on both their parts.
