I barely make it out of city limits and Lylan’s on top of me, his fangs scoring into the back of my neck, ripping until pain lances through my skin. I stagger under his weight—he’s at least a hundred pounds heavier than me—and my paws slide on the gravel. My chest hits the ground hard and I yelp, twisting to my back. I curl my legs against my belly and offer my throat with a pitiful whimper.
Lylan’s seething. I can feel his anger blossoming off him like heat on pavement, hitting me with the stench of fury. I lay motionless, whistling breaths out through my nose despite the storm warring in my stomach.
Lucy. What if he goes after Lucy?
His muzzle closes around mine, sharp and hard enough to bring tears to my eyes, before he gets up. He shifts, his form shimmering for a moment, the hound replaced by a hulking man with a shaved head and cold blue eyes. He doesn’t bother to wear a mask to conceal his true form, so the left side of his face is open cybernetics.
His metal hand fists a handful of my scruff and he lifts me up off the ground with insane force, holding me at eye level. “I thought I’d broken you of this. We aren’t house pets, Iofiel. We’re to be feared, not adored. Not loved. I’m sorry if your brain is wired backwards to the point where you think a single human girl will give you any sort of companionship. I. Will. Not. Tolerate. It.” His voice is a baritone rumble.
He drops me to the ground and I scramble to my paws, staring up at him. I half expect his leg to swing back, his boot to bust my ribs. His fists are clenched at his sides, but no blow comes. I let out a breath and he growls one word: “Shift.” So I do. Running away will only mark me a coward to the Pack.
“Come with me.” I hate the disappointment that laces his voice—it makes me feel like a Very Bad Dog, even when I’m not a dog at all. I stuff my hands into my pockets and hurry after him, the moon hanging low in the sky, nearly full and gleaming against the shining towers of the city. I know where we’re going. My stomach bottoms out as we come upon a little shack in the middle of the woods, gooseflesh lining my arms.
The door’s unlocked. It’s always unlocked. I feel bad for any human that stumbles upon this place. Lylan swings it open with a creak and I hesitate in the doorway. I open my mouth, maybe to plead with him, fear lighting up my heart, but no sound comes out. He grips my arm and drags me through, slamming the door behind us.
There’s a click and the dark room is bathed in brilliant fluorescents. The lights showcase a sterile white room with no windows. In the center of the room is a metal exam table with cuffs for your wrists and ankles and the floor is made of grating, to drain the blood that falls off the edges of the table.
I’ve seen what happens to traitors to the dark Fae, handed over to the cyberhounds to do their bidding. A shiver winds down my spine, sickly and terrifying, and I glance to Lylan.
His face is set in a scowl. “It would be easy to turn you over to the Unseelie, Iofiel. All it takes is one word, the press of a communicator button, and you’ll be at their mercy.”
I’d like to think he wouldn’t, that the stern Alpha would care for his Pack. We’re a brotherhood, we’re a family…but Lylan won’t hesitate to weed out traitors, spies, and weaklings. I set my jaw, grinding my teeth until they ache. I can’t stop staring at the table, imagining slices in my skin from a whip, blood seeping up from the wounds.
“I know,” I whisper.
“You’re my Pack, Iofiel.” His face softens into features that maybe, in a different life, I’d find fatherly. “But I won’t tolerate misbehavior. We have a purpose in this life and it doesn’t involve fraternizing with humans. I know you have a weakness for pretty girls, but pup, I swear to the Fae, if you don’t screw your head on straight, you’ll regret it.”
I nod, my throat closing as he points to the table.
“Hop up.”
“Lylan…”
He pins a hard glare on me and I swallow down my nerves, hoisting myself up on the table. The metal is cold and unforgiving under my sweaty palms. My heart hitches as he turns to me, a long syringe gun grasped in his human hand. The needle gleams maliciously. “Hold still, pup,” he says and I grip the edges of the table to keep from bolting.
This is a part of life, I chide myself. Whatever punishment he deems necessary, I deserve.
I press my eyes shut anyway.
I feel the tip of the needle pierce my neck. Lylan depresses the trigger. It jerks and there’s a thunk and a flare of pain, but it’s minimal. I’d expected worse. Relief flows through me and he backs up a step. I move to get down off the table when I see him palm something.
Pain shrieks through me, a banshee’s cry, sizzling my nerves and setting me on fire. I spasm, slamming back against the metal table, back arching up as I try to get away from the agony ripping my very soul apart. I hear white noise screaming in my ears before I realize it’s me.
My scream peters out with the fade of the pain and I sag against the table. My entire body’s trembling, tremors that race up and down my arms. I tilt my head, blearily looking at Lylan, whose jaw is set.
“You like that?”
Is he fucking kidding me? I’m so weak, I can’t even manage to sit up. I just lay there, panting. I shake my head slowly and a dull throb starts at the back of my head.
“I’ve injected you with a Shockchip. Lucky for you, you’re testing the prototype. The queen will be pleased.” He flashes a grim smile and holds out little metal device with a thumb pad. “Any of your brothers can use it. They’ll each be issued one. They’ll be under order, starting now, that if they see you with that girl again, well… I think you can figure out what happens when I place my thumb here.”
I shudder in response.
He frowns and shakes his head. “Sorry, pup. It’s for your own good. Turn the lights off when you leave.” Then he pockets my own personal bane and strides out the door, which slams shut behind him. I press my eyes shut against the glare of lights and focus on breathing.
I’m screwed. So. Totally. Screwed.
Cue panic, roiling up my throat like bile.
Breathe in. Breathe out. I force them through, shoving myself to a sitting position. My arms feel wiggly, but that’s because I just had who-knows-how-many volts shoved through me, full blast.
Lucy… I can still see her secret smile, still taste the salt of her tears. Why is she so afraid of hurting me? What could a human possibly do?
But this isn’t the end. Far from it. They can only zap me if they catch me. I’ll just have to get smarter. Faster. My fingers curl around the edges of the table and I shove myself off, landing on my feet. My knees threaten to buckle, but I get stronger with each step I take.
I don’t bother to turn the light off. What are they going to do? Electrocute me?
I shift, and with the power of my change comes renewed strength, my fears turning into fury that fuel me. I run until I can’t run anymore, but I don’t go back into the city.
***
I’m roused from sleep with an insistent beeping in my skull, enough to drive a man insane. I stretch, rubbing my face roughly with both hands to try and wake up before I realize my Pack is trying to communicate with me. I focus on opening the link.
“Yeah?” My voice is clogged with sleep.
“Seriously?” Raziel’s voice is sharp. “I’ve been tryin’ to get your attention for the past freakin’ forty-five minutes, Io. Damn, boy.” Raz is one of the younger cyberhounds, one of the pups I was raised with in the Nursery. We’ve been sort of friends all our lives, but he’s much more serious than me about Pack duty, so he’s climbed up the ladder. I’m still low-man on the totem pole.
“Sorry. Long night.” I stretch the kinks from my back and shoulders, rolling out from under the tree I’d crashed beneath as a hound. I lazily get to my feet and shake my head. My hair flops into my eyes. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve actually got a mission.” He’s excited now and I can almost feel him bouncing from foot to foot. “Lylan wants the entire Pack to follow up on thi
s, so we’re totally in. He’s waitin’ at the railway tracks. Says to come ready to kick some ass. So move! Bet I can get there faster than you.”
“Bet you’re right.” I laugh and there’s a click as he ends the transmission. I shift, shimmering into my hound form, and get a drink from the river that winds through the forest. I splash through the water, the cold soaking into my fur.
Man, I’ve come a long way. I doubt I’m even in Lylan’s territory anymore. I stretch and pick up a lope, the GPS in my head leading me back to the abandoned rail station, where the majority of the large Rogan City Pack is gathered, little blue dots on a map.
Raziel and Sariel greet me with slight tail wags. I drop my head as Lylan stares at me, reminding me of the chip embedded deep inside my neck. Warning me to tread lightly while he’s still angry. I drop back and watch in silence as he changes and addresses the Pack with his human voice, bold and strong, just like always. His hands are clasped behind his back as he paces back and forth.
“Our queen wants us to investigate another power surge in East Loren. She gave the warning that the creature we’re after might be dangerous. We need to be alert and ready. If we find the creature, we’re to detain it and bring it back to our queen, unharmed. Understood?”
The Pack breaks into a chorus of howls and yips. I stay silent—I’ve only ever heard tales of hunts like these from the older hounds. Raziel and I are just now past our initiation. I glance over to Raz to find he’s grinning like a maniac. He’s been waiting all of his life for this moment. But I feel a coil of nerves.
Lylan grins, the flicker of his hound form taking over. He throws his head back with a yowl and takes off thundering across the gravel, headed east. Excitement bubbles through the Pack, zinging off their pelts as they race after him, bumping shoulders and nipping at each other. I pull up the rear at a quick trot, dread welling in my stomach. I just have a bad gut feeling about all of this and my gut is typically right.
We slide through the forest, the only sounds being our footfalls and pants as we careen down the hill and through a field. The grasses tickle the backs of my legs and I want to stop and roll for a minute, to ease the painful fist around my heart. Normally, Lylan’s so wrapped up in duty that he wouldn’t notice if one of his lesser hounds was MIA, but I have the feeling that with the circumstances, he’d kick my ass just for the fun of it.
Sariel swings around, bumping against my flank. I growl at him, but it peters out in a moment. His too-blue eye is knowing. He sympathizes with me, about the Shockchip, about Lucy. I drop my head and turn away from him.
I can’t think about her right now, but it’s so hard not to. She really is a virus, burned deep inside of me. I hear her laugh, low and sultry, without even thinking about it. I pin my ears and push harder.
The Pack moves in unison, our legs pumping, tongues lolling out of our mouths as we run. Loren is a massive city of steel and magic, but we move right through it. The people of Loren look nervous, as if we’re reapers coming to end their lives, big black hounds with gleaming metal parts.
I hear a woman give a small whimper, cradling her toddler close to her. The toddler looks at me—straight into my soul, an angel sent from heaven—and I wish I could stop and reassure her that everything is fine.
But it’s not fine. I don’t even know what fine is anymore.
Lylan stops, his body rigid. I ease to the edge of the Pack, taking in our surroundings: Brick buildings with graffiti tags scrawled across their faces, bullet-hole windows and doors boarded up. A homeless man with ebony skin is leaning against a building, watching us with a look of wonder on his face as his cigar burns slowly into the clouds.
But what catches my eye is the girl. She stands in the street, young and bony. Her knees and elbows seem especially pointy, and so does her expression. She’s wearing a monster’s snarl, lips peeled away from flat human teeth, her eyes so winter pale that I don’t see a pupil in their depths. Her hair is tangled around her face in brown snarls.
The transmission beeps in my head and I hear Lylan’s voice, low and ready. “This is it. This is the creature our queen wants.”
What? My stomach sinks. That little girl? She can’t be more than thirteen. What about her parents? How can she possibly be dangerous? I glance to Sariel, but his expression is unreadable. Raziel’s hackles are raised and he’s quivering, as is most of the Pack.
Lylan steps forwards with a low growl and the girl shrieks. Her scream is louder than anything I’ve ever heard, piercing my ears with a sharp whistle. I buckle, trying to cover my ears with my paws as the sonic sound drills into my brain, leaving an echo.
A glance shows the rest of the Pack is rolling in agony, but Lylan’s pushing through it. He lunges at her, fangs exposed. She raises a hand and as if by magic, Lylan is torn off his paws and thrown across the street. He slides, skidding on pavement, and doesn’t move.
I feel a trickle in my ear. Blood? I can’t hear anything now; her mouth is open in a silent howl and static hisses in my head, painful. Raziel lurches forwards, her wrist snagged in his mouth. He spins her, then jerks as if the girl has a mental hold of his scruff. His leg snaps, bone punching out through skin and he’s rolling on the ground.
I back away, ears flat, shaking my head. This isn’t good. Is she even human? Is that even possible? I think to Lucy, afraid of hurting me. Is Lucy a mutant? Is that what this girl is? Some sort of freak mutation?
Three more hounds circle her, snapping. Blood’s drawn, speckling the ground, but if it’s hers or theirs, I can’t tell. One of the hounds, Gabriel, is writhing on the ground in a pool of blood, his eye filled with agony as he twists and contorts.
The girl flings a hound over my head and I barely duck to avoid it. Then our eyes are locked. Hers are so pale, so cold…so afraid. She’s fighting out of fear, not fury. I drop my head, taking a step back. No way in hell I’m fighting her, even if that marks me a traitor. Cyberhounds are dropping like flies on a summer day. I’m not about to be one of them. I shift and back away just as something whizzes past my head.
The girl throws her head back, a dart sticking out of her neck. She twists, her legs buckling as she goes down. Lylan steps forwards, human now, a tranq gun in one hand. I still can’t hear anything, but he doesn’t even look at me as he passes. The Pack members still on their paws creep forwards. I glance around, half-expecting the girl to have backup.
The girl is slumped against the ground, face down, her hair spilling around her in waves. Lylan hauls her up and throws her over his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here before she wakes up,” he says through transmission. One by one, the hounds follow him out of the warzone, limping along.
Gabriel is motionless, blood a steady flow from a tear in his abdomen. I bend down and feel for a pulse, but he’s gone. The homeless man is slumped against the brick wall, blood trailing from his ears. What the hell was she?
Raziel lies panting, the bone still sticking jagged out of his skin, slicked with crimson. I bend down next to him, my ears still throbbing, but sound is now trickling through “You okay?”
He moans and tries to get to his feet. He staggers, screams, and falls again. I cup his head in my hands. “Can you change? Raziel, look at me.” His eye darkens and presses shut. It takes him a moment, but a lean boy of seventeen lies on the bloody pavement where the hound was a moment before. I hoist him up into my arms and he whimpers, clutching at his arm.
“It’s okay. We’ll get you fixed up, Raz. It’s okay.”
I take off on foot after Lylan and the Pack.
My gut was right. This was a disaster, and all for what? So we could bag a little mutant girl with a supersonic scream? But she flung the hounds through the air with just her mind. Maybe she is dangerous, but still…
Somehow, I can’t help feeling like we’re the bad guys.
Chapter 10:
Lucy
English class can’t get here fast enough.
I’m exhausted from everything: My failure of a date, my menta
l anguish over never being able to touch the guy I have a crush on, the fact that Iofiel isn’t human. Yeah, I still can’t wrap my head around that one. Up until now, I’d thought that cyberhounds were just Faerie creations. Not a freaking human who can turn into a beast. I wrap my arms around myself, the scene from Saturday night playing through my head, a tape set on repeat. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
I rub at the violet rings beneath my eyes, staring at myself in the mirror. I tame my hair back into a loose ponytail and add another layer of black eyeliner, as if that will hide the exhaustion from prying eyes. I look like a raccoon. And my back still hurts from my tussle with the cyberhound.
My body buzzes with Need, tugging at me, a pleading child. I just need to snag a little bit off Jale, enough to get myself through the day. Not enough to hurt him.
I shove through the doors, eager to get this over with as I plop down in my seat. The class bustles around me, chairs scraping on tile as everyone settles in for the lesson. I watch the door from my peripherals. Jale’s seat remains empty.
Mr. W. clears his throat and begins his lecture. My heart twists, hope dropping out as the hour rolls past. Jale’s not coming. My Need screams at me and I bury my hands in my hair, tugging at the roots until the pain overrides the energy gripping me. No. Not good.
“Miss Swift?” My head jerks up at my name and I zero in on Mr. W. What? I must stare at him blankly because a couple of people chuckle, not even bothering to cover their laughter with coughs or something. “Do you have the answer, or were you zoning?”
I feel heat creep up my neck. “Um…” I have no idea what he’s even teaching today.
He shakes his head and returns to the front of the class. He calls on a girl with her hand raised and she smugly answers his question. I still have no idea what he’s teaching. I just know that there’s no way I can make it through the day without a little soul.
The bell rings and everyone gathers to the cafeteria for lunch. My stomach lurches, but not because I’m hungry. The girls in front of me are yapping away about who is showing more skin today and I can’t help but brush up against her, just the barest touch of fingertips to her arm, pretending to trip. I feel the Need rip through me, dragging her soul into my body. I only get a taste before she jerks away and glowers at me with smoldering eyes. “Freak.”
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