Steam wafted from the water like tendrils of smoke, surrounding her in a protective shroud. Her tongue darted out to lick at the salty sweat beading her upper lip. Incapable of resisting, her eyes fluttered shut. And she began to dream.
Or maybe hallucinate. Too real to be a dream. All five senses were alive, stretched taut and sizzling with awareness despite the dulling drugs coursing through her blood. If this was a dream, never had she dreamed so vividly. Trees and brush surrounded her, their branches grabbing her like clawing hands. Whenever a break in the brush appeared, a thick fog rose to fill the space.
But she wasn’t alone.
The others weren’t visible, but she felt them just the same. In the wild thrumming of her blood, they called to her, summoning her wordlessly. Impossible to resist. She answered their call, running to meet them, propelled through yellowed fog. The moon glowed overhead, a huge pearl in the black sky, guiding her, revealing where to place her feet on the opaque forest floor.
Shadows crowded her, widening and lengthening as their presence grew. She felt their silent breaths, smelled their heat, tasted their hunger. Their eyes, tiny torches of silver fire, glinted like beacons of light through the hazy mireland of fog and forest, signaling her home.
She no longer soaked in a steaming tub but resided in an unearthly realm that both tantalized and frightened. The fog was a tangible thing, cupping her face with yellowed fingers. The wood filled her nostrils with its earthy tang. The pads of her feet sank into the moist soil. It was intoxicating. More acute than arousal. Her flesh sizzled. Pleasure bordered pain as she drew closer and closer to them. Her family, her brethren, her pack.
At last, the shadows materialized. Faces took shape surrounding those eerie eyes—eyes so silver no human could possess them.
And no human did.
As the faces came into focus, Claire’s body jerked in terror.
Her head slid off the tub’s rim. She plunged into the warm, scented water with a gurgling shriek.
Coughing and sputtering, she shot up from the tub, hands slapping water as she sought something solid. One hand found the edge of the tub while the other wiped at rivulets of water streaming down her face. Chest heaving, she lifted her gaze. Through spiky wet lashes, she noticed her cat perched on the back of the toilet, black pupils so dilated the green could hardly be seen. The old tabby arched its back and released a long, moaning meow that twisted into a sharp hiss.
“Molly!” Claire reprimanded, feeling like a disappointed mother as the cat jumped off the toilet and bolted from the bathroom.
“Claire!” Maggie’s muffled voice carried through the bedroom door. “You okay in there?”
“Yeah! Getting out now,” she called, an unmistakable tremor to her voice. “Glad I never did drugs,” she muttered. Who could predict their effect if a mild painkiller reduced her to this?
Claire rose from the tub, taking extra care since her legs felt as steady as rubber. Slipping on her blue terrycloth robe, she emerged from the bathroom, weaving a crooked line from the door.
“Maggie, I’m going to lie down.”
With a clucking sound, Maggie slipped an arm around her waist. “Those painkillers sure pack a punch.”
They staggered together the few feet to the bed. Claire collapsed on top of it and tried to pull the comforter down, but her arms felt like two leaden weights, so she gave up, leaving them stretched above her head like a swimmer in dive.
“Wait here.” Maggie’s voice sounded underwater and far away. Seconds later, Claire felt the throw from the couch draped over her. She tried to voice her gratitude but her tongue was thick in her mouth and she couldn’t form the words.
“’Night. I’ll call to check on you tomorrow. See you Monday.”
She thought she heard the front door open and shut over the roaring in her ears. Her eyes drifted open, then shut, and then open again. She regarded the whirling fan blades above until she grew dizzy. Squeezing her eyes shut, she opened them sometime later to a darkened room, preternaturally still.
How did the light go out?
Ribbons of moonlight crept in through the blinds, saving her from utter blackness. Claire shook her head as though the motion could clear it. No luck.
Before sleep swallowed her and robbed her of all thought, a man’s voice rumbled through the air, rolling over her.
“Sleep now.”
She managed to lift her heavy head with a mewling grunt. Her eyes focused for a brief moment. In that split second, she made out a man’s shadowy form looming over her. Too weak, her head collapsed back on the pillow, and she surrendered to sleep.
With a sigh on her lips, darkness rolled in, the second whisper lost to the night.
“Sleep…forever.”
Gideon brushed the back of his hand against her brow and winced at her fiery flesh. She didn’t stir. Initiation had begun. The fever raged inside her, the poison spreading, eating its way through her, consuming the old life to make room for the new, but she slept peaceably.
He lifted his gun and pressed it to her head. She wouldn’t feel a thing. The time was right. He had to do it now. There would never be a better moment. His finger curled around the trigger. In his mind, he heard that trigger click, heard the soft zing of the bullet whiz through flesh and bone, saw her body jerk—
She sighed softly and rolled onto her side. He bent his elbow and pulled the gun back, waiting for her to resettle before he placed it to her head again, this time directly on her temple where her hair fell straight and smooth, brushing the mouth of the barrel.
Do it. Do it now!
It was nothing he hadn’t done before. Nothing he wouldn’t want done to himself if he were in her shoes.
He had pulled the trigger on other NODEAL agents, members of the National Organization for Defense against Evolving and Ancient Lycanthropes, like himself who were unlucky enough to become infected in the course of their duties. Men like him. Men he called friends.
So, why couldn’t he pull the fucking trigger?
It was what he did. Who he was.
She snuggled deeper into the bed, rolling on her side and curling her legs. Her robe parted, revealing well-shaped calves and supple-looking thighs that would feel like satin in a man’s hands. His cock grew hard, pushing against his fly, and he swallowed a curse. The thought of gliding his hands over her legs, of wrapping them around his waist as he buried himself in her soft heat, grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let go. Shaking his head, he decided he’d been too long without a woman. A matter he needed to correct if it stopped him from lusting after his targets.
Her arms reached out, instinctively searching the area next to her until her fingers met the sought-after object. She tucked the tattered teddy bear to her chest, triggering a flood of memories best left forgotten. Memories of home, of family, of a happy, unfettered life…before he’d known lycans existed in anything other than Hollywood movies.
She smiled in her sleep. A soft, dreamy smile that did strange things to his insides.
“Shit,” he muttered, repeating the NODEAL code in his mind like a mantra. Destroy them at any cost.
Chapter Three
Some dogs take longer to train than others.
—Man’s Best Friend:
An Essential Guide to Dogs
C laire opened her eyes, blinked once, and was instantly wide awake, surging upright in bed. Astonishing alertness for a woman who deliberately set her alarm thirty minutes early just so she could hit the snooze button three times. Her body required that extra half hour to adjust to the idea of waking.
From the darkness enveloping her, she knew it was still morning. The bedside clock read four fifteen.
She had slept only four hours?
Strange. She had been so exhausted.
Her belly rumbled. Thoughts of swinging by Krispy Kreme wormed into her head. Hmmm, or breakfast tacos from Tia Rosa. Her growling stomach made the decision. Both.
Lifting her arms, she stretched, remembering too late to
have a care for her shoulder. But surprisingly the stretch didn’t hurt. She rotated her shoulder gingerly, waiting to feel her muscles’ protest. Nothing happened. She moved her shoulder more vigorously, delighted to discover no pain at all. It felt fine. In fact, every last inch of her felt fine—great, even. Like a woman reborn, bounding with energy. The alien impulse to don some sweats and take a Saturday morning jog seized her.
“Some drugs,” she muttered.
Then another urge asserted itself. Claire bounded from the bed. Arms outstretched, she made her way through the gloom to the bathroom.
Moments later she emerged and noticed the blinking light on her answering machine. Apparently, she’d slept through the ringing telephone.
But who would have called in the middle of the night?
She pushed play and returned to the bathroom. Flipping on the light, she squinted against the glare. As the messages rewound, she accustomed herself to the fluorescent lighting and gave her reflection a cursory glance, then reached for her toothbrush.
Her gaze flew back to the mirror and the face that was her own. Yet not. She leaned forward warily, as if the woman in the mirror might leap out to harm her.
Her face was…different.
She stared hard, trying to put her finger on the difference.
In the background, the first message began to play.
“Claire, it’s your mother. Wanted to see if you want roast or spaghetti this Sunday. I can do either. Let me know. ’Bye.”
Tearing her attention from the mirror, she gave the machine a peculiar look.
Like clockwork, she ate dinner at her parents’ house every Sunday, and although her mother often checked to see what she preferred to eat, she had never called in the middle of a Friday night to verify. Shrugging, she returned to scrutinize her face, at last pinpointing the difference.
Her eyes. They weren’t the same mousy brown that looked back at her every day. They were silver. No light blue or grayish blue either. Silver. A startling silver, reminiscent of ice…and something else. Something familiar. Something recent. A memory niggled at the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite touch it.
Her fingers lightly grazed her cheekbone just below those strange eyes. Could drugs alter one’s eye color? Was this some sort of allergic reaction to the codeine? Or the tetanus shot?
Maggie’s voice blared from the answering machine, penetrating her racing thoughts. Kids whooped and screamed in the background. “Just checking in. Call me if you get around to it. See you tomorrow…”
Why would Maggie think she was going to see her today? On Saturday? Shaking her head, Claire grabbed her remote control off the dresser and flipped on the television, clicking through channels until she found the local news. A human Barbie doll reported the early morning weather in cheery, singsong tones.
“Looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous day today. A great way to begin the week. Maybe it will make those headed-back-to-work-Monday blues easier…”
The remote control slipped from her suddenly slack fingers and thudded to the carpet. She backed up, sinking onto the bed as realization washed over her.
She had slept two nights. As impossible as it seemed, it was four fifteen Monday morning.
“No one can sleep that long,” she whispered over the drone of yet another message from her mother.
She jumped up and rushed back to the mirror, gripping her hands around the edge of her sink until her knuckles turned white. Inhaling through her nostrils, she lifted her face and met her gaze dead on. It was like looking at a stranger. Those eyes chilled her.
“What the hell’s going on?” she demanded of her reflection.
The last thing she expected was an answer.
“You’re one of them now,” a gravelly voice said.
She spun around, a scream lodged in her throat as she peered into the far corners of her room, searching for the owner of that voice.
He was a shadow. A large, motionless form occupying her wicker chair—presumably where he’d been sitting since the minute she awoke.
Pressing a hand to her pounding heart, her gaze darted wildly in search of a nearby weapon. Despite his marble-like stillness, an energy emanated from him that only heightened her agitation. He sat there like a deadly snake, frozen and still before the attack.
“Who are you?” She plucked a curling iron from the basket of rarely used hair products next to her sink.
“Gideon March.” Accompanying that less-than-enlightening introduction, something flew through the air to land on her bed, making her flinch. “You forgot that.”
Certain she detected amusement in his deep voice, she glanced at the object on her bed. Her purse. She looked back to the intruder’s shadowed features. “It was you in the alley,” she said slowly. “You saved me from that dog.”
Still brandishing the curling iron in her hand, she inched closer to flip on the bedside lamp. A soft glow filled the room, reaching its corners and granting her a better view of the man sitting so casually, so relaxed, in her bedroom—as if he had every right to be there. His large frame dwarfed the chair and she worried it might collapse beneath his weight. The muted haze of light did nothing to soften the hard planes of his face. Even as she acknowledged his arresting good looks, she had the distinct impression he rarely smiled. Lean bodied, stone faced with pale eyes—the exact color she couldn’t yet detect—a regular Marlboro Man.
Gideon March nodded at the curling iron in her hand. “Planning to curl my hair?”
“What are you doing here?” Her fingers flexed around the curling iron’s steel grip, ready to club him over the head if he moved her way. “I don’t think you broke in to my apartment to return my purse.”
“How’s your shoulder?”
She ignored his question. “I don’t have any money. Whatever I had was in that purse.”
“I’m not here to rob you.”
“Then what do you want?”
He sighed. “Someone’s got to explain what’s happening to you.”
She scowled at his cryptic answer, then rushed on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Listen, if you leave now, I won’t call the police. You brought my purse back, now—”
“Don’t you want to know what’s happening to you?” He leaned forward, his hands—large like the rest of him—dangling off his knees. “You’re one of them now,” he continued, “and more has changed than your eye color.”
She knew she should concentrate on getting this intruder out of her home, but what he said resonated within her. How had he known about her eyes? She couldn’t resist asking, “One of who?”
“Remember the kid you followed into the alley?”
“Lenny?”
“Your student, right?”
She could only nod, wondering how he knew she was a teacher and then remembering her school identification was in her wallet.
“He was one of them. He attacked you. Bit you. And now you’re one of them, too.” He spoke as if he were explaining something very basic. As if she were a child. As if she were stupid.
“A dog attacked me. Not Lenny,” she said in a voice that left no doubt which of them she considered mentally deficient.
“It was Lenny,” he said with quiet certainty, then repeated as vaguely as before, “and now you’re one of them.”
What on earth was that supposed to mean? Had she been involved in some sort of gang initiation and didn’t know it?
“What are you talking about?” She shook her head, trying to clear it. “One of who?”
“Lycans,” he said as though the term might ring a bell. When she didn’t respond, he explained, “Sort of like a werewolf. Only not like in the movies. Werewolves are Hollywood. Lycans are the real deal.”
“Werewolves,” she echoed, her gaze darting about again, renewing her search for a weapon, something better than a curling iron.
“You’re a lycan,” he said blandly, lacking the passion such a declaration might warrant—especially shouted from the padded room of
the insane asylum where he must normally reside.
She didn’t move, didn’t speak, afraid anything she chose to say might set him off.
“You’re a lycan,” he repeated in the same mild tone. For all the emotion in his voice he could have been the anonymous voice taking her order at a drive-through. “In a very short time you’ll be a perfect killing machine.”
“I see.” Her tongue darted out to moisten dry lips. With the utmost care, she adopted a slow, placating tone and said, “Let me get this straight. I’m a werewolf. And Lenny—” She stopped cold, recalling his exact words. Was. All need to placate fled.
“What do you mean was?” she demanded, fighting back the urge to shout. “What happened to Lenny?”
“He’s dead.” Again, the flat voice.
“Dead,” she murmured, her arm falling lifelessly to her side, her fingers loose around her weapon. Dead. The word rolled over her in a numbing fog. No. Not Lenny. He couldn’t be dead. He never got a chance to live. Not the kind of life he deserved, anyway.
“And you will be too if you don’t start listening to me.”
“Lenny,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Listen to me.” His biting command cut through her spinning thoughts, through the sorrow threatening to swallow her. “You don’t have time to grieve. I need—”
“How do you know he’s dead?” Her gaze leapt back to his face. Why should she believe this nutcase?
His mouth pressed shut and he glared at her.
Heedless of her own well-being, she lurched nearer, jabbing the curling iron in the air. “How do you know?” she demanded.
“Listen.” He clutched the fragile arms of her wicker chair as if battling for patience. “Your life is in danger. You need my help.”
Why couldn’t he just answer her question?
“He’s not dead,” she charged, shaking her head vigorously. “No way.” A fresh-out-of-the-asylum trespasser living under some very unhealthy delusions could hardly be counted on as a reliable source of information.
“He’s dead.” His voice broke through her denial with the viciousness of a whip. “And you will be too if you don’t get a grip and start worrying about your own ass.”
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