Dire Wolf Wanted

by Carol Van Natta

  Rayne didn’t ask, but Lerro already seemed to know about her sister. “Skyla thought you died. We all did. She told everyone to be ready and help each other. She broke the shifter cell-door spells during the earthquake.”

  Rayne’s eyes widened. “Did she create the earthquake?” It wouldn’t entirely surprise her, given Skyla’s phenomenal talent for powerful, complex magic.

  A corner of Lerro’s mouth twitched in what may have been amusement. “The moon goddess created it. They took advantage of her blessing.”

  Rayne braced herself for bad news. “Did Skyla make it out?”

  The burn-scarred badger shifter named Chess, a former roommate, sat on the other side of her. “I saw her and Brick, the human-brain-damaged Siberian tiger, go out a hidden emergency exit before it flooded.” He laughed derisively. “Blind-ass guards kept mistaking Lerro for her when they did headcounts.”

  How like her sister to help someone in need. Rayne held tightly to the hope that Skyla got safely away.

  Rayne’s scheme to get herself caught by the auction house had inadvertently snared her brilliant, gentle, younger sister, too. For that, Rayne deserved every hit, kick, and magical punch she’d taken, and especially for making Skyla think she was dead. Her sister never would have left without her, otherwise, and Rayne had an auction house to ransack for its records before destroying it for good.

  Dizziness fought with nausea. The illusions she’d magically bound to her bone marrow and glands had saved her life more than once, but they extracted a price. “When’s the next meal?”

  The hyena shifter stress-pacing back and forth barked a laugh. “You may smell odd, but you are a true shifter.” His Zulu accent and his black-as-night skin put him far from his original home. “Supper in one hour, about. They keep a regular schedule now.”

  When she’d first arrived, the auction house had done its best to keep their captives off-balance by varying meal times and sleep periods, and keeping the location top secret. It didn’t work well on her because her strongest magical gift was discovery.

  She’d memorized the guards and quickly figured out which wore watches or carried forbidden cellphones while on duty. From conversations they’d thought private, she learned that the underground facility hid in the hills above Santa Barbara, California, and that buyers flew in via helicopter. She’d made sure to tell every shifter she’d ever been in a cell with.

  Although she was now stiff, she was undamaged and cleaner than she’d been in weeks. She couldn’t have healed the catastrophic damage she’d had in five days without magical help, which meant someone might have discovered some of her secrets. “Who brought me back?”

  Mondo, the wide-chested gorilla shifter, missing an ear and three toes, padded over. “The jerk wizard.”

  Rayne laughed. “Name one that isn’t.”

  The old capybara shifter named Octavia, sitting in the corner near the toilet and sink, chuckled. “The pretty jerk with the short beard and all the jewelry. The guards call him ‘Boy Wizard’ behind his back. He’s the only one left besides Balton.”

  A tremor shook Lerro hard, raising his knees and slamming his head against the back wall.

  Rayne didn’t know how to help him. Even if she had enough magic reserves to cast a healing spell, all the ones she knew needed specific targets.

  Lerro grabbed her arm and pulled her close to whisper in her ear. “You’re off to see the wizard.”

  Suddenly her face slammed hard onto his knee. Pain exploded in her nose. Blood sprayed.

  She rolled away, across Chess’s legs and onto the floor in a defensive crouch, expecting another attack.

  It didn’t come. Lerro shook with his own private earthquake, in full-blown seizure. His eyes rolled up as his head repeatedly banged against the wall.

  She stood and backed away, but the pain stayed with her. She used the hem of her T-shirt to stanch the blood coming from her nose and lacerated mouth. So much for being clean and healthy again.

  Mondo marched to the corner, where the cell bars fronted the concrete walls, and shouted up at the ceiling camera just outside the cell. “Hey, guards!” He pointed at thumb toward Rayne. “Better get her back to the infirmary.”

  The guard called Foster showed up moments later with a transport cart, so they must have already seen the incident.

  Foster leveled his weapon. “Hug the walls!”

  Everyone except trembling Lerro followed the order.

  Foster opened the cell door and shoved the cart halfway in. “Chekal, on the cart. Shackle up.”

  Rayne sat on the cart, swung her legs up, and locked the shackles on each ankle and wrist. She ignored the obviously broken neck restraint.

  Icy déjà vu slid through her. She’d taken on the role of a chained and collared feral, with her animal mind in control of her human body, so her sister would believe her death. She shook the painful, guilty memory off as unhelpful. She’d need all her wits to deal with boy wizards.

  Foster hauled her up the ramp. He handed her cart over to Perry, then sat at a table full of monitors.

  From what Rayne could see of the hub, the gutted shell of the control room looked like something had exploded outward. Shattered and melted glass glinted in frames that had once held windows. A tangled mess of cables ran through rough-cut pipe straps nailed to the ceiling.

  Perry, who had a watch and a cell phone, grumbled a litany of cursing complaints about being short staffed, double shifts, and no help from clueless bosses as she pulled the cart down the administration wing’s hall.

  Rayne hated riding on her back, and each bump over the uneven surface made her head thump. She couldn’t smell anything but her own blood. Ordinarily, her swollen nose and bruised face would heal in under an hour, even without shifting, but not after what she’d been through.

  Perry stopped the cart in the hallway and used her nightstick to pound on a door with a big white cross painted on it. “Customer for you, Díaz!”

  The door opened to reveal a lithe, dark-haired man in black. A wide darkened leather bracelet peeked out from under a shirt cuff. He scowled at Perry. “You broke her already?” A Spanish accent threaded through his testy tone.

  “Not us. She was too close to crazy-ass Lerro when he had one of his fits.” Perry looked at her watch. “Do your thing fast. The auctioneer wants fresh pictures in twenty minutes.”

  Díaz’s annoyed expression turned to exasperation. “Of course. I’ll wave my star shine glitter-wand.”

  Perry blew out a hissing breath. “Just make her look pretty on the outside, so she starts a bidding war, so we get the percentage bonus Aldenrud promised us for staying.” She took a step away, then turned back. “And for God’s sake, hose her off or something. She smells like a sewer.” Perry wrinkled her nose as she strode away down the hall, her equipment belt jingling.

  Díaz pulled the cart into a room with three empty treatment beds and one wall lined with closed cabinets. The stinging antiseptic smell cleared her sinuses and made her eyes water. She didn’t think she’d ever been there before, but it felt familiar.

  Díaz slammed the door shut, then stood facing her, arms crossed, frowning. “What’s the English phrase? You keep coming back like a bad penny.”

  Díaz’s voice sounded familiar, too, even though she’d only seen him from a distance. Considering recent events, he’d probably been the one to heal her, and likely in this room. Her inner wolf nudged her to focus because she was missing something.

  She rattled a chain. “Not my choice.”

  He stomped noisily around her cart to the counter with drawers underneath and cabinets above. He rummaged in a drawer as he turned on water in the narrow sink.

  She set her intuition loose as she watched him, looking for clues as to what hid beneath the prickly surface of petulance and condescension.

  She’d already noted the necklaces, multiple earrings, and wide metal wristbands with flashy gems surrounded by subtle runes. The heavy, black work boots didn’t go with th
e rest of his attire. From the back, his charcoal silk shirt and designer black-leather pants hugged his trim and tightly muscled figure like a second skin. His slightly swarthy, intensely handsome features and dark hair and beard could be from any of a dozen ethnicities. No wonder Octavia had called him pretty.

  Magic flared from him. It felt like a shielding spell of some sort. Unexpectedly, it also felt like plush velvet brushing every inch of her. Her inner wolf leaned into the sensation and sent her a suggestion. Inwardly, she rolled her eyes. I am not licking him.

  He tossed a washrag onto the cart next to her hand. “Clean your face.”

  Irritated, she lifted her shackled arm and rattled the short chain.

  He sighed gustily, then focused his gaze on the shackle. Magic flared. The shackle popped open, along with the one on her neck.

  Her idiot inner wolf shivered with sensuous delight. Her human brain noted the easy precision of his spell. Control like that took time and practice to achieve, meaning he was likely older than the mid-thirties he looked to be. And strong, because youth spells for humans took a lot of power.

  She draped the warm, soapy washrag over her mouth and chin, then gingerly pushed it around to mop up half-dried blood.

  He cleared his throat. “Your magic feels depleted. Can you shift?” She must have imagined the hint of compassion in his dark eyes before he turned his head.

  Yes! barked her wolf, sending an image of a huge, orange-eyed, Arctic-white dire wolf prancing like a show pony. He is one of us.

  Rayne needed to have a serious discussion with her furry half about its runaway imagination.

  She pulled the washrag away from her mouth. “No, I can’t.”

  While shifting would take care of the swelling and bruises, she couldn’t risk him discovering her secrets. She couldn’t work magic as well as a wolf. He had too many advantages already.

  He frowned. “Are you sure? Quick-repair spells hurt.”

  She couldn’t tell if he wanted to see her shift or save her pain. Either way, she didn’t trust him. “Do what you have to do.”

  A fleeting expression that said “It’s your funeral” crossed his face.

  Magic flared. Her face felt like she stuck her head in a furnace. Involuntary tears formed. She recognized the spell as a variant of one she often used, but more powerful.

  Her body came alive, primed, ready for action, preferably the hot-and-sweaty-in-bed kind. Her inner wolf writhed in pleasure. An unknown, enticing scent curled up into her nostrils and sent her wolf into paroxysms of bliss, and an electric jolt through her breasts and core. Ours!

  An involuntary gasp escaped her as shock rocked her harder than a roundhouse punch from a rock giant.

  This vain, condescending, slave-trading wizard, this exotically handsome man who was far older than he looked, this hidden shifter with three spirits, according to her own hidden wolf, was her mate.

  Intellectually, she recognized the classic signs—the best scent in the world, the instant hormone rush, the compatible magic that felt like foreplay. Plus the enticing subtle golden glow of drifting mate-bond threads, which she’d only seen for other shifters, never herself. Just like all the stories.

  Rayne must have committed some horrible sin against the moon goddess.

  No way was she the true mate of a freaking wizard-shifter who willingly profited off selling other shifters like they were sheep to a slaughterhouse. She’d just as soon kill him as kiss him. If she was feeling charitable, she’d turn him over to the Shifter Tribunal. Maybe she’d visit him in prison.

  She ruthlessly dragged her eyes from him to stare at the ceiling, letting herself wince from the pain of the healing spell to cover her reaction. Distractions could kill her if she didn’t focus.

  The cart began to vibrate. The cabinet doors rattled in their frames and drawers jostled open. She’d lived in Los Angeles long enough to know an earthquake when she felt one. She hoped the cracked ceiling would hold, or she’d soon be Rayne pancake.

  Díaz muttered a curse in Spanish as he strode toward the wide metal desk to pull the two chairs away. He waved a hand toward her.

  All her shackles snapped open. She rolled off the cart and into a crouch on the shaking floor.

  He crouched down and under the desk. “Get under here.”

  She narrowed her eyes at the peremptory command but followed his order. Standing on principle was a good way to become an earthquake casualty. Crouching under the sturdy desk upped her survival odds, but it put her closer to him than she liked.

  The ground shaking subsided after a dozen seconds, so it was likely just an aftershock. Unfortunately, it was plenty of time to memorize his unique human scent, the one he hid under a veneer of prickly wizard magic and something icy cold and darker than night.

  Just fucking fabulous. Her prize of a would-be mate also dabbled in black sorcery.

  Maybe she’d sinned against a whole pantheon of gods.

  She was consoling herself with the fact that he obviously didn’t feel anything toward her but irritation, when she noticed perspiration beaded on his face and his clenched jaw, and his eyes momentarily flashed red-gold.

  Fear washed away the tendrils of desire and raised the hackles of her inner wolf. She lunged out and away from him fast, giving herself room.

  Meeting a true mate was supposed to be blessed and magical, but every shifter knew the whispered tales of bad and tragic matings. True-mate biology affected ferals and sociopaths, too.

  If he lost control with her, she wasn’t going down without a fight.

  3

  Arvik’s jaw ached with the effort to keep the Arturo Díaz shell from shattering.

  Even if he still didn’t know Rayne Chekal’s true scent, he felt everything else his mated shifter friends had talked about—desire, fascination, protectiveness, hope. His secret inner beasts not only didn’t care about the immediate danger and impossible situation, they wanted to meet her and tell her everything.

  He watched her spring away from him and felt her unique shifter magic surge. Not alpha, not loner, just different. Compatible with his own, just like mates should be. He’d always been a sucker for learning new magic.

  She will heal us, his beasts asserted.

  He wasn’t damaged, and Arvik didn’t have time to wonder what they were talking about. She’s scared, he told them. She’ll kill us.

  Most shifters had speed and fight experience, but she had lethal skills that didn’t come from ordinary pack life. In between healing sessions, he’d watched the security video of her fight with the guards. Feral or not, it had taken eight of them to bring her down. He wouldn’t have lasted as long, even with magic.

  He slowly stood, then sidled away from her and held up his hands in a show of peace. “I swear that I will not harm you.”

  The scorn in her bark of laughter could etch glass.

  He deserved it. Considering she likely thought of him as a slaver, it had been a useless thing to say, even if it was the truth.

  He gave her one of Arturo’s put-upon sighs. “I have to take you back.” He pointed to the cart.

  She raised a pointed eyebrow, then sat on the cart. She kept an eye on him the whole time as she attached the shackles to her ankles and wrists. Somehow, she managed to make each snap remind him of his pledge not to harm her.

  He needed a long vacation after this mission. Fine food. Dark forest. Ocean beach. An adventurous lover. A slender, long-legged maned wolf to play with in the snow—

  The clinic door slammed open with a loud bang.

  Arvik cast an aggrieved glare at the facility manager, Aldenrud, who stood in the doorway. “By all means, barge right in.”

  Aldenrud, a sorcerer who had cultivated a corporate middle-manager look, down to artfully graying temples and an old-school tie, was impervious to Díaz’s sarcasm. He looked over Chekal with assessing eyes. “She’ll do. Take her straight out. The executive board is making an unannounced visit and wants to see all the shifters.”

&nb
sp; Arvik very much wanted to see the board, but it wasn’t wise to let his surprise or eagerness show. He raised his eyebrows. “Chained to the cart?” A distinct breach of the auctioneer’s rules. Buyers wanted healthy shifters who stood on their own two feet.

  Aldenrud tightened his lips in annoyance. “No, find some walking shackles or chains. Just get her out there.”

  Aldenrud turned and exited, leaving the door wide open.

  Arvik turned to find her watching him expressionlessly. She probably killed at bluff games. Maybe he could challenge her to a game of strip poker, so he could lose on purpose.

  He gave himself a mental shake. Mating instincts were not helping. Secret missions took precedence over desire-driven thoughts.

  With luck, his hasty shield spell kept her from recognizing him as her mate, assuming she even felt the call. Despite the stubborn insistence of his nagging animals and the sudden tightness of his pants when near her, he wasn’t convinced he felt the call, either.

  He reseated himself in Arturo Díaz’s grumbly skin and pushed Chekal on the cart to the hub, only to find it deserted. No captives, no guards, no wizards. They must all be in the auction wing.

  It’d be the perfect opportunity for spying, if he didn’t have Chekal. On the other hand, she was the perfect excuse.

  He cast a quick spell to open the cart’s shackles, then tossed sets of separate ankle and wrist shackles to her. He took the opportunity to sabotage the other sets with his magic. He detested them.

  He used the looped chain on her wrist shackles to lead her into the administrative wing, then turned left into the branch with offices. He knocked confidently on the executive boardroom’s ornate door, then cast a tiny spell to unlock it as he let himself in. Motion-sensor lights tripped on as he pulled her in and shut the door.