by Natalie Grey
He’d had a new harness made for this fight, for a specific reason: he was carrying over twice as many weapons as usual. His guns were side holstered, as per usual, and Jennifer’s both lay crossways across the small of his back. Two knives were strapped to each leg, three of them short and perfectly balanced for throwing, one of them a small—but surprisingly effective—combat knife. The grips were slightly too small for his hands.
But perfect in Jennifer’s.
Jennifer, an eminently capable warrior even without transforming, had inspired him to perfect standard combat tactics. His own knife, large and heavy, an upgraded version of the knife John had carried in the US military, went along the outside of his right calf, hidden under his pant leg. Stephen generally had no need for knives, and preferred the use of his own claws, but there were occasionally times and places when revealing the strength of his powers wasn’t the best idea.
Like, for instance, a sleepy Spanish town that didn’t yet know it was filled with creatures straight out of myths.
Stephen swung on his coat and went out into the main room for coffee. He caught himself taking down two mugs and smiled slightly. He and Jennifer would be together again tonight.
And he had nothing to worry about, he told himself. Her impulsiveness in battle was underlain with good instincts and even better skill. She was not going to be in any real danger, even with the extra guards in place. ADAM had identified which lab was hers, and Stephen intended to go there first.
He sipped at his coffee.
“Jennifer?”
Her answer came at once, “Yes?”
“Good morning.”
“It is a good morning, isn’t it?”
Stephen stopped, his cup halfway to his mouth. “You’re having a good morning and I’m not there to see it?”
“I know, it’s a shame. I’ll do my best to have a good morning when you’re around sometime.”
Stephen smirked. “Yeah, I have some ideas for that.”
He couldn’t hear her laughter, not exactly, but he could feel it.
“I’ll consider that a promise,” she told him when she’d stopped laughing. “See you soon.”
—
The buzz of the machines echoed off the stone walls as Sergio writhed on the floor of a cage.
Hugo watched, trying to hide both his smile and his anticipation. The transformation was coming. Sergio always tried to hold out, but he was never able to resist in the end. The waiting almost made it better.
Hugo had never liked relying entirely on anyone. Not his father, not Gerard, not any of his guards or stewards. He didn’t even like relying on his scientists. They had been working for years now without making too many breakthroughs, and he was getting tired of waiting.
He was starting to do his own experiments.
Sergio made an excellent candidate. As someone who had never been satisfactorily broken, he was clearly a failure on the scientist’s part. He’d been one of the earliest ones, implanted with a chip the way all of the experiments were at Velingrad. The chip, lying against the brainstem, was thought to amplify the effects of the radio waves, although Velingrad had no better results than any other facility.
Something to remember.
Sergio’s transformation came at last with a howl, and then a low-voiced rumble of hatred. The wolf crouched for a moment before starting to pace, yellow eyes fixed on Hugo.
Hugo felt a thrill, half-pleasure and half-fear. He had won, and both of them knew it—but without the cage, Sergio was still dangerous. That was why he could not yet be used: his transformations and his obedience could eventually be forced, but it took too long for them to trust him in battle. He could easily turn on someone before they could set him on his target.
The scientists had cautioned Hugo against keeping the waves running for too long. They were worried about mental deterioration, along with any number of other side effects they twittered on about. None of them seemed to understand that they weren’t here to become Nobel prize winners. They were here to make obedient warriors. Most still seemed hung up by the ethical guidelines they had used in the past, and he wondered how much this impeded their research. If he ever found out it had been seriously impeded, they were going to have a lot to answer for.
His eyes still locked on the beast’s, he began to turn the dial up. The command waves beat through the room: submit.
Sergio fought it. He paced, he shivered, he yipped.
But at last, he was on his back with his throat bared.
“Good.” Hugo smiled. “Now stay there. You can get up when I say.”
He left the room, the waves still turned up to their highest setting. He would break Sergio, he vowed. And then he would show the scientists exactly what they were doing.
Behind him, in the room, Sergio struggled to maintain a single shred of himself. The commands beat against his mind until he thought he would go mad. How the scientists could stimulate anger and pain with simple radio waves, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that they were able to do so, and that he could only hold out for so long before he snapped. He had never given up hope, he had never stopped fighting, but he wondered now if this would ever end. The pain was eating away at him, slowly but surely…
He breathed shallowly, heart racing.
Submit, submit, submit…
He would not give up. If he died, it would be with his mind intact. Slowly, battling every order, Sergio rolled and struggled to his feet. He was panting with pain, but he’d done it. He made armor of his own anger, he let it drive him, and even knowing that Hugo was gone from the room, he threw himself at the bars of the cage, snapping his jaws, just to see if he could.
He could.
When he lay down once more, throat bared, it was with a purpose: Hugo didn’t know that Sergio still had his mind about him. He couldn’t know. He wouldn’t know. Until it was too late.
—
Gerard was on the parapet watching the new reinforcements when Hugo found him. He forced himself to bow. He had seen Hugo’s increasing bad humor, and he knew what happened when a Marcari turned on one of his servants.
He could still see his father’s body when he closed his eyes.
Something that felt astonishingly like hatred washed through him and he struggled for control. He would not allow himself to fall into that trap. Sacrifices had to be made if you wanted to stand at the right hand of a king. If you wanted to have power.
And Gerard did want that.
“How are the new guards?” Hugo asked him. He seemed very pleased, though Gerard did not know why. No good news had come in during the past few days.
“Well trained. I would recommend that we see about replacing our existing guard rotation with these if finances allow.”
“Truly?” Hugo raised his eyebrows in surprise. “And what of our existing employees?”
“Clerical work,” Gerard said shortly. “They can file reports, check security and news feeds, and serve as messengers and liaisons. They have not failed us willfully, and do not need to be punished, per se. But they are incapable of serving as your guards, with the enemies we face.”
It was the correct answer, he knew. Hugo liked to believe that he was a benevolent overlord, and that he took good care of the commoners he ruled. He also liked to be served by the very best.
“You can feel free to open negotiations,” Hugo said now. “You’ve done well.”
“Thank you, my lord.” An extra show of deference never went amiss, Gerard reasoned.
“Before you do that, I would like you to go to the laboratories. Make sure that the guards there are familiar with all of the defensive systems they should know about.” The emphasis was slight. While the guard captains had protocols of which buttons to push in case of a breakout, even they did not realize that the facilities could be flooded with poison gas, and they did not realize that they might seal some of their own in the hallways with the escaped Wechselbalg.
It was best for guards not to know that sort of thing. Th
at sort of knowledge tended to make people weak, even when it was inarguably best for the majority.
“I will do so, my lord.”
“Oh, and one more thing.” Hugo smiled. “Tell Dr. Yordan to come to the castle at her earliest convenience. I have made a breakthrough, and require her analysis.”
He was gone, whistling, while Gerard stared after him with a frown.
Hugo had made a breakthrough?
Unlikely.
If Dr. Yordan was smart, she would keep a straight face and not contradict Hugo. But, of course, Gerard was hoping she wouldn’t know to do that.
The sooner she was out of the picture, the better.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gerard found the new scientist in her laboratory. She was looking at her papers with an expression of polite interest. Even if it wasn’t today, he decided, eventually she was going to slip up, and he was going to catch her. It might take weeks, but he could be patient when he needed to be.
She looked up when he came into the room, and he was pleased to see wariness in her eyes. It was good that she knew enough to worry about him and wonder what he wanted. Maybe when this was over, and he had proved she was a traitor, Hugo would let Gerard kill her.
A pleasant thing to think about. He smiled.
“Dr. Yordan, Mr. Marcari would like to see you at the castle.”
“Why?”
Gerard stared at her coldly. “It is not your place to question Mr. Marcari. Go now.”
He did not wait for her to respond, only left and went to the basement, where the new guards had entirely taken over the barracks. A few of the old guards hurried past him with resentful looks. If they’d been capable, no new guards would have been necessary.
Gerard almost hoped one or two of them would complain so he could make an example of them to the others. Just let them try to whine about this, when they were sitting around all day drinking wine and eating pastries. They wouldn’t last beyond a minute if the Wechselbalg got loose.
He was pleased to see all of the new guards nod to him as he came into the room, and they quieted at once. “I’ve come to see if there’s anything I can help with,” Gerard said pleasantly. “I see you have the building blueprints there.” A carefully edited set of blueprints was provided to the guard captains, conveniently leaving out the defense mechanisms.
“We’d like to patrol each of the floors and make sure the scientists are aware of how we operate,” the commander said. He was a tall man with blond hair thinning ever so slightly on top. “We’ve found that civilians are more predictable in a crisis if they know exactly where to go and what to expect from us.”
Gerard’s smile didn’t even flicker. “I can certainly arrange for you to meet all of them, perhaps later today in the cafeteria. But, there is a great deal of sensitive research being conducted, and we simply can’t allow you access to those floors except in case of emergency.”
“With all due respect, sir, we can’t efficiently guard places we’re not familiar with.”
“I can understand that. However….” Gerard gestured to the blueprints, “Not only do you have those, the layout of the middle floors is identical to that of the first floor. If something goes wrong, there won’t be any surprises.”
“There’s more to it than that,” the man argued. “Loose floor tiles, flickering lights, exposed pipes—anything and everything can be useful in a fight. We really should see those areas.”
“And I can’t allow it.” Gerard’s tone was crisp and cool. “Consider it a condition of your continued employment that you refrain from going to those floors.” His gaze swept around the room. “Are we clear?”
To the man’s credit, he didn’t even hesitate. “Absolutely, sir. I don’t mean to cause any trouble.”
“Then see that you don’t,” Gerard said simply. He left without another word.
If these men took continued employment here—or at least those of them who Gerard deemed had enough leverage to be kept in line with threats and blackmail—they would see everything. For now, they were temporary and they needed to know their place.
—
Jennifer made a show of feigning indifference to the soldiers around her as she was let into the courtyard. She kept her hands in her pockets and her eyes straight ahead. But she was taking in everything through her peripheral vision. Two trucks were together at the edges of the courtyard. The benches where the men sat while being transported were hollow, and the raised bed of the truck also seemed to hold supplies; she caught the shape of ammo boxes when she turned her head slightly. The men themselves moved well in their armor. Their gear was expensive, and they handled their weapons with ease. They also had discipline, evident in the fact that not one of them whistled or catcalled. These men wouldn’t be easily distracted or frightened.
It was going to be somewhat of a challenge. Jennifer allowed herself a small smile. She ascended the stairs at the end of the courtyard and nodded to the butler inside the main doors. It was ridiculous that Hugo had a butler. She was led along corridors with faded carpets, and past a room that emitted a tooth-aching buzz. Jennifer frowned at that, but the butler didn’t seem like the type to answer questions.
In Hugo’s study, she found him sitting behind his massive desk, smiling broadly. The room was ridiculously opulent, from the mahogany furniture to the priceless rugs and the paintings that practically lined the walls. The effect was, Jennifer thought, a little bit like a kid playing dress up.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yes. Dr. Yordan, I have something exciting to show you. I believe I have made a breakthrough in forcing the beasts to accept me as their Alpha.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jennifer knew her voice sounded icy at the use of the word ‘beasts,’ and she scrambled to recover. “I am sorry, my Catalan is still not so good. I beg your pardon, sir. Did you say you’ve made a breakthrough? That is very good news.” The last words had to be forced out.
I swear, I will kill you with my bare hands. Though the thought of sinking her teeth into him was also a good one…
“Yes.” If Hugo was upset by her momentary lapse, he didn’t show it. “Come, come. I’ll show you.”
He led the way back to the strange room, and Jennifer hung back outside the door, suddenly worried. She knew the results of the experiments they had done in these facilities, but she’d never seen one performed.
She found that she really didn’t want to.
This will be over tonight, this will be over tonight, this will be over tonight… She walked through the door with a cursory smile.
And her world turned inside out. Pure rage pounded at her, pain assailed her on all sides, and through the haze of everything, she could hear only one command: submit, submit, submit.
What the hell was going on here? She raised her head blearily and saw a cage, a wolf prone on its back, throat exposed. It had been forced to obedience, by the very waves that were assaulting her now.
Sudden panic made her want to run from the room. She was going to transform. She was going to transform and she couldn’t stop herself.
>>Jennifer? Are you all right? Your heart rate has increased sharply and—<<
But ADAM’s words disappeared into a roaring in her ears.
“Dr. Yordan?” Hugo was bending over her.
She must have fallen.
“Dr. Yordan, are you alright?”
“I’m… just…” Oh, please no.
But as ridiculous as it was to think of Hugo as her Alpha, as easy as it would be to resist the urge to submit, the urge to transform was still strong. She could feel the change coming, ripping through her, and she could not stop it. She rolled her head, breathing labored, and the last thing she saw before her transformation was the gaze of the other werewolf.
Unwatched by Hugo, clearly understanding what was happening to her, the Wechselbalg had flipped to its feet and was staring at her. There was awareness in its gaze—awareness, and self-control.
Jennifer clu
ng to that fact as the room seemed to go pitch black.
---
>>Stephen!<<
“What? What is it?” Stephen jerked up from his last, obsessive scan of the blueprints.
>>You have to go now. Go to the castle.<< ADAM’s voice was urgent. >>She’s transforming. They ran an experiment on her.<<
“What?”
>>I don’t understand, she didn’t ask for my help. I don’t know what’s happening, there aren’t cameras in that room. She’s on the second floor after the staircase up from the courtyard. I’m cutting the power now, and the link between the facilities, but you have to go now.<<
“I’m on my way.” Stephen ran for the door, yelling for the others.
—
The room went dark and Hugo stumbled for the lightswitch near the doorway. He fumbled in the darkness, fingers sliding over stone and plaster. Dr. Yordan was sick, he had to get the lights on and get her help. One of his foremost researchers could not be lost. He was still fumbling when he heard the rattle of the cage door and his blood turned to ice.
Oh, no. He turned, heart in his throat. The power had kept the cage doors closed.
And was he seeing… no, it couldn’t be. But he could swear he was seeing two pairs of wolf’s eyes gleaming in the faint light that came from under the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Catalonia, Spain
“ADAM, tell me you have a plan for getting us into that castle!” Stephen pounded down the stairs to the ground floor—and the car Bobcat had pulled around. Rumbling and mean, it was a 1965 Pontiac GTO that Lance and Bobcat had practically drooled over.
Stephen couldn’t have cared less right now. Hell, he’d be happy with a rabid camel if it got him to the castle in good time.
>>Pucks,<< ADAM said succinctly.
“What?”
>>Pucks. With nets. It will help you get onto the parapets from the back of the castle—and it will help the car get to the back of the castle.<<
Stephen relayed this to Bobcat, who muttered, “It had better not scratch the paint job.”
>>You have reinforcements coming as well,<< ADAM informed Stephen.
