Lycanthropy Files Box Set: Books 1-3 Plus Novella

by Cecilia Dominic

  We stood in his kitchen, where I cooked dinner for him and Selene. She hadn’t arrived yet, so we were able to discuss her freely. Correction—he felt free to question me about her.

  I sliced tomatoes for atop the rocket salad with a vinaigrette and pondered his question. “I suppose it’s because she’s beautiful, yes, but also there’s a sadness like she hasn’t ever been able to let go and enjoy herself fully. She has the same look in her eye as I remember my mother having after my father died—she’s hanging on for someone else, not for her.”

  “You can’t save your mother through this girl,” David said and sipped his Scotch. “You’re only going to disappoint yourself and her by chasing that ghost.”

  We both paused, but my father’s ghost didn’t make an appearance. He’d been strangely silent and absent lately after delivering his warning about the battlefield demon and the Boar King, neither of which made sense to me in my current context. I wondered if that was who or what had Selene’s brother, especially now I knew a dark Fey was mixed up in it. Every so often I looked out the window at the back lawn that stretched to the woods in hopes of seeing a small red wolf coming our way. I had her clothes in an upstairs bedroom waiting for her.

  That reminded me of our encounter the previous night. “I can’t figure her out. She’s so vulnerable, but she keeps insisting she can handle her own problems. Yet she’s caught up in something big, and I know it has something to do with our Institute.”

  “Do you trust her?”

  I paused. “I would like to, but I don’t know yet.”

  For before our run, I’d planned a dinner of venison with bramble sauce, salad, and berry tart, but as the time for Selene to arrive came and went, and the shadows from the woods lengthened to dusk, I had David eat and finally decided to go look for her.

  “Be careful out there,” he warned. “My lands are warded, but the properties around me aren’t, and who knows what lurks in the woods?”

  I went into an upstairs bedroom to change. It faced the east, and light from the rising moon spilled through the windows. The sensation that I’d felt in Bartholomew’s office, that of some force rising from my toes through my legs and torso and spreading outward from my solar plexus, overtook me, and I barely got my clothes off before I had to curl into a ball, contracting and then expanding into my new shape. My palms and fingers, feet and toes met the floor as paws and claws, and the warmth of fur enveloped me like a velvet blanket inside my skin. Although I felt shrunk and pushed and pulled, this transformation was still not as bad as it previously had been, and I was grateful for it.

  Instead of having to catch my breath, I yawned with my wide jaws and tasted the scents of the bedroom—the cleaning products and the lemon-rosemary scent of Selene’s things. I stuck my head in her bag and sniffed them, anchoring her unique scent in my memory so I could track her.

  “You look less winded than usual,” David commented when I met him downstairs. “You must be getting better at it.”

  “Right. It’s another manifestation of my lycanthrope power, isn’t it?”

  “Quite likely. That’s good—you’re going to need it at Monday’s Council meeting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Later. Go find your girl.”

  The moonlight, warm in spite of its cool color, caressed my fur, and I had to remind myself to focus on the task at hand rather than the desire to howl and play with the moonbeams. The silvery light had never felt like anything externally before, just a desire in the blood to run with my pack. Now whatever had prompted me to change also propelled me to find Selene and protect her, who would be the first in my own little pack.

  A breeze brought her scent to me, and I followed it through the woods over and under fallen trees, silvered branches and bushes. I may have found a thorn with my foot, but I shook it out and licked the rusty blood away. The single-minded purpose of finding she who I wanted to protect and make my own drove me forward. I vaulted over chasms I would not have dared to leap otherwise and ignored distractions—a badger hissing at me from its nest and one of those strange stones I’d discovered on my previous jaunt.

  She stood waiting for me on a rock over a pool, and I panted, looking at her with relief and some irritation that she’d stood me and David up for dinner.

  “Where were you? I was worried.”

  “I couldn’t make it. They called and wanted me to come sooner, so I had to. I’ve only just now gotten here, and I couldn’t remember which way to go.”

  I leapt to join her, and she pressed her body to mine. She shivered in spite of her fur.

  “Lie down. I’ll keep you warm.”

  She did as I said, and I curled up with her until she stopped shaking. Then I asked as gently as I could, “What happened?”

  She sniffled, a surprisingly human sound for her current form. “They brought me to what I’d lost, and it was there, but it wasn’t the same as I remembered it or wanted it to be.”

  “Tell me what it was. Or let me guess—your brother?”

  She looked at me sharply, and the expression in her eyes told me I’d guessed right. “How did you know?”

  I stood and paced. “You didn’t think we’d figure it out eventually, that the sixth file that wouldn’t upload was your brother’s application? Your friends, or whoever they are, didn’t realize that by trying to block it, they were calling attention to it.”

  She regarded me with a bemused expression on her canine face. “Congratulations, Sherlock. It seemed a pretty good plan at the time, but you don’t have the whole story.”

  “What is the whole story, Selene?”

  “It’s the oldest story in the world, Gabriel.” She shook her head and put it on her paws. “And I didn’t see it. I’m so stupid.” The bitterness and despair in her tone drew forth my desire to protect her from whatever trouble she’d gotten herself into, but I needed more. I needed her to be honest with me.

  “Tell me everything from the beginning.”

  “Can we go back to David’s house? He needs to hear some of this, too. It reaches all the way up to the Council.”

  Typically after I run at the full moon, I feel sated like I’ve consumed rich food and alcohol with my spirit, not my body, although sometimes I do hunt. The venison we’d had for dinner was meat from an animal I’d caught and killed at Lycan Castle. Tonight, lured on by the promise of discovering Selene’s secrets—and I’ll admit to wanting to finish what we’d started with the stolen embrace at her apartment—I kept my alertness. That was how I knew something was terribly wrong when we arrived at Laird Hall.

  On the surface, the castle looked the same, but something moved in the shadows, and it wasn’t David. The shape of my father’s ghost stepped forth, his hands up, and I slowed to a trot. I saw him just before the aroma of pipe smoke and kerosene wafted to me, and my hackles stood alert—it was the same scent I’d found at the Institute, but this time it was stronger. The perpetrator was still there, and this time he wouldn’t escape.

  A hiss and spark made me skid to a halt and dart to the side as quickly as I could. Selene did likewise, and the warmth of an explosion bloomed at our backs. It knocked us off our feet, and every bit of my fur was flattened by the pressure wave. I curled around Selene so my back took the brunt of the heat, and the smell of singed hair embittered the sweet scent of the summer night.

  “Are you okay?” Selene asked.

  “I think so. My backside is likely bald, but I don’t feel any burns or severe injury, at least not yet. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. What was that?”

  “Some sort of explosive. Someone doesn’t want us getting into the house.”

  “It’s the same person who killed Otis. I remember that smell.”

  We kept to the shadows of the woods and circled the house. My back felt stiff, and I wondered if I could be more hurt than I thought. Thankfully the incendiary device hadn’t thrown any shrapnel, at least not in our direction. Without David to let us in, I didn’t kn
ow how we would get into the house, but I also knew he would have some way to do so. He’d spoken of secret passages, and I tried to mentally map out the dungeon as it would be beneath our feet. Not that I’d been in it, but I’d visited other houses of that age and knew the general layout.

  “What are you looking for?” Selene’s mental voice still held an edge of panic.

  “The way in he’d use when he’s running by himself. Keep watching the house and lawn and tell me if you see anything interesting.”

  “Right.”

  Finally I found a grate that opened with a hard press of a lever, and we descended a steep tunnel into the gloom. The grate clicked closed behind us. Even with my wolf eyes and their superior ability to make out objects in the dark, I couldn’t see very far in front of us, and at points, the space was so narrow we had to crawl. An occasional whimper escaped my lips when my back touched the top of the passage and pain stabbed through me. The tunnel opened up into the lower hall I remembered, but another grate blocked us in and wouldn’t give when I pushed against it.

  “Dammit,” I couldn’t help but say. “We’re stuck.”

  “Is there a similar catch on the other side?” Selene asked. “If so, maybe you can get a paw around.”

  I tried and found one, but the angle was wrong for me to get enough pressure on it to open it. Selene tried as well, her paws being smaller, but it was no good.

  “I’m going to change,” I said. “Maybe I can get it with my human hands.”

  “I’ll give you space.”

  She backed up, and I hesitated. David had asked me if I trusted her. Transforming back, especially hurt as I was, would put me in a very vulnerable position, especially at that final moment of disorientation before my brain changed from lycanthrope to human mode.

  Screw it, I do trust her. I have to.

  I changed back into a human. The process bumped me against the sides of the tunnel, and I became all too aware of my injuries as muscles and skin rearranged themselves.

  “You’re burned,” was Selene’s assessment. “We need to get you medical attention.”

  “First we need to get un-stuck.” I tried to reach my hand through the holes in the grate, but it wouldn’t fit. “Damn, I’m too big. Your hand might work, though.”

  “I’ll try it, but I need room to change. It’s too narrow back here.”

  I scrunched against the wall and hissed at the searing pain along my lower and middle back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll try to make this quick.”

  She took a deep breath, curled up as tightly as she could, and unfolded into a lovely, naked, sweaty female body. If my back hadn’t been throbbing, I would’ve enjoyed the view better. I also felt a pang of guilt that she hadn’t hesitated like I had.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “For what?” She wiggled to try to lie on her stomach, and I hissed when she bumped me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “God, we sound like a couple of Canadians. You’re going to have to lie on top of me so I can get my hand through at the right angle.”

  “Are you sure? I might crush you.”

  “Support yourself with your arms.”

  We rearranged, and in order to keep from bumping my back into the roof of the tunnel, I had to keep myself pressed to her backside. Her breasts ended up pillowed on the backs of my hands. I’ll enjoy remembering this later. In the meantime, hurry.

  “I’ve almost got it,” she said. “How are you doing up there?”

  “Truth be told, I’m no longer as aware of my back.”

  She shook with her chuckle. “Happy to be of service. Glad you’re keeping your sense of humor.”

  The catch gave way, and the door opened…inward.

  “Argh,” she said. “Can you scoot back or change again? I think I can squeeze past.”

  “Change, right. Maybe not. Not enough room with both of us being human. Can you?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t have it in me. Okay, scoot back, then.”

  I did, and she ended up with her ass in my face as she swung the door inward.

  “Now let’s find David,” I said.

  “Can you change back into a wolf? We’re pretty vulnerable here.”

  I shrugged, and pain shot along my shoulders and down to my butt. “I dare not until I can get treated for these burns.”

  We crept along the walls and stuck to the shadows as much as possible. No ghosts, friendly or otherwise, came to bother or help us. Selene, stuck in her human form due to physical and emotional exhaustion, was only slightly less vulnerable than I because of my injuries.

  “Take my hand and lead me,” I said. “I’m going to turn on my werewolf hearing and smell so we’ll have that, at least, but I need to close my eyes.”

  “Okay, but I don’t know where I’m going.”

  “Straight down the hall. There’s a door with a staircase on the other side.”

  She took my hand, and I closed my eyes and activated my lycanthropic senses. The hallway sprang to relief with its mélange of musty, dusty, and cool smells. There was also a hint of pipe smoke and kerosene, which had perhaps been cleaned out by the fresh air from the ventilation shaft. And, of course, our sweat and human smells, which yelled our presence to any creature that may be near. Luckily it seemed that whoever had been down here had already left. And blood—more than there should be for it to be mine.

  Then I turned on my wolf ears. The hall came alive with the scratchings and skitterings of small many-legged creatures in the walls and along the floor. I opted not to tell Selene about the animal life of the dungeon, although being from the Southeastern United States, she’d probably taken care of her share of them. Something about her, possibly the way she’d handled Morena or how she carried herself, told me she wasn’t the type to yell for daddy to come kill the bug. She led me with some hesitation, being limited by her human vision and having to feel along the walls.

  “What’s down here?” she asked. Her voice sounded loud in comparison to the other noises I’d been concentrating on. “Is it a real dungeon? Do you hear or smell anything?”

  “Nothing human or lycanthrope. As for where we are, David has a special room where he keeps his documents, and otherwise he uses the cells for furniture storage.”

  She didn’t speak further until she came to the end of the hall. “I think I’ve found the stairs.”

  I opened my eyes, and the noise- and smell-scape of the dungeon retreated. I ignored the urge to pop my ears to clear them, knowing it wouldn’t do me any good. A sigh bubbled up, and my back throbbed in time to the inhale and exhale.

  Selene opened the door slowly and stopped when it squeaked like it wanted to let forth a mighty haunted house creak.

  “Can you squeeze through?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I sucked my stomach in and slid through sideways, only barely grazing my injury, which still burned, although not as badly as I’d suspected. My previous head injury came to mind and the speed at which I’d healed from it, so I wondered if the same might be happening to my back. That made me even more eager for Selene to clean it up—I didn’t want the skin and muscle to heal over bits of rock and dirt that could cause infection, scar tissue and other problems.

  Selene followed me, and in the dim light from the open door at the top of the stairs—suspicious in itself—all I could see was her delectable female outline and shape. The kerosene-pipe smell lingered more strongly here, as did the blood, and I gestured for her to get behind me in case someone waited at the top of the stairs for us. We ascended into a scene of horror.

  23

  The scent of blood was neither subtle nor hidden, and I easily followed its trail to the dining room, where David—or what was left of him—sat tied to one of his chairs. Either he’d decided to look back through his documentation on Wolfsheim or the intruders had found it because the now familiar papers sat scattered over the top of the table. Splotches of blood punctuated the statements and pictures in a fine spray. More blood coated the f
loor and windows. David sat with his head back, his throat a gaping testament to the powerful, violent magic that had been wrought upon him, similar to the security guards at the Institute. It was only later that my mind would remember his lips curled in a smile.

  Selene’s horrified gasp reminded me I wasn’t alone.

  “Oh, god, it’s just like Otis,” she said and covered her face.

  I pulled her to me and bent my head to hers, but the image remained even when I closed my eyes. Nausea warred with a howl that rose up from my gut, and Selene pulled away when the tremors started under my skin. She backed up, one hand over her mouth and the other arm across her stomach, and she fell to her knees. The same force that had come over me in Bartholomew Campbell’s office and after exploded outward. I changed quicker than ever before into an animal larger and fiercer than my previous manifestation. I did throw my head back then and howled with rage and despair at the last link to my father’s past being gone and the budding friendship lost.

  “Calm yourself, son.” It was my father’s voice, or what was left of him. The memories I craved had died with David. The ghost stood there, and with my wolf eyes, I saw the red glow around him. His face, illuminated by some inner light and no longer hidden under the brim of his hat, appeared clear to me, and his eyes regarded me with compassion. Now the pressure tried to turn into a sob, difficult in my wolf form, and it came out as a whine.

  “David’s dead, and my only link to the killer is…” I looked at Selene.

  “I can’t.” She shook her head. “If I do, they’ll kill Curtis.”

  Now disappointment stabbed through me, and I growled. “Can’t you see that they’ll kill him eventually regardless of what you do? And now that you know their secrets, you’re in danger too. We all are.”

  “No one comes from an encounter with Death unchanged,” my father’s ghost intoned and disappeared.

  Selene stood and ran from the room. I followed her upstairs to a bedroom, but she locked the door before I could get in. I looked down the stairs, and the flickering light from the fire illuminated the burgundy carpet like a river of hellfire.