A Siberian Werewolf in Paris
By Caryn Moya Block
Book Five of the Siberian Volkov Pack Series
Valerii Belikov, Siberian lycanthrope, knew that under the baseball cap and grubby jeans “Little Joe MacDonald” was actually Josephine. He didn’t know why she was hiding, but when the mating bond snapped into place after she was injured, he never expected her to run away. Josie is his mate, the one woman meant to be his, and should have known they couldn’t live apart. He could accept her hiding, but there was no way he could give her up.
Josephine Chevalier knew this day would come. Her father’s killers had found her. To keep her pack mates in England safe, she needed to run. It was time to return to Paris where it all started five years ago. Now if only Valerii, the man she wanted above all others, would stay away. Looking down at the golden cord tying their hearts together, she knew nothing would stop him from coming. How could she keep him safe?
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Claire Ashgrove and Melissa Johnson for your editing prowess as well as to Bette Hileman the line edit queen. I appreciate all your hard work. Thank you also to the wonderful women of pen to paper that lovingly support my writing career.
Dedication
To my friends, Terry Spear, Judith Dreyer and Fran Cecere. You ladies walk arm in arm with me and always bring a smile to my heart. Also to my fans, thank you for loving my work.
My Mate’s Embrace
“The Siberian Volkov Series keeps getting better with each book. I found myself totally engrossed in this story.” Night Owl Reviews
A Siberian Werewolf in London
“I absolutely loved this second installment in the Siberian Volkov Pack series. It had everything that made me fall in love with the first one. The story line is great.” Night Owl Reviews
Alpha’s Mate
“This is the beginning of a new werewolf series that promises to be phenomenal.” Night Owl Reviews
Published By Caryn M. Block
Copyright © 2013 Caryn M. Block
Cover Design by Jirves GFX
Male Model Photo by Hot Damn Designs.
Picture of Eiffel Tower by Erin Girven
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Prologue
Five years ago – Paris, France
Josephine Chevalier, teenage lycan, huddled naked on the cold cement floor. Her long blond hair was the only barrier protecting her skin from the frigid surface. She rubbed her hand against the chilly iron bars of her cage and felt the cold invade her soul. Her breath hitched as she trembled in terror. Should she shift into her wolf form? It would be warmer with a fur coat. No, that’s what he wanted. Dr. Michon Boucher was a madman.
From the lack of sounds around her, she presumed the building was empty. The lights were low and the air was still. Her internal clock told her it was very late or extremely early. She looked around the room that held her cage. Tables stood with bubbling beakers of different colored liquids. To one side sat a steel table with manacles attached at the sides. Looking at it, she shivered, and her gut clenched. Is this where they tortured my father?
Near the main double doors a desk sat bearing several computer monitors. Along the walls were cabinets with glass doors, and a large steel refrigerator and freezer hummed near the back of the room next to a steel sink. The smell of chemicals filled the air, and her nostrils burned. She put her hand over her nose and mouth and tried to take shallow breaths.
This was the first time she’d awakened in a cage. Until last night, when her parents were murdered, she had been left alone in a small room with a bed and toilet. Boucher had destroyed her father even though they were friends. Her mother died soon after, her heart stopping, unable to endure the tearing rift of losing her mate. Josephine clung to her mother’s spirit, hoping to die with her. But her mother, hoping pack members would save her daughter and heir, had used the last of her strength to break her telepathic link with Josephine, forcing her to continue living. Now, Josephine was alone, caught in Boucher’s delusions.
Why had her parents left her? How could this have happened?
She absently rubbed at the bandage on her forearm and winced at the pain. It had taken two men to hold her down and inject her with some kind of anesthetic. What did they do to her? Thinking about it caused a swift and brutal pain to lance into her brain.
She pushed against the door of the cage with all her lycan strength. It didn’t budge. She shook it in rage. How was she going to escape? Maybe if she kicked at the door near the lock, she could open it.
Sitting back and bracing herself on her elbows, she slammed her foot against the door. A large bang rang through the room. Still, the lock didn’t budge.
A door to the rear of the room slid open, and a young man walked in. Josephine pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, trying to hide her nudity.
Gasping, the man rushed over and bent down to look at her. His handsome face frowned, and his hazel eyes shone with compassion. He swiped his hand through his dark hair. The security badge clipped to his lab coat identified him as Norris Fortescue.
“Oh, my God! This is too much. Dr. Boucher has gone too far this time. I’ll get you out. Let me find the key.” He stood and hurried over to a cabinet by the wall. He grabbed a ring with several keys and dashed back to the cage. “I thought something wasn’t right when I heard about the deaths of the test subjects yesterday. I knew Michon was passionate about his work, but this... ”
Josephine watched as Fortescue tried one key after another. Would he really free her? Biting her lower lip, she moved to the door on her hands and knees, her muscles tensed and ready to spring.
He inserted the last key and turned it. The lock released just as the automatic double glass doors at the front of the room swished open and Boucher walked in.
“Norris, what are you doing in here? Don’t let her out. She’s an animal and the last of my subjects.”
Josephine scooted back in the cage and cowered. Would Boucher notice that the cage was unlocked?
“Michon, she’s just a young girl, not much older than my sister. You can’t hold her like this.”
“You are so naïve, Norris.” Boucher stalked forward. “So dedicated to finding a way to save your little sister from the ravages of cancer, you work every day studying the blood and bone marrow samples I send you. Did you ever wonder where the samples came from? We need this girl to finish our research. Even with their kind’s remarkable healing ability, they are easily killed. Drain them dry, and they die like anyone else. If I’d known their weakness, her father might still be alive, and her mother...I never did figure out why she expired. It was very disappointing to lose both of my subjects so close together. I need this subject alive.”
Josephine watched as Norris stood and moved slightly to the side of the cage, taking the key with him, which he carefully pocketed in his lab coat.
“You killed her parents?” Norris asked, a look of horror on his face.
One little push on the unlocked cage door, and she would be free. Unable to resist, she inched her way forward again.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Boucher said. “It was never my intenti
on. There are bound to be sacrifices in finding a cure for humanity. Now it looks like I am going to lose my best researcher as well.” He pulled a small revolver from his lab jacket pocket and pointed it toward Norris.
Josephine edged forward again, almost there.
“Michon, please. Esme will be all alone if you kill me. Have mercy, not for me, but for her.” Holding his hands in front of him as if he could deflect a bullet, Norris stumbled back against the table of beakers.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Norris. But I promise you Esme won’t suffer. I will make sure your sister’s death is peaceful and easy.”
Josephine called the change to her and felt her body begin to shift as white lights swirled around her. Boucher turned toward her cage, his face rapt with fascination.
Norris, moved quickly. He grabbed a beaker and threw the contents at Boucher’s face. The gun went off, missing Norris and hitting the table of beakers. Several broke, and a fire started from an overturned Bunsen burner as the chemicals spilled to the floor. A river of flames flowed over the surface.
Bursting through the door of the cage, Josephine leaped at Boucher in her wolf form. Her jaws closed over the man’s neck, and her teeth punctured his skin. The smell of blood filled her nostrils as the coppery taste flooded her mouth. Josephine shook her head, enraged. This man had murdered her parents.
Bones cracked as blood sprayed the air. When Boucher’s last breath left his body, she dropped his corpse on the floor. Her head hung as her body trembled from a flood of emotions. Blood dripped from her muzzle to the floor.
From the corner of her eye, she spied Fortescue desperately trying to put the fire out. But everything he did seemed to help the flames spread. He turned to look at Josephine, and his eyes widened. “What are you?”
Josephine grabbed Boucher’s security badge in her teeth and ran for the main door of the lab. It swished open and led to a long hall that ended in another set of doors. Fire alarms blared, piercing the air with their shriek and hurting her ears. Her heart beat wildly. Emergency lights blinked as the sprinkler system turned on. She called the change and shifted into her human form. She wiped at her mouth, smearing blood across her face and hands.
Dashing up to the first door, she slid Boucher’s security pass through the reader. The light turned green, and the lock disengaged. She ran through, the door closing behind her. An explosion rang through the air. The building trembled under her feet. She couched down, trying to keep her balance. Did Fortescue get out? Was he another casualty of Boucher’s madness?
Black tendrils of smoke curled from under the door before filling the air. Josephine coughed, her throat burning, and hurried down the hall. Tears filled her eyes. She blamed the smoke and quickly swiped them away. A lab coat lay on the back of a chair. She snatched it up and put it on as she continued to run.
The last door lay ahead. She could see the night sky through the small window. The soaked lab coat clung to her skin, and water dripped from her long hair. She couldn’t stop shaking. Her hand trembled as she swiped the card through the lock. The door opened to the night.
She was free.
The sounds of a jet engine washed over her, and she immediately smelled hot metal. She rushed from the building, heading for the line of shrubs surrounding the property. Where should she go? Whom could she trust?
Her thoughts immediately went to her best friend, Durant Landry. But it was his father, the Beta of the pack that introduced Boucher to her father. What if this had been a set-up? With her father gone, Durant’s father would step into the Alpha male position and become her guardian.
Afraid to trust anyone, she ran into the night.
Chapter One
Present – Somerset, England
The scream of a piercing alarm awoke Josephine in an instant. For a moment she was again a young girl trapped in the laboratory of a madman. She blinked, and her heart raced. Her hand immediately went to the air-pistol hiding under her pillow, grabbed it, and pulled it out. If the alarm had been a drill, she would have received a telepathic message from Grigori, the English Alpha and leader of the pack. Nothing was coming in, which meant there were intruders on the pack’s property.
Her ears hurt from the blaring noise. The sound alone threatened to make her panic. Climbing out of bed, she put on jeans and a T-shirt over her boy pajamas, then pushed the pistol into her pocket. Next, she picked up the baseball cap from the chest of drawers and pulled it on.
She opened the window and leaned out to look around. No one was in sight. She grabbed her high-top sneakers and sat on the windowsill to tie the laces, before easing her way out onto the gabled slate roof.
She reached for the branch of the tree that grew beside her window. That’s why she had picked this bedroom; it came with a handy escape route.
Should she go find her foster brothers, the other lycan pups found by Rosie MacDonald here in England? The youngest ones talked about camping out in the woods behind the hunting cabin the English Alpha now called home. Seth, the oldest, patrolled the perimeter of the property.
She quickly moved from limb to limb until she reached the ground and crouched down behind the boxwood hedges that grew around the building. Crawling on hands and knees between the building and the bushes, she heard someone approaching. Josephine peeked out to see Valerii Belikov run up to the kitchen door, a rifle in his hand.
“The way is clear, get her inside and hurry,” he shouted at Brencis, the Alpha’s second and cousin.
Brencis ran up, carrying a woman in his arms. Josephine noticed the golden mating bond glowing between their chests and felt a moment of envy. Would the bond ever snap into place for her?
She looked back at Valerii and sighed. She loved his wide shoulders and tall form. Her fingers itched to run through his long blond hair. Her wolf rushed to the surface and nudged her to go to him, to stand at his side and protect the pack. She’d known from the first moment she saw him that Valerii was meant to be her mate. But until the bond appeared, he wouldn’t approach her.
All Valerii saw was Rosie’s young son, little Joe. Her disguise worked too well, and he treated her with the rough affection he shared with all of Rosie’s adopted children.
Every once in a while, a shiver ran through Josephine when he watched her. If he touched her, an electric charge spread heat through her body.
The group ran through the door. Rosie, her foster mother, and a human would go to the safe-room the Alpha had installed in the kitchen. Brencis would leave his new human mate there before he went out to hunt the intruders.
Should Josephine join them? As one of Rosie’s children, no one would think it strange, and she would be safe inside.
Her wolf rose up in protest, and Josephine agreed. She was no longer a kid. Of course, some might disagree if they observed her hiding behind the bushes. She needed to start acting like the Alpha she wanted to be.
She stood. Fingering the air-pistol in her pocket, she crept around the side of the old Tudor building. Three male intruders stood near the front gate at the end of the drive. The electric gate guarding the entrance stood open. Emergency lights sitting on top of the brick fence, shown around the perimeter of the property. The men tried unsuccessfully to hide in the shadows of the wall. But hiding wasn’t an option. Lycans could see perfectly in the dark.
Listening intently with her lycan senses, Josephine heard the sound of breaking glass coming from the front of the house. One of the men at the gate turned, and she saw his face for the first time. Josephine froze. The hair on her nape lifted. She knew him. He had worked for Dr. Boucher the night men kidnapped her from bed and took her to their secret lab outside of Paris.
She’d awakened to this man leaning over her, his eyes cold, one hand holding a cloth over her nose and mouth, the other running up her side to her breast. She could still smell the cloying scent of the chemical on the cloth. She had struggled as her body weakened and blackness washed over her.
Had they come to try and take her back? Th
e group, Doctors for a Better Humanity, which she knew to be a secret organization, still existed. She had tried to keep track of them through the media. No one knew that they experimented on humans or, at least, on lycans.
She backed away, her heart racing. She stepped on a twig, and it broke with a loud crack. The one she recognized saw her. He held a black box similar to a television remote control in his hand. He pointed the device at her and then started running toward her. Josephine turned and sprinted around to the back of the manor.
“Oh, God!” They had found her. No lycan was safe from their terrible tortures.
A shaft of pain sliced through her brain. Why did that always happen when she remembered her captivity?
Afraid of leading the intruder to her foster brothers, she turned in the opposite direction and dashed into the trees. If she could make it to the old hunter’s blind that sat on a platform in the old oak tree, she would be able to see the whole back of the property. There, she would make her stand. She’d never shot a man, but no one would take her back to that laboratory.
Snapping twigs and rustling of underbrush assured her that the intruder still followed. Putting on a burst of lycan speed, Josephine extended the distance between them.
She leapt at the ladder to the hunter’s platform and climbed as quickly as she could. She reached the wooden floor just as the intruder ran into the glade below her. Josephine reached for one of the upper branches and pulled herself higher into the tree.
The intruder yelled up at her. “Come down. I know you are Josephine Chevalier. I’ve been paid to bring you back to Paris.”
“Who paid you? Dr. Boucher is dead.”
“Fortescue wants to talk to you. He said to let you know he needs your help.”
Fortescue was alive? He wanted her help?
“Why would I help a man involved with the organization that murdered my parents?”
A Siberian Werewolf in Paris Page 1
