by Louisa Bacio
Damned his enhanced senses. He could even hear her fear. He wasn’t a monster; he’d met monsters, but he doubted she’d believe him now, after his little display. He couldn’t blame her. Hell, the cook out back probably had his finger on speed dial, waiting to call the police. Different town, same scenario. Here we go.
“Yeah. I have a…migraine.” He smiled again; sure, he looked as sincere as a serial killer. It had been a long time since he’d worn an honest look of happiness, and he had to all but use his fingers to force the corners of his mouth to lift into the universal expression of friendliness.
Thrum, thrum, thrum. Her heart continued to race like a cornered rabbit.
“Would you like me to get you an aspirin?”
Right.
She frowned, giving him a look, one that questioned if he needed another kind of medication, and a straitjacket. Her expression read somewhere between self-preservation and freak-out. If only she knew. Nothing in a bottle or on a spoon could unfuck his mind.
“No, thank you. It’s gone past the aspirin stage.”
“Might have something stronger out back….” Like a sledgehammer or forty-five?
“I said, no,” he barked and realized how loud when she jerked.
Her eyes dilated, and her nostrils flared. Fight or flight.
Xan softened his tone. “No, thank you. Okay?”
“All right.” She backed up a step. “Would you like another coffee?”
Right. Yeah, all over it like tree pitch on skin. As if she wanted to come any closer to pour him one. Xan tamped down the urge to jump at her and growl, and nodded instead, shoving his hands in his hair. You’re not an asshole. Stop acting like one. He blew out a breath, doing anything to maintain control of the nightmare threatening. “Another coffee would be great. Sorry about the mess. You startled me.”
“I’ll be back to clean up the spill in a second. I’ll bring your coffee, and steak—rare. You sure you don’t want any vegetables or salad with your sirloin?”
“Yeah, just the meat. Thanks,” he mumbled and focused on the soaked placemat. He really needed to learn how to interact with civilized society without losing it constantly. Something needed to give and soon, or he’d be one of those guys he heard about on the news who went postal and ultimately dead after law enforcement gunned them down. Hell, he could go for death by cop, but that was the coward’s way out. He’d never been one, and never would be.
Now broken—he could claim that title and with good reason. If all the people going about their lives, blissfully unaware of what lurked in the dark corners, knew the truth of what stalked around in the night, there would be chaos. There were bigger and badder things in the world than a wolf with post-traumatic stress disorder. He’d met them. He turned to look out the window. It would be dark soon, and he needed to get back to the room before the sun sank into the hills.
Night was not his friend. Maybe tomorrow he would have the courage to finish his journey home. Today didn’t look good either. “On second thought,” he called out to the waitress headed toward the kitchen. She glanced back. “I’ll take my steak to go.”
***
Santa Fe, New Mexico, three years earlier….
Creak, creak, creak, clunk. A cart rolled into the room, banging against a doorjamb. Rubber soles squeaked against sterilized linoleum. She didn’t want to open her eyes and she didn’t have the strength to even move her arm, so Liv didn’t bother to see who’d come to visit. Nurse, doctor, housekeeping.
She sucked in a deep breath and gasped as her lung burned and liquid gurgled in her throat.
“Easy there, sis. Your lung has been through hell. Take shallow breathes.”
No shit, Sherlock. Her whole body had been there and back. Liv opened her eyes.
Her sister squeezed her hand. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Did he…?” God her chest hurt. He’d had her down on her kitchen floor, tearing at her clothing. She’d scratched his face, raking her nails across his cheek as hard as she could, taking strips of flesh with her. The scent of blood filled her nostrils. His eyes flashed blue—or had they? Had she mixed up the attack with memories of a movie? Why couldn’t she remember? “Did he rape me?”
“No, honey. You fought him off. Your neighbors heard you scream and called the police. They’re gonna get him. Don’t you worry.”
“You fucking tease. I love you. Do you hear me!”
“Let go, Terrance. I told you. We’re over. Leave.”
Rip. Pain exploded on the side of her head, where he rammed her skull into her terra-cotta tiles. Lights pulsed across her vision. “We’re over when I say we are over.”
Beep, beep, beep. Her heart rate monitor began to accelerate. Liv swallowed and looked at the wall. “You fucked them all. Except me. I want what you were giving them.” His weight pressed down, crushing her. One hand restrained both her wrists, shoving them over her head. His other hand…. Oh God.
She turned back to her sister. “They can’t find him?”
“No, not yet. But they will.”
“He’ll kill me, Kayla.”
“No, honey. He’ll have to go through me first.”
“What about the pack?”
“I can talk to them.” Kayla no longer looked in her direction. “But I doubt they’ll listen.”
The coyotes made it all too clear they wanted nothing to do with her. She was a freak, unable to shift, the animal not even a part of her scent anymore. They’d run her off, broke all contact, treated her as though she had never belonged. All but her sister. When Kayla had stuck by her, they turned their backs on her, too. Shortly after, Kayla met a wolf from the Black Hills.
Her sister and Gaelan fell in love at first sight.
And the bond would eventually take the only family she had left, away. Her stomach twisted, and Liv had the urge to hurl. “You’re leaving with him anyway. How can you promise to protect me?”
“We’ll stay here, with you.”
“No, eventually he’s going to want to go back to his pack. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
“Can we not discuss my life right now?”
A nurse walked in. “Miss Dunn. You need to let your sister sleep. Alarms are going off at the nurse’s station and she needs to remain calm and get rest.”
Kayla nodded and rose to her feet. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“No, I think it is. After all, I’m only human.”
***
Every light he could turn on in the room, he had. From the lamps beside the bed, to the television and the bathroom vanity mirror. A man could land the space shuttle from the illumination coming out of 155.
Xan sat in the center of the bed, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth. Staring at a painting on the wall, but not seeing it. Hell, he’d been in this room almost seven days and couldn’t even tell anyone what subject the artist painted, or who the hell signed it.
“Oomph.” He hit the bottom of the pit hard.
“Dis is da way we be playing it tonight, government mon. You gonna give us the names of your contacts, or we tell da world your secret. Hey, hey, hey. Hee, hee, hee.” Ten other hyenas joined in the chorus, circling the pit, staring down at him with glowing blue eyes, illuminated by the torches they carried.
“You don’t have shit. You’re getting nothing.”
The Jackal, a local warlord who went by the name of Ajani, poked him with a long spear, skewering him in the thigh and pinning his leg to the damp clay in the bottom of the pit. “We shall see about dat.”
“Fuck,” Xan screamed, and grabbed the spear, attempting to pull it free, but it didn’t budge. The shifters were strong, stronger than he would have imagined. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“We not gonna kill you. Der are things much worse than death. We’ll show you, after it gets dark.” Ajani twisted the shaft before yanking it back and taking a chunk of his thigh with it. “We
gonna record you shifting into a dog. And you will shift. So you can heal. Heye, heye, heye, hey, hey, hey.” The rest of the pack chuckled along with him, while Xan waited for the punch line.
It never came.
“I’m a wolf, not a dog, and it’s not happening.” It would take a lot more than stabbing him to get him to talk. Hell, Big Brother did worse things to prepare him should he be captured and tortured. He’d never had to fall back on his training—until now. Now, he focused on a place far away, where he’d run wild as a young wolf with no worries.
“Smells like a dog, barks like a dog. You’re a doggie. Heye, heye, hee, hee, hee.”
“Fucking scavengers.” Xan looked away from them. Perhaps if he ignored them, they’d go away.
“Ilimu are demons. You should be careful with dat mouth of yours, Mr. CIA mon.”
“Fuck you.” Yeah, thinking they were were-hyenas and could be reasoned with had been one mother of a mistake. He’d only encountered these demons in Africa, and at first, assumed they were like all the other shape-shifters he’d come across in his travels. He’d quickly learned the error of his ways. They were more a rabid pack of serial killers, taking out whole villages for the pleasure it gave them. Killing every man, woman, and child.
“We gonna become real good friends in the next few days. Pull him out of dat pit and stake him to da ground on his belly. We going to give him a big welcome—Ilium style.”
“Hurry on down to Country Toyota of the Black Hills to get your two-thousand-dollar rebate on a new pickup,” an announcer blasted his sales pitch from the television, snapping Xan out of his trance. He shivered and rubbed his arms, wondering if he’d ever be warm again. When would the twenty-four-hour nightmares end? Awake. Asleep. They haunted him every second of every day. God, when would he forget?
His first night in captivity hadn’t been the worst of it. They’d had him for a little over two months, before he got a break and killed Ajani’s mate. The pack beat, raped him, and assumed they’d killed him, leaving him to rot on the plains.
They’d been wrong. He hadn’t been dead—but he sure as hell wished for it by the time he’d made it to a safe house, after crawling damn near three miles on hot sand with injuries bad enough to put him in a grave.
Ten years before….
“Can you assure me regardless what happens, you won’t shift?”
Xan stared his Alpha in the eyes. A bold move, as most would take it as a challenge. “I won’t.” He broke eye contact, looking away. He had to get out of this place, find a way for his sister and him to coexist with the humans. If they stayed, Magnum would kill him, and God only knew what he’d do to Xio before he ended her life. He’d get her out as soon as he could, but for now, enough of the pack remained she should be safe. For now.
Magnum crossed his arms. “You know under stress we have no control of our wolf. You could be injured in battle, the adrenaline of the fight or struggle to survive could be enough to push your control past breaking. What if you shift in front of them? Ergot explained our ancestors’ lack of care; it won’t work as an excuse a second time. Hysteria, hallucinations can be proven or disproven. This is serious. The others can’t know about us. Learning the truth could lead to our extinction. They fear what they don’t understand.”
“I can control myself. I’d die before I gave up our secret. We need to be a part of the world, not just merely existing on it. Long ago, our pack should have started developing careers and learning what is going on out there. Our existence depends on our ability to adapt to the environment as it changes. You’re right, we are no longer in the Dark Ages with poisoning from moldy bread as an excuse when someone loses control, but coexisting in an age of technology, and it behooves us to understand it, lest we be destroyed in our ignorance. The other packs have already evolved and blended into society. Your way is antique, and it will bring us down. Draw attention. They found out once before, and they will again. Our best defense will be to know how to be like them and blend.” Complete bullshit. He only wanted to get away, find some place far enough away to start life over, outside the crazy Alpha’s reach. What Magnum didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“We are not like them, and we never will be, though you are closer than other members of the pack, with the human taint in your blood. I may live by the old ways, but what I say is law and you will abide by the rules as long as you are a member of my pack—even if you are a half-blood.” The last bit he said with a sneer on his face. The only way to not be a member of Magnum’s pack was if he killed you. The disgust, Xander had grown accustomed to. A look all too common coming from the Alpha who constantly reminded him because of his human mix, he lived only because his Alpha willed it. The Alpha saw his hybridism as a bigger crime than revealing his true nature to the outside world.
“It’s why I came to you, instead of enlisting first.” He’d learned one thing—if a wolf appealed to Magnum’s vanity, it more often than not, got him what he wanted. Stroke his ego, grovel, feed him whatever bullshit he wanted to hear. Appease him and Xio would be safe until he could send for her. Submission and flattery always got a wolf further than trying to reason with the crazy Alpha.
“You’ll do this regardless of what I say?”
“I will.”
“Then it is better you remain a member of my pack, where you are under my authority. Understand if you slip up, I will still be your Alpha and charged with administering justice, up to, and including execution—and your sister’s punishment as well.” Yeah, like he’d ever find them. He licked his lips and smiled, cluing Xan into what his sister’s punishment might be. He balled his hands at his sides, fighting the urge to strangle his Alpha. He didn’t have the skill or strength to beat him yet.
“Leave Xio out of this.”
“She’s your blood; she’s already part of it. If you mess up, she’ll pay, too, and I’m keeping her as insurance.”
Not for long. “If I slip up, I’ll welcome your punishment with open arms. But if anyone goes near my sister, so much as looks at her cross-eyed, I will kill them.”
“If you slip up, my Enforcer will be the least of your worries. I’ll come for you myself. And then your sister will pay for your crimes. You better make sure this is what you want.” He grinned, fangs glistening in the dim light, promising dismemberment more than any words he could utter. “Half-breed, don’t make me regret letting you or your twin live instead of ripping your throats out when you came out of the womb.”
Xan jumped up from the bed and began to pace. He’d kept his promise to his Alpha. He’d not shifted under duress, yet his promise had cost him a piece of his soul, his ability to change when he desired. Ten years had passed, and his inner Wolf had become crazy, rattling the bars of its fleshy cage, demanding freedom. But try as hard as he like, he couldn’t bring the white alpine forward.
Now, when he wanted to, he couldn’t so much as sprout a whisker on his chin. He needed the healing the shift would bring. Something told him he could find restoration in the Black Hills, and if he had to go through Magnum to get it, so be it.
Xan ripped the blankets and pillows off the bed and threw them on the floor. He circled before sinking to the carpet and curling into a ball.
Tomorrow would be a better day.
Tomorrow he’d go home.
