by L. L. Raand
“Of course,” Sophia murmured. “Everyone will.”
“Good.” Niki nuzzled her neck. “I love you.”
“I—” Sophia halted as her parents hurried through the front door. “Mother? What are you doing here?”
Nadia Revnik carried a white Styrofoam cooler. “We isolated a plasma extract we want to administer to your turned Weres. We hope it will counteract the fever.”
Sophia pulled away from Niki, her face alive with excitement. “If it does—if we could manufacture an antiserum, we might be free of the threat—”
“One step at a time,” her father said, but his eyes glinted with enthusiasm. “Are you ready to get started?”
Sophia spun around Niki. “I have to stay. This is too important.”
“The Alpha should be advised,” Niki said cautiously. “Can it wait?”
Nadia shook her head. “We don’t know how stable the proteins are—we need to start while the specimen is fresh.”
Niki looked from Sophia to her parents. The decision was hers and she must act as the Alpha would act, for the good of the Pack. “Is it safe for all of you?”
Nadia and Leo exchanged glances. “There’s a possibility the patients may only partially recover. They may regain consciousness, even shift. But—”
“They might be feral,” Niki spat. A feral Were would kill anyone nearby. She wanted to protest. “Go ahead, but I will post guards in the room. At the first sign of violence, they will be executed.”
Nadia gasped but Leo nodded.
“Agreed,” he said.
Sophia kissed her quickly. “It will be fine. I promise.”
Niki folded her arms. “I’ll be staying, all the same.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sylvan followed Torren from the throne room into a long, curving colonnade that ended in a stone archway decorated with carvings of dancing figures she could not identify. Beyond was a courtyard with marble walkways twisting among a jungle of greenery. Tall trees resembling palms with wide fronds dangled pear-shaped fruit the color of pumpkins from their boughs. Shrubs with spiny rainbow-hued petals leaned toward her like grasping hands. Grass as blue as the sky cushioned her steps like thick moss in the forest. Here and there small creatures the size of mice with filmy wings tucked close to their snow-white fur scurried among the undergrowth. Ordinarily such interesting prey would catch her wolf’s attention, but all her senses were tuned to something that became sharper with every step. Drake’s scent.
“She was here,” Sylvan said. “Is this the garden where Drake was being held?”
“One of them,” Torren said. “Be patient.”
“I’ve been patient long enough.” Sylvan looked behind her. Two guards stood at the open archway, their helmeted features covered, their slender bodies at attention, their silver spears crossed between them, glinting reminders she was a prisoner, far more than a guest. She could no doubt defeat them easily but for Torren, who would likely try to stop her. She could best the Hound as well but would not wish to call Torren enemy until forced to. “Why does Cecilia make an enemy of me?”
“Cecilia is Fae,” Torren said in the familiar way of the Fae and their non-answers.
“Cecilia is also a member of the Coalition,” Sylvan said, “by her own volition. She has taken common cause with the Praeterns in negotiating with humans.”
Torren sighed. “You are too much a creature of the Earth—more than the Vampires, more than the Fae, more even than the Mage who seek to rule the elements, or the Psi who live in a place beyond flesh.”
Sylvan snarled. “What does that mean?”
“When you face an enemy, you do not plot—you act as your instincts demand. You attack and you fight until the fight is ended.”
“I am a wolf,” Sylvan said, struggling to make sense of shadows. She stilled. “You showed me a vision when you first came to my land—Bernardo with Francesca and a human in a secret meeting. You were there, but you were not hunting as I thought. You were guarding. Guarding your Queen.”
Torren stopped walking and a tangle of green vines as elegant as snakes curled around her feet, their tendrils brushing the gleaming leather of her boots. “I shared with you a glimpse of your enemies. Has that not proven to be so?”
“But perhaps not all of them. Cecilia has withdrawn to Faerie,” Sylvan mused. “She is insulating herself from the struggles Earthside between Praeterns and the human radicals who seek our destruction. Perhaps her commitment to the Coalition goals was never real, but only, as you say, a move in some larger game.”
“Cecilia’s business is her own,” Torren murmured. “And my Queen does not confide in me.”
Sylvan thought this unlikely, but then Torren had been Earthside for a very long time and perhaps no longer knew all Cecilia’s plans. The only thing she could be certain of was she had no friends in Faerie other than Torren.
“I have no quarrel with Cecilia. If she and hers are not my enemy, I am not hers.”
“I’m sure Cecilia, Queen of Thorns, knows that,” Torren said.
“We will have a quarrel if she keeps me from my mate.”
Torren smiled. “Then you shall have no quarrel.”
Sylvan felt her before she saw her step into the garden. Drake, dressed much like her in a plain white shirt, black pants, and boots, emerged through a wall of shrubbery that closed behind her like a door. Misha was by her side. The heavy hand that had squeezed Sylvan’s heart from the instant she’d realized Drake was missing opened and joy flooded through her.
Sylvan closed the distance in three fast strides and pulled Drake close. “Are you hurt?”
Drake clasped the back of Sylvan’s neck and kissed her hard. “No. And you should not be here.”
Sylvan laughed briefly and slung an arm around Misha’s shoulder, drawing her into their circle. “And where else would I be, when you and mine are here?”
“Of course I knew you would come.” Drake rested her cheek against Sylvan’s shoulder. “You’ve been fighting. Your hip is damaged.”
“Barely a scratch and almost healed. The two of you?”
“We are fine.” Drake pressed her mouth close to Sylvan’s ear. “We did not intend to enter and have not been able to get word out. How long has it been?”
“Before I came through the Gate, only a day, but since I’ve been here…” Sylvan shook her head. “Time is a strange thing.”
“I know. I can’t find anything to use as a guide. Everything constantly changes.”
“Yes.” Sylvan pulled Drake hard against her body and drew deep of her scent, calming her wolf, assuring her that her mate was fine. “But this is constant. Our bond.” She stroked Misha’s hair. “And Pack.”
Drake cleaved to Sylvan’s side, breathing freely for the first time since they’d crossed into Faerie. Her wolf rumbled with a mix of contentment and uneasiness. Sylvan was here but now they were all prisoners.
“Have you been treated well?” Sylvan asked.
“We are unharmed,” Drake said as Torren joined them. “But we have not been treated as guests.”
“I will try to get you an audience with Cecilia soon,” Torren said. “Until then, there is no use trying to leave. There will be no path for you to follow.”
“We will not be prisoners,” Sylvan growled.
“No, for now, you are free to walk about, but don’t go far. It is easy to lose one’s way in Faerie.” She glanced at Misha, her expression guarded. “You should stay with your Alpha.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Misha said.
Torren’s smile was sad. “I cannot leave.”
Misha left Sylvan’s side and wrapped her arms around Torren’s waist. “Why not?”
Torren cupped her cheek and tilted her head until their eyes met. “Because I am not of your world.”
Misha kissed her. “That is.” She drew Torren’s hand to her chest, pressed it to her heart. “As is this. I feel the hawk and the Hound.” She kissed Torren again. “And your heart.
You know my wolf. I will not leave you.”
Torren glanced at Sylvan over Misha’s head. “I would not have you leave if you choose to stay.”
Misha turned in Torren’s arms to look back at Sylvan. “I have chosen her. I will not leave her.”
Sylvan rumbled. “We will decide when the time comes for all of us to leave.”
Misha’s chin came up and her eyes shimmered with gold. Her wolf was sure, and brave, and foolish enough to stand against her Alpha. Only a mated wolf would dare. “I will always be Pack, but I am hers now, as she is mine.”
Drake tightened her arm around Sylvan’s waist, knowing Sylvan was hard-pressed to be patient and her wolf would be wild to fight. “For now, we’re all together in this. Torren too.”
“I will do what I can with the Queen,” Torren said.
Sylvan snarled softly. “Do what you can, but know that we will not bide here long.”
“I will return soon as I can.” Torren kissed Misha. “Stay with your Alpha. Know I will come to you when I am able.”
Misha looked as if she would protest, but finally let Torren go. “Do not think you will get rid of me.”
“I know better than to try to outrun a wolf.”
Torren left them in the garden, and the archway slowly dissolved into a solid stone wall as she passed through. She ignored the guards and slipped through passages only she and a few others knew to reach Cecilia’s chambers. The carved oaken door swung open as she approached and she entered, going to one knee in the center of a thick royal-blue rug woven through with strands of gold. In certain light, the surface of the rug shimmered and a vast scene unfolded of the whole of Faerie with the Faerie Mound in the center and Cecilia rising from it like a goddess. She bowed her head. “Cecilia, Queen of Thorns, your Hunter seeks a word.”
A warm hand caressed her cheek and fluttered down her torso. A voice like a thousand wind chimes fluttering in a breeze whispered, “Torren, my Torren, what have you done?”
Torren lifted her head. Cecilia reclined upon an ornate chaise in a royal-blue gown that shimmered and flowed over her body as if it were a living part of her. The outline of her breasts and the curve of her belly and the hollow between her thighs beckoned. Torren’s blood warmed and she recognized the familiar spell, but she had never been Cecilia’s plaything and doubted she would have lived long if she had been. Cecilia tired of those she could control. “Thank you, my Queen.”
“I was about to send for you,” Cecilia said. “We have a trip to make.” She held out her hand, her bejeweled fingers glowing. “Come.”
Torren rose and slid her hand into Cecilia’s, feeling the rush of wind and power as the stars spun overhead. She stepped into a large room with a huge stone fireplace blazing on one wall, heavy drapes covering floor-to-ceiling windows on another, and a ring of heavy leather-and-wood chairs arranged in front of the hearth. Four Fae guards followed close behind them, more for show than anything else. Cecilia needed no other bodyguard than Torren, even with the six Vampires ranging in the shadows on either side of the female seated regally in the central chair.
“Cecilia,” Francesca purred, “how nice to see you again. And I see you’ve brought Torren.” Francesca laughed. “We’ve been looking for you.”
*
Niki stood with her back against the wall next to the closed treatment room door. She’d ordered two sentries to wait outside, armed with assault pistols. She doubted she would need them if one of the mutants became violent. They were frail, having been kept alive for weeks now with intravenous feedings and fluid and drugs. They would be no match for her wolf. All the same, she couldn’t take chances with Sophia and her parents in the room.
“They’re ready,” Sophia said to her parents.
Nadia and Leo withdrew plastic bags filled with clear yellow fluid from the Styrofoam container and attached them to the intravenous lines that Sophia had inserted into each of the females’ forearms. They hung the bags from metal poles beside the beds and opened the ports. The serum streamed down the clear plastic tubes.
“How long before you know?” Niki asked.
“I don’t know,” Sophia said, adjusting a temperature tape on the forehead of one of the girls.
When they’d been infected, they’d probably been no more than fifteen. If they survived, they might be able to remember who had abducted them, and what had been done to them. They were the only survivors of the labs except for Katya and Gray, who still had only fragmented memories of their captivity. Unlike these females, Katya and Gray were Weres, and they’d been poisoned with silver that had distorted their consciousness. These females had started out human. Now they were something else. Something Niki did not trust.
She watched the fluid trickle into the intravenous lines and disappear into the bodies of the emaciated females. Monitors beeped and numbers flickered on the screens. The Revniks and Sophia alternated between checking the females and recording the vital signs, but Niki watched only the females, waiting for some sign they were turning or wakening.
“Her temperature’s spiking,” Sophia said as she stood beside the dark-haired female with the coffee-colored skin. “One-oh-one point three. One-oh-two. One-oh-two point eight.” She glanced at her mother. “Mother? Should we try an infusion of ibuprofen to bring it down?”
“Not yet,” Nadia said calmly, also watching the monitors. “We’re not at dangerous levels for a Were. Another two degrees higher and we’ll intervene.”
Leo adjusted one of the lines on the second female, a blonde with pale skin and long limbs that might once have been elegant but now seemed merely fragile. “Her temperature’s rising as well.”
“A viral shower?” Sophia asked.
“Possibly,” her mother murmured.
“What does that mean?” Niki asked uneasily, moving away from the wall and going on alert.
“As their bodies try to fight the virus, breakdown products are released that can produce tissue damage.”
“Are they contagious?”
“Possibly, but probably not. Not if the virus is no longer intact.”
“They should be restrained.”
Sophia gave Niki a sympathetic glance, knowing Niki was motivated more by concern for her than cruelty. “They’re in a coma, Niki. There’s no reason to restrain them.”
“If we wait until they wake—”
“If they wake, even less so.” Sophia stroked the unconscious female’s arm. “That will mean the serum is working.”
“That won’t mean they aren’t feral.”
Sophia nodded. “We have to give them a chance.”
Niki growled and paced, watching and waiting. Sophia was altogether too close to the bed, but if she tried to move her, Sophia would only protest. An hour passed, then another, and Niki started to relax. Nothing was happening. The test, or whatever it was, wasn’t working.
“Vital signs are stabilizing,” Leo said.
“Yes, within range of normal Were values,” Nadia said, a thread of excitement in her voice.
“I’m getting rapid eye movement,” Sophia said. “I think she’s—”
The dark-haired mutant jerked up in the bed, her eyes shooting open, dark as pitch and slashed through with gold. She howled, an animal scream of pain, and claws shot from her fingertips as she lunged at Sophia.
Chapter Seventeen
Sophia stumbled back as a red-gray wolf rocketed between her and the female she had secretly been calling Angela. Niki must have shifted the instant Angela showed signs of waking, and her howl of rage made Sophia’s wolf cringe and lower her belly. Niki and the turned Were clashed inches away from her, filling the air with snarls and clouds of battle pheromones. Niki landed on top with her front legs on Angela’s chest, and the pair thrashed in a clatter of tumbling equipment. IV fluid tinged with pink streaks of first blood spread across the floor.
“Stop!” Sophia rushed forward and was instantly scooped up by her father. He dragged her clear of the fray, his arms clamped around her
waist. She struggled, her wolf ascending to the call of her mate’s frenzy. “Let me go. Niki is—”
“No,” Leo barked.
The door burst open and two armed sentries crowded into the room, pointing their weapons at the roiling duo on the floor. Angela had shifted or as much of a shift as she could manage—canines jutted from distorted jaws, patches of black and gray and white fur interspersed with bare hide covered her misshapen wolf form, and claws tipped the ends of elongated hands. Her torso was massive, her pelvis a shallow canyon, her limbs thick with ropey muscles. She was like nothing Sophia had ever imagined, even in her nightmares. Not a half-form, not a wolf, but something monstrous in between. She was larger than Niki’s wolf, outweighing her at least twice, and wild. She snarled and clawed and bit at Niki, fighting with whatever Were instincts had somehow survived in her mutated DNA. Niki, lithe and quick and ferocious, twisted away from Angela’s lethal jaws and struck back with her own teeth and claws.
The sentries pressed close, their weapons extended.
“Shoot the mutia,” Leo commanded.
“I can’t get a shot,” Fiona, the sentrie in front, exclaimed.
“No,” Sophia cried. “Don’t try. You might hit Niki.”
God, what had she done. She should have let Niki restrain them both, but she’d been so sure they’d either never regain consciousness or be too weak to pose a threat if they did. She’d never heard of this kind of transformation. She couldn’t look away, could barely breathe, could feel her heart stopping in her chest. Dimly, she was aware of her mother briskly strapping down the other female. She’d foolishly named her too. Solara. Would she turn into a monster as well? None of them had been prepared for this.
What seemed like hours was only a minute or two before Niki backed away. Still snarling, she repeatedly lunged and then dodged to the side, taunting the mutated Were to attack again. Confused, Angela swung her head around, surveying the others in the room, her eyes a patchwork of gold and black, mad with rage and pain. Her lips skimmed back from jagged teeth too large to fit in her half-formed muzzle. She snarled, hunched forward on hind legs part human and part wolf. Niki flattened her belly to the floor and Angela focused on the nearest figure.
