His words, however, bore little resemblance to sanity...even if they did support my earlier hypothesis. “It’s a long story with details that are classified,” he told me. “What I can share is—six months ago, I was injected with the same drug you see before you. I became a werewolf, and now I’m affected by the phases of the moon.”
Chapter 14
Even if I had been developing sneaking suspicions about the existence of the paranormal, I found myself unable to accept werewolfism when spoken about so boldly. “You need a doctor, not an archaeologist.” The words slipped out before I could stop them, and I’m pretty sure Claw understood what I was getting at because he didn’t bother to stifle his snort.
“I’ve tried doctors,” Jim Kelter answered, as if he wasn’t aware I was talking about the kind who locked you in padded cells and dispensed tranquilizers. “But science hasn’t caught up with this new invention....”
He paused. Cocked his head as if he’d heard something. Had the intercom crackled?
Whatever had sidetracked the President, he shrugged it off and turned back to face me. “Which brings us to Blackburn...and to you.”
The leader of the free world acted so sane, yet his words bore little resemblance to sanity. “As best we can tell,” the President informed me, “Blackburn managed to use the wolf statue in your possession to Change himself into a werewolf. Regrettably, he ripped himself apart in the process—a rather common side effect—so we can’t ask him how he accomplished it. We’re hoping you can figure out how to operate that transition in reverse.”
I found it impossible to meet the President’s eyes. “Sir, the wolf statue isn’t magical. It’s just historical.”
And, yes, I was well aware of my own hypocrisy since I’d used a trance to search for scientific answers just moments before. I opened my mouth to continue...then nearly bit my tongue as a jolt rattled the plane.
“Whoa.” Val—silent until this point—bounced in her seat. “That was some turbulence.”
“Shit.” A disembodied female voice crackled over the intercom just as the plane shuddered a second time.
Claw reached across the table to reseat his girlfriend. “That’s not turbulence. It’s an explosion.”
Sure enough, through the window, the horizon tilted at a crazy angle. Or, rather, we tilted at a crazy angle in relation to the horizon.
Air Force One was going down.
“STRAP IN!” CLAW YELLED as trees I shouldn’t have been able to see came into view through the window. We were plummeting downward far faster than I would have thought possible. This wasn’t an emergency landing; this was a crash.
I fumbled for the seatbelt, trying to follow Val’s more successful lead. Vaguely, I noted Claw helping the President with his air mask even as mine dropped from above and knocked my pet raven into terrified flight.
Then I was soaring over the seat back with far less agility than the bird had mustered, landing in a different row than the one in which I’d begun. Flashing lights, objects battering against my ribcage, high-pitched screams.
Okay, that agonized shrieking might have emanated from me.
There was something seriously wrong with my torso area. Plus, blood was leaking from my forehead and into my eyes. Still, I ignored my own infirmity as the monster in my head reminded me: We must protect our pack.
Together, we forced ourselves upright and assessed the situation. The plane was descending so rapidly we were bound to hit the ground in a minute or less. Jim Kelter and Val were masked and belted, bracing themselves with heads cradled in protective hands. Claw, in contrast, was standing and making his way down the aisle toward me. But it was Adena who was in seriously bad shape.
The raven was rightfully terrified, battering herself against a window as if seeking a way out. I could imagine the upcoming crash from the animal’s perspective. She’d try to fly...and she’d break her fragile bones into shards.
“Do you have a gun?” I yelled at Claw even as I leapt with more grace than I thought possible to pluck the terrified animal out of the air.
Only, it wasn’t me leaping. It was the monster moving my limbs just like she’d done during the vault altercation, snatching Adena and tucking the bird’s wings closed before forcing her beak into our breast.
Unfortunately, the easy capture was only momentarily effective. I could hold Adena like this for a few more seconds, but it would do her no good to be tumbled around the inside of the airplane in my arms.
The trees were so close now that I could make out individual branches. It might already be too late.
Still, I had to try to save Adena. I whirled and found myself inches from Claw’s stoic face.
There was no time to explain my intentions. No time to tell him Adena’s only chance at survival was to be sucked out a window so she could fly free.
But I didn’t have to argue my crazy scheme. Because the huge man’s handgun was out and ready, somehow less scary than the one Harry had wielded in my classroom. The moment our eyes met, he pulled the trigger, shattering the window behind my back.
The roar of escaping air was so intense I nearly lost myself to it. Instead, I threw Adena toward the sucking maw of emptiness. Tried to grab a seat back to brace myself even as Claw enfolded me in his arms.
My stomach throbbed, hot blood soaking through my clothing. And as the plane struck with a screech of branches and crumpling metal, we tumbled sideways, spurring a sudden crack of agony in my left arm.
It hurt so much I lost my hold on Claw’s body. Lost track of my terror and worry over Adena. Didn’t even need the help of visions to make me pass out.
MY CAVE PAINTER WAS absent, but at least I floated for a few moments in quiet darkness. Unfortunately, that relief was short-lived.
The pain was overwhelming. No wonder the real world slipped in and out of focus like my own youthful struggles with control.
“We can’t help both of them,” growled a male voice that was subtly familiar. Right—Harry. Did I trust him? He’d carried a gun in my classroom.... “We have a duty to our alpha,” he continued, unconcerned about my analysis of his motives. “The gut wound is nasty. She’ll die anyway. It’s kinder to kill her now.”
And that hint of danger was all I needed to slide sideways into memories. “You might as well kill me now,” I’d screamed at my father as he vetoed yet another teenage party in the months after my first date. “I’ll be a pariah if I don’t show up.”
“Would you rather pass out and look like an idiot?” he’d countered coldly. “Would you rather bite through someone else’s lip?”
And, unfortunately, Dr. Hart had a valid point. During our scientific trials at the kitchen counter, a single sip of wine had been enough to wake the monster and threaten one of the trances we’d worked so hard to circumvent.
But there were alternatives. “So I won’t drink. There has to be another way...”
“There’s another way.”
Claw’s voice pulled me out of that memory and tossed me headlong into another. A second boy had finally expressed interest despite the whispered stories about my first date. Peter was sweet and handsome...and as his hands slid across my breasts my vision dimmed before winking all the way out.
“This is the way it’s going to be from now on,” my father proclaimed an hour later, after I’d been delivered back home by a terrified boy who’d never again met my eyes in the hallway at school. “If you want to pass as normal, you need to learn a modicum of control.”
“I wish you’d just let me die,” I’d moaned, knowing already that my dating life was over before it really started....
“With a fifty/fifty chance of survival.” Harry’s voice slapped me in the face with its similarity to my father’s. What was he talking about? Oh, right, my heart’s ability to beat.
Not that Harry was in favor of my continued existence. “And even then, she won’t want to face the consequences. Let her die.”
For half a second, I agreed with him. After all, the
slivers of fire and ice migrating through my arm and stomach made it difficult to remember what I was doing here. Maybe now was the time to relinquish an existence that had never lived up to my father’s expectations....
No, that’s not right. I was no longer a headstrong teenager enraged by my flawed existence. I had things to live for—my studies, my students, even the raven who’d miraculously survived and was currently clacking her beak together beside my head.
I started to drift sideways, but Claw’s voice anchored me to reality. “Do you want to live?” he demanded, and I lost track of the past, the future, and the never-ending pain.
Yes, yes, yes, replied the monster’s voice inside me. For once, I agreed with the troublemaker. But I couldn’t open my mouth to spit out the words.
“See, I told you,” Harry grumbled above us. “She doesn’t have the will she’d need to survive it.”
But the only man in my sight line ignored him, reaching down to settle two warm hands on either side of my cheeks. “We’ll release your wolf, which will be, frankly, hellish,” he rumbled. “But it’s a good life, and I know you’re strong enough to survive.”
A good life. He was right. Who cared if I’d disappointed my father? I was a grown woman with dreams and expectations of my own.
Dreams and expectations that had somehow begun to revolve around the man crouched beside me. Never mind that he had a girlfriend. Never mind that he harbored an endless array of secrets he seemed uninterested in unveiling for my sake.
So I forced saliva down through a throat parched from screaming. Forced words out into the triangle of peace between me, Claw, and the snow.
“Yes,” I told him.
And he didn’t keep me in suspense one moment longer. A snort from his partner. A pinch on the inside of my elbow.
Then the world exploded into pain.
Chapter 15
I itched everywhere, the creeping crawl of invisible spiders somehow worse than the simple agony that had preceded it one moment before. Their minuscule feet tickled the inside of my belly button, every one of my toenails, seemingly even the layer underneath my skin.
Sound engulfed me. “If she makes it, we have a problem.” The words were calm and measured, but they entered my ears at approximately a hundred decibels, like a rock concert dialed up to max. I tried and failed to beg Harry to lower the volume, only managing to injure myself further with my whine.
“We don’t have a problem,” Claw interjected significantly more quietly. It was almost as if he spoke my wordless language. “I disconnected Air Force One’s homing beacon so whoever did this can’t find us. Once Jim Kelter is in his right mind—”
“He’s not gonna just snap out of it. It’s almost the full moon. It’s—”
“Stop talking and listen. I’ll take Olivia somewhere safe and you’ll take care of the President.”
“She—”
“Do as I say.”
Then I lost track of their conversation, because muscles that had been frozen one second earlier now quivered in response. I had to take care of the President. I had to take care of the President. I had to take care of the President of the United States!
“Ssh, calm down.” Warm butterscotch enfolded me. Butterscotch and moss beneath running water combined with the scent of sandalwood so tantalizingly similar to healthy male sweat.
I twisted in Claw’s arms, burrowing into restful darkness. His proximity helped, just a little. Eased the spiders and drowned out sounds that roared so much more loudly than they should have done.
Unfortunately, pain levels rose as my overstimulation faded. I was dying. Right. That’s what was happening. If I relaxed, would the end come fast?
“You aren’t dying.” Claw’s voice was so quiet his words seemed to vibrate through my skull rather than entering via my ear canals. “You’re shifting. It’s hard and it’s scary but it’ll be over as soon as you let it happen. Remember what I told you. You’ll make a beautiful wolf. I want to see you. Come on, let go.”
I tried to obey him, but my nose had slid out of the comfort of his shoulder while I wasn’t paying attention. It was as if I’d spent the last twenty-eight years of my life living under a rock, because I could now smell emotions as easily as if synesthesia had been added to my list of mental woes.
Some distance away, the President stank of furry avocados—the olfactory version of the same craziness that gripped me. Closer, Claw and his partner both smelled sick and cold with fear, their acridness mingling with my own freezing sweat.
Only Val’s scent remained sweet and neutral. She dropped into a crouch beside us, presenting a full backpack to the male who still enfolded me in his arms’ safe protection. “You can do this, Olivia. I know you can do it,” she murmured. Turning away, she hissed at the man above my head. “Claw, it’s time to help her before she hits the wall.”
The wall. Val was right; I could see it. That hard-earned mental stability I’d used to keep craziness at bay for over a decade was slipping and sliding into a pile of rubble at my feet. If I lost control, I’d lose myself....
I clung to Claw harder, unable to imagine what would happen if that wall finally cracked.
THE TIDE TRIED TO PULL me under, but I fought it. Fought so hard, in fact, that my skin felt like it was peeling off my bones.
Images flowed through and around me. But these weren’t prehistoric visions. Instead, I saw faces of people I’d disappointed. My father. Suzy. College roommates I’d never quite managed to turn into friends.
Control was slipping through my fingers. A beast clawed at my liver, seeking freedom through the thin barrier of my skin.
Let me out, it whispered as it stretched inside me. But releasing the monster was impossible to comprehend....
THE SWEETNESS OF VAL’S scent had hardened by the time I drifted back into the present. Her voice was high-pitched and terrified when she hit Claw so hard his body—and mine—shook.
“You have to help her!”
Claw’s response was so harsh and growly I could hardly make sense of the syllables. “You’re not a wolf. You can’t understand this. If I force the shift too early, she won’t survive.”
My claws caught on his voice and clung there. My furry body dangled from the precipice, buffeted by the snow-sodden gale.
Wait, no, I meant my fingernails clung to the precipice. I was human, human, human, even if something monstrous was trying to tear through me from the inside. I was a simple human being with a mental illness that let me see into the past....
The voice snorted out its disagreement, and in the interest of self-preservation I tried to dive into a trance. But the warm shelter of Claw’s arms uncurled from around me. I shivered as the blizzard of snow was joined by a fluttering tempest of clothes.
Harry was the one yelling now, his voice intermingling with what sounded like a wild wolf’s undulating howl. “Hurry!” he demanded. “Kelter has shifted!”
“Take care of my sister.” This was Claw, speaking slowly and deliberately above my head.
Wait. Sister? Who was Claw’s sister?
I forced my eyes open against the pain and snow glare and windstorm, trying to puzzle out who Claw could be referring to.
“Hey, I can take care of myself.” The curvy blonde punched a naked Claw on the shoulder, their easy physical familiarity suddenly making an entirely different sort of sense.
And, strangely, knowing that Val was Claw’s sister rather than his lover dislodged me from my mental impasse. I was there in my body, there with the pain in my gut and the grinding of my broken arm bone. The beast inside me quieted for one split second...
...Then Claw twisted, a dire wolf standing where he’d been one moment earlier.
As he shifted, I lost the final semblance of control.
Snow tickled my eyelashes. Damp fur reeked beneath my nostrils.
“If you want to pass as normal, you need to learn to restrain yourself,” my father demanded.
But my resolve to obey Dr. Har
t’s orders cracked and splintered.
The voice: Finally.
A sharp bark. A sudden pain.
Then the monster won out and tossed me aside into the void.
Chapter 16
The full moon was brighter than those LED high beams, the ones you have to squint and shield your eyes against as you drive past. That was the first thing I noticed when I settled back into my body. The second was how my torso rocked with an oddly syncopated rhythm, a bit like riding a horse at a trot.
Only, I wasn’t riding a horse. I was the horse.
No, not a horse. I was the monster, big furry paws slicing through the snow in a three-part rhythm while my fourth leg tucked up against my chest to stay out of harm’s way. It was as if a canine had been recreated in my image, belly slightly sore and arm still broken even though neither streaked agony the way they had when I first tumbled out of the plane.
For a heady moment, I relaxed into the wonder of my new existence. I’d never had a balance-inducing tail previously. Never had such lung power that I could run uphill without stopping, barely noticing the fact that I was pushing myself forward with three legs instead of four.
I listened to the crunch of snow and the distant roar of wind in the treetops while scents spiraled like soap bubbles. One smell caught my attention...or, rather, caught the monster’s nose.
Iron and salt titillated our hunger. Our head turned in the direction of the moon shadows. Together, we peered out across the snow.
Beside us, someone whined a question. We weren’t alone in the wilderness. The realization that Claw was present came as no surprise—I’d known he was there without bothering to look at him. Had known as soon as I noted my stomach was quiescent despite being out of fuel.
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