Madison's Song

by Christine Amsden

  “Are you asleep?” Madison asked softly.

  “No,” Scott replied.

  “Me neither.”

  They both went silent for a long time. Scott wanted to say something to her, but unfortunately the memory of Dr. Akin’s intentions had him afraid of his own actions where she was concerned. The man had offered her up like some kind of gift.

  And something had changed between them. He didn’t know what, and he didn’t know when, but he didn’t trust it. Not here in this place where reality couldn’t intrude. What if all she wanted from him was temporary comfort? What if that was all he could offer her? She might have been the one putting the distance between them for two years, but her fear had never been unjustified.

  “I always wanted to ask you,” Madison said after an interminable silence, “why you were there that night. When David McClellan tried to steal my soul, what were you doing there?”

  It took Scott a moment to shift mental gears backwards to the long-ago night that had driven a wedge between them. He had been following her, off and on, during the weeks leading up to that night. His intuition had been screaming at him to keep an eye on her, to make her his. He had never felt anything like it before. And it hadn’t taken long for him to realize that his intuition was right at least in one respect, because Scott hadn’t been the only one following her.

  “I mean,” Madison said, “you should have been in the forest with your pack by then, shouldn’t you?”

  “I was on my way there,” Scott said, “but my instincts told me that David would come after you.”

  “You’ve said before that intuition isn’t prescience,” Madison said. “That sounds a lot more like prescience to me.”

  “It’s not when I kept seeing him watching you.” Scott closed his eyes, remembering the incidents. He’d been watching David, David had been watching Madison, and Madison hadn’t seen a thing because she’d been too upset by her father kicking her out of the house.

  “I’d seen him watching you half a dozen times between the Fourth of July concert, when you showed the town your gift, and that night. I went into his store a couple of times, trying to feel him out, but I never came up with anything. A lot of rites take place at the full moon. I don’t think about them most of the time because I’m... busy. And that afternoon he had taken great pains to make me think he’d left town. I even went into his shop and his brother was there, manning the counter. I was on my way to the forest but something kept bothering me about his sudden trip out of town. I actually turned around and was halfway back when I remembered that one of his big buyers had recently made a trip into town. I’d seen him at the Main Street Cafe at dinnertime.”

  “Okay,” Madison said. “But why were you following me? Did Evan ask you to do that?”

  “No. He strongly advised me to keep my distance.”

  “Then why?”

  “Madison, go to sleep.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Madison?”

  “You told me to go to sleep.” She sounded testy. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her sound that way before.

  “I don’t understand why you’re suddenly asking me these questions. What does it matter?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t.” She paused. “But I want to know. I’m tired of being afraid. We’ve been avoiding this conversation for two years. I might die tomorrow, but before I do I want to know the truth. I want to... I want to properly thank you. But I have to know the truth first.”

  “Thank me?” Scott had never wanted her thanks, only her forgiveness. Yes, he’d saved her life, but what he had done afterward had haunted them both. And he still couldn’t say for sure that it had been necessary. He couldn’t say for sure that it hadn’t, but the risks...

  Taking rage with him into the wolf form had led to him killing a woman once before. He couldn’t have let the same thing happen to Madison. He’d been afraid, desperate, and he’d wanted her. But afterward he’d been afraid that his wolf would still bite her – not to kill her but to make her one of the pack. He still wasn’t sure why it hadn’t.

  If she wanted to start talking about this, then she’d have to learn that truth – all of it. That he hadn’t been sure. That he still might have bitten her. She didn’t understand wolves, and how emotions drove them at the full moon. They could kill, they could maim, and they could turn others into something like themselves.

  “You saved my life,” Madison said. “Don’t you think I should thank you?”

  “I don’t know.” Maybe she was right, maybe they needed to say all this. She could never become his true mate without knowing, without fully accepting who he was, but he’d never had any real hope of that happening. Everything that terrified her about him was the truth – the same things that terrified him about himself. This might be one of those conversations they had now, but wished they hadn’t if it turned out they lived. And he wasn’t ready to concede that they were going to die.

  “Scott?” Madison asked.

  “I wanted you, Madison. You want the truth, so there it is. I was protecting you too. I was scared out of my mind, but I wanted you.”

  “Oh.”

  Scott waited, tension radiating through his body, but for the longest time all he heard was the sound of her slightly unsteady breathing.

  * * *

  I wanted you.

  A few weeks ago the words would have had her running away screaming, but not tonight, and not just because she had no place to run. She’d wanted him at one time too, the very night standing between them in fact. She hadn’t wanted anyone else since then, not even Nicolas, whose touch had been more comforting than anything else.

  He wanted her. So what did she want? And would she have the chance to find out?

  “Did I scare you off yet?” Scott asked.

  “No,” Madison said honestly. “Not at all.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She steeled herself. She would not let fear rule her life any longer. She would not use it as an excuse to mistreat Scott. “I’m not afraid of you. At least, not until the next full moon.”

  “Maybe you should be.”

  “Why?” Madison asked.

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I never thought we’d actually talk about it, not after what I did to you. You’re not afraid of me? Why not? I forced you. I-I raped you.”

  “You did what?” Madison sat upright in bed, nearly hitting her head against the top bunk. “I said yes!”

  “You didn’t know what you were saying. You were a virgin.”

  “That didn’t make me stupid. I know it wasn’t...” Madison trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence. It wasn’t every girl’s fantasy? That was the understatement of the century. But she had said yes. She finally settled on saying, “You did what you had to do.”

  “Did I?” Scott asked.

  “Didn’t you?” She remembered that night again with perfect clarity, the way the wolf had torn into David’s body like an all-you-can-eat buffet. She didn’t flash back this time; maybe that potion Matthew Blair had given her was helping. She hoped so, because though she had started this conversation, she sensed that Scott needed to work through it more than she did.

  “I don’t know if I would have killed you or not,” Scott said. “I just know I’ve killed before. The wolf is unpredictable. It’s pure emotion. It’s not me – but my feelings go with it into the transition. I was feeling rage and murder that night, and I wasn’t sure. The wolf is unpredictable. And it’s a killer. I needed to be sure.”

  “Scott,” Madison began tentatively. She was beginning to get an awful idea. She hoped she was wrong but she had to ask, “Who was she?”

  He waited a long time before answering, but she didn’t fill the silence. This silence was his to fill, one way or the other. The only question now was would he deny the charge or take the opportunity?

  “My girlfriend,” Scott said finally. “Right after I got the bite. It wasn’t even that serious, just one o
f those high school things, but one day, the day before the full moon, a teacher caught her in the make-out closet with her ex-boyfriend.”

  Madison held her breath, sure she knew where this was going but not wanting to betray her own horror by the tiniest flicker of sound.

  “I was so angry. Betrayed. Hurt. It was so fresh and I carried it with me into wolf form. The wolf doesn’t think or reason. It doesn’t have a sense of honor or morality. It only knew pain, hurt, betrayal, and it knew how to find the source. She was in her backyard, alone, watching the stars. She used to like to do that. Set up a telescope sometimes. Said she wanted to be an astrophysicist. Never got the chance.”

  Madison closed her eyes, unsure what to say. Scott needed her assurance right now, but she wasn’t sure she had any to give. In her mind’s eye she saw the wolf. She saw a girl – a random teenager since she had no idea what the girl had looked like. Then she saw the wolf attack.

  “She’s dead, Madison.” He drew in a sharp, strangled breath that made her wonder if he was crying. “What you saw me do to David – that’s what I did to her. She didn’t deserve it. So she was with some other guy; it’s not like we were engaged.”

  “She wouldn’t have deserved it if you were.” Madison felt the bite in her words but the image of what Scott must have done to that girl was too fresh in her mind.

  “No,” Scott agreed.

  “Thanks for telling me,” Madison said after a while.

  “I still want you, Madison. That hasn’t changed, but I know you deserve so much better. That’s why I never called on the life debt, even before Evan took care of it. That and the fear I saw in your eyes. Maybe I could have helped ease it, but it was safer that way.”

  He still wanted her? How? Why? And he didn’t think he deserved her? He was a powerful alpha, and so fiercely loyal to those in his inner circle. Look what he’d done for Clinton, and he hadn’t even officially joined the pack yet.

  Madison wanted to belong to someone like that.

  “I’m a hypocrite,” Scott said. “I’ve killed wolves because they couldn’t control themselves, because they killed humans, but I’ve done it myself.”

  She hesitated. He had a point there, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t giving himself credit. That he was being overly hard on himself.

  “How old were you?” Madison asked.

  “Sixteen.”

  “How long had you been a wolf?”

  “Don’t go there, Madison.”

  “How long had you been a wolf?” she asked again.

  “It was my second transformation. During my first, I killed the pack alpha. During my second I was the alpha.”

  “So there was no one to help or guide you. No one to show you how to control it. You had to figure that out on your own.”

  Scott growled again, the sound obviously intended to frighten her, but it didn’t work. She didn’t even flinch.

  “Oh, stop growling,” Madison said.

  “This isn’t a game. You’re in danger every second you’re with me.”

  “Really? Didn’t you raise your sister from the time she was eleven?”

  Scott didn’t answer.

  “Was she in danger?” Madison pressed. “From what I see, you did everything in your power to save me that night.”

  He snorted. “Did I? Did you know that by marking you, I might have put you at greater risk?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, my wolf might have bitten you – not to kill but to turn.”

  She shuddered. She had not realized that, but it wasn’t something she wanted to think about. It hadn’t happened, so why worry about it now? Maybe the wolf had Scott’s gift of intuition; maybe it had known she wouldn’t make a good wolf.

  “Madison?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m wondering what your intuition told you that night.”

  “It told me...” He paused and drew in a deep breath. “I thought I might kill you.”

  “You should trust your intuition.”

  “My intuition doesn’t get it. It can’t predict the future, it only knows I want you, and that if I had never been bitten...” He trailed off, but Madison felt something stir inside her.

  “What were you like before you were bitten?” she asked.

  “Studious,” he said.

  “That wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

  “No, I imagine not. I was a bit of a late bloomer, physically speaking, so I wasn’t all that outgoing. I wasn’t shy, but I don’t think I would have become a leader of anything under normal circumstances. I excelled in school, and I was already trying experimental spells, something most sorcerers don’t do until after their apprenticeship – if ever. So yeah, I was studious.”

  “And a nice guy?”

  “I had a dozen girl friends, who all liked to tell me I was too nice to date.” He paused and with his next words, she felt the deep sorrow. “Addie felt the same way, but when her boyfriend dumped her, I thought I had a chance.”

  “You haven’t changed as much as you think you have,” she said. He was still sensitive, and still smart.

  “I’ve changed exactly as much as I think I have.”

  “Scott–”

  “Go to sleep, Madison.”

  This time, Madison sensed, he meant it, so she dropped the conversation. It took her a long time to fall asleep, however.

  * * *

  Madison had the nightmare again that night, but it wasn’t the same. This time when Scott went from sexual fantasy to ravening monster, Madison simply stared at the beast. She didn’t believe it. It wasn’t the full moon. She suffered a moment’s doubt when it looked like it might tear into her with its sharp teeth, but then it did something it had never done before: Instead of tearing into her, it nipped her lightly, just enough to draw blood.

  She sat bolt upright, heart hammering in her chest, but when she heard a soft snore coming from the top bunk, she settled back down. She did not, however, go back to sleep for a long time.

  Why hadn’t his wolf bitten her on that long ago night? His wolf acted on pure emotions. Instinct. It hadn’t killed her because it had smelled itself on her, but why wouldn’t it have wanted to make her a member of the pack? And why did it bother her that it hadn’t? She didn’t want to become a werewolf.

  But some secret part of her did like the idea of belonging to Scott. He was the most fiercely loyal man she had ever met to those he considered his.

  He wanted her, but he’d sensed her fear and backed off. Scott would never consciously do anything to hurt her. She knew it with a bone-deep certainty that nevertheless did not ease her anxiety. So what had her nervous now?

  I still want you.

  But what did she want? She didn’t fall back asleep for the rest of the night, but she never came up with a definite answer.

  Chapter 22

  SHORTLY AFTER BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, three stone faces – as Madison called them – led Scott away from his cell in a reversal of the course he’d taken the day before. The room he shared with Madison was the last one on the left going in, the first on the right coming out. There were ten identical doors on each side of the gray hallway, each door sealed by magic and an electronic lock, though he suspected that the RFID tags hanging from the guards’ belts would unlock both types of seals.

  He heard nothing from any of the rooms they passed, but that was probably due to some magical soundproofing. He didn’t think the four armed men seated at the guard station were just there for him and Madison, although the idea was a little flattering.

  They had put him in a dungeon of sorts, even if it did contain plaster walls rather than stone. Behind those plaster walls, he felt certain, was earth and foundation. There were no windows down here, not even near the guard station, which stood sentry between the row of cells and a double-wide staircase leading up to the rest of the compound.

  Scott kept his eyes, ears, and nos
e open, alert for anything that might help him get both Madison and himself out of this place safely. The magical wards were daunting enough, though he had an idea how he might fool them. The guards themselves, armed with the best magic and technology available, could prove to be a bigger problem.

  The staircase ended in an enclosed landing, opposite a set of double doors leading to a hallway that seemed to bisect the main floor. Other hallways crossed it every few feet, but there were no doors opening directly into this hallway.

  They made the second right, taking the hallway opposite the one he’d come from the day before. Then the stone faces ordered him to open the first door on the left and go inside while they stood sentry outside.

  The room he had been forced into was an examination room. Like every room Scott had seen so far, this one had no windows, so it was impossible to know for sure if he was above ground or not. He guessed that yes, he was, if for no other reason than the staircase had ended at this level, rather than turning to go up another floor. He had a feeling – and he trusted those feelings – that this entire compound consisted of a ground floor and a basement.

  The examination room could have been any room in any doctor’s office, if it hadn’t been for the runes carved into the cabinets to keep them locked. There was a sterile counter, a sink for washing hands and equipment, antibacterial soap, and even a container for hazardous waste next to the trash can.

  Dr. Akin waited for him inside. He was seated on a rolling chair by the counter, making notes on a clipboard. “Thanks for coming, Scott.”

  Since he hadn’t had a choice, Scott didn’t deign to reply.

  “Have a seat.” Dr. Akin didn’t gesture at the examination table, but at a hard-backed chair next to the door.