by Godiva Glenn
Of course, she would have the ability to shock him whenever she pleased. That was just his luck. Her anger and response had shown him that he could press her buttons, though. He filed that aside and switched directions.
“How did you know what I was?”
“None of your business.”
“What’s going on?”
“Besides the obvious?”
“There’s nothing obvious except that you’re a crazy bitch.”
She spun on her heel and walked away, back to the nonexistent path they’d been on before. He gripped at the collar and felt it grow warm beneath his touch.
“Catch up or get shocked again. It doesn’t matter to me,” she called out.
He grit his teeth and yanked at the collar. His fingertips searched the band, but it was completely smooth on the outside. No catch or clasp or even a seam he could catch with his fingernail. A gentle hum emanated from it, which grew louder with every step Sky took.
It didn’t take a genius to realize the sound and heat was a bad omen. His feet dragged but he followed her. His earlier sprint had only served to show him that his strength wasn’t back. He tried to shift to his lupine form, but he couldn’t concentrate. The wolfy cocktail, as she called it, was still in his blood.
But the moment it was gone, he’d take her up on her challenge. He’d have his freedom.
* * * *
They walked for hours.
If he didn’t have the collar and a crazy chick leading him, Kalle could have enjoyed the exercise. But as it was, he itched to get away. Sky led the way in total silence, save for the cursing she did every time she held her cell phone high and apparently found no signal. He assumed that was for the best. For him, at least.
“Where are we going?” he asked for the fiftieth time.
As he’d expected, no answer came.
He hooked his finger around his collar and stopped walking. It took a moment for her to realize he’d stopped, and when she paused and looked at him, the collar had already warmed up. The high-frequency buzz rang in his ears. At some point, she’d lowered the distance, and he made note of that. He’d learn all the tricks of this device and then use it on her, perhaps.
“Don’t stop,” she warned.
“Tell me where we’re going.” He met her eyes. “If I pass out, you have to drag me again. Is that really what you want?”
She glanced to the side; eyes narrowed.
“Answer me or I’ll turn around and hightail it as far as I can before this collar turns me into dead weight for you to carry.” He took a step back to emphasize his threat.
She moved closer and sighed. “Rendezvous point.”
“For?”
“Not your concern.”
He took another step back. “Why are you doing this?”
“I answered your original question,” she replied.
“I’ve been attacked, drugged, and fuck—I hate to say kidnapped but you’ve got me,” he said. “At least tell me what I did to deserve this.”
She crossed her arms and looked skyward.
He could handle a standoff. Despite his urges to attack her, he’d come to realize that she wasn’t at all who she’d originally seemed to be. She wasn’t innocent or nervous. She was deceptive. She could be more dangerous than she appeared, and he was, despite what many of his pack thought of him, the cautious type.
Hours of trekking through unmarked forest and she’d barely broken a sweat. She navigated with no map, yet wherever they were smelled sweet and untouched by civilization. They were off the grid. An average human wouldn’t know where they were well enough to be leading him to whatever she meant by a “rendezvous point.”
“Well?” he urged.
“No. I don’t owe you anything. You’re a murderer and now you want to make demands? Fine. Run off. Pass out. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, how much time you think you can buy, your deal is sealed.”
He held up a hand. “I didn’t kill anybody. I don’t know who you think—”
“Tommy. The guy you slammed against a tree,” she fumed. “Not that I expected any less from a beast.”
Kalle thought back to the night before. He remembered tossing the male, but his intentions weren’t deadly. It was an action without thought. “I barely touched him.”
“You broke his neck.”
“Not possible.”
“I wish I were lying. More than that, I wish this was the usual hunt so I could put a bullet between your eyes and pay you back.” She closed her eyes and spun around. “My boss wants you alive. Otherwise…”
His every thought had clung to a single word. Hunt. He should’ve thought of it sooner. “You’re a hunter.”
“We prefer the term Warden. We protect humanity by culling the beasts.”
He’d never heard of that term for them. Though to be fair, he’d never spoken to one before. Hunters were a threat, but a distant one. Humans trained to take down lupine. Not the most efficient, obviously, but what they lacked in strength they supposedly made up for in sheer determination.
Most packs never encountered a hunter, or if they did, the hunter didn’t last long enough to talk. He’d never heard of a lupine being captured, but of course, it would happen to him. He didn’t have the safety of a pack.
“Why do you need me alive?” He could guess the answer. Experiments. Humans loved experiments.
“I don’t need you alive. Someone else does.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She started walking.
Every cell in his body screamed at him to follow. He knew what was coming, but he didn’t care. The faint hum became a defined buzz. His hands fisted at his side until his fingernails bit into his palm, but he stood his ground.
If she wanted him alive, she wasn’t taking him easily. He’d buy his time, as she’d said. But no, they weren’t going to rendezvous with anyone.
The collar sent wave after wave of prickling sharp pain through him. He remained standing as long as he could, enduring the unrelenting shock as Sky became a small blur in his watering eyes.
The ground slammed into his knees and he welcomed it. Darkness came, and he welcomed that, too.
THREE
The scent of syrupy beans invaded Kalle’s chaotic dreams and woke him. Within seconds the dreams were gone, and he remembered everything that had transpired up until now. Sitting up, he found Sky roughly ten feet away and stirring a can over a small fire. The sun was just starting to set.
For the first time since he’d woken from the drugs, his wolf came forward. The image of his other side waivered like another dream. He guessed that the “wolfy cocktail” suppressed his wolf and lupine form alike. That had to be why he couldn’t just run away or shift and break the collar.
Could he now? He stared down at his hand and welcomed his wolf forward, but it remained in the distance. He was getting sick of this wolf-block nonsense. He was a superior being and this tiny human woman was trying to make him into a trained pet.
He growled and yanked at the collar in vain. It warmed up and gave that tell-tale buzz that if he didn’t stop, he’d regret it.
She glanced over and tossed him a water bottle. As much as he wanted to be stubborn and refuse, he was dying of thirst. He unscrewed the cap but before he took a sip he glanced at the top in his hand. The drink hadn’t been sealed. He dipped his tongue into the slightly cool liquid. Faint, but he could tell there was something in it.
“Wolfsbane?” he guessed aloud.
“You think I’m going to let you shift? Isn’t it already clear that I know what type of beast you are? And that I’m not stupid?”
He started to pour the water out on the ground beside him.
“Don’t do that,” she chided. “Drinking it is the easy way. The hard way is me knocking you out and jabbing you with a needle.”
He stopped wasting the water and glared at the half-empty bottle in his hand. “I’m going to make you pay for this.”
&n
bsp; “Sure, you will.” She tossed another bottle in his direction. “Drink up.”
“Wolfsbane causes delusion, cramping, vomiting, pain, and eventually death. I’m not drinking it.”
“It’s a cultivated strain. All it does is impair your beast.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“If I wanted you dead, I could’ve killed you a dozen times by now while you were passed out. And you can bet that I don’t want a whining, cramping, puking asshole walking with me through the woods.”
“Point taken.” He chugged the water and wiped the back of his hand over this mouth before hurling the bottle back in her direction. “It better not burn when I piss.”
“Not my concern.”
“You sure? Don’t you want your specimen intact? I’ll let you know if there’s inflammation so you can check it out.”
“Shut up.” She stared into the fire, her cheeks blooming pink. “Remember that everything is your fault.”
“Yeah. I remember when I asked you to honey trap me and shoot me full of knock-out shit.”
“Tommy had the plans. He had everything. I was just the lure.”
Fascinating. “He was the brains, then?”
“No,” she spat. “He was the ‘senior agent’ of the mission,” she said putting air quotes around the title. “Yet in his brilliance he brought a van that broke down a mile outside of town, leaving me to hoof it through the fucking wilderness with a dog.”
“Cry me a river. I don’t care if your mission isn’t going to plan.”
She lifted the beans from the fire with a pair of pliers and set it aside. “No, it’s not going to plan, but all that matters is I get you to the cabin. And you know what? I bet they’ll be slapping the designation of senior in front of my name thanks to this.”
He leaned forward. “For getting your partner killed? I didn’t realize the Wardens were so mercenary. But then again, humans are vicious creatures.”
She lifted her chin. “Your games won’t work on me.”
“I don’t play games.”
She dug around in her pack and pulled out a wrapped ration of some sort. “They don’t see that I can do anything I’m tasked to. I’m going to bring you in despite the never-ending shit-list of setbacks piled in front of me.”
“Hate to break it to you, but I’m not going with you.”
She shrugged. “I can break a beast.”
“I’m not a beast.” A growl slipped through his throat and the collar hummed. “I’m not moving,” he snarled.
“It doesn’t like it when you growl,” Sky replied. “Standard dog collar adjustment.”
“I’m not a dog. But you sure are a grade-A bitch,” he spat.
Shaking her head, she unwrapped what smelled like a blueberry treat. “Your collar is modeled after the type to keep dogs in their place. And by the way, if you raise your voice, zap. No barking, doggy. Invisible fence and noise control all in one. You’re a beast. You’re getting what you deserve.”
“What the fuck did I ever do to you to deserve this?”
“You were born.”
He fell silent at the strange tone of her statement. It wasn’t entirely anger or disgust. It was… blame.
She ate without another glance in his direction, and though his stomach rumbled and cramped, he wasn’t about to stoop to begging for scraps. He moved around, testing the limits of the collar until he found a tree he could prop himself against without getting a jolt.
His eyes lingered on a rock beside him. Thrown hard enough, couldn’t he use it to kill her? But then what? He couldn’t reach her to grab the bracelet, and he didn’t know how it worked. For all he knew, he could just be in a permanent pain loop, passed out with the bracelet in hand.
For now, she got to live. He kicked the rock away and stared at her. She was still hot, even with all the levels of crazy. And she’d definitely reacted to him when they first met—he wasn’t delusional.
She wasn’t going to break him. He’d break her first.
* * * *
Kalle woke before the sun had managed to break the horizon. He wasn’t accustomed to going to bed early, but once Sky had settled down to eat, she’d truly settled down. While she wrote in a notebook and fiddled with her phone, he observed.
It turned out she was boring as hell, though, and he’d fallen asleep.
Now that he was up, he had to take a leak. He stretched out his legs which felt stiff and dead before rising and peering around in the dim light. Sky was snoring and a part of him wanted to slap her for being such a lazy guard.
He was a dangerous prisoner. She shouldn’t be sleeping. Her ability to relax only served to magnify how screwed he was, and that twisted him in a million ways.
When he set out without a pack, he assumed he’d scrounge by until his wolf took over, or he’d be killed by another pack for bearing the shameful marks of being an unwanted lupine. Never in the strangest nightmare would he have imagined this.
He squinted in the dark. She thought him a beast. A pervert. It was tempting to prove her right and see if he could pee far enough for it to at least splash her stupid boots. It was tempting, but he shuffled around to the other side of his tree and quickly relieved himself there before he changed his mind.
Sky’s spunk reminded him a little of his sister. Not necessarily a good thing, seeing as Sierra was the primary reason he was out on his own with no pack, but it was something to consider. His sister had a massive chip on her shoulder, and for good reason. Yet acts of kindness meant the world to her. Probably because if you get enough shit tossed your way, even the tiniest polite action was something to gobble up.
Maybe Sky had the same weakness. If he could find a way to be cooperative while still slowing their trip, maybe he’d find his ticket to freedom.
“What are you up to?” Sky asked.
He shook himself off and fixed his pants. “None of your business.” Be nice. “Had to take care of things. You know.”
She nodded slightly. She pulled the light blanket from her body and shoved it into a compression pouch as she stared forward.
“How far is the cabin?” he asked while stretching out his arms and neck.
Her lips formed a tight line and he could tell she was considering the answer. “A few days. Depends on how stubborn you are. Though like I said, you’ll get there one way or another, and it’s not a hurry.”
She may have thought the reminder would make him reconsider stalling, but really all it did was make him wonder about what was waiting at the cabin. Her phone was useless so if she was required to check-in, she’d failed that. Most likely, there was no scheduled contact. Meaning if something happened to her, no one was coming to look around in a hurry.
“How do you know the way if you were supposed to drive it?”
She kicked at the dead fire, scrambling the ashes. “Natural talent.”
“Not possible. Even wolves need a hint of direction.”
“Guess it pays to be smarter than the average dog,” she retorted. Her hand rubbed her stomach.
His eyes traveled to the pack beside her. He didn’t know the full story but bet that if they’d driven it would have taken no time to get him to the cabin. She likely didn’t have supplies to last too long out here in the woods. A slight inconvenience but again, he made a note of it.
“Do I get food today?”
She looked him over. “You won’t starve before we get there.”
“You’d really make me hike behind you all day, drugged with an empty stomach?”
The first hint of an emotion not stemming from anger crossed her face, but she shook it away as she glanced down at her wrist and slid her fingertip over it. “Do you even have remorse?”
“For?” He frowned at the quick change of subject.
“Killing Tommy.”
“I didn’t mean to kill anyone,” he said firmly. “I’ve never killed in my life. But it’s hard to feel any emotion given I only have your word that it happened. I didn’t se
e a corpse.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Why would I believe the word of someone trying to deliver me to be a science project?” he asked. “What happened while I was passed out?”
She pursed her lips and slid the pack over her shoulders. It didn’t look like she wanted to talk, yet she did. “I didn’t get to bury him or anything. Not that I could have dug a grave in record time but—” She sighed. “I guess we were followed out. Or the cops were in the area. I don’t know. I got you to the van but before I could grab Tommy, hide him or something, red and blue lights everywhere.”
Honestly, what happened when he was blacked out didn’t matter to him. Supposedly he now had a death on his hands, and he didn’t feel anything about it. He hadn’t had much in the way of options that night. He was attacked and he fought back.
But she didn’t want to hear that, clearly. She expected him to pretend that some random human’s life was worth more than his own, and that wasn’t a lie he could tell. What he did notice, though, was that she had a more clinical assessment of the situation. She wasn’t upset about her partner’s death. She was inconvenienced by it. Either she was truly cold to the bone, or there was more to the story.
“You seem okay on your own,” he mused. It was a shot in the dark, but would she take the off-hand compliment?
Her mouth twitched. “I’ve done solo missions before.”
He almost asked why she had a partner this time, in that case. But the sun was rising and with it came the reminder that he was on a clock. He had a few days to find his way out of the collar. Whatever or whoever was at the cabin waiting, he didn’t want to ever find out.
* * * *
Aside from about an hour’s worth of break around Sky’s lunch time, they walked all day.
Kalle’s feet were threatening to fall off if his aching stomach didn’t take him down first. Again and again, he considered how easily he could kill Sky without ever getting close to her, and yet that wasn’t enough of a solution to his problem.
He’d gone from thinking of her as a crazy yet worthy adversary to absolutely hating her. She was so convinced he was a beast, she hadn’t let him eat in two days. He was nearly delirious at this point, and with the sun setting, he knew that if his wolf wasn’t kept at bay with the drugs, he’d probably shift and be lost to the hunger and madness.
