by C. P. Rider
"Fiera, how in the world do you do this? It feels as if I've been here ten years."
"It's only been a week."
Seven days in hell. If Lucas, Chandra, and the witches hadn't found me by now, would they? Were they still looking? Maybe it was time for me to face the truth. No one would find me. I was well and truly on my own.
Along with the acceptance of that realization came another truth. I had to get Fiera, the caged shifters, and the kids out of here.
"I have to tell you something," Fiera spoke softly.
"Your soft voice is quieter than your whisper. Use it next time."
"Cornelia, I'm serious." She crawled to where I was lying and rested her head beside mine on the pillow. "The warden is going to let your ex-fiancé change you."
If I'd been in my right mind, that sort of news would have sent me into a spiral. Any other time, I'd be climbing the walls until my hands were bloodied. But I'd seen this coming. There were implications to consider, but I was able to separate them from any reactionary response.
"When?"
"Tomorrow. I heard the only reason Harris hasn't done it so far is because he knows the risk of death to you and he wanted to get all the information he could before…" She trailed off.
"I really hate that guy. Thanks for telling me."
I had no idea what to do with the information, but it was good to know. And why hadn't I seen this in Warden Harris's mind during one of the ten times I'd read him recently? What was I doing wrong? Or was Sampson doing something to block me on the warden's behalf?
I hated that guy, too.
"I'm sorry."
I rolled onto my side and gave her a little smile. "Nice to hear you referring to him as 'the warden.'"
"It suits him." She closed her eyes, sighed. "There's more."
Of course there is." Sarcasm. My last defense. I sounded more like Lucas all the time. I shook my bracelet, ignoring the stab of pain that went through me. "What is it?"
"He's bringing in back-up alphas in case your ex isn't able to change you."
Yet another thing Chandra would have thought of that I hadn't, though it didn't surprise me. "Hedging his bets. Smart move. No one ever accused the warden of being stupid."
"No," Fiera said, "only evil."
That night, I dreamed for the first time since arriving at the sanctuary.
It had to be love. Either love or insanity. Seemed there was a thin line between them sometimes.
"Yes." I kissed him. The lightest of touches, my mouth coasting gently over the softness of his lower lip. "I'm glad."
"Glad you made Rosca de Reyes bread, or glad I got the ring?" He planted tiny kisses on my forehead, my eyelids, my cheeks, my nose and chin, ending at my mouth.
"The ring, you dork. I'm glad you're the boyfriend of penis present," I whispered, "and future."
Lucas's tiger lit a fire behind his eyes. "And always."
"And always."
He pulled back, making sure I could see his face in the dimly lit darkness of the bedroom. We were on our sides facing each other, our bodies separated by a thin cotton sheet. His jaw was tight, his mouth firm, his gaze solely on me. It was a heady thing, to be the object of a prehistoric alpha's one hundred percent focus.
To be Lucas Blacke's one hundred percent focus.
I feathered my fingers over the edges of his beautiful face. Mine.
He pulled down the sheet between us. Because I hadn't thought to grab one, I wasn't wearing a nightgown tonight. If the expression on his face was anything to go by, Lucas was very pleased with my choice of sleepwear.
He dipped his head, continuing the shower of kisses from my neck down to my breasts, where he lingered before moving to my belly. I tumbled onto my back and he followed, climbing on top of me and raining kisses over my hips, working his way to the apex of my thighs where kisses turned to nuzzles, licks, gentle bites, and delicate pulls.
Before he could send me over, I grabbed him by the back of his head, drawing him up my body. I wanted to blanket myself with the entirety of him. I needed the breathlessness that followed, the heat. I'd experienced satiation in my life before Lucas, but I'd never had the immersive satisfaction that he brought to me. A satiety that encompassed every part of my body and soul.
I dug my fingers into his hair, pulled his head back, revealing his throat. That he, the strongest alpha I had ever met, would make himself vulnerable to me in this way, spoke volumes. I nibbled the underside of his chin, sliding my tongue along his jaw.
"Mine."
Had I said that, or had he? Did it matter? I was his and he was mine.
He took control again, stretching my arms above my head, weaving our fingers together. Our mouths, chests, and hips met, and though due to our differing heights we weren't perfectly aligned, we were imperfect in all the right ways.
"Lucas," I breathed into his mouth.
His right hand left mine and I heard the sound of a package opening. His hips shifted as he prepared himself. With all the practice I'd given him lately, he was an expert at putting on a condom and was back in only a few seconds.
He buried his face in my throat. The vibration of low growly laughter against my neck made me wonder what he was up to.
His head popped up. "Hey, phone."
The phone beeped.
I slow-blinked at him.
He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. "Play it."
The opening strains of Air Supply's All Out of Love filled the bedroom and a silly, happy joy bubbled in me. I worked my hand out of his, wrapped both arms around his neck, and pushed him onto his back. I followed him over, straddled his hips, and eased myself onto his erection, marveling at the way his smile expanded to encompass his entire face.
"Beautiful. My beautiful Neely."
He thrust upward to meet me, lifting his hips off the bed. I cried out with pleasure. My back bowed as I rode him. One of his hands gripped my hip to hold me in place, the other reached for the spot he knew would make me scream with passion. As I moved against him, I listened for the telltale shortening of breath that would signal he was close. I was paying so much attention to his breathing that I forgot to monitor my own, and when he plunged into me one last time, I shook with my own release.
Lucas's voice filled me the way his body had done only moments before:
You are everything, Neely Costa MacLeod. Everything I didn't know I always wanted. And no one gets to take you away.
No one.
Hold on a little longer, sugar cookie. I'm coming.
"Lucas?" My eyes flew open and I shot up on the cot. My chest heaved like a fireplace bellows and my heart beat a speed drum solo in my chest. Tears soaked my pillow and my top. Grief blazed through me like a wildfire, as dreaming about Lucas had held him in my thoughts long enough to elicit an emotional response. I missed him so much I was raw from it.
A rude awakening. In every sense of the phrase.
The lovemaking had been a replay of the last time we were together. A bittersweet memory. But Lucas's last words hadn't been a part of that night. What's more, they had sounded different. Clearer somehow.
As if they weren't a part of the dream at all.
Exhausted, cold, and sad, I flipped my pillow over and rested my head on it. Curled into a ball on the cot and pulled the brown scratchy blanket over my shoulder. Closed my eyes. I wanted to go back there for a little longer, spend another few hours lost in a beautiful dream before I faced the next nightmare Warden Harris had planned for me.
I didn't dream again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
At eight o'clock the next morning the warden entered my cell, leaving the door open behind him. I knew the time because I caught a glimpse of his watch when he seized my wrist and jerked me off the cot where I'd been sitting for the last two hours, fully dressed, planning and awaiting the inevitable.
"Move."
The warden's hair was smoothed back, and he wore his standard green khaki military-style trousers and cotton T-shirt,
but he'd paired them with a more formal long-sleeved jacket that matched the trousers. Once again, his boots were shined to a mirror finish. Not a speck of vomit on them.
"This way," he said.
"Where are you taking me?" Alarm zinged through my bloodstream, weakened my joints, quickened my breathing.
Harris didn't even look me in the eye, just grabbed my arms and frog-marched me out of my cell.
As I stumbled down the cement corridor in front of him, I noticed that the caged shifters were louder than usual. A few sang to themselves, while several rocked back and forth on the cement. Was their behavior related to what was going to happen to me or was something else going on?
I studiously ignored the tiger couple as I passed by them. I had no desire to bring the shifters unwanted attention. I knew the warden wasn't above using any kindness I might have for them against us both.
To my left, a pair of laughing guards shoved a bloodied hyena shifter to the concrete floor. In another cell, a guard kicked at a clearly unconscious wolf in hybrid form lying in the fetal position beneath his cot. Tellis. I set my jaw as the toe of the guard's boot crunched against bone.
It was the most openly brutal treatment I'd seen here, and I'd witnessed some terrible things.
"Stop." I jerked out of Harris's grip and halted in the middle of the corridor. "Why do you let the guards treat these people like that? What did they ever do to you?"
"They aren't people." The warden didn't slow down, didn't look in my direction. He circled around me and continued to the door.
The guard kicked the wolf again. Another crunch.
"Make them stop," I begged the warden. "Please."
"No."
I was so filled with rage I could barely put one foot in front of the other. Fiera hadn't reversed the spell—I still cared about the children and Lucas, I even cared about Tellis and the hyena shifter, and the children's parents—but my caring had united with my fury, distilling into a ferocious brand of protection.
The hyena let out a strangled cry and I had the inexplicable urge to growl. I clamped down on my need to draw energy, my need to strike back, my need to spike dead every human in this cursed place.
"No more," I whispered, the words too low to reach human ears, because they were meant to be heard only by shifter ones. "I promise you this. One way or another, it ends today."
The warden led me past the guards' lunchroom and Fiera's living quarters, down another gray, industrial hallway. This side of the building seemed vaguely damp, as if it had been hosed down recently and hadn't dried all the way. We made a series of left turns and ended up in a surprisingly opulent office.
Rich oak bookshelves lined the wall behind a matching desk the length of a twin mattress. On the other side of the room was a round table with four chairs, a full-sized brown leather sofa, a coffee table, and another leather chair. An oak-framed corkboard on the wall by the table held maps and blueprints, and what looked like wanted posters of various known paranormals. A photo of me standing outside the bakery was smack in the center along with my driver's license information and some incorrect and ignorant lore on spikers and telepaths.
"I don't want this."
"Don't want this?" His sharp gaze bore into me as he closed the office door. His eyes were oddly wet, rheumy, as if he'd had an allergic reaction or been crying. Was he having second thoughts about what he was about to do?
"You'll be the most powerful paranormal in this sanctuary, spiker."
Nope, no second thoughts.
Part of me wanted to reply, "I already am," but I didn't think bringing that to his attention would be to my benefit. I walked the length of the bulletin board, stared at the faces of the paranormals posted there. Wondered how many of them had already been hunted down and killed.
"Power is the only thing that matters." Harris's heavy boots clopped on the tile floor as he walked to his desk. I thought about the guard kicking Tellis hard enough to break his bones, and anger moved through my veins like blood.
"Power is useful for some things, but worthless for others." I swiveled around to look at him. "I don't want to become a crossbreed. If you do this, it will be entirely against my will."
"Why should that bother me?" He sat in the high-backed chair behind his desk, took his cell phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. "You're not human. Your will isn't any more important than the will of an animal."
His words sent chills down my spine. Had he always spoken this way and I was only now feeling the horror of it? "My uncle was Catholic. He went to mass whenever he wasn't working on Sunday." I lifted my gaze to his. "How many animals do you know who take communion?"
"Why would he bother? Shifters have no soul." He stared down at his phone, tapped on the screen some more.
When I first arrived, I convinced myself that the day the warden quit with the fake congenial attitude would be a good day. I was wrong. The callous version of the man was worse. Terrifying.
"Why do you do this?" My voice shook on the last word.
He looked up from his phone. "Upon my retirement, after serving my country as a soldier for twenty-two years, I was appointed by special committee under a clandestine agency affiliated with the United States government to—"
"I'm not asking how you got this job. I'm asking you why you do this." I clamped down on the fear inside me, crushed it into a little ball and shoved it to the back of my brain. The dream last night had left me vulnerable. If I wanted to survive, I had to stay in control of my emotions.
"It's my job."
"How many families have you destroyed? How many innocent lives have you taken in the name of your job?"
"Since arriving, you've killed three guards." He opened a thin laptop on the enormous desk and began typing. "Those people were only following orders."
"They wanted to hurt me."
"Detain you."
"Trust me, Warden Harris, they wanted to hurt me. I would know that better than anyone." I wrapped my arms around myself and moved away from the bulletin board, coming to a stop in front of his giant desk. "So, I ask again. Why do you do this? Because this isn't just a job for you."
"You're right." He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. "It's not only a job. It's a calling. A mission to obliterate your kind from the world."
"Why? What did we ever do to you?" I didn't remind him that I was part human, because to him, I wasn't.
He slid his damp gaze to mine. "You killed my sister."
"No. I didn't. I'd remember that."
"One of your kind killed her. A wolf shifter. Jocelyn thought she was in love with the monster, so she asked him to change her so they could be together in every way." He slumped in his chair, regarded me. "Against my wishes, she went ahead with it. She let him sink his teeth into the back of her neck. Only he wasn't a strong enough alpha and she was too fragile. The wolf failed. Badly."
"Oh," I said.
"Yeah. Oh."
"Listen, I'm sorry about Jocelyn, I really am, but I think you've more than gotten your revenge." I pointed behind me to the bulletin board. "How many of the paranormals on this wall have you killed?"
"None. Yet. Those are either at-large, or incarcerated elsewhere, or here at the sanctuary." He jerked open a drawer and extracted several Manila folders, stacking them on top of each other. When he was finished, the stack was two inches thick. "These are the ones I've exterminated during my tenure here."
My joints went liquid and I shook with fear. This man was going to kill me. He was going to kill me, take my poster off the board, and put it into his fat file, and then he was going to find the next one and do it again. No matter how many of us he killed, it was never going to be enough.
"If killing all of those paranormals didn't bring your sister back, what makes you think killing me will?"
He shook his head, smiled wryly. "I'm not killing you, Neely. I'm improving you. I need a weapon to fight your kind so that no one ever has to find their mother, daughter, or sister cut to ribbons
, drowned in a pool of her own blood, again."
He had painted an accurate, if graphic, picture. I'd seen firsthand what it looked like when an alpha wolf changed, or tried to change, someone. It was bloody.
"Did you ever find the wolf who killed her?"
The warden stared straight at me. "His body was found next to hers. An apparent suicide."
"It sounds like he was remorseful. He must have loved your sister very much."
"They aren't capable of love," he scoffed. "He was afraid of what I'd do when I found him, and he took the coward's way out."
"I'm not so sure about that. If he'd wanted to take the coward's way out, he would have run. A wolf could easily disappear. My uncle told me about a guy who stayed in wolf form for a decade. He hid in the woods in Northern California. No, it sounds like your sister's lover was so heartbroken over the loss of—"
"He murdered my sister." Harris yanked open the drawer, threw in the files of the paranormals he'd killed, and slammed it shut.
Dead end on that conversation.
I paced from one end of his desk to the other, dragging my index finger over the glossy wood. "Tell me this, warden. What makes you think you can control me once you change me?"
"I won't have to." He glanced at the file on his desk, picked up a ballpoint pen. "The alpha who changes you will do it for me in exchange for the use of your abilities for their own purposes. And there's always the safety of the children, if you need a little extra motivation."
"Once I'm a crossbreed, I'll be stronger than any alpha who changes me. You won't be able to use the children as leverage anymore because eventually I won't care. So, I figure you have a week or two tops before I, you know, go insane and someone kills me—if they can."
The warden gestured impatiently toward the sitting area. "Go sit down." He opened the file in front of him and signed the bottom of the first page. He then closed the file, moved it to the left corner of his desk, and plunked the pen into his center desk drawer.
