“Your what?” Troy's stopped moving.
Sighing, I turn back to him, letting Tod in and then leaning on the doorway. “Troy, you're going pass out soon. Do you want to do it inside or out in the snow?”
He moves forward, reaching for me, but I slide out of his way. His movements are already groggy.
“Tod?” I ask.
He makes a sound of acknowledgment, watching Troy with a displeased frown.
“How long do these darts take to kick in?”
Shrugging, he looks to Warren, who is still staring at me. “Five minutes or so?”
“Five minutes?” My arms fold tightly beneath my breasts. “So what good was having a dart gun with you the night I first changed?”
Smiling softly, Tod looks to the floor. “It wouldn't have done me any good.” His eyes slide up to me. “It was just to minimize what you did after mauling me.”
Shaking my head, I move to the rec room, going to stand in front of the fire, still shivering in belated response to the cold.
Troy's eyes are glazed as he stumbles after me. With a disgusted sigh, Tod reaches out to support him, keeping him from falling on his face. “Sit down.” He guides him to the sofa, where Troy sits, watching me blearily.
“I don't feel too good, Mike.”
Nodding, I rub my arms. “You'll feel better after you sleep.”
“Promise?”
I smile. “Could you feel worse?”
Looking at Warren, he says, “Probably not.”
Then he takes a shaky breath and promptly falls over to the side.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
With all the animation and strain suddenly drained from him, I realize exactly how tense Troy was before. Relaxed now, he looks more pitiful, easier to sympathize with. He looks like hell: filthy, exhausted, and with two weeks worth of growth on his face. Of course, to his dismay, he's never been capable of growing a full goatee, struggle though he did last summer, so what is there now can't really, in all honesty, be dubbed a beard. But something about the scraggly patchiness of what hair he does sport makes him all the more tragic to behold.
I've moved towards him before I realize it.
Leaning over him, my hand goes to his forehead, but snaps back instantly. “He's burning up.”
I lean further with a thought to at least unzipping his coat, but jerk back as I catch a good whiff of him. Hand to mouth, I stagger backwards while I try not to gag.
“What's wrong?” Tod frowns with concern.
“The smell.”
Puzzled, the fox sniffs the air around Troy. “He's obviously been living in a cave for the last two weeks, but he's not that ripe, considering.”
I shake my head. “It's not that. It's... I felt ill when I smelled him in the woods too.”
Tod's eyes widen as he remembers. “I'll take his coat off.” He sets about doing that as I try to draw a clean breath, but the whole room is permeated with stench now.
Backing, my eyes go to Warren. He stands near where I was at the fire, watching it with a complete lack of interest. The firelight highlights his hair with streaks of rosy gold, makes him seem more a creature of magic than a part of the mundane world. Changing course, I rush to him, flinging my arms around him and burying my face against him.
My stomach instantly settles as the welcome scent of wolf mingled with the ashy scent of the fire drown out the unwelcome smell of male all-were.
Stiffly, Warren puts one arm around me and uses the other to draw a hand through my hair.
A group of people rush into the room, but I don't bother to look at them, assuming them to be the foxes we left upstairs. Their voices back me up in this as they start to talk about our slumbering visitor.
“He doesn't look frightening at all anymore,” Aliah observes after the newcomers establish his identity and that he's sleeping, not dead.
Sam laughs softly. “Well, you're both human now. And he's out cold.”
I had managed to forget for a few minutes about what Troy did to Aliah. I was too busy feeling sorry for him. Feeling tired, I shake my head at my stupidity.
“What is it?” Warren murmurs into my hair. I pull back some, looking up at the lights flickering in his eyes. The effect makes him wild, should probably make him frightening. Smiling tenderly, I reach a hand to brush through his hair.
“What's up with his smell?” Sam's question shifts our attentions to her.
“He's been living in a cave,” Tod tells her, same as he told me a few minutes ago. “You expect to him to smell freshly showered?”
“It's not that,” Aliah answers. “There's this... Strange undertone. An edge of...” She shakes her head helplessly.
“Does it make you nauseous?” I ask.
“No...” Aliah answers slowly, narrowing her eyes at Troy as she thinks about it.
“It doesn't make me sick either,” Sam tells me. “I just don't like it much.”
“It's probably pheromones,” Tod says softly, letting out a sigh and sitting down in one of the armchairs. “They affect Mike more because she's of his species.”
Toni clicks her tongue. “I thought pheromones were supposed to attract potential mates, not make them vomit.”
Her brother shrugs. “Too many of them can probably be overwhelming.”
Lyly smirks. “Or her body could be upset with her for fighting against them,” she offers with malicious sweetness oozing from her voice. “Maybe she should stop doing that.”
Warren's arms tighten as if he thinks I'm actually going to act on that advice at any point.
“I'm going to try calling Mr. Atherton again.” Tod pushes out of the chair with more violence than absolutely necessary and heads swiftly to the edge of the room as he pulls his cell from his pocket.
I sit on the edge of the fireplace, pulling Warren down beside me. Closing my eyes, I lean against him and let myself drift off into a world comprised only of warmth.
I wouldn't have thought I was tired enough to fall asleep, but between the heat of the fire and comfort of Warren, I get lulled into a slumber. One minute, I'm listening to the gentle flow of the foxes' conversation, focusing on the familiar and reassuring patterns rather than their words, and the next instant Seth is in the room asking questions about our guest.
Groggy, I squint at the clock on the wall. It's still shy of eleven at night, so Seth must have left the dance incredibly early.
The leopard sits down between Sam's chair and the fire, looking at Troy with an expression I can't read in the dim lighting. We still haven't turned on any of the artificial lights and have only the fire.
“So...” he says softly. “We got a call shortly after we left-”
“We?” asks Sam, a bit too eagerly.
“Well, Raja.” He shrugs. “I rode back with her. Some of the chaperons from the other schools, and even a lot of the students, were pretty upset about her being there with Amber.”
One of the changes in the post-Simone leopard world was that Amber decided that since she was no longer Simone's flunky, there was no longer any reason to stay in the closet.
This upset a fairly large percentage of the student body. A very large fraction of the males, to be precise. Not because they're homophobic, of course. The boys were upset because not only is Amber now lost to them, but she managed to snag a date with the incredibly gorgeous and exotic tigress Raja, something a lot of them had been trying to do for years. Losing any shot at either of the girls in one swoop was a bit too much for some of the poor things to handle.
“And you just left your date?” Sam quires.
Seth shrugs again, looking neither thrilled nor terribly unhappy. “She was one of the upset ones.”
Ah. Yes, even under the best of circumstances, you aren't going to get very far with Seth if you can't accept his sister. Not after all the guilt he's been going through over Simone.
He goes back to his story. “A few minutes after we left, there was a call from Atherton. None of our students are being allowed to le
ave.”
“Why not?” Tod leans forward, frowning.
“They're not being told. But they have been warned there's a decent chance they'll have to stay all night.”
Weary looks are traded about the room.
“Mike!”
My name is shouted with gusty panic as Raja sprints into the room, her Kohl-lined eyes wide with horror. “She has Amber!”
Seth's on his feet instantly. “Who has Amber?”
“Kim.”
“Kim?” Lyly repeats.
Raja nods quickly, tendrils of inky black hair falling around her face. “She was outside the kitchen and called that she needed help with something. Amber went to help her while I was pouring some drinks. Then I heard screaming, and I looked out.” She pauses to gasp for breath. “I don't know what Kim turned into, but she's huge and freaky, and she says if Mike doesn't go out there right now, she's going to kill Amber.”
Kill Amber?
I sprint down the hall, Warren at my heels and the others close behind him.
Noises come from outside, scuffling and howling.
Great, the calvary is here at last. If they've endangered Amber, I'm killing them all.
As we run toward the door, it crashes open and the leopardess in question virtually tumbles into the room. Her flapper-inspired evening wear is ripped in several places, but otherwise she looks fine as she falls into her brother's arms.
The rest of us rush to the windows.
Outside, a pack of wolves snarl in a circle around a massive creature, some sort of demon. It's at least eight feet tall and wide as a small car. Covered in scales, its hide looks like custom-made armor. Its nails are as long as scythe blades. Its eyes glow a wicked red.
“That's Kim?” Sam asks, incredulous.
“Yes,” Amber assures her.
Several wolves leap as one. It's an orchestrated attack that should have granted at least one of them a decent hit, but Kim blurs into motion, knocking them all back. One lands with its neck at a sickening angle.
The Kim Monster presses forward, sending wolves flying through the air, many with bloody swaths torn down their bodies. Most of them don't get up again.
She's decimating them.
“I have to fight her,” I realize.
I don't say the words with relish.
“Like hell you do,” Tod snaps. “We still have guns, you know.”
“Yeah? Well, they still take five minutes to work, don't they? And that was on someone in human form, who knows how long it would take to knock out that thing.”
“Michaela...” Warren's anguish does reach me, but I can't stay in here just because he'll be worried about me if I don't.
“Aliah,” I look to the vixen, “can you get a shot on her?”
She nods, takes up her gun, and goes straight to crack the door and fire three rapid shots into the night. Slamming the door shut again, she takes a deep breath. “At least two of them hit. And I think they broke through the scales.”
I don't know what the repercussions of an overdose of these sedatives are. I hope the list doesn't include hyperactivity. “Thanks.”
Warren is between me and the door, showing no signs of budging. “If you go, I'm going,” he tells me.
My eyebrows rise. “You do realize if I'm worrying about whether she's hurt you, I'm going to be paying less attention to whether she's about to hurt me?”
“Michaela...”
“I love that you want to protect me.” I put my hand on his cheek. “But, Warren, look at how she's tossing those wolves around. You know them. They're hunters and warriors. And she's treating them like a bunch of toys. Please stay here?”
“I...”
“I know it's hard. I know. But what hope does one wolf stand against a demon?”
His eyes are hooded, his jaw clinched. He knows I'm right, but admitting it has got to be a tougher battle than the one I'm facing. It staggers me to think about the amount of strength it must take to face the facts that not only do I have to be the one to do this, but that there's not a thing he can do to help me.
My thumb strokes his skin. “I couldn't stand to see you slashed open,” I whisper. “It would kill me.”
With a swallow, he jerks away from me, stalking into the dining room without a backward glance.
“Alright then.” My eyes move around the room. “Same to the rest of you?”
Several of them won't meet my eyes and only Tod nods, but no one says anything to stop me as I open the door and step, once again, into the bitterly cold Alaskan night.
“Back off, guys,” I call to the wolves who remain able to stand. “This is a personal challenge.”
I expect there to be resistance, but they all move away from Kim, literally backing from her.
“What's up, Kim?”
She snarls at me.
“Very scary.”
“Where is Troy,” she asks, retaining her demonic form. Her voice is gravely, sounding like it's being dredged from Hell.
I shrug. “Inside. Sleeping.”
If she's noticed the darts hanging out of her hide, she's given no sign. Three of them, two nestled beside each other and one about a foot off, line up along her collarbone. At least, I think that's a collarbone.
“Did you hurt him?” she growls.
“Of course not.”
She pulls her lips back, revealing sharp black teeth and way more drool than I wanted to see. “If you're lying-”
“Hey,” I interrupt. “What gave you the idea to try shifting into a demon, anyway? Were you just trying to reflect your inner personality?”
Growling, she leaps toward me, just like I knew she would. Changing quickly, I take the form of a fox and dart between her legs. She flounders comically, struggling to retain her balance.
“Not a very flexible form,” I taunt after becoming human again. “Why are you so worried about Troy, anyway? He's a wanted criminal, you know.”
“He didn't do those things!” Her feet stomp in a series of clunks as she turns slowly. “And even if he had, I would still love him.”
Love him? She thinks she's in love with him? I try not to laugh.
“You just can't stand for me to be happy, can you, Mike? You always ruin everything! And now you've framed him for things you know he didn't do!” She swings an arm at me, but I shift into a mouse and avoid it easily.
Out of her reach again, I shift back to having vocal chords. “I don't know he didn't do them.”
“Of course you do. Because you did them!”
I almost forget to evade the next attack.
Kim goes on, “They all know it was you. I heard them talking about it. They've known for ages it was a female all-were they were looking for. It was a big mistake to kill so many poor little sheep Thursday. You left your scent all over the place.”
Watching my attacker closely, I wonder how long I'm going to have to keep her talking before the drugs kick in. “I was busy saving Aliah Thursday night. Get your facts straight.”
She smirks. “A nice alibi, but not one that will stand up. It's obvious she only went along with you because Tod was willing to hook up with her if she did.”
Pretty similar to what Lyly said earlier. I wonder what they think Tod's getting out of being pimped out? Probably shouldn't ask.
“The wolves are pissed at you,” she tells me. None of the wolves do anything to back the statement up. “Not only have you been endangering their precious secret, but you've managed to brainwash their prince.”
One of the wolves growls, a low and menacing sound. I look over, seeing Warren's mother behind lupine eyes. Her growl isn't for me, though; it's aimed at Kim. Apparently using her son in mad rantings isn't something she looks kindly on.
Kim growls back, bringing her arm across in a fierce swoop that Mrs. Denali can't possibly evade. Howling, I launch myself on Kim. My body lengthens, bulks up, and grows stronger as I become demon myself in order to pound her into the icy ground.
I land with a crash an
d move instantly to slam her head back against the ground.
Howling, she grabs at my shoulders, rolls me. She tries to take the top now, but I force the roll to continue and land several punches against the side of her head before she can move me off.
She manages to buck me with an enraged twist so she can scramble a few feet away, where she crouches and plans her next move.
Of Fur and Ice Page 31