Both defensively poised, we stare at each other. We're both breathing heavily, and both have broken scales, but she's the only one bleeding.
I bend when she runs at me, and send her flying over my shoulder. She staggers to her feet before I can turn and reach her, but she loses her footing and has to grab a tree to keep upright.
Leaping at her, I grab her arms to wrench them behind her back. I pin her wrists to her back with one of my hands, then use my remaining hand to grab her neck and slam her head into the tree trunk – again and again.
Slowly, she shifts into human form.
I follow in suit, but I don't stop bashing her against the tree until Warren grabs my arms and pulls me away from her.
She slumps to the ground, unconscious.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Get her inside, sweetie.”
It's Warren's mother, speaking from somewhere behind me. Her voice is soft, compassionate. Warren obeys it without question.
Mr. Atherton seems to be with us, talking to Warren around me. I can't really focus on what they're saying. My thoughts are stuck in what just happened, my ears deafened by a crackling static that has to be born of too much adrenaline. Is this what shock feels like? Isn't that supposed to be cold? I'm not cold. I'm hot. Burning.
Warren's warmth is almost too much to handle, but he's holding on tight, and I don't have the energy to fight free of him, even if I wanted to.
He draws me down onto a couch, where I open my eyes to see Mr. Atheron's sitting room.
We're alone.
I try to ask what's going on, how Kim is... if I killed her or not. But when my mouth tries to open, all I do is yawn. My eyes shut, and I can't open them again.
Warren holds me while I sleep, is still holding me when I wake at the sound of people coming into the room.
“How are they?” Warren asks, meaning his injured packmates.
There's a deep sigh. “We lost Thomas. The others will probably be alright, but we don't know for sure.”
My love makes a tiny whine of mourning at the news. I don't know who Thomas was, but for Warren, he was family.
“And Kim?” he asks.
“Still heavily drugged to prevent a change, and confessing,” Mr. Atherton answers smoothly. He sits in a plush chair and Vivianne perches on the arm of it.
They look good together. Right. Is that how Warren and I look? How can she keep leaving him?
Vivianne gives me a sympathetic smile. “How are you?”
“Fine,” I mumble, shifting so I'm not lying on Warren anymore, but sitting beside him. He moves too, keeping an arm around my shoulder. “Confessing?”
The vixen nods, a frown making her look years older than usual. “She was the one killing the livestock.”
“Kim?”
That shouldn't be a surprise. She turned into a demon and tried to kill my friend. Did kill at least one member of Warren's pack...
“She was trying to frame you.” Vivianne uses a soft tone, but the words still hurt. I knew Kim hated me, but... I don't like her either, but I would never try to set her up for something that carried a death penalty. She was trying to murder me.
“How?” I want to know.
“Perfume.”
“Perfume?” Warren repeats.
Vivianne nods. “The kind you haven't worn since you got here. She never noticed you stopped wearing it, just knew you used to. And she made sure it was spread all over the sites of the livestock slayings.”
Warren's radiating tension. The growling is back, quiet but impossible not to hear. “The trackers thought it was Michaela?”
“Some of them,” Mr. Atherton responds. “There was definitely a female all-were to blame. Her scent was stronger than the male's. But Kim used too much of the perfume. Anyone wearing that much would drive everyone near them insane. It almost drowned out the other scents.”
I squint. “So Troy was there too?”
Vivianne makes a sound. “We think she was stalking him. She'd spend time watching him, then kill something close by. It probably never occurred to her she was implicating him.”
Nodding, I think she's probably right about that. Kim didn't want Troy to die; she wanted him to be hers.
But Warren is thinking about something else. “Why did no one mention the female?”
Vivianne looks uneasy, but Mr. Atherton laughs. “What would you have done to someone who did?”
“They told us,” Vivianne says softly. “And Mike did a lot of yelling. I think they figured that if her principal reacted that vehemently, they didn't want to learn what her mate would do.”
How many people knew about that? And why didn't anyone tell me? It would have saved me a lot of worry and anxiety if I had known he was acting strange because I was his mate, not because he couldn't stand me.
Something in the back of my mind pokes into my thoughts, making me blink. “Hold on. How could she have been doing that? She hasn't been turned three months yet, has she?” Were we wrong about when he turned her? No, he admitted just tonight he didn't attack her until after I failed to change.
Mr. Atherton gives me a droll look. “She didn't need to be.”
“You didn't either,” Warren states, a little breathlessly, as if the realization is coming to him. “That's why it was so easy for you to make partial changes. You don't have to change on the moon, and you could have changed anytime you thought to.”
“Right.” Vivianne nods in my direction. “You're something completely new. It's going to take a while for us to learn the rules for what you all-weres can and can't do.”
“Will the other two be around for that?” I ask.
“Maybe.” Mr. Atherton shrugs, as if he doesn't care too much one way or the other. “They'll be tried by the pack.”
“They'll kill Kim.” Warren doesn't sound sorry about it. He also sounds distant, as if he isn't part of the group that would be doing the killing.
“And Troy?”
My wolf gives me a long, probing look. “He didn't kill the animals,” he says after several moments.
“But he did turn Michaela and Kimberly,” Mr. Atherton finishes.
“He didn't know the rules,” Warren argues, his eyes still locked on me. “That should buy some leniency.”
“Should it?” I whisper.
“We're not animals to rip people apart just because we hate them,” he answers.
There's more than a hint of pride in Mr. Atherton's nod. “So what do you want to do with him?”
“North Pole.”
The others murmur agreement, but I have to ask, “Huh?”
“There's a camp up there,” Warren tells me. “Sort of a...”
“Prison?” I guess.
“More like rehab.” He shrugs. “Similar concept.”
“You should go tell your father,” Mr. Atherton states. “I'd be willing to bet there's someone calling for blood by now.”
“Probably,” Warren agrees. Holding a hand out to pull me after him, he gets to his feet.
“Your father already asked to take Kim tonight.” Mr. Atherton gets up too, Vivianne rising at his side as if their minds are linked. “Troy's going to stay here until the sedation wears off though.”
Warren grunts and starts to lead me toward the door. I wobble as I follow him, causing him to stop and frown at me.
“Do you need to see the nurse?” Vivianne asks me, sounding just like a mother.
“No.” I shake my head, trying to ignore how light-headed it makes me feel. “I'm just tired.”
“You've had a lot of stress.” She comes up and gives me a short hug. “Get some sleep, kit.”
Kit... What I wouldn't give to really be a fox and not a monster.
There's a tug on my hand, and I wave goodnight as Warren guides me out. “You're not a demon,” he tells me as the door closes.
“So, life mates have mind reading powers?” I start toward the stairs. “When do mine kick in?”
He lets out an amused breath. “No
mind reading. You're just that obvious.”
We traipse up the stairs, each one feeling like a small mountain.
“Warren?”
He gives me a lopsided smile. “Michaela?”
“I'm proud of you.”
Stopping at my room, he raises his eyebrows. “For standing around while my mate risked her life?”
“Yes.”
He blinks.
“Amongst other things,” I go on. “Most noticeably, not killing Troy.”
“That was pretty hard,” he admits. Something flares in his eyes. “Do I get a reward?”
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pull him close, giving him a very thorough kiss.
My knees start to weaken. And I don't think it's from exhaustion.
I whimper as he pulls away.
“Stop that,” he whispers. “You might give me ideas.”
My head darts forward, and my teeth nip his throat.
The responding growl is very different his earlier ones.
“Good night, Michaela.”
He forces himself back, taking a huge step and plastering his back to the far wall.
If we could harness that wolf's self-control, we could power all of the state.
I grin as I reach behind me to open my door.
I'm still grinning as I crash onto my bed, falling asleep before I can even wiggle all the way under my comforter.
The grin fades sometime in the night, but I wake up laughing. I'm dancing as I get dressed, skipping while I go up the hallway. My cheer dies down as I get closer to my destination, but the flame of joy stays in my heart even as I walk up to Troy's cage.
The cage is locked, but I can only assume that's to keep people out of it rather than to keep Troy in. He could, after all, simply change into something small enough to escape if he were at all interested in leaving the warmth of the building or the food he's been given here. From the number of dishes in the cage with him, it looks like he's been making up for his weeks of near starvation.
He grins when he sees me, thinking I'm smiling at him rather than just beaming at the world in general. “Mike!”
I drag a chair over and put it just outside of his reach. He looks none the worse for his ordeals. His borrowed clothes are clean, and his hair has obviously been shampooed. He even shaved. He still smells awful, but now I know it isn't from lack of hygiene.
“How you feeling?”
Wrapping his hands around the bars of his cell, his gives off a dangerous rogue sort of air. A few weeks ago, it would have had my heart doing somersaults.
“My head hurts like a bitch.”
Wincing in sympathy, I tell him, “I'm sorry. We probably shouldn't have shot you.”
“You think?”
“Then again, maybe we should have.”
He laughs. “There's my Mike.” Stilling as he watches me, he turns serious. “What's going on with us?”
“Well...” I lean back and let my eyes drop to were the bars meet the floor. “I'm staying here. And you're going to the north pole.”
“The north pole?” Glancing up, I see him blinking in astonishment. “Are you serious?”
“You thought we were there already, huh?”
Dropping his hands, he spreads them out. “What the hell, Mike?”
Taking pity, I stop trying to tease him. “There's a camp near North Pole. The town, not the actual pole.” He nods impatiently, and I continue. “I guess you could think of it like juvie. They're going to send you there until you're rehabilitated.” At least, I assume Warren's going to win that argument. From what I know of his father, the elder Denali doesn't want to kill anyone he doesn't feel he has to. And he's already had to slay one teenager this week if Kim met the fate I expect she did last night.
“Rehabilitated?” He shakes his head. “Didn't you hear, I didn't do it.”
“You didn't kill those animals,” I agree. “But you did turn two humans into weres. Against our wills.”
“I did that because I love you.”
I elect to ignore both that and the wounded expression on his face.
“It doesn't matter why you did it. It happened. And they usually kill people for it.”
“But not me?”
I sigh. “They're likely to go easy on you because you didn't know what you were doing.”
“I knew what I was doing.” His gaze is fevered. “I was turning my mate into what I am. So we could be together.”
“You could have asked, you know. Permission can be given to turn a mate who wants to be turned.”
He watches me closely. “What would you have said?”
“I don't know.”
The answer is fully honest.
“Would I have been required to kill you for saying no?” he asks.
“What?”
He smirks. “They don't mind people telling everyone they meet that werewolves are real?”
Oh. Good point. “No, you can't tell just anyone. But a mate... A true life mate... That would be different.”
“So why isn't this different?”
I sigh. “If nothing else, I'm not your mate.”
“Like hell you're not.”
It takes work, but I look him straight in the eye. “No, I'm Warren's.”
“Right.”
“I'm serious, Troy.”
He laughs at that. “Sure you are,” he says with several tons of sarcasm. “You're not just trying to torture me, not punishing me for what I did with Kim. This has nothing to do with vengeance.”
It doesn't, but he's not going to see that yet, is he?
I get up and start to go.
“Where are you going?” he calls after me.
“I'm going to take a shower and then go find my boyfriend. I want to see if he really did manage to save your worthless ass or not.”
“Save? What?”
Turning, I meet his gaze across the room. “Warren's the one trying to get you sent to North Pole.”
His hands ball into fists. “I'll just bet he is.”
“Everyone else wants to kill you. Like they probably killed Kim last night.”
That makes him pause. He's thinking so hard it looks like he's in pain from it. “And why would your precious new boyfriend help me?”
“Honestly?” I shake my head and laugh. “I have no idea.”
Before he can ask me anything else, I leave him there.
Does leaving him in a cage hurt me? Yeah, I'm surprised to notice, it does. He's an idiot, a jerk, and a liar. But he's not a criminal. His crimes weren't malicious. He wasn't trying to hurt anyone. He probably thought he was doing us favors.
And in a way, he did do me a favor. If he'd never turned me, then I wouldn't have come here. I wouldn't have my wonderful new friends. I wouldn't have Warren.
Nearly weary enough to go back to bed already, I trudge into my room, head down, my thoughts turning to focus on the very long shower I intend to indulge in. I'm several steps in before I realize I'm not alone.
Warren sits on the bed, stroking Wolfgang as though he's a live pet rather than a stuffed toy. His eyes are focused on the wolf, but I have no doubt he knows I came into the room.
“Hey, Warren.”
“Michaela.”
I lean against my desk, watching him.
He sighs. “I was just looking to see if maybe you have this sweatshirt I'm missing,” he tells Wolfgang. “But I can't find it. And I guess it doesn't matter anymore anyway.”
My eyes squint and my head tilts to the side. I wish he'd look at me. “Why doesn't it matter? Did it not fit?”
“It fit fine.” The words are subdued, but pained.
“What's wrong, Warren?”
I get my wish about him looking at me when he directs a quick look of confusion towards me before returning his eyes to Wolfgang. He doesn't answer me.
Something's wrong, and he's confused I'd have to ask what. It's something that would mean it no longer matters if he was the person I was talking about in the kitchen las
t night...
Oh.
Of Fur and Ice Page 32