Wolf Fated

by Nicole R. Taylor

  All the humanity I’d been holding back since the train came flooding in, the emotions making my ears ring and my temples throb. My body had returned to normal, but my mind was another thing entirely.

  I collapsed, my vision slipping before my head even hit the pillow, and my last thought was of Sloane.

  Chapter 4

  Sloane

  Waking up without Chaser glaring at me was an odd experience. It didn’t feel right.

  Light was pouring through the slats in the venetian blinds, casting long fingers over the end of my bed. I rolled over and rubbed my eyes, groaning when my entire body throbbed.

  Last night had been a strange experience.

  Rick had delivered me to my old room last night. Strangely, everything was just as I’d left it the night I’d run away, almost like Dad believed I would come back someday. A double bed sat against the far wall, a desk with a stereo in the opposite corner, a black shag-pile rug was spread out on the floor, and someone had put my bag in the closet. My dirty clothes were missing, and I hoped it meant someone was washing them.

  Fancy that, a wolf pack who did laundry.

  As for my father, Marini, I didn’t believe a single word he said. I wasn’t safe here.

  Keep your eye on the prize, Sloane.

  Dragging myself out of bed, I opened my bag and found the last of my clean underwear and a change of clothes. I set them on the desk, leaving my broken laptop beside them. University had become a distant memory, and my textbook had probably disintegrated at the bottom of that lake by now.

  What did I even want to be, anyway? There wasn’t a course on taking over werewolf packs, was there?

  My hair was greasy and I smelled funky. I needed to scrub myself until I was raw to get Bailey’s stench off my skin. The world would not miss the dead vampire.

  I shuffled into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. Turning on the light, I stripped out of the travel-stained clothes I’d slept in, and my thoughts went to Chaser when I saw the blood on my jeans.

  Where was he? I knew he could more than look after himself, but he wasn’t invincible. He’d been so grey, his skin shrivelled…

  I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and hesitated. Lifting my hand, I ran my fingertips across my cheekbones. Looking down at my naked body, I remembered the sensation of my bones breaking as I’d stood underneath the stars on the Nullarbor.

  Despite the agony, I wanted to turn again. The realisation startled me, and I closed my hand around the edge of the basin…which cracked under the pressure.

  Gasping, I jerked away. I still had the strength of the full moon behind me. I had to be careful.

  What a mess…

  It hadn’t felt like it, but I’d been tossed about so much in the past two weeks it was a miracle I’d reached the other side. I was finally realising just to what extent now that I had a moment to slow down and be alone with my thoughts.

  I’d turned into a wolf, shot at, flung from a car, beaten up, killed a vampire, betrayed by Chaser’s past…and survived everything that’d happened on the train to the point of finally admitting that I’d fallen for him.

  A vampire.

  And he had, too. He hadn’t called it love, but he’d admitted his feelings. He wanted to run away with me. He wanted to disappear with me and forget everything…but he was bound to Marini by magic. He couldn’t leave.

  Chaser was a slave and I was hunted. I’d never be safe out there on my own.

  Turning on the shower, I ducked under the hot water and scrubbed my skin raw. Emptying the little bottles of body wash and shampoo I’d taken from one of the many motels we’d stayed at, I eventually stepped out a lot cleaner than I had felt in days.

  A woman was sitting on the end of my bed when I emerged from the bathroom. I yelped, suddenly glad I’d dressed in there and not wandered out in the buff.

  “Hey, I’m Sam,” she said, her voice not much louder than a hushed whisper.

  She reminded me of Yvette in a way. She was tiny, blonde, and pretty…even with the bruise on the side of her face.

  “You’re Sloane,” she added when I didn’t acknowledge her.

  I nodded, noting the fact she hadn’t called me Betty. Good. Taking out a comb from my bag, I brushed out the tangles in my wet locks.

  “What happened to your face?” I asked, leaning against the desk.

  She lowered her gaze and shrugged. “I fell.”

  I snorted. I bet.

  Sam’s blue eyes widened. I intimidated her, that much was clear. I wondered what stories had been going around about me. I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything good, which meant I had a lot of work to do.

  “How old are you?” I asked, looking her over. She was so delicate, it was hard to tell.

  “Twenty-four,” she replied. “My mum always said I had a baby face. I always get asked for ID when I go to the bottle shop, so I just hand it to them with the cash. Saves them from asking the question. It gets tiring.”

  I tilted my head to the side and dragged the comb through my hair. Seemed like little Sam was starved for attention if a little flower like her couldn’t answer a simple question without telling me her life story. Whoever her man was, he wasn’t treating her right. Not by a long shot.

  “I’m a year older than you,” I said, my heart bleeding a few drops for her. “I suppose that’s why they ordered you to follow me.”

  “Follow you?”

  Marini didn’t believe me, I realised. He knew I hadn’t told him the entire truth, so he’d sent in the most vulnerable woman in the entire place in an attempt to soften me. Sam was just the poor, unsuspecting pawn in the middle of a deadly play for power. It wasn’t her fault, and I’d help her if I could, but not at the expense of losing my freedom…or what little of it I had.

  “I know how these things work. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Harley said—”

  “Harley?” I scoffed and shook my head, tossing the comb onto the desk. “That explains a lot.”

  “He said you needed someone to help you out,” Sam muttered. “You were here alone and needed someone to talk to.”

  I sighed. “All I want to know is where’s the food? I’m not permitted to leave, so you know.” I waved my hand at my stomach, which growled on cue.

  “I can help you with that,” Sam declared, her eyes brightening. “I like to cook.”

  Shrugging, I followed her from my room and through the compound.

  It was quiet today. Everyone seemed to be somewhere else, but the smell lingered.

  “So,” I asked as I followed Sam, “are you a…you know.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “A werewolf?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I’m not, but I carry the gene.”

  I hesitated. “The…gene?”

  “That’s how it works. My mother was a wolf, by my father wasn’t. It was a fifty-fifty chance, but when puberty came and nothing happened, I soon found out.” She paused and I almost smacked into her. “Are you?”

  “No,” I lied. “I guess I got the other fifty, too.”

  Sam shrugged and kept walking. “It’s probably a good thing. I hear turning hurts like hell…not that I’ve seen it.”

  The kitchen turned out to be huge. A large table that could easily seat twenty ran the length of the room, while the walls were lined with cupboards, two refrigerators, an industrial-sized oven and range, a giant double sink, and two microwaves. I was rather surprised to see a posh Nespresso coffee maker on the bench. I didn’t think werewolves were refined enough to want a macchiato with their French toast.

  “What do you like?” Sam asked. “Pancakes?”

  “Pancakes?” I frowned. The best I’d hoped for was cereal.

  “Sure. Leave it to me.”

  I sat at the table as she busied herself with making the batter from scratch—no premix packets or anything. It was all eggs, flour, and milk. It was rather…homely and threw me off balance.

  It seemed Sam’s forte
was looking after people like a mother hen. She was small, human, and lacked confidence, but give her a lost soul to care for and she was all in. She was the kind of woman destined to be a sweet kindergarten teacher who wore floral dresses and baked cookies. Fortitude was the last place I’d expected to find someone like her and I wondered what her story was.

  “Hey, what’s this? Sam’s cooking,” a booming voice declared.

  “Pay dirt!” someone else added.

  Boots thumped on the floor behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder as three men filed into the kitchen. From the way they smelled, I knew they were wolves.

  First in line was one of the more handsome men I’d seen in this place. Tall, muscled, tattooed up to the eyeballs, complete with a hipster beard and warm eyes. The second wasn’t as alluring as he was scrappy, bald, and had beady little eyes. The third was built, tattooed, and had a lopsided curve to his mouth.

  “Just in time,” Sam said. “Have a seat.”

  “Pancakes!” the tattooed man exclaimed. “Best.”

  The wolves busied themselves getting out syrup, jam, and butter, then tossed cutlery and plates onto the table. Sam beamed and dished up pancakes straight from the frying pan and onto everyone’s plates.

  The tattooed man with the beard sat across from me and piled butter and syrup on his stack. “You’re new.”

  “Yeah,” I replied as a pancake appeared on my plate.

  “I’m Ratchet,” he said, glancing at me. “That’s Rocket,” he pointed to the bald guy, then to the other tattooed wolf, “and Spike.”

  I recognised Rocket from last night. He’d carried Chaser into the compound with some other guy. I wanted to ask about him, but I bit my lip.

  “I’ve seen her before,” Rocket drawled, sitting as far away from me as he could. “She’s Marini’s daughter.”

  “That could mean one of two things,” I said, reaching for the butter.

  “Which are?” Spike asked.

  Sam shrank back into the corner, focusing on washing out the frying pan. She mightn’t have the animal instincts, but she could sense a fight for dominance a mile off.

  “Either I’m a murderous little bitch or I’m the best you’ve ever had.” I smirked and smeared my pancakes with a healthy dob of yellowish butter.

  Ratchet laughed and thumped his fist on the table. The motion dissolved the tension in the air, and everyone’s shoulders slouched. The sound of cutlery scraping against plates filled the room once more.

  Liking me wasn’t enough. In order for my plan to work, they had to respect me. Men like these didn’t drop everything for a pretty face. They were wolves and would only bow down to absolute power.

  Rocket narrowed his eyes at me before going back to his pancakes. He wasn’t so convinced.

  Ignoring him, I stuck a fork into my pancakes, deciding that Sam was one hell of a cook.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Ratchet said, glancing at Rocket. “He’s always got his hackles up about something.”

  “So you’re Marini’s daughter, hey?” Spike asked. “The one Chaser went to get?”

  “Like there’s another,” Rocket muttered.

  Spike snorted. “That we know of.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” I nodded, my heart leaping at the mention of Chaser. “The vampire came and got me.”

  Rocket raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “Do you have any tattoos, Sloane?” Ratchet asked.

  Knowing I told none of them my name, I curled my lip. “No.”

  “I have a shop a few blocks from here,” he went on, “but I do stuff at the compound, too. I’ve tattooed almost everyone here.”

  My thumb ached. I got his meaning loud and clear. If I wanted to be a part of the pack and play the game, then I had to be a part of the pack.

  “Oh, I’m not a werewolf,” I told them. “I don’t think it’d fly.”

  “She doesn’t have the balls,” Spike said.

  “Do you guys like watermelon?” I asked.

  “The hell?” Rocket declared.

  “When you shoot a dumb wolf in the head, his skull explodes like a watermelon. The skin splits down the sides, bone shards crack, and brains fly everywhere. Wet, sticky, and messy as. It’s not at all like shooting a vampire—they just shrivel up like a mouldy little raisin.”

  Spike choked on his pancake. “She’s mental.”

  “If you guys don’t stop trying to do your creepy werewolf dominance thing on me, that’s what I’ll do to your head,” I snarled, then gestured to myself. “This is a domination-free zone.”

  Spike snorted and waved his knife in the air. “Marini all over.”

  “Pencil me in,” I said to Ratchet. “I’m game.”

  “Tonight,” he replied. “Since we’ve been ordered not to let you leave.”

  “That’s a surprise.” I rolled my eyes.

  “See you later…Sloane.”

  Ratchet pushed his chair back and stood, the others following suit. They left the room, leaving their dirty dishes behind. Immediately, Sam rushed forwards to clear up.

  “You shouldn’t make them angry,” she whispered. “Ratchet’s nice, but the others…”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said, knowing I had the strength of the full moon behind me always. “I can take care of myself.”

  “You’re really going to let them tattoo you?” She seemed scandalised. “They don’t tattoo non-wolves.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t intend to get taken advantage of ever again.”

  “You mean…”

  “Don’t look so shocked, Sam. You heard Spike.” Standing, I helped her clear the rest of the table. “I’m a Marini, and Marini’s don’t get sold, they do the selling…wolf or no wolf.”

  Chapter 5

  Sloane

  The common room was full of women when Sam and I finally left the kitchen.

  Looking them over, I wondered if it was the weekly book club meeting, but no one who ever read Tolstoy dressed in cropped Metallica T-shirts, denim cutoffs, and platform heels.

  Suddenly, I was the odd one out, though I’d always skewed a little to the side of any group I was in. I was the tomboy with my combat boots and sour disposition. I would rather sit with the guys and hash it out, but around here, the segregation between the sexes was as black and white as ever.

  Sam wandered into the centre of the fray without a care in the world. These were her people much more than the men were. With the men, she’d rushed around trying to please them, but with the other women, she was just…present.

  “Sloane, c’mon,” Sam said, waving me over.

  The group stopped their chatter and looked up at the mention of my name. Five pairs of eyes zeroed in on me in various shades of curiosity, and not all of them were friendly.

  “That’s Kelly, Shondra, Emily, Raquel, and Sierra,” Sam went on, introducing them all. Blonde hair, chestnut, blonde, red, and black. “This is Sloane.”

  Some of them smiled, but mostly, they pouted and glared, giving me the once-over—probably determining my threat level.

  Oh shit, how do I relate to other women? Oh, that was right, I didn’t know how. What did they talk about? Makeup, boys, who they had it in for this week… Uh, that was probably me.

  Sitting beside Sam, I returned the appraising glares, making my judgments and storing it for later. First impressions weren’t always an accurate indicator of someone’s personality. Their actions, rather than their words, would betray them in the end.

  Their smell, however…they all reeked of werewolf, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of their association with the pack or not. Sam smelled the same, even though she was human, and I was sure I still carried Chaser’s sickly vampire scent from our time on the road.

  “You know how to make an entrance,” Raquel said, blatantly looking me over. I was sans-makeup, wearing a pair of jeans, a stonewashed T-shirt with a panther printed on the front, and my trusty pair of steel-capped combat boots.

  “Th
e last time I saw a woman stand up to Harley, it didn’t end well,” Shondra declared. She smiled sweetly at Sam. “No offence, Sammy.”

  I swallowed my tongue. Some friends they were. I had to keep reminding myself that this place and these people weren’t good…not yet. They thrived on the power of fear and violence. Even the women were embroiled in their own psychological warfare, all scrambling for a place at the top of the pack. Somehow, I had to get to the pinnacle and stay there.

  “I don’t let a man define my worth,” I said, staring Shondra down. “I’m the only person who has that right. Same for you.”

  “Feminist crap,” Emily scoffed. “The only worth around here is keeping the wolves happy.”

  My lips thinned. “So, are you all…?”

  “Wolves?” Kelly asked. “Yes. We all turn, if that’s what you mean.”

  “As if we don’t have enough monthly problems to deal with without the full moon,” Sierra said, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  The women stared at me—half of them looked like they wanted to throw down, while the other half seemed bewildered.

  “That you have to go through that,” I added. “Turning every month must be painful.”

  The air seemed to clear a little, and Shondra shrugged. “You get used to it after a while.”

  As I sat there, I began to wonder if my blood could be used to help the werewolves, rather than serve as a blood sacrifice for the vampires. Maybe there was a way to use it to free the entire pack from the curse of the moon…but only if they followed me.

  “So…” I smiled and looked around at the women. “Supernaturals, huh?”

  Kelly’s mouth fell open and she elbowed Emily. “She didn’t know.”

  “How could you not?” Raquel quipped. “You’re Marini’s daughter!”

  “Well, for starters,” I began, “I’ve never turned into a wolf…”

  Movement in the doorway pulled my attention, and the words died in my throat. My gaze met Chaser’s and my heart leapt. I wanted to run to him and throw myself into his arms, but I sat still.