by Julie Frost
“I can think of several things, Miss Graham, none of them appropriate for our oh-so-professional relationship.” He gave her a roguish grin. “Go ahead on home.”
She rolled her eyes. “See you in the morning, Mr. Jarrett.”
O O O
“What you’re wearing is fine. Go ahead and lie down on the table,” Doc Allen said.
“How long will it take?” Ben asked.
“About a half hour. An hour if you don’t mind me getting a scan of you as a wolf, which would be convenient. Assuming you can control it.”
“Mmph. Not as long as I expected.” Ben adjusted the pillow under his head. “Still me in there when I’m furry, and I don’t feel threatened here. Should be okay. Anything special I need to do?”
“Lie as still as possible and hold your breath when the machine tells you to. I’ll be right over there if you need anything.”
Holding his breath wouldn’t be an issue, Ben thought wryly, but an hour alone with his own thoughts might be. He cringed inwardly and decided to think about Janni instead. Her hair, her scent, her fierce protectiveness, her love, even in the face of all this. He was incredibly, absurdly lucky.
Now would be a perfect time to decide just how he was going to pop the question.
O O O
Jeremy did a perimeter sweep before Janni exited the limo and headed up to the apartment to pack. The first thing she wanted, she decided, was her own damn toiletries. Alex’s house was well-stocked, but it wasn’t her stuff, and it bugged her.
Next was her makeup, then clothes—comfy ones as well as work apparel. She dove into her underwear drawer and decided that Ben deserved to see her in that new teddy she hadn’t worn for him yet.
Packing for Ben was easy, since work clothes and comfy clothes were synonymous for him—jeans and T-shirts screen-printed with pop-culture or geeky things. His favorite, with a picture of a cartoon sheep plugged into a wall socket, went on top. She tucked the handgun case with his Glock inside in his bag before zipping it shut. She tossed some books and her favorite sketchpad into a tote bag, watered her sad-looking plants, and let Harris help her carry the suitcases down to the limo.
Janni missed their apartment. She hoped they’d be able to come back to it soon, when Alex figured out how to get everything back to normal.
If he could.
O O O
Ben finished up with Doc Allen, and they came back into the main lab together—Allen puffing on the cigarette he’d avoided smoking for fear of skewing Ben’s test results. Ben grabbed a chair and sat on it backwards next to Alex.
“What’s the word?” Alex asked, while McFoucher found an excuse to leave the room.
“Reflexes are off the charts,” Allen said. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen. Muscle and bone density are way past normal.”
“I’m able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Which might come in handy in a high-jumping competition, but I wasn’t planning on entering the next decathlon, so if you could just get me back to normal, that’d be fine,” Ben said. “Also, not a fan of the liquid diet.”
“Unfortunately, you need it to live,” said Allen. “Something in the hemoglobin is necessary for survival.” The Doc raised a hand. “Not saying it’s permanent, and we’ll definitely work on it, but you’re stuck for now. What about the bloodwork?” he asked Alex.
“Well, the ‘real’ lycanthropy definitely affected you somehow, Ben,” Alex said.
Ben was glad he wasn’t acting like he wasn’t in the room. He’d been treated like a specimen enough this week, and it had gotten old.
“But I’m not sure we’ll know much more until you Change,” Alex added.
“Did that.” Allen handed over the CAT scan of Ben’s wolf form. “Bigger than he was the first time. Like, triple. How the physics on that work, I have no idea, and I’m afraid to ask. Of course, I don’t have anything to compare him to, so I don’t know if he’s now normal-sized for a werewolf or not.”
“Not quite the same size as Ostheim. But he’s over six feet tall, and I’m, well, not,” Ben said, inwardly cursing his slightly shorter-than-average height, not for the first time in his life.
“Heartbeat is pretty steady at about two per minute, except under stress, and then, whoa. Breathing appears to be unnecessary altogether, which is strange, but I’m no expert in vampire physiology.” Allen flicked his ash into a trashcan.
“McFoucher is. I’ll ask her when she comes back.” Alex checked his watch with a gleam in his eye. “We’ve done good work today, but there’s more to be accomplished. I’m pulling an all-nighter, myself, and someone needs to babysit Brandon while he sleeps it off. Dr. McFoucher?”
She stuck her head through the door. “Yes?”
“You staying or going?”
“I have a dog to walk. Going.” She gathered her things.
“See you in the morning, then.” He pushed the intercom button. “Chambliss?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Twelve-pack of Coke and a bottle of Laphroaig, please.”
The butler’s tone was long-suffering. “I can’t believe you’re going to adulterate some of the finest scotch in the world with that battery acid, but as you wish.”
“Anyone else want a nightcap? Caffeine and alcohol, best mental lubricants I know,” Alex said to the room at large.
“Sleep also works admirably well, sir,” Chambliss pointed out, coming down with the scotch and Coke.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead, Chambliss.” He turned to McFoucher. “Bright and early tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here. Consider me hired.” She turned to Ben, actually looking at him for the first time. “And … I’m sorry. Truly.”
Ben made a noncommittal noise, and his wolf growled a little. McFoucher left without another word.
“Play nice with her, Ben,” Alex said. “She’s the best in the business with paranormal physiology.”
“It won’t go away in a day. But I’ll try.” The moon pulled at him. Yanked at him, more like. “Is Janni back?”
“Oh, a long time ago.”
“I want to say hello to her before—well, before. See you in the morning.” He headed upstairs and left Alex and Allen with their heads together going over data.
Janni jumped up from the sofa when she saw him. “Are you all right? You look a little …” She stopped awkwardly, not knowing how to finish the sentence.
“Yeah, fine, honey. Moon.” Hanging on to his human form was becoming a real strain. “Gotta—” He gestured upstairs toward the bedrooms.
“Stay in tonight? Please?”
He hadn’t gotten that far, planning-wise, and he hadn’t made any arrangements with Megan. “I’d never forgive myself if Ostheim came after me here—” he started, clawing his T-shirt off over his head as he loped up the stairs.
Janni followed behind him. “The house can be locked down and Alex has silver bullets.”
Ben threw himself into their bedroom and shucked his sweatpants, gasping. “Have him lock it down now, please. And you might not want to look …”
She hadn’t seen his wolf yet, and the transition was kind of scary, he remembered from watching Megan. Bones shifting, fur sprouting, teeth growing—he stopped fighting it, because that was just painful, and let the Change take him.
O O O
Janni backed away from Ben, but resolutely watched him as he went from man to wolf. This was part of him now, and she was going to have to get used to it.
He was … huge. Nearly the size of a small pony. Which was intimidating, until she remembered that he would have taken off if the wolf wanted to hurt her, and had nearly run away even though it didn’t.
She stood there, twisting her fingers together, as he shook his fur out. It was mostly blond, like his hair, with a dark ruff and mask. White streaks striped his back and shoulders, presumably from the scars.
He caught her staring and flattened his ears and dropped his tail and head. Her reaction here would make or break him.
Three steps for
ward, and she caught him around the neck and gave him a giant hug. Since his head was on a level with her chest, this wasn’t difficult. He relaxed, and his tail came back up.
She grabbed him on either side of his face and put her forehead on his. “This doesn’t change anything. Okay?”
He chuffed and nuzzled her collarbone with a nose that was, yes, wet. Wagging his tail.
“Just a big puppy now, are you?”
His tail wagged harder, and he flopped over onto his back, paws tucked against his chest. His tongue came out in a happy grin. It was all very reassuring, and she couldn’t stop a smile.
“Let’s go back downstairs. I’ll tell Alex to lock the house down, and we’ll … watch a movie or something. Pizza and beer?”
Ben trotted down the steps ahead of her, and she reflected that tonight was going to be surprisingly normal. Just another night in with munchies and a flick.
And her werewolf boyfriend.
She was okay with this, she realized. She really was. The fact that she wasn’t wigging out made her wig out a little, but …
She loved him. He loved her. And so they’d protect each other, come hell or high water.
O O O
Alex looked up when Brandon moaned, “Oh, holy mother of hangovers …” from the basement floor, around two in the morning.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Alex said.
Brandon grabbed his head as if trying to keep it from flying apart. “How much did I drink?”
“Too much, apparently.” Alex himself was on his fourth scotch and Coke, which had hardly affected him at all, other than to make his energy more manic.
“I need to go home.” Brandon sat up, his expression belligerent. “You can’t keep me here.”
“Nope,” Alex said cheerfully. “Not how I operate. But, you know, if you’d rather go out there and face Ostheim on your own on a full moon night, be my guest.”
Brandon blanched and looked away. “Not so much. That dude is scary.”
“Not too scary to go to work for under the table, apparently.” Alex took another sip of his drink. “And I guess I’m not scary at all, if you’re willing to cross me that way.”
Alex got up, took a can of orange juice out of his mini fridge, and tossed it to Brandon. He fumbled the catch, and it hit him in the chest and fell to the floor. “So. What do you know about the werewolf nanotech, Brandon? Keep in mind that we’ve been working on it for a couple of days now.”
“He didn’t tell me a lot.” Brandon popped the top on the can and took several long swallows, shaking his head. “Reed kept most of that stuff pretty close to the vest. I was there mainly to keep an eye on him and report to Ostheim if anything untoward happened.”
“‘Untoward.’ What a wonderful word. So when Reed used it on Ben, did Ostheim have an aneurysm?”
“Pretty much. That’s when I bugged out.”
“Not very far or very fast,” Alex said. “It wasn’t hard to find you. You suck at running, Brandon.”
“This whole experience has been something I want to forget. The liquor store called my name, and I answered.” He shrugged and took in Alex’s expression. “I am so very fired, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, Brandon, you are.” Alex didn’t enjoy firing people, even when it was wholly justified, but damn. “If you’d come to me with this to begin with, we might have worked something out, maybe made you a double agent or some such. Industrial espionage in pharmaceuticals is nothing new, and the game has time-honored rules. One of which is, if you get caught, you get fired.”
“Good thing I already cleaned out my desk then.” He heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll see myself out.”
Alex grabbed his phone. “Let me call you a cab, anyway, seeing as your car is still at the motel and you’re too hung over to drive.”
“Thanks. Sorry about this, Mr. Jarrett. I really am.”
“So am I.”
After he left, Alex downed his drink in one gulp and made another, stronger one.
Chapter Sixteen
Ben awakened, human, curled up on the foot of the bed in the yellow guest room. He yawned and stretched and smiled at Janni, who still slept. She had a tiny line between her eyebrows, and he hoped she wasn’t having a nightmare. He crawled under the covers and cuddled up beside her, and she settled into his arms with a sigh.
He had a slight headache, which he wondered about, but then Janni woke up and kissed him and it was time to start the day. They took a shower she barely had to help him with at all. Breakfast consisted of blood warmed in the microwave for him and a bowl of raisin bran for her, and they headed down to the basement to see if Alex had discovered anything.
They found Megan standing over the resident genius, who was passed out on his keyboard with his hand still folded around a mostly-empty glass of scotch and Coke.
“He does this all the time,” Megan said. “I’m half-tempted to dump the coffee on his head. He can afford a new keyboard.” She hit the intercom. “Chambliss? Could I get your help in getting Mr. Jarrett into a real bed, please?”
“Fell asleep over his computer again, did he? How much of the scotch did he consume this time?”
“Only about half,” she said, eyeing the bottle. “He must have been on a roll. Wonder what he was working on.”
Ben moved the mouse to get rid of the screensaver, which seemed to be alternating between photos of swimsuit models and muscle cars. “Starfish?” he said, after reading what was there. “What?”
Chambliss appeared a few moments later and helped Megan get Alex upright, preparing to take him up to his room.
This woke Alex somewhat, and he shook his head and got his feet under him. “Unh, no, I’ve got work to do,” he mumbled.
“When was the last time you slept?” Megan asked, not pausing at all in taking him toward the elevator, the stairs being obviously out of the question.
“Saturday night. I think. What day is it?”
“It’s Wednesday, Alex.” Megan stabbed the elevator button with an overly-rigid index finger.
“See? I’m fine, I’ve slept more than once in the last week.”
Megan clenched her fist under Alex’s shoulder blade, and Ben could tell that she was physically restraining herself from smacking him on the back of the head. “You’re not fine, you were shot in the lung just on Friday, and you drank half a bottle of scotch last night. Bed. Now.” The elevator dinged, and the doors opened.
“Only half? I’m slipping …” The conversation was cut off as they bundled him inside and the doors closed again.
Janni’s eyes were wide. “Wow. Who’d have thought that all the rumors are true?”
“All what rumors?” McFoucher said, walking down the stairs into the room.
Janni curled her lip. “I imagine you’ll find out soon enough.”
“Where’s Mr. Jarrett? I thought he’d be waiting to give me something to do.” She looked around the basement, arms crossed defensively across her chest, drumming her fingers on one arm.
“He pulled an all-nighter,” Ben said, taking pity on her. “Megan and Chambliss just put him to bed. Left something on his desk I assume is for you, though.” He gestured at a folder that had a sticky note attached with “Michelle” scribbled across it in terrible handwriting and a row of test tubes beside it.
She picked it up and opened it. “Huh. Interesting. Okay, then.” She sat down at a computer, opened a file, and started typing.
Megan came back down, clicking on her phone. “That was fun,” she said, not taking her eyes from the screen. “He is such a handful sometimes—” Her nostrils flared, and her head came up. “Ben, are you all right?”
“Um. Yes?” he said. His hackles rose. “Why?”
She frowned. “Not sure. Is Doc Allen in yet?”
“Haven’t seen him. Megan?”
The frown hadn’t left Megan’s face, and she twitched her head. He needed a way to get alone with her; obviously this was some werewolf thing.
&n
bsp; Janni looked back and forth between them nervously. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, probably,” Megan said. “I just … thought I saw something.”
“Last time you thought you saw something, it was damn near prophetic.” Janni’s shoulders hunched. “The badness is supposed to stop now. I’d like that very much, thank you.”
“Honey, why don’t you go upstairs and make us a nice cup of coffee that hasn’t been crapped out by a big mongoose?” Ben said. “I’ll find out if the science types need anything from me and join you in a few, ’kay?”
She left, looking over her shoulder a couple of times, and Ben pulled Megan into a corner away from McFoucher as soon as she was gone. “What is the deal?”
Megan moved closer to him, sniffing. “I don’t know. Something smells … off.”
“Do vampires and werewolves get sick? Well, I guess they do, because Ostheim’s wife had something or other, didn’t she? Shit.”
“It’s rare, but it can happen. You’re new, though. Anything one of us can get shouldn’t be affecting you yet, and I’d think the nanotech would shut it down anyway.”
“It didn’t work on Idna.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Who else knows about you? How much of a secret does your lycanthropy need to be? I hide enough things from Janni …”
Her eyes widened and changed color. “No one but other werewolves and vampires know, Ben. Don’t tell anyone. Please.”
“But if you’re diagnosing trouble before Doc Allen finds anything—”
“We don’t—” She took a deep breath. “Can you imagine the level of panic in the streets if it became well-known that werewolves and vampires were walking around among regular people? Once you tell one person who’s not part of the community, it doesn’t stop there. And last time I told someone I was close to, it was harrowing for everyone involved. I don’t do it anymore.”
Her intensity made him back off. “All right, all right.” He gnawed on a knuckle. This was obviously some personal insecurity with Megan, because the werewolf was out of the bag as far as Janni was concerned, but if Megan didn’t want her secret revealed, it wasn’t up to him—and far be it from him to make someone relive a personal trauma. “I’ll let Doc Allen know that I feel, I don’t know, weird, or something. My head does hurt a little, but whether that’s a normal reaction from everything that’s happened lately is up for grabs.”