Wolf Undaunted

by Shannon Curtis

  When there was no more to drink, Zane lifted his head, and the red haze receded, leaving him to gaze about him in stunned awareness. For the first time since he woke up, he felt satiated.

  He looked down at the now-dead lynx, and shifted back to his human form. He’d consumed the blood. His pulse pounded, as though only now had he really awoken from his slumber in death. He covered his mouth, his eyes widening when he felt his fangs. He’d shifted, but still had fangs. He’d hunted, and instead of eating meat, he’d drunk blood. His stomach lurched as he sagged to his knees, staring in shock at the reality of the dead lynx.

  He’d fed on blood.

  He cradled his head in his hands. Oh, God, what was he becoming? He’d fed like a vampire in his beast’s form, and from the sense of satisfaction of the animal within, he’d liked it. What was wrong with him? He wiped the back of his hand against his lips. How was he supposed to return to the den? How could he be trusted in the den? Hadn’t he felt the urge to drink while gazing down on a sleeping baby?

  He rocked on his knees, hugging himself, the cold air enveloping his lonely form, the carpet of snow twinkling as it reflected the light of the stars above, except for the blood-stained kill zone. Self-disgust flooded him, along with mental images of what would probably happen. When his pack learned of his—abnormality, they’d turn on him. Hell, he’d turn on him, if he could. He wanted blood. God, no. He pressed the base of his palms against his temples, and he rocked a little faster. They’d have to kill him. They needed to kill him. What if he attacked one of them? Nate, his best friend? Samantha, his alpha prime, the woman he was sworn to protect as a guardian? He paused. Or worse, little J.J.? He squeezed his eyes shut and lay down in the snow, curling into the fetal position. Oh, God. He was acting like a vampire. Of all things, a bloodsucker. He was a horrible human being. Now he understood the soulless aspect of being a vampire. You couldn’t have a soul and still want to harm a baby. He didn’t want to harm a baby, but could he trust himself?

  What the hell kind of monster was he becoming?

  * * *

  The door to her office snapped open, and Vivianne glanced up coolly. She hated interruptions. Her father stepped inside, and shut the door behind him, his expression cold.

  Colder than normal, that was.

  Vivianne pointed to the chair opposite her desk, and then carried on with the budget forecasting. If they wanted to convince River Pack that Nightwing were ready and determined to make their lives very uncomfortable, she had to find the money somewhere. She frowned. Only, she couldn’t quite see the money. Anywhere.

  Which was highly unusual. Lucien had looked after the colony’s interests, stepping in as Vampire Prime while she was in her coma, and she knew her brother was exceptionally good at creating wealth—he’d started up a West Coast division that was still lucrative, despite him stepping away to spend time with his new wife.

  “How dare you,” her father hissed.

  She didn’t look at him, but kept scanning the spreadsheets on her screen. He must have heard about her dam proposal. “How dare I what, Dad?”

  “How dare you betray me,” he said, thumping the desk with his fist. This time she did look up at him. He was really riled. His lips were tightly pursed, color blooming in his cheeks, his eyes bright with fury. Her brow dipped. This seemed a little much for disapproving of one of her projects, considering all of her projects had made Nightwing very profitable.

  She lightly clasped her hands in her lap and relaxed in her chair. Her father still hadn’t taken his seat—one of his usual intimidation tactics. Well, she knew all his tactics, and she would not be intimidated. “How, exactly, did I betray you?”

  “You told them,” he thundered.

  She took a deep breath, praying for patience. “What did I tell whom?”

  “The werewolves.” Her father braced his hands on her desk and leaned over. “I know it was you.”

  “Me what?” she asked, tilting her head back to lean against her chair’s backrest. “I’m sorry, Dad, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheath of papers, and held them in front of him. “I went to sign this contract of sale today,” he said in an almost casual tone. “Only to learn the land had already been sold.” He flung the papers down on the desk.

  She frowned as she eyed the mess of papers on her desk. “Well, Dad, sometimes you miss out on a deal. I still don’t understand why you think I had anything to do with this.”

  “Because, darling daughter, Alpine Pack bought the tract of land.”

  Vivianne’s muscles froze for a moment. “Alpine?” Her mouth dried. No. Please, no. He wouldn’t. “I don’t know—”

  “Don’t lie to me!” her father yelled. She flinched. Her father didn’t raise his voice often. Damn it, she wasn’t going to be berated like one of his underlings. She rose to her feet, eyes narrowed. Tingling started in her feet, and her hands itched.

  “I am not lying to you, Father,” she said through tight lips. She prayed her body didn’t betray her. Over the last few days she’d had hair sprouting from the most unlikely of places, only to recede again, or her bones would do that sickening crunch and rearrange into some new malformation. She’d been darting into restrooms or unoccupied offices to avoid discovery, panting through the pain until she returned to normal. She sure as hell didn’t want to break any bones or go all Hairy McNairy in front of her dad.

  Her father bared his teeth at her. “Do you think that you can do anything without my knowledge?”

  Her blood chilled in her veins at her father’s contempt. The tingling increased. Then his words sank in, and her father nodded as he saw realization spark.

  “That’s right. You don’t make a decision, you don’t take action, you don’t note anything down—hell, you don’t even breathe without me knowing about it. You think I don’t know about your little excursion to Alpine?” His hand rose, and his fingers curled over into a tight fist. “You are the only one I told about this, and you scampered off to Alpine at the first opportunity.” He’d lowered his voice, but it still trembled with his rage.

  “It wasn’t like that,” she argued.

  His eyes widened in fury. “Don’t lie. I trusted you, and what you did—that was worse than your brother.”

  “I didn’t tell them about your plan,” she insisted. Anger was rising inside, and she felt the little toe on her right foot flutter.

  His smile was brittle. “Then why were you up the mountain?”

  Her toe snapped, and she glanced down at the desk, taking a deep, swift breath to stop from screaming. Perspiration broke out on her forehead as she tried to remain calm. She couldn’t tell him the real reason—that she’d had to lose the ghost of the lycan who haunted her by delivering him to his resting place, only to wind up rejuvenating him.

  After what had happened to her mother, he would see that as the ultimate betrayal, giving a lycan life when they’d stolen his wife’s.

  “It had nothing to do with your plan,” she reiterated. Her fourth toe snapped, and she slapped her hand down on the desk to stop from crying out. Her father frowned at what must have looked like a fit of temper.

  He shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, apparently your spies don’t know everything,” she snapped. He spied on her. Hell. Talk about a breach of trust. Please, just go. She didn’t want to talk anymore. No. She wanted to curl up under her desk until her bones stopped breaking.

  “Then you fully support my project?” he demanded.

  Her mouth opened, but the words wouldn’t come. Did she? She’d seen what he’d been doing, had heard the screams of the others inside that clinic, before it had been destroyed. Could she support that kind of cruelty?

  She understood why her father was so embittered. He’d loved her mother so much, and had been devasta
ted by her death. He’d never remarried in the decades since. Her mother’s death had been agonizing. Brutal. She could understand her father’s pathological need to ruin the lycan nation—but did she agree with it?

  Her father lifted his chin at her hesitation. “Well, I did not expect you to be a dog lover.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not.” She wasn’t. They were uncivilized, they were smelly... Zane’s image came to mind. Actually, he smelled divine. She shook her head. Nope. Not a dog lover. She hadn’t seen him in the week since she’d left Alpine. She would not admit that she missed him. Ha. Loving a lycan. Not likely. But she didn’t hate him, either.

  Her father sneered at her. “You disgust me.”

  He turned and left her office, slamming the door behind him. Vivianne’s legs snapped, and she collapsed to the floor behind her desk, her mouth open in a silent scream of agony. Hair follicles pushed through her skin, and she ducked her head as she tried to control her breathing. The more she panicked, the worse it got. Oh, God, she hurt. She hurt in her body, all the way down to the tips of her broken toes. Her head hurt, the pressure of hiding what was going on with her building into a migraine of epic proportions, as though her skull also wanted to rearrange its form. Her brain hurt, from trying to second-guess her father, from hiding her secrets, but most of all her heart hurt. Her brain replayed the conversation with her father. He thought she’d betrayed him. He had spies watching her. She realized now that he’d never trusted her. She blinked. She would not cry, damn it.

  Because Marchettas didn’t cry.

  Chapter 12

  Zane growled at the vampire guardian. “I said, let me pass, Harris.” They stood in the grand reception area of the executive offices in the Marchetta Tower. After months of haunting Vivianne, he’d learned almost every inch of this building—and how to circumvent the security. He’d managed to bypass the cordon of guards on the ground floor, and had used Vivianne’s own security codes to access the private elevator to the executive suite.

  Harris flashed his incisors. “No. I don’t know who you are, or how you think you know me, but you’re not getting past me.” Vivianne’s bodyguard went for the alarm he wore on a cord around his neck.

  Zane reached out and grabbed his hand before he could depress the button and call for reinforcements. “Call Vivianne.” He wasn’t in the mood to play games. He thought he’d made that pretty clear to the other thirteen vampires he’d rendered unconscious to get to this point.

  Harris’s eyes flashed red as he shook his head. “No.” He tried to twist his hand out of Zane’s grip, and the two men wrestled briefly. Zane growled when he felt the vampire’s teeth sink into his forearm, and in a well-practiced move he twisted, grasping Harris’s chin to expose his neck. Normally a werewolf would go in for the kill strike—bite the vampire in the neck and let the toxin finish the kill. But despite this guy being an annoying jerk, he was just doing his job, and Vivianne trusted the man. Instead, Zane jerked the vampire guardian’s chin around and back until he heard the neck snap.

  The big guardian slumped in his arms, and Zane caught him. A broken neck would only stop this vampire guardian for as long as the body took to rejuvenate. A few hours at most. Zane grabbed the left hand of the guardian, and pressed his thumb to the security panel that controlled the tempered glass between the elevator and the hallway that led to the executive offices. The sensor scanned the thumb print, and the light above the door turned green. The doors opened. Zane frowned as he let the guardian fall. He had to talk to Vivianne about her security. For a vampire prime, it was ridiculously easy to get to her.

  He stalked down the hallway and around the bend to the last door. He could hear voices in the other offices, but all the doors were closed, and there were no windows—heaven forbid a vampire see daylight, despite the expensive tempered glass used everywhere to cut out the UV rays. He tried her door, only to find it was locked. He pounded on the timber. He was tempted to kick the door in—and the old Zane would have done exactly that, but after nearly a year on the sidelines he’d learned the art of patience. Sort of.

  “Open up, Vivianne. I know you’re in there.” He didn’t, not for sure, but wherever Vivianne went, her bodyguard, Harris, followed—unless she was visiting enemy werewolf packs. If Harris was guarding the executive entry, it was a safe bet Vivianne was in her office. Anger laced with impatience gave him added strength, and the door shook in its frame. Damn, there was that telltale sensation in his gums again, the teeth sliding forward. “Open up!” He kept his voice low. This level held the elite of Nightwing—such as it was, in the way of director guardians, and their staff. He didn’t need to alert them to the fact a werewolf was roaming the halls.

  He raised his hand to knock on the door again, but had to pull back when the door whipped open. He met Vivianne’s wide-eyed gaze, and she glanced briefly about the hall, before grasping his jacket and yanking him inside, slamming the door shut behind him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed. She let go of him, and placed her hands on her shapely hips.

  Her hair was in a loose, rumpled braid, as though she’d run her fingers through her hair. She had color in her cheeks, and her white silk blouse draped over her chest. He could just see the faint imprint of her lacy bra beneath. The tail of her blouse hung over her skirt.

  Tousled looked good on her. Damn good. He wondered briefly if he’d interrupted something, but looking around the office proved her executive suite was empty, and he couldn’t sense anybody else hiding in the bathroom or the lounge area. Besides, in all the time he’d known Vivianne, she’d never once dallied with anyone in her office, or in the Marchetta Tower—and if she had, he didn’t think she’d try to hide it. Actually, apart from that awkward date with the wheezy whistler, she hadn’t done anything with anyone—anywhere. Still, this relaxed, tousled look was...sexy. She should do it more often.

  His eyes narrowed. But Vivianne didn’t do tousled. Not unless she was in her bedroom with the curtains closed and busting out some dance moves. Otherwise, she preferred the well-groomed corporate crocodile look. “What’s wrong?”

  She blinked. “What’s wrong? I have a lycan in my office, that’s what’s wrong.” For a tiny little thing, she had a lot of sass.

  She opened the door and peered down the hallway, then closed the door again, frowning. “How did you get up here?”

  “Well, your guards and I played this really cool game of Whose Neck Snaps First, and I won.” She shot him an exasperated look, and he shrugged. “I know all your access codes.”

  She closed her eyes briefly, and he realized she hadn’t even thought to change them.

  “And of course you had to use them,” she said, opening her eyes to glare at him.

  “You’re slipping up, Viv.” She hadn’t considered him a threat. For a moment he relished the bubble of happiness that thought brought him.

  “No, I didn’t expect you to abuse my trust.” And pop went that bubble.

  His eyebrows rose. “You trust me now?” It was a revealing comment. She gaped at him, then shook her head.

  “No, I’ll never trust you, Zane. I should have known you were a shifty little mutt.” She stalked back to her desk and leaned over to lift her phone from its cradle. “But don’t worry, I won’t make that mistake again.”

  He stepped up close to her and depressed the phone’s lever. He didn’t believe her. She’d dragged him into her office before anyone could see him—in what could almost be a protective move. She hadn’t screamed, hadn’t attacked him. She might claim not to trust him, but her actions said otherwise. And she still hadn’t answered his question.

  “What’s wrong?” he repeated. Her body faced him, but her eyes were focused on the phone on her desk. Was she avoiding meeting his gaze?

  She turned her head, her eyes lifting to his, and he was surprised by the hurt he saw in them. “You told your pack.”
Her voice was soft, but still accusing. He sighed. He knew exactly what she was referring to.

  “Of course I told them. We needed to do something.”

  “You overheard a conversation that didn’t concern you—”

  “Didn’t concern me?” He frowned, incredulous. “Your father is planning to push through a bill that would make it legal to torture lycans. Of course it concerned me.”

  “It was discussed in confidence—”

  “Did you really expect me to do nothing?” His frown deepened. How could she not know him better than that? “What would you do, if you were in my position?”

  “I wouldn’t sneak behind your back,” she muttered.

  He let go of the phone to hold up his finger in protest. “We didn’t sneak. We strategized. There’s a difference. And that’s exactly what you’d do.”

  Her gaze dropped from his, and he felt relief when she didn’t argue. He gently tapped her on the shoulder. “Admit it, you’re just pissed we outmaneuvered you.”

  “You outmaneuvered my dad,” she corrected. “Who now seems to think I betrayed him by selling out to Alpine.”

  Zane scoffed. “Where the hell would he get that idea? Nobody even knows you were there.”

  Vivianne looked at the door. “He knew.”

  Zane’s eyebrows rose. “I’m surprised you told him.”

  “I didn’t.”

  Zane frowned, and raised his head to the ceiling as he mulled over her words. If she hadn’t told him, and Harris hadn’t known she’d left the clinic, then how did Vincent Marchetta find out his daughter was visiting with the werewolves? The realization hit him. “Wow. He’s spying on you?” He shook his head. “That’s seriously twisted.”