by Mason Sabre
Then it was there, just in the back corner of her mind—a frightened child hiding.
Gemma lay down in the cage next to Sage so that their heads were together and her hand rested against the girl’s chest. Her chest rose violently, her back arching, limbs flailing. When Sage relaxed again, Gemma soothed her, hushed her.
And then the shift began for real. First, her face, and then it ran through her body in waves, like someone had wiped down and replaced a small girl with a tiger.
“Shit.” Gemma had forgotten the girl’s clothes. They would rip, but the problem was they would hurt, strangulating her. Gemma bolted upright and frantically pulled at them to get them off the girl, but Sage’s arms and legs thrashed in every direction, making it difficult. “Hold on, I’ve got you.”
Sage fought as Gemma struggled to get her clothes off. They stank to high heaven, a mixture of dirt and sweat and urine. It would probably be a blessing if these clothes got torn. They needed incinerating. Gemma threw them to the side and slid back as Sage finished her transformation. A tiger cub lay on its side, panting. Frightened eyes stared up at Gemma. Body mass didn’t change when they shifted—they didn’t become bigger because of what they were. The cub was the same size as Sage had been, somewhere bigger than a tiny cub, but not big enough yet.
She let out a slight whimper. “Shhhh,” Gemma soothed her. “I’m here.” She ran delicate fingers through the small tiger’s soft fur.
“She did it,” Phoenix said. He hadn't moved, but he had turned his head to the side and was smiling weakly at Gemma and the cub.
“She did,” Gemma smiled back.
“That’s the worst one,” he said. “Feels like your bones are going to snap in half. It’s what made my mum ….”
“You made it, too,” Gemma said, cutting him off. She didn’t mean to, but maybe the topic of his mother was best left for another time.
Phoenix nodded. He understood.
The small cub tried to stand, four paws going in all different directions. Gemma helped her, holding her sides and letting her lean into her. “Like you're crawling,” she encouraged her.
Sage put one paw in front of the other, but she got them mixed up and Gemma caught her as she toppled to the side. It would take some time, she guessed, for her to be able to walk on four paws. For Gemma, it was just as natural as walking on two.
The door at the top of the stairs opened and Patterson emerged with his smarmy smile. He was like a fucking snake sliding out of a basket. Gemma glared at him.
“She survived,” he said gleefully.
“Not thanks to you.”
“I had every faith in you,” he said. “But now it seems your father is a little annoyed at you staying with me.”
Gemma held the cub to her. “Good, then let me go and be sure to please him.”
Patterson smiled. The other Humans and the witch, Janie the betrayer, were all with him. They’d all been waiting to see if the girl made it. Gemma had news for them—she still had a long way to go.
When Patterson was standing in front of the gate, one of the men came to stand next to him. He had a large pet carrier, the kind one might transport a large dog in. “I want the girl.”
Gemma narrowed her eyes at him. “You can't have her.”
The other Human came to the side of the cage and aimed a gun through the bars at Gemma.
“We’re going to open the gate,” Patterson said. “And then you’re going to let Jason here come in and take the girl. If you don’t …” The Human next to the cage cocked the barrel on the gun with a click.
“She needs to be with me. She has to learn things. I have to …”
“Oh, don’t worry, you will be. But first, we need the girl.”
“I can feel her mind,” Janie said breathlessly as if she had just felt the most pleasurable thing going. “It’s there.”
“You can take it?”
Janie nodded gleefully. “Yes.” She inhaled deeply.
Shit. She was bonding with the girl. Gemma should have done it. She lifted the cub to her, but Sage fussed in her arms, paws flailing, claws out. She nicked Gemma’s arm and she flinched.
“Give us the girl.” The man opened the gate, every move slow and cautious, petrified. He put the cage down on the floor and opened the door on it before taking a step in.
“Give me the girl,” he repeated. The Human with the gun leaned in, gun almost touching Gemma. Her heart pounded. She had let this girl down already, and now she was going to do it again.
“She needs my help.”
“The girl …” Patterson commanded. Gemma held her tighter, her reluctance evident. But could she sacrifice her life, her baby’s life, for this girl? Sage would likely die anyway. What did it matter? Gemma reluctantly let go of the girl and slid backwards in the cage. Sage looked up with bright eyes and went to pad over to her, but the man scooped her up, wrapping his arms under her belly before shoving her into the cage and shutting the gate on it. Once he was safely out of the cage, Patterson nodded to the man with the gun. “Shoot her, but watch what you’re doing. I want her incapacitated, not dead.”
The Human grinned as Patterson turned away, raising the gun to Gemma’s head. Gemma reacted without thinking, leaping for him.
A loud bang sent her ears ringing and something punched into her side.
She fell back, stunned.
When she tried to get up, she found that her limbs were lead. She touched her fingers to her side, and they came away with blood.
She’d been shot.
The Human raised the gun again.
Chapter Thirty
“We take the half-breed, too.” Patterson’s voice reverberated in Phoenix's ears as he lay there with his eyes open, still struggling to move and breathe. His eyes were on Gemma, who lay crumpled on the ground near him, blinking heavily as the silver the Human had shot her with invaded her body. He wanted to reach out to her, but his limbs were leaden, refusing to function.
“She’s not going to give you any trouble.” The doctor’s scent gave away his fear even as he uttered those words. He crouched down and pressed a hand to Gemma’s throat. “You should be able to move her now, too.” The doctor peered down at her and ran a hand through her hair the way a lover might do.
Fury burned inside Phoenix. Something protective rose up in his own wolf at the sight of another man touching her.
She was Cade’s.
The Humans came prepared—they brought in stretchers like the one they had strapped Phoenix to earlier. As soon as they had loaded him onto his, the doctor began to poke and prod at the wounds on his chest, making Phoenix wince and grit his teeth. “It truly is amazing how fast he heals,” he murmured to Patterson, “but you could have killed him.”
“But I didn’t.”
The doctor shook his head in disapproval before spreading his fingers along Phoenix’s chest to inspect the burning claw marks Janie had caused. “I’d give him an hour and you won’t know anything had happened to him.”
“An hour?”
The doctor nodded. “When I said that these half-breeds have such power, I meant it.” He leaned over Phoenix and pulled a penlight out of his top pocket. He pushed Phoenix’s eyelids open and shone the bright light into his pupils, sending shards of pain shooting through Phoenix’s head. “It’s amazing.” The doctor pulled the chest strap across him gently, preparing to tie him to the stretcher. The Human next to him shoved him out of the way, however, and pulled tight.
Phoenix bit down on his tongue and swallowed his scream.
“It’ll fuse with his skin,” the doctor protested.
The Human shrugged, unperturbed. “He’ll heal from that, too.” They lifted Gemma next, placing her on her own stretcher. Her straps were different—silver—and wrapped around her ankles and wrists, as well as her throat. But she was out cold now, her face grey and mottled from the silver surging through her body. Phoenix’s wolf desperately needed her touch, craved it, the same way it did sometimes when Cade w
as around. This need inside was the oddest of things. Sometimes, if Cade was gone for a while because of work, Phoenix could hardly focus on anything, like part of him was missing. His wolf would stir in the background, waiting. Stephen and Gemma seemed to calm the wolf, the four of them seeming to share some unique link he wouldn’t ever be able to explain. When he was with them, he was home.
Phoenix let his eyes close. Wherever they were going, whatever it was that these Humans had planned, he couldn’t fight them while his chest was torn open. He let his mind wander to the white room, the one where he met Cade. Except Cade wasn’t there. The empty room reminded him of a secure, sterile room of a psychiatric ward—nothing to do, nothing to hurt himself with.
Something yellow and orange and small suddenly flashed in the corner.
Phoenix’s heart lurched.
Sage.
His eyes shot open, half-afraid the Humans knew what he had just seen. The silent fog in his mind fell away and he found himself still on the stretcher in the back of a van, Gemma strapped down beside him. His skin prickled with the familiar itch, but it wasn’t that time yet. He had shifted with Stephen, so there was no reason for his change to demand in this way—yet he couldn’t deny it. It ran up his back and between his shoulder blades.
He turned his head as much as he could and spotted the witch sitting on a seat at the end of his stretcher. The man with the gun was sitting across from her, and between them was the small black cage that held the girl. She lay perfectly still, back to girl now. Phoenix couldn’t see her properly, but there was no orange fur—all he saw was pale flesh.
He closed his eyes again and called out to her in his mind. “Sage. Sage, can you hear me?”
The white room shifted, tilted like some kind of haunted house with the mirrors that make a person seem too tall or too fat. The girl was strong in his mind—it was her who was tilting the room, he realised in shock. He wore jeans and a shirt, but his feet were bare as he padded lightly in her direction. “Sage?” he whispered again, gently so as not to scare her away.
Her tiger—so small, so tiny—sat huddled but alert in the corner. Phoenix lowered himself to his knees, his wounds non-existent in his mind.
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised. “My name is Phoenix. You know me from outside?”
The tiger’s head lowered to the ground, tucking her tail slinking between her legs, caught between fear and the need to protect herself. She watched him with large, green eyes as he slid closer. She stayed vigilant but didn’t move away, though.
His eyes fluttered open, his body alive with the itch. It had spread to his legs and arms and now ran through every part of him.
Realisation struck hard.
This wasn’t him, this was her—he had found her hunger. He forced his eyes closed again, keeping them tightly shut. The cub hissed at him and let off a warning growl, but he reached a hand out to her anyway. Dominance, that was what Stephen always said. No matter how scared you are, no matter how much you want to run the fuck away, don’t. You stand there and burn in the fire if you have to, but never back down.
His hand inched closer and the cub backed up slowly, its fur sticking up and its hiss growing louder. Phoenix stared her right in the eye. “Come out,” he urged.
An almost audible snap echoed in his ears as their minds made some kind of connection. Had the Humans heard it? His heart pounded loudly in his chest. Yet, when he opened his eyes, the van was moving and everyone was quiet. The witch stared out of the back window and the man sat staring lasciviously at Gemma, gun resting in his lap. But the girl was awake—Phoenix could feel her presence. Had they just bonded? Was that what it was?
His skin burned with the itch, but he forced his mind to ignore it. The girl slammed into the side of the cage suddenly, making the witch and the Human jump.
“What the fuck,” the man said, springing up from his seat.
Phoenix pulled against the binds that held him down. Stupid Humans actually thought this could hold him down. The fabric around him ripped as he thrust every last bit of strength he had into his arms, causing the bind around them to snap. In one swift move, he reached down to the cage door and quickly pulled the catch.
The witch and the Human stood as best they could, but Sage lunged from the small cage, madness in her eyes. The hunger had her, vast and deep, the way it had got Phoenix the day when he had killed that boy and protected himself. He called to her tiger, and Sage leapt onto Phoenix, curling up in a very feminine pose. Though she was still girl, the hiss that came from her was inhuman.
Phoenix held her in the white room and fuelled everything that was inside her, pushed her. “Go, Sage. Go.” He gritted his teeth in real life as well as in his mind, giving her every ounce of strength and hunger that he had inside him. She leapt from his lap, and something banged. Phoenix knew that the Human had shot at her.
Idiot.
The silver would do nothing.
Phoenix hastily pulled at the strap across his chest, snapping it. A scream echoed in the back of the van, the sound bone-chilling. Something thick and wet landed beside him—the lifeless body of the Human, his face half bitten off.
The witch had gripped Sage around her waist, fighting to keep her away. But her hands were somewhere in transition and she slashed deformed paws at the witch. She slipped from Janie’s grasp and Janie twisted her hand in a fluid motion, muttering incantations. But Sage was too fast. She was on Janie in a heartbeat.
Janie held her back, making it hard for her to cast a spell when she was using her hands to defend herself. Sage was just six—her paws didn’t go far. Blood dripped from her mouth and down her chest, her hair matted with it. Phoenix leaned over to Gemma and unsnapped the silver binds that held her in place. Where they touched her flesh, her skin was red and sticky—it had been burnt away.
The van swerved suddenly. They were going fast, probably on the motorway. Phoenix crawled over the Human to Sage and wrapped his arms around her middle, pulling her to him. The witch scrambled back to the door of the van, her eyes fixed on Sage as she continued to chant.
“Shhhhh,” he soothed her, calming her. She hissed in his arms, her cub-like roar echoing in the confines of the van. Janie lifted her hands to cast.
“Don’t,” Phoenix warned her. “Or I’ll drop her right on you. You get them to stop this van.”
Janie laughed, an evil sound. “No.”
“Get them to stop it.”
The witch continued to smile as she chanted. Phoenix stood up, and his head hit the top of the van. He held Sage to him tightly, clinging to her, and then he raised his foot and smacked it into the double doors at the back of the van. They swung open with a thump.
“Get out,” he growled.
She lifted her eyebrows mockingly. “Why don’t you rather?”
The trolley that had held Phoenix lurched suddenly, smashing into the side of the witch with force. She reached out to latch onto something, but the trolley hit her again and she fell. Phoenix didn’t look away as she hit the tarmac and bounced and rolled, leaving a trail of blood on the fast-moving ground of the motorway as it sped away from them.
The trolley followed and Gemma lurched. She fell forward, weak, and Phoenix rushed to her, Sage still in his arms, and caught her before she went out, too. He took them all to the floor of the van and held them both tightly in his arms.
“Thank you,” she whispered against him, clutching at him.
The van swerved to the side, pulling onto the hard shoulder, and Phoenix wasted no time dragging Gemma out before the front doors opened and the van pulled to a total stop. The Doctor, the other Human and Patterson all came running around the back.
Gemma picked the gun up and aimed it straight at an unpleasantly surprised Patterson, who quickly jumped behind the doctor.
“Silver might not kill you,” she said hoarsely, “but it’s still a bullet.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The room was dark, save for the light that spilt out from the sm
all lamp in the corner on the dresser. Gemma tried to roll onto her back but winced as pain lanced through her entire body. The dull ache in her stomach filled her with fear and she froze.
Her baby.
Her hand shot to her flat abdomen, trepidation pervading her every cell. A lump rose in her throat, and she whispered a silent prayer. It had to be okay … She didn’t even want to think about it not being.
The life was still in there—she could sense it. Warm and comforting, it filled her with peace.
Would it be a boy or a girl? Tiger or wolf? Would it look like her or Cade? Whose eyes would it have? Whose hair? The questions raced through her mind, leaving her a little giddy and breathless.
So many things.
Did all mothers-to-be have thoughts like this? Going over and over all the could-bes and would-bes, and everything in between that might go wrong. Did they spend their time dreaming of the life that slowly grew inside?
When she was awake, it was all she could think about. Even if her mind drifted to something else, it would snap right back again to all the hopes and the promises. The hard part was in sleep, where her fears grew and monstrous images crawled into her dreams—things that she didn’t want to see. Could just imagining them make them happen? What kind of mother was she that she could imagine such horrible things happening to her unborn child? In her dreams, she saw deformities, a sick baby who died in her arms. She saw a lifeless child, heard her own screams, but no one ever stopped to help her. Her mind constantly flitted between this place of limbo and these horrific dreams.
She let out an audible breath and something moved. She tensed—someone else was in the room with her. A familiar musky scent filled her senses and her heart skipped a beat.