“Is it temporary? What I’m doing?” Derek asked.
“Only if you let it be,” Mommy answered. “But you can change a life forever if you just try.”
“Forever,” we whispered, making our way beyond the bookshelf.
On a wall hung a whiteboard.
Words were carefully written in a dozen different colors of marker, each in friendly, bubbly handwriting. Kindness, Sharing, Love, Gentleness, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Friendship, Self-Esteem, Good Manners, Self-Worth, Science, Art, Social Studies, and Phys Ed were each in a circle with a line extending from it back to the largest bubble of them all, with two words written in neat, large script in the board’s center.
TEACH KINDERGARTEN
Our heart raced. “We’ve found it. There’s a whiteboard with her goal,” Derek said. “She wants to be a teacher.”
Mommy laughed, and deep inside Derek, who was deep inside me, I shivered at the sound. “Well, that will never do,” she said. “Pick up the eraser and let’s make up her mind for her.”
I fought him. I begged him. Don’t do it, my mind screamed. Don’t erase her dream and replace it.…
But he grabbed the eraser and went to work, his arm sweeping the height and width of the board to wipe it clean. To wipe out any trace of her dreams and desires.
“It’s not coming off.…”
“Put your back into it,” Mommy commanded. “Push your will onto hers.”
I was going to be sick, but there was no way I could. I was without form. He was without form.…
I was watching the memories of a ghost.
The queasiness passed as he worked with a fierce passion and the words began to disappear.
Mommy wasn’t just erasing Wanda’s future, she was changing Derek’s by letting him tamper with another person’s soul.
Inside his head, I cried. For both of them.
“Now what?”
The floor beneath our feet shifted, the boards buckling.
“Mommy?”
“What is it?”
“The room is … tilting.…”
“Oh. Very good. She knows something’s wrong. She’s strong enough to rebel. Be quick, baby. You need to write the new goal and get out.”
Back the way we’d come the door swung open and closed like a chewing mouth as the entire office slanted.
“What do I write?”
“In the center, write: ‘Work for the CIA.’ Then surround it with these words: ‘Shoot, Train, Fight, Work, Battle, Justice, Blood, Compete, Rise.’”
We scrawled the words on the whiteboard, connecting them back to her goal with a trembling hand.
The walls shuddered, pictures dancing off hooks and nails to crash on the floor and throw splinters of glass at us. “Finished!” we screamed.
“Not yet,” Mommy said as we grabbed hold of the whiteboard’s tray to keep our footing. “Grab all the markers so she can’t rewrite her destiny.”
I heard the smile in her voice and I shivered again.
We grabbed the sliding markers and shoved them into every pocket as things fell off the bookshelves and rolled under the desk. “Done!”
“Good boy! Now get out of there!”
We let go of the whiteboard and slid toward the door, kicking it open and bursting out into the hallway.
The ceiling undulated, tiles popping loose and flying in our direction, and Derek screamed, “Ouuut!”
We were back in the room with Mommy, her face so close to ours we pulled back in surprise. She patted our hand.
“How did I do?” we asked, panting from our efforts.
“Beautifully. You didn’t give up, and you adapted to new circumstances. You’re a survivor,” she said proudly. “Now let’s get things ready for Auntie’s arrival.”
I plummeted back into my own head—or he seemed to be vomited out of mine—but his mother’s words stuck.
“You didn’t give up, and you adapted to new circumstances. You’re a survivor.”
It was like Derek was sharing a lesson with me. With a groan, I kicked my feet out in front of me and rolled up onto my butt. The blanket fell off my shoulders, but it didn’t matter. Energy from Derek’s memory still washed through me beside the roaring headache. If I was going to survive this, I had to adapt.
And I was determined to survive.
Marlaena
My brain spilled out of my ears as my lips parted for Gareth’s kiss. His mouth was all cloves and cinnamon drenched in honey, his lips somehow both soft and firm, his tongue delicately probing along the edge of my mouth, precise as a cautious finger.
I sucked him down, filled my head with his smell, his taste, and wrapped my arms around him, letting my hands glide over the powerful muscles of his back and come to rest on his hips, just above that magnificent ass of his. He pressed me so close against his chest that my boobs ached, squashed against him the way I was, but I didn’t care. Because this was me and Gareth. Together. The way I’d wanted things to be for so long.
And then he pulled back from me so slowly I followed him, bending toward that delicious mouth like a moth drawn to the buzzing bulbs outside each room at the motel. “What?” I whispered—no, I gasped. Parts of me were on fire, parts of me buzzed with an energy—a hunger—I never felt except when I was chasing my prey, fur and flesh and hot, sweet blood just a hairsbreadth away. “What is it?”
So close I couldn’t see his mouth, I still knew he smiled because of the way the corners of his eyes crinkled. His dreads rubbed against my forehead, a bead bouncing across the tip of my nose as he shook his head. “You are so beautiful. So strong.” Then he stepped back on the bed, and my world tilted as my feet tried to compensate for the shift of the mattress beneath my feet. “But we should…” His arms dropped away from me, and he took my hands off his hips and held them, watching them intently as they curled limply in his own.
My hands looked as pale and weak as skim milk against the richer and warmer tone of even the palms of his hands.
“We should take things slow,” he said softly.
I yanked my hands away, the sting of rejection sharp. “Fine.”
He grabbed my hands again and took advantage of his better balance, pulling me close once more. “I’m sorry?” he asked, searching my eyes for some clue.
I pushed back from him and caught myself as I tumbled off the edge of the bed, making my stumble look more like a dismount. Barely. “It’s completely logical,” I admitted, fighting to keep the acid from my voice. “You don’t want the responsibilities that come with being bound to an alpha and … well…” I brushed the hair back from my eyes and straightened, throwing my shoulders back and my boobs out. Yeah. I had great boobs. And I made damned certain he knew it. And that he knew he wouldn’t be touching them for a very long time. “And I’m an alpha. I can’t just go screwing around with someone who can’t shoulder responsibility.”
He opened his mouth to object, but before he could say what I’d guessed all along—that he wasn’t shirking responsibility—I added, “I have to think of the pack.”
His mouth closed and he nodded. “You’re right,” he said as a conciliatory measure. “I’m not good enough for you.”
I blinked. I thought of Jessica Gillamansen, duct-taped and gagged nearby. My stomach quivered. Gareth wasn’t good enough for me. It was the furthest thing from the truth.
“I like you, Gareth,” I admitted, my heart quivering at my willingness to put words to my feelings. “But you’re right. Slow is best. Maybe pause or stop is even better.”
Before he could say anything else, I left, letting the door slam behind me.
Alexi
I fought to keep the interior of the truck’s windshield from fogging up between the heat of Max’s breath and the cold of the blustering wind.
“And exactly what will we do when we get to the motel?” Pietr asked.
“Max will scent for their rooms—” I leaned forward and rubbed my sleeve against the windshield to give myself a swatch of
vision.
“Or Jessie,” Max stated, his nose to the open window.
“And we will confront Marlaena and demand she return her.”
It seemed simple enough.
“And if they put up a fight?”
“We will give them the fight of their lives.”
“And if Dmitri is there?”
“We’ll argue over who gets to kill him,” Max muttered.
I shook my head.
“There will be no killing unless we’re left with no other choice. They are oboroten. They are like us—like you,” he corrected, looking at Max.
“They may be oboroten, but they are nothing like us. They are thieves—”
“And very likely murderers,” I reminded. “There is one shopkeeper less in this small American town, and I am willing to bet it is their fault.”
Max stretched in his seat. “And we know what that means,” he stated, folding his arms behind his head. “You don’t make bets you aren’t sure of winning.”
“I would bet you are correct,” I confirmed, easing more weight onto the truck’s gas pedal. “But the fact remains they are oboroten and should be given a chance at being something other than our rivals.”
Marlaena
I crept down the motel’s stairs and around the back of the building to watch them, sipping substandard coffee. It was still coffee, at least. A totally legal upper with a dark and grim flavor perfect to reflect my mood.
It wasn’t like I was going to sleep tonight, anyway.
Dmitri and Noah scuffled a minute in the clearing between the motel’s back wall and the single line of trees marking the property’s boundary.
Dmitri barked out a laugh and threw Noah back to land on his ass. I nearly threw my cup and shouted, but the pup’s blond hair just ruffled with the impact, his cheeks pink from the cold, his mouth open with something between laughter and a gasp of surprise. Laughter won, and he nodded at Dmitri and popped back onto his feet, brushing the snow off his jeans.
I stayed still and quiet, sucking up the scent of my coffee and watching them.
Crouched nearby, Terra huddled under a hoodie, grinning and clearly impressed by Noah. They had joined the pack at nearly the same time. I’d nearly rejected her—she didn’t fit in anywhere, except with Noah. He had convinced me that she needed to be part of the family.
But she was still “a square peg trying to fit into a round hole,” as Margie would have said.
Of course, our entire pack was made up of square pegs, if you thought about the rest of society.
Dmitri reached out a hand and signaled at Noah to advance on him again.
Noah grinned and rushed him. Dmitri simply stepped aside, letting him barrel by. “You fight like Maximilian Rusakova,” he called as Noah skidded to a stop, bits of snow flying up from his sneakers. “You are expecting to use your body’s bulk as a weapon. But look at yourself.”
Noah did as he was told, his gaze scraping down his own body. How did he see himself? As the skinny, pimply faced kid with poor posture that his parents always told him he was? As the geeky boy whose quiet intelligence made him a target for his peers at school? Or as a young man with a wolf raging inside?
Dmitri shoved his shoulder. Playfully. “You are strong, there is no doubting that. And clever. But you are not built like a tank. You cannot afford to act like you are, either.”
Noah grunted. “Okay, so what do I do if I can’t out-muscle someone?”
“Outsmart them instead.”
He nodded solemnly, a smile slowly stretching his slender lips. “That I can do.”
Dmitri chortled, and I slipped back the way I’d come, letting Dmitri again get Noah into a fighting stance.
Jessie
I looked around the shed, my eyes as adjusted to the low light as they could be. There were a few tools left abandoned in its rusty hulk, which only strengthened my hypothesis that wherever this shed was, no one other than my kidnappers would be opening its doors soon.
An old hoe with a broken and splintery handle, a shovel—I was liking shovels more and more after lopping off a couple of Gabriel’s fingers with one in a pinch. Pinch. I snorted despite my predicament. Pinching was one thing Gabe wouldn’t be doing easily ever again. Not with his right hand.
The gag molded to my smile and I tested my wrists against the duct tape binding them. Still snug. I needed to correct that. I needed my hands free in order to have any chance of getting out of here alive.
Unless they wanted me alive … But why…? Why did I feel like bait for some trap?
I scooted around to get a better view of my surroundings. An old lawn mower, a gas can—probably empty since I couldn’t really smell fumes seeping out—and …
That’d do nicely.
Propped against one hard rubber wheel was an old lawn-mower blade. If I could just make sure it stayed still … I looked at it and where it rested and tried to keep the picture carefully in my mind as I edged my way back around so my stiff but grasping fingers were closest to the blade. I carefully reached out toward it and tried sliding the duct tape along one edge of its blade, but it rocked and I caught my breath and froze, afraid it would roll back and totally out of reach.
Tentatively I caught hold of the blade with one hand and tugged at it until I heard it scrape and roll forward over the wheel. I grunted. Yeah. Niiice. Right into my back. That’d bruise.
I grabbed it again and gave a little shake, but it stayed still. Adjusting my position, I stroked my wrists along the old blade’s length, rubbing and rubbing until I heard the duct tape begin to give way, threads popping as I continued, layer by layer, chafing metal against my wrists in order to free them.
My shoulders began to ache, but my hands—my hands began to move farther apart by increments of millimeters as I sawed through the tape.
Adapt to survive. I could do this.
With one last pop, the tape tore loose and my hands fell limp at my sides.
I shook my shoulders, urging life back into my limbs. I stood up and stretched.
I tried the door and heard chains rattle outside. No good going out that way.
I picked up the shovel and swung at the hole in the roof. It puckered with a horrible creak and groan—as loud as the noise the Titanic probably made when it split. More snow fell in, but I’d barely made a dent. And the last thing I wanted to do was alert my captors to my attempts at escape.
I was trapped.
Dammit.
Looking at my red and worn wrists, I nearly started to peel the tape free of them, but I thought better of it. Better to maintain appearances.
Better yet to find a weapon so that reality was far from what it appeared.
I rooted around the tilting shelves of the shed, nudging baby food jars filled with rusting nails and screws of all sizes out of my way as I looked for an easily concealable weapon.
I was faced with only two viable, but grim, options: a flathead screwdriver (like a distant cousin of an ice pick) and a trowel with a long and narrow point, its edges sharp for masonry.
Decisions, decisions …
Shrugging, the pain in my shoulders and arms made me want to yelp. I bit my lip, scrunched up my face, and rolled my shoulders until the pain was just another part of me. A very angry, motivated part of me. And the whole time I held the screwdriver in one hand and the trowel in the other, weighing my decision. Which was the best weapon?
I finally decided on both.
I sat back down, grabbed the discarded blanket, and prepared to wait for my rival for Pietr’s attention.
Or Gabriel.
I didn’t really have a preference.
Alexi
“Shit.” Max’s single exclamation summed up the sentiment in the truck as I slowed at the sight of a line of brake lights up ahead.
“Language,” Cat said.
“Can you see what is going on down there?” I asked him, slowing the truck down and bringing it to a stop so we had plenty of space between us and the car immediately
ahead.
“From the lights…” He leaned forward and stared out the windshield. “It looks like a tree fell. Wires are down.”
“Ah. Country living,” I surmised. “Do we know another path to the motel?”
“I would use my phone’s GPS, but…” Pietr held his cell up, moved it around, and even touched it to part of the truck’s metal frame in hopes of getting it to act as an antenna. He growled—a weak sound in a boy who used to be a wolf. “No signal.”
We all tested our phones.
“Nothing,” I concluded.
“Bad traffic is not something that should hamper a rescue,” Max muttered.
“Pravda. That is true,” I reported, swinging the truck’s nose into the opposite lane and performing a less than elegant K-turn on the narrow road. “We shall not allow it to hamper our efforts for long,” I assured him. “Jessie will just need to hold on a bit longer.”
Marlaena
Outside his door I bent over and tried to catch my breath. Oh, sweet Jesus in Gethsemane, I’d really done it this time. I’d let him reject me outright. I’d given him the upper hand. And even after that—after he’d all but drawn first blood, I’d naïvely admitted that I felt something for him. That I had some emotional connection with him—even as lame as “like” was.
Damn it. I straightened and focused on the dimming light in the sky. It would be dusk soon. I’d let time slip away from me. How long until Pietr and his gang realized that Jessica was missing? How long until they figured I had something to do with it and came hunting us?
God. The sickness swelled in my gut at his words. He wasn’t good enough for me.… We both knew it was a lie. But how could an alpha who was higher in rank than Gareth still have to climb to be his moral equal?
Maybe if I just released her … Maybe there was still a chance all might be forgiven. Maybe I wouldn’t be falling into what suddenly felt like some snare Gabriel had set. For me.
I headed down the nearest stairs and skirted the motel until I came to the old storage shed back in the lumpy snow. Dry stems of uncut weeds and tall brown grass bent under clumps of snow. It was an area of the property no one cared about anymore. The only sign it had been visited recently were the tracks our footsteps had made in the snow that kept refilling as more snow fell.
Rivals and Retribution Page 5