by Laura Taylor
She’d showered and changed, her hair wet, her feet bare, and he couldn’t help the smile on his face. “Hey,” he said, heading up the stairs to meet her. She stopped dead when she saw him, just a few steps down from the top. Tank stopped beside her, alert for any sign that she could be a danger. And for all her fragile looks and small stature, as a newly converted shifter with an untrained wolf on board, it was entirely possible she was public menace number one.
“How are you doing?” Mark asked, stopping halfway up, not wanting to startle her. She’d had a rather stressful day after all, and the last thing he wanted to do was make it worse. But he needed to know she was okay, uninjured, and was surprised to find that that need was even more pressing than the need to know what she remembered about the lab.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m sorry, should I know you?”
Oh, thank God, Mark thought to himself, hearing the confirmation that she didn’t immediately recognise him.
“This is Mark, one of the shifters here,” Tank filled her in. “Mark, this is Dee.”
Dee. Knowing her name did nothing for the inner monologue that was telling him he wasn’t supposed to be taking an undue interest in her. Subtlety was the key here. “I was in the van when we picked you up,” Mark explained, sticking to the ‘official’ story.
The girl recoiled slightly. “Oh. So you helped kidnap me. Good to know.”
No, I rescued you, Mark thought blackly. But of course, it was better for both of them if she didn’t know that. “Only with the best of intentions,” he pointed out, trying to be polite.
“Right.” Dee didn’t sound the slightest bit convinced.
Perversely, Mark felt a wave of relief at her apparent show of attitude, small though it was. Back in the lab, he’d been more than a little concerned by her actions. She’d shifted, her arm vanishing out from beneath the scientist’s needle, scant millimetres from a numbing death, to become one of the most beautiful wolves he’d ever seen. The she-wolf had leapt from the table, teeth bared, hackles raised. But instead of laying into the men as he’d expected, she had backed away and cowered in a corner, while the men reached for guns to take her out.
That was when he’d shifted himself, slaying the men while they were still too startled at the second wolf in their midst to think of defending themselves.
Her inaction had been worrying, the cause of it a mystery, and he’d been concerned that she’d been traumatised to breaking point, a nervous wreck of a human being, and not much better as a wolf.
But here she was, not even twenty-four hours later, telling him to mind his own business and laying blame for her situation – and it was ridiculous how he felt both delighted and offended by her mistrust.
“Okay, that’ll do, Romeo,” Tank interrupted, and Mark felt his face flush as the second person in only a couple of hours noticed his interest in the girl. “Dee needs some food, then she’s got a meeting with the big bad wolf.”
Mark sharply reminded himself that he wasn’t supposed to be making a big deal out of this. “Sure,” he agreed easily, forcing a smile that he hoped looked natural, and headed on up the stairs.
Dee backed away as Mark moved to pass her. She’d been startled when he’d appeared, and not just because she’d assumed she would be kept away from the other people here until Baron made a firm decision about her. Mark was gorgeous; thick, dark hair cut loosely so that it hung around his eyes, rough stubble covering the most well-defined jaw she’d ever seen, firm, mouth-watering muscles displayed beneath a tight black t-shirt, and an almost predatory gaze that seemed to miss nothing as it took her in, from her bare feet to her borrowed clothing to the distrust in her eyes. And then he’d smiled and tried to chat to her like they were old friends.
He looked younger than the other men, maybe in his late twenties, but there was a quiet stillness to him that belied his age, shadows in his eyes that spoke of grief and suffering, and a pale yearning that was as compelling as it was heart wrenching. All in all, he looked more wild than anything. Wild and daunting.
And then she remembered that he was indeed wild, that he carried a very real, very wild animal inside himself, and she shuddered for a moment at the thought of meeting that wolf face to face.
As he approached the step Dee was standing on, she retreated until she was backed up against the banister, giving him plenty of room to pass. But the instant he came level with her, the creature in her head – the wolf, she reminded herself – sprang to the forefront, lurching her forward to get closer to him. It sniffed sharply, thrust a wave of irritation at her as it registered her thoroughly inferior sense of smell, and Dee felt a bursting sensation all through her arms, felt her skin crackle with static electricity, and registered that the floor seemed to be rushing up to meet her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Mark jumped back as Dee lurched towards him – perhaps he’d misread her mood and she was angrier at being forced to come to the estate than he’d realised – but then she shifted, and he leapt away in real alarm. Being slapped by this slip of a girl was one thing, but fighting an angry wolf was a whole other story.
Even in his alarm, the wolf was as beautiful as he remembered, a lithe creature of silver and grey, white socks and black tipped ears. He heard Tank shout for Baron and Caroline as he leapt back, up the stairs, out of reach of the animal, but she came after him, bounding up the stairs, evading Tank’s attempt to grab her, and backing Mark against the wall.
“Rogue!” Tank’s bellow could be heard throughout the manor, even as he lunged for the wolf again, and the sound of doors slamming and the thudding of heavy boots signalled that backup was on its way.
But the wolf wasn’t trying to bite him, Mark registered belatedly. Her tail was up, wagging fiercely, a wolfy grin on her face as she darted around Tank again to sniff his legs. Then she simply sat down at Mark’s feet as Tank stared on in shock, her tongue lolling out, tail thumping on the floor, and insinuated her head beneath his hand, as if asking for a pat – something no self-respecting shifter would ever do!
His hand moved automatically in his shock, fingers digging into thick fur even as his heart sank. Being attacked was bad, but this could be even worse. All he could think was that his cover was blown. He’d been in the same room as the wolf, in both human and wolf form, and even though the woman didn’t recognise his face, the wolf must have picked up his scent.
If Dee knew what he’d done, he had no way of warning her not to spill the beans, not with Tank standing by and Baron and Caroline on their way up the stairs. The instant she shifted back, his secret would be out, and his life as he knew it would be over.
“Caroline! Do your thing.” Baron had arrived and, after issuing that sharp order, he shifted, taking up a defensive stance just below the wolf on the stairs. Tank was hovering nearby, his dagger out, though he was clearly reluctant to use it. Dee wasn’t actually threatening him, and killing a wolf, even a newcomer, was never an easy choice.
“Dee,” Caroline snapped, racing up the stairs only a heartbeat behind Baron. “Human form. Right now.”
The wolf paid no attention to the gathering crowd, just licked Mark’s hand and wagged her tail again. When Caroline saw that Dee wasn’t going to cooperate, she cursed blackly, darted forward and grabbed a handful of her scruff. A pulse of electricity went out from her, spreading like a wave of lightning over Dee’s back.
Mark leapt away, not wanting to be caught in the shockwave. He’d felt the brunt of Caroline’s wrath before, and it was far from pleasant.
The wolf blurred before his eyes, shuddered, then Dee was back, landing on the wooden floor with a thud.
It was a rare talent that Caroline had, the ability to force another shifter to change forms. It was one of the reasons she’d managed to rise to the position of alpha female. Especially since she and Baron didn’t get along.
Dee moaned and curled in on herself, and Mark imagined she must be feeling pretty sore. A forced shift tended to leave the shifter with burning muscle
s, stinging eyes, and an ache in the chest like they’d just been kicked by a horse.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Caroline was standing over the girl, arms folded, glaring down at her. When she didn’t respond, the alpha nudged her with a booted foot. “I don’t give a fuck how new or special you think you are, girl. In this house you don’t shift like that without warning. And certainly not when you’re a fucking liability as it is. So get up and explain yourself.”
Gasping for breath, Dee managed to roll over, peering blearily up at Caroline. “What? I’m sorry. I didn’t…” She let out a groan, at which point Caroline reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair, hauling her to her feet.
“I said explain yourself.”
Against all good sense and his own better judgment, Mark moved almost as fast as Caroline had, grabbing her wrist in a tight hold. “Let her go.”
Caroline turned to Mark, her black glare promising a slow, painful death for his interference. He glared back unflinchingly.
A moment passed, and Caroline released her grip on Dee’s hair. Mark caught her as she sagged, slipping an arm beneath her shoulder, then braced himself for Caroline’s wrath.
“How dare you.”
“You want answers; you’ll get them,” he snapped at her, feeling disoriented by the urge to snarl and bare his teeth. Where the hell was this aggression coming from? “But she wasn’t hurting anyone, and she didn’t mean any harm by it.” The challenge was a foolhardy move on Mark’s part – one did not simply oppose an alpha and walk away. But the rage he’d felt at seeing Dee hurt could not be contained, and he found himself more than willing to take on Caroline, if it kept Dee out of harm’s way.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Baron shift back into human form. But he didn’t dare take his eyes off Caroline. He was bigger than her, but not by much, her naturally tall frame filled out with plenty of muscle that was honed in vigorous daily workouts, and he was in for a royal arse-kicking for this display of defiance.
“If you think you can just step in and toss me aside, boy, you’ve got another thing coming!”
“No, he can’t,” Baron said, planting himself bodily between Caroline and Dee. “But I can.” He looked Dee over, his gaze sharp and astute. Now that he wasn’t focusing all his attention on Caroline, Mark realised how dreadful Dee looked. She was shaking, sagging in his grip, eyes wide and fearful. “Downstairs. Everyone,” Baron ordered, then he simply stepped forward and scooped Dee into his arms. “I want to know what the hell just happened in my house.”
Dee felt her face heat in embarrassment as Baron picked her up and carried her down the stairs. She had no idea what had just happened, but from the shocked looks on everyone’s faces, the obvious conclusion was that she’d just turned into a wolf. And given the massacre that had happened the last time she did that, she was dreading finding out what had happened this time around.
Although, maybe… She tried to mentally tune herself in to the wolf, although not really sure how to do it. The animal had communicated with her before, had shown her pictures and emotions, so maybe that might work again.
She tried to ask a question the wolf might understand, not in words, but rather calling to mind the dizzy feeling just before she had changed, and then the anger and shock all around her afterwards. Hopefully the wolf would understand the question as a simply translated ‘What the hell just happened?’
The response was immediate, and Dee was glad she was being carried as she would have fallen over otherwise. A surge of happiness, curiosity, relief, and a strong image of Mark in her mind. What? Why would the wolf care so much about-?
“Dee!”
Dee snapped her head up, so caught up in the swirl of impressions in her mind that she hadn’t even noticed they’d arrived in the sitting room. She was seated on a sofa, half a dozen scowls staring down at her while Baron stood over her with his arms folded. “What the hell do you think you were doing?”
Dee looked around at the grim expressions and felt a jolt when she saw Mark standing at the back of the group. There was a strong impression of tail wagging in her head, and she mentally gave the wolf a shove. They were in serious trouble here, and the animal wasn’t helping. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. Did I just… what do you call it? I turned into a wolf, right?” Damn, that still sounded so surreal. Human beings didn’t just turn into animals!
“It’s called shifting,” Tank said, earning a scowl from Baron.
“Of course you turned into a fucking wolf,” said the woman who had attacked her on the stairs, and Dee involuntarily shrank back from her. She looked tough as nails, all black leather and weapons, and she was grateful when Baron shot the woman a glare.
“For fuck’s sake, Caroline, you’re not helping.” He turned back to Dee. “Why did you shift?” he asked, and it was clear he was trying to be patient, no doubt feeling the weight of all the disapproval in the room.
“I didn’t do it deliberately,” Dee tried to explain, not wanting to cause any more trouble, but equally uncertain as to how to explain herself. “I was walking down the stairs, and then the wolf was suddenly there, clamouring to get out, and it felt like my head was going to explode, and then everything went black. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up on the floor. It felt like I’d just been electrocuted.” She wasn’t asking for sympathy, she told herself. Just trying to explain how odd all this was for her. Even now, her legs were still trembling and her lungs were aching.
“That’s because Caroline zapped you,” Tank said, completely ignoring Caroline’s dirty look. Dee took a moment to notice how odd the social dynamics in the room were. She had assumed that Baron was the leader here, and maybe that was true – he seemed to be the one trying to control things, get answers, be reasonable about it all. But Caroline clearly held some power, and Tank seemed to delight in taking subversive pot-shots at both of them. Was it simple mischief, or something more sinister? And there was also Silas, whom she’d met upstairs, and of course Mark, standing with his arms folded, looking like someone had just asked him to clean up a pile of vomit on the carpet; even so, her wolf perked up as she looked at him.
‘What?’ she asked the wolf, not sure if it would respond to words alone. It struck her as very odd for an animal to take such a sudden and intense interest in a human.
More tail wagging in her mind, and she managed not to roll her eyes. Not exactly a helpful response.
“Caroline has the ability to force shifters to change forms,” Baron explained, not quite managing to keep the impatient edge from his voice. “So you’re saying that you didn’t initiate the shift, and that you don’t remember anything that happened while you were a wolf?”
“That’s right,” Dee said, glad someone understood. But her relief was short-lived as Baron swore under his breath.
“She should be caged,” Caroline announced immediately, and Dee looked to Baron for support, for some reprieve from what sounded like a horrible punishment for something that wasn’t her fault. She’d spent long enough being held captive already.
But the tall, fierce man said nothing.
Oh, hell.
“I’m sorry, Dee,” he said finally. “I can’t let a rogue wolf run loose on the estate. You can’t begin to understand how bad things could get if your wolf got loose unexpectedly. So until you learn to control it, or we figure out what the hell happened to you, you’re going to have to be caged.”
“No!” Dee protested immediately. “I just spent days being held captive and tortured, and I thought you’d rescued me, and now you just want to put me in a cage again? No! We can work something out-”
“Plenty of wolves need to be caged when they’re first converted,” Baron said. “There’s no shame in it.”
“I need to go home,” Dee said, rising to her feet. “I need to see my family. And a doctor. And figure out how to get this damned creature out of my head.”
“And risk turning into a serial killer when your wolf can’t be
controlled?” Baron asked flatly. “What if it kills your family? Your neighbours? Innocent children? You want that on your conscience?”
Dee gaped at him. She hadn’t thought of it that way. “No,” she admitted quietly. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“This isn’t a punishment,” Baron said, more gently now. “It’s simply the safest way to keep you from harming anyone.”
“The cages are more comfortable than they sound,” Tank said, and Dee imagined he was trying to be comforting. “You’ll have a proper bed. A human one and a wolf one. And we’ll look after you. Feed you. Bring you clean clothes.”
Dee looked from one face to the next, hoping to find some support, some compassion for her situation. But she found none. Mark was looking at her with pity, but also a wariness that stung.
“Please…”
“It’s for your own good,” Caroline snapped. With a sinking heart, Dee realised that might well be true. Her wolf had taken over with no more effort than it took to swat a fly. She had no idea what the animal had done while it was in control, but the idea of harming her mother or sister horrified her. And if she wasn’t even conscious when it was in control, how was she ever to stop it from hurting people?
“Okay,” she agreed, hating the way her voice trembled. “I’ll cooperate. But…” She looked up at Baron, hopeful, scared, desperate. “You’ll teach me how to control it, right? I’m not just going to be locked up for the rest of my life?”
“We’ll teach you everything we can,” Baron promised. “As much as it’s sometimes necessary, I never like seeing a wolf caged.”
That, at least, was a relief. She followed Caroline across the room on unsteady legs, Baron and Tank flanking her. Caroline activated a switch and a section of the wall swung open, revealing a dim, narrow staircase. She tried to control her shaking as she was led down a flight of stairs into what seemed to be a medieval dungeon.