Taming The Shifter (Nocturne Wolf Romance)

by Lisa Childs

  “Kate, you need to forget about that. You need to pretend you never saw a werewolf,” Ben said, his voice almost hypnotic in his intensity to brainwash her back into ignorance.

  She’d been oblivious long enough. “No. I’ve seen too much. And it got me wondering what else is real…”

  What little color Paige had in her pale skin fled, leaving her deathly white. “Kate…”

  “What other myth is actually reality?” She held up the blood-saturated wooden stake she had found in the medical waste disposal bin. That explained all the blood from the other night, when Ben had treated the wounds on her arms. She’d seen the blood spattered across the walls and steel surfaces and had realized that Ben had treated someone with far more serious and potentially fatal injuries than hers.

  “Kate, you want to put that back,” Ben said, as if she held a bomb instead of a splintered piece of wood. “And you want to forget you ever saw it. Hell, you want to forget about this whole damn clinic.”

  “You would like that,” she replied. “You’d like to keep all your damn secrets.” She focused on the woman who had been her friend for so many years, but Paige’s face blurred as tears filled Kate’s eyes. “Even you…”

  “These aren’t secrets a human can learn and live,” Paige said, tears glistening in her eyes, too.

  Kate blinked furiously. She wouldn’t cry. And she shrugged off her friend’s concern. “Someone was already trying to kill me when I knew nothing at all.”

  “Even then, you were safer than you are now,” Ben advised, his dark eyes as filled with worry as his wife’s were. “There are rules…”

  “I know all about rules,” she said. “I took an oath to protect and serve all of Zantrax. But I never knew about all of Zantrax. I never knew that werewolves and vampires are real and not just figments of someone’s imagination. Not just nightmares.”

  “Discovering what you’ve had,” Ben said, “you’re living a nightmare now—for however long you have left. No human is allowed to learn of the Secret Vampire Society and live.”

  Just when she had thought it couldn’t get any worse. “I don’t understand…”

  Ben gestured to the bloody stake she hadn’t realized she still held. “That’s what happens when humans learn of the existence of vampires. They react out of fear, thinking all vampires are bloodthirsty killers, and they try to eradicate the entire society.”

  Her fingers trembled on the stake. “Someone was killed with this?”

  “I saved him,” he assured her. “But that’s not always possible. So to protect the society, it must remain secret. Any time a human learns about it, they become a threat that must be eliminated.”

  “You both know about it,” Kate said as another horrible realization dawned on her. “So that means…”

  Paige nodded, and now her tears streamed down her face.

  So they weren’t her friends anymore, they were strangers. And according to Ben, perhaps her killers. She probably should have tightened her grasp on the stake but instead she dropped it.

  She couldn’t hurt them.

  What about them? Could they hurt her? Would they—in order to uphold the rules of their secret society?

  Chapter 14

  A strong hand clutched Reagan’s arm and spun him around on the barstool. He tensed, expecting another of his brother’s blows. But instead of a fist, it was a hand that slapped his face. It was a strong slap—one that nearly knocked him off that stool—despite the petiteness of the blonde woman who delivered the slap.

  He was certain she’d left her small handprint on his face—probably etched into his skin. “Excuse me?”

  “There is no excuse for what you’ve done!” she yelled at him. “How dare you show your face in my club again!”

  Her club? She was Paige Culver, the proprietress of the underground club and a vampire.

  “He’s not Warrick,” the bartender told her.

  “I know who he is,” she said. “He’s the other one—”

  He lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. “I didn’t attack her. That wasn’t me.”

  Despite it being early and the club nearly deserted, the woman lowered her voice to a raspy whisper, and said, “You didn’t have to attack her to kill her.”

  Alarm clutched his heart. He hadn’t taken away another woman Warrick loved—had he? “What happened to her?”

  “Nothing yet,” she said. But she glanced nervously at the people gathered in the other part of the club. They weren’t just people—at least, they weren’t human. They were vampires. And they were out quite early. Of course they didn’t have to worry about the sun shining into the underground club.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “The society called a special meeting—”

  “I didn’t tell her about the society,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that—”

  She looked at him with such fury that he expected her to slap him again. “You did enough to put her in danger—grave danger.”

  “I was trying to protect her,” he said. “That’s why I gave her the silver bullets. She was already beginning to suspect what Warrick is and what attacked her.”

  Paige nodded. “But now that she knows werewolves are real, she figured out the rest…” She glanced again at the group. They were obviously waiting for her. Sebastian had already stepped from behind the bar to cross the club and join them. And Ben, the surgeon, emerged from the hall that led to his surgery room and joined the group, too.

  “She knows about the society?”

  Paige nodded, and now a tear spilled from one of her eyes. She wasn’t just angry. She was scared. The female detective obviously meant a lot to her. “She figured it out when she brought Warrick here—after you injured him.”

  “Is he okay?” That was why he had risked another visit to the bar—to see how his brother was.

  “He’s a fool,” she said. “He should have stayed away from her. If he’d cared about her at all, he would have.”

  Reagan shook his head. “It’s because he cares about her so much that he couldn’t stay away.” He knew about that—about that bond that drew souls together. “They have a connection that can’t be denied.”

  No matter who got hurt…

  He’d had that connection with Sylvia. But after he’d killed his father and fled the pack, leaving his mate behind—he’d no doubt severed that connection.

  Sylvia was lost to him.

  Like Warrick had lost her. And now it sounded as if he was about to lose Kate, too. He could hear the raised voices coming from the meeting they’d started without Paige. If they were deciding Kate’s fate, it didn’t sound good.

  The silver bullets wouldn’t protect her from the Secret Vampire Society.

  *

  “Uncle, I’m sick of trying to track him down,” Warrick said, barely resisting the urge to slam his fist into the wall of the vault as frustration gnawed at him. At least Sebastian and Ben and Paige had promised to keep an eye on Kate and keep his brother away from her.

  But like her, they seemed to believe in Reagan’s innocence, too. He had seen him kill their father; Reagan had even admitted it. No matter what the circumstances, he was a killer who Warrick suspected would kill again.

  Not Kate…

  “You’re giving up?” Uncle Stefan asked, his gray eyes rounded with surprise. “I thought you were more your father’s son than that.”

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “Good. I will help you find him—as I promised. I caught his scent last night,” the old man said, grinning with pride. “I can catch it again.”

  Warrick shook his head. “No. I want you to do something else for me.”

  “Anything, my nephew,” he generously offered. “What do you need?”

  “I need you to bring Sylvia here,” he said, “to Zantrax.”

  “If you want to see her, why not just return to the pack?” Uncle Stefan asked, his silver-haired head tilted as he waited for Warrick’s answer.

>   Home wasn’t that far from Zantrax. The small town of St. James was in Michigan, too, but in the farthest point north in the Upper Peninsula. He shook his head. “I can’t leave.”

  “Because of him or her—this woman who is important to you?”

  “Because of both of them,” Warrick honestly replied. “I can’t leave her alone in the same city where he is.”

  But if Reagan was truly a threat to Kate, why would he have given her the silver bullets?

  Warrick didn’t share that revelation with his uncle, though; the man was too much about honor. If he knew that Kate knew about the pack…

  Hell, she would have to use that silver bullet on him.

  “I thought you were over Sylvia,” Uncle Stefan remarked with a sniff of disdain for the newest member of the pack, “after the way she betrayed you.”

  “I am over her,” he insisted, not because of her betrayal but because he now knew what true love was. Because he felt it for Kate; it filled his heart so that it actually ached for her.

  “So then you are just using Sylvia to lure him out?” His uncle’s silver-haired head bobbed in approval. “That is how a leader thinks. Your father was wrong to groom Reagan to take over when you are the son who was meant to lead.”

  Warrick had once cared about things like that, cared about his father’s respect and love. Now he cared only about Kate. And he would do anything to ensure her safety.

  It wasn’t as if he was putting Sylvia in danger, though. Reagan would never hurt her. While Warrick’s love for the blonde beauty hadn’t been deep or true, he now suspected that his brother’s had been.

  Maybe Reagan hadn’t gone after her just to take her away from him. Maybe he’d done it because he hadn’t been able to control his feelings for her, like Warrick hadn’t been able to control himself around Kate.

  He’d wanted to stay away from her for her protection. But that hadn’t been possible—the attraction between them was more than compelling or irresistible, it was surreal, like kismet or destiny.

  Nerves unsettled him, quickening his pulse and tightening the muscles in his stomach. Should he have trusted the vampires to keep her safe?

  Or was she in more danger from them than from Reagan? At least Reagan had given her the silver bullet to protect herself. Why had he done that?

  He almost asked Uncle, but the older man was already heading for the door—almost as if he was eager to bring Sylvia to Zantrax.

  And the muscles tightened more in his stomach. Had that been a mistake—bringing Sylvia here? It was his last resort, though. He had to end this war with Reagan for once and forever.

  *

  Light glinted off the metal. She’d polished it up, but had she sharpened it enough? She ran her fingertip over the makeshift blade, and a bead of blood oozed from the cut on her skin. Her handcrafted weapon was sharp—especially for having been fashioned from the metal edge she’d pulled off the shower door.

  She would have broken glass and used that as a weapon, but she’d worried that she might have hurt herself with it, too. The metal strip was easier to wield.

  But now the question was if she could actually wield it? Could she sink it into another person’s flesh?

  Her babies shifted within her swelling belly. For them—to protect them—she had to.

  A lock clicked as a key turned and the chains rattled. A guard was coming. This was her chance. She had to escape. She moved quickly, stepping behind the door before it opened fully. She needed the element of surprise.

  But when she jumped out, swinging her weapon, she was the one who was surprised.

  *

  Kate needed one of those damn wooden stakes now. Her silver bullets wouldn’t protect her from the Secret Vampire Society, and yet she sat among them, as she had unknowingly so many times before. Glancing around the bar, she took note of the drinks they lifted to their crimson lips. What she’d once thought were Bloody Marys, she realized now was probably just blood.

  She shuddered and turned toward the bartender. “So you’re one of them, too?”

  A muscle twitching in his cheek, he nodded. “For a long time now.”

  “Why do I suspect we’re not talking about just years or even decades?” She reached for the glass of whiskey he’d poured for her. But she only lifted the glass and studied the amber liquid; it reminded her too much of Warrick.

  “Centuries,” he whispered his reply as he glanced furtively around the club.

  He was worried about the others overhearing her and realizing that she knew.

  She lowered her voice but could not stop with the questions. She had learned the big secrets, but there was so much she still didn’t know. “Then you’re not really Paige’s younger brother?”

  He shook his head. “I’m actually her father.”

  “Is no one who I thought they were?” she wondered aloud, blinking against the sudden rush of tears. She couldn’t fall apart now, not when she needed all her wits about her. “What about Lizzy? And Campbell?”

  “They’re human, like you,” he said. “Actually they’re better off than you are. They know nothing of the society.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “And that is how it must remain. For their protection.”

  Because of the damn rules…

  “And Renae?” she asked of the young trauma surgeon.

  He rubbed at his chest, as if pressing his knuckles against a sudden pang. “She learned about it, but the society has made an exception for her—as they had Ben before he became one of us.”

  “She can help them…with her medical skills,” Kate guessed.

  He rubbed his chest again and nodded. “They would make an exception for you, too.”

  “But I can’t help them with anything.” She only answered to the laws she had sworn to uphold—not to laws that authorized murder in order to maintain secrets.

  “That is not why they would make the exception,” Sebastian replied.

  She leaned across the bar, anxious for the answer. “Why would they?”

  “You would no longer be a threat to the society—”

  “I’m not a threat,” she protested. Unless they broke the rules she had sworn to uphold: the law.

  Sebastian shook his head. “They don’t believe that.”

  She glanced nervously around. Was she in danger? Had she been a fool to even risk a visit to Club Underground? She would have reached for her weapon, but she knew it wouldn’t be any more effective against the vampires than it had been against the werewolves.

  Against Warrick…

  A pang struck her heart, but it had already been aching—for him.

  “What are they going to do?” she asked.

  “We tried lying to them,” Sebastian said.

  And her heart swelled with love. No matter what he and Paige and Ben were—they were still her friends. “Tried,” she said. “It didn’t work?”

  He shook his head. “No, we bought you some time to make your decision. But it’s only a matter of time…”

  “A matter of time before what?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer her. But she knew. It was only a matter of time before they killed her.

  “So what do I do?” she asked. Could he give her a stake like Reagan James had given her a silver bullet to protect herself?

  “You would no longer be a threat to the society,” he began again, “if you joined a pack…”

  Her breath caught in her throat; she had to expel it to ask, “If I became a werewolf?”

  “Their secret is as big as ours,” he explained. “We respect each other’s rules.”

  “So my choices are death or…” What kind of choice was becoming a werewolf? What would she gain from the transformation?

  As if Sebastian had read her mind, he answered her unspoken question, “Love.”

  “Damn.”

  She loved Warrick James. But did he love her? Even after realizing she had learned the truth, he hadn’t offered to turn her—as his brother had turned Sylvia.

&
nbsp; Sylvia…

  She was the woman Warrick had chosen as his mate, the one he’d intended to spend the rest of his life with. Was that why he hadn’t offered to change Kate—because he didn’t want her as a mate? She wasn’t the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with…

  *

  A noise, something shifting in the darkness, had Warrick’s every muscle tensing. Uncle would not have had time to get home and back with Sylvia already. So that left only Reagan…

  “I’m surprised you have the guts to confront me here,” Warrick remarked.

  “I thought you would have figured out by now that I have guts,” a female voice replied. “Sometimes more guts than brains.”

  “Kate?” Shock staggered him as she stepped into the faint glow of the lamp sitting atop an old desk. Then her beauty staggered him, her blue eyes sparkled in the light and her black hair gleamed. “How did you find me?”

  “I am a detective,” she said, as if she needed to remind him. “A damn good one.”

  “But…” It had taken all of his senses for him to track Reagan down to this place. If only he had been a little faster…

  Then she smiled and admitted, “Sebastian told me where to find you.”

  “How the hell did he know?” Warrick wondered. He had always been so careful to make sure that he wasn’t followed.

  “I think he might be able to read minds.” She sighed. “As if it wasn’t strange enough that he’s a vampire…”

  “You know?”

  “About the Secret Vampire Society?” She nodded. “After you left the clinic, I looked around and figured it out.”

  Once again he shouldn’t have left her. Every time he did she put herself in danger. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go—to keep her safe and just to keep her. Forever. But that wasn’t possible anymore; it had never been. “But you can’t know about them and live…”

  “I know,” she replied wearily. “Sebastian, Paige and Ben are trying to buy me some time while I decide what I want to do.”