The Shifter's Choice

by Jenna Kernan

  He nodded and then shook his head.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He lifted the pad of paper and wrote while she sipped her lemonade. “Everyone here is trying to find a cure for me to change back.”

  She lifted her head and gaped at him. “Is that possible?”

  He nodded and then shrugged.

  She continued reading. “But fence is not to keep me in but to keep intruders out.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He lifted his hands in exasperation as if to say I can’t help you with that. Then signed, Finish.

  “What’s finished?”

  Lesson. Today. Finish.

  “We still have thirty minutes.”

  He signed, Walk you down. Need meet woman.

  She didn’t understand but agreed. “All right.”

  He waited by a trailhead that she had not noticed in her first and only excursion into the dense undergrowth.

  “We aren’t taking the road?”

  Long, he signed. Two many long.

  She wasn’t sure if he meant it was too long to walk the road or if he meant that it was twice the time to walk the road. Either way she was dubious about stepping into the jungle again. Most of the trails she had taken in her life had sidewalks and street lights.

  “Is it safe?” she asked.

  With me. Safe. Yes. Come.

  She nodded her acceptance. “You’re not going to ditch me in there, are you?”

  He frowned and looked disappointed in her again. It was a look she was getting used to.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to trust people,” she signed.

  She motioned to the green wall of ferns and palms and a multitude of plants and trees she didn’t know the names of. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Lam hesitated and her stomach tightened. He got that look when he was preparing to drill particularly deep into her past and if he went there she knew he’d hit a nerve, so she just started walking, somehow finding the trail. The path angled down sharply and she had to lean back to keep from falling. Lam nudged past her, taking point. The jungle here seemed a perpetual twilight because the bright sun never found the forest floor. She could hear water dripping from the leaves about her and occasionally was hit with a large droplet. The birdsong filled the air but she also detected an occasional worrisome rustling in the undergrowth. Johnny turned his head often to check on her. The sound of water began to increase, gradually drowning out her plodding steps and the birds.

  Lam followed the switchbacks so they zigzagged in manageable steps down the embankment that she nearly tumbled down. When the trail leveled off it also branched. Lam pointed to their left and made a swimming motion, sweeping his arms in graceful circles. She heard that waterfall again. The one she’d glimpsed from an inverted position. The hairs on her neck stood up.

  “You swim there?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t swim.”

  A-F-R-A-I-D. His fingers spelled the letters perfectly.

  “Yes. I sure am.”

  Of water?

  “Of drowning.”

  I teach you, he signed.

  “No thanks. I’d rather fall down the hill again.”

  He shrugged and headed along the main trail. It didn’t stay level for long. As she walked she tried to imagine Lam teaching her to swim. He’d probably just throw her in the deep end and see what happened. Swimming seemed to be a big form of recreation on this island, which only made sense. She hadn’t had a leave day yet, though Zeno kept pestering her about going to the beach which she might enjoy, but not with him. She imagined she’d go to the shore alone, lie on a towel and when she got too hot just wade into the surf to her knees and splash water on herself as she used to do all those years ago at Orchard Beach in the Bronx. What would it be like to dive into the waves?

  Terrifying, she decided. Like slipping from her mother’s arms at the pool and just making it to the edge. Mom laughing, clapping, drunk. She shivered. But the swimmers on the Long Island Sound seemed so happy.

  Sonia was so busy imagining herself diving into an oncoming wave that she didn’t see Johnny stop and so, when he did, she bounced off his broad back and fell to her butt in the trail.

  He turned and regarded her as she sat in a heap. Then he extended his hand. She accepted his offer without thinking and without flinching finding his palm warm, dry and rough as the pad on the foot of a dog. She had to tug to get her hand back. Man, his claws looked vicious. She wiped her hand on her thigh and then saw him stiffen. Had she insulted him?

  She glanced up at those unnatural yellow eyes seeing the hurt she’d caused and feeling her cheeks grow hot.

  “Sorry,” she murmured but he just kept staring until she felt a hitch in her breathing that surprised and confused her. His look told her without question that he was unhappy with her and for some reason that troubled her. Her instincts told her to move away. What was happening here?

  “Why did we stop?”

  Lam signed, I stop for you see captain house. You stop because I stop.

  He made a joke. His first sign joke. She nodded, proud of his accomplishment and complete, if awkward, first sentences.

  “Good one,” she said, smiling.

  He grinned in return. A grimace really, that disconcerted her because it showed his very dangerous-looking fangs. He noticed the direction of her gaze. His teeth disappeared behind black wolfish jowls. She tried to picture the man he had been and failed.

  “Did you say the captain’s house?”

  He nodded.

  “But that is twenty minutes or more from your place.”

  Lam pantomimed that he was driving a car and then walked in a circle.

  “Faster on foot than driving. I see.”

  Lam practiced the sign for driving and walking.

  “Can I see it?”

  Lam took her to the edge of the clearing. Sonia paused seeing the place where she’d first met Sergeant Lam from a different perspective. Who kept the trail between the two properties so pristine and how often did Lam or MacConnelly travel between their places? Sonia stared up at Lam wanting to ask the question about his relationship to the captain and decided not to pry. She had the uneasy feeling someone was watching her and turned to face the back of the house. A woman stood on the porch above them.

  “That’s her!” whispered Sonia, in awe.

  Lam lifted a hand and waved. The red-haired beauty waved back. She was by far and without question the most beautiful woman Sonia had ever seen.

  “I saw her that first day. Or I thought I saw her. She was at the window and then she vanished. They said she never leaves her house. Is she really the captain’s wife?”

  Lam nodded. She R-E-A-S-O-N for F-E-N-C-E.

  “She? Why is she a prisoner?”

  Johnny shook his head. P-R-O-T-E-C-T.

  The woman retreated to her home. Sonia felt inexplicably bereft. Suddenly she wanted to follow her. “Can I meet her?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer and Sonia stared at the place where the red-haired woman had been.

  “I thought she never left her house.”

  Lam regarded her for a moment. She had the feeling he was considering his response. Finally he lifted his hand and spelled out three letters. L-I-E.

  “So I did see her?” she motioned to the house. “But it’s impossible. She disappeared right before my eyes.” At some point Sonia realized she was explaining this impossible feat to a nine-foot werewolf. Sonia pressed a hand over her racing heart and dropped her tone to a whisper. “What is she?”

  Johnny shook his head and turned to go. Sonia followed but she took one look back at the house. The captain’s wife was now standing on the far side of the stream. Sonia was startled at seeing her so close, so fast, and then hurried to follow Lam. That woman was creepy as hell and she suddenly did not want to meet her.

  Sonia turned and ran to catch up with Lam. She presse
d a hand to his shoulder and he stilled then turned to face her. He stared at the place where she touched him and Sonia drew back her hand.

  “Is she like you?

  No.

  “Is she the one who did this to you?”

  No. She is V-A-M-P-I-R-E.

  Was he serious? She gaped at him and he held her gaze.

  “Holy shit. Really?”

  He nodded, grim as a mourner at a grave. Sonia felt a shiver travel down her spine. She stared at him in shock.

  Her thoughts exploded with denial and then horror. It wasn’t possible, but when she looked at Johnny she knew that it was possible. Anything was possible. She wobbled suddenly unsteady, but Johnny caught her elbow and held on until she nodded to him. She looked behind them, now having another reason to fear this jungle. There was a vampire living here.

  “She was out in the daytime.”

  He nodded yes, as if this were nothing unusual.

  Johnny glanced back toward the captain’s home and then continued on down the incline. The dripping on the leaves got louder as the humidity rose. Her shirt stuck to her back and arms. Lam grabbed at a broad leaf and tore it from the plant by the stem but never stopped. He twirled it as they continued on. A few minutes later they broke from the jungle and stood at the edge of a gentle slope covered with narrow-leaved plants that grew waist high on her but barely brushed Lam’s knees. The trail cut neatly through the center. She paused beneath the cover of the foliage as she realized it was pouring. Johnny motioned past the incline to the U.S. Marine base and the barracks where she lived. She recognized her surroundings now.

  It seemed the entire mountain was fenced, for they never crossed through a perimeter.

  “Johnny?” She didn’t know what to say. She was frightened and didn’t want to cross the fifty feet to her barracks alone. He handed her the leaf and motioned that she should use it as an umbrella. She held it over her head. Johnny took her elbow and continued on, seeing her to her door and then signing his farewell. She watched him until he vanished into the wall of green.

  A vampire, she thought, and they were protecting her. But protecting her from what?

  Chapter 5

  Burne Farrell waited as his chaser, Hagan Dowling, finished checking the abandoned concrete bunker within the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in California. The two male vampires had made no progress tracking Brianna Vittori since they lost her trail eighteen months ago. So Burne, the elder hunter, had resorted to returning to her last known residence. The female’s disappearance with two werewolves nettled his professional pride but more importantly her absence had prevented him from making her his personal property. His eagerness to have her only increased his annoyance at his best chaser’s failure to produce her. Each day Brianna remained free was like a growing blister on his plum-colored ass.

  No female vampire had ever evaded him for so long. But Brianna was not your typical female. Like all vampires, she was descended from the fey. But Brianna’s mother was a fairy, a true Leanan Sidhe. So unlike him, any male child born of Brianna would look normal enough not to draw immediate notice.

  It was Burne’s disturbing appearance, and not any reaction to sunlight, that kept him, and his fellows perpetually in the shadows. He had been told that his great-great grandfather once walked among men. But Burne was sixth generation and with each new legacy, their form departed farther and farther from their human parent. The most pure vampires he knew were fifth generation. Brianna was first.

  Her male offspring would not turn purple as ripe plums and be ugly as the back end of a pig. So he wanted her first male child to be his. The females of their race already walked freely in the light, when he let them. No females drank blood and all were visions. That was why they made such good assassins after training was complete.

  Burne’s skin was becoming more discolored by the day, dotted with purple patches like an octogenarian’s. His chaser, Hagan Dowling, still had the white cast of a corpse. It only made his blue veins more prominent beneath his transparent skin after feeding but that would change with the decades and his veins would leak like Burne’s until his skin was cold as death and he could not hold the blood he drank. And then he would die. They all ended that way. Being a vampire did not make one immortal. Despite the legends, vampires were mortal, even though they carried the blood of fairies in their veins.

  Hagan breathed deeply. “It still smells like dog in here.”

  “Wolves,” corrected Burne.

  “Yes.”

  “Where would you go, if you were trying to keep her from discovery?” Burne asked Hagan.

  “Outside our territory, if he knows what that territory is.”

  “Exactly. That’s why you haven’t found her. She’s not here to be found. Perhaps her mother told her that we do not like to cross water.

  “There are U.S. Marine bases throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific,” Burne continued.

  “We need to search each one. Start with the Pacific. Go island by island. Meanwhile, I will check with our colleagues in Europe and the Middle East.”

  Burne stared at his chaser. Hagan’s lips were the ruby red of a vampire just fed. His fangs had grown so long that they no longer fit in his mouth. They didn’t retract like a snake’s, nor were they hollow like straws. Their purpose was to tear through flesh and rip open major blood vessels so they could drink.

  Hagan stared at him through milky-white irises. They were already fading from their birth color. Burne smiled. It always started with the eyes. He knew Hagan’s vision was perfect, but this discoloration made him look like he was quite blind or quite dead. One look at him and the human flight crew would panic. He needed to get them across the ocean, a dozen preferably, without any of them being seen. Night was their usual disguise, though for this journey, that would not be possible. But it was worth any risk to find Brianna. Still, if they were discovered it would mean their lives, not from the humans, of course. But to expose themselves to humans was one of the great unpardonables. Some heads of state knew of them, took advantage of their services for a price. But being detected by such a large group as the passengers and a flight crew on a commercial airline would mean their death. Of course, if they were seen on the plane, it would be necessary to kill all witnesses.

  He thought of Brianna, with her waves of copper hair and eyes as green as a birch leaf. His loins tightened at the memory.

  “Return to our base and assemble a team. I will arrange transport.”

  “When do we depart?”

  “Forty-eight hours.”

  “And the humans will not see us?”

  “For their sakes, I hope not.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He stared down at a photo of Brianna, taken from her apartment last April. Her face could be that of an angel, she was so lovely, her skin smooth and pink. Burne felt his heart pitch and his loins twitch. If he could catch her, he would keep her for himself.

  “I want this one,” he muttered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hagan’s reply was too quick and far too eager. Burne cast a sideways glance at Hagan and caught him ogling the image Burne held. His eyes narrowed on Hagan. The younger vampire forced a smile and the sharp tips of his fangs grazed his lower lip. It was possible that Hagan had similar ideas where Brianna was concerned.

  Perhaps it would be wiser to accompany this team and see to her capture personally.

  * * *

  The next day, Sonia waited for her ride. She was unhappily surprised when the captain pulled up and motioned her to get in. She saluted and climbed into the passenger seat. They rode through the base. Everything seemed so normal out here with marines drilling on the rifle range. She turned to watch men scaling the wall on the obstacle course, using the twin nylon ropes to reach the apex. But things weren’t normal. Johnny was a werewolf and the captain’s wife was a vampire.

  “Johnny tells me that you are teaching him a lot.”

  She turned back to the
captain. “I’m trying my best, sir.”

  “He also asked me to tell you about what happened to him in California. I’m not sure why he wants you to know this, but I agreed.”

  Something about the captain’s tone brought her to complete attention. He pulled to the shoulder so she had a view of men crawling on all fours under the cargo net.

  “When we came back from Afghanistan we were shipped to the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We were told that they were trying to find a cure for Sergeant Lam. They did medical tests, oxygen levels, CT scans, blood work, but they did other things, too.” Her captain covered his hand with his mouth and stared out the window.

  Sonia watched him. Tension vibrated from him so clearly she could almost hear it. He dragged his hand over his mouth and then glanced at her, then quickly returned his attention out the window. She instinctively braced for what he would tell her next.

  “They used Johnny for target practice to test the durability of his hide.”

  Sonia gasped. Now she understood part of the sadness she had seen in the captain’s eyes. Lam was his friend, his comrade and a member of his squad. And his own commanding officer had done this.

  “They shot at him?” she asked.

  “Yes. He’s bulletproof.”

  Sonia shuddered.

  “They also used grenades. He almost lost his hearing. But that’s not the worst of it. They took...” The captain wiped one hand over his mouth before continuing. “They took Johnny’s sperm. Trying to make more werewolves.”

  “What!” Sonia’s fingers went wide as her arms braced as if she were warding off something thrown at her face. “Who did?”

  “Our commanding officer. We thought we were to undergo training and testing to make Johnny human. The truth was quite the opposite. They were trying to reproduce werewolves.”

  “Why?”

  “Classified.”

  “How could they?”

  “They did. And used his sperm.” The captain rubbed the bristle on the back of his neck with his knuckles. For a moment he seemed unable to speak. “We found this all out later. There is at least one child as a result. A boy. So far he is completely normal and two other women, both marines, are pregnant. The boy has been adopted by a very nice couple in Northern California, the husband is retired military and knows the deal. We’re keeping an eye on the child and the other fetuses, of course. Johnny knows. He wants to see his son, but...”