by Laura Taylor
Footsteps, and Caroline held her breath. If not for the leash around her neck, she might have been tempted to run away…
An elegant looking lady stepped into the foyer from behind a carved wooden door, and Caroline tried not to cringe. This woman was aristocracy, there was no doubt about it. Tall, dressed in a flowing blue dress, a light application of make up giving her a sophisticated look that made Caroline feel like pond scum. She wore no make up herself, and her hair looked like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, as the Grey Watch had placed very little importance on physical appearance, far more interested in one’s capabilities at hunting and tracking.
“Eleanor,” Adriana said from beside her, offering the woman a respectful bow. “This is Caroline.”
Eleanor took one look at the collar around her neck and let out a heartfelt sigh. “Is that really necessary?” she asked of Adriana, without even saying hello, and Adriana held her gaze unapologetically.
“Yes, it is.”
Eleanor’s mouth tightened in an expression of displeasure. “Well you can take it off her now.” Adriana didn’t look convinced. “There are guards at the door,” Eleanor said patiently. “And Caroline… no doubt you understand by now that there are some very serious charges against you. This is not intended to be a prison, but if you attempt to leave-”
“I know, I know,” Caroline said, unable to overcome her own impertinence, nervousness showing itself as irritation. “The next assassin you send will just shoot me.” Adriana had informed her of that possibility on the way here, along with a long lecture on how lucky she was to still be alive, and for all her earlier bravado and her resentment of her capture, the idea of dying, now that she’d had the chance to think about it, was rather more frightening than it had been a few hours ago.
Eleanor looked faintly amused. “Good to see you have a grasp of the situation. Please, Adriana, release her.” Adriana did so without a word, unlocking the padlock and sliding the collar off from around her neck. “Now, if you’d like to come upstairs, I’ll show you to your room, and I’m sure you’d like a shower, after your trip.”
Well, she’d been right on the bath side of things, at least, Caroline thought, not quite able to understand the woman’s congenial attitude. She’d rather expected to be locked up straight away, and if anything, the luxurious room she was shown to only made her feel more out of place. Her heavy boots were still caked with mud from the forest, and she paused at the bedroom door to take them off, not wanting to track dirt across the thick carpet.
“There’s a spare change of clothes in the wardrobe,” Eleanor told her, her expression never changing from the look of calm politeness she wore. “Once you’re ready, come downstairs. The rest of the Council is eager to meet you.”
Yeah, right, Caroline thought, as Eleanor left her alone. More like eager to punish her. But there was nothing to be gained from waiting. She headed for the bathroom, scowling at the thick, fluffy towels hanging on the rail, and stripped off her clothes. Time to make herself presentable, before she faced her doom.
Half an hour later, Caroline sat at a long table in a room that looked a lot like the Den’s library, only larger, its high shelves containing thick volumes that seemed ancient. The titles on the spines were in many different languages, Caroline recognising some of them as Spanish, Italian and French, and then there were others, in a script and language she had never seen before.
The room was bright and airy, wide windows giving a view of a sundrenched garden outside, a perfectly blue swimming pool set amongst colourful potted flowers, stone statues and creeping vines. Exactly the sort of setting she’d imagined for a bunch of hoity-toity aristocrats.
But then there were the Council themselves, twelve men and women of various ages, and Caroline was a little startled to see that not all of them were dressed like Eleanor. One of the men wore simple jeans and a t-shirt. One of the women looked like she’d come in straight from the gym. And there were several who seemed to be dressed for combat, encased in black leather, weapons secured about their bodies. Huh. Not quite the rich, poncy line up she’d been anticipating, and the realisation left her feeling a little off balance. She found herself feeling a grudging respect for some of them, the warrior types in particular, and her initial resentment slipped a little. There was no sign of Adriana or any other guards, and Caroline wasn’t sure whether it was because they were confident she wouldn’t try to run away, or because the Council was more than capable of stopping her themselves, if she tried anything.
The hearing was brief. Kendrick had already filled the Council in on Caroline’s actions, and she was given the chance to either confirm or deny the story – she didn’t see any point in denying it, so she simply admitted to everything he had told them – and then she was asked to explain her actions.
The explanation was simple, as far as Caroline was concerned. Her father had killed her mother, possibly with Greg’s involvement, and since the police investigation was not achieving anything useful, she had taken it upon herself to deliver justice. Her anger was understandable, the Council conceded, but in the end, it still broke Il Trosa law, and so they delivered their decision. She was to be ‘retrained’, and Caroline shuddered as she tried to imagine what that could mean.
What were they going to do to her? Would they cage her, as the Den did with new recruits who struggled to merge with their wolves? Beat her? Fuck, she’d put up with enough of that to last a lifetime. Torture her? Starve her? Each new idea conjured up an onslaught of even more terrifying options, Caroline’s imagination running wild as she tried to envisage what her life was going to look like in the near future.
“Excuse me a moment,” Eleanor said, rising gracefully from the table, and she let herself out of the room. Moments later she was back, a young man in tow, and Caroline braced herself for the first wave of this unknown new horror.
“This is Andre,” Eleanor told her. “He’ll be overseeing your training.”
Caroline stared at the man in front of her. He was tall, slightly older than herself, but not by much. He had a warrior’s body, toned muscles, shoulder length hair and two days worth of stubble on his chin. But at the same time, he had a gentleman’s air about him, a look of refined intelligence that made Caroline feel common and stupid.
“Ma’am,” he greeted her respectfully. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Caroline said nothing, confused by such a congenial greeting from the man who had just been assigned to making her life hell for the foreseeable future.
But it was the man’s quiet peacefulness that held her attention. Odd, for someone no doubt trained in violence and prepared to enforce strict rules. There was something unnervingly calm about him, and though Caroline was reluctant to admit it, something inherently trustworthy as well.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, her anxiety finally getting the better of her, and the man smiled in a way that was supposed to be reassuring.
“Don’t be concerned,” he said calmly. “We have only your best interests at heart. If you’ll come this way, we’ll get started.”
Andre led Caroline out of the villa and into the wide gardens. Though he was making an effort to appear calm and in control, he was actually nervous as hell. When the Council had been informed that Adriana was bringing Caroline in, they’d called him in for a meeting and told him he was being assigned to retraining duty for the young woman. After Kendrick’s appeal, they’d decided that option was worth a try, rather than putting the young wolf down, and their decision would only change if Caroline herself proved to be unreasonably uncooperative during the meeting.
While he’d been expecting such an assignment sooner or later – studies into psychology were a mandatory part of an assassin’s training, after all – he had become concerned when he’d read the woman’s profile.
“I was wondering if you would consider reassigning Caroline to another trainer,” he’d said to Eleanor, after grabbing a moment to speak to her in pri
vate.
“Oh?”
“She’s had a highly traumatic past and is in a very fragile mental state. Her recent actions have been fuelled by a great deal of anger and fear. Perhaps she would be more suited to someone who could better empathise with her situation.”
“On the contrary,” Eleanor replied enigmatically. “I believe you are far better suited to this job than you realise.”
Andre shook his head. “I was raised in a stable, loving home, with a supportive community and a clear purpose for my life. She was raised in a nest of violence and turmoil and has had to fend for herself since she was a young girl. I loved both my parents from the bottom of my heart. She wants to kill one of hers. With all due respect, I’m failing to see any common ground here.”
Eleanor eyed him with an air of indulgence. “Let me first say that I admire your concern for her wellbeing. Even if that concern is a little misplaced. You are more talented than you realise, and I wouldn’t be assigning her to you if I didn’t think you were capable of fulfilling your duties. But aside from that, keep in mind that this is as much about your training as it is hers. Find your common ground. And then everything else will fall into place.”
Eleanor’s confidence in him had done little to reassure him – despite the fact that he was to be overseen by a more experienced staff member. So as he led Caroline outside, his mind was working overtime, reviewing the information he’d been given about her, and trying to come up with a plan of action that had at least a moderate chance of success. Digging up her past was going to be unpleasant for her, and the last thing he wanted to do was make things worse.
They came to a pergola where there were cushioned seats and a view of the forest stretching out below them. “I realise this must all be quite unsettling for you,” he began, seeing the scowl on Caroline’s face, which, if he was right, was a cover for her fear as much as it was an expression of her dissatisfaction with her current situation. “So I thought we would begin with teaching you some meditation techniques.”
Caroline snorted. “Meditation? You want me to sit in the lotus position and say ‘om’ for hours?”
Andre allowed himself a small smile. “There’s far more to meditation than that. It’s a process that quiets the mind, turns it inwards and allows you to discover your own motivations and re-evaluate your beliefs. It allows you to travel to the source of your own thoughts and feelings, and to view them with a level of objectivity.”
Caroline raised a sardonic eyebrow at him. “Believe me, the last place I want to be spending time is inside my own head.”
And that, right there, was one of their first problems. Caroline’s impulsiveness and rebellious attitude were likely due in part to her own reluctance for introspection.
“We’ll be taking small steps. And you’re free to discuss any concerns with me as we go along. So please, take a seat. Make yourself comfortable. We can start with some simple breathing exercises.”
“Look… what’s the deal here?” Caroline interrupted, completely ignoring his instructions. “I thought I was brought here for ‘retraining’. Aren’t you supposed to lecture me on loyalty and how breaking the rules is a betrayal of your values and a risk to security, and then assign me to toilet-cleaning duty if I don’t agree with you?”
Andre shook his head, grateful that he had a naturally patient disposition. Because he was beginning to get the impression that Caroline was going to be pushing his patience to the very limit. And they hadn’t even begun yet. He’d never met anyone quite so defensive about the simplest things.
“Coercion and force have never made anyone change their mindset in the slightest,” he explained, “unless it was to make them even more stubborn and rebellious. My job here is to help you see new perspectives on life, to consider points of view that you haven’t considered before. The idea is to let you reach your own conclusions about all this, not force my views upon you.”
Caroline looked utterly confused, and if it was possible, even more defensive.
“Please, sit down,” Andre said again, taking a seat himself. “There’s nothing to be worried about. Let’s just take this one day at a time.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Present Day
Driving slowly along a winding road, Miller glanced at the map on the passenger seat of his SUV, a frown appearing on his face as he considered his progress. The turncoat shape shifter had said there was a second pack of wolves living in England, somewhere in the Lakes District.
On the surface, that had seemed like a fairly large area to search. But Miller had an excellent team of men working with him. After the explosion at the lab, they’d lost a lot of good men, men Miller had known personally, some of them with families, and he still found himself jerking awake at night, sweat covering him as he remembered the way the shifters had shot Phil in the head, the cold, ruthless way they had attacked the base, nightmares of his colleagues’ bodies lying in pools of their own blood disturbing his sleep again and again.
So it had been gratifying when, in the aftermath of the disaster, Jacob had given him the freedom to assemble his own team, hand picked from the surviving security personnel, or from those who had been working in the Noturatii’s other English bases at the time of the explosion. He’d chosen the very best – not necessarily the most seasoned soldiers, but those with a clear head and a keen sense of strategy. After a few days of floundering about at the sheer size of the region, they’d put their heads together and managed to wipe out at least half the area in quick strokes of the brush. A pack of wolves wouldn’t live in close proximity to humans, so they could cross out every town, every tourist centre or manor open to the public, every public walking track and any properties clearly visible from a major road.
After that it had got harder, but nothing they couldn’t tackle with a little refined intelligence. No one knew how big the pack was, so they’d taken an extremely conservative estimate of ten wolves, and assumed that they all lived together in more or less the same place. That ruled out more locations, where the property sizes wouldn’t support that kind of population all in one spot, or where there was too much open countryside. Wolves would want trees, Miller reasoned. Forest where they could run without being spotted.
They had to be careful, though. At one point, it had seemed like they could discount every single property on the map the shifter had given them. Each one had a legitimate purpose, a productive farm, a tourist centre, cabins for hire, a wildlife sanctuary. They’d had to loosen their criteria, realising that given the technological skills of the pack, they’d have set up the property to look legitimate. They couldn’t just set up a huge barbed wire fence around a slab of forest and hope no one would notice, after all.
At first, his men had come out in force, teams of four or five, weapons, surveillance equipment, until they’d realised that the sheer number of properties to cover meant that they’d be spending years on the project if they didn’t find a way to cover more ground.
So today, Miller had come out alone, half a dozen other operatives out and about in their cars, each doing some preliminary reconnaissance work to target the most likely properties. But after days of this, Miller was starting to lose enthusiasm for the task. Hours of endless driving, checking properties, talking to locals who started out curious, and then became suspicious, knocking on doors to meet dozens of blank stares as he made up cover story after cover story. A complaint about excessive barking. Had they heard anything? Reports of suspicious activities. Had they seen anything? Foreigners? Well, this was a tourist area, after all. There were foreigners everywhere. And for his trouble, Miller had got a flood of useless information, the locals wanting to discuss everything from teenagers painting graffiti on things to wheat fields overrun with deer.
He came to his next stop, a conference centre owned by a company based in Italy. He’d checked the business records, and it all came back legit – the company had bought the estate about thirty years ago after the previous owners had decided to sell. Befor
e that, it had been owned by the same family for generations, passed down from father to son, but the last owner had been getting old and had had no children of his own, so he’d decided to sell. A check with the locals had confirmed the story – they saw regular visitors in town from overseas, attending the estate for some conference or other, along with the estate’s permanent staff, all very friendly people, and if Miller was honest, the whole arrangement sounded perfectly mundane, so he wasn’t expecting anything much here. But for the sake of completeness, he should at least check it out. He pulled up at the heavy iron gates and wearily got out of the car. A sign on the gate read ‘Misty Hills’ in beautiful iron letters, and he peered through the gaps, trying to get a look at the estate.
He could barely see the manor from here, just a few windows on one corner of the house, but an aerial shot had shown a large building with a wide lawn, surrounded by acres of forest – a pretty standard set up for a lot of the old estates, so that didn’t mean anything in particular. The drive was only visible for a short distance before it disappeared into thick rows of hedges, but the place seemed deserted.
The gates were locked, so Miller pressed the call button beside the gate, not really expecting anyone to answer.
But only a moment later, a tinny voice came through the line. “Good morning, can I help you?”
“My name is James Gardner,” Miller said. “I understand this estate is a conference centre? I was hoping to speak to someone about renting it.”
There was a muffled rustling sound, and then the voice came back. “One moment, sir. I’ll come down and see you at the gate.”
The intercom shut off, and Miller waited patiently. After a few minutes, an ageing man came down the drive, grey haired but still spritely enough, with a quick stride and a cheerful look on his face.