by Laura Taylor
As a general rule, Dee steered clear of hard spirits, preferring wine, or beer on the odd occasion. But she was short on options at the moment, the rest of the group continuing to snub her, and while a bunch of rowdy Ukrainians wouldn’t have been her first choice for company, she wasn’t yet tired enough to go to bed, and not inclined to spend the rest of the evening being the proverbial wall flower.
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” she said, forcing herself to take another sip of the liquor in her hand, though she winced at the taste. Much to Nikolai’s amusement.
“Let me find the others, then,” he said with a wink, “and we’ll go and start a party of our own.”
Half an hour later, Dee sat in the lounge room of the Ukrainians’ cottage, laughing as Nikolai finished a story about the shifters’ escapades scaring poachers who wandered into the Exclusion Zone. Just last month, the pack had surrounded a pair of hunters, terrifying them to the point that one of them had wet his pants, and the other had run away screaming, coming very close to shooting himself in the foot with his own gun. The Ukrainian Den, she was quickly learning, had a twisted sense of humour, as well as a calmly philosophical view of life, accepting both hardship and good fortune with equal stoicism.
As a concession to her ‘weak constitution’, they had allowed her to drink her vodka with a good splash of lemonade in it. The others were drinking it straight, but Dee had been pleasantly surprised to discover that the four tough, no-nonsense men, though loud and boisterous, were also charming and friendly. There was Alexei, the newest member of the group, a twenty-five year old who had been converted only two years ago. Bohdan and Olek were both in their mid thirties, with Bohdan speaking a small amount of English, while Olek and Alexei both knew nothing of the language.
Dee had also learned that, due to Ukraine’s conscription laws, it was standard procedure in the Ukrainian Den to fake their converts’ deaths to avoid the chance of being called up for military service.
Taking a break to refill his glass, and then Dee’s when he noticed it was empty, Alexei glanced sideways at Nikolai and said something hesitantly in Ukrainian.
Nikolai let out a laugh, while the others made various jeers and catcalls. “Alexei thinks you are very beautiful,” he translated with a grin.
Dee laughed. Alexei was quite handsome himself, cheeky with an infectious grin, but she shook her head. “Tell him not to get any ideas,” she said with a smile. “I have a boyfriend.”
Nikolai translated, and Alexei sighed dramatically, then said something else.
“Then this man of yours is very lucky,” Nikolai told her. “But if you ever change your mind, Alexei says he is available. What is your boyfriend’s name?”
Dee hesitated. “It’s Mark,” she said warily, knowing that however open minded these men might be, this might be an issue for them. Silence fell over the group, everyone by now aware of the name of the traitor in their midst, and even Nikolai seemed to pause at that one.
“I have not heard the full story of this man,” he said speculatively. “What is he accused of doing?”
Well, at least someone was bothering to stop and ask for the real story, Dee thought, trying to find a bright side to this mess. “He broke into a Noturatii lab and saved my life.”
Nikolai’s eyes opened wide, and he let out a hearty laugh. “Ah, I see. There is more to it than just that, I think, but sometimes we can focus on the wrong details, no? Well, you should keep him, then. Any man who will risk his life for yours is worth something.”
Dee stared at him in surprise, then let out a laugh herself. “You are a most unusual man,” she told Nikolai, who shrugged dismissively.
“If you could convince the Ukrainian women of this, I would be most grateful.”
After that the discussion turned to the topic of her unusual wolf, Dee trying her best to explain her odd relationship with Faeydir – having another sapient being in her head was a huge advantage at times, a significant challenge at others, and she worried a little that her explanation would be lost in translation as Nikolai struggled to explain it to the other men.
But as a series of questions came back at her about her conversion and the exact nature of her wolf, Faeydir herself perked up. She’d been behaving well since the Densmeet had begun, being given plenty of exercise outside and treating the other wolves with polite caution, not inclined to get too close – apparently, meeting strangers from outside her pack was quite stressful for the wolf – so Dee was a little surprised when she made her next request known.
“Faeydir says she would like to meet you,” she said awkwardly, knowing how strange it would sound to them to want to introduce her wolf separately from herself.
But Nikolai merely shrugged and explained the request to his comrades. Nods and words of agreement followed, so Dee gave the all clear to Faeydir. She shifted, then Faeydir stood in the middle of the room, slightly perplexed as she regarded the four large men in front of her.
Perhaps picking up on the reason for her confusion, Nikolai stood up, then shifted himself, his wolf large and grey, and the others followed suit.
Faeydir approached each of them cautiously, sniffing them thoroughly, and standing to be sniffed in return. Once she was satisfied, she sent a wave of wholehearted approval to Dee. Wild wolves, these were. They smelled of wilderness and snow. Strong, high ranking wolves. She laid her ears flat back and dipped her head, letting out a soft whine, and in his wolf form, Nikolai looked entirely pleased with the reaction. He took a step forward, head high, tail up, and Faeydir backed up a step, lowering her tail respectfully. Then Nikolai bounced towards her, a move that could have been part play, part threat, and Faeydir dropped to the ground, lying on her side, while her tail thumped on the floor.
A moment later, Nikolai was back in human form, a hearty chuckle filling the room. Dee shifted too, returning as a human sitting on the floor, peering up at the tall man, and he offered her his hand to help her up.
“Your wolf is very polite,” he said with a grin. “She knows her place.”
“She respects you,” Dee told him sincerely. “And she’s looking forward to seeing you at the deer hunt. She thinks you might have a few things to teach her.”
Nikolai translated for his comrades, now back in human form, and they all laughed at the news. “That’s a smart wolf you’ve got there. Now,” he said suddenly, reaching for the bottle of vodka. “It’s time we taught you how to drink like a Ukrainian.”
It was nearing midnight when Mark knocked on the door of the cottage. After roaming the estate for a while, he’d returned to the dining room and shared a drink with Alistair, before searching for Dee. He’d finally learned from Heron that she’d been seen leaving with the Ukrainians several hours ago, and, not knowing what to think of that, Mark headed for the cottage where the four men were staying.
He was rather apprehensive about the reception he was going to get. The Russians had been none too pleasant to him so far, and while he hadn’t had any particular run-ins with the Ukrainians, there was always the risk they would object to his presence. So he was a little surprised when the door opened and Nikolai cheerfully invited him inside.
He followed him into the living room, to be greeted by the sight of Dee sitting on the sofa, glass in hand, with three men lounging about the room around her.
“It is your noble boyfriend,” Nikolai announced, taking his seat again. “I think he has come to rescue you again. Perhaps he feels you are in mortal danger, sitting here with us.”
Mark didn’t know how to react to the introduction. The traitor’s brand was plain as day on his face, but then again, they knew he was Dee’s boyfriend, and they seemed to have accepted her easily enough, so he wasn’t sure whether Nikolai’s comment was meant seriously, or sarcastically. But his confusion turned to consternation when Dee called hello and waved at him, slurring her words and looking more than a little unsteady.
“Are you drunk?”
“No!” Dee replied emphatically.
Then she conceded, “Maybe just a little bit. I’ve been teaching them to speak English!” she said with glee.
“How much wood,” one of the Ukrainians piped up helpfully, “would wood chuck-a-chuck if he could wood?”
That made Dee break into a fit of giggles.
Another man snorted in laughter, said something in Ukrainian, and then made his own attempt. “How much wood would chuck chuck if he was chucking wood?”
“We have been sharing some best Ukrainian vodka with Dee,” Nikolai said, sounding more than a little inebriated himself. “You want to try?”
“No, thank you,” Mark said, more interested in getting Dee safely to bed at the moment. “I think you’ve had enough,” he told her seriously, and to his relief, Dee nodded.
“Tired now,” she said, climbing unsteadily to her feet. “Goodnight everyone. Nadobranich.”
A chorus of goodnights came back at her, and then one of the men stood up, approaching Mark. He held out his hand for him to shake, which Mark did, though he remained cautious as to the man’s intentions.
“I am Bohdan,” he said respectfully. “We is… happy… meeting Dee.” He was not quite so drunk as the rest, but struggling with his English nonetheless. “Dee is…” he thought for a moment, then enthusiastically proclaimed, “top girl!”
“Thank you for looking after her,” he replied, with just a touch of warning in his voice, as if he would have something to say about it if they hadn’t taken good care of her – excess of alcohol notwithstanding – and guided her out the door.
Dee followed Mark across the courtyard, leaning on him so as to be able to walk straight. “They’re really nice people,” she told him, aware that her words were slurring slightly, but wanting to make the point nonetheless. Mark had seemed less than impressed with the men, and after their unperturbed acceptance of her explanation about him, she hoped that as the Densmeet continued, Mark would get the chance to spend some time with them as well, to get to know them better, and they him, so they could see that despite the rumours and gossip, he was every bit as honourable as she knew him to be.
But Mark wasn’t so easily convinced. “That doesn’t make it a good idea to get drunk with a group of strangers,” he said, avoiding looking at her.
“They’re shifters,” Dee protested. “They live by Il Trosa’s honour code. You know, if you fall I will carry you, I will measure your steps each day that you run, and all that,” she said, quoting part of the Chant of Forests. “Besides, if they’d done anything wrong, Baron would have kicked their arses all the way back to Ukraine.”
Mark didn’t reply, but then Dee looked at him again… and snorted in laughter. “Oh, I get it. You’re jealous!” she proclaimed gleefully. And perhaps he had reason to be, she thought, with just a hint of what she was reluctant to call satisfaction. The Ukrainians were very handsome, after all. She’d never been the type to attract any significant male attention in the past. But her hosts for the evening didn’t stand a chance. Her attention was already taken up with a far more interesting prize.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” she told Mark, leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek. “I’ve already had my heart stolen by the most daring shifter in the whole of Europe.”
Mark looked mollified by that, and slid an arm around her waist. “Let’s get you back to bed,” he said warmly. “And then we can talk more about this daring shifter you like so much…”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Closeted away in her tiny flat in east London, Melissa sat at her desk, her laptop in front of her, typing furiously.
The experiments into creating a device that could force a shifter to change forms had yet to yield any real results, though Evans continued to come up with more and more complex ways of running the tests, ordering close to ten thousand pounds worth of new equipment for the lab, having the walls insulated, the metal surgery table exchanged for a plastic one, even going so far as to implant electrodes within the shifter’s body. But at no point had she reconsidered Melissa’s suggestions as to the electrical dynamics of the shift, while Melissa became more and more convinced that she was right, as each new set of test results came in.
The wolf was clearly suffering from the ongoing tests, losing weight, his fur becoming bedraggled, his eyes puffy from lack of sleep and his skin had taken on a grey tinge. As pleased as Melissa was to see him suffering, there was a more pragmatic issue at hand – if they didn’t take care of him well enough, they ran the risk that their only test subject would die before they completed their experiments, and she knew from first hand experience how difficult it could be to catch another one. But her suggestions to Evans that they pay more attention to the shifter’s health had been met with incredulity, followed by outright laughter. She was going soft, Evans had told her with a sardonic grin. The shifters were tough, some of them having survived not weeks, but years in captivity, undergoing far more unpleasant things than this team was doing to their current prisoner.
But with their present limitations, it could take years for them to crack the mystery of the mechanics of the shift, and despite Evans’ reassurances, Melissa was far from convinced that their captive was going to last that long.
Unless she did something to speed up their progress.
So here she was, at midnight, after putting in a full day in the lab, now sitting at home still working on her life’s purpose, but in an entirely different way.
After long minutes typing, she paused, and took the time to re-read the letter she had composed. It was addressed directly to Headquarters, to Professor Ivor Banks, the most senior scientist in the whole of the Noturatii, and it detailed all of her ideas concerning the shifter experiments, each and every avenue that Evans had either blocked or ignored. And then it went a step further.
During the raid on our former laboratory facility, it read, I encountered a small group of shifters attempting to flee the lab. Knowing that to allow them to escape was a great threat not just to our organisation but to humanity as a whole, I attempted to shoot one of them. Unfortunately, my firearms skills are not what they could be, and I missed, receiving a serious injury from the shifters in the process.
Traditionally the Noturatii has focused its combat training on its security staff – as well it should – but in the process, we have perhaps overlooked what has become a significant hole in our strategic planning. I propose that each and every staff member, whether administrator, scientist, diplomat or even a cleaner, should be given comprehensive weapons training. Had I been more competent with a gun, I would have been able to kill the shifters attempting to flee, and it could be supposed that several more of them might be dead, and many of our staff still alive, had they been appropriately trained and armed.
While I realise that it would take significant time and money to achieve this level of training across all of our offices, I would like to propose that this strategy should be considered, as I believe it would go a long way towards strengthening our team as a whole, and preventing future setbacks of this nature.
Melissa finished re-reading her work, and nodded to herself. Satisfied that it came across as both polite and urgent, detailed but not boring, she took a few moments to set up a secure link to Headquarters, and hit send.
Jacob would be furious if he found out. Evans would be livid. The other scientists would be ropable about her having gone behind their backs.
But the opinions of those at Headquarters were the only ones that mattered. And if Melissa’s ideas led to the strengthening of their cause, the opportunity to put more of her ideas into practice and win this war all the quicker, then it would all be worth it.
16 Years Ago
Andre watched Caroline in consternation. They were in the middle of another of their counselling sessions, and Andre was currently being forced to admit to himself that he’d reached a dead end.
It was five weeks since Caroline had arrived in Italy, and long discussions had occurred during that time, conversations about Caroline’s home
life, her relationship with her mother, her feelings when the woman had left, and her feelings about her Den.
None of it was simple, every event or relationship wrapped up in both bitterness and joy. She’d loved her mother, and yet also hated her for leaving. She was immensely grateful for her new life in the Den, and yet felt that she wasn’t worthy of it, having done nothing to earn her place there, and having made no particular contribution to the community since her recruitment. Her childhood had been hellish, and yet she still managed to find bright moments, a birthday party when she was a young girl, or the day she’d got her ears pierced. Her joy when she’d got her first job, for all that it had been a miserable place to be.
The only thing she really felt clear about was her father. She hated him with every ounce of her being, with no hint of happiness or pleasure to temper her anger.
And now she’d just told him what her father had done just before she’d left her home for the last time, the total destruction he had wrought in her bedroom, and the fury she had felt, more tempted than at any other time in her life to give in to the rage and simply kill him.