A Witch In Time

by Robyn Peterman

  Movement was necessary or I thought I might throw up. I paced the room and tried to untangle my thoughts. It wasn’t like I’d even known my parents, but they were mine and now I felt cheated somehow. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. My heart pounded so loudly in my chest I was sure the neighbors could hear it. My parents were murdered and this was the first time I was hearing about it?

  “Again. Say that again.” Surely I’d misunderstood. I’d always been one to jump to conclusions my entire life, but the look on Granny’s face told me that this wasn’t one of those times.

  “They didn’t own a hardware store. Well, actually I think they did, but it was just a cover.”

  “For what?” I asked, fairly sure I knew where this was going.

  “They were WTF agents, child, and they were taken out,” she said and wrapped her skinny little arms around herself. “Broke my heart—still does.”

  “And you never told me this? Why?” I demanded and got right up in her face.

  “I don’t rightly know,” she said quietly. “I wanted you to grow up happy and not feel the need for revenge.”

  She stroked my cheek the way she did when I was a child and I leaned into her hand for comfort. I was angry, but she did what she thought was right. Needless to say, she wasn’t right, but…

  “Wait, why would I have felt the need for revenge?” I asked. Something was missing.

  “The Council was never able to find out who did it, and after a while they gave up.”

  Everything about that statement was so wrong I didn’t know how to react. They gave up? What the hell was that? The Council never gave up. I was trained to get to the bottom of everything. Always.

  “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. The Council always gets their answers.”

  Granny shrugged her thin shoulders and rearranged the knickknacks on her coffee table. Wait. Did the Council know more about me than I did? Did my boss Angela know more of my history than I’d ever known?

  “I knew that recruiter they sent down here,” Granny muttered. “I told him to stay away from you. Told him the Council already took my daughter and son-in-law and they couldn’t have you.”

  “He didn’t pay me any more attention than he did anyone else,” I told her.

  “What did the flyer say that he gave you?”

  “Same as everybody’s—salary, training, benefits, car, apartment.”

  “Damn it to hell,” she shouted. “No one else’s flyer said that. I confiscated them all after the bastard left. I couldn’t get to yours cause you were shacking up with the sheriff.”

  “You lived with Hank the Hooker?” Dwayne gasped. “I thought you just dated a little.”

  “Hell to the no,” Granny corrected Dwayne. “She was engaged. Left the alpha of the Georgia Pack high and dry.”

  “Enough,” I snapped. “Ancient history. I’m more concerned about what kind of cow patty I’ve stepped in with the Council. The sheriff knows why I left. Maybe the Council accepted me cause I can shoot stuff and I have no fear and they have to hire a certain quota of women and…”

  “And they want to make sure you don’t dig into the past,” Dwayne added unhelpfully.

  “You’re a smart bloodsucker,” Granny chimed in.

  “Thank you.”

  “You think the Council had something to do with it,” I said. This screwed with my chi almost as much as the Hank situation from a year ago. I had finally done something on my own and it might turn out I hadn’t earned any of it.

  “I’m not sayin’ nothing like that,” Granny admonished harshly. “And neither should you. You could get killed.”

  She was partially correct, but I was the one they sent to kill people who broke Council laws. However, speaking against the Council wasn’t breaking the law. The living room had grown too small for my need to move and I prowled the rest of the house with Granny and Dwayne on my heels. I stopped short and gaped at my empty bedroom.

  “Where in the hell is my furniture?”

  “You moved all your stuff to Hank’s and he won’t give it back,” Granny informed me.

  An intense thrill shot through my body, but I tamped it down immediately. I was done with him and he was surely done with me. No one humiliated an alpha and got a second chance. Besides, I didn’t want one… Dwayne’s snicker earned him a glare that made him hide behind Granny in fear.

  “Did you even try to get my stuff back?” I demanded.

  “Of course I did,” she huffed. “That was your mamma’s set from when she was a child. I expected you’d use it for your own daughter someday.”

  My mamma…My beautiful mamma who’d been murdered along with my daddy. The possibility that the Council had been involved was gnawing at my insides in a bad way.

  “I have to compartmentalize this for a minute or at least a couple of weeks,” I said as I stood in the middle of my empty bedroom. “I have to do what I was sent here for. But when I’m done, I’ll get answers and vengeance.”

  “Does that mean no vacation?” Dwayne asked.

  I stared at Dwayne like he’d grown three heads. He was getting terribly good at rendering me mute.

  “That was a good question, Dwayne.” Granny patted him on the head like a dog and he preened. “Essie, your mamma and daddy would want you to have a vacation before you get killed finding out what happened to them.”

  “Can we go to Jamaica?” Dwayne asked.

  “Ohhh, I’ve never been to Jamaica,” Granny volunteered.

  They were both batshit crazy, but Jamaica did sound kind of nice…

  “Fine, but you’re paying,” I told Dwayne. He was richer than Midas. He’d made outstanding investments in his three hundred years.

  “Yayayayayayay!” he squealed.

  “I’ll call the travel agent,” Granny said. “How long do you need to get the bad guy?”

  “A week. Give me a week.”

  ** Visit www.robynpeterman.com for more information.**

  EXCERPT FROM ARIEL:NANO WOLVES 1

  NANO WOLVES SERIES

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  Being a living experiment wasn’t part of the scientific career she’d planned for herself.

  Despite her sharp scientific mind and her degree in bio-molecular genetics, Dr. Ariel Jones hasn’t figured out how her life changed so much in a single day. Before she can blink and ask about what is going on, she is injected with a billion nanos and some very potent wolf blood.

  Now she can suddenly turn into a giant white wolf with the bloodlust of a starving animal. And she’s an alpha…or so she is told by the even larger, very male, black wolf who was used to create her. Hallucination? She wishes. Whether human or wolf, Reed talks in her head and tells her how to handle things… or rather how to kill them… starting with the men who hold them all captive. Too bad he can’t tell her how to put her life back like it was.

  Admittedly, there are perks to being a werewolf, such as meeting sexy werewolf guys like Matthew Gray Wolf. Science labs aren't overrun with sexy men in white coats. She also doesn’t mind learning about a side of herself she never knew existed. It's great changing into a real wolf whenever she wants, but being a living experiment wasn’t part of the scientific career she’d planned for herself. Neither was falling for the local werewolf alpha, but what else is a newbie werewolf caught in her burning time going to do?

  CHAPTER 1

  Dr. Ariel Jones blinked at the bright lights overhead as she woke. Finding herself naked and strapped to some sort of gurney, she turned her head and saw two women similarly strapped to gurneys beside her. One was weeping steadily. The other was glaring at a fixed spot on the ceiling.

  Her scientist brain got busy immediately, trying to figure out what had happened since she’d come to work that morning. Her typical day at Feldspar Research always started at five in the morning to accommodate the light limitations of living and working just outside Anchorage, Alaska.

  She had processed the new set of blood samples waiting for her in
the lab and instantly reported the unusually rapid cell mutation she had seen happening under the lens of her microscope. Then at about ten o’clock, she’d gone for a direct meeting with Dr. Crane, who had asked to speak with her in person about what she’d found.

  One minute she had been drinking coffee and talking with a colleague. The next she was waking up naked in…where was she anyway? Looking around more, she finally recognized the place. It was where they had brought the giant wolf.

  Sniffing the air, she could indeed smell the pungency of the trapped animal. It was what had bothered her most. From what she knew, he’d been here longer than she had worked for Crane. The one and only time she’d seen the wolf in person had been more than enough. He was the biggest animal she’d ever seen and bigger than any she could have ever imagined.

  Now she was here—in the same room where they had kept him. The discovery brought her back to her own pressing problem of waking up naked and restrained without knowing why. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, none of them pleasant.

  “So good of you to join us at last, Dr. Jones. I’ve been delaying things and waiting for you to wake up. I didn’t want to start the injections while you were still under the effects of the mild sedative we gave you earlier.”

  “You put drugs in my coffee this morning,” Ariel stated, somehow sure of it even before her bastard employer nodded and smiled.

  “The sedative was the fastest way to obtain your physical cooperation. Time is critical. We don’t know how long the window of opportunity from your findings will remain open. You told me several weeks ago you had come to Alaska because you craved more out of life than sitting in a lab doing research. Well, I’m about to make your dreams come true in a way you have never imagined.”

  Ignoring her accelerating heartbeat, Ariel decided she wasn’t going to get emotionally alarmed until there was a greater reason to do so than simply being naked and unable to free herself. She was used to thinking her way out of bad situations. She just needed to remain calm, ask questions, and figure out what was really going on.

  “I would like to know the purpose of your actions. Are you planning to take physical advantage of my helpless condition? Who are the two women next to me? What role do they play?”

  Dr. Crane smiled. “So many questions. Of course, I expected someone like you would have them. You’re going on a scientific adventure or at least your body is. The three of you are about to become the next step in the evolution of our species. But I guess it’s rather bold of me to theorize such a result without any proof yet. Part of the excitement is considering all the possibilities. Now I know your circumstances are a bit alarming at the moment, but if this experiment works, you’ll become an extremely valuable asset to our military. Even the most highly trained K-9 units won’t be able to compete with your animal skills. Alaskan wolves are quite superior to canines in nearly all areas. Everyone studies their predatory actions for just this reason.”

  “I still don’t understand, Dr. Crane. I thought Feldspar was testing wolf fortitude to glean survival information for living in extremely harsh environments,” Ariel said, discreetly testing the restraints around her wrists again.

  “Oh come now, Dr. Jones. That sort of work is barely fit for a second year university student. You are here because you personally possess several strands of DNA in common with our latest Feldspar wolf acquisition. He’s been rather solemn since we informed him of your findings. He’s glaring at us steadily which I take as the highest compliment about your discovery. It’s as if he senses what we are about to do to the three of you.”

  “Dr. Crane, are you saying you’re communicating with a wolf? Don’t you think that assumption is a bit odd?” Ariel asked.

  “Not at all. I sincerely wish we could be communicating with his human side, but we’ve purposely kept him from shifting back to his human form by the silver collar around his neck. I think it helped greatly to leave the six silver bullets someone put into him too. He was initially impossible to capture in his wolf form. If his pack had been nearby, I doubt we would have. In fact, I don’t know who exactly did capture him. I found him both shot and tranquilized with a note pinned to his collar when someone activated the alarm on the back door of the lab.”

  “I’m sorry Dr. Crane, but you sound like some crazy mad scientist out of a movie. What are you going to do to us? Seriously? You don’t have to make up such wild stories. I assure you I won’t be reduced to hysterics by hearing the truth,” Ariel demanded.

  “Still the skeptical scientist, I see. In just a moment, I’ll happily explain the rest to you. Since what’s going to happen to you is beyond your control, I don’t see any benefit from not telling you the whole story.” Dr. Crane waved at the man assisting him. “Proceed with injecting the weeping one on the end. I cannot tolerate a weeping female. She is highly distracting. I can’t talk to Dr. Jones over her constant whining.”

  Ariel’s head whipped over, straining to see the gurney at the end. She saw the woman’s body arch when a plunger was placed at her neck directly on the carotid artery. Whatever was in the injection, they wanted it to hit all parts of her body quickly. To her surprise, the man rolled the woman’s head, and shot a second plunger directly into the woman’s brain stem. The woman seized, strained at her straps, and then fell silent. If the second injection didn’t paralyze her spine, its content would be in every brain cell in less than ten minutes.

  “Now administer the sedative and move Heidi to the last cage. Come straight back and process Brandi next. I’ll take care of Dr. Jones personally.”

  Ariel looked back at the man speaking so calmly. He looked at her and offered a shrug.

  “The sedative is to help keep you calm during the worst of your genetic transmutation. We’re not completely without conscience. I see no need for any of you to suffer more than necessary. Since you’re the first of your kind, we don’t exactly know how much the transpecies mutation process hurts. Our captive wolf shifter has been quite unwilling to share any information, assuming he can still speak in his wolf form. We haven’t been able to ascertain it one way or the other.”

  The woman directly beside her was still as quiet as ever. So far, she had not made a sound. Ariel listened to the gurney with the now unconscious Heidi being pushed to the far end of the room. She listened to a cage door being opened and straps being undone.

  “Please continue your explanation, Dr. Crane. Did I find something important this morning?”

  “Yes, you did. I applaud you for being as smart as your resume indicated. People usually lie on those you know. Somehow I knew right away when we met that you were being honest. It was quite the stroke of luck your blood also showed excellent—most excellent—counts of nearly everything required for the experiment. When I personally saw the metamorphosis strand in your DNA, I was literally as giddy as a schoolboy. The strand is missing from your fellow subjects.”

  “I did my doctoral thesis on the metamorphosis strand. Most in the scientific community don’t even think its real. But I’ve seen it. People who have it tend to die fairly young. It’s one of the reasons I left New England and came here. I wanted to explore the world a little before I came down with some disease I couldn’t survive.”

  “Yes. Human subjects with the strand do tend to die young. But extending your doctoral hypothesis, I also believe the strand has a higher purpose in those who possess it. So when I saw from the extensive health exams Feldspar required that you personally had the strand, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Roger, I said to myself, what would happen if someone extremely intelligent suddenly became a wild animal? Would the person be able to control their carnal nature enough to use their intelligence in their animal form? The chance to discover the truth was just too much to pass up. Now you get to benefit from the very discovery you made this morning, Dr. Jones. It’s too bad the global medical community will never know anything more about you except for the unfortunate accident which burnt your body to ashes today when you w
ent into Anchorage for lunch. Alaskan winters can be terribly challenging on vehicles, as I’m sure your gurney mates can also attest to since they suffered the same fate.”

  Ariel flinched when she heard the woman beside her hiss and swear at the depression of the plunger at her neck. When her brain stem was shot, the woman shrieked loudly and nearly broke the straps with her arching. The sedative calmed the woman instantly, but it had the opposite effect on Ariel. Starting to panic at last, because she knew the same fate would be hers, Ariel renewed her efforts to escape and twisted against her restraints. Unfortunately, she lacked the strength to break them.

  She listened to the second gurney being wheeled down the hall. Again a cage door opened. Moments later, she heard it close and a key turning in a lock.

  “Who gave you the right to do this to us, Dr. Crane? I came to Feldspar to do research for you, not to be your research. What you are doing is illegal and immoral.”