A glance at her mother’s watch told her she still had plenty of time until her father came back to pick her up. Rachael allowed her mind to wander back to her family as the sink ran furiously in the background. She caught snippets of Aaron and Holden speaking in hushed, angry tones, something about “your temper” and “this whole thing is unnecessary.”
If they didn’t want her there, why were they pressuring her to stay out her visit? Rachael rubbed her forehead.
After the water shut off, Aaron re-entered the dining room all smiles. “Miss Rachael, would you like to see the study?”
Now he wanted to show her? Not wanting to be rude, Rachael agreed.
She had to quietly admit she was disappointed. The impression she’d been given was that this was a visit to Holden, not to meet his guardian. Perhaps Aaron was just as strict as her father and wanted to be sure she was actually a good person before she dated—
Wait, dating? Rachael struggled not to spill her coffee as she tried to hide her gasp with a cough. Yes, her parents believed that was the case, but was she really doing this so she could ask Holden out?
She was close to admitting it was a possibility when Aaron pulled her attention back to the real world. “In here, Miss Rachael.”
She stepped into the room and had to say, “Wow.” It was fastidiously tidier than any other room in the house, looking every bit the part of its name. Every book and each pen had a designated place. The only unusual thing was when she spoke her voice hit her ears slowly, as though she’d stuffed them with cotton.
“Why does it sound funny in here?” she asked.
“I prefer at least one room to be sound-proofed for privacy.” Aaron walked over to the desk and pulled out the oversized office chair, making himself comfortable. One hand tapped a gentle rhythm on the wood. “Do you mind if we cut past the formalities of the evening and get to the point?”
She would have been more relieved if it had happened earlier in the evening. “Okay.”
Aaron’s expression slipped from cool yet kind to no-nonsense. “Holden told me more about your field trip. Specifically, that you asked if the wolf was Nathan.”
“He told you that?” she blurted. In the heat of the moment it may have made sense, but now she wanted to shrivel into the wall. Her heart raced with a mixture of caffeine and embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, it was all so crazy, and I know it sounds weird, but the wolf had his eyes, or it looked like his eyes, or your eyes, and it looked so sad when I yelled I just . . . I was thinking. I mean, I wasn’t.”
The dark-haired man waited patiently through her fumbling apology. After a lengthy pause, he said, “No, Miss Rachael. You were right.”
Blinking rapidly, Rachael was certain she had misheard him. “Huh?”
“You were right. The wolf was Nathan.”
She stared at him, waiting for a tell-tale smirk or tactful delivery of a punch line. When the seconds ticked by and neither came, Rachael carefully set her coffee on the desk beside Aaron, covering her face with one hand. Suddenly she was very, very tired.
“Mr. Moreno,” she said carefully through her fingers. “I’m really happy you had me over. I like Holden a lot. And Nathan.” A noncommittal grunt showed he didn’t miss the omission of his name. Rachael sighed and lowered her hand. “But I’m really not into practical jokes, especially not about what happened to Coleen.”
Aaron’s face remained unchanged. “Given the situation you are in, I would agree. If this were a jest, it would be in poor taste.”
Exasperated, Rachael raised her arms in a helpless shrug. She let them fall to her sides before she said civilly, “I’m going to call my dad. Where’s your pho—”
In midsentence she had turned for the door. The problem was she couldn’t leave because Holden and a tiny white wolf with hauntingly black eyes blocked the doorway.
All the air in her lungs left. Rachael couldn’t remember how to breathe until the tightness in her chest became unbearable. A small, strangled gasp flew down her throat. Her face tingled.
She looked to Holden’s bleak eyes for answers. “Is that . . . ?”
“The wolf that got Coleen,” he agreed mutedly.
“Nathan,” corrected Aaron.
Rachael took a small step back. The wolf whimpered and the hurt that the noise inspired pierced through her fear and into her heart. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
Holden shifted a folded red towel from one arm to the other. “Not often.”
“Oh, enough,” snapped Aaron. His chair’s wheels gave a tiny squeak behind her. “Nathan, show Miss Rachael.”
At his words, the wolf began to melt. Stunned, Rachael backed up until she bumped the desk, her hand knocking over the cooling coffee. The longer she stared the more apparent it became that the wolf wasn’t melting. Its body was shifting, literally changing its shape.
Initially Rachael thought she was hiccupping, when in fact she was hyperventilating. She couldn’t back up any further, but when she tried to stumble around the table to escape Aaron reached across and clamped down on her forearm. His grip was all steel. Muscle and veins bulged beneath his olive skin as he forced her to stay still.
Horrified, Rachael watched as the wolf seemed to melt into the carpet, its belly flush with the floor as its thick fur took on a blond hue and shrank back into its flesh. Protruding shoulder blades flattened into its back, and that’s when the cracking of joints and bones split the air.
Rachael didn’t scream until the snout shrunk into a stubby human nose, and once she started it was impossible to stop. When Holden hurried to shut the door she only screamed harder. Words fled her mind; the only thing in her head was the real-time, grotesque transformation of a beautiful creature into the hideous, twisted features of a boy-wolf.
The sound and sight of the rear legs snapping inward was too much. Whether she suddenly found a new burst of strength or Aaron gave up trying to hold her still, Rachael managed to wrench out of his hold and bolted to the other end of the room. But the study was completely underground. It had no windows, no doors outside. Her new prison was an immaculate, sound-deadened, suffocating box of blind white fear.
It dawned on her that escape was useless. That was when her knees gave out and her screaming ceased. Shaking, Rachael buried her face in her hands. Tiny, kittenish mewls slipped out of her raw throat.
Familiar arms pulled her away from the wall and clutched her close to a warm, hard body. Under Holden’s arm, Rachael saw Aaron pick up a towel where Holden had been standing and wrapped it around his now naked, completely human brother.
But he’s not human, he’s a monster.
Sweet, dark-eyed, angel-faced Nathan was actually a twisted and bone-crunching monster.
Over her whimpers Holden kept saying, “I’m sorry. Rachael, I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry. I’m sorry.”
It took numerous tries to formulate words to match her deepest terror. “Are you going to kill me?” she choked out.
A desperately sad noise fell from Holden’s lips. He held her tighter.
Behind him, Aaron answered her. “Of course not.”
Gasping in short, shuddering breaths, Rachael uttered, “Then why?”
Aaron didn’t reply. “Stand her up,” he commanded.
“Can’t you give her one damn minute?” snarled Holden.
In a split second Holden was yanked to his feet. The sheer force pulled Rachael up as well. She and Holden lost their grips on each other, sending her stumbling back into a nearby bookcase. She grasped the sturdy shelves for support, dimly amazed she didn’t knock anything over.
Tangible heated fury emanated from Aaron. His brows were drawn down further than seemed possible, throwing a shadow over his glittering eyes. “That was an order.”
Rachael’s vision began to blur around the edges. Hysterically, she wondered if Aaron was about to murder Holden instead of her. The certainty her life was bordering on its end was stronger than her still-spiking horror.
Her drea
mlike perception smashed hard back into reality when Holden shouted and swung at Aaron. In a blink her friend was pinned face-down into the plush carpet. Aaron’s arm jerked as he gave a fierce shove to the back of his charge’s neck, forcing Holden’s head further into the floor. Aaron’s knee was pressing into the teenager’s spine, his free hand holding the arm Holden had used to swing at him backward at a perilous angle.
“I knew you were attached, but you are acting the fool,” spat Aaron. Then, without warning, he yanked Holden’s arm back at an impossible angle with a nauseating pop. A howl of pain perforated the room for a split second before being swallowed into the walls. Rachael clamped her hands over her mouth to stifle a sympathetic cry.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Aaron let go of his charge and left him to keen and writhe in agony. He stepped over Holden’s body before turning his attention back to Rachael. She shrank back, which seemed to give him pause.
Resting his weight back unassumingly on his heels, Aaron said, “Again, it seems I am apologizing often lately. Unfortunately, it was necessary to show you what Nathan is . . . and explain that he is not alone. He is a lycan, what you know as a werewolf. Roxi is. I am. Holden is.”
The overload of information was difficult to process. Rachael could only focus on one tidbit at a time. “Who’s Roxi?” she breathed. Even as she asked, the concept of her brain jammed full of insanity made her wonder if she had a tumor and if this was all a wild result of sickness in her head.
Aaron suddenly turned, his voice sharp. “Do not help him!” Apparently Nathan had crept closer to Holden, preparing to provide some sort of aid.
To answer Rachael, Aaron calmed his voice and said, “You were supposed to meet her as well. She is also a lycan.”
“So she . . . changes . . . like that.”
“In crude terms, yes.”
The rest of his exposition was leaking in. “And you.”
And Holden.
It was ludicrous as much as understandable. How he’d overheard her fight with Coleen, if it were true he retained a wolf’s hearing; that he’d argued to cancel the field trip because of wolves—them—him. Subtle, well-hidden hints had littered their encounters, so tiny she never would have assumed it on her own.
Since he couldn’t attend to Holden, Nathan decided to approach her while her mouth was still agape. The oversized towel wrapped modestly around his torso. “Do you hate us, Miss Rachael?” he asked.
Never before could Rachael have fathomed saying such a thing to a child. But now, when she looked into the boy’s face, she only saw distortion and fur.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Nathan’s face crumpled. Any sympathy she might have dredged up was flattened by her terror and revulsion. Again, Rachael thought this would be her final experience before they murdered her, and she’d never have the chance to tell her family goodbye.
“How about you go get dressed,” Aaron suggested to his brother. Near tears, Nathan complied. He left the door open behind him. Rachael could have made a run for it, but Aaron’s muscles were tensed and ready to spring. She whimpered.
Something akin to compassion etched new lines into Aaron’s face. Rachael didn’t trust it. She couldn’t. He was also a monster.
Aaron spoke like he might to a five year-old. “I assume you want to go home now.” Rachael nodded frantically. “You are welcome to, under one condition.”
“Anything. Please.”
“You cannot tell a soul what you have seen or heard.”
His request was suspiciously simple, but she was too desperate to say so. Shaking her head slowly, Rachael said, “Who’d believe me?” Honestly, she was hoping this was all the result of a concussion or nightmare or even a drug that may have been slipped into her coffee. So long as she ended up in her own bed alive and in one piece, Rachael would be grateful.
Aaron was not amused. “You would be surprised.”
Behind him a grinding sound somewhere between a crunch and a pop made Rachael flinch. Holden was sitting up, his face ashen and hand clutching his damaged shoulder. Even though she’d spent the majority of the evening trying to catch his gaze, roiling nausea forced her to look away when he returned the favor far too late.
Her voice cracked. “I won’t tell anyone. I swear. Please, just let me go home.”
Folding his arms, Aaron stated, “I take no pleasure in hurting my pack—” Holden growled in disagreement. “—and much less in killing humans.” His voice frosted over. “But I do as I must for our safety. Is that clear?”
All the threats made her want to cry, but she was afraid if she did it would somehow please Aaron. Swallowing in an effort to fight tears, she said, “Yes. I do. I-I mean it is. Clear. Please. . . .”
For a few agonizingly long moments he didn’t move. Then, just as she thought she might scream or collapse again, he stepped aside to unblock the stairwell.
Without hesitation, Rachael escaped.
Chapter Fourteen
Rachael didn’t feel safe until the winding dirt road ended at pavement. Jagged lines of fire burned her lungs. Her hair had fallen out of her mother’s careful handiwork and flew with abandon around her head. When she doubled over and retched up what had once been a fine dinner, she wished she hadn’t lost the hair tie. Between the gusts of wind and her heaving, strands caught in her mouth and stained with vomit and tears.
The shakes and gagging went on long after her stomach had emptied. By the time Rachael could stand upright her head was buzzing.
Monsters.
Nathan’s transformation replayed behind her eyelids, stopping and restarting and stopping and restarting. It didn’t take much imagination for Holden’s face to superimpose over the little boy’s, twisting and grinding from person to wolf and back again. His crafty smile melted into a gnarled snout, becoming worse each time until she pictured a beast that resembled neither human or wolf.
Trembling, Rachael wiped clumsily at her wet hair and cast furtive glances over her shoulder. In spite of Aaron’s promise she kept expecting a white canine to sneak up, pounce, and sink its teeth deep into the soft flesh of her abdomen.
A quick check of her mother’s watch told her she had nearly an hour before her father was supposed to pick her up. She prayed he would arrive early.
Though she was light-headed, Rachael didn’t want to sit down. She had to be prepared to run. And though she’d been around the area numerous times in her life, it was still a long way from home and she had never paid much attention to the roads before today. Already she was kicking herself for not thinking to retrieve the map in her father’s car.
The longer she was left alone, the more Rachael realized she had no idea how to explain why she was standing near the road next to a puddle of her own sickness. Her father was sure to demand answers, and if she gave the wrong one he would just end up driving down to the Moreno house and unleash unholy fury upon an enemy he truly knew nothing about.
What could she possibly tell him? Daddy, I found out Holden’s a werewolf, only they’re called lycans now, but it’s okay, Mr. Moreno promised to leave me alone if I didn’t tell anybody. Wait . . . oops.
She was still rummaging for a believable lie when a girl stepped out of the bushes in front of her. Rachael’s first instinct was to run, but with a violent expulsion of breath she realized the recognized this girl.
“Delilah?”
The girl tilted her head and flashed a sweet smile. She looked different. Her dress was more casual and her pink-and-cinnamon brown hair had been bleached to a blonde just a few hues brighter than Rachael’s.
“I warned you,” Delilah said in her lyrical voice.
Rachael was certain she was going to faint. “How . . . ?”
Delilah prowled around her, sneering as she sidestepped Rachael’s vomit. “They’re bad people. You should have stayed away.”
In that moment, she couldn’t agree more. Swallowing another urge to dry-heave, Rachael whispered, “I know.”
Green eyes pi
erced her, bursting in hot and cold flashes. “You better listen to me this time. Stay away from them.”
Rachael nodded frantically.
Without another word, Delilah vanished into the brush again. Her exit was far louder than her entry, the sound of branches—no, bones—snapping driving needles into Rachael’s ears.
When a wolf howled in the distance, she couldn’t help but cry anew. All the fight went out of her and she curled up at the end of the road, alternately wiping her tears and burying her face in her arms. The sound of an engine finally made her look up. It was her father’s car, but Jackson was inside.
She rubbed at her face before clambering into the car. She had barely shut the door before her brother demanded, “What the hell happened to you, RayRay?”
“Nothing.” When Jackson glared at her, she grabbed the first excuse she could find. “We . . . me and Holden had a fight.”
Jackson’s wide hands tensed on the wheel. “Did he hit you?”
“No.” That, at least, was mostly true. Nobody had laid a hand on her, something Rachael still considered no small miracle. Diverting her gaze, she mumbled, “He’s not my friend anymore. Can we go home?”
The road was too narrow for Jackson to turn around, so it took him a couple minutes of agonizing scrutiny over the three point turn before he felt safe enough to back onto the pavement and leave. It wasn’t until the tension in her back eased that Rachael started to feel safe again.
They had just passed her school when it occurred to her to ask, “Where’s Daddy?”
Her brother sighed. “Got called into work. Someone fell off a balcony they were tearing up and broke a couple ribs.”
Normally that thought would have made her flinch. After Aaron’s House of Horror she could only summon a faint, “Oh. I hope he’s okay.”
“She,” Jackson corrected. “And yeah, she should be. Dad just had to take her place.”
At least she had fewer questions to face. The further she was from the nightmare, the more Rachael just wanted to lie down and take a nap—or a long, soothing hibernation.
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