The Wolf Within (The Wild Side)

by M. J. Scott

  It took them longer to crack the vamps. They worked out pretty early that a vamp’s blood is different. They called the mutation they identified the Stoker Variation. Who knew science nerds had a sense of humor? But the mutation isn’t everything and they still haven’t entirely nailed down how vamps pass on the mutation via their blood. The few articles I’ve managed to get through on the subject go off into arcane scientific doublespeak that makes about as much sense as hieroglyphics. The short version is this: a vamp can feed off you many times—some people volunteer for this which is just wrong on so many levels—and you’re fine. But if you drink their blood after they’ve drunk yours, well sooner than you’d like you’ll be stocking up on industrial strength sunscreen and opening an account at the blood bank.

  Vamps aren’t necessarily evil. These days—if you believe the statistics—vamp related deaths are much, much lower than murders committed by humans.

  But they are predators.

  The fact that at the moment they’re trying to fit into society doesn’t give me a sense of security. For a lot of human history, they haven’t. They’ve killed and fed as they wanted. It’s just their own internal politics that limited their numbers. They’re smart enough not to eliminate their food source.

  But of course, science being science, the eggheads are still trying to get the vaccine right. At the moment, if a vamp bit ten vaccinated people and then fed them his blood, only four would turn. Another two would die. Four would stay human if the vamp didn’t get cranky and kill them anyway.

  And a few people in every hundred thousand or so will turn as a result of receiving the vaccine the first time. Boosters are safer. The number goes down to one in a million or something. But you know what they say about one in a million chances.

  I’ve had both sets of shots. I take my boosters. I’d rather die than change if I’m attacked. A vampire killed my family. Therapy means I can function in the world with supernaturals and I understands that not all supernaturals are like Tate but deep down, I don’t think my heart would survive becoming one of them. I’m human. I want to stay that way.

  ***

  Around ten p.m. I tried to send Jase home. He insisted on escorting me home instead despite my protests I was perfectly safe driving myself. Something told me he’d spent the day researching Tate. I didn’t want to know what he’d found out.

  My house looked strangely quiet and dark as I pulled into the drive. Normally coming home feels just like that—coming home. Now I couldn’t assume it was completely safe.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?” Jase asked as I sat with the engine idling, delaying actually going inside until the little squirm of unease left my stomach.

  “You can come in and call a cab,” I said. “Or whoever. . .” I caught the disappointed look in his eye. “What? You weren’t thinking I’d lend you my car?” Jase drove like he was in an action movie. I guess being undead reduces your need to obey the road safety rules.

  And no one messes with my car. It’s a classic. A snappy silver convertible I bought myself the first year my business turned a decent profit.

  Jase shrugged and I suddenly realized he wasn’t disappointed about the car—he was upset I wouldn’t let him play bodyguard. Despite the fact that there was no good reason to suppose Tate was suddenly going to spring out of the bushes—a fact I’d been kind of chanting in the back of my head since I’d left the Taskforce building—I had to admit I felt better with Jase there. So it wouldn’t do to hurt the feelings of my vampiric security blanket even if his paranoia and Dan’s were going to get old pretty soon. “Some other time,” I said as we climbed out of the car.

  As we walked up the front path, Jase stiffened.

  “What?” I said softly.

  “There’s someone on the porch.” His voice was a mere breath in the warm night air. “Stay here.” Then he kind of melted into the shadows. One minute there, one minute not. Talk about freaky. But I did as I was told and stood in the semi-dark between the house and the drive whilst my pulse banged hard enough I figured every vamp or were in a ten block radius could hear me.

  Seconds stretched and stretched. I felt a sitting duck, one who’d been sitting far too long. There was a sudden thump and snarl from the direction of the porch and I belatedly realized who my late night visitor probably was.

  “Jase, wait.” I started toward the house at a run. Too late. By the time I bounded up the stairs, Jase and Dan were grappling with each other.

  “Stop that,” I said. Loudly. They didn’t even glance in my direction. Jase threw a punch and Dan ducked, another snarl—not human in the slightest—vibrating from his throat.

  “Stop it!” I repeated. I had a silver cross in my purse. Maybe I should get it out. Silver would give Dan enough of a jolt to make him back off—the lycanthropy virus does something to were immune systems to make them react really badly to silver—and Jase isn’t too fond of crosses. No one has ever figured out exactly why blessed objects hurt vampires but they do. So maybe there really is a God. Or Gods.

  But I decided to try something less drastic first. I backed down the stairs and grabbed the hose from the front flowerbed. Twisting the handle and cursing male hormones as my heels sank into the dirt, I aimed the water squarely at them.

  It worked. They sprang apart with a volley of curses.

  I released the trigger on the hose but didn’t turn off the water. Both men turned to glare at me as I stalked back up the stairs.

  I glared back. “You don’t like getting wet? Next time, pay attention.”

  “But he—”

  “I was just—”

  They spoke over each other. I held up a hand. “It’s late. I’m tired. Both of you, go home.”

  “No way,” Jase said, earning him another low rumble from Dan. “I’m seeing you inside.”

  My hero. Only problem was, Jase in hero mode was likely to push Dan into full-blown alpha wolf mode. My porch might not survive the experience—let alone my sanity.

  “How about I see myself in?” I suggested. Surely if someone was lurking inside—and how had I gone from happy my-home-is-my-castle Ashley to someone-might-be-lying-in-wait Ashley in less than twelve hours—all the noise would’ve scared them off by now?

  Both Dan and Jase turned their glares on me, the water dripping from their faces doing little to disguise the barely reined potential for violence. Even though I knew neither of them would hurt me, it was more than a little intimidating. I’m five foot six in my flats and both of them are over six foot. Dan beats Jase by an inch or so. Plus both of them are supernatural. They’re scary when pissed. But I wasn’t going to be pushed around on my own porch by my PA and my ex just because they were feeling the testosterone.

  I crossed my arms and stood as straight as possible. “I said GO HOME.”

  “I need to talk to you.” Dan jumped in before Jase could protest again.

  “Now?” It was almost midnight. Even the FBI had to sleep. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “Would I be sitting here waiting for you in the middle of the night if it could?” Dan said. There was still an underlying rumble to his voice that increased the intimidation factor.

  The question hung in the air between us, heavy with all sorts of undertones. Once upon a time we’d both spent a lot of time waiting around to get a chance to get our hands on each other. He’d hung out in my dorm lobby until they’d practically made him an honorary resident and I’d known every detail of the lives of every doorman in every building he’d lived in. Both of us had been studying or working our way up in the world and putting in long hours.

  But long hours were a price we were willing to pay for what we'd had. Which was a lot of mind blowing—really mind blowing—once in-a-lifetime sex. Or at least it had been once in a lifetime for me. I hardly been celibate since Dan changed but nobody had quite been the same. And more than that, a basic, indescribable sense of fit that meant we were happiest together. True love. The real thing. But I wasn’t goin
g to bring that up.

  “Probably not,” I admitted.

  “Exactly.” Dan folded his arms, looking like he was perfectly prepared to stand there all night if necessary. Dan can out-stubborn a glacier when he sets his mind to it. It would be quicker to let him say whatever he’d come to say, then send him packing.

  Plus there was the annoying but true fact that part of me was happy to see him. And that part, my think-with-hormones-not-with-brain part, wasn’t ready to let him leave just yet.

  I would indulge that part a little. Just enough to shut it up so I could lock it back up and bury the key. Besides I was too tired to try and mediate a Mexican standoff between a vamp and a werewolf any other way.

  But to deal with Dan, I had to get Jase to leave.

  I turned to face Jase and put on my best I-pay-your-salary-don’t-mess-with-me face. “Jase, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I didn’t feel as confident as I sounded. Jase was putting out some big scary vamp vibes. I knew vamps could do this—exude a sense of danger, if not downright menace—but I’d never actually experienced it. In the moonlight, with his sandy red hair turned silvery gold and his pale skin almost glowing, he didn’t seem like my nice guy PA. Didn't seem like my friend.

  I’d never seen him like this before and I wasn’t exactly sure how far I could push him. I just hoped that my staying calm and to the point would turn him back into just Jase before he and Dan got physical again. If any blood got spilled, the whole situation could get very nasty very fast.

  “You heard her,” Dan said.

  “Don’t help me,” I snapped at him, keeping my eyes on Jase. “Jase, really. You can go. Dan won’t be staying long.” Just long enough for me to hear what he had to say and try to stop myself from kicking his butt for giving me a crappy end to what had already been a shitty day. I focused on my growing anger at the whole situation, hoping it would drown out my stupid nostalgia.

  I wasn’t so sure it would. The night was cool and a slight breeze carried the scent of Dan’s aftershave straight to me, a smell that would be forever associated in my mind with lust and heartbreak and that had nothing to do with rationality or logic. And, even worse, tonight the familiar spice was under laid with something earthier and deeper. A wild tang that meant his anger was calling his wolf to the surface.

  It made his smell even more enticing. It bypassed my brain and connected directly with my libido. Much to my horror I had to fight not to move closer to him.

  This was a complication I hadn’t counted on. After Dan’s attack, after it was clear he was going to change, he’d been taken away by the local pack to learn how to control himself. He’d been gone for weeks. Weeks of me being in limbo, not knowing what was going to happen. I’d wanted to try. I hadn’t wanted to lose him. I’d told myself I could cope. That I’d be safe. But then two nights after he’d returned home—the first night we’d spent time together because he’d wanted to be sure of his control before he saw me—everything I’d been denying had happened.

  Driving home, we’d been rear ended. I hit my head. I bled. And Dan wolfed out in the car. By sheer instinct, I’d managed to fling open the door and get myself out before he got to me. But he smashed the window lunging at me before he had gotten himself under control. I wound up with his blood spattered across my shirt and I’d realized that if it had hit me higher, had gotten into the cut in my head then that could be all it would take.

  I’d be a werewolf too. My children would be werewolves. I fought so hard to have a normal life after Tate. A normal human life. I couldn’t risk losing everything I wanted. I loved Dan but I couldn’t risk being infected. I couldn’t date a wolf. Couldn’t be with one. It was too risky. I broke up with him the next day. I didn’t see any other option.

  A serious relationship with a werewolf was a recipe for disaster for someone who didn’t want to become one. Sex with a were is relatively low risk if you play safe. But low risk wasn’t no risk and Dan and I weren’t casual lovers. We were the real deal. We were headed for marriage and the white picket fence and the 2.4 kids. The only way for it to work was for me to change. Wolves mate for life when they settle down. And they live a long time. Not forever but longer than humans.

  But I couldn’t choose to become what he had. It felt like a betrayal of my family. For them I needed to live as a human.

  There’d been no break-up sex, no chance of reconciliation, although he’d tried to change my mind. Once. I agreed to see him once but the resulting argument led to him going crazy and smashing up the room we were in. The pack member on new-wolf-sitting-duty stepped in and hustled him off before the damage count included me but not before I’d seen exactly what his being a werewolf meant for the second time. I’d seen his wild side and it was terrifying. After that I refused to see him.

  Talk about ironic. My mind wouldn’t let me love a werewolf but it seemed my body didn’t share those qualms.

  Or maybe I could chalk my wholly inappropriate reaction to stress and fatigue. God, I hoped so.

  I glanced up at the sky and almost sighed with relief when I saw the moon was new. Which meant Dan should be in complete control and had no reason to change unless he chose to do so. Hopefully, if Jase left and Dan calmed down, he would go back to smelling like normal Dan—not super-pheromone catnip-for-Ashley Dan.

  I made a mental note to invest in some stronger perfume and forced myself to turn back to Jase. I had to assume that, knowing how I felt about him being a werewolf, Dan wasn’t about to change voluntarily around me, so Jase was the more dangerous of the two at this point. I had zero desire to move closer to Jase. But I figured talking him down might take just that.

  I took a deep breath, pushed though my very human instinct not to approach the vampire when he was in a snit and then stepped forward to put a hand on his arm. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  The touch worked, thank God. Jase stared down at me for a moment, then blinked. Like a switch had been thrown, the swirling sense of danger emanating from him vanished.

  “If that’s what you want,” he said in a tone that suggested he wasn’t happy that I’d picked Dan over him and that my coffee would be cold and decaffeinated for the next few days. “I’ll see you at work.”

  I made another mental note to hunt up a peace offering in the morning. “Thanks.”

  He nodded then disappeared in a split second. He was pissed. He rarely did anything that a human would consider overtly vampy around me. Sure, he couldn’t hide his quick reflexes or graceful movements but he rarely did the superhuman speed and strength thing unless there was some sort of problem.

  “Well,” I said, fumbling for my keys as I walked past Dan. “That was fun. You should really come over more often, Special Agent Gibson.”

  Chapter Four

  I didn’t wait to see if Dan was following, I just stomped down the hall, flicking on every light switch I passed, until I reached the kitchen. Wishing I hadn’t left my Godiva at the office, I reached for the next best thing—the bottle of Cuervo Reserva I keep in the pantry for days like these—and poured myself a glass.

  “Can I have one of those?” Dan said, just as I took my first drink.

  He stopped too close for my liking. His scent floated across to me so I moved to the other side of the island bench and took another mouthful hoping the warm slide of agave would temporarily distract my sinuses. “Aren’t you on duty?”

  He shook his head. “I finished an hour ago.”

  “Knock yourself out.” I poured him a glass and pushed it across the bench.

  “Thanks.”

  I let him take one mouthful. I wasn’t completely heartless. After all, he was the one who first introduced me to the stuff. “Why are you here? What’s so important?”

  “I wanted to make sure you’re okay. I didn’t mean to scare you earlier.”

  I shrugged, trying to be casual. “You said that already. So if that’s everything, you can go now.” Go before I did anything stupid. I drained m
y glass and poured another. Anything, even the hangover I would certainly have if I kept downing tequila like this, was better than standing in my kitchen in the middle of the night with Dan, nothing between us but the past.

  Dan held his glass out for a refill. I pushed the bottle across the bench.

  “It’s not the only reason I came,” he said and my heart sank. Either he had more bad news or he was going to bring up us.

  I couldn’t really blame him. Our break-up was pretty much the definition of ‘no closure’. I’d stonewalled every other attempt he’d made to see me or talk to me. He deserved better. But there is no good way to say, “I can’t handle what you are now” to the man you love. Particularly when what he is isn’t his fault.

  Dan got bitten on the job. He and his partner got called to a bar fight one night. Problem was the caller didn’t mention the fact that the combatants were weres. All I know is one of them changed, bit Dan, and suddenly I had a werewolf for a boyfriend.

  “This had better be Taskforce related,” I said.

  He bristled. “For Chrissakes, Ashley, can’t we have a conversation? Would it kill you to be nice to me?”

  “Probably. We don’t really have such a good track record. And I don’t want to buy new furniture.”

  The look on his face told me he knew exactly what I was referring to. “I’m not a newbie werewolf anymore. I can control myself.”

  Maybe he could. Control wasn’t the issue. Judgment was. Mine. I couldn’t afford to be stupid about Dan. And I didn’t trust him not to be stupid about me. “That doesn’t matter. I made my decision. You have to respect it.”