by Jenna Kernan
He’d been trained to fight, to mindlessly take orders, to kill innocent men and women. So why were his hands so gentle, his touch so kind?
Her shoulders shook as he held her against his chest, cradling her body to his larger one. She wanted to tell him to move back. That it wasn’t safe to hold her, but the tears choked off her words.
He made a hushing sound as he stroked her head, letting his fingers tangle in her curls. The rhythmic caress and soft rumble of his voice made her tears slow, her trembling body still.
“It’s all right, now. You’re safe now.” His voice sounded sincere. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Exhaustion crept through her now and settled into her joints. She ached to let him take control, and he did. His hand swept up and down her back and his strong arms enfolded her in warmth. It was almost enough for her to ignore the prickling at her neck. But it was there, the warning she’d been told to watch for and had felt last winter. The one that told her a werewolf was near.
How close?
* * *
Mac left Brianna’s room sure of only one thing. He sucked at interrogation. He had turned to a big puddle of mush the minute she’d turned on the waterworks. When he held her, she had tried to warn him away. Didn’t that show she didn’t mean to harm him? Or did she know he was a wolf and it was all just a game? Either way he was way, way out of his league. The smart move would be to turn her over before she made him a fool.
His main objective was to get Johnny back to human form and, failing that, get them back in action before either or both of them went crazy.
Where was Johnny now? Had he finished the perimeter sweep?
Mac recognized with increasing chagrin that Brianna Vittori was very good at making people feel responsible for her, even if they were complete strangers.
He’d left the door to the head open and locked the others. If she worked fast and hard, she might pry those boards off. Depended on how strong she really was.
He should go help Johnny and he needed to move the vampire corpses, but he needed a few minutes to think, and he thought best when firing his weapon. So he headed for the narrow trench cut deep into the earth. His private firing range with an upturned stump at one end, to hold extra clips, and a target pinned to the earth at the other.
For the second time in his life, his world had tipped badly out of kilter. Decisions needed to be made, and soon. What if he made another mistake? Mac felt the panic grip his esophagus like a closing fist. The fear quickened his step. Mac walked right past the mobile phone that he should have used to call HQ and instead scooped up his ear protectors, then headed out the door. He didn’t stop until he was in the pit, gun in hand. There he flipped the safety off his personal weapon, a new .45, and aimed at the square paper target mounted on the dead tree.
Should he call the colonel? His stomach tightened and he knew he wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. But he no longer trusted his instincts. How could he after what had happened in the Sandbox?
He sighted his weapon and then he spotted something moving, low to the ground. Bloodsucker, he thought, and swung his weapon at the approaching threat. A moment later the thing dropped into his pit. Mac held fire, tipping his weapon up in a two-handed grip.
A cold finger of fear dragged down his back as he realized what he’d almost done. He tugged the ear protectors down so that they circled his neck.
“Johnny. What the fuck?” The fear now hardened into anger. “I thought you were a vampire!”
The werewolf roared and Mac flipped on the safety and holstered his weapon.
“You can’t run around here on your OFP!” Perhaps a shot fired from his .45 couldn’t kill Johnny, but that didn’t change the fact that Lam had intentionally stepped into firing range. He recalled what they’d told him at the facility, that Johnny was becoming irrational?
Lam dropped back to all fours and growled.
“It’s not funny. I could have shot you! I don’t need that on my conscience.”
This was met with silence.
“Did you scent anything?”
Johnny shook his head.
“Good.”
The werewolf held his ground and Mac holstered his weapon.
“We need to clear the road of bodies before some damn civilians see those things.”
A rumble sounded in Johnny’s throat, not a growl, more an acknowledgment.
“Let me take a few shots. Then we’ll go.”
Johnny moved behind him.
“Johnny, I don’t know what to do with the girl.”
Lam cocked his head, a clear question in his expression.
“If she really needs protection, I know the colonel and the medical facility would be the best place. But they’re human and, well, she could hurt them, influence them. Plus, what if she’s not here for protection? What if she’s here on a mission? Maybe to kill the colonel? It’d be easy. Do you think that’s why she didn’t fly away?”
His only answer was a shrug.
“So do we keep her out of sight for a while or turn her over?”
Johnny offered a third option, made a slicing motion across his throat. Mac felt his body tense as if preparing to defend her even from his closest friend. What was happening to him?
“Twenty-four hours,” Mac said.
Johnny hesitated and then gave a slow nod. It hurt Mac every time he looked at Johnny. but he held his gaze as the guilt gurgled inside his belly like poison. It wasn’t fair. Johnny was a good kid and a hell of a good Marine, or he had been. Why couldn’t he change back?
Johnny had told him in sign and by scratching in the dirt that he remembered the attack. He only recalled Mac shoving him aside that night and then waking in the helo.
That much was a blessing because his own attack still filled Mac’s nightmares.
“Prisoner’s secure. Just let me clear my head.”
Johnny sat behind the firing line.
“Probably give us a medal for catching her.”
Mac realized as he said it that Johnny couldn’t pin a metal on his dress blues, because since returning from Afghanistan, under heavy guard, Johnny had been just as he was today.
They’d seen action together, too much of it. His first command ended in disaster. Three fire teams gone and only two survivors—himself and Johnny. He glanced back at Lam, wondering if either of them had really survived.
Mac would have given his life to go back to that day. But he couldn’t. All he could do now was look after Johnny. And he would do that, by God, even if that meant protecting Johnny from himself.
Mac squeezed off one round after another, feeling the satisfying recoil of his pistol as the spent rounds bounced to the ground at his feet. He emptied his clip, breathing in the comforting smell of gunpowder as his wrist began the familiar aching. One clip, a second and then a third. Finally he reholstered his pistol, the warmth of the barrel immediately heating his outer thigh.
Mac turned to Johnny. “What will they do to her, do you think?” Mac asked.
Johnny lifted his eyebrows, which were two black tufts of fur with long antennalike hairs protruding from the centers.
“It’s just...I don’t know what to do.” He looked at his gunner. “Do you really think we should kill her?”
Johnny looked away, gave a long sigh then a slow, unmistakable shake of his head.
Mac breathed away some of the tension that had collected in his diaphragm. “Should we tell the colonel or wait?”
He felt the ache settling around his heart, and he knew the answer to his own question. He didn’t want to turn her in. But he had to lay it out for Johnny. “Because if we do, they might see what we can do and might give us our first assignment since...you know. Maybe back in the Sandbox. Finally get to see those motherfuckers firsthand instead of on crappy video t
aken through NVGs.” He was referring to the werewolf that got them both, made them the monsters they now were.
Thinking of the video, shot through the night-vision goggles, made Mac queasy. The first thing Colonel Lewis had showed him was the footage of the attack recovered from the camera mounts when the first two Fire Teams went in. Both the grenadier and the rifleman wore one. HQ had six videos. Mac had seen four. Lewis had reserved the ones where Johnny and Mac were attacked, and Mac had not asked to see them.
Mac had watched their routine assignment to clear a route through a crappy little village that was so small it had been IDed only by coordinates. He saw what his teams had seen as they entered that building. Watching the footage from the first team had been hard. Watching the second, even harder. But it was just the beginning. The footage contained the only moving images of werewolves. The Afghanis called them the Devil Dogs, which Mac found ironic, since that was what Marines often called themselves.
But he and Johnny wouldn’t be facing the Devil Dogs. They would be facing the werewolves’ natural enemies—vampires. Up until today Mac had only seen an image of one, the first footage ever recorded. Today he and Johnny proved they could kill them.
He recalled the image he’d viewed, taken with a high-speed camera, on burst setting at the fastest shutter speed. Even so it had captured only two images, and they were blurry. The guys at MI—military intelligence—said they were moving faster than a human’s ability to see them. They also said that the Taliban was using werewolves to fight U.S. troops and to protect against vampire attacks.
Vampires, they’d been told, were mercenaries, selling their allegiance to the highest bidder. Israel had at least one, and the colonel wanted a vampire of his own. He said that the U.S. needed soldiers who could keep their leaders safe, even from vampire assassins. But really, he also wanted the assassins.
Had he and Johnny been lucky today? Vampires could kill werewolves. Their fangs punctured anything, even a werewolf’s hide, with the ease of a can opener puncturing a can of beans. And the poison in their fangs was deadly to any living thing, including werewolves.
Mac knew firsthand that werewolves were tough to kill, since his Fire Teams had pumped thousands of rounds into the one they faced and nothing stopped it. Mac didn’t know if their skin was like Kevlar or if they just healed superfast. No one knew. But they were going to find out because Johnny’s next training regime included getting shot with an M-16.
Mac’s skin crawled at the thought and he met Johnny’s yellow eyes, so different from the rich cocoa color they had once been. Was this why he stepped in front of Mac’s practice today? Had he been trying to get a head start?
Johnny stood on his hind legs as he raised his nose and scented the air. Mac smelled the air, too, but did not find any threat.
His friend pointed to the east.
“Yeah. Let’s go move those bodies.” Mac removed his holster and laid it on the stump, then stripped.
Once naked, Mac summoned the change, gritting his teeth against the ripping agony that flooded his nerve endings with the upheaval within. He had become faster at changing now, and so he didn’t end up on the ground panting with dry heaves.
Once in wolf form, he and Johnny bounded over the uneven ground toward the bodies.
Once at the scene they retrieved the two corpses, hastily stowed in the woods. The snow had ceased and melted, and everything was wet and cold. He could not see tire tracks on the road, so he didn’t know if the accident had been seen or reported. He only knew no one had come yet.
Mac circled his hand above his head, making the signal that all Marines recognized meant helicopter. The old training pad was close and there was an associated storage shed where they could keep the bodies hidden in the short term. Johnny nodded, scooping up the closest corpse.
Twenty minutes later the two flesh eaters were packed away like the sack of blood they had always been. The cold would keep them until they could be retrieved by his superior.
They returned to their quarters together and Mac endured the change, still covered in a cold sweat as he drew on his trousers.
“You want to stay here and watch her or come in with me?”
Johnny pointed to the woods.
“Perimeter sweep again?”
He nodded and took off, leaving Mac to do the explaining. Johnny avoided the colonel whenever possible.
Mac cast one look at the makeshift home and then set off on foot to find the colonel. He wished to hell he was a better liar.
He arrived at the back door to the medical facility, the one custom-made to study and treat werewolves, so new the place still smelled of fresh paint and carpet glue. Once inside he headed to the locker room, where there was always a fresh supply of clothing to cover naked werewolves after they transformed.
A few minutes later he stood outside the colonel’s office. The colonel never kept him waiting for long. He swept in with a quick stride.
The colonel still wore a jacket against the morning chill, and beads of rain showed on the shiny rim of his cap.
Mac snapped to attention and the colonel saluted without even slowing down. The eagle marking his rank shone on his sleeve as he removed his jacket, which was instantly swept away by his officious aide. From beneath the rim of his cap, Colonel Lewis’s narrow blue eyes peered at Mac. His ruddy, narrow face showed his age, even if his body, still fit and trim, did not.
“MacConnelly, what’s going on. They said it was urgent.” He’d reached his door, opened it with a push and motioned Mac inside.
Mac stood before the desk and gave a brief version of events that did not include Brianna Vittori. An instant later Colonel Lewis was pushing intercom buttons and barking orders. Mac spent the next two hours retelling his tale, escorting the colonel to the bodies and then to the scene of the attack. Johnny’s absence was noted and the colonel was pissed about it, even when Mac assured him that Johnny was checking the area for more of the bloodsuckers. Johnny had strayed off the compound a few too many times to be ignored. Where the hell was he now?
Mac waited while the techs swarmed over the wrecked rent-a-car. That crappy compact would connect Brianna to the scene. He’d just have to say it was empty when he arrived—which it was, because they were already dragging her off. She’d be reported missing and they might just assume she was a snack for the two dead bloodsuckers. All he knew was that he had to get back to her, perhaps move her to safer quarters, because he could just bet that the colonel or one of his aides would be stopping by unannounced.
Damn, he’d have to patch and cover the screw holes, take down those boards. Now Brianna faced two threats: the colonel and the bloodsuckers. Was he willing to risk everything for her? He couldn’t, he knew. He’d have to turn her in or let her go.
Chapter 4
At midafternoon, when Mac was finally dismissed and he returned to the compound, it was to find two new security cameras mounted on trees and pointing at his quarters. Damn, they had so many surveillance cameras every-frickin’-where that sometimes he felt like one of the prisoners.
He’d need to disable them both before he took Bri out. What was he doing, sticking his neck out for her? And then he recalled the smell of her neck and the soft feel of her skin. Lovesick or lonely, it amounted to the same thing. As long as protecting her didn’t jeopardize Johnny, he was going forward.
He found Johnny’s scent trail but opted to check on Bri first. He crossed the open ground and felt the mud sucking and tugging at his boots before he ducked inside. No need to wipe his feet, as this first room had once been part of a barn, staged for practice operations to resemble a facility to hold livestock. The back third had been walled off and given a concrete floor, converting the former barn into housing for werewolves. He stepped up onto the cold cement into the room that was a combination kitchen and living quarters with satellite TV, couch, recliner an
d a large futon propped against the wall for Johnny. Dirty, tattered rugs lay scattered over the concrete slab like dry leaves. Nothing but the best in military housing, he thought.
The kitchen, functional and industrial, was centered about the large freezer that held Johnny’s food and his. Outside the single high window, the generator hummed, keeping the power on and the meat cold.
Mac continued through one of the stalls, pausing at the newly constructed door and the concrete addition added just for them. Unless she’d managed to get out, Brianna waited there now.
The colonel thought Johnny was scouting for more vampires and that Mac had gone to find him. Just standing here was a violation of a direct order. Or maybe not. He had found one, after all.
Opening the door, he surveyed the room. It looked much like a barracks with a large footlocker butted up against his bed. This queen-sized bed had been a gift from the colonel. Since space was not an issue and Mac was a big man, Lewis decided that his sergeant should have a real bed. At first he’d been pleased, but lately the larger mattress only reminded him how empty that bed felt.
He opened the door and slipped silently into her room to find her curled on her side in a ball, knees drawn up to her chest, her breathing soft and relaxed in slumber. She was beautiful as a fairy princess, he decided, recognizing that his snide nickname was actually accurate. For princess she was.
He moved closer, drawn by her unearthly beauty and the air of innocence. He’s seen so much, been through so much, so to meet someone totally separate from all the horror, well, he could not resist stepping closer.
God, the smell of her. It was like a feast to a starving man. He hadn’t had a woman since before he’d gone to the Sandbox. His body now reminded him of that with force. The ache settled into a solid pounding south of his belt. He’d joined the Corps, but he wasn’t turning over a woman to his CO, no matter what kind of woman she was. He knew the treatment that he and Johnny had received. It wasn’t always kind, but they’d volunteered. They knew what to expect, at least up until the accident. Since then things had grown more and more troublesome.