First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series)

by Dani Harper

  The inner wolf was devoted to his survival. It would rise to the surface without being called if Travis’s life was threatened, force a shift, and deal with the problem with tooth and claw—a fact that Travis knew all too well. It was against its very nature to allow what he wanted to do for this woman, and without its cooperation it wasn’t possible. So he couldn’t let the wolf say no.

  Listen, you, he addressed his lupine self. I don’t care what your mission statement is; I need to give this woman a second chance. Understand? He waited, prepared to fight his alter ego if necessary. (And wouldn’t Freud have a field day with that?)

  Help. Give.

  If Travis had been in human form, his eyebrows would have disappeared into his hairline. The wolf had actually communicated with words, a rare event—the animal persona knew language but seldom used it. Even more rare was that the wolf had actually agreed with Travis. All right then. Let’s do it.

  Geneva finally gave in and agreed to meet up with her coworkers, Candace and Amber, at a popular rave club. “Neva, come have a couple drinks with us and dance.” “Neva, you’ll never meet anyone if you stay home all the time.” “You need to loosen up, Neva. Have some fun.”

  Fun? Her life hadn’t contained much of that, and really, she felt a little old for the whole rave scene. But to her surprise, she enjoyed herself. Three Jell-O shots and she was ready for a lot more fun, too. Amber loaned her a pair of LED gloves. Circles and spirals and even squiggles of brightly colored UV light appeared to dive through the air overhead as the techno music moved her.

  Neva was having so much fun on the dance floor that she lost track of her friends. A dedicated raver, Candace wore waist-length faux dreads in Day-Glo pink. Even in the midst of the crowd of dancers, she should have been visible. And Amber’s vivid blue tutu should have stood out as well. But Neva didn’t see them among the bodies thrashing in unison to the music’s primal beat.

  She made her way off the dance floor, but the table they’d been sitting at had been taken over by another group. Restrooms? She checked all four of them. They were large enough to do an airport proud, but her friends weren’t in them. Neva cruised the balcony that overlooked the enormous dance floor, to no avail. The massive dance room branched off into a warren of smaller rooms: a few specialty bars but mostly offices and storerooms. No Amber, no Candace. Had they left without her?

  The last door opened into a cozy pub. Although most of the chairs were upside-down on the tables, the lights were on and Anderson Cooper was on the big-screen TV. No one was there, and it was tempting to sit down for a moment. The pounding techno tunes she’d enjoyed so much were starting to give her a headache. Not that it was quiet here—just a few decibels lower than the main dance hall. Tired of the hide-and-seek, Neva decided to go home.

  That’s when she discovered two things. One, the door was locked. Two, she wasn’t alone after all…A silver wolf of nightmarish size emerged from behind the bar, its broad back level with the bar stools. Slowly, silently, the creature turned its massive head toward her and regarded her with glowing eyes—

  Neva regained consciousness with a loud gasp. The distant clatter of trays, voices, carts intruded on her senses, and her eyes flew open, then squinted under the bright fluorescent lights. Hospital, said her brain, which was the first and last thought she managed before raw pain slammed into her from every quarter. The sheer surprise of it caused her to yell out. And that brought a nurse on the run.

  “Relax, honey. It’s going to be all right. You’re pretty sore right now, but we can fix that, no problem.” The woman had dyed-red hair tied back in a ponytail and a scrub top with colorful parrots and palm trees on it. A clip-on ID showed a picture of her in the same bright shirt, and Neva could just make out the name Fern. Her hands were deft and competent as she administered a syringe to the IV line taped to the back of Neva’s right hand. “Just breathe steady, hon. You’re going to feel a lot better in just a couple minutes.”

  “You’re not going to knock me out, are you?” Neva’s voice came out like sandpaper on stone as she discovered just how dry the human mouth could get.

  “Not at all. My goodness, you just woke up—you’ve been out for two days straight. Let me get your vitals, and I’ll get you some ice water.”

  As the nurse checked pulse, blood pressure, etc., Neva closed her eyes. The pain was sliding into the background, but horror was taking its place. Two days? Two whole days. The full moon was close, much too close.

  She had to get out of here—

  Omigod, I don’t even know if I can move. What if I’m paralyzed? Damn that big werewolf! She’d managed to carry out her desperate plan—and thanks to his interference, all she’d accomplished was to injure herself severely, maybe permanently. All she could hope for was that perhaps she wouldn’t be of any use to—

  Fern brought her a cup and held a straw to her lips. The water was cold and sweet, and Neva imagined the parched cells in her mouth and throat expanding and uttering a collective sigh of relief. “Thanks,” she said, and her voice sounded better.

  “I’ll leave it right here where you can grab it.” The nurse pushed a table close to the right side of the bed and set the cup on it. Neva lifted that hand experimentally, opening and closing her fingers. She wasn’t prone to tears, but the discovery that at least some part of her still worked was overwhelmingly wonderful.

  “I’ve got some things to do, but I’ll be back at the end of my shift. We’ll get that catheter and IV out and see about helping you to the bathroom.”

  “I can walk?”

  “Well, it’s going to be quite a challenge with a broken arm and a broken leg on the same side, but the X-rays and the CT scan say you’re okay otherwise. Crutches won’t work for you, but I’ll see if I can find a cane. We’ll try to get you mobile enough to shuffle to the bathroom when you want to.”

  The nurse smiled and left, and Neva exhaled a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She pulled aside the blanket and did a quick survey—not hard when the silly hospital gown was so small. Her leg was in a cast from her ankle to the top of her thigh. Her arm was in an L-shaped cast. Quickly, she tried each one of her fingers and toes. Everything obeyed. The ones on the left were damned stiff and sore, but that was to be expected. All the skin she could see was garishly multicolored with the fading remains of spectacular cuts and bruises. Two days? There was far more than two days’ worth of healing there—more like two weeks—and Neva realized the creature within her was to blame.

  The creature she had to destroy before it was too late.

  THREE

  As motorcycles went, the Triumph Thunderbird was one of Travis’s favorites. This particular bike had been out of the showroom for over nine years, so it had enough wear to make it look ordinary—an important feature, since fitting in was the unwritten code of all Changelings who wanted to survive. But the Thunderbird also had just enough retro styling to give it some class. Travis didn’t want to be too ordinary.

  Best of all, it was a great cruising machine. He’d checked out of the motel at six a.m. and been on the road for the entire day. Straddling an 885-cc engine at high speed was the closest thing his two-legged form could get to the thrill and the freedom of running as a wolf.

  But today his Canis lupus had grumbled nonstop. His Homo sapiens wasn’t overly happy either. He tried to ignore both and just ride and ride and ride…until his stomach got louder than both the engine and the voices in his head, and Travis was forced to stop at a Denny’s in Idaho Falls. Shape-shifting burned a virtual ton of calories, and he’d been foolish to go without breakfast, crazy to go without lunch. He was ravenous. There were better restaurants, certainly, but Denny’s was his go-to place when he needed a lot of calories fast. Maybe he’d be lucky and they’d have that bacon-on-everything special. Thank the goddess, Changelings didn’t have cholesterol issues.

  A wild-haired man in ragged clothes stood quietly in the parking lot, a tin can at his feet labeled Thank U. He was holding an
enormous cardboard sign: You can’t go back and fix the past.

  Travis threw a dollar into the can as he passed. The slogan had proved disturbingly true in his life, although he could have done without the damn reminder tonight.

  He’d finished his double cheeseburger and was halfway through his country-fried steak when both sides of his personality ganged up on him. It started with his wolf, of course. That was normal—his alter ego was always nagging him about one thing or another, and he was used to it. The lupine persona had a moral compass that exceeded that of many humans, probably because life was simple to a wolf. Black and white, no gray at all. Still, Travis didn’t understand why on earth it wanted him to go back to the woman he’d barely managed to rescue.

  By then his human brain had started laying out clues like breadcrumbs, all the bizarre things he’d been doing his damnedest to ignore. Like how the woman had failed to react to his Change. Sure, she’d been injured and in shock, but even the most stoic person would at least raise an eyebrow when someone shape-shifted right in front of them. And then there was how she’d somehow managed to leap far enough out from the ledge to land in the trees. Without a hang glider or one hell of an updraft from the valley, it should have been impossible. And of course it should also have been impossible that she survived it. Even with the tree branches slowing her descent, they could only break her fall to a degree. She shouldn’t have been alive, never mind conscious, when he found her. Humans could be tough spirited, but their bodies were all too fragile.

  The real clincher, however, was that momentary flash in the depths of the woman’s dark brown eyes, like the elusive glimmer of green in a tropical sunset at the precise moment the sun disappeared into the ocean. Travis had tried to talk himself out of it—just imagination, a trick of the light, all those lame-ass explanations—but the truth was, he knew what he’d seen.

  And he knew what it meant.

  She was a Changeling, just like him. Her scent had said human, however, and there was only one possible reason for that: she hadn’t made her first shift yet. His inner wolf radiated approval—no doubt relieved at having finally gotten through to the thickheaded human it shared its existence with. And the thickheaded human’s mind seemed satisfied, too. Both fell silent as Travis finished his meal. He even got to eat his bacon-maple sundae in peace. He paid his bill and walked out into the parking lot, and knew without looking that the moon was only a day or so from being full. He could feel the lunar tug, but he wasn’t subject to it—he took on his wolfen form as he pleased. Or not. But then he’d been born a Changeling, not made. A human who had been bitten would turn at the very next full moon. And it wasn’t pretty.

  The woman he’d rescued was in the worst of all possible places for such an event: a hospital filled with witnesses. As a loner, Travis didn’t give a damn about pack protocol, but it was in his own best interests to make sure that the world at large didn’t suddenly find out about Changelings. But what made up his mind was the knowledge of what a first Change entailed. It was difficult enough for those born to it, but for a human? It was the sire’s responsibility to both guard them and coach them through the ordeal. Why the hell was this woman alone at such a critical time? Where was her sire, her pack? If she lived through the Change—not a given, especially in her condition—a freshly made wolf left to its own devices could do a lot of damage in its terror and pain. It was something that Travis knew all too well. And while he definitely did not want to babysit this already troubled young woman, he couldn’t stand by and allow her to hurt somebody.

  As he headed to his motorcycle, he pressed a bag of hot food into the hands of the homeless man and nodded at the sign.

  “S’true, man,” the man said as he clutched the bag to his chest.

  “More than you know,” muttered Travis. He straddled the Triumph and cruised out of the parking lot, heading in the direction he had come from. He could swear his damn wolf was smug as he opened up the throttle.

  Fern was as good as her word, and a few hours later, Neva was sitting on the edge of the bed, free of all tubes, needles, or other accoutrements. Her toes touched the cold floor, and her right hand gripped the mattress cover beside her. She wished she had the full use of her left one to clutch something, anything else. “No crutches, huh?”

  “Not with that arm. I brought you a cane instead.” Neva’s expression must have been totally transparent because Fern waved a calming hand at her. “I know, I know, it looks like a little old lady’s cane, but maybe you can steady yourself with it once you’re up.”

  I ought to be able to steady a Buick with it. The jack for her car wasn’t as solid as the thick cane that Fern parked beside the bed. As utilitarian as an army jeep, it was made of plain gray metal, but any hope it had for a neutral appearance had been utterly compromised by its four heavy-duty rubber feet.

  Neva slid some of her weight off the bed. The broken leg throbbed, and she leaned on her right foot. Now what? She was unsure of herself, but Fern had obviously been around this block before.

  “Put your hand here. Hang on to me like this. Let me take some of your weight.”

  “You sound like my dance instructor,” said Neva.

  “A little two-step music and we’d be all set. Ready?”

  One moment Fern was bracing her, and the next, she was standing. As her weight settled onto her feet, she straightened and couldn’t help stretching just a little bit. Instantly, pain threatened to break through the buffer of the medication, but Neva could sense that she had improved just since she’d awakened. In any other situation, it would have been great news. But she knew the rapid healing was caused by the animal entity that was threatening to take her over, so her emotions were a toss-up between depression and stark fear.

  Fern chattered as they “waltzed” a few steps, and then Neva used her good right hand to lean on the cane instead of clinging to the nurse. Thankfully, it was every bit as solid as it was ugly. And there were other things to be grateful for. Her leg cast was long, from thigh to ankle, but it didn’t encompass her foot. She might be stiff-legged, but at least she was level. She could walk—okay, it was more like a bad zombie shuffle. But a visit to the bathroom on her very own (Fern being right outside the door notwithstanding) proved that she was ambulatory, she could get around. And if she could do that, she could escape. But first she was going to sit down—no, better make that lie down, for just a little while.

  The hospital stank.

  Barely inside the front doors, Travis shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to clear it. A human would only smell disinfectant, which was bad enough. A Changeling smelled everything the disinfectant was supposed to hide. Topping the list of aromas were blood and urine, but emotions had a scent, too, and the acrid tang of fear was the strongest. It set his teeth on edge. Under normal circumstances, both his human and wolfen selves would have voted to leave this place as fast as possible.

  He sighed and tried to focus on the job at hand, which was figuring out just where the woman was in the enormous building. Travis had no name, just a vague description based on what his natural night vision could tell him about her. Still, as a Changeling he had everything he needed in order to find someone: a scent. As with all things olfactory, his inner wolf had automatically filed it away. Memories could fade; the way someone looked or sounded could become fuzzy over time. But scents? They were never forgotten.

  Travis followed the signs to the emergency ward, where he knew the woman would have been brought first. It was a tough place to pluck a specific scent out of the air, especially one that was already two days old. His wolf chuffed in disgust as it fought to sort out the tangle of smells. It came out like a human cough, and a nurse commented cheerfully on the dryness of the air as she hurried by.

  Finally the wolf found what it was looking for. Here.

  Travis inhaled, and the wolf helped his human nose to perceive the woman’s scent. Light and airy yet spicy and warm, like wild roses after a rain…Travis started walking quickly. Tra
iling a scent always seemed to him as if he were trying to follow a single thread out of a vast conduit of fibers—like maybe a transatlantic cable. It would have been a helluva lot easier in lupine form, of course, but that option wasn’t open. All he could do was give his inner wolf its head and let it guide him.

  Which worked until the elevator doors shut in front of his face.

  Now what? What floor would she be on? Luckily, visiting hours were in full swing, and Travis was quickly joined by several humans. Several averted their eyes, however, and a few shrank away. Between his motorcycle leathers and his size, he probably looked like a badass to them. Normally that would be fine with him, but it wasn’t going to help him today. He whipped his sunglasses off in hopes of appearing less intimidating, barely remembering in time to wipe the frown off his brow, too. “Excuse me,” he said politely to an administrative-looking guy in a suit. “Where’s the orthopedic ward?” It was a flat-out guess, but it was a place to start. “Mom said my cousin’s in here with a broken leg, but she couldn’t remember the room number.”

  “Adult? Probably on the fourth floor, south wing. Hope your cousin gets better soon.”

  “Me too. Thanks.”

  Several people got off at four, and he followed them. The wolf picked up the scent immediately, but beelining was out of the question. Both visitors and patients thronged the hallway. Travis shortened his steps so he wouldn’t run over a convoy of wheelchairs. Several flower arrangements sat on a cart just outside a room, and he scooped up one as he went by and tucked it in front of him without missing a beat. No one noticed. The hallway branched into two at the nurses’ station, and he smiled at the clerk behind the circular desk as his inner wolf steered him to the left.