Shifters After Dark Box Set: (6-Book Bundle)

by SM Reine

  I feel sorry for the kid. She’s fighting so hard to keep her boyfriend alive, and we’re about to take him out from under her. But I’m sure that she’ll eventually realize that it’s better for him to live as a werewolf than not live at all, and at least she won’t ruin her whole future by having a kid at twenty-two. Really, we’re doing them both a favor.

  Noring prepares two syringes: one is a simple sedative to knock Will out, and the other is filled with my saliva, which was a bitch to get, literally. Let’s just say I will now be changing for the second time in two days, which I’ve never even heard of anyone doing. I feel strong enough, though. I feel ready.

  The plan is for me to change in the garage. Noring will give Will the tranquilizer first, then inject him with the saliva. Then she’ll push him into the garage with me. We are hoping that the combination of introducing my saliva straight into the bloodstream and through my bite will increase the odds of this working.

  I am a little nervous about trying to infect someone with werewolf magic, because my only experience with this is from the time I was bitten, and that is not an experience I’d wish on anyone. As far as I know, a human can shake off a single bite from a werewolf, but if he or she is truly mauled—multiple bites with lots of saliva exchanged for blood—then the human either takes to the magic and becomes a werewolf, or dies. For some reason I’m just not that worried that he won’t accept the magic. There’s something about the kid that impressed me when I saw him the first time. He has real potential as a werewolf.

  The boy is supposed to arrive at eight, and by seven-thirty I am pacing in the kitchen, anxious to have it over with. Noring has already laid a cooked steak on the garage floor for me to eat while I wait, so that I won’t be starving when the boy is pushed in here. I don’t have much control over the wolf when I’m in that form, but all I have to do is remember to bite but not kill. Bite, don’t kill. Bite, don’t kill. I chant it over and over, out loud and in my head, to help keep it at the surface of my consciousness.

  There is a third syringe in the kitchen, loaded with enough tranquilizer to kill two fully grown men. If I seem like I’m about to kill Will, escape the garage, or start attacking Noring, she will give it to me. Luckily we don’t need to worry about her getting infected: the magic in her bloodstream makes her immune to the werewolf curse.

  “Anything else?” I say to Noring as I head through her kitchen toward the garage. “Once I change I won’t be able to communicate well, and I probably won’t take direction.”

  Noring pauses. “Interesting. Can you understand language in that form?”

  “I can,” I reply, allowing myself a little bit of pride. “My magic is strong, which gives me more control than most. But that doesn’t mean I’ll listen. Wolves have no interest in obedience to humans.”

  There is nothing else to remember, so fifteen minutes before the boy is supposed to arrive, I go into the garage, take off my sundress and panties, and begin the change.

  I’ve seen plenty of movies about werewolves, and most of them depict the change as being excruciatingly painful and slow. Both things are true. When you watch a movie, though, you can’t feel the wrongness of changing, the way it violates every primal human understanding of what should and should not be possible. There’s a horror in that, all its own. I am horrified every time.

  My changes are usually relatively quick—I have done it in under four minutes—but this is my second one in two days, and we are still far enough away from the full moon that it is very difficult.

  The bones snap first, which always reminds me of one of those toys that transform back and forth into trucks and things. I cry out with the agony of feeling all my good, strong bones suddenly turned into hinges. My fingers shrink back, and my heels lengthen. My spine elongates and curves, and then I lose track of what’s happening because all I can think of is the pain.

  The fur comes last, which always seems like adding insult to injury, because it means you can’t even really feel like a wolf until the end. Then with a final stretch and shudder, I am on the other side.

  After I shake out my pelt, I take a good, long sniff of the air, processing the new information as it rushes through my mind. I can smell dirt and gasoline and rubber, rust and the funny soap used on cars. Above all that, I can smell meat, and I do a joyful little prance over to the steak. I inhale the cut of beef and lap up some of the water left in a bowl right next to it. Then I decide to explore my surroundings.

  I smell around the edges of the space I am in, bumping into many different smells and textures. I can identify metal, wood, and some glass cut in a shape I’ve seen before: this is a door. I whine at it, and then scratch at it with a paw, but I cannot operate the handle with my paw, so I give up and move along, sniffing as I go.

  Finally I turn my attention to the object that takes up nearly half of my territory. From experience, I know that the best smells on a car are usually in the round rubber parts. I circle the car, smelling grass, mud, bits of glass, and—yes!—dog poop. I squat and urinate near this tire, to show who this area belongs to now.

  After I smell the car, I am bored, so I go back to my source of water, lie down, and close my eyes.

  I don’t have to wait long. A few minutes later a door in the wall opens. I leap to my feet, darting toward the two concrete steps that lead to the doorway. Before I can make it up, however, a large human figure fills the doorway, blocking the path. A force I cannot see pushes him into my territory and he tumbles to the ground. Confused, I growl at him, then whine. I have only seen a human once or twice, and both times I ignored it in favor of better, faster prey. I am not sure what to do and I don’t like this uncertainty.

  This human is different from the others, though, because he is sleeping. Maybe that will make him easy to eat?

  Bite, don’t kill. Bite, don’t kill.

  I prance uncertainly, my forepaws slashing the air. I remember these words from when I was on the other side. They are important to other-side me, so I will remember them. Not because I have to, but because other-side me and I are the same, and we want the same things. Which means I must want to bite-not-kill this human, too.

  I sniff him tentatively. He smells of artificial human things: soap and fibers and chemicals. When he doesn’t move, I step a little closer for a deeper, more thorough sniffing. This time I catch it: there is sickness in him. I whine. I do not want to bite a sick human. But other-side me says it should be so. So that’s what I say, too.

  I lean forward, sink my teeth into him, and begin tearing.

  22. Sashi

  Something feels wrong.

  As I sit at the coffee shop near Mum’s house, sipping a pumpkin chai latte, I can’t stop fretting over Mum’s new treatment plan. Something about it doesn’t feel right. My mother cares about two things: her work at the clinic, and me, specifically in terms of my magic. So on the one hand, I can understand her willingness to give my boyfriend an experimental drug to make me happy, but why would she risk her work at the clinic for the man she doesn’t want me to date?

  Will was cavalier about it when I dropped him off. He doesn’t know I stopped taking the Pill, and is unnaturally relaxed about his condition. “What’s the worst that can happen?” he said when he dropped me off at the coffee shop. “It’ll give me cancer?” I had swatted him, and he leaned in for a serious kiss on the mouth. “Don’t worry so much,” he whispered, and I smiled at him and got out of the car.

  I don’t know, maybe it’s the cloak-and-dagger stuff that’s making me nervous. I mean, I get that she doesn’t want to incriminate me in case she gets caught, but come on: she’s giving him a couple of injections. There’s no reason why I can’t be in the same house. Or at least drop him off and pick him up. I’ve gone against her stupid rules just by riding to Rochester with Will, but by the time I walk over to the house and join them, it’ll all be over. Who cares if I come to a “crime scene” after the fact? Unless there really is something shady going on… For a moment I imagine h
er using this whole thing as an excuse to kidnap Will and lock him away in the bowels of the hospital, never to be seen again. That’s just silly, though. Not because she’s too principled, but because she’d get fired for sure if she went all Man in the Iron Mask on a patient.

  My fingers tap out a nervous rhythm on the porcelain mug as I wait, still worrying. Everything Mum said made sense…so why am I jumping out of my skin? I can’t put my finger on any one thing, but still…something just feels wrong.

  After an hour, I can’t take it anymore. I return the mug to the counter, buy a pumpkin cookie for Mum—God, I love pumpkin season in the Midwest—and begin the walk back to her house. As I make my way along the familiar road, I rehearse my weak argument: I was worried. I couldn’t wait. But see, I brought a cookie.

  Okay, it’s not the best argument, but fuck it. What’s she going to do to me? I’m not financially dependent on her, and I don’t live at the house anymore.

  I begin to run.

  Will’s truck is still parked in Mum’s driveway, which somehow reassures me. If she really were planning to kidnap him, surely she’d have gotten rid of his vehicle. I mean, the woman’s not an idiot.

  I lift my hand to knock, but then remember it’s still sort of my house. I turn the knob and walk inside. The living room and dining room are both dark, so I gravitate toward the light in the kitchen.

  My mother is sitting at the table with her back to me. I can see a bottle of wine and an empty glass in front of her, though, and the bottle is mostly empty. There is no sign of Will.

  “Mum?” I say, taking a cautious step forward. Why is it so quiet? I had a surprise birthday party once, and this feels like the moment right before everyone jumped out and screamed at me.

  Mum gasps, flinching in her seat. “Sashi! You’re not supposed to be here!”

  “I—” My voice falters for a moment when I see that her eyes are red and her face is streaked with tears. I have never seen her cry. I didn’t know she could cry. My stomach congeals into a boulder in the center of my body, and the little paper bag with my mother’s cookie hits the kitchen floor with a tiny thwack. “Where is he?” I whisper. Then, instinctively, “What have you done?”

  Fresh tears erupt from her eyes, but she still doesn’t answer. I take another step forward, intent on shaking it out of her, but then I hear a noise. From the garage.

  In the back of my mind, I already know that my entire life is over, but I refuse to let the thought surface. Somehow my legs are propelling me to the garage door, and my hand is reaching for the knob. Mum screams, “Sashi, you can’t!” and her chair scrapes back as she rushes to intercept me, but she is too late. I have swung the door open already and—

  I scream. For a long time.

  Hearing this, the wolf’s ears flip back and it growls, turning to slink off behind Mum’s car. I trip down the garage steps and run toward Will. I am weeping, screaming, shaking. He is covered in blood, and it takes a moment for me to even figure out what I’m seeing.

  When I think of a werewolf attack, I think of a bite: a small, clean row of bloody dots forming the rounded shape of a muzzle. But this is not clean. And it’s not just broken skin.

  There are chunks missing from him.

  The wolf has sunk its teeth into his arms, his thighs, his cheeks, oh God, and torn away flesh. It is horrifying. It is the most gruesome thing I have ever seen. Blood is still pumping from the wounds, and I realize suddenly that this means his heart is still beating. I press my hand to his neck, which is slippery with blood, but not actually lacerated, and I find it: a thready pulse. He is alive.

  But oh, how can he be alive under those wounds? I am sobbing, and for the first time I hear my voice crying, “No, no, no” over and over. My fingers are wet with my boyfriend’s blood.

  In my peripheral vision I see Mum standing in the doorway, staring at Will in abject horror. She sways on her feet, and as I watch, the great Dr. Stephanie Noring crumples backward, fainting dead away.

  I don’t know how long I crouch there crying, trying to stop the bleeding, but after a while it stops by itself, although Will still has a weak pulse. Then I hear a rough female voice say, “Calm down, Sashi. I’ll be right there.”

  I jump when I hear the voice, and when I realize whose it is, my vision tunnels down with rage and betrayal. I am sticky from the blood, but I pay no attention as I get up, step over my mother’s prone body, and stalk up the stairs to her bedroom. Inside her room, I beeline for the dresser.

  Jewelry is my mother’s one big indulgence: she buys the good stuff for herself every Christmas and birthday. I pop open a jewelry box, please when it gets smeared with sticky blood, and when I can’t find what I want, I dump it out, sifting quickly through the pile of jewelry with my bloody fingers. When I’m done there I move to the hooks that are drilled into the wall and find a long silver chain, which I stuff in my pocket. Then I march back down the stairs.

  My mother has recovered from her faint and is crouched next to Will, taking his pulse. I don’t look at them, though. Astrid is just now coming around the car, wearing a loose black sundress. She holds up her wiry hands in deference. “Sashi, before you get—”

  When I decided to go to Chicago for school, Mum made me take three months of aikido lessons. I punch Astrid, landing a nice blow right on her left cheekbone. She cries out in surprise and confusion, and I hold up my right hand. There are two or three silver rings on every finger. Astrid has four ugly gashes on her face, and if I understand correctly, they’re going to heal at human speed.

  It’s not nearly enough.

  “How could you?” I shout, the words ripping out of me. “I saved you! I tried to help you!”

  Astrid looks momentarily at a loss, like she rehearsed a speech for this moment, but has forgotten it. She opens and closes her mouth several times while I stand there covered in blood and tears, staring at her.

  “It wasn’t enough,” she says finally. “I need help. I saw him with you; he’s a good man. He’ll help me.”

  I finally put it together: she wants Will fight Luke. To kill him. “He’s my good man!” I scream. I suddenly feel like someone teleported me into an episode of Jerry Springer. I shake my head, struggling to calm down, to remember how to breathe normally. In as calm a voice as I can manage, I say, “He was mine, and you bit pieces off him and ate them. Do you have any concept of how fucked up that is? Has Luke really damaged you beyond the point of basic compassion?”

  She jerks back as though my words were coated in silver. “He was dying, Sashi,” Astrid says in a subdued voice. “Now he gets to live, and so do I. Everybody wins.”

  I just shake my head, unable to speak.

  “Sashi,” my mother whispers. “Look.”

  I whirl around and rush back to Will’s side, kneeling down near his head. The wounds in his cheeks are starting to heal. I stare, fascinated. It’s happening slowly, like watching a tulip open on a spring morning, but I can see the flesh filling back in before my eyes. The wounds in his arms, his legs, are doing the same.

  Behind me I hear a relieved sigh. “It worked,” Astrid says, puffing up a little. I want to hit her again, but the heat of my anger has cooled, and I’m just not far enough removed from the memory of how she looked after Luke beat her, the night I saved her life.

  “What happens now?” I demand of Astrid.

  She shrugs. “He’ll run a fever for a couple of days. It will hurt…a lot. Nothing for it. But then he’ll be himself, just, you know…like us.”

  A bitter laugh escapes my mouth. “Like us? You mean like a cannibal and her psychotic, abusive boyfriend? Oh, goody.”

  Astrid’s eyes flash, and she takes a step forward. “Watch it, Sashi.”

  “Or what? Are you going to eat me too?”

  My mother, who has been uncharacteristically silent through all of this, raises her hands. “Enough. Astrid, go.”

  After a moment’s consideration, Astrid shrugs and turns away. She’s done what she came here t
o do. I’m glad, because if I fight her for real I won’t win.

  When she goes into the house, Mum turns back to me. “Sashi—” she begins sternly.

  “No.” She is surprised by the vitriol in my tone, but she deserves a lot more than that. “You will not tell me what to do ever again,” I tell her, very calmly. “I do not know you. Get out.”

  She glares. “This is my house—”

  “Not today, it isn’t. When he’s better, we’ll be gone. Until then, stay at the office or a hotel or something. I frankly don’t give a shit.”

  Emotions flicker across her face, and I can see her consider her options. Finally, she decides to let me have my pyrrhic victory, and storms out of the garage, her haughty composure restored.

  I turn back to Will. The bite wounds are just dents in his skin by now, and I doubt there will be any sign of it by morning. I check his pulse. It’s beating steadily now, but his skin is hot to the touch. Too hot. I should have asked Astrid more questions, or kept the world-class physician around, but it’s too late now.

  It’s too late for everything.

  If I start thinking about our ruined future, I will cry more, so I make myself busy instead. I take a quick shower, check on him, and when nothing has changed, I spend some time getting ice and a bucket of soapy water together. I go back out to the garage and strip him down to his underwear, washing off the blood and werewolf saliva. He’s too heavy for me to carry anywhere by myself, so I pull out my old sleeping bag and sort of roll him onto it, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.

  By then it’s after midnight, and I am exhausted. I curl up by his side. If what Astrid said is true, a lot of pain is coming for him. Right now, though, he looks like he’s sleeping. Weeping silently, I press myself against his hot body, lace my fingers through his limp hand, and allow myself to drift off.