At the bottom of the steps, darkness yawned. Ryenne would have to trust Guy’s and Lucien’s shifter senses because she didn’t dare turn on a light or use the flashlight app on her phone until they knew what waited for them.
Lucien took her hand and steered her in one direction and she felt more than saw Guy and Martin leave in another direction. They stopped and Ryenne’s foot kicked against something hard. She reached out her hand and found another door. She felt for a handle or knob. Heaving on the door and pulling on the handle accomplished nothing.
Panic threatened to rise within her at the loss of her sight and even power.
“Stand back,” Lucien whispered. His warm breath on her ear centered her. She wasn’t powerless. She wasn’t trapped.
A scraping sound came to her with a rush of wind.
“I don’t smell any shifters,” Lucien said. “It’s safe to use a light.”
He used his phone to light up a room beyond the door. Now, she could see an old-fashioned metal key hanging from a lock she hadn’t found in the door. The room was bare and even colder than the rest of the basement.
Pulling out her own phone, she used the flashlight app and trained the light on each wall in turn. At the far wall, she gasped. “Gavin!” He and another man, both shirtless, bloodied, and bruised, were chained to a stone wall.
She ran to him and lifted his hands, looking for a way to free him. “Are you okay?”
He blinked in the light and she lowered her phone. Lucien went to the other man. “Are you Axel?”
The man nodded.
“Ry?” Gavin asked in a hoarse voice.
“I’m here,” she said, her own voice cracking. What had they done to him? She wished they’d thought to bring water and medical supplies, but they’d been focused on finding Gavin and Axel, and hadn’t thought about the next steps. “We have to get them out of here. Pascal will patch them up. Guy!”
“Not so fast,” a voice said from behind her.
TWENTY
Whirling around, Ryenne’s body went on pure adrenaline. She threw herself at the man holding Guy at knife point and slammed into him as Guy twisted away.
Patrick, Jean Grieux’s son who had probably stabbed Lucien, ended up on the floor with Ryenne on top of him. He was stronger than her but she was more motivated to stay alive. She elbowed him in the neck and he shoved at her. She flew off him and into a wall. When she slammed into it, her breath expelled in a whoosh.
Ryenne had lost her phone in the struggle but someone had flipped on an overhead light. As Patrick came at her again, she had just enough time to notice more rogues entering the room.
Patrick reached for her but she rolled out of the way and kicked at him. Judging by his gasp, she’d managed to hurt him. She rose to her hands and knees. People were fighting all around her. The air was scented with sweat and body odor and wet dog.
She sensed him behind her and kicked out her leg again. He sidestepped and grabbed her ankle. She couldn’t tear herself out of his grasp. Pulling out a small stun gun from her pocket, she aimed at his chest.
Glancing up, Patrick let go of her ankle while darting out of the way of her shot. She took the opportunity to jab her foot sharply into his chin. His head snapped back and he growled, while she scuttled backward. Claws grew from his fingers and he stalked toward her.
Ryenne rose to her feet and stood in the chamber position, legs wide, knees bent, and arms up, ready to strike or defend.
He reached for her neck, his face contorted with anger.
Ryenne struck his arms away and aimed her stun gun again. She let him get close, dodging and weaving so he couldn’t get purchase, then shot at him with the stun gun.
Patrick twisted at the last second and pulled the stun gun from her grasp. He stepped close and kicked her feet out from under her before dropping down on top of her, his thighs holding her arms against her body.
Ryenne thrashed beneath Patrick but she couldn’t dislodge him. His mouth came toward her and adrenaline took over as fear churned inside her that he might bite her. She kicked and bucked and thrashed to no avail.
His fangs bit into her skin. Pain flooded her senses but didn’t overtake the panic.
Patrick seemed lost in the taste of her, so she rallied and gave one big heave. She flopped her body sideways, managing to move him enough to get her arms out, and she pushed him off her.
He had a huge, drunken smile on his face. He wiped his forearm across his bloody mouth and turned away from her as if he no longer cared about her or feared her.
She wanted to slap her blood off his mouth. She wanted to punch him in the nose. She wanted to slice him open with her dagger.
But she couldn’t move.
A wolf barreled toward them, tackled Patrick, and tore his throat out.
Ryenne, still on the ground, began losing consciousness. The snarls and growls and yips of pain around her faded.
The last thing Ryenne saw was Lucien as a wolf, nestled against her. The last thing she felt was Lucien licking her neck wound. And her last thought was that maybe he could heal her wound before the poison from Patrick’s fangs turned her into...
***
She came to with an extreme hunger. The most tempting smell came from one end of the room where two humans were chained to a wall.
She stood and stalked toward the humans. Although standing, she wasn’t at eye level with the humans, but she was too hungry and angry and overwhelmed to dwell on it. Scents and impressions crashed into her from all around. Blood, both human and animal. Sounds of battle.
She pushed everything else away and continued on a path toward the humans. One of them stood out—blond, well-muscled. He’d make a good meal.
A few feet from her prey, a wolf tackled her. She sprawled on the ground and the wolf stood over her. He smelled familiar.
She shook her head, shook off the confusion, shook off the familiarity, and continued toward the human. His smell overpowered all other thoughts, all of her other senses.
His eyes were wide with fear. “Ryenne?”
She paused in her approach but not for long. Reaching him, she licked his leg, tasted salt. She licked further up his leg and then stood on her hind legs, her forepaws on his chest.
“Ryenne, it’s me,” he said. “What are you doing?”
Strong arms came around her and pulled her off the human. Another human, but he smelled different, like a wolf. Like the wolf who tackled her. “Ryenne, that’s Gavin.”
Gavin. It meant something to her but she couldn’t remember what.
The other man, the one who smelled like wolf, was still talking. “Ryenne, you have to control yourself. You can’t bite Gavin.”
She turned her head and looked at this man. He seemed familiar in this form, too. A name floated into her mind. Lucien.
“Ryenne, fight it. Fight the urge.”
Why should she fight the urge? She was hungry. But Gavin, Lucien, these names meant something to her. They smelled familiar, like she knew them. She shook her head again.
“That’s right, that’s it, keep fighting,” the wolf-man said. Lucien. “Try to shift back to human.”
Shift? She looked at herself. She was a wolf, with tawny fur and a white belly.
Memories hit her.
Moments ago, she wasn’t a wolf, she was a person. A woman with blond hair and pale skin.
And Gavin... Gavin was her best friend.
And Lucien was the man she loved.
She shook herself.
“That’s it, Ryenne. Shift back.”
She shook her whole body and concentrated on being human again. Her bones began to crack and her skin moved. The pain was excruciating. She cried out, a long canine howl. She wanted to stop, it hurt too much.
Lucien’s arms were around her and his deep voice soothed her. “I know it hurts, but not for long. Keep going. You’re almost there.”
Suddenly, it was done, and she lay panting in Lucien’s arms, her bare skin against his bare ski
n.
Fear, disgust, and shame overwhelmed her, but Lucien’s touch calmed her down.
She locked eyes with Gavin. His were wide, still full of fear. “Holy shit, Ry. You’re a wolf shifter.”
Gavin’s words mirrored Ryenne’s emotions. Shit, she had just been a wolf.
“Patrick,” she began, her voice raw. Why did it hurt to talk? She put her hand to her throat and felt something warm and sticky on the side of her neck. Blood. Right, he had bitten her.
Lucien was nodding. She felt it against her hair. “Patrick bit you. He turned you.”
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Dead.” He gestured with his hand to the body of Patrick Grieux on one side of the room, lying on the ground in a pool of blood, and then let his hand drop back against Ryenne’s waist. The warmth of Lucien’s hand on her skin made her realize she was no longer clothed.
She looked down at herself and twisted her legs to try to hide some of her nakedness.
“Yeah, you’re going to have to get used to nudity,” Lucien said.
There would be a lot for her to get used to.
Beyond Patrick’s body, the battle continued. Ryenne and Lucien stood.
“Are you good now?” he asked. “You’re not going to eat your friend?”
Ryenne shook her head as if in a daze. She had considered biting Gavin. It was unreal.
“A better use of your new strength and teeth and claws might be to get Gavin and Axel out of those chains while we finish this fight.”
She nodded, inspected the chains, and gave an experimental tug. They moved, so she yanked one chain from the wall and cracked open another from around Gavin’s wrist.
She turned to Axel, who shrank from her.
They had never met. He didn’t know her, didn’t know she was one of the good guys. He had only seen her almost attack Gavin, and she couldn’t swear she wouldn’t have attacked Axel, too, if she had stayed in her wolf form. Pushing down the anger caused by what Patrick had done to her, she ignored Axel’s reaction.
She didn’t fully trust herself as a wolf, but, looking around the room, she saw the Malraux outnumbered. Even without Patrick, the Fangs were winning. The Malraux needed her.
She gave one last yank on Axel’s chains and pulled them from the wall. “Sorry, guys. This is the best I can do for you right now. If I come across a key, I’ll toss it to you.”
Gavin nodded and herded Axel to a corner of the basement room. The door was blocked by fighting shifters but at least Gavin and Axel now had the use of their arms and could defend themselves. She spied her dart pouch, stun guns, and dagger on the ground near Patrick’s body. She dashed between fighters, scooped up her weapons, and brought them to Gavin.
Turning away from her best friend, she concentrated, told herself to turn into a wolf, despite her exhaustion and hunger. Her body began to shake as it had earlier, like a great vibration running through her entire system. When the pain came, at least she was expecting it. It was as if all of her bones were breaking at once, and her skin stretching to fit in ways it wasn’t meant to. Soon enough, she stood among the fray, staring down at the forelegs of a light tawny wolf.
This time, she could manage the different scents more easily, and she realized she could tell the difference between the people she knew and those she didn’t. She focused on the people and animals whose scents were unfamiliar to her and launched herself at any people who weren’t Malraux. She knocked someone off Guy’s back and he nodded his thanks. In his bear form, he was massive.
Martin, as a human, was fighting two women with their claws out and raking across his skin. He was holding them off but his chest heaved with each breath. Ryenne jumped on one woman and brought her down to the ground, her claws jabbing into the woman’s bicep. The rogue howled in pain.
The urge to tear out the woman’s throat surged within Ryenne, but she fought it. She wasn’t a killer. Instead, she bit each of the woman’s shoulders, rendering her arms useless, and pounced on her belly, knocking the wind out of her.
Martin then incapacitated the other woman, so Ryenne turned away. She couldn’t imagine what fighting in this room would be like if he were in his elephant form. Guy already took up a lot of space, and there were a good twenty people in here. Martin had wisely chosen to give everyone room to fight.
She recognized a tall, thin man with white-blond hair fighting with Emma. She was dodging his venomous fangs, but Ryenne could tell Emma was tiring. Ryenne was also tired, but the smell of blood in the air energized her.
Wanting to avoid those venomous fangs herself, Ryenne attacked him from behind and sank her teeth into the back of the snake shifter’s neck. In surprise, he reared up and tried to toss her off. She clung to him with her fangs in the skin of his shoulders. His skin and sinews tore under her claws and she smelled fresh blood. She clenched her jaws tighter on his neck until he fell to the ground and stopped moving. She didn’t get off him until she felt his heart stop beating.
Now she was a killer.
She didn’t know how her human self would cope with this new knowledge, but her wolf didn’t care. Her wolf looked to the woman she’d been protecting. Emma murmured her thanks and they both turned to the next Fang.
Just then, a change occurred in the vibrations of the room. Jean Grieux strode through the snarling, fighting crowd.
Ryenne wouldn’t let this prime opportunity go. She leaped at him. He caught her easily, barely moving off course, and threw her into the nearest wall. He might have been in his late fifties, but he was a wolf shifter, after all, and stronger than Ryenne realized. And she was new to being a wolf and didn’t yet know how to fight.
She shook off the dazed feeling and flew at him again, her anger flaring red-hot. This man had caused her so many problems and had led the Malraux to the brink of financial ruin. He wouldn’t escape her rage.
She backed him against a wall, standing on her rear legs, her paws digging into his shoulders so he couldn’t move his arms.
He smiled. The same grim, mirthless smile they had all seen in his video message. On the verge of tearing into his skin, she paused and he laughed hollowly. “Your father will be so proud and so happy you have finally joined us. Now you can turn your mother and Lord’s plans will finally come to fruition.”
At the mention of turning her mother, Ryenne’s anger flared again.
“Your father’s daughter.” Grieux looked up at her, still smiling.
Ryenne roared and tore out Grieux’s throat. He slid down the wall to the cold stone floor. His head slumped to the side, and he said no more.
Ryenne shifted back to human, beginning to get the hang of it. She gripped his shoulders with her hands. “What about my father? And my mother?” She shook him, but he was gone. “No,” she wailed. Why had she killed him before he could explain himself?
With their leader dead, the mood shifted again and the tide turned in favor of the Malraux. Within only a few minutes, all the Fangs were either dead or had run away, and the Malraux stood catching their breath, some clothed, some naked, depending on whether they had fought as humans or animals.
Lucien walked over to Ryenne as she stared down at Grieux’s lifeless body and put an arm around her. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him, her mind a jumble of thoughts and emotions. “I think my father is alive.”
His eyes widened. “That’s great,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “I think he might work with Mr. Lord.”
TWENTY-ONE
Françoise and Dany found everyone some clothes in the closets and dressers in the upstairs bedrooms while Lucien called Côtard and explained the situation. Ryenne found Gavin and clung to him wordlessly. Emma called Pascal to let him know they were okay. He arrived soon after in the car with his medical bag to bandage everyone up.
After tending to Gavin and Axel, Pascal cleaned Ryenne’s neck wound and covered it in gauze. “How do you feel?”
“Confused more than anythi
ng. I have a lot to learn.”
He nodded. “Let me know if you’d like the perspective of a human married to a shifter.”
She smiled her thanks. “I always thought being turned would be a fate worse than death.”
“And now?”
She sighed and stared at Lucien as he conversed quietly with Côtard, who had arrived soon after Pascal. “Now I’m glad to be alive.” She returned her gaze to Pascal. “But I did things as a wolf I wouldn’t have done as a human. I’m not sure how to live with it.”
Pascal patted her hand. “You don’t have to figure it out on your own. You have an entire family to help you through.”
Tears uncharacteristically jumped to Ryenne’s eyes. She looked around as her heart swelled. Was all this emotion a part of the change? No, she’d been feeling this way ever since she’d realized how strong her feelings for Lucien had become. “Do I?” she whispered.
Pascal glanced behind him at Lucien. “Go talk to him. You two are overdue.” Then he rose and went to Gavin, who was huddled under a blanket and drinking a glass of water.
Côtard walked away, too, taking a phone out of a pocket of his pants. Ryenne approached Lucien, who was pulling a shirt over his head.
He gestured toward Côtard with his chin. “He’s calling in the local cops to search the house for evidence against the Fangs. And to clean up this mess.”
She glanced around at the carnage on the basement floor. She hoped some of those cops had superhuman strength and speed like she now did. The thought brought a smile to her face. No more riding on Mathieu’s back and feeling like a kid. She couldn’t wait to try out her new speed.
Lucien took her hand. “Are you okay?”
She took a deep breath and decided not to answer the question. She didn’t have one, yet. “Thanks for stopping me from killing my best friend.”
He grinned. “Anytime.”
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