Howl at the Moon

by Christine Warren

  Which meant he'd have to keep up his lies.

  Cursing, Noah flipped onto his stomach and pounded his pillow into a tight ball. The only thing this situation had going for it was the fact that he didn't have to pretend to be someone else. He might have to lie about his intentions, but at least he still got to act like Noah, so she couldn't claim she didn't know the real him. She knew him well enough. If fate smiled on him and he got through this assignment clean, maybe she'd never have to find out what had happened. If she didn't know, she couldn't hate him and she wouldn't have any reason for kicking him out of her life when he tried to make himself a permanent place in it.

  It was the first time in his life that Noah had ever used the word "permanent" in relation to a woman, but as he let his eyes drift closed he knew in his gut that it would also be the last.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Any Other who'd grown up before the Unveiling, which was pretty much all of them currently out of diapers, got used to lies. Not destructive ones, not the kind that tore people apart, but the little ones that kept them together. White lies.

  Or in this case, Sam thought, dove gray ones. Annie's lab had a minimal security system, electronic locks on all the working-area doors and guards who patrolled the high-security labs during the hours when the lab was officially open, but today was Saturday and no one was supposed to be in the lab. Sam knew Annie would be, though, which was why she'd come out here. Maybe in an empty lab in the more relaxed atmosphere of the weekend she'd be able to talk some sense into her friend, get her to stop hiding things from the Alpha and do what their laws required her to do, which was keep Graham in the loop and let him decide how to move forward. It might be a pipe dream, but at the moment it was what Sam had.

  Determination and a couple of those white lies got her through the building without attracting much attention. Not that she saw many people on a Saturday, but the janitor who had looked at her curiously and the one lab tech she'd run into had been easy enough to get past with the dropping of a few well-chosen names and the mention of a pressing deadline. The names she knew from stories Annie had told her, and the deadline was a pretty sure bet. According to Annie, the intersection of science and academia practically ran on deadlines.

  Sam made her way up to the fifth floor easily. She'd taken the stairs rather than the elevator partly because she still had a few traces of last night's excess energy to burn off but mostly because she knew the security cameras didn't film the stairwells as they did the elevators. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to be so cautious, but when her instincts told her to do something she didn't spend a lot of time second-guessing them. They were usually right.

  Pushing her way into the fifth-floor corridor, Sam took a quick but thorough look around and made her way across the building to Annie's lab. Even with light puddling in from the windowed labs on one side of the hall, the light levels were low. The university must not feel the need to run up their electric bills when no one was supposed to be around to notice. The dark didn't both Sam. She could see in pitch-blackness, let alone this, but the dimness did trigger something Lupine inside her that said low light was when unexpected things happened. It kept her slightly more aware than usual of her surroundings. At the moment, they felt peaceful.

  That didn't mean the hair on the back of her neck wasn't ruffled, just that it hadn't yet stood on end and started to vibrate, but Sam would take what she could get.

  Turning the corner, she spotted the entrance to Annie's lab, as well as the fall of artificial light that spilled out through the reinforced window set high up in the door panel. Just as Sam had suspected, Annie was still here, still working. Glancing at her watch, Sam shook her head and just hoped her friend had at least had the sense to lie down during a few of the twenty-seven hours since she'd last seen Annie.

  The indicator light on the electronic lock glowed a steady red, so Sam lifted a hand and knocked on the heavy wood. From inside the lab she heard something that sounded like a muttered curse, then a rustling and the tap of footsteps. Neither the curse nor the steps sounded like Annie's. Frowning, Sam knocked again. Harder.

  A second later the door swung open and she had to swallow a curse of her own. Instead of Annie's petite form, Sam found herself looking at a masculine, handsome, and thoroughly slimy figure in a white lab coat and sharply creased khakis.

  "Gordon," she managed, trying not to sound quite as disgusted as she felt. "I was looking for Annie."

  Gordon Entwhistle, PhD, looked less than thrilled to find Sam standing on the other side of the door. She knew very well that he liked her just about as much as she liked him, and she liked him as much as she liked root canals and flea infestations. Theirs could be called a loathe-hate relationship.

  "I'm afraid you've missed her. She's stepped out for a little while." Gordon didn't sound afraid at all. He sounded hostile. Sam occasionally wondered if he ever sounded any other way. Around her, he never had.

  "Oh, that's odd, because she told me to meet her here at three," Sam lied, making a show of glancing over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. "It's just that now, isn't it?"

  He shrugged, his jacket lapels parting to reveal one of the expensively tailored shirts he always wore. This one was pink. The word "popinjay" popped into Sam's head. Old-fashioned and pretentious. Just like Gordon.

  "She must have forgotten to tell you we would be working all afternoon. You know how she can be when she's occupied with something significant. She forgets the little details."

  Meaning science was important, but her friend wasn't. Had the man actually spent the last six months working with Annie and still not learned a damned thing about her?

  Sam suppressed the urge to scoff.

  "Believe me, I know Annie." Sam's words carried an edge she wondered if he would even notice. "I'm sure she just forgot to tell you I'd be stopping by. We'll probably just run out for a cup of coffee. I'm sure you can spare her for half an hour."

  Gordon's mouth tightened. "That's where she's gone, actually. She ran down the street to fetch us coffee, since the food services in the building aren't available on the weekends. But—"

  "Perfect," Sam said with a cheer as false as her smile, the one that showed a lot of her teeth. "I'll just wait here for her, then. I promise to be as quiet as a mouse."

  "Ms. Carstairs, there are regulations against visitors entering the laboratory. I'm afraid I can't allow you to—"

  "Sam?"

  Turning, Sam saw Annie hurrying up the hallway carrying a cardboard drink tray in which nestled three gently steaming paper coffee cups. At least one of those, Sam knew, held tea. Annie couldn't stand the taste of coffee.

  "Hey, An. I was just telling Gordon that you were expecting me," Sam said, trying to sound casual and cheery and no doubt failing miserably. This was not her kind of lie. "Did you get me extra cream?"

  "I always do," Annie said, and freed one of the coffee cups to hand to her. "Gordon, you're blocking the doorway. Sam and I can't get in unless you back up."

  Silently and obviously unhappily, Gordon stepped back to allow the women into the lab. When he shut the door behind them, it latched with a decidedly frustrated click.

  Sam sipped her coffee, rich with extra cream, and silently gave thanks that Annie had played along. She knew very well that they hadn't made any arrangements for Sam to visit today, and Annie could easily have given her away. The fact that Annie had brought Sam a coffee when she'd gone out for herself and Gordon was entirely chance. She'd probably suspected Sam would stop by after their conversation yesterday, but the timing had been pure dumb luck and a by-product of how well Annie knew her friend. Judging by the scent of tension on Annie's skin, though, Sam got the impression she might just be glad for the interruption.

  "I'm sorry I took so long," Annie said. It took a Lupine sense of hearing to detect the nerves in her voice. "The line at the coffee shop was insane. I guess that's what happens when the weather turns colder."

  Gord
on pried the lid off his cup and looked down at the dark brew with a scowl. "How many sugars did you tell them, Annie?"

  He always said her name as if speaking it left a sour taste in his mouth. He probably wished he could call her something more dignified, like Ann or Anna, but Annie wasn't a nickname. It was the name Vivian and Joel Cryer had given to their daughter, and everyone else who knew Annie knew it suited her all the better for its informality.

  "Three, Gordon. Just like always. Is it too sweet?"

  "No, it's like tar," he snapped. "It tastes like they didn't put any in here."

  "I'm sorry about that. I'm certain I told them the right thing." She blinked behind her glasses quite innocently. "Well, maybe it can be salvaged. After they got it wrong the last time, I brought a canister of sugar from home. It's in my lower desk drawer, if you'd care to help yourself to some."

  The man's scowl deepened and he opened his mouth, no doubt to utter even more complaints, but Sam raised an eyebrow in his direction, and his jaw snapped shut. Without a word, he turned on his heel and stalked through the door into Annie's office, taking his coffee with him.

  The minute the door swung shut, Annie set down her cup, grabbed Sam's shoulder, and began to hustle her to the door.

  "What's going on, Annie?" Sam hissed.

  "Hush. He'll be back in less than ten seconds." Annie's voice was low, as if she didn't want to be overheard. She had one arm wrapped around her friend's waist and her head bent toward her, a pose of affectionate closeness. Annie's other hand slipped into the pocket of her lab coat and returned with a sheet of white paper, neatly folded. With their bodies between her hand and her office, no one could see her movements. "Take this and go home. We can't talk about this now, especially not with him here. Besides, I still have six more days. You promised."

  Confused but feeling seriously unhappy with the situation, Sam slipped the paper into her jacket pocket and took a deep breath. She smelled that same tension, coupled with nerves and a tiny whiff of fear. Her stomach clenched.

  "I know what I promised," she said, speaking quietly and pulling away to look squarely into Annie's face, "and you know I'll keep my word, but there's some fine print in this contract, Annie, and you know very well what it is. If you or the pack is in any immediate danger, all bets are off. I'll go straight to the Alpha, and damn the consequences for both of us."

  Annie held her gaze for a long second, then nodded. "I know, and that's fair." Her mouth twisted into a little smile. "You always were the responsible one, Samantha. It's part of what makes you Sam."

  Leaning forward, Annie wrapped her arms around Sam and gave her a hug. Startled, Sam returned it and felt a small hand slip something else into her pocket. She fought to keep her expression from giving anything away even as the knob on Annie's office door began to turn.

  "Thanks for the coffee," Sam said in her normal voice, watching out of the corner of her eye as Gordon stepped back into the room. "We'll meet up again when you're less busy. Maybe at the end of the week."

  The warning in Sam's voice was subtle, but she knew Annie understood. They were both under a deadline.

  "That sounds good. Now I've got to get back to work, so get out of here."

  A playful shove accompanied the word, voiced in an equally lighthearted tone, and this time Sam received a hidden message of her own. Annie wanted Sam gone. Really gone. So much for her plan to lurk out in the hallway and listen to the conversation inside the lab. If Annie felt compelled to tell her not to do it, she had a good reason. Damn it.

  "See you later, Annie. If you can yank yourself free, give me a call this week."

  Annie nodded and smiled, but she was already turning back to Gordon. Sam wondered if the man even noticed the reluctance in his coworker's body language. Probably not. Most humans were clueless about that kind of thing, and from what Sam could tell, Gordon Entwhistle was more clueless than most.

  As she made her way back toward the stairwell, she reflected that in this case his cluelessness might be a good thing, especially if it extended to whatever Annie had slipped into Sam's pocket. Whatever it was, it wasn't what she had gone to the lab hoping to take away with her, but at least it would give her something to focus on until Annie came clean to the Alpha.

  Something that didn't come in a set of military fatigues.

  This time, Noah wasn't sneaking out to a pay phone. Saturday meant the first of his weekly check-ins with his handler for this mission, and that meant in-person contact.

  The diner sat at the edge of Vircolac's neighborhood, squatting between the historic district and the more relaxed though still outrageously expensive areas of the Upper East Side. It looked beat up and comfortable and enormously out of place—just the sort of thing for a soldier feeling like a fish out of water. Noah could only assume that's why the handler had chosen it.

  As arranged, Noah plunked himself down at the counter with his newspaper at ten minutes after 0900 and hoped the coffee he immediately ordered would do something to make up for his lack of sleep. He'd only gotten about three hours of it. He'd worked on less before, but he hadn't liked it and he didn't like it now.

  He waited ten minutes, which was just long enough for him to finish his first cup of coffee and order a second, along with a plateful of French toast, ham, and eggs. He could already smell the ham frying.

  At 0925, the stool next to him swiveled away. When it turned back, it held a muscular figure with a bald head, a close-cropped goatee, and skin the color of Noah's coffee. He had to work not to show his surprise.

  The newcomer set his cell phone down on the counter between the two of them and ordered coffee and the breakfast special—a stack of pancakes the size of his head with a gargantuan omelet on the side—then he flipped open the pages of a current issue of Sports Illustrated.

  Noah lifted his paper to make room as the waitress brought his plate. He thanked her and reached immediately for the pepper. "Couldn't find the swimsuit issue?" he muttered.

  "That's out in February. This is October. Peasant." The man's voice was deep, gravelly, and almost as familiar as Noah's own. Which was hardly surprising, considering Derrick Carter had been serving on the spook squad with him for almost four years.

  "You should talk." Noah forked up a bite of breakfast and shot Carter a sidelong glance. "When did they start letting you off your leash in public?"

  "I'm reformed. Besides, they're so worried about you staying housebroken, they figured they had to cut me some slack. It's now my job to follow you around with a roll of newspaper. I figured the magazine would work just as well when I smacked you across the nose with it."

  Noah hid his grin by stuffing it full of ham. He hadn't expected Carter to be his live contact. Somehow, he'd gotten it into his head that it would be a superior officer, and Carter was right on Noah's level. He wasn't going to argue, though; he liked Carter. And even better than that, Noah trusted him.

  "You'd have to catch me first," Noah said, finishing his second cup of coffee and gesturing for a refill. "So what's the news from home?"

  Carter accepted his own plates of food—two of them, both in danger of spilling over—and shook his head. "No news is good news, my man, at least on my side of the equation. If I were you, though, I'd try a different tactic on yours."

  They each applied themselves to their breakfasts. When Noah's plate was nearly empty, he shoved it away.

  "It's been one day," he pointed out. "How much news are they expecting?"

  " 'Bout as much as always."

  "Which means more than I have."

  "You know the drill, Boom. They want papers, if you can get 'em. Photos if you can't. And they don't seem inclined to be patient."

  Noah ignored the nickname his unit used just to torture him, though Boom was better than the full version. What grown man wanted to be called Boom-Boom, even if it did refer to his ability to make things explode? It made him sound like a Vegas showgirl.

  "In-persons still weekly?" He reached for his wallet and
drew out a couple of bills, dropping them on the counter.

  "Rain, shine, or coffee shortage."

  "Then tell them they'll have news next week. Till then, if they need me, they know how to get me."

  Neither man looked at the other as Noah stood and grabbed his paper and the cell phone Carter had planted for him.

  "Ten-four, my man. Cell's as secure as we can make it." Carter sipped his coffee. "Watch your back."

  "Trust me, Hoss," Noah muttered, heading for the door. "I got that covered."

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sam walked through the front door of Vircolac on Monday morning with a serious case of the grumps. That's what came of spending most of her weekend poring over pages' worth of Annie's handwriting only to decide by one o'clock this morning that they might as well be written in Sanskrit for all the sense they made to Sam.

  Waving to Richards, she let herself into her office and dumped her bag on her desk, but she didn't flick on her computer as usual. Instead, she grabbed her keys and unlocked the door to Graham's inner office. Flipping on the lights, she crossed to the cabinet built into the far wall and opened it to reveal a small safe. Entering the combination, she opened it and pressed the mechanism inside that opened a panel in the opposite wall housing the Alpha's real safe. Quickly she stuffed the paper and the pocket notebook Annie had handed her Saturday into the bottom drawer and locked everything back up. Since she hadn't been able to make anything out of the notes, she figured the best thing she could do with them was keep them safe. And what safer hiding place could she find than a secret safe guarded by a werewolf and his entire top-notch security team?