by Laura Taylor
Miller looked up and saw the two boys standing there. He got up, and Kwan went over to the slot in the side of his cage, pushing the breakfast tray inside, while Aaron did the same for Tank.
“So what about you?” Miller asked, once he’d thanked the boys and taken the tray back to his bed. “How did you become a shifter?”
“Pretty much the same story,” Tank said, inhaling the toast and scrambled eggs. “Except the recruiting was done by the opposite team. And torturing women wasn’t part of the job description.”
“Touché,” Miller said, digging into his own food. “I should have read the fine print a little more closely before I signed the contract.”
Melissa stood at attention in the foyer of the Noturatii’s main base, waiting for Professor Ivor Banks to arrive. He was the Noturatii’s most senior scientist, the head of their research operations in Germany, and by all accounts, a genius. After a heartfelt plea from Melissa earlier in the year regarding the ongoing failures in the experiments the English lab was currently running on a shifter captive, he’d announced that he was coming to England to oversee and assist with their research.
Melissa took a deep breath as she heard a car pull up outside, trying to slow her racing heart. Professor Banks was one of her idols, a brilliant man who had made enormous leaps forward in the Noturatii’s war with the shifters. Having him visit their labs was a tremendous honour, and she couldn’t wait to get started on the experiments they would run together, already anticipating the discoveries they would make into shifter physiology.
Jacob had been planning on meeting the Professor with her, but after the disaster with the car crash yesterday morning, he was completely snowed under, wrapping up the investigation, arranging the funerals of the deceased men and trying to find a suitable replacement for Miller. He’d been the backbone of Jacob’s personal security force for a long time, and finding a man even half as competent was going to be hard. In addition to that, the forensic team working on the car crash had arrived back half an hour ago, and Jacob had whisked them all off for an urgent meeting, wanting an immediate update on their preliminary findings from the crash site.
But that didn’t mean Melissa was meeting the Professor all by herself. Doctor Evans, the head scientist in her team, was also there, and looking more than a little nervous as she waited beside Melissa. And she had good reason to be apprehensive. In her letter to the Professor, Melissa had been scathing in her reports on Evans’ work. Their team was trying to unlock the secrets of how the shifters changed forms, and Melissa had come up with several ideas for how to improve the experiments, after early avenues of investigation had failed. But Evans had completely ignored her suggestions, and as far as Melissa was concerned, her inattention was causing unacceptable delays in their progress.
The door of the foyer opened then, two burly guards preceding Professor Banks into the room. And then Melissa caught sight of the Professor himself, and couldn’t help the grin that plastered itself to her face. He was a short man, with a squarish head and greying hair, and wrinkles around his mouth that suggested he spent a lot of time frowning.
“Good morning, sir,” she said warmly, stepping forward to shake his hand. “I’m Melissa Hunter. Welcome to England.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he replied in a strong German accent. “I’ve been most intrigued by your ideas.”
“And this is Doctor Evans, our Head of Science and Research,” Melissa said, finding it surprisingly easy to be polite to the Doctor. With Professor Banks here, her patronising ways and obstructive techniques in the lab were suddenly far less of a problem than they had been of late, and the promise of real progress was making her feel generous.
“Doctor Evans,” the Professor said, sounding less impressed than he’d been with Melissa. “No doubt we will have some interesting days ahead of us.”
“It’s a pleasure to have you here, sir,” Evans said, managing not to look intimidated. “I’ve read some of your papers. I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas on our research.”
“Let’s not waste any time then,” the Professor said, collecting his things from the guard. “Please, if you would show me to the labs, I will have a look around, and we can see what our first steps should be.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was just after midday when Baron woke up. He’d finally collapsed into bed after Tank and Miller had both donated blood, Silas taking care of giving Skip the transfusion, and Caroline giving Baron sharp orders to go and get some sleep. He’d protested, wanting to see how Skip responded to the treatment, but as Caroline had pointed out, he wasn’t doing anything useful at the moment, and they would call him immediately if there were any problems. So he’d relented, staggered back to his room and collapsed into bed, remembering nothing more until he woke up to daylight and John, sitting beside his bed with a cup of hot coffee in his hand.
“Here,” John said, holding out the cup, once he saw Baron had opened his eyes. “Andre wants to talk to you about Miller. No rush – he said to let you wake up a bit and have a shower first – but he’s having issues with his wolf.”
That got Baron’s attention. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and took the coffee, slurping the hot liquid gratefully. He’d had about six hours sleep, he figured, glancing at the clock. Not enough to feel rested, but at least enough that now he might be able to think straight.
But Miller was far from his only problem, and another of the smaller, niggling ones came to mind now as he peered over at his boyfriend. “Simon said you were down in the cage room when Miller and Tank were fighting,” he said, between sips of coffee. “You didn’t think it was worth trying to separate them?” It came out harsh and annoyed.
John looked surprised at the reprimand. “Tank was winning,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding the problem. “He didn’t need my help.” At the look of disbelief on Baron’s face, John’s own expression turned darker. “You wanted me to stop him from beating up a man who honestly deserves a slow, painful death? Shit, you’re just lucky I didn’t join in and help him finish the job. It would have been a pleasure. Really.”
“And what about the fact that he has useful information that could help us fight this war? You didn’t think it might be worth keeping him alive for a little longer?”
“Didn’t occur to me,” John said blithely. “I was more focused on the pleasure of watching his brains get splattered all over the floor.”
Baron just sighed, knowing this argument wasn’t going to go anywhere useful. He drained the last of his coffee, then hauled himself out of bed. “Tell Andre I’ll be down in ten minutes,” he told John, not knowing whether he would bother passing on the message or not. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“How’s Skip?” was the first thing Baron said when he strode into the library ten minutes later.
“Stable,” Caroline replied, from the table where she was sitting with Andre, a cup of tea in front of each of them. “Her blood pressure’s within acceptable limits, after the transfusion, and her temperature’s normal. She’s very tired, but she managed to eat a little this morning. Heron and Silas are still with her.”
Baron nodded, knowing he’d need to go and see her himself in the near future, but he had bigger problems to deal with for the moment.
“So what’s this about Miller?” he asked, turning to Andre.
“His wolf is starting to make its presence felt,” Andre reported. “I went to check on him a little while ago. He’s pacing, scratching his arms, complaining of a headache. Honestly, I’m surprised it took the wolf this long. Normally they’re a lot quicker about it. And Miller himself still seems to be unaware he’s been converted. Given that he’s had no training of any kind, he’s got no idea how to manage a shift, or how to handle the wolf.”
“Given that he’s from the Noturatii,” Caroline said grimly, “the chances of him successfully merging with his wolf are slim to none. We’ve got a couple of days tops before he starts going rogue. So if we’
re going to get any useful information out of him, we’re going to have to do it sooner rather than later.”
“Well that would solve one problem, at least,” Baron said, knowing it would sound rather macabre. “If he goes rogue, we’ll have no choice but to put him down. Which sidesteps the issue of having to explain to Skip why we decided to kill him.” Since her announcement that she’d been shot, they hadn’t spoken of Miller with her again, much more pressing problems on all their minds. But she’d been emphatic when she’d arrived at the estate that they couldn’t just shoot him, and Baron wasn’t looking forward to having to make that decision.
“There’s another angle we should consider with regards to using him as an informant,” Andre pointed out. “We still have no idea whether we can trust him or not. So any information he tells us could be lies. In the best case, it could be a simple attempt to misdirect us, but far more likely, there would be a serious risk we could inadvertently step straight into a trap.”
“On that basis, is it worth questioning him at all?” Caroline asked.
“I think it is,” Baron said, after a moment’s hesitation. “I certainly don’t think we should act on anything he says without some careful investigation, but he should at least be able to give us the names of some high ranking operatives, for example. Once we’ve got the names, we can check out the people, and see what shows up. I don’t want to kill innocent people by mistake, but Skip’s a good enough hacker that she should be able to figure out which of them are legit, and if that gives us the chance to blow a few holes in the Noturatii’s leadership structure, then it’s worth doing.”
When one o’clock rolled around, Miller and Tank were both sitting quietly on their beds. After breakfast, they’d both slept for a while, then Miller had woken up an hour or so ago, finding Tank already awake, and feeling restless, as well as hungry. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too much longer until lunch.
Right on cue, the door to the cage room opened, but instead of those two young men returning with food, Baron marched into the room, Caroline on his heels. Baron glanced at him and Tank, and asked, with a sardonic edge to his voice, “How’s it going, boys?”
Tank gave him a wry smirk. “It turns out Miller’s not quite as much of an arsehole as I thought he was,” he said, to which Miller let out a snort.
“It took a little while for your boy to pull his head out of his arse,” he said in return, feeling more relaxed about the situation now that he was reasonably sure they weren’t going to torture him. “But he got there in the end.”
“Making friends, then?” Baron said. “Charming. But let’s get down to business.” He took a chair from the side of the room, sitting down in front of Miller’s cage, Caroline standing with her arms folded beside him. “Pull up a chair,” he instructed, and Miller did so, sitting down with an air of resignation.
“So this is the interrogation part?” he asked unnecessarily, and Baron nodded. But before he could start asking questions, Miller jumped in with one of his own. “How’s Skip?”
“None of your business,” Baron said firmly.
“Considering I gave blood for her, I thought it was a reasonable question,” Miller persisted, trying to sound respectful.
Baron leaned forward, staring evenly at him. “You seem to be under the impression that you’re dealing with the domesticated version of the canine,” he said darkly. “Now, you might have had a friendly little pow-wow with Tank here, and no doubt our guards have been treating you decently, but don’t go getting comfortable. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still public enemy number one, and if I don’t find a damn good reason to keep you alive in the next fifteen minutes, then I’m more than happy to put you out of your misery. So can the attitude, you get me?”
“Yes, sir,” Miller said immediately, readjusting his perspective. Sure, they might not torture him, but it seemed death was still a very real option.
“The first thing I want to know,” Baron began, “is why you paid a visit to this estate a few weeks ago. You remember the nice old gentleman who met you at the gate, yes?” Miller nodded. “He called us the instant you left and told us all about it. So why were you here? How did you find us? And what does the Noturatii know about us as a result of that visit?”
It wasn’t an unexpected starting point, and Miller answered quickly and honestly, hoping to put Baron’s mind at ease a little. “As far as what the Noturatii knows, the answer is basically nothing. I came here to investigate whether the estate could be involved with shifter activity, and everything checked out. I did some digging into that supposed Italian company that owns the estate, and all their records were in order. So I removed this place from the list of suspect properties, and that was the end of it.
“As for why I was here in the first place, we received some information early this year that there were not one, but two shifter packs in England. Prior to that, we’d always assumed there was only one.” The tip-off had, in fact, come from one of the members of the other shifter pack, the one that lived in the forests in the far north. The information had come as a huge surprise, not only because it confirmed a second pack, but because it had also made it clear that the two packs regarded each other with significant animosity. Miller refrained from mentioning exactly where the information had come from, as the last thing he wanted to do was get himself caught in the middle of an internal war between rival shifter factions. “So we started doing a sweep of the entire Lakes District,” he went on. “There was nothing about this property that meant we were targeting it specifically. It was just the right sort of size, in the right sort of area.”
Baron looked faintly relieved at the news. “Okay, next question. Why have the Noturatii been kidnapping people and trying to convert them into shifters?”
Another predictable question. “They’ve been trying to work out how the conversion process works, with the ultimate goal of finding out how to reverse it.”
Baron looked alarmed at the idea. “And how far have they come towards reaching that goal?”
“I don’t know,” Miller replied honestly. “After the explosion in the lab, that part of the research was transferred to the head office in Germany. At that point, we had a few preliminary clues about the process, but extremely limited success in getting it to work. I haven’t heard any further updates since then.”
“Presumably you had to shut down the laboratory complex after the explosion. So where is the Noturatii’s main base of operations now?”
Miller hesitated. That was a much more difficult question to answer, but not because of any lack of knowledge on his part. He took his time weighing up the consequences, both of answering the question, and refusing to, and finally said, “I can’t tell you.”
Baron shook his head. “I find it hard to believe that a man of your skills and position wouldn’t know where the bases are. For someone whose life depends on his ability to give us useful information, you’re being rather reticent, don’t you think?”
“I can’t tell you because I don’t want to be responsible for a repeat of the explosion that took out the lab. Innocent people got caught in that blaze,” he went on, when Baron glared at him. “Firefighters were injured. It caused a lot of damage to the neighbouring warehouses, financial losses to other people’s businesses. And besides which, I know some good men who work for the Noturatii. Not all of them are thugs and murderers. There are people who were just looking for honest, paid work, and they got caught up with the wrong people. Now they keep their heads down and try to make the best of it, because ending up dead isn’t high on their list of priorities. I’m here because my conscience caught up with me and I want to stop causing innocent people to die, not just switch sides and keep fighting the same fucking war.”
Baron glanced at Caroline, and she nodded. “Well, I have some bad news for you then,” Baron began, but Miller interrupted him.
“Look, if you want to kill me, go ahead,” he said sharply, not eager to die, but also not willing to cover his hands in
even more blood. “The Noturatii would do no less if they found me, and I get the impression you’d make it a lot quicker and a lot less painful than they would. So there’s-”
“Shut up,” Baron snapped, baring his teeth briefly. “The bad news isn’t that we’re going to kill you. It’s that, by some bizarre twist of fate, your options for bowing out of the war have been cancelled once and for all.” Miller just stared at him, not understanding what he was getting at. “There’s no way to break this to you gently, so I’m just going to come out and say it. Somehow, the night you were caught in that storm with Skip, you were converted into a shape shifter. You’re one of us now.”
“That’s impossible,” Miller said immediately, not even considering the idea. “We spent months in the lab trying to work out the exact mechanics for creating a new shifter. I couldn’t have become one just by wandering about in the forest with one. It can’t be that easy.” Besides which, wouldn’t he have noticed by now?
“There are only two things needed for the conversion,” Baron explained. “The exchange of blood between the sire and the convert, and the application of an electrical current.”
Miller stared at him, not seeing where he was going with this. He hadn’t exchanged blood with Skip, and there had been no ready source of electricity out in the… lightning storm, he realised, suddenly catching up with the implications of Baron’s statement. And he had been bleeding, as had Skip, and then lightning had struck… “I don’t believe you,” he said simply. He couldn’t be a shifter. It was an absurd idea.
“Then permit me to demonstrate,” Baron replied. Caroline went to the cage door, unlocked it and stepped inside. Miller backed away from her, his mind unable to process the idea that he had become… No, he couldn’t have. It was impossible…