by Laura Taylor
Skip noticed Mark leave Miller’s side and made a beeline over to the space he’d just vacated. There had been a steady stream of people talking to him, but Skip was rather hoping for a quiet chat, so she’d lingered in the background, hoping for a moment when he would be alone.
“Hey. How’s it going?” she asked awkwardly. After the ruckus that had happened during the ceremony, Miller was hardly going to be feeling on top of the world, but she wasn’t sure how else to start a conversation with him.
“Feeling a little off balance, quite honestly,” Miller said. “This place certainly takes some getting used to. But this officially means they’re not going to kill me, right? So I’m not going to complain.”
Skip smiled at his droll comment. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I always try to find the positive side, no matter how messy things are getting. Um, hey, I was wondering,” she said awkwardly, not sure how her next question would be received. For all the time she’d spent teaching Miller to shift, they had yet to discuss anything of a more personal nature. “If you don’t mind me asking… do you have any family? I mean, are people in the Noturatii allowed to get married and have kids, and stuff, or is all that considered a threat to secrecy?”
Miller looked vaguely surprised at the question, but answered it easily enough. “People are allowed to get married. But they’re always given a solid cover story about what their work entails, and anyone who starts leaking secrets tends to… suddenly disappear. As for me, no. I’m not married. I was single when I was recruited, and trying to have that kind of relationship when I can never tell the other person who I really am or what I really do just seemed hollow. I don’t think I could do that for long without the need for honesty starting to drive me crazy.”
Skip laughed, then realised it might be inappropriate, but Miller didn’t seem to take offence. “I know, I know,” he admitted wryly. “No shortage of irony right there. I’m too honest to lie to a woman, but I’m happy to lie to everyone else? I guess the truth finally caught up with me. And delivered a rather firm kick up the arse, in the process.”
“Well, I’m rather glad you had your change of heart when you did,” Skip said, giving him a sideways glance.
“Actually, on that note, I’ve been meaning to ask; how are your wounds healing? No one would tell me anything while I was in the cage, and I’ve been worried.”
“Healing well,” Skip reported. “I had surgery to remove the bullet, and then had an infection for a few days, but it looks like it’s all on the mend now.”
Miller went to say something, changed his mind, and then had another go. “Would it be okay if I had a look at your wolf?” he asked. “I hope that’s not an inappropriate question. It’s just… no one here has really given me much in the way of straight answers, and I’d feel a lot happier about it if I could see for myself. If I’d been paying more attention to the fact that Steve was still alive, I could have stopped you being shot in the first place.”
Skip was about to agree when Baron, Caroline and Simon suddenly came marching across the patio, straight towards Miller.
“Okay, so here’s the deal,” Baron announced, sounding tired and irritable. “We’re willing to give you a chance, but letting you roam freely about the estate is basically suicidal, so we’re going to compromise. This is a radio monitor,” he said, holding up a small, black device. “You will wear it, strapped to your ankle, at all times. It sends a radio signal back to a receiver every thirty seconds, and if you either attempt to take it off, or get within twenty metres of the boundary fence, every fucking alarm in this place will sound, and you’ll have a dozen wolves suddenly on your tail, all willing and eager to chew your legs off. Are we clear?”
“No problem,” Miller agreed, looking rather overwhelmed, and then Simon bent down, tugged Miller’s trouser leg up and secured the device to his ankle. Then he asked Miller to shift. He did so, and Simon secured another device around his neck, making sure it was a snug fit that couldn’t slip off over all the loose fur.
When he was finished, he told Miller he could shift back, then he pulled a small receiver out of his pocket and fiddled with the settings.
“All good,” he reported to Baron. “It’s waterproof, so don’t worry about getting it wet in the shower. The receiver is set up to respond to either transmitter, and it’ll only sound the alarm if it doesn’t get a signal from either one. Any questions?” Miller shook his head. “Good. Then we’re done.” He glanced at Baron, who nodded, and then all three of them marched away, leaving Miller looking miffed, and more than a little confused.
“Are they always like that?” he asked, and Skip shrugged.
“Yes, and no. They take security very, very seriously. But so long as you follow the rules and don’t do anything to get on their bad side, they’re usually very reasonable. You wanted to have a look at my wounds,” she reminded him, bringing them back to their previous conversation.
“If that’s okay with you?”
Skip nodded, then shifted, presenting her back leg for Miller to examine. The fur had yet to start growing back to any real degree, and she winced as she felt the cold air against her skin. Miller bent down and examined the puckered sutures, the bruising where the bullet had gone in, and then the long, straight line the surgeon had cut along her abdomen.
“It’s looking good,” he said, probing the wound with the gentlest of fingers. His hands against her skin felt odd. Though she’d been touched as a wolf before, it had always been through her thick coat of fur, and the warm brush of his fingers was both unsettling, and oddly tantalising. It was far from unpleasant, she realised with a jolt, astonished that a man from such a violent past could have such a gentle touch.
And her heart started racing all of a sudden, as she realised that no man had ever touched her like this before. Her father and his friends had been brutal, firm grips, quick to slap her if she resisted too much. The men in the Den had generally refrained from touching her at all, or, on the odd occasion when they had needed to, it had been brief, a firm but cursory touch in order to pull her out of danger, for example, or to carry her, as Silas had done when they’d got home from the vet, the contact swiftly ended once the required task was complete.
But Miller’s fingers lingered, a touch full of concern, and then he gave her a relieved smile when he finally pulled back and stood up.
Skip shifted back, managing a wobbly smile, taking a sip of her wine to hide her discomfort. But the soft sensation of his hand upon her skin lingered for a long time afterwards.
Up in the bedroom he shared with Baron, John grabbed an armful of clothes out of the wardrobe. Hangers clattered to the floor, but he ignored them. He stomped out the door, down the hall, up the stairs and into one of the empty bedrooms on the manor’s third floor. He dumped the clothes onto the neatly made bed, then stomped back downstairs, to repeat the exercise again, and then again. As well as the clothes, there were also shoes, toiletries, his video games and the console Baron let him keep in their bedroom, and three books that he was currently reading; John was quite startled at the amount of stuff he’d managed to accumulate during his stay in Baron’s room. It was going on six years since he’d joined the Den, but the time had flown; it still seemed like just yesterday that Baron had pointed a gun at his head as he sat beside the bloodied corpse of a farmer and asked what the fuck he thought he was doing. After that, he’d dragged him back here, into the secret home of the shifters that John had been searching for ever since he’d escaped from the Noturatii weeks before.
Life here had been good, he would have admitted easily enough. Food, sex, plenty of violence in battles with the Noturatii to pass the time, and other shifters who were strong, ruthless, and far easier to respect than the weak, pitiful creatures he’d known early in his life.
But all that had changed tonight. That Baron had kept Miller alive for this long was lamentable, but understandable; he had information Il Trosa needed, and the Council were likely inclined to suck everything useful out of
him before they finally disposed of him.
But the announcement that they might allow him to join the Den had left John shocked, speechless, his mind reeling as his entire world seemed to have tilted sideways. The Noturatii were the enemy. His enemy. The reason why his wolf was scarred from head to toe and why he still woke up screaming at night.
Baron should have kicked Miller out. Should have killed him. Should have prioritised his Den and his home and his pack far above the supposed rights of one worthless man.
Well, there wasn’t much John could do about Miller now. The Den had voted, not once, but twice, which meant that in all practical terms, the decision was now set in stone.
But as far as his own situation went, it was not to be tolerated. By allowing Miller to stay, Baron had betrayed everything John had believed him to be.
So he was moving out.
He was on his fourth trip, arms full of shampoo and razor blades, and his own personal dog bed that sat on the floor in the corner, when heavy footsteps came echoing down the hall. John recognised the person approaching from the sound alone; Baron had arrived.
He took one step into their bedroom, saw the mess John had created, and stopped in his tracks. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked, more baffled than angry.
“Moving out,” John replied, fighting to control his emotions, which seemed to be swinging wildly between rage and fear. Not that he was afraid of Baron. For all the man’s physical size, John had learned long ago that he was an even match for the huge black wolf in a fight. Rather, he feared disappointing the man, his own mental equilibrium very much dependent on keeping Baron happy. It was the motivation behind a large number of his daily actions, whether it was biting his tongue when someone pissed him off, or fulfilling his duties in keeping the manor clean, or warming his alpha’s bed at night. If Baron was happy, then John got to continue living his relatively peaceful life, safe within the walls of the manor, protected against his own paranoia and the rages that sometimes swept through him, out of control.
But this time, bowing to Baron’s natural authority and the emotional hold he had over John wasn’t an option. He’d stood by and allowed a Noturatii man to infiltrate the Den, had accepted his oath of allegiance, and sworn one in return. The betrayal of trust inherent in those actions was unforgivable.
“What do you mean, you’re moving out?” Baron asked, as John headed for the door.
“You like your Noturatii man so much better than me?” John said, working hard to sound flippant. “Fine. You can have him. Just don’t expect me to stick around and lick your arse while you stab me in the back.” He ducked around Baron, who was still too startled to stop him, and dashed off down the hall.
“You get back here!” Baron snarled a moment later, rushing after him. He darted forward and grabbed John’s arm, yanking him around so that he dropped most of what he was carrying. “You can’t just fucking up and leave like that! You damn well explain yourself. I followed proper protocol, and let the Den vote on Miller-”
“You should have put a bullet in him the moment he walked through that fucking gate,” John yelled back at him, his anger outweighing his fear for the moment. “You know what they fucking did to me! To Tank! To Dee! They killed Nate and Eric. They killed Luke. They fuck up every single one of our lives! You want to let him stay? Well, screw that. I’m not going to keep bending over for a guy who thinks the fucking Noturatii are more important than his own boyfriend!”
Their argument had attracted some attention, and he was vaguely aware of Caroline appearing at the end of the hall, with Andre close behind her, of Tank sticking his head out of his bedroom, and Dee appearing at the top of the stairs.
“You put your fucking shit back in that bedroom, and-”
He didn’t get any further, as John swiftly kicked him in the balls and wrenched his arm free. But Baron wasn’t giving up so easily, and he made a grab for John’s shirt, hunched over in pain though he was.
“Baron!” Caroline moved quicker than John would have believed, inserting herself between him and Baron. "What the fuck is going on?”
“I’m moving out,” John declared defiantly. If Caroline wanted to stop him, she’d have a fight on her hands. He’d fought her before, and won, and he’d damn near ripped her throat out before Baron had managed to drag him off her. He was more than willing to have another go at it now.
“You get back in that fucking room,” Baron said, face red, trying to see around Caroline to glare at him.
“No,” John replied, desperately wanting to pick up the things on the floor. He hoped none of it was broken. “I’m moving into a bedroom upstairs. Alone.”
“You’re not going anywhere-”
“Yes, he is,” Caroline replied, which made John look up in surprise.
“What?” Baron asked, as if she’d just grown a second head.
“If he wants to leave, then he’s allowed to leave,” Caroline stated firmly.
“Living with me was the only way we ever kept him under control,” Baron spat. “You know that!”
“If John wants to leave,” Caroline repeated, emphasising the words, “then I will not allow you to stop him.”
Baron managed to stand up straight, though he was clearly suffering for the effort, and stepped up close to Caroline. “You get out of my way.”
A low growl filled the hall, and it took John a moment to realise that it was coming not just from Caroline, but from Andre as well. The man stepped up beside Caroline, and looked Baron in the eye. “You threaten my woman again, and you and I are going to have words,” he promised coldly.
Watching on, Tank was looking tense and apprehensive. For all the common arguments between Baron and Caroline, physical fights were rare, and Tank was no doubt wondering if he’d have to step in and break things up – a daunting prospect, when Andre was involved as well.
John stood very still, keeping his breathing slow and even, trying to blend into the background. He’d lived through far too much trauma to take the current standoff for anything other than what it was – a leadership challenge between the ranking wolves in the Den – and the almost tangible anger flooding the room was terrifying.
After a long pause, Tank finally stepped forward. “How about we all take a breather,” he suggested mildly. “Go get a stiff drink, have a little time out, and come back to this when we’re all thinking more clearly.”
“Fine,” Baron conceded gruffly, then stalked back into his bedroom and slammed the door. Andre gave Tank a tight nod of thanks, gave Caroline’s shoulder a brief squeeze, then headed off to his own room. And John avoided looking at either of them, still unable to make sense of Caroline’s unexpected support, and set about collecting his things from the floor. There was more of his stuff in Baron’s room, but there was little chance of collecting the rest tonight. He headed quickly back up the stairs, closed the door to his newly claimed bedroom, and set about arranging his things to his liking.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Melissa stood in the Noturatii’s shooting range, watching her instructor prepare the equipment for her practice. When she’d written to Noturatii headquarters earlier in the year, detailing her research ideas, her letter had also included suggestions about improving the firearm skills of the science and administration staff. The attack on their lab last winter had caused the death of dozens of people, and it was Melissa’s firm opinion that many of those lives could have been saved had the staff been armed with handguns.
Headquarters hadn’t got back to her with an official response, so far merely stating that they were considering the idea, but Melissa was nothing if not determined, and with Jacob’s approval, she’d been having lessons with one of the security guards in her free time.
Today was one such day, with the experiments on the shifter captive at a temporary halt. They’d successfully recorded the shift a dozen or more times, and spent long hours analysing the data, building up a solid picture of the shift from an electrical perspective, but then Docto
r Evans, of all people, had suggested that perhaps they should run the same tests from the opposite side of the coin; beginning with the shifter in wolf form, and recording the readings as he became human.
It was an excellent idea, as the next stage of the experiments – attempting to feed the electrical charge back into the shifter to force a shift – would require a complete reconfiguration of the electrodes – but the downside was that the current setup wasn’t capable of taking readings through the wolf’s fur. The solution was conceptually simple, yet difficult in practice; they would need to shave the wolf.
When it had become apparent that the shifter was going to put up a fight over his new haircut, a whole squad of guards had been called in to subdue him, leaving the science team with a break in their work. Never one to be idle, Melissa had brought herself down here, ready for her next lesson in self defence.
“Okay, we’re going to try a more powerful gun today,” her instructor told her, handing her a gun that was noticeably heavier than the one she had been using up until now. “This is a 9mm semi-automatic. You’ll find it a little more difficult to handle. The basic rule is, the more powerful the gun, the more recoil you’re going to get, which makes it harder to shoot straight. The upside, of course, is that this gun will do more damage, and it has a better range. With practice, you should be able to hit a live target up to fifty metres away.”
Melissa listened to his instructions patiently, paying close attention to every detail, then she put on her earmuffs and took the gun, lining up her shot carefully. When she pulled the trigger, she found that he was right – the gun had a significant kick to it. The bullet went wide of the target, and she felt a stab of disappointment at the result.
But if at first you don’t succeed…