She studied the clipboard in her hands rather than reply. It didn’t bother Alfred much. She rarely gave a sign that she was bothered by his attitude. It grated on him that he couldn’t get a reaction out of her. Even her steady heartbeat, faster than most humans, didn’t ever change.
He’d tried yelling, and when that didn’t work, silence. She continued to work on him with no change in her demeanor. When he hung limp, she had the goons lift him up so she could listen to his heart and breath. The only time she appeared flustered was when he greeted her entirely nude. Her cheeks flushed until he thought she would pass out from overheating. He hadn’t tried that stunt again, but he did like to imagine how far the flush carried under her clothes.
“So. You’ve taken a dose every twelve hours, and haven’t had a shifting incident since the last full moon. You haven’t had any reaction to the medication since then. Tonight is when we’ll see how successful the cure can be.” She smiled at him.
He had a hard time doubting her sincerity when she smiled. It lit her entire face. She wasn’t like the others, who seemed fueled by hatred for werewolves. She made it seem like she honestly wanted to help. He couldn’t decide if she was completely misguided or entirely evil.
She continued when he didn’t respond. “We’re going to take extra vitals today, and leading up to the lunar event. We need to chart if there are any stressors on your body.”
He nodded, and removed his shirt. He saw her gulp when her eyes wandered over his chest. He didn’t know why she put herself through this whole ordeal if she was so scared of him. Her scent was almost overwhelming. He could almost imagine he was in a field of lavender when she was close.
She glanced at the men standing behind her, then crossed the short distance to the cot. She wiped the stethoscope around her neck on her coat to warm it. It was a nice touch, something that the old doctor who came through the mountain pack never bothered doing. She held the instrument to his chest and listened to his heart. With that done and a notation made on his chart, she held on his back to listen to his lungs.
She nodded, then took a step back. “Heart rate is a little elevated, but everything else seems normal. I’ll be back in an hour to check again.”
“You’ll be checking all day?” He scratched fingers in his stubbly beard. Maybe they’d let him shave before tonight.
“And all night. We want to monitor all side effects.”
“That seems like a lot of hours to put in. Why not just let me shift, and everyone can get some rest.” He cracked a grin.
Dr. Lambart snorted back a chuckle. She threw a dark look over her shoulder at the goons. “I appreciate your effort, Alfred. But I don’t mind, really. I’d like to help you and others like you.”
His face went blank again. He was a second-class citizen, a freak, something to be fixed. He needed to keep that in mind. No matter how kind she pretended to be, she still thought of him as a monster. “I’ll see you in an hour, then.” He stretched on his cot, with his back facing her.
Chapter Two
Andrea sighed when she and her guards reached the door leading from the basement. She tried to keep her reactions cool and calm around all her patients, but Alfred tried her every nerve. He was moody one moment, then showed a willingness for camaraderie in another.
Joel, the commander at this post, said it was the nature of the beast. She had ideas that severely clashed with Joel’s, and Alfred’s state of mind was one of them. He was willing to let the werewolf rot away. She was fighting to have him transferred to her own home on the base. There were studies to show how solitary confinement did more harm than good. Alfred needed more contact than the occasional medical visit, or the entire experiment would crumble when his mind shattered.
“How’s our beast doing today?” Joel’s voice rumbled from the top of the stairs. He must have left the viewing room as soon as she exited the cell. Alfred was clearly intelligent, and had surmised the glass wall as one-way glass as soon as he was off sedatives.
“He’s as well as expected,” she said in a clipped tone. She held the chart close to her chest. Joel was known for snatching it out of her hands. Even though her experiment was conducted for the base, she tried to keep confidentiality with her patient’s medical records.
“Do you think the drugs will hold up overnight?” He ran a hand through his short hair. She wanted to tell him to give up the cut, and just shave. He wasn’t doing himself any favors by passing off the receding hairline as a crew-cut.
She nodded. “His vitals are steady. I believe the medication will keep his form stable. I’ll continue to monitor him through the night, and into tomorrow.”
Joel was shaking his head before she finished. “I can’t have you do that, Doc. You need to keep your head about you. That means sleep.”
She tried to slip past him, but he blocked the stairs. “I’ve done worse in medical school, don’t worry. This will be nothing. Who else would monitor him, if I did take off? I can’t just abandon my patient like that.”
His eyes narrowed. “He’s our prisoner, Dr. Lambart. Remember that.”
“I’m sorry, I thought this was my experiment. He was captured by me, if I recall correctly.” She hated to shove that in his face. He didn’t like to be reminded that an untrained girl had bested his rough-and-tumble men. None of them had successfully captured a shape shifter on the mission where Alfred was taken. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to finish my notes and prepare his next dose.”
Sliding past without another word, Andrea rushed down the hall. The clacks of her heels followed her, but luckily no thuds of combat boots. She shut the door to her office behind her, and sat down with a huff.
Joel constantly irritated her with his demands to see into her research. She joined the medical field to help people, and had been boxed in by overbearing senior researchers and doctors from the very beginning. Part of the reason why she came to America was the freedom to work on her experiment without interference. Joel quickly put an end to that illusion.
His people reached out to her early in her career. It was after a particularly horrid attack in her village, and when she’d been forced to admit a supernatural world existed right under her nose. When an older man attacked a young girl, the police assumed it was a case of sexual predation. When the girl exhibited some very alarming symptoms, Andrea knew there was more involved. The girl disappeared from the village medical center the same night the man vanished from his police cell.
It ate at her when there was a mystery to be solved. Andrea began testing samples of their blood, and found a new piece to the puzzle. Their blood was closer to the makeup of wolves, than it was to human. She introduced some modifications to her small sample, and was able to transform the blood to something more humanlike.
She was surprised when a man approached her, though the dark and stormy night he did so should have been a clue to more sinister intentions. She had tucked into her microscope when he entered her lab unannounced and gave her a start. He explained the existence of shape shifters, with a focus on werewolves. He had heard what she was doing with her research, and how others in the lab were discouraging her flight of fancy. He wanted to offer her a job overseas, as long as she continued trying to cure the infection.
She joined the base thinking that everyone had the best of intentions. Paranormal occurrences should be resolved, so everyone could get back to their normal lives. She didn’t think anyone wanted to run the risk of maiming or killing their family. For the most part, everyone involved with American Wolf Protection League held those same desires. They went about it in an entirely different way than she would have liked.
Most shortened the title to AmWo, and she soon saw the ‘woe’ in the name. Most of the men and women were ex-military, so the group was heavily armed and had access to weaponry she didn’t think necessary for a mission to save sick people. The roughest in the organization were those who lost loved ones, either to attacks by the werewolves or to the shift itself.
&
nbsp; She needed blood samples, and they were willing to help in that goal. She didn’t see a donor for months, but she heard of the attacks on AmWo personnel. She wasn’t allowed to go outside of the base, and no donors ever came inside the walls that she knew of. She was appalled when she found they were simply beating on werewolves and bringing her blood samples in prettied up little vials.
Andrea sighed again, and turned on her monitor. She glanced at Alfred’s chart, and started entering notations into her electronic file. This was the research she was brought on for, and she was glad to do. She was soon able to replicate her early results in a serum. The serum was then manufactured into an easily replicable dart. All the fighters of AmWo started carrying it to stop werewolves from shifting into their wolf forms.
She still didn’t have full control of her research, and had to rely on reports from the field on how the serum worked. She heard conflicting reports of how long a dose lasted. She insisted time and again to have a subject to test on, and finally, Joel and his team relented. She was promised several volunteers. She received Alfred.
The werewolf tested her every nerve. He’d laughed in her face the first time she encountered him. He’d tried to escape when the reality of his situation hit him like a blow from Joel’s fists. She frowned at that memory. Alfred her only gently nudged her out of the way. Joel’s violence was an overreaction. He mandated she needed guards with her every time she stepped into Alfred’s cell after that.
She objected to his treatment from the start, but her words fell on deaf ears. All she could do was continue her research and document her findings. She needed to help cure the werewolf infection, partly so she could get Alfred out of his cell. A man didn’t deserve to be kept in solitary confinement simply because he had an illness.
Her computer chimed at her, alerting her that it was almost time to check Alfred again. She cursed quietly under her breath. She’d lost track of time trying to figure out Joel’s true purpose several times, and was no closer than the first. She took her time wading through her interactions from the moment she learned of the existence of werewolves, and never came close to Joel’s piece in the puzzle.
She turned her monitor off, and gathered the chart up again. She would see her patient throughout the night. She was hopeful that the new serum would hold off the transformation that was forced on the human at the height of the full moon. If she could control that, she knew she was well on her way to a cure.
Still, she wished her pulse didn’t race every time she needed to see him.
Chapter Three
It was the same dream every night.
The road to his mountain home was empty and quiet. The hunters were good at what they did. He didn’t smell anything wrong until it was too late.
Some of the others worried that Claude laid a trap for them. Many still had the poison flowing through their veins, and were unable to shift. He shifted and went to scout ahead. Marie’s voice was with him, telling him to turn back. He wasn’t a scout. He was shit in the woods unless he knew what to look for. She was right.
Spotlights lit his location as soon as he neared the houses, and tracked him as he tried to run for cover. The others down the mountain heard the commotion and scattered. He couldn’t blame them. They didn’t want to be victims.
He raced through the woods. At his back were men and women shouting at him and each other. They gave constant updates to his location. Their walkie-talkies shouted back updates from down the mountain. Snarls and screams reached his ears.
He turned, and made a desperate flight up the mountain. Perhaps with everyone on his tail, they had abandoned their posts. He could slip by and regroup with the others.
She jumped out in front of him, mousy brown hair tied back in a ponytail. He skidded to a stop to prevent bowling her over. She was tiny. He could slip past one little girl, no problem.
He still didn’t know why he shifted to his human form. He held out his hands to calm her. Maybe he thought she wasn’t with them. She certainly never smelled like the tobacco most of them chewed.
Her green eyes glinted with surprise. “Freeze!” she shouted.
He laughed. He threw back his head and laughed. Was she in some sort of buddy cop comedy? Some prime time cop drama? No one actually shouted those words. He turned, and that was when he felt the prick. He looked down, and saw the dart sticking out of his abdomen. She’d shot him.
“Alfred? Alfred, I need you to look at me.” Dr. Lambart’s voice cut like a crisp breeze through the dream.
That couldn’t be right. How could she be shooting him, and talking to him?
The dart worked its magic almost immediately. He tried to shift into his wolf form. He looked like a grotesque monster. His hands turned into paws, and his jaw was long and toothy. But even those transformations faded as the dart’s poison entered his bloodstream. He collapsed on the ground.
The road to his mountain home was empty and quiet.
“Alfred. You’re going to feel a prick.”
She wasn’t there, though. She came later. Why was she there?
The first thing Alfred noticed when he woke up was the ceiling. Instead of the dull grey, it was a dull grey with light shining across the middle. His little slit of a window wasn’t in the right spot for a bar of light to break the ceiling into two.
The little mouse had a stiff spine. Her voice was quiet, but firm. He was reminded of the woman who taught Marie and him as youngsters. The woman had no soft spot, though they both tried to find it.
“I am responsible for his care. We saw that the serum was able to control his shift. If that can be controlled, why should we keep him separate?” Dr. Lambart insisted.
Alfred furrowed his brow. They must be talking about him. The hall they kept him in sounded like it had multiple cells, but he never heard a peep from any of them. A part of him whined, and he realized it was his wolf. His heart ached for the creature and for himself. The poison must have worked, and he didn’t shift during the night.
“Because he’s a dangerous animal! He will kill you, mark my words.”
Now that was unfair, and he frowned. He thought the man’s name was Joel, though it was hard to hear when he was slamming his fists into him. He rarely said anything to Alfred, except to demand information about the location of more werewolves. He made sure Dr. Lambart was never around when he asked.
“Joel, I really have to insist. I believe he needs to be reintegrated into society. That cannot happen when you keep him locked in a cell all day!”
That was an intriguing idea. She should know better, though. His captors would never allow it. Hunters hated werewolves, and he bet that even extended to ones they had on a tight leash. He had no incentive to remain, even if they did go for it. He certainly intended to seek out an opportunity to slip away as soon as possible.
A cough racked his body. He sat up, and immediately doubled over, clutching his ribs in pain. He looked at his hands and was surprised to see splotches of blood on his skin.
A small tsk made him glance up. Dr. Lambart stood on the door and blocked the large man behind her. “Please, Joel. He needs medical attention. Let me do my job.”
She deftly darted into the room and closed the door behind her before he could follow. She quickly made her way to Alfred and handed him a handkerchief from her coat pocket.
“You’re responsible for him. Remember that!” Joel shouted from the other side of the door. Hard stomps and a slammed door told of his exit.
“There’s some water on the table when you think you’re able to swallow something down,” Dr. Lambart said. The accent sent a rush through him that had nothing to do with his condition.
Alfred took a few shuddering breaths before he reached for the glass. It was an actual glass, not the plastic bottles he’d been given in the cell. And it was on a nightstand, something he hadn’t had while in there. His only furniture had been a cot built into the wall and floor. He was afraid there was some trick. They were only being civilized with him b
efore they put him out of his misery.
His wolf whined in his head again. He made the token effort of shifting, but knew it would be of no use. His doses were too regular, and he didn’t think they’d slip up just because he was coughing up blood. “What’s wrong with me?”
He hated to ask the question. It put them at the advantage. They could withhold the information just to torment him, or make up some wild lie. Dr. Lambart met his eyes. He thought he saw a spark of sorrow in the green.
“First the good news. You kept your human form all through the night.”
He kept a still face. When she hesitated, he knew she was expecting some sort of thrill from him. He still didn’t understand that. He’d howled at them that he wanted to shift. She insisted it was an infection, something to cure. He might as well cure himself from being a man, for all the difference it made. He was a man, and a wolf. There was nothing to cure.
“The stress of it, however, sent your body into a state of shock. I gave you an IV of adrenaline. Your body heals remarkably fast, by the way. I apologize if you felt the needle coming out at all. Your skin healed around it.” She tilted her head toward his arm.
He rubbed at his inner elbow. It was sore, which must be what she was talking about. “Why am I coughing up blood, then?”
A shadow of worry crossed her face. “That’s what I’m going to solve. There obviously are some side effects that I didn’t expect. We have this month to research it.”
He knew it was too much to expect being cleared and sent on his way. He buried hope in the dark pit of his mind, right next to his wolf. He’d likely never leave the base alive.
“Don’t worry, Alfred. I’m going to cure you.”
He hated how genuine she sounded. He took another sip of his water and tried to think of something to say. She never stayed close this long, and the lavender smell was overwhelming. “How did I get here?”
She grinned, but wiped it away a moment later. “Just a small victory. I ordered my guards to bring you to my home after it was obvious you weren’t in danger of transforming. You needed more monitoring than I trust them to give you in the clink.”
Cutthroat City Wolves Volume 1: BBW Werewolf Shifter Paranormal Romance Page 13