The Road to Wolfe (The Sanctuary Series Book 4)

by Nikita Slater

  "What?" I ask, throwing him a look over my shoulder as I drag my leather pants on underneath his giant shirt. Instead of changing the shirt, I tuck the tails into the pants and reach for my leather vest.

  "Harem girl."

  I'm starting to get annoyed at Wolfe’s demands over what I should and shouldn't call myself and what I should and shouldn't say. Earlier he told me not to be crude about our physical relationship. Now he's telling me not to call myself a harem girl. There are a few things this man needs to understand about me.

  "I'm not being derogatory toward myself when I use that term," I explain to him, my voice sharp with annoyance. "I learned from my time in the harem that the women there had a great deal of power if they knew how to harness and use it. I’m proud of the growth I experienced in the harem. Some of those lessons are still with me. When I say harem girl, I say it with pride."

  At first, Wolfe says nothing. He seems to process my words. I expect him to argue with me, to insist that his word is law and I can no longer use that term. Part of me thinks it's because the reminder of my time in the harem is a reminder that I was once married to the Warlord of this palace.

  He surprises me though by agreeing. "It takes a lot of strength to embrace a role that must’ve been difficult for you. I admire your perseverance in the harem, just as I admire you now."

  I'm taken aback by his words and I stop what I’m doing to look at him, searching his face for humour. As always, I only see his usual deadly blank expression. I don't think he's just talking about my time in the harem, but also his intention that I become Warlord. The role he wishes I would accept and embrace.

  "I'm ready," I say quietly.

  Together we leave the palace, choosing to walk instead of taking a vehicle since the laboratory is only a ten-minute walk away. Hannah and Kingston meet us on the street and walk with us. The streets are silent, bathed in the murky glow of a crescent moon.

  "What's going on?" Wolfe asks, his voice hard.

  Hannah shakes her head. "You need to see for yourselves. I might be wrong… I hope I'm wrong."

  "About what?" I ask.

  "You'll see in a minute."

  Now I'm deeply curious and concerned. Hannah isn’t usually this reticent. Though she's changed over the past year, her experiences with the Primitive attacks on Santa Fe having left deep scars, I hadn't noticed a major change in her personality that would lead her to act coy with us.

  Dr. Summers meets us at the door of the laboratory. Her face is pale and drawn and she's clutching a notebook.

  As we walk into the laboratory with her, I whisper, "You look tired. You didn't need to start work tonight. You could've waited till tomorrow."

  She gives me a wan smile. "I probably should have, but I guess I feel it's my duty to get to work on this right away. I was still working anyway, when my Primitive packages arrived. I had a rush of sick patients needing to see me."

  I look at her sharply. "More than normal?"

  She thinks about it and then shrugs. "I’m not sure. It could be anything, from a mild cold, to well-water poisoning, to flu. I need to do more research."

  A shudder goes through me. The flu is an enemy almost bigger than the Primitive pandemic. Flu will wipe us out just as fast. Too many of us have seen that nightmare unfold in other Sanctuary cities. An echo of my sister’s words during the radio call hits me and I make a mental note to talk to Wolfe about the possibility of flu in our Sanctuary.

  Before we can say anything else, Dr. Summers points toward the back wall. A solid sheet of shatterproof glass has been installed and on the other side the three zombies we captured. One is sitting huddled in the corner, his stringy hair clinging to his head and shoulders as he rocks back and forth. Another paces the room, letting out shrieks of anger that are muffled by the glass. The third zombie is standing directly in front of the glass, her eerie gaze zeroing in on us and following our every move. She looks hungry.

  Dr. Summers waves us toward the glass, and as we approach, the female zombie’s eyes light up and her lips peel back in a grimace. Strings of saliva drip off her sharpened teeth, down her chin and onto the floor.

  I stare at her teeth as I draw closer, realizing that they’ve been sharpened unnaturally. She must've done it to herself at some point, which means she must've realized that sharper teeth would help her hunt better. Higher-level thinking. Exactly as we suspected them capable of.

  "Her teeth," I say, amazement in my voice.

  "I know!" Dr. Summers says excitedly, switching from completely drained to excited about her new project. "This is a very exciting new development. The other two have had the same thing done to their teeth, which means that they must communicate in some way to pass on the knowledge of how to hunt."

  "Is this why we're here?" Wolfe asks, his grumpy voice making it clear we didn’t need to be woken up for this.

  Hannah speaks up. "No. You're here to examine one of the Primitives."

  "Which one?" Wolfe demands.

  Hannah points to the male sitting in the corner rocking. "That one." Her hand is shaking, and she quickly steps away from the glass, as though unable to stand such close proximity to the Primitives.

  I look closely at the huddled form, taking in his size and shape. He’s not a large creature, but not small either. Somewhat frail looking from what I can tell. His arms are long and thin and so are his legs. His clothes hang in dirty rags over his limbs.

  I glance over at Hannah. "What am I looking at?"

  "His face," she whispers.

  We can't see the zombie’s face from the way he’s sitting with his head tipped forward against his knees. Wolfe bangs on the glass. All three zombies immediately look toward us, their eyes sharpening and their lips pulling back automatically. The zombie in the corner lurches to his feet, becoming aware that there are humans nearby. Wolfe bangs on the glass again and the zombie plunges toward us, slamming his hands into the thick glass and shrieking.

  Both Hannah and Dr. Summers jump away from the glass, but Wolfe and I remain. In fact, I step even closer to the glass, taking in each and every feature of the zombie. Its nose seems to have been scraped clear off, only two breathing holes left in his face. Something, a piece of wood, or metal, has been jabbed through his cheek and jaw. His neck has been pierced, too. He’s so covered in filth it takes me a moment to realize that he looks familiar.

  I lift my hands to the glass and squint at him, searching every feature, trying to get past the damage done after he would've turned, to see the man beneath. Finally, it hits me, and I let out a loud gasp.

  "Silas!"

  Thirty-Two

  "It can't be," I whisper to myself.

  Yet, as my eyes trace the ravaged features of the snarling, hideous creature on the other side of the glass, his familiarity is undeniable.

  "It's him." Hannah comes to stand next to me, so close that our shoulders touch.

  I glance at her face and realize she's experiencing the same emotions as I am. Our husband, a man who we both thought dead, has come back from the grave. The moment is heart wrenching, but there's a glimmer of hope. He’s been brought here as a Primitive so that our Sanctuary can work on a potential cure.

  "How is this possible?" I glance at Dr. Summers. "He had a neuroblastoma, a tumor that would have been fatal within weeks of the attacks if the Primitives hadn’t gotten him. How is it possible that he’s still alive?"

  Dr. Summers shakes her head and gives me a steady look. "We have almost no understanding of Primitive physiology. Perhaps his tumor shrunk on its own. Or, more likely, something about the Turn either stopped the tumor in its tracks or killed it entirely. Tumors are made up of live cells and when a body goes through the Turn, it essentially dies. This is why humans like to borrow from legend and call them zombies. The living dead."

  I continue to look steadily at the face of a husband I thought dead as he slams his fist angrily into the glass and snarls at me, determined to murder and eat me where I stand. This is not the Sila
s I remember.

  "If we can somehow treat him, what would it mean? Would he still have a tumor?"

  Before Dr. Summers can answer Wolfe says sharply, "It."

  I glance over at him startled. "What?"

  Though Wolfe’s expression is smooth, I can feel the tension in his body. His gaze is steady on mine. "This is not Silas. This is not a man. This is a zombie."

  Heat rises to my face and I bite my tongue so I don't snap at him. I remind myself that Wolfe wants to take me for his wife. He wants me to become Warlord of this Sanctuary, to rule over it with him at my side. In his mind, he's painted a pretty picture of the two of us holding court over a perfectly functioning city. Having Silas back changes everything. It means I'm still married, and the original Warlord of the Santa Fe Sanctuary is once more standing before us.

  I glance at Silas who has now fallen into an almost trancelike state. His head is tilted to the side and slightly forward, his long greasy hair flopping in his face, his shoulders down and his hands at his sides. My husband but also not. I can barely wrap my mind around what this means.

  "I hate to crash any hopes you might have," Dr. Summers says quietly, stepping up to me and Hannah and touching each of us on the shoulder. She knows that we are the two in this room that are affected most by Silas's sudden appearance. "But this man is not your husband. Warlord Silas died a long time ago and the possibility of bringing him back is extraordinarily slim. I asked for you to bring me live Primitives to study. It was never my intention to cure the subjects that you brought me, but to use them while I search for a treatment."

  "But those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive." This from Hannah, whose face is twisted in grief. An answering grief rises up, piercing my heart with a sharp pain. "Why can't you use him for study and still keep him alive? Once the cure is found… you could…"

  Her voice trails off as tears start to leak from her eyes. She lifts a hand and touches it over the glass where Silas's face is on the other side.

  Silas jerks to life and slams himself against the window, his face hitting with such force that his cheek bursts open and blood pours down his face. Hannah cries out and jumps back. I envelop her in my arms as she hits me and I hold her while she cries.

  Dr. Summers doesn't answer Hannah’s question. She doesn't need to. The likelihood of us being able to change Silas back to his original condition, zombie free and tumor free, is an impossible dream. It won't happen. Perhaps it will take Hannah time to see the logic.

  "We should go," I say over top of Hannah's head, my gaze meeting Wolfe’s. "We're just upsetting him, causing him to hurt himself."

  Wolfe's gaze becomes glacial. Probably at my repeated use of the word him instead of it. I don't care, I refuse to call Silas by anything other than his name.

  "I'll be back tomorrow," I say to Dr. Summers.

  Wolfe shakes his head, wraps his hand around my arm and tugs me against his side, out of Hannah's embrace. "From now on, you'll stay out of the lab."

  "Don't be ridiculous," I say sharply, frowning up at Wolfe. "I'll need to speak with Dr. Summers about her project on a regular basis."

  "You will not come here again." Wolfe’s voice is hard and final as he tugs me from the lab without a backwards glance at any of the others. I’m shocked that he’s allowing jealousy to cloud his good sense. It’s not like him.

  As we walk swiftly back toward the palace, the light of dawn begins to make its way across the landscape. I shake my head to clear it and breathe in the fresh early morning air. Dew, dust and a combination of concrete and nature.

  "Are you jealous of a zombie?" I ask Wolfe, an edge of humour in my voice. He’s very rarely unreasonable, so it seems funny to me that he knows full well my presence is required in the lab and he’s attempting to refuse me entry. It's my job to okay the flow of supplies, labour and research. Dr. Summers needs me to be available to her.

  "You humanized it."

  Wolfe doesn't answer my question, but I understand what he's saying. In my eyes, that zombie is my husband, not a dead creature who will be sacrificed in our pursuit of the cure.

  Instead of arguing with Wolfe, I ask him, "If I had been bitten a year ago and you found me living as a zombie, what would you do? If I was capable of turning, I mean. Would you kill me?"

  Wolfe takes my questions very seriously. He stops in his tracks and turns me around to face him, reaching to grip my head and tilt it up to his. His expression is fierce, his eye narrowed on my face. He doesn't say anything at first but looks down at me as though attempting to form an answer based on what he sees in my face.

  Finally, he says, "No, I wouldn't kill you."

  Now I'm curious. We’re no longer talking about Silas, because I know that, if given the chance, Wolfe would probably remove the Silas zombie permanently.

  "What would you do with me?" I whisper.

  His breathing becomes heavier, his hands tightening on my face. "I would do everything in my power to keep you alive until a cure was found."

  I'm surprised by his answer. Wolfe doesn't believe that a cure is possible and only tolerates the presence of the lab in our Sanctuary. Yet, for me, he would wait for a cure. The concept would be romantic if it weren't for the fact that I'd have to be a zombie in this scenario.

  "Yet, you won't allow hope for a cure for Silas."

  He stands silent for a long moment, then says in a grim voice, "I’m not in love with Silas."

  My heart freezes in my chest. We’re standing in the middle of the road, surrounded by buildings overgrown with shrubbery, the early light of dawn peeking over the mountains to shine down on us. Wolfe has just confessed his love and I have no idea what to do with it. Of course, I'm in love with him too. I have been for a long time. Probably far longer than I'm willing to admit to either him or myself. But I'm not ready to repeat the words back to him. I've only ever spoken them to my family. Not even to Silas. As much as I'd cared for him, I'd never been sure that I actually loved him, so the words had remained locked up inside.

  I can’t return his beautiful gut-wrenching words of love. Not yet. But I’m curious about something else. "What would you do if I died before a cure was found?"

  Of course, the point is moot, because I can't turn into a Primitive. The bite doesn't affect me. My blood contains a special agent that prevents me from catching Necrotitis Primeval. Still, I want to know what he would do if I died.

  This time Wolfe speaks without pause. "I would hunt down every person or Primitive responsible for your death and then I would kill myself."

  "No," I gasp, a sharp pain hitting me. Sharper than what I'd felt when I was looking at Silas in the lab. "You can't kill yourself. Not ever. Don’t ever say that again."

  I don't know why it's so important to me, and I’m not ready to look too closely at my feelings for this man. But the feelings exist whether I want to examine them or not. I can’t deal with the thought of Wolfe dying. His strength, his determination, his protectiveness… gone.

  "Promise me you’ll never hurt yourself because of me," I demand, swiping angrily at my tears.

  Still gripping my face, he bends to me and molds his lips to mine in a desperate kiss. There is no passion, no romance to it, just survival.

  Without another word he takes me back to the palace.

  Thirty-Three

  "Hit me."

  We all look at Hannah, whose expression is a combination of deadly serious and excited. Tabitha sighs deeply and rolls her eyes. "You have to wait your turn."

  My lips twitch at the crestfallen look on Hannah’s face. She tosses her cards down with a huff, crosses her arms and waits impatiently for her turn. Even if she’s slightly annoyed that it’s not her turn, it’s good to see Hannah having fun again. She’s been far too quiet and serious since I moved back to Sanctuary. The past year has taken its toll on her.

  It’s taken a toll on all of us. My gaze travels the table, lingering on the faces of the women who have been diligently helping me put Sanctuary bac
k together again. We’re a ragtag group, different ages, sexual orientations and races, but we’re damn good at what we do.

  "I got shit for cards," Christine sighs, and drops her hand on the table dramatically.

  I smirk into my drink before taking a healthy sip of the corn wine Christine brought for the group. It’s actually pretty good. It tastes like honey, and after two glasses, I’m starting to feel a little tipsy.

  "Bullshit," Tabitha counters without looking up. "Christy has the best poker face. She’ll bury us all."

  I laugh and when my turn comes, I toss a card on the discard pile and hit the table. Dolly, our dealer this round, tosses me another card. Holding it close to my chest I peek at it. It’s a five of spades. I’ve now got a pair of fives, a par of jacks and an ace. Two pair. I glance around again, trying to determine who has what. Anita folded at the beginning of the game and is leaning back in her chair, a hand rolled cigar in her mouth and a pleasant expression on her face.

  "Your turn, Hannah," Dolly says, looking expectantly at Hannah, who’s sitting on my left.

  "No, thanks," Hannah chirps, clinging to her cards.

  "No, thanks, what?" Tabitha growls in annoyance, her patience thinning with the people who are new to the game.

  Hannah looks at Tabitha, taken aback and slightly offended by her tone. Tabitha sticks her tongue out and we all laugh at the exchange.

  "No thanks, I don’t want any more cards," Hannah says primly.

  "But you just asked for another one before Skye’s turn!" Tabitha explodes throwing up her arms.

  "I did not," Hannah says, now completely offended.

  It takes Dolly a minute to speak, she’s laughing so hard, but finally she straightens out the misunderstanding. "The term ‘hit me’ means you want another card."

  "Oooooh," Hannah says, smacking her head. Then she says brightly, "Hit me."

  Tabitha snaps something about grabbing snacks, shoves her chair back and leaves the room. Hannah watches her retreating back with a bewildered expression. “What did I do?”