He loaded her bag into his pickup truck, repowered the scrying spell he had already cast that morning, and they were on their way. Neither of them spoke for a long time.
“So,” Madison said after the silence between them had gone on for an uncomfortable length of time. “You never really said what Clara told you.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“All right, then.” Madison looked out the window.
Scott cursed, softly. He was being a jerk to her. He just wasn’t used to sharing so much with anyone. As the pack alpha, he normally stood alone. Briefly, and without mentioning the methods he had used to extract the information, he told her what he had learned.
“You have a blood trace on her? Where is she now?”
“Heading for St. Louis, I think. It would be a good place to ditch that transmitter she mentioned, assuming it’s there.”
“You don’t believe her?”
“I believe there’s a lot more to this than what she’s telling, and probably a lot more than she knows. My instincts tell me she’s telling the truth to a point, but only to a point.”
“Why didn’t you just ask her where the lab was?”
Scott grimaced. The truth was that after he’d learned of the danger to his wolves, he had single-mindedly pushed the threat out the door without considering what else he might have learned from her. Stupid. Reckless. But he couldn’t change the past, all he could do was move forward.
“It may come to that,” he said, “but I’d like to follow her first and see what she does. Like I said, I don’t trust this situation. Something doesn’t feel right, and until I know more, I don’t want to rush into anything.”
“You know, I was thinking.” Madison took a deep breath, a sure sign he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “If she was telling the truth about all of it, then maybe she’s never really had a chance. You know, she didn’t get bitten in the wild, didn’t belong to a pack, didn’t have anyone to teach her anything.”
“She killed two people Sunday night.”
“I know. Believe me, I know. But I mean, I’ve been reading the news carefully at the full moon for a long time now.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “No one’s died from a werewolf attack in all that time, unless you’ve covered it up.”
“I haven’t. There hasn’t been a werewolf fatality in my territory since that boy I told you about, ten years ago.” Aside from Clinton, no one had been bitten in that time, either. He had strict rules about biting humans, even humans who claimed to want to be bitten. He wouldn’t do it, and he wouldn’t let a member of his pack do it. They all grumbled and complained that the pack would grow old and unable to compete, but they’d gotten enough new, young additions petitioning to join from neighboring territories that it hadn’t been the case, and Scott didn’t believe it would be.
“Well, see, you’ve managed to do something to help your pack stay sane at the full moon. How many other packs haven’t had a fatality in ten years?”
Scott didn’t answer. It wasn’t as if they had national meetings and kept stats on these things, but he did know the alphas whose territories bordered his, and none of them could report a decade’s clean slate. Jeff was close, with only one fatality, and that caused by a new recruit who went bad and had to be put down. It was why Scott didn’t do new recruits. One fatality was one too many.
“None of them, right?” Madison guessed. “Maybe you can help her. Maybe that’s all she needs.”
“She attacked your brother, why do you want to defend her?”
Madison bit her lower lip, which hadn’t quite healed from her earlier harsh treatment of it. A small dot of blood had formed there, and it was more than he could stand. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel and one eye on the open expanse of interstate before him, Scott touched her jaw with a single finger, stroking downward to urge her to release her poor, tortured lip. Her skin felt like silk, and the single touch shot through him like an electric shock.
He shouldn’t have done it. He tensed for her reaction, for the fear he was sure he would smell, but it didn’t come. She didn’t pull away, and though she trembled slightly, she didn’t smell like fear. She smelled like something far more dangerous.
That sizzle had not been all one direction. He was suddenly sure of it. Scott pulled his finger away as if it had been burned. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything.
“It’s a bad habit,” Madison said in a softer than usual voice. “I’ve tried to stop it, but another bad habit just comes along and takes its place.” She held out her hands to show him the chewed fingernails.
He’d already noticed the nails; he knew most of her bad habits, he just didn’t care. She was more than a collection of nervous ticks, more than she knew. Didn’t the fact that she was here at all prove it? She was all softness and loyalty, the kind of woman a man wanted to protect.
Even from himself.
“So why do you want to save Clara?” Scott asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want you to have to kill her.” Her answer surprised him, and he wasn’t often surprised. It was sweet, but as much as he’d hated her fear of him, that was closer to the truth. He couldn’t let her romanticize him either.
“I can handle it. I’ve done it before.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think it hurts you every time.”
He growled, not caring when he saw her slight flinch. She didn’t understand. Damn it, this was what came of spending too much time with her. She was getting some idiotic notion in her head that he was a good person, just misunderstood. The whole damn world had been romanticizing monsters lately. He’d seen the books with noble vampires and tame werewolves. He hadn’t read them; they disgusted him, but some of his pack members had. They laughed about it, but they didn’t see the danger. Scott suddenly found himself wondering if Madison had read any of those books.
The term werewolf was a misnomer. It gave the impression that what he turned into at the full moon was something like a wolf, which was probably why the world was so full of romanticized versions of noble creatures that shifted between man and animal. The monstrous form of the true werewolf, which thankfully only came out at the full moon, wasn’t like anything else on earth. Scott supposed it could be mistaken for a wolf from a distance, especially by sheepherders who feared wolf attacks above all other things. Maybe that’s where the term had originated.
“Let’s get one thing straight: I’m a killer. You of all people should know that.”
“I do. But-oh, never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“This is important,” Scott said. “I need you to get it. Not just know it up here.” He pointed to his head. “But to really feel it in here.” He thumped his chest. “I’m a killer.”
“Then how is Clara any different?”
Scott opened his mouth, then shut it again. She wasn’t, damn it. He knew she wasn’t. Didn’t he have the blood of an innocent on his own hands? It never went away. The only difference between him and Clara was that there hadn’t been anyone strong enough to put him down.
Chapter 8
CLARA DIDN’T STOP IN ST. LOUIS; she headed east into Illinois. Scott knew Jeff, the alpha whose territory covered northeastern Missouri, reaching as far south as the Gateway City, well enough that he hadn’t been concerned about intruding. A quick phone call to Jeff smoothed things over. The other alpha politely asked if he could help, Scott turned him down, end of story.
He was less confident when Clara entered Isaac’s territory. For one thing, Isaac was new to his position, having just wrested control from his father. Isaac had killed his father during the power struggle, which didn’t endear him to Scott. Isaac was twenty-five, had volunteered for the bite at age eighteen, and he was the only one of his four brothers and sisters to have survived to wolfhood. Reports from other nearby alphas made him out to be a bit of a loose cannon, and there were concerns that he was about to get himself noticed. No one had mentioned intervention yet,
but it could happen when an alpha got out of control. Any given alpha was largely responsible for his own pack, but he also had to consider the implications if the existence of their species became common knowledge. For example, someone might set up a secret government lab in which they ran experiments on werewolves.
Maybe it had been bound to happen. It was hard to keep such a big secret indefinitely, especially in the modern era of global communications and fewer forests. There were somewhere between thirty and forty packs across the continental US, most of them far from the big cities. The Great Plains were pretty empty of werewolf activity as well. In fact, Scott’s nearest neighbor to the west was in Colorado, and neither alpha tried to claim Kansas.
Scott didn’t want to have to deal with Isaac, but he had no choice. With luck Clara would simply pass through his territory without stopping, but even if she did, he had to notify the other alpha of his presence in his territory. It was only polite.
He waited until the last possible minute, when he was sure Clara had taken the bridge across the Mississippi into Illinois. By that time, he was scarcely ten miles behind her, which wasn’t a lot of notice to give another pack leader.
He made the call.
“Yo. Isaac here.”
“Hello, this is Scott Lee. We met a few years ago during the North American Alpha Convention.”
“Yeah, sure. You’re in southwestern Missouri.”
Scott managed not to growl, but barely. He was in southeastern Missouri as well, a fact Isaac would have been well aware of since his territory bordered Scott’s. The fact that Scott’s pack almost exclusively used a patch of woods in southwestern Missouri didn’t eliminate his claim on the rest of the territory. Most wolves settled in a small area, using the rest of their territory as a sort of buffer. To do otherwise would make their existence far too noticeable.
“I’m in St. Louis right now, passing through Jeff’s territory. I’m tracking a loner who just crossed the bridge.”
There was a distinctive growl on the other end of the line. Not a good sign. He was posturing. Somehow, Scott didn’t think he would get a polite pass and an offer of help this time around.
“I would like to continue tracking her,” Scott said, “with your permission, of course.”
Isaac didn’t answer right away. Another bad sign. “How are you tracking him? Do you have a visual?”
Scott wasn’t about to share any of his secrets. “I have her bugged.”
“Really? Smooth. Then you don’t have to come into my territory. You can just tell me where she goes and let me take care of it.”
“I don’t want her taken care of, I want to know what she’s up to. And there’s no guarantee she’ll stop in your territory.”
“Unfortunately, your authority stops at your border. You should have nabbed her before she left.”
Scott did growl this time. “There are special circumstances you don’t understand and I don’t have time to tell you about.”
“That’s too bad, because if you set a toe inside my territory without my permission, I’ll have to kill you.”
Scott didn’t doubt his ability to take on the pup, but he didn’t want to extend his territory so far, or take charge of another pack. It was a mark of his agitation that he seriously considered challenging the pup anyway, perhaps training one of his underlings to take over the pack afterward.
“Look,” Isaac said, “just tell me what the big deal is. I can help you.”
“I doubt it.” Scott tensed when he felt a warm hand settle on his forearm. He turned to see Madison staring at him with concern shining in her big brown eyes, offering him her support.
“All right, look,” Scott said. “How about this? If she stops inside your territory, you and I can sit down and have a nice heart to heart. If she just passes through, then you let me pass through and the next alpha can deal with it.”
Isaac paused for only a moment to consider. “Fine. I expect a call either way.”
“Sure.” Scott hung up without saying good-bye.
“What was that about?” Madison asked.
“Hot-headed pup leading the Illinois wolves wants to play games with me. With luck, Clara won’t stop in his territory.”
* * *
Luck, it seemed, was not with them. Clara stopped in mid-afternoon at a seedy motel in Springfield.
“Damn,” Scott said.
Madison felt the same way, but she didn’t vocalize her feelings. She had not gotten a good feeling about his phone call with the local alpha. Plus, there was one other thing bothering her.
“Why Springfield?” Madison asked. “She was staying in Springfield, Missouri, and she goes to Springfield, Illinois. Is that weird?”
“Maybe. Could be a coincidence. Or she likes the name.”
Madison didn’t think so, and from the tone of Scott’s voice, neither did he.
“All right, here’s what we’ll do,” Scott said as he pulled into the parking lot of the same seedy motel Clara had checked into. “I’m going to get us a room, then I’m going to set up a meeting with Isaac.”
“Don’t you mean two rooms?” Madison asked.
“No.” Scott didn’t explain himself, and the finality in his tone kept Madison from asking after his reasons.
The idea of sharing a hotel room with Scott made her feel strange. Not exactly afraid, although certainly anxious and very, very... strange. Ever since her flashback that morning, he had begun looking at her with even more intensity than before. So much intensity that if she didn’t know better, she’d think he had some kind of interest in her. She’d thought so once before and been wrong, but this time it was more pronounced. It wasn’t just in the way he looked at her either, but in the way he’d held her and even in the way he’d scared her. There had been desperation in his bid to leave her behind where she would be safe.
She sat in the truck while the subject of her musings ducked into the tiny motel office, coming back a few minutes later with two actual metal keys, as opposed to the key cards most places used these days. Their room was on the opposite side of the motel from Clara’s, and, Madison was mostly relieved to see, it contained two double beds.
Scott put in the necessary call to the local alpha while Madison refreshed herself in the dingy bathroom. When she emerged, Scott had his dangerous face back on, but the tiny tremor of fear she felt evaporated when she reminded herself that the expression wasn’t for her.
“I’m meeting Isaac in a little over an hour in Bloomington.”
“How far is that from here?” Madison asked, trying not to sound worried at the possible distance between them.
“Too far,” Scott replied. “Over an hour. I want you to stay here, keep the door locked, and only answer it for me.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Scott arched an eyebrow. “Can you?”
Madison hesitated, but she supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything to show Scott that she hadn’t come completely unprepared. Walking to the table where she had set her duffel, she unzipped a side compartment, and pulled out a .22 caliber handgun.
Scott growled. “Put that away.”
“I know how to use it. I’ve been practicing.”
“How well, Madison? Because if you’re aiming at a wolf, you’d better get him through the heart or through the eye. He might heal from anything else.”
She felt suddenly cold. Could she be that accurate? During target practice, she usually hit the bullseye seven or eight times out of ten, but that was under ideal conditions.
“Target practice isn’t the same as the real world,” Scott said, as if reading her mind. “Besides, a .22 doesn’t pack a lot of punch. Even if you aim it right, it might not work out.”
“How else can I protect myself?”
“You should be safe if you stay here and don’t answer the door. Isaac doesn’t know where we are.”
“Are you sure?”
He hesitated. “I’m sure I can’t take you with me.”
“
I don’t want to go.”
“Have you ever tried using your voice as a weapon?” Scott asked.
Madison blanched, remembering her father’s warnings about her singing ability with sudden renewed clarity. Singing is the devil’s gift. You want to go the same way as your mother?
That was before she’d even realized that her voice could influence a listener’s emotions. Since then, she had been careful only to use it to make people feel good. And sometimes to make her class pay attention.
“I don’t think it’s something I’d want to try for the first time in a life or death situation,” Madison finally said, noncommittally.
“In that case, we’ll practice when I get back. You can use your gift on me.”
“Oh.” That hadn’t been exactly what she’d meant.
“The only thing standing between you and real power is confidence,” Scott said.
“Hm.” What else could she say? She had never thought of herself as a powerful person, and hearing it now, the label didn’t want to stick.
“Look at me,” Scott said. She looked up and there for a moment she saw something reflected in his green eyes, a reflection of herself that really was stronger than she thought she was.
“Do you need anything before I go?” Scott asked. “Some snacks from the vending machine, maybe?”
“A bottle of water would be nice. I don’t think I’d trust anything that came out of that sink.”
Scott glanced at the sink, then nodded. He disappeared around the corner, returning a few minutes later with a bottle of water, a bag of chips, and a package of chocolate donuts. Madison tried not to groan, because he was just being nice, but he had brought her downfall – junk food – at a time when she would be feeling more anxious than usual.
“I’ll be back before dark,” Scott said, then left her alone with nothing to occupy her save a battered old TV and the package of donuts.
Madison waited until he had closed the door, then slid the chain in for a little extra protection. No use taking any chances. She wasn’t stupid, even if she did have to wonder about her sanity for traveling across the country with Scott. Forcing him to take her, more like.
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