Madison sank down onto the bed furthest from the door and idly started flipping channels on the TV. This was the trouble with summer. No matter how she tried to fill her time, she still seemed to have too much leftover to dwell upon her life.
Strangely, though she had dealt with death, betrayal, fear, and loss, it was the loneliness that bothered her more than anything else. She had told Scott that she was doing better, and that was true. She had a job she liked, and she had given herself permission to sing, but she still had regrets. Losing her fiancé had been more of a relief than anything else, after the shock wore off, because she had agreed to marry him for all the wrong reasons. The loss of her unborn child, on the other hand, still stung.
She wanted a baby so badly it hurt, but first she needed a husband, and she didn’t see how she would manage to attract one of those as long as she hid behind shyness and extra weight.
They’re real problems, she told herself again. She needed to diet. She needed to exercise. She needed to reveal more of herself to other people so they would be able to see the real her.
She needed that package of donuts.
Five minutes later, the donuts were gone, but her problems remained. And then, another problem came along, this one far more immediate: Someone outside was rattling the doorknob.
She froze, straining her senses, but it couldn’t be Scott. It was too soon and besides, she didn’t hear the scraping of a key in the lock. No, someone else was out there, but who? If she looked out the curtained front window she could find out, but whoever it was would see her as well.
The next second, the decision was taken out of her hands. She let out a tiny squeal when someone – or something – slammed against the door and it splintered. Two more thuds and the door flew open, ripping the useless chain free as it slammed hard against the opposite wall.
Two men stood framed in the entryway, both young, probably around twenty. They were of average height, lean and fit, as if they worked out. They wore jeans and t-shirts, one black, one green, and she knew – just knew – they were both werewolves.
Her pulse raced, and she began to sweat. It wasn’t the full moon, but these two were dangerous. They had just proved it by making mincemeat of the door.
She scrambled for the phone, but one of them saw her intention and intercepted her, twisting her wrist painfully until the phone fell from her fingers.
“Well, well. What have we here?” asked the man who was not holding her wrist. Green Shirt, she called him in her mind, since he otherwise looked enough like his friend that they could have been twins. Or at least brothers. He smiled the wolf’s smile. She could practically see his canines. “Scott didn’t say anything about bringing along a snack.”
Madison tried to twist her arm away, but the second man, the one wearing the black shirt, didn’t let go.
“Think I should call Isaac?” Green Shirt asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Black Shirt replied, his eyes roaming freely over Madison’s body. “Maybe we could play with her first.”
Play with her? Madison redoubled her efforts to free herself, even knowing how useless the gesture would be. Think, Madison, think. Don’t let the fear take over.
“I dunno,” Green Shirt said. “What if she belongs to the alpha? He might get pretty pissed off.”
“Isaac can take him,” Black Shirt replied. He grabbed Madison’s other wrist, then adjusted his grip so that he held both of her wrists in one large hand. Yanking them over her head, he used his free hand to fondle her breasts through her shirt.
Madison reeled, kicking out with both feet, one thought clear in her mind: This can’t happen. It didn’t matter that the man holding her wasn’t really a man at all, but a werewolf. It didn’t matter that he could probably overwhelm her physically even without his supernatural strength. This can’t happen.
The resolve outweighed her fear. The fear didn’t die or even diminish, but it didn’t rule her.
When Black Shirt tried to touch her again, she leaned forward, found a bit of skin just above his elbow, and sank her teeth in – hard. She didn’t hold back and didn’t let go, not even when she tasted blood.
“Bitch!” Black Shirt yelped. He had to let go of her hands to free himself, and she used the opportunity to twist away, heading for the open motel room door.
Green Shirt intercepted her, imprisoning her within the iron bands of his arms. His partner stood, snarling at Madison, then approached, his eyes full of all the terrible things he wanted to do to her.
To her surprise, Green Shirt pulled her away from his partner in crime. “No way, man. Isaac may be able to take that other alpha, but you can’t take either one of them, and you may have to if you mess her up without Isaac’s say so.”
“She bit me!”
“I bet you taste awful, too,” Green Shirt replied.
“Fuck you.”
“You gonna call Isaac or am I?” Green Shirt asked, ignoring the insult.
“I’ll do it. If I get my hands on the little mouse, I may have to kill her.”
“Only if she doesn’t kill you first.”
“Oh, you’re on. You. Me. Next full moon.”
“Bring it.”
The two young men stared at one another for a long minute, but though Green Shirt kept his attention on his packmate, he didn’t loosen his hold on Madison in the slightest. She struggled, feebly, but under the circumstances she thought that if these two weren’t going to kill or rape her now, then she might have a better opportunity for escape later. The more harmless they thought she was until then, the better.
It would have been a brilliant plan, she thought, if she really wasn’t quite so harmless. Even the mark she’d put on Black Shirt’s arm had begun its rapid healing, and now looked more like an angry bruise than anything else.
When the two men stopped staring at each other, Black Shirt got on his cell and called the aforementioned Isaac. She could only hear one side of the conversation, but it didn’t sound good for her. In the end, when he hung up the phone, he looked at his partner and said the two words that sealed her fate: “Bring her.”
Chapter 9
THE ILLINOIS WEREWOLVES REMINDED SCOTT MORE of a gang than a pack, though perhaps the two concepts weren’t entirely dissimilar. They roamed wild. Human fatalities were a common occurrence, and new wolves regularly joined the pack, both willing and unwilling. As far as Scott could tell, the only thing keeping their numbers down was in-fighting.
Isaac lived in the far outskirts of Chicago, but he and Scott met at one of his pack member’s homes in Bloomington, taking him further from both Madison and his quarry than he liked. The modest two-story home was a bit ramshackle, as was its owner, a beefy forty-something wolf with his mate, also a wolf, and their three children, none of whom were old enough to turn.
Werewolves are bitten, not born. Many packs give their children the option to turn after their eighteenth birthday, but in Isaac’s pack, the word “option” seemed to need air quotes. Of the six werewolves he met at Isaac’s home, four of them had been “born wolves,” as they called it. The children of wolves were more likely to survive the bite, one of them claimed, so they had about a fifty-fifty chance of making it.
“How many wolves do you have?” Scott asked Isaac very casually when they finally had a chance to sit down alone in a small sun room off the back of the house.
“Trying to find out our weaknesses?” Isaac asked. “How many do you have?”
“Enough.” Scott had twenty wolves at the moment, spread throughout his territory. They all came together at the full moon to hunt on the forested lands he owned, miles from any town or living human. They had over six hundred acres to roam, a luxury not every pack could afford, though Scott considered it an absolute necessity.
“Then I would say the same,” Isaac said. “I have enough.”
“There have been a lot of werewolf killings since you took over,” Scott observed. “People may notice soon.”
“Why? We’re
good at making things disappear. Just one more missing person, as far as the humans are concerned.”
“They’re not completely stupid,” Scott said. “Do you even have a place to hunt, away from humans?”
“My father had a place. It’s mine now, but I don’t like the confinement.”
“Hm.” The kid needed to be taken down. Unfortunately, since he led his pack, that usually meant another alpha had to do it, or more likely a group of alphas. Scott had heard a few grumblings from Jeff, but nothing concrete. For his part, he had kept to his own territory, worrying about his own wolves exclusively. He loved his pack like family, but didn’t like getting involved in bigger werewolf issues.
Like it or not, though, this kid was a problem. He’d get them all noticed, and that might get them all killed.
“So tell me about this loner,” Isaac said. “If you know where she is, why not just kill her?”
“She’s not a normal loner.”
“Is there any such thing?”
“No,” Scott growled. Werewolves were social by nature, and in both of their forms. When one wanted to be alone, it was almost never a good thing, and there was no normal. They usually constituted a danger to those around them, and the packs feared them, which was why they were normally put down.
“She says she wasn’t bitten,” Scott said. “Says she was injected with werewolf saliva in a lab.”
Isaac’s eyes widened. “You believe her?”
“I don’t know what to believe, but something’s not right about her. It’s why I’m following her to see what she does. Dead wolves tell no tales.” Scott carefully didn’t mention his interest in finding Clinton. That had nothing to do with Isaac. He grudgingly conceded that if there were a laboratory somewhere doing research on wolves, then every alpha had a right to know.
“Where’s the lab?” Isaac asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
“So take her and ask her.”
“Might be harder than you think. She’s super strong. Too strong. I think they messed with her in some other ways.”
“So send in more guys.” Isaac shrugged. “Why are you making this so complicated? Come to think of it, how’d you learn all this stuff in the first place? Did you have her and let her go?”
Scott growled, deep and low. He didn’t like being questioned by this pup, especially since Scott knew he had acted more out of fear and expediency than anything else. He hadn’t wanted to put his wolves at risk by keeping her when someone would be able to track her. And it had been the full moon. He couldn’t kill her, because he still had to figure out what was going on. He could take her and ask her where the lab was, but if she hadn’t gotten rid of the transmitter yet, that put him and whatever wolves were in the area in danger.
It was more than that, though. His intuition was warning him against the direct approach, and while he didn’t consciously understand it – he rarely did – he didn’t question it. Clara was a hot potato, and he didn’t want to be caught holding her when the music stopped.
Looking at Isaac, though, his intuition was telling him something else: That he wasn’t going to get out of this territory without a fight.
“Where is the loner, anyway?” Isaac asked, far too casually.
“I’m still tracking her.”
“Right. The bug. You mentioned that. So you can tell us where she is.”
“Why would I do that?” Scott asked.
“Because when you’re in my territory, you defer to my leadership.”
This time when Scott growled, he reached for his quiet place, and let a bit of the magic fill him. He had it under tight control, but he wanted to have it on hand when the time came.
“Down, boy,” Isaac said. “You’re outnumbered and away from your home turf. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will.”
Yes, he was away from his home turf. He could feel it in the magic he drew. There wasn’t even a small node nearby from which he could draw extra power, so all the magic he could access came from within himself. Not that it would matter against Isaac and his crew; Scott’s own personal magic was considerable. In Eagle Rock it may only have been above average, but no one had magic here, and many didn’t know it existed. Not even the werewolves, who were creatures of magic themselves.
“This is my business,” Scott said. “If you’d like to help, I will consider the offer.”
“Are you seriously going to take on seven of us?” Isaac asked.
Scott hesitated for only a moment. Seven was a powerfully magical number. It might give them an edge, but since they didn’t know that, he could still have the advantage. Personally, he had always questioned whether or not the power of certain multiples was all in the mind, and if he rejected the idea, if it might not work at all. Today may be the day he had to put it to the test.
“I’ll take you all on and win if I have to,” Scott replied. He’d made a mistake coming here in the first place. He should have shown himself to Clara at the motel, scaring her into leaving town and hopefully, this territory. He saw it clearly now, in hindsight. If only his intuition worked a little more like prescience. It could be a powerful gift, but not that powerful.
Scott stood, preparing to leave, but he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. He could smell the two wolves standing right outside the door, and he knew the instant Isaac told them to restrain him.
He already had the power gathered around him. A few words, a little focus, and both wolves lay on the ground, fast asleep. Scott stepped over their inert forms dismissively, checking how much energy it had taken him to perform the task. Some. If he had been near his home node, one of the largest pools of natural magical energy in the world, he could put dozens of them to sleep with energy to spare, but here he already felt the depletion of his personal reserves. He could probably put all seven wolves to sleep if he had to, but it might be best if he could bluster his way out without having to do that.
“What the hell?” Isaac shouted from behind him. “Clyde! Joe! Get up!”
“They’ll be out for a few hours,” Scott said casually.
“What did you do to them?” Isaac asked.
“Pressure point,” Scott lied. Since he hadn’t touched either man, it was a bit of a stretch, but he often found that reality mattered little when one maintained a straight face and confident tone.
“You’re dead,” Isaac said. “You are no longer welcome in my territory, and your life is forfeit.”
“So I assumed.” Scott walked through a casual living room, heading for the front door. The other four wolves stood nearby, but none made a move.
Isaac would not be ignored. He charged into the living room after Scott. “Stop, damn you!”
“So you can kill me? I don’t think so.”
“I just want to know where the bitch is.”
“I’m sure you do.” Scott reached the front door and clasped the doorknob.
“You’ll tell me,” Isaac said, “if you want your little mouse back.”
Scott’s hand froze on the doorknob. He stared at his hand, clutching the tarnished brass, but he could barely see it through the rage that filled his vision. He didn’t growl. He didn’t make a sound, which to those who knew him would have sent off a clear alarm.
Isaac didn’t know him, though, so he kept right on digging his grave. “I had my wolves at your room looking for a transmitter or something, but instead they found this sweet little snack hiding out. Well, maybe not so little. Sounds like a real mouthful.”
Scott’s hand slipped from the doorknob and he turned, eyes locked on the pup who still didn’t realize that he was dead. The only question remaining, in Scott’s mind: Fast or slow? The answer would depend largely upon whether or not Madison had been hurt.
“I see I have your attention.” Isaac motioned for the other wolves to close ranks around him. “She’s someone you care about, isn’t she?”
Scott didn’t answer. What good did it do to talk to a dead man? Why resort to threats, when death was immine
nt? He could ask where Madison was, but Isaac wouldn’t tell him. Maybe if he had hours to torture the man he could get her location from him, but he didn’t trust Isaac’s wolves any more than he trusted the alpha himself. He wouldn’t leave Madison with them for hours.
“Is she your mate?” Isaac sneered as he asked the question. “Big bad wolf takes a little mouse as a mate? What’s wrong? Can’t handle a real bitch?”
“If you don’t want to die with your leader,” Scott said in a firm, even voice, “step back.”
Isaac laughed. So did two of the men and the one woman standing at his side. One man didn’t look as certain. He took a step away, narrowing his eyes, sizing up their adversary. He would be the one to watch.
Scott had never let go of the well of power within himself, and he still had the words of the sleep spell on his tongue. Casting it on the three laughing wolves by Isaac’s side would seriously weaken his magical reserves, but he thought he could take Isaac man to man.
No, it was more than that. He wanted to take Isaac man to man. Wolf to wolf. He wanted to feel Isaac’s bones crunch beneath his hands. He wanted to squeeze the life out of him and watch him struggle for breath.
Isaac didn’t know what a mate was, and even if he lived, he never would. He’d throw around the word, confusing mating with being a mate, but he’d never get it. There wasn’t enough true humanity within him to get it. Maybe he’d lost that humanity to the wolf, but more likely, he’d never had it in the first place. A werewolf in human form wasn’t possessed, after all; he simply had power and all the corruption that came with it.
Scott released the sleep spell in three different directions at once, using his peripheral vision to target the laughing horde still flanking Isaac. He didn’t take his eyes off the other alpha the entire time, though he did remain aware of the one man who had taken a step to the side, the one he hadn’t hit with the spell both because he wanted to save resources, and because he had given his word.
Three laughing werewolves went crashing to the floor. Isaac jumped.
“What the hell?”
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