Bite of the Moon: Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance Boxed Set (58 page)

Then Rachel asked, “Are you ready?” And Tabitha just blinked at her blankly. “Tabitha, you’ll have to come with me, for a least a couple of days, until you absolutely have to go back with Finn to face the Sons. We have a lot of work to do, and I want you to meet the rest of my pack.”

Tabitha hesitated, feeling a flare of panic that slowly surrendered to a sense of resignation, once she began to suspect Finn’s other motive for bringing her to Rachel. “Is this what you want?” she asked him. “For me to go with her? With them?”

For me to leave and hopefully decide to stay with Rachel’s pack so I’m not your problem anymore
?

“Yeah,” he said, but he was thinking
hell no
.

“It’s the only choice,” Rachel told her.

Tabitha nodded and paused awkwardly waiting for a word from Finn. Rachel just nodded and motioned toward the Jeep, and then Finn nodded without comment. And the little knot of people just broke apart, that simply. Tabitha walked away from Finn not asking when he’d come back for her or where they’d meet. If they’d meet.

At the Jeep, as they were getting in, Rachel tentatively squeezed Tabitha’s arm. “You can do this. I know what it’s like to be in your place, a female among the males and everyone else telling you what to do and what’s good for you. But you can do this, and then you’re your own animal, Tabitha.”

“Yeah,” Tabitha agreed, though halfheartedly at best. When she chanced a look across the parking lot, Finn was already on his bike and ready to leave. “For a minute, I thought he didn’t want me to go. My imagination, I guess.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Rachel took her sunglasses off and squinted at Tabitha, looking confused. “If that’s what you felt from him…. I mean, you’d know.” Again, Tabitha looked at Rachel blankly and shook her head. “Shit, that fucking Fenris Wolf didn’t explain mates to you either?”

CHAPTER TEN

There were three nights in Finn McCaffery’s life when he understood the wilding, the progressive loss of a shifter’s human side to his wolf until only the beast remained. Permanently. Three nights when Finn might not have been in the immediate danger of losing his human body to his wolf form but when his human mind was barely in control and only instinct remained.

The first night was one he didn’t entirely remember. He never knew if that was because six years old was too young for his mind to retain the details or because the particulars of spending days locked in a cage with the decomposing bodies of the wolves who had been his parents were too traumatic. Or maybe it had been the hunger devouring his mind as he’d starved. That had at first been an active part of the torture the rival pack had inflicted on him and later a feature of his utter abandonment in that cage. In the dark. In a vacant warehouse dripping rain as his only source of water. After that, who the fuck cared how ‘rough’ foster care was? Pussies.

The second night he recalled too well, when he’d just been turned by the Sons. It had been a gang initiation of the most brutal kind. The Sons weren’t just wolves; they were shifters by virtue of the blood of Fenrir himself running through their veins. When your dad or great-great-great fucking grandad was as close to a wolf god as the Norse had, a beast who could not be chained and had taken the hand off a war god, playtime was going to get bloody as a matter of course. The euphoria after Finn had been beaten and attacked by the Sons, after he’d had to fight for survival to prove his worth, was the closest thing he’d ever feel again to being drunk. Truly massive amounts of endorphins had been running through his system, pumping like fire through his blood, hardening his cock, scattering his thoughts. And the first place he’d headed for afterward was the last place he should have been in that frame of mind—to Tabitha.

The third night was this one, standing in a piss-stinking back alley listening to one of those fucking Odin Wolves as she explained how it was that Tabitha was gone.

No, not gone.
Taken
.

Barely hearing anything that was coming out of Rachel Corey’s mouth, Finn glared through the red haze of his stirring, building fury. In his head, his heartbeat thundered, interrupted only periodically by a whimper or a gasp overheard from inside Tabitha’s head—wherever she was. The Fenris Wolf scout took some small comfort in the fact that the Odin’s Wolf she-bitch was at least wearing the physical wounds of having lost a fight with the three-ton SUV that had raced away with Tabitha bundled half-conscious inside it.

“We were out in the middle of nowhere. It was the state park,” Rachel said in a self-defensive rush. “They shouldn’t have been able to find us or sneak up as close as they did.”

Wisely, Garik had positioned himself between his bitch and his pack mate. Finn guessed there was a moratorium in effect on the couple’s efforts to kill one another. Hagen must not have wanted Finn to kill Rachel for him.

The blond Odin’s Wolf winced at a particularly animated moment in her story and briefly touched her jaw. Angry half-healed gashes over one cheek and arm, when considering the accelerated healing rate of shifters, must have been a mangled mess a few hours before. And painful.

Good, Finn thought.

“We were pushing hard and getting a couple of shifts out of Tabitha per day, so we were just staying out, camped in the woods. Being out there gave us all the chance to run.”

And to bond, Finn knew. He wasn’t stupid enough to think Rachel and whomever she’d trusted to bring in from her pack hadn’t tried to convince Tabitha to turn her back on Finn and the Sons and let the chip fall on the Fenris Wolf’s head.

An edge of temper that Finn understood crept into Rachel’s voice as she described the attack, the kidnapping. “They moved into the area in military formation.”

“Wait,” Garik insisted. “Are we talking Agency? Government hunters?”

Rachel shrugged and shook her head in uncertainty. “They moved like it, absolutely, but they weren’t wearing standard commando gear. It looked like everything they carried was non-lethal.” Rachel nodded vehemently to the puzzled looks on the men’s faces. “I know. The Agency doesn’t do capture guns and paralytics, but that’s what they had. The chemical rounds were weak. Hardly did anything to me or my guys, even with a couple of us in wolf form and one in human. But when they hit Tabitha’s wolf with it, she went down hard and reverted to human form, so I’m guessing it’s experimental and only worked on her because she doesn’t have much control over her shift yet.”

“Like Agency hunters but not Agency hunters,” Garik said, musing.

“And too few of them for a field capture,” Rachel agreed. “There were only three of them that we could get eyes on. For the Agency, that’s a quick in-and-out strike team for assassinations. They’d never do a capture without at least one full team plus tactical support.”

Finn breathed through another eruption of his wolf trying to force itself up from inside his skin. Part of him thought that was what the fucking beast got for forcing Finn to bite Tabitha, forcing the mating that bound them body and mind to one another and made it physically painful and ultimately fatal for them to be separated for long periods of time.

The Fenris Wolf scout, in control for the moment, struggled to speak and have it come out as more than a growl. “So it didn’t look like Agency. Didn’t look like Mick’s work, either. Someone else has to be in play, then. Who else has a reason to catch a werewolf?”

Other packs, rivals. That was the nightmare Finn had already lived through once. But kidnapping and killing Tabitha wasn’t going to send some kind of message to the Central Coast Pack the way torturing and killing Finn’s parents had with their pack. And if they needed someone to question, it was their bad luck to have picked the shifter who knew the least of anyone about any of this. Finn didn’t believe in that kind of coincidence. Whoever they were, they’d gotten what they wanted—not blood or any other member of the Central Coast Pack, just Tabitha—and gotten the fuck out of there swiftly and efficiently.

Finn glared at Garik. “Which one of us is going to find out what Mick knows?”

“Leave it. He’ll be on guard with you because he suspects you have history with Tabitha you’re keeping secret from him. I’m not his BFF, but I’ll have someone else do the talking while I watch from the control room on the security cams. If he’s involved, I’ll see it in his face when he lies about it.”

Nodding, Finn said, “And I’ll cover every other source I have.” His information network would have been second only to Ox’s; they just couldn’t trust the bear shifter enough to pull him in to help.

And finally, to Rachel, he said, “And you’ll pull in every favor anyone owes you, too. You bullshit Odin’s Wolves talk about units and orders and service.” When Finn took a menacing step toward the blonde, Garik put himself in his pack brother’s path, shaking his head. Finn got that. Hagen had to get what this was for Finn, too, though. “Tabitha was in your care, Corey. She was your responsibility.” The words shredded their way up Finn’s throat, with him knowing that Tabitha had been his responsibility for far longer and he’d let her down far worse. “Just make all that BS mean something and help find her.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cold in winter, hot in summer, rarely loved, always hungry. These had been the hallmarks of Tabitha Vallins’s life from eight years old to twenty-two. No value beyond what someone could get for letting her take up space that didn’t belong to her. Nothing of her own.

It was excellent preparation for finding herself locked naked in a cage by total strangers lord knew where.

Almost numbed by the blow of having her every fear and personal trauma rubbed into her face in one day, Tabitha sat on the floor of the cage with her knees pulled up to preserve what little sense of modesty she had left. The men had taken her when she was in wolf form—no clothing when she shifted back. She hoped that was the reason she was still nude. But would a blanket have been too much to ask?

Not that it wasn’t a nice cage, for a cage. Someone had made the peculiar choice of plating the bars in precious metal and including all the curves and flourishes to make it look like a human-sized aviary. Who did that kind of shit, outside of James Bond movies, anyway?

Tabitha stayed silent, watchful, carefully observing the three black suits keeping her company in what appeared to be a vacant loft. New, artfully distressed brick walls and gleaming hardwood floors. The bare windows looked out over Downtown, so they must have been in one of the old art nouveau office buildings being renovated into upscale apartments as part of the revitalization project. None of them were open for viewing yet, and most of the surrounding buildings were empty industrial, if Tabitha recalled. No one around to hear her call for help—and the way each of the men occasionally stalked past the cage, staring down at Tabitha as she tried to cover herself without making her discomfort obvious, made her think she had a valid need.

I recognize you
, she was thinking but didn’t say it, just followed the familiar figures with her gaze. They were the men who had given her an odd feeling of being hunted in the underground garage when Mick had told her to stay with his bike and she’d ended up running into the older man on her way up the steps. Black suits, black shades, no voices or expressions, and yet they still conveyed menace and even a slight predatory feeling backed up by the fact that Tabitha was sure at least two of them got hard-ons from keeping a naked chubby girl in a cage. Other than keeping a close eye on Tabitha, her captors went about checking their cell phones and working on laptops they kept well away from her side of the wide, bare room. It was like they knew her hearing and vision would be sharp enough now to catch conversations, glimpse messages on screens.

Tabitha frowned. Big bad werewolf girl, locked naked in a birdcage. So much for not needing anyone to protect her anymore.

And yet, for a couple of days, it hadn’t been that way. Tabitha hadn’t been the wayward, helpless orphan. Five times—
five
—she had successfully shifted into a werewolf. An honest to god freaking wolf, not quite as blond as she was in real life, more tawny. But her wolf was sleek, fast, free as she raced headlong through the woods weaving around, dodging, leaping any obstacle. Deer and smaller animals ran from her. From
her
. Even now a deep breath recalled the loam and leaves against her face and fur as she rutted and rolled in the dirt and the meadow grass. The only dark thought that accompanied the memory was the worry that Tabitha was still wholly dependent on the wristband Rachel has given her—leather on the outside but lined with the fur of a wolf sacred to Odin and which triggered the shift in newly manifested Odin Wolves. The band she could see plainly sitting on the granite counter.

What counter, Tabitha
?

The woman blinked and fussed with her hair, pretending to tuck several strands behind her ear, so it wasn’t so obvious she was looking around the room for the source of that voice. Finn’s voice. It sounded like it came from inside her head.

What counter is the relic on, Tabitha? Can you get to it? Can you reach? Answer me
, Finn’s voice demanded. The men in the room didn’t react to the sound that Tabitha was hearing as clearly as if the Fenris Wolf was hunched down next to her in the cage.
Tabitha
!

Either I’m crazy or I’m really hearing voices
, she told herself.
Which means I’m crazy
.

You can hear me, Tabitha, and you know damn well who I am. You can hear because it’s me, because we’re us. The connection is new and still growing. It only works when I’m close. I don’t know where you are exactly, but you have to be Downtown
.

And what exactly about telepathy between werewolves was any less believable than their existence in the first place, Tabitha asked herself when she balked at the idea. Maybe she just didn’t like what a relief it was to hear
and feel
Finn near again, riding to the rescue despite his desire to be rid of her. Despite her desire to rescue herself. It was obviously a skill she didn’t have the hang of yet.

Can all werewolves hear each other think
?

She heard a definite snort of bitter amusement from Finn’s end of the conversation, as it were.
Ah, hell no, or Mick and I would have come to teeth and claws by now. It’s just us, Tabitha. Well, not just us. There are others who can hear only one another. There has to be a bond.

There had to be a bond. The thought echoed in Tabitha’s head. But Finn had spent the last four years tearing that connection apart. Hadn’t he?

With her heightened shifter senses, Tabitha caught the roar of a passing engine, despite the soundproofing materials used in the loft reconstruction.

I think I heard you, Finn. Did you just ride by one of the residential loft projects? One still under construction but mostly finished?

I did
. Finn’s surge of excitement washed palpably over Tabitha, raising goose bumps on her skin that were entirely visible thanks to her nudity.
Got you, baby girl. I know the building. I can find you. Do you hear me, Tabitha? I can find you.

Another bristle of excitement and relief prickled over Tabitha’s skin, but this time it was her own. Setting aside the question of whether she should have been so reliant on Finn to protect her, rescue her, she knew he would. He wanted to. He cared.

Finn, there are three of them. I know you’re a shifter, but they look… professional. I don’t know if you want to bring someone to help or—.

“Miss Vallins, how nice to see you again.” A familiar voice interrupted Tabitha’s concentration. Those goose bumps rose higher in her skin, as a chill ran along her back. She looked up and blinked, squinting, confused. “Whole and well and uninjured, I’m happy to say.” Then he added with a chuckle, “Though it does look like the air conditioning might be up a tad too high for your particular state.”

“Mr. Poulsen, sir,” one of the suited thugs said in greeting.

Tabitha gaped. That sweet older man? The thugs from the garage were with him? “Mr. Poulsen?” she repeated.

“Please, dear, I already gave you leave to call me Thomas. It’s the least I can do, considering what you’re doing for me.”

In the back of Tabitha’s mind, she felt a flash of distress and anger from Finn.

Poulsen? Thomas Fucking Poulsen?
Then a lot of cussing.