H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (123 page)

There was a conference room at the front of
the facility and my five friends and Maya all made our way over
there to that room. She seated herself at the head of the
conference table and motioned for us to sit. I had to hand it to
her, she had her moments where I admired the hell out of her. She
was running the show this morning.

We all looked at each other confused because
none of us knew what happened.

“Introductions, please,” Maya said to me,
like she was running some kind of corporate meeting. I played nice.
After all, she did let us all out of the cages. And was likely the
person who led us in them.

“Maya, this is Eli, Evan, Steve, and Albert.
My…pack.” Minus Dave. “Everyone, this is the love of my life, Maya,
my beautiful Tandra. Apparently she is the only one that knows what
happened.”

Evan and Eli had scratches and bruises all
over their toned bodies. They looked as confused as I was.

“What happened, Maya?” I asked. All of us
looked to Maya, very eager to learn what had happened.

Maya stood up in front of the five us men
and began to speak: “First of all, as soon as you all turned, I
noticed that T—Kyro, you were the alpha wolf, and I mean it was
obvious to me that you were the leader of the pack. I got the idea
that werewolves follow the alpha wolf because they trust him and I
was right. I sort of herded the others behind you and you led them
in a full-on pack assault.”

“You could have been killed in the fray,
Maya. One of us could have turned on you instinctively, and hurt
you. Bitten you.”

She paused. “They trusted the pack leader
and I trusted you. None of you tried to hurt me because you led the
pack away from me and straight toward the bad guys. You guys, the
five of you, were like a well-oiled machine. When the full moon
hit, it was like poetry. Marcos and his wolves were unorganized
under his crappy leadership. Not you guys. You teamed up and
isolated them from each other. You dismantled them, tore them apart
in sprays of blood that arced twenty feet in the air. They had no
chance against you guys. You were more vicious and lethal than a
platoon with automatic weapons. You were a blur of teeth, claws,
fur, mud and blood. You were the terminators. The victors. The
assassins…”

“Let me get this straight,” Steve said. “We
killed all of those guys?”

Maya was quiet and then said, “Yep.”

“Holy shit,” Albert said. “Where did they
go?”

“They all disappeared when they died,” Maya
said. “Vanished.”

We all had so many questions.

“After the battle, how the hell did you get
five werewolves in the cages?”

“Well,” Maya said, with a grin, “I opened
five cages and put special steaks in them, from the kennel fridge
and then I found a control panel in the security booth that could
play the sounds of…” her voice trailed off.

“Could play what sounds?” I asked Maya.

“A female werewolf’s seductive call,
something between a howl and a whimper. I read their procedure
manual and they had a protocol for recapturing any escaped male
werewolves with this sound effect and special steaks in the cages.
Steaks with a little bit of tranquilizer in them. And so I got them
out of the freezer and microwaved them a bit. They were labeled
just for this purpose, and I used them. First I lured you all into
the kennel with the recorded sexy female wolf sound played through
loudspeakers, and you ate the steaks that I left in each cage.
Then, you all went nighty-night on your blankets from the Valium in
the steaks, and I sneaked back in the kennel and locked you all up
until dawn. It was a cinch.”

“Geez, Maya. Do you have that procedure
manual?” I asked.

Maya patted her bulging shoulder purse. “Oh,
that and more, boys. That and more.”

Albert said, “Thank you, Maya, for what you
did. You risked your life last night to help us destroy Marcos’s
pack.”

She smiled but only had eyes for me. And I
for her. And then the moment broke when we heard a bunch of guys
yelling to be let out on the other side of the kennel.

We went around and let others out of their
cages, all of the werewolves who had paid money to Marcos to stay
here. We looked and looked but there was no trace of Dave and no
one had seen him. We asked everyone.

We told them that Marcos would no longer be
running this place, but if they came back the following night, it
should be fine because no one was watching the place. It looked
like it was going to be a free for all. No credit cards required
from now until someone caught wind of an unpaid electric bill or
something and shut down the place. This bit of news, that
everything was now free, eclipsed any perceived sentiment or
loyalty that Marcos and his henchmen were killed. The place was now
operating on…greed.

All of the other Carni guys in our five-pack
went back with Albert in his truck. I decided to stay with Maya. I
had more questions about what happened. There was something that
she wasn’t telling us…I felt it deep in my werewolf instincts, that
she was hiding something so important that it was imperative that I
find out what it was.

To be continued in:

Werewolf Love Story #4

Available now!

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by J.R. Rain, Scott Nicholson

and H.T. Night

Published by J.R. Rain at Smashwords.com

Copyright © 2011 by J.R. Rain

All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Class was over.

I was making my way to my car in the dark,
my backpack slung over my shoulder, when the girl came running up
behind me. We had exited class together, junior year United States
history, when I heard her fall into step behind me. I didn’t have
to turn and look to know I was being followed. I didn’t even have
to turn and look to know who it was, because I could smell her.

It was the new girl. Well, new as of two
weeks ago. And she smelled of flowers and shampoo and clean
clothing. She also smelled of curry, which is why I knew who she
was, since most girls smelled of only flowers and shampoo.

I’ve always liked unique girls, as much as I
can like anything.

I had just clicked my car door open, using
the keyless remote, when I heard her footsteps pick up their pace.
She was moving faster, coming up behind me. I heard breathing
now—her breathing, and I might have heard something else, too. I
might have heard, mixed with the sounds of cars starting and our
classmates talking and laughing, I might have heard her heart
beating.

And it seemed to be beating rapidly.

It should beat rapidly, I thought. Here be
monsters.

My back was still to her as she stopped
behind me. Her scent rushed before her, swirling around me like a
dust devil, and I inhaled her deeply and spun around.

Her face was a little orange under the cheap
streetlights. She had opened her mouth to speak, but instead she
gasped. She hadn’t expected me to turn on her. Heck, maybe she even
thought she had approached quietly.

Maybe she wasn’t sure she had wanted to talk
to me. Maybe, just prior to my spinning around, she had decided to
do the smart thing, turn herself around, and leave.

Maybe she had heard stories of me. Maybe she
had heard that I was different from other students. That there was
something odd about me.

I heard the stories, too. Mostly, of course,
I overheard the whisperings behind my back. They didn’t know I
could hear them. They thought they were being discreet. But I heard
their harsh words. I heard their hateful stories. I heard them
speak ill of me. I heard their laughter, but mostly I heard their
fear.

I heard everything.

Her gasp hung in the air, much like her
mouth hung open. She was a pretty girl. Long, blonde hair. Brown
eyes impossibly round. She was small but curvy. She looked like a
doll all grown up into its teen years.

“You are following me,” I said.

She closed her mouth. Some of the students
spilling out into the parking lot watched us. In fact, most of the
students were watching us. I ignored all of them. All of them, that
is, except this new girl.

“Yes, sorry,” she said.

“Why are you sorry?” I asked. I turned and
opened my car door. I tossed my backpack into the backseat.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You look like you saw a ghost,” I said.

I heard her heartbeat clearly now. It
thumped rapidly. It even seemed to labor a bit, which might mean
she had some sort of heart condition, surprising for one so young.
She looked once over her shoulder, and I could almost hear her
thinking, although my hearing isn’t quite that good. She was
thinking, and I would have bet good money on this, I can still
leave now. Make up a good story, or even a bad one. Anything. Just
leave. They call him a freak for a reason.

But she didn’t leave, and I knew why.
Because they don’t just call me a freak.

They also call me Spider.

“You need help,” I said, draping an arm over
my open car door, letting it support some of my weight.

She quit looking around and now she held my
gaze, and as she did, her heartbeat steadied. She was no longer
afraid. Then her eyes pooled with tears, but she did not look away
even as the tears spilled out.

“Yes,” she said.

“Do you have a ride home?” I asked. I’d
learned to never trust tears.

“I walk.”

I motioned toward the passenger seat. “Get
in,” I said, “And let’s talk.”

Chapter Two

Seattle at night is beautiful. Seattle at
night with a beautiful girl is even better.

We drove in silence. My car is an old
Mustang, not a classic, but old enough to give me problems. That
night I had no problems with it. The windows were down as the cool
air whipped through the interior. I glanced to my right once and
saw the new girl was huddled in the center of the seat, hands in
her lap, looking straight ahead. I sensed her fear, or at least
trepidation. Serious trepidation. I’m good at sensing things. I’m
good at sensing emotions in others. It’s a survival mechanism, one
of many.

I think, probably, anyone could have read
her emotions. She would have looked nervous to any observer. I
don’t know how it works for other people, I only know how it goes
for me.

And sometimes I’m not even sure of that.

And I probably should have said something to
help her relax. Perhaps something funny or sweet. But I didn’t feel
funny or sweet. I felt angry and bitter, and it was all I could do
to not pull over somewhere and tell her to get lost so I could be
alone with my miserable thoughts.

I reminded myself that there were far worse
things in the world than sitting next to a beautiful girl.

Far worse, and I’d experienced most of
them.

She sensed me looking at her and huddled
deeper into herself, wrapping her arms tighter around her body. I
looked away, focused on driving. Lately, it seemed I had forgotten
normal social etiquette. Or, more likely, it was that I didn’t give
a damn about social etiquette. It was hard to care much about
anything anymore.

Then why did you offer to help her?

Good question. I thought about the answer as
I drove through the streets of downtown Seattle, past piercing
skyscrapers and glitzy restaurants, past the many homeless and the
many more tourists. It was late, sure, but it was also Friday
night. Seattle was hopping.

I knew that mostly I didn’t want to help.
Mostly, I wanted to be left alone. And for the most part I was
alone. Perhaps too alone. To say that I was in a strange place in
my life would be perhaps the understatement of the decade.

Mostly, I sensed a darkness filling my
heart, filling my insides, and it scared the hell out of me.
Helping others, even when I didn’t want to, seemed to keep the
darkness at bay, or at least slow it down. And it helped fight off
that creeping loneliness that was the eternal plight of my
kind.

“Where are we going?” Her voice was small
and whispery.

“Get you some food,” I said.

“I’m not hungry.”

“I disagree. I know you’re hungry.”

She looked over at me and I felt her eyes
studying me closely. “Why do you think I’m hungry?”

“We were just in class for three hours. And,
besides,” I said, looking at her, “it’s either that or you have a
small alien inside you trying to get out. I can hear your stomach
growling from here.”

She actually looked down at her stomach. Her
brows knitted in a brief display of confusion. Finally she
shrugged. “I didn’t hear it growl.”

“It’s growling now.”

She put her palms over her stomach. “How do
you know that?”

“Not only are you hungry,” I said, whipping
past a slow-moving scooter. “You haven’t eaten all day.”

“How do you—”

“Your stomach is completely empty.”

“But how—”

“How do I know your stomach is empty?”

“Yeah, how? Like you can read my mind?”

Actually, I knew her stomach was empty by
the sounds it wasn’t making. Sure, it would growl every once in a
while, but mostly there was no indication of any digestion going on
at all. I decided to keep some secrets to myself. “Call it a
hunch,” I said. “So do you want something to eat?”

I knew what her answer would be. “I’ll pay
you back.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s only
money. There’s plenty of it out there for everyone.”

She looked at me and she might have smiled.
“Thank you.”

“No worries,” I said, and was pleased to
feel the darkness within me subside a little, loosen its hold on my
heart. Just a little. “What’s your name?”