Pack Dynamics (21 page)

“What’s the word?” Alex asked, while McFoucher found an excuse to leave the room.

“Reflexes are off the charts,” Allen said. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen. Muscle and bone density are way past normal.”

“I’m able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Which might come in handy in a high-jumping competition, but I wasn’t planning on entering the next decathlon, so if you could just get me back to normal, that’d be fine,” Ben said. “Also, not a fan of the liquid diet.”

“Unfortunately, you need it to live,” said Allen. “Something in the hemoglobin is necessary for survival.” The Doc raised a hand. “Not saying it’s permanent, and we’ll definitely work on it, but you’re stuck for now. What about the bloodwork?” he asked Alex.

“Well, the ‘real’ lycanthropy definitely affected you somehow, Ben,” Alex said.

Ben was glad he wasn’t acting like he wasn’t in the room. He’d been treated like a specimen enough this week, and it had gotten old.

“But I’m not sure we’ll know much more until you Change,” Alex added.

“Did that.” Allen handed over the CAT scan of Ben’s wolf form. “Bigger than he was the first time. Like, triple. How the physics on that work, I have no idea, and I’m afraid to ask. Of course, I don’t have anything to compare him to, so I don’t know if he’s now normal-sized for a werewolf or not.”

“Not quite the same size as Ostheim. But he’s over six feet tall, and I’m, well, not,” Ben said, inwardly cursing his slightly shorter-than-average height, not for the first time in his life.

“Heartbeat is pretty steady at about two per minute, except under stress, and then, whoa. Breathing appears to be unnecessary altogether, which is strange, but I’m no expert in vampire physiology.” Allen flicked his ash into a trashcan.

“McFoucher is. I’ll ask her when she comes back.” Alex checked his watch with a gleam in his eye. “We’ve done good work today, but there’s more to be accomplished. I’m pulling an all-nighter, myself, and someone needs to babysit Brandon while he sleeps it off. Dr. McFoucher?”

She stuck her head through the door. “Yes?”

“You staying or going?”

“I have a dog to walk. Going.” She gathered her things.

“See you in the morning, then.” He pushed the intercom button. “Chambliss?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Twelve-pack of Coke and a bottle of Laphroaig, please.”

The butler’s tone was long-suffering. “I can’t believe you’re going to adulterate some of the finest scotch in the world with that battery acid, but as you wish.”

“Anyone else want a nightcap? Caffeine and alcohol, best mental lubricants I know,” Alex said to the room at large.

“Sleep also works admirably well, sir,” Chambliss pointed out, coming down with the scotch and Coke.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead, Chambliss.” He turned to McFoucher. “Bright and early tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here. Consider me hired.” She turned to Ben, actually looking at him for the first time. “And … I’m sorry. Truly.”

Ben made a noncommittal noise, and his wolf growled a little. McFoucher left without another word.

“Play nice with her, Ben,” Alex said. “She’s the best in the business with paranormal physiology.”

“It won’t go away in a day. But I’ll try.” The moon pulled at him. Yanked at him, more like. “Is Janni back?”

“Oh, a long time ago.”

“I want to say hello to her before—well, before. See you in the morning.” He headed upstairs and left Alex and Allen with their heads together going over data.

Janni jumped up from the sofa when she saw him. “Are you all right? You look a little …” She stopped awkwardly, not knowing how to finish the sentence.

“Yeah, fine, honey. Moon.” Hanging on to his human form was becoming a real strain. “Gotta—” He gestured upstairs toward the bedrooms.

“Stay in tonight? Please?”

He hadn’t gotten that far, planning-wise, and he hadn’t made any arrangements with Megan. “I’d never forgive myself if Ostheim came after me here—” he started, clawing his T-shirt off over his head as he loped up the stairs.

Janni followed behind him. “The house can be locked down and Alex has silver bullets.”

Ben threw himself into their bedroom and shucked his sweatpants, gasping. “Have him lock it down
now
, please. And you might not want to look …”

She hadn’t seen his wolf yet, and the transition was kind of scary, he remembered from watching Megan. Bones shifting, fur sprouting, teeth growing—he stopped fighting it, because that was just painful, and let the Change take him.

O O O

Janni backed away from Ben, but resolutely watched him as he went from man to wolf. This was part of him now, and she was going to have to get used to it.

He was … huge. Nearly the size of a small pony. Which was intimidating, until she remembered that he would have taken off if the wolf wanted to hurt her, and had nearly run away even though it didn’t.

She stood there, twisting her fingers together, as he shook his fur out. It was mostly blond, like his hair, with a dark ruff and mask. White streaks striped his back and shoulders, presumably from the scars.

He caught her staring and flattened his ears and dropped his tail and head. Her reaction here would make or break him.

Three steps forward, and she caught him around the neck and gave him a giant hug. Since his head was on a level with her chest, this wasn’t difficult. He relaxed, and his tail came back up.

She grabbed him on either side of his face and put her forehead on his. “This doesn’t change anything. Okay?”

He chuffed and nuzzled her collarbone with a nose that was, yes, wet. Wagging his tail.

“Just a big puppy now, are you?”

His tail wagged harder, and he flopped over onto his back, paws tucked against his chest. His tongue came out in a happy grin. It was all very reassuring, and she couldn’t stop a smile.

“Let’s go back downstairs. I’ll tell Alex to lock the house down, and we’ll … watch a movie or something. Pizza and beer?”

Ben trotted down the steps ahead of her, and she reflected that tonight was going to be surprisingly normal. Just another night in with munchies and a flick.

And her werewolf boyfriend.

She was okay with this, she realized. She really was. The fact that she wasn’t wigging out made her wig out a little, but …

She loved him. He loved her. And so they’d protect each other, come hell or high water.

O O O

Alex looked up when Brandon moaned, “Oh, holy mother of hangovers …” from the basement floor, around two in the morning.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Alex said.

Brandon grabbed his head as if trying to keep it from flying apart. “How much did I drink?”

“Too much, apparently.” Alex himself was on his fourth scotch and Coke, which had hardly affected him at all, other than to make his energy more manic.

“I need to go home.” Brandon sat up, his expression belligerent. “You can’t keep me here.”

“Nope,” Alex said cheerfully. “Not how I operate. But, you know, if you’d rather go out there and face Ostheim on your own on a full moon night, be my guest.”

Brandon blanched and looked away. “Not so much. That dude is scary.”

“Not too scary to go to work for under the table, apparently.” Alex took another sip of his drink. “And I guess I’m not scary at all, if you’re willing to cross me that way.”

Alex got up, took a can of orange juice out of his mini fridge, and tossed it to Brandon. He fumbled the catch, and it hit him in the chest and fell to the floor. “So. What do you know about the werewolf nanotech, Brandon? Keep in mind that we’ve been working on it for a couple of days now.”

“He didn’t tell me a lot.” Brandon popped the top on the can and took several long swallows, shaking his head. “Reed kept most of that stuff pretty close to the vest. I was there mainly to keep an eye on him and report to Ostheim if anything untoward happened.”

“‘Untoward.’ What a wonderful word. So when Reed used it on Ben, did Ostheim have an aneurysm?”

“Pretty much. That’s when I bugged out.”

“Not very far or very fast,” Alex said. “It wasn’t hard to find you. You suck at running, Brandon.”

“This whole experience has been something I want to forget. The liquor store called my name, and I answered.” He shrugged and took in Alex’s expression. “I am so very fired, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, Brandon, you are.” Alex didn’t enjoy firing people, even when it was wholly justified, but damn. “If you’d come to me with this to begin with, we might have worked something out, maybe made you a double agent or some such. Industrial espionage in pharmaceuticals is nothing new, and the game has time-honored rules. One of which is, if you get caught, you get fired.”

“Good thing I already cleaned out my desk then.” He heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll see myself out.”

Alex grabbed his phone. “Let me call you a cab, anyway, seeing as your car is still at the motel and you’re too hung over to drive.”

“Thanks. Sorry about this, Mr. Jarrett. I really am.”

“So am I.”

After he left, Alex downed his drink in one gulp and made another, stronger one.

Chapter Sixteen

Ben awakened, human, curled up on the foot of the bed in the yellow guest room. He yawned and stretched and smiled at Janni, who still slept. She had a tiny line between her eyebrows, and he hoped she wasn’t having a nightmare. He crawled under the covers and cuddled up beside her, and she settled into his arms with a sigh.

He had a slight headache, which he wondered about, but then Janni woke up and kissed him and it was time to start the day. They took a shower she barely had to help him with at all. Breakfast consisted of blood warmed in the microwave for him and a bowl of raisin bran for her, and they headed down to the basement to see if Alex had discovered anything.

They found Megan standing over the resident genius, who was passed out on his keyboard with his hand still folded around a mostly-empty glass of scotch and Coke.

“He does this all the time,” Megan said. “I’m half-tempted to dump the coffee on his
head
. He can afford a new keyboard.” She hit the intercom. “Chambliss? Could I get your help in getting Mr. Jarrett into a real bed, please?”

“Fell asleep over his computer again, did he? How much of the scotch did he consume this time?”

“Only about half,” she said, eyeing the bottle. “He must have been on a roll. Wonder what he was working on.”

Ben moved the mouse to get rid of the screensaver, which seemed to be alternating between photos of swimsuit models and muscle cars. “Starfish?” he said, after reading what was there. “What?”

Chambliss appeared a few moments later and helped Megan get Alex upright, preparing to take him up to his room.

This woke Alex somewhat, and he shook his head and got his feet under him. “Unh, no, I’ve got work to do,” he mumbled.

“When was the last time you slept?” Megan asked, not pausing at all in taking him toward the elevator, the stairs being obviously out of the question.

“Saturday night. I think. What day is it?”

“It’s
Wednesday
, Alex.” Megan stabbed the elevator button with an overly-rigid index finger.

“See? I’m fine, I’ve slept more than once in the last week.”

Megan clenched her fist under Alex’s shoulder blade, and Ben could tell that she was physically restraining herself from smacking him on the back of the head. “You’re not fine, you were shot in the
lung
just on Friday, and you drank half a bottle of scotch last night. Bed. Now.” The elevator dinged, and the doors opened.

“Only half? I’m slipping …” The conversation was cut off as they bundled him inside and the doors closed again.

Janni’s eyes were wide. “Wow. Who’d have thought that
all
the rumors are true?”

“All what rumors?” McFoucher said, walking down the stairs into the room.

Janni curled her lip. “I imagine you’ll find out soon enough.”

“Where’s Mr. Jarrett? I thought he’d be waiting to give me something to do.” She looked around the basement, arms crossed defensively across her chest, drumming her fingers on one arm.

“He pulled an all-nighter,” Ben said, taking pity on her. “Megan and Chambliss just put him to bed. Left something on his desk I assume is for you, though.” He gestured at a folder that had a sticky note attached with “Michelle” scribbled across it in terrible handwriting and a row of test tubes beside it.

She picked it up and opened it. “Huh. Interesting. Okay, then.” She sat down at a computer, opened a file, and started typing.

Megan came back down, clicking on her phone. “That was fun,” she said, not taking her eyes from the screen. “He is such a handful sometimes—” Her nostrils flared, and her head came up. “Ben, are you all right?”

“Um. Yes?” he said. His hackles rose. “Why?”

She frowned. “Not sure. Is Doc Allen in yet?”

“Haven’t seen him. Megan?”

The frown hadn’t left Megan’s face, and she twitched her head. He needed a way to get alone with her; obviously this was some werewolf thing.

Janni looked back and forth between them nervously. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, probably,” Megan said. “I just … thought I saw something.”

“Last time you thought you saw something, it was damn near prophetic.” Janni’s shoulders hunched. “The badness is supposed to stop now. I’d like that very much, thank you.”

“Honey, why don’t you go upstairs and make us a nice cup of coffee that hasn’t been crapped out by a big mongoose?” Ben said. “I’ll find out if the science types need anything from me and join you in a few, ’kay?”

She left, looking over her shoulder a couple of times, and Ben pulled Megan into a corner away from McFoucher as soon as she was gone. “
What
is the deal?”

Megan moved closer to him, sniffing. “I don’t know. Something smells … off.”

“Do vampires and werewolves get sick? Well, I guess they do, because Ostheim’s wife had something or other, didn’t she? Shit.”

“It’s rare, but it can happen. You’re new, though. Anything one of us can get shouldn’t be affecting you yet, and I’d think the nanotech would shut it down anyway.”

“It didn’t work on Idna.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Who else knows about you? How much of a secret does your lycanthropy need to be? I hide enough things from Janni …”

Her eyes widened and changed color. “No one but other werewolves and vampires know, Ben. Don’t tell anyone. Please.”

“But if you’re diagnosing trouble before Doc Allen finds anything—”

“We don’t—” She took a deep breath. “Can you imagine the level of panic in the streets if it became well-known that werewolves and vampires were walking around among regular people? Once you tell one person who’s not part of the community, it doesn’t stop there. And last time I told someone I was close to, it was
harrowing
for everyone involved. I don’t do it anymore.”

Her intensity made him back off. “All right, all right.” He gnawed on a knuckle. This was obviously some personal insecurity with Megan, because the werewolf was out of the bag as far as Janni was concerned, but if Megan didn’t want her secret revealed, it wasn’t up to him—and far be it from him to make someone relive a personal trauma. “I’ll let Doc Allen know that I feel, I don’t know, weird, or something. My head does hurt a little, but whether that’s a normal reaction from everything that’s happened lately is up for grabs.”

“Your head hurts?” Her brow creased more than it already was.

“Just enough to let me know it’s there, not a lot. Why?”

“I don’t know. It might be nothing. Keep me posted?”

“Yeah, okay.” He gestured toward the ceiling. “I’d better go up and let Janni know I’m all right. She worries a lot.”

Megan put a hand on his arm. “She’s a keeper, Ben. You know that, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” He gave her a cheerful grin. “Not letting her go. In fact, there’s a ring with her name on it upstairs.”

“Ask her sooner rather than later.” She smiled back. “Gotta say, I’m a little jealous of you two.”

“Don’t know why she puts up with me, but I don’t question it.” He turned and headed toward the stairs. “I’ll let you know if I feel anything else strange.”

He found Janni puttering around in the kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee. Her shaking hand spilled the sugar on its way into her mug, and he wrapped his arms around her from behind and kissed her hair. “Hey,” he said gently.

She leaned into him. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Far as I know. And if it’s not, we’ll deal. Can’t be any worse than what we’ve already been through, right?”

She turned around and buried her face in his chest. “How can you say that? If there’s one thing this has taught me, it’s that it can always get worse.”

“We’re on the downhill side now, honey. Ostheim has what he wants, the case is over and done with, and the guy with the biggest brain in the state is working on a cure for what ails me.”

“Ostheim still wants you dead, though, doesn’t he?” She trembled against him, and he rubbed circles on her tense back. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you looked when you came home the night before last.”

“I guess telling you that I tangled with a pack of coyotes wouldn’t fly?”

She snorted. “No.”

“So, yeah, we probably need to contact him somehow and have a conversation about boundaries and not crossing them. In the meantime …” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”

Ben bounded upstairs to their room and closed the door behind him, huffing a little. And frowned. First of all, that tiny bit of exertion shouldn’t have winded him, and secondly, he didn’t have to breathe anyway. What the hell?

He was still getting used to his new physiology, so maybe this was just another oddity. He’d tell Doc Allen about it anyhow, because it paid to be cautious, but right now he had bigger fish to fry. He opened the dresser drawer and pulled out the leather case he kept his Glock in. Unzipping it, he palmed the little black velvet box inside and stuck it in his jeans pocket after checking the simple gold solitaire ring. He’d waited long enough.

This wasn’t how he’d wanted to do it. He’d wanted to take her someplace with atmosphere, candlelit and intimate, after giving her a bouquet of roses as big as she was. Hell, with his new status, he wasn’t sure that asking her at this particular moment was a good idea at all.

But he had to ask her, had to know exactly where he stood, because she was the only reason he hadn’t ditched this whole crazy life a long time ago. Even so, he wouldn’t have stayed if she didn’t seem to thrive on putting him together after he came apart. But his tenuous grip on sanity, even before the vampire thing, had been tightening, the nightmares and panic attacks getting less common, fewer events setting them off. Lately notwithstanding.

Which had been why he’d bought the ring. He didn’t want her to think that he was asking her to marry him to trap her into some sort of codependent vortex—the fact that he needed her less made him want her more.

Ben plucked a fat red rose out of the vase at the foot of the stairs on his way to the kitchen, and Janni’s eyes widened when he handed it to her without saying a word and gave her a smoldering kiss. She relaxed into him and returned the kiss with interest, eyes wide open. Her eyes had always been open when it came to him. He thanked whatever Providence had led her his way that cold night two years beforehand when he’d been so ready to take his own life but unwilling to give anyone the burden of watching him do it.

He broke the kiss and rested his forehead on hers. “I love you.”

There, he’d said it.

She searched his face and smiled that smile she saved just for him. “I love you, too.”

And his eyes closed with relief, because he knew it, but hearing her say it meant everything. He dropped to one knee and pulled the box out of his pocket, nearly dropping it before his hand tightened around it. “Marry me, Janni.”

Her mouth formed a little “o” of surprise; nothing had really led up to this and the timing sucked and for a second fear made his barely-beating heart stutter in his chest because he thought she’d say no.

But then she was on her knees, too, and hugging him and saying “Of course I will, you silly man, I thought you’d never ask,” and he was putting the ring on her finger and kissing her again and he’d never been this ridiculously happy in his entire life.

Naturally, Janni’s phone picked that very moment to ring. She broke the kiss, rolled her eyes, and looked at the screen. “Oh. Work. Should probably take this.”

Ben sat back on his heels while she answered the call.

“Hey, Renee. Fine, fine … Yeah, I had an emergency, but it’s okay now … Oh, um, I think so.” She covered the phone with one hand. “We don’t have anything this afternoon, do we? Cathy called in sick.”

“No, we’re good. Go ahead.” Ben hoped he kept the regret out of his voice, because he would have liked to have Janni to himself today, but the money wouldn’t go amiss.

“Sure,” Janni said into the phone. “Eleven thirty? All right. Sure, see you then.” She snapped it closed and glared at it. “And no, I’m not going to tell you what the emergency was, Renee. Hmph. I may have to make something up.”

“I had a wreck,” Ben offered. “Or I was a wreck. Not too far off.”

“Something.” She made a face and checked the time. “I probably ought to get ready to go. The job is way over on the other side of the valley.”

He stood and started to offer her a hand, but a head rush hit him so hard he had to brace himself on the counter to keep from falling over.

“Ben?” Janni was up, her hands on either side of his face.

“Whoa.” He raked his fingers through his hair. The headache had become a definite pounding. “I should’ve had more for breakfast.”

“Maybe I should call her back and tell her I can’t come …”

“Nah, honey.” He pulled her to him and nuzzled her ear. “Sooner we figure out what normal is, the better. You going to work like nothing’s wrong is normal. Go. You already missed a day this week because of all this crap.”

She pulled back a little and examined him. “You sure? Because we’re so far from normal I’m not sure I remember what that was. And something might be wrong.”

One side of his mouth quirked. “When is there not something wrong with me? This is only sort of new. Seriously, honey, go.”

That tiny line was back between her eyebrows. “Okay. But you
call me
if—”

“I will. Go.”

O O O

McFoucher glumly watched the rabbit she’d injected with the nanoretrovirus. “Rabbit” being relative, because its size had tripled, and it had transformed into a wolf and now spun in circles in the cage, snarling.

“What the hell is that?” Doc Allen asked, coming out of the elevator smoking one of his ever-present cigarettes.

“That is a failed experiment, I think,” she answered. “But I’ve got four more test tubes to go.” She gestured at the nanotech fabber, which hummed happily away with blinking lights and some digital readout she couldn’t decipher. “Mr. Jarrett ginned some nanotech up for us last night.”

“Need some help?”

“I have to put this one down to find out what went wrong. If you could bring me four lycan-vamp bunnies so we could get it over with all at once, that’d be great.”