Read Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) Online
Authors: Lia Silver
Tags: #shifter romance, #military romance, #werewolf romance
Prisoner (Werewolf Marines)
Prisoner
Echo’s Wolf # 1
(Werewolf Marines)
By Lia Silver
Copyright Lia Silver 2014
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Chapter One: We’re Like Brothers
Chapter Two: My Life Protects My Sister
Chapter Three: Wolf on the Run
Chapter Nine: DJ’s Story: An Infinite Number of
Monkeys
Notes on Dyslexia, PTSD, and Combat
Stress
Chapter One: DJ
We’re Like Brothers
DJ Torres had broken a lot of rules in his
life. But he’d never expected to break the most important rule of
all, the rule he’d had drummed into his head since he was a little
kid (and little pup), particularly since it was one of the few
rules that he actually agreed with: “Never turn anyone into a
werewolf.”
It went on, at least the way DJ’s pack elders
had taught it to him, “Not even if they’re your best friend.
Especially
not if they’re your best friend. Not even if
they’re dying and it’s the only way to save their life.
Especially
not if they’re dying and it’s the only way to
save their life. They’ll end up wishing you’d let them die. And so
will you.”
DJ looked down at Roy Farrell, his best
friend, whose life he’d saved by turning him into a werewolf, and
hoped to hell they weren’t both going to end up wishing DJ had let
him die.
The blazing Afghanistan sunlight glared off
the white sand, making DJ’s eyes water. Though they were shaded by
a pair of boulders, the radiant heat made sweat trickle down his
bare back.
The helicopter had mostly stopped burning,
but it still sent up a plume of oily black smoke. On the bright
side, it was a signal for medevac and rescue. On the dark side, it
was also a signal for anyone in the vicinity who might want to kill
or capture some Marines. DJ briefly released Roy’s hand to pat his
M-16 and Roy’s SAW, just to reassure himself that he could snatch
up either weapon in an instant.
The air was so bone-dry and still that DJ
couldn’t even smell the smoke. If he’d been a wolf, he could have.
If he’d been a wolf, he could have detected not only the smoke, but
also the twisted metal of the wrecked helo, the crushed weeds
beneath them, and Roy’s natural scent, a blend of charcoal,
leather, damp earth, and dark chocolate.
As a man, all DJ could smell was Roy’s blood.
It had gotten all over him when he’d hoisted Roy over his shoulders
and carried him from the helo. He could feel it drying in the sun,
sticking his hair together in clumps and pulling at his skin.
Despite the heat and the shirt DJ had wrapped
around him, Roy was shivering. DJ wondered if he should move Roy
out of the shade, or if that would just give him a sunburn on top
of the worst shrapnel wounds DJ had ever seen anyone take and not
immediately drop dead.
Roy closed his eyes. His breath went out in a
sticky-sounding exhale, leaving more blood on his lips. He didn’t
breathe in again.
DJ’s heart lurched at the thought that after
everything he’d done, Roy would die anyway, right now in his
arms.
“Hey!” When that didn’t get a response or an
inhale, DJ slapped his cheek. “Wake up!”
Roy dragged in a labored breath, his eyes
fluttering half-open. “I’m listening.”
Which was another bad fucking sign, because
DJ hadn’t been talking. He’d talked so much in the last hour or
however long it had been since their helicopter had been shot down,
trying to keep Roy awake and tell him everything he needed to know
about being a werewolf, that he’d had to stop for fear of losing
his voice.
“What are you listening to?” DJ cleared his
throat, but he still sounded like a rusty door when he spoke again.
“What did I just tell you?”
“Uh…” Roy’s gaze drifted into the distance.
“Can’t remember. Sorry. I’m a little… A little spacy.”
Sorry, I’m a little spacy.
Meaning,
I’m in shock and bleeding inside
and the only thing keeping me alive is my werewolf healing and I’ve
probably got another half-hour or so before even that won’t cut it
any more.
And that was classic Roy. After all the time
they’d spent together on their fire team, with Roy carrying the SAW
and DJ carrying the SAW’s extra ammunition, they’d gotten to be
each other’s universal translators.
I’m fine, DJ, stop bothering me.
Meaning,
I haven’t slept in three days and
I’m about to pass out, but don’t worry, I can hold out till we get
back to the base.
I’ve got dust in my eyes, Roy, can you read
this for me?
Meaning,
I’ll lose my mind if I have to
spend five minutes trying to read three words, and there’s guys
around who don’t already know about me, and if they call me stupid
I just might snap and punch them out and get another
demerit.
“It’s okay, Roy.” DJ squeezed his hands.
“Just hang on, all right? You can’t go to sleep till medevac gets
here. Don’t close your eyes.”
Roy nodded, his face tightening like even
that tiny movement required a huge effort. “I felt better as a
wolf. Should I change again?”
DJ thought about it, remembering Roy’s
gigantic wolf sprawled panting on the sand, his thick white fur
sodden with blood. “No. I don’t think it would help enough to be
worth it. You can only shift while you’re conscious. If you turn
into a wolf and then pass out, you won’t be able to change
back.”
Roy actually managed to smile, which was more
than DJ could do. “
You
could pester medevac into taking a
wolf.”
“Where the fuck
is
medevac?” DJ
muttered, scanning the sky for the millionth time. It was a
perfect, cloudless, brilliant blue, and absolutely empty.
Roy followed his gaze. Softly, he said, “It’s
a beautiful day.”
DJ bit his lip and concentrated on the sharp
pain until the prickling in his eyes subsided. “Do you remember any
of what I told you about being a werewolf?”
Roy seemed to try hard to recall. Finally, he
said, “My scent name is Guinness.”
DJ surprised himself by laughing. Of all the
useless, random things to stick in his mind! “Do you remember
anything other than scent names?”
“They’re an important cultural
tradition.”
DJ felt his eyebrows go up. “Now you’re just
fucking with me.”
Roy didn’t smile again— he probably didn’t
have the energy— but he admitted, “Yeah. That really is all I
remember, though. Your scent name is Lechon. It means…” His voice
trailed off, and he gave the smallest of shrugs.
DJ tried not to let his dismay show. Roy was
drifting off again; he knew what lechon was.
“It’s Filipino roast pork,” DJ reminded him.
“You had it last Christmas. Remember?”
Roy and nine other Marines who didn’t have
relatives nearby had come over to spend Christmas with DJ’s family.
While the guys sat around drinking beer and DJ’s parents oversaw
the roasting of the hog, the little kids formed a posse and moved
in on Roy.
Their appointed leader said in awestruck
tones, “You’re so tall. Like a giant!”
“Only compared to DJ,” Roy had remarked.
But agreeing at all was his downfall; next
thing Roy knew, he was running around and around the backyard while
the kids took turns riding on his shoulders, yelling stuff like,
“Giddy-up, Midnight!” and “Activate the mecha-laser, Death Falcon!”
and “Run, Hagrid! We’re late for the Quidditch match!”
“
Remember?
” DJ repeated, when Roy
didn’t reply. “Christmas in San Diego? Pig on a spit? Getting
commandeered to play horsie by a gang of sugar-crazed
five-year-olds?”
Roy made a non-committal noise that DJ
interpreted as, “Not really, but I’ll say anything if it’ll make
you shut up and let me sleep.”
“Okay!” DJ spoke loudly, before Roy could
slip into unconsciousness. “I’ll tell you everything again. Pay
attention now.”
“I am,” Roy said, not very convincingly.
For the fourth time, DJ began, “I’m a born
wolf. My pack is my family. You’re a made wolf, and
you need a
pack
. If you don’t remember anything else, you have to remember
that. I’ll call my family and tell them I bit you and they need to
adopt you into their pack, but you have to let them do it. If you
don’t bond with a pack, you’ll lose your mind or commit suicide.
You need a pack.
”
“Can’t you be my pack?” As Roy spoke, DJ felt
him instinctively reaching out with his latent pack sense, trying
to create a bond.
Startled, DJ didn’t immediately raise his
mental shields. There was no true bond yet, so the feelings he got
from Roy were distant, something he understood rather than felt
himself. He sensed Roy’s determination to hold on, the steely
willpower that had kept him going this long, his trust in DJ, his
fear of dying, and his relief that at least he wouldn’t die
alone.
But most of what DJ perceived was physical
sensation: an unbearable sense of drowning and a desperate hunger
for air, tearing agony in his chest, overwhelming exhaustion and
the near-irresistible desire to close his eyes and sleep, the
coppery taste of the blood welling up into his mouth, and a
bone-deep chill. And the one feeling that Roy clung to, the only
one that wasn’t terrible and frightening, which was the warmth of
DJ’s arms holding him.
DJ again bit down on his lip as he raised his
shields, cutting Roy off. Roy flinched as if it had physically hurt
him, though it couldn’t have. But Roy had to have sensed DJ, as DJ
had sensed Roy, and it must have felt as if he’d been pushed away
and locked out.
DJ was probably doing the right thing, but he
felt incredibly guilty. Not to mention scared that it was actually
the wrong thing, and frustrated and angry at himself that he
couldn’t figure it out for sure. And that summed up this entire
fucking nightmare of a deployment.
“I can’t
now
,” DJ said. “We’ll be in a
pack together later.”
“My brother,” Roy mumbled.
“Yeah, we’ll be like brothers.”
Roy shook his head, then spoke more clearly.
“You’re already my brother. We’re brother Marines. So why not
now?”
DJ tried to explain it in simple terms,
hoping Roy was with it enough to understand. “Because we can’t stay
together after this. You’ll be sent to a hospital, and I’ve got to
stay with our unit. If we bonded as a pack and then we were cut off
from each other, it would hurt you. It might even kill you. Born
wolves can be separated from their pack for a long time, obviously,
but made wolves can’t.”
DJ hesitated, eyeing Roy to see if he’d put
two and two together: if he couldn’t leave his pack and his pack
was DJ’s family, ten thousand miles away in San Diego, that would
be the end of his career as a Marine.
They’ll end up wishing you’d let them
die.
The remembered voice came to DJ so vividly that it was
almost as if his grandmother had whispered in his ear.
He might have to leave anyway, because of
his wounds,
DJ argued with the memory of Grandma Steel.
And
none of the other stuff you warned me about happened. He has the
pack sense, so he won’t be a lone wolf who can’t bond and lose his
mind from loneliness. If he doesn’t have a power, that’s no big
deal. And if he has one that he can’t control, it’s obviously no
big deal either or I’d have noticed by now.
With an inner shudder, DJ recalled Grandma
Steel’s most horrifying story: the made wolf who couldn’t control
his power to create fire, and burned himself to death.
“You’re going to be okay, Roy,” DJ said,
trying to convince himself as much as Roy. “Just stay with—”
“I’m sorry, DJ,” Roy said abruptly. “I’m
blacking out.”
A second passed, and nothing happened. Then
his eyes rolled back, his head tipped to the side, and his entire
body went limp.
“Shit!” DJ tried to wake him up again,
yelling at and even slapping him, but nothing worked. Roy lay
across his lap, over two hundred pounds of dead weight, his face
ashen. Red bubbles formed and broke at the corners of his lips. DJ
told himself that at least that meant he was still breathing.
Then the most welcome sound DJ had ever heard
filled the air, the steady whump-whump-whump of helicopter blades.
As the medevac helo landed, while the Blackhawks that escorted it
hovered above, such an intense wave of relief washed over him that
he felt like he might black out too.