The Shifter's Choice (11 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Follow me.”

They walked in silence down corridors and through automatic doors, each of which had a bright red button the size of a grapefruit that was used to open them. Panic did funny things to a person. It made her brain stop working. She’d been sweating and it was hard to breathe. Right now she had a cramp in her belly just thinking of Johnny. Was he still upset?

The captain stopped at a door that was clearly an exterior exit judging from the solid steel and the panic bar. He peered down at her.

“Upbeat, Touma. Upbeat and optimistic,” said MacConnelly. “We nearly have this.”

She nodded and he opened the door and held it. She passed through first and out into a central grassy courtyard that ringed a Koi pond. Wooden benches sat nestled before sprays of palm fronds and blooming tropical plants. A place of serenity in the center of the medical research lab. It seemed as out of place as an orchid in the middle of a gravel quarry.

“This was created at my wife’s insistence. She said Johnny should have somewhere peaceful to wait before tests and lab work. You know when we draw blood we have to take it from his mouth because it’s impossible to puncture his skin?”

She didn’t, but the information just made the entire testing process more horrific. They’d been at this for six months? No wonder he was depressed. She began scanning for him. The door clicked shut behind them and Johnny emerged on the opposite bank, straightening from where he seemed to have been feeding the fish, judging from the number of the bright yellow, orange-and-white Koi swimming practically up onto the bank.

Why weren’t they afraid of him?

Probably because they didn’t know how much fish he ate. She smiled and started toward him, taking the fastest route over the high-arching foot bridge that spanned the narrowest part of the pool.

He was signing already.
Sorry. So sorry. Not try scare you
.

The captain’s shoes rapped smartly on the wooden planking behind her. “What’s he saying?”

She signed to Johnny.
It’s okay now.

She started signing and speaking in unison. “I was afraid. I thought I was locked in that exam room and you weren’t there. I just panicked.”

“And Webb is an idiot,” added MacConnelly.

Johnny signed to his captain and Sonia spoke nearly in time.

“He says, ‘I just lost it. It was stupid. I know how strong we are. No excuses.’”

“You did hold back,” said the captain. “If you didn’t you would have killed him. It’s easy to kill a man now. And you didn’t bite him. I know that took restraint.”

Johnny closed the distance to her and then paused looking uncertain. His hands moved with the grace of a dancer.
Forgive me, please. Don’t want to lose you, too.

He had lost so much already, his family, his squad, his old life and even his body.

“What did he say?”

“Apologies again.”

“All right, Johnny. No more of that.” He turned to the sergeant. “Touma isn’t yours. She is a translator and a teacher. You need to check that territoriality. You got me?”

Johnny nodded.

The captain swiped both hands over his face and then drew a breath as if preparing to launch a missile strike.

“Johnny, is it true you can’t remember the attack?”

Johnny stilled and then glanced at Sonia as he gave a slow nod. Her gaze dropped. Why did she feel like a traitor? He’d never shared any of her secrets, but she had shared his.

“What
do
you remember?”

Johnny began to sign and Sonia translated.

“He says it doesn’t make sense because—” she paused waiting for more signs and then continued “—he saw the wolf jump but you stepped in front of him. He saw it bite you.” She pointed to her shoulder a moment after Johnny. “Here.”

Johnny kept signing and Sonia drew a startled breath at his words.

“Next he was on the helicopter. But, sir, he says he thinks he was still human. He saw you change, sir.”

“Maybe he just hadn’t changed yet.”

Johnny’s hands continued to move.

“He said he was uninjured, sir.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said the captain. “We both changed. We’re both werewolves. I bit him. I saw the report.”

Sonia turned to watch Johnny and then began to speak. “He says his memory isn’t clear. Maybe he’s wrong, but that’s what he remembers.” She stared at one and then the other. “Haven’t you ever talked about this?”

They both shook their heads.
Men,
she thought. They sucked at communication.

“I’m ordering an investigation,” said her captain. “Anything else you want to tell me, Johnny, before I send you home?”

Johnny nodded and began to sign. Sonia found her words stuck as she tried to speak. “He says, ‘I was prepared to die that day, Mac. But I wasn’t prepared for this.’”

Johnny finished by sweeping a hand over his face and form.

Who could have ever been prepared for this?

“Give us a few more days. We are on to something now. The dogs aren’t dying and they are still changing. Just hold on.”

Sonia watched Johnny lift a fist.

“He says he’s holding on.”

The captain glanced from one to the other. “Dismissed, you two. Touma, call my wife.” He rested a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and Johnny pulled him in for a hug. The men clapped each other on the back. She heard the captain say, “I’ll make it right for you. Swear to God.”

Then the captain was retreating with a hasty step.

Sonia moved in to the place the captain had been. She wrapped her arms around Johnny’s middle. “Let’s get you home.”

They walked side by side up the narrow winding path. Sonia fell into step with him. Johnny could probably climb the hill in a matter of minutes but he slowed his pace to match hers and did not hurry her.

Once back at his quarters he stopped and grinned at her signing.

We are home.

She cast him a sad smile. “When I was a girl I imagined a house of our own with a swing in the yard. Now I just want a place I can heat without turning on the oven.”

Johnny stared down at her. Had she said all that aloud? She’d never told anyone that before.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a bummer.”

He signed to her.
This home, my home is your home. Make it yours.

She laughed at that. “Don’t be silly.”

Captain says you stay here or at base. You choose. Come. Go. Up to you. So, this your home now, too.

It was sweet of him to say. But it wasn’t true. A home, well that wasn’t just a place it was... Sonia stilled as she realized that a home was where you wanted to be. Where you felt safe and where you were with the ones you cared most about. By that definition she was indeed already home and that scared the crap out of her. She pulled back, staring, stunned, at Johnny.

What?

“It’s not my home.”

It could be.

“No. I’m not playing house, Wolf. I stay or go at someone else’s whim. It’s not up to me. So I’m not unpacking or settling in because I know what this is. It’s a job.”

He cocked his head.
Scared.

“Hell, yes, I am most of the time.”

That night Johnny cooked short ribs, the best she’d ever tasted. After supper he gave her the master bedroom with that enormous bed he never used. She stayed the night and the next morning she woke to an empty house. Johnny left a note that he was training with his assigned friends, the wounded warriors. Beside the note he’d left three things: a glass of juice, a bagel and a magazine with a scrap of paper set between the pages on an article about the decorative touches that make a house a home.

She pushed the magazine aside in favor of the bagel. Damned if she was going to be his interior decorator, too.

Over the course of the next three weeks their lives fell into a pattern. She had the mornings to herself. Sometimes Brianna came for a visit, always keeping a distance and never touching Sonia. The more time she spent with Brianna, the more she liked her. She wasn’t frightening or distant, just cautious. She knew the harm she could do to humans by simple contact. Being a vampire that drew energy from other beings made her a prisoner of sorts. She was isolated just like Johnny, but unlike him she had no hope of recovery. Sonia felt terrible as she realized Brianna would spend her life in a self-imposed isolation to protect others from her powers. It would make for a lonely life. Thank goodness that werewolves were immune. That meant she had at least one friend in Johnny and a husband who could hold her in his arms. Better than many. Better than herself, she realized.

Johnny seemed distracted and she knew there was a shadow hanging over them both. He was still in werewolf form. Each day of waiting, the unspoken hung between them. Could they fix him? Because if they couldn’t she would rather have him as he was than lose him in a failed attempt to make him human.

Sonia went still as she realized how much she feared the end might come at anytime. What if she lost him, too?

The call came the next morning just as they sat down to breakfast on the patio. The messenger surprised her. It was Brianna who appeared from nowhere on the lawn below the porch.

“They want Johnny at the facility at fourteen hundred to run a trial. And they want you there, as well, to act as his translator.” Brianna smiled at Johnny. “This could be it, Johnny. They believe this will change you back.”

Johnny signed and Sonia translated.

“He says, ‘Will you come?’”

Brianna smiled, but shook her head no. “I’d have to be too close to the others. I’ll wait here.” She turned to Sonia. “Perhaps you can call me to let me know how it goes and if all is well, perhaps you two might have dinner with us soon?”

Johnny nodded his acceptance.

Brianna lifted a hand in farewell and vanished.

Sonia shivered. “I hate it when she does that.” She faced Johnny who offered her a ginger-pineapple muffin grinning broadly.

For her, this news was like preparing to hear a jury verdict and she didn’t know if Johnny would win his freedom or be sentenced to death. Either way she’d lose him.

His wide grin faded as he dropped his black jowls over his white teeth.

“What if something goes wrong?”

Already went wrong.

“But something might happen to you.”

Worth the risk.

She disagreed but it was not her decision.

“I’d rather have you as you are than see you...” Her words trailed off. She couldn’t bring herself to say what was in her mind as if keeping from speaking that word would somehow keep him safe.

Die,
he supplied. Then he took her hand before releasing it to sign.
I would rather die than live like this.

“Is it so bad?” she asked, tears welled in her eyes, making his image swim.

Yes.

Her little fantasy bubble burst. Had she really thought that she and Johnny could live together in this bungalow on the hill forever? That he would be content with her companionship and nothing more?

Chapter 9

S
onia watched as Dr. Zharov stroked his tie speaking to Johnny who lay on the surgical table. There were lead lines from his body to various machines taking his heart rate and reading brain function. The machines scared her silly. Zharov had six assistants. If it was safe, why did he need so many doctors and why was there a crash cart behind the table?

“I’ve isolated the absent protein from Captain MacConnelly’s blood. My team inserted the protein into your own blood cells to prevent the kind of rejection you witnessed. The injection works on dogs and monkeys. We have had zero fatalities with this new procedure. I have advised that we wait another two months. That is twice the time that we saw any negative outcomes but unfortunately that is not my call.”

Johnny shifted in a nervous gesture as if trying to get comfortable on the stainless-steel surface.

“Do you have any questions?” the doctor asked.

Johnny shook his head and retracted his gums, silently asking for the injection. He had already signed the releases holding the U.S. Marines blameless if anything happened.

Captain MacConnelly stepped forward. “I’m right here, Johnny. Don’t worry.”

Johnny nodded.

Zharov drew a long breath and lifted the needle. The fluid inside looked like blood. Sonia felt her entire body tense. Would it hurt him?

“Private, please step out,” said Zharov.

Johnny grasped her hand and then signed.

“‘My translator. She’ll report what I feel,’” Sonia said.

Zharov grimaced. “This won’t be pleasant, Lam. Just bringing this to your attention.”

Johnny held his hand palm up and bent his fingers.

“He’s ready,” she said, finding her voice as harsh as coarse sandpaper on metal.

The doctor told Johnny to open his mouth and then he stuck the needle into the pink flesh between the upper and lower jaw as if Johnny were a dental patient being prepped for a root canal.

Sonia felt a hysterical bubble of laughter rising inside her. Johnny lifted his hand toward her and she took it gladly. She had the irrational thought that if she just held him tightly enough, it would keep him safe. He squeezed her hand and winked. She squeezed back looking at his familiar yellow eyes as her heart thumped in her throat so hard that it hurt to breathe.

She signed with one hand.
So afraid to lose you.

I am right here.

What happens next? Do you feel anything?

Johnny’s eyes fluttered closed. He drew a long sharp breath. His eyes popped open and Sonia stared. They were no longer yellow, but brown. Deep as dark chocolate, so dark that she could not see his irises.

“Johnny?”

His fingers went slack but she held on. Then his body slumped. His mouth gaped and he gasped as if suddenly struck in the stomach. His back arched.

“Step away.” Zharov pushed her aside. Johnny’s hand slipped from hers. “The transformation takes several minutes,” the doctor said to her.

Sonia was breathing so fast she felt dizzy. But she refused to faint. Johnny’s eyes rolled back so she could see only white and his muscles spasmed into one long rigor followed by a seizure.

“Normal,” said the doctor staring at the monitor on the EKG. Johnny’s heart rate was fast and the usual up and down of the heart monitor’s moving line seemed to be flattening out. Sonia looked back to Johnny to see the fur on his arms dropping away in great hairy clumps leaving patches of perfect smooth skin.

“That doesn’t happen when I change,” said MacConnelly to the doctor.

“Normal,” he repeated. “Just like the subjects we studied.”

“Not normal,” said MacConnelly. “I don’t lose my coat. It just changes with the rest of me.”

“You and Johnny are different. You make the necessary protein to allow you to change back and forth.”

Johnny’s teeth receded into his bleeding gums as his jaw bone retracted with a cracking sound that turned Sonia’s stomach. Johnny arched and the leads attached to his head fell away with the ones on his chest. The straps were now too big as his entire body contracted. Muscles corded. She could see his muscles.

Johnny cried out once and she realized it was a sound she had never heard. A sound of agony but the sound made by a man with the vocal cords of a human being.

She couldn’t watch him writhe, so she threw herself across his body, gripping him tight as he bucked beneath her.

“Oh, God, make it stop.”

“Get her out of here,” ordered Zharov.

Sonia was bustled from the room. The door clicked shut behind her. She stood gasping and panting as she stared through the small window. They surrounded him. Fur fell from the table in black clumps landing at their feet like hair on the floor of a beauty salon.

She could see only the men’s backs and the jumping line of the EKG. It was spiking impossibly fast. Her knees gave way. Someone caught her.

“Hold on, Touma.” That sounded like the captain’s voice, but it was so far away. Why couldn’t she see anything?

* * *

Dora Morton huddled in the filthy packing crate. Shouting did not bring help. Banging on the solid padded walls brought no rescue. Soundproof they had said and so it was. Dora shifted her weight and groaned. Even her remarkable ability to heal did not bring her full recovery from her capture by the male vampires.

She thought of their pitiless leader. He had malevolent cloudy eyes and freakish white skin that looked waxy as a beluga whale’s. Her shoulders shook as she wept. They had taken her in Hawaii. The miles of ocean water had not protected her after all. Her mother had been wrong about that, but not wrong when she had told her daughter that vampires were ugly, but, oh, even her terrible descriptions had not done them justice.

Her poor mother had done nothing but try to protect her child and their terrible secret. And for that, they had attacked her. Had her mother survived?

Dora’s clothing still stank of them. But that was better than what awaited her. She’d met a female years ago, one who had been through it. She had explained it to Dora’s mother. The ones who hunted her were vampires. Her daughter was a vampire, too, with the power to self-heal and to inspire greatness in mortal men. And she was fast as the wind. But not, she now knew, faster than the males.

Dora shifted in the foam padding and tried again to claw through the steel beneath. The metal burned her skin, forcing her to retreat again to the protection of the foam. Even through the padding, the metal made her head pound and her stomach heave. It was like being buried alive in a crypt. The long rectangular box was large from the outside. She had seen it. But inside it was a steel coffin. They shipped her as a dead body. She wasn’t dead. No vampire was. Just other than human. If they went underground, it was only to hide from mortal eyes. That’s what the woman had told them. A different species. A parasite. A predator. The bile rose in her throat and she went still.

“Please don’t be sick.” There was no telling how long she would be in this box. Would the air last? If she survived this trip, when they took her out she knew what would be waiting. The vampire woman had told them.

Ten years in their underground hive. Ten years of indoctrination, bearing children and then, finally, if she learned her lessons well, she might be set out on mortal men as an elite assassin, able to kill merely by spending a night with a man. Ten years without the sun. She’d be twenty-five then.

God help her and God help any female they captured.

* * *

Sonia came around to find herself stretched out on an orange vinyl couch. The ceiling tiles and lights shone relentlessly down on her and she blinked as she glanced about. She seemed to be in a waiting room of some kind. What was she doing here?

The answer swept down on her with such a rush that she felt as if she were under attack.

“Johnny!”

Sonia pushed herself up to a seated position and her head swam again. Had she fainted? Heat flooded her face with the shame. She was a marine, for God sakes, but a poor one. Johnny asked her to stay with him and she had fainted like a little girl who was afraid of blood.

But she wasn’t afraid of blood. She was afraid of that heart monitor and those electrodes. She scanned the room, surprised to find herself alone. Well, they had more important things to deal with than her. A moment later a marine stepped into the room chewing on a chocolate bar. His eyes snapped to hers as he froze and then glanced behind him. He definitely looked as if she had caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Was he told to watch her?

“You’re awake,” he said, trying for a friendly smile, but the lump of candy bar in his cheek ruined the effect. He quickly choked it down and stowed the rest, torn wrapper and all, in his pants pocket. “I’m Corporal Gail. How are you feeling?”

She’d lost her hat, she realized and her neat bun had come loose. Where were her hair ties? Sonia pushed herself to a stand and then grasped the couch back for a moment as she swayed.

Gail came forward reaching. “Take it easy now.”

She lifted a hand to stop him. “Where is Lam?”

“Moved to Recovery.”

“Alive?” She held her breath.

He nodded. “Last I knew.”

“Where?”

“They told me to send word to the captain when you were awake.”

“You do that, Corporal. I’m going to Recovery.” She walked past him and she saw his hand snake out. She glared at him. He changed his mind and motioned down the hall. “This way.”

He stopped at the recovery room door before the large sign that read Authorized Personnel Only. Do Not Enter.

Sonia pushed the door open and stepped inside. There was activity at only one of the curtained cubbies. She headed for the sound of the beeping heart monitor. Her steady, hurried step slowed as she crossed the large white floor tiles. Her heartbeat pulsed in her ears as she saw Zharov standing at the foot of a bed beside the captain and Major Scofield. All three stood grave and silent. But the monitor beeped so Johnny’s heart was beating. Wasn’t it?

But what if he was on life support? She imagined the machines keeping him alive and listened for the hiss of a respirator.
Please, God, don’t let him be brain-dead.

Scofield saw her first and offered her a smile, looking both tired and worried. She came to stand beside the major forgetting to salute in her hurry to see Johnny.

Zharov spoke. “None of the test subjects lost consciousness.”

She glanced at the bed, her eyes moving up the white sheets that covered him from his feet to his waist. His arms rested still beside his hips, as if placed there. Human arms, arms that were well muscled and had just a dusting of black hair on the forearms. There was a monitor on his index finger and an IV taped to the back of both hands. His broad, muscular chest looked like a circuit box with all the electrodes running every which way. The sight of him so still and helpless made her throat go tight and her breath catch.

They’d managed to put a needle into him, so his skin was normal again. That was good, wasn’t it? And Johnny was very definitely a man. He wore no hospital gown and so she noted the clean line of his collar bones as it swept from his muscular shoulders to the V below his Adam’s apple. She inhaled quick and sharp as her body reacted to the sight of him. His skin was smooth and slightly lighter than her own light brown Latina coloring. And then she looked at his face, first taking in the dark shock of straight chin length black hair that fell back to the snowy pillows. Her fingers itched to rake through that thick hair. Johnny no longer had a G.I. haircut. She next studied his face. He had a strong jawline, broad forehead and thick arched brows. His eyelashes were full and feathery against his cheeks. His face was square with a long nose and a wide generous mouth. It was a striking face. A stranger’s face. Sonia frowned. She knew Johnny well, but she did not know this man.

“It worked,” she whispered.

MacConnelly glanced at her and then back at his comrade. “They don’t know why he won’t wake up.”

Zharov tapped the tip of his pen to his lower lip as he stared at his patient as if he were some puzzle. “There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s perfect.”

The captain motioned toward the bed. “He’s out.”

“Brain activity normal, everything normal.”

“Except his eyes are closed,” reminded the captain.

Sonia inched past the men.

Scofield rested a hand on her shoulder. “Why don’t you speak to him, Touma. Let him know you’re here.”

She wanted to say that she didn’t know this man. That she wanted Johnny back. But that notion was so completely ridiculous she merely nodded and leaned forward.

“Johnny? You in there? It’s time for your lesson.”

Johnny did not move but his heart rate increased. She lifted his slack hand and turned it palm up. Then she began to finger spell into his palm as she spoke.

“Come on now. Lesson then swimming.”

His eyeballs moved beneath his closed lids and then he went slack again.

“Say something else,” ordered Zharov, his body tense, his gaze alert.

Sonia gripped Johnny’s hand and leaned forward whispering into his normal, well-shaped ear as she signed into his palm. “Johnny, wake up. You promised to take me dancing.”

His fingers threaded with hers. She drew back enough to see his eyes snap open. Brown eyes, she realized, deep, dark, lovely eyes. Where were the yellow ones she had grown so accustomed to?

He seemed to be struggling to focus but at last he flicked from her to the men behind her and then back to rest on her face. The corner of his mouth twitched and her stomach fluttered. Her visceral reaction to him so startled her that she had to press a hand to her chest in a vain attempt to slow her racing heart. She reminded herself that this was Johnny.

Johnny’s voice came as a hoarse whisper, his vocal cords likely weak from disuse. “Is it done? Am I human?”

“Yes. And as soon as you are up to it, you are taking me out on a date.”

He lifted their clasped hands and stared at his own. “That’s my hand.” He pressed his free hand to his chest and then glanced up to see the three sentinels at his foot rail.