Wolf Moon (38 page)

“
There
, there,” he said, the sound of his voice soft and
soothing as he continued to stroke my fur. Something about how his voice
affected me clicked into place; I recognized it. Not only was it familiar to
me, I glommed onto it desperately, hoping I was right and that I would to be
safe with him. How could I not be? He’d never hurt me…

My
eyes fluttered open, and I looked into the dark, almost black eyes of the man
kneeling above me. The full moon shone behind him, haloing his form in a
silvery light that, combined with my cloudy eyesight, made him look almost
angelic. My eyes fluttered closed again.

Bobby.

Even
in my drugged state, I knew it was
an impossibility
.
The tranquilizer had claimed me, and I was imagining it all. Seeing something
I’d been wishing for every day for seven long years. Unable to fight anymore, I
gave up and just went with it.

I
found just enough energy to open my eyes one more time. His smile widened,
fangs sharp and gleaming like ivory. “Big brother’s here to take you home.”

I
shivered uncontrollably
until my jaw hurt from clenching it so hard. Images from a recent nightmare
flashed in that dark place between sleep and consciousness, and I cringed. It
was all so real, and I hated that my subconscious blamed Nick for what happened
to me. Of course, that was only the catalyst for the worst part of the dream.

My head throbbed, and I
pressed the heel of my hand into my eye, hoping to quell the building migraine.
Flashes of the unconscious girl, blood, dirt, and leaves matting her hair,
filled my head before pain ripped through me.

Alarmed, my eyes snapped
open and I sat up. My leg hurt, but that wasn’t what worried me most. As I took
in my surroundings, I realized this was not my room. I was not home safe in my
bed with Nick’s arms around me as I woke from my nightmare. I was in a cold,
dank room—no, a dungeon of some sort—and water dripped and trickled
from the stone roof and walls…

A cave. I was in some
sort of stone cave.

There were no windows
that I could see. My panic spiked, but I tried really hard to keep my
composure. Freaking out wouldn’t do me any good. I needed to keep a level head
so I could figure out how to find my way home.

I inhaled, hoping to pick
up the scent of the Pack. I could smell for miles, so if I could just pick up
one of them, I might be able to determine how far from home I was.

Nothing.

Tears welled in my eyes
as I turned around, and pain blazed up my leg. I glanced down at the jeans I
wore—they were a couple sizes too big—and worked the left leg up
over my calf. I let out a sob as I registered the bloody bandage around my calf
muscle. It wasn’t a dream. Every single bit of it had actually happened—right
down to the revelation that Nick had been the one to turn me.

Fighting back a sob, I
wiggled my toes, testing to make sure there wasn’t any damage to the nerves or
tendons in my leg from the break. I was relieved to find every one of them
still worked. At least that was good news.

The bad news was that,
while it still hurt, my leg felt mostly healed. Nick’s arm had taken a couple
of days before it was in this condition, which could only mean I’d been here
for a while. How long? Where was here?

I craned my neck to look
behind me, but something jabbed into my skin, keeping me from using full
mobility. I reached up and felt the heavy iron collar around my neck, and
grimaced when I found it lined with spikes aimed at my throat.

What the hell was all of
this about?

My need to find a way out
of my prison increased tenfold, and I stood up. I was able to put a little
pressure on my injured leg, but not for long before I needed to ease off it.
Slowly, I turned around and found a large cage door that kept me contained. On
the other side of this cell door was a narrow hall, and then another cage, and
another beside it.

I leaned against the bars
to get a better look down the corridor, but pulled back when they burned my
skin. Silver. They took a lesson from Marcus and had them infused with it.
Bastards. What was this place?

I got as close to the
bars as I could without burning myself again, and tried to see what all was out
there. It was dark and without being able to look directly down the hall, I
couldn’t get my eyes to adjust appropriately. It was frustrating as hell. Since
seeing anything was
damn-near
impossible, I decided to
use my other senses. Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply and listened carefully.

At first, all I could
hear was the steady trickle of water as it ran down the outer walls of my cell.
I smelled the crisp water and the earth and rock that contained me. Beyond
that… I strained a little harder until I thought I picked up the scent of
blood. Yes, that’s what I smelled.
Human and wolf.
I
wasn’t their first prisoner, and something told me I wouldn’t be their last.

I could feel my temper
flare upon fully realizing that I was being held captive by some vampire
rejects the Pack might have missed. I was pissed at myself for letting it
happen.

Approaching footsteps
distracted me, and I desperately scanned the corridor for
whoever
—
what
ever—it was. The foul smell
greeted me before the figure’s silhouette came into view. In the corridor,
there were lanterns lining the wall. They didn’t give off much light, but it
was just enough to make out the cut of this guy’s angular jaw, his gaunt
features, dead eyes, and blond hair. He was tall and gangly, and if I was being
completely honest, I knew I could take him.

He stared at me for a
minute, his eyes hard and fearless. It made sense; he was on the right side of
the bars, after all.

I glanced down, and in
his hands were two bowls. One held water and the other had what smelled like
raw meat that was on the cusp of spoiling. There was something else that looked
like oatmeal or gruel. Whatever it was, it smelled less than appealing.

“Who are you?” I
demanded, ignoring the dishes and approaching the cage door again. “Why am I
here?”

With a cruel glint in his
eyes, he knelt down and slid the two dishes through an opening big enough for
one dish at a time.
There was no way I would be able to fit
through it, but believe me
,
I contemplated it
.

The vampire stood and
turned to walk away without answering my questions, and this enraged me. “Hey!”
I screamed after him. “Don’t you walk away from me, you spineless piece of
shit!
Get back here!” I slammed my hands against the cage
doors angrily. My palms sizzled as I hit and rattled them over and over again,
but I didn’t care. I was far too lost to the anger.

And then he was gone, and
I was left alone with the two bowls. I looked down and scowled; they were
keeping me kenneled and feeding me like a dog. Rage continued to bubble inside
of me until my skin tingled and tightened. It didn’t take very long for my
temperature to rise; the change was starting, and I wanted it to take over. I
closed my eyes and lost myself to the sensation of my bones shifting. I was so
hungry for revenge that the pain was a release.

“I’d stop that if I were
you.” The voice I heard was soft and female, and it snapped me out of my
transformation.

I wasn’t alone. Someone
else was here.

“Hello?” I said, looking
across the corridor into each cage.

“You can’t let the wolf
out,” she said again. I looked harder and found a tiny shape in the corner of
the cell across from mine. She was shrouded in shadows, but I recognized her
scent as the girl from the woods.

“You’re okay,” I said,
relief filling my voice.

She was silent.

“
Wh
-why
can’t I shift?” I asked, acknowledging her earlier concern.

“The collars,” she rasps.
“They’re designed to release trace amounts of silver if your temperature rises
beyond a certain point.”

I brought my hand up and
touched the collar.

“And, if by some miracle
you can still shift through it, the spikes will puncture your carotid as your
neck thickens and you’ll bleed out.”

It was my turn to be
silent as I realized the gravity of the situation I’d found
myself
in…and all
because I ran away from yet another problem.

The girl shifted in her
cell across from me, drawing my focus back to her as she stood and started
walking toward her own cage door. I gasped as the light hit her young, delicate
features. She had to be no more than thirteen or fourteen, but it wasn’t just
her age that stunned me into silence…

I remembered her scent
had been familiar to me when I saw her in the forest, and originally I thought
it was that she was a wolf… Turned out it was more than that. Her long black
hair hung down to her waist. It was silky and smooth—she must have been
able to groom the twigs and blood from it since I had last seen her—and
her hazel eyes were as captivating as her mother and sister’s.

“
Cordelia
?”

Blue
mooN

With a grunt, I finally freed
myself from him, and this made him angry again. Too busy trying to fill my
lungs with air, I had very little fight left in me, and with the cage door
closed, I would either have to gain the upper hand and get the key or let him
win this round and re-strategize for next time.

The wolf refused to let him win.

When he was inches away from me, I
pounced, but his reflexes were better than mine, and he twisted, grabbing my
upper arms and pulling them back. Naturally, I continued to struggle as he
forced me toward the cage door. I tried kicking my legs up, hoping I could
build up some kind of momentum to catapult over him, but every move I made to
try and free myself only intensified the strain in my shoulders. I was
panicking. I could feel my muscles shift beneath my clothes, and my temperature
soared. I was far too stressed out to stop the change from happening, so I
didn’t even try. It wasn’t until my
newly-acquired
collar
singed my skin and released trace amounts of silver into the air that I was
forced back into submission.

With the air clear of his initial
desires, he opened my cage door while maintaining
a firm hold
on me. Now that I likely didn’t have to worry about him having his way with me,
I thought back to my original plan to escape as he led me down the dark
corridor and toward the heavy iron door. I realized that this—even though
I had no idea what to expect—could actually benefit me. By seeing the
rest of the compound, I could better formulate a plan to get out of here and
back to the manor. Plus, I now had an idea of his fighting strategy and felt
confident that I could take him next time if it came down to it.

I couldn’t make this too easy on
him, though, for fear he’d figure out what I was planning, so I continued to
struggle, just not as intensely.

Beyond the iron door, it was a
stark contrast to where I was being kept. It was bright, the walls made of
perfectly smoothed concrete or stone that had been painted white. It wasn’t
inviting, by any means. If I had to describe it, I’d say it bordered on clinical,
with just a smattering of an underground military operation and a side of mad
scientist.

We walked past several metal
doors. Curious about what might be happening behind each one, I strained my
ears to try and find out. I didn’t hear anything. Were they empty?

Before I could determine anything
too conclusive, I was being shoved through another door that looked like all
the others. The collar around my neck seemed to tighten, almost like it was
being grabbed or yanked, and then I stumbled forward a few steps. The lights in
the room were brighter than in the hall, causing me to squint my eyes until
they adjusted to the change. When I turned around to face the thing that
brought me to the room, I was met with the slamming of the heavy door and an
iron lock sliding into place.

Coming summer
2015