Wolf's Blood: A Wolf-Shifter Urban Fantasy (The House of Sirius Book 1) Page 3

  Images of the lab flashed through her mind, the terrors and fears and implicit threats, and suddenly she was tired of being the pawn in this macabre game. “Okay, how about this,” she suggested, making an effort to sound confident. “I want to know what I am. You want to know how I got this way. Maybe a little give and take is in order?” Her heart thudded and her hands shook, but she was determined to gain back some ground, to try and negotiate with these thugs, rather than just giving in to whatever they asked of her.

  Her captor regarded her shrewdly. Silently. Then he suddenly smiled. “Fine. I’m Baron,” he said. “And you are?”

  “Dee.”

  “Dee who?”

  “You first.”

  Baron rolled his eyes, as if talking to a particularly stupid child. “Joseph Baron.”

  “Dee Carman.”

  “Pleasure to meet you. So, you want to know what you are?”

  Dee nodded.

  Baron smirked. “Better hold on to your hat, then. Because this one’s a doozy.”

  He stepped back and glanced at the other man, who nodded and palmed his dagger. He stepped away from the wall and fixed his gaze on Dee, as if they expected her to do something violent. Then Baron turned back to Dee and a strange energy filled the room, like static electricity, making her hair stand on end and her skin tingle. The huge man in front of her blurred, shifted, changed into…

  Dee stared at the huge black wolf that now dominated the room and let out an ear-piercing scream.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dee sat trembling on the bed, a glass of whisky in her hand. Whisky? She never drank whisky. She glanced over at Baron, back in his human form, and remembered the huge black wolf he had turned into.

  She quickly drained the glass, wincing at the taste. She was a… She was…

  Baron pulled a chair up closer to the bed, turning it around to straddle it. She imagined that beneath the scowl and the beard, he was feeling concerned for her. “Take a deep breath. Don’t want you panicking again.”

  As if that hadn’t been embarrassing enough the first time around. But a little shock was justified, she told herself, as she fought to regain a small dose of pride. She was a… “I’m a werewolf,” she stated flatly. Maybe hearing it out loud would help.

  “No. Not a werewolf.” From his tone, it sounded like she’d just insulted Baron. “A shape shifter. A wolf, and a human. Not a half-breed of either.” His eyes narrowed. “But what I’m far more interested in is how you came to be… one of us.”

  That sounded ominous. “How does it usually happen?”

  Baron hesitated, and Dee knew that whatever he said next was going to be a hedge. “In a variety of ways. But it’s always voluntary. The convert knows exactly what they’re getting into and accepts it wholeheartedly. To my knowledge, being converted against your will isn’t even possible. So how did you manage to have a wolf on board without even knowing what it was?”

  Dee considered her answer carefully. It sounded like Baron was far from happy with her so far, and admitting to being kidnapped, admitting that she’d been turned into this thing against her will? It was like admitting you’d snuck into an exclusive club through the back door. And that was always right before the bouncers escorted you straight back out again. Which, in this case, was likely to happen at the pointy end of a knife.

  But what else was she going to say? She didn’t even know how it had happened.

  Besides which, these men, for all their cold intimidation, were turning out to be the lesser of two evils. The scientists had tortured and experimented on her, while the men in front of her had looked after her, got her out of harm’s way, put her on a soft bed, tried to keep her calm and comfortable.

  “I was kidnapped,” she said finally, hoping that honesty was, indeed, the best policy. “I don’t know who they were, but they held me in a lab for days and tortured me. They tried all sorts of experiments. I’m guessing they were trying to implant the… wolf.” Damn, but it was still so difficult to put that into words. But the presence was still there, alert, waiting. Watching.

  “What kind of experiments?”

  She explained it as best she could, fighting back terror at the memories, detailing the needles, the surgery, the electric shocks. Halfway through, Baron refilled her glass, waiting patiently while she sipped the strong liquor, waited for her hands to stop shaking, until she found the courage to continue.

  “The last experiment,” she said finally, staring at the bedspread, telling herself this would all be over soon. “That was the one that worked. They took a sample of my blood, took it away, then came back later and put it back into my vein. I don’t know what they did to it, but then suddenly I had this thing in my head offering to kill them all.”

  Baron was listening with rapt attention. “What exactly did it offer you? How did it communicate with you?”

  “It was like a series of images in my head. Ideas. Emotions, maybe. It was very angry and showed me a picture of the scientists dead on the floor, covered in blood.”

  Baron regarded her suspiciously. “You don’t strike me as a particularly violent sort,” he observed carefully.

  In contrast to Baron himself, Dee thought, who looked like he was quite capable of ripping a man limb from limb. She glanced down at herself, still wearing scrubs, dried blood coating her hands – what a sight she must make. But it wasn’t surprising that the truth was so glaringly obvious. She had trouble even killing spiders, preferring to catch them and release them outside. “Not usually, no.”

  Baron continued to watch her, perplexed, curious. “So a wolf was forced to merge with you, and then it offered you an act of violence that you would normally find utterly repugnant.” He shook his head. “You should be stark raving mad by now.”

  “Why should I be?” she objected. “I was scared, but not out of my mind. I’m not so weak willed as to faint at the sight of a little blood.” Okay, so she’d thoroughly panicked at the sight of a man turning into the largest wolf she’d ever seen, but… She glanced down, knowing there was plenty of blood still clinging to her. Despite her words, she was a little surprised that she was still able to hold a rational conversation. Especially when said conversation involved werewolves, mad scientists and macabre agreements to kill people.

  Baron raised an eyebrow at her protest. “Even in the best of conversions, if the human can’t accept the wolf, then the pair of them go mad. I’ve seen it happen.”

  Dee thought back over those terrifying moments, the surge of rage in her head, the cold terror as the spectre of death stared down at her. “But I did accept it,” she said, almost talking to herself.

  “What?”

  “I did accept it,” she repeated. “The offer to kill them. They were going to kill me, so I told the wolf that it could kill them.”

  In fitting with the inexplicable events of the day, both men suddenly relaxed, as if her admitting to being a killer bent on violent revenge made everything okay. What sort of company was she keeping here?

  “Makes sense,” the henchman by the door muttered, while Baron just breathed a relieved sigh.

  “We’ll need to talk about this more,” Baron said. “But for now, I have bigger problems on my hands. So let’s deal with a more urgent issue.” He fixed Dee with a steely look. “You’ve become a shape shifter. It goes without saying that we’re a rather secretive lot. Humans on the whole do not and cannot know about us. So, until we figure out just what happened to you, you’re going to have to stay here.”

  “For how long?” Dee asked, trying to calculate how long she’d been gone already. “A day? Two days?”

  “Two days. Maybe three,” Baron told her, and she knew he was lying.

  “What if we just remove the wolf?” she suggested hopefully. She felt an instant denial, a whip of anger from the creature in her head. “You know how to make people into shifters, so surely you can just unmake them again?”

  Baron sighed and gave a telling glance at the door, but Dee wasn’t about to let him skip out on this, no matter how much of a hurry he was in. “To my knowledge, there’s no way to remove the wolf,” he said. “It’s been tried. Every experiment has ultimately ended in the death of the shifter.”

  “Oh, come on,” Dee scoffed. “There must be some way -”

  “As I said, I have other things to deal with right now,” Baron interrupted her, opening the door.

  Undeterred, Dee leaped off the bed and moved to intercept him… until she very suddenly found herself pressed face first against the wall, a knife at her throat and the henchman’s cold voice whispering in her ear. “Try to leave this room again, and I will slit your throat,” he promised her. Stunned into immobility, it was all Dee could do to manage a weak nod.

  Fortunately, the man seemed inclined to take her at her word, and he let her go. She turned around slowly and felt her courage wither a little at the impassive look on Baron’s face. So much for thinking he was concerned about her.

  “I need to call my family,” she said, her voice thin and weak. “My mother and sister. I need to tell them I’m alive. I don’t have to mention the wolf thing. I know that’s off limits, and you could even listen in on everything we say if you like,” she added, as the frown on Baron’s face grew deeper. “But they’ll be worried sick, and I…” She trailed off.

  “You’ve asked this already,” Baron said softly, gentle and stern at the same time. “The answer is no.”

  “They could be thinking I’m dead for all I know.” It came out quiet, defeated.

  “Perhaps that’s for the best.” Baron nodded to the other man, then headed for the door. “I’ll send someone up to look after you,” he said, closing the door behind him. Then he was gone, leaving her with a much less accommodating guard, a grim smirk on his lips and a dagger balanced on the tip of his finger.

  ◆◆◆

  As Baron let himself out of Dee’s room, his mind traced out possibilities for the future, and the myriad of plans and good intentions that could go astray. Whoever had kidnapped her most likely wanted her back. From the sound of it, she hadn’t fully bonded with the wolf yet, which meant that madness was still a very real risk. And even if she chose to stay here, to comply with the rules of the Den and the Council, Caroline could still refuse to accept her. As alpha female, she had the absolute right to refuse new members and, if that happened, Dee would either have to find another Den to join or be put down.

  But aside from all that, she’d given him a strong indication that she didn’t want to stay. Converts were usually chosen very carefully and spent several years being educated before they were converted. And they usually came with a very particular set of qualifications – they were loners, with few ties, no loose ends, minimal friends or family. The one absolute requirement of becoming a shifter was that the convert leave his or her old life behind. The estate became their home. The shifters became their family. There was no room for anything else.

  Dee came with connections and complications galore. She’d already mentioned a family back in London. She would probably have friends. A flat, maybe. A job, most likely. A boyfriend?

  If she had a husband or children then they were in deep shit. Sooner or later she would try to escape, maybe go public and risk exposing them all, and that could lead to the extinction of their entire species.

  One thing at a time, Baron told himself, heading down the wide stairs. First, he had to see Caroline about whatever this latest drama with the Council was, then they could sort out Dee’s future, assuming Caroline didn’t decide to kill her on sight when he explained her unconventional conversion.

  Caroline was waiting in the sitting room, pacing, her every movement as sleek and graceful in human form as she was as a wolf.

  “What have the Noturatii done now?” Baron asked without preamble. For all his love of needling Caroline, the safety and welfare of the Den came first, every time, and the Noturatii were their closest and biggest threat.

  “How’s the rogue?” Caroline asked, ignoring his question. For once, Baron wasn’t in the mood to lock horns with her.

  “Contained. For now. She says she was converted by force, but it seems she reached a preliminary agreement with the wolf, regardless. So she’s not insane. Yet. Silas is watching her.”

  Caroline seemed surprised by the explanation so easily given, her tightly defensive stance easing a little. It wasn’t very often that Baron missed the opportunity to push back when she decided to push him.

  “So what about this call from the Council?” The Council was the shifters’ Italy-based control centre. It consisted of the wisest and most experienced shifters, and it governed all their interactions with human culture, decided the location and size of each Den, and maintained a team of elite soldiers to deal with problems that got out of hand.

  Caroline snarled, teeth bared. “The Noturatii have started a new campaign. They’re kidnapping wolves. France has reported two missing from its Den. Italy’s lost one, and so has Spain. And get this – the Grey Watch sent a politely worded letter to the Council warning them to be on guard.”

  As with all societies, shape shifters had their detractors, and not all wolves belonged to Dens or answered to the Council. The Grey Watch were a law unto themselves, wolves who roamed the few remaining wildernesses of Europe. Thankfully they were retreating further and further into Russia and Asia as humanity expanded to fill every corner of the globe, but England had its very own pack, in the Kielder Forest in Northumberland.

  “Fuck me,” Baron swore. “It’s a bad day in hell when the Grey Watch gets involved.” Reclusive to a fault, the Grey Watch embraced all manner of nature worship and shunned all facets of modern life, completely cutting ties with their past upon conversion. Wolves from Il Trosa – literally ‘The Pack’, the larger organisation to which the Dens belonged – were at least allowed to remain in human society. They drove cars and some even had jobs. But members of the Grey Watch seemed to abandon all but the most primitive aspects of their humanity. And of course, there were other… complications.

  But Baron had the sinking feeling that the Grey Watch was the least of their problems. “Dee – the woman upstairs – she said she was kidnapped. Held in a lab and tortured. She says the men who took her wanted to convert her into a wolf. And against all odds, it looks like they succeeded.”

  Caroline paced restlessly across the room again. “So you think she was taken by the Noturatii? That makes no sense. They’ve been on our tails for centuries, but they’ve always tried to preserve the ignorance of humanity as much as we have. Why the sudden change to kidnapping? It’s messy. Risky. If they’re taking wolves, that’s one thing, but snatching humans? People notice when people go missing. They make police reports. And then sooner or later, someone always escapes, and then someone talks, and the Noturatii don’t want that any more than we do. Besides, they want us all dead – hell, they’ve been trying to exterminate us since the Middle Ages. For them to be trying to create new converts makes absolutely no sense.”

  Baron glanced at the ceiling, imagining their newest recruit sitting upstairs, no doubt attempting to hold a fruitless conversation with Silas. “Nonetheless, it’s the most obvious conclusion. The Noturatii are the only ones with the knowledge or resources to be running experiments on shifters. We need to find out more about what happened to this woman. And get Simon to up security around the manor. I don’t want so much as a field mouse crossing this estate without us knowing about it.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Inside the small bedroom, Dee plucked nervously at the bedspread. Since Baron had left, the other man had stayed as her guard, but was proving himself to be far less amicable than Baron had been. He’d remained by the door, glowering at her constantly, hand never leaving the knife at his side. She’d tried asking his name, only to be told it was none of her business. She’d asked if she could wash the blood off her hands, a small, reasonable request which was met with a flat ‘No,’ and then she’d asked for a drink of water, to which he’d replied, “You’re not going to die of thirst in the next half an hour.” She’d thought of asking to see Baron again, but since he’d left in a hurry to deal with a crisis elsewhere, she had to assume that whatever his other business was, it was more important than her. And the silent, scowling man before her wasn’t likely to disturb his boss because of a little whining on her part.

  She went to the window and looked out. She tried to open it but found it locked. Glancing back at her guard, she saw a faint smirk on his lips. “Oh, give it a rest,” she muttered, folding her arms. “I wasn’t going to jump out. I just want some fresh air.” It was a bit of a risk antagonising him, but given Baron’s interest in her, she’d also made the assumption that he was under orders not to kill her – assuming she didn’t do anything violent or unexpected – so a little verbal sparring was a risk she was willing to take.

  Odd how a few days of captivity had changed her perspective on such things. Not even a week ago, she’d have been curled up on the floor in a quivering heap if presented with captivity at the hands of this violent thug, but now all she could think was that his surly personality was more entertaining and less threatening than a white surgical mask and silent, gloved fingers.

  “You’re on the third floor,” the man said, sounding amused. “You could jump if you like. It would make my job a whole lot easier.”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He’d probably get a kick out of it, watching her body splatter on the pavers beneath them.

  “I really would.”

  Sadistic bastard.

  Suddenly the door opened, startling Dee, but the man by the door didn’t even flinch. “I’m Tank,” the newcomer said, and Dee’s first thought was ‘Holy hell, yes, you are.’ The man was huge, taller even than Baron, narrower at the hips but wider at the shoulders, and his tight-fitting clothing showed off his physique in a more obvious way than Baron’s loose jumper had. A singlet shirt and tight jeans were finished off with combat boots and a variety of weapons secured about his body. Blond hair in a crew cut gave him a military look, but the grin on his face counteracted what could have otherwise been a most intimidating presentation. In his hands, he held a towel and a bundle of cloth. Clothes? Clean clothes?