Secret Worlds (506 page)

“I don’t think so. It’s just…” I trailed off, fiddling with the zipper on my jacket.

“What?”

“Will you stay with me?” I asked. Sparing a glance for the doorway I saw the two agents standing in the hallway, their gazes locked on the opposite wall, though I had no doubt they’d heard me.

“Ah…sure.”

“I’m just going to change,” I said, grabbing a couple things out of my bag on my way to the bathroom.

I knew it was silly to run off to the bathroom to change into my pajamas, Holbrook had seen me naked more than once after all, but everything that had happened that evening had left me shaken and vulnerable. I needed some space, just a few minutes to myself to gather my strength, if I wanted any hope of making it through the night without losing my mind. It wasn’t until I’d already stripped off my shirt and bra that I remembered Loki was still in his crate.

Dammit!

Poking my head back into the room, I found Holbrook standing at the window with the drapes pulled aside just enough to let him peer out into the night.

“Can you let Loki out?”

Drawing back from the window as if he’d been doing something untoward, he looked back over his shoulder at me, his gaze lingering on my bare arm where it crossed over my chest.

“Sure. Want me to feed him, too?”

“That would be great. His bowl is in my backpack with a bag of kibble.”

Ducking back into the bathroom, I finished peeling off my clothes, wrinkling my nose at the overly ripe scent of fear and sweat. Donning my pink, fuzzy, leopard print pajama pants and a t-shirt that declared “All Your Base Are Belong To Us” I felt a little more like my normal self. I could almost believe that I would wake up at any minute and find that all this had just been a bad dream. I pinched myself to make sure.

Nope. Still in hell.

Scrunching up my dirty clothes up into a ball, I opened the door and promptly stopped as I took in the scene before me.

Holbrook was sprawled on the bed closest to the window, his hat resting beside him, and my giant cat perched on his chest, purring like a freight train as the FBI agent rubbed his chin.

“Looks like I’ve been replaced,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.

Blushing, Holbrook sat up quickly, dislodging Loki, who meowed to let us know that he was not pleased.

“Uh, hey,” he said, standing up and retrieving his hat.

“Hey,” I replied with a smile, crossing the room to sit on the bed, pulling my knees up to my chest.

I wanted Holbrook to join me, hoping to curl up in the comfort of his arms. Instead, he shifted from one foot to the other, running his fingers along the brim of his hat.

“I need to go check in with the team,” he said after a while, his eyes dropping to the floor. “Will you be okay?”

“Oh, yeah. No problem,” I replied, trying to hide my disappointment behind the ghost of a smile. “I’ll be fine.”

As the door closed behind him, I released the brave façade I’d been trying to maintain since leaving the motel. I didn’t want to admit how much it had hurt to see the shadow of guilt on his face, or how eager he had seemed to get out of my room. It had taken more effort than I cared to admit to open up to him and let him see the hurt and broken parts of me stripped bare.

Guess that didn’t mean as much to him as it did to me.

I hated feeling like a spurned teenager, yet I couldn’t do anything to stop the emotions welling up to the surface, moistening my eyes and making me feel like a fool. I hadn’t let anyone get that close to me in years, and now I had to wonder if it had been a mistake. Wiping the back of my hand across my eyes, I flopped back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Hurt and anger warred in my chest, burning hot and acidic.

“I sure know how to pick ‘em, huh?” I said aloud to my furry companion.

Like a bull in a china shop, Loki plowed into my side, rubbing his chin along my hand where it lay across my stomach. Grace was definitely not one of his strong suits.

“But you won’t leave me, will you buddy?” I asked, running my fingers along the length of his spine and down his slowly swishing tail.

He answered by leaping up onto my stomach, forcing the air out of my lungs with a loud “Oof!” Like I said, he’s not the most agile and dainty creature I’ve ever known. Still, he was the closest thing I had to a friend or family, and he hadn’t left me yet. Settling on my chest, tucking his paws underneath him, he began to purr, rumbling like a motor. I shouldn’t have been tired after sleeping the afternoon away as the wolf, but as I lay there scratching behind Loki’s ears, I felt sleep’s siren song calling out to me. Closing my eyes, I let the sound of Loki’s contentment wash over me, soothing my hurt feelings and lulling me into sleep.

***

I wasn’t sure what woke me, the sound of a car door slamming, or perhaps a truck back-firing. I still wasn’t used to being surrounded by humans; the various sounds of their comings and goings, and the pervasive stink of their existence, grating on my already strained nerves. I knew of weres who had chosen to live in urban areas, but I couldn’t fathom how they could bear to be inundated with the constant cacophony of mundanes scuttling about like a plague of locusts.

I opened my eyes to the patchy roof of my temporary shelter. Drawing a deep breath I let the crisp scent of the winter air slide over my tongue and fill my lungs until they felt fit to burst. It had been too long since I had smelled such pure air, tinged with the scent of pine. For too long my nose had been filled with the stink of piss, shit, and sweat. I’d never let them lock me away in a hole again.

I rose with a groan that worked vocal chords rough from disuse, and stretched, reaching out blindly for the wall. My fingers were dark with dried blood and dirt. I shivered as another blast of cold air tore through the ramshackle shed. The three hunters had not only provided me with some human clothes, their flesh had helped to replenish the strength it had taken to travel north from New Mexico into Colorado. But now the beast inside was eager for more.

Emerging from the shed, I surveyed my surroundings. The clouds overhead reflected the light pollution from Denver, casting the world in a reddish twilight. Behind me, I could hear the gurgling of a creek, locked now under ice and snow. Before me was the small two-story house I had glimpsed when I had exhaustedly crawled into the shed at dawn. Between me and the house stretched a steeply sloping yard with rusting car parts and an abandoned swing set poking up through the snow like ghosts of the past.

I stalked towards the distant light of the house; even out here I could hear the loud boom of explosions and the fast pops of gunfire coming from the TV inside. How strange mundanes are, thriving on the thrill of Hollywood violence when the real thing freezes them in pants-shitting fear. I caught the clatter of pots and pans from the back of the house, glimpsing the silhouette of its single occupant through the window, and the scent of frying meat and oil.

Too bad he won’t live long enough to enjoy it.

I was halfway across the yard when the flap in the back door swung outwards and a large black and tan head emerged to lift a twitching black nose to the sky. Catching the first traces of something foreign, the German Shepherd shot through the flap, filling the air with his booming bark, claiming his territory. Little did the dumb beast know that the intruder was far more dangerous than marauding raccoons. Coming out to the edge of the deck, he stared out at the yard from the top of the steps, trying to determine what was invading his yard.

A sudden shift in the wind carried my scent towards the house, cutting off the dog’s barks in an instant, transforming them into a low whine of fear. Tucking his tail between his legs, the German Shepherd turned and ducked back through the flap into the house, no doubt in search of a hiding spot.

“What’s wrong, Max? Is that skunk out back again?” the man inside asked as the dog shot past him, nails clacking on the floor.

I guess the beast isn’t so dumb after all.

Continuing up to the back door of the house, I grinned in anticipation, my mouth already flooding with saliva at the thought of fresh meat writhing hot and bloody between my jaws. A hissing breath rolled out of me as my fingers began to elongate and thick claws erupted from my nail beds, slicing through the tender skin. Arching my back I ground my teeth against the pain of my spine shifting, the sensation of a partial change somehow so much more painful than a full shift from man to wolf.

In a matter of seconds I stood as the epitome of the Hollywood Wolfman, a hulking beast on two legs covered in thick dark fur, armed with vicious claws and grinning fangs. Yet, as close as human fantasy came to envisioning the partial shift, they knew little of its reality. Only an Alpha could achieve the balance between man and wolf needed to allow them to coexist in time and space.

Stupid humans.

I pushed the door open with minimal effort, the flimsy bolt giving little resistance. I took in the small, dimly lit kitchen in the blink of an eye. Cheap cabinets ran around the room, broken up by a small stove and a dented refrigerator. A table and two chairs sat in the middle of the tight space, half of the table’s surface covered in old newspapers with dismantled engine parts sitting on top.

My sudden entrance drew the attention of the man standing at the stove. Dressed in stained jeans and a yellowed t-shirt, and smelling of engine grease, he was muscular in a sinewy way. I hoped he’d put up more of a fight than the hunters had.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, rounding on me with a fork in his hand, a slab of meat hanging from its tines, dripping oil to the floor. His voice faded away to a startled gurgle and his eyes grew wide as he took in my appearance.

The fork fell to the floor with a clatter and wet sounding slap, and in a rush he reached for a knife on the counter, wielding it like a weapon. My laugh came out as a low, rumbling sound, making the foolish man wince and shrink back against the stove.

“You really think that little thing will hold me off?” I asked, my voice distorted by the razor sharp teeth crowding my mouth, but he understood me just fine.

“Get the fuck out of my house!” he yelled at me, even as the hand holding the knife shook.

The staccato clack of my nails on the floor sounded loud in the small space as I took one step, and then another, towards him, challenging him to fight me. The scent of fear rolled off of him in dizzying waves, pungent and sweet as I drew in a deep breath, savoring the taste of it on my tongue.

Lunging at me in a sudden rush, he swung the knife, forcing me to step back. This one would not go down easily.

Excellent!

“You mundanes are so pathetic,” I said, laughing in delight as he slashed at me again.

“Get away from me, you son of a bitch!” He came at me again, and this time I felt a line of heat scour across my ribs as the scent of my blood filled the air.

I had longed to find someone who would put up more a fight, who would prove to be more of a challenge than the others had been.

Finally, a human who might meet my expectations. Too bad it won’t do him any good.

I swiped my claws towards his face and was pleasantly surprised when he managed to get an arm up in time to block the bow, though it left his arm in useless tatters. He lunged at me again, trying to strike at my chest, but I easily slipped past his reach and knocked him to the floor. I had wasted enough time and energy entertaining my need for a fight, now it was time to feed.

Splitting my lips in a wide grin, I watched as he stumbled, his balance thrown off as his feet slipped in the growing pool of blood from his ruined arm. I fell on him then, claws raking his chest as I clamped my jaws around his throat, inhaling deeply to savor the scent of his death.

My vision grew dark and fuzzy for a moment, and when it cleared I was staring up in terror at the vile beast looming over me, rancid breath huffing against my face, hot against the tears and blood that tracked down my cheeks. Golden eyes brimming with hatred and hunger stared back at me, any prayer I’d had for mercy fleeing like a bird loosed from a cage. I could feel my life bleeding away with each straining thump of my heart. Scraping up the dregs of what little life I had left in me I murmured, “Stay away from me!”

The sound that came out of Samson was more like a growl than anything even remotely close to a human laugh, but there was no mistaking the amused gleam in his eyes.

“Stay away from me,” I repeated, my voice sounding slurred and faraway.

“I’ll never stay away from you again, Riley,” he replied, his words mangled by the crooked row of fangs lining his mouth.

“No! Stay away!” I tried to shout, my words bubbling uselessly on a tongue suddenly made of lead, too heavy to move. I wished that I could raise my arms to cover my head as Samson reached out towards me, trailing razor tipped claws across my face. My wordless scream filled the air as his claws left jagged holes in my cheeks, raking along my teeth.

“Riley, wake up,” Samson said, his voice somehow sounding both worried and ferocious.

I felt myself slipping away, drifting into the warm darkness even as he tried to call me back, his voice sounding full of concern and fear.

***

“Wake up, Riley,” Holbrook said, shaking me roughly, jarring me awake. My eyes snapped open, and for a single heart pounding moment I couldn’t see past the spots dancing in front of my eyes. “It’s okay, I’m here.”

Gradually the stars in my vision coalesced into Holbrook’s face, a deep furrow creasing his brow. The light from the lamp beside the bed reflected in his eyes, highlighting a multitude of golden flecks within their green depths that I hadn’t noticed before. My heart was still pounding and my t-shirt was soaked through with sweat, my breaths burning in my throat as they came fast and hard. It took me a moment to realize that I was sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, my hands curled into fists against the carpet.