The Wolf in Her Heart (2 page)

Sam nodded. “Rick drugged me. I didn’t know it, and they kept me asleep over all of Saturday. I woke up just after sundown.”

Lou exhaled and slumped into a chair. “Christ. I should have just killed his ass.”

Samantha tilted her head. “I’m starting to agree, if I’m honest.”

Lou’s mouth opened, but a loud crash in the distance interrupted her, and she shook her head at Samantha, shushing.

Faint snarls and thuds became less faint as they waited, then faded again.

“So is he waiting for us?” Samantha tilted her head. Lou was the one who knew better.

“No. I’d smell him, even through the musk. I desensitized myself to it before I sprayed it.” Lou rubbed her forehead. “We have to get somewhere safe until morning.”

“Can’t we call someone?”

“What, the cops? Sam, too many of them are on the Colby payroll. Some of them are wolves too, even. We don’t have a ton of options here.”

Samantha sighed. “I’m so sorry, Lou. This is all my fault.”

“Don’t say that. It’s Rick’s fault. He was an idiot. Wolves won’t kill a mate, and he was arrogant enough to think he’s in love with you.” Lou fished the spray bottle out of her pocket again. “We should get moving. The more breadcrumbs we can lay down, the more distance we have between him and us.”

“Wolves won’t kill a mate?”

“One of the few things you can generally rely on, as far as the wolf goes. At least, I’ve never heard of it happening. C’mon.” Lou opened the door, quietly. “We need to move.”

Samantha hesitated, but followed Lou out into the hall, moving gingerly along. Lou started spraying doors again, and they both made their way down the corridor.

The path they took led away from the faint snarls and whines, through dark corridors with shafts of moonlight cutting through them. Sam followed without question, so when Lou led her almost to the back of the building, she didn’t ask why. Lou had a reason.

Lou opened a door and entered, then seemed to talk to herself. Sam got her bearings.

Lou shut the door behind them, quietly. The room was large and empty, but looked just like the non-service areas of Brentwood, which made little sense this far into the service areas. Another door was in the back. Lou walked up to it, jiggled the handle, then kicked the door near the lock. The wall near the lock, not the door, gave a soft sound of strain. Lou tilted her head, then gave it another sharp kick.

She did notice that Lou was looking somewhat better. Less sweating, less flush, not quite as pale. The idea earlier that Lou might be dead was terrifying, but the idea that Lou might die in front of her was just crushing. Sam couldn’t help but smile a little at the improvement.

A loud crack sounded, and the door swung open to reveal a large, dark, windowless room. When Lou turned on the light, Sam could see a large metal cage with bars easily an inch and a half thick took up most of it. It looked for all intents and purposes as if Brentwood had a holding cell of some sort.

“Fantastic.” Lou smiled at Sam. “First bit of luck in this whole shitshow.”

“What?” Samantha looked between Lou and the cage. “Is this—what is this? How is this luck?”

“This is a cage that VIPs can use for the nights they turn, if they want to stay on the property or if they’ve had a little too much to drink the day of a full moon.” Lou blinked. “What did you think it was?”

Sam swallowed. “Uh, nothing.”

Lou’s mouth fell open a little, and she snickered. “You dirty girl.” She stuck her tongue out.

Sam rolled her eyes. “I didn’t know!” Lou had held her down, spanked her ass red, and fucked her up against the bedroom wall once. Lou had shackles attached to her bed. “It isn’t like it was completely implausible.”

Lou was about to say something, she wasn’t sure what, when a howl sounded in the hallways. A howl that was not nearly far enough away. She shook her head. “Okay, perv. Get in the cage. Tonight, you’re the Very Important Pup. We can talk about this later.”

Samantha entered the thing. It was the size of a small room itself, but the actual room it was in was so large that there was room all the way around.
I guess that makes sense
, Sam thought.
Wouldn’t want the VIPs to destroy things, so don’t put them in reach.

The door clanged shut and Sam whirled around, blinking.

Lou was on the other side of the door.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Sam leapt to grab the door but Lou was holding it shut with one hand while she locked it with the other.

Lou grimaced as she tossed the key into a corner. “I’m sorry, Sam. I can’t be in there with you. I’d hurt you.” Tears were leaking down Lou’s cheeks as she shook her head and shut her eyes. “I can’t let anything hurt you. Not even me. Especially not me. I can’t wake up and find half of you, I . . . I just couldn’t. I’d lose my mind, whatever I’ve got left.”

“Lou, this is
suicide
. You’re no match for Rick at this point!”

Lou swallowed and nodded. “I know, but the aconite is wearing off. I’ll be turning soon.” She opened her eyes again and pulled off her jacket, her tee, her jeans. The sight would have been enticing in any other context. All of the clothes were stuffed quickly into one of the bookshelves as she spoke. “I don’t know if it’ll be soon enough, but if it is, then I’ll kill him. Nobody does this to you and gets away with it.“

“What do you think is going to happen to me if I have to watch you get torn apart?” Samantha’s voice was breaking and she tried to shake the bars, but all she did was jostle herself. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t. Lou had to change her mind. “Open the door. Come in here. You won’t kill me! We’re mated. Please?”

Lou hesitated. She wanted to open the door, Sam could see it in her eyes. A shiver pulsed through her naked form, and her mouth opened and closed, doubt furrowing her brow.

Samantha was certain Lou was going to reconsider this plan.

Lou’s eyes became wide, then wider. She turned her back to Sam, facing the doorway, then threw her head back and a scream loosed from deep in her. Her whole body shuddered as she fell to her knees.

“Lou? Lou, what’s happening?” Samantha held her breath. Whatever aconite did, hopefully it wasn’t this.

Samantha’s answer came when Lou’s hand strained, sick cracking and popping sounds coming from each one. Fingernails split open as thick, pointed claws pushed out of her fingers. The bones in Lou’s whole skeleton seemed to shake under her flesh, and her body expanded, a rippling crunching crackling spreading through her body amidst more agonized screaming. The spasms in her body shook the floor under Sam’s bare feet.

Sam’s breathing was ragged as she watched Louann’s entire body seem to stretch and shift. Hair was everywhere by now, the length stopping after a few inches, the coloration radically unlike Rick’s nearly black fur.

Lou fell onto her side, screeching, and her eyes rolled back to look at Samantha as her face wrenched itself over stretching bone. The nose Sam had booped any number of times spread wider, became blunter, the texture changing almost as fast.

Then, the wolf that was Lou was still. The shape was somewhat like Rick’s wolf, save for the two breasts swamped under the fur. Lou had something approaching husky coloration, with whites and grays.

“Lou?” Samantha barely breathed the word out. “Are you okay?”

A crash in the smaller outer room prevented Lou from answering that question, even if she could have formed the words with her altered throat and mouth.

Sam stared at the door of the smaller room, which was buckling under great force. Another crash and it fell inwards to the floor, revealing the hulking shape of the beast that had come for Sam after she woke up.

Lou leapt onto all fours with great energy, but little shudders pulsed through her body. Sam couldn’t guess whether it was some residual effect from the aconite or just Lou recovering from the turn, but either way, it was clear to her that she was not at her best.

Rick snarled, tilting his head, his eyes bright reflected points of light set on a backdrop of almost black fur.

Lou snarled in response, letting it grow into a thick roar.

For a moment, neither moved, as if somehow Lou was staring Rick down.

The large snarling shape that Rick had become launched towards Lou in the air, knocking both of them against the bars of the cage. Snarls were punctuated with smacks and thuds and piercing whines as the two of them grappled, each one trying to get a better angle to bite or swipe.

A plume of blood spilled out on the floor with a wet splat, almost reaching the cage Samantha was in. She backed away from it instinctively, her eyes lifting to the ball of fur and energy that was comprised of her asshole ex and the woman she loved.

The image, again, flashed in her head—Lou, throat torn out, a corpse. It seemed to stop Sam’s heart and breath, and she shut her eyes. Bad enough if it happens, but she didn’t want to see it if it did.

Another crash of wolven forms against the cage made her open her eyes again, but this time there was more blood on the floor. Some of it was in their fur, plenty was dripping from their muzzles, and more spilled as she watched.

There was a lull, in the room around the cage, with both of them on hind legs, circling around one another. Lou had a gash on her side, but Sam couldn’t tell how deep it was. Rick had several smaller ones, one on his neck below the left side of his head, but it didn’t bleed much.

The two of them couldn’t keep doing this. Rick would kill Lou, and Sam just couldn’t imagine what she’d do after that.

She has my heart.

Samantha swallowed, but could only imagine one useful way to affect the fight.

Rick was closer to the cage than Lou now, with them circling each other.

Samantha screamed. “Rick! Rick, goddamnit, look at me, you fucker!”

The wolf’s ear twitched, his head turned perhaps five degrees at some deeply buried cognizance of the name or the voice or perhaps even just Samantha’s scent getting closer.

It was all Lou needed.

Louann launched herself at him, claws tense on hooked digits, and slashed at the unprotected front of his neck.

He blinked as a waterfall of blood gushed forth, sprays of it issuing from the sides, and seemed to stare at Samantha for a split second before crashing to the floor.

Lou’s eyes were on Sam.

Sam gasped and backed up too fast, landing on her ass. She began to scrabble backwards but Lou was already at the bars. A claw shot between them, reaching for her, but it wasn’t long enough to reach her.

Blood still dripped from the claws. The beast Lou became had the same green eyes, and some of the patterns of her fur had subtle shifts of direction that suggested she had the same scars on her body. There was blood leaking into her fur from the wound on her side, and the wolf whined, leaning its head down to lick at the wound briefly. It looked back up at Samantha and blinked.

“Lou?”

Another thick whine. Lou snuffled at the bars, then laid on her belly, watching Samantha. Behind her, Rick’s body looked a lot more like Rick, albeit minus most of his neck.

Sam swallowed. All she had to do now was wait. Wait for the moon to set, or for the sun to rise, or whatever the exact point of turning back was. Lou had never been very clear about the particulars. Lou never wanted to talk about the wolf.

She almost died.

Lou’s wolf whined softly in front of her, staring at her.

What if she’s dying now?

Samantha shut out the image in her head of watching the wolf stop breathing, watching it become the bled corpse of the woman who came into her life out of nowhere.

She had to believe that Lou was going to survive. It didn’t look like she was in massive pain at this point, either. It seemed likely the wolf was simply pining.

Pining for me.

Samantha tilted her head, then held her breath and slowly crept forward. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was about to was reasonable or even sane.

Rick was dead, though. And Lou had said she’d be weak from the aconite, possibly for a while. If the Colbys retaliated, neither she nor Lou would be safe.
Unless—

Lou would die before she let Samantha get hurt, by the Colbys or anything else. Sam didn’t want to take that chance, though.

She forced herself to take a few deep breaths, then closed the distance between herself and the wolf’s paw, taking hold of one claw. Lou blinked at her, but it wasn’t clear if she understood what Samantha was doing.

Sam wasn’t quite sure what she was doing either. The fact was that imagining Lou dead was like eating ashes by the handful, and Sam didn’t want it to happen, ever, if she could prevent it. If she let the wolf scratch her, she could protect Lou when Lou needed it.

Maybe she’ll forgive me,
Sam thought, as the wolf pulled her claw back, away from Sam’s grip. Sam held her breath and forced herself to hold tight, and the pain of the sharp claw digging in, dragging a thin trench in her flesh, told her the deed was done. Maybe, just maybe, Lou wouldn’t think about getting rid of her all the time, for ‘her own good’.

Having Lou was for her own good.

Samantha opened her hand to find a rich red gash across her palm, and a feeling seemed to vibrate through her hand, her arm, her whole body within seconds.

A confused whine came out of Lou, her head tilting left and right, ears swiveling. Her nose twitched.

Sam was a little more preoccupied with the pain deep in the center of her hand, a pain that spread out. She’d broken her arm once when she was eleven, falling off a swing. Now, the fused bones in her hand broke themselves, seemingly a thousand of the sharp cracking pains spreading through and stretching.

Fresh, raw agony spiked through her fingertips as claws made their way out of her flesh, fingernails giving way with little resistance. Flesh tore and twisted, bones bent and expanded.

Sam’s ears were filled with her own screams, her throat already sore and only getting more so. She fell onto her side, shuddering and wailing, unable to think, unable to feel, unable to process.

The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Lou, watching her with large, sad, bright green eyes.