The Wolf Within (12 page)

Alive and held captive by the monster who killed my family, oh yeah, I was rushing right out to buy a lottery ticket. “My family isn’t.”

“Ah yes. Caldwell. That was fun. So much pain in one night. Do you like pain, Ms. Keenan?”

I shook my head, suppressing a shiver.

Tate laughed delightedly. “Excellent, I knew I picked the right one.”

I jerked my head up. “What does that mean?”

“You didn’t think I left you alive accidentally? Oh no. I chose my survivors.”

“Ch-chose?”

“Yes,” he sat on the bed beside me.

He smelled almost human. Normal scents of cotton and soap and aftershave surrounded him. But underneath it was something I couldn’t describe. Couldn’t name. But the smell set my teeth on edge, made me want to run.

“You see, it’s not very interesting just to kill everyone.” He ran a hand across my hair and my stomach turned over. If there’d been anything in it, I might have thrown up.

“I would’ve thought that was plenty of entertainment for someone like you.”

“Yes. You would. No one understands.” He sounded scornful. “No one has the vision to realize it’s better with survivors.”

“Better?” I didn’t want to hear this but somehow I couldn’t stay silent. Not if he was going to tell me something about that night. Or offer some justification—however twisted—for what he’d done.

“Someone left behind to feel the pain.” He pushed off the bed, faced me. “Someone to suffer. To hate being left alive. I picked the ones I felt would survive best. The ones who would hurt most even though they’d lived. You looked strong. You saw me . . . do you remember?”

I shook my head, swallowing against the pain and regret tightening my throat. I didn’t remember anything about that night between the time I’d gone to sleep and the time I’d been woken by the sound of sirens to find my sister dead on the floor beside me.

“What a shame. We had a moment, you and I. You saw me. Standing over your bed. But you didn’t scream. No. You reached for your phone. So I had to put you under. But I knew then you were a survivor. A strong one. I wonder, if you’d screamed, would you have warned them? Would they have lived?”

No!  I almost screamed it.
No
. There was nothing I could’ve done.

But part of me doubted.

Part of me wondered if he might be right.

Part of me died a little, thinking if I’d screamed, maybe I’d be dead, yes. But maybe they’d be alive.

“Think about it,” Tate continued, “If you’d screamed, perhaps your father might have heard you. Saved you all.” His hand stroked my hair again and I fought not to leap away. Stay still. Don’t attract attention. Don’t draw the gaze of the big bad predator.

“Then again, he didn’t hear me come into their room. At least, not until your mother started screaming.”

I clapped my hands over my ears, bile rising in my throat. I couldn’t listen to any more of this or I’d go crazy. But despite the desperate press of my palms, I could hear Tate laughing.

A rolling, cutting, low sound that twisted humor into something much darker.

You know
, I suddenly heard him, clear as a bell despite the fact he was still laughing.
If you don’t take your hands down, I’ll just talk to you this way. But you might not like it. This way I can do more than talk. I can
show
you. Show you their faces.

I dropped my hands like my ears had caught fire. Only to be greeted by even louder laughter.

“Good,” he said. “This will all be dreadfully boring if we get to that part too quickly.”

This time I almost retched as I struggled to breathe.

Fear flooded my body, paralyzing me.

I knew I was meant to stay calm in this situation. To think. To help myself. But all I wanted to do was curl up and hide. Somehow I forced myself to stay still, to suck in air and continue trying to function. “What do you mean?”

“Ah.” He cocked his head, regarding me with an expression you might see on a small boy deciding whether or not to squish a bug. “I didn’t finish explaining.”

“Explaining what?” I didn’t want to know the answer but I could almost hear Dan in my head, the old rules he’d drilled into me when he’d been a cop. Self-defense if you’re attacked. Keep them talking. Buy time. Don’t antagonize but be strong.

Tate just smiled at me with those dead eyes.

“Explain what?” I repeated. “What do you want with me? Where’s my aunt?” Get information, that was the other rule. Though I’d learned that one from overdosing on cop shows rather than anything Dan had told me.

“I was explaining about survivors. All that lovely pain. And you know what the best part is?”

I stared up at him, unable to think of any sort of reply. He’d avoided my question about Bug. Was she even alive?

He leaned in closer so his face was only inches from mine. His breath stank like something had rotted in his mouth. “The best part is that survivors start to forget. They think it’s over. They
relax
.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” I spat.

He smiled, baring his fangs. “No? Maybe not. But you did relax, didn’t you, Ashley? You thought one bad thing was all that you were going to get.”

Not really. Not after Dan. Did he not know about Dan? Somehow I doubted it. If he’d been watching me all these years then he had to know about the most serious relationship of my life. But maybe to Tate, anything short of death and mutilation didn’t qualify as bad. “I’m not a child. I know bad things happen.”

Tate, just for a moment, looked almost pitying. “But you’re all children. You never learn, you humans. Never learn it’s best to not to hope.”

Right now, the only thing I was hoping for was Tate’s death.

“All that hope for the future,” he said softly. “Shiny bright hope.” His finger ran across my cheek, making me flinch as he dragged his fingernail just under my eye. “Too bad. You shouldn’t have gone poking around in my accounts.” His hand grabbed my chin, fingers digging hard. “Silly girl. You reminded me.”

“Reminded?” I was sure my heart was going to explode as it raced, every instinct shrieking for me to run. I couldn’t think.

“That it’s time for the next step.” He released me and then, almost too fast for me to follow, rose to his feet and grabbed both my wrists in one hand, hauling me to my feet as easily as a man lifting a kitten by the scruff of its neck.

He held my wrists above my head, leaving me almost dangling, toes just on the floor. My shoulders shrieked with pain and my heart hammered loud enough for me to hear each beat.

“Time for round two,” he said and ripped my shirt from my body.

Chapter Nine

I screamed then, terror welling out of my throat and into the air before I could choke back the sound. Tate let me scream, holding me motionless while he ripped my clothes off with his free hand. Wool and silk and elastic all parted under his touch like tissue.

For a long moment he held me there, looking at me with a dispassionate expression then he released my hands so quickly my knees buckled and I collapsed to the floor biting my lips until I tasted blood to keep from screaming again.

Tate crouched in front of me, yanked my head back by my hair, eliciting another shriek. I dropped my eyes, determined not to let him capture my mind.

“Oh, be quiet,” he said, sounding bored. “I don’t fuck humans.”

I curled my knees up as far as possible, trying to expose less of myself to him.

“Of course, I can’t say the same for my compatriots but they’re fairly obedient. When I tell them to behave. Do you want me to tell them to behave? Look at me when you answer.”

I dragged my eyes to his and nodded, fighting not to throw up for real this time. I swallowed hard, tasting bile.

“Hear that?” Tate said, turning his head toward the doorway. “You’re to play nice. Ashley here is going to be a good girl.” He tightened his grip on my hair and tears trickled from my eyes. “Aren’t you, Ashley?”

I nodded again, watching as a man and a woman, both dressed in black, stepped into the room. The woman was a vampire. At least, that’s what I assumed from the blood stains she hadn’t bothered to wipe from below her lips.

Like Tate, she looked fairly ordinary. Dark brown hair pulled back from her face, pale skin. Her eyes were brown and she smiled in delight as she saw me huddling on the floor. “Pretty,” she said, turning to the man beside her.

“Boss said, behave,” he replied but he too watched me with enough predatory interest to make my skin crawl. His eyes were pale blue. A familiar blue.
God
. He was the were who’d snatched me.

Out of the uniform, he didn’t look ordinary at all. He had the sort of pretty boy blondness that would make Jase sigh in delight. His body was taut under the black t-shirt and pants and he’d completed his look with long knives strapped to each thigh. They shone dully in the dim light, making it hard to look away from them. A lovely shiner bloomed around one of his eyes.

I wondered who had hit him, hoped maybe it’d been Bug. Or me.

It was just as likely to have been Tate. Or maybe pretty boy liked things rough. His vamp friend looked like she definitely did.

I had no time to continue speculating. Tate hauled me up again and pushed me toward the duo with enough force to almost make me cannon into them.

The vamp caught me. “Easy, Pretty,” she muttered as I squirmed away from her. Her grip tightened. Nails painted the same color as the bloodstains on her face dug into me.

“Take her to the doc,” Tate said. “Tell him I want the works.”

“Doc’s no fun,” the man said with a grin.

“Doc first, fun later,” Tate said.

***

I didn’t have much of a chance to take in my surroundings as they half-marched, half-pulled me down a long corridor. The walls were dark brown paneled wood and well-worn dingy linoleum covered the floor. I stumbled when one of my toes caught in a hole in the surface.

The vamp let go of my arm, would’ve let me crash to the ground but the man caught me. His hands were warm, and my skin tingled as he touched me. Definitely a were. “Stupid humans,” he said, righting me. “Boss spends too much time on them.”

“You going to tell him that?” the vamp drawled.

“Bite me,” he replied good-naturedly.

“You wish.”

“I’d rather bite Pretty here,” he replied. The hand that gripped my arm wandered briefly, squeezing viciously at my breast. I tried to pull away, only to have the pain worsen. I planted my feet, unwilling to give into their games. These two were scary, and I didn’t doubt they could hurt me, but they were normal everyday supernatural scary. Not like Tate. Being with them was an improvement.

The man squeezed again then his hand moved back to my elbow. “Now, now Pretty. Boss told you to be good.”

“He told you to be good, too, Rio,” the vamp pointed out, hands on hips. Rio shoved me in her direction, smacking my ass as I lurched forward.

“Go with Elvira here, Pretty.”

“Don’t call me that,” the vamp snapped. She grabbed my wrist and starting walking again, pulling me along. I followed as quickly as I could, trying not to mind that I could feel Rio’s gaze. It made my spine crawl but not as much as the cool grip of the vampire’s hand.

Of the two of them, Rio struck me as less dangerous. Sure, he probably wanted to rape me but the vamp would hurt me, possibly kill me, if she started playing. Werewolves weren’t known for killing in human form. Of course, these guys worked for Tate so they were probably not exactly high on the sanity scale.

We turned left when the corridor forked. I tucked the directions away in my head. With each step away from Tate, the terror he’d inspired eased a little and I could think again. Getting the lay of the land might be useful later on. I looked for any landmarks as I mentally counted steps. But the walls were all the same unbroken paneling. If there were other rooms behind them, the doors were well-disguised.

The only distinguishing feature at all was the fact the air in the corridors smelled vaguely like mud, making me wonder if we were underground. Certainly we’d passed no windows. Obviously interior decoration wasn’t high on the list of priorities for your psycho vamp these days. Then again, maybe Tate wasn’t as crazy as I thought. Wherever I was, it was organized. And he had people working for him. Surely you had to be functional at some level to manage henchmen? Somehow the thought wasn’t comforting. Crazy was one thing, but if Tate was sane, then his actions were even more terrifying. I refocused on counting steps, needing the distraction to keep the fear away.

I’d reached four hundred steps, with another left turn and a right before we came to a halt. The vamp hovered her palm over a spot in the wall and a door slid back.

“In you go, pretty.” She planted a hand on my back and shoved. I stumbled forward, blinking in the glaring white light while I regained my balance. It was some sort of laboratory, the walls lined with glass cabinets and various pieces of medical equipment. An examination table stood in the center of the space. It was fitted with restraints.

Fear bloomed in my stomach again, cold spikes racing along my nerves, weakening my knees. The air smelled like antiseptic. Which was better than mud; but the strong smell combined with apprehension to make my stomach heave. I clamped my teeth shut, sucked air in through my nose as the room whirled around me for a moment. Gradually I regained control.

Across the room, a gray-haired man wearing a black lab coat was perched on a stool drawn up to a metal counter, looking at something through a microscope. He lifted his head as the vamp cleared her throat. His rimless glasses glinted under the lights, his gaze dispassionate as it met mine. I might as well have been the specimen he’d been studying. He looked past me to the two standing behind me. “What’s this?”

“Boss’s new toy,” Rio said. “He said to give her the works.”

“Already?” The man sighed, pushing his glasses up further up his nose. “Fine. Leave her with me.”

I didn’t hear any movement behind me.

“I said leave her.”

“Pretty might try and run,” the vamp said.