Bitten by Treachery (Hadley Werewolves) (7 page)

“I don’t know. He didn’t answer when I knocked on the door to his house, and he didn’t show up when my guys met up at seven.”

“Was his car in the driveway?”

“Yeah, both Penny’s SUV and Aidan’s car were in the driveway.”

He shrugged. “Maybe they had a long night. Give him a call in an hour and let me know if you still have trouble getting a hold of him. We can do a well check if necessary.”

“Will do.”

By the time Trenton got to the end of the line at the counter, Charly avoided his eyes. She picked up her next order from Julia and kept her hands busy. So she did have regrets about what happened last night? Would it make her feel better if he told her he didn’t see what went down between them as a one night stand?

He told Julia he wanted his usual, a double with two shots of caramel and creamer.

When Charly didn’t look his way, he paid Julia and took a spot standing with others waiting for their orders. He’d have to wait until he finished his shift to settle things between them.

Yet a conversation beside him diverted his attention.

“You had any problems last night with your livestock?” one man asked another.

A few human folks in town kept chickens, cows, and such. A good idea since deliveries to the grocery store came weekly instead of daily. Of course, that meant if anything bad happened to the animals, suspicion went to the werewolves, though that was a rarity. Trenton just didn’t like hearing anything being off so soon after that damn witch almost ripped the whole town apart.

“Not really,” the other man replied.

“I checked on my cows this morning and noticed the barn was empty.”

Trenton leaned into the pair’s circle. “Did it look like theft?”

“Now that I think about it, the door looked like it had been pried open. Something seemed off, but I couldn’t place it though.”

Drifters came through once in a while. A rogue or two hoping to settle and they decided to leave instead.

Trenton cracked his knuckles. “I’ll call it in after I wrap up here. I’ll take a look after my morning patrol, if you don’t mind.”

“Thanks, Trenton. I’d appreciate that.”

“Trenton. Double coffee.” Charly called out his order so he approached her with a grin, but she didn’t return the gesture. Matter of fact, she immediately returned to her work.

He waited a moment then turned to leave, but threw over his shoulder. “Have a good day, Charlene.”

As he walked out, he swore he heard someone chuckle and whisper in the back of his mind,
It’s Charly, thank you very much.

Seeing Trenton that morning confirmed Charly’s fears. She’d enchanted the wrong man. And now she’d made a mistake she couldn’t easily undo. She’d bound a werewolf to herself. Hell, now they could communicate telepathically with a bit of effort. But with each passing moment, the magic within her faded as the wolf strengthened. She had awakened that morning craving his touch, but that foggy moment passed, and now her thoughts have been replaced with nothing but clarity: Deep inside she was still a witch and needed to act like one. Her aunt Amelia’s mistake couldn’t be repeated.

But these feelings she had for Trenton scared the shit out of her.

Also, she hungered to eat. She hungered to move. And now she hungered to be with
him
. The job had been a thankful distraction. The orders came quickly, but she kept up with a speed she’d never had before. Each order didn’t require more than a moment to memorize and fill.
 

Her body didn’t fail her either. For the next three hours, she worked at full speed without feeling tired even once. In the past, she’d performed cataloging work for one of the elders. After a few hours, her hands and eyes would grow fatigued. Yet now that the wolf swam below the surface of her skin, there was no escaping the facts: She was becoming one of them and she didn’t want to be.

“They’re disgusting animals,” Ophelia had always said. “Most of them have no desire to advance their culture. Do you see them developing their abilities? Studying a craft like magic to better themselves?”

To Ophelia, they were a means to an end. And Charly had no choice but to hear it much to her disgust. That was a part of the apprenticeship process. To learn what an elder taught. As a teen, her mother had once recounted what had happened to her human father, a businessman from the northeast who came to Las Vegas once per year to visit her mother.

“Your father had been a fragile human man. He came to me diligently every year.”

“What happened to him?” Charly remembered asking.

“He died protecting us during a blood demon attack.” Her mom touched the scar along her cheek. The skin was pale now, but the blemish was still prominent. “It all happened while we had guests in the compound. Your father’s death is all the more reason to keep out those not like us.” Her mother tried to stifle her tears but failed. “The world is a cruel place, Charly.”

“Then why don’t we move somewhere safe away from the box? Why can’t we take it and throw it into the ocean? Add weights and let it sink to the bottom?”

“The elder blood witches vowed not to walk away from their obligation like another coven had.” Her mom sighed, pulled her close, and ran her hand down her back. “It’s a burden the crow coven refuses to set loose on someone else—even to the deepest hole in the ocean.”

“Charly?”

She glanced up to see she’d stared into space while she wiped down one of the coffee shop tables.

“Your shift is over, hon,” Julia said. “Why don’t you go get some lunch?”

Charly slowly untied her apron and took it to the back office. The room was a tiny space with shelving for stock, a computer desk, and a window looking out to the back alley. As she put the folded apron into an empty space on one of the shelves, something darted down the alley and came to rest near the opposite building. She shuffled back to the wall at the sight.

Right outside, underneath the overhang of a building, a form slinked against the far shadow. It was a man—or what had once been one. His watery eyes were wide and his skin bleached. Dark purple veins lined the skin around his cheek. Drops of blood dripped along his clawed hands and onto the concrete below.

Oh, shit. What in the hell was that?

 
She took a single step closer, her shoes scrapping on the hardwood floor. She had to see. She had to confirm what she hoped wasn’t real.

His head suddenly twitched. He brought his nose to air and took a step toward Charly’s window. She backed up again until she hit the shelves with a hard thump. Could he hear her? She sucked in a deep breath and froze, not even daring to blink. He couldn’t be real. She’d just enchanted Trenton the night before. Things couldn’t have gone wrong so fast.

But another look at that man’s face told her the worst.

Somehow she’d unreleased Hell in Hadley all over again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Charly’s feet couldn’t carry her away fast enough. She forced herself to walk as she left the back office, keeping her head low as she murmured goodbye to Julia. Main Street was still busy from morning shoppers, at least busy for Hadley. Her gaze darted to the street connecting the main drag to the alley, hoping and praying someone wouldn’t emerge.

Should she tell Julia? Indecision made it difficult for her to think.
This place is better off now, but if I had known sooner, I would’ve gotten out of here. Brother or not
,
Julia had said.

Trenton wasn’t sick. She’d seen him this morning and he was fine. Yet, she’d enchanted him. The spell had been done as she had been taught. So then who the hell had infected that man? Only a high-ranking werewolf could bring others under his control. Had someone arrived before Charly? Her dread deepened.

Charly had to find Trenton and confess. That was the only way to keep this situation from further escalating out of control. She had to get all these people out of danger before the infected took over. Her mother would have to wait a bit longer for rescue. Without hesitation, she ran down the street toward the police station at the far end of the road. No matter what, she’d face the consequences of her actions. All of this was supposed to be easy. She’d take control of the alpha, and once he was under her command, the rest of the werewolves would fall in line. She’d return to Las Vegas with a powerful werewolf and a few pack members to help. In hindsight such a simple task.

With each step though, she sensed the sisterhood closing their doors on her.

“You’re abandoning our cause to aid the blood demons, Charlene,”
Isabella would say.

“Don’t choose them over us,”
Ophelia would implore. “
There are so many things you’re leaving behind.
You’re on track to take over as head researcher. Do you want to give up your ten years as an acolyte?”

But then she remembered Ophelia’s final words for her:
Don’t ever forget. Those animals can’t get back their humanity once they surrender to the wolf.
Our only option is to control them or lose our battle with the blood demons.

When realization hit her in the gut, she stopped dead, and then her eyesight wavered. Her body went cold.

They had no plans for her to come back.

There wasn’t a glyph to undo the transformation from witch to werewolf, and since she lost her humanity to become a werewolf that meant they had no plans to reunite her with her mother either. She was a sacrifice. A tool to bring the werewolves of Hadley under control for the witches.

Slowly, she made her way to her destination again. An ache formed on the crown of her head. After waking up pain-free, such a feeling bothered her. Almost as if her heart had been broken, and now her headache was the result.

The Hadley police office wasn’t much. Just a one-story brick building with a sad bunch of drooping cacti in the front as landscaping. She’d walked by plenty of times, but never had she gone inside to see anyone.

Today, if ever, seemed like a good enough day.

The double doors opened up to a one-room center. A woman looked up from her desk. The metal sign on top of a stack of papers read
Rhonda
. She must have been the dispatcher Charly heard during her first day there. Beyond Rhonda, several desks lined up in two rows to another two closed doors in the back. Charly’s nose told her one door led to a private office, while another, based on the smells of disinfectant and body odor, came from the jail cells. Her shoes scuffed against the linoleum floor as she shuffled to the dispatcher. The main office appeared to be empty of other officers. No surprise in such a small town.

“Can I help you?” The human woman leaned forward on her desk. “You must be Charly, our newest resident.”

The newest killer of town innocents
, Charly thought glumly. “Is Officer Spencer here?”

“He should be back soon if you want to take a seat over there.” Rhonda pointed to a bench on the far side of the wall. “You shouldn’t have to wait long.”

She took a seat as instructed. Not long after, a voice blared over the radio on Rhonda’s desk.
“Dispatch, this Officer Crane. Officer Spencer and I are finished up here at the Osborne farm. The cows are missing and we don’t see any sign of them…”
The rest of the report became unintelligible white noise to her ears as the realization hit.

Missing cows might mean those who had turned had fed…

No. No. No.
Everything was happening too fast.

She rested her head on her right hand. Maybe if she relaxed she could calm her beating heart.

A breeze shook the glass front doors, shaking them against its hinges. Charly’s head snapped up from the sounds. She strained to listen, but couldn’t hear much other than the back and forth scrape of metal against metal. From her angle on the other side of the room, she couldn’t see the door well. The wind had been brisk during her walk to the station, but something prickled the hair on the back of her neck.

One of the doors creaked open, and then the dispatcher yelled, “Is that you, Aidan?”

Charly angled herself forward and caught the powerful scent of decay. Enough to make her cringe. Charly remembered the name of Sly’s son-in-law and realized that must be who rushed at Rhonda. The woman’s eyes grew wide as his claws extended in mid-flight over the desk. Rhonda screamed and scrambled back from her seat.

Oh, holy fuck.
Charly choked on a cry. With nothing in her hands, she glanced around for a weapon. One would think a police station would be the best place to take on a threat...if the guns weren’t locked away. She grabbed a chair from one of the desks.

She turned to see Aidan land hard on top of Rhonda. His back twitched as he let out a long growl. “So sweet…” Rhonda tried to get away, but he sunk his claws deep into her shoulders. He heaved her up and slammed her back and head onto the hard floor.
 

With the chair hung high, Charly ran toward them. “Get off her!”

She swung the chair against the crazed werewolf’s back with a heavy
thwack
. Aidan didn’t budge, merely turning toward Charly to snap at her with his blackened long teeth. “Bitch,” he snapped.

He yanked the chair from her with surprising strength. And now she had nothing.

Fire
. She needed fire. Using her fingernails, she drew blood in the palm of her hand. The initial pain hurt less than it usually did. Rapidly, she scribbled the glyph for fire into her palm. She sucked in a deep breath and then cupped her hands together to form a tunnel. As her exhale blew through her hand and brushed against the glyph, bright orange flames stirred to life and arced through the air to Aidan. A gust of heat fanned her face and burned her skin, but she held firm to her magical blowtorch.

Aidan screeched and flailed, the flames eating away at his clothing and skin. Charly scuttled around him and ran to Rhonda. The dispatcher’s arms were a horrible mess of deep scratches, but she was still alive. Charly grabbed Rhonda’s sweater from her seat and ripped it in half. The garment wasn’t much of a bandage, but the material would make do. She delicately hoisted Rhonda’s arm around her shoulder and supported the woman’s weight. Smoke and the stench of cooked flesh began to fill the room. Aidan continued to writhe on the floor as they limped past. As Charly reached for the glass door, the path to safety opened for them. In the doorway, Trenton held the door, but his arm slipped down when he saw what lay behind them and the dispatcher’s sad state.