First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series) (22 page)

The threat hadn’t fully registered in Neva’s mind before she was baring her own fangs at the giant wolf. She hadn’t called on her alter ego, but in the face of danger it sprang instantly to rampant life. In less than a heartbeat, she was on four feet, her dark fur bristling to make herself look larger than she was. Her human side was incensed at the intruder, and shouted at him as loudly as she could in mindspeak:
What the hell do you want?

To Neva’s surprise, the big wolf looked uncertain of himself, although he was far bigger than she was. She waited, but he gave no answer, only continued to snarl and growl at her. Her heightened senses told her that, thankfully, the creature was alone—and
holy crap
, she’d met him before.

She snapped her teeth in his direction.
You. You’re one of Meredith’s new batch, aren’t you? Barry? Barney?

He shook his head, opening and closing his mouth. Faintly, tentatively, a word sounded in her head.
Baker.

Okay, Baker, you can stand down now. What’s up with scaring the bejesus out of me?
To her surprise, the big gray wolf again showed his long teeth, the heavy ruff around his thick neck and the fur along his spine standing on end.

I know who you are. You’re the bitch queen’s
sister.
I should kill you right now.
His words were more confident now, stronger, as if he was just getting the hang of talking mind to mind.
But you’re useful, so you’re gonna come with me.
He took a menacing step forward.

Neva was shocked even as a long, low growl escaped her throat.
Me? What the hell did I ever do to you? I just escaped from my lunatic sister myself!

Only her wolf’s instinctive reaction saved her from Baker’s sudden lunge. As it was, she left a mouthful of fur in the savage teeth as she dove right between his front legs, spun out to the side, and ran for her life.

Travis supposed he should be flattered that Meredith sent no fewer than a dozen guards to fetch him. And even without his alter ego’s help, he managed to bloody a few faces before they drove him to the floor and shackled him hand and foot. Walking was more than a little awkward after that, but he had burly guys on either side of him holding him up, their meaty hands hiking his armpits to his ears. Seemed familiar—he was fairly certain he’d allowed a couple of bouncers to escort him from their club like this once.

Key word there—
allowed
.

This was different. He didn’t know where he was going, and he certainly didn’t have any choice in the matter. The cuffs and ankle restraints he should have been able to shatter with little effort were holding him fast. Even the links of the chains had no give at all in them. Had his Changeling strength failed him? What had happened to his wolf? With difficulty he brought the cuffs near his nose as he shuffled fast to keep from being dragged by his captors, but his senses detected no silver in the dark metal.
What he
did
detect was the faint but unmistakable mingled scents of blood and death.

Magic.

Not the earthy kind that his grandfather had practiced with gratitude and reverence all his long life. Not the happy
greet the dawn
and
make offerings to the four directions
and
build bonfires to celebrate the turn of the year
kind of stuff at all.

Travis was well and truly amazed now that Neva had ever managed to escape her sister’s grasp. Because what Meredith was practicing was deep, dark, and dangerous. His stomach turned over as he realized exactly where she was getting all her power. His grandfather had warned him about such things. But he had been a stupid kid at the time and thought it was just a scary story, the kind you tell around campfires and then everybody screams and laughs and passes the s’mores.

He
so
did not feel like laughing.

They came to a stop in front of a glass elevator just off a massive circular lounge. The room was centered around a fire pit big enough to roast an elephant. The entire house was on a scale that boggled Travis’s mind—and filled with sumptuous furnishings, exquisite artworks, and everything a millionaire (better make that a
billionaire
) could possibly want. It was obvious that Meredith already had a great deal of money. Nobody bought this kind of stuff with a garden-variety plastic card. She had followers and supporters—willing or not. And if she was a Changeling, then she already had a fountain of youth, so to speak.

So what’s the end game? What the hell else could she possibly want?

Travis was shoved into the elevator and his face pressed against its back wall by the guards. Through the transparent material—acrylic, he thought, not glass—he watched three more
floors glide by. The fourth was an architect’s dream, a penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a 360-degree view of old-growth forest and restless ocean. The ceiling had a central skylight the size of a helicopter pad, and he caught a quick glimpse of afternoon thunderheads rising high into the blue expanse.

He was hauled out of the crowded compartment and thrown to his knees on pure-white, deep-pile carpet. Two guards roughly shoved his head down and held it there so he could only see the floor—until finely manicured toes sporting brilliant red polish came just within his line of sight. The guards stepped back, and Travis looked up into the face of a Marilyn Monroe wannabe—platinum-blonde hair, red lipstick, perfect complexion, and round breasts threatening to spill from a slinky white dress. Only the eyes were wrong. They were dark, and harder and colder than the diamonds that dripped from her ears. Nothing like the warm come-hither expression of a Hollywood goddess graced Meredith’s flawless face, even though she smiled radiantly.

Sharks can smile, too.
Still, despite his dangerous circumstances—and he did not doubt he was in extreme danger—Travis felt strangely relieved. It came from the fact that he could see nothing of Neva in the face of the monster in front of him. Bone structure, yes, but nothing important, nothing that counted. Neva and Meredith were as different from each other as angels and demons. Only one had a soul. Meredith’s humanity was long gone.

She played with the wavy hair that always fell forward over his right brow, twirling it around her finger and tugging on it playfully. “You look like a fair-haired Elvis.” She laughed. “No wonder my silly little sister was infatuated with you. But you’d look
so
much better,” she purred in a deeper tone, stroking his hair back and bringing her face close to his, “with
me
.”

She kissed him then, and swirled her tongue over his mouth before drawing back. Repulsed, his first impulse was to spit at her, but he decided that wouldn’t be smart given the current situation. He settled for a total lack of response. It seemed she wasn’t overly bothered by that…until she Changed and tore the throat out of the guard next to him. Arterial blood spurted onto the snowy-white carpet as the man’s life pumped away. And he didn’t utter a sound or lift a finger, or even change expression. Just died at the feet of a silver wolf.

The creature was big, almost as big as Travis’s wolf. Wagging its plume of a tail, it grinned widely at him with bloody fangs. But it was the overbright eyes that arrested his attention. Travis could see plainly that the animal was as insane as a rabid dog. His grandfather had spoken once, in hushed tones, of Changelings whose inner wolf had gone completely mad. According to the ancient stories, there was only one cause for the dreaded and incurable condition—the continued ingestion of human blood over a long period of time. It was the unspoken subscript to the highest Changeling law. Not just
don’t kill
, but
don’t drink
.

Travis’s face must have registered the horror he felt, because Meredith was laughing at him when she resumed her human form. Not a single drop of blood marred her face now—there was only the bright red lipstick, perfectly applied. She waved airily at the body and commanded the remaining guards, “Get this out of here and find somebody to clean up the mess. I like this carpet.” As they hastened to comply, she walked slowly, sensuously over to Travis. At first he feared another kiss—until she grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back with astonishing strength. If he’d been human, the move would have broken his neck.

“Blood is very powerful, you know, but not all blood is created equal,” she crooned. “You, my dear, are something quite
special. I could become very,
very
fond of you.” She kissed him lavishly then.

It might have been smarter to play along with the crazy bitch, but Travis just couldn’t manage it. In fact, if his damn wolf hadn’t gone missing, he’d probably try to bite her. Alone, the best he could do was try not to gag—

And choke her with his wrist shackles.

She was too busy forcing her attentions on him, and far too confident, to see it coming. In an eye blink, Travis had the chain wound around her neck like a garrote and was doing his best to strangle her.

A sudden blast of blue light slammed him against a marble pillar on the other side of the room. The impact rang in his ears and made him see stars. And the very last thing he saw was a silver wolf shaking its head and snarling at him.

It was hard to believe she could run this fast. Neva’s lupine body was stretched full out, belly close to the ground, her hind legs overreaching her front ones like a cheetah. She was glad her wolf was in charge, because she couldn’t imagine thinking on the fly at this speed, swerving and dodging and leaping, making dozens of decisions per second. Under bush, over rock, through thickets, around roots. She had no idea where on earth she was headed, and perhaps her wolf didn’t know, either. Escape was all that mattered, and while her pursuer was still hot on her trail, he’d been unable to close the gap between them.
So far.
She wished she was more experienced, but at least the bigger werewolf was as new to his animal state as she was—and she’d had the benefit of Travis’s reluctant mentoring. As far as she could tell, Baker was on his own.

Why is he so pissed at me?
She wasn’t responsible for what Meredith did. For crying out loud, she’d even attempted suicide to avoid serving her sister, to prevent the harm she would be forced to cause to innocent people, and perhaps to take a weapon out of Meredith’s hands. Didn’t that count for something?
What does the goddamn universe want from me?

She yipped in surprise as her wolf made a sudden swerve into what looked like an impenetrable wall of thornbushes. Head lowered, eyes squinted to mere slits to protect them, the creature simply crashed through the unforgiving brush.
Ow, dammit!
Long spines raked through her thick pelt, cutting her deeply, but Neva’s alter ego didn’t slacken its pace in the slightest. In fact, it seemed to be trying for even
more
speed. That’s when she felt it gathering itself.
What the hell are you—

The ground disappeared below her as the wolf burst through the branches into open air.
You’re going to kill us!
Neva held her breath as she sailed over a wide ravine she would
never, ever
have tried to jump in a million years. The wolf hit the edge of the opposite bank hard, scrabbling for purchase with its hind claws until it once again stood on solid ground. Before Neva could even muster a sigh of relief, the creature was racing away at breakneck speed again.