First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series) (26 page)

“Stunning. Let’s go.”

“Where?” he mumbled with his mouth full.

“We gotta get back to the bitch queen’s palace.”

“All right. How?”

“Right through the front door.” She told him what she had in mind, and watched his eyes widen.

“It’s crazy. Brilliant, simple, but totally crazy. Of course we haven’t got a chance, but—
shit
, that’s not a bad plan at all.” He swallowed hard then, and cleared his throat. “So I gotta ask, you’re not thinking of turning me in for a bounty or something, are you? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure I’m worth a fortune, being so good-looking, but…”

The joke fell flat as she fisted her hands on her hips and kept them there to keep from hitting him. “Listen, mister,” she said. “We both have people we care about who are in Meredith’s nasty hands. And there are a lot more people whose lives are being stolen by her every day.”

“No shit?” Baker snorted and spat at her feet. “Riley and I went out for drinks, just to blow off a little steam. We’d been working like crazy on a project, lots of overtime, no days off, for almost a month. So we put away a lot of beer. And we’d been chatting up a couple cute girls all night, and they invited us to a party after the bars closed. Sounded like fun, you know?

“Only when we got outside, we were jumped by a half-dozen guys who threw punches like fucking anvils. Last thing I remember was being thrown onto the floor of a van. I woke up in your sister’s complex—and not in the goddamn penthouse, either.”

“I was a prisoner, too!”

“Oh yeah? I was kept with the newbies, the ones that hadn’t turned yet, just one level up from the prisoners. I never saw you there, anywhere, not once. You lived in the great wide
above
. As in
above
ground,
above
servants, and definitely
above
any of us. You’re blood to that crazy bitch, and you watched everything she
did. So excuse me for being a bit cautious about what your real motives are. How do I know that you’re not her partner?”

Neva erupted. “Meredith doesn’t want a partner! Jesus, the last thing on earth she’d want is to have to share any of her power. And I sure as hell wouldn’t
want
it if she did.” She banged a fist on a tree, hard enough to bring down a shower of leaves and leave a slight depression in the bark. Hard enough to bloody her knuckles as well, but she welcomed the pain. She had no tears left for the things she had seen, but that didn’t mean she didn’t remember every last one of the people, or the wolves who had once been people, who had died horribly in front of her.

She had told Travis the truth—she saw Meredith’s face in her dreams, her triumphant smile sharply edged in red lipstick and dripping with blood. But she hadn’t told him about all the other faces that haunted her dreams, too. The faces of the dead.

Slowly, carefully, Neva recited her twin’s efforts to impress her, to win her over—or corrupt her. Either would have been fine in her sister’s dark books. She didn’t know if Baker would believe her or not, and maybe it didn’t even matter, but going over the horrendous checklist of homicides jogged loose a sudden insight…

“What Meredith really wants is an audience to show off to. And for some reason, she thinks I’m the ideal spectator. Maybe because we’re alike in looks, maybe because I’m so different from her at heart. Whatever the reason, she needs me to
see
the sick and twisted things she does. She doesn’t even want my approval. The more I’m shocked and horrified and sickened, the more she likes it.”

“That is seriously fucked up,” said Baker.

“Tell me about it. What it comes down to is that I’ve seen as much blood as you, maybe more,” Neva said at last. “So I’m going there to do whatever I can do to stop her. I think we’d be more
successful together, but either you trust me or we call it quits right here.” She realized with a sharp pang that those had been Travis’s exact words, but she managed to keep it from showing on her face.

Baker held her gaze for several moments, then nodded at last. “Okay, I’m in. You didn’t have to get me out of that hole, and you didn’t have to come back here with clothes and shit. I figure you could have just left me several times over. So you’ve got my trust until you break it. But”—he folded his arms over his chest—“if you sell me out, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Good. Same here,” she declared. “By the way, tough guy, you have chocolate all over your chin.” She stalked toward the highway. She didn’t need heightened senses to hear the crackling sounds of Baker hastily picking up his treats and stuffing them in his pockets.

Travis’s internal clock said it
should
be about dawn. With no outside light, however, he wasn’t 100 percent certain. How many days before he couldn’t even hazard a guess? Best to assess his surroundings and check again for a way out. The steel bench that jutted from the wall was harder and colder than anything had a right to be, but still he had to force his aching body to get off of it. As he sat up, he gripped the edges with his hands for a while until his head stopped spinning and his eyes focused. His olfactory nerves perked up right away, however. There were new scents in addition to the thick, industrial-strength cleanser that permeated the atmosphere and every surface in it. He glanced over in the direction of the door, and didn’t know which was more surprising—that there was food inside his cell, or that he hadn’t heard it arrive. The metal tray on the floor held four items—a
squat tin cup of coffee, a large bottle of water lying on its side, a cold beef roast, and a crusty loaf of bread.

He only hesitated a moment. Sure, Meredith could have poisoned it all, but if she wanted him dead, she’d already had ample opportunity. Besides, the bitch would probably want to
watch
. He sipped the coffee. It was warm rather than hot, but strong, and his head cleared a little. Rather than chug it down his dry throat, however, he set it aside and swigged down half the bottle of water first.

Better.

Travis took a bite from the roast. The savory meat was a surprisingly decent cut and very lean. Hefting it in one hand, he estimated it approvingly at about three pounds—somebody obviously knew how to feed Changelings—

No. No, they don’t. They know how to feed frickin’
werewolves.
Monsters. Killers.

Travis suddenly felt like heaving the roast against the door. He wasn’t anything like the murderous creatures that lived here. Or was he? He’d killed, but…
ah, hell.
What made him any better? He sighed deeply as the same old misery kicked him in the gut. His first impulse was to refuse the food, refuse to eat. Damned if he wanted to cooperate in any way, shape, or form. But common sense prevailed. He needed every last bit of energy he could get in order to survive and escape. Even if he didn’t give a crap about his own life, he had to get back to Neva. Intentionally or not, she was his
mate
now, and he was quickly becoming aware of some significant changes in his being—as if something of her essence lived within him, surged through his soul and beat in his blood. Like natural wolves, Changelings mated for life. Whether she accepted him or not, he would live for her, die for her, and, if he had any choice about the matter, drag her off to Outer Mongolia.

Anything
to keep her safely away from her deranged sister.

He took another bite.

In her glass-walled penthouse, Meredith lolled between red satin sheets, but sleep eluded her. Conjuring demons was difficult, demanding work, and keeping them in this dimension so long had left her utterly drained. She’d recorded what she’d done and how, as she always did—she hadn’t gotten this far without taking the scientific method seriously—but the spell she’d created needed a number of refinements. The blood of that big blond werewolf had given her amazing personal endurance and high energy, not unlike a drug—but also like a drug, she’d crashed hard afterward and was now far too tired to fall asleep on her own. She would allow herself just a little while longer to think through her spells, make her plans for the next session—and then she simply had to get some sleep. It would probably take a couple of days’ worth to restore her. She’d call Zarita to bring her lovely little bag of tricks upstairs. A shot, a pill, or both—her kindhearted doctor would find something that would work. Really, what would she do without her?

Meredith watched the sun rise over the ocean. It should have soothed her, but she only wondered how to harness its power. She simply
had
to find more power for her spells. The new werewolf’s blood was interesting, but still not strong enough. She had finally breached the demon dimension, but she had yet to achieve her goals.

Blood contained life, but by itself it just wasn’t strong enough. She would have to kill something, no, some
one
, to get the kind
of energy needed, to take her spells to the next level. The only question was, who to choose? She supposed she could make use of that insolent werewolf, Riley. After all, she had a replacement for him now. Or she could send the pack to gather up a few more humans. If she cut the throats of several of them at once, it might give her what she needed.

Decisions, decisions.
Her head hurt and she was so, so tired. She patted the shelf of the hand-carved walnut headboard until she found her phone, its gold casing reflecting the brightening light. The power button was set with a large square-cut diamond, and she pressed it now. Immediately the screen sprang to vibrant life, its crisp white light a beacon of hope.

“Zarita? I need you right away, darling. I’ve had another one of those terrible nights.”

Hitchhiking had brought Baker and Neva all the way back to Oregon, but he didn’t like having to head north for Portland instead of straight south to Meredith’s lair in northern California. Neva had insisted that what she needed couldn’t be found in any of the small towns they’d passed through, and definitely not on the way to her sister’s isolated mansion. It was only the fact that Neva’s idea was all the advantage they would have against the bitch queen that made Baker finally agree. Concern for Riley, though, was eating him up—was his friend even still alive? This was all taking too damn long.
Hang on, bud, hang on.

They were in the Pearl District, an artsy place with high-end shopping. He’d gone into the first store with Neva, but felt he was risking whiplash from doing double takes at the price tags. He left within the first few minutes. From that point on, he let her do the shopping, and he went in search of chow. Baker had
always been a big eater, but becoming a werewolf had definitely revved up his metabolism. Jesus, he was taking in more calories now than when he was a linebacker for the Bobcats in college. It wasn’t a bit like Christmas dinner, though—his waistband never felt too tight for a moment.

Still, the waiting was killing him. He was antsy to get going, to head south and do whatever they could to free their friends. They probably didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell, but he had to try, both of them did. The only thing that helped him keep his shit together was the fact that Neva didn’t seem to be dawdling. It was only a couple of hours before she sought him out and handed him an armload of fancy shopping bags. The hair salon was next. She’d warned him it was going to take a very long time, and assigned him to get them a place to stay for the night.