First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series) (30 page)

I’ll be seventeen in—

You’re a fucking kid?
Baker sounded incredulous.

I’m not a kid! And I can kick your fucking ass!

Nathan!
the fallen wolf interjected.
Don’t hurt him, please. He thought you were Meredith. We both did. I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough to stop him.

Double crap. As if being a werewolf and a thief weren’t bad enough, now she’d been reduced to attacking mothers who were protecting their children. Neva wanted to just let go and slink away, but she needed a few more answers before she released her prisoner.
Who are you, and what are you doing out here?

Sonje Berendsen. I’ve been head chef since we were brought here a couple years ago. Nathan helps me in the kitchen. But he’s bigger now, really strong, and somebody noticed him. This week, they tell me, he’s going to be assigned to guard Meredith’s workroom. Downstairs! I had to get him out of there. Those guards—they don’t come back, you know.

I’ve heard that.
Neva had never been to the lower levels of the mansion, but according to the staff whispers, anybody who worked down there didn’t last very long. As for why, there was no shortage of grim and ghastly speculations. Knowing her twin, the rumors were probably all true. She opened her jaws and drew back.
I’m sorry. You can get up now.

Nathan suddenly wedged himself between Neva and the wolf she had bested, growling until his mother reprimanded him again. Sonje rose then, limping a little, and leaned against her son. That’s when Neva looked around and realized they were all wounded. Baker had a long slash across his flank, and one ear looked positively
chewed
. Nathan had several gashes around the back of his neck and a savage bite mark down one front leg. Neva was bleeding as well, from claws that had raked her belly and muzzle. She resisted sighing, but goddammit, the whole purpose of her disguise was so they wouldn’t have to fight their way
into
the mansion. Instead, all four of them looked like they’d just battled their way out of it.
How did you get away?
she asked suddenly.

Eddie told me about it. He’d been bartending on the third-floor balcony during a party, and he noticed that it opens out over a roof. He thought perhaps a person could jump down onto it, then follow the roof sideways, to the left, until you could jump down to the next, and the next. There are three.

Nathan piped up then.
We were the first ones to try it, and it works. But on the last roof, it’s still a long way to the ground. I jumped into the pool instead.

I wish I had thought of doing that
, Sonje said, holding up her lame paw.

Neva was relieved that she hadn’t been responsible for one injury, at least.
If you Change back to human, most of your wounds should be healed. Do you know how?

Both white wolves nodded, and Sonje added,
Yes, and we hope it will work if we get far enough away from the control of that evil woman. But you—why are you dressed like her? You even look like her.
She narrowed her eyes.
Are you the sister?

Neva figured that was exactly what she had been all her life: “the sister.” Unknown, generic, and completely irrelevant next to her twin. She wasn’t family in any sense of the word as far as Meredith was concerned, just a handy scapegoat.

Luckily, Baker fielded Sonje’s question.
We escaped, too. Now we’re trying to get back in and rescue our friends.

Ik wens u nog veel sterkte,
Sonje replied solemnly.
That is Dutch. I wish you much strength. Much courage. You will need it. But as for me and my son, we are going now before we are missed.

Neva watched the pair until they disappeared among the giant trees. Baker was still suspicious, and he decided to follow them at a distance until he was certain they weren’t going to return to the mansion and raise the alarm. It gave her a chance to shift form and assess the damage.

She was relieved that she was able to retrieve her five-digit clothing and accessories from whatever cosmic closet they’d gone to. And she was
ecstatic
that they were not only undamaged but still clean! Her face hadn’t been so lucky, however. Peering into a mirrored compact from the handbag, the deep claw marks across her muzzle had translated to red scratches across her nose and cheek. Healed but not invisible yet. She found a place to sit down and apply some makeup, trying to hide the thin red lines as best as she could. A little time, perhaps a few hours or so, and the marks would disappear. Hopefully they’d be gone by the time she was in the mansion. If not, then she hoped Meredith’s minions would be too afraid to stare at her face. Because Neva couldn’t wait around until her complexion was perfect.

Sonje was right to take her son and get the hell out of here.
For Neva, however, Sonje’s timing couldn’t be worse. Her twin tended to take escapes personally. If word of the head chef’s disappearance reached her, she was likely to take out her anger on whoever was available.

And Travis was likely to top her list.

Travis was surprised that the elevator went up instead of down. He probably should be surprised that the elevator went anywhere, what with all ten of his guards crammed in with him. He figured it amounted to about a ton and a half of solidly packed werewolf, but the mechanism operated as smoothly as if they’d all been canaries.

The first floor went by, and not only could he not move, but all the advantages of a transparent elevator were moot—he couldn’t see a damn thing for all the bruisers around him. So he made it up.
Lingerie, housewares, handcuffs, mace…
Hell, anything to keep his mind off the diminishing oxygen. Same with the second floor.
Leather goods, rocket fuel, guns and ammunition.

The elevator came to a stop on the third floor, and he was hustled out as if he was the president being evacuated by bodyguards. Only if a bullet came for him, none of them were going to throw themselves in front of it.

Hiding just inside the tree line, Neva looked over the broad expanse of ground-hugging ivy that encircled the stone walls and grounds of the mansion like a rippling green moat, a buffer between carefully landscaped order and towering primeval
forest. Intruders or escapees walking across it would be spotted immediately. The main entrance could be seen from here, boasting tall white iron gates covered with elegant scrollwork. She estimated she’d have to walk about a hundred yards, without a sliver of cover, in order to reach it.

The big gray wolf at Neva’s side hesitated, and Baker’s voice popped into her head for the first time in an hour.
Can’t we be more subtle? You know, go through the side gate where the deliveries come in?

“Not a chance. Meredith wouldn’t be caught dead using the servants’ entrance.”
Unfortunately.
Neva wasn’t keen on walking in the front door, either, but either her disguise would work or it wouldn’t. And it could all depend on how well she could sell it.
Be bold. Be bold.

In her mind she held fast to the last time she’d seen Travis—when they’d made love in the forest bower. She would never forget the expression on his face (who knew that he even frowned during sex?). Nor would she forget the phantom image of the golden wolf that she had seen in his eyes at one point. Her own inner wolf was a hair’s breadth from the surface now, like a racehorse at the gate, as determined as she was to get to Travis. Maybe more so. Neva also planned to do her utmost to stop Meredith once and for all. For her wolf, however, saving Travis was the
only
thing that mattered.

“Try to look a little more subservient,” she said to Baker. And she stepped forward, leaving the relative safety of the rugged forest for the unprotected danger of the delicate ivy.

High above everything, a pair of dark eyes snapped open like a predator’s. Red satin sheets rippled serenely across Meredith’s
naked skin, stirred by the soft sea breeze from an open window. Her body was as flawless as an alabaster statue and just as unmoving—her physical being was still deeply asleep. Her mind had been, too, until someone ventured into the charmed ivy surrounding the walls of the estate and triggered her sudden awareness.

Geneva is here.

A soft sighing laugh escaped Meredith’s red lips. Just as she’d predicted, the little bitch would be trying to return to her precious mate. Of course, he was no longer where Geneva would expect him to be. And Meredith would have such fun with both of them.

But not now, not now…
Effort versus reward
.

She knew from the sun in the sky how much time had passed since she’d given herself to sleep. Knew it wasn’t enough—after all, she wanted to be at her very best. Slowly, her dark eyes closed again. She would sleep until the night came again.

And then she would play.

Travis didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but this definitely wasn’t it. No dungeon, no torture chamber, not even punching practice for the guards. Instead, he’d been dragged into an expansive bedroom with plush carpets and elegant draperies. Glass walls overlooked the estate and the forest beyond. He hadn’t been able to enjoy the view for more than a moment, however, before being tossed on a bed the size of a small country and tied down.

He stared at the ceiling, where an antique map of the constellations had been painted, and tried to make sense of the situation. At least he wasn’t in Meredith’s room, thank the goddess. But a
guard had called this “the guest room,” in a tone that implied it had all the hospitality of the Bates Motel.

The shackles and chains were gone, replaced by a red silken cord that didn’t look like it was tough enough to restrain a butterfly, never mind a full-grown Changeling. Yet despite its delicate appearance, it might as well have been steel cable from the Golden Gate Bridge. Try as he might, Travis couldn’t budge it in the slightest. Magic was obviously in play here. The strange scarlet cord was all one piece, looping back and forth under the bed so it could tie his feet and hands to carved wooden bedposts as thick as power poles.

One of the guards had tucked a pillow behind his head, not to be kind, but to be funny. “There,” he’d said. “You’re to be made comfortable while you’re waiting.”