First Bite (The Dark Wolf Series) (7 page)

Neva bared her teeth as Travis’s big hands reached for her. “I’m not going with you.”

“You
are
going with me, and you’re going quietly.” His voice was low, but there was no mistaking the underlying fury in it.

She opened her mouth to let loose a fire-engine shriek, but his iron grip covered it before she finished drawing the breath.

“You want to scream? Fine. But think it through, Neva.
The moon. Is. Up.
” He emphasized every syllable.

It was all too true. She could feel the lunar body pulling at her, tugging at some primeval instinct within in the same way that it drew the tides. Her gaze automatically shifted to the east. Blocked by tall buildings, she couldn’t see the moon—but she knew its exact position in the sky.

“You start yelling and humans will come,” he continued. “People who live here in this neighborhood, police, EMTs, you name it. And they’ll all get to see you turn into something they won’t understand. In less than a minute, it’ll be all over YouTube, Facebook, CNN, the works. Live coverage of your Change—and of anyone you injure trying to escape.” Travis released her and stepped back. “I’m your only hope, Neva. Quit fighting me.”

For a brief, flickering moment, she wondered if maybe revealing herself to the whole world would solve her problem. If she proved that werewolves existed, maybe she could reveal Meredith and her gang for the evil they were. It could work, it—

Her eyes rested on the swing set and scattered toys in the yard beside her.
Not here, not now.
Travis, damn him, was all too right about the human witnesses and the possibility of innocent people getting hurt in this crowded neighborhood.

Neva glared up at her would-be savior. “What exactly do you want from me?”

He shook his head. “Not a damn thing from you personally. Only that it’ll make
my
life a whole lot easier if the humans don’t know about Changelings. Once you’ve turned, and shown that you’re in control of yourself, I’ll be glad to get out of
your
life. Deal?”

He struck that Terminator pose again, holding out his enormous hand just as he had at the hospital. What choice did she really have? She held up her casted arm and wiggled her fingers. In a flash he had scooped her out of the car and carried her to the truck. “Borrowed,” he said in answer to her questioning look, and deposited her in the passenger seat none too gently.

When he slid behind the wheel, it was on the tip of her tongue to say something scathing about the oily stink of stale cigarette smoke and god only knew what else that coated every surface of the truck. But as she opened her mouth to speak, the powerful scent of fresh food slammed into her senses, overwhelming all else. A box with a large deluxe pizza dwarfed the dashboard, and bags of burgers and fries and pints of milk were stacked in the middle of the bench seat.

“Dig in,” said Travis, slamming his door twice to make it stay shut. “Shape-shifting throws your metabolism into high gear, and you’ve got to have fuel in your system.”

He was using his lecture voice again, but she wasn’t listening. The sound of four hundred and sixty horses under the old truck’s dented hood barely registered. She was
starving
. As if she hadn’t seen food in days, she found herself alternately eating from a
folded slice of pizza in one hand and a box of fries in the other. “Omigod,” she said with her mouth crammed full. “This isn’t like me at all.”

“That’s because it’s not you. It’s your wolf. Like I said, it needs fuel.”

She stopped abruptly then and allowed the food to drop from her fingers to the floor. “No way. I’m not giving this, this
monster
one bit more—”

Her words disappeared in a huge gasp as every muscle in her body suddenly spasmed at once, then cramped tight as if she was being squeezed to death in a giant’s grip. A long minute passed, then two, before it released her and eased away. Slowly she became aware of Travis’s big hand firmly engulfing her shoulder.

“You’re okay,” he said. “Just breathe. The moon’s getting higher, and you’re going to Change soon, that’s all.”

That’s all?
Nooo, no, no, no, no,
no
! She wasn’t doing this. She was supposed to end her life so she didn’t end up a pawn of Meredith’s, so she didn’t hurt anybody, so she didn’t savage the people she loved. She had to do something and do it fast. They were speeding down a dark highway, and she wondered frantically if she should jump—

She hadn’t fully formed the thought before the creature, the
thing
within her, flat-out panicked. Like a captive animal scrabbling with its front paws in a futile effort to dig its way out of a cage, she could feel the entity struggling inside. Unconsciously, Neva thrashed and slapped at her arms, her legs, her chest, as she felt the creature fighting its way to the surface.

“Be calm!” Travis’s commanding voice overrode the fearful thoughts scampering and clawing in her brain, and his comforting grip on her shoulder turned to iron as he gave her a teeth-rattling shake. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You’re safe with me; I won’t let you be hurt.”

The terror—hers and that of the
thing
inside—eased away, and she took a full breath, finding her voice at last. “Nothing bad? I’m going to turn into what you are, and you say
nothing bad
is going to happen to me?”

Although he was driving, he turned his head to look at her, his blue eyes intent. “I wasn’t talking to you, Neva. I was talking to your wolf. It’ll make things worse if you frighten it.”

If she frightened
it
? She had no idea how to respond to that notion. Nevertheless, the animal within her settled into stillness, and she could almost pretend it wasn’t there.
Almost.
Except she could now view every detail of the countryside they were passing, each tree and house and fence line. If they slowed down, she knew she’d be able to see every leaf and blade of grass as well. Everything was vivid and distinct despite the time of night, and all silvered by the light of the full moon. Her hearing was keener, too, and she could hear insects, frogs, and night birds even over the sound of the truck’s engine and the noise of the wheels on the road.

She’d run out of time. It was all Travis’s fault, too. If only he hadn’t interfered. If only he hadn’t come back for her—

Neva sighed. She wasn’t one for indulging in
if only
s—if she did, the long, heavy list of
if only
s in her life would weigh her down to her knees and she’d never get up again. No point in cringing in terror, either. The creature inside her had succeeded in weirding her out, but she wasn’t going to let it pull a stunt like that again. And she was going to put up a helluva fight if the beast thought for one moment it was going to be in charge.

So. She was going to be a werewolf, and there wasn’t a single damn thing she could do about it. Was there a bright side to this, any spark at all in the blackness ahead?
Maybe I could bite Travis…

Travis had no idea what the woman seated next to him was thinking, only that she’d settled down and so had her wolf. It
was unusual for Changelings to regard their alter egos as separate entities. He was one of the few who did. Maybe it was harder for him to reconcile the beast as part of himself because of what it had once done. For Neva, it was obviously tough to accept this new side of her because
she just plain didn’t want it
. And what she was about to go through wouldn’t make her any more fond of the wolf.

Telltale green fire was overwhelming the golden brown of her eyes as perspiration ran freely down her face. He had to hurry now and wished they’d left sooner. But she’d been so exhausted, so in need of rest in order to recover from the long ride, from her injuries, and to prepare for tonight. He let his foot get heavy, and the speedometer climbed—

And red and blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror. “Goddammit,” he muttered and glanced at Neva. She was hunched over now, shuddering and gasping, and there was foam at the corner of her mouth. To human eyes, she’d look like an overdosed druggie—and an ambulance would be called, pronto.
Christ.
There was only one thing to do in a situation like this.

He floored it.

Travis had chosen the truck for some very deliberate reasons. One, the interior reeked like an ashtray, excruciating to Changeling noses. It was giving him a helluva headache, but it would help hide their scent from anyone—or any
thing
—that might be tracking Neva. Two, the truck had tires designed for off-road use and four-wheel drive. And three, there was a customized, big-ass engine under the hood that (hopefully) could outrun most things on the road. Even now the pickup was leaping forward like a cheetah on steroids.

Predictably, a wailing siren now accompanied the lights. Not so predictably, his pursuer was keeping pace with him. It wasn’t gaining, thankfully—but not being shaken off either. If Travis
slowed down enough to turn off onto a side road, the cop car might gain on him. If he turned at high speed, he’d roll the damn truck. If he stayed on the highway, sooner or later, another cop car—or even a chopper—would intercept him. And a long, low moan from Neva let him know that she could shift anytime now.

As Travis drove at speeds that would have done a moonshiner proud, he could swear that his inner wolf whined. Actually
whined
, as if in sympathy with the woman in the passenger seat. “Dammit, this is your fault,” he said to his alter ego. “You wanted to save her, then you wanted to follow her, and then you
insisted
we had to go get her. Now look at the mess we’re in. This is what happens when we get
involved
.” A quick glance showed that Neva didn’t appear to have heard him, and he told himself he didn’t care if he did. She didn’t want him around anyway, right?

Except he couldn’t oblige her. He was involved
now
, dammit, and he’d see her through her Change no matter what. And somehow keep her from falling into human hands.

Suddenly, like a twig sprouting from a branch, a dirt road angled off sharply from the highway. Still, it took all his skill and a good deal of his Changeling strength on the wheel to keep the truck on at least two of its four wheels as he bore into the turnoff. In the rearview, the cop car fishtailed wildly from one side of the road to the other as it also swung into the turn. Still following them, but Travis was able to open up his lead. Suddenly, a huge black-and-white
something
appeared in his headlights, forcing him to veer off the road. He almost lost control then, plowing over stands of willow saplings that had overgrown the wet, shallow ditch, but somehow he managed to keep the truck level and get it back on the road.

Heart pounding, a glance over his shoulder showed Travis that the black-and-white thing he’d nearly hit was a frickin’ cow—and a whole lot of its friends had joined it. The wandering
herd was all over the road, standing squarely between him and the cop car, and even now, the flashing lights were diminishing in the rearview mirror.

Slowing to a mere breakneck pace, he thumped the steering wheel and laughed—until he got a look at Neva.
Oh, Christ.
Quickly he glanced around for another route, then turned off on an even rougher road, one that was probably little more than a goat path between miles of pastures. It took him as far as where the grazing land grew into forest, and he left the little road to plow the truck into the brush until he was satisfied that they couldn’t be seen. Neva arched and flailed as he pulled her out of the truck. Her eyes were completely green now.

“Come on, honey, you need the earth’s energy,” he murmured as he carried her through the woods at a brisk jog. The brilliant moon dappled the entire forest with silver, and his natural night vision showed him every game trail through the thick underbrush. He followed one to a tangle of fallen trees that formed an arching shelter over tall grass that was bent and trampled—a large buck had probably bedded here during the day. He set Neva down on the thick cushion of grass, drew the heavy leather coat away, and then stripped the thin pajamas from her fevered skin. “You’re going to kick my ass for this, right after you thank me.”

He pulled his knife from his pocket and set to work on the casts.