In the Werewolf's Den Page 9

  Danielle's face flushed beneath his. She smiled, then reached up and sank her teeth into the side of his neck and raked her fingernails into his back.

  There was no pain, only an impossible increase in intensity.

  Then it was too much. He clamped down on his control, desperate not to complete before Danielle reached her own climax, but knowing it was hopeless.

  Just when he lost control, as his throat readied for a cry of satisfaction, Danielle's moan and the sudden tightening of her inner muscles told him that she too had achieved completion.

  A few hard surges pushed him over the edge. He spilled himself into her, then gently kissed her on the lips.

  "That was incredible,” she told him.

  He wanted to linger in her, to share the afterglow of a moment that he would remember for the rest of his life. Until he felt it.

  The change.

  * * * *

  Danielle closed her eyes and savored the feeling of a man, swollen inside of her.

  She wasn't the most experienced woman in the world, but she had been around enough to know that she'd just enjoyed something extraordinary, something that would change her life. Exactly how it would change things, and whether how she'd deal with the differences, was an open question.

  She closed her eyes to better focus on sensation: Carl's male scent mixed with the scents of sex; the rough texture of his stubble, now hours from its latest shave against her face; and the weight of his body on her own.

  Abruptly, he pulled away.

  She groaned in protest, reached to stop his retreat.

  Her hand caught at a tuft of Carl's hair and she used that to tug him gently back to her embrace.

  Except, Carl didn't have hairy shoulders.

  She opened her eyes hoping that her fears were unjustified.

  A huge wolf crouched on the bed next to her, tugging to free itself of her grip.

  "Carl?” As if she needed to ask the question.

  His howl was a mournful cry into the deepening night.

  From outside, more howls answered. The moon was full and the beasts of the night were at their work.

  Her leash was somewhere on the floor, mixed with her clothes and Carl's. She was naked, alone with a wolf.

  She hadn't been so frightened since the moment she'd walked in on her mother and stepfather. Then, she'd screamed. Now, she kicked wildly at him and scrambled for a weapon.

  The kick connected, but did no damage. His wolf grin seemed to mock her.

  Her hands connected with something—Carl's belt—and she wrapped it around her fists and punched at him.

  He backed off.

  "Out,” she demanded, irrationally. As if a wolf could understand English.

  The Were slunk out, his tail between his legs.

  Danielle waited until he'd left, then locked and barred the door behind him and buried her head in her pillow.

  She had no one but herself to blame for what had happened. She knew better than to sleep with an impaired. Still, she felt empty, deserted. Despite what she'd seen, despite her memories of her mother and stepfather, a part of her wanted to call Carl back. Another part of her wanted to jump in the shower and scrub until every trace of Carl had been washed away.

  Carl's scent remained behind him, in the pillow she held to her face, on her body, in the sheets.

  She got up, threw the sheets, pillowcase, comforter, and even the pillows into the washing machine, then went to stand in the shower. As if soap and water could wash away her mistake.

  * * * *

  "The Tigers are planning a breakout,” Arenesol told Carl.

  Danielle had thrown herself back into her work after making her mistake with Carl. She was in her office, writing a report to Joe, when she heard the elf's voice over the microphone she'd planted in Carl's office. Arenesol hadn't been on Carl's appointment list and she'd tagged him as a dangerous element.

  "A breakout is insane.” Carl's voice was low and reasoned. And sexy. Despite everything, Danielle still responded to it.

  "We need it."

  "The minefields would tear you to shreds. And the warders would slaughter anyone left. Besides, where would you go?"

  Where indeed. The morning after she'd fallen to Carl's attraction, Danielle had gone back to the river. The bodies of two little brownies had washed up on the shore.

  "Elves can move swiftly and silently in the dark,” Arenesol reminded Carl. “Some have escaped before. They've shown us the way."

  "A few, maybe. But a whole gang? With children?"

  "They are killing us here in the zone, Carl. We'll head south, toward one of the abandoned cities. Maybe Houston, or San Antonio. But we need you to help—to arrange a diversion."

  Danielle held her breath. It wasn't too late for Carl to save himself. All he had to do was tell Arenesol that he was too busy, that he couldn't betray his mission.

  "Once we find the cure, everything can go back to normal, Arenesol. Can't you just wait a few more months?"

  "For us, life outside is a distant memory. But it's a memory of a golden age. We want it back. And we aren't going to wait for some miracle cure. Besides, not everyone thinks of it as a cure. We're elves now. Not many would be willing to sacrifice who we've become and go back to being merely normal."

  "What?” Carl's voice sounded as shocked as Danielle felt.

  "Maybe it would be different if I was a zombie or a brownie. But I'm an elf. I can see in the dark. I'm graceful. I used to be a klutz but now I can walk across wet concrete without leaving a mark and carry bottles of nitroglycerin without worrying about exploding myself.

  "I've learned five languages since I got my talent. Before, I failed high school English. So, why would I go back? Should I throw away the best thing that ever happened to me just because of the prejudices of a bunch of freaking normals?"

  "But it's a disease."

  "It's no disease, it's who we are. Think about it, Were. Would you give it up? You'd have to surrender your added senses, your ability to recover from injury, your near-immunity to disease. It would be like ripping out an eye, wouldn't it?"

  "I'd give it up in a minute."

  Arenesol paused. “Well, not everyone feels that way. Besides, you haven't finished your cure and there's no certainty that you ever will. We want to create an elf community, for ourselves. There's a lot of open territory in south Texas where it's gotten so hot and so disease-ridden that all the normals have moved out. It wouldn't hurt anyone."

  "I think you're making a terrible mistake."

  "Maybe. But it's our mistake to make. All we're asking you for is a distraction."

  Carl paused and Danielle crossed her fingers. It was his last chance to back out, his last chance to save his life. “What sort of distraction do you have in mind?"

  Danielle put her head in her hands. Watching Carl turn into a Were had seemed like the ultimate blow. But this betrayal was worse because it was conscious. There was no way she could justify his decision. She'd have to report this. And she'd have to terminate him.

  "Well, we figure another riot would be perfect,” Arenesol said. “They plan their riots, you know. But sometimes they happen off schedule. And when they do, the warders go crazy. They'd have to pull warders off the border watch.

  "In the confusion, the Tigers, a couple of hundred elves strong, break out. We've already mapped the minefields and we've got their electronic surveillance systems hacked. And if a bunch of elves can't sneak past a squad of distracted normals, they don't deserve to be called elves anyway."

  "A riot won't be enough. It'd still be suicide."

  "It may be suicide, boss, but it's our choice. The Tigers put it to a vote. Every single one of us voted to make the break."

  "Give me a month and I'll give you a distraction you won't be able to believe."

  Danielle removed her headphone and stared at it. Carl had completely thrown in his lot with the impaired.

  She had thought his plans to reconcile normals and the impaired to
be honest and even noble. Understood in that light, making love with her could be almost acceptable. After all, if he really did find a cure, they'd all be normal again. But she'd been wrong. In fact, she'd fallen for the oldest trick on earth. Carl was one of them. He'd co-opted her, used his physical charm to suck her in like an anxious puppy, and betrayed her and everyone who counted on her.

  And for what? Even a Were should know it would be kinder to turn the Tigers in, let the warders arrest their leaders and let the remainder survive in the zone where they could be protected and where normals could be protected from them.

  She wouldn't have believed Carl was capable of betraying humanity if she hadn't heard the words herself.

  She switched on the encryption mode on her cell phone and called Joe.

  Joe was incredulous, at first. None of his informants had brought him any word of a major planned operation by any impaired mob. He assured her that the minefields and electronic security were unbreachable. Arenesol's promise that the Tigers had broken security didn't provide much guidance toward solving the problem.

  Still, Joe agreed to reinforce the south-side barriers. Unlike the north, the south lacked the natural barrier of the river and opened up to largely deserted suburbs and semi-rural areas. A strong warder showing would persuade the Tigers to give up their efforts without anyone getting hurt, he promised.

  "Any orders for me?” Danielle asked when Joe stopped fuming.

  He paused for a moment. “Yeah,” he finally said. “When the distraction finally happens, I want you to make sure there's one extra victim. Carl Harriman is too disruptive. Terminate him. Wait until the breakout attempt and don't make it obvious. After all, he is a federal cause."

  "You sure we'll be okay if he doesn't finish the research?"

  "You've done a good job getting the information out, Danielle,” Joe assured her. “Let me do my job protecting you from the Feds."

  "But—"

  "You've got your orders, Warder Goodman. Carry them out."

  Danielle signed off and powered down her cell.

  She'd expected the order and thought she'd been mentally prepared for it. If Joe had told her to terminate Carl immediately, it would have been difficult enough. But how could she work with him, surround herself with his charisma and pure sex appeal, and then gun him down in cold blood?

  She made herself call up the mental image of her mother, bleeding in her stepfather's arms. It had sustained her through the Warder Academy when so many of her peers had bailed. The impaired really were evil. And Carl was just one of them.

  Carl was a dead man, or rather, a dead were. The only questions left were where, when, and how.

  * * * *

  "This isn't a good idea.” Danielle had gotten a sore throat explaining her opinion to Carl. And he'd ignored everything she'd said about his so-called Olympiad. It didn't take four years in the Warder Academy to recognize it as a key part of the diversion Carl had promised Arenesol.

  "I've got money. Why not spend it?"

  "An athletic contest between normals and impaired? I mean, come on. You know it's going to cause problems."

  Carl shook his head. “Humans have used athletic contests to bring people together peacefully for thousands of years. No reason why this should be different."

  There were plenty of reasons why this would be different and Carl knew it as well as she did.

  "It's going to be a joke, you know. At a million dollars prize money per event, the normals are going to send their best. All you have is a bunch of hungry impaired who haven't trained in years, if ever. It'll be a slaughter."

  Her word choice was unfortunate. If she didn't persuade Carl to back off, she'd have to slaughter him. But that wasn't her only reason for objecting. Whatever distraction Carl was planning would result in impaired deaths. Maybe even normal deaths. Carl had, arguably, asked for it with his treason against the state. The others were innocent.

  The weeks she'd spent living among the impaired had been eye opening for Danielle. It was harder and harder for her to summon her anger, to see all of the impaired as brutal killers. Many, maybe even most, seemed to be ordinary people trying to get on with their lives.

  Sure they were different. The pointed ears, long teeth, and annoying habits of transforming into a wolf at inappropriate moments continued to unsettle her. Still, familiarity had, at least, made her think of them as people worth saving. The less slaughter she could ensure while protecting her own kind, the better.

  Carl shook his head. “We impaired will just have to do the best we can, then. At any rate, it's too late to back out now."

  Danielle hated it when people patronized her. She reminded herself that Carl wasn't really talking down to her, he was covering up. Covering up his real plans to betray humanity. It was odd that she would rather think of Carl as betraying his former species than belittling her, but then again, this business had been odd from the moment she'd come back to Dallas.

  She sighed. “All right, you won't cancel the games. There's still no way I can get you permission to bring dozens of impaired out of the zone to the Cotton Bowl. Even if this were a good idea, which it isn't, it would take months to process the paperwork. And it would still get turned down by headquarters."

  Carl's anguished look would have fooled most people. But Danielle wasn't most people. She was a warder. She was also a woman who had made love with this man. She knew him at a level he probably didn't know himself. He'd known this objection was coming—and had been counting on it.

  "We don't have the facilities we need here in the zone,” he reminded her. “Everything would be better if we could use the Cotton Bowl.” A token protest if she'd ever heard one.

  She was almost tempted to ruin all of his plans and approve the permits. Give him the Cotton Bowl, out of the zone, and he'd have a hard time doing anything for the Tigers.

  Except she couldn't. She'd already run Carl's request by Joe, assuring him that they could head off whatever plans Carl was making by granting that special permission. Besides, Carl had probably developed an alternate plan. And, as Joe had forcefully reminded her, thousands of impaired running loose outside the zone was exactly the danger that had led to the creation of the Warders in the first place.

  "You didn't ask my advice in creating this crazy plan, Carl. So don't go looking for me to fix it."

  He nodded abruptly, defeat radiating from every lying pore of his body. “I guess we'll have to put contingency plans in place."

  "If that's what you want to call them.” She didn't see the harm in letting him know that she saw through his posturing.

  "I was hoping you would help judge the martial arts contest,” he continued as if she hadn't said anything. “They're a bit more subjective than running or throwing events. And all of my people know that you can be trusted to be fair."

  His people. That word choice rocked her. “No can do. I got orders from the regional office. I'm going to be a contestant."

  A hint of a smile played across Carl's face. “Really? I thought you didn't approve of the games."

  "The region decided that a Warder should be perfect at fighting the impaired and assigned the job to me.” She didn't need to mention that Joe thought it could be a recruiting plus to have her kicking impaired tail on the tube.

  "Great. I always like to see you work."

  Carl's whisper of a smile hinted that there was something he wasn't saying here. Well, he wasn't the only one with a hidden agenda. And she'd be damned before she gave him the pleasure of begging for whatever he was holding back.

  "What will you do with the money if you win?” he asked.

  She hadn't thought of that. A million was more than she'd ever imagined having at one time. Then reality set in. “It would make a big dent in my student loans,” she told him.

  Carl frowned. “That's about the most boring thing I've ever heard. Why not trips to Paris or new wardrobes or a car of your own?"

  She shrugged. “I see plenty of impaired here in the
good old U.S.A., I don't need to fly to foreign countries for more. Besides, I don't want the money because I don't want the games to happen. I'm going to urge you one more time. Call the whole thing off, Carl. It's insane, it's a distraction from your job, and it'll only make things more difficult for those on both sides of the zone barrier."

  It might be too late for Carl, but it wasn't too late for the dozens of Tiger children he was sending to their deaths. Unfortunately, Carl ignored even the least subtle of her warnings. Each day that passed was another day closer to when she'd have to terminate Carl. Like a car that had lost its brakes, she was careening toward a conflict she didn't want, but couldn't avoid.

  Lesson One in warder school is that, sooner or later, someone you love will turn against you. The trick was to make sure you have no attachment so deep that you can't sever it with a knife or gun.

  Right now, she wasn't very happy with Lesson One. Of course she wasn't in love with Carl. All she had to do was think about that wolf on the bed next to her and her skin crawled with horror. Still, she couldn't deny that she admired him, liked him, and, in weak moments, still felt the physical attraction. Now that she'd had time to cool down, she simply didn't want to kill him.

  Carl reached out a hand, almost touched her arm, then pulled back. “I know you think this is a mistake, Danielle. Maybe you're right. But I have to do it. Either normals and the magical can find a way to live together or we can't. For me, the games will be an experiment. Even a failed experiment isn't a mistake, it's just an experiment that generated results you weren't expecting."

  "But—"

  "Trust me, honey. I've made a lot of mistakes. I'll make a lot more before I'm done. None of them has killed me yet."

  No, Carl. Not yet. She couldn't say those words, but she couldn't help thinking them.

  Chapter 7

  Carl stepped onto the field of the old Sunset High School stadium, smiled at the pretty camerawoman from the normal part of town, and held up the lighted ignition device signaling the start of the First All-Sapient Games.