40
The Ingraham Institute
Dr. Talbot came to see her. She’d been waiting for that; dreading it. And in some ways, the dread was the worst part of it, so Red knew a moment’s relief when the door to her room opened and the smiling, bespectacled doctor walked in with a file tucked under one arm.
Just a few hours ago – though she didn’t know for sure because she couldn’t see the sun and there wasn’t a clock in her cell of a room – a motherly, kind-faced nurse had come to help her sit upright and get her back against the wall. The cuffs had stayed on, but a longer chain had been stretched between the two, so she could lower her arms from her chest; hold a spoon to eat the soup offered to her; rest her fists now against her thighs as she sat, cross-legged, on the bed and watched Dr. Talbot shut the door and move to take the chair across from her.
Her heartbeat pounded, but she felt disconnected from it; like its impression was muffled by the cuffs, too, just like her power.
Dr. Talbot sat, settled his white lab coat around himself, put the file in his lap, and beamed at her. “It’s wonderful to see you again, ah–” He not-so-subtly peeked into the file. “Ruby, now, is it?”
She didn’t respond.
“There’s a lot to catch up on,” he continued, unperturbed. “Both for you, and for us. But suffice to say we’re all extremely glad to have you back in the fold.”
The fold. Like she’d been a part of something. Like she hadn’t been laid flat on a steel table and had a grown man’s fingers push a speculum in her and announce her ready for breeding.
“I understand that your powers have matured significantly in the last five years…” He trailed off, waiting, one hand lifting in a little go on gesture. He wanted her to tell him about that.
She swallowed hard, and said, “Where’s Rooster?”
It was gratifying to see that, even for just a second, she’d knocked Dr. Talbot off his course. “Oh. Um.” He recovered, but that momentary waver had been enough to give her hope; to let her see: this man, who’d been a part of her birth, and her raising, and her treatment as a fatted calf, was uncertain. Maybe he was even a little afraid of her.
Rooster thought she was sweet. A guileless child. Even under the fire. But Talbot knew better.
“That’s your friend, hmm? Yes, well, I’m afraid that–”
“No,” she said, firm, and the doctor’s mouth fell open. “I made a deal with that guy. Jake.” The fucking liar. “He said he’d leave Rooster alone if I went with him. And I did. So where’s Rooster?”
Dr. Talbot blinked at her a moment, dumbfounded. Then his expression shifted into annoyance…laced with that sharp uncertainty that gave her hope. “I assume he’s wherever Major Treadwell left him. But.” His brows gathered. “Something to think about, young lady: that friend of yours killed a lot of men in the past five years. He’s very lucky to be alive; he ought to be on death row.”
“Is he safe?” she pressed.
Dr. Talbot blanked his face with obvious effort. Shrugged. “I don’t know. Major Treadwell’s orders were to shoot to kill if necessary.”
They stared at one another.
Dr. Talbot sighed. “I can see that you’ve changed since we knew one another last. Appealing to your sense of responsibility is obviously not going to work outright. Very well.” He opened up the folder and paged through the papers inside. “Here.” He pulled out a glossy photo and held it up so that she could see it.
She refused to lean forward, or squint, or show any interest. But she couldn’t help but register the grisly scene that he’d offered. Rocky, sandy soil; a distant mountain range; the corner of a modest brown house. And people. A half dozen laid out across the ground like stepping stones; outstretched legs, reaching arms, necks snapped back. And they looked like they’d been…chewed. Pulpy, messy wounds. Clumps of gore strewn across the hard-packed dirt.
“Afghanistan,” Dr. Talbot explained. “Up in the mountains. One man wiped out an entire village. He feasted on them. And he wasn’t a man at all anymore; he was a corrupted thing.” He took a breath, and afterward, he looked tired. Old. “Five hundred years ago, a very brave prince marched, in secret, deep into the heart of the retreating Ottoman Empire, across deserts and through villages where the locals had never seen an outsider, and didn’t care whose empire they were a part of. He found a secret, safe underground place, and he buried his uncle there – along with all of his uncle’s germ warfare.
“There are so many idiot, spiteful little terror cells that have cropped up in the wake of Usama bin Laden’s death, and one of those groups, searching for religious relics to sell, found something very, very different. A pre-biblical plague has been loosed upon the world; it’s what did this.” He rattled the picture. “It’s a threat we’ve known could come, that we’ve been preparing for for a very long time. It’s why you and the others like you were created.
“There hasn’t been a full-scale outbreak yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Eventually, someone will wake the uncle, and then. Well.” He shrugged. “No one wants to see that happen.”
Red kicked her chin up. “I don’t believe you,” she said.
But she’d seen the photo. Oh, God, she’d seen it.
“Of course not,” he said with a sigh. “But maybe you’ll believe the prince.” He turned toward the door. “Vlad?”
A slight pause, and then the door opened, and Red wished for the cuffs to be gone all over again.
The man who entered reminded her, in a vague sense, of Fulk. Long dark hair and sharp features…but this man was broader, more heavily muscled. And the wide plane of his forehead, the slant of his cheekbones spoke of a culture farther east than Fulk’s crisp Britishness. And there was such overt threat coiled within this man’s body, a sense of other, a hard edge.
He eased the door carefully shut and moved to stand beside Dr. Talbot’s chair, gaze trained on Red.
“This is the one?” he said. Heavy accent, something she didn’t recognize.
“Yes,” Dr. Talbot said. “This is…Ruby.” He stumbled over the name; she’d only ever been “dear” before, when she’d been a serial number and not a human.
The man – Vlad – stared at her without expression. “She’s young. And small.”
“Yes, well, you know as well as I do that a mage’s power isn’t rooted in the physical. She’s quite strong, I can tell you.”
Red curled her hands into fists; her knuckles went white.
Vlad squatted down in front of her, so they were on eye level. His gaze moved across her face like a physical touch; she felt it against each freckle. “You look like your mother.”
“I don’t have a mother.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “You are angry. That’s good. I can use that.”
She pressed her lips together to keep from baring her teeth at him.
He seemed to know it. He smiled, and his canines were long and sharp. He stood and turned to Dr. Talbot. “I want to see how she gets on with the boy. Sasha.”
“Very good. We’ll set up a supervised meeting between them.”
Vlad cast a look back at her over his shoulder. “You should have told her what she was, doctor,” he said, tone gently scolding. “From the beginning. What we all are. And what we’re up against.”
A note of unease in Dr. Talbot’s voice: “Of course.”
~*~
Annabel thought Fulk was intended to be Vlad’s wolf Familiar.
Annabel was wrong.
Sasha realized that the moment his escort led him into a white, brightly-lit room and he saw the redheaded girl standing in the far corner, wrists cuffed together with a short piece of chain the same way his were.
She stank of fire. The mage girl.
He growled before he could stop himself, a gentle rumble that prompted the guard behind him to nudge him with the end of his baton. “Hey, none of that.”
Fulk entered, his presence like a soothing hand down the back of Sasha’s ruffled neck. “Let’s all be civil,” he said, cool gaze directed toward the guard. “That will be all, private. I have them firmly in hand.”
The guard muttered “creepy fucker” under his breath and quit the room. The door closed behind him with a resounding thump.
Fulk held both hands clasped loosely behind his back; against the clean white backdrop of the room, his black-clad legs looked especially long. He’d left off his red jacket and wore a sleeveless Def Leppard shirt. He could have looked like a degenerate; he looked instead like the baron he was. It was all in the carriage, the lofty angle of his head.
He looked first at the girl, and then at Sasha. Cameras, he mouthed, and Sasha darted a glance up into the corner and spotted one, wrapped in black shatterproof glass.
Sasha nodded.
Fulk turned back to the girl. “I have to apologize on Sasha’s behalf. He doesn’t care for mages. Had a rather bad experience with one, so, it’s understandable. But he’s actually quite pathetically friendly when you get to know him.”
Sasha growled, but it wasn’t especially threatening. A token protest.
The girl’s head lifted; she leaned to the side a fraction to see around Fulk, to send her startled gaze Sasha’s way. She had very green eyes. Save the smell, she reminded him nothing of Philippe, so that was at least one point in her favor.
“Well, you are,” Fulk said mildly. To the girl, softer, almost kind: “I trust someone’s explained to you about Familiars?”
Her gaze moved back to him, inscrutable, and she finally said, “Yes.”
“Good, then we can skip that part.” He began a slow, dignified pace, back and forth across the room. “The two of you have the honor of having been chosen by Vlad to be his left and right hands,” he said, as if reading from an official announcement. Words he’d been told to say, Sasha knew; he could scent the other wolf’s disgust with the whole business. “As such, it’s important that the two of you learn how to work together.” He paused, glancing between the two of them. “And that you not kill one another.”
Then he just stood there.
Sasha shifted forward a cautious step, the chain between his cuffs chiming against itself. “It’s true, I don’t like mages,” he said, stiff and formal.
The girl watched him, outwardly calm. But Sasha could smell her fear; sense the fluttering of her pulse, rabbit-fast.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” he asked.
No hesitation: “Yes.”
“Have you ever killed one of your friends?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s something,” Fulk said.
Sasha took a deep breath…and it got caught halfway to his lungs. He’d been able to shore up his panic and push himself through the days here. The conversations with the doctors, all the blood samples, and the tests. Earlier, they’d put him on a treadmill with a dozen monitors taped to his chest and had him run until his legs gave out. It had been uncomfortable, yes…but suddenly it was all unbearable. Pressing down on him. Annabel had said the others were coming, but were they? And here he’d been cooperating. And was about to be made Vlad the Impaler’s Familiar, and he couldn’t…
“Sasha.” Fulk stood over him.
Oh. He’d sat down on the floor, somehow. Or maybe his knees had buckled. Sasha tipped his head back and looked up at the other wolf.
Fulk snapped his fingers. “Sasha, get up.”
His breath sawed in and out of his lungs as if he’d just staggered off the treadmill. “I can’t – I just…but Nik…”
Fulk sighed and crouched down in front of him, something almost like softness in his face. “You’re having a meltdown.”
“I can’t – I won’t…”
“Listen to me.” His hand closed around Sasha’s neck and squeezed. “I know,” he whispered, too low and close for the cameras to pick it up. “I know, alright? I belonged to the same master for centuries, and I still have nightmares. I know. But right now, it’s more important to stay alive, and to earn some trust. You won’t see Nik again if you fuck this up. Alright?”
Sasha breathed. In and out.
He thought about Nik being hungry, and irritable, slipping into one of his too-long sleeps because he refused to feed.
He thought about the warmth of sunlight falling on the bed through the window, sheets that smelled like pack; the awful buzz saw snoring that Nikita denied. Shoulders touching on the sofa, fingers combing through his hair. Safe, and warm, and not owned, but loved.
He closed his eyes and breathed some more. Worked on slowing his lungs.
“Okay,” he whispered.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
~*~
He got them to shake hands, though Sasha visibly flinched. Just a fraction. The girl, Red, remained stoic throughout, but Fulk could feel the vibrating anxiety lifting off her like steam. She was worried, and frightened…and furious, too. The mages he’d known – the girl’s own father, judging by scent commonalities – had possessed a smug superiority. Not her. She was just enraged.
Fulk had no idea how it would all shake down; he knew things were coming to a head, could feel the pressure swelling to fill all the dark crevices of the manor, but right now, he was just tired.
He stripped on his way through their opulent suite, down to his CKs by the time he reached the bathroom with its historic marble and modern fixtures. He started a bath and unbraided his hair in front of the mirror.
His fingers picked with careful familiarity through the tight little braids that Anna liked to layer over his ears. Each day was a slight variation on a similar theme: pulled back at the crown so it didn’t fall into his eyes, but artfully twisted and threaded with flowers, and sometimes even jewels. “Better than a doll,” she’d said on more than one occasion, laughing, beaming, pressing her soft warm cheek to his as she kissed the corner of his mouth. He liked it long, that had been the style in the year of his birth, but he’d gladly let her shave it if that was what she wanted. The simple joy she found in his hair, playing with it, styling it, filled him with an echoing sort of joy.
As if summoned by thoughts – really, it was the scent, the magnetism of having imprinted on one another as mates – Annabel appeared in the threshold, shoulder propped against the jamb.
“Mm,” she hummed, Southern accent coming through strong. “Look at the handsome thing I stumbled across. I’m a lucky, lucky girl.”
He shook out his loose hair; a piece fell over his left eye and he flicked it away with his fingers before he turned to face his wife. His mate.
Her expression flickered, gamely trying for aroused, but falling more toward the worried truth.
“Sasha’s falling apart,” he said, voice heavier than intended. “And this girl, Red, I don’t…” Why, he wondered, did the responsibility of things always fall to him, of all people?
Anna came to him, soft and yielding now, the façade wiped clean. “Oh, baby.” She hooked her arms around his neck and pulled his face down into her throat. Stroked his hair. “It’s okay.”
He pulled back, hands braced on her shoulders. “No, darling, it’s not.”
She sighed. “I can at least say it, though. And no matter what, we’ll stick together.” Her eyes were imploring in a way they hadn’t been in a long time. They’d been together so long, attached and connected, reading one another’s impulses. They hadn’t had to ask such a thing in forever.
He nodded. “Right.”
She studied him a moment, eyes widening in reaction, finally. “Fulk.”
The best way to say terrible things was just to say them; he’d never had trouble delivering bad news before Anna came along, but after over a century together, the words scraped his throat on the way out. “If Sasha’s friends come for him, and they manage to pull off an escape, I want you to go with them.”
For a seemingly-endless moment, she didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe, didn’t react. And then her face twisted up and she shoved him, hard. He took a step back and his hip hit the edge of the counter.
“You dumbass,” she hissed. She slapped him for good measure, hands hitting his chest with a satisfying smack. Her mouth worked, and her chest heaved as she sucked in a few breaths. “Dumbass,” she repeated, eyes wild in a way he knew meant she was overcome.
He caught her wrists in both hands when she moved to strike him again. “Darling, listen to me.”
She growled.
“I’m being completely serious.”
“So am I, and you’re a dumbass!” Her eyes glittered like jewels, sheened with tears she fought valiantly to check.
He leaned in close so they were almost nose-to-nose. She smelled like acrid panic. “Listen,” he repeated, gently, chest aching. “I think they’ll fail. They can come and throw themselves against the walls all they want, but they won’t succeed.
“If, though. If by some miracle they get inside, and they get hold of Sasha – I won’t stop them, but I can’t help them. And when Sasha is gone, they’ll take it out on me. I won’t let them have you, too.” He growled now, lower, deeper, darker. A threat to anyone who would dare touch her. “Vlad’s not getting a matched pair in us.”
“Then come with me.” She twisted her wrists, but not to get away; only to wrap her hands around his own wrist-bones and cling tight, nails scoring his skin. “We’ll go together. We’ll go right now.”
How many times had he dreamed of such a thing? Stealing away in the dark; leaving the car, all their things. Shifting and running four-legged through the tangled Virginia forests. Running beneath full and new moons. Not stopping until they dove off a cliff into the California ocean. Cutting his hair, hiding in Bali, or Bangkok, or Anchorage.
But if they got caught…when they got caught.
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to Anna’s. Steam from the bath filled the room, hot and choking. “They only want me,” he murmured. He was the legend, the one with the strength to make wolves, the one who could make the perfect Familiar for vampire royalty. “Let me keep you safe. Please, darling.”
“No.” A shaky whisper, but he felt the tensile steel in her fingers where she gripped him. “Together or not at all.”
He whined.
She whined back.
“Come get in the water with me.”
He unclothed her deftly, gently, long fingers lifting off her black tank top, working the button fly of her cutoffs. He twisted off the taps and tested the full bathtub with one hand – the water was so hot it almost burned. He lifted her up and stepped inside, careful, folded them both down into the tub, Anna perched sideways in his lap, his long legs bent, toes snugged up to the porcelain.
The tap dripped, soft plunks into the water.
Annabel pressed her face into his throat, her breath even warmer than the steam.
He gripped her shoulder too tight, but she didn’t protest. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
She made a soft inquiring sound, a little wolfish ruff.
“I always wanted you to be free, and I can’t…” The lump in his throat rose and he choked it back down.
“Oh, baby,” she murmured, smoothing her hand across the red mark on his chest where she’d smacked him. “That doesn’t matter to me. It never has.”
But it had, once. Freedom. It had been worth death, for her. He still felt sick every time he remembered plunging the knife into her heart. Forgive me, darling. But then her eyes had opened, and she’d known him right away, and she’d smiled with blood in her teeth. He’d turned her into a creature made to be owned, and she’d only ever thanked him for it. Rejoiced in the chance to be together forever.
If they were human, he might have been able to drive her away. Scream lies at her, tell her he hated her, that he didn’t want her anymore; and maybe she would believe it, and tearing his heart out, letting her walk away, would be worth it if it meant she was away from this nightmare. Safe and sound.
But they were wolves, and their love was a living thing that could be scented, and heard, and touched between them. Lying to each other was impossible.
“I wish I could make you leave,” he whispered, eyes burning.
“I know.” She shifted around carefully so she could put both her hands on his face. Wipe the wetness from beneath his eyes with equally wet thumbs.
She pressed her mouth to his, and it felt like he’d failed, even though he’d done that long ago, when he refused to let her die.