****
Most nights, Aiza dreamed about the day she died.
She didn’t remember being dead. She didn’t remember the crash itself. Later, she was told they skidded to avoid an oncoming car, a drunk driver in the wrong lane. The blow she took to the head would have killed her instantly, if it wasn’t for her helmet. It was still a big enough hit to knock her unconscious for three days and wipe several days from her memory.
For a full month, she had no ability to make new memories. She had to be reminded of her own name, her own life, every day. Even now, she had no recollection of those thirty days. She couldn’t recall how frustrating and frightening it must have been. Aiza tried to imagine the woman who had lived through that waking nightmare; tried to imagine what it must have felt like to be in a state of perpetual confusion.
She tried to imagine the woman who heard Dwight’s offer and had no choice but to accept it.
She did remember the bite.
In the video Aiza made of herself, she explained that the bite would be serious enough to scar. He’d chosen the inside of her left thigh, and Aiza had spent a long time contemplating the placement of that bite. She hardly thought it would have been her first choice, so the placement must have been Dwight’s decision.
She went on to explain that she would feel a strong connection to Dwight from then on, no matter what happened, no matter how much distance she tried to put between them.
Aiza had been perplexed by that statement—what kind of connection? Would she suddenly find herself in love with the man? Would she be enthralled by him?
The connection wasn’t anything so awful or so simple.
“So, why am I doing this? Because it looks like it’s my only chance. My only choice. The transformation from human to werewolf might repair the damage done to my brain. Dwight brought in a specialist who explained that werewolves have the ability to heal faster, and that ability is currently being studied all over the world. Doctors can’t explain why, but there have been studies that demonstrate that humans who are infected with lycanthropy will show the alleviation and sometimes reversal of all kinds of things—including brain damage.”
In fact, Dwight had been injured in the accident, too, but he had completely recovered in less than a week. He’d told her that he was walking again the day before she woke up.
The video also included footage of her discussion with the specialist, warning there were risks associated with the transformation, too. Aiza had studied the video countless times, watching the play of her face as the doctor explained the entire process, gave her the warnings, and told her how her life might change.
Dwight told her she’d watched the video every day for two weeks, and each day of those two weeks, she shook her head. Then, on the fifteenth day, she’d signed the paperwork to give Dwight legal permission to turn her into a werewolf. What had changed on that day? Aiza would never know. She’d also never truly know for sure that she had changed her mind. There was no independent verification of the moment she said yes—just Dwight’s word.
But she didn’t care too much, either. It had been the right thing to do, and her ability to make memories returned one week after the bite. Within a month of that, she was able to return to work at her newly-purchased bar. Fortunately, Paul had stayed on to run the place while she was recovering, and it was in perfect working order when she was ready to take the reins.
Unfortunately, stepping back into her life wasn’t that easy, though. There were plenty of websites and even support groups to help her transition into her new life as a wolf, but many of the people in the support groups were literally victims, brutally attacked and changed against their will. She didn’t feel comfortable revealing her own story and listening to everybody recounting how wolves ruined their lives frightened her. Would she always be able to control herself? Would she harm—even kill—someone someday?
Ultimately, Dwight was the only one she could speak to about her fears. A part of her almost expected him to shrug it off, but that was when she learned the meaning of the word connection.
Dwight had taken her concerns and fears seriously. He promised to teach how to change at will, how to control herself as a wolf, and how to handle her heightened senses. She didn’t find herself falling in love with him, but she did enjoy the time she spent with him, even when they weren’t having sex—and they had a lot of sex in between their lessons on meditation, concentration, and control.
Most mornings, when she woke up, the scar on her thigh throbbed and her head pulsed with the memory of that moment, when teeth sank into flesh and her blood mingled with his saliva, carrying the virus through her system.
Other than that, Aiza had reached the point where she rarely thought about being a werewolf. Her life was full, busy and healthy.
But now a threat hung over her life, and when she woke from the dream with a breathless gasp at half past three, she knew she wouldn’t be getting back to sleep that night. Something had woken her. She strained her ears to listen for approaching footsteps.
“Dwight?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Baby Doll.”
Light flooded the room and Aiza gasped as she saw that Dwight wasn’t alone. The man pointing a gun at Dwight offered Aiza a cruel smile, “Hi, Baby Doll. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Who…?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. “What’s happening?”
“This is Franklin,” Dwight said, his voice surprisingly even. “He’s on the Brotherhood’s counsel.”
“What do you want?” Now that she was over her initial shock, anger flooded her system. Why couldn’t these assholes leave her alone? She’d never done anything to them. Dwight had mentioned before that the Brotherhood strictly forbade creating new werewolves. She understood it was against their rules or whatever, but she was under no obligation to live under their rules.
“I just wanna chat. I have a few questions, that’s all. And since Dwight refused to answer, I thought I’d get the news from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” Aiza said as dismissively as she could.
“I thought you might say that. But I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Aiza Simpson, and I know something you don’t know.”
“Oh, really? What’s that?”
“I know where your sister lives.”
“So what?” Aiza asked, trying to keep her voice even, though he must have sensed the sudden increase in her heart rate.
“So maybe I’ll make myself a mate like Dwight here did.”
Aiza’s mind flashed to the support group survivors, the ones who’d been held down and turned against their wills; the ones who were forced to feel an emotional and physical connection to the wolves who ruined their lives. She could not fathom Sera becoming one of them, and somehow, Franklin knew that Dwight had turned her, too, which meant that he was going to be in for a world of hurt once the rest of the Brotherhood found out.
“What do you want to know?”
“Where’s Butch?”
“I don’t know,” Aiza answered. “I don’t even know who Butch is.”
“Don’t lie to me, Aiza. It doesn’t become you. Now I’m trying to have a decent conversation with you, but if you’re not capable of that, I can find other ways to get the information I need.”
“Why do you think I know anything about this Butch guy?”
“Because he had a meeting with you today,” Franklin said.
“Oh, I see. You sent him to shake me down and when he didn’t return, you assumed that I had something to do with that. Get out of my house, or I’m going to call the police.”
The longer this ridiculous conversation went on, the more enraged she became. But her anger wasn’t a raging inferno—it was a slow moving glacier, turning her blood to ice and freezing her nerves until her fear shriveled up on itself.
Franklin narrowed his eyes over the barrel of his gun. She could see another threat building behind his lips as his finger tightened on the trigger. Dwight chose that moment to strike, distracting Franklin with a blow to the back of the head. He swung around, prepared to shoot Dwight, but Aiza lost no time, transforming as she lunged from her bed to the interloper, hitting him with the full force of her weight.
By the time they reached the ground, her fangs were bared and her claws were extended. Her bottom jaw crushed the man’s neck in such a way that his vertebrae shattered, sending razor-like splinters into his spinal cord, killing him instantly.
Dwight sighed. “Fuck, Aiza, what have you done now?”
Aiza released the man and licked her chops before shifting back to her human form. “What have I done? Why don’t you go fuck yourself, Dwight! You brought this asshole to my house.”
“Well, what are we going to do with him?”
“Whatever you did with Butch, I guess.”
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Dwight said.
Aiza was unperturbed. “I’d do it again.”
“I don’t doubt it. You need to get out of town.”
“No.” She folded her arms. “I’m not running.”
“Do you think this is going to stop? Butch was just a foot soldier, but Franklin—”
“Was an asshole,” Aiza supplied. “And I thought you said Butch was a high-ranking member?”
“They’re both high-ranking enough to be missed.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the truth. All of this bullshit today, it has nothing to do with me, does it?” Aiza asked.
“It’s...complicated.”
“Excuse me?” Aiza looked down at the growing blood stain on her carpet. It filled her senses, clogging her mouth and nose, painting her vision red. “What’s so goddamned complicated?”
“Aiza, you’re one of the Owned.”
“The Owned?” The vein in her temple began to throb, sending a sharp pain through her skull to her eye. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I made you. The Brotherhood found out, but I was able to pull a few strings and smooth things over. Keep in mind, though, that everything I have belongs to the pack, and so—”
“And so what? I belong to the Brotherhood, too? Like a piece of property?”
“As far as they are concerned, yes.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but only succeeded in filling her head with the smell of blood. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Aiza, Baby Doll—”
“Don’t. Don’t call me that. Don’t...just...just get out!”
“I can’t. They’re just going to keep coming. You are mine now, and they want what’s theirs.”
“This wasn’t in the video. This wasn’t in the paperwork. That...that isn’t what I agreed to, Dwight. You fucking lied to me. What else did you lie to me about?”
She pushed herself to her feet and stumbled backwards to the bed, trying to put as much distance between herself and Dwight as possible. Her stomach churned, generating bile that bubbled to the back of her throat. She tried to swallow it, but it lingered there, burning her esophagus.
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t talk. Don’t tell me another lie.” She shook her head. “You have to fix it.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t tell me you can’t,” she said sharply. “Don’t tell me that I have to spend the rest of my life giving them everything. Being Owned. Is that—oh God, that’s why he knows about my sister. They know everything about my family, don’t they?”
Dwight only nodded.
“Get me out of this or I swear to God, I’ll—”
“What?”
“I’ll kill you,” Aiza stated simply.
“You won’t kill me.”
She pulled herself to her full height and narrowed her eyes, summoning all of the wild courage of the wolf inside of her. Her lip curled and she felt the growl rumbling through her throat. “This is not an idle threat, Dwight. Those fuckers think my life belongs to them? Fine. But before they bring me down, I swear I will rip your throat out.”
Dwight’s attention shifted to the dead man at his feet and he didn’t need to consider her words for long. “Aiza, you need to die.”
“Is that a threat?”
Dwight shook his head. “It’s a plan. We’ll fake your death—”
“We’ll what my what?”
“They can’t come after you if they think you’re dead.”
Aiza blinked, unable to believe her own ears. “That solves nothing. If they think I’m dead, the whole world will think I’m dead. I’ll lose my house, my bar. Goddamn you, Dwight, goddamn you!”
“We’ll get your will in order and you won’t lose anything. This is only going to be temporary.”
“What are you talking about? Temporary? Do you think if I disappear for six months, they’ll just forget about me? Who will run the bar?” Aiza looked down at the body. It was getting more and more difficult to concentrate with the scent of blood permeating everything. “Why did you do this to me? Why did you make me a wolf if you knew...if you knew this…how could…”
She couldn’t finish her sentence. She couldn’t even breathe. Her lungs were frozen; her throat clogged with ragged, sharp words.
Dwight crossed the room and took her by the shoulders. “You want to know how I could do this to you? Because I’m a selfish asshole. You surprised I’d admit it?”
“A little.”
“Aiza, I visited you in the hospital every day. And every day, you looked at me with such...fear and confusion. You were afraid and you were hurting and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. Until the moment there was.”
“But didn’t you even think about the consequences? Didn’t you even consider we could be here...like this...one day?”
“All I could think about was fixing you. Saving you. When I woke up in the hospital and I didn’t know where you were, if you even made it, I never felt more sick in my life. I made the nurses take me to you and I stood there, watching you in that coma, and I knew if you pulled through, I would do anything for you.”
Aiza took a deep breath, caught up in his dark eyes, looking for any hint of a lie. But he was telling her the truth. She could see it, and more importantly, she could feel it. The connection between them felt stronger than ever, and she unconsciously shifted towards him, seeking out the heat and strength of his body, her nostrils finally detecting his familiar scent through the ocean of blood.
“I know you think I fucked up,” he continued, “but I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I’d rather have you here yelling at me than not have you at all. Won’t you forgive me?”
Aiza felt the sting of tears and tried to blink them away before they could fall. Her life was in shambles and she could trace all of it back to her decision to get involved with him—and yet she’d never felt closer to another human being. Worse still, she wanted to be close to him. She’d always wanted him. Now she had exactly what she wanted, she needed to handle the consequences.
“How...how are we going to do this? Stage my death?”
“We’ll need a body and a story.”
“A body?”
“Yeah, Baby Doll. You can’t just disappear and expect that’ll do the trick. The Brotherhood must believe you’re dead and that your property reverted to me.”
“Oh great. So they have to believe they won and I’ll still lose everything.”
“Just because they think it’s mine doesn’t mean it will be mine,” Dwight clarified. “I’ll keep an eye on the bar and make sure you don’t lose the house.”
“Where will I be?” Aiza asked.
“Out of sight. I have friends in the county, they’ll help me get everything pushed through and keep it quiet.”
“What about the funeral? What about the burial? What about my family?”
Dwight’s hand moved up her neck, his long fingers pushing the hair from her face. “Do you trust me, Baby Doll?”
That was a loaded question. Even before she became a wolf, she routinely put her life in his hands, especially when she climbed onto the back of his motorcycle. Now that she was a werewolf—his werewolf—trusting him felt like the only thing she could do. If she didn’t have her maker, who did she have? None of her friends even knew she was a wolf and her family would only take the news as yet another sign that she was a fuck-up.
She didn’t know how to answer with words, so she closed her eyes and nuzzled into his touch. His fingers widened, spreading across her scalp, and he cradled her head gently. His warmth seeped into her skin, and so did the undeniable sense that everything was going to be alright. She didn’t know where that feeling was coming from—if she truly felt it or if he was sending her that soothing sensation—but she didn’t care.
When he tilted head to claim her mouth with a gentle kiss, she didn’t resist. They rarely kissed, and when they did, it was usually a hungry, desperate caress, as though they were trying to devour each other. There was hunger in this kiss, too, but it was tempered, as though he was waiting for a sign from here. With all the death and chaos, madness and confusion, kissing him—and inviting him to do more—seemed like it could wait.
And yet, it couldn’t.
She parted her lips, inviting him to deepen the kiss, pulling his tongue in her mouth as she buried her fingers in his long hair. He hesitated for a moment—just long enough to make her worry that he might release her completely—and then she felt the full force of his passion and desire ricochet through her.
He lowered her to the bed, his hands working over her body, removing her stained clothes. Everywhere he touched her lit up, and goosebumps covered her from head to toe. She shivered again and again, not with the chill of the night air, but with the anticipation of more. More than just the sensation of his fingers flowing over her skin. She wanted him to grab her, to hold her; she wanted to feel him claim her again.
Her hands were busy, too, moving to his fly and trying to pull the zipper free. Her fingers felt cold and clumsy, and his dick bulged against the tight denim, making it even more difficult to work the zipper down. Finally, his larger hand closed over hers, fingers grabbing the tab and guiding it, freeing his engorged flesh. She wrapped her hand around his length, fresh excitement pulsing through her veins as she stroked him.
“God, look what you do to me,” Dwight moaned, his mouth near her ear, his voice as hot and exciting as his touch. She squirmed beneath him, arousal flooding her system, making her wet; making her ache. She guided him to the juncture of her thighs, letting his swollen head slide between her lips, wetting his skin. The tip brushed against her clit, sending a shockwave up her spine. “I need to feel you.”
He wasn’t just saying that, either. She felt it; felt his desire flowing through him, fanning the sparks into flames—the flames that always threatened to consume her. Somehow, knowing it would consume him, too, made it all the better; made it easier for her to surrender to that passion. She guided his dick to her entrance, shifting her hips to take him inside of her. It was like touching a live wire to a dry pile of tinder—the sparks immediately caught and his name tore from her throat like a howl.
“Fuck me,” she bit out. “Fuck me hard. God...hard...harder….”
He did as she asked, slamming his hips into her, his face set in lines of brutal concentration. She grasped at his arms, fingers digging deep into his flesh, silently begging him for more and more. She wanted to be free from her thoughts, free from the decisions and fears and from every conscious and self-conscious reaction. She didn’t want to think about the past or the future, didn’t want to consider what could happen—didn’t want to remember what she’d done. When she turned herself over to him, to the pleasure their bodies could generate when they came together, she felt free.
But she wasn’t quite there. Not yet.
Wrapping herself around him, holding him deep in her body, she gasped out, “Flip over.”
He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, and she rose above him, her hands flat on his chest for balance. His t-shirt irritated her fingers and she clawed at the material until it was gone, allowing her to feel the smooth expanse of his skin; the power of his muscles straining beneath her. His hands went to her full hips, pulling her down to meet every upward thrust. She rocked against him, grinding her clit into his pelvis, building on each aching second.
Through it all, she still could smell and taste blood. Her mind was clouded, so whose blood it was and why she could sense it didn’t truly distract her from her goal. In fact, it only augmented her hunger, adding a sharp edge to every sensation until it sliced through her body. Each rock of her hips, each deep breath, every inch where skin moved against skin, where muscles flexed against muscles, each pull of her breath all coalesced into a sharp point of pleasure deep inside of her. That point pulsed brighter, hotter, and longer until it could no longer be contained.
The explosion it ignited rocked through her body, shaking her from her head to her toes. She screamed Dwight’s name, grasping him tightly as she rode out each relentless crest of pleasure. Distantly, she heard his own ragged gasp, felt his dick jerk and twitch inside of her as he followed her over the edge and past the point of no return.
The high she got from him was always so intense, but short-lived. Caught up in that wonderful twilight between pleasure and the real world, she collapsed on top of him and tried to hold on for as long as she could, but gradually her breathing and heart rate returned to normal, and the world she wanted to ignore pushed down on her mind and her shoulders. Reality was an unwelcome visitor, intruding on her before she was ready to accept any guests.
“Pack only what you need,” Dwight said, as though she needed his help to be pulled back to Earth. “We’re getting out of here now.”
Aiza nodded. What else was there to say?
But I’m not ready to go, her inner voice protested. I’m not ready to let everything go. I’m not ready to walk away from my life. Don’t do this.
But what choice did she have? She inhabited a new world where she didn’t know any of the rules and she had only one friend. If she wanted to stay alive in that world, adjustments had to be made. Sacrifices had to be made. If she wanted to stay alive at all, she would have to sacrifice everything she worked for.
As long as there’s life, there’s still hope, she promised herself. The world beat her down once before, but it couldn’t keep her down. She’d fought her way to the top of every mountain she met, and if she had to do it again, she would. She would always keep fighting, but from now on, she would use greater care in picking her battles.
And her allies.
For the second time in a single night, Aiza fled the scene of a crime and left Dwight to handle the gristly details. She’d never been to his cabin, but he gave her directions and an explicit warning to go directly there, to speak to nobody else, and to keep her head down. She’d nodded, agreeing to follow his orders, quietly packing a small bag and resisting the urge to call Cyn. She couldn’t tell her head waitress why she was disappearing or where she was going, but she desperately wanted to leave her a brief message. Don’t worry. Everything will be okay. Just keep the bar running and I’ll be back soon.
But even a message as simple as that could blow their entire story and ruin the plan they carefully worked out, once her head was clear again. It wasn’t an easy plan, but it was simple. Straight-forward. All it required from her was her silent cooperation. All she had to do was drive away.
Now that the fever in her blood had cooled and the wave of emotions coming from Dwight had dulled, many of her previous trepidations returned. She couldn’t shake the thought that she was handing it all over to Dwight; handing it all over to the Brotherhood. He swore he would keep it safe-guarded and wouldn’t allow anyone else in the Brotherhood to come sniffing around, but she simply did not know if she could trust that—if she could believe him—if she should believe him.
She didn’t reach the cabin until dawn. By then, her eyes were sore and gritty, her mouth was dry, and her bladder was uncomfortably full. She wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a soft bed.
The shower was exactly as she imagined it would be—better, even. She stood under the delicious spray for at least an hour, letting the water cleanse her of the blood and her exhaustion. She fell into the bed still wrapped in the towel, her heavy eyes falling the moment her head hit the pillow.
When Aiza woke up, she was dead again.
The car skidded out of control, according to the brief report on the local nightly news. Unable to correct the skid on the wet, rural road, the driver slammed into a utility pole and died instantly. They briefly flashed a picture of Aiza and then continued on to report that the number of traffic incidents on that particular stretch of highway was climbing steadily, and the local community was demanding for something to be done.
Although the story was exactly as she and Dwight had worked out, the shock of seeing it made her hands go numb and her breath hitch in her throat. The echoes of her actual accident made the scar on the back of her head throb, and she tried to ignore the tremor in her fingers, but it traveled up her arm and down to her legs.
The only thing Aiza didn’t know—and didn’t want to know—was who was actually in the car when it crashed. Dwight had brushed off her questions during the planning stage, and she had allowed him to do that, with the feeling that the less she knew, the better. That way, she could tell herself that “the body” he needed to locate was truly just a body and not, as she feared, a woman who looked like her, talked like her, and had been alive, just like her, only the morning before.
With the wheels of the plan set in motion, there was nothing for her to do but wait.
Dwight attended her small funeral—only her closest family was in attendance. There was another memorial for her, though, at the bar, and Dwight attended that, too. Aiza hadn’t asked for any of the details. She felt too guilty, the weight of the lie only compounded by every friend, every family member, every associate and customer, and every stranger who heard of her accident and felt any sense of grief over her loss.
What she did not count on during all their quick planning was the tenacity and loyalty of her sister, Sera, who insisted on staying after the funeral to see to the house and Aiza’s belongings; who went from bar to bar, apparently searching for Dwight or any possible lead or clue that would explain Aiza’s untimely death.