Chapter Forty-eight

Shaking with adrenaline, Glenna hit the bars hard, scratching and clawing at the man who had hurt her mate. Somewhere in the back of her brain a small voice said Sam didn’t want to be her mate, he’d fought too hard to get away from her at every turn. But she ignored it. The man on the floor was hers. She knew it. And deep inside somewhere, a brand-new piece of her howled it.

“What have you done to him?”

“Simply what I needed to do. I can’t have the two of you starting the mating dance, not with you so close to the change.” Alastair came over to the cage.

She snarled at him. “I love Sam.” She stretched out to claw him with her fingers, but he stayed out of reach. “I’ve made my choice.”

“That’s the pheromones talking.”

“Sam said I don’t have the fever.”

“No, you don’t.” His voice was calm and firm between breaths of effort as he dragged Sam’s limp body across the room. “But the change is pushing you to mate. Why do you think we sequester our young? You’d be doing every man within a square mile if I let you out. Sam’s just been the most convenient.”

Alastair dumped Sam next to a set of iron rings set in the cement floor, leaving him there to rummage through a large wooden box. Sam’s head lolled on the floor. His arms and legs were limp. Worry spiraled through her that he might be dead.

“Ah, here we go.” He pulled out a long, shiny steel chain and a pair of thick handcuffs. Glenna forced her mouth to stay closed as he carried them over to Sam and dumped them with a loud clank on the cement. “If I were a shifter I would have fought with Sam in the age-old battle over mates. But I’m a spelltalker. I have more control.”

She shivered at the derision in his voice.

“You wouldn’t want him anyway,” Alastair continued, almost casually as he pushed Sam’s wrists, one at a time, into iron cuffs. “He’s almost feral. I’m surprised they left you alone with him.”

“What are you talking about?” Glenna paced her cage, trying to seem like she cared about this man’s opinion, when all she really cared about was if Sam was still alive.

“He’s another woman’s reject.” Alastair paused and looked at her, as if checking her response. Glenna hoped he didn’t see how the idea of Sam with someone else stabbed her deep inside. He grunted, and then turned back to his task of running the noisy steel chain through the cuffs and padlocking it to the iron ring in the floor. “He’s weak. Subject to the wolf and the virus. He went feral and ran in the woods for months.” He stood up and brushed his hands off on his pants. “Now, someone like you—educated, good background—someone like you needs a person who can be your match.”

“Someone like you?”

“Don’t sound so shocked. I have a good job. I went to college. This one doesn’t even have a job. He threw that all away when he lost it.” Alastair leaned over Sam, a vicious look on his face, and kicked him. Glenna winced. “When you’re finished with the change, you’ll see more clearly. I have no doubt you’ll see that you and I fit together much better than you ever could with a feral wolf. Even Sam knew that. That’s why he brought you here.”

“You’re not even close to the wolf he is.”

“Once I’ve enacted the mating spell, you’ll be mine. I picked you out especially for me, you know. Too bad for you, we were hoping you’d be a spelltalker or a dreamwalker, but it can’t be helped.”

“What do you mean, you picked me out?” Her head throbbed and her thoughts refused to stay focused but she locked on to his words.

For the first time Alastair looked nervous.

“I ended up with the fever because some lunatic attacked me,” Glenna said. “How could you have picked me out?”

“Forget it.” He turned back to Sam and fussed with his chain, yanking it to make sure it was secure.

Fear coursed through her. She tried to remember through the wall that seemed to block everything about the attack, but she couldn’t get through. Could Alastair have been her attacker? “What do you know?”

“Nothing. Forget I said anything.” He stood up and headed for the barn door. “I had hoped to make you mine right away. Unfortunately I have responsibilities at school, and the spell that activates the virus isn’t a quick one. But I’ll be back.”

“You asshole. Unchain him and let me go. Now.”

“Now, now.” Alastair turned back to look over his shoulder. “Once we’re mated you’ll find we suit especially well. Your elegance and grace may be absent now, but I’ve seen you at events. You hold yourself well.” Alastair bowed to her. “My dear, when I come back through my magic we will experience the Bite, together and for the first time a spelltalker and a shifter will be mated.” He turned and left, sliding the heavy old wooden barn door closed.

Glenna hit the bars again and again, throwing herself at them in a panic. Her lips drew back and she shrieked her desperation to the dark. She was exhausted and bruised by the time her frenzy calmed. She sucked in shallow, ragged breaths. Then longer, deeper breaths that finally calmed her down and cleared the red haze of rage.

For the moment her thinking was clear. Her savage need for food felt like her stomach was gnawing its way out of her body. Her small cell was empty except for a pile of ratty grey blankets and a bucket. That bastard had left her no food and no water.

A sinking feeling dropped low in her stomach followed fast by the growing realization that she might actually need him to come back.

She kicked at the useless blankets. Sam would need some kind of cover in the rapidly cooling barn. She tried tossing one over, but it fell far short of his limp body chained to the floor. If she could wake him up, he might be able to reach them. If he was alive.

“Sam?”

There was no response, not even a twitch.

Glenna prowled the three paces up and three paces back between the walls of her tiny cage. A ravenous wave of hunger washed over her. The world was going in and out of focus, strange sensations prickled along her skin and deep inside her bones.

It was about to happen. And afterwards her world would never be the same. She didn’t want to be alone. “Sam!” Had he moved?

Her body contorted with pain. She stared at her arms. Strange bumps were lifting under her skin and there was a burning inside of her bones. Hair sprouted from her skin and she screamed. The world blurred and shifted. She fell to the floor, twisting and contorting with the pain until it overcame her, and she passed out.

She woke up on the floor of the cage. Her vision was strangely muted. She struggled to stand up and managed to get to her hands and knees. No...her four feet.

A delicious sense of unreality uncurled inside her as she realized she had paws. Fur covered paws with claws. And then she felt it. The other that had come to be inside of her. Her wolf.

An incomparable feeling of love and warmth flooded through her. It was as if she had been reborn a psychic conjoined twin.

Never again would she face the world on her own. Never again would she even lift a finger without her wolf participating. It was bizarre and strange, and if Sam had told her it would feel like this before, she would have felt disgusted and afraid.

But now she felt completely safe and aware for the first time of how truly lonely it could be to be alone in a body. Her wolf sent her strong waves of approval and love as they explored learning how to walk together around the confines of the small cage. She would have thought it would be hard, but her wolf knew what to do and by extension so did she. They were one and the same. She had become two minds, one body, and a blended soul.

Her sense of smell was intense and she tried to sort through the kaleidoscope of colors she could smell. She sniffed past the horrible smells in the cage she occupied, past the stale urine and bleach and put her nose in the air instead. The barn smelled old, of musty hay and dirt. And there were newer smells from herself, and Alastair, and Sam.

She whined and scratched at the scarred cement on his side. Something was wrong with Sam. His scent had a sick smell that screamed emergency.

She scratched around the cage, bloodying her claws in a frantic search for a way out, until she whimpered with frustration. There were places where the cement had been dug into, but under that were steel plates. She wasn’t getting out. She sank onto her hindquarters and howled with frustration. She was stuck, Sam was hurt, and Alastair would be back for her. And when he got back he would force her to become his mate, instead of Sam’s.

She needed help and there was no way to get it. She was on her own. Her first true wolf howl ripped out of her throat.

No one came. Glenna paced the cage, but she wasn’t alone.

Glenna herself was small inside her own head, while the wolf fretted and pushed. Now that the change had happened Glenna could feel a faint line between what she wanted, and what her wolf wanted, but in this wolf shape the wolf held sway.

She pushed back at it, as if tonguing a sore tooth. Testing how it felt. The wolf was full of fear for Sam followed fast by hot rage at Alastair. She and her wolf agreed: they would die before they became Alastair’s mate.

The anger and fear surged higher and higher until the wolf took over, biting and clawing at the bars in a rabid frenzy.

She didn’t have the knack of this sharing a mind thing. When the wolf was upset it was strong and in control and she could do nothing but hide like a child in the back of her mind and wait for the storm to pass. Finally they curled up in a corner on the blankets. She was starving and alone, and Alastair showed no signs of returning. She curled up, nose to tail, and thought soothing imaginings of running in the deep woods until, finally asleep, she ran as a wolf in the dreamscape.