Brain (16 page)

Brain

Four days later Harmony’s stitches were out, and she’d played around with her makeup to get a look she liked.

She looked nothing at all like my Ice, but she was still my Buttercup.

I knew Duke and the other wolves who’d already met her wouldn’t be fooled, because there was nothing we could do about her smell, but there was no danger of anyone else recognizing her as the woman she used to be.

And we wouldn’t be seeing any of the Chattanooga RTMC members today.

Bud met us in Marietta and followed us on his bike to Chattanooga. We didn’t technically need an Alpha to oversee this, but I wanted to be sure we crossed every
t
and dotted every
i
, so I’d asked Randall if he’d help make my telling Harmony official.

“I can’t really tell you what to expect, but I feel I should warn you Randall is Duke’s twin brother. They don’t dress the same, and their hair is different, but they’re identical twins, and I don’t want it to catch you off guard.”

“Bud is President of the Atlanta Rolling Thunder Chapter, what’s Randall?”

“He’ll have to tell you, if he wants you to know. I promise to answer every question about me you ask, but I can’t answer questions about other people.”

I kept the conversation to other topics for the rest of the nearly two hour drive, and as we pulled into the driveway and his house came into view, she said, “Looks like an Alpha Werewolf’s house.”

His home was built using huge slabs of stone, like you’d expect a castle to be made of, but the architecture was modern. Looking at the home and surrounding meadow and forest through her eyes, I couldn’t argue with her, but I shook my head and said, “Please, please,
please
stop thinking out loud.”

She chuckled and said, “Okay,” and I parked and met Randall as he came down his front porch.

“Randall Bevering, meet Harmony Johnson.” Bud had taken his helmet off and was walking towards us, and I included him as well. “Bud, this is Harmony.”

Everyone shook hands, including Bud and Randall, and we walked with Randall to the rear of his house, and into a screened-in porch. He walked behind a bar area, where there were three full pitchers, and he said, “We have water, sweet tea, and lemonade, as well as beer in the outdoor fridge.”

Harmony asked for tea, Randall poured lemonade for himself, and Bud and I drank beer. As Randall walked to us with everyone’s drinks, he looked at me and asked, “You sure you want to do this without Abbott around? You sure she’ll agree to the stipulations?”

“If she doesn’t, I’ve made arrangements to meet with him this evening, and Bud will stay with us so she’s properly chaperoned.”

“Stipulations?”

I nodded to Harmony and told her, “I promised you answers, and the truth is Occam’s Razor served you well, though I couldn’t verify it before. I’m a werewolf. Would you like to see the proof?”

“You won’t hurt me?”

“Never, Buttercup. I’ll know who you are, and I’ll be able to understand you, though I can’t talk back, obviously.”

“Then yeah, I’d like to see.”

I smelled her arousal, layered over her anxiety, as I stood and stripped. She wasn’t afraid, just nervous, and the sooner I
changed
and let her pet me, the better.

* * * *

Harmony

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the
change
happened so smoothly, my brain couldn’t comprehend the transition as Brain morphed into a huge wolf.

Even though it was impossible logically, my big strong biker was now a beautiful wolf, and everyone was looking at me for my reaction.

He was dark grey on top, but his chest, legs, and stomach were a light grey — almost white. His eyes were golden, and I could see the intelligence in them. I should’ve been freaked, but part of me had known this was the most likely answer to all of the puzzles, so I’d been prepared. Kind of.

“You’re beautiful, can I pet you?”

He walked to me, sat beside me instead of facing me, and I reached over and around his body to pet his chest, and worked my way up to his neck and head.

I looked to Bud and said, “He sat like this to show he’s protecting me, didn’t he?”

“Perceptive,” said Randall. “You’d guessed he was a wolf, already?”

“We’re meeting with Abbott later, to tell him about an Atlanta detective after the RTMC who’s convinced they’re werewolves. He’s been gathering files, pictures, and video from law enforcement all over the country, asking them to think of him as the clearinghouse for all information, and appointing himself the RTMC expert. It’s all supposition for now, he has no proof, but it’s probably only a matter of time before he manages to put it together, and Brain says I need to give my data to Abbott.”

Brain walked to the door, nudged it open, and walked off the porch.

“I brought a cooler of venison, and set it on the ground by my bike before we came in,” Bud told her. “He’ll eat and then will be back. Meanwhile, what questions can we answer for you. You seem to be taking this awfully well.”

I shrugged. “Between reading the detective’s notes, and then the way Brain picks me up and… yeah, let’s just say he’s strong. Also, he knows when something’s wrong with me, almost before I do, sometimes.”

Randall leaned back, took a drink, and said, “Not many people know the story of why Brain and Duke split, but the two of us do. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out he found her again, and you figured it out because you’re as much of a genius as he is. Also, he likely gave some subtle clues while he was chasing you… things he could’ve gotten away with if you hadn’t read the detective’s hypothesis.”

Fear spiked through my system, and Bud said, “Your secret’s safe with us, Harmony. You know our secret, too. It’s all good.”

“You’re both wolves?” I looked to Randall, “I mean, I figured Bud was because he’s RTMC, too, but Brain wouldn’t tell me how you play into this, other than to warn me you’re Duke’s twin. Since I’m assuming Duke is, then if you are, this must be hereditary?”

Randall nodded. “We were born werewolves. People can also be turned by being bitten or scratched.”

“So, that means a Supreme Court Justice was a wolf, and a U.S. Senator is one.”

Bud chuckled. “You’d be surprised at how many of the people in power positions aren’t human.”

The men looked away from me, towards the side yard, and a few minutes later I heard tires on gravel.

“You expecting anyone?” Bud asked.

“No. I should go see who it is.”

Bud and I followed Randall out the door and down the steps. We weren’t invited, but apparently, neither of us cared.

Brain

I was finishing up the venison Bud had packed in the cooler when I heard someone pull off the road onto Randall’s nearly mile-long driveway, and I quickly made my way into the woods and
changed
back to human.

One of the Drake Security vehicles pulled into the driveway, and rage shot through my veins when I saw Aaron Drake and Duke in the front seat.

Duke stayed inside as Aaron got out, and I said, “I used your app for my encrypted communications, since everyone already had it. You spied on us.”

“Yeah, and I’m sorry for it, but I’m not responsible for Duke being here. I only monitored your conversations for Abbott, as he was concerned he’d lost track of you, and he likes to know what all of the most powerful and most intelligent supernaturals in his territory are up to. Abbott asked Eric some geek questions, Eric talked to Duke, and Duke called in a favor to accompany me. I wouldn’t have brought him into this, otherwise.”

“Why are you here?”

“To tell you I have a place for you in my organization if you’re interested, and to welcome Harmony into the family, as well as offer her some consulting work.”

Harmony was standing with Bud and Randall, off to the side, and when she took a step towards me, I turned to her and said, “Stay where you are, please? Bud’ll take care of you because you’re mine, and Randall will make sure you’re safe because this is his house and he feels responsible for guests.”

“And I’ll defend her with my life because she’s yours, as well,” Aaron told me. He turned to Harmony and said, “When I had to take the woman I loved into hiding to save her life, Brain and Duke helped me keep her hidden and safe, and helped us formulate a strategy to keep her safe as we came out of hiding. She’s now my wife, and has given me three beautiful children. You’re safe with me, and believe it or not, you’re safe with Duke, as well.”

“You weren’t invited, Aaron,” I told him. “Why are you really here? I’m sure you know we’re meeting with Abbott later, and you could’ve come to that meeting with his invitation.”

Duke stepped out of the black Expedition and walked to me. “Gen seems to think you were responsible for the video leak, which led to my release with all but a few misdemeanor charges dropped. I’d hoped this meant you might be ready to mend fences.”

I glanced at Harmony, remembered what she’d been put through by the Russians, and then the cage Gonzo had put her in, and the humiliation she experienced, and rage shot through me as I lunged towards Duke and hit his face hard enough he took four steps back and almost went down.

He took a step towards me, his hands up ready to fight back, but then dropped them and said, “I deserved that.”

Duke’s calm acceptance didn’t sit well with my wolf, and I let the animal inside me even closer to the surface as I closed the distance between us and struck Duke a dozen times or more, left fist and right fist to the face, to the stomach, wherever I could land a punch as Duke used his arms to try to fend me off, but didn’t strike me a single time.

“Fight me, you bastard! You ordered my woman be put in a fucking
cage
, so she had no choice but to squat and shit in the floor, and you think we can
ever
be okay again?! I’ll rip you to pieces if you don’t fucking fight back.”

* * * *

Harmony

Bud put his arm around me to comfort me, and possibly to hold me back, and I told him, “I’m fine, and I don’t do well with strangers touching me.”

He looked at me a few seconds, inhaled deeply, and finally dropped his arm and nodded. “Okay, but don’t run towards them, okay? They need to work this out, and wolves can take a lot of damage. If it gets too bad, I’ll step in.”

Duke’s face was a bloody mess before he finally starting hitting Brain back, and five minutes later they were both blood-soaked, their faces transformed into something between human and wolf, and Duke ripped his clothes away like the Hulk as he grew several feet and bulked up into a grotesque wolf-monster.

Brain also grew and shifted, but he didn’t seem monstrous to me. Huge and deadly, and certainly some kind of wolf-human hybrid, but not hideous.

Now the men fought with claws and teeth as well as fists, and I could see Duke was stronger, and a better fighter, but Brain was smarter, and
way
more pissed off.

Brain wanted to fight, and Duke was only fighting because he was forced to. His heart wasn’t in it.

I touched Bud’s arm and said, “It’s time to stop them.”

“Close, but not yet. If I’m not mistaken, they’ll end things on their own before much longer.”

Sure enough, a few minutes later Duke stepped back, his arms up and out. His voice came out a rough growl, barely intelligible, as he said, “I don’t want to fight you. Dammit, Brain, you’re my best friend.”

Brain took a few steps back as he dropped his hands and
changed
back to his normal human form. “You should’ve trusted me to know how to handle her without turning my back on the MC.”

“You’re right. I fucked up, and I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?”

“There’s nothing you can do to make it up to me, Duke. You hurt her in ways you can’t imagine. I took care of Gen for you, helped you get the club to accept her, even went behind your back to get Gonzo to talk to her and explain, when she’d broken up with you. And then I find my woman and you put her in a fuckin’
cage
, treat her as less than an animal.”

Duke was in his human form now, and naked, but no one else seemed bothered by it so I didn’t let it affect me, either. I stepped forward and told Brain, “Ice was an enemy of the club, but Ice is gone. Also, she made a point of making things right with Duke and Gonzo, which I’m sure is why Bud’s okay with me. But all of that’s history. I’m Harmony now, and the club has never had any dealing with Harmony. Maybe we can find a starting point for a conversation?”

Brain shook his head. “Bash and Gonzo will know you from your smell. Any supernatural who knew you before won’t be fooled by the plastic surgery.”

Fear laced through my nervous system, and he took a few rapid steps to me and said, “Hey, none of that. They haven’t found you yet, they won’t find you now, either. The odds they’ll happen to be somewhere they can smell you aren’t good.”

“So, you’re saying the Russians are…?”

“I don’t know. The Georgian Mafia is, but I don’t know about the specific Russians who held you.”

“They aren’t,” said Aaron, “though they employ some bodyguards who are, but I can’t say what they are. However, it’s doubtful they’ll have the same enforcers with them, so it isn’t likely anyone from their organization will recognize you by smell.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” I asked, glaring at him.

“Buttercup, we need to have another conversation, and then you’ll understand it’s probably
can’t
, even if he knows what they are. Come on back to the porch, and I’ll put my clothes back on.”

They’d both been a bloody mess, but when they’d shifted back to human, their skin was clean, and the flesh on their faces was no longer ripped to pieces.

Randall let Duke borrow some jeans and a t-shirt, and ten minutes later everyone was seated on the porch, though I could tell Brain would still prefer to beat Duke to a pulp rather than sit in the same room with him.

Brain explained the binding process, and how it would physically keep me from telling supernatural secrets. He brought out a pressure needle to get some blood from my finger, but I pulled my hand away and reached for the needle, telling him, “Sorry, you can’t poke holes in me. I’ll do it.”

“But I can sense where the blood is under the skin. I’ll know where to stick for the most blood.”

“Then tell me where to stick and I will.”

He nodded, pointed to a spot on the side of my finger, and I made the hole. Brain had already put some of his blood into a glass of wine, and he put a dozen drops of mine in a glass of water.

We drank each other’s blood, I repeated a few sentences about keeping their secrets, and I felt something snap inside me, as if the oath were a tangible thing.

They had Brain step inside, and Randall asked me to write out the things I’d learned. I soon figured out I wasn’t capable of doing so, and also learned Brain had been communicating to them when I started writing, even though he’d been inside and out of sight. He’d
felt
it when I tried to divulge the information.

Brain returned, put a tiny, silly little bandage on my finger, and kissed over the top of it. “If it ever becomes necessary to change your scent, we can discuss my turning you. You need to let the plastic surgery completely heal, so your body doesn’t try to go back to the way it was, and we’ll need to have a lot of really long discussions about the pros and cons, but just know it might be an option, at some future time.”

Randall leaned forward and told me, “Most werewolves are in a pack, with a hierarchy, and rules, and an Alpha over them. I’m the Alpha of the Chattanooga pack, but I’m also over every Alpha, and thus every pack wolf, in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and the mountains of North Carolina. Some don’t want an Alpha, or have another reason the pack doesn’t work for them, and become lone wolves. Sometimes, lone wolves band together to get the feeling of pack, the brotherhood around them, without an official Alpha. As I’m sure you’ve figured out, the RTMC is a band of wolves. They vote on things, it’s a democracy, where a Pack is basically a benevolent totalitarian government. I care about my wolves, and I want the best for them, but my word is law and isn’t often open to discussion. If they insist upon arguing, they can challenge me for the Alpha position, but those battles are almost always to the death, and not many want to challenge me.”

I looked to Duke, back to Randall. “So instead of having to choose whether to bow to you or fight you, your brother left the pack.”

“Again, Miss Harmony, you are quite perceptive and I can see why Brain likes you. He can answer questions about himself, but not about the rest of us, so you may want to focus your questions with that in mind, while you have us all in one place.”

“You’re all wolves?”

“You know about the status of everyone except Aaron. You’ll need to address your question to him.”

I looked at him, and he shook his head. “I’m a shapeshifter, but not a wolf.”

I assumed he didn’t intend to tell me what he shifted into, so I turned to Brain and asked, “Based on Detective Appian’s notes, I have a feeling you need to turn on one of the three nights of the full moon, but you were with me during the full moon, and you never left my side.”

“I went into the woods surrounding the house while you were asleep, spent about an hour as my wolf, and came back inside. I didn’t get to run for miles and miles, but it was enough to pacify the wolf until we can get to the forest for a proper run. Neither of us wanted to leave you alone, and we kept a close eye on the house from outside.”

“If you’ll still be in town tonight, you’re welcome to run here,” Randall offered. “Harmony can hang out in the kitchen area and talk to whoever’s here.”

Brain looked at me, then back to Randall. “Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. Let me get back to you and let you know?”

“Of course.”

“I think the rest of my questions are for Brain, personally. I’m sure the rest of you have other things to do.”

Bud leaned forward and said, “Brain’s important to us, you’re important to him, thus, you’re important to us. We’d kind of like to get to know you better.”

“For what it’s worth,” Duke told her, his eyes solemn, sad, “I liked you from the beginning, but I had to make sure the club was safe.”

I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted to call him a pompous assed cretin, but I also didn’t want to up the tension. The violence in the fight earlier had bothered me a great deal and I didn’t want to be the catalyst for another fight.

“Guys, you’re making her uncomfortable,” said Brain, “and I’d like to take her out to eat and give her some downtime before we meet with Abbott.” He looked to Bud. “I asked for two months and you gave it to me. I’m only five weeks in.”

“I did. Doesn’t mean we don’t miss you. The MC’s gonna think she pulled you away from us. The longer you keep her a mystery, the bigger deal she’ll be when you bring her around.”

Brain gave my hand a comforting squeeze as he stood, and gently pulled me up with him. “Thanks, Randall, for legitimizing the binding. Thanks, Bud, for coming along for moral support.” He nodded to Aaron and Duke, and as we walked out I told the room, “Nice to meet you.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Brain said with a chuckle as we rounded the house towards his car, “but now you legally know about us, and I can answer your questions, and no longer have to hide my wolf from you.”

“You talk about him as if you share your body with an animal.”

“I do, kind of.” He opened the passenger door for me, closed it, and went around to the driver’s side. “The wolf acts on instinct, and I have to remember I’m human and not ruled by my reflexes and instincts. Duke’s wolf is always closer to the surface. He hears better, smells better, when he’s in human form than most of us, because of it, I think. I have a feeling Randall is the same.”

“You were Duke’s second, does that mean you were the second most powerful wolf?”

He chuckled. “Oh, no. I’m probably in the thirtieth percentile amongst the MC when it comes to strength and fighting ability, but I make up for the difference with brainpower. My wolf has learned to listen to me, when he’s holding the reins, as I can usually get us out of just about anything.”

“You probably wouldn’t have caught me if you’d been human.”

“I don’t know. At least twice, I’d have likely lost the trail, but there’s a good chance I’d have picked it up again online.”

“Do you want to run at Randall’s tonight?”

“Randall will make sure you’re physically safe while you’re on his property, but that doesn’t mean people won’t come talk to you, and I don’t want you hurt emotionally. I won’t leave you alone in Chattanooga so I can go running.”