Savage (9 page)

She was foolish and she would die.

No!

Katelyn turned her head at the last and sunk her fangs into the other wolf’s shoulder, slicing through muscles and tendons. Katelyn shook her head hard and then threw the weakling ten feet.

It was fantastic to be so strong.

She tensed, ready to attack again, but something was different. Something had changed.

The stench of fear in the air was now more pungent than the scent of the blood. The challenger’s chin was brushing the ground and she was backing up, making strange, pained moans.

Katelyn stepped forward, claws cutting into the dirt.

The other wolf retreated again and then threw itself down on the ground. Katelyn stood for a moment. This gesture was one of submission, of surrender. It felt right.

The creature rolled onto her back, exposing her stomach. The moaning became frantic whining. And Katelyn could almost swear she heard the words “Please don’t kill me” in the sound.

Katelyn stalked forward, her legs powerful, head and tail high. She was the victor. She answered to no one. Life or death. The power was hers. The choice was hers.

The defeated wolf continued to cower and then slowly began to morph back into a human, naked, whimpering and writhing in agony. Katelyn blinked at her, watching, waiting for her to be fully human again. Part of her was hoping the other would make just one false move so she could rip her throat out. The older woman’s body went slack and her eyes rolled back in her head. Then, when the transformation was done and it was clear that she wasn’t going to do anything, Katelyn felt her own body begin to shift back.

She blinked in astonishment. The pain was somehow even more intense as her consciousness expanded rapidly, her thoughts filling every nook and cranny. All her glorious muscles, her strength and speed were being stuffed back into a body that couldn’t handle them.

She wanted to cry out but every muscle seized and she couldn’t force open her mouth to get out the sound. She had always assumed that at the end of the full moon the pack fell asleep and somehow shifted back while they were sleeping. She realized now that wasn’t the case. They didn’t go to sleep. They passed out from the sheer torture of being forced back into bodies full of limits and boundaries.

She collapsed onto the ground as bones broke and muscles began to rearrange themselves. She lay quivering in anguish.

Darkness swam in front of her eyes, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t succumb to it. She had to stay conscious. If she didn’t, she was as good as dead.

She curled her paws and her nails cut into what were becoming palms again. Her left hand throbbed where it had been bitten. Her nails began to shrink and her bones were knitting themselves back together.

And then she was human again. She could feel it. She had the overwhelming urge to cry at the unfairness of it and she blinked rapidly, trying to settle her mind and grasp her thoughts.

She was human.

And that was a good thing.

Naked, she pushed up off the ground and forced herself to a standing position. Her knees were weak and rubbery. For a terrible moment she thought there was something wrong with her and then remembered that her human body would bear the brunt of her battle until it healed.

She stared down at the other woman who was still lying unconscious on the ground, covered in blood.

I did that
, Katelyn realized.
I hurt her
.

It was more than that. Katelyn hadn’t just fought her. She had fought her and won. She looked down at her own injured hand, already healing itself. She hadn’t just won, she’d beaten the other woman nearly senseless. She’d come off with just the one injury. How had she gotten so lucky in her first challenge?

Then she realized it hadn’t been luck, but skill. She might not have spent years learning how to fight, but in her gymnastics training she had spent years learning how to contort her body, how to demand the most of it while still keeping it safe. In the end, that self-awareness had saved her, had helped her beat the other werewolf.

How long would it take for the woman to wake up? However long it was, Katelyn couldn’t wait. Every minute that passed could be bringing fresh dangers her way.

And with every minute that passed her enemy’s body had a chance to heal just that much more.

She reached out and shoved the woman in the ribs with her foot. The assassin groaned, then slowly blinked several times. Her eyes finally seemed to focus on Katelyn and she paled.

Katelyn registered her reaction with a mild sense of shock. It was the first time another werewolf had been truly afraid of her. The unfolding of the next minute was completely crucial to survival for both of them.

Her legs still felt shaky but she forced herself to sound calm, confident. “What’s your name?”

“Wanda. Wanda Mae.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar. She knew she had met the woman before, right after her first transformation, but there had been so many new names and faces.

“Wanda Mae, I’ll let you live if you swear allegiance to me.” Katelyn stared directly into the woman’s eyes. She had beaten her, won fair and square. She told herself there was nothing to be afraid of.

Unless there are more of them. If someone’s in my cabin.

But she refused to give any sign of her own uncertainty. If there were any more werewolves skulking around they hadn’t chosen to reveal themselves or intervene in the fight in any way.

Which meant that they didn’t want to get any more involved than they already were.

“I swear allegiance to you . . . my alpha,” Wanda Mae said, lowering her head.

A thrill zinged through Katelyn when Wanda Mae called her alpha. Was this what it had been like for Lee? What the new Fenner alpha would feel when others addressed him or her that way?

She tried to give herself a reality check. She had a pack of two. That wasn’t truly a pack. And what did she gain by having Wanda acknowledge her as her leader?

I need more werewolves to acknowledge me as their alpha.

She was stunned by the turn her thoughts had taken. It was preposterous, unthinkable.

But why shouldn’t I be the new Fenner alpha? After all, Magus told me to end this war. Me. Not Justin, or either of Cordelia’s sisters. What does he know that I don’t?

“Alpha?” Wanda Mae whined very softly.

Katelyn looked down and realized that the other woman was still huddled on the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds even though they were starting to heal.

“Who came with you?” Katelyn asked. “Call them out of my cabin
now
.”

Wanda Mae took a breath, let it out. “You and I are alone, alpha. There’s no one here but us.”

Katelyn heard the change in her voice — ingratiating, trying to please. Providing her superior with information.

“The door was open,” Katelyn said.

“I went inside,” Wanda Mae replied. “I could smell you coming. I went out your kitchen door and jumped up on the roof.” The hand that pushed her gray hair out of her eyes was shaking. “I swear I’m telling you the truth. Now that I’m yours, any other werewolves would be my enemies, too.”

That was massively convenient. Katelyn was thrilled. Except for the lying about Arial being dead part.

“Okay,” Katelyn said. “Listen, I lied to you about Arial.” The woman looked stricken. “If you see her . . .” She stopped. “If you see her, tell her that you haven’t seen me.” She wondered if her scent would be on the woman. Lucy had challenged her because her scent was on Justin after a hug. “You’d better lay low.”

“Yes, alpha,” she murmured, her voice shaky. “I know you’ll look out for me.”

Katelyn was taken aback. She knew that was the role of an alpha, but it hadn’t occurred to her when she’d forced Wanda Mae to declare her loyalty that she’d be assuming an obligation as well.

“Try to avoid her as best you can, but if she asks you what happened, tell her that you tried to take me on, but humans arrived unexpectedly and you had to let me go. And if a new alpha is declared, pretend to be loyal. But you’re mine.”

“Pretend . . .” Wanda said, looking shocked. Then she quickly nodded as Katelyn narrowed her eyes in displeasure. “Understood.”

“Things are in chaos, but it’ll be all right soon.” She looked at the woman, realizing that she wasn’t as embarrassed that both of them were undressed as she had been in the past. “Did you bring some clothes?”

“Yes, I did,” Wanda Mae said proudly. She pointed to the forest. “Hid ’em good.”

“Then get dressed and go,” Katelyn said.

“Yes’m, alpha,” Wanda Mae said, bowing her head. “Thank you. I’ll do everything you say.” Then she scrambled to her feet and disappeared into the darkness.

Katelyn stood for a moment, breathing deeply the cold night air. Things had just changed irrevocably and she didn’t know what it meant for her future, but she was grateful that at that moment the overriding fear she had been feeling for weeks seemed to have evaporated.

“There’s a new alpha in town,” she whispered to the darkness, partly to hear herself say it aloud and partly as a show in case there were more werewolves lurking nearby.

The Fenner pack knew she was immune to silver. She wondered if Wanda Mae had bought her lie about not being able to be killed by bullets of any kind.

Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled and she knew that it was Wanda Mae.

She picked up her gun and the remains of her tattered clothes, then hurried into the house as life, her other life, flooded back in.

What if her grandfather or Trick had come back and seen everything? She sighed as she closed and locked the cabin door. For one minute an overwhelming, ecstatic freedom had lifted her and now she plunged back into her prison.

This is why the others take such joy in being wolves.

She buried her shredded clothes at the bottom of the trashcan and then hurried upstairs to shower and dress. She took her new silver bullets and gun and put the bullets in some socks, then slid the gun and the socks beneath her mattress.

Then, completely wired, she went downstairs to wait for the hunters to return. She fixed herself some pasta, continuing the myth that she was still a vegetarian when she was dying for meat. After cleaning up, she found herself pacing the living room. She should have asked how long this was going to take, how long until they came back.

But of course they wouldn’t have known.

Finally she wandered over to the bookshelf and the Jack Bronson book, which she had reshelved there, caught her eye. She pulled it out and took it back to the couch with her.

Another Inner Wolf executive had been killed. She thought of her run-in with Jack Bronson. The man had been powerful, charismatic, and intimidating. She wouldn’t put murder or much else past him. It was possible that it wasn’t a werewolf who had been killing people in the woods, but rather some of his attendees who’d gotten a little too in touch with their inner wolves? And why was it she had found a piece of her grandfather’s stolen silver outside the Inner Wolf Center?

Maybe Jack Bronson or one of his disciples had broken into their house to steal the painting that revealed the entrance to the lost silver mine, then covered it up by stealing other valuables, too. The legend of the mine was no secret, and why else come to some place like this to build a fancy retreat center? There were loads of places he could have built that were still in the woods, yet closer to civilization.

She cracked open the book and began reading from the beginning. The introduction provided a mini-biography of Jack. Apparently he had grown up in the mountains in Arkansas. That could help explain the appeal of the area for him.

She kept reading, hoping that at any moment she’d hear Ed and Trick returning. She pictured Jesse lying dead in the snow, and then Justin, and resolutely kept reading the book, trying to drive away images of their mangled corpses.

The more she read about getting in touch with her inner wolf and Jack’s theories about the primal savage lurking within everyone, the more she was convinced that if he hadn’t killed anyone in Wolf Springs he must have at some point in his life. There was so much glorification of savagery, of the brutish nature. He even urged his readers to eat their meat raw whenever practical. Katelyn was alarmed that her stomach actually growled when she read that section.

“ ‘Deep in his psyche, man has never lost his instinct to kill, and that’s a good thing’,” she read aloud.

She put the book down. Whoever, whatever, Jack Bronson was, he was a sicko, and moving to the top of her suspect list. She stood up and stretched her back and glanced at the clock. It was midnight.

She crossed to the windows and peered out. No one, not man nor beast seemed to be stirring outside. She couldn’t decide if she was relieved or disappointed.

She flexed her left hand. It seemed to have healed completely from Wanda Mae’s bite. Belatedly she wondered if there was blood on the ground outside from the fight. There had to be, she realized — Wanda’s, at least.

She stiffened. What would the hunters make of that when they came back? Still, she wasn’t sure what she could do about that. Maybe she could say she’d seen some kind of animal kill a rabbit outside if anyone asked. That would be less suspicious than the smell of freshly dumped bleach outside.

She glanced back at the book. Jack Bronson seemed to be smiling at her from the cover. And it wasn’t a nice, warm smile. It was an I’m-a-psychopathic-killer kind of smile.

On a sudden whim she sat down at her computer, launched a browser and did a search for Jack Bronson. Thousands of hits came back and she gritted her teeth in frustration. She began to scroll through, automatically dismissing all the bookseller sites and promotion sites.

Finally she tried adding the word “criminal” to the search. The fifth result from the top of a smaller list looked promising. She clicked on it and found a rant by an angry guy named Eric Custer who claimed that Jack Bronson had brainwashed his boyfriend. The tirade went on for pages and Katelyn skimmed it, hoping that the man might have actually dug up some dirt on Jack.