The Frenzy Way (32 page)

“You’re mine now,” Brooke said as they walked hand in hand back to campus.

Julian gave her a quizzical look.

“Didn’t your grandfather tell you? Wolves are monogamous. We mate for life. You’re stuck with me.”

That sounded good to him.

She slapped his arm. “I’m joking! I mean, I’m not, but you don’t have to worry about silly traditions. We’re two modern young people in the big, bad world, free to do as we please.”

What pleased Julian was to continue seeing Brooke, and apparently it pleased her to keep seeing him as well. They became inseparable, making love in human form, Wolf Form, and in mid-Transformation.

During a particularly exhausting session in Julian’s dorm room, his roommate, Ryan, walked in on them while they were in the throes of excitement. Fortunately, Julian had turned the light off, and in the time it took Ryan to throw the switch, the startled couple dropped side by side on the bed and Changed.

Ryan covered his eyes with one hand, then separated his fingers and peered between them. He did not notice the outline of Brooke’s left leg shrinking beneath the sheet. “I can’t see anything!” he said, and all three of them laughed.

“I love you,” Julian said as they nestled in the grass of the woods three weeks later.

“I know that,” Brooke said, drawing her fingernails through the hair on his chest.

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.” She kissed him full on the mouth.

“We should get married.”

Tossing her hair over one shoulder, she basked in the moonlight. “Listen to you. We’re in college. Neither one of us even has a real job. We’re not ready.”

“We don’t need jobs. I’ll have plenty of money when I liquidate my real estate.”

She reached behind her head and touched his cheek. “You’re so serious, like the European Wolves. Enjoy life. Enjoy me.”

“I do enjoy you. That’s why I want to be with you always.”

Brooke knelt in the leaves and faced him. Clasping his hand in hers, she kissed his knuckles. “We’re together now, and that means we’ll always be together. We’re mates. I couldn’t care less about a silly human tradition like marriage, but if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do. After college and after we’ve met each other’s pack. But you have to do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I want to see the world. I want to travel to Europe and Asia and Africa. I don’t want to breed for a long time.”

His gaze traced her body from her breasts to her womanhood.

“Don’t give me those puppy dog eyes,” she said.

“What’s so interesting about European Wolves?”

“Nothing at all. They’re political animals—terrorists. All they want to do is destroy the peace we’ve built. I don’t care if I ever meet one. But I still want to see Rome and London and Tokyo.”

“Then we will.”

Six months later, Julian and Brooke raced through the woods, nipping at each other. As they passed the chain-link fence along the path, a pair of German shepherds leapt out of the darkness and snarled at them, their teeth raking the metal. The Wolves stopped, faced the dogs, and mimicked their barking, which only confused the poor beasts. The house’s porch light bloomed, and the Wolves took off before they were seen. Brooke overtook Julian; then he overtook her, plowing her into the ground and fastening his fangs over the back of her neck. She pretended to protest, all the while pushing against him. He penetrated her and rode her, and after several minutes they howled out in orgasm at the same time.

Embracing each other in human form, Brooke mimicked the German shepherds once more and laughed.

“God, what a surprise!” Julian said. “The idiots scared the hell out of me. We’ll have to be careful along that stretch from now on.”

“Damn dogs,” Brooke said, sitting up. “They’ll never evolve.”

“How about you? Will you ever evolve?”

Grinning, she said, “Watch me.” And she Changed. Over the course of their relationship, making love in Wolf Form almost every night, she had become as adept at transforming as him.

Now she circled him, nipping at his bare shoulders, and he Changed as well. She took off in a streak and he chased her, passing her with ease and running even faster. Sudden barking startled him as the German shepherds lunged at the fence again, and he hoped they hadn’t frightened Brooke.

Then the sound of rifle fire split the night, and he stopped and turned.

Another shot, followed by high-pitched yelping.

No!

Deadly silence followed the third and final shot.

Julian galloped back in the other direction at full speed, his paws kicking up chunks of dirt and grass. The thundering in his head and chest drowned out the sound of the barking German shepherds.

A man came into view, standing with his back to Julian, the fence to his right and the woods to his left. Brooke lay motionless at the man’s feet, and moonlight glinted off the barrel of the man’s rifle.

Julian sprang high into the air, front paws changing into claws.

The dogs barked louder, lunging at the fence, and the man looked over his left shoulder with a startled expression on his middle-aged features.

Julian slammed into the man’s lower back with such force that he heard vertebrae snapping. The man folded in half with an agonized groan, and Julian rolled across the earth and charged over to Brooke. He nudged her side with his muzzle, but she did not stir. Patches of pale flesh identified where she had been shot: in her left hip, in her heart, and in her brain. The fresh skin had sealed the wounds and stopped her blood from escaping her body, but it was too late. Despite her valiant attempt at survival, Brooke’s wounds had been too severe and too close together for her to heal them.

Without realizing it, Julian rose on his hind legs, assuming a shape between man and Wolf. He pivoted on one clawed foot and strode to the broken man on the ground, who stared at him with tear-stricken eyes. Flexing his muscles, Julian unleashed a furious roar and tore into the man with fangs and claws. The man gagged and hemorrhaged and gushed blood over the grassy path. Julian relished the hot blood in his mouth and burrowed his head deeper inside the man’s body, then forced his claws between exposed ribs and snapped them like sticks.

With sweet crimson dripping from his fur, clutching a shattered rib in each claw, he threw his head back and howled at the night sky, paralyzing the dogs with fear. Then he snatched the mass of flesh, bone, and fabric from the ground and hurled it over the fence. The tattered corpse landed in the backyard, and a moment later the dogs pounced on it, feasting.

Changing into human form, his flesh smeared with the man’s blood, Julian sank to his knees and cradled Brooke’s still form in his arms and did what he could not do as a Wolf: shed tears.

Glancing over her shoulder, Angela circled the church located on West Fourth Street near Avenue A. Behind her, teenagers played basketball in a fenced-in court. She entered the stone structure through a side entrance. In the foyer, she keyed a code into a security pad mounted on the wall, and the inside door unlocked. Her footsteps echoed in the corridor as she passed the kitchen door, an unused pew, and stairs leading to the worship hall. Stopping at a wide wooden door, she produced a key that she used to unlock a wooden door. She swung the door open and descended linoleum-covered stairs.

In the basement she passed a kitchenette before reaching the meeting center. Stanislov stood filling the doorway with his muscular arms folded across his broad chest. Even after all these years he wore his disapproval for Angela like a mask. The Hells Angel stepped back without saying anything, admitting her to the crowded room, where a multitude of body odors assailed her senses. Eighty folding metal chairs faced a podium mounted on the stage, and sunlight made the glass-block windows glow.

If an unsuspecting parishioner happened to stumble upon the meeting—provided he got by Stanislov—he would likely think he hadwandered into an AA meeting. The adult men and women who filled the room to capacity muttered among themselves as Angela joined a handful of people standing before a chalkboard in the back. She had not seen so many members of the Greater Pack at a meeting since her brother Gabriel had been sworn in as its leader one year earlier.

Gabriel stood at the podium, measuring the audience with his dark eyes. His leadership skills had not been tested until this current crisis, and Angela sympathized with him. Their father had served as alpha for three decades before stepping down, and during that time he had never faced such a dire situation. Their younger brother, Raphael, sat at his right side. Gabriel’s eyes met hers, and she gave him a supportive nod. He gestured to Stanislov, who closed the door, then raised his hands in a call for silence.

The chatter in the room died down.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Gabriel said in a grave tone. “We obviously have a great deal to discuss in a short amount of time. Before we get started, I need to make an announcement which brings me great pain. My father has passed away.”

Audible expressions of sadness filled the room.

“He died in his sleep at the apartment of my sister, who cared for him during his final days. As everyone here knows, Angus chaired the Greater Pack for thirty years, through good times and bad, and served as my advisor after naming me his successor. He passed in Wolf Shape, and we’ve already cremated him. I regret that the circumstances in which we now find ourselves prevent us from holding a proper memorial, but I ask that you join me in a moment of silence.”

He bowed his head; then Raphael and Angela did the same, followed by everyone else in the room. Sweat beaded on Angela’s brow in the stuffy room, and she held back the tears that formed in her eyes. She thought of how many times she had sat in rooms like this, watching her father govern the pack, and how proud she had been of him. She hoped that Gabriel would lead as he had, with strength and respect.

She believed he would. A woman sniffled in the row ahead.

“Thank you,” Gabriel said, and the mourners raised their heads as one. “I’ve called this emergency meeting because of the Berserker stalking this city, a rogue who’s taken it upon himself to strike against mankind for past transgressions against our species. This rogue is no hero but a dangerous threat to our own security. He’s a terrorist whose actions threaten to destroy the delicate balance we’ve striven to achieve. He could prove to be our ruin.”

A man wearing a maintenance worker’s uniform stood up. “I say, let man have a taste of his own damned medicine!” He looked around the room. “It’s because of
him
that we abandoned the wilderness. He forced us out of our world and into his, to live in the shadows like jackals. It’s his fault that we wear these fragile husks of flesh. He deserves what he gets.”

A few people voiced their support of the man’s suggestion, and he sat down.

Gabriel raised a hand. “There isn’t a person in this room who hasn’t thought that at one time or another. But in our hearts, we know there’s no room for such sentiment in our world. To act on such thoughts would mean our own destruction. Remember the Inquisition? Our European brothers and sisters were all but extinguished when Torquemada discovered just one of our kind in his court. Thirty thousand of them were put to death. Do you honestly believe we could survive a second such onslaught? Look how far man’s technology has developed since we started living in his shadow.”