Winter Howl (Sanctuary) (37 page)

Her legs locked as she heard two screams—one of which might have been a howl—and a gunshot, then nothing. She thought she would fall, but her body was paralysed. Britt transformed back into human form and ran naked to the door, unlocking it and pulling it open. She was halfway through the change back into a dog, but then Jake and Max carried a bleeding Malcolm—in human form—into the barn. Leslie ran in after them, transforming back to human skin, pushing Britt back and locking the door. His normally placid face was drawn and white, his mouth a dark gash on his face.

Ki came running over, clearly thinking her Max was hurt at first, but after seeing that he was okay—if scared and furious—she ran to get a first-aid kit. Renee helped clear off one of the couches and kept the dogs from sniffing at the wound in Malcolm’s leg.

Malcolm was staring at the ceiling, his face slack as he clutched at the wound in his leg. His dark eyes were glazed.

“I got off a shot, and I got the bastard. But not good enough. He bit Malcolm,” Max said, throwing the rifle on the ground, too angry to care about gun safety. “The wolf bit him when Malcolm was human. Goddamn it.”

Renee gently pulled up Malcolm’s pants leg. Malcolm winced as the fabric pulled away from the wound, but he didn’t say anything. The bite was still bleeding, and while it looked shallow, it had done its trick. Grant did not have to kill one of Renee’s pack in order to destroy his life.

“So…what does that do?” Renee asked. She did not make a habit of asking questions to which she already knew the answer, but she just had to hear it out loud.

“If he had bitten Malcolm’s dog form, it would have hurt like hell,” Jake said. “But that’s all it would have done. But Malcolm was human. Which means that, come next full moon, he’ll transform into a wolf. I don’t know whether he even has his canine form anymore. I don’t know how this works.” He collapsed on the couch next to Malcolm, clenching his hands into fists and hitting his thighs with them. Ki ran over with an open first-aid kit, and Max helped her dress the wound. Malcolm just let them do whatever they wanted, neither helping nor hindering.

“But you shot him. You shot Grant,” Renee said to Max.

“I hit his stomach,” Max said. He put pressure on the wound as Ki began wrapping gauze around the calf. “But it would take a direct hit to the heart or head, I think, to slow a werewolf down. Or the fucking knife, but he wouldn’t let me get close enough.”

Leslie staggered over, his coordination limited through his shock. He held out a wallet. The wallet was blood-stained and left Leslie’s hand red. “There was a body,” Leslie said. “He threw a human body at the door. That’s what made the noise. We didn’t recognise who it was, but it was hard to really see…what he once looked like. His face…”

Renee took the wallet slowly. If it was not one of her shapeshifters, there were only so many people Renee knew—and with whom Grant had seen her interact. Even before she opened the wallet to see the dead man’s driver’s licence, she somehow knew.

Ki climbed onto the couch next to Malcolm and held him, just giving him something to feel even if he did not react to her presence. Renee also wanted to reassure him, but she had nothing to reassure him with, since the situation was her fault to begin with. Instead, she walked around the couch and stepped a few feet away, distancing herself even though she knew that was probably the worst way to respond to Malcolm’s problem.

She opened the wallet. She had been right. There was a photo of Josh Beall on his driver’s licence, a few years younger than he had been when she’d last seen him, but recognisable. She also found a Visa credit card, car insurance documents, and sixty-seven dollars in cash, plus change.

By the time she dropped the wallet, her hands had become even more stained. She did not have to be a shapeshifter to smell the blood, as strong and fresh as it was now. Renee toed a dog away from sniffing the wallet, then forced herself to pick it up and throw it in one of the sinks on the wall.

Then she strode over to the couch and picked up the rifle from where Max had thrown it. She found the box of bullets near the sink and reloaded it full. She was halfway to the barn doors when both Britt and Jake whirled her around.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Britt asked, at the same time that Jake yelled, “No way you’re going out there!”

“This didn’t have to happen,” Renee said. “He wants me. That’s all he wants.”

“So you’re just going to go out there with a gun and try and shoot him before he bites you?” Britt asked. “Seriously? Have you gone crazy?”

“He’s fast,” Jake said. “And it’s both a blackout and a whiteout out there. You can’t see anything, but he doesn’t need to see well to find you. God, I don’t even know why he let us come back in here. He could have slaughtered us all.”

“And that’s what he’s going to do if I don’t go out there,” Renee said. “Josh—the body. And Malcolm. Those were just warnings. He’ll escalate. Soon he won’t even bother waiting for the door to open. It was stupid to try to hide from him, and I’m not going to let him hurt anyone or anything else. If biting me is going to make everything else go away, I’ll do it. I don’t even care anymore. It’s better than watching him turn my friends and kill my enemies.”

“We’re trying to protect you,” Jake said, his grip hard on her arm. “I’m not going to let you go out there. What if he goes after the rest of us while you’re out there, huh? Destroy all your connections until you have to go with him? Have you thought any of this out?”

“There’s no time to think!” Renee shouted. “If you want to protect me, have my back. But I’m not going to just sit in here while he plays his games with us. He already changed Malcolm. Getting the two of you would be a plus to him. But I’m the one he wants. And I don’t matter.”

“If you didn’t matter, we wouldn’t bother. And he wouldn’t bother,” Britt said. She let go of Renee, but although her voice was quiet, that did not take away from the weight of it. “If you had let him bite you because that was what you wanted, I would have at least understood that. I wouldn’t have known what to do about it, but I would have understood. It would have been your choice. But you’re letting him decide for you, which is what he’s been trying to do ever since he came into this place. He thinks he can force you into doing anything he wants. He thinks that you’re his, that because he’s marked you, you belong to him. But you don’t.”

“I’ll try to shoot him,” Renee said, shrugging off Jake’s hand. “But we can’t stay here forever. There’s no need to risk everyone else, just because he wants his teeth in me.”

“I’m going out there with you,” Britt said. She was shaking in spite of herself, but she managed to stay standing as she went to get something to wear outside.

“If you insist on going out there, I’ll go, too, but I swear, I’ll tie you to a chair before I let you go out there,” Jake said.

Renee brought the rifle up and cocked it. The tip of the knife was inches from Jake’s chest. “Please,” she said. She did not want to hurt Jake in trying to do the right thing. “Help me end this. One way or the other. But I’m going out there with or without you.”

Jake peered down at her, a little girl from his height, and his face was tight with pain—from seeing the body, from being cooped up in a barn for almost a week, from feeling helpless against Grant, from watching his friend get bitten, from thinking that another friend would be bitten against her will. Renee had a feeling it was all of the above.

She did not even feel the anguish anymore. She was past that now. All she wanted was for it to be over. If that meant offering herself to Grant even though it was not what she wanted, she would do it for her friends, and for the sanctuary.

When Britt came up behind Renee, dressed in a tan cable sweater and two layers of pants, Jake took a step back. “Fine, I’m going out with you.”

“Behind me,” Renee said.

“No fucking way.”

“If he can get to me more easily, I don’t have to worry about losing you to him.”

“If you don’t trust us to protect you,” Jake said, “how can you trust your own reflexes?”

“I don’t,” Renee said. She pulled the gun closer to her and started to head towards the barn door. “But I’ve got to try.”

“Renee,” Britt said softly as Renee reached for the barn door lock. “If he turns you… Turn me.”

Renee turned around and stared at Britt. “You hate werewolves. You’re afraid of them.”

“And if you’re trapped as one, I don’t want you to be alone. Not with him. Okay?”

Renee lowered the gun, pulling Britt down for a rushed, desperate kiss. It felt as if she was walking out there to be executed. Depending on Grant’s mood, she might be. And Britt was offering to be executed with her. Grant had told her that the shapeshifters could never give her what she needed. But this was what she needed—someone who needed her, whether that person could change into a dog or a wolf or nothing at all. It was all she could do to step back and turn around, turning away from Britt. It took even more effort just to undo the lock. Her hands were shaking, making the lock rattle, and when she took the gun in both hands, she could hear the gun rattling, too. Jake took the initiative and pulled the door open for her.

The cold was biting, and she realised that she had forgotten to put on her coat. However, she did not bother going back in for it. One way or another, things would be over quickly. At least she was wearing boots.

She curled her finger around the trigger and held up the gun in the darkness, prepared to shoot or thrust it out into whatever body came at her. It was practically pitch dark outside except where the light from the barn shone in a cylinder of limited vision. She was hyper-vigilant. Not a single snowflake escaped her notice. Nor did the dark, slumped shadow of a body reclining against the side of the barn, but she could not allow herself to be distracted by that.

She heard the growl the second it began. Her head jerked to the left, but she could not see anything. And the growl seemed to be moving, left to right, then all around until it filled her ears. But she still couldn’t see Grant. He had to be close, but the shadows were not moving. She had no idea where to even look.

“Goddamn it, just come out and do it,” Renee shouted. Her voice was lost in the snow. It sounded small and tinny to her ears.

“Just a few days ago, you were throwing me out at gunpoint to keep me from turning you,” Grant said. Like his growl, his rough voice seemed to be everywhere. “You’ve got your dog pack behind you. And I see the gun, love. You think they can protect you? You think you can shoot me fast enough?”

“No,” Renee said. “But I’m willing to try. You try to get me, I try to get you.”

He laughed. The sound was not cruel. He seemed genuinely delighted. “I would not expect anything less, my dear. You’ll turn fighting. And that’s good.”

Her cold fingers gripped the gun everywhere but the trigger, not ready but prepared. She was still shaking, but she was not paying attention to that. Every sense was straining to hear where he was coming from.

Someone’s hands yanked her backwards as Britt screamed, “Above you!” A giant shadow dropped where she had been. At the surprise, her trigger finger clenched and shot randomly in the dark.

The shadow unfurled into something that was half-man, half-wolf. His mouth was still human enough so that he could speak to her, but the teeth were sharp, and Renee suspected that he could turn her in this form. He was just three feet away, and he could have darted forward and taken her then, but he didn’t. He stood two feet higher than he did as a human and stared down at her.

“Go ahead and shoot me, Renee,” he said. Even closer, his voice seemed to fill her head as she tried to get her balance back.

“Shoot him,” Jake urged. “Come on, he’s not running. Shoot him before he gets you.”

“Can you do it? Can you really be that kind of person?” His long, flat tongue caressed his teeth as he looked over her with red eyes. “You came out here knowing that you would fail.”

“I came out here so that you wouldn’t have to go through my people to get to me,” Renee said.

“Of course. You own a sanctuary. It wouldn’t provide much sanctuary if the owner is the reason for its downfall.”

“Why won’t you come at me?” Renee asked tightly.

“Why won’t you shoot me?” He reached one furred arm out slowly. It was about as long as her leg. The claw stroked a harsh line down her cheek but did not break the skin. “Dare I suggest that you harbour something like love for me?”

Renee would have said that was a bit of an overstatement, but she did not give him the satisfaction of an answer. Snapping the gun up, she cocked it and shot straight at his right shoulder. It wouldn’t kill him. Somehow she couldn’t. She couldn’t kill him if he wasn’t attacking her. But she was damned if she was going to let him draw this out when all she wanted was for it to stop.

He stumbled backward, clutching his right shoulder. His mouth elongated as a howl transformed into a roar, and she reeled back, slipping on the snow. Britt caught her, pulling her farther away from that giant mouth, dark pink and glistening as he screamed at her. But it was the teeth—those two-inch long fangs that snapped down—that had her undivided attention. But he still didn’t attack. He panted, then pulled in his muzzle until the mouth was human again.

“Fucking bitch,” he gasped. “That hurt like hell.”

“For Malcolm,” she said.