Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson Page 24

  He risked a glance and saw that though she hadn’t moved from the mantel, Isabelle’s legs were back to dangling down so she could hop down quickly if she wanted to. Her eyes had changed and watched with pale impatience for the violence she knew was to come. She licked her lips and rocked her weight from side to side in her eagerness.

  Charles felt sick at the waste of it all. He turned his attention back to the Alpha. “No deaths because you have an Omega to keep her calm. And because there are no females to compete with except for Anna, who doesn’t want any of your wolves, not after they raped her on your orders.”

  “It kept Anna alive,” Leo insisted. “Kept them both alive.” He ducked his head, an appeal for protection. “Tell your father that she is stable. Tell him I’ll see she doesn’t harm anyone else.”

  “She tried to kill Anna, today,” Charles said gently. “And if she hadn’t . . . She is insane, Leo.”

  He watched the last trace of hope leave Leo’s face. The Alpha knew Charles wouldn’t let Isabelle live—she was too dangerous, too unpredictable. Leo knew that he was dead, too. He had worked too hard to save his mate.

  Leo didn’t give any warning before he attacked—but Charles had been ready for him. Leo wasn’t the kind of wolf to submit easily to death. There would be no bared throats in this fight.

  But they both knew who would win.

  • • •

  Anna had been stunned to stillness by what Leo had revealed, but that ended when Leo attacked. She couldn’t help the little yip she let out, any more than she could help her instinctive lunge forward to protect Charles.

  A strong pair of workman’s hands gripped her by the ruff of her neck and pulled her back despite the scrabbling of her claws on the hardwood floor.

  “Here, now,” Boyd’s rumble hit her ears. “Steady on. This isn’t your fight.”

  His voice, one she was used to obeying, calmed her so she could think. It also helped that Charles avoided Leo’s first strike with a minimal movement of his shoulders.

  The other wolves had come to their feet and part of her registered Justin’s insistent chanting, “Kill him, kill him.” She wasn’t sure which wolf he wanted to die. He hated Leo for controlling him and for being Isabelle’s mate. Maybe he didn’t care which one died.

  Leo struck three times in rapid succession, missing each time. He’d committed to the last blow, and when it didn’t land he had to take an awkward step forward.

  Charles took advantage of the stumble and stepped into Leo, and in a graceful movement she couldn’t quite follow did something to Leo’s shoulder that had the Alpha roaring in rage and pain.

  The next few things happened so fast, Anna was never certain in what order they occurred.

  There was a rapid double bark of a gun. Boyd’s hands loosened their grip on her fur as he swore, and Isabelle gave a frenetic, excited laugh.

  It took Anna only a glance to see what had happened. Isabelle was holding a gun, watching the fight, waiting for another clear shot at Charles.

  Anna broke free of Boyd’s loosened grip and sprinted across the room.

  From the mantel, Isabelle looked Anna squarely in her eyes and said sharply, “Stop, Anna.”

  She was so sure of Anna’s obedience, she didn’t even wait to make certain Anna listened before turning her attention back to the battling men.

  Anna felt the force of Isabelle’s command as it rolled by her like a breeze that ruffled her hair. It didn’t slow her down at all.

  She gathered her hind quarters underneath her and launched. Her teeth closed on Isabelle’s arm, and she felt the bone crack with a noise that satisfied the wolf’s anger. The force of her leap was such that she pulled Isabelle off the six-foot-high mantel and slammed her into the fireplace as they both tumbled down—Anna’s jaws still locked around the arm that had held the gun.

  She crouched there, waiting for Isabelle to do something, but the other woman just lay there. Someone came up behind them, and Anna growled a warning.

  “Easy,” Boyd said, his calm voice touching her as Isabelle’s order had not.

  His hand rested on her back and she increased her growl, but he didn’t pay any attention to her: he was looking at Isabelle.

  “Dead,” he grunted. “Serves her right for forgetting you aren’t just another submissive wolf who has to listen to her. Let go, Anna. You caved her head in on the fireplace. She’s gone.” But when Anna reluctantly let go, Boyd made sure Isabelle was dead by twisting her head until her neck made a sick-sounding pop. He picked the gun up off the floor.

  Staring at Isabelle’s broken body, Anna began to shake. She lifted a foot, but she didn’t know whether she was going to take a step closer or a step away. A chair hit her in the side and reminded her that there was a fight going on—and Isabelle had shot at Charles twice.

  If he was hurt, he showed no sign of it. He was moving as easily as he had in the beginning, and Leo was staggering, one arm limp at his side. Charles swept behind him and hit him in the back of the neck with the edge of his hand and Leo collapsed like a kite when the wind dies.

  A soft, moaning howl rose from Boyd, who was still standing beside her, echoed by the other wolves as they mourned their Alpha’s passing.

  Ignoring them, Charles knelt beside Leo and, with the same motion Boyd had used on Isabelle, he made sure the broken neck was permanent.

  He stayed there, on one knee and one foot, like a man proposing. He bowed his head and reached out again, this time to caress the dead man’s face.

  Justin’s move was so fast, Anna didn’t have a chance to sing a warning. She hadn’t even noticed when he’d changed to his wolf form. He hit Charles like a battering ram and Charles went down beneath him.

  But if Anna was frozen, Boyd was not. He shot Justin in the eye a split second before Justin’s body hit Charles.

  That fast it was over.

  Boyd hauled Justin’s limp body off Charles and dumped him to one side. Anna didn’t remember moving but suddenly she was astraddle Charles and growling at Boyd.

  He backed up slowly, his hands raised and empty. The gun was tucked into the belt of his slacks.

  As soon as Boyd ceased to feel like a threat, Anna turned her attention to Charles. He was lying facedown on the floor, covered with blood—her nose told her that some of it was Justin’s, but some of it was his, too.

  Despite the way he’d been fighting Leo, Isabelle had hit him at least once; she could see the bloody hole in his back. In wolf form she couldn’t help him and it would take her too long to change.

  She looked over her shoulder at Boyd.

  He shrugged. “I can’t help him unless I get closer than this.”

  She stared at him, challenging him with her eyes in a way she would never have done before today. It didn’t seem to bother him. He just waited for her to make up her mind. The wolf didn’t want to trust anyone with her mate—but she knew she didn’t have a choice.

  She hopped all the way over Charles’s body, giving Boyd access. But she couldn’t help her snarl when he rolled him over to check him for wounds. He found a second bullet hole in Charles’s left calf.

  Boyd shed his suit jacket and ripped off his dress shirt, scattering buttons all over the floor. He tore the silk shirt into strips and then, as he was bandaging Charles’s wounds with rapid experience, he began giving orders. “Holden, call in the rest of the pack—and start with Rashid. Tell him we need him to bring whatever he needs to treat a silver-bullet wound—both bullets are out. When you’ve finished, call the Marrok and tell him what has happened. You can find his number in Isabelle’s address book in the kitchen drawer under the phone.”

  Anna whined. Both of Isabelle’s shots had hit.

  “He’s not going to die,” Boyd told her, tying off the last bandage. He glanced around the room and swore. “This place looks like the last scene in Hamlet. Gardn
er, you and Simon start getting this mess cleaned up. Let’s get Charles someplace quieter. He’s not going to be a happy camper when he wakes, and all this blood isn’t going to help.” He picked Charles up. When he carried him out of the room, Anna was at his heels.

  • • •

  Back in human form, Anna lay on the bed beside Charles. Rashid, who was a real doctor as well as a werewolf, had come and gone, replacing Boyd’s makeshift bandages with something more sterile-looking. He told Anna that Charles was unconscious due to blood loss.

  Boyd had come in afterward and advised her to leave Charles before he woke up. The room was reinforced to withstand an enraged wolf—Anna was not.

  He hadn’t argued when she refused. He’d just bolted the door behind him when he left. She waited until he was gone and then changed. There was clothing in the old-fashioned wardrobe, lots of things that were one size fits all. She found a T-shirt and a pair of jeans that didn’t fit too badly.

  Charles didn’t notice when she got on the bed with him. She put her head next to his on the pillow and listened to him breathe.

  • • •

  He didn’t wake quietly. One moment he was limp and the next he’d exploded to his feet. She’d never watched him shift and, although she knew his change was miraculously swift, she hadn’t known it was beautiful. It started with his feet, then like a blanket of red fur The change rolled up his body, leaving behind it a malevolent, very angry werewolf dripping blood and bandages.

  Bright yellow eyes glanced around the room, taking in the closed door, the bars on the windows, and then her.

  She lay very still, letting him absorb his surroundings and see there was no threat. When he looked at her a second time, she sat up and went to work on his bandages.

  He growled at her, and she tapped his nose gently. “You’ve lost enough blood today. The bandages don’t advertise your weakness any more than bleeding all over would. At least this way, you aren’t going to ruin the carpet.”

  When she finished, she threaded her fingers through the ruff of fur around his neck and bent her head to his.

  “I thought I had lost you.”

  He stood for her embrace for a minute before wriggling free. He got off the bed and stalked to the door.

  “It’s bolted,” she told him, hopping off the bed and padding after him.

  He gave her a patient look.

  There was a click and the door was opened by a slender, unremarkable-looking man who appeared to be in his early twenties. He crouched on his heels and stared Charles in the face before glancing up at her.

  The force of personality in his eyes hit her like a blow to the stomach, so she wasn’t entirely surprised when she recognized his voice.

  “Shot three times in one day,” the Marrok murmured. “I think Chicago has been harder on you than usual, my son. I’d best take you home, don’t you think?”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything. She put her hand on Charles’s back and swallowed.

  Charles looked at his father.

  “Have you asked her?”

  Charles growled low in his chest.

  The Marrok laughed and stood up. “Nevertheless, I will ask. You are Anna?” It wasn’t quite a question.

  Her throat was too dry to say anything, so she nodded.

  “My son would like you to accompany us to Montana. I assure you that if anything is not to your liking, I’ll see to it that you can relocate to wherever suits you better.”

  Charles growled and Bran raised an eyebrow as he looked at him. “I am the Marrok, Charles. If the child wants to go elsewhere, she can.”

  Anna leaned against Charles’s hip. “I think I’d like to see Montana,” she said.

  THE STAR OF DAVID

  So I was asked to write a Christmas story about werewolves. David Christiansen, who appeared in Moon Called, had such a tragic history, I couldn’t help but write a Christmas story for him. A fellow army ranger, he and Adam were the only survivors of a mission gone bad in the Vietnam War. They returned stateside, only to discover that they had been turned into the beast they had defeated. David is, more than any other of my wolves, suffering from the traditional curse of the werewolf. A good man who, while his wolf was in control, killed the very last person he wanted to hurt. But Christmas is about grace and forgiveness and family. Surely there is room in the middle of all of that for David to find some happiness.

  The events in this story happen the Christmas after most of the events in Moon Called.

  “I checked them out myself,” Myra snapped. “Have you ever just considered that your boy isn’t the angel you thought he was?”

  Stella took off her glasses and set them on her desk. “I think that we both need some perspective. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off.” Before I slap your stupid face. People like Devonte didn’t change that fast, not without good reason.

  Myra opened her mouth, but after she got a look at Stella’s eyes, she shut it again. Mutely she stalked to her desk and retrieved her coat and purse. She slammed the door behind her.

  As soon as she was gone, Stella opened the folder and looked at the pictures of the crime scene again. They were duplicates, and doubtless Clive, her brother the detective, had broken a few rules when he sent them to her—not that breaking rules had ever bothered him, not when he was five and not as a grown man nearing fifty and old enough to know better.

  She touched the photos lightly, then closed the folder again. There was a yellow sticky with a phone number on it and nothing else: Clive didn’t have to put a name on it. Her little brother knew she’d see what he had seen.

  She picked up the phone and punched in the numbers fast, not giving herself a chance for second thoughts.

  • • •

  The barracks were empty, leaving David’s office silent and bleak. The boys were on furlough with their various families for December.

  His mercenaries specialized in live retrieval, which tended to be in-and-out stuff, a couple of weeks per job at the most. He didn’t want to get involved in the gray area of unsanctioned combat or out-and-out war—where you killed people because someone told you to. In retrieval there were good guys and bad guys still—and if there weren’t, he didn’t take the job. Their reputation was such that they had no trouble finding jobs.

  And unless all hell really broke loose, they always took December off to be with their families. David never let them know how hard that made it for him.

  Werewolves need their packs.

  If his pack was human, well, they knew about him and they filled that odd wolf-quirk that demanded he have people to protect, brothers in heart and mind. He couldn’t stomach a real pack, he hated what he was too much.

  He couldn’t bear to live with his own kind, but this worked as a substitute and kept him centered. When his boys were here, when they had a job to do, he had direction and purpose.

  His grandsons had invited him for the family dinner, but he’d refused as he always did. He still saw his sons on a regular basis. Both of them had served in his small band of mercenaries for a while, until the life lost its appeal or the risks grew too great for men with growing families. But he stayed away at Christmas.

  Restlessness had him pacing: there were no plans to make, no wrongs to right. Finally he unlocked the safe and pulled out a couple of the newer rifles. He needed to put some time in with them anyway.

  An hour of shooting staved off the restlessness, but only until he locked the guns up again. He’d have to go for a run. When he emptied his pockets in preparation, he noticed he had missed a call while he’d been shooting. He glanced at the number, frowning when he didn’t recognize it. Most of his jobs came through an agent who knew better than to give out his cell number. Before he could decide if he wanted to return the call, his phone rang again, a call from the same number.

  “C
hristiansen,” he answered briskly.

  There was a long silence. “Papa?”

  He closed his eyes and sank back in his chair feeling his heart expand with almost painful intentness as his wolf fought with the man who knew his daughter hated him: didn’t want to see him, ever. She had been there when her mother died.

  “Stella?” He couldn’t imagine what it took to make her break almost forty years of silence. “Are you all right? Is there something wrong?” Someone he could kill for her? A building to blow up? Anything at all.

  She swallowed. He could hear it over the line. He waited for her to hang up.

  Instead, when she spoke again, her voice was brisk and the wavery pain that colored that first “Papa” was gone as if it had never been. “I was wondering if you would consider doing a favor for me.”

  “What do you need?” He was proud that came out evenly. Always better to know what you’re getting into, he told himself. He wanted to tell her that she could ask him for anything—but he didn’t want to scare her.

  “I run an agency that places foster kids,” she told him, as if he didn’t know. As if her brothers hadn’t told her how he quizzed them to find out how she was doing and what she was up to. He hoped she never found out about her ex-boyfriend who’d turned stalker. He hadn’t killed that one, though his willingness to do so had made it easier to persuade the man that he wanted to take up permanent residence in a different state.

  “I know,” he said, because it seemed like she needed a response.

  “There’s something—” She hesitated. “Look, this might not have been the best idea.”

  He was losing her again. He had to breathe deeply to keep the panic from his voice. “Why don’t you tell me about it anyway? Do you have something better to do?”

  “I remember that,” she said. “I remember you doing that with Mom. She’d be hysterical, throwing dishes or books, and you’d sit down and say, ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’”

  Did she want to talk about her mother now? About the one time he’d needed to be calm and had failed? He hadn’t known he was a werewolf until it was too late. Until after he’d killed his wife and the lover she’d taken while David had been fighting for God and country, both of whom had forgotten him. She’d been waiting until he came home to tell him that she was leaving—it was a mistake she’d had no time to regret. He, on the other hand, might have forever to regret it for her.