Madison’s Song

Christine Amsden

Twilight Times Books

Kingsport Tennessee

Madison’s Song

This is a work of fiction. All concepts, characters and events portrayed in this book are used fictitiously and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 Christine Amsden

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

Twilight Times Books

P O Box 3340

Kingsport TN 37664

http://twilighttimesbooks.com/

First Edition, July 2015

Cover art by Tamian Wood,

http://www.BeyondDesignInternational.com

“Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird.” (Traditional lullaby; usage dates from the 19th Century)

“On Eagle’s Wings.” Composed by Father J. Michael Joncas. Copyright © New Dawn Music, a subsidiary of Oregon Catholic Press.

Published in the United States of America.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Epilogue

For my husband, Austin, who always believed in me.

He’s all the magic I need.

Acknowledgments

I would like to give special thanks to all those who struggled through early drafts of this book:

Laurel Amberdine

Linda Amsden

Stephen Amsden

Leah Cypess

Austin Morgan

Kat Otis

Prologue

MADISON COULDN’T MOVE. THE ONLY MUSCLE in her body capable of stirring at all was her heart, and it felt like it was trying to make up for the rest. No ropes bound her. Nothing visible pressed her back and legs into the coarse beige carpet of her new rental home. Yet even as she writhed and twisted against unseen restraints, she knew she was trapped. Tied to the ground in a way that made her feel like a virgin sacrifice atop an altar.

The man looming over her, chanting spells and arranging crystals, didn’t look like a powerful sorcerer. David McClellan had too weak a chin and beady little eyes. Those eyes, brown as mud and just as compassionate, told her without words that they would be the last thing she ever saw.

She didn’t even understand why! Not that it would make a difference if she did. But she wasn’t anyone special. She wasn’t important. She was just an elementary school music teacher – or would be after she finished a semester of student teaching. This kind of thing didn’t happen to her. To her friend, Cassie, scion of a powerful family of sorcerers, maybe. But Madison had no family connections and almost no magic aside from her beautiful, subtly enchanting voice. Why would anyone hurt her for a song?

A tear fell sideways into her sweat-dampened hair, joining countless others and doing exactly as much good. How long had she lain here, helpless? Minutes? Hours? It might only have been seconds. The box of “Card and Board Games” she had been carrying into the house lay on its side a foot or two away, some of its contents now strewn across the bare living room floor. There hadn’t been any warning. One second she was on the way to her new bedroom to unpack her tenth or eleventh box, the next instant she was on the floor. Immobile. Helpless. Confused. Terrified.

Oh Lord! Why hast thou forsaken me?

There was magic in the air, growing stronger with each new crystal David arranged into a pattern only he could see. Cold, deadly magic that reinforced her every childhood fear. Her father had told her that magic was from the devil. Was this what he’d meant? Was this her punishment for brushing up against the world of sorcery, no matter how lightly?

David placed one last crystal before ceasing his chant. The silence felt ominous, like a lull before the storm, and when he moved away, out of her sight, a fresh wave of panic seized her. She strained anew at her bindings until the scent of incense filled the air. She had a sudden, vivid memory of Palm Sunday Mass, and of Father Owen making the sign of the cross as he wafted the same scent over his congregation. Father Owen didn’t believe magic was evil; he had told her more than once not to listen to her father’s “superstitious nonsense.”

The time had come to pull herself together. To think. She wasn’t helpless. She had a little magic of her own, even if the thought of using it made her feel sick inside. God had not forsaken her. He had given her a tool, if only she could rein in her stampeding heart rate long enough to search her memory for what little knowledge she possessed.

First, she had to find her quiet place. Madison drew in a deep, shuddering breath and started to close her eyes, when a glint of something metallic caught her attention. She stared at the long, lethal dagger in David’s hands, an ornate golden hilt largely hidden within his iron fist. His eyes drifted up and down the length of her bound body before settling on her midriff. He lowered the blade.

He was going to cut her. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself against the expected pain. Or worse.

Think, Madison. Focus!

She took one last steadying breath. Then she counted. Breathe in one ... two ... three ... four ... breathe out ... five ... six ... seven ...

Her concentration snapped when cold metal bit into warm flesh. Her eyes popped open, her muscles strained once more against invisible bonds, and she screamed.

Wait, she could scream? She had a voice?

“Silence,” David commanded.

Her throat continued to work, but no sound emerged. She felt like a fish being gutted, choking and spluttering as David returned to the work of cutting into the soft, sensitive flesh of her belly. Yet even as tears refilled her eyes and fear devoured her heart, some part of her recognized that her guts remained intact. Whatever David was doing to her with the dagger involved tracing shallow patterns across the surface of her skin.

Fight the pain. Take deep breaths. Ground and center. She was not in the empty living room of a house she had not quite moved into yet, she was at church, singing in the choir. Above her, Jesus hung from a cross, a crown of thorns atop his head, a soft glow surrounding him. She usually found the magic within that glow. She reached for it...

“Stop that!” David slapped her hard across the face.

Once again her eyes flew open. She saw the dagger dripping with blood – her blood. Had her feeble grab for magic actually made a difference? David seemed to have noticed something, but what?

“You’re just making this harder on yourself,” David said.

“What do you want?” Madison tried to ask. Her mouth moved, her lips forming the question, but no sound emerged.

She didn’t think he would answer; he couldn’t even have heard the question, but to her surprise he only hesitated a moment before saying, “Your soul.”

He lowered the dagger.

Her soul? What did that mean? What could a man do with someone’s soul? She now knew what he wanted, at least in part, but she’d been right – knowing didn’t make a difference. If anything, it made things worse. She couldn’t calm down now. She couldn’t focus. She needed to breathe, to block out all distractions, in order to find her quiet place. How was she supposed to block out the razor-sharp sting of a blade slicing across her abdomen? How could she focus with her very soul in danger?

Forget magic. Time to pray. Prayer was something she understood.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

David slapped her across the cheek, leaving behind a fiery trail.

Madison prayed harder.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee...

She braced herself for the strike of his hand against her cheek once more, but it didn’t come. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought her prayer hadn’t worked this time. Then an ear-splitting CRASH shook the room. It felt like an explosion. Surely the roof would come crashing down at any moment. Madison instinctively covered her head with her hands and curled into a ball.

She didn’t have time to take in what had happened – either the crash or the fact that her invisible bonds had evaporated as if they’d never existed. The house still trembled and dust filled the air when a great, primal roar made every hair on Madison’s body stand on end.

Slowly, she lifted her head. David stood in profile to her, his face white with terror, his gaze fixed on the splintered front door, which now hung precariously off its hinges. The sun had all but set, casting the unlit room in deep twilight, but she could just make out who had blasted his way through that door.

Scott Lee.

Her heart gave a painful little twang at the sight of the man she’d spent the past few weeks daydreaming about incessantly. Now here he was like an avenging angel out of one of her fantasies, frightening her enemy and offering her hope. In that moment, she could honestly say she had never seen a more beautiful man. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was powerful, the clearly defined muscles of his bare upper arms rippling with strength.

Rumor had it he was a werewolf, and perhaps he was. Something lent him superhuman strength. The evidence was there in the splintered remains of the front door and then, the next second, in the ferocity of his attack.

David met Scott in mid-lunge, and Madison’s hope turned to newfound concern when she realized that David’s strength matched Scott’s. The front door … David’s white face … her fantasy hero … these things had made her momentarily forget that David, too, was a powerful sorcerer who reportedly sold dark and cursed artifacts out of his shop in downtown Eagle Rock.

What if David won? She could see the scene more clearly now: the crystals placed in a ritualistic pentagram pattern, the bowl of incense, the tiny drops of crimson staining the beige carpet, and …

The dagger! She scrambled on hands and knees to reach the place where David had dropped it, tracing the ruby in the hilt with her thumb as she picked it up. She stood, trying not to focus on her weakness or the blood on her stomach. Now that she had the dagger, she had no idea what she would do with it. She didn’t know how to fight and even if she did, David and Scott were locked together in mortal combat. If she attacked, Scott might get hurt. Still, she watched and waited, her palm growing sweaty against the ruby hilt, ready to help in any way she could. Or make her final stand.

Suddenly, the two men split apart. David staggered into a wall, hitting his head and bracing himself against a fall. Scott only stumbled backwards a step. He looked like he had the advantage, but for how long?

“Here!” Madison called, flipping the dagger around so she could thrust it hilt-first at her ally.

Scott took the weapon from her, turned back to David, and shoved it into his belly. It all happened in a second and with almost feline grace. Scott hadn’t hesitated. He hadn’t balked. His eyes held no remorse.

Time seemed to freeze. David’s eyes popped open, gazing into his own mortality. Madison knew what he was seeing. She had seen the same thing only minutes before, and now she felt it again almost as powerfully as she had the first time. It didn’t matter that he had been about to kill her. It didn’t matter that he was evil and needed to be put down. It only mattered that he was a man, and death was nigh.

Scott withdrew the dagger from David’s belly, raised it to his neck, and cut his throat. David fell. Blood spurted everywhere, drenching bare walls and floors. Scott seemed to anticipate the gush because he backed away quickly, escaping the worst of the spray.

Madison had never seen anyone die before. She was alive. She was safe, but at the moment that knowledge paled in comparison to the horror before her. There was so much blood! The average human body contained five-and-a-half quarts of blood. Such a stupid thing to think, a random fact she’d picked up somewhere, but here were all five-and-a-half quarts – on the floor, on the walls, and on the remnants of the door. Madison trembled, the knowledge of life and death marking her in ways that would scar her forever.

Scott had seen death before. She could see it in his jade green eyes when he turned them away from the corpse as if it were so much busted-up furniture. He had other more pressing concerns, those eyes seemed to say as they scanned her from head to toe. She shuddered at his blatant perusal, trapped between horror and fascination. How many times had she imagined him looking at her just like that? But in none of her imaginings had a bloodied corpse lingered in the background, nor had she borne the bloody, stinging reminder that she had nearly become such a corpse. Gingerly, she pressed a hand against her abdomen, cringing when it came away red.

“The sun is setting,” Scott said. Such a mundane statement in the wake of everything that had just happened.

“What?”

“The moon is full tonight.” Scott paused. “You know what I am, don’t you?”

“A werewolf?” She whispered the word, as if afraid that saying it out loud would make it true.

She looked out the distant kitchen window, facing the western horizon where the sun had already disappeared. Only the faintest of glows still marked twilight instead of true night.

Would he transform in front of her? Or was he begging her forgiveness while he sought privacy, leaving her alone with the destruction he had wrought? She longed to meet the wolf within him, partly out of curiosity, and partly because she could not stand the thought of staying by herself tonight.

She would never admit it to him, but she had read a couple of werewolf romance novels since meeting him, and they had tickled her imagination. Was Scott his pack’s alpha? He exuded the right aura of power.

“I’ll take care of this,” Madison found herself saying, though she had no idea how. Was she seriously going to dispose of a body? “If you need to go.”

“You don’t get it. It’s too late. There’s rage in my blood, murder in my heart, and the scent...” He sniffed the air. “You’re bleeding.”

She swallowed, convulsively. His words ... his tone ... this wasn’t right. She saw her fantasies as a bubble on the verge of popping, but she didn’t have enough real information to use as a pin.

“I’ll go clean up, if the blood is bothering you.”

He licked his lips.

Madison crossed her arms over her chest, only just realizing that her torn shirt exposed more than her belly. The ugly old sports bra she had been wearing while toting boxes back and forth from her car, stained in her own blood, would not be a big loss. But she wished she had been wearing her prettiest bra, even if it meant the garment’s destruction.

Not that Scott seemed to care one way or the other. He looked at her with pure heat in his eyes. She felt that sense of being overwhelmed yet again. He’d saved her life, hadn’t he? She owed him a serious debt and among sorcerers, those weren’t just pretty words. What would he want? Would she even want to deny him?

“When I turn into the wolf, it’s not me anymore,” Scott said. “Do you understand?”

“No.” Madison was more than half in shock. She tried to wrap her mind around his words, but all she understood was his tone of desperation – and that she didn’t know the first thing about real werewolves.

“Of course not, but you will. It’s not me. The beast acts on emotions and instincts and hunger.”

“What are you saying?”

“It may kill you.” He swallowed uncertainly. The tiny movement made him seem more human. More vulnerable. It made her foolishly long for him even more. “I might know a way to save you. I’ve never tried it before.”

Save her? Hadn’t he already saved her? “What is it?”

“I need to mark you.”

Her mouth fell open, but no words emerged. In her mind’s eye she could see the pin approaching her fantasy bubble, but it had not yet popped. Something felt wrong. He was supposed to want to make love to her, not mark her. But maybe it meant the same thing to a werewolf.

“Please, Madison. There’s no time.”

Madison still didn’t understand his words, but she recognized the urgency in his tone and she would have done anything to wipe the look of panic off his face.

She nodded, jerkily, and it was all the invitation he needed. He didn’t even remove his t-shirt, only his shoes and pants. He came towards her and she thought he would kiss her, but he didn’t. Instead, he pushed her backwards until she understood that he wanted her to lie down on the floor. As soon as she had, he stripped away her sweat pants and underwear, then he was lying on top of her, leaning over her.

It was all happening too quickly. He’d said it would, but she hadn’t realized how it would make her feel. Overwhelmed. Uncertain. Afraid. Shock almost gave way to numbness, but not quite. Scott was there with her, hot and heavy and solidly real; she focused on that. On his physical presence and his strength. He had saved her already; he would keep her safe now.

“I’m sorry,” he said before thrusting painfully into her.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out. She turned her head to the side so he wouldn’t see the tear sliding down her cheek. It wasn’t for the pain, though the loss of her virginity had hurt the worse for her lack of readiness. It was for the words he had spoken to her, the words that had shattered an innocent girl’s fantasy that a man like Scott would truly want her: I’m sorry.

He withdrew from her long before she had fully wrapped her mind around what was happening. She felt raw. Used. The evening had been one shock after another – life, death, and the loss of innocence in so many senses of the word.

It wasn’t over yet.

She thought she heard him crying. Gathering her last shreds of courage and dignity she peeled herself off the worn beige carpeting and approached him on her hands and knees, past the box of abused board and card games.

“Get back!” he barked.

She froze, paralyzed, unable to bear what was happening to him and unable to look away. His face was twisted with pain, but she dared not approach to lend comfort.

His change came neither quickly nor slowly. He melted into the wolf, limbs bulging and shifting, his form elongating, fur sprouting in tufts. The new form tore away the shirt he had not yet removed.

He looked at her one last time in the instant before the beast took over, something unfathomable in his yellowing eyes. Whatever it was disappeared. Then he was gone.

The wolf wasn’t really a wolf, though the beast did have something of the look of a canine in it. It walked on all fours, it had tufted ears, and its muzzle was the right shape. But it was too big, too fierce, too strong, and simply … unearthly. Its fur was pure black, with none of Scott’s coloring, its eyes a golden yellow.

It wasn’t him. He had told her it wouldn’t be, but until she looked into those eyes she hadn’t realized what he meant. Scott was gone. Only the wolf remained, and the wolf looked at her as if she were dinner.

She scrambled backwards, away from the creature. It growled its menace, but didn’t initially turn its attention on her. Instead, it turned to David.

The wolf was much larger than Scott had been. Fleetingly, she thought it looked as if he could swallow David up in a few bites. As if her thought brought actions to life, the beast sank its teeth into one meaty thigh and pulled away a strip of flesh.

Madison screamed.

The carnivore is often given an exalted status in Western mythology, revered for the simple beauty of the hunt and the kill. The reality before Madison at that moment was something entirely different. Whatever else David had been, he had been a man. Now a monster was eating him, bit by bit.

She tried to close her eyes, but every time she succeeded, they would pop open again. She couldn’t look away from the blood and the gore and the intestines spilling onto the floor. The beast tore into the guts with relish, lapping up the feast it found there. And still, she couldn’t look away. This was beyond anything she had imagined or could have dreamed.

An eternity later, the beast turned away from its feast. It looked at her, blood and a bit of something unidentifiable dripping from its muzzle, then it stalked her.

Already flat against the wall, Madison had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. The beast loomed over her, staring at her with those great yellow eyes, and for a moment she knew she would end up just like David. Only he had been dead first. Would the beast kill her first, or eat her alive?

It sniffed her. She reached out a hand to try to push it away but it growled, a sound low in its throat, and snapped at her. She pulled her hand back.

It went back to smelling her. It took its time, starting at her feet and moving upward. When it reached her belly, full of fresh cuts and blood, she was sure it would bite her, tearing her open. It likes the intestines the most, she thought, as it lowered its muzzle.

The beast growled again, but it didn’t attack. Slowly, it backed away, finally sitting on its haunches. Then it looked at her. She had no idea what went through its primitive mind, though when it went back to David’s body and picked through the remains for any meat it might have missed the first time, she had an idea. It was hungry. It was angry. It might even have been confused, but she accepted she might have been projecting her own emotions onto the beast.

It stayed with her all through that night – the longest of her life. If she moved, it growled. She longed to adjust her position, to soothe her stiff muscles, but fear held her captive. Each minute that ticked by could turn out to be her last. Any second, the beast could decide she wasn’t worth keeping alive. Or that it was too hungry.

She tried to remind herself that this wasn’t Scott. That Scott wasn’t a monster so long as the moon wasn’t full. The bestial eyes focused unwaveringly upon her didn’t look like Scott’s so it shouldn’t have been hard to separate the two. Only she remembered how easily and remorselessly Scott had killed. And, unfairly, she remembered how he had hurt her. Even if he had done it to save her life.

Although, come to think of it, how had he known to do that? Why had he come here tonight? The question kept circling through her mind, but Scott was in no position to answer.

The night drifted endlessly on, a nightmare from which she could not wake. After a while, her body went numb, her brain seeming to lose touch with the stiff muscles she could not bend or flex. The fear shifted into something else, something less immediate. It hadn’t gone, it was more like emotional overload had placed her panic on mute. At that point her mind was able to leave the present, to drift backwards and remember how things were supposed to have been.

She’d first noticed Scott at the Fourth of July concert when, for the first time in her life, not one but two men had suddenly shown an interest in her. She hadn’t known what to do with either Scott’s rugged appeal or Nicolas’s boyish charm, but she knew which called to her. She hadn’t even cared if he’d only noticed her because she had revealed her songbird gift to the entire town. He had overwhelmed her, but that was a normal feeling for her. Deep down inside, where nerves and shyness couldn’t penetrate, she’d been secretly thrilled.

She’d asked about Scott since then. Everyone had said the same thing: Stay away from him. He’s dangerous.

Dangerous didn’t half describe it. Every time Madison shifted, every time she twitched, the werewolf growled and she knew it would bite her. No, it would eat her alive. But time and time again it returned instead to the bloodied remains of David McClellan, where it gnawed on the bones.

Dawn came. Miraculously, unbelievably, the night came to an end and the beast melted into Scott in a reversal of what had happened the night before. The wolf didn’t bear its pain as silently as Scott had. It howled during the long minutes it took to transform, leaving Madison with no recourse save to close her eyes and press her hands against her ears.

Her entire body spasmed when something touched her back.

“It’s okay,” Scott said. “It’s over.”

She took a few deep breaths to steady herself then turned to face him, finding only marginal comfort in the return of jade green eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, repeating the words that had hurt her a lifetime ago when she’d hoped he might have wanted more from her than her safety. Now, she felt too numb to care.

“You did save my life,” she whispered. “Twice, apparently. I owe you.”

“I won’t ask you for anything. Last night …” He paused, darting a quick glance at the body in the corner. “At least it worked. I won’t touch you again.”

Madison didn’t have the will to respond. It was all too much. She needed to think. She needed to get clean. She rose on shaking feet, half expecting Scott to stop her. Half hoping. He didn’t say a word as she hobbled to the bathroom, where she began the work of cleaning her body. But no amount of washing could clean the debris from her heart or her soul, and the terror of that night would follow her into her dreams for years to come.

Chapter 1

Two years later …

MADISON CLUTCHED HER CELL PHONE AS, for the dozenth time in less than a week, her call went to voicemail. Her younger brother’s too-cheerful voice started to ask her to leave a message, but she hit “end” before it finished.

“Where are you, Clinton?” Madison wondered out loud. It had been a month. An entire month since the last time they’d spoken on the phone. Sure, he was in college, young and having fun, but he had never been irresponsible. He had never gone this long without at least sending her an email. And while he wasn’t a Facebook regular, he would normally have posted something about the end of finals. That, more than anything, had led to the frantic flurry of phone calls this week.

The school year was over for Madison as well. She had brought her fifth graders to tears when she had sung them a final good-bye that afternoon. There hadn’t been a dry eye in the room, not even on the stonier faces of the tough boys. She hadn’t meant to do it. She was normally very conscious of the power her songbird voice had to evoke emotions in those who heard it, but she had been distracted. Not thinking clearly. The prospect of a lonely summer loomed ahead, her fifth graders would move on to middle school where she would never teach them again, and worst of all, her anxiety over Clinton grew stronger as each new day passed without a word.

Clinton was, after all, the only family she had left. The only one who had never hurt or betrayed her. If anything happened to him …

Her mind started sorting through possibilities once again, but nothing made sense. She was Clinton’s “in case of emergency” contact at school, at work, and on his phone. If he had gotten into an accident, she would know. Which left what, exactly? That a straight-A student had suddenly dropped out of school and joined a rock band?

It was probably nothing. He had probably been busy. They didn’t hang out in the same circles, she wasn’t his mother, and for all she knew he could have dropped his phone in a toilet. Weeks had passed between calls before – rarely.

But she had nightmares. These days, she almost always had nightmares. Madison knew better than most what sorts of dangers lurked in the night, but Clinton had always been separate from all of that. On the outside. He, unlike her, was the product of two normal people having a normal child.

She dialed again, this time calling Clinton’s housemate, who had always struck her as being irresponsible. She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t answer her call, nor that he hadn’t responded to the three messages she had left for him. She did not leave another.

Now what? The sun had set, but the moon had not yet risen. It wouldn’t be full tonight, but it was close enough to make her shudder with remembered fear.

There was one final call she could make, one she had been putting off making for days. She had not spoken to her adoptive father, Phillip Carter, since the day he had betrayed her – selling the identity of her biological father to that man’s enemies for the bargain-basement price of $10,000. In the end, that was how much she’d meant to him.

But she and Phillip (she sometimes still thought of him as Dad, but she was getting better) had one thing left in common: Clinton.

She did not have Phillip’s number programmed into her phone, but she dialed it from memory, her fingers automatically jumping from digit to digit. Those fingers stayed curiously still and calm as she waited through four rings. Then she heard the familiar gravelly voice for the first time in over a year.

“What?” he demanded without preamble.

Her breath caught, something got lodged in her throat, and it was a moment before she managed a “Hi.” Stupid girl. Why do you still care?

“What do you want, Madison?” Phillip asked in the clipped, distant tone he’d always used when she misbehaved.

“I haven’t heard from Clinton in almost a month. I was wondering if you have.”

“No.” There was a pause. “I’m worried.” He probably was. Clinton, he cared about. Clinton was really his son. Clinton had never even accidentally brushed up against the world of sorcery.

Madison might have felt jealous, but Phillip didn’t know how to show affection to anyone, not even his son. Which was why Clinton often agreed with Madison that they were all the family each other had.

“I’m going to drive to Springfield tomorrow to look for him.” She hadn’t made the decision until she’d said it, but now she knew it was her only choice. Maybe she was overreacting, but if that was the case then so be it.

“Have him call me when you find him.” That was it. Phillip didn’t want to hear from her, only from his real son. Otherwise, she could turn right back around and go to the devil, where she’d been heading.

Well, what had she expected? A sudden change of heart? A declaration of love?

“I will. Bye, Da–” Madison just stopped herself. Old habits. “Bye.”

Phillip ended the call without saying another word.

Madison tried to push thoughts of Phillip from her mind as she prepared for bed. She called Clinton one last time, not because she thought he would suddenly pick up the phone but because she wanted to leave one last voicemail telling him she’d be making the two-hour drive from Eagle Rock, Missouri to Springfield in the morning. Then she set her phone on the nightstand and started humming to herself.

The tune was a familiar one, a song she’d been working on for years. She had the melody right, but she still had not found the words to go with it. The song needed words full of hope and love, but nothing in her life had inspired that kind of poetry lately.

Not for the first time, Madison wished her songbird gift would work on herself – that she could sing a joyful song and draw that song’s happiness into herself. But that was not how it worked. In fact, she didn’t make people feel the song’s emotions as much as she made them feel her own. The melody and lyrics helped set a tone she could embrace, but she had once managed to make someone cry singing, “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”

Today was that kind of day. Music was her refuge, but tonight worry followed her within its sheltering embrace. She gave up by nine o’clock, thinking she should at least try to get a good night’s sleep before setting off in the morning. She only prayed that her nightmares would give her respite.

* * *

She is scared and hurt, but not alone. Before her stands the man who saved her life. He is only a few inches taller than she, but so broad and powerful that he seems much larger. His arms ripple with well-defined, sculpted muscles that she knows he can use to kill. His face is not classically handsome, but it is rugged and beautiful to her. She loves his eyes most of all. Those jade green eyes that carry the weight of the world within their depths. They say eyes are the windows to the soul, so she tries to peer inside to see.

He looks back, giving her the sense that he sees her as no man ever has before – as a woman. He extends a hand to her and she takes it, feeling the thrill of contact. This is it. This is what it’s supposed to feel like when a man touches a woman. She is pure sensation, all flutters and tingles. She wants this man, if he’ll have her. She is afraid to hope that he might.

Suddenly, he shifts. In those soul-deep eyes he betrays a flash of pain, then his body jerks and flexes. Hair begins to sprout even as his bones contort. He looks like he is fighting the transformation, but he is fighting a losing battle.

For one last, lingering second he looks on her with the green eyes she knows. Then he is the wolf, and when she looks into its eyes, Scott is gone. The beast has yellow eyes, without so much as a spark of humanity left.

The beast growls, baring its teeth. It lunges for her, sinking long, sharp canines into her throat. She cannot scream. Her heart is trying to escape her chest. Her throat works again and again, but the scream will not come.

She can smell the blood. It’s everywhere. The beast is going to eat her alive. It lowers its muzzle to sink its teeth into her belly and tear out her intestines – the part it likes best. She knows what will happen next, and there is nothing she can do about it.

If only whoever is calling her on the phone could help her. If only...

* * *

Sweat drenched Madison’s sheets when she finally managed to pull herself away from her recurring nightmare long enough to understand that the phone truly was ringing at two in the morning. She fumbled with several objects on her nightstand before finding the phone, but she had long-since missed the call. Her blood ran cold when she saw that it had been Clinton who’d phoned in the dead of night.

No word for a month and now this? A phone call at two in the morning?

Madison crawled out of bed, removed her sweat-drenched night shirt, then fumbled through her drawer for another. She wanted a shower. She wanted to change the bed. She settled for a dry shirt before taking a seat on the floor near the foot of her full-sized bed and returning her brother’s call.

He answered on the first ring. “Oh, thank God.”

Madison’s pulse jumped. “What’s going on?

“I need your help.”

“You’re in trouble.” It wasn’t a question. “What do you need? Money?” Although, now that she thought about it, if he needed money he could have picked a more reasonable hour to call.

“I don’t need money.” Clinton drew in a deep breath, as though steeling himself for something. “I need magic.”

Magic? Madison sat up straighter, the last tendrils of sleepiness melting away as if they had never been. Sure, she had a little bit of magic, but Clinton knew how she felt about using it. And even if using magic didn’t make her feel somehow tainted, the fact remained that she really couldn’t use it. Magic required a combination of potential, effort, and study. She had little potential, didn’t care to put out much effort, and had only studied enough basics so she wouldn’t hurt anyone with what little potential she did have.

Unless … “What do you mean by magic, exactly? Do you want me to sing for you?” Most outsiders didn’t understand the distinction – Madison herself had only started to understand in the past year or so – but a gift was not the same thing as magic. Her songbird gift was tied to the soul and was as instinctive as breathing. She almost couldn’t not do it, which was something she had never been able to explain to Phillip.

“No, that’s not it. I need real magic.”

“You know I don’t have enough to count.” But Madison had a feeling she knew where this was going.

“You can ask your other brother for help.” Clinton said, confirming her suspicion. He always sounded jealous when he talked about her other brother, as if her recent discovery of the existence of a half brother meant she felt differently about him.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on first?”

“I don’t want you to freak out.”

“How can I not freak out when you call me at two in the morning?” Madison’s voice rose as all her worst fears came tumbling back through her mind.

“More, then. I don’t want you to freak out more. But I need some magical help, and I need you to get it for me.”

“Wait a second, are you honestly suggesting that I act as a go-between when I don’t even know what it is I’m going between?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“No!”

“Madison.” Clinton had switched to his wheedling tone. If he were there in person, looking at her with the big brown puppy dog eyes they had both inherited from their mother, it might have worked.

“Clinton,” Madison said, trying and failing to match his tone.

“The thing is. Look. I can’t handle losing you right now.”

“Why would you lose me?” Madison could feel her heart pounding a little faster in response to the fear in her brother’s voice. She had never heard anything quite like it there before. Her palms felt slick, and it was hard to hold onto the phone.

“If I told you what was wrong, I might. It’s-look, I called because I met someone tonight who swears he can help me, but I don’t trust him.”

“You should go with your instincts.”

“My instincts have been telling me to run away, but I can’t run from this.”

“From what?” Madison didn’t yell, but it was a near thing. She felt like a string about to snap in two.

“This guy I met says tomorrow will be too late.”

“The guy you don’t trust? What happens tomorrow night?”

Clinton didn’t respond. Madison’s mind whirled. What would happen tomorrow night? Well, that was obvious. The full moon. She always knew when the full moon was coming because …

No. It couldn’t be.

“Please tell me this doesn’t have something to do with the full moon tomorrow night,” Madison pleaded. Her hand shook and her voice trembled.

“Don’t freak out.”

“Too late!”

“Okay. Okay!” Clinton was talking faster now. Breathing faster. “You know that girl I told you about last time I called? Clara, the new waitress at Chili’s?”

“Yes.”

“Four weeks ago she came up to me and said she wanted to be my mate. I thought that meant she wanted to … well, you know. So I said sure, great. She wanted to drive out to this secluded spot to do it, so I took her, but when we got there she took off. Then the moon rose, and out came this giant thing … hard to describe … it didn’t really look like a wolf. I ran for my car, but it bit me on the back of the knee just before I got inside.”

It was a good thing Madison was sitting on the floor, because if she hadn’t been, she would have fallen. She knew the rest of the story, even before Clinton told her the details. The next day he got sick. Really, really sick. He almost died. He was sick for three weeks and missed his finals. When he woke up, it was to find Clara tending him. She seemed happy that he’d survived, and that he would now be a werewolf just like her.

“I didn’t want to believe her,” Clinton whispered. His voice was so low she barely heard him. “All week, I’ve been trying to figure a way out of it. It’s not like I didn’t grow up believing in things like werewolves, but you don’t want to think it can happen to you, you know? And I’ve been in Springfield for three years, where most people don’t believe in magic.”

Madison could feel the delicate threads of her life slipping through her fingers once again. She should be used to it by now, perhaps, but this … In her worst nightmares she never could have imagined this.

“Madison, are you still there?” Clinton’s voice sounded far away, and agitated, as if he had been trying to get her attention for a while.

“I’m here.”

“You’re freaking out.”

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t. Her whole body was shaking. From somewhere in the bowels of the house the air conditioning kicked on; it felt like a draft of arctic wind.

“I need help, Madison. I don’t know who else to ask. Clara’s so strong and has such good hearing. I had trouble getting away from her. Tonight I did, and then I met this guy at a bar … he says if I go with him he can fix me, but it has to be before the full moon. Before the first, um, transformation.”

Madison didn’t believe there was a way to fix it, but she couldn’t tell him that, not when he had called her for hope. He wasn’t the only one who needed hope.

“I’m scared,” Clinton said.

“Me too.”

“Can you help me?”

“Don’t go with him,” Madison ordered. “Promise me you won’t. I’ll get you some help, one way or another.”

“Really?”

Madison closed her eyes and swallowed, hard, knowing what this promise would mean. Clinton thought it was simple. He thought there would be a cure. She knew better, and she knew that however powerful her other brother was, Evan Blackwood wasn’t the man who could help Clinton. The man who could help Clinton was the reason she couldn’t sleep at the full moon, and the reason she had so many nightmares at other times of the month. He was the reason her hair clung damply to her forehead at that very moment, and the reason she needed to change her sheets.

“Really,” Madison promised.

Chapter 2

JESSICA WAS A BITCH IN MORE than one sense of the word. Scott knew that, and yet he’d spent the past six months of his life fucking her. He couldn’t even pretend he was using her in place of the real thing, because to even picture the woman he really wanted while in bed with Jessica felt like sacrilege. He didn’t exactly use her for sex, either. Sex with Jessica lacked any depth, and most nights he thought he would get just as much satisfaction from his hand. The other nights, nights like tonight, he thought he’d get more satisfaction from his hand. At least then he wouldn’t feel bad about picturing her.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Jessica taunted him when he rolled over and told her to leave. “You wouldn’t want the pack to know you’re losing stamina.”

Therein lay the real reason for the time he spent with Jessica. It was a show. A power play. He was 27 years old, nearly 28, and he led a pack of men and women who became wild animals at the full moon, and who didn’t necessarily rise much above that state the rest of the time. They expected him to be powerful. They expected him to be virile. They almost universally confused one with the other.

Scott did have an edge that, to the best of his knowledge, no other werewolf had – he was also a powerful sorcerer. Magic had run through his veins long before he’d foolishly let himself get bitten, and magic, or at least fear of magic, was how he kept control now.

“Get out,” Scott growled, refusing to dignify her comments with anything more than a not-so-playful nip on the back of her neck.

Jessica yelped, got the message, and quickly donned her clothes. She wanted him to take her as his mate; he knew that, and he expected her to make another play for the position soon. She’d tried last month, when she stopped taking the pill and didn’t tell him. Some combination of his sense of smell and his gift of intuition had saved him from falling into that trap, but he remained on guard.

No, he needed to dump her. He would, too, as soon as he found someone to replace her. Preferably someone from a nearby pack, since none of the available females in his own pack would be able to stand up to Jessica. It would be nice if she’d leave after he pushed her away, but he couldn’t be so lucky, and he could only force her out if she disobeyed him. She’d walk a fine line, but she wouldn’t do that.

“It’s really not gentlemanly to force a girl into the cold, lonely night,” Jessica whined. “What if someone attacked me?”

“I’d feel sorry for him,” Scott replied.

She laughed, mistaking his comment for a compliment. She flung a long mass of fake red hair over her shoulder and made a show of wriggling into too-tight jeans. It should have stirred something in him, but it left him cold. Skinny legs had never appealed to him, though they did not repulse him nearly as much as her attitude. An attitude that was, apparently, just what his pack expected from his mate.

“You aren’t even going to show me to the door?” Jessica asked after she had dressed.

“Do I ever?”

She laughed. She liked it when he acted like a jerk to her, which made him dislike her almost as much as he disliked himself.

“See you tomorrow night,” Jessica said as she headed out the bedroom door.

A minute later he heard the front door open, but it didn’t close right away. There was a startled yelp, one so soft he wouldn’t have heard it without the heightened senses of his wolf. It almost sounded like ... but that was impossible.

“Well hi there, honey,” Jessica said in her sugary sweet bitch voice. “No wonder Scott was in such a hurry to kick me out if he had you coming over. Why don’t you just head on in? He’s waiting in his bedroom.”

Scott let out a string of soft curses that Jessica would have heard perfectly, though a normal woman standing on the other side of the door would not. Flinging aside the covers, he reached for a pair of jeans, managing to pull them on just before Jessica returned, ushering in the woman who had been haunting his dreams for years.

Madison looked beautiful to him, even in jeans and an oversized t-shirt that hid the curves he had spent hours studying from afar. Her thick brown hair lay in graceful waves around her shoulders, glowing with health and making him itch to touch it to find out if it was as soft as it looked. Her scent filled his nostrils as longing filled his heart, as well as other less honorable parts of his body.

His pack wouldn’t approve. Scott’s best friend, Evan, who had discovered that Madison was his half sister a year ago, would rip Scott’s head off if he touched her. But those weren’t the reasons he kept his distance.

The reason Scott kept his distance was shining from Madison’s eyes: Terror. Worse than that, though, was the knowledge that he had put it there in the first place. She had reason to fear him, both for what he was and what he had done to her personally.

“Here’s your late-night snack,” Jessica said, bringing Scott back to the present. The look in Jessica’s eyes told Scott he had better have an explanation for Madison’s presence. The words told him she wasn’t waiting for that explanation to begin her assault on a perceived threat.

“Jessica. Out.” Scott gave her a look that broached no argument, though she opened her mouth a fraction before shutting it again.

“I’m leaving.” Jessica gave Madison one last push in Scott’s direction, which would have caused the other woman to topple onto the floor if Scott hadn’t grabbed her first. “Maybe tomorrow night we can share.”

Madison stiffened in Scott’s arms, but Jessica was gone before he had a chance to scold her.

Now what? Scott was entirely too aware of the woman he held in his arms, of her softness, of her warmth, and of her scent, reminiscent of sweet vanilla. She often smelled of fear too, at least around him, but tonight the scent was sharper. It spoke of something she feared even more than him. Something that had her half-clinging to him.

He knew he needed to let her go, but something primitive within him rose to the surface, demanding action. Demanding he make her his. He could feel her body trembling, he knew she was afraid, but she didn’t push him away. Hope swelled within him, a feeling he had believed long-since buried.

Almost of its own volition, one of his hands went to her hair, the fingers sinking into the thick, silken strands of chestnut. It was exactly as soft as he’d imagined. She had cut her hair a few months ago so that it only fell to her shoulders. After he had set aside his indignation, he had to admit that the new style complimented her round face, drawing attention to her full lips and brown eyes.

Her trembling grew in intensity, making him wonder if she was simply too afraid to push him away. In a sudden burst of clarity, he remembered who he was, what he was, and why he had no business holding this woman. He lingered a moment or two more, cursing himself for what that hesitation said about him as a man, then he set her aside.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, when he once again possessed some semblance of control.

His intuitive gift began to weigh in now that he had put some distance between them. Something was very wrong. Not only had Madison come to him of her own free will, but she had done so at … he glanced at his digital alarm clock … 2:36 in the morning. His first thought was that something had happened to Evan, because why else would she come to Scott herself, instead of going to her own brother?

“What’s going on?” Scott asked before she had responded to his first harsh question. “Is something wrong with Evan?”

“Evan? What? No. Why would you think that?”

“Because you’re here. What are you doing here?” He’d asked that already.

“I-need your help. It-it’s about Clinton. My brother.”

He vaguely remembered that she had another half brother, one who shared the same mother, away at college or something. “What about him?”

“Well, you see, he called me. Woke me up. Says he was b-bitten.”

Scott’s eyes narrowed, focusing on her pale face, full of terror he knew wasn’t entirely for him. “By a werewolf?”

She nodded.

“Where?” Scott asked.

“He’s in Springfield.”

Scott wasn’t even aware of growling until he saw Madison flinch away. “Springfield? Missouri?”

“Yes.”

That was his territory. When he found the wolf suicidal enough to perform an unauthorized bite in his territory, he would grant their death wish. “Does he know who did it?”

“Said her name was Clara.”

“I don’t know a Clara. What’s her last name?”

“I-I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.”

Scott rubbed his hands over his face, working to compose himself. An unauthorized wolf in his territory was serious business under any circumstances, but to have bitten someone, she had to be insane. Which meant he had a lunatic werewolf to deal with, in addition to a new wolf, assuming he survived the transition. For Madison’s sake, Scott hoped he did, although she wouldn’t like what he became.

“He called a half hour ago,” Madison was saying, though Scott only half heard. “He told me his girlfriend bit him, that he’s been really sick for weeks. I knew about that. I guess it’s lucky he didn’t die.”

“Yeah,” Scott said absently. Her brother wasn’t out of the woods yet, but she didn’t have to know that.

“He said he was at a bar, and someone was saying he could cure him, if he went off with him.”

“What?” Scott was nothing but attention now. This kept getting better and better. What the hell was going on in his territory, under his nose? And how did they think they could get away with it?

Madison tried to back away a step, but she already stood against the wall and had nowhere to go. Scott knew how angry he must look and he fought to contain the feelings, for her sake. It was late, he was tired, and he was in the presence of a woman who drove him crazy, but he needed her to answer at least a few questions before she left.

“Come on, let’s go talk in the living room.” Much safer to have her there than in his bedroom, which still smelled strongly of sex. The living room wasn’t much cleaner, but it was far less intimate.

Madison set a basket of unfolded laundry on the floor so she could sit in one of the recliners. Scott mirrored her action, dumping a stack of books unceremoniously to the floor so he could sit on the couch.

“What did you tell him?” Scott asked when they were seated.

“Just that I-I didn’t think there was a cure. That the guy was probably lying.”

“You’re right, there’s no cure.” He wouldn’t sugar coat it for her. If her brother lived, he would become a monster once a month.

“That’s what I thought.” But her face had fallen somewhat. “I told him to go home and wait for me. I said I’d get him help.”

“And you came to me?” Scott still couldn’t believe it. “Why not go to Evan?”

“He’s not a werewolf. He’d have just gone to you.”

Yes, but then she wouldn’t have had to come to him. He didn’t know what to make of that. Probably nothing. With the full moon tomorrow night, time was of the essence.

“You did the right thing,” Scott said grudgingly. Probably including coming to him, although he wouldn’t have expected it of her. Maybe he should have, because one of the things he admired about her was her sense of loyalty. She didn’t trust easily or often, but when she did, she gave her all. She would even, for example, face her greatest fear if it meant helping her brother.

“Can you help him?” Madison asked.

“I’ll do everything I can. He is my responsibility.”

“He is?”

“He was bitten in my territory.”

“Oh. I hadn’t realized your territory was so big.”

“It covers Missouri south of Jefferson City, and Northern Arkansas. I know every wolf who roams my land. Every one. They’re all my responsibility.”

“But you didn’t know Clara.”

Scott growled. “I’m sorry she attacked your brother. She had no business being here at all, and her life is forfeit.”

“Oh.” Madison’s eyes had turned into twin saucers.

“Where does Clinton live?” Scott asked. “I’ll need a few hours of sleep before I go, but I’ll go to him first thing in the morning.”

“I’ll show you.”

At first, Scott didn’t think he had heard her correctly. It almost sounded as if she thought she would be coming with him. That was impossible for countless reasons, chief among them the fact that Clara, whoever she was, could be a danger to Madison, although Scott’s own feelings came in at a close second. Being around her made him hope for things that could never be. Keeping his distance from Madison these past months had become a matter of self-protection.

“I’m coming with you,” Madison clarified.

“The hell you are!”

She shrank back into her chair, but before he had a chance to think he had won, she did something that she had never done in his memory. She looked him straight in the eyes. Her scent had shifted slightly with the gesture, the tang of fear not gone but offset by something else. Determination?

“This is pack business,” Scott said.

Didn’t she understand? He couldn’t be alone with her. At first, after that terrible night, he’d thought she just needed time. That she would eventually forgive him, if for no other reason than because he’d had no other choice and he had saved her life. But instead she’d gone straight into the arms of another man and every time she saw Scott, every time she looked at him as if he were the devil himself, he died a little more inside.

“He’s my brother, and he’s afraid. I need to be there for him.”

Her brother would go well beyond fear by the time this was all over; having someone he loved alongside him would help, but only if she had the strength to stay with him. “You do understand that if he pulls through this, it’s going to be as a werewolf?”

“Y-yes.” She looked away for a moment, then seemed to realize what she had done and looked right back. Her eyes contained determination and that loyalty he so admired. “I’ll pay you.”

“I don’t need money.”

Madison glanced around his tiny, two-bedroom house dubiously. He couldn’t blame her for her analysis; many saw the size of his holdings and believed as she did, but he had little need for material goods. He lived simply because he chose to, not because he had to, and therein lay a world of difference.

“Something else then,” Madison said, leaning forward. The new position gave him a better view of the cleavage just visible above the neckline of her t-shirt, a sight that was all the more alluring because he knew she hadn’t done it intentionally. She probably didn’t even realize how those words and that posture would affect him.

“You’re not safe with me.” He could feel himself caving, though. He wasn’t that worried about his ability to keep her safe, and he knew from experience that new wolves transitioned better if the people they had loved in their former lives didn’t reject them.

“If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it two years ago.”

“Then maybe I’m not safe with you,” Scott said.

She just stared at him, like she didn’t have a clue how she affected him. Was it possible, after all this time, that she didn’t know? That fear had blinded her so completely? Then again, he had been keeping her at arm’s length, knowing how she felt about him. Knowing he didn’t deserve her.

Not for the first time, Scott wished his intuition would help him where Madison was concerned. It was a powerful gift most of the time, but it had never been good with emotions which were, after all, somewhat unpredictable and illogical. The only thing his intuition had ever consistently told him about Madison was that she would be an ideal mate for him; it had not assured him that he would be half as good for her.

“Look,” Scott said, “I’m not saying you can’t help your brother. He’s going to be terrified, but he’s also going to be a werewolf. Like me.”

“I know.”

“If you abandon him halfway, it’ll make things worse.”

She actually scowled at him. “Clinton is the only family I have left. I’ll love him no matter what.”

Looking into her eyes right then, he thought maybe she would. Or maybe he just wanted to believe that, for Clinton’s sake if not his own. The truth was, her fears about werewolves weren’t unjustified. Scott was a killer; she’d seen that with her own eyes, and she didn’t know the half of it.

“Fine, you can come.” He only hoped he wouldn’t end up regretting it.

Chapter 3

MADISON WAS ALONE WITH SCOTT, AND the full moon would rise in just under twelve hours, at 6:56 pm. She’d looked it up before leaving, and she had a mental countdown going in the back of her mind. Springfield was two hours away, so a four-hour round trip, plus however long it took to collect Clinton... There was plenty of time. Really.

She still couldn’t believe her daring, both in going to see Scott in the first place and in forcing him to take her along on this trip. Cassie had once told her that she had an “inner core of courage” that surfaced when something really mattered, but even Cassie had to admit that most of the time Madison was a mouse. She had never stood up for herself when her peers had bullied her in school, when her adoptive father had betrayed her, nor when her fiancé had abandoned her.

But Madison had defied her adoptive father. She had embraced singing, even though it had cost her so much.

As for the man sitting beside her, she had no idea how to handle her tangled fears and desires where he was concerned. She had managed for the past two years by avoiding him whenever possible. That had been difficult at first, but it had grown easier after her engagement and easier still in the last year or so, ever since Madison had learned that Evan Blackwood, Scott’s best friend, was also her half brother. Madison knew that Evan had “settled the debt” she owed Scott, but Evan remained stubbornly tight-lipped about the details of the settlement, and she had never had the courage to ask Scott.

Would avoidance be possible now? Clinton was going to become a werewolf tonight. The reality still had not fully sunk in, though it was beginning to. She remembered Clinton’s voice on the phone, and his fear when he thought she would reject him. She hated that he’d believed it of her, but what else was he supposed to think? He knew more about the night David had tried to steal her soul than anyone else. Not everything – she hadn’t told him that before that night she’d imagined Scott as some kind of romantic hero and had even half fallen in love with him – but all the rest.

She should talk to Scott, open her mind and really learn about werewolves in a way she hadn’t let herself before. But the silence pressing between them felt too solid, and every time she tried to open her mouth to say something, her throat felt impossibly dry.

“You do realize that I’m a werewolf, not a vampire,” Scott said after a time. He sounded agitated.

Madison glanced down. Her fingers, she realized, had been toying with the crucifix she wore tucked beneath her shirt. She had bought the necklace after a series of local vampire attacks and had been wearing it ever since. Now, toying with the pendant was just another in a long line of nervous habits she couldn’t seem to break. Or if she did, another bad habit would take its place. She had spent a year learning not to bite her nails, only to discover she had nearly chewed her bottom lip off in the process. She stopped doing that, and started twisting her hair, breaking the once beautiful strands. She’d cut her hair short and now she was back to chewing her nails, figuring they were at least a less prominent feature than her hair and lips.

“Sorry.” Madison dropped the pendant, then had to talk herself down from chewing on a nail. This was going to be a long trip.

“It wasn’t an accusation. I was trying to start a conversation.”

“Oh,” Madison said. Well, she’d wanted to start a conversation, too. She should follow his lead, but all she could think to say was, “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing for everything. It’s annoying.”

“Sorry.” Oh God, had she really just said that? If she were Cassie, she would have played it off like a joke. That sounded like a good idea, so she forced a small smile.

Scott smiled back. “Cheeky.”

It had worked. Madison’s smile grew wider. “Sorry.”

This time, he laughed. He looked so much more human when he laughed. Had she ever seen him do that before?

“It is made of silver,” Madison said. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Only if you melt it into a bullet.”

“Telling me your weaknesses? Isn’t that risky?”

“No. Because first of all, it isn’t true, and second of all, you won’t tell anyone it isn’t.”

“What makes you so sure I won’t tell anyone?”

His smile disappeared, replaced by his usual brooding expression. His green eyes grew dark and impenetrable, reminding her of how little she knew about this man. “You wouldn’t do anything to hurt Clinton, would you?”

“No. Of course not.” Madison looked away. So much for her attempt at levity. She shivered, and returned her gaze to the window.

“You know, I’m actually trying to help you. I didn’t have to take you along. Do you think you could try not to be afraid of me, at least until moon-rise?”

Madison’s head snapped back around. “It bothers you that I’m afraid of you?”

“Yes, it bothers me. I-it bothers me.”

Madison stared at Scott’s profile for a long minute, trying to figure out what to make of him. She had tried to see things from his point of view before. Countless times, as a matter of fact. Intellectually she knew he had done nothing to her that hadn’t directly led to his saving her life and even her soul. Emotionally, on the other hand...

There remained so many unanswered questions about that night. She couldn’t bring herself to ask them, but they floated through her mind nonetheless: How had he even known she needed help? Why was he so far from his usual forest so close to the full moon? And why had he stayed away from her afterward? She wanted to understand that most of all, because there were moments when she swore she thought he wanted her. She could be wrong – she had little experience with men and she wasn’t exactly a leggy bombshell like that woman he’d been with earlier in the night – but the way he often looked at her... She didn’t want him to look at her like that; it terrified her, but he had saved her life. And sometimes, she was almost afraid to admit to herself, she liked the way he looked at her.

“Why does it bother you that I’m afraid?” Madison asked instead.

“Why does it-?” Scott turned his head slightly, scowling at her. “What kind of question is that?”

Madison pushed away her instinctive reaction to his scowl. He wasn’t going to hurt her. The wolf inside him wasn’t Scott, he’d said so himself minutes before she’d seen the truth for herself in the beast’s eyes. And Evan had assured her that wolves could only shift at the full moon. It was the only assurance he had ever given her about Scott; mostly, Evan liked to unnecessarily reinforce her fears.

“You’re scowling,” Madison said.

Scott’s lips straightened and he turned back to the road. “I was?”

“You do that a lot.”

“I didn’t realize that.” He frowned. “Maybe I’ve gotten hard. I didn’t used to be that way, but dealing with a pack of werewolves all the time... I guess it’s my turn to apologize.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Scott sighed. “And no, I never wanted you afraid. I just didn’t think there was any other choice.” He paused before adding, “Is there?”

“Yesterday, I’d have said no.”

“And today?”

Madison hesitated. “Today, there’s a werewolf out there who I love and need to find a way to support no matter what.”

“Okay,” Scott said slowly. Then again, “Okay.”

“Maybe we could get to know each other a little better.”

“Okay,” he said again. “Why are you wearing the cross?”

Madison looked down at the cross, which she was once again twisting between her fingers. “I bought it after the vampire attacks a while back, but I like wearing it anyway. I am Catholic.”

“You are?”

“Go to mass every Sunday. Sing in the choir.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have expected that from Evan’s sister.”

“Half sister,” Madison corrected. “As in long lost and not raised together. My parents were both Catholic. I mean, my mom and my adoptive dad.”

“I’d just think being Catholic would make you think magic was evil or something.”

Madison shuddered. It wasn’t the religion at all, it was entirely Phillip Carter. Father Owen had even said that her voice was a gift from God. Of course her gift wasn’t exactly magic, but Father Owen didn’t know that. Madison still had trouble grasping the difference some days.

“You do have a problem with it,” Scott said. “Is that why you and Evan have been having problems?”

“We’re not having problems, exactly, and no, it’s not the reason.” Madison had never thought of magic as being evil in other people, only in herself. When she thought about the logic there – or lack thereof – it made her head hurt, but didn’t change her feelings.

“Interesting,” Scott said, as if she’d just told him a lot more than she had.

“This is getting awfully personal,” Madison said. “If you’re going to ask me about all this, you should tell me something personal about yourself.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Madison cast about for a subject that wasn’t related to his monthly transformations. She wasn’t ready for that yet, though she knew she would have to be soon. Unfortunately, the only other subject she could think of was almost as difficult to bring up. “Tell me about that woman who was with you tonight. Jessica?”

Scott’s jaw tightened, but he kept his eyes on the road ahead of him. “She’s a bitch.”

“A werewolf, you mean?”

“That too.”

Madison almost laughed. Almost. But she saw from the fixed expression on his face that he was absolutely serious. “You really don’t like her?”

“She’s one of the most selfish women I’ve ever known. She’s not attracted to me, she’s attracted to power. She’s constantly asking me to work magic for her, and she’s in love with my position as alpha. In the few months we’ve been together, she’s already lorded it over the other females in the pack. I’ve had to intercede a couple of times.”

Madison looked straight ahead into the sunrise, trying to figure out why someone like Scott would be with a woman like that if he hated her. It must be the legs. Men went crazy for long, thin legs.

“She’s pretty,” Madison said after a long pause.

Scott snorted. “Not my type.”

“What’s your type?”

He glanced at her, his eyes raking her face and torso, settling for a few extra seconds on her chest before returning to the road. “I like curves.”

Madison’s cheeks went red. Before she could stop herself, she had glanced down at her own chest, which she’d always thought was too big, much like the rest of her body. But Scott couldn’t mean it. He’d only said that to unsettle her. And it was working.

“Anything else you want to know?” Scott asked.

“Why are you with her if she’s not a nice person?”

“I’m not a nice person.” He paused then added, quietly. “I’m not even a person.”

“Oh, Scott.” And for the first time in his presence, Madison didn’t feel afraid. She felt something else entirely.

* * *

She was looking at him as if there were something inside him that wasn’t completely horrible. Damn. He should be thrilled; he’d been waiting for her to look at him like that for years but now that she was, it didn’t feel right.

He took a minute to try to figure out why he felt so unsettled. Since his intuition had never helped him much where Madison was concerned, all he had were hopes and wild guesses. He wanted to think Madison had asked about Jessica because she felt jealous, but how could he think so when Madison kept trying to chew her bottom lip off?

If she didn’t stop biting her lip soon he might lose his senses completely and offer to bite it for her. He imagined pulling it into his mouth and soothing away the sting while his hands explored her soft curves. She had the most exquisite body he’d ever seen. Too bad she didn’t know it. If he ever got the chance, he would show her just how beautiful she was.

She shifted under his regard, somehow sensing it even though he kept one eye on the road. She didn’t smell as afraid as usual, more nervous. It wasn’t much, but...

It wasn’t anything. He shouldn’t have started the conversation. He should have been content with uncomfortable, brooding silence. Or turned on the radio. He should do that now, but he didn’t. He definitely needed to change the subject, though, and he was still curious about some of the things she’d said before Jessica had come up.

“Evan said you refused to learn more magic from him, after you mastered the basics,” Scott said.

Madison shrugged. “I don’t have much potential.”

“There are ways to make the most of it. Are you afraid it’s evil?”

Madison started twisting the cross again. “Yes,” she said finally. “Father Owen thinks my singing is a gift from God, but my dad always said singing was from the devil.”

Scott felt his hands tightening on the steering wheel. Everyone in Eagle Rock knew what Phillip Carter had done to the daughter he’d raised. There were few secrets in a small town. “That bastard who sold you out?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you care what he says about you?”

“I suppose I don’t anymore.”

She was lying. He didn’t need his gift of intuition to tell him that, nor did he need it to tell him why. He had asked a stupid question, borne out of the anger he felt for a man who could have betrayed Madison. He didn’t know all the details, but he knew that in the midst of a dangerous feud between two powerful families, the Scots and the Blackwoods, Phillip Carter had told Nicolas Scot that she was the biological daughter of Victor Blackwood. According to Evan, who heard it from Cassie, Phillip even insinuated that Madison had known who her biological father was all along, and that she had been spying. Hot-headed Nicolas, engaged to Madison when it all came out, had been eager to believe that Madison was an enemy; he’d actually held her hostage until his sister, Cassie, had interceded. Scott had felt plenty of anger for Nicolas at the time as well, but a part of him had been too relieved that the engagement had ended to hold onto that anger.

“Of course you care. He was your father. So what else did the asshole say to you?”

Madison blinked in surprise. “He said if I sang, I’d burn in hell like my mom. Growing up, he implied that’s why she died – because she was a singer.”

“That’s insane.”

“Yeah, well, it didn’t seem that way when I was six and had just lost my mother. I didn’t sing again for ten years.” She looked out the window, trying to hide the tear sliding down her cheek. “I wanted to, though. I thought I was evil for wanting to, but it was like something inside me trying desperately to come out.”

“A gift is meant to be used,” Scott said. “It’s part of your soul. Part of who you are. Suppressing it can be damaging.”

“Cassie said something like that to me once. Said it was probably why I was so depressed growing up.”

“Are you still depressed?”

“I feel better.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“No, but I think I’ve shared enough personal stuff.” Madison wiped her cheek and turned back to face him. “How about sticking to non-personal things for a while?”

It was for the best, Scott knew, and what they should have done all along. Hope was a dangerous thing, especially where Madison was concerned. He was too torn between wanting her and knowing he didn’t deserve her.

“So what’s your favorite color?” Scott asked, figuring you couldn’t get much less personal than that.

“Red.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that. You always wear black.”

There was no doubt about it, her cheeks turned her favorite color. His intuition kicked in and he suddenly, desperately, wanted a look beneath her black shirt and blue jeans to see if she wore red underneath.

So much for non-personal questions. Scott switched on the radio and they passed the rest of the trip listening to classic rock. She hummed along to the music, her sweet, sexy alto and her witch’s gift combining to fill his mind with ideas, and his body with need. Thanks to her gift she might have had the same effect on anyone, but from his point of view there wasn’t anything remotely impersonal about it.

Chapter 4

SOMEHOW, SCOTT SURVIVED THE DRIVE TO Springfield. Once he arrived at Clinton’s home, he would be all business – the alpha guiding the new pup into the pack. With Madison’s help, Clinton would have a better chance of surviving the transition than usual, and after that she would slide sideways out of Scott’s life. Return to the periphery of his existence where she’d dwelt for years.

At least, that was the plan. Intuition warned him well in advance that it wouldn’t be so easy, and as usual, his gift proved accurate.

Clinton wasn’t home when they arrived. His housemate grudgingly answered the door after they rang the bell ten or twelve times, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and looking hung over. He smelled like a combination of alcohol and an abused bathroom, a noxious odor powerful enough to overwhelm Scott’s heightened senses and send him reeling backwards a step.

“He has to be here,” Madison said. “I talked to him a few hours ago. He said he’d go home and wait for me.”

“Don’t know what to tell you,” the hung-over housemate said, squinting against the western horizon as if the light caused him pain. “He was still at the bar when I left at two. Was after last call. Don’t know why he stayed. Some guy was talking to him. Creepy.”

“Describe him,” Scott said in a voice that broached no argument. His pack members called it his I will be obeyed voice.

“Tall. Real tall. Like six and a half feet. And about as big around as my thumb.” He held out his thumb in demonstration.

“Can I assume you’re exaggerating?” Scott asked.

“Yeah, I guess a bit. Real skinny, though. Who are you?”

“I’m Clinton’s sister, Madison.” She started to hold out her hand, but apparently thought better of it when the housemate turned to look at her. She drew her hand back, and her nose wrinkled in evident disgust. She didn’t know how lucky she was that she didn’t have Scott’s sense of smell.

“Yeah, he mentioned you. What’s up?”

“He called last night. Seemed to be in some kind of trouble. If you have any idea where he is... Maybe with his girlfriend?”

“Yeah, maybe. She lives a few blocks from here.” He tried to describe the location using hand gestures and unfamiliar landmarks.

“Do you have an address?” Scott growled.

“Um. Maybe. Hold on.” He disappeared inside the house.

“Is there any chance he would have left blood or hair lying around?” Scott asked Madison under his breath while the housemate was away. “It would make this much easier.”

Madison shook her head, her thick chestnut hair swaying gently with the motion. “I warned him about that after Evan warned me. Even told him how to treat his hairbrush.”

“Damn. It’s a wonder the whole town doesn’t know by now.”

“He’s my family, and I had every right to protect him.”

Madison was right; Scott’s annoyance hadn’t been with her, even if he sometimes felt that the veil of secrecy protecting the magical world was dangerously thin. But before Scott could explain, the housemate returned, thrusting a piece of paper at him. “Here.”

Scott grunted, not inclined to offer thanks to a man too hung over to notice his housemate was in trouble. He turned around and was halfway to his truck when he heard Madison offer a soft thank you. She then mumbled something that sounded like an apology for his bad behavior. She didn’t know what bad behavior was.

The second leg of their journey took them only a few blocks, so short that the silence had barely begun to feel uncomfortable before they arrived. Clara lived on the second floor of a run-down building that probably hadn’t been nice when it had been brand new. Scott parked his car on the street and spent a moment studying it before making a move.

“I want you to stay here,” Scott said.

“Why?” Madison asked, though she wasn’t arguing. She had a brave face on, but she smelled of fear once again.

“Clara will smell what I am the moment I approach, and there may be a fight. I don’t want you to get in the middle of it.”

“Okay.”

He had been expecting an argument, but he supposed he had been spending too much time with Jessica, who would argue for the sake of arguing. Madison only argued when it really mattered. He liked that about her.

He left her in the driver’s seat, with the car still running in case she needed to get out of there quickly. Then he approached the door to apartment 2C.

He knew something was wrong before he knocked. Something about the place was too still. The threshold on the door was gone entirely, as if no one lived there. From what Madison had said, Clara had only lived there a few weeks, two months at the most, so her threshold wouldn’t have been strong, but it should have been there.

After a second’s hesitation, Scott kicked in the door. The werewolf lent him strength, perhaps a little too much for the flimsy door. Any reasonably strong man could have kicked it in; he splintered it and half ripped it off its hinges.

Inside the studio apartment was a battered futon, a dresser, an old console TV, and the remnants of last night’s dinner on the kitchen counter.

The dresser was empty. The tiny bathroom had been cleared of personal items such as a toothbrush, hairbrush, or razor. Scott had no doubt that Clara was long gone. He hadn’t doubted that since he sensed the lack of threshold. She had apparently gone in a hurry, too, judging by the state of the kitchen.

Scott sniffed the air, considering his next step. There wasn’t anything for him in the tiny efficiency kitchen, complete with miniature stove and one-foot square counter. Stale french fries and a half-eaten cheeseburger wouldn’t help him. The bathroom, on the other hand, might be a gold mine, assuming Clara didn’t know any better.

Jackpot. There, in the shower drain, Scott scraped a nice clump of hair that had been carelessly left behind by someone who didn’t know how he could use it against her. Blood would have been better but hair would work almost as well, especially since he doubted Clara had any power to shield herself.

Time to move.

* * *

Scott performed the scrying spell in the backseat of his pickup truck, in case Clara was on the move and they needed to follow. He used the version of the spell he had learned from Evan, which Madison knew as well, though she might not have the magic to pull it off – at least not alone. In a world where magic was a power game, covens could band together to do what individuals could not. Scott was a rare sorcerer who had more natural power than many full covens; the bite had only made him stronger.

But magic wasn’t all about power. It also required knowledge, practice, and finesse. Scott knew the scrying spell fairly well, but he didn’t cast it often. He spent a good fifteen minutes in a meditative trance, calling upon his reserves of magic to link the hair with the woman who had so carelessly discarded it. The clump of hair became a pulsing beacon in his mind, though outwardly, it looked the same. The beacon expanded outward in a slowly widening spiral until ...

There! He had her. And once the link was established, maintaining it became child’s play. Now Clara was the beacon pulsing through his mind; he no longer needed the hair.

Clara hadn’t gone as far as he had expected. Just down the street, in fact, to the restaurant where she worked. Scott gave Madison the directions and they pulled into the parking lot just as Clara emerged from the back, clutching an envelope to her chest that Scott would bet contained her final paycheck.

“Stay here,” Scott warned Madison as he hopped out of the truck.

Clara had blonde hair and blue eyes, though judging by the darkness of the barely visible roots, she hadn’t been born that way. The darker hair would have gone better with her olive complexion. She was a tiny little thing, barely a snack, as his pack members would say. He shied away from that sort of dark humor himself because it was too close to the truth. Most of them hadn’t killed a human; he had shielded them from that fate. He had, though, both in and out of wolf form. It wasn’t something he joked about.

With Clara making a beeline for her car, there wasn’t anything for Scott to do except intercept her. He knew the instant she scented him. Her eyes went wide, her muscles tensed, and then she sprinted.

Werewolves had supernatural strength, but not speed, which wasn’t to say Scott was slow. He ran every day to keep himself in shape and stay on top of the game. Apparently, Clara did as well, because he only just caught her as she reached her tiny little POS car, and then only because she needed to stop to open the door.

He slammed against her, using the full weight of his body to press her against the door so she couldn’t open it. She stiffened, but she didn’t cry out.

“Clara, I presume?” Scott asked.

“How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot of things. I know you have no business being in my territory.”

“What do you mean, your territory? I’ve been here for two months and haven’t seen another werewolf.”

She didn’t smell afraid. Was she stupid, or did she have an ace Scott hadn’t anticipated?

“Where’s your home pack?” Scott demanded.

“I’m from Memphis.”

“That would put you in Adam’s territory. Does he know you’re here?”

“Who’s Adam?”

“How long ago were you bitten?” Something was very wrong here, but he was having trouble putting his finger on it.

“I’ve never met another werewolf.”

Was it possible she was telling the truth? His intuition said maybe, but there was much more to the story, and she hadn’t answered his question. “You do know your life is forfeit, right?”

Finally, the faintest hint of fear. “Why?”

“You’re in my territory without my knowledge or permission.”

“I didn’t know.”

“That remains to be seen. Right now, I want to know what you’re lying about.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Try again.” Scott pushed her harder into the side of the car. It had to be uncomfortable, even for a werewolf, though he hadn’t done any permanent damage to her yet.

The added discomfort was apparently enough. She made her move, and though Scott was ready for it, she nearly managed to escape his grasp. She was stronger than any werewolf he had ever known, and if he were a normal wolf, she would have broken free. There was power in that tiny body of hers, and she knew how to use it. She had training. But so did he. And he had one thing she didn’t have – magic.

She pushed him backwards and pulled open the door, nearly managing to squeeze herself inside before he slammed the door shut on her outstretched arm. He pinned her there while he made his move.

He took a deep breath and turned within himself, reaching for his source of magic. Some called it a quiet place, others called it grounding and centering. He had never been too caught up on names. He only knew that when he reached within himself he found the peace and the power. He imagined it nestled between soft pillows, a vision that had been there as long as he could remember. It was a room full of pillows, vast, cushiony, and colorful. Very feminine, he sometimes thought. He had never told a soul about it.

Regardless of the form it took, the magic that existed there was real and potent. He found it, harnessed it, and fixed it to the spell he already had prepared for just such an encounter. His best friend, Evan, had hit upon using the sleep spell as a weapon, one that incapacitated an enemy without causing permanent damage. Scott needed that now. He needed to get Clara home in one piece so he could find out what she knew.

It was a spell he knew so well that he no longer needed props or a focus. He did think of chamomile – the flower and the tea – but only in a fleeting way. The entire process took a mere second, and then he directed the forces into the woman struggling to push him away from the door.

She stopped struggling. Scott opened the door, pulled out Clara’s limp form, tossed it over his shoulder in a careless fireman’s carry, then fished inside the car for her keys. Once he found them, he locked the car door, closing it behind him with a solid kick. Time to take the slippery little bitch home where he had access to a lab full of potions, not to mention the magic of his home node, and find out what was going on.

* * *

When Madison spotted Scott coming back with a woman draped over his shoulder, she thought he had killed her. Her eyes widened, her pulse leaped, and her mouth fell open, but nothing came out. Scott opened the back door, shoved the blonde woman across the seat, and only then did Madison detect the faint rise and fall of the woman’s chest.

“She’s asleep,” Scott said.

“Oh.” Madison tried to relax, but despite her earlier – and temporary – breakthrough, she still found Scott too intimidating. She doubted she’d ever relax around him.

“Did you think I’d killed her?”

“You did say her life was forfeit.” Madison hesitated, not sure if she wanted to know the answer to her next question, but feeling compelled to ask. “Are you going to kill her?”

“Probably. If I don’t, it will be seen as a sign of weakness.” He didn’t look at her while he spoke, he just put the car in gear and drove.

“Who has to know?” Madison asked.

“That depends upon who she is and what she’s up to. She’s too strong. And she’s lying about something.”

“How can you just kill someone in cold blood?” Madison found herself asking. She remembered another time he had killed, but then he had been full of rage, and he had done it to protect her. Technically, if she examined that night too closely, she knew that Scott hadn’t had to kill to save her life, but the world was better off without David McClellan in it, so she chose not to examine it too closely.

This would be something entirely different. If he killed the woman in the backseat it would be a cold and calculated act. Maybe it shouldn’t make a difference, but it did.

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Scott said. “Maybe I should take you home. This really is pack business.”

“What about my brother? We still haven’t found him.”

“I don’t think we’re going to find him here,” Scott said.

“Why not?”

“Intuition.” Scott only offered the one word, but it was enough. Evan had told Madison that Scott had one of the most powerful gifts of intuition he’d ever seen, so powerful that it sometimes seemed like clairvoyance. If Scott didn’t think Clinton was in Springfield, then he probably wasn’t. But where was he?

Madison didn’t ask; she suddenly had a more pressing question. “Will you kill Clinton?”

“If he was turned here, then he isn’t trespassing, not unless he refuses to join the pack.”

“He can’t choose to be a lone wolf?”

Scott shot Madison an exasperated look. “That’s rare outside of books. As far as I know, there are none in North America. And to be honest, I think most packs would kill one if he came through their territory.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Madison flattened herself against her seat, her breath coming a little shallower. Well, she’d asked, hadn’t she? She’d opened Pandora’s Box. What had she expected to find out? That deep down inside, Scott was a softie? She knew better. She’d seen the monster within, and what it could do.

“Your brother will be given the chance to join the pack,” Scott said.

“He doesn’t have much of a choice, does he?”

“He could join another pack. He could try to start his own, but he’s young for that.”

“Young? Evan says you’ve been running your pack since you were turned at sixteen.”

“That’s true.” He didn’t elaborate, though, and Madison sensed he didn’t want to explore the subject further.

“I suppose if he tries to start his own pack, he’ll have to fight for territory?”

“Yes, though if he chooses well, he won’t have to fight hard. There are some dead zones that only belong to a pack by a technicality, but they don’t hunt there. And there are some alphas long past their prime that won’t step down, and whose underlings won’t make them.”

“Would you help him?”

“I don’t know!” Scott’s shout had Madison pulling as far away as she could in the close confines of the cab. “Look, you don’t know a thing about pack dynamics and pack politics. Do you think it’s easy for me to kill?”

“Yes.” Madison surprised herself with her honesty. She wouldn’t have gone so far as to say he enjoyed it – he wasn’t that kind of monster outside the full moon – but he hadn’t hesitated to kill McClellan. Hadn’t even blinked.

Scott glanced at her, his expression guarded. “Easier than it should be, perhaps. But not easy. Never easy.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Scott didn’t answer for a long time. So long, in fact, that she was sure he wouldn’t. Then suddenly he spoke. “Your brother may have pulled through the sickness, but his trials aren’t over. A person bitten by a werewolf isn’t likely to become one. Their odds of surviving the sickness are fifty-fifty at best. Nobody has good stats on it, but I think the odds of dying from the sickness are closer to seventy or eighty percent. Those who live may or may not survive their first transformation into wolf form.”

“Oh God.” Madison hadn’t realized.

“Indeed. You may want to start praying, if you think that will help, because that’s not the end of it.” He took a deep breath. “We lose ourselves to the wolf when we turn each month. Our humanity is gone, and nothing of our rational mind remains. There is an echo of emotion carried from form to form, but that’s it. That’s all we have to keep from turning loose on the general population. Controlling the beast takes a certain mental discipline that not every new wolf can master.”

“And if they can’t, you k-kill them?”

Scott wasn’t listening anymore. He was lost in his own memories. In his own nightmares. “It’s a terrible responsibility. I found a nine-year-old boy who’d been bitten once. Survived the fever, survived the transformation, but by the time I found him, he had killed his entire family. He was so young. Too young to handle it. I knew it, but what kind of monster kills a child?”

“Don’t–” Madison said.

“I spent every day with him, teaching him to meditate, showing him how to find peace, but something inside him was broken. He ran away. He bit people while he was in his human form. He said he wanted to make more wolves, so I explained it didn’t work that way. That he had to be a wolf to turn someone, but that he shouldn’t. That he was more likely to kill people. He didn’t listen. At the next full moon...”

“Scott.” Madison put a hand on his forearm, a touch that felt far more intimate than it should have. She felt close to tears – for the boy, for his victims, and for Scott. She didn’t want to hear the rest, even if she already knew. “Please, don’t do this.”

He took a shuddering breath. “It’s my responsibility. And if I make the wrong choice, the deaths are on my hands.”

Madison fell into a shocked silence for the rest of the trip to Eagle Rock, though her reeling mind wouldn’t shut up. Who was Scott? What kind of world did he live in? What would Clinton be like once he entered it? Would there still be a place in his life for Madison?

She wanted reassurances from the man sitting beside her, but he didn’t seem to have any to offer. He never had. Some part of her had wanted reassurances from him ever since the night he’d saved her life and taken her innocence. The same part of her that had once dreamed of the alpha wolf.

“I’m going to take you home,” Scott said.

Madison wanted to protest, but couldn’t think of a good argument. “Will you at least let me know what happens afterward?”

“I’ll think about it.” From the hard set of his jaw, she knew that was the best she was going to get.

Chapter 5

SHE WAS GETTING UNDER HIS SKIN. He should have expected it, probably had expected it, but he had agreed to let her come along anyway. At least it was over now. When he dropped her off at her house, he had no intention of contacting her again. It was for the best. If she knew what he intended to do with Clara to get her to talk...

He maintained his outward composure when he brought Clara out of her enchanted sleep. He took no chances with her, using a magical binding to keep her in place so that she wouldn’t get a chance to put her unusually high strength to the test. Scott didn’t know if he could take her on fairly or not, but he didn’t plan to find out.

She should have come out of her magically-induced sleep slowly and groggily, but she didn’t, at least not for longer than a few seconds. Her eyes snapped open, she sat bolt upright on the sofa, and she strained against invisible bonds.

“Where am I? Who are you? How are you holding me?”

“I’m asking the questions here.” Scott paced across the living room in front of her, not taking his eyes from his prisoner. “You’re going to start answering questions, and you’re going to start telling me the truth.” Scott stopped and glared at her, letting her feel the full force of his menace. He wasn’t bluffing. That was the key.

“What are you?” she asked. “How are you holding me here?”

“Is your name Clara?” Scott asked, ignoring her question.

“Yes.”

“Last name.”

“Smith.”

Scott snarled his displeasure. Fine. If she wanted to do things the hard way, then so be it. He already had his casting circle drawn where the coffee table had been. Black candles were set outside the circle to form a pentagram shape, with the circle as its center. That wasn’t necessary, none of it was necessary, but it helped him focus. That was the key to magic that most didn’t understand. Everyone had their rules. Many people would spout contradicting rules, and it was all about what worked for them. What helped them focus. There was an old crackpot living just outside of town with no running water or electricity because he swore modern technology interfered with magic. His belief made it reality for him.

Scott stood inside his circle, centered himself, and tapped into the small reserve of energy it would take to light the candles. Her eyes widened when she saw the simple show of magic, but she didn’t otherwise respond to his parlor trick. He would have been disappointed if she had. Let her remain calm for the moment. It wouldn’t last long.

He began with an itch. The itch started in her feet, but she couldn’t bend to scratch them. It didn’t stop there, though. Within minutes, she writhed against the invisible bonds holding her, desperate to ease the sensation that had gone up her legs, around her torso, and down her arms. The top of her scalp had to be on fire.

“Last name?” Scott asked again.

“Jones.”

“You really don’t want to do this.”

“What are you?” Clara asked again.

“Last name?”

“Scratch.”

“Not bothering you, huh?”

“Not in the least.”

“All right, then.” Scott ended the spell. He could see the relief in her posture, but he didn’t give her more than a moment to revel in it before he upped the stakes.

Pins and needles. He let her feel them along her legs, on the back of her neck, and in her breasts. He didn’t ask his question again, though. She knew what he wanted to know. When she remained silent, he upped the stakes again.

Fire. Not real fire, but the sensation of burning. This time, he got a scream out of her.

“Enough,” Scott said. He ended the spell. “Next, the fire becomes real. The damage becomes real. Is that what you want?”

“Jenkins.”

Scott hesitated, studying her face. Her mask was slipping; he could even smell a faint hint of fear. Jenkins wasn’t such an uncommon last name, but his intuition told him that this time, she was telling him the truth.

“There, was that so hard?” Scott asked.

“What are you?”

“Strange. That was my next question for you. You’re too strong. What are you?”

“A werewolf. Can’t you smell me?”

“Who turned you?”

She pressed her lips together. Well, he had warned her. He didn’t have the best control over fire, but practically every sorcerer had some kind of fire spell, and knew how to use it to good effect. Scott had opted for a fire potion prepared in advance so he wouldn’t have to use up his strength for a live version of the spell. He had it loaded into a water gun, an idea he had shamelessly stolen from Cassie, another potion maker he knew.

He aimed at Clara’s tennis shoes and fired. They burst into flames. Clara screamed.

“Who bit you?”

“Put it out!”

“Who bit you?”

“No one did! I was injected with saliva in a laboratory!”

“What?” Of all the things she could have told him, that was the last thing he would have expected. His intuition hadn’t caught wind of that one, but it sensed she told the truth.

“Please!”

Scott left the casting circle, grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher, and put out the flames licking up Clara’s legs. They would be badly burned, but she would heal quickly. She was a werewolf, after all, no matter how she had come about the condition.

“Tell me about this laboratory. Did they force you to take the injection?”

“I volunteered.” She bared her teeth at Scott, a pathetic show of defiance. He had her beat, and they both knew it. “Army special project. Didn’t tell us what we were signing up for, just said they wanted volunteers.”

Someone should have told the silly girl not to volunteer for something until she knew what she was volunteering for. That wasn’t Scott’s problem, though. “When was that?”

“Five years ago.”

“Five years? How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.” She looked a lot younger than that, but her height might be playing a role in that perception.

“So what were you doing working as a waitress?” Scott asked.

She snarled. He aimed the water gun at her chest.

“I’m out on good behavior?” she said.

“Are you asking me or telling me.”

“They let me out.”

“Don’t lie to me.” He tightened his finger around the trigger, but she screamed before he got the shot off.

“I escaped.”

Not quite a lie, but not the truth either. “Then how did they find Clinton?”

Her shoulders slumped. “They knew where I was the whole time. I only thought they let me escape. They wanted to see what I would do if I got out on my own.”

“Did they take Clinton?”

She nodded, once.

“Where were you going this morning?”

“I was running.”

Scott narrowed his eyes. “You don’t think they’ll follow you?”

“I know they will, but they’ll expect me to run. If I don’t run, they’ll know I found the transmitter they implanted under my skin, and if I remove it too soon, they’ll recapture me or find another way to track me.”

Scott heard only one word out of her entire speech, though it was the most information she’d given him. “Transmitter? You mean they know where you are right now?”

“Yes.” Once again, she struggled against her bindings.

“They’re after werewolves? Are my wolves in danger?”

“Yes.”

Well shit. He released the power he had called to bear, though he kept Clara bound on the sofa. This was bigger than he could have guessed, and more dangerous. For one thing, tonight was the full moon, a time when he couldn’t be away from his pack, chasing new wolves who may or may not survive to God-only-knew-where. That wouldn’t make Madison happy, but it was the truth.

Meanwhile, he had to do something about Clara, but killing her didn’t seem like the right answer for now. He didn’t believe all of her story, but his intuition told him there was danger, and she was at the center of it. He could kill her, but then he wouldn’t know how to find that danger, and if she was telling the truth about the transmitter, they would find her body, and him by extension.

He needed to be able to track her, and luckily for him, he had a far more reliable method than a transmitter. He kept his laboratory, with all his equipment, in the basement, and it was there he went now in search of a dagger and a glass vial. He had them both inside of a minute, then returned to his prisoner to collect a blood sample.

There were ways to hide from magical scrying, but if the seeker had blood at his command, those ways were limited to the concerted efforts of more powerful sorcerers. Clara didn’t even seem to know what a sorcerer was, let alone know any she could conveniently hide behind. He believed that much of her story because only a few werewolves he had ever met knew about sorcery or magic.

When he had enough blood, he muttered the phrase he had prepared to break the binding. It was gibberish, but in his mind it meant, “be free.”

Clara didn’t move right away, even after she knew she could. “What are you?”

“A werewolf.”

“What else?”

“If you stop asking questions, then I’m the alpha who will allow you safe passage out of his territory.”

“All right.” She took his threat at face value; the next minute she was gone, out the door and away before Scott could so much as offer her a ride somewhere. Not that he had planned to do anything of the sort.

Scott also had not planned to see Madison again. He had not intentionally sought her out in a long, long time, though he always kept tabs on her. But now he had the thin excuse of shared business, so after Clara had gone, he found himself driving to her house. She lived in a quaint little three-bedroom rental not too far from the one where David had nearly killed her. She had broken her lease on that place early, shortly after both of her friends had moved out. Now she had her own place, one that smelled entirely of her. He nearly turned around when he caught the sweet, familiar fragrance, but the door opened before he even rang the bell.

“What happened?”

Scott just looked at her for a long time, studying the tense expression on her face and the anxiety in her chocolate brown eyes. What could he say? There wasn’t anything left for her to do until he found Clinton, a job he had to undertake on his own.

“There’s nothing left to do today,” Scott said. “I can’t be caught God-only-knows-where when the moon is full. Your brother’s on his own for the next three nights. Do you understand?”

She nodded jerkily.

“Do you? Do you get that you need to stay inside your house, behind your wards, and not let him in if he shows up? Do you understand that if he lives, he’ll turn into a monster once a month? Do you get that he’s a danger to you?”

“Of course I get it! I haven’t slept at the full moon in two years. I get it.”

She met his eyes, and in them he saw the memory of what had happened two years ago. Of how he had saved her, and of what he had done to her afterward. He felt sick, wanting to reassure her, but knowing he only had one reassurance to offer.

“If he’s alive, I’ll find him next week. Promise you won’t go looking for him in the meantime.”

“Only if you promise I can come along.”

He growled at the ultimatum. He considered barking off an order that she stay put, but he had no way to ensure that she would, not at the full moon. He once again sensed the determination in her, evidence of an inner strength he admired, even if it was inconvenient right now. He wanted her to understand the danger, and to stay safe. He needed her to stay safe. Always.

With afternoon waning into evening, he didn’t have time to convince her right now. He would just have to say whatever he needed to say, then talk her out of coming on Tuesday. He had no doubt he could; even when she stood up to him, she smelled of the fear that had kept him away from her for so long.

“Fine,” Scott said, only half lying. “If you insist, you can come with me.”

Chapter 6

MADISON WATCHED THE SUN SET WITH more trepidation than she had ever felt at the full moon. Somewhere out there was her brother, alive or dead. And if he was alive then what might he be doing? Would he kill? Could he stop himself?

A few faint rays of sunlight still peeked above the western horizon when Madison made the call she’d been dreading all day. She never called her father anymore. It hurt her every time she saw him on the streets and he treated her like a virtual stranger, but she was done begging for his affection. At least where anyone could see. In the privacy of her own heart... Well, parents had an amazing power over their children, didn’t they? After all he had done to her, she still craved his love.

Tonight she wasn’t calling for affection. Tonight she was calling because she had made a promise to have Clinton call him, and Clinton couldn’t call.

“Hello?” came the gruff, familiar voice of Phillip Carter.

“Hi, Dad.” She winced. She needed to stop calling Phillip Dad, but she couldn’t exactly think of Victor Blackwood that way, even if she now knew he was her biological father.

“Madison,” he replied stiffly. “Have you found Clinton?”

She paused, some pathetic part of her hoping he’d add that it was nice to hear from her. He didn’t, and she chided herself for still craving any such token from him.

Best to get to the point. She drew in a deep breath. “He was bitten by a werewolf last month.”

Silence. Dead silence on the other end of the line.

“He’s been sick for weeks. That’s normal. Tonight he’ll transform. I-I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“How could you let this happen?” he asked.

“Me?”

“Who else? You’re the one who started our family down the road of witchcraft. You’re the one who put us in danger.”

“It wasn’t my fault.” Madison heard her own pleading voice and winced. She would never convince her father of anything.

“You’ve been practicing magic for years.”

“I don’t practice magic at all.” Not really. She just sang.

“Don’t think I don’t know about you taking lessons from that half brother of yours.”

“That was a long time ago. He was just showing me how not to hurt myself.” At the time he wouldn’t have shown her anything else, although since learning that she was his half sister, he had offered to show her more. Almost all the family secrets, in fact. No thanks. She already knew more than she could handle. And she wasn’t a part of his family. Not really.

“Please. You already knew about your real father by then. Don’t deny it. I know you tried to tell the Scots you had no idea, but they weren’t fooled.”

Her real father? Madison squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t handle anymore of this conversation and as rude as it was, there was only one thing she could think to do. “Good-bye.”

She hung up.

Madison spent the rest of the night awake. She never slept at the full moon, but she usually tried. Tonight, she didn’t bother. She spent hours flipping through channels, watching late night TV until they faded into infomercials. Then she watched those.

She had never felt more alone in her life. Her father despised her. She’d known that for a long time now, but their conversation had torn open that old wound. He’d sold her out the previous year. Apparently he’d approached Victor Blackwood when she was eighteen, telling him he had a daughter and asking for money in exchange for keeping his silence. Madison had no doubt that the powerful sorcerer had no need to put up with such threats, but Victor had wanted her to have the money, even if he didn’t feel he could openly acknowledge her. Phillip hadn’t given any of the money to her. It turned out that he lost it all in a bad investment shortly before he kicked her out of the house. Maybe that was why he’d completely lost it when he learned that she’d studied music at college instead of math, as she’d led him to believe. Either way, he’d asked her to move out.

That was the night David had attacked.

Victor Blackwood learned that Phillip had never given her the money about a month later because Madison had been cleaning houses to make ends meet. Victor had given her more money, directly and anonymously this time. Then Victor had proceeded to curse Phillip’s future financial dealings. Madison didn’t learn any of that until six months later, when a desperate Phillip told her then-fiancé, Nicolas Scot, that her biological father was his family’s enemy.

Nicolas had betrayed her that same day, proving to Madison just how good a judge of character she was. Nicolas had enticed her in the first place by being there for her in the midst of pain and confusion – first from Phillip kicking her out of the house and then David McClellan trying to steal her soul. She’d feared magic, and Nicolas had offered her shelter. He’d shared some of his own doubts with her and she’d listened. He was the eldest son, the one who shared his father’s gift, expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. They even looked alike. But he wasn’t his father, he swore.

Madison wasn’t so sure, not after Nicolas had so fully embraced his father’s hatred of the Blackwood family. Yes, his father had recently been murdered and he was grieving, but even that was not enough to forgive the way he had turned on her upon discovering her link to Victor Blackwood.

She would never forget that night. The feud between the Scots and the Blackwoods had exploded and she’d already gotten caught in the middle of it. The terrible irony was that Evan himself – her half brother, even if they hadn’t known it at the time – had kidnapped her in a desperate move to rescue his cousin, Amanda, whom the Scots had taken hostage. And as if the relationships weren’t tangled enough, Amanda was Scott’s sister, putting him squarely in the middle of the incident as well.

Evan hadn’t hurt her. Now that she knew him better, she couldn’t imagine that he would have, but he had frightened her and pushed her away that night, forcing her to choose sides in a feud that had taken on a life of its own. Forcing her to side with her fiancé and the rest of the Scots. Irony, apparently, was not yet finished with her.

This time it was Nicolas who held her hostage. He became effectively deaf from the instant he learned of her blood tie to the Blackwoods, refusing to hear any of her protestations. He called her names she tried to forget, accused her of betraying him, then shoved her in a magically warded room until “I figure out what to do with you.”

Madison had miscarried a baby that night. She’d sobbed so hard that it felt as if she’d cried the baby out. And there had been a moment – only a moment but one that still haunted her – when she’d wished the baby away.

The loss of her unborn baby might not be Nicolas’s fault; she’d been so early in her pregnancy that she hadn’t even told him about it. He still didn’t know. Almost no one did. But she knew, and when she wasn’t blaming herself, she blamed him.

Cassie had never understood Madison’s relationship with Nicolas. To be fair, Madison had never done a great job of trying to explain. She’d loved him, in a way. For a while they’d each been what the other needed. She’d needed a refuge, and he’d needed someone to understand him and listen to him. But looking back, Nicolas had been more a friend than a lover and Madison’s greatest regret was not his loss, but the loss of the child she’d never known.

Now she had no one. She didn’t trust easily and of the people she did trust, Clinton was a newly bitten werewolf, Kaitlin had probably become a vampire by now, and Cassie was married to Madison’s half brother Evan, who wanted more from her than she wanted from him.

Or face it, she still hadn’t completely forgiven Evan for kidnapping her during the feud. Scott had been a part of that too, but since his sister had been a hostage she didn’t blame him as much. Besides, he hadn’t been her friend. He hadn’t been hers in any sense of the word.

Evan, on the other hand, had befriended her even before he knew they shared DNA. He’d taught her a bit of magic. Not the big secrets, but enough to keep her from hurting herself. He’d offered her a job when she’d had trouble making ends meet.

The only difference between Evan and everyone else who had betrayed her was that he’d apologized. Madison even thought he was sincere, but she didn’t know what to do with the apology. Evan would do anything for his family, which meant she was safe with him as long as he was sure she qualified.

What would happen if she told Evan what she really thought of his father? Of the entire Blackwood clan, which hadn’t exactly welcomed her with open arms? What would happen when she confessed that she had no idea how Victor had even been sure of her parentage? It’s not like they looked anything alike. She looked like her mom. And as far as she knew, no one had done a DNA test. She didn’t even want to be Victor’s daughter.

* * *

The doorbell rang mid-morning, snapping Madison out of a sort of semi-conscious stupor that bore little resemblance to actual sleep. She had hoped she might manage a nap once the sun came up, but no luck. Maybe she’d collapse into an exhausted slumber sometime the next afternoon, just in time to ride out the last night of the full moon. In the meantime...

Madison peered through the peephole, one of many lessons she’d learned from both Evan and Cassie. Never open the door for a stranger. It was the same lesson she’d learned as a child, but with a broader understanding of consequences.

Speak of the devil. Evan stood on her doorstep, holding a baby in his arms.

Madison opened the door. “Hi, Evan. What are you doing here?”

“Ana’s teething. Had her mommy up all night. Cassie just fell asleep so I thought I’d take the baby out of the house for a couple of hours.”

“Of course.” Madison pulled the door open wider and gestured the pair inside. Anastasia squealed and did a sort of nose-dive towards Madison’s arms as Evan strode by. Madison caught the girl mid-jump.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Madison said to the baby. She positioned the infant so she could blow a couple of raspberries on her tummy. Anastasia squealed in delight.

“She loves you,” Evan said.

Madison hugged the baby close, loving the feel of the tiny, wriggling body and the faint scent of breastmilk and baby shampoo. She wanted one of her own in a big way. Someone to love unconditionally. Someone to love her that same way. Unlike some other parents she knew, she would never betray that trust.

“Have you had breakfast yet?” Madison asked. She’d been sipping coffee all morning but hadn’t had any actual food.

“She has,” Evan said. “I bought donuts but I left them in the car because I couldn’t carry it all.”

“Donuts?”

“I’ll bring them in.”

Madison spread a baby blanket on the living room carpet and lay Anastasia down on her stomach. Within seconds she was on the move, not quite on hands and knees but close, taking off to explore parts of the house unknown. Anastasia hadn’t been doing that the last time Madison had seen her.

“Oh no you don’t. My house isn’t baby-proofed.” Madison set Anastasia back on the blanket and dug through her diaper bag for something to distract her. Before she found anything, the baby was off again, headed for an end table where Madison had a hot cup of coffee.

Easier to move the coffee, Madison decided. She picked up the mug and took it to the sink. By then Evan had returned with the donuts. He glanced at the coffee cup, at the half-empty pot on the counter, then up at her face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing. Do I look like something’s wrong?”

“You look like you haven’t slept.”

“Oh that.” Madison shrugged. “It’s the full moon. I’m always nervous at the full moon. You know that.”

“I know a werewolf can’t get inside this house. I made sure of that.”

He’d insisted, actually. Madison hadn’t wanted any of his protections but he hadn’t taken no for an answer. So her house was warded against everything Evan could think of – and he thought of a lot.

“What’s going on?” Evan asked.

“It’s just...” Madison sighed. There really wasn’t a good reason not to tell him. And it was exactly the sort of thing he wanted from her. Trust.

But as if her general uneasiness around him wasn’t enough, Evan seemed to want to make up for over two decades of lost time. Cassie had confided in Madison that Evan had always wanted a brother or sister, so maybe that was part of it, but he tried too hard. Was too intense. They couldn’t go back twenty years, they could only move forward. Maybe if he would accept that, things could be better between them. Maybe.

“Madison?” Evan urged.

“My brother was bitten by a werewolf last month.”

Evan’s eyes widened fractionally. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. That’s part of the problem.”

“I’ll give Scott a call.” Evan reached into his pocket for his phone.

“Scott knows. I went to him yesterday.”

“You went to Scott? Without me?”

“Well, I didn’t figure there was much you could do. I thought you’d call him.” Madison gestured at the phone. “I just cut out the middle man.”

“I’m not a middle man, I’m your brother.”

“Sorry.” She’d hurt his feelings. She should have known she would, but it hadn’t been her primary concern after Clinton had called. “Clinton called at two in the morning. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Last night?”

“No, night before. I wouldn’t have gone to Scott during a full moon.”

“No, of course not.” He ran his fingers through his shoulder-length hair, a nervous gesture of his. “That was brave of you. I know he scares you.”

“A bit.”

“Just a bit?”

“Okay, a lot.” Madison selected a donut from the box while she worked to compose her thoughts. “He and I drove to Springfield together yesterday to look for Clinton.”

“Did you?” There was something like steel in his tone.

“I had to do it. Scott and I had a long talk on the way. We’d never done that before. It was... enlightening.”

“Madison, look at me.”

She did, studying the face that looked absolutely nothing like hers. They each took after their mothers. The only feature they shared in common was dark, chestnut hair, but it wasn’t such an unusual color.

“Stay away from Scott. You did the right thing going to him, but now let him do his job.”

Madison hesitated. He still didn’t know all of it. And he didn’t know she planned to go with Scott when he went looking for Clinton. Judging by the look in Evan’s eyes, she’d be better off keeping the rest of it to herself.

Madison looked past Evan to the living room, where Anastasia was attempting to pull the drapes down on top of her head. They’d probably stay put, but it was as good a cover as any. “Anastasia, no!”

* * *

Scott wasn’t at all surprised to find Evan Blackwood waiting patiently on his living room couch when he limped inside his house Tuesday morning. He barely grunted a greeting to his friend before sidling past him to his bedroom where he grabbed a fresh change of clothes and headed for the shower. He didn’t feel human again until he took his shower, and Evan knew it, which was why he didn’t say a word until Scott finished.

“Better?” Evan asked when Scott sat next to him on the couch.

“As good as can be expected.” He never felt completely human, no matter how much he washed.

“A wolf killed a couple of campers Sunday night. Did you hear?”

Scott gritted his teeth and nodded, once. Since he had two rogue wolves running around, he had expected it, but Saturday afternoon he had been too busy trying to protect his pack from some unknown danger to properly contain Clara – assuming she had been the wolf to do it. It could have been Clinton, but his instincts told him otherwise. He didn’t even think Clinton was still in the area, but he had absolutely no proof of that.

“What’s going on, Scott?” Evan asked.

“Pack business. Nothing you need to worry about.”

“I do worry when it involves Madison.”

“I take it you know about her other brother, then?” Scott asked.

“Yes. And the fact that you spent Saturday together.”

“I didn’t touch her.” Much. Intentionally.

“If I thought you had, I wouldn’t have waited for you to take your shower.”

Scott grunted again.

“Madison said she went straight to you for help,” Evan said. “She’s not as afraid of you as she should be.”

Scott laughed, even though nothing was funny.

“What?” Evan demanded.

“You still don’t know her very well if that’s what you think.”

“And you do?” Evan scowled. Scott knew he’d hit a sore spot, but he was the last person to advise his friend on how to deal with his sister.

“All I know is there are some things more important to Madison than fear. And apparently, Clinton is one of them.”

“I see,” Evan said, but Scott wasn’t sure he did.

“I’ve never seen anyone more brave in my life. Jessica was here when she stopped by and Madison didn’t even let that bitch scare her off.”

Evan’s eyebrows went up. “Jessica scares me.”

“Exactly.”

“All right, look.” Evan stood and ran his hands through his hair. “There’s no reason for you two to spend time together anymore, is there?”

“If so, are you offering to chaperon?”

“I’m serious.”

So was Scott, but he didn’t say so. “I’m going to be on my own from here on out.”

“All right. I’m trusting you, Scott. Don’t make me regret it.”

Chapter 7

SCOTT HAD NEVER TRUSTED HIS INTUITION where Madison was concerned, but he had never felt so conflicted either. Part of him wanted to bring her with him – the part of himself that still wanted her as his own, that still dreamed it was possible. But doing so could not be more selfish, nor was it likely to work. Bringing her with him could do nothing but subject her to terrible danger.

Yet he had made a promise to take her along, which was why he now had to do whatever it took to convince her not to come. He thought he could dissuade her, but to do so he’d have to reinforce her worst fears of him.

She opened the door before he’d even rung the doorbell, clad in black jeans and a billowy dark green shirt that didn’t do much to enhance her luscious hourglass figure, though the color suited her smooth olive complexion. She had a black purse slung over one shoulder, and a look of determination shining in her eyes. She smelled more of determination than fear at the moment, a fact that nearly made him lose his resolve. He admired her courage, even as he shored up his own determination.

“We need to talk,” Scott said.

“I didn’t think we could afford to wait. We’ve already lost three days.” She wasn’t stupid. She knew he had come to talk her out of it, and she was trying to forestall the conversation.

“We can afford a few minutes,” Scott said. “I can, at least. You need to stay here.”

“I knew you were going to say that.” Her face fell, and she bit her bottom lip before saying, “I’m going.”

“Let’s talk,” Scott said again.

Madison stood aside, ushering him into her living room. He had never been inside this house, but it felt instantly familiar. Her scent lingered in the air, and he viewed the interior through what he knew of her, both from Evan and from the small-town rumor mill. She had sprung for expensive black leather sofas before she’d learned where her inheritance had come from. (After that, according to Evan, she kept trying to clean out her bank account by giving the money to charity.) But the house didn’t have much of a lived-in quality to it. There was no clutter, but not in the way of a fastidious cleaner. It was more like she never touched it. Down a short hallway he could make out several doors; one stood ajar and through it he could just make out a piano surrounded by scattered sheets of music. Her music room was clearly where she lived.

Scott took a seat on the sofa while Madison settled onto one half of the love seat. She sat up straight, did her best to look him in the eye (though she missed by a barely noticeable fraction), and waited for him to speak.

“This is going to be dangerous,” Scott said.

“I don’t care.”

“I do. I have no idea how long it will take or where we’ll end up going. We could be gone for days. Weeks.”

She started at that, but quickly regained her hard-won composure. “The school year ended Friday so I’m good.”

“We may have to sleep in the truck, stay at seedy motels, and there will definitely be other werewolves involved.”

This time, she averted her gaze. “You’re not going to talk me out of this.”

He’d known it wouldn’t be easy, but nevertheless, she could not come with him. It was time to cast civility aside and become the alpha. Technically, she wasn’t under his direct authority, but she could be intimidated as easily as any of his wolves – more easily than most.

“Werewolves can smell your fear,” Scott began. “Did you know that?”

She shook her head and once again tortured her poor bottom lip with her teeth. “I’ve read that, but most of what I’ve read about werewolves isn’t true.”

“This is true. I can smell your fear right now.”

She trembled slightly.

He stood. Height was a tool he could use to his advantage, one that Madison instantly responded to if a slight dilation of her pupils was any indication. Then he stalked forward, getting closer, staying just outside her personal space. And he growled.

“You’re staying here.” The words came out even harsher than he’d intended, almost a bark, but they were effective. Madison clutched the arms of the love seat and Scott stalked closer, until he was looming over her. “Do you understand me?”

She opened and shut her mouth a couple of times, but no words emerged. He could smell her fear more strongly now, a sharp combination of adrenaline and perspiration. Her heart was beating faster.

“You’re a mouse, Madison,” Scott said. “The wolves we meet will eat you alive.”

She didn’t speak but she shook her head, denying the truth that was staring her in the face. He wanted to kiss her and shake her – in that order. But he couldn’t kiss her.

“Damn it, Madison!” Scott grabbed her upper arm in a hard, punishing grip. “What do I have to do to convince you?”

“Nothing,” she said, but she didn’t sound like she believed it.

He had one more idea, one more trick he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to use. He had a spell prepared, an illusion. His family had specialized in illusion magic for generations, and he was particularly good at it.

Scott backed away, releasing her arm. It would probably start bruising soon, but he couldn’t let himself worry about that right now. It was the least of his sins.

He dropped to all fours. Madison narrowed her eyes at him, frowning, but before she had a chance to speak he slid smoothly into his quiet place for the instant it would take him to invoke a familiar spell and muttered the trigger word under his breath. The word that would make him seem to transform into the wolf in the light of day.

He saw the transformation happen, though it didn’t feel remotely similar to the anguish and loss of self that came with his real shifts. Tufts of hair began appearing along his body, his fingers and feet became paws. His teeth lengthened, and though he couldn’t see them, he knew his eyes had gone that feral yellow.

He lifted his head to look at Madison. His plan had been to snarl, maybe even snap at her a couple of times, but he stopped short when he saw Madison’s ghost-white face. He had never seen nor smelled terror like this before.

“Madison?” Scott said. Talking in this form should have belied the illusion, but she didn’t move. She didn’t even flinch. She stared straight ahead, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a silent scream.

She wasn’t there anymore.

Scott shed the illusion in an instant, but it made no difference. Madison didn’t stop staring at the place he had been. He slid next to her on the love seat, putting his arms around her, drawing her stiff form close, but she might have been a doll for all the reaction she gave.

What had he done?

“Please, Madison, come back to me.” He started rocking with her back and forth, resting his chin on her head, letting the scent of her vanilla shampoo reassure him that she was real. After a minute or two, she began whimpering. “Sh, it’s okay. I’m here. I won’t hurt you. I’d never hurt you.”

* * *

It took Madison a few minutes to recognize what she was hearing. It was Scott, but he sounded different. He always sounded so composed and in command, sometimes even gruff, but now he sounded afraid. Terrified. For her?

She heard his voice as a rumble in his chest, which she realized she was leaning her head against. It felt solid and warm, and she didn’t pull away.

“I had no idea how bad it was,” Scott continued. “Please don’t be afraid. You’re killing me. I’ll do anything to keep you from feeling so afraid. Talk to me. Please, sweetheart, just talk to me.”

“What happened?” Madison asked softly.

His arms around her tightened almost painfully. “I think you had a flashback. I’m such an idiot. There are potions that can help with that. I never even thought to use one. I don’t know how to make one, but I know some people who do.”

“What are you talking about?” Madison asked. His hold was becoming too much, but it was also helping her return to reality. She pushed at his chest until he finally backed away somewhat, but he still hovered over her, dangerously close. How could she both fear him and want him at the same time?

“Have you ever experienced anything like that before?” Scott asked.

Madison stared at him. Did he really want her to tell him about her nightmares? About the fact that she couldn’t sleep at the full moon? She’d even had one or two flashbacks. Yellow eyes set them off; she could usually avoid yellow eyes, but she had to be careful about which movies she watched.

“I see,” Scott said, sounding as though he did. “Have you told anyone?”

“My brother.”

Scott scowled, causing Madison’s pulse to quicken again. “You told Evan and he didn’t help you?”

“No, not Evan. Clinton.”

“Oh.” Scott ran his hand over his face, a move that seemed to wipe his scowl away. “That’s different. You should have told someone.”

Madison shook her head. She had enough problems without the world at large realizing what a coward she was. Scott hadn’t been the first person to call her a mouse, although it had hurt more coming from him than she’d expected.

“I’m sorry,” Scott said again. “I wanted to show you why you couldn’t come. That’s why I scared you. You do see why you can’t come.”

Madison shook her head. “No.”

Scott stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious, Scott. I’m going.” She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths. She understood why he didn’t want her to go, but it didn’t change anything. “You can’t change my mind. You can growl at me until I suffer another flashback, but I’m going.”

“Madison,” Scott said, drawing her gaze to his with the tone of his voice. He was still so close; it made her feel uneasy, but not as afraid as it should have. “I won’t let you come with me unless you can give me a damn good reason why I should.”

She licked her damaged lip, feeling the sting. What could she tell him? She didn’t exactly know herself why it was so important for her to go along. He hadn’t said anything but the truth. She had always been a little shy, a little nervous, even before he’d given her specific nightmares to dwell upon.

She’d lived in Eagle Rock her entire life, surrounded by rumors about magic and sorcerers, some of whom were more circumspect than others. She hadn’t seen much to prove or disprove the rumors until her junior year of high school, when the most notorious of the young sorcerers – rumored to have done everything from murder to casting love spells – asked her to the prom.

It turned out, he did cast love spells of a sort, but since he later turned out to be her half brother, she tried not to dwell on the occasion. It was less embarrassing for both of them.

Even that experience had only shown her the barest hint of what was possible, and had served more to whet her imagination than anything else. It wasn’t until she came home from college that she saw the full magnitude of possibility firsthand.

She had wanted out, but the magic sucked her in, until finally she did the stupidest thing she had ever done in her life and agreed to marry Nicolas, because she sought a place where she belonged. A place of safety.

So why did she want to go with Scott into the middle of a werewolf problem, where she neither belonged nor felt the least bit safe? She had only one answer, but didn’t know if it constituted a good reason or not.

“Our mom died when I was six,” she began, letting her mind drift back to that long-ago time. “We really lost her a year before that, though. She was there, but she was so sick... in and out of the hospital, losing all her hair from the chemotherapy, hardly ate, threw up all the time... I don’t blame her, though I think when I was a kid I might have resented her a little. I didn’t know any better. All I knew was that she wasn’t there for me anymore, and neither was Dad. It was just me and Clinton.

“I won’t say I was like his surrogate mother, because there’s only two years of difference between us and it wasn’t quite that way. But I watched out for him the best way a six-year-old can. And actually, I think he looked out for me, too.

“The day she died, we were at the hospital. I remember earlier that day they took me into her room and tried to get me to hold her hand. She was like a skeleton, and she scared me so much I twisted and screamed until I got away. I never saw her alive again, and I know I hurt her.”

“You were a kid,” Scott said.

Madison hadn’t realized she’d stopped speaking until Scott interjected his comment. “Yeah, I know, but still, looking back, I wish I’d had more empathy or something. It’s too late now. I barely remember that day, to be honest, except for two things: The look on my mom’s face when I turned away from her for the last time, and the fact that no one ever told me she’d died.”

“When did they tell you?” Scott asked.

“They didn’t. They never told me at all. Or Clinton. We sat in the waiting room playing with each other while the grown-ups talked about heaven and purgatory and God. They actually tried to guess where Mom would go, as if they had some authority on the matter. But they never told me she was dead, or tried to tell me what that meant. I had to figure it out at her funeral a few days later, when I saw her in her coffin. I thought she was sleeping and didn’t understand why she wouldn’t wake up.”

“What does this have to do with going after Clinton?” Scott’s hand ventured near hers again, but she held herself away.

“Everything! Don’t you see? He could be dead and no one’s told me. He’s all I have left. Mom died a long time ago, and Dad checked out for good last year, though I think he wasn’t there for me or Clinton for a long time before that. Clinton and I raised each other. I didn’t have any friends at school. He did better socially, but he was always, always there for me. No matter what. Even though standing behind me sometimes meant he got laughed at and teased.”

Madison looked at Scott beseechingly, but she could see he wasn’t getting it.

“I get that you care about your brother,” he said, “but there’s nothing you can do for him. If I find him. No, when I find him, I’ll do everything I can for him, but he’ll be my responsibility.”

“It’s also your responsibility to kill him if he can’t control himself.” She shook her head when Scott tried to speak. “Don’t try to deny it. I read the papers this morning, and I saw it in your eyes. You think you should have killed Clara, and maybe you should have. I’m glad it’s not my decision. But that’s your responsibility. Mine is to love him no matter what, and if he’s going to be able to control himself as a... as a...”

“Monster?” Scott supplied.

“Werewolf,” she corrected, “then he’ll need me. He has to be calm. He has to find his center. Isn’t that how it works?”

“More or less.”

“Then he needs me. And if something happens to him, then I need to be able to say good-bye.”

Scott sat back on his heels, looking into her eyes, and she could see him thinking about it. Really thinking about it. She held her breath, and she prayed.

“You’re not afraid right now,” Scott said.

“What?”

“Just an observation. If you’re going to come with me, you need to keep hold of that determination.”

“I can come with you?”

“Against my better judgment.” He brushed his hand against hers for a fleeting second, the contact so brief it had probably been an accident. “Now, go and pack before I change my mind.”

* * *

While Madison packed, Scott put in a phone call to Matthew Blair, a local mind mage and the head of the White Guard. The White Guard was an organization in its infancy, a response to the Magical Underground’s attempt to unify the world of sorcery under Alexander DuPris. Scott tended not to get involved in politics that went beyond his own pack, but he agreed with both Matthew and Evan that Alexander had done some evil things in his bid for power. Matthew wasn’t exactly squeaky clean himself; he had once used some heavy mind magic against Cassie to try to convince her to marry him, but Evan was trying to put that in the past so they could focus on the greater good. So far it wasn’t working – Evan had not put anything in the past and the White Guard had done almost nothing to keep Alexander from gaining power. Scott couldn’t help thinking the two facts were related.

Matthew didn’t do favors for free, but he was always happy to help since he could use every new person indebted to him to further his plans for world domination. Matthew had a prepared potion that would help ease Madison’s panic, though he cautioned Scott that it would have been far more effective if she had taken it right after the inciting incident.

Madison finished packing in less than ten minutes, so fast that she was done before Matthew managed to arrive with his potion. Scott was just about to explain that they needed to wait a few more minutes when the doorbell rang.

Madison looked from the door to Scott, then back again. Finally, she went to answer it, taking a step back when she saw Matthew Blair standing on the threshold.

“I invited him,” Scott said before she could ask. “If you’re coming with me, you can’t black out at inconvenient times.”

Madison’s cheeks went pink, which was a decided improvement over her earlier pallor. “You can do something to make me less afraid of werewolves?”

Matthew hesitated. “Not easily. Right now all I have is a potion, but since it’s been so long since the inciting incident, it will mostly just keep you from having those flashbacks. I doubt it will do as much for the nightmares, or for general anxiety. It’s too set. I can recommend an empathic healer, but that process takes time and no one can tell you how much until you’re evaluated – maybe not even then.”

She was having nightmares, too? Scott wanted to think Matthew was wrong, but he knew better. Matthew could read minds, and as a result Scott and Matthew had fought a silent battle of wills for years. Matthew didn’t tell people he could read minds, but Scott had intuited it. His intuition had also told him that Matthew had wiped the memory from his mind several times, but each time Scott was able to figure it out again. Matthew hadn’t tried a mind wipe in at least three years, but the two of them still had a sort of wary dance going.

“How did you know about the nightmares?” Madison asked.

“Lucky guess,” Matthew lied. He handed her a small, stoppered vial of clear liquid. “Drink this.”

“How much is it?” Madison asked.

“Scott’s buying. Aren’t you, Scott?”

Scott grunted.

“Would you like to talk to my cousin?” Matthew asked Madison. “It really would be more effective, and she takes checks.”

“We’re leaving as soon as she drinks that,” Scott said. He didn’t say why. Matthew could read the reason from his mind if he wanted to. He could also read Scott’s mixed thoughts and feelings in regards to bringing Madison along.

“Drink it,” Matthew said, taking Madison’s hand and putting the vial into it. “It will help.”

“All right.” Madison uncorked the vial, tipped her head back, and drank quickly. She made a sour face afterward, but she got it all down; clearly, she’d learned the trick to drinking potions.

“Thanks, Matthew,” Scott said. “You can add this to my tab.”

“Believe me, I will.” Matthew smiled, but the expression faded quickly. “Scott, if you don’t mind a little free advice–”

Scott snorted. Nothing from a mind mage was ever free.

“Trust your intuition,” Matthew said.

“I always do,” Scott said.

“If you say so.” Matthew glanced meaningfully at Madison before turning around and heading back to his car.

Scott scowled at the man’s retreating back. He did trust his intuition, it was just that his intuition had no useful advice where Madison was concerned. At one point it had told him to keep his distance and he had, but he’d nearly lost her to another man. Now it was telling him two different things: that she was in danger, and that he should bring her with him anyway. He feared that last was tied in to his hopes rather than reality.

“Come on.” Scott grabbed Madison’s small duffel bag and followed the mind mage out the door. “Let’s get moving.”

He loaded her bag into his pickup truck, repowered the scrying spell he had already cast that morning, and they were on their way. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

“So,” Madison said after the silence between them had gone on for an uncomfortable length of time. “You never really said what Clara told you.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“All right, then.” Madison looked out the window.

Scott cursed, softly. He was being a jerk to her. He just wasn’t used to sharing so much with anyone. As the pack alpha, he normally stood alone. Briefly, and without mentioning the methods he had used to extract the information, he told her what he had learned.

“You have a blood trace on her? Where is she now?”

“Heading for St. Louis, I think. It would be a good place to ditch that transmitter she mentioned, assuming it’s there.”

“You don’t believe her?”

“I believe there’s a lot more to this than what she’s telling, and probably a lot more than she knows. My instincts tell me she’s telling the truth to a point, but only to a point.”

“Why didn’t you just ask her where the lab was?”

Scott grimaced. The truth was that after he’d learned of the danger to his wolves, he had single-mindedly pushed the threat out the door without considering what else he might have learned from her. Stupid. Reckless. But he couldn’t change the past, all he could do was move forward.

“It may come to that,” he said, “but I’d like to follow her first and see what she does. Like I said, I don’t trust this situation. Something doesn’t feel right, and until I know more, I don’t want to rush into anything.”

“You know, I was thinking.” Madison took a deep breath, a sure sign he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “If she was telling the truth about all of it, then maybe she’s never really had a chance. You know, she didn’t get bitten in the wild, didn’t belong to a pack, didn’t have anyone to teach her anything.”

“She killed two people Sunday night.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. But I mean, I’ve been reading the news carefully at the full moon for a long time now.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “No one’s died from a werewolf attack in all that time, unless you’ve covered it up.”

“I haven’t. There hasn’t been a werewolf fatality in my territory since that boy I told you about, ten years ago.” Aside from Clinton, no one had been bitten in that time, either. He had strict rules about biting humans, even humans who claimed to want to be bitten. He wouldn’t do it, and he wouldn’t let a member of his pack do it. They all grumbled and complained that the pack would grow old and unable to compete, but they’d gotten enough new, young additions petitioning to join from neighboring territories that it hadn’t been the case, and Scott didn’t believe it would be.

“Well, see, you’ve managed to do something to help your pack stay sane at the full moon. How many other packs haven’t had a fatality in ten years?”

Scott didn’t answer. It wasn’t as if they had national meetings and kept stats on these things, but he did know the alphas whose territories bordered his, and none of them could report a decade’s clean slate. Jeff was close, with only one fatality, and that caused by a new recruit who went bad and had to be put down. It was why Scott didn’t do new recruits. One fatality was one too many.

“None of them, right?” Madison guessed. “Maybe you can help her. Maybe that’s all she needs.”

“She attacked your brother, why do you want to defend her?”

Madison bit her lower lip, which hadn’t quite healed from her earlier harsh treatment of it. A small dot of blood had formed there, and it was more than he could stand. Keeping one hand on the steering wheel and one eye on the open expanse of interstate before him, Scott touched her jaw with a single finger, stroking downward to urge her to release her poor, tortured lip. Her skin felt like silk, and the single touch shot through him like an electric shock.

He shouldn’t have done it. He tensed for her reaction, for the fear he was sure he would smell, but it didn’t come. She didn’t pull away, and though she trembled slightly, she didn’t smell like fear. She smelled like something far more dangerous.

That sizzle had not been all one direction. He was suddenly sure of it. Scott pulled his finger away as if it had been burned. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything.

“It’s a bad habit,” Madison said in a softer than usual voice. “I’ve tried to stop it, but another bad habit just comes along and takes its place.” She held out her hands to show him the chewed fingernails.

He’d already noticed the nails; he knew most of her bad habits, he just didn’t care. She was more than a collection of nervous ticks, more than she knew. Didn’t the fact that she was here at all prove it? She was all softness and loyalty, the kind of woman a man wanted to protect.

Even from himself.

“So why do you want to save Clara?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t want you to have to kill her.” Her answer surprised him, and he wasn’t often surprised. It was sweet, but as much as he’d hated her fear of him, that was closer to the truth. He couldn’t let her romanticize him either.

“I can handle it. I’ve done it before.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I think it hurts you every time.”

He growled, not caring when he saw her slight flinch. She didn’t understand. Damn it, this was what came of spending too much time with her. She was getting some idiotic notion in her head that he was a good person, just misunderstood. The whole damn world had been romanticizing monsters lately. He’d seen the books with noble vampires and tame werewolves. He hadn’t read them; they disgusted him, but some of his pack members had. They laughed about it, but they didn’t see the danger. Scott suddenly found himself wondering if Madison had read any of those books.

The term werewolf was a misnomer. It gave the impression that what he turned into at the full moon was something like a wolf, which was probably why the world was so full of romanticized versions of noble creatures that shifted between man and animal. The monstrous form of the true werewolf, which thankfully only came out at the full moon, wasn’t like anything else on earth. Scott supposed it could be mistaken for a wolf from a distance, especially by sheepherders who feared wolf attacks above all other things. Maybe that’s where the term had originated.

“Let’s get one thing straight: I’m a killer. You of all people should know that.”

“I do. But-oh, never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“This is important,” Scott said. “I need you to get it. Not just know it up here.” He pointed to his head. “But to really feel it in here.” He thumped his chest. “I’m a killer.”

“Then how is Clara any different?”

Scott opened his mouth, then shut it again. She wasn’t, damn it. He knew she wasn’t. Didn’t he have the blood of an innocent on his own hands? It never went away. The only difference between him and Clara was that there hadn’t been anyone strong enough to put him down.

Chapter 8

CLARA DIDN’T STOP IN ST. LOUIS; she headed east into Illinois. Scott knew Jeff, the alpha whose territory covered northeastern Missouri, reaching as far south as the Gateway City, well enough that he hadn’t been concerned about intruding. A quick phone call to Jeff smoothed things over. The other alpha politely asked if he could help, Scott turned him down, end of story.

He was less confident when Clara entered Isaac’s territory. For one thing, Isaac was new to his position, having just wrested control from his father. Isaac had killed his father during the power struggle, which didn’t endear him to Scott. Isaac was twenty-five, had volunteered for the bite at age eighteen, and he was the only one of his four brothers and sisters to have survived to wolfhood. Reports from other nearby alphas made him out to be a bit of a loose cannon, and there were concerns that he was about to get himself noticed. No one had mentioned intervention yet, but it could happen when an alpha got out of control. Any given alpha was largely responsible for his own pack, but he also had to consider the implications if the existence of their species became common knowledge. For example, someone might set up a secret government lab in which they ran experiments on werewolves.

Maybe it had been bound to happen. It was hard to keep such a big secret indefinitely, especially in the modern era of global communications and fewer forests. There were somewhere between thirty and forty packs across the continental US, most of them far from the big cities. The Great Plains were pretty empty of werewolf activity as well. In fact, Scott’s nearest neighbor to the west was in Colorado, and neither alpha tried to claim Kansas.

Scott didn’t want to have to deal with Isaac, but he had no choice. With luck Clara would simply pass through his territory without stopping, but even if she did, he had to notify the other alpha of his presence in his territory. It was only polite.

He waited until the last possible minute, when he was sure Clara had taken the bridge across the Mississippi into Illinois. By that time, he was scarcely ten miles behind her, which wasn’t a lot of notice to give another pack leader.

He made the call.

“Yo. Isaac here.”

“Hello, this is Scott Lee. We met a few years ago during the North American Alpha Convention.”

“Yeah, sure. You’re in southwestern Missouri.”

Scott managed not to growl, but barely. He was in southeastern Missouri as well, a fact Isaac would have been well aware of since his territory bordered Scott’s. The fact that Scott’s pack almost exclusively used a patch of woods in southwestern Missouri didn’t eliminate his claim on the rest of the territory. Most wolves settled in a small area, using the rest of their territory as a sort of buffer. To do otherwise would make their existence far too noticeable.

“I’m in St. Louis right now, passing through Jeff’s territory. I’m tracking a loner who just crossed the bridge.”

There was a distinctive growl on the other end of the line. Not a good sign. He was posturing. Somehow, Scott didn’t think he would get a polite pass and an offer of help this time around.

“I would like to continue tracking her,” Scott said, “with your permission, of course.”

Isaac didn’t answer right away. Another bad sign. “How are you tracking him? Do you have a visual?”

Scott wasn’t about to share any of his secrets. “I have her bugged.”

“Really? Smooth. Then you don’t have to come into my territory. You can just tell me where she goes and let me take care of it.”

“I don’t want her taken care of, I want to know what she’s up to. And there’s no guarantee she’ll stop in your territory.”

“Unfortunately, your authority stops at your border. You should have nabbed her before she left.”

Scott did growl this time. “There are special circumstances you don’t understand and I don’t have time to tell you about.”

“That’s too bad, because if you set a toe inside my territory without my permission, I’ll have to kill you.”

Scott didn’t doubt his ability to take on the pup, but he didn’t want to extend his territory so far, or take charge of another pack. It was a mark of his agitation that he seriously considered challenging the pup anyway, perhaps training one of his underlings to take over the pack afterward.

“Look,” Isaac said, “just tell me what the big deal is. I can help you.”

“I doubt it.” Scott tensed when he felt a warm hand settle on his forearm. He turned to see Madison staring at him with concern shining in her big brown eyes, offering him her support.

“All right, look,” Scott said. “How about this? If she stops inside your territory, you and I can sit down and have a nice heart to heart. If she just passes through, then you let me pass through and the next alpha can deal with it.”

Isaac paused for only a moment to consider. “Fine. I expect a call either way.”

“Sure.” Scott hung up without saying good-bye.

“What was that about?” Madison asked.

“Hot-headed pup leading the Illinois wolves wants to play games with me. With luck, Clara won’t stop in his territory.”

* * *

Luck, it seemed, was not with them. Clara stopped in mid-afternoon at a seedy motel in Springfield.

“Damn,” Scott said.

Madison felt the same way, but she didn’t vocalize her feelings. She had not gotten a good feeling about his phone call with the local alpha. Plus, there was one other thing bothering her.

“Why Springfield?” Madison asked. “She was staying in Springfield, Missouri, and she goes to Springfield, Illinois. Is that weird?”

“Maybe. Could be a coincidence. Or she likes the name.”

Madison didn’t think so, and from the tone of Scott’s voice, neither did he.

“All right, here’s what we’ll do,” Scott said as he pulled into the parking lot of the same seedy motel Clara had checked into. “I’m going to get us a room, then I’m going to set up a meeting with Isaac.”

“Don’t you mean two rooms?” Madison asked.

“No.” Scott didn’t explain himself, and the finality in his tone kept Madison from asking after his reasons.

The idea of sharing a hotel room with Scott made her feel strange. Not exactly afraid, although certainly anxious and very, very... strange. Ever since her flashback that morning, he had begun looking at her with even more intensity than before. So much intensity that if she didn’t know better, she’d think he had some kind of interest in her. She’d thought so once before and been wrong, but this time it was more pronounced. It wasn’t just in the way he looked at her either, but in the way he’d held her and even in the way he’d scared her. There had been desperation in his bid to leave her behind where she would be safe.

She sat in the truck while the subject of her musings ducked into the tiny motel office, coming back a few minutes later with two actual metal keys, as opposed to the key cards most places used these days. Their room was on the opposite side of the motel from Clara’s, and, Madison was mostly relieved to see, it contained two double beds.

Scott put in the necessary call to the local alpha while Madison refreshed herself in the dingy bathroom. When she emerged, Scott had his dangerous face back on, but the tiny tremor of fear she felt evaporated when she reminded herself that the expression wasn’t for her.

“I’m meeting Isaac in a little over an hour in Bloomington.”

“How far is that from here?” Madison asked, trying not to sound worried at the possible distance between them.

“Too far,” Scott replied. “Over an hour. I want you to stay here, keep the door locked, and only answer it for me.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Scott arched an eyebrow. “Can you?”

Madison hesitated, but she supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything to show Scott that she hadn’t come completely unprepared. Walking to the table where she had set her duffel, she unzipped a side compartment, and pulled out a .22 caliber handgun.

Scott growled. “Put that away.”

“I know how to use it. I’ve been practicing.”

“How well, Madison? Because if you’re aiming at a wolf, you’d better get him through the heart or through the eye. He might heal from anything else.”

She felt suddenly cold. Could she be that accurate? During target practice, she usually hit the bullseye seven or eight times out of ten, but that was under ideal conditions.

“Target practice isn’t the same as the real world,” Scott said, as if reading her mind. “Besides, a .22 doesn’t pack a lot of punch. Even if you aim it right, it might not work out.”

“How else can I protect myself?”

“You should be safe if you stay here and don’t answer the door. Isaac doesn’t know where we are.”

“Are you sure?”

He hesitated. “I’m sure I can’t take you with me.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“Have you ever tried using your voice as a weapon?” Scott asked.

Madison blanched, remembering her father’s warnings about her singing ability with sudden renewed clarity. Singing is the devil’s gift. You want to go the same way as your mother?

That was before she’d even realized that her voice could influence a listener’s emotions. Since then, she had been careful only to use it to make people feel good. And sometimes to make her class pay attention.

“I don’t think it’s something I’d want to try for the first time in a life or death situation,” Madison finally said, noncommittally.

“In that case, we’ll practice when I get back. You can use your gift on me.”

“Oh.” That hadn’t been exactly what she’d meant.

“The only thing standing between you and real power is confidence,” Scott said.

“Hm.” What else could she say? She had never thought of herself as a powerful person, and hearing it now, the label didn’t want to stick.

“Look at me,” Scott said. She looked up and there for a moment she saw something reflected in his green eyes, a reflection of herself that really was stronger than she thought she was.

“Do you need anything before I go?” Scott asked. “Some snacks from the vending machine, maybe?”

“A bottle of water would be nice. I don’t think I’d trust anything that came out of that sink.”

Scott glanced at the sink, then nodded. He disappeared around the corner, returning a few minutes later with a bottle of water, a bag of chips, and a package of chocolate donuts. Madison tried not to groan, because he was just being nice, but he had brought her downfall – junk food – at a time when she would be feeling more anxious than usual.

“I’ll be back before dark,” Scott said, then left her alone with nothing to occupy her save a battered old TV and the package of donuts.

Madison waited until he had closed the door, then slid the chain in for a little extra protection. No use taking any chances. She wasn’t stupid, even if she did have to wonder about her sanity for traveling across the country with Scott. Forcing him to take her, more like.

Madison sank down onto the bed furthest from the door and idly started flipping channels on the TV. This was the trouble with summer. No matter how she tried to fill her time, she still seemed to have too much leftover to dwell upon her life.

Strangely, though she had dealt with death, betrayal, fear, and loss, it was the loneliness that bothered her more than anything else. She had told Scott that she was doing better, and that was true. She had a job she liked, and she had given herself permission to sing, but she still had regrets. Losing her fiancé had been more of a relief than anything else, after the shock wore off, because she had agreed to marry him for all the wrong reasons. The loss of her unborn child, on the other hand, still stung.

She wanted a baby so badly it hurt, but first she needed a husband, and she didn’t see how she would manage to attract one of those as long as she hid behind shyness and extra weight.

They’re real problems, she told herself again. She needed to diet. She needed to exercise. She needed to reveal more of herself to other people so they would be able to see the real her.

She needed that package of donuts.

Five minutes later, the donuts were gone, but her problems remained. And then, another problem came along, this one far more immediate: Someone outside was rattling the doorknob.

She froze, straining her senses, but it couldn’t be Scott. It was too soon and besides, she didn’t hear the scraping of a key in the lock. No, someone else was out there, but who? If she looked out the curtained front window she could find out, but whoever it was would see her as well.

The next second, the decision was taken out of her hands. She let out a tiny squeal when someone – or something – slammed against the door and it splintered. Two more thuds and the door flew open, ripping the useless chain free as it slammed hard against the opposite wall.

Two men stood framed in the entryway, both young, probably around twenty. They were of average height, lean and fit, as if they worked out. They wore jeans and t-shirts, one black, one green, and she knew – just knew – they were both werewolves.

Her pulse raced, and she began to sweat. It wasn’t the full moon, but these two were dangerous. They had just proved it by making mincemeat of the door.

She scrambled for the phone, but one of them saw her intention and intercepted her, twisting her wrist painfully until the phone fell from her fingers.

“Well, well. What have we here?” asked the man who was not holding her wrist. Green Shirt, she called him in her mind, since he otherwise looked enough like his friend that they could have been twins. Or at least brothers. He smiled the wolf’s smile. She could practically see his canines. “Scott didn’t say anything about bringing along a snack.”

Madison tried to twist her arm away, but the second man, the one wearing the black shirt, didn’t let go.

“Think I should call Isaac?” Green Shirt asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Black Shirt replied, his eyes roaming freely over Madison’s body. “Maybe we could play with her first.”

Play with her? Madison redoubled her efforts to free herself, even knowing how useless the gesture would be. Think, Madison, think. Don’t let the fear take over.

“I dunno,” Green Shirt said. “What if she belongs to the alpha? He might get pretty pissed off.”

“Isaac can take him,” Black Shirt replied. He grabbed Madison’s other wrist, then adjusted his grip so that he held both of her wrists in one large hand. Yanking them over her head, he used his free hand to fondle her breasts through her shirt.

Madison reeled, kicking out with both feet, one thought clear in her mind: This can’t happen. It didn’t matter that the man holding her wasn’t really a man at all, but a werewolf. It didn’t matter that he could probably overwhelm her physically even without his supernatural strength. This can’t happen.

The resolve outweighed her fear. The fear didn’t die or even diminish, but it didn’t rule her.

When Black Shirt tried to touch her again, she leaned forward, found a bit of skin just above his elbow, and sank her teeth in – hard. She didn’t hold back and didn’t let go, not even when she tasted blood.

“Bitch!” Black Shirt yelped. He had to let go of her hands to free himself, and she used the opportunity to twist away, heading for the open motel room door.

Green Shirt intercepted her, imprisoning her within the iron bands of his arms. His partner stood, snarling at Madison, then approached, his eyes full of all the terrible things he wanted to do to her.

To her surprise, Green Shirt pulled her away from his partner in crime. “No way, man. Isaac may be able to take that other alpha, but you can’t take either one of them, and you may have to if you mess her up without Isaac’s say so.”

“She bit me!”

“I bet you taste awful, too,” Green Shirt replied.

“Fuck you.”

“You gonna call Isaac or am I?” Green Shirt asked, ignoring the insult.

“I’ll do it. If I get my hands on the little mouse, I may have to kill her.”

“Only if she doesn’t kill you first.”

“Oh, you’re on. You. Me. Next full moon.”

“Bring it.”

The two young men stared at one another for a long minute, but though Green Shirt kept his attention on his packmate, he didn’t loosen his hold on Madison in the slightest. She struggled, feebly, but under the circumstances she thought that if these two weren’t going to kill or rape her now, then she might have a better opportunity for escape later. The more harmless they thought she was until then, the better.

It would have been a brilliant plan, she thought, if she really wasn’t quite so harmless. Even the mark she’d put on Black Shirt’s arm had begun its rapid healing, and now looked more like an angry bruise than anything else.

When the two men stopped staring at each other, Black Shirt got on his cell and called the aforementioned Isaac. She could only hear one side of the conversation, but it didn’t sound good for her. In the end, when he hung up the phone, he looked at his partner and said the two words that sealed her fate: “Bring her.”

Chapter 9

THE ILLINOIS WEREWOLVES REMINDED SCOTT MORE of a gang than a pack, though perhaps the two concepts weren’t entirely dissimilar. They roamed wild. Human fatalities were a common occurrence, and new wolves regularly joined the pack, both willing and unwilling. As far as Scott could tell, the only thing keeping their numbers down was in-fighting.

Isaac lived in the far outskirts of Chicago, but he and Scott met at one of his pack member’s homes in Bloomington, taking him further from both Madison and his quarry than he liked. The modest two-story home was a bit ramshackle, as was its owner, a beefy forty-something wolf with his mate, also a wolf, and their three children, none of whom were old enough to turn.

Werewolves are bitten, not born. Many packs give their children the option to turn after their eighteenth birthday, but in Isaac’s pack, the word “option” seemed to need air quotes. Of the six werewolves he met at Isaac’s home, four of them had been “born wolves,” as they called it. The children of wolves were more likely to survive the bite, one of them claimed, so they had about a fifty-fifty chance of making it.

“How many wolves do you have?” Scott asked Isaac very casually when they finally had a chance to sit down alone in a small sun room off the back of the house.

“Trying to find out our weaknesses?” Isaac asked. “How many do you have?”

“Enough.” Scott had twenty wolves at the moment, spread throughout his territory. They all came together at the full moon to hunt on the forested lands he owned, miles from any town or living human. They had over six hundred acres to roam, a luxury not every pack could afford, though Scott considered it an absolute necessity.

“Then I would say the same,” Isaac said. “I have enough.”

“There have been a lot of werewolf killings since you took over,” Scott observed. “People may notice soon.”

“Why? We’re good at making things disappear. Just one more missing person, as far as the humans are concerned.”

“They’re not completely stupid,” Scott said. “Do you even have a place to hunt, away from humans?”

“My father had a place. It’s mine now, but I don’t like the confinement.”

“Hm.” The kid needed to be taken down. Unfortunately, since he led his pack, that usually meant another alpha had to do it, or more likely a group of alphas. Scott had heard a few grumblings from Jeff, but nothing concrete. For his part, he had kept to his own territory, worrying about his own wolves exclusively. He loved his pack like family, but didn’t like getting involved in bigger werewolf issues.

Like it or not, though, this kid was a problem. He’d get them all noticed, and that might get them all killed.

“So tell me about this loner,” Isaac said. “If you know where she is, why not just kill her?”

“She’s not a normal loner.”

“Is there any such thing?”

“No,” Scott growled. Werewolves were social by nature, and in both of their forms. When one wanted to be alone, it was almost never a good thing, and there was no normal. They usually constituted a danger to those around them, and the packs feared them, which was why they were normally put down.

“She says she wasn’t bitten,” Scott said. “Says she was injected with werewolf saliva in a lab.”

Isaac’s eyes widened. “You believe her?”

“I don’t know what to believe, but something’s not right about her. It’s why I’m following her to see what she does. Dead wolves tell no tales.” Scott carefully didn’t mention his interest in finding Clinton. That had nothing to do with Isaac. He grudgingly conceded that if there were a laboratory somewhere doing research on wolves, then every alpha had a right to know.

“Where’s the lab?” Isaac asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

“So take her and ask her.”

“Might be harder than you think. She’s super strong. Too strong. I think they messed with her in some other ways.”

“So send in more guys.” Isaac shrugged. “Why are you making this so complicated? Come to think of it, how’d you learn all this stuff in the first place? Did you have her and let her go?”

Scott growled, deep and low. He didn’t like being questioned by this pup, especially since Scott knew he had acted more out of fear and expediency than anything else. He hadn’t wanted to put his wolves at risk by keeping her when someone would be able to track her. And it had been the full moon. He couldn’t kill her, because he still had to figure out what was going on. He could take her and ask her where the lab was, but if she hadn’t gotten rid of the transmitter yet, that put him and whatever wolves were in the area in danger.

It was more than that, though. His intuition was warning him against the direct approach, and while he didn’t consciously understand it – he rarely did – he didn’t question it. Clara was a hot potato, and he didn’t want to be caught holding her when the music stopped.

Looking at Isaac, though, his intuition was telling him something else: That he wasn’t going to get out of this territory without a fight.

“Where is the loner, anyway?” Isaac asked, far too casually.

“I’m still tracking her.”

“Right. The bug. You mentioned that. So you can tell us where she is.”

“Why would I do that?” Scott asked.

“Because when you’re in my territory, you defer to my leadership.”

This time when Scott growled, he reached for his quiet place, and let a bit of the magic fill him. He had it under tight control, but he wanted to have it on hand when the time came.

“Down, boy,” Isaac said. “You’re outnumbered and away from your home turf. I don’t want to have to hurt you, but I will.”

Yes, he was away from his home turf. He could feel it in the magic he drew. There wasn’t even a small node nearby from which he could draw extra power, so all the magic he could access came from within himself. Not that it would matter against Isaac and his crew; Scott’s own personal magic was considerable. In Eagle Rock it may only have been above average, but no one had magic here, and many didn’t know it existed. Not even the werewolves, who were creatures of magic themselves.

“This is my business,” Scott said. “If you’d like to help, I will consider the offer.”

“Are you seriously going to take on seven of us?” Isaac asked.

Scott hesitated for only a moment. Seven was a powerfully magical number. It might give them an edge, but since they didn’t know that, he could still have the advantage. Personally, he had always questioned whether or not the power of certain multiples was all in the mind, and if he rejected the idea, if it might not work at all. Today may be the day he had to put it to the test.

“I’ll take you all on and win if I have to,” Scott replied. He’d made a mistake coming here in the first place. He should have shown himself to Clara at the motel, scaring her into leaving town and hopefully, this territory. He saw it clearly now, in hindsight. If only his intuition worked a little more like prescience. It could be a powerful gift, but not that powerful.

Scott stood, preparing to leave, but he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. He could smell the two wolves standing right outside the door, and he knew the instant Isaac told them to restrain him.

He already had the power gathered around him. A few words, a little focus, and both wolves lay on the ground, fast asleep. Scott stepped over their inert forms dismissively, checking how much energy it had taken him to perform the task. Some. If he had been near his home node, one of the largest pools of natural magical energy in the world, he could put dozens of them to sleep with energy to spare, but here he already felt the depletion of his personal reserves. He could probably put all seven wolves to sleep if he had to, but it might be best if he could bluster his way out without having to do that.

“What the hell?” Isaac shouted from behind him. “Clyde! Joe! Get up!”

“They’ll be out for a few hours,” Scott said casually.

“What did you do to them?” Isaac asked.

“Pressure point,” Scott lied. Since he hadn’t touched either man, it was a bit of a stretch, but he often found that reality mattered little when one maintained a straight face and confident tone.

“You’re dead,” Isaac said. “You are no longer welcome in my territory, and your life is forfeit.”

“So I assumed.” Scott walked through a casual living room, heading for the front door. The other four wolves stood nearby, but none made a move.

Isaac would not be ignored. He charged into the living room after Scott. “Stop, damn you!”

“So you can kill me? I don’t think so.”

“I just want to know where the bitch is.”

“I’m sure you do.” Scott reached the front door and clasped the doorknob.

“You’ll tell me,” Isaac said, “if you want your little mouse back.”

Scott’s hand froze on the doorknob. He stared at his hand, clutching the tarnished brass, but he could barely see it through the rage that filled his vision. He didn’t growl. He didn’t make a sound, which to those who knew him would have sent off a clear alarm.

Isaac didn’t know him, though, so he kept right on digging his grave. “I had my wolves at your room looking for a transmitter or something, but instead they found this sweet little snack hiding out. Well, maybe not so little. Sounds like a real mouthful.”

Scott’s hand slipped from the doorknob and he turned, eyes locked on the pup who still didn’t realize that he was dead. The only question remaining, in Scott’s mind: Fast or slow? The answer would depend largely upon whether or not Madison had been hurt.

“I see I have your attention.” Isaac motioned for the other wolves to close ranks around him. “She’s someone you care about, isn’t she?”

Scott didn’t answer. What good did it do to talk to a dead man? Why resort to threats, when death was imminent? He could ask where Madison was, but Isaac wouldn’t tell him. Maybe if he had hours to torture the man he could get her location from him, but he didn’t trust Isaac’s wolves any more than he trusted the alpha himself. He wouldn’t leave Madison with them for hours.

“Is she your mate?” Isaac sneered as he asked the question. “Big bad wolf takes a little mouse as a mate? What’s wrong? Can’t handle a real bitch?”

“If you don’t want to die with your leader,” Scott said in a firm, even voice, “step back.”

Isaac laughed. So did two of the men and the one woman standing at his side. One man didn’t look as certain. He took a step away, narrowing his eyes, sizing up their adversary. He would be the one to watch.

Scott had never let go of the well of power within himself, and he still had the words of the sleep spell on his tongue. Casting it on the three laughing wolves by Isaac’s side would seriously weaken his magical reserves, but he thought he could take Isaac man to man.

No, it was more than that. He wanted to take Isaac man to man. Wolf to wolf. He wanted to feel Isaac’s bones crunch beneath his hands. He wanted to squeeze the life out of him and watch him struggle for breath.

Isaac didn’t know what a mate was, and even if he lived, he never would. He’d throw around the word, confusing mating with being a mate, but he’d never get it. There wasn’t enough true humanity within him to get it. Maybe he’d lost that humanity to the wolf, but more likely, he’d never had it in the first place. A werewolf in human form wasn’t possessed, after all; he simply had power and all the corruption that came with it.

Scott released the sleep spell in three different directions at once, using his peripheral vision to target the laughing horde still flanking Isaac. He didn’t take his eyes off the other alpha the entire time, though he did remain aware of the one man who had taken a step to the side, the one he hadn’t hit with the spell both because he wanted to save resources, and because he had given his word.

Three laughing werewolves went crashing to the floor. Isaac jumped.

“What the hell?”

“Pressure points,” Scott said.

“No way. No way! You weren’t anywhere near them.”

Oh well. It was too much to hope that Isaac might be that gullible. Scott took a menacing step forward, doing a quick self-diagnostic. He felt good. Strong. He hadn’t thrown around enough magical energy that it would weaken him physically, although he had gotten close. This would have to be a purely physical fight, just like he’d hoped.

Isaac lunged for Scott. He neatly sidestepped, letting the force of the other wolf’s movements take him across the room before he managed to stop and turn around.

“You’re dead,” Isaac said. He tried to sound threatening. He was trying to elicit fear. It didn’t work. Behind the posturing, Scott could practically smell the other wolf’s uncertainty. The sideways glance at his fallen wolves made Scott upgrade uncertainty to fear.

Isaac rushed at Scott again. This time, Scott used his momentum against him, knocking him to the floor.

Fast or slow? He wouldn’t learn Madison’s condition until after he made his decision, so he would have to make his determination another way.

When Scott risked a glance at the other wolf still standing, he had his answer. He needed to take care of this quickly. If he took too long, that wolf might see it as a sign of weakness or worse, if the prolonged fight took enough out of Scott, he might attack.

Isaac tried to stand, but Scott pinned him to the floor with a well-placed knee on his upper back. The other alpha was strong, but not smart. He had no idea how to fight, and was probably one of those who thought brute force would always be enough.

It wasn’t, and in the next second, Scott demonstrated the fatality of his error. It wasn’t as easy to snap a man’s neck as movies often made it look, but this position made it easier than usual. Grabbing hold of Isaac under the chin with one hand and the top of the head with the other, he twisted, hard.

Death came instantly. Werewolves could heal from a lot, making them seem invulnerable, but it was just their accelerated healing allowing them to recover from wounds that would eventually kill a normal man. A wound that would instantly kill a normal man would instantly kill the wolf.

“Do I need to fight you, too?” Scott asked the last man standing.

“I’m not as stupid as Isaac. I know power when I see it.”

“Does that mean no?”

“It means not now.”

“Fair enough.” Scott rose and faced the other wolf, a solid, thirty-something man, from the looks of him. “What’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Well, Jack, where do you suppose your packmates are taking my mate?” She wasn’t his mate, he reminded the part of himself that leaped with joy at the mere thought of making such a claim. He was just using the word he knew would command the fastest response.

Jack hesitated anyway. “One of the boys who took her, he’s mine.”

Scott growled.

Jack stepped back, hands in the air. “I’ll tell you where I think she is. Hell, I’ll show you, but not if you’re going to hurt my boy. I’ll die first.”

Looking into Jack’s eyes, Scott believed him. He even respected him for it. “I won’t kill your boy unless I have no other choice.”

Chapter 10

AT LEAST THEY DIDN’T LOCK HER in the trunk of the car. Black shirt, or Bret, as she heard him called, wanted to, but Green Shirt, Mick, vetoed him. Instead, they shoved her in the backseat of an ancient Ford Taurus, not even bothering to restrain her. Talk about not perceiving her as a threat.

Madison had been kidnapped once before, but comparing the two incidents felt like comparing a banged knee with a broken leg. Thinking back now on the third worst day of her life – which was quickly getting downgraded – she couldn’t remember feeling anything like the fear that gripped her now.

Or maybe... maybe there was more than one kind of fear. Scott had kidnapped her on that day by the simple expediency of a command. At the time, she’d still been deeply indebted to him and had been forced to go with him. She’d hated him for it, for putting her in that situation, but she’d also understood his need to save his sister. Evan had hurt her more, frightened her more, because unlike Scott she had never seen him so angry. Also, because she’d had no idea what he might do.

But she’d never feared for her life. She had not conceived of either Scott or Evan killing her. What had she feared, then? Had it been fear of the unknown that had ruled her on that day? Or had generalized fear simply masked stronger emotions – anger and betrayal?

She didn’t know, but she knew that right now, she firmly believed these two werewolves could kill. She also believed that they would do other things to her, things she tried and failed to block from her mind.

Rape. One of the foulest words in the English language, but one she might end up learning the meaning of firsthand. She’d already learned more than she’d ever wanted to know by watching the attitude behind Mick and Bret’s crass suggestions and lewd gestures. It wasn’t about sex at all; it was about power.

Mick drove, and Bret kept casting evil looks at her over his shoulder, sometimes snapping his teeth to evoke a reaction. He got them, too. She tried not to react, but each time she saw that flash of white and heard the snap of jaws she found herself flinching. She didn’t have another flashback; either the potion had worked or they weren’t hitting her trigger. For her, it had almost always been the yellow eyes. But she still felt close to fainting, a response she couldn’t afford right now.

Will I ever escape that night? The thought drifted from nowhere, unbidden and previously unexamined. She had never really considered that the night was holding her hostage, but then again, she had never faced any part of it. She avoided Scott whenever possible, and had never spoken of the incident to anyone, at least not in any detail.

She’d been dealing with the trauma by ignoring it and now it was ruling her life.

How could I have known I would end up neck deep in werewolf issues, though? If Clinton had never been bitten, if he hadn’t called her at two a.m. in a panic, then maybe she never would have had to deal with it.

Wake up, Madison! You have to deal with it now. In her heart she knew she would have had to deal with it sooner or later either way. Something like that couldn’t fester endlessly in one’s soul.

In the front seat, Bret’s phone rang and he answered with a crisp, “Yo?” He listened for a few seconds, his face averted so that she couldn’t tell what was going on from his reaction. Then, “You’re shitting me.” Pause. “No... no... all right, all right. Later.”

They were nearly to the outskirts of Chicago by then, after about two hours of ridiculously fast driving that hadn’t helped Madison’s sense of mortality in the least.

“What happened?” Mick asked.

“Isaac’s dead.”

Madison’s heart fluttered. Their alpha was dead. Surely, Scott wouldn’t have killed him?

“How?”

Bret looked over his shoulder by way of an answer.

“Crap.” Mick’s knuckles grasped the steering wheel tighter, turning white. “Who called?”

“Clyde. Says he just woke up. The guy put the whole house to sleep and killed Isaac.”

“My dad?” Mick asked.

“Missing.”

“Crap. Who’s in charge?”

“Clyde’s the only one awake.”

“What’s he say to do?”

“Stay away from Isaac’s house. That’s probably where the psycho alpha will go.”

“Yeah, okay.” Mick took the next exit off the interstate and made a left, preparing to turn back the other way.

Madison cleared her throat, bolstering her courage. “Maybe you should drop me off somewhere. Otherwise, he’ll come after you.”

“She’s right,” Mick said.

“We can’t let her go. He killed Isaac. Now we’re just supposed to bow down to him?”

“You talking revenge?”

“Damn straight. You may not care, but Isaac was my cousin. He’s family.”

“I care.” Mick hesitated. “I just don’t know what we can do against a guy who took down half a dozen wolves. He’ll kill us.”

“Not if you let me go,” Madison interjected. Actually, she didn’t know if that was true or not. But it was what she had.

“Shut up,” Bret said. Then, shifting his attention back to his packmate, “We have to kill her.”

“We?”

Bret shot Mick a look of undisguised disgust. “I’ll do it. You just stay out of the way.”

“This isn’t like that other time.” Mick looked away, seeming to wither under his friend’s stare. “I can’t cover for you. He’ll kill both of us if you do it.”

“You afraid?”

“No.”

“Then prove it. He was your alpha. You just gonna let someone come in and get away with killing him?”

Madison held her breath. Her fate seemed to be, more or less, in Mick’s hands. He’d been the more reasonable of the two up until now, but would he go along with this?

“Do it quickly,” Mick said. “No messing around. Just do it, dump the body, then we’re gone.”

She let out her breath. Dump the body. That was her they were talking about as if she were a piece of garbage. Or as if she were already dead. And she may as well be, if she didn’t start putting her brain into gear to figure a way out of this.

Mick didn’t turn back onto the highway. He kept going down the road, passing gas stations and fast food restaurants, until he found a garage that had been closed for the evening. He pulled into the parking lot and then drove around back, circling twice to make sure everyone had gone home.

Think, Madison. Think. Scott couldn’t save her now. Two years’ worth of target practice couldn’t save her now. The only thing she had left was her devil’s gift.

The only thing standing between you and real power is confidence.

The car pulled to a stop behind the garage and Bret got out, presumably to find a way inside. Mick put the car in park and waited.

What could she do? Her magic was suggestive more than manipulative. She couldn’t insert a command into their heads; it wouldn’t work. At least, she didn’t think so. She hadn’t often used the magical aspect of her gift except by accident, although she had calmed classes full of unruly school children who weren’t inclined to quiet down. That was something, wasn’t it?

The only thing standing between you and real power is confidence.

She hadn’t exactly tested the depth and breadth of her power. When would she have done it, and who would she have tested it on? Cassie used to say that no magic was truly black and white, only the uses to which it was put, but mind magic was already tinted a deep, dark gray.

Bret came back. “I got into the garage. We can put her in a trunk, and maybe no one will find her till morning.”

Madison took a deep breath. They were already afraid. Maybe she could work with that, ramp it up, make them think danger was right around the corner. In musical theory, she had learned how to form certain melodies that told a story, like the underscore of a movie. She thought back to what she had learned, drew in a deep breath, and hummed.

Her first few notes went off pitch, earning her nothing more than a perplexed look from the two wolves plotting her demise. She took a deep breath and concentrated, searching deep within herself for that creepy noise that always meant, “Don’t go up those stairs!” and “Don’t open that door!”

She did better this time. Bret looked over his shoulder, and Mick froze in the act of exiting the car. But she lost the tune again, partly because she couldn’t remember the precise pitch, but mostly because she hadn’t practiced.

The only thing standing between you and real power is confidence!

She could do this. She just needed to hear the music in her mind. She started to hum again, then paused, regrouped, and reached for a simpler tune, the classic shark attack tones from Jaws.

Du-duh. Du-duh. Du-duh Du-duh Du-Duh.

This time, both men jumped, and actively scanned the area for threats.

“This isn’t safe,” Mick said. “Something’s here.”

Du-duh. Du-duh. Du-duh Du-duh Du-Duh.

This time she did more than sing the tune, she emoted it. It wasn’t at all difficult for her to feel fear at them. She was made of fear at the moment. Fine-tuning it was a bit more difficult.

Something is after you. There’s danger, and it’s coming from the mouse in the backseat.

They took several steps away from the car.

Du-duh. Du-duh. Du-duh Du-duh Du-Duh.

Madison unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car. Her breath hitched for a second as she closed the door behind her, and Bret almost shook it off. She could see him fighting the compulsion. She didn’t have much time.

Du-duh. Du-duh. Du-duh Du-duh Du-Duh.

They would snap out of it the moment she stopped singing, or at least, Bret would. She didn’t know if her compulsions would last longer or grow stronger with time and practice, but right now the devil’s song would only work while she was singing it. She had to get away, leaving them stranded.

Du-duh. Du-duh. Du-duh Du-duh Du-Duh.

She opened the front door and slid behind the wheel. Mick had left the keys in the ignition, apparently having decided they wouldn’t take so long to kill her that he needed to cut the engine. So she pulled the door shut and hit the gas.

They started chasing her the instant she peeled away, breaking the tune, but luckily for her, werewolves had supernatural strength, not speed. How long would it take one of them, probably Mick, to realize that the mechanic’s shop behind them had cars, and likely keys to those cars somewhere within? Not long enough. She had seconds to decide which way to go with no money, no ID, no phone, and... she checked the gauge... less than a quarter tank of gas.

She couldn’t make it back to the motel. She didn’t know where she was anyway, and two homicidal werewolves would be on her tail any minute. Best to take the unexpected choice, then. She made a left onto the highway, heading into an unfamiliar city.

Chapter 11

THE GAS LIGHT SWITCHED ON ALMOST as soon as Madison got on the highway, so she took a chance and got off at the next exit. She didn’t have money for gas, but she could borrow a phone from someone, get in touch with Scott, and pray the wolves went the other way.

She parked in front of a gas station with a tiny convenience store and only one clerk manning the desk. He was young, still fighting the bane of puberty – acne. She’d waged that war herself, not winning until her junior year of college.

Still high on adrenaline from her near-escape, she approached the lone clerk, tried her best to look like the damsel in distress she was, and asked to use his phone.

“There’s a pay phone a few miles up the road,” he said, not looking the least bit interested in her plight. Well, what had she expected? She wasn’t exactly the dainty female who drew the compassionate strength of knights on valiant steeds. She wasn’t even short.

“Please,” Madison said, “this is an emergency. There are these two guys chasing me, and I don’t have any money.”

He turned his back to her. The nerve! Madison stood there like an idiot for perhaps half a minute, mouth flapping uselessly, before she decided that if she could sing herself free of two werewolves, then perhaps she could sing this jerk into helping her.

Careful, Madison. That’s the devil talking. Was it? She didn’t know, and she didn’t have time to debate morals with herself. She opened her mouth, called to mind the incomplete lyrics to an old Beatles song, and demanded, “Help! I need somebody.”

He turned, and just as quickly as that, handed her his cell phone. As soon as she took it, he looked like he wanted to snatch it back, but she walked briskly towards the back of the store, stopping by the refrigerated section.

She didn’t know Scott’s cell number by heart, but she did know Evan’s, so she gave her half brother a call, hoping he wouldn’t be busy with his six-month-old daughter or his wife. He wouldn’t even recognize the number, so he might be inclined to dismiss it. To her immense relief, he answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” There was a definite note of question in his voice.

“Evan, it’s Madison.”

“Did you get a new phone?” Then he paused. “Or move to a new area code?”

“It’s a long story, and I don’t have time for it. I just need Scott’s number.”

“Scott Lee?” There was a steely edge to his voice now. “What’s going on? Does this have something to do with Clinton?”

“Please, Evan. There may be some people after me. I need to call him.”

“Where are you?”

“Just outside Chicago. Please, Evan. Scott’s nearby. You’re not.”

Evan muttered something under his breath, then rattled off a phone number that Madison committed to memory by repeating several times.

“Call me the instant you have a chance,” Evan said.

“Yeah, I will.” She hung up and dialed Scott, who answered on the first ring.

“Who is this?” Scott demanded.

“It’s me,” she whispered so softly he might not have heard her if he wasn’t a wolf. Then, feeling silly because he probably wouldn’t recognize her voice she added, “Madison.”

“Where are you?” he barked, sounding very much like the wolf.

“Just outside Chicago, in this gas station off I-90. I’m not sure if the guys who took me will find me or not, so I may have to move.”

“I’m ten minutes away,” Scott said. “What exit?”

She told him. “Please hurry.”

“Ten minutes,” Scott repeated. Then he hung up.

Madison clutched the phone, not sure whether to give it back to the clerk, who kept eying her suspiciously, or keep it in case they came back. Not that the phone would make a very good weapon. What she really needed to do was think of a good song, something that would hold them at bay for a few minutes until Scott arrived. She could try the Jaws melody again, but feared they might have developed a slight immunity to it. She considered her favorite songs, but she largely listened to country music, much of it involving couples getting together or splitting up.

She wished she could just make herself invisible, but if they came through this exit, they would see the car, and follow it to her. Werewolves had an incredible sense of smell they could use for tracking prey. At the moment, she was the prey.

The minutes ticked by endlessly. Finally, the clerk cleared his throat, and she tossed him back his cell phone. She was just turning to retrace her steps to the back of the store where she wasn’t actually any safer, when she heard the angry squeal of brakes. They’d stolen a fairly pricey Mercedes from the garage, and now two angry wolves were bearing down on her.

She spun and ran for the back of the store, but there was no back exit, only two restrooms and an employee area. She slid into the ladies room, a half bath that looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in months, slammed the door shut behind her, and locked it.

Great. That would hold them for maybe three seconds. She counted them off, silently. One... two... three...

Slam! The door splintered open much as the motel room door had done, and in came Mick and Bret, the latter with murder in his eyes.

How long before Scott got here? She didn’t know, but for now, she had to fight the only way she knew how. She hummed the Jaws melody again.

She saw the fear in their eyes, but this time it was laced with something else – determination. Taking two long steps to cross the entirety of the small space, Bret caught her and clamped a hand across her mouth.

“Witch,” he accused.

She couldn’t deny it. Hadn’t her father always told her that singing would get her killed one day? Maybe this wasn’t “just like her mother,” who had died after a year of fighting breast cancer, but it was still death.

“Hold her,” Bret said, spinning her around and tossing her to his friend like she was a rag doll.

Mick caught her in his arms, using his superior strength to pin her. “She might have called him.”

“I did,” Madison started to say, but Mick clamped a hand over her mouth. Obviously, they planned to take no chances.

“See?” Mick said. “This is crazy. What are you even going to do with her?”

There was some question? Madison tried to clamp down the tiny spark of hope.

“I want to know how she works,” Bret replied. “That alpha took down Isaac and six others. I think she helped him do it somehow. That must be why he’s mating with a mouse.”

“I don’t know,” Mick said. “That doesn’t sound reasonable.”

“Screw reasonable. She’s not reasonable. Now get her shirt off so I can tie a gag around her mouth.”

She squirmed and twisted, but Mick got her shirt off in seconds, then threw it to Bret, who tore it into strips. He wadded some of the material up to shove into her mouth, then used one of the strips to secure it in place. He tossed the rest of the shirt, the only thing standing between the world and her secret fascination with red underwear, into the overflowing garbage can.

She felt exposed. She couldn’t even use her hands to cover herself, pointless as that gesture would be, because Bret had her hands twisted behind her back. Tears started filling her eyes. She hadn’t cried when they’d been about to kill her, but she hadn’t felt humiliated then, only terrified. Now she felt both, and they had effectively gagged her only weapon.

“Nice bra,” Bret said, running a finger along the lacy edges. “What’s in it ain’t so bad either. Maybe that alpha’s got better taste than I thought. Hard to tell under that baggy shirt.”

Madison bucked and twisted, but could not dislodge the disgusting digit probing flesh he had no business seeing, let alone touching.

“Stop messing around,” Mick said. “He might be here any minute.”

“He’s here.” It was Scott. Madison’s heart leaped, but with hope instead of fear. “And he might let you live if you let her go now.”

Mick jumped away, pushing her into the nearby sink, which cracked painfully against her hip. Bret didn’t let her go.

“Did you kill Isaac?” Bret asked.

“Madison,” Scott said. “Get behind me.”

She tried, but she didn’t even make it away from the sink before Bret had one arm around her bare stomach, the other around her neck, pulling painfully against her windpipe. She couldn’t breathe. She choked and gasped, but the air wouldn’t come. Panic set in once again as spots began to swim in front of her eyes so she couldn’t even see what was happening.

“I can kill her before you get close,” Bret said.

Scott growled. “You’ll be dead two seconds later.”

The pressure against Madison’s windpipe eased slightly, but she still felt faint and still saw spots. The gag in her mouth wasn’t helping. She couldn’t speak, not that there was much to say. Scott would either save her or he wouldn’t.

Please, Scott, I need you now. He’d been there for her once before, against a tougher foe. But as evil as David McClellan had been, he hadn’t been insane. Bret, Madison was beginning to realize, was unstable. He might do anything.

“Bret,” Mick hissed from somewhere near the filthy toilet. “Man, let her go.”

“Your friend’s smart,” Scott said. “You should listen to him.”

“You killed my alpha,” Bret said. “I can’t let that go.”

“Then take me on,” Scott said. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“Like hell she doesn’t,” Bret said. “She’s some kind of witch. Put some kind of spell on us. That how you took down Isaac?”

“She was with you, so how could she have helped me?”

The arm around Madison’s neck tightened again. She couldn’t breathe; she could barely think. She was going to pass out any second now, and it might even be a good thing.

Somewhere off in the distance, she heard the approaching wail of police sirens, but didn’t think they would help.

“I don’t know,” Bret was saying. “I just know she’s some kind of witch. That why she’s your mate?”

“Bret,” Mick said. “Leave it. Your plan won’t work.”

“What plan?” Scott asked sharply.

“He wants her for himself. Thinks he can take her power somehow.”

“I’ll kill her if I have to,” Bret warned, his choke-hold a testament to his words. The room was nothing but spots now. Nothing at all, not even color.

“I tell you what,” Scott said. “You and me in a fair fight. Winner gets the girl.”

What? She heard a strange buzzing sound in her ears. Maybe she’d heard Scott wrong.

“What’s it going to be?” Scott asked. “You won’t get a better offer. Right now, we’re at an impasse.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” Bret asked.

Scott growled. Bret jumped, loosening his grip. It didn’t help. She started to slide towards the floor.

“Okay, okay. Yeah, okay. Fair fight. You and me. Winner gets the girl.” He took a deep breath, then shoved Madison towards Scott.

She staggered forward two steps, but Scott caught her before she hit the floor. She clung to him, taking comfort in the feel of his steely arms around her. In that moment of blind panic, she wished they could stay like that forever.

“Madison.” Scott shook her slightly. “Come on, snap out of it.” He tore the gag out of her mouth, though she still didn’t think she could speak. Her mouth felt far too dry.

“Where and when?” Bret asked.

“No better place and no better time than here and now,” Scott said.

The sounds of police sirens grew louder, but nobody mentioned it.

“Keep her safe,” Scott ordered an older wolf standing right behind him.

Through a haze of slowly clearing vision, she saw the older wolf nod, then gently gather her in his arms. She wanted to protest. She hated being touched right now, especially by a stranger, especially by a werewolf, and especially with her shirt off, but she was still afraid she might faint.

“Mick, come out of there,” the other wolf said.

Mick hesitated. “What about Bret?”

“You can’t help him now,” said the older wolf.

“Is he gonna kill him?” Mick asked.

“He’s already dead,” Scott said.

“Mick, son, come out of there.”

“Scott,” Madison tried to say. It sounded more like a croak, but he heard her. “Please, don’t.”

“He’s unstable,” Scott said.

“He is,” the older wolf said, still seeming to be talking to Mick who, Madison presumed, was his son. “Mick, you know he is. He never should have been bitten. Isaac’s father never would have let it happen.”

“I asked Isaac to do it,” Mick said weakly. “It’s my fault.”

“It’s Isaac’s fault,” the older wolf disagreed. Now come out and let Scott do his job.”

“Scott?” Madison said. She was almost able to see again, and almost able to stand. Able enough that she pushed away from the older man and wrapped her arms around her bare torso.

Scott turned cold, green eyes on her. She expected to see her salvation in those eyes, but she could only see the beast. “You don’t understand. Now go.”

The older wolf put his hand on her back, steering her towards the front of the store. After a minute, she heard Mick following.

“He has to,” the older wolf was saying. “He’s killed three women in the last six months. One of them wasn’t while he was in his wolf form.”

“Oh.” Madison let out a tiny puff of air that stung her throat. She couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. None of this made sense.

The sirens were coming closer.

“Dad,” Mick started.

“I don’t want to hear it! I told you not to hang around with that pup, but did you listen? He wanted you to kill the girl, didn’t he? You’d be dead if you had, and I wouldn’t have been able to help you out of this one.”

Mick swallowed. “I tried to talk him out of it.”

“You’ve got no backbone. You need to learn to stand up for yourself.”

Scott came out of the store, hands in his pockets, eyes locked squarely on her. “You okay?”

She nodded, although it was a lie. She had rarely been less okay in her life.

“Then let’s get out of here before the police arrive.”

Chapter 12

THEY DIDN’T MAKE IT. SHE COULD tell they wouldn’t make it long before they reached the truck. Apparently Scott could as well, because he tossed her the keys bellowing, “You drive!” even as he climbed into the passenger seat.

Were they seriously going to flee a crime scene? Scott had just killed a man. Didn’t he have to answer for that? If he did, would she support him?

She knew she would. Bret had tried to kill her, and even if he hadn’t been a danger at the precise moment of his death, Scott had saved her. Again. She didn’t have to like his methods, but she couldn’t argue with the results, nor could she completely condemn him. The world was a better place without Bret in it.

Only, she’d thought that once before about David McClellan. When did she cross a line into thinking of herself as the world’s judge, jury, and executioner?

“Hurry!” Scott barked, using the voice that demanded obedience.

She slid into the truck and fastened her seat belt, trying hard not to notice the bare skin she still showed. The seat and mirrors were positioned all wrong for her, but she didn’t stop to adjust them. She just shoved the key into the ignition and revved the engine.

The first police car screamed into the lot, skidding to a halt so close to the front of the truck that it was a miracle it hadn’t hit. They were caught. Madison glanced at Scott for instructions, but his eyes were closed and he was muttering something under his breath – casting a spell.

Two uniformed officers spilled from their car, but they didn’t come towards them. Instead, they went for Mick and his dad, cutting them off before they could pile into a rusty Toyota. Then another squad car screamed into the lot, ejecting two more officers who went into the building.

“Go,” Scott murmured.

She barely heard him, but she obeyed. She put the truck in reverse, carefully backed away from the police car trying to kiss their bumper, then threw the truck into drive and peeled away. Madison kept glancing at the mirrors, even though the angles were wrong, looking behind them for the cars that would surely give chase. They didn’t. The police officers acted as if they couldn’t even see them.

It wasn’t just the policemen who couldn’t see them, as Madison discovered when she pulled into traffic. She screamed and slammed on the brakes, barely missing a collision when a car changed lines directly into their side.

“Are we invisible?” Madison asked, scarcely able to believe it. She had not exactly gone out of her way to learn a lot about magic, but she didn’t think Evan could pull off making an entire truck invisible without serious preparation. And Evan was stronger than Scott. She didn’t know by how much, but she knew he was.

“Pull into the parking lot up ahead,” Scott said. “Get behind the restaurant. We’ll rematerialize there, so we don’t draw attention.”

Just then, the car behind them nudged their rear. Madison put on more gas, tailgating the car in front of her to give the car behind them more room. Slowing down to turn would cause a problem, so she didn’t slow down at all, she just spun the wheel, barreling across the narrow driveway and catching the curb on the other side. Luckily, no car had been waiting to exit the restaurant.

She managed to get the truck into the alley behind the Chinese restaurant without further incident. She slammed on the brakes, put the car in park, and surprised herself by shooting Scott an evil glare.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked.

“I can’t believe we didn’t get in a wreck.”

“You drove well.”

“Are the cops going to come after us?” Madison asked. “What about the surveillance cameras?”

“I took care of it.”

“Took care of it?” Her wide eyes flew to Scott now, trying to figure him out. She had been afraid of his inner wolf for years, but she had never given a lot of thought to his more ever-present inner sorcerer.

“Evan can manage an illusion around himself, but that’s about it.” Madison tried to remember what else she knew about illusions, but there wasn’t much. Mostly, that they didn’t fool cameras.

“Evan’s not as good at illusions as I am. They’re more about subtlety than power – although power helps. Evan only knows as much as he does because I taught him.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Scrying spell. Sleep spell. We’ve made a few trades.”

They fell into silence for a few minutes, fulfilling an unspoken need for them to both catch their breaths and gather their wits. Madison closed her eyes and let her fingers fly to her throat, which still felt abused from its earlier treatment. Whenever she spoke, she heard a faint rasp, though it wasn’t something she had considered at the time in light of other concerns.

When she opened her eyes again, Scott was staring at her. No, he was staring at her lacy red bra. She crossed her arms over her chest, but it was too late. It had been too late before, although she could have hoped that he had been too preoccupied to fully pay attention.

He was all attention now. He looked at her with something she wasn’t used to seeing in the eyes of men – at least not directed at her. Raw desire. It was unmistakable. Even she, naïve though she knew she was, couldn’t pretend it was something else.

She stared at him, torn between awe, confusion, and anxiety. He hadn’t acted like he’d still wanted her two years ago, after he’d saved her life. He’d backed off. Of course she’d wanted him to back off so she felt relieved that he hadn’t pressed her. Mostly.

“Here.” Scott peeled his eyes away, took off his shirt, and tossed it to her. She donned it, gratefully, although now his scent surrounded her. And she couldn’t help but notice that Scott looked good without his shirt on. Very good. He had a six-pack that wouldn’t shame the cover of a romance novel.

“So how’d you get away?” Scott asked, and she tore her eyes away from him.

“I scared them.” Even as she said the words, her lips twitched upward at the irony. She expected Scott to laugh.

He didn’t. “Show me.”

She began to hum. For a few seconds she didn’t think it was working, but then he started looking over his shoulder. She stopped.

“It worked on them,” she said. Of course, she’d been better able to embrace the fear then. She didn’t feel remotely afraid now.

That caught her by surprise. She was alone in a car with Scott, he had just killed someone, and she didn’t feel remotely afraid.

“They weren’t expecting it. And it sort of worked on me. That was... wow.” He was looking at her with admiration again, and maybe something else. Something she didn’t understand. Possibly something she didn’t want to understand.

“I don’t want to drive anymore,” Madison said by way of changing the subject. She climbed out of the truck before he could respond, but he didn’t protest in the least. He slid across to the driver’s seat before she rounded the front of the truck and climbed back inside.

“I want you to keep practicing that voice on me,” Scott said as he put the car in drive and made his way into traffic, headlights lending him blessed visibility in the approaching twilight.

“Practice? On you?”

“I told you earlier today to practice on me and I meant it. That voice of yours could be a weapon if you used it right.”

She turned away again, horror filling her heart at the thought. A weapon? She didn’t want to be a weapon. She could tell from his voice that he wanted to make her strong in the only way he knew how, but she didn’t want his kind of strength. She shouldn’t even need it. It wasn’t as if she wanted to live a dangerous life, only a life of service, maybe one that came with the comfort and security of a loving family.

Yet from what Scott had said, the only family she had left might be a danger to her. She wanted – no, needed – Clinton in her life. Did she then need to learn to protect herself from him and his new kind?

She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t jerk away. She looked at Scott in question.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he said. “I only meant in self-defense. Would you let me help you? It would make me feel better.”

“All right. I’ll try.”

The hand fell away. “It’s almost dark out. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? We’ll be on the road for a few hours yet.”

She leaned her head against the window, pressing her forehead against the door and losing herself in the steady vibration of the truck as it drove down the highway. It almost felt like a song to her, like some kind of tender lullaby. She had barely slept in three nights, and with the truck lulling her to sleep...

* * *

Scott spent the next few hours with a sleeping angel for company. That, and the memory of the red bra beneath his black t-shirt. It made for an uncomfortable trip, but it was better than dwelling upon the rage he still felt towards Isaac and his pack.

He had the blood of two more men on his hands. That each man had deserved what he’d gotten meant little in the aftermath, when shock and guilt inevitably set in. Those were the feelings he never let anyone see, particularly his pack. For them he was the stoic alpha, certain of himself and his deeds. Only in private did he let himself feel the blood that never washed away.

He’d do it all again. He’d kill Isaac and Bret a hundred times to keep Madison safe. He’d almost killed Mick, too; only common sense had held him back. Sparing Mick had gained him two allies, and might gain him more in the future. Yet there had been a moment when that hadn’t mattered, when the fact that Mick had dared touch Madison nearly trumped all reason.

She’d been so brave. He didn’t know what it had taken her to use her voice against the other two werewolves, but he knew it couldn’t have been easy. Her father had done a number on her when it came to magic, putting her at odds with a big part of herself. He wondered if he could correct that over the next few weeks or months, and whether he’d survive the proximity to her if he did. Every minute he spent with her, every glimpse he got beneath her mousy exterior to the lioness within, had him falling harder.

There was a nasty bruise darkening her throat. Scott wanted to wipe it away, but he didn’t have the required skill with healing magic. In a pinch, he could stabilize someone who had been mortally wounded until he could get them to someone who knew what he was doing. Madison wasn’t in danger any longer, so he preferred not to touch the bruise, even if it angered him.

Madison muttered something incomprehensible in her sleep. He couldn’t be sure, but he almost thought it had sounded like his own name. It had to be wishful thinking of course, like that moment when she’d been staring at his naked chest and he thought he caught the faintest hint of arousal.

She murmured something again, and this time Scott was almost sure she’d said his name. Hope started to well up inside of him until the next instant, when she cried out, a sound like a strangled scream. She shivered, whimpered, then fell silent.

Nightmares.

Scott pulled into the parking lot of the dingy little motel, parking right in front of their room. The door was splintered and hanging open. Great. He glanced at Madison, loathe to leave her alone again for even a second, but he didn’t want to wake her. And he would only be across the parking lot. He could hear her from that distance if she needed help.

Quickly, Scott dealt with getting them a new room and transferring their belongings from the damaged room to the new one. The clerk had wanted to give him trouble, but Scott used the most basic magic in his arsenal – a roll of hundred dollar bills.

Since the new room was two doors down from the old one, he left his truck where he’d parked it. He returned to pull open the passenger door, unbuckle Madison’s belt, then as gently as if she were the most fragile of flowers, gathered her into his arms.

Mine, rumbled something primitive inside of him. He ignored it as he unlocked the door and laid her down on the nearest of two double beds. She didn’t stir, although she grumbled a bit when he slid her shoes off, tugged the blankets out from under her, and then tucked them around her shoulders.

He started to leave, but that primitive part of himself rebelled. She had her head on a white pillow smelling strongly of bleach, one arm tucked around her face, her hair splayed wildly across the snowy white linen. He sat down beside her on the bed, using one arm to prop himself up.

Gently, so as not to wake her, he ran a finger through some of that hair. When she still didn’t stir, he grew bolder, letting one finger trail feather-light across her cheek.

Her eyes popped open. She stared at him, drew in a startled breath, and pulled herself away as if he’d burned her.

“What are you doing?” Madison asked.

“Just putting you to bed. I was hoping not to wake you.”

Madison’s fingers flew to the cheek where he’d touched her. She kept staring at him with wide, haunted eyes, probably reconciling her dream image with reality. He started to back away, but her hand fell from her cheek, landing heavily on the arm he’d used to prop himself up. It lingered there for a long moment, so long that Scott almost wondered if the touch was intentional, and if so, whether she had any idea what it was doing to him.

“Madison,” Scott began.

“Scott,” she said at the same time. She smiled and her cheeks went delightfully pink. “You first.”

“No, you.”

She pulled her hand away from his arm. The loss of contact left him feeling empty.

“Thank you for saving me,” Madison said. “Again. Looks like I owe you. Again.”

“At least until Evan finds out,” Scott said.

“What did he give you last time to pay it off?” Madison asked. “He never said.”

“He helped Amanda get the apprenticeship she’d been wanting. Illusion in its purest form is very difficult, although almost everyone has a simple invisibility spell. In Eagle Rock we’re already the best, so there was nothing new she could learn locally. The man she wanted to learn from lives in New York City and he hates women. Rather than say no, though, he told her he’d teach her for a hundred million dollars, never expecting she’d come up with it.”

Madison’s mouth dropped open in appropriate astonishment. Magical apprenticeships were never cheap. It was hard to put a monetary value on them since they usually involved some sharing of priceless knowledge, but the most valued apprenticeship in the world would cost one one-hundredth that amount.

“Yeah, it was an outrage. I told Amanda she’d be better off finding someone else, but she swore there was no one she’d rather learn from. I couldn’t disagree. I mean, Amanda’s gift is invisibility – true invisibility, not something you can see through with a camera.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.”

Almost no one did. Scott probably shouldn’t have mentioned it to Madison, but he knew instinctively that she would never tell anyone, not even Evan, who also didn’t know. Amanda’s gift had Scott convinced that true invisibility was possible with magic too, but he had not yet worked out the details.

“Officially, it’s not possible,” Scott said.

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “I see. So, Evan paid that guy a hundred million dollars?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. So is that the going rate for saving someone’s life?”

“It’s not really something you can put a price tag on. Evan and I have had one another’s backs so many times anyway that this worked just fine for us. The important part is we agreed to it.”

“And if he wasn’t my brother?” Madison asked. “If he couldn’t pay it off for me? What would have happened then?”

“I don’t know.” He’d felt it hanging over their heads, but there was only one thing he had ever wanted from her, and it was something she couldn’t give him, not even in exchange for her life.

Searching her eyes now, he wanted to tell her not to be afraid, that under no circumstances would he hurt her. But words weren’t going to be enough. Perhaps actions would work – and time – but never words.

Chapter 13

MADISON DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. NIGHTMARES PLAGUED her dreams, and not just the recurring nightmare she’d had for two years. Bret and Mick haunted her now, too.

It had been startling to wake in a new motel room to find Scott hovering over her, especially in the wake of those dreams. His touch hadn’t reassured her, although she hadn’t exactly minded. It made her feel... strange. She’d felt that way before. And after he had withdrawn his hand, she had still felt the imprint of him on her cheek. She’d put her hand on his almost as a dare to herself, to find out if she could – if she had conquered that much of her fear – but also to find out if this touch would feel the same way. It had, but something about it had reminded her of the new debt she owed him, so she’d retreated back into uncertainty.

Somehow she’d fallen back asleep afterward, probably because she had slept very little in the previous three nights. She awoke to the sight of sunlight penetrating the shabby drapes and the smell of burning incense.

She sat up, looking across at the other bed, which lay vacant. Scott sat on the floor in the center of a casting circle, working some kind of spell she knew better than to interrupt, so she went into the bathroom to take care of her morning rituals. When she emerged, he had finished.

“She’s still here,” he said. “Still in the motel, actually.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. I wonder if she’s tried to get rid of that transmitter she thinks they put on her. I feel like I’m missing something important.”

From what Evan had told her about Scott’s sense of intuition, he was probably right. If only Evan had told her something of his talent with illusion, she might have been more prepared to handle sitting behind the wheel of an invisible truck. Then again, maybe not. How did a person learn to drive an invisible vehicle?

“Is there a way we can watch her without being seen?” Madison asked. “Can you make us invisible?”

“Easily,” Scott said. “The bigger risk is being smelled. It was never something anyone in my family had needed to experiment with until I came along, and I’m afraid I haven’t had as much time to research it as I’d like.”

“Perfume won’t work?”

“No, it just covers up the underlying scent.”

Madison was about to say that what they needed was a third party to help them, someone who wasn’t a werewolf and who Clara had never had the opportunity to smell, when someone started pounding on the motel room door so loudly she thought it would break open. She had a sharp, painful vision of two doors splintering open the day before, but despite the violence of the knocking, this door remained secure in its frame.

“What the hell?” Scott stood, stepped carefully out of his casting circle and threw open the door. “What are you doing here?”

Madison was about to ask who it was when her half brother, Evan, shouldered his way past Scott. There was a storm in his eyes, making her take an unconscious step backwards. In the cramped confines of the motel room there wasn’t far to go, so she ended up running into the bed and taking an involuntary seat.

“I forgot to call you back,” Madison said, though the observation didn’t exactly explain his mood.

Evan spent a silent minute looking her over, checking her from head to toe, though his eyes kept flying back to her bruised neck. Then his gaze switched to Scott, who was leaning casually against the now closed door of the motel room.

“Bastard,” Evan said, the invective aimed at Scott.

“He didn’t do this.” Madison touched a hand lightly to her throat. At least it didn’t hurt. “I’m sorry I forgot to call you back.”

Evan didn’t pay attention to her. He only had eyes for Scott. “I told you to stay the hell away from her.”

“This is pack business,” Scott replied.

“Like hell it is. Don’t tell me you had her alone in a motel room and nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened,” Scott said levelly.

Madison frowned. Evan was behaving like a father trying to protect his daughter from an over-eager suitor. He’d acted this way before, especially when it came to Scott. Evan seemed to think Scott would pounce on her at any moment, though he’d never touched her.

Well, not exactly, she recalled with red-cheeked embarrassment when Evan looked her way. As a matter of fact, Scott had once been as intimate with her as it was possible to be. He’d taken her virginity, but only because there had been no other choice. If he sometimes gazed at her with something she could almost swear was longing, he had never acted on it.

Except he’d touched her last night. He’d said he was just putting her to bed, but since when did putting someone to bed involve brushing a finger across their cheek? It wasn’t necessarily a romantic or intimate gesture, it might have been the sort of touch shared between a parent and child, but Scott was definitely not her father – biological or otherwise.

Evan was still looking at her expectantly, his posture screaming his willingness to fight. She didn’t know what was going on between the two men, but she knew she had to try to diffuse the situation, or something in the air would explode. She was glad now that she had never mentioned to anyone exactly how Scott had kept his wolf from killing her that long-ago night.

“Nothing happened.” Madison couldn’t bring herself to look at Evan, though, and as her eyes slid to the side she remembered reading somewhere that non-verbal cues constitute 90% of communication. It was why she couldn’t lie. She could say the words, but her body told the truth at all times. There were her eyes sliding away from Evan’s face. Her own face burned scarlet and her hands twisted anxiously.

Reading her correctly, Evan turned his back to her, giving Scott his full attention. “I told you to stay away from her.”

Scott pulled away from the door, his posture far less casual, as he faced his best friend in the world, preparing for a fight. It was a mark of their friendship, perhaps, that he did not attack right away.

“You promised she was going to stay at home,” Evan said.

“She was convincing,” Scott replied. “I did my best.”

“You did your best? I still can’t believe she would ever willingly go anywhere with you.”

“She’s braver than you think. Braver than she thinks, actually.”

Madison wasn’t sure she agreed, but she didn’t have time to dissect the statement right now. She didn’t know which of these two powerful men would come out better in a fight, but she didn’t want to find out. Evan had Scott beaten when it came to raw magic, but Evan had confided more than once that Scott’s inner wolf gave him advantages that couldn’t be discounted.

“Stop it you two,” Madison said, though without the force of will she needed to get through to them. She may as well not have spoken. So instead, she switched to reason. “Evan, you can’t fight Scott. Think of your daughter.”

His only answer was to use his telekinetic gift to lift Scott into the air. Scott didn’t miss a beat before aiming some kind of spell at Evan, who dodged, still maintaining his hold.

“Why are you doing this?” Madison asked, bewildered. Evan might be her half brother, but Scott was his best friend, his cousin (on his mother’s side), and they’d known one another longer. It hadn’t been too long ago when Evan had held her as a hostage to support Scott. Now, he was dueling Scott for some theoretical slight against her.

The fight continued, with Scott throwing another spell, this time making Evan stagger backwards a step. It had probably taken a chunk out of Evan’s shields.

“Stop!” Madison cried, more forcefully this time.

Scott landed another blow against Evan, and this time Evan dropped his friend. Scott took advantage of the situation, tackling Evan to the floor.

“Stop!” This time, she didn’t say the word, she sang it. She recognized the tune that popped into her head along with the word, not a song she knew very well, but she did at least know the highly recognizable refrain. It was corny, but actually, it fit. These two men loved each other, if they could just get past their temporary anger. So she sang a couple of lines of “Stop in the Name of Love.” Her version had a slight twang to it, but remained effective.

They stopped. Madison stood, rounded the bed, and encouraged Scott to step away. Then she placed herself between the two men.

Evan’s eyes were large and fixed squarely on her as if he had never seen her before. “Did you just do that on purpose?”

Scott smiled broadly, an expression that rarely crossed his moody face. He was positively beaming. At her. “I told you the only thing standing between you and real power was confidence.”

“I’m sorry,” Madison said to Evan. “But I couldn’t let you two hurt each other.” It was only just dawning on her that she had successfully stopped two of the most powerful sorcerers in Eagle Rock from hurting one another. Maybe Scott was right.

“Don’t apologize,” Scott said. “Evan was being an idiot.”

“Excuse me?” Evan got to his feet and glared at his friend. “You’re the one spending the night with her in some skanky motel room in another state!”

“I told you why,” Madison said.

“You didn’t tell me why you, personally, are here.” Evan took a deep breath, then leveled a look at Madison that would have made her quake a few years earlier. Okay, so even today it made her flinch.

“Because I – because...” She trailed off. She couldn’t tell him everything she had divulged to Scott about Clinton. Evan knew parts of it, from bits and pieces of conversations over the past year or so, but he couldn’t understand how she felt. For one thing, he seemed to have this desperate need to be her brother, whereas she did not feel the same way about being his sister. She already had a brother. When she thought of Evan as a brother at all, it was always with the “half” settled squarely before it.

Besides, Evan had a family of his own now. It made her place in his life even murkier than it already had been. She had trouble maintaining her bond with Clinton, who she had known her entire life, because he was away at college. She wasn’t walking the same path through life with either of her half brothers, and she and Evan never had, however much he wanted to try to pretend otherwise.

But mostly, he was just too intense.

“Well?” Evan snapped. “What are you doing here?”

“Clinton’s my brother, and he needs me.”

“I see.” It was Evan’s turn to look away. “You do know you can come to me for help, right?”

“Yes.” She started to explain further, but stopped herself. The answer was really as simple and as complicated as that. She did know she could go to him for help, and she probably would have if it had been anything but a werewolf. But it still wouldn’t have made up for over twenty missed years, and it still wouldn’t help her feel like a part of his family.

“I don’t like you being here with him,” Evan said, jerking his head in Scott’s direction. “He’s dangerous.”

“I know.”

“To you,” Evan continued, as if that hadn’t been apparent in his tone.

Madison hesitated, but she nodded, once. “Look, maybe you can help us finish our job faster. We need to follow a werewolf, but she knows both of our scents.”

Evan looked back at Scott, who briefly summed up the situation. After a few minutes of questions and answers, Evan agreed to the mission, and headed for the door. “I’ll check in every hour.”

When he closed the door behind him, Madison wondered aloud, “Will that be checking in or checking up?”

Scott grunted. “Why won’t you let him in?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you say Clinton’s all you have, but look at that guy. He drove half the night to get here. Don’t you think maybe you have more friends than you think you do?”

Maybe, but she never knew which ones to trust. She and Evan had a blood tie, but how could that be stronger than the bond that should have been forged between her and her adoptive father over a lifetime? And look what Phillip Carter had done to her.

“I never knew anyone who wanted brothers and sisters more than him. Drove me nuts when I was younger, trying to play with me. Course, he’s five years younger. Made a big difference when I was twelve. I didn’t let him in until I got the bite, and he was just about the only one left who’d hang out with me at all. Not that he ever gave me grief for how badly I treated him up until then.”

“You were a kid.”

“You’re not.”

Madison’s face reddened. “You have no idea what my life has been like for the last two years. It’s not that easy to trust someone, especially someone who’s turned on me before. I do the best I can with him. I have dinner with his family twice a month. It’s not like I’m giving him the cold shoulder.”

“But you haven’t let him in. When was the last time you let someone in?”

She remembered the answer to that question all too clearly. “A year and a half ago, when I told a certain someone how nervous the world of sorcery made me, and he told me he could protect me. He used my fears to convince me to marry him, then he turned on me a few months later.”

“Is that why you agreed to marry him? I thought he was a bit young for you.”

“So did everyone else, and maybe they were right, but for a little while he made me feel special. It’s not like I’ve had men knocking down my door.” She made a gesture up and down her thick body to demonstrate the reason why. “I never even had a boyfriend in college. Nicolas was the first. Ever. And he–” She broke off, turning her head away.

“Do you want me to kill him for you?”

“What?” She turned her head so quickly she almost got whiplash. “No!” Then, considering, “You were joking, right?”

He shrugged. “Probably.” But there was a darkness that stole over his face, keeping his mood from the world. He was shutting himself off as surely as she was. The two of them made a fine pair.

“Do you play cards?” Madison asked, going to her purse to get out the deck she always kept there for emergencies.

“Not usually, but you could persuade me.”

Chapter 14

MADISON HADN’T UNDERSTOOD HOW ANGRY EVAN was, but Scott did. He didn’t know if his best friend would have killed him or not just now, assuming he could, but it wasn’t as far outside the realm of possibility as many might believe. Evan knew Scott, trusted him, and had covered his back many times, but Evan knew one thing that nobody else outside his pack knew. Evan knew about the first person Scott had ever killed.

Evan had first warned Scott off long before he knew Madison was his sister. Only the tone changed after the discovery. He went from, “You know you have no business being with a normal girl, even one who owes you a debt. You know you’ll regret it,” to, “You put one paw on my sister and I’ll flay you alive.”

Scott played several hands of gin rummy with Madison, who beat him every time. She was smart as a whip, with a good memory, and she seemed to know exactly what he held in his hand. Usually his intuition gave him a big edge, but today he was too distracted by the woman seated across from him. Her cheeks flushed with victory when she won, lighting up her face, and when she leaned over to collect the cards he saw a hint of creamy cleavage.

She did not smell of fear.

After his third straight loss he gave up, putting his hands in the air as a sign of surrender. “I need to call Jack anyway, to find out what’s going on with the local pack.”

In a perfect world, Scott would leave Jack in charge of the pack and go on about his business. Trouble was, Jack wasn’t alpha material. He was smart enough, and could hold his own in a fight, but he didn’t have the commanding presence it took to be a leader. Someone else would have to take over, and Scott needed to make sure it was someone who could handle the job this time.

When he called, Jack was apparently at a pack meeting in Bloomington, at the house where Scott had killed Isaac the day before. One of the wolves Scott had knocked out with a sleep spell, Clyde, was organizing everything, and would probably take over.

“I want to talk to Clyde,” Scott said. “You have him come here. Alone. And if he thinks about messing around with me, just remind him what happened to Isaac.”

With that taken care of, Scott had nothing left to do but wait for something to happen. The downtime wouldn’t normally have bothered him, but today the downtime came in a cramped motel room with the most tempting woman he had ever met. She had on a tighter shirt than usual, a pale blue one that hugged her soft curves.

And she kept looking at him.

Scott was just about to go out for a run when Evan called, probably for one of his checkups.

“We’re fine,” Scott said.

“We’re not,” Evan replied. In the background Scott heard a woman screaming.

“What’s going on there?”

“I don’t know. Clara’s losing it. She’s cutting herself over and over again, shrieking that she can’t find it. I’ve got her restrained, but I don’t know how long I can hold her.”

“I’m on my way.” Scott ended the call as he raced out the door, Madison on his heels. He wanted to tell her to stay put, but he also didn’t have time to argue. In the end he had to trust that between Evan and himself, they could keep her safe.

He had chosen a room at the back of the motel complex, facing away from the main road. Clara’s room was at the front, but it didn’t take him long to circle the building and find it. He could hear her shrieking as soon as he left his room, and might have heard it without the phone call if he had been paying more attention.

The room door was open. A few gawkers stood nearby, one openly questioning whether or not to call the police. Great. Just what he needed.

“No problem, I’ve got it,” Scott said, hoping he sounded reassuring. “Panic attack. My sister gets them all the time.”

The onlookers looked relieved to have an explanation, and a reason not to get involved. They didn’t back off, however, so as soon as he and Madison were inside the room, he closed the door firmly behind them.

Evan had Clara pinned to one of the beds via telekinesis, but she still twisted and fought, a feat no normal woman – or man, for that matter – could have managed. She was a mess, bleeding freely from several large cuts along her arms and legs. A few more had already begun to heal. There was blood everywhere – the sheets, the blankets, the floors, the vanity, the mirrors, and the TV all had crimson splatters.

She didn’t still when Scott entered the room and closed the door, but she sniffed the air. Her face paled when she recognized him.

“What happened?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know,” Evan replied. “I was watching her, like you said, but she just stayed in the room all morning so there wasn’t much to do. Then, suddenly, I heard screaming, so I broke open the door and found her like this.”

“I can’t find it,” Clara moaned.

“The transmitter?” Scott asked.

“I can’t find it,” she repeated.

Scott stared at her, mouth slightly agape, trying to figure out what to do. Not for the first time, he wished his gift of intuition could help him more when it came to human emotions. The gift didn’t desert him entirely, but it did get confused, and at the moment, it may as well not have existed at all.

“Madison,” Scott said, turning back to her. “Can you sing to her? Calm her down somehow?”

“I calm down the kids at school sometimes, but they’re misbehaving, not freaking out.” She wrung her hands. “I’m trying to think–”

They really needed to spend some time working on a repertoire for her, assuming she would agree to such a thing. He hoped this entire situation was helping her see the value of her gift, instead of dwelling on what she saw as a devilish manipulation.

“You don’t know any songs about feeling safe, maybe?” Scott suggested.

“I–” She stopped, and her face lit up. “Yes, there’s one I used to sing at church.”

She cleared her throat; Scott prepared himself for her beautiful, almost haunting voice to fill the room. He had noticed her before he had first heard her sing, had been tempted by her, but it wasn’t until the day when he’d first heard her siren’s song that he’d wanted her as his mate. She hadn’t even sung a love song – she’d sung “America the Beautiful.” But he’d heard something in her voice, sensed something rising above the shyness she normally clung to like a shield, and he’d known she was softness and strength.

That same siren’s voice called to him again now. And again, he had the sense that she only let her true self out when she sang. Her face glowed and she seemed lit by an inner fire.

And He will raise you up on Eagle’s wings,

bear you on the breath of down,

make you to shine like the sun,

and hold you in the palm of His hand.

Clara’s screaming stopped. Evan didn’t release his hold on her, but she remained still, no longer testing her bonds. She looked at Madison, and her eyes seemed to be pleading for the same thing Scott wanted – more.

“That’s beautiful,” Evan said.

“I don’t remember the refrains,” Madison confessed. “Only the chorus. We haven’t done that one in choir lately.”

“Beautiful,” Scott echoed.

“Clara,” Madison said, ignoring the compliment. “You’re safe. Do you understand?”

Scott wouldn’t have put it quite like that. He was almost definitely going to have to kill this woman, especially after witnessing this new sign of instability.

“I can’t find the transmitter,” Clara repeated. “There has to be one. How else would they have found me?”

How indeed? Scott frowned, then put together her question with one Madison had posed the day before. “Why did you come to Springfield?”

“What?” Clara blinked at him in confusion “Why Springfield? You were in Springfield, Missouri, and now you’re in Springfield, Illinois. Why? Where were you going next? Another Springfield?”

“I–” She blinked several times. “I have to go to Springfield.”

“Why?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know.” She glared at him. “How did you find me? Did you put a transmitter on me, too?”

“Mind magic, do you think?” Evan asked.

“I don’t know,” Scott said. It was a reasonable explanation, but not all mental manipulation had to be magical in nature. “She was part of a military project; doesn’t seem to understand magic at all. Could just be brainwashing or hypnosis or something.”

“Doesn’t she have to be willing for hypnosis to work?” Madison asked.

“I don’t know,” Scott replied. “Never looked into it. Have you?”

Madison shook her head. “I just saw something on TV once.”

“Maybe you can help her remember,” Scott said.

Madison shook her head, vehemently. “Oh no. That’s too complicated. My gift is just suggestive, remember? I can’t get inside her head.”

Scott wasn’t so sure, but he would let it go for now. If she was sure, then she was right. That was the true nature of magic.

“Where’s this lab you escaped from?” Scott asked instead, finally giving voice to the question he should have asked when he’d had her in his living room.

For a second, she looked like she might argue. Scott imagined having to go through the whole torture routine again, but to his surprise, she answered after only a short pause. “It’s in Texas. Military base in a tiny town called Junction, north of Houston.”

“There’s no pack down there,” Scott observed. The land was too barren, with few trees. Plus, werewolves tended to prefer a colder climate. There weren’t many werewolf packs in the southern states at all.

“Is Clinton there?” Madison asked.

Again, Clara hesitated, but only for a second. “Yes.”

“How do you know?” Scott asked. Something wasn’t adding up again, not that much had added up since he’d met this woman.

“I–” She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she looked at Scott with perfectly rational, perfectly sane eyes. The woman who had carved open her skin looking for a transmitter had gone, leaving another woman in her place. “Kill me.”

“What?” Scott knew he needed to put her down, but he had never had someone ask him to do it.

“Please. I’m a monster. I know I am. I killed this couple the other night. In the lab, they kept me chained up, but out here there’s nothing to stop me.”

“You can learn to control it,” Madison said, stepping forward. Scott shoved her aside, more forcefully than he intended, earning a glare from Evan.

“The first thing I did when I got out was bite someone. I did it on purpose, because I didn’t want to be alone, but I could have killed him. I’m surprised I didn’t.”

Scott wasn’t as surprised as she was. If she felt safe and unthreatened, and had found a potential recruit for her pack, then her wolf was unlikely to kill it outright. In its own way the wolf was as social as the human, which was probably why she had gone out and bitten someone the first chance she got. She wanted to form her own pack.

“You can’t kill her,” Madison said. “Please. She needs help. She’s asking for help.”

“Someone’s been messing with her head,” Scott replied. “You saw that yourself. I don’t know if she can be helped, and in the meantime, how many have to die?”

Madison looked at Evan, clearly hoping for support, but Evan looked away, probably hoping to be left out of this decision. Scott wished he had that luxury. He had thought putting her down would be almost as easy as taking care of Isaac or Bret, but it wasn’t. He suddenly felt much more like the beast putting a nine-year-old child out of its misery. Why did her asking to die suddenly make him feel more evil for obliging her?

“Out,” Scott said sharply to both of them.

Evan dropped whatever hold he had over Clara, but she didn’t move from the bed. He started for the door, but Madison hadn’t moved. She was trembling slightly, and she once again smelled of fear.

“Scott, please. She’s asking for help.”

“I’m asking to die,” Clara said. “Go on, girl. Get out.”

When she still didn’t move, Evan took her by the arm and guided her out the door, closing it firmly behind him. Madison let out one last cry of, “No!” before Evan apparently silenced her. Not that it mattered. The damage had been done. He knew exactly how Madison felt, and he knew when he was through that he would look that much more evil in her eyes.

Good. It was a good thing she’d go back to hating and fearing him. She deserved so much better. But he feared that whatever remained of his blackened heart had just walked out that door with her.

Chapter 15

SHE WASN’T GOING TO CRY. SHE could not cry, but this was all too much for her, and she had to find someplace she could be alone. After Evan ushered her out the door, she broke free of his arm, making a mad dash for the back of the motel complex and her rented room. Once inside, she slammed the door shut, automatically locking it, then threw the chain in place.

For a few seconds she stood there in the entrance, staring at two unmade beds with threadbare linens and old, lumpy mattresses. Somewhere on the other side of the building, in a similar room, a woman might be dying at this very instant, a woman who knew she needed help, but who didn’t believe she could get the kind she needed before someone else died. Was Scott right? Did she have to die?

And then she came to the real problem. What if... what if it were Clinton? What would he do then? Unfortunately, she knew the answer. She had seen the answer more than once in the past twenty-four hours, and it made her feel sick inside.

She had softened towards him. She had begun to forget who he was, though in his defense he had never tried to deny it. He was a killer. A monster. A werewolf. She didn’t understand his world.

She collapsed face down onto the bed furthest from the door, which Scott had slept in the night before. It still smelled like him.

The tears fell in silent waves, drenching the sheets and making a mess of her shirt. She didn’t cry softly or prettily, though she almost always cried silently. Crying was a weakness she couldn’t let anyone see.

Which was why she nearly screamed when she felt strong arms wrap themselves around her quaking form. She hadn’t even heard him come inside, but of course locks and chains didn’t mean much to someone like Evan. He didn’t say anything; he only held her, rocking her back and forth slightly.

She cried harder. She could not remember the last time she had been held, really been held. There had been Nicolas, during intimate moments, but he had never been much of a cuddler. Before that, it must have been childhood. Her father had held her like this, long ago, before her mother had died. She had almost forgotten. Remembering now made her cry even harder.

“It’s okay,” Evan murmured, smoothing back her hair.

Oh, God, she had to stop. This wasn’t her, crying like a baby for attention. She didn’t want attention, she just needed to let it all out, to experience the catharsis of tears.

“I’m sorry,” Madison whispered brokenly. She wiped furiously at her eyes, but only succeeded in making a bigger mess.

His arms tightened around her. “Let it out.”

“I’m a mess.”

“I don’t care.”

After that, she let it out. She cried like she hadn’t cried in years, making a terrible mess of both of them. Still, he held on. Finally, after an age, her tears slowed. She sat up straight, more than half ready to flee now that she had some semblance of control. Evan didn’t need to hold her any longer, but he didn’t look inclined to go anywhere, and after a minute of internal battle, she gave in to temptation. She rested her head on his shoulder.

So this is why people offer shoulders to cry on. It felt like a mug of hot cocoa on a cold winter night.

“Do you think he really did it?” Madison asked after a while.

“Yes.”

“Would you have done it?”

“I’m glad I don’t have to make that decision.”

“That’s a cop out,” Madison said.

“Absolutely.” He paused. “You can’t be a part of his world, you know.”

“What about Clinton? Can I be a part of his world, if we find him, and if he survives?”

“Maybe a little bit. But as good a friend as Scott has been to me over the years, I know his pack comes first. Always.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I still can’t believe you went to him.”

She still couldn’t entirely believe it either, but she knew she would do it again if she had to. Had it only been a few days? In those few days, she had learned so much, both about herself and about Scott. She no longer felt the same way about him. Oh, he was still dangerous, but she no longer got that panicky feeling just from being near him.

“I can’t live my whole life in fear,” Madison said, sharing with him the most important thing she had learned about herself in the past few days.

“A lot of people never figure that out,” Evan said. “Maybe one day, you’ll even stop being afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” Madison pushed herself away, feeling only a slight hesitation before Evan gave her the distance she now needed.

“But you don’t trust me.” He paused. “I’m not your father.”

“Like you have such an easy time trusting people,” Madison said. “Let’s see, you’ve got Scott and Cassie. Anyone else?”

“You,” Evan said. “I trust you.”

That chastened her. When Cassie had told her how Evan had a difficult time trusting people, Madison had to admit that she might have something in common with her half brother after all. Now here he was, opening himself to her, and she knew how hard it was. Maybe Scott wasn’t the only thing she had to learn not to constantly fear.

A key grated in the lock and a second later Scott strode in, coming up short when he saw them. Madison tried once again to wipe the evidence of tears from her eyes, though she knew rationally that it was far too late.

“Am I interrupting?” Scott asked.

“No,” Evan said.

“I want you to take her home,” Scott said.

“Of course,” Evan replied.

Madison didn’t argue, though she knew Scott expected her to do so. Let him think she would go docilely home and wait for him there. She wouldn’t. Evan may have had a point about losing Clinton to the pack, but for now he was still her responsibility. She wouldn’t try to force Scott to take her with him, as if she could, but she would be there when Clinton was found. She knew where the lab was, and where Scott would be going next.

“I have to stay here for a couple of days,” Scott continued. “The local pack’s a mess and I have to put it right again. After that, I’ll head to Texas.”

Madison nodded, not looking him in the eye. She didn’t want him to see her and guess the truth about her plans.

“I’ll call when I find him,” Scott promised.

* * *

Eagle Rock was seven hours from Springfield. A very long seven hours. It hadn’t seemed so long with Scott, but then again, they’d been on a mission. That could make the hours slip by.

She and Evan passed a few minutes talking about Anastasia, the world’s best baby. They segued into her plans for the summer. Then they fell silent.

Why don’t you let him in?

The thought rose unbidden in Madison’s mind, and she couldn’t squash it down. She had answers to the question. Lots of answers. But they all boiled down to one thing: She was afraid. Afraid to trust. Afraid that Evan would find some reason to despise her. After all, her own father – the man who had raised her – despised her. Didn’t that mean that there was something fundamentally wrong with her? What if Evan had only driven across two states to be there for her because so far he didn’t know her well enough to hate her?

“You’re quiet,” Evan observed. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing important.”

“Scott?” he asked.

“Why did you attack him?” The question was out before she could think better of it.

“Because I told him exactly what would happen if he ever touched you.”

“I can take care of myself.” Madison turned away so Evan wouldn’t see her flush. “Besides, nothing happened. Scott has a pretty girlfriend, what would he want with me?”

Evan looked at her askance before turning his attention back to the road.

“Evan, do you know something?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Her frown grew deeper. Was she completely misreading the situation? It wouldn’t surprise her. She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience with men.

“He’s dangerous, Madison,” Evan said. “Don’t form any romantic fantasies about him.”

“He’s killed three people in the last 24 hours. Believe me, I’m not.”

“Good.”

“He saved my life again, though.”

Evan sighed. “You don’t owe him for the first time. I took care of it.”

“You’re going to take care of this too?”

“Yes.”

Madison shook her head. She understood the basic rules of debt and why Evan might be able to buy her debt from Scott. She understood that because he claimed her as family, she didn’t have to owe him anything. She just didn’t trust it.

“What?” Evan asked.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“I–” Evan sighed and broke off. “All right.”

Why don’t you let him in?

Was she really going to let fear rule her life? She could either walk a tightrope with Evan for the next twenty years, tensed and waiting for the other shoe to drop, or she could drop it now. At least then she’d know.

“I hate your father,” Madison said.

“Huh?”

“I hate Victor. He’s – I hate him.”

“I see.” Evan didn’t look like he saw. He looked completely taken aback. Good.

“I’m not even sure he’s my father. It’s not like we ever did a DNA test. And we don’t look alike.”

“I don’t look like him either.”

“Your mom was married to him. You share his gift. I think it’s a pretty safe bet. What do I have? I barely even have any talent.”

“Neither did your mother. Magical talent tends to be somewhat recessive.” Evan shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. He is your father. He did his own test, even if it wasn’t scientifically approved.”

“When?”

“When you were eighteen and your adoptive father first told him you existed.”

“Oh.”

“He never told you?” Evan asked.

“We never talked. He never said anything to me at all.”

“Is that why you hate him?” Evan asked.

“Sort of. I don’t know. He acted like he thought he was better than everyone else.”

“He did think he was better than everyone else.”

“He was never there. Even after he learned the truth, he was never there. He gave me money, my father gambled it away, and he never even knew. That’s how much he cared.”

“He did care about you. I think you were his one big regret in life.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so. I’m not trying to defend him.”

“Yes, you are.”

Evan looked flustered for a few seconds but he regrouped. “All right, maybe I am. He wasn’t evil incarnate, however many mistakes he made, and I feel like I spend my whole life having to say what a jerk he was to make the people around me happy.”

Madison flattened herself against the back of her chair. Evan was mad. Ticked off. Even if she couldn’t see it in his eyes, she could feel it in the unnatural air currents stirring throughout the car.

Evan wasn’t done yet. “I mean I’m married to Cassie, and there isn’t a person left in the magical world who doesn’t know what he did to her. She’s forgiven me but she’ll never forgive him.”

“Can you blame her?” Madison managed to say in barely a whisper.

“Of course I can’t blame her. I’d feel the same way. But I can’t talk about him with her. He died over a year ago and there’s almost no one I can talk to about him who’s willing to accept that under all the horrible things he did, he loved me. And whether I should or not, I loved him.”

Madison opened and closed her mouth a few times, but wasn’t sure what to say. She understood, strangely enough. She knew what it meant to love a parent who didn’t deserve it. Her adoptive father had abandoned and betrayed her and yet if he were ever to speak a kind word to her, she’d probably forgive him. And in Evan’s case, Victor had never turned against his son. He’d been a jerk to plenty of other people, but never to Evan himself.

“I kept hoping maybe one day you’d let me talk about him with you,” Evan continued. “Guess not.”

“I-I’m sorry. I never knew him and as far as I could tell, he never wanted me. He never tried to make contact, except for the money. I don’t even want the money.”

“Is that why you keep giving it all to charity?” Evan asked.

“Pretty much. Yeah. I don’t want the crumbs of his affection.”

“It’s not from him anymore,” Evan said. “It’s from me. I’m the one who keeps trying to make sure you have everything you need these days, but you still give it away every month.”

Madison turned to look out the window. She was surprised he hadn’t run out of money yet. She knew he was an alchemist, but he had at least imparted to her the fact that he couldn’t make money infinitely. Well, he could, but there were bigger economic concerns if he spent too much. As it was, he had to duck the IRS like clockwork every year. And last year, apparently, he’d given a hundred million to Amanda’s mentor. Someone would notice that.

“Well, there it is,” Madison said. “I don’t want it. I’m only part of your family by a technicality anyway, so you can stop pretending–”

“Pretending?” Evan suddenly pulled over to the side of the road and the unnatural wind currents within the car picked up. Madison tried to flatten herself against the passenger side window. “Hate my father. Go ahead. That’s your right. But I haven’t pretended a thing. It’s not like I’ve been throwing you money in lieu of affection. I’ve tried everything to convince you to trust me. Hell, I took you under my wing before I knew we had a blood relationship because you were Cassie’s friend.”

“And then you kidnapped me.”

“It was an impossible situation. Scott’s sister was being held hostage. I would never have actually hurt you. And I’ve apologized at least twelve times.”

He had apologized. It was really pretty churlish of her to continue to deny forgiveness at this point. She wasn’t even sure why she still held onto that anger. Except that now Evan was angry and he was looking every bit the intimidating sorcerer.

“Well, there you have it,” Madison said in a bare whisper. “I’m cold, unforgiving, and I hate your father.”

“Are you intentionally trying to push me away?”

“Um...”

“Stop it. It’s not going to work.”

“It’s not?” Madison’s hair still whipped in her face. “You’re mad.”

“Yeah. So? Do you think just because I get mad at you that I’m going to abandon you?”

Pretty much, yeah. The only person who hadn’t was Clinton.

“We’re going to make each other mad,” Evan said. “Get used to it. Now you drive for a while. I was up all night and need some sleep.”

“Okay.” Madison unbuckled her belt and started to open the passenger side door. She hesitated. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Evan asked.

“For coming after me. For caring enough to fight Scott, even if you shouldn’t have. And for being patient with me. I-I don’t trust easily.”

“I’d say neither do I, but I think you take it to a whole new level.”

“Maybe so.” She slipped around the car to the driver’s side before speaking again. “You know, I sometimes think you’re trying to make up for two lost decades. We can’t do that.”

“That’s what Cassie says. I just wish I knew how to move forward.”

“Maybe we just did.”

Chapter 16

MADISON SAT IN THE SMALL CAFE just outside of Junction, Texas, sipping a Diet Coke and watching the two men having lunch in the next booth. They were civilians who worked on base, possibly in the lab Clara had mentioned, but so far they had not given anything away. They didn’t exactly sit in public restaurants talking about their evil experiments. If they talked about work at all, it was more in a, “Hey, did you hear Sarah was dating Tom?” sort of way. Today, they were discussing movies.

The military base was a fortress, of course. No unauthorized personnel allowed. Most of the soldiers lived right there on base, so she had no chance to interact with them, even assuming she could get past her shyness to try to strike up a conversation.

She was no spy, that was for sure. She was here for Clinton, but all she could do for him at the moment was sit in a public cafe and pay attention in case anyone let something interesting slip. Meanwhile, in the privacy of her hotel room, she would sing. She could now vocalize a melody that sounded eerily like the, “Don’t open that door!” underscore used in many movies. How well it would work was another matter entirely. She had not been able to bring herself to experiment on anyone, not when practicing in the mirror reminded her forcefully of her years of never singing at all.

She hadn’t known about her gift. Her father hadn’t known the specifics, but he had gradually come to understand that his wife had done something to him, and that it had something to do with her voice. He recognized it in Madison, and spent years telling her that singing itself was evil and wrong.

She no longer believed that, but she did fear her gift was evil. She knew it was manipulative, and had seen hints of its power. Years ago, her mother – pregnant, alone, and afraid – had recognized in herself a power that had never been there before and, smart enough to attribute it to the baby she carried rather than herself, had caught herself a husband before the power slipped away.

Later, when Madison learned the truth, she had been tempted to use the same magic to win her own father back, the same way her mother had. If she sang father-daughter love songs to him, would he start to feel like a father to her in truth, or would he hate her all the more for manipulating him?

She couldn’t sing forever. Eventually, she had to stop. Then he would come to his senses and he would really hate her.

What was it about a parent that made a child crave their love, no matter what they had done?

It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. Not anymore. She didn’t need him. She only needed herself and the one family member she had left from her childhood. That was why she was here now – for Clinton, not for her dad. She might not be able to do much until Scott got here, but she would be here when he arrived, and she would not let him push her away, even if she had to sing to him to convince him to let her stay.

The two men finished their lunch, paid the hostess at the front, and left. Madison had been in her booth for over an hour, and would start to call attention to herself if she didn’t leave soon. Sighing, she took one last sip of her drink, wondering again why she insisted on ordering diet sodas when she ordered cheeseburgers, then she made her way to the front to pay her bill.

A bell jingled behind her while she stood at the front counter. She turned slightly, not expecting to see anyone of interest, but she stopped short when she saw someone familiar. Someone who clearly recognized her, though it took her a minute to place him. When she did, she still couldn’t quite recall his name... Barry... Harry? Something like that. She had seen him twice, the first time when he had hand-delivered invitations for herself and Kaitlin to attend a magical conclave on behalf of Alexander DuPris, who was trying to organize a new magical government. She had seen him again at the conclave, briefly. The citizens of Eagle Rock had rejected both Alexander DuPris and the Magical Underground, partly because the local sorcerers liked to be left alone and partly because of rumors that Alexander had done some shady things.

So what was Alexander’s lackey doing here, of all places? It didn’t take her long to make the mental connections, and when she did, she did not like the picture forming in her mind. Could Alexander or his organization somehow be involved in studying werewolves?

Madison tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the counter to cover her eight-dollar meal, then began to edge towards the door without collecting her change. The man... Larry! That was it. Larry kept his eye on her the entire time, but he didn’t make a move. She had almost decided he wouldn’t make one when she turned to push open the door, and froze.

She had felt this way before. Her half brother, Evan, could do much the same thing, holding a person in place with the power of his mind, but there were a few important differences. First, even when he was being heavy-handed, she knew Evan had her best interests at heart, and wouldn’t hurt her. Second, Evan was much stronger than Larry, whose control kept slipping at odd moments, so that she could suddenly move an arm or a leg before he reasserted his control over that body part. Third, and most importantly, or at least most immediately, he didn’t have the practiced command over the gift it took to really control it. To put it another way – it hurt. The pressure on her chest, in her lungs, made it difficult for her to breathe. The tightness on her limbs pinched, tugged, and pulled like he was trying to tear her apart rather than hold her in place.

It was all too much. It might be clumsiness, or it might be intentional cruelty, but either way it made tears spring to eyes that felt like they might pop.

Then Larry came up behind her, put an arm on her shoulder, and whispered a few words. After that, the world went black.

Chapter 17

SCOTT SPENT THREE MORE DAYS IN Illinois, dealing with the fallout of his actions. It wasn’t enough that he establish a new pack leader, he also had to answer for his actions to neighboring alphas. Luckily, the neighboring alphas had already expressed concerns, so it didn’t take much to convince them that Isaac had needed killing, but the formalities had to be observed.

Clyde, Scott decided, would make a decent alpha. Not a great one, but there wasn’t a wolf in the pack he thought would make a great alpha. If there had been, he would have stood up to Isaac. At least Clyde would return their monthly hunting to the woods, but he clearly hated Scott for butting in, and that enmity would define them both for years to come.

Scott had never felt more relieved to return to his own pack, even if it did mean facing Jessica again. It was time to finish with her, and to hell with what the rest of the pack might think. He would find himself a real mate someday, but in his own good time and not before. He had to quash down images of Madison. That was over. No, it had never even begun. Time to move on, to move past, to...

Oh hell, who was he kidding? He hadn’t moved on or moved past her in two years, so why would he start now? He didn’t even completely understand what drew him to her so powerfully. There was definite chemistry, he had noticed that right away, but chemistry wasn’t limited to one perfect partner. He’d felt chemistry with other women, but never anything like this. That wasn’t some cheesy line, either. It was almost as if his gift of intuition had kicked in, adding weight to the pheromones. Maybe that was exactly what had happened, his intuition telling him that this was the perfect woman for him, or would have been before he had foolishly gotten himself bitten by a werewolf.

Scott remembered that day with vivid clarity as he spoke to two of his trusted lieutenants about the lab in Texas, and how they might approach it. Chad and Ben were both much older than Scott, and had both been members of the pack when their former alpha, Sam, had hit upon a brilliant idea. Well, the idea had turned out to be the death of him, but at the time, he’d thought it was a brilliant idea. Sam was not a native of Eagle Rock, nor a sorcerer, but he had always heard rumors. He had never heard of a werewolf sorcerer before, however, and thought the combination would make for an extremely powerful wolf.

He was right. Scott was an extremely powerful wolf. He had, after all, killed the man who had bitten him during his first transformation and had taken over as pack alpha at the tender age of sixteen, making him the youngest alpha in living memory.

He shouldn’t have been anywhere that a werewolf could have gotten to him. The pack hadn’t roamed near Eagle Rock at the time, but it had still been dangerous, even cocky of him to go out into the woods alone at the full moon. He had been trying to adapt one of his family’s invisibility spells to get around the modern issue of cameras when the wolves had set upon him. They hadn’t seen him, but they had smelled him.

The worst of it was, he’d never had the chance to test his spell.

Chad and Ben both claimed that they had been against their former alpha’s plan. Scott knew they were liars, but they were loyal liars, eager to shift their allegiance to the new and far more powerful alpha.

Scott didn’t go to Texas alone; he took nearly half his pack with him. Many of them had to take time away from work to make the trip, but Scott could compensate their financial losses, and he only took those who wouldn’t lose their positions for being away. He couldn’t abandon his territory completely, especially not after making an enemy of the neighboring pack.

Jessica came with him, though he wished she hadn’t. He also brought Chad and Ben, and ten others. They would call attention to themselves if they all took rooms in the small town which largely supported the military base, so most of them took rooms in nearby Houston, an hour away and ready to go if he needed them.

For now, only Scott and Chad stayed in town. Jessica wanted to, but he put an end to her whining by suggesting that someone needed to lead the backup group. Ben snickered at the idea of having to follow her, but Jessica was convinced enough that she wouldn’t throw a fit or do anything to sabotage the group.

Despite bringing backup with him, Scott felt fairly certain that he would sneak onto the base and into the laboratory alone. Three generations of Lees had come close to perfecting the art of invisibility, mostly using the talent to then rob wealthy people blind. They weren’t so noble that they turned around and gave anything away to the poor – there were no Robin Hoods in his family tree – but they did choose targets they felt could afford the losses. Scott’s parents had died before he could come up with his own value judgment on their lifestyle, and they had left enough money behind that he didn’t feel the need to follow in their footsteps. At least, after he sold their mansion, several cars, two boats, some jewelry, and two vacation homes – one in Colorado, and one in Florida.

No, he didn’t judge their lifestyle, especially after he had done far worse than steal. They’d never done anything remotely violent and had condemned violence in almost any form. They actually considered themselves to be pacifists. Scott wasn’t sure if a thief could really be a pacifist, but that’s what they had believed. At least they hadn’t lived to see what he had become.

Scott didn’t make his move the first night. He spent that time learning what he could of the facilities from the outside, which wasn’t much. The base supported the lab, the lab was top secret. Even the locals didn’t know what anyone did there, although most suspected weapons research or biological warfare.

On the second night, Scott decided it was time to learn the truth for himself. He spent the afternoon meditating, preparing himself for the potentially exhausting night ahead. Maintaining an aura of invisibility for hours would not be easy, especially away from his home node, but sometime during the afternoon he discovered a smaller node perhaps a mile or so away. It wasn’t his, it wasn’t familiar, and it wasn’t as big as he was used to, but it would help. He spent an hour or so familiarizing himself with its energy before deciding he had prepared as well as he could.

Strange, he thought as he left his hotel room that night, that there was a node so near this military base. In fact, if he didn’t miss his guess, the node was located directly beneath it. Nodes weren’t exactly common; there were three or four dozen of remotely noteworthy size scattered across the continental US. And there was one here, right beneath the military base.

Scott drew himself up short. His instincts were trying to tell him something, but he didn’t know what. He only knew this was not going to be a straightforward operation. He considered turning back, but squashed the impulse. Delay tactics would do no good. One way or another, he needed to scope this place out.

Getting onto the base didn’t turn out to be at all difficult. He walked past the armed guards, who neither saw nor heard him. There were cameras aimed at the entrance, but nobody seemed to be monitoring them. If they had, they would have seen a figure dressed in head-to-toe black and they would have raised the alarm. Scott would have retreated, knowing a bit more about his enemy. He’d more than half expected the night to play out that way.

Was it possible they were expecting him?

The thought wouldn’t go away, a sign that his intuition had kicked in. Strangely though, he didn’t feel the urgent need to flee. He felt more a sense that he needed to be ready for anything because while he might end up in trouble tonight, tomorrow night would be worse. They’d be more ready for him then.

Scott found the lab about a half mile from the gated entrance, an unimposing structure that looked innocent in the waning moonlight. He didn’t trust it.

Getting in the lab wouldn’t be as easy as walking past a guard. Entrance required a keycard and a fingerprint scan. He might have taken the opportunity to slip in after a worker, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t work. His instincts were on alert again.

He made as little noise as possible as he rounded the building in search of a window, careful to steer clear of cameras. He could mask sounds through illusion, but fooling a person’s eyes was easier than fooling their ears, so it was best to keep quiet.

The lab was a one-story complex, so finding a window he could reach was no problem. Finding one that showed anything interesting, on the other hand, proved a far more difficult task. The first room he found looked like a break room, with a solitary man eating a late dinner while watching “The Tonight Show” on a small TV in the corner.

Scott moved past that window to another, which showed some kind of workroom with a long, metal table in the center and a row of cabinets along one wall. No one was in there, and nothing leaped out at him to tell him what the room’s usual purpose might be.

No other windows along the side of the building showcased anything of interest. Scott was rounding the corner to the back when he heard something rustling in the grass. He froze, back against the wall, waiting for whoever or whatever it was to make another sound, but nothing happened.

Scott sniffed the air. If there was something back there, it would be downwind of him, so he wouldn’t be able to smell it. Whatever it was might be able to smell him, though. He could go back around the front of the building and try to approach from the other direction, or he could wait here in case whoever it was revealed himself.

He took a deep breath, and let his instincts guide him. They told him to wait, to be patient, something he excelled at. He used the skill in wolf form when stalking prey – it wasn’t even a higher level function, but a deeply ingrained instinct.

His patience paid off, but not immediately. It wasn’t in the nature of patience to pay off right away. Nor did he know precisely how long it took, since he didn’t dare move to look at his watch. Judging by the position of the moon, he waited perhaps an hour, maybe an hour and a half, but finally he heard the sound again.

A soldier came around the corner from the back, his rifle in the lead, his posture screaming that he expected trouble. He didn’t see Scott, hidden by his shroud of invisibility, and he didn’t smell like a werewolf, but he sniffed the air as if he could detect something. Most humans did not have such a keen sense of smell, forcing Scott to wonder if this was some new kind of magical creature. If he was, he smelled perfectly human, which would make him all the more dangerous.

The rifle swung past Scott, the man moving forward to take a closer look along this side of the building. He sniffed the air again, but evidently decided his nose was playing tricks on him, because he ended up returning to the back of the building.

He was guarding something back there. Or setting a trap. Scott felt it as a bone-deep certainty. He hoped it was the former, because the idea that they had set a trap suggested they expected him, or someone like him, to come here. And why would they do that, unless...

Unless Clinton had been bait.

He didn’t like his new line of reasoning at all, but at least he wasn’t certain of it. Something was off here, but he didn’t have a clear logical path to an answer yet, not without more evidence. Anything else was simple conjecture, and if he wasn’t careful, he might miss the truth because he had bought into an incorrect conclusion.

The question before him now was: Fall back or push forward? He recognized the danger if he kept moving, and not just from the soldier he had seen. If he had seen one, there were likely others. But at this point they didn’t seem aware of his ability to make himself invisible.

Besides, what would he accomplish by returning the next night? The soldiers would still be there, and he would still be alone. He couldn’t lead his wolves into a trap, and while he had considered calling upon Evan for help, he knew now that he couldn’t do that. Evan was strong and capable, a fierce opponent in battle, known in magical circles as a man not to cross. But that didn’t mean he could out himself to the world at large without consequences, which is precisely what would happen if he went up against the US army. It wasn’t about keeping the larger secret – the military had known about the existence of magic for years; studying werewolves was just another offshoot. But there was magic and then there was Magic. Few sorcerers of Evan’s caliber existed, fewer still with his insights as to how to use it.

So Scott was on his own, which suited him best anyway. If he had to kill someone tonight, he wanted it on his conscience alone.

The wind stubbornly refused to switch directions, so Scott decided to go the long way around and approach the back of the building from the other side. There was a brief moment of tension around the front when he thought another soldier smelled him, but the man turned the other way, and Scott continued to pass unnoticed.

Scott checked the windows along this side of the building as well, not wanting to leave a stone unturned. The first three held as much interest as those on the other side, but the fourth and final window held precisely what he had been looking for. He felt an eerie prickling sensation running down his spine as soon as he saw the bars. He recognized Clinton from pictures Madison had shown him, though he had never personally met the boy. He wasn’t sleeping. Instead, he stared blindly into the darkness, yellow eyes glowing in the night.

Yellow eyes?

Scott looked again. The boy’s eyes weren’t the deep brown from his picture. Instead, they were the wolf’s eyes, hungry and yellow. That was the first thing he noticed. After that, other elements began clicking into place – his eyebrows were thick, dark tufts of fur, more hair lined the backs of his hands, and his fingers ended in sharpened claws.

He wasn’t the wolf, but he wasn’t human either. He was something else, something Scott didn’t want to consider. If he had to put down Madison’s brother...

What? If he had to put him down, she’d never speak to him again? She probably wouldn’t anyway after Clara.

Scott backed away from the window, worried those sharp eyes might somehow penetrate his disguise. The wolf wasn’t as easily fooled by illusion magic as the human. Time to beat a strategic retreat until he could formulate a plan.

Scott was just about to pull away from the window when those penetrating yellow eyes focused on him, and in that instant Scott knew Clinton could see him. There was recognition there, and more intelligence than he usually saw in the golden eyes of the wolf.

Clinton stood and let out a long, low howl. It was an alarm, Scott realized. Clinton was sounding the alarm. Scott wanted to think he had made a mistake, but even if his intuition wasn’t screaming the truth at him, in the next instant Clinton slammed his fist against a button set into the wall. And sirens screamed.

Scott whirled around, ready to flee, but before he had a chance he felt several points of sharp, stabbing pain in his chest and arms. He was almost more surprised than hurt. He looked down, thinking he would see bullets, thinking too that none had penetrated his heart. He might recover, but it would take time, and in the meanwhile he couldn’t hold the illusion.

They weren’t bullets, though. They were darts. He pulled one out of his torso just before the world faded, and went to black.

Chapter 18

SCOTT WOKE QUICKLY, HIS HIGH METABOLISM making short work of the sedative used in the darts. He did not, however, open his eyes right away. First, he used his other senses to gather information about his location.

He lay in a bed, soft mattress and sheets beneath him, while a blanket covered a body that had otherwise been stripped of its clothes. Lack of clothing might make escape awkward, but if he could bring illusion magic to bear, it wouldn’t be too bad. The question was, had they bound his powers?

It took him longer than he would have liked to discover the answer. He drew in several deep breaths before finding his quiet place amidst the pillows and softness. Somewhere in there was his source of magic, but it took far longer than usual to find it, at least in part because he feared he wouldn’t. When he did finally latch onto the thrum of energy he felt such sweeping relief that he let it fill his body, even though he did not have a purpose for it. It had been a long time since he had wanted nothing more from the magic than to feel it, hold it, and let it reassure him. He probably hadn’t done that since he was a child.

He was indoors, in some kind of sterile environment, judging by the strong smell of disinfectant. Someone was in the room with him, a human female who foolishly did not smell afraid. She should be; she had not even tied him down. Did they really think they could hold him with his magic intact, his strength intact, and without so much as simple restraints to bind him?

There were monitors on his chest and fingers, a foreign presence robbing him of privacy, but not otherwise binding him. Somewhere off to the side, a monitor beeped.

“I know you’re awake,” said the woman. She had a deep, husky voice, like that of a lifelong smoker, though he did not scent cigarettes on her.

Scott opened his eyes and sat up. The woman was old, gray-haired, and frail. No threat. She wore a white lab coat over a set of green hospital scrubs, and looked at him with dark, beady eyes.

He could simply tear off the monitor leads and walk out, but he didn’t do that right away. First, he wanted to satisfy his curiosity. A few more minutes in this room wouldn’t hurt.

“I can give you another sedative,” the old woman said, “but I’d like your cooperation.”

Scott barked out a laugh. “I just bet you would. Why should I give it to you?”

“Because we’re holding your girlfriend here in anticipation of your good behavior.”

The laugh faded, becoming a growl. He may have hated Jessica, and planned to end things with her as soon as the opportunity arose, but she was pack. She was family. She was his responsibility, and he took that very seriously.

“I see you’re listening,” said the old woman. “I’m Dr. Kelley, by the way. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time.”

“Why?” Scott asked, despite himself.

“Because you’re the strongest alpha in the country. Everyone knows it. But what I want to know is: Why? You spent five days in Illinois and tore their pack to shreds as if you had an army at your back. How did you do it?”

“If you’re supremely unlucky,” Scott said, “I’ll show you some day.”

“Oh come now, can’t you humor an old woman?”

“If this is the best you have, you’re really in trouble. You know that, right?”

She shrugged. “If you must know, I’m little more than a baby-sitter. I wasn’t even supposed to let you wake up until they came to transport you to a new facility, but I’ve been studying werewolves for twenty years, and the orders pissed me off. Like I don’t know what I’m doing or something.”

“Believe me, you don’t.”

“Twenty years,” Dr. Kelley said. “I’ve learned a few things in twenty years. That IV going into your arm is delivering a drug I perfected myself, which interferes with a werewolf’s extra senses. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that your sense of smell isn’t as good as usual. It’s always the first thing they notice.”

He hadn’t noticed at all, but he didn’t tell her so.

“I can make things easier for you,” Dr. Kelley said. “I’ll make them release your girlfriend if you cooperate.”

Scott snorted. This woman didn’t have any power.

“They’re talking about letting a wolf bite her,” Dr. Kelley said. “I’d be careful if I were you.”

Scott froze. “Jessica’s already a wolf. Biting her again won’t do much.”

“Who’s Jessica?” Dr. Kelley asked blankly.

Oh no. Oh no. This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t possibly have Madison.

“The girl whose brother you’ve been after,” Dr. Kelley said. “Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

Beside him, the heartbeat monitor began tripping over itself to keep pace with his racing heart. Dr. Kelley glanced at it, then at him.

“Your heart shouldn’t be racing like that.” She frowned. “Maybe I should give you another shot.”

He didn’t give her the chance. In a matter of seconds he had all the leads stripped from his body, and had torn out the IV needle. If a few sticky pads still adhered to his skin here and there, he scarcely noticed or cared. He had eyes only for the good doctor, particularly her scrawny little neck.

“How are you-?” she began.

She didn’t get a chance to finish before he had his hands around her throat and was lifting her into the air. Her legs dangled and kicked uselessly beneath her as her face began to turn blue.

“Where’s Madison?” Scott asked.

She couldn’t speak, so slowly, almost reluctantly, he lowered her to the ground. He eased his hands away just enough to let her talk, which she did after gasping for breath.

“Not here. Already took her.”

“Where?” He fought to keep his hand from tightening around her neck again.

“Don’t know. Top secret.”

He squeezed. Her eyes widened in fear, but he found he didn’t care. How many werewolves had she tortured in just this manner? Twenty years, she had said, and she had learned so much. How many wolves had known fear at her hands? How many had died?

He wanted her dead. No, more than that, he wanted to do it. He was a killer after all, so what was one more death, especially when she so clearly deserved it? He normally killed out of necessity and duty, but he had killed in anger once before.

No, he realized after a second’s hesitation. He hadn’t done it. His wolf had. He had lost control of the wolf, and it had killed. He had never crossed the line in human form, though he had walked right up to it, toeing it.

What would the world look like on the other side? Would he be different? Could it make a difference, when his soul was already so black?

Slowly, he released his hold on her throat. Then, even more slowly, he took a step back. She stared at him, wide-eyed, seeing him for the monster he was, but he hadn’t killed her. He still wanted to. He hadn’t felt such a strong desire to kill a human being in anger since he had held Jacob Travis’s throat in his hands. He, too, had threatened Madison.

It was that thought, more than any other, which convinced him to take another step away from the tiny old woman.

She was just a tool. She might have spent twenty years studying werewolves, but she had not spent that time studying magic. She knew nothing about him as a sorcerer; his intuition led him to the obvious conclusion – that she was the bottom rung on a ladder that towered above her.

Time to go before the higher rungs showed up. Scott took one last look around the room, noticing at a glance the tiny video camera in the corner of the room. Who was watching? Who had seen?

He had no time to ask the question. He reached for the door handle, found it locked, and was just about to shoulder his way through when he smelled the faintest hint of something beginning to fill the room. He froze and sniffed again; the scent was stronger. It didn’t smell like anything he had ever run across before; the closest way he could think to describe it was ether.

Gas. They were filling the room with gas. The good doctor had already slumped to the floor against the wall.

Scott raged against the door, letting out a terrible roar as he slammed against it again and again. But this wasn’t a normal door and the gas was already making him feel weak. If he could just tap into his magic, maybe he could do something. He wasn’t sure what, since he relied on his own strength and never prepared strength spells, but something. Set the room on fire. Anything. He just had to get out. Had to get to Madison. Had to...

Chapter 19

WHEN SCOTT’S MIND DRIFTED OUT OF the void for the second time in his life, he came to far more slowly. His brain felt stuffed with cotton, making it hard for him to think or even to perceive. His eyes were open, detecting light, color, and shapes, but his brain couldn’t process the data. He saw vertical black lines and white, blinding light between them. The light hurt; he blinked several times in rapid succession, then he decided to leave his eyes closed for the moment.

The sensory perceptions started coming at him more rapidly then... the smell of disinfectant... the feel of something hard and cold beneath him... the hum of an air conditioner... then another smell, beneath the disinfectant, that of another werewolf. Female. It was faint; she had been removed from the room long ago, but she had been bleeding – and not because it had been her time of the month.

Experimentally, he opened his eyes again. The light didn’t hurt so much this time, but he retreated behind the shield of his eyelids as he considered the hard, cold thing under his back. It was horizontal and very flat – the floor?

His hands, resting atop his chest, felt the softness of some kind of thin cotton shirt. He moved those hands, tracing the outline of the shirt and the matching pants, at least as far down as he could reach. Then he spread his arms across the hard horizontal surface.

His right hand grasped a metal bar.

Scott opened his eyes for the third time, slowly, and turned his head to the side instead of looking straight up at the light. His brain felt less cottony now; he could clearly identify the black vertical lines as bars and the whiteness between them as walls, perhaps three feet away in every direction.

Bars. They had put him in a cage.

Scott felt something in his chest then, something hot and savage that caused a low growl to escape his lips. His right hand clutched the bar while his left continued exploring until it hit the edge of something that moved, sloshing water in its wake. He turned his head to the left, his eyes following his extended arm until he saw the cup of water and plate of now damp bread.

He deliberately shut his eyes one last time before hoisting himself into a sitting position. He couldn’t stand or his head would hit the bars at the top of the cage. He had just enough room to lie down or sit, and he could reach both sets of bars with his hands at the same time.

The growl became deeper, more raw, and tinged with something he wasn’t used to feeling – fear. Someone had trapped him in a cage and if he wasn’t mistaken...

He closed his eyes, doing his best to find his quiet place in the midst of panic. But he knew what he would find long before he got there. His magic had been cut off. Not stolen – not yet – but nothing stopped his captors from taking it. In the meantime, he couldn’t reach it past the invisible shield that stood between him and the warmth of the power he craved.

Bindings could be undone, but it would take time, patience, and a lot more of his mental faculties than he had right now.

He felt cold. Or was that the right word? The air conditioning shut off, suddenly, making him think that it wasn’t physical cold he was feeling. It was the loss of something he had never been without, of a sixth sense that the English language had never developed words to describe. It felt cold, empty, hollow, echoing, and dull. The world didn’t shine as brightly, although that overhead light was doing its best.

He didn’t need magic, he tried to tell himself. He had the strength of the wolf. But he knew better. They had captured werewolves here before, imprisoned them. They knew what they were doing. Those bars wouldn’t bend, though he did try to pull them apart. He had to try. He tried every bar too, in case someone had overlooked a weak point. What else did he have to do except stare at the white walls or wait for the windowless door to open?

He should wait until he was stronger to try the bars, said some part of his mind. He should drink the water and eat the food to build up his strength. He did take their offerings, though it made him feel that much more like a dog in a kennel.

He felt certain that he had been unconscious for far longer this time, though there had been no sense of the passage of time in that void. Days, perhaps, based on the weakness of his limbs. He needed to eat to get his strength back so he could get out of here. And he would get out of here. They – whoever they were – had messed with the wrong wolf.

By the time the door opened he had calmed enough not to show fear or weakness. He had stopped growling, and had forced himself to some semblance of calm, though he felt anything but. He smelled the men before he saw them. The first man smelled of antibacterial soap and laundry detergent. When he entered the room, dressed in army fatigues and carrying an assault rifle, he took position just inside the door and did not take his eyes off of Scott. He aimed the weapon at Scott’s heart, and looked more than ready to pull the trigger.

The second man smelled strongly of aftershave and of cheap, heavy cologne. When he entered the room, moving around the silent soldier, Scott nearly lost his fight to maintain his outward calm. What had that hung-over housemate of Clinton’s said about the man he’d last been with?

Tall. Real tall. Like six and a half feet. And about as big around as my thumb.

Yes, he had been exaggerating, but not by much. Lanky scarcely came close to describing this pole of a man with a thoroughly grotesque smile that made him look a bit like The Grinch. He wore a white lab coat; between that and his demeanor, Scott guessed that this man was not a soldier.

“They said you were awake,” the man said. “No side effects from the drugs or the binding, so that’s good news.”

Scott said nothing. He sat calmly in the middle of his cage with his legs crossed, trying to look for all the world as if he had chosen that position.

“I’m Dr. Akin, by the way.” He closed the door behind him and jotted something down on a clipboard. “I’m sorry about the accommodations. We’re hoping to move you to someplace much nicer, but we couldn’t risk you coming to in an uncontrolled environment. Blood tests have you at a magical potential of 8.12, which is impressive. We rarely test anyone that high who hasn’t stolen magic.” Dr. Akin paused and glanced up from his clipboard. “Have you stolen magic?”

Scott did not deign to reply. He just did his best to look down his nose at the doctor from his place on the floor. Yet inside, he felt chilled. They had his blood. He had not gotten anywhere as far as an escape plan yet, but now he had to add cutting off their access to his blood to whatever scheme he concocted.

“I hope that question didn’t offend you,” Dr. Akin said, never losing his smile. “Mr. DuPris has been shocked to learn how widespread the practice is, and we can’t be too careful.”

Somehow, Scott wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear Alexander DuPris’s name come up.

Dr. Akin arched his eyebrow in question, but when Scott continued to remain silent he continued. “I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here.”

Not as much as he was wondering how he would escape, but yes, there was some curiosity there. He could guess at part of the answer, but feared the rest would sicken him. He recalled Clinton, twisted into something that was neither human nor werewolf. The mundane army might have had an interest in werewolves, but Scott doubted that they were behind any serious experimentation. For that, they would need access to big magic, and Dr. Kelley was proof that they didn’t have it. Or at least, they didn’t have it directly. Alexander DuPris had been using those base’s resources, and perhaps feeding them tidbits, but they couldn’t know much about real sorcerers.

Which also implied that wherever Scott was now, it wasn’t that military base in Texas. They could have moved him anywhere. Where would they take him, though? Somewhere in Pennsylvania, where Alexander kept his headquarters? Probably not, since Alexander wouldn’t want to be connected to this.

“We’ve actually been wanting to work with you for years, but given your connections to the White Guard, we didn’t think we could get you here through ordinary means. I want you to know right up front that our intention is not to harm you.”

Scott did not feel remotely reassured. This guy seemed to want his cooperation for something, but he did not have Scott’s best interests at heart. Scott doubted that Dr. Akin believed he was truly human. There were moments when Scott might agree with him, but that didn’t give Dr. Akin the right to mistreat his wolves.

“In exchange for your willing cooperation, we can offer you many benefits,” Dr. Akin continued. “First and most importantly, we’d like to let you out of this cage and move you to a bedroom suite. You’ll have cable TV, access to books, movies, video games, and anything else within reason that you can think of.”

From a cage to a gilded cage, Scott thought. But he continued his vigil of silence. He would speak when he had something that needed saying and not before.

“We would also unbind your magic,” Dr. Akin said.

Scott narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“So, you can speak.” Dr. Akin chuckled. “That’s a good question, and the short answer is that we need your willing cooperation. The truth is that you’re the only werewolf-sorcerer we’ve ever run across. Certainly the only one with any real power. A couple of others have barely registered on our magical potential scale, but I doubt they could have learned to light a candle without a match. We are very interested in how the two parts of your nature interact. It has also come to our attention that you are the youngest alpha in recorded history, and we believe your magic lends you an advantage there. We have so many questions, in short, and we need your help to answer them. Most of those questions require you to have access to your magic.”

Scott believed him. He also believed that Dr. Akin had murdered many wolves, and twisted many others, including Clinton. The pup would have to be put down, both for his betrayal and because he had turned into something unnatural, potentially dangerous. Madison would hate Scott for it, no matter his reasons, but he didn’t see any other choice.

And yet, regaining access to his magic would be the key to any kind of escape. He might be able to pick his way free of the magical bindings given time, but this would be easier.

“What stops me from burning you alive with my laser vision as soon as you unbind my powers?” Scott asked.

“You don’t have laser vision.” Dr. Akin sounded far too certain for Scott’s comfort. “And even if you did, it wouldn’t matter. This facility is packed with sorcerers who are trained to contain and deal with magical threats.” He gestured at the man with the gun. “At least one of them will be with us at all times, and three more wait right outside the door. This entire building is warded, and those wards are maintained by an entire heptade of armed soldiers. And believe me, they know how to hit a werewolf’s heart.”

Scott glanced surreptitiously at the man holding a gun on him. Yes, it would hit him in the heart. He had no doubt. Plus, apparently, the man was a sorcerer.

“We could bind your powers after every session,” Dr. Akin said. “If you prefer.”

Scott tensed. He did not prefer. Repeated bindings ate away at a sorcerer’s magic and in extreme cases, did severe mental damage.

“So, are you ready to take me up on my offer?” Dr. Akin asked. “I can take you to your new room, let you get settled, and we can talk more in the morning.”

Scott closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn’t trust any of this, and not because he thought the doctor was lying. There was something being unsaid, some trump card that hadn’t yet been played. He could feel it.

“Do you really want to stay in a cage?” Dr. Akin asked.

“What happened to the wolf who was here before me?” Scott asked.

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Dr. Akin lied. “There might have been a werewolf in here before you, but I’d have to do some checking to find out what happened afterward. We often use this room as an intake.”

Scott shifted his body to the side. “I’ll stay in the cage.”

Dr. Akin’s smile disappeared. “I was hoping you’d be reasonable. There’s a lot we can learn from one another. Our file on you suggests that underneath your brutal exterior, you have the heart of an academic.”

Scott did growl then, despite himself. What made them think they knew his heart at all? He’d like to get his hands on this file of theirs, not to mention whoever had put it together.

“Oh, we have a thorough file on you,” Dr. Akin said. “Before you were bitten at age sixteen, you never so much as had a B on your report card. You were in the advanced track, the gifted program, and in your free time you studied experimental magic with your uncle, who was supposed to take you on as an apprentice.”

Scott didn’t growl this time, but it was a near thing. He tried not to think about his uncle – his father’s brother – who had turned his back on their whole family when they refused to kick Scott out of the house. His mother had already been dead at the time, but when his father had died only two years later, it had fallen upon Scott to raise his much-younger sister, Amanda.

“Do you still dabble in experimental magic?” Dr. Akin asked.

Not as much as he liked. In some ways, he’d buried that part of himself. “What else do you think you know about me?”

“We know you have a powerful gift of intuition. That made it tricky to get to you. We couldn’t get to you directly, of course. It had to be something circumspect enough that the logical connections weren’t obviously there.”

Those connections snapped into place now. “You went after Clinton Carter on purpose, didn’t you?”

“He was perfect. You’ve never even met him, so how could you suspect that someone who went after him was actually going after you? And yet, he’s Madison’s brother, and you’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you?”

“Why would I?” Scott asked. “She’s not pack.”

Dr. Akin snorted. “The only person in Eagle Rock who doesn’t know how you feel about that woman is Madison herself. And yes, we’ve had spies in the area for a long time. Alexander was keenly interested in the area even before he made his move.”

“His bungled move, you mean?” Scott asked.

“It did not go well. For my part, it was the loss of opportunity to interest you in my research that hurt the most.”

“You thought I’d just team up with you to help you butcher werewolves?”

“Butcher wer–” Dr. Akin shook his head. “Is that what you think we’re doing?”

“I smell blood. You can’t clean the smell away, only cover it.”

“We’re trying to help werewolves.” Dr. Akin looked Scott in the eyes. “We’re looking for a cure.”

Scott’s breath caught. Wow. For a moment... just a moment... he was tempted. What a strange and beautiful new world it would be if he didn’t have the monthly curse of the werewolf to contend with. If he could just be a regular human being, unafraid of hurting those he loved.

But could he go back? The wolf wasn’t him; he knew that intellectually and yet he couldn’t deny that some piece of the beast was with him always. Would that piece go away as well, or did it represent some fundamental change to the real him? Something that magic couldn’t undo?

He growled, feeling that aspect. Feeling the small piece of the wolf that was with him always.

“Ah, that got your attention,” Dr. Akin said. “Is that what you want? A cure?”

“I don’t know,” Scott said honestly.

“Come on, work with us. It will be worth your while. You won’t be hurting your fellow wolves, you’ll be helping them.”

Scott shook his head. As tempting as a cure was, he didn’t believe this guy could find one, and even if he did, he didn’t believe that was the whole story.

“Fine, have it your way.” Dr. Akin said. He tucked his clipboard by his side and started for the door. “Oh, I almost forgot. There is one other thing we can offer you in exchange for your willing support.”

Scott didn’t ask. He wouldn’t rise to the bait.

“We can give you Madison.”

Chapter 20

IT WAS EASIER TO RESOLVE TO not let fear rule her life, Madison decided, when she wasn’t being held prisoner God-only-knew where by God-only-knew who. They fed her, so they probably weren’t planning to kill her yet, but they didn’t tell her anything. After three days she wasn’t sure if knowing the truth would help or not, but it would at least give her something new to think about.

The room they kept her in was white. The attached bathroom was white. The sheets on the bunk beds were white. The fact that there were bunk beds had her a little nervous, wondering if she should expect a roommate, but given everything else she had to worry about, that concern ranked pretty low on the list.

There were two doors out of the bedroom, one leading to the bathroom, the other leading – presumably – to freedom. She had been unconscious when they’d brought her in so all she knew about whatever lay on the other side of that door came from the glimpses she got whenever the guards brought her food. She had an impression of gray stone walls and other doorways, and thought she must be in a basement, though the lack of windows might have had something to do with that assumption.

The people who brought her food dressed in army fatigues and carried some kind of assault rifles. They didn’t speak, just set the tray of food down three times a day, and collected the old tray. They didn’t precisely ignore her; as a matter of fact, they watched her like a hawk, but no matter what she said they did not reply. She tried singing a question once, only to receive a slap in the face to shut her up. Apparently, they knew about her gift.

She had taken to thinking of them as stone faces, partly because they may as well have been carved from granite and partly because it made her less anxious to think of them as inhuman. After all, she sensed they thought of her that way.

Her room was furnished with cable TV and as she had endless hours with nothing else to do, she watched it. Morning talk shows, which she had never cared for in the past, now became her one connection to the outside world. The one way she could be sure there still was an outside world, rotating on its axis as usual. Only her world had stopped spinning.

She didn’t believe she would survive, although she had not gone so far as to reconcile herself to death. She wanted to think she couldn’t die without at least knowing why, but how foolish was that? Of course she could die at any moment, and the stone faces probably wouldn’t lose sleep over having to carry out the order.

It all must have something to do with Alexander DuPris’s Magical Underground, because why else would his underling have taken her prisoner? But what? Was Alexander the one doing experiments on werewolves? And to what end? If he wanted to lead the country, could he get away with something like that?

She could just be jumping to conclusions, but she had precious little else to occupy her mind. Captive days were lonely days, and the TV provided cold comfort. It was either think about what she was doing here, who “they” might be and what they might want with her, or else wade through a lifetime of regrets in the manner of someone saying good-bye to her life.

She still had hope. Two hopes, really. First, there was Evan, who despite everything she had trusted enough to allow him to keep a sample of her blood in a secure location. He could find her with it anywhere, he’d once told her. At least as long as powerful sorcerers weren’t blocking his spells.

Then there was Scott, who might even now be searching the country for Clinton and, by extension, her. As long as Scott remained free then he might once again come to her rescue.

If she ever saw him again... no when. When she saw him again, she had a lot of things to say to him. She wanted to start by thanking him for saving her life, and apologizing for not doing so before. He hadn’t deserved that from her, no matter what had happened after the moon had risen that night. She owed him – not in the literal sense that Evan had paid off – but respect. Gratitude. Humanity.

When the door opened at five o’clock, Madison was confused. Dinner usually came at six, and they hadn’t deviated from their schedule in three days. But then she caught a glimpse of blue scrubs, similar to the ones she’d been wearing ever since she arrived. A moment later Scott came into view not, as she’d hoped, to rescue her, but with his hands in manacles.

Two stone faces came in behind him, one shoving him forward with the butt of his assault rifle. The other unlocked Scott’s manacles before retreating from the room, never taking his eyes off of Scott. For once they didn’t have their stone faces fixed on her at all.

“Scott,” Madison whispered as the two stone faces backed out of the room and the door slid shut behind them. The loud click of the lock sounded more final than it had before.

Scott looked at her, sitting on the bottom bunk with the TV on, and seemed to drink her in from head to toe with his eyes. The look made her feel uncomfortable, but that wasn’t what had her heart hammering against her rib cage.

“You’re a prisoner,” Madison said. Hope shrank in her mind, down to a tiny pinprick.

“So are you.”

“I know. I went to Texas. Just to look. I didn’t do anything but sit in a cafe, but then I saw this man I recognized...”

“One of Alexander DuPris’s men?” Scott filled in when she didn’t finish.

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.” His eyes hardened then began a sweep of the room. After a cursory inspection he began to walk a circuit around the small space.

“What are you doing?” Madison asked.

“They said they didn’t have video cameras in here. I’m not taking their word for it.”

“Video cameras?” Her cheeks grew warm. She hadn’t thought of that. She’d showered in the bathroom and changed right here in this room. “Scott? Do you know what you’re looking for?”

“Oh yes. My parents were accomplished thieves. They taught me everything they knew.”

“They did?”

He turned off the TV mounted on the wall and started feeling around behind it, then he ran his hands down the wall and to the small console beneath.

“Have you ever-?” Madison started to ask.

“No,” he said abruptly, almost angrily.

“Is there a way out of here?” She hardly dared to ask, hardly dared to hope, but there was still that pinprick standing between her and real panic.

“A way out of a maximum-security facility warded by several heptades of sorcerers and guarded by armed magical militia?”

Madison swallowed, hard. “I-I see.” Well, that was it, wasn’t it? She was here at the sufferance of her captors, whoever they were, and Scott was trapped with her on the wrong side of the cell door.

Scott was trapped with her...

“When is the next full moon?” Madison asked suddenly.

“I’m not sure. Probably not for two or three weeks.”

Madison looked around the room, then focused back on Scott. “Why did they put you in here with me? What is this about? I don’t get it.”

Scott put his finger to his lips and made a motion with his other hand. It took Madison a few seconds to understand, mostly because the accumulated fears of days of captivity were coming to the surface now. She could no longer hold them at bay, and she wasn’t even sure why she’d want to.

She almost said something else, almost asked what he meant, but some dim part of her mind registered what he was trying to say. They were being bugged – there wasn’t a video camera in the room, but there was a microphone recording every word they said.

She clamped her mouth shut before she said something she’d later regret.

Scott came to sit next to her on the bottom bunk, so close that she could feel the heat of him through twin layers of blue cotton scrubs. The heat called to her. Some insane part of her wanted to reach out and grab hold of it, letting it fill her and provide her some semblance of comfort.

“Are we going to die in here?” Madison asked, the question springing from her lips before she could stop it.

“No,” Scott said firmly.

“Please don’t lie to me. Why are they keeping me here? They could just wipe my memory and set me free, don’t tell me they couldn’t.”

“They could,” Scott said.

“Then why?”

“Because you’re the leverage they’re using against me.”

Madison let that sink in for a minute. She inched closer to Scott until her leg brushed against his. She heard a slight indrawn breath next to her but he didn’t make another move, and neither did she.

“You can’t let them,” she said, though her voice shook. “Don’t worry about me.”

His arms came around her then, pulling her fully against him so that her head rested on his chest. She breathed him in, borrowing his strength, drawing forth what comfort she could from the dangerous man who held her fate in his hands.

Chapter 21

WHEN MADISON COLLAPSED AGAINST HIM, IT was Scott’s turn to tremble. He didn’t want to let her go, and some treacherous part of his mind thought that he didn’t have to. He could make her his, here in the bowels of this prison. No one was stopping him, least of all Madison who clung to him as if she might not let him go.

Oh, Dr. Akin was a smart man. He’d known that Scott would have been perfectly content to stay in the cage rather than help him with anything – at least until he dangled Madison in front of him like some kind of perverse treat. It made Scott sick to think of Madison being used that way, but even worse was the implied threat to Madison’s life if Scott didn’t behave like a well-trained puppy.

Dr. Akin would die. Slowly. Scott let himself dwell on various revenge scenarios to help keep him from doing anything really stupid – like kissing Madison. The exercise worked, at least for a while, but as Madison’s shaking subsided and she continued to cling to Scott for comfort it was all he could do to keep his hands from roaming.

She trusted him. She was afraid, but not of him, not immediately. The thought humbled him, especially since he’d lied to her. He didn’t have any way to guarantee her safety. Quite the contrary, he was likely to get her hurt. He refused to consider that he might get her killed.

He had lied to her in another way too, a lie of omission but a bigger lie for all that. He hadn’t told her about Clinton – about what they had done to him, what he had done to Scott, and what Scott would have to do to him. He should tell her, but he knew he wouldn’t.

He had no idea how long they stayed like that, he only knew it ended too soon. When the door opened and one of the jailers came in, Madison pulled away from him, taking her softness and warmth with her and leaving Scott feeling empty.

The jailer, one of the men who had ushered him into the room before, came inside carrying a tray of food which he set atop the dresser. A second jailer, a woman this time, stood guard by the door with her assault rifle ready and her eyes fixed on Scott. He stared her down, neither of them blinking, until both jailers backed out of the room and closed the door behind them.

Scott’s nose twitched in anticipation of the meal, which smelled like chicken and potatoes.

“It’s always dry,” Madison said. “They don’t exactly hire gourmet chefs here.”

“I’m too hungry to care right now.”

He was, too. He devoured the food, and though he needed big gulps of water in between bites to get the chicken down, it tasted wonderful to him.

After dinner, Madison turned on the TV. Scott suspected that she didn’t want to have to talk to him more than she wanted to watch sitcoms, but he didn’t mind. He needed time to think, to come to terms with his new reality, and to plan.

He climbed up to the top bunk, stretched out across the firm mattress, and stared at the popcorn ceiling about three feet above his head. Then he closed his eyes and found his quiet place.

He found his magic in an instant, but as he suspected, he would only be able to use it in limited ways. There was a cage of magic around this room more solid than the walls, and he couldn’t even see through it to the fortifications that might be around the rest of the compound.

Still, he clung to hope. He didn’t have a clear idea yet, but he realized he had two advantages. First, he had Madison, unbound and able to sing. They didn’t seem concerned by her gift or her minimal talents, but he had seen some of what it could do and he would not underestimate it – or her.

Second, they didn’t understand his link to the moon. He felt the pull of the moon now, even through layers of steel and concrete, and it occurred to him that he might be able to get a fix on the time of the month by the flow of magic through his veins. The process took some time, especially since he had to take into account the absence of his familiar node, but he finally found his answer – there was no moon at all reflecting the light of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere that night. His powers were at their weakest now, but they would grow over the next two weeks, giving him time.

Scott wasn’t aware of the passage of time until he heard the TV click off and felt Madison climbing into bed. He wished he didn’t have such a clear picture of her lying there beneath him, but he was entirely too aware of her presence. He heard every brush of fabric as she tried to get comfortable. He smelled her unique scent, without the usual warm vanilla he had come to associate with her. That must have come from a shampoo she used at home. Here they gave her unscented soap so there was nothing masking the clean scent that was all her.

“Are you asleep?” Madison asked softly.

“No,” Scott replied.

“Me neither.”

They both went silent for a long time. Scott wanted to say something to her, but unfortunately the memory of Dr. Akin’s intentions had him afraid of his own actions where she was concerned. The man had offered her up like some kind of gift.

And something had changed between them. He didn’t know what, and he didn’t know when, but he didn’t trust it. Not here in this place where reality couldn’t intrude. What if all she wanted from him was temporary comfort? What if that was all he could offer her? She might have been the one putting the distance between them for two years, but her fear had never been unjustified.

“I always wanted to ask you,” Madison said after an interminable silence, “why you were there that night. When David McClellan tried to steal my soul, what were you doing there?”

It took Scott a moment to shift mental gears backwards to the long-ago night that had driven a wedge between them. He had been following her, off and on, during the weeks leading up to that night. His intuition had been screaming at him to keep an eye on her, to make her his. He had never felt anything like it before. And it hadn’t taken long for him to realize that his intuition was right at least in one respect, because Scott hadn’t been the only one following her.

“I mean,” Madison said, “you should have been in the forest with your pack by then, shouldn’t you?”

“I was on my way there,” Scott said, “but my instincts told me that David would come after you.”

“You’ve said before that intuition isn’t prescience,” Madison said. “That sounds a lot more like prescience to me.”

“It’s not when I kept seeing him watching you.” Scott closed his eyes, remembering the incidents. He’d been watching David, David had been watching Madison, and Madison hadn’t seen a thing because she’d been too upset by her father kicking her out of the house.

“I’d seen him watching you half a dozen times between the Fourth of July concert, when you showed the town your gift, and that night. I went into his store a couple of times, trying to feel him out, but I never came up with anything. A lot of rites take place at the full moon. I don’t think about them most of the time because I’m... busy. And that afternoon he had taken great pains to make me think he’d left town. I even went into his shop and his brother was there, manning the counter. I was on my way to the forest but something kept bothering me about his sudden trip out of town. I actually turned around and was halfway back when I remembered that one of his big buyers had recently made a trip into town. I’d seen him at the Main Street Cafe at dinnertime.”

“Okay,” Madison said. “But why were you following me? Did Evan ask you to do that?”

“No. He strongly advised me to keep my distance.”

“Then why?”

“Madison, go to sleep.”

She didn’t answer.

“Madison?”

“You told me to go to sleep.” She sounded testy. He didn’t think he’d ever heard her sound that way before.

“I don’t understand why you’re suddenly asking me these questions. What does it matter?”

“Maybe it doesn’t.” She paused. “But I want to know. I’m tired of being afraid. We’ve been avoiding this conversation for two years. I might die tomorrow, but before I do I want to know the truth. I want to... I want to properly thank you. But I have to know the truth first.”

“Thank me?” Scott had never wanted her thanks, only her forgiveness. Yes, he’d saved her life, but what he had done afterward had haunted them both. And he still couldn’t say for sure that it had been necessary. He couldn’t say for sure that it hadn’t, but the risks...

Taking rage with him into the wolf form had led to him killing a woman once before. He couldn’t have let the same thing happen to Madison. He’d been afraid, desperate, and he’d wanted her. But afterward he’d been afraid that his wolf would still bite her – not to kill her but to make her one of the pack. He still wasn’t sure why it hadn’t.

If she wanted to start talking about this, then she’d have to learn that truth – all of it. That he hadn’t been sure. That he still might have bitten her. She didn’t understand wolves, and how emotions drove them at the full moon. They could kill, they could maim, and they could turn others into something like themselves.

“You saved my life,” Madison said. “Don’t you think I should thank you?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe she was right, maybe they needed to say all this. She could never become his true mate without knowing, without fully accepting who he was, but he’d never had any real hope of that happening. Everything that terrified her about him was the truth – the same things that terrified him about himself. This might be one of those conversations they had now, but wished they hadn’t if it turned out they lived. And he wasn’t ready to concede that they were going to die.

“Scott?” Madison asked.

“I wanted you, Madison. You want the truth, so there it is. I was protecting you too. I was scared out of my mind, but I wanted you.”

“Oh.”

Scott waited, tension radiating through his body, but for the longest time all he heard was the sound of her slightly unsteady breathing.

* * *

I wanted you.

A few weeks ago the words would have had her running away screaming, but not tonight, and not just because she had no place to run. She’d wanted him at one time too, the very night standing between them in fact. She hadn’t wanted anyone else since then, not even Nicolas, whose touch had been more comforting than anything else.

He wanted her. So what did she want? And would she have the chance to find out?

“Did I scare you off yet?” Scott asked.

“No,” Madison said honestly. “Not at all.”

“No?”

“No.” She steeled herself. She would not let fear rule her life any longer. She would not use it as an excuse to mistreat Scott. “I’m not afraid of you. At least, not until the next full moon.”

“Maybe you should be.”

“Why?” Madison asked.

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I never thought we’d actually talk about it, not after what I did to you. You’re not afraid of me? Why not? I forced you. I-I raped you.”

“You did what?” Madison sat upright in bed, nearly hitting her head against the top bunk. “I said yes!”

“You didn’t know what you were saying. You were a virgin.”

“That didn’t make me stupid. I know it wasn’t...” Madison trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence. It wasn’t every girl’s fantasy? That was the understatement of the century. But she had said yes. She finally settled on saying, “You did what you had to do.”

“Did I?” Scott asked.

“Didn’t you?” She remembered that night again with perfect clarity, the way the wolf had torn into David’s body like an all-you-can-eat buffet. She didn’t flash back this time; maybe that potion Matthew Blair had given her was helping. She hoped so, because though she had started this conversation, she sensed that Scott needed to work through it more than she did.

“I don’t know if I would have killed you or not,” Scott said. “I just know I’ve killed before. The wolf is unpredictable. It’s pure emotion. It’s not me – but my feelings go with it into the transition. I was feeling rage and murder that night, and I wasn’t sure. The wolf is unpredictable. And it’s a killer. I needed to be sure.”

“Scott,” Madison began tentatively. She was beginning to get an awful idea. She hoped she was wrong but she had to ask, “Who was she?”

He waited a long time before answering, but she didn’t fill the silence. This silence was his to fill, one way or the other. The only question now was would he deny the charge or take the opportunity?

“My girlfriend,” Scott said finally. “Right after I got the bite. It wasn’t even that serious, just one of those high school things, but one day, the day before the full moon, a teacher caught her in the make-out closet with her ex-boyfriend.”

Madison held her breath, sure she knew where this was going but not wanting to betray her own horror by the tiniest flicker of sound.

“I was so angry. Betrayed. Hurt. It was so fresh and I carried it with me into wolf form. The wolf doesn’t think or reason. It doesn’t have a sense of honor or morality. It only knew pain, hurt, betrayal, and it knew how to find the source. She was in her backyard, alone, watching the stars. She used to like to do that. Set up a telescope sometimes. Said she wanted to be an astrophysicist. Never got the chance.”

Madison closed her eyes, unsure what to say. Scott needed her assurance right now, but she wasn’t sure she had any to give. In her mind’s eye she saw the wolf. She saw a girl – a random teenager since she had no idea what the girl had looked like. Then she saw the wolf attack.

“She’s dead, Madison.” He drew in a sharp, strangled breath that made her wonder if he was crying. “What you saw me do to David – that’s what I did to her. She didn’t deserve it. So she was with some other guy; it’s not like we were engaged.”

“She wouldn’t have deserved it if you were.” Madison felt the bite in her words but the image of what Scott must have done to that girl was too fresh in her mind.

“No,” Scott agreed.

“Thanks for telling me,” Madison said after a while.

“I still want you, Madison. That hasn’t changed, but I know you deserve so much better. That’s why I never called on the life debt, even before Evan took care of it. That and the fear I saw in your eyes. Maybe I could have helped ease it, but it was safer that way.”

He still wanted her? How? Why? And he didn’t think he deserved her? He was a powerful alpha, and so fiercely loyal to those in his inner circle. Look what he’d done for Clinton, and he hadn’t even officially joined the pack yet.

Madison wanted to belong to someone like that.

“I’m a hypocrite,” Scott said. “I’ve killed wolves because they couldn’t control themselves, because they killed humans, but I’ve done it myself.”

She hesitated. He had a point there, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t giving himself credit. That he was being overly hard on himself.

“How old were you?” Madison asked.

“Sixteen.”

“How long had you been a wolf?”

“Don’t go there, Madison.”

“How long had you been a wolf?” she asked again.

“It was my second transformation. During my first, I killed the pack alpha. During my second I was the alpha.”

“So there was no one to help or guide you. No one to show you how to control it. You had to figure that out on your own.”

Scott growled again, the sound obviously intended to frighten her, but it didn’t work. She didn’t even flinch.

“Oh, stop growling,” Madison said.

“This isn’t a game. You’re in danger every second you’re with me.”

“Really? Didn’t you raise your sister from the time she was eleven?”

Scott didn’t answer.

“Was she in danger?” Madison pressed. “From what I see, you did everything in your power to save me that night.”

He snorted. “Did I? Did you know that by marking you, I might have put you at greater risk?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my wolf might have bitten you – not to kill but to turn.”

She shuddered. She had not realized that, but it wasn’t something she wanted to think about. It hadn’t happened, so why worry about it now? Maybe the wolf had Scott’s gift of intuition; maybe it had known she wouldn’t make a good wolf.

“Madison?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m wondering what your intuition told you that night.”

“It told me...” He paused and drew in a deep breath. “I thought I might kill you.”

“You should trust your intuition.”

“My intuition doesn’t get it. It can’t predict the future, it only knows I want you, and that if I had never been bitten...” He trailed off, but Madison felt something stir inside her.

“What were you like before you were bitten?” she asked.

“Studious,” he said.

“That wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

“No, I imagine not. I was a bit of a late bloomer, physically speaking, so I wasn’t all that outgoing. I wasn’t shy, but I don’t think I would have become a leader of anything under normal circumstances. I excelled in school, and I was already trying experimental spells, something most sorcerers don’t do until after their apprenticeship – if ever. So yeah, I was studious.”

“And a nice guy?”

“I had a dozen girl friends, who all liked to tell me I was too nice to date.” He paused and with his next words, she felt the deep sorrow. “Addie felt the same way, but when her boyfriend dumped her, I thought I had a chance.”

“You haven’t changed as much as you think you have,” she said. He was still sensitive, and still smart.

“I’ve changed exactly as much as I think I have.”

“Scott–”

“Go to sleep, Madison.”

This time, Madison sensed, he meant it, so she dropped the conversation. It took her a long time to fall asleep, however.

* * *

Madison had the nightmare again that night, but it wasn’t the same. This time when Scott went from sexual fantasy to ravening monster, Madison simply stared at the beast. She didn’t believe it. It wasn’t the full moon. She suffered a moment’s doubt when it looked like it might tear into her with its sharp teeth, but then it did something it had never done before: Instead of tearing into her, it nipped her lightly, just enough to draw blood.

She sat bolt upright, heart hammering in her chest, but when she heard a soft snore coming from the top bunk, she settled back down. She did not, however, go back to sleep for a long time.

Why hadn’t his wolf bitten her on that long ago night? His wolf acted on pure emotions. Instinct. It hadn’t killed her because it had smelled itself on her, but why wouldn’t it have wanted to make her a member of the pack? And why did it bother her that it hadn’t? She didn’t want to become a werewolf.

But some secret part of her did like the idea of belonging to Scott. He was the most fiercely loyal man she had ever met to those he considered his.

He wanted her, but he’d sensed her fear and backed off. Scott would never consciously do anything to hurt her. She knew it with a bone-deep certainty that nevertheless did not ease her anxiety. So what had her nervous now?
I still want you.

But what did she want? She didn’t fall back asleep for the rest of the night, but she never came up with a definite answer.

Chapter 22

SHORTLY AFTER BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, three stone faces – as Madison called them – led Scott away from his cell in a reversal of the course he’d taken the day before. The room he shared with Madison was the last one on the left going in, the first on the right coming out. There were ten identical doors on each side of the gray hallway, each door sealed by magic and an electronic lock, though he suspected that the RFID tags hanging from the guards’ belts would unlock both types of seals.

He heard nothing from any of the rooms they passed, but that was probably due to some magical soundproofing. He didn’t think the four armed men seated at the guard station were just there for him and Madison, although the idea was a little flattering.

They had put him in a dungeon of sorts, even if it did contain plaster walls rather than stone. Behind those plaster walls, he felt certain, was earth and foundation. There were no windows down here, not even near the guard station, which stood sentry between the row of cells and a double-wide staircase leading up to the rest of the compound.

Scott kept his eyes, ears, and nose open, alert for anything that might help him get both Madison and himself out of this place safely. The magical wards were daunting enough, though he had an idea how he might fool them. The guards themselves, armed with the best magic and technology available, could prove to be a bigger problem.

The staircase ended in an enclosed landing, opposite a set of double doors leading to a hallway that seemed to bisect the main floor. Other hallways crossed it every few feet, but there were no doors opening directly into this hallway.

They made the second right, taking the hallway opposite the one he’d come from the day before. Then the stone faces ordered him to open the first door on the left and go inside while they stood sentry outside.

The room he had been forced into was an examination room. Like every room Scott had seen so far, this one had no windows, so it was impossible to know for sure if he was above ground or not. He guessed that yes, he was, if for no other reason than the staircase had ended at this level, rather than turning to go up another floor. He had a feeling – and he trusted those feelings – that this entire compound consisted of a ground floor and a basement.

The examination room could have been any room in any doctor’s office, if it hadn’t been for the runes carved into the cabinets to keep them locked. There was a sterile counter, a sink for washing hands and equipment, antibacterial soap, and even a container for hazardous waste next to the trash can.

Dr. Akin waited for him inside. He was seated on a rolling chair by the counter, making notes on a clipboard. “Thanks for coming, Scott.”

Since he hadn’t had a choice, Scott didn’t deign to reply.

“Have a seat.” Dr. Akin didn’t gesture at the examination table, but at a hard-backed chair next to the door.

After a moment’s hesitation, Scott decided to sit.

“How’s your room?”

“Locked,” Scott said.

Dr. Akin chuckled, again reminding Scott of The Grinch. “Yes, well, I’m sure you understand that we can’t just let you roam free.”

Since Scott didn’t do sarcasm, he didn’t reply at all.

“Anyway, I’m sure you’d like to know more about what we’re working on. We’ve got a lot of projects that require your assistance right now. Eventually of course, we’re aiming for a cure – at which point we can give you your freedom.”

And pigs will fly. Actually, that was more likely.

“I’ve got a pet project right now that I’m working on. I’m interested in the effect of the moon on magic. We’re all a little stronger at the full moon. Take me, for example. At the new moon, today, I rate a 7.4. In two weeks, at the full moon, I get a bump to 7.5. We think this is why so many spells are written with the instructions, ‘at the full moon.’ What do you think?”

The man might be on to something, although his theory didn’t explain why other spells were supposed to be cast at the new moon. Why cast a spell during your weakest potential? Scott doubted the question would keep him up at night, but apparently it was the sort of question that would entertain Dr. Akin for years. Scott didn’t gift him with his perspective.

“I think,” Dr. Akin said, “that it will be a more striking difference for you. I’m betting that at the full moon, you will rate off the charts, just as if you had stolen magic from someone else.”

Scott thought the same thing. It was supposed to have been one of his aces, but apparently one the enemy knew he held.

“How do you know I haven’t stolen magic?” Scott couldn’t resist asking, thinking back to the man’s impudent question the day before.

“You didn’t. I was having fun with you yesterday, don’t take it personally. Now, sit in the middle of that casting circle while I draw some blood.”

Scott froze. He was supposed to meekly hand over a sample of blood to this man? True, Dr. Akin already had some, but this was different. This was compliance.

“There is no way sorcerers have been handing over blood samples to you so you can rate their magic on a scale from one to ten,” Scott said to buy himself some time.

“You’re right. We have developed other, slightly less accurate tests. But blood is the most accurate. It’s the only way we’ve been able to detect the lunar cycle patterns in most normal sorcerers, and it’s what we’re going to use to test you.”

Scott growled. “The hell you will.”

“We’ve already taken blood samples while you were asleep.”

“You’ll have to put me to sleep again then.”

“I’d rather not. We’ve found that the presence of foreign magic or certain drugs, especially those used to put a person to sleep, can affect the results of the testing. Besides, as soon as we’re done here, we want to put you in with the werewolves to see if you’re the natural alpha some believe you to be.”

Scott narrowed his eyes. Was the man crazy? Was he seriously suggesting that Scott might agree to be in charge of a gang of captive wolves? Moreover, did he understand that they would resist him precisely because Dr. Akin wanted him to be in charge?

“How many wolves do you have?” Scott asked. “And are any of them like Clinton?”

“That was unfortunate,” Dr. Akin said. “I told you we’re trying to cure them, but not every experiment has been successful. In the meantime, we’re losing control of some of the test subjects and have had to put them down. We’re hoping a powerful alpha can help, so we won’t have to take such measures.”

“No.” He wasn’t even sure he could do it.

Dr. Akin frowned. It reminded Scott of a disappointed parent, hoping to chastise his child into good behavior. “No? I had hoped that explaining a bit of what we do here would help. I wanted to make you feel like you’re a part of something here. I would hate to resort to threats.”

Scott growled.

“Maybe we should just throw Madison in with the wolves instead of you.”

The growl became a snarl. “If you do that, you lose your bargaining chip, don’t you?”

“Maybe. Or maybe we’ll round up a few members of your pack and use them as leverage. We’ve already got a track on several of them sniffing around that research facility in Texas.”

Trapped. God, he hated feeling trapped. He had never felt this way before in his life, and one way or another, he vowed, he would make Dr. Akin pay for making him feel this way now. He wouldn’t risk Madison or his pack, and the damned doctor knew it.

Scott held out his arm for the blood draw.

Chapter 23

HELPLESS RAGE. THAT’S WHAT FILLED SCOTT’S soul as he returned to his prison around lunchtime. Holding out his arm to willingly let another sorcerer draw his blood ended up being the high point of the morning. Afterward, Dr. Akin had forced him into a room with another powerful werewolf, one who might have been alpha material under normal circumstances.

Scott hadn’t killed him. He had fought the other male, and come out the victor, but he’d secured the other werewolf’s surrender. Surrender had been enough for him but not, apparently, for Dr. Akin.

It had been senseless! Scott’s instincts told him that Dr. Akin had only killed the other wolf to prove that he could, to show Scott that the guards knew how to take down a werewolf.

Who else would Dr. Akin kill before this was all over?

Only one thing kept Scott from lashing out in a blinding rage that would inevitably get himself killed: Madison.

She was the only thing that might keep him sane in the coming days, assuming she didn’t drive him crazy. He pictured her sweet face and remembered the feel of her soft body as she’d clung to him the night before. He could almost hear her voice in the dark, asking him personal questions as though she had the right. As though she weren’t afraid, even after he’d told her he wanted her. And he’d answered.

He couldn’t believe how much he needed her now. He’d given her the truth – all of it. Some part of him expected her to reject him now, but he didn’t think he could stand it if she did.

Two stone faces ushered him into his cell, using unnecessary force and smelling of unwarranted pride. They might fancy themselves kings of this prison, but wait until he met them on an even playing field.

They kept their eyes and their rifles trained on him as another stone face brought in a lunch tray – turkey sandwiches from the smell of it. Scott did not look. He had eyes only for Madison, who had risen from her place on the bottom bunk and stood staring at him until all the stone faces left. The lock clicked into place behind them.

He searched her face, looking for signs of fear or disgust. He didn’t see any. There was an underlying anxiety present, but nothing that made him think she saw him as a monster. In fact, the moment the stone faces left, her eyes went soft and moist.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “What did they do?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Her eyes dropped slightly and he cursed softly, under his breath. He hadn’t meant his words as a rejection; he simply did not want to relive his morning right now. Words wouldn’t help.

He took two steps closer, all he needed to be within touching distance. She glanced up at him, uncertainty written on every line of her face, but she did not draw away. In his current frame of mind, that was all the invitation he needed to draw her into his arms and close them around her, pressing her against his chest.

Her arms went around him in return, holding him tightly. She didn’t say anything, perhaps understanding that this was what he needed right now more than words. He hoped she understood.

Her head rested perfectly atop his shoulder. She wasn’t a short woman and he wasn’t a tall man. He only had three inches on her, but it put her at the perfect height for his embrace. She fit him. Her beautiful body, soft and full, fit him perfectly too. This wasn’t a woman who would break at his touch.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted more than that, but just now he wanted to feel her lips against his. He had refrained the night before, glorying in her touch alone, forcing himself to let that be all he needed. But today he wasn’t sure it would be enough. Today he felt desperate and unsure.

He placed a finger under her chin and lifted it slightly. Her eyes met his in question, but he didn’t answer in words. He answered by settling his lips over hers in a soft, gentle brushing of skin against skin. Then he backed away slightly.

Her eyes were closed and her lips slightly parted. She looked a bit dazed and very unsure, but she wasn’t pushing him away. He could smell her growing interest and it made his heart swell with newfound hope and need.

He brushed his lips against hers again before deepening the caress. She returned the kiss, a little inexpertly but with all the passion he’d known she possessed. She opened her mouth to him, welcoming his explorations. Welcoming him.

Why, though?

The niggling question started at the back of his mind but made its way forward until he could no longer ignore it. He wanted to quash it. He wanted to smash that voice into pulp. But it was the voice of instinct, the voice of intuition, and it had a concern.

Last night she’d talked to him in a way she never had before, clearing the air between them in the manner of someone who knew she was going to die. If that’s why she was responding to him now, if that’s what was going on, then he had to back away, no matter how much it killed him. He couldn’t take her now, truly claim her as he knew he would this time, and let her withdraw should they ever escape. It would destroy him.

It took a few seconds for her eyes to open and when they did they were full of question.

“Don’t offer more than you’re willing to give,” Scott found himself saying, a little more harshly than he intended. “I just might take advantage.”

She pulled away slightly. “Then why did you stop?”

He backed up a step, turned around, and spotted the lunch tray sitting on top of the dresser. He needed time to regroup, to gather his wits. He also needed his strength in the coming hours because, far-fetched though it was, he had the beginnings of a plan.

* * *

Madison ate her lunch in silence, trying not to show through look or words that she felt a little hurt. That kiss – her first kiss with Scott – had made her feel like she’d never really been kissed before. She had still been trying to decide if she wanted him or not, but when his lips met hers, she’d had her answer. Whether it was wise or not, whether it would last beyond this captivity or not, she did want him.

Yet he’d pulled away.

“I’m going to cast a spell,” Scott said when they finished eating.

“Okay.” Madison collected their plates and set them atop the tray on the dresser. Then she stood back so she wouldn’t interrupt whatever Scott wanted to do.

Scott glanced around the sparsely furnished room. “I need a casting circle first.”

Madison followed his gaze, frowning. She understood that the purpose of the casting circle had more to do with focus than anything else, but that for advanced or unfamiliar spells, it was often critical. Holding all the pieces of the spell together in one’s mind without some physical assistance was needlessly difficult.

“What about the sheets from the beds? We could lay them in a circle.”

“Good idea.” Scott stood, stripping first the top bunk, then the bottom.

“What are you going to do?” Madison asked.

Scott sat in the circle, just off center. “Sit with me.”

She hesitated. She had worked in a casting circle once, when Evan had tried to teach her to make the most of her talent, but it had been a long time, and she didn’t trust it. One way to link with another sorcerer was to join hands in the middle of a casting circle. Linking made two sorcerers more powerful than they could be individually, but Evan had once confided that if the two sorcerers involved weren’t equally powerful, the stronger of the two could overwhelm the weaker.

“Now, Madison.” Scott’s voice permitted no refusal. She sat.

Scott offered his hands to her, palm up, and she took them, trembling slightly at the casual touch. It felt more intimate than it should after what had passed between them earlier, but she had to push those feelings to the side for now. She also had to remain still and silent while Scott worked his spell.

It didn’t take as long as she feared it might. She sensed the evenness of his breathing when he fell easily into his quiet place, then the tingle of power when he called upon his magic. He mumbled something under his breath that sounded a little like Latin, the words sending a ripple through the air that seemed to make it thicken around them.

Scott’s eyes flew open. “It’s safe to talk now.”

“What did you do?” Madison glanced at the TV console, where she knew they had installed at least one microphone.

“I cast a silencing spell around us.”

“You don’t need the circle for the silencing spell,” Madison said. He had cast it too easily to have needed the props.

“That’s true. I know the silencing spell pretty well. It’s useful in combination with illusion magic.”

“I imagine no one sees you unless you want them to.” Madison frowned. “So how did you get caught?”

Scott shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Let’s talk about magic instead.”

Madison didn’t like how many things Scott was keeping from her, but she had no choice but to go along with it for now.

“You have a plan.” It wasn’t a question. Madison’s heart started beating faster at even the possibility of hope. She hadn’t resigned herself to death. She just had no idea how to stop it.

“I do. I won’t tell you everything in case they try to torture it out of you, but you should know that most of the work will fall on your shoulders.”

“Mine?” Madison squeaked the word, then cleared her throat. “Scott, I don’t have the magic to escape from a prison guarded by sorcerers. I’m not sure you do, either. Plus they probably have cameras everywhere, outside this room if not inside, so going invisible won’t work.”

“You’re right. Traditional illusion magic won’t work. But, years ago, I developed a spell that I thought would fool cameras. True invisibility.”

Madison’s eyes widened. “How? And what do you mean you thought it would work? Didn’t you test it?”

A shadow fell across his face. “I tried. The spell required the power of the full moon. I went into the woods to be closer to nature, close to the node, and close to the pull of the moon. I arranged my casting circle, ringed with white and black candles.”

“What happened?” Madison asked, though she thought she knew.

“A werewolf bit me.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve never been human at the full moon since, so I’ve never been able to work the spell.”

“You won’t be human during this full moon either,” Madison pointed out.

“No, but you will be.”

Madison was so startled by the idea that she nearly backed out of the circle, which would have broken it. Scott stopped her just in time.

“I can’t work a spell like that!” Madison protested. “I can barely light a candle when I really, really concentrate.”

Scott stroked her hand with gentle fingers, reminding her of their earlier kiss.

“Are you trying to distract me?” she asked.

“Maybe just relax you. It is a risky plan.”

“I still don’t understand the plan. How am I supposed to pull off a spell that you’re only strong enough to pull off at the full moon?”

“You won’t be using your magic, you’ll be using mine.”

She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Your magic?”

He nodded, once.

“What are you going to do?” Madison asked. “Let me drain you?”

“No.” His shocked expression told her the thought had never occurred to him. “That wouldn’t be good enough anyway. There is more power in me at the full moon because of the wolf. I think that might tip the scales.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll be linked. You do understand linking, right?”

A little bit. “Mostly just that the strongest one controls the link.”

“The strongest one can give up control if he wants to. Or needs to.”

“But I would be...” Madison swallowed and tried again. “I’d be with you as a wolf.”

“My wolf didn’t kill you the last time.” Scott didn’t look her in the eyes, reminding her that they still hadn’t finished talking about the last time. They had only scratched the surface of what had come between them that night.

“Your wolf didn’t kill me because you, er, marked me.” Madison could feel her face burn, but Scott wouldn’t let go of her hands so she could hide her embarrassment.

“We’ll talk about that part later,” Scott said.

“It seems like a critical piece of the plan.” A deadly piece of the plan. She might have lost some of her irrational fear around Scott, but fear of his wolf was perfectly rational.

“Please, Madison,” Scott said. “It’s the new moon. We’ve only got two weeks and we need every minute if this is going to work. I don’t think we’ll get another month to try.”

Madison looked at Scott, trying to find some measure of reassurance in his expression. This plan of his – which he hadn’t fully explained – had more holes in it than swiss cheese. But his instincts were often right; they had saved her at least once before.

If only so much of it didn’t fall on her shoulders. He wanted her to channel vast amounts of magic? Could she even do that? Would a link still work with him in wolf form? Or would the wolf kill her before the plan had a chance to work?

I don’t think we’ll get another month to try.

“What went on up there today?” Madison asked.

He shook his head. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. This is what you need to worry about. Can you do it?”

“I can try.”

Chapter 24

SCOTT CONTINUED TO HOLD MADISON’S HANDS in his while he tried to read the spectrum of emotions playing across her face. He’d scared her when he’d told her that she’d have to be with him as a werewolf once again – that part had him scared too – but she seemed to harbor more doubt than fear at the moment. He was impressed, though her doubt was a bad sign for the practicality of their plan. Scott had long come to believe that doubt made more things impossible than any other force in the universe.

He gave her a minute, all the while letting his thumbs trace the smooth skin on the back of her hands. He could still taste her on his lips, proof that he hadn’t imagined the kiss they’d shared. If only he hadn’t let doubt creep into his own mind.

He couldn’t let it distract him, though. His primary focus had to be on getting them out of here, after which time she’d probably learn the truth about Clinton and never want to speak to him again.

“Scott,” Madison said, “how long does it normally take someone to learn to link?”

There was that doubt he’d sensed. And he couldn’t blame her. He was asking her to do something extraordinary. He just happened to think that Madison was, in fact, extraordinary.

“Most learn it as a child, and I think parents sometimes start their kids too young.” Scott hesitated but added. “It’s months though. When they’re too young to start, it can be years. It takes a certain maturity to be able to do it.”

“We don’t have months. We have two weeks. I can’t learn to link in two weeks, let alone learn this extra powerful spell you’ve never tested.”

“I think you can.” Scott held up a finger before Madison could protest. “When did you start playing the piano?”

“Huh?”

“The piano. When did you learn to play it? You weren’t a child. Your father forbade music of any kind, didn’t he?”

“Yes. I-um, I started my senior year of high school in secret. The music teacher let me practice after school.”

“You graduated with a music degree in three years. Nor four, but three. And I don’t think the piano was the only instrument you learned.”

Madison averted her eyes. “I can play the clarinet. And the violin. And the guitar. A few others, but not as well.”

“And you graduated in three years?”

“I had about thirty credits going in. I took all the AP classes they offered in high school.”

“What were your scores?” Scott asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“I got perfect scores on all of them.” Madison sighed. “I know I’m smart. It’s one of the reasons kids used to hate me in school. I could fall asleep in class and still get straight As.”

“Did you fall asleep?”

“No, I was usually reading. The teachers tried to stop me at first, but by the third grade they let me do whatever I wanted as long as I was quiet about it.”

“So basically you’re a genius.”

Madison looked like she wanted to fall through a hole in the floor. “I suppose.”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

“Tell that to everyone who teased and bullied me growing up. And it’s not like I went to college to be a physicist or something where I’d have started to fit in. I wanted to teach music. I always wanted to teach music. The people in that program were talented, but they still weren’t as smart as me and you wouldn’t believe the competition! I learned to shut up about certain things on my first day of school when I outplayed this girl on the piano who’d been practicing since she was seven.”

Madison took a deep breath. She looked as if she’d been holding that in for a long time and now she looked at Scott as if afraid he’d hate her too.

“You think I can learn linking faster than usual,” Madison said. “But I’m not sure. Music has always come easily to me. It’s like I’ve got music in my soul. If I’d started when I was three like I should have, I would have been one of those child prodigies. And as for school, it’s just memorizing stuff most of the time. I hear it, I know it. I didn’t completely ignore the teachers, I just didn’t need them to repeat themselves ten different ways like they did for everyone else in the class. And I didn’t need the two months of review at the beginning of every school year. Just tell me something and I know it.”

“That’s what I need you to do now.”

“But it’s magic. I’ve never taken to magic.”

“Why not?”

She shuddered, probably thinking about her father. But she didn’t reply except through a shake of the head.

“I need you to talk about it now.” He could tell she didn’t want to. He understood. He even suspected the answer, but he needed her to figure it out. She might be smart, but she wasn’t intuitive, particularly when it came to herself. Book smarts vs. street smarts, some might say. But if he forced the issue, she was smart enough to see the truth.

Madison bit her lip. The poor thing looked as if it had suffered that fate a bit too much lately but Scott didn’t stop her.

“I was afraid of magic most of my life,” Madison said.

“And now?”

“Still am, I guess. I know I’m not strong enough to really defend myself, and honestly, I don’t want to.”

“Not all magic is used for fighting. Most of it isn’t.”

“I suppose. But that’s what I’ve seen.”

“It didn’t help when David attacked you.” Scott made it a statement. “Or when I nearly killed you afterward.”

Madison shuddered. “We have two weeks. Talking about this is wasting time. If you think I can do this then the least I can do is try.”

Scott hesitated. He needed her to do more than try. He needed her to believe she could succeed. To want to. But maybe for now, this was what she could do.

“The first step is to find your quiet place.” Scott waited until she closed her eyes, then he followed suit.

* * *

Madison sank into her quiet place as easily as lowering herself into a tub of warm water. She didn’t have the instantaneous focus Scott had, but the exercises Evan had forced her to do had made a notable improvement in her speed and more importantly, in her saturation level. Focus had always been a problem for her in her quiet place, with the noise of reality intruding everywhere she looked. Her mind was constantly moving and shifting, never resting on any one thing. Never sitting still. Always worrying.

The noise was still there inside her quiet place, like static from a badly tuned radio, but she ignored it as she stood on the top riser of the choir box, located just to the left of the altar at St. Augustine’s Catholic Church.

She was alone, the rest of the choir off in quiet places of their own. Behind her arose the simple splendor of a small town church’s altar, a wooden structure lacking the pomp and ceremony of the grand cathedrals or even the statuary and intricate scrollwork of Catholic churches she saw on TV. This church had pews enough for two hundred parishioners, set in two short rows with a path between to allow the priest and his entourage to enter on Sunday.

Madison stepped off the risers, heading for the front pew where she could get the full effect of her peaceful surroundings. She genuflected before sliding into the front right pew, making a quick sign of the cross. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit...

Few people understood the sanctuary she found within these walls, least of all her father, who had used threats of hell to keep her in line. Maybe his threats should have turned her away from spirituality, or at least religion, but they hadn’t. If anything, they had drawn her closer to the source of blessing and light. She understood now that her father didn’t really know God at all, and she found the idea deeply sad. Her best friend, Cassie, for all she didn’t go to church or believe in the Christian God, understood Him far better.

Father Owen had come into her life around the same time as Cassie. Her decision to start singing again had been a combined effort from the two of them, and she had needed both of them to find the courage to defy her father. Cassie had offered her friendship, acceptance, encouragement, and training in the social arts. Father Owen had offered her an authority figure, not unlike a real father, who could make her question everything she’d ever been taught.

Father Owen took a seat beside her in the front pew, neither looking at her nor speaking, but just being there. He wasn’t always in her quiet place, but he seemed to know when she needed him. He always waited for her to start talking.

“I’m falling in love with a werewolf,” she told him, even as she realized the truth for the first time.

“Is he Catholic?”

She laughed. “No.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

“He’s killed people, and not always in self defense. Sometimes it’s vengeance or vigilante justice. And once it was murder.”

“God can forgive any sin for the truly repentant. His grace is bigger than ours. He loves all His children.”

“He thinks he’s going to kill me.” Madison wasn’t sure why she knew that since he hadn’t said so out loud. All he’d said to her was there were no guarantees. But she sensed something from him, a bone-deep fear that not only would he fail to protect her, but that he would deal the killing blow. It would probably destroy him.

“What do you think?” Father Owen asked.

“He might kill me, but I think... I think he may love me.”

“You sound surprised,” Father Owen said.

“Among other things. Nicolas said he loved me. My father said he loved me. Scott hasn’t actually said the words.”

“The words aren’t important. You of all people should know that by now. You should be getting good at recognizing false love.”

“Maybe, but... I don’t know. People always ask how you know if you’re in love, like there’s some formula. I figure it’s harder to let yourself be loved. At least for me.”

“You have to love yourself first,” Father Owen said.

Madison stared at him. Where had that thought come from? Wasn’t this all supposed to be inside her own head? But she knew she hadn’t made that observation.

“I said I’d be joining you,” Father Owen said. Only it wasn’t Father Owen anymore. It was Scott, dressed in tight jeans and a t-shirt that showed off his rock-hard abs.

Madison’s cheeks went scarlet. This was one of the reasons she had never wanted to link with Evan; she hadn’t wanted him to see her quiet place.

“Interesting place you have here,” Scott said.

“Yeah, well, Evan said to think of a place I felt safe and happy.”

“He was right. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“So, how long were you listening?” Madison asked, remembering more details of her conversation with Father Owen.

“Why, were you talking about me?”

“No.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I’ve heard.”

“And isn’t it a mortal sin or something?”

“A venial sin. Definitely venial.”

“That’s a relief. So you only have to say ten ‘Hail Mary’s’ or something and you’re good?”

“Something like that.” Madison began to fidget with her hands, and the static surrounding her quiet place grew louder, encircling and closing in. “How long?”

“I only heard the last thing you said,” Scott replied. “Breathe. Focus. You’re losing it.”

“Right.” She did as instructed, and thankfully, the noise began to retreat. “I didn’t realize this was going to be like mental telepathy.”

“It usually isn’t.” Scott frowned, but he didn’t elaborate. “Look, I’ve linked before, so I found your source of magic relatively easily. What’s going to be harder is helping you to find mine.”

“I thought the stronger sorcerer usually leads the link.”

“Usually. It’s a good idea because channeling extra magic isn’t easy, and the experience is less overwhelming if you don’t more than double your flow.”

“I figure the more powerful of the two just doesn’t want to give up control.”

“That too.” Scott grinned. “I almost never give up control, to be honest. I don’t like it. I’ve done it for Evan before, and now I’m going to do it for you, because there’s no choice. When the full moon comes, we’re basically going to have one brain between us, and it will be in your head.”

“I see.” The noise began to intrude again.

“Not yet. First, I need to show you my quiet place. I’ll take you there this time, but next time it will be up to you.”

“Okay.” Madison took his hand, finding the gesture a little silly since they were inside her head, and closed her eyes.

The world shifted. She felt the newness of the quiet place around her like a jolt to her senses, but gradually she realized it wasn’t bad, only unfamiliar. In fact, as she settled into it, she felt immensely comfortable.

She opened her eyes, finding herself in a large white room overflowing with colorful pillows in varying sizes and shapes. It was soft, cozy, comforting, warm, and very, very nice.

In other words, it was everything Scott thought he wasn’t. If she needed further proof that he was wrong, she need look no further.

“I don’t let many people in here,” Scott said, giving her a careful look full of... embarrassment? “I don’t know why my quiet place looks like this, but it always has. I’ve tried to change it, but–”

“I love it,” Madison said.

He nodded, once. “All right. Let’s get down to business. You’re here. Do you feel the magic?”

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and reached for it. The next second she was reeling, falling backwards onto the pillows which thankfully broke her fall.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked.

Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she tried to gather her scattered wits. There had been so much power! It had shocked her. Overwhelmed her. And she hadn’t even had to reach as far for the source as she did within her own quiet place. She had to scrape the dusty corners of her church home to find any real magic, but here...

“I’ve never done this before with someone weaker than me,” Scott said. “It might be overwhelming.”

“Wow.” She’d had no idea. Not even a little bit. Both Kaitlin and Cassie had tried to describe what it was like to start channeling a powerful baby’s magic through the womb, but she hadn’t gotten it. She now knew she couldn’t have understood, not without experiencing it for herself.

“How do you not explode?” Madison found herself asking.

“I was born this way. You get used to it.”

“In two weeks? It was months before they could fully unbind Kaitlin’s baby’s magic, and even Cassie, who knew the basic principles, had trouble at first. They had to rebuild the garage and buy her a new car.”

“It won’t hurt my feelings if you blow up our prison,” Scott said.

“It might if we’re inside it. I need to think.”

“Madison,” Scott began, but Madison had already opened her natural eyes, releasing the meditative trance.

Chapter 25

MADISON HAD BROKEN THE LINK BEFORE Scott even returned to full awareness. He grabbed for her to stop her breaking the circle, but she had too much of a head start. She was up, out, and in the bathroom before he had a chance to think.

“Madison!” Scott called after her. Damn it, what had gone wrong? She’d shown more backbone than this going up against two homicidal werewolves. Now, suddenly, touching a little magic meant the end of the world?

It wasn’t like her. Chilled to the bone, Scott suddenly knew with absolute certainty that something had gone wrong. He felt it.

Scott tried to open the bathroom door but it was locked. He knocked on it hard enough to rattle the door, but she didn’t answer. Inside, he heard the sound of water running. Also, almost imperceptibly, the sound of Madison weeping.

Scott roared, kicked, and splintered the door. Madison screamed and backed up against the wall, just missing the wooden slab thrown at an angle through the tiny space.

“What the hell is-?” Scott drew up short when he saw Madison clutching her right hand in her left. He could see, quite clearly, exactly what was the matter with her.

The hand was wrong. Blackened but not by flame. Twisted but not broken. Madison had touched magic well beyond her own resources and she had literally gotten burned.

“Shit,” Scott said. He reached for her hand, but she twisted to get away from him. “Does it hurt?”

The tears filling her eyes were answer enough, but she nodded. “Can you fix it?”

Scott shook his head. He honestly had no idea how to begin to treat something like that. If he had his family’s books and access to his lab then maybe he could come up with something, but if he were back home he would be more likely to take her to Evan. The Blackwoods had far more extensive healing spells. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a normal injury. Magic had twisted her somehow. Literally burned her.

Magic could do unpredictable things when mishandled, but Scott sensed something far deeper at work here. He had known she had issues they would have to deal with at some point, but when she had demanded that they get started, he’d thought it could wait. He’d thought he could at least show her his quiet place and the magic before talking to her about a lifetime of repression. After all, Evan had worked with her and presumably had helped her get past some of her blocks.

Taking Madison’s hand, he dampened a towel and gently wrapped her ruined hand in it. It was the only thing he could think to do. Also, it hid the ugly thing from her view.

“We need to talk,” Scott said.

“We’ve been talking.”

“We need to talk about why you’re so afraid of magic. If you can’t get past that, then nothing else is going to work.”

Madison didn’t even try to argue. She simply nodded, numbly, and followed Scott back into their bedroom. No, the bedroom. Not theirs. He couldn’t start thinking that way.

Madison felt cold and stiff when Scott helped her take a seat on the edge of the bottom bunk. He sat down beside her and after only a moment’s hesitation, he put his arms around her to help keep her warm. She leaned closer, apparently drawing comfort from his touch. He swallowed nervously, remembering the remnant of conversation he’d overheard in her quiet place.

People always ask how you know if you’re in love, like there’s some formula. I figure it’s harder to let yourself be loved. At least for me.

Had she been talking about him? If so, then she wasn’t the only person who had trouble letting herself be loved.

“Talk to me,” Scott said. “Why are you afraid of magic?”

Madison shifted uncomfortably and tried to look away from him. He tipped her chin so she had no choice.

“I’m not,” she said.

“Liar. I need the truth now.” Scott felt her tremor and immediately quashed his responding sympathy. Something did have her afraid, but what? And could he somehow figure it out so he could help her along?

Madison licked her lips. “My father never let me sing. Said my gift was from the devil.”

That was part of it, Scott sensed, but there was more. “Two years ago, Evan and I were following Cassie to make sure she got home safe one night. You and Kaitlin were with her, and Jacob Travis was following you.”

“Evan told me,” Madison said. “He told me he was a blood mage.”

“That’s right.”

“Jacob was at the bank the day a man pulled a gun on me. Apparently, I did something that made him realize I had a touch of magic.”

“You pulsed.” Scott frowned. It had surprised him. It had shocked the hell out of Evan, and no wonder. Grown sorcerers didn’t pulse. It was a sign that their magic had been hopelessly repressed their entire life. Regaining control over it could be tricky. “Didn’t Evan ever try to figure out why you were so repressed?”

“Honestly, I resisted his efforts. He didn’t really push me, though. At first because there was only so much he could teach me anyway. Then when he found out we were related, he wanted to teach me more, but I told him I wasn’t interested.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not like I have that much magic anyway.”

“But you didn’t even want to use as much as you have.” Scott didn’t phrase it as a question. He was thinking out loud. “Because your father said it was from the devil.” There was something else, something right in front of his eyes if he could only... Then inspiration struck. “What did your mother think about magic?”

* * *

Madison felt paralyzed by the question. Her mother. When she thought about her mother, she usually remembered a frail, almost ethereal creature barely there one day then gone the next. Her mother had loved her. Given her hugs and kisses every night at bedtime. It was the only time in her life that Madison could remember getting hugs and kisses at all, and she clung to those memories with a fierce protectiveness that other memories could not intrude upon.

Only...

I had a one-night stand with the devil and gave birth to a demon child.

Her mother hadn’t said the words to her, but she had said the words. She had meant them. And Madison had felt them.

“Why did she say that?” Scott asked, and only then did Madison realize she had whispered the words out loud.

Madison poked at the painful memory, wincing at the emotional backlash. What had she done? She’d always been such a good girl. A naturally good girl. She had wanted to please her parents. She hated to disappoint anyone and loved compliments. When she was young she would show off for her parents, who would praise her accomplishments to their friends. Madison was only two and knew every letter and number. She recognized her name and could spell a few simple words. By three she was reading simple books. By the time she started kindergarten, she was reading chapter books.

Good girl. Smart girl. Devil’s spawn.

“My mom loved candles and incense,” Madison said. “She’d fill the house with them and light them, especially at night. She loved the glow. So did I. I touched a flame once but it didn’t burn me. It danced away.”

“Did that scare your mom?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I was young and I was never exactly empathic. But maybe, looking back. She put all her candles away after that. She got sick and I wanted to make her happy so I got them out again. Set them up around her bedroom while she was asleep. I didn’t have any matches or a lighter. My parents didn’t exactly leave that stuff lying around with a couple of pre-schoolers in the house. But somehow I lit the candles anyway.”

“Basic early manifestation,” Scott said.

“Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of my mom. She yelled at me never to do that again. She took me to church – she was always more religious than Dad. Told the priest I needed an exorcism.”

“Did the priest-?”

“No. He talked her down. But my mom said that to him. She said, ‘I had a one-night stand with the devil and gave birth to a demon child.’ Afterward, I tried to pretend it was a bad dream. I must have convinced myself it was because when my dad finally told me he’d adopted me it couldn’t have surprised me more.”

“You loved your mom very much.”

“Of course I did. She loved me too. Didn’t she?” Madison suddenly wasn’t sure. She wished she’d never had this conversation. That she’d kept those memories where they belonged, in the deep dark recesses of her soul.

“Yes,” Scott said firmly. “She loved you. She was just scared. Didn’t understand. She hugged you every night, didn’t she?”

“Is that love?”

“It must be. I didn’t think your father’s rants could have touched you so deeply.”

“No, they couldn’t have. They didn’t. I defied him in the end.”

Scott laced his fingers through the fingers of her good hand, the contact bringing her back to the moment. Back to reality. “She loved you, Madison, but she didn’t understand magic. I need you to understand that. At any other time and place I’d say it didn’t really matter, that you could live the rest of your life without touching magic at all.”

“I know.” She did know. She’d planned for that life. She had refused Evan’s offer to teach her secrets that other sorcerers would kill for and never thought twice about it. She’d accepted magic in her life peripherally, in her friends and newfound family, but never head on.

That had to change now. Her life depended on it. Scott’s life depended on it. Clinton... Well, she’d worry about him some other time.

“Is there a way for me to touch less magic at once?” Madison asked, lifting her ruined hand. It throbbed, making her wince, but there was no comfortable position. All she could do with this pain was endure.

“Yes, but I think it burned you because you expected it to. Most of magic comes down to expectations. It works a certain way because we believe it does.”

She knew that. Looking back, she didn’t even think it had burned her the moment she’d touched it. It had overwhelmed her, but the burning had come later. Madison drew in a deep breath and sat up.

“It isn’t even dinnertime yet,” Madison said. “Let’s get to work.”

Chapter 26

THE NEXT FEW DAYS PASSED IN a blur of lessons, lectures, and magic. Madison’s burnt stump of a hand continued to pain her, although she didn’t end up incurring any other injuries. She wasn’t sure if that was progress, or a sign that she was shying away from the magic too much.

Two weeks had never seemed like much time, but when fourteen days became thirteen, then twelve, then ten, then seven... it seemed like even less.

“Magic flows from all living things,” Scott tried to explain to her so many times that one accounting flowed into the next. “You gather it from the earth beneath our feet, the plants, the trees, the animals, the sky above, the sun and the moon.”

“The moon isn’t alive,” Madison said.

“It’s part of the cycle. Part of our rhythms. Part of us. Draw on its strength.”

She tried. Truly she did. Sometimes she could even feel it, just as Scott described, but only when she focused all her thoughts on the task. It did not come naturally to her. Meanwhile, she needed some part of her concentration to work a spell.

“Evan said his mentor believed electricity interfered with magic,” Madison said one day as she searched for something to explain her inability to surrender to the magic. “Maybe it does, but you’ve never noticed because you have so much of it.”

“Belief is a powerful thing. It shapes the world around us. Sorcerers believing diametrically opposite things about the workings of magic have managed to cast spells with similar results, yet they can only do it their way.”

“They create their own reality?”

“Maybe.”

“I wonder if they believe diametrically opposite things, or only seem to. There has to be a right answer, don’t you think?”

“Of course I do. I think I’m right.”

Madison laughed when he said that, more than once she laughed, but she still didn’t understand. Magic had never made sense to her when Evan had tried to teach her, either. She had learned enough to be able to identify and control the potential within, but not to harness or manipulate it.

Maybe it all came down to her mother and her long-buried fear that using magic made her evil. But she didn’t believe using magic made Scott evil. Or Evan. It was a part of who they were. Yet thinking about it within herself made her feel uneasy.

But one time... she thought back to a day when Evan had come pounding on the door of the house she’d shared with Cassie and Kaitlin. Cassie was mad at him, and wouldn’t let him in. Evan tried to break in so Cassie opened the front door and slapped him, hard. After that, the house had seemed to jump.

Madison had been afraid. Of course she had been. There had been a boiling pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove right next to her, and when it spilled...

When it spilled, she had summoned up a shield to protect herself. Evan had been so proud of her for that magical working, but she had never been able to tell him the truth.

It hadn’t been magic at all. She had offered a quick prayer to God, and He had responded.

She didn’t explain any of that to Scott, either. She would need far more than prayer this time, and they both knew it. So she continued to work, and he continued to teach, and every day when he came back looking a little more tired, he grew a little less patient.

“It’s in your blood, Madison! You’ve found it. You’ve felt it. Why can’t you get this simple concept?”

She’d fought back tears when he said that, but had continued fighting to control increasingly vast amounts of magic. He’d said there would be more at the full moon, but the amount of magic in Scott’s blood seemed to increase exponentially.

“I need a break,” Madison finally told him after a nonstop week in which she’d done nothing but eat, sleep, and work magic. She cried when Scott was gone doing whatever it was he did, but if he’d noticed, he hadn’t mentioned it.

“There’s no time for a break. The full moon is in a week.”

“Are they even going to leave us in here together?” Madison asked. It was one of the doubts she had about this plan. Surely they wouldn’t leave her in here with a werewolf.

“I’m working on that. You’ve only got one thing to worry about. And so far you haven’t managed to hold enough magic to work the spell. We should already be working on the spell itself – it’s incredibly complex.”

Madison felt tears sting her eyes even though Scott was in the room with her. She hated crying in front of other people, but she wasn’t sure she could stop herself this time, so she rushed into the bathroom, pausing to put the splintered door in place as a pseudo-barrier. No one had come to repair it, which left Madison feeling awkward every time she went in there.

“Madison!” Scott called after her.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I’m sorry, Madison. I know you’re doing your best.”

Was she doing her best? She wasn’t so sure. She turned on the faucet, splashed water on her face and tried to get herself under control. Then she returned to the bedroom to face yet another round of practice.

Scott wasn’t seated inside their makeshift casting circle, though. The circle wasn’t even there. Scott had returned the sheets to the beds as he did before bedtime, or when he expected the guards to bring them meals. Except dinner had come and gone an hour ago, and no one ever collected him for their experiments at this time of night.

Scott sat on the bed, on the bottom bunk, staring at the clock on the wall that ticked away their time like a bomb about to explode. He looked up when she emerged from the bathroom, leaning the broken door against a nearby wall.

“Come here,” Scott said in a voice of command that would not be denied. Within seconds Madison found herself on the bed, not at the opposite end, but right next to him with his arm around her.

She had come to crave his touches over the past week. They were the only things that made her feel alive and connected to the world. He usually wasn’t so overt, though – it was usually a clasped hand or a quasi-accidental brushing of thigh against thigh. They hadn’t repeated the kiss, though Madison wouldn’t mind at all. This time, he wasn’t trying to be circumspect or subtle. He pulled her against him and held on.

“What are they doing to you when they take you upstairs?” Madison asked, not expecting an answer. He never answered.

“What do you want, Madison?” Scott asked.

“Huh?” Madison tried to straighten, to look Scott in the eyes and try to figure out where his question had come from, but he held her firmly against his side.

“I don’t mean right now,” Scott said. “I mean in the future, if we get out of here.”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“You said you needed a break. I thought maybe we should try talking about something pleasant for a change. And I’ve always wondered what you want out of life.”

“You have?”

He nodded, slightly. “Do you like teaching music?”

“Oh yes.” She felt a smile tug at the corner of her mouth, the first one in weeks.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I was kept from music for so much of my life, but I want to bring it to children. I want to make it a part of their lives. A lot of the people who studied music with me were interested in going off and becoming famous. I don’t know how many musicians only want to teach to bide their time until they get a big break, but not me. Music can be a part of everyone’s life in big ways or little ways, but it’s a gift. Even the ones who can’t carry a tune in a bucket can appreciate it.

“There was this one kid last year, Josh, who had to repeat a grade and they were thinking of holding him back again. He’s got learning disabilities and there are specialists at the school helping him, but I know he thinks he’s just plain stupid. Spelling was the worst. Partway through the year, I hit on the idea of singing the spelling words to him. We made up a little song together – he’s got a nice young voice – and you should have seen the look on his face when he came to me holding up his first-ever perfect score.”

Madison felt tears welling up in her eyes again, but for an entirely different reason as she remembered the look on Josh’s face. He had graduated to middle school, and he was one of the ones she would miss the most.

“You used your gift to help him,” Scott said.

“Maybe. But he started making up his own songs and did almost as well with those spelling tests. I made a difference in his life, and it’s going to stay with him.”

“But you’re not happy,” Scott said. It wasn’t a question.

Madison shrugged. “I’m not depressed, not like I used to be growing up. I still have trouble making friends, though. I guess I’ve been betrayed one time too many to really trust easily.”

“So what do you want?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know. I guess for someone to see through my shyness and thick figure to the woman underneath. Isn’t that what we all want? For someone to really know us?”

“I suppose.”

“What do you want?” Madison asked, turning the tables back on him.

“A cure. Dr. Akin has been tempting me with the idea. If he weren’t such an evil man, it really would tempt me.”

“How would your life be different if you weren’t a werewolf?” Madison asked. “Would your pack be better off without you?”

“No.” Scott looked away. “I keep them safer than almost anyone could. My reasons for wanting to be human again are purely selfish.”

“If it had never happened, what do you think you’d be doing right now?” Madison asked. “Following in your parents’ footsteps?”

“No.” Scott laughed and shook his head. “I bet I would have joined the White Guard with Evan. I mean I help now, but it’s not my priority. I don’t trust Matthew, but I figure he’s better than Alexander, especially after this.” Scott gestured to indicate their prison.

“There’s a glowing recommendation,” Madison said. She didn’t trust Matthew either, especially after what he’d tried to do to Cassie. “Lesser of two evils?”

“No, I don’t think he’s evil.”

Madison disagreed, but Scott hadn’t seen what the man had done to Cassie.

“He helped you the other day,” Scott said. “That’s got to count for something.”

“I thought you said you didn’t trust him.”

“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean he’s evil. I think he has good intentions, but there’s an old saying about the road to hell.”

“Do you think you’d be married if you hadn’t turned into a werewolf?” Madison asked, partly to change the subject, but only partly.

“Yes.”

They fell into silence after that. Madison kept hoping he’d reach for her, touch her, or even kiss her, but he stayed put on his side of the bed. And finally, he climbed up into his own bunk with nothing more than a whispered, “Goodnight.”

Chapter 27

FOR SCOTT, HIS DAYS IN CAPTIVITY passed in a sea of violence and fear that he had trouble keeping in check when he returned to teach Madison what she needed to know to make their plan work. He kept it from her, but he knew she suspected something. As long as she only suspected, that was fine with him.

Taking charge of a pack wasn’t easy under ideal circumstances, but to take charge of a pack in captivity with the approval of their captors was nothing short of murderous. Scott killed three wolves whose challenges gave him no other choice. In all three cases he had tried to give them outs, but he suspected that they had wanted to die. That they found the state preferable to captivity.

Scott couldn’t blame them. If he didn’t have some hope of an escape at the next full moon, he might succumb to the same feelings. He wanted to tell them not to give up hope yet, but he had no idea how long they had been here, or how much they had endured.

There were more than forty wolves on site, most housed in a large room that might have originally been designed as a warehouse. There were cages in the room, though the men and women weren’t put inside them unless they misbehaved in some way. Normally they were permitted the run of the massive room, guarded by a team of three powerful sorcerers.

Scott suspected that there were other werewolves on site somewhere, and probably other creatures too, but he didn’t see any in his first week as a tool for Dr. Akin. He hoped they were being treated better than this group, which didn’t even have proper beds – only sleeping bags they threw on the floor.

By comparison, Scott’s accommodations were luxurious. Dr. Akin never let him forget it, nor did the man fail to remind him at the end of their sessions that he was lucky. He liked to make dark insinuations about Madison as well, which Scott mostly managed to ignore.

She was a constant temptation for him, being near him hour after hour, day after day. They still had to touch in order to link, although Scott hoped that wouldn’t be necessary for much longer. It would help in their escape if they only had to stay close rather than maintain contact. In the meantime, he spent hours each day seeing her, smelling her, hearing her, and touching her.

How long would it be before he gave in to what he knew they both wanted? He still didn’t know if what she felt for him was a fleeting by-product of their situation, but after each passing day it became harder and harder for him to care. He needed her. He might have claimed her already, if it weren’t for his guilty conscience at failing to tell her what he knew about her brother. That knowledge alone kept him from turning their touches into caresses, and kept him from enfolding her in his arms. She wanted to be there. She wanted to comfort him. And he wanted that comfort.

With only a few days left to the full moon though, Scott had a problem that was growing bigger every day he ignored it. There was no way Dr. Akin planned to leave him in that room with Madison at the full moon, not if he planned to keep using her as a sick combination of reward and hostage. Under any normal circumstance, Scott wouldn’t want to be within a mile of her at the full moon, but for their plan to work, they had to be together.

It would be a risk. They both knew it, even if they hadn’t discussed the details. But it was the only way.

Scott wanted to get out of here; he needed to get out of here. Madison wanted to know why she had to learn all of this in two weeks. Why not wait until the next full moon? And she had a point; if they slowed down, it would take away some of the pressure and she could learn everything she needed to know far more easily in six weeks, or ten. But every day there were new monsters to face, and every day Dr. Akin hurt more werewolves, and every day they risked separation or worse. What if Dr. Akin “volunteered” Madison for one of his experiments?

No, there was too much evil and too much uncertainty here. They had to get out. Soon.

“Your magical potential has already increased,” Dr. Akin told Scott as they walked down a long corridor together. A pair of stone-faced guards followed to make sure Scott stayed in line. It wasn’t necessary. He couldn’t do anything with Madison trapped in the cells below. “We haven’t been able to detect a potential difference in normal sorcerers until the height of the moon, but here we are at the half moon and you’ve already gone from 8.12 to 8.19. I can’t wait to see what happens at the full moon.”

Scott was interested in the answer too; it was, after all, one of the keys to his escape.

“What’s going to happen to me at the full moon?” Scott asked, hoping the question didn’t sound rehearsed. It was; he’d been trying to find an opening for over a week.

“You’ll turn into a werewolf, I expect.” Dr. Akin chuckled at his own joke.

“Madison’s scared.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll let you transform somewhere else. Well, if you continue to behave.”

If he continued to behave? Was that his opening?

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked,” Scott said. So much so that he worried whether or not they would buy it if he suddenly started misbehaving to get himself locked away in a room with Madison during the full moon.

“Ah, here we are.” Dr. Akin paused outside a door, one that Scott had never seen before. “I’ve got something a little different for you today. Something I think you and Madison will find interesting. If you choose to tell her, of course. I can’t help but notice that there are a lot of things you aren’t telling her.”

Scott stiffened at the implication that Dr. Akin had been listening in. He wasn’t going to like whatever lay on the other side of that door. But he hesitated only a moment before turning the knob and pushing his way inside. What he saw drew him up short.

It wasn’t a large room at all. In fact, only three people – if they could be called people – were inside. All were in large cages like dog kennels, and none were exactly human anymore.

Each of the three creatures looked up and sniffed the moment Scott entered the room. The one on the right began growling in earnest and throwing himself against the bars of his cage.

Clinton.

His eyes remained yellow like the wolf. He had more hair than he should have had, but otherwise he was human in form. What about his mind? What had they done to him and was it permanent?

“You recognize your mate’s brother, I see,” Dr. Akin said.

Clinton’s growl grew louder, demonstrating some understanding of Dr. Akin’s words.

“What have you done to him?” Scott asked.

“We’ve been experimenting with ways to separate a werewolf’s transformation from the moon. To allow him to transform any time at will, instead of once a month against his will.”

“The wolf is tied to the moon,” Scott said, though he doubted the doctor would understand. Only a werewolf could truly appreciate the bond between moon and beast. Scott wouldn’t go so far as to say disconnecting the two would be impossible. He’d seen too many impossible things in his life to make such sweeping generalizations. But he knew that if a werewolf wasn’t bound to the moon then it wouldn’t be a werewolf any longer. It would be something else. Something he didn’t trust. Something that might never be able to revert to its human form. After all, the beast didn’t have the ability to make conscious, logical choices. What would make it decide to turn back into a human if not the loss of the moon’s power?

The man in the middle cage looked human but smelled like a werewolf. The final cage, on the other hand, contained a human. Or at least, a woman who smelled human. The strength in her as she began to slam against the kennel walls was incredible, but the reactions were off somehow. She wasn’t responding to their presence the way Clinton was. She wasn’t even responding to him. In fact, from the cuts and bruises all along her body she never stopped taking her aggression out on the walls of the cage.

“What have you done to them?” Scott asked.

“She was a military volunteer. They’re interested in specially enhanced soldiers, something we’ve had some luck with, but it went wrong with her.”

“And with Clara?” Scott asked.

“It did work with Clara, actually. It’s worked with this man.” He gestured to the werewolf in the middle cage, the one in human form. “It seems to work as long as we make the subject a werewolf first, but something has been going wrong with them. They’re emotionally unstable.”

“You’ve locked them up. Werewolves are not meant to be locked up.” Especially alone, Scott didn’t add. The man clearly didn’t understand the need for werewolves to form a pack. Maybe he was one of those who idealized the “lone wolf” persona that only existed in books. Lone wolves were unstable by definition.

“They need a leader,” Dr. Akin said. “A strong alpha to take them in hand. That’s my working theory, anyway. And you’ve shown your ability to be that strong leader with our other werewolves.”

“You think I’m willing to do that here?” Scott asked. “For a traitor, a deranged human, and whatever that other one is?”

“I hope you are, for your mate’s sake. And for the sake of the rest of your pack.”

Scott whirled to face the sadistic doctor. “My pack? Where are they?”

“Safe. For now. But we couldn’t have a pack running loose with no leader to keep them in line.”

“They’re here? Where?”

“I’ll take you to them, if you help me with these three. We might still be able to find a stable version of the formula we used on them.”

Scott had to turn away from the doctor to keep himself from lunging at the man. Instead, he focused on Clinton, who he wasn’t much happier with at the moment.

“Can you talk?” Scott asked Clinton.

The boy stopped growling for a fraction of a second. He didn’t talk, but he did shake his head. At least he could understand.

“Did you betray me?” Scott asked.

Clinton snarled.

“Why?” Scott asked. “Why did you do that?”

Another snarl was his only response.

“I can’t help these three,” Scott said. “They would undermine my authority with the other wolves, especially that one.” He pointed to the human.

“I didn’t expect you to be able to take care of the woman.”

“Then why show her to me?”

“So you can kill her.”

Scott whirled. “What? Why should I? She’s your mess. You clean it up.”

“You’ve killed before. You killed three men this week.”

Scott closed his eyes, picturing again the three men who had dared him to kill them. Who had wanted to die.

“I kill when it’s necessary. And when it’s my duty. This is just...” Scott couldn’t bring himself to look at the feral woman again. The woman who had done nothing except to volunteer for the wrong experiment.

“She’s not natural,” Dr. Akin said.

“It’s your mess. Why have me do it?”

“Because,” Dr. Akin said, “there is a small possibility you can go free at some point in the future. But only if you’re willing to help us now and then with certain problems.”

Scott’s eyes narrowed and it was his turn to growl. “You want me to become an assassin?”

“You already are one. We want you to be our assassin.”

Scott shook his head. He couldn’t do it. Somehow he sensed that killing this woman would be a point of no return. His black soul couldn’t take any more.

Not only that, but he saw the future mapped out ahead of him. Dr. Akin had seen that he could be controlled through threats against Madison and his pack. Would this be his life then?

“Have it your way,” Dr. Akin said, “but remember that you have until the next full moon to decide.”

Scott stood frozen. Was he being handed the answer on a silver platter? Perhaps, but Dr. Akin wouldn’t let this go without more threats and bribes. It wasn’t in his nature.

“You know,” Dr. Akin said, “it strikes me that I haven’t introduced myself to your mate yet. I think it’s time we remedy that.”

“No,” Scott said.

Dr. Akin arched an eyebrow. “No? Then you’ll kill the woman?”

“I won’t let you hurt Madison.”

“I won’t,” Dr. Akin said. “If anyone hurts her, it will be you.”

Chapter 28

SCOTT RETURNED TO THEIR PRISON MUCH sooner than usual that morning, catching Madison off-guard in the middle of some meditation exercises she had been left to do. She scrambled to her feet when the door opened, but the stone faces didn’t just push Scott inside and close the door as they normally did. Instead, a man in a white lab coat followed him in.

A very tall, very thin man.

“Are you the man who convinced my brother you had a cure?” Madison asked.

“I’m Dr. Akin,” he said, as if that were an answer.

“Where’s Clinton?” she asked.

Dr. Akin glanced at Scott, some sort of twisted smile curving his lips. “I don’t think Scott wants to talk about your brother. He did, after all, betray Scott to us.”

It took her a moment to register his implications. When she did, she felt something growing inside her, something she rarely ever felt let alone showed to the public: Rage. Absolute, unequivocal fury.

“Liar!” She threw the TV remote, the only thing she had to hand, at the doctor, who ducked.

One of the stone faces lifted a rifle in her direction, but Dr. Akin barked out an order, “Stand down!”

“Clinton didn’t betray Scott. He didn’t betray me! Why would he have? What did you do to him?” Abruptly, Madison changed tactic. “I want to see him.”

“He doesn’t want to see you,” Dr. Akin said. “Told me so himself just yesterday. I did offer.”

“I don’t believe you. I won’t until Clinton is standing right here in front of me, telling me so himself.”

“You don’t have to believe me. Ask your friend, Scott.” With that, Dr. Akin turned and left the room. The door clicked shut behind him with an ominous finality.

“What’s he talking about?” Madison demanded, turning pleading eyes on Scott. She had a horrible feeling she knew, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Couldn’t stand the possibility.

Scott wouldn’t look her in the eyes. Madison crossed to him in two steps and pounded her fist against his chest. “Tell me what he’s talking about!”

She couldn’t hurt Scott, but he flinched anyway, taking a step back.

“Scott. Did you see him? Did you see Clinton? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“He’s not human anymore,” Scott said.

“I know that. I’ve been coming to terms with that for weeks!”

“They’ve done something to him. Altered him. His eyes are the wolf’s even when it’s not the full moon. I’d bet he has superior strength and reflexes too.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Did he betray you?” Madison asked. Then, softer, “Did he betray me?”

Scott hesitated.

“Tell me. I need to know. Whatever it is, it’s better to know.” She wasn’t convinced of the truth of that at all, but she did need to know. She needed to know if everyone she ever trusted was going to eventually turn against her. Clinton was all she had left. She had started making headway with her other brother, but if Clinton turned on her now...

“What is it about me that makes everyone I love turn against me?” Madison was barely aware of giving voice to the question. Tears filled her eyes but did not spill. “Is there something fundamentally unlovable about me? Am I mean or rude or... I know I’m a bit selfish sometimes. I have trouble understanding other people. I can’t just look at a person and know he’s hurting inside. Cassie does. It’s amazing. She knew I was hurting when no one else did. Maybe if I were more like that.”

Scott grabbed her upper arms with two hands like bands of steel. “Don’t talk like that. I don’t want you to be like Cassie, I want you to be like you.”

Madison blinked up at him in confusion. “Why?”

He groaned and closed his eyes for a moment, as if the answer pained him. “Do you have any idea how sweet you are? You’re...” He hesitated, his eyes still closed. “You care so deeply about people that you let yourself get hurt over and over again. You’d do anything for the people you love, and that includes the ones who’ve already betrayed you.”

Madison opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no sound came out. He was right. If her father ever asked her for anything she’d jump to help him, despite everything, despite knowing she wouldn’t get so much as a crumb of real affection from him. She wouldn’t do it for the affection. She didn’t know why she’d do it, but she knew she would. She’d probably even help Nicolas if he ever asked, though she sincerely doubted he would.

Scott opened his eyes and stared at her in a way she found distinctly unnerving. As if he saw something in her that she couldn’t see in herself. It made her nervous. Made her want to push him away. Or bury her face in his chest. Therein lay the real danger. She wanted so desperately to love and to have someone else love her in return. She just didn’t know how.

“I’m an idiot for caring about people. I still want my father to love me. He never will. I know that. But it doesn’t change what I want.”

“That just makes you human.” The steel bands tightened around her arms almost painfully, but Madison didn’t protest. “This isn’t your fault, Madison.”

“I’m fat too,” she said. “It’s stupid but every time I get upset, I start eating. Right now I’d kill for some chocolate.”

“Stop.” Scott shook her, whipping her head back and forth dangerously. “It’s not you. Don’t think like that. You’re... It’s not you.”

“But Clinton betrayed me, didn’t he?” Why? With Clinton of all people, why?

“I don’t know. I know he sounded the alarm when he saw me, but I have no idea what he was thinking at the time.”

“But you have a guess. You’ve got that intuition.”

“It’s not telepathy or clairvoyance. It’s insight. And it’s not always right.”

A hot tear slid down her cheek. She wanted to wipe it away, but Scott still held her firmly.

“You’re beautiful,” Scott said suddenly.

“You’re crazy. I’m at least thirty pounds overweight, maybe forty depending upon how you read those charts.”

“I’m not looking at a chart. I’m looking at you.” Scott was looking at her with desire so unmistakable that even she couldn’t pretend it away. His eyes lowered from her face to her chest, unimpressive beneath shapeless scrubs and an even more shapeless sports bra provided by her captors. Still, his look intensified. “Those breasts are not on a chart.”

Madison didn’t even try to speak this time. He almost made her believe it. Where was a bag of chocolate when she needed one?

“You’re beautiful,” Scott repeated. Then he bent his head to kiss her.

* * *

Scott had reached the point of no return. He couldn’t stand her vulnerability or her obvious need for comfort. He shouldn’t have kissed her, but he’d had no choice. And when she melted beneath him, surrendering totally, he had no choice but to deepen the kiss.

He felt as if his entire life had been leading up to this moment, however it had come about. Or at least the last two years, since his first glimpse of her. He had tried to keep his distance. God only knew how hard he had tried, knowing he frightened her, knowing he didn’t deserve her.

But the past days had been trying in so many ways, and all their barriers had come down. She no longer flinched away from his touch, and he found himself wondering if maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to be the man she deserved.

After all, he loved her.

Scott pulled his head back for a moment, staring at her slightly dazed expression and kiss-swollen lips. He could smell her arousal, stronger and sweeter than ever before. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, but for how long? This was here and now, but what would happen when they escaped? He wanted forever. He couldn’t bear the thought of ever letting her go.

“Don’t do this unless you mean it,” Scott said raggedly, knowing it was already too late for him if she said no.

She shook her head slightly, either in negation or because she didn’t understand.

“I won’t let you go after this,” Scott said. “I can’t.”

“Do you want to stop?”

“Hell no.”

She licked her lips nervously. “Then please. Don’t stop. I think I may need you right now.”

He knew exactly what she meant. He felt the same way. Needed her. He might be able to go without food or water if he could just hold her.

They found the bed together, falling on it in a tangle of arms and legs. Scott made sure not to land on her, not to hurt her more than he already had. He could see the red marks on her arms where he’d held her too tightly. She’d end up with bruises in the morning. She bruised easily.

He bent down to kiss every place where his fingers had dug into her skin, as if he could soothe away the pain. She giggled when he kissed one spot on the soft underside of her arm that was a bit ticklish, at which point he took ruthless advantage of his discovery until she was gasping for both breath and for mercy.

At least she wasn’t crying any longer.

He stopped tickling her and spent a moment looking at her. Just looking. The laughter gradually faded from her face, and under his hot regard he saw an answering fire burning in her eyes. She lifted her good hand, pressing it against his chest right over his heart, which felt like it might explode.

He had to get to her creamy skin. Now. He tore at the unflattering clothes she wore, desperate to reach the treasure underneath. He ripped apart her shirt and a serviceable white bra, then flung them impatiently out of the way.

Her breasts were perfect. Large and heavy, with dark pink nipples for him to feast upon. He paused for a moment to stare at them in wonder.

“They’re too big,” Madison said.

His eyes flickered back up to hers, which showed a slice of uncertainty that he intended to wipe away before he was done. Nothing would get between him and his woman again, not even her own uncertainties.

“They’re perfect,” Scott growled.

“They say anything more than a handful is a waste.”

“Then ‘they’ must be jealous.”

“That’s not nice.”

“I’m not nice. Now, stop insulting my breasts.”

“Yours?”

“Mine.” He staked his claim then, lowering his mouth so he could sample his prize. Her reactions were a little shy at first, a little uncertain, but he kept after her with relentless determination until he heard her cry out.

Something inside Madison seemed to ignite at that moment. Her shyness evaporated, giving rise to a passion she had kept buried for years. And like so many things long buried, it came out in an explosion that nearly knocked Scott backwards. It was her turn to be all over him, tearing at his clothes. She didn’t rip his scrubs, but he did when he assisted her.

Then there was nothing between them at all. Scott pushed Madison onto her back, pinned her arms above her head, and held her gaze as he joined himself with her.

“Mine,” Scott said again. And then he lost himself – body, heart, and soul.

* * *

Madison lay spooned in Scott’s embraced, her back to his front, his arm draped heavily over her waist, cupping one of her breasts. The embrace felt intimate. Vulnerable.

What had she done? I won’t let you go after this, he’d said. She’d heard, but hadn’t cared. Now, in the afterglow, she felt one niggling concern, assuming they survived this place.

“What about Clinton?” she asked.

He froze and she closed her eyes, recognizing the answer in his body’s tension. Oh no. What had she done? She’d been confused, emotionally vulnerable, and... and... no, she’d known precisely what she’d been doing, she simply hadn’t let herself care.

But she did pull away from him, dragging a sheet with her to cover herself.

“Don’t pull away now,” Scott growled, though he didn’t stop her. “I asked you if you meant it.”

“Please don’t hurt Clinton.”

“I have to. I have no choice. They’ve done something to him. I’m not even sure he can talk. Maybe that’s why he betrayed me, maybe it wasn’t really him.”

Madison shook her head. “Please don’t hurt him. I don’t care what’s left of him. Please.”

“This is who I am. You knew that.”

She didn’t answer.

“Look at me.”

She shook her head.

Scott came around in front of her, forcing her to see him. “Do you think I want to kill my mate’s brother?”

“Your mate?” Madison echoed.

“I love you. The last thing I want to do is hurt you or someone you love.”

“You love me?” She’d heard the words before and been burned. Could she believe them this time? She hoped so. She wanted to.

“Yes,” Scott said.

“Then don’t kill Clinton.”

“I have no choice! He’s dangerous. It’s my responsibility.”

“It doesn’t have to be you!” Madison met him stare for stare, trembling slightly but holding her own. “We’re not in your territory anymore, are we?”

“I don’t know where we are.” He hesitated. “But probably not.”

“Then let someone else do it. If he has to die, then at least don’t be the one to do it. Give me that much.”

He hesitated.

“Is it so much to ask?” Madison asked. “There are other alphas.”

“There are.” He drew in a deep breath. “If he returns to my territory, I’ll have no choice.”

She didn’t like it. The if seemed to form a dark cloud above their heads, charged with lightning that might strike at any moment. Yet she knew this was as far as he could go, as much as he could compromise. It had to be enough.

Chapter 29

FOR THE NEXT WEEK, SCOTT DID everything in his power to imprint himself on Madison. To lay claim to her body and through that, he hoped, her heart. She didn’t say she loved him. He heard that deafening omission and feared the worst. That Clinton would always come between them. That though he had made her his mate in his heart, she had not done the same in hers.

Even so, Madison became Scott’s one bright spot in a world of darkness. His time with Dr. Akin, his dominion over the captive wolves, grew harder and harder each day, especially as he continued to defy Dr. Akin with regards to becoming his trained assassin. Dr. Akin didn’t understand Scott’s defiance, making Scott worry that he would change his threat at the last moment. There were moments when he seemed to want to, but he didn’t, perhaps believing that the key to discipline was consistency and follow-through. Under normal circumstances, Scott would have agreed with the idea.

Finally, the morning of the full moon, Dr. Akin summoned Scott to his office for his shortest visit ever – barely five minutes.

“If you think your wolf will bite her to turn her rather than kill her,” Dr. Akin said icily, “think again. You’ll have no meals today. Your wolf will be starving when you make the transformation. You have until six o’clock to change your mind.”

With that, Scott was dismissed. He kept his face as blank as the guards as they returned him to his prison, but he thanked his intuition for alerting him to the possible need to store food over the past few days. He didn’t have much – they didn’t exactly overfeed them – but it would take the edge off. It would keep Madison safe. It had to.

But Dr. Akin had brought Scott’s other fear to the forefront – the possibility, no, the probability – that he would bite Madison tonight. If his wolf hadn’t bitten her two years ago, it could only have been due to her obvious terror and recent trauma. He hadn’t been sure at the time whether or not she’d be strong enough. Now he knew better. She had come to him a little over a month ago and given him his first glimpse of the lioness beneath the surface. She would do anything to protect those she loved. She had been afraid, but she hadn’t let it stop her. Then she had gone up against two murderous werewolves and come out the victor. She worked hard every day to master complex and difficult magic without truly believing she could succeed. She was strong, capable, and fierce when the need arose. He didn’t even doubt that she could take on Jessica.

In other words, it wasn’t just his inner wolf that wanted her in his pack. There was a part of his conscious, thinking mind that wanted her there as well. The same part that wanted to believe inner strength could somehow beat the odds of surviving a werewolf bite and bring her through to the other side.

And if she did survive to become a werewolf, there could be no doubt left in either of their minds that she was his.

They spent the unexpected morning hours working on linking. Madison could link without touching him now, a tremendous feat in and of itself, but they still hadn’t made as much progress as they needed on the invisibility spell itself.

“They’re really just leaving you in here with me?” Madison asked after a couple hours of hard work.

“I told you I’d take care of it.”

“What’s going to keep you from biting me?” Madison asked.

He shook his head helplessly. “The link, maybe? The spell itself? I don’t know.”

“I can’t hold it all night, even if I can make it work.”

“I know.”

They sat silently for a long time, neither one of them speaking. They both knew the risks and discussing them wouldn’t change a thing at this point. Finally, Madison said, “I don’t have any shoes.”

“Huh?”

“Shoes. I don’t have any.” She wiggled her bare toes.

So many problems. Maybe he should give in to Dr. Akin’s demands. Put this off another month. Give Madison the time she needed to practice.

He almost suggested it. He even opened his mouth, but then he shut it again. Dr. Akin wouldn’t use the same threat next month, not after seeing how close it came to not working this month. He couldn’t even be sure the two of them would be together in four more weeks, let alone safe and whole. No, it was do or die time. Literally.

* * *

Madison wasn’t sure what to expect when the moon rose that night, but she sensed that one way or another, nothing would be the same when the new day dawned. She more than half expected not to see another sunrise, but she didn’t share those fears with Scott in what might be their last hours together. She didn’t want to ruin their time together with her private doubts and fears – fear of death, fear of being bitten, and paradoxically, fear of not being bitten.

It was easy to cling to the only other human available for support in the middle of her darkest hour. But what happened when they returned to real life? What happened when he returned to his pack and she to her classroom? She wouldn’t belong to him then.

They didn’t link until the final minutes before moon-rise. Scott found his quiet place first, then Madison joined him. She found the magic there, stronger than ever before, sharp and focused. She could only hold onto it for dear life, wondering if it would burn her again. The pain of the original injury had subsided, but the blackened hand remained a reminder of what the magic could do.

“I love you,” Scott said in his last second of full cognition. Madison had no chance to reply, even had she wanted to, because the light of intelligence disappeared from his eyes in the next second, leaving only the yellow of the wolf.

The great beast looked at her. Madison prayed.

Our Father, who art in heaven...

The wolf growled.

Show no fear. It can smell your fear.

She could still feel the link, though not as strongly as before. Scott had never before linked with someone in wolf form, and he’d had no idea if it would work or not. This first step could be the end of weeks of planning, and would be if she allowed fear to rule her.

“It’s okay,” Madison said, gentling her voice, knowing she probably sounded afraid. Smelled afraid. She wished desperately that Scott were here right now; she didn’t understand that look in the wolf’s eyes.

She switched to song then, using a tune that had once soothed another werewolf she had known.

And He will raise you up on Eagle’s wings,

bear you on the breath of down,

make you to shine like the sun,

and hold you in the palm of His hand.

It worked. Incredibly. Astoundingly. The beast went still, looking at her now with its head cocked to the side. Just listening. She continued to hum the song, even as she crossed to the door, pressing the button for the intercom.

There was a short delay in response, then a surprised, “Who is this?” Had they expected her to be dead already?

“Madison. Something went wrong with Scott’s transformation. I think he’s dead.”

“Is this a trick?” the guard asked.

Yes, of course it is. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

When the guard still didn’t seem entirely convinced, she hummed a few more lines of “On Eagle’s Wings.”

“I’ll be right there.”

This was it. When that guard entered the room, he had to believe she and Scott were already gone. He had to believe it and, moreover, the cameras outside had to believe it.

“Typical illusion is a form of mind magic,” Scott had told her when teaching her the spell. “You trick the other person into believing you’re not there, or that you look like something else. A talented illusionist can drive a man mad, or create a world of fantasy. But all of it is in a person’s mind. It doesn’t hold up to modern technology.”

“How do you fool a camera?” Madison asked.

“You make the illusion real. I suppose no one did it before because mind magic is easier. Much, much easier. And before there were cameras everywhere, who cared?”

“There have been cameras for decades. Why hasn’t anyone come up with it before now?”

“Because the spell requires knowledge and power together, or it won’t work. I don’t think I could have worked the spell all those years ago, when I wandered into the woods. I wasn’t strong enough. But the wolf is. When the moon is high, the wolf has the strength, if not the cognizance.”

“How do you make the illusion real?” Madison asked.

“It’s like turning a person into a frog. You turn your body into air.”

“Evan said it took him the better part of three months to learn to turn a person into a frog.”

“Let’s hope you’re smarter than he is.”

Sweat trickled down Madison’s forehead as she concentrated. Until tonight, the spellwork had been entirely theoretical. Only tonight, with the power of the full moon, would it become real.

And she had doubts. Good God, did she have doubts.

Our Father, who art in heaven...

No, this was no time for prayer, this was time for focus. She called to mind the words of the spell, drew in the magic, and formed her intent.

Next to her, Scott growled.

Something wasn’t right. She needed more power, more magic, but the link was slipping. Scott’s quiet place was disappearing.

No, it was changing. The pillows became grass, the ceiling became the sky, and everywhere she looked, flowers bloomed.

She could work with that. Above her, the full moon loomed. She called to it, hearing her voice echo across the dark meadow.

The power came from all living things. His power tonight came from the moon. But the moon wasn’t alive.

They’d had that conversation before. It didn’t matter. It was part of the connectedness of the universe. Or so Scott had said. She didn’t really get it, or if she did, it was only as a cold, distant idea, not as a core of herself.

A key rattled in the lock.

Oh, God! Please, help me! I can’t find enough magic. I can’t find the right focus.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

The power surged within her, flooding her veins, stabbing into her in ways she had never experienced before. It flowed through her arms and legs, splintering in her fingers and toes. It threatened to eat her alive, to cleave her apart, to cast her body into the atmosphere in millions upon millions of tiny particles.

Stay calm. Focus. She reached within herself, angling back to her source of power, to the meadow where Scott’s inner wolf rolled and played. She didn’t make it there, though. She stopped inside her church, looking above the altar to the giant cross statue hanging there. A ceramic Jesus hung from it, legs together, feet bound by a single nail. He had his arms thrown wide, a nail in each wrist, and though she knew he had died that way, she had always seen his wide arms as a symbol of welcome. His head hung just to one side, his eyes cast downward, a crown of thorns atop his long brown hair.

Here he was, the cornerstone of her faith, poised for all eternity in a symbol of love and sacrifice. Three days later, he would come back to life, then take himself straight into heaven by the power of God the Father.

That was what made sense to her. Maybe on some level she was not aware of, the power of God was the same as the power of the earth beneath her feet and the moon above her head, but one was an image she knew and embraced, whereas the other was something she had only tried to force herself to learn because well-meaning sorcerers told her she must.

Henry Wolf believed electricity interfered with magic. Not all sorcerers thought magic worked in exactly the same way.

Here was her connection. This was how she could get it.

Lord God, help me. I have all this magic, more than I ever imagined, most of which isn’t even mine. I need to become invisible, but I don’t know how. If I give it to you, will you make it work?

The door opened. Two stone faces burst in, looking from left to right. And as they did, their faces started showing emotion. Grave emotion.

“Where are they?” one of them asked.

“He’s an illusionist. Get out your phone.”

The first stone face did so. Madison held her breath, but a few seconds later, a sweep of the room with the camera yielded no results.

“What do we do?” asked the first stone face.

Madison slipped past them. It was easy, she realized, when she was really invisible, no more than air. She could slide around them unseen and unfelt. She couldn’t even see or feel herself, but she was aware, both of her own mind and of the wolf’s, still fueling the magic for this operation.

“It’s not over yet,” Madison whispered. Their escape had only just begun.

Chapter 30

THE HALLWAY YAWNED ENDLESSLY BEFORE HER. Theirs had been the last cell down the corridor and ahead of them stood locked door after locked door.

They hadn’t discussed this part. Madison had thought about it, but she and Scott had talked about little past the two of them getting out of here, preferably alive. Now as she looked at the nearest locked cell, wondering who or what lay within, she knew she couldn’t leave them there. Maybe they deserved imprisonment. Maybe she would inadvertently release some horrible monster, but she didn’t trust her jailers to know the difference.

Was it worth the risk? She thought of her brother Clinton, and whatever experiment they had performed upon him. He could be in one of these rooms. He was somewhere in this building; Scott had said so. If she had any chance of freeing her brother, she had to take the risk.

She also had to work quickly. The two stone faces who had entered her cell were whirling around, shouting at a trio of stone faces sitting behind a security desk at the end of the hallway. The two men and one woman seated there were standing up, reaching for their weapons.

She needed a key. Glancing to either side of her, she saw that the doors were unlocked using a simple RFID scanner. The two stone faces now backing out of her cell, glancing left and right as if they thought they might spot Scott and Madison hiding in the walls, had tags on the badges clipped to their belts. All she needed to do was reach out and grab one.

The first stone face started to run back down the hall. She reached out, made a grab for his belt, and her hand passed right through it.

Stupid. Stupid. Her hand was insubstantial. She’d have to drop her spell of invisibility to grab the badge. Or did she? Was it possible that she could make only her hand substantial, making it look to those who happened to see it as though a disembodied hand were floating through the air?

It was risky, but it was better than letting her entire body be seen. She concentrated, then suddenly felt the heavy weight of her injured hand like an anvil strapped to her wrist, and nearly collapsed under the shock.

The second stone face didn’t retreat down the hall. He continued to stand guard by her cell door after receiving shouted orders to stay put. He held his gun firmly in both hands, glancing around anxiously as if expecting to be attacked at any moment.

He spotted her hand a split second before she yanked his badge off his belt. He shouted and started firing, but the bullets passed right through her body and managed to miss her hand as she quickly passed it in front of the first scanner.

Down by the guard station, one of the stone faces screamed. Apparently a stray bullet had hit him.

Inside the newly opened room, a young girl sat on the edge of a bottom bunk, her feral yellow eyes focused on the disembodied hand that had opened the door. Madison froze, wondering if this was another werewolf, but then she realized a werewolf would be in wolf form right now.

Vampires also had those yellow eyes, according to Cassie and Evan. She had never seen a vampire in the flesh, but when the girl opened her mouth to reveal fangs, Madison knew she had just encountered one.

And from the looks of it, she was starving. Madison had only seen such emaciated forms in pictures of unfortunate children from third world countries. Her bones stuck out grotesquely, and it was impossible to determine her age with any accuracy, but she couldn’t be older than ten.

Who had turned a child into a vampire? While Madison sat there in stunned disbelief, the child vampire stood on shaky legs and started to run, but not with supernatural speed. Perhaps starving vampires couldn’t super-speed? It might explain how they had captured one.

For a second, Madison thought the child might kill her, but it hardly seemed interested in the disembodied hand. Instead, she ran across the hall to the guard still stationed outside Madison’s old cell. He had stopped firing his weapon at random after hitting his comrade, but when he saw the vampire he let loose another volley of bullets that had no affect at all on the vampire child.

“Your cross!” someone shouted from the other end of the corridor.

The stone face dropped his weapon and fumbled at his neck for a cross, but either he was too slow or the vampire child was too hungry to care about being burned by the holy relic. She latched onto him, clamped her jaw around his throat, and tore.

Madison looked away, wondering what she’d done and what she should do next. She hadn’t meant to kill anyone, but what else had she expected to happen by opening up the doors?

That’s when all hell broke loose. From the ceiling above them a sprinkler went off, spraying the hallway with water. The vampire child screamed and retreated to her room. A few seconds later, alarms blasted.

She still felt Scott’s presence, silent and illusory. It seemed to want her to move on, to leave this place, to find fresh air so it could run, but she unlocked the next cell with another quick pass of the ID tag. She didn’t open the door or look inside this time, just moved on to the next cell. Then the next.

Suddenly a blinding pain shot through her visible left hand. She screamed and dropped the badge, staring at the blood welling up from her palm. She’d been shot.

An old man came up behind her, and she nearly screamed again. He had scaly skin and black, leathery wings protruding from his back. But he didn’t seem intent on hurting her. In fact, he reached down, scooped up her dropped badge, and continued unlocking cell doors.

Bullets ricocheted off his back as he worked, and the holy water sprinklers had no effect on him. She thought she heard one of the stone faces at the guard station call for a flame thrower, but the situation was quickly spiraling out of control. Half the cells were empty now, and she had no idea what many of the creatures emerging from the rooms were. One shot some kind of heat ray out of his eyes, melting the sprinklers. The instant he did three vampires, including the little girl who had retreated a minute ago, spilled into the hallway.

Madison decided not to stick around to see what happened. She headed for the stairs, praying for her hand to retreat into the cloak of invisibility.

It didn’t.

Oh darn. She spotted a set of double wide stairs just behind the guard station. Men and women in the army fatigues were coming down, some armed with rifles, others with crossbows or flame throwers. She detected the crackling aura of magical shields around each and every one, and many of them were linked in sets of three. She flattened her bloody hand to the wall, hoping nobody noticed, then edged her way up the stairs.

“What’s that?” a woman asked, pointing towards the hand.

Madison scarcely had time to think of an alternate plan. Behind her, she heard a loud howl, and a great black wolf bounded up the stairs, rushing the guards.

At first Madison thought it was Scott, but she could still feel Scott’s ethereal presence by her side.

A distracted soldier brought his weapon up and put several bullets into the wolf’s thick fur, but not before the beast sank his fangs into a woman’s neck, cutting off her scream almost before it had begun. Then one of the bullets finally lodged itself in the beast’s heart and it collapsed to the floor with a grunt.

Behind her, the old man with the leathery wings was depriving guards of crosses, giving three starving vampires access to a feast. He had a spring in his step and his wings kept fluttering like he wanted to fly in this enclosed space. He laughed, a high-pitched sound that made almost everyone except the vampires clutch at their ears.

Suddenly, a soldier wielding a flame thrower came at the man. His wings caught fire and his laughter turned to screams as he ran up the stairs, passing through Madison and ramming himself into several soldiers who lost their balance and fell.

Half of the guards who had rushed down the stairs turned and ran back up them. Madison followed, trying not to think about what she had unleashed this night. The sounds and smells of death were quickly filling the air.

Upstairs, everything was chaos. There were fewer guards up here, most of them seemingly concentrated on the stairs, which in Madison’s mind had been a bad decision. Up here were mostly researchers, technicians, office workers, and janitors. All but the last group looked like they had recently roused from sleep, meaning they must bunk in the building somewhere. Two vampires and a werewolf broke through the soldiers’ blockade, coming up the stairs to send everyone bolting for cover.

Somewhere in the chaos, Madison heard the howls and barks of what had to be dozens more werewolves trapped in this building somewhere. She followed the sound down a long corridor to a door marked, “Experimental Subjects.”

Three linked soldiers with crosses and magical shields in place blocked the entrance, looking as though they would willingly die to keep this door from being opened. But the howls were definitely coming from within, and Madison couldn’t help but wonder if Clinton was inside with them.

They didn’t see her hand. They were too busy watching the wolves, demons, vampires, and other creatures escape from the dungeon below. Quickly and efficiently, Madison removed the crosses from their necks, then threw them towards the vampires feasting at the other end of the hall. One of the crosses hit an emaciated vampire, which hissed and stood, then caught sight of the now unprotected guards.

The vampire charged, but these three together weren’t as unprotected as Madison had supposed. Linked together, they created a translucent shield around themselves, which the vampire slammed into a foot shy of his goal.

Frustrated, Madison searched for another way through this more powerful blockade. If she could convince her hand to go back to being invisible, she could get inside that room by sliding through the door, but that wouldn’t help her get her brother and the other wolves out.

Scott was growing angry with her, she sensed through their link. He wanted to leave now. This place was dangerous. More dangerous now that all the creatures were free.

Madison abruptly let go of the invisibility spell and of Scott’s magic. She felt solidity fall upon her like a load of bricks, making her stagger for a moment before she regained her footing. But it was a relief, too, not to have to hold that power. Or maintain the link.

Next to her, Scott became solid again. One of the guards at the door yelled a warning when he spotted the great black wolf that had just materialized in front of them.

Scott growled, a low and threatening sound. Her heart seized when she saw him, his yellow eyes staring at her without the slightest trace of humanity left within them. And if she was no longer insubstantial, then neither was he. He was large and real and angry and ready to attack. She fell back a step, unable to help herself even knowing that the beast would scent her fear.

She had half-wanted him to bite her, to mark her, to make her something like him so she could truly belong. How could she have forgotten? He looked angry. Hungry. How easily those teeth could rip and tear, how mercilessly the beast gorged. Scott lost his humanity once a month. He wasn’t there with her now. No one was. If she wanted to survive this, it was time to act. Quickly. Before he did.

She opened her mouth, ready to sing a lullaby she had prepared for this moment. Her voice caught on a couple of notes, but the message came through loud and clear.

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

And if that mockingbird won’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

And if that diamond ring turns brass, Mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass.

And if that looking glass gets broke, Mama’s gonna buy you a billy goat,

And if that billy goat don’t pull, Mama’s gonna buy you a cart and bull.

And if that cart and bull turn over, Mama’s gonna buy you a dog named Rover.

And if that dog named Rover won’t bark, Mama’s gonna buy you a horse and cart.

And if that horse and cart fall down, you’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

All around her, people and creatures were falling asleep. Only the vampires seemed immune to her power, but they didn’t attack her. In fact, one of them held another back when it tried. When Madison finished on a weary note, the guards were slumped over and even the howls from within the room behind them had diminished. A few wolves had resisted her command for them to sleep, but most had not.

Madison got the access badge from one of the guards and held it against the reader with her shaking, burned, bleeding hand. The vampires rushed in then, but not to attack. Instead, they helped her by pulling the guards out of the way so she could open the door.

The howling sounds increased. Madison threw herself out of the way, stumbling over Scott, who had fallen asleep nearby. She wondered if she should sneak away from him, but the next second he woke, taking the choice from her.

She ran. Scott ran at her heels, but he did not overtake her as he could have done. Instead, he only nipped at her when she slowed, more like he was herding her than chasing her.

She tucked her injured hand against her chest as she ran, trying to ignore the pain and the blood. The pain didn’t bother her as much as she expected – muted, perhaps by the adrenaline – but she felt as if she were leading a trail of blood for the predators to follow straight to her.

The hallways were littered with the dead and dying. There were screams. Gunshots. Sirens. The destruction was almost unbelievable. The spells that had been worked into the structure of the building didn’t seem to be holding up to the mass onslaught, especially when the vampires and demons worked together.

There were other things too. Not just werewolves and vampires. Madison had no idea what they were, or if they were natural. It was all unreal.

It was deadly. And she had caused it. She had opened those cell doors, letting loose these monsters on their jailers. She had, in effect, become their judge and jury.

She suddenly, and alarmingly, had a real glimpse into what Scott must feel like. But she had not killed directly. Did that absolve her?

When she stepped over the bloodied corpse of a man in a janitor’s uniform, she knew the answer. What had he known or understood about what went on here? He had only cleaned the floors and taken out the trash. Now he was dead, while two large wolves tore into his guts.

Bullets flew around her, one grazing her shoulder. One of the feasting werewolves howled and started chasing the soldier with the gun, but Madison didn’t wait to see who would come out the victor. She ran.

The corridors seemed to go on forever, one twisting into another, but after a few minutes of frantic running she found a place where a group of human refugees were funneling out into the night. There was a huge bottleneck there, making it almost impossible for anyone to get out quickly. If anyone attacked...

Scott howled. Several figures turned towards him, then bolted, jostling others in their haste to get away. Within thirty seconds, Madison had her clear path to the door and out into the moonlit night.

The forest outside was dense, the full moon above barely visible through the thick foliage. And they weren’t safe. Chaos still reigned supreme out here, as former captors and former prisoners vied for supremacy.

Madison ran. She had no idea where she was, or what she was running to, but she had only one thought in her mind: Get away. Weeks of inactivity took their toll, leaving her winded far sooner than she would have liked. Her lungs burned, her heart pounded far too quickly, and she began gasping for breath. She hadn’t been in great shape before, her daily interval jogs not preparing her for this far more strenuous form of exercise. If she got out of this alive, she would start training to run instead of walk, but at the moment the if felt big.

Making matters worse were her bare feet, which had no calluses to protect her from the harsh reality of the forest floor. Within minutes they were torn and bloodied, and she could feel that she had innumerable cuts and scrapes on her feet and legs. But she couldn’t stop.

She was surrounded by enemies. Dozens of werewolves were out here somewhere, including one that followed close on her heels. It didn’t attack. She didn’t know if it would, but so far it had only urged her to move faster, even when she didn’t think she could go another step.

A large tree came into view ahead of her and Madison ran straight for it, pausing to lean against its rough bark. She took several deep breaths and tried to think. Running wouldn’t serve her forever. She had to find a place to stop and ride out the night. She looked around, trying to get her bearings, but the full moon didn’t do much to illuminate the night. Not nearly as much as the fire burning somewhere in the distance.

Fire?

Madison whirled and saw that indeed, flames were beginning to consume the laboratory that had once been her prison. More and more monsters – human and otherwise – spilled out, some leaping out of broken windows while others trampled one another in their haste to get out the front door.

Someone – a human, Madison thought – ran straight for them, possibly seeking shelter behind the same tree. He never made it. Scott intercepted the man, lunging for him in a move that brought him down to the forest floor. The man’s scream was cut off a moment later, as Scott sunk his teeth into the man’s neck.

Madison stifled a scream and looked away, unwilling to relive the moment that had haunted her dreams for two years. But she couldn’t escape it completely. She couldn’t see, but she could hear the sounds Scott’s wolf made as it gorged on the man’s flesh. In her mind’s eye, she saw the intestines spilling out on the forest floor. The beast liked those the best.

Madison felt frozen. Scott hadn’t attacked her, but he had attacked someone else. She wasn’t safe with him now that they were no longer linked. What if he bit her? Should she leave? Try to make it on her own? But if she ran into another werewolf...

She started to move away, but a low growl from behind her froze her in her tracks. When Scott’s wolf went back to its feast, she started to move again, but this time it let out a low bark of warning, telling her in no uncertain terms that she would not be going anywhere without him. Finally, after what felt like hours but could only have been minutes, the wolf nudged her to get her moving again.

The night stretched endlessly before them, punctuated by panic and screams. Scott wouldn’t let any other werewolves get close to Madison, though a few tried. The vampires – or at least what she assumed were vampires since they moved too quickly to see – didn’t pause to notice her at all. Maybe they were too full to care.

The terrain was steep. The last time Madison had been aware of her location she’d been in Texas, but the steeper the decline became as she ran from her prison, the less like Texas this felt. Her vision didn’t work well at night, but in the glow of the moon she almost thought she saw mountains in the distance.

She was just trying to make out those far-off mountains when her foot found the edge of a rock and she tumbled headlong down a few feet of rocky terrain. Bloody knees. Bloody palms.

Blood would attract werewolves, wouldn’t it?

As if in answer, several werewolves howled. Every hair on Madison’s body stood on end in response.

She wanted to stop. To think. To catch her breath. She didn’t know if she could move on. But Scott’s wolf was still there, urging her to rise. When he licked her blistered, bloody feet she almost jumped out of her skin but she got up and kept moving.

The second time Madison tripped she knew she had to stop, no matter what the beast behind her did. She rose to her feet before he could urge her to do it but didn’t move right away. Instead she stopped and listened, and for more than the bays and howls of escaped monsters.

There. She heard something welcome, and not too far away. The sound of running water. Running water meant a lot of things, including a possible road to civilization in the morning. For now it meant washing away the blood that the wolves must be scenting from miles away. And maybe... maybe if she was very lucky... some kind of refuge.

The stream was neither wide nor deep. Madison plunged into it, barely noticing the chill of the spring-fed water. It felt too good on her burns and cuts. She sighed as she sank into it while her bestial protector kept vigil at the bank.

The sting of the chilly water quickly overcame any relief it provided her so she climbed out, but she still felt cold. Wasn’t it summertime? It should be June, if she was keeping track of the days properly.

June in the mountains. What mountains, though? How far was she from civilization? In the morning she would follow the stream, the most logical course out of the wilderness. But for now...

Scott came right up beside her, growling at her when she tried to scramble away on hands and knees. She stiffened, staring at him, wondering what he planned to do now. For a long time they just stared at one another, his yellow eyes locked with her brown ones. She trembled, expecting an attack. Maybe she could put him to sleep again with a song? She was about to open her mouth to do just that when he did something she wouldn’t have expected: He stood over her with his massive, warm body and began licking her wounds.

She closed her eyes and tensed, bracing herself for a bite that didn’t come. His soft tongue simply lapped at her shoulder where the bullet had grazed her, then her hand, then her feet. Was he trying to soothe her pain or drink her blood? Either way she wanted him to stop. It felt too strange. Too frightening. Too...

Scott growled, but not at her. She looked up to see three werewolves approaching as boldly as if they knew Scott. Maybe they did. Hadn’t that doctor said Scott’s pack had been captured?

Scott padded away from her, headed in the direction of the three wolves. Madison got to her feet and moved a little ways down the bank to lean against a large rock. She hugged herself and generally tried to become as small as possible.

One of the wolves started in her direction but Scott lunged for it, clamping his jaw around the other wolf’s leg. The wolf yelped and jumped back. Then it snarled. Scott snarled right back.

What if they were from his own pack? Would he kill them to defend her? She couldn’t imagine it. His first loyalty was to his pack.

She felt so tired. Her nap of a few hours past seemed long ago, and the night ahead longer still. Did werewolves sleep? Or did they only hunt?

They did sleep. She startled herself by remembering that she had put Scott to sleep a little while ago. Could she do it again? Protect herself from Scott and his wolves? She had to try.

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird...

Madison closed her eyes as she sang, letting the words and the weariness fill her. When she finished – when she opened her eyes – all the wolves had fallen asleep. Including Scott.

Madison didn’t dare to breathe. She also didn’t dare to fall asleep herself. She stayed by that rock, fighting the night chill, and humming her lullaby whenever a wolf began to stir.

Gradually, the night grew quieter. Eventually she heard her last scream. The smell of smoke drifted her way whenever the winds changed. And then came the first light of dawn.

Chapter 31

SCOTT BLINKED AWAKE AS DAWN TOUCHED the sky, surprised to find that he had slept. He never slept as a wolf. He usually came to after an agony of transformation, his thoughts hazy as if he had been in a semi-conscious state. The haziness remained, a familiar reminder of who he was. But why had he slept?

Madison!

Scott pushed himself off the hard, rocky shore of a stream. Nearby he smelled a relatively fresh kill, probably a deer, but he spared it no thought. He only had one thing on his mind, and that thing stood by a rock, barely able to hold herself upright.

“Madison!” He ran to her, swept her into his arms, and kissed her thoroughly enough to bruise her lips. She responded, though not with her usual enthusiasm. She looked ready to drop off to sleep at any second.

“You’re alive,” Scott said. The I didn’t kill you was implicit. “Did I bite you?”

“I’m fine.” She looked away.

“Madison?” Scott felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. “Did I bite you?”

She shook her head.

He grabbed her hands, one burned and the other covered in partially dried blood. “What is this?”

“I got shot. I have scrapes everywhere. My feet are even worse.”

Something didn’t feel right here. He didn’t think she was lying, and he couldn’t find a bite mark, but he had frankly expected it. Braced for it. Before he could explore the issue further, however, he heard a groan from behind him.

Scott sniffed the air before turning and spotting several members of his pack also coming awake from an unnatural sleep. There were Ben and Chad, his two betas, and Jessica.

Jessica blinked sleepily, spotted Scott with Madison in his arms, and snarled. She started to lunge for them but Scott shielded Madison with his body.

“You’re dead,” Jessica hissed at Madison as if Scott weren’t there. “You’re a mouse. A morsel. I’m surprised nobody ate you last night.”

“Not one more word, Jessica,” Scott warned.

“He’s mine,” Jessica said, again ignoring Scott’s existence. “Do you hear? Mine!”

“Doesn’t look like he wants to be,” Madison said.

“Madison, let me handle this,” Scott said.

“I won’t be replaced by a mouse!”

“Jessica,” Ben said, taking her arm. “Look at Scott.”

She did. She blinked, then looked at him again. “You can’t be serious, Scott. You can’t replace me with her.”

“I already have.” He wished he had broken it off with her before all this had happened, but too late now. All he had now was brutal truth. “It was never meant to be between us, Jessica. You don’t even like me.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Yes, it is.” Scott stepped away.

Jessica looked ready to lunge for Madison again. Scott started to intercede when he heard Madison’s sweet, sweet voice from behind him. It took him a few seconds to recognize the lullaby. And a few more seconds to...

* * *

Someone poked him awake. Scott blinked open his eyes to early morning sunlight for the second time that morning, but this time Madison stood over him.

“What happened?” Scott asked.

“I put Jessica to sleep. Everyone else, too. I wonder if I can direct the gift. Do you think? I’ve never tried.”

Scott thought she might be able to do anything she put her mind to. For now he only marveled at the way she had handled the most aggressive bitch in his pack. She’d put her to sleep. Him too, for that matter. God, he loved her. He only prayed that Clinton never came wandering back into his territory. It was his only hope that he might one day make her feel the same way.

“I thought we could follow the stream until we found something like civilization,” Madison said.

Scott took a good look around him. Mountains surrounded them. Steep mountains. The Rockies, perhaps? He’d never been there, but he’d seen pictures. He didn’t know how high they were, or how close to civilization, but Madison’s instinct about the stream was correct.

“We have to wake the others,” Scott said. “I won’t leave them here.”

Madison’s face paled but she nodded.

“You’ve proven your point, Madison,” Scott said. “Don’t show fear now.” He paused before suddenly wondering aloud, “How did they get out?”

“I started unlocking doors.”

“You should have been insubstantial.”

Madison shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

Scott wanted to hear that story, but it would have to wait. For now he had a duty to find as much of his pack as possible and lead them away from this trap.

* * *

They reached a small town sometime after noon. Scott had no idea how many members of his pack had been captured, but he found three more before they began their journey down the hill. Most of them threw Madison curious looks, but only Jessica bathed Madison with hatred. The rest were too determined to get home alive to care who their alpha had traveling with them.

Reaching town came with new problems. With the exception of Madison, none of them were clothed. They usually left changes of clothing in their cars or trucks each month, but not this time.

They weren’t the only ones with that problem. There had been at least a hundred werewolves in that lab, many of whom would need a new pack home. There would be a mess cleaning this up for weeks to come, and Scott felt responsible for most of the wolves, whether they had been his before or not. Dr. Akin had forced him to act as their alpha. Forced or not, he took that role seriously. He just wondered what he would be able to do with the experiments gone wrong. How many would he have to put down?

How many new marks on his soul?

Some of the others had already found the town and were roaming the streets naked. A couple of small town deputies tried to arrest them, but weren’t having much luck. Scott was just about to make his own presence known, perhaps with a story that would convince the deputies to hand them phones and changes of clothing instead of handcuffs, when a familiar car screeched into view.

Evan had barely waited for his metallic blue Prius to stop before he was out, making a bee-line for his sister. His eyes went wider with each new step he took until he stood in front of her with a look of horror in his eyes.

“What the hell happened to her?” Evan asked. His eyes went to Scott.

“Long story. How did you find us?”

“I’ve got a sample of her blood. I’ve been using it to search for weeks, but it only started working late last night. I assume that means you were being shielded.”

Scott nodded grimly. “Can you take her home? I’ve got a mess to clean up.”

“I’ll help you,” Madison said. She sounded weak. Looked pale. Probably due to lack of sleep.

“No,” Evan and Scott said at the same time.

They exchanged wary glances. Scott wasn’t sure if this was the right time to tell Evan that he had laid claim to his sister, but it couldn’t be a secret. And he wouldn’t let Madison go today without making sure she knew he would be right behind her, as soon as he cleaned things up here.

“No,” Scott repeated, putting his arms around her. From the corner of his eye, he saw Evan stiffen. “Go with your brother.”

“I’m not leaving here until I know Clinton is safe,” Madison said.

Scott had suspected the reason for her protest, but she had to go. She couldn’t help Clinton now and even though he had promised not to be the one to hurt her brother, he couldn’t help the pup either. Besides, she was injured. Apparently unbitten – something his instincts could not believe – but injured. Maybe with all her other injuries, she simply hadn’t noticed a bite?

“She has to go,” Scott said. “She’s bleeding all over the place.”

He pulled away from her to look at Evan, who was eying the two of them warily.

“Did you bite her?” Evan asked.

“No,” Madison said.

“I’m not sure,” Scott replied. “You’ll keep an eye on her?”

“Of course.”

“He didn’t bite me,” Madison insisted.

“Take care of her,” Scott said, turning away.

* * *

Madison fell asleep almost as soon as Evan urged her into the passenger seat of his car. She didn’t want to sleep; she wanted to beg Evan for help with Clinton, but lack of sleep coupled with an exhausting night combined to practically knock her out.

She woke in the evening when Evan stopped at a drive-thru to order some dinner. Madison thought about asking him to order her something, but despite not having eaten in twenty-four hours, she wasn’t hungry. If anything, she felt queasy.

“What do you want?” Evan asked when he pulled in. “I’d take you someplace nicer, but there aren’t a lot of options in western Kansas and anyway, you’re not really dressed for it.”

“Not hungry.” Madison glanced down at her bloodied blue scrubs and winced. “How fast did you drive to get to me this afternoon, anyway?”

“Pretty fast,” Evan admitted. “I wouldn’t believe you were dead; Cassie didn’t think so, either, and I tend to trust her instincts, so I found a spell that would alert me the second you were no longer being warded.”

“I wonder how much blood I left in the forest,” Madison said, again looking down at her scrubs.

“It’s hard to extract a blood sample from a forest,” Evan said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I’m worried about Clinton. Scott swore he wouldn’t kill him unless he returned to his territory, but I think someone else might.”

Evan didn’t say anything for a long time. “What happened?”

Haltingly, she told him everything, leaving out only her personal relationship with Scott, although judging from his expression he guessed. She did hesitate before telling him about true invisibility, suspecting that to be a secret Scott would rather keep, but her escape didn’t make much sense without telling him something about it.

“You channeled Scott’s magic?” Evan glanced at her. “That explains your hand. I’ve been wondering about it for a while.”

“Can you fix it?” Madison asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll try, but no promises. Magical burns aren’t like normal burns.”

“I suppose not.” It was her right hand, though; it would be tough to live with. She tried to imagine playing the piano with a bad right hand, an image she’d been avoiding for days because she hadn’t even let herself think she’d sit at a piano again. Now she could imagine it, but the hand got in the way. Madison stared out the passenger window, saying nothing as evening turned to twilight.

“Madison,” Evan said. “There’s still one thing that bothers me about your story.”

“What?”

“Did Scott bite you?”

“No.”

“Madison, you’re sick. Ignoring the truth won’t change anything.”

“No.” She wondered at the bitterness in her voice because back in the light of day, away from those yellow staring eyes, she once again felt as if she’d been judged and found wanting. It was stupid. She didn’t want to be a werewolf. She didn’t want to turn into a monster once a month – if she was lucky. It was far more likely that she’d die before she ever made it to that point.

This was a good thing! He’d controlled himself. He hadn’t bitten her. He hadn’t wanted her as part of his pack.

“Maybe some of these cuts are getting infected,” she suggested to explain away her symptoms.

“The potion I gave you should have taken care of that,” Evan said. “Scott thinks he bit you. I can tell. I can see it in his eyes. And knowing what I do about werewolves, I can’t imagine he didn’t.”

“Well, he didn’t,” she snapped. “He killed another man right in front of me, but he didn’t bite me. He just licked my wounds clean.”

Evan cursed softly, and Madison’s eyes went wide. No. Not possible. It couldn’t be.

“Technically it’s not the bite that does it,” Evan said. “It’s the saliva.”

* * *

Scott closed his eyes as he clutched the borrowed phone to his chest. His instincts had been right as usual. He hated it when his instincts were right. Would she ever forgive him for turning her into her worst nightmare? For making her into a monster?

Scott’s first inclination was to go straight back to Eagle Rock to take care of Madison, as if his presence could somehow ease this for her. As if it would increase her odds of survival. It wouldn’t, and as Evan was quick to point out to him, he needed to help his fragmented pack right now.

Scott suspected that Evan wanted to keep his sister away from him, but it wouldn’t work. If she lived through this, she was his. If she died... she couldn’t die. Fate couldn’t be so cruel.

So Scott stayed in Colorado where he was needed, and he called Evan six times a day to make sure Madison still lived. Every time Evan said, “yes,” no matter how cool his voice sounded, Scott let himself feel a modicum of hope.

It took Scott a week to even begin to clean up the mess in Colorado. The first two nights were the worst, since he and a hundred untrained wolves transformed at night, putting everyone who lived nearby at risk. Scott spent the first day putting the fear of God into the locals and convincing them to spend the night sheltered inside their church. Then he contacted the local alpha – the man who should have known what was happening well within the borders of his Colorado territory – and demanded he help.

Scott expected the alpha to be weak or old. To his surprise, the man who showed up within an hour of his phone call with a screech of brakes and a snarl on his face was only a few years older than Scott. His body rippled with muscles and he exuded the authority of a true alpha. Probably more so than Scott, but then Scott had always known that his magic gave him an edge that natural charisma did not.

“What the hell is going on here?” asked the alpha, Chris.

Scott had little time to explain but he managed, in terse syllables, to relay the bare bones of the operation.

“How the hell was this happening and I didn’t know about it?” Chris looked as angry as Scott had when he’d discovered that a werewolf had bitten a human in his own territory.

“Magic,” Scott said. He’d realized the truth the moment he’d seen Chris and taken the measure of the man. If Evan hadn’t found Madison inside that laboratory with a blood sample, then no non-sorcerer werewolf would have known about its existence.

Chris hesitated. “I always wondered if there were things other than werewolves out there. How do I fight them?”

How indeed? Scott had an idea but it would have to keep until after the full moon cycle.

Chris had the wisdom to accept Scott’s help inside his own territory. Most of the wolves in that laboratory had become wolves in captivity and had no idea how to survive in the real world or inside a pack. With both Scott’s and Chris’s packs working together, they managed to get through the next two nights with no further fatalities.

After that, there was still the lab to deal with. It had been burned to the ground with plenty of people trapped inside. Scott had the satisfaction of knowing that at least any blood samples they’d had on hand would have been destroyed. A few miles up the mountain was a community of support personnel and their families, most of whom had survived the night by staying inside warded homes.

They found what was left of Dr. Akin among them, where he’d tried to hide. Scott never got the chance to kill the man with his bare hands, as he had wanted to do. Some other wolf had gotten to him first.

Scott spent the first day of the waning moon on the phone getting every alpha in the country to Colorado to discuss what had happened. But that wasn’t the only phone call he made. This wasn’t just a werewolf problem.

Isolation. Scott had lived his life that way and led his pack that way. Most wolf packs lived in isolation, and that was why men had been able to do this to them.

Matthew Blair, leader of the fledgling movement called the White Guard, showed up far too quickly to have been in Eagle Rock when Scott called. The powerful mind mage confessed that he had already been on his way based on things he had learned from Evan. He had only waited this long because he’d been too smart to get caught up in the full moon fever.

“Have you seen Madison?” Scott found himself asking before anything else.

“No, I only spoke with Evan.”

“Oh.” Scott felt unaccountably disappointed, even though he’d probably called Evan twice since the last time Matthew might have seen her.

“Do you have proof that Alexander DuPris is behind this?” Matthew asked in a rapid change of subject that Scott found suspicious.

Scott didn’t trust Matthew. He never had and never would trust someone who could mess with his head. That was part of the reason that he had not become a bigger supporter of the White Guard even though Evan had embraced the idea. Scott had felt that Evan was reacting in part to Alexander’s betrayal, and in part to some kind of mental whammy Matthew had placed on him. Now he wasn’t sure what to think, but he needed to find some way to organize the wolves. If anyone would know how to do that, Matthew would.

“Madison was captured because she saw one of Alexander’s people,” Scott said. “The main doctor at that facility said he worked for Alexander. He was using Alexander’s magical scale to test me.”

“That’s all extremely circumstantial.”

“I know. Unfortunately, the wolves got to Dr. Akin before I could capture and question him. I know you want to pin Alexander with something that can actually stick, but I’m afraid anything of the kind might have burned the other night.”

Matthew looked in the direction of the destroyed laboratory, though it wasn’t visible from town. “To be honest with you, even if I could pin this on him it wouldn’t be enough. Sorcerers don’t like werewolves.”

Scott nodded. Another wolf might have taken offense, but Scott understood the simple truth behind the statement. “They weren’t just experimenting on werewolves. There were human experiments. Not to mention vampires.”

“They like vampires less than werewolves,” Matthew said. “But if I had proof I could try to sell them on the human experimentation. If I had proof.”

“I’m sorry I can’t give you your proof, but I might be able to get you something else if you’re willing to help me out.”

“An army of werewolves?” Matthew asked. He was absolutely serious.

Just as serious as Scott when he replied, “Yes.”

* * *

Scott returned to Eagle Rock two weeks later, exhausted. But he’d done what he’d had to do. Alphas from across the country had gathered in response to what had happened in Colorado and they had actually listened and considered. They had seen the danger. The question that remained now was whether they would see the solution.

Matthew thought so. Scott wondered if that meant Matthew had influenced them to think that way, but he didn’t ask. Sometimes a mind mage was a necessary evil, such as in helping a town full of frightened humans to forget three nights of terror.

Scott wasn’t going home alone. The alphas had agreed to each take on a few of the new werewolves – at least, the stable ones. Twenty-one werewolves had needed to be put down. The rest would have their chance just like any other new wolf. Scott had charge of two of them.

Some had escaped. Since they hadn’t taken a head count Scott only knew this because he had not seen Clinton. Madison’s brother was out there somewhere, lost, damaged, and alone. Sooner or later someone would find him and put him down. And Scott would have to tell Madison. He only prayed the pup was smart enough to stay away from his own territory so he didn’t have to be the one to do it.

Chapter 32

EVAN DIDN’T WANT SCOTT TO SEE Madison when he returned to town, but she was starting to pull through her illness and she had insisted.

“You and I need to talk first,” Evan said when Scott arrived at his friend’s three-story lakefront mansion. He followed Evan into the den where scattered baby blankets and a colorful Boppy made the room look much less like a bachelor pad than it had this time last year.

Evan closed the door, creating a soundproof seal that surprised Scott at first. The last time he’d been in this room, it hadn’t been magically soundproofed. Obviously, Evan had prepared for this meeting and didn’t want anything to interrupt it. Scott tensed, more than half expecting Evan to attack.

He didn’t.

“The only reason I’m not trying to kill you,” Evan said, “is that I know you had no choice. Madison told me what happened.”

“She’s one of mine now,” Scott said. “You know that.”

“Of course I do!” Evan took a deep breath. “I always knew something like this could happen. It’s why I tried so hard to keep her away from you.”

“I know.”

“But I was wrong.”

“What?” Scott wasn’t usually taken so off-guard, but he honestly had not seen this turnaround coming.

“You two need each other. If I hadn’t let her live in fear, if I hadn’t encouraged that, maybe you’d have realized it sooner, and maybe none of this would have happened.”

“I doubt that.”

“Regardless,” Evan said. “You have my blessing. For what it’s worth.”

Scott stood there for a long minute, stunned. It meant more to him than he could say. The only thing that could possibly mean more was Madison’s blessing. She still hadn’t said she loved him. He still wasn’t sure that what she had felt for him wasn’t just a product of two people in a dangerous situation.

And he had turned her into a werewolf. Would she ever forgive him?

“Can I see her now?” Scott asked.

“Let me just make sure she’s awake,” Evan said. “She’s been sleeping a ton and I won’t wake her.”

“No, of course not.”

But no sooner had Evan opened the study door then the front doorbell rang. Frowning, Evan went to answer it and Scott’s instincts went on alert. He did not think he would like what awaited him on the other side of the threshold. He knew it for sure when Evan opened the door and sucked in a deep breath.

Clinton. Scott smelled him before he saw him. He walked out of the den into the front hallway, glanced up the staircase where the woman who would never speak to him again slept, then strode purposefully to meet his betrayer.

“Go away,” Evan said.

It was too late for that. Scott nudged Evan aside and faced down the pup he would have to kill. He didn’t look good. He hadn’t looked good in the lab or locked up in that cell, but now he looked worse. He still wore the scrubs, but he clearly had not bathed or changed clothes since his escape. There was blood – little of it his – and dirt. Also, the scrubs hung loosely, as if he had recently lost a lot of weight.

The yellow eyes that looked up at Scott were ringed in red. He hadn’t slept lately. And he knew he was going to die. So why was he here?

Clinton lifted a hand, holding something out for Scott to take. Scott hesitated, seeing a vial of some kind of whitish liquid. In the other hand, Clinton clutched a notepad and a manila envelope. When Scott took the vial from the pup’s trembling fingers, Clinton tore the top piece of paper off the notepad and handed it to Scott as well.

I can’t talk. So I’m writing to explain why I’m here. The vial contains a potion that will cure Madison if taken before her first transformation. Dr. Akin didn’t lie to me about having such a cure, he just refused to give it to me. He gave me something else instead.

Scott stared from the note to the vial, his eyes going back and forth in stunned disbelief. It couldn’t be true. If there were a cure, he’d know.

“What is it?” Evan asked.

Without speaking, Scott handed Evan the note.

“Can you trust him?” Evan asked when he’d finished reading.

Scott had no idea. But he didn’t lash out at the pup, didn’t snap his neck as was his duty. Partly, it was because Clinton stood in docile silence, no apparent threat to anyone. Partly, it was because he didn’t want to do the one thing that would seal his fate with Madison.

While he stood there in indecision, the pup started writing again. It took him a while to scribble out his next note, but Scott didn’t make a move until he was done and handed over the new message.

I know you have to kill me. I accept it. I’m a monster. I still don’t know exactly what they did to me, but some of it is in the notes. They made me stronger. I have better vision. Better hearing. Better sense of smell. But I can’t speak and I look like this. I know I deserve to die for what I did to you, but I thought I was helping Madison. When Dr. Akin told me the truth I wanted to rip his throat out. I did, in the end. I went to his office to get his papers before starting the fire. Then I hunted him down.

“Papers?” Scott asked.

Clinton handed him the manila envelope, which Scott took, not opening it.

“How did you get his papers in wolf form?” Scott asked.

Clinton wrote again. It was a long, frustrating conversation but Scott wanted to know everything. Needed to know. If he could believe Clinton, if there was even a chance to save Madison from becoming a werewolf...

He’d lose her. He hated himself for thinking it, especially since her life remained at risk, but he felt like he was only holding onto her due to a technicality. Yet if this was true, he had to let her go or he really would be a monster.

What were his instincts telling him? Before, when Clinton had sounded the alarm, he knew the pup had betrayed him. But he’d never been convinced that Clinton had betrayed Madison. Maybe this was proof that he hadn’t. What else would bring him here, into the heart of a territory where he knew the alpha he had betrayed would probably kill him? He had come face to face with Scott, and Clinton’s trembling fingers said he knew the probable outcome.

In fact, his next note was a little more difficult to read due to the shaking handwriting, but Scott managed.

Transformation incomplete. Still have hands. Not good for running through the woods. Can’t run on back paws only. Hurts to run as a wolf. But hands can get papers.

“And your mind?” Scott asked. “Do you have the wolf’s mind at the full moon?”

He couldn’t have the wolf’s mind, Scott’s intuition told him. If he had thought to grab those papers then something in him remained human when he transformed. Was that one of the things Dr. Akin had tried to do? Had he been partly successful?

Did such success excuse any of the things he had done?

Scott took another piece of paper.

Can still think as a wolf. Not as well as when I’m human, but not like the first time when I was pure feelings.

It was Scott’s turn to tremble. The paper shook in his hands. If this was true... Wow, the implications for werewolves everywhere were amazing. Dr. Akin had tried to sell him on it, but Scott hadn’t bought into it. He’d been too busy trying to escape. Too busy reeling at what the madman had done to innocent men, women, and creatures. Well, vampires weren’t innocent by definition, but even they deserved death and decapitation rather than imprisonment and experimentation.

How many had died? How many had suffered? Scott remembered the young woman in the cage, the human whose mind had gone. She hadn’t even been a werewolf. Scott had found her afterward during some of the cleanup efforts. He’d checked each and every body they had recovered, and he’d recognized hers. A vampire had gotten her in the end. Scott had chopped her head off to make sure she didn’t turn.

And that was just one story. Clinton himself was strange. Unnatural. How could he run with the pack with hands for front paws? How would he hunt and fight? He’d never be an alpha.

But he had his mind, or part of it. And he had a cure for Madison.

Clinton handed Scott another piece of paper.

Cure only works before first transformation. No cure after that.

Clinton had underlined the last sentence three times.

Scott swallowed. He handed the notes off to Evan, but Evan couldn’t help him make this decision. He was the one who had to figure out if he trusted Clinton.

“You betrayed me,” Scott said.

Clinton closed his eyes and nodded, once. Then he turned his head to the side, exposing his throat. The message was clear, but Scott ignored it.

“Did you betray Madison too?”

Clinton shook his head furiously. Then he began to write once more.

Dr. Akin said you were a danger to her. She was afraid of you for years, so I believed him. I did it for her.

It all made sense to Scott now. He stared at the vial of whitish liquid in his hands. He believed it was a cure. He wouldn’t offer it to Madison before he looked through the notes, but his instincts had already passed judgment of a sort. Clinton wouldn’t have given him this potion if he hadn’t been sure. After all, he loved his sister enough to die to protect her. Apparently, that sort of thing ran in the family.

Clinton bared his throat again, but Scott put a staying hand on the pup’s arm.

“No,” Scott said.

The pup blinked in confusion.

“I won’t kill you, but you have to swear allegiance to me and join my pack. I’m a little worried about how the other wolves will handle your unique form, but we’ll deal with that next week. It’s no reason to kill you.”

Clinton’s eyes widened in disbelief. He looked down at his furry hands and Scott could almost see him wondering how he would survive in and out of wolf form. They were valid concerns, but they would find a way. Scott met and held Clinton’s eyes, willing him to believe that they would get through this together.

Finally, Clinton nodded.

Scott strode back inside, clutching the envelope of notes. He left it to Evan to invite the pup inside, since it was his house. He heard Evan lead Clinton into the kitchen, undoubtedly to make sure he got the first square meal he’d had in days, but Scott went into the den, ostensibly to study the notes.

He did read the notes, but he was barely aware of what he saw there. He spent most of the time staring at the vial of salvation for Madison, wondering if she would still have him afterward.

* * *

Madison felt as if she’d swallowed razors, but honestly, that was an improvement over how she’d felt the past few weeks. Most of it had passed in blissful unconsciousness, but during her brief moments of lucidity she had known pain unlike anything she had ever felt before. For a while she thought for sure she would die. There was a moment or two when maybe she’d hoped for it, but they had passed. And now she was nearly through it.

But what would she become next week when the moon was once again full? She hadn’t let herself think too much about that when she’d half-hoped Scott would bite her. Choose her. Find her worthy. Now that he had, she wondered how she would handle the wolf form. Not everyone made it through the first transition, and some of those who did became uncontrollable monsters.

She was deep in thought when a soft knock sounded on the bedroom door, followed by Evan poking his head in. When he saw her sitting up he asked if she was ready to see Scott. Her heart jumped at the idea, but she nodded.

Scott sauntered in, looking more dangerous than usual in his own dark clothes and outside of a prison. He wore a strange expression on his face, grim and yet not grim at the same time. He looked like a man fighting an internal battle.

“Clinton stopped by,” Scott said.

“What?” Madison nearly rose from the bed, even though she wasn’t sure her legs would support her weight, but Scott rushed across the room and held her down.

“He’s fine. He didn’t betray you, Madison. He thought he was helping you. Dr. Akin used him and tossed him away.”

“Is he okay?” Madison asked.

Scott nodded. “He came here prepared to die for you.”

“What do you mean?” Madison asked.

Scott opened his hand and showed her a vial of some kind of potion. “He knew his life was forfeit if he came to me, but he came anyway. To give you this.”

“What is it?” Madison lifted it carefully out of his hands and stared at it in confusion.

“A cure.”

“A cure for what?”

“You don’t have to become a werewolf if you drink that.”

Madison felt her heart constrict, but whether in fear or joy she couldn’t say. “I-that’s impossible.”

“I thought so too. Apparently Dr. Akin was learning some things in that lab of his.”

“And killing innocent people to do it!” Madison thrust the vial back at him. “No, I won’t do it. I won’t condone what he did.”

“Madison, not taking this won’t bring back the dead.”

“I know but-” But what? She did not want to be a werewolf. Yet there was something she did not want even more. “I don’t want to lose you.”

The grim expression fell from his face, replaced by one of hope. “Lose me? Why would you lose me?”

“Your pack always comes first. How can I... How can we...?”

“My pack is and always will be very important to me.” Scott placed the vial back in her hand and gently closed her fingers around it. “And you will be a part of that pack whether you become a werewolf or not. If you’ll have me, that is.”

Madison stared at him, hardly daring to hope. She felt dampness on her cheeks, but she had no idea what it was doing there. This wasn’t a moment for tears.

Scott lifted a hand to gently brush the dampness away. “Will you have me?”

“Yes. Oh yes! I love you.”

“I’ve been waiting forever to hear that.” He swept her up in an almost crushing embrace, but Madison didn’t mind. She was finally where she belonged. “I love you, Madison. I’m never letting you go.”

Epilogue

MADISON SAT AT HER PIANO STARING at her blackened right hand, willing it to dance across the keys as it once had. The fingers were stiff, and spasms of pain attacked at random intervals, usually resulting in some discordant noise. She would never be able to play as she had once done; one day, she might even accept that fact. For now, the truth still brought tears to her eyes.

The alarm clock in her bedroom began to sound its morning call; Madison had forgotten to turn it off when she had given up her quest for sleep. Quickly she did so, then retreated to her music room where the first light of morning cast a glow upon the crimson shades.

Scott and Clinton would return from their monthly hunt soon. She hadn’t seen them in days, something Scott had insisted upon since he still believed his wolf would seek any opportunity it could to bite her. To claim her for its pack. She wasn’t sure how that distance would continue to work after they got married, and especially after they had kids, but she accepted it for now.

Madison stared at the ruby and diamond engagement ring sparkling on her finger. Since rubies weren’t in fad he had gone to a lot of trouble to get the unique setting specially made, insisting that no mere diamond would properly capture her spirit. The result was breathtaking, even if she’d had to wait several weeks, wondering why it was taking him so long to officially propose.

Madison glanced at the clock sitting atop her piano, trying to calculate how much longer it would take for the wolves in her life to return. She wanted to see Scott desperately, but it was Clinton who kept her up at night now. The pack wasn’t fully accepting him with his human hands and semi-human mind. It had him feeling depressed, something Madison understood all-too well.

She had a surprise for him, if her ruined hand would cooperate. She flexed it a few times to warm it up, wincing when she felt a flash of pain radiating from her wrist to her fingertips.

The front door opened and Scott’s voice filled the front room. “She’s probably in the music room,” he was saying to a companion.

“You know me too well,” Madison called.

The next second, Scott entered her domain, followed closely by Clinton, whose eyes were cast ominously downward.

“I missed you.” Scott crossed the room and proceeded to prove his point by kissing her thoroughly. Madison melted against him for a moment, then turned her head away before he could get too carried away in front of her brother.

“How did the hunt go?” Madison asked. She signed the words as she spoke, not because Clinton’s hearing had been affected but because having someone to practice with helped him to learn. Both siblings were catching on quickly. Scott wasn’t doing too badly either.

Clinton shook his head in response.

“Clinton spent most of the night at the edge of the forest near the cars.” Scott’s hands flew as he spoke.

“I see,” Madison said. She didn’t sign. Instead, she turned back to her piano and placed her arched fingers atop the keys. “I finished this song months ago, but I couldn’t find the right words until recently. I knew it should be about hope and love, but, well, I needed inspiration.”

Clinton stared meaningfully at her hand, but she ignored him.

“I’d love to hear it,” Scott said and signed.

“It’s for us,” Madison said. “For all of us. I think we could all use a bit of hope.”

Taking a deep breath, Madison began the sweet introduction to the song, wincing when her right hand refused to cooperate and she hit a wrong note. But she didn’t let it stop her. Moving past the moment as if it hadn’t happened, she joined her voice to the melody. She sang about courage. She sang about inner-strength. She sang about struggles that life never stopped bringing.

Her right hand seized at that moment, as if her singing of struggles had frozen it in place. Closing her eyes, she lifted her fingers from the keys and sang the refrain a cappella, letting her hands sign the words along. “How can you know love until you learn to love yourself?”

When she finished, Scott and Clinton both had tears in their eyes. Clinton hugged her and even managed a small smile. Then he turned to Scott and began to sign. “I had an idea while I was alone last night. I thought, since I don’t lose my mind at the full moon, that maybe I could help keep the pack’s human family members safe instead of roaming the woods. Most werewolf attacks are against a wolf’s own family. It’s why you were so afraid of getting close to my sister.”

Scott nodded, slowly. “I think that’s a perfect idea. I’ll need to train you to fight, but you seem to be a quick study.”

Clinton nodded, not in the least bit modest. “I’m tired,” he signed before heading to Madison’s guest bedroom, which he had been using since his return.

“I can’t wait until we have our own house,” Scott said in a low voice.

“Me too.” They would both have to wait, though. Madison had insisted upon a proper Catholic wedding officiated by Father Owen, who insisted that they observe a proper six-month engagement period.

“Father Owen is enjoying torturing me, isn’t he?” Scott asked.

“No, he’s just looking out for my best interests.”

“I thought that was my job.”

“It is. But isn’t it nice to know there are others who can step in when you’re unavailable?”

Scott’s eyes darkened, but he nodded. “Yes, it is.”

And that’s when it suddenly hit Madison, with something like the force of a freight train: She wasn’t alone anymore. She had a priest, a best friend, two brothers, and best of all, a man who would love her to his dying breath. There would be children too, after they married. Her heart was suddenly so full she thought it would burst.

“What are you thinking?” Scott asked.

“Just how very, very lucky I am. God, I love you.”

Scott didn’t answer in words; he picked her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather and carried her to her bedroom where he proceeded to show her just how much they belonged together.

The End

About the author

Christine Amsden has been writing science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. She loves to write and it is her dream that others will be inspired by this love and by her stories. Speculative fiction is fun, magical, and imaginative but great speculative fiction is about real people defining themselves through extraordinary situations. Christine writes primarily about people and it is in this way that she strives to make science fiction and fantasy meaningful for everyone.

At the age of 16, Christine was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a condition that affects the retina and causes a loss of central vision. She is now legally blind, but has not let this slow her down or get in the way of her dreams.

Christine currently lives in the Kansas City area with her husband, Austin, who has been her biggest fan and the key to her success. They have two beautiful children, Drake and Celeste.

http://www.christineamsden.com/

Cassie Scot Mystery series

Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective Book 1

Secrets and Lies Book 2

Mind Games Book 3

Stolen Dreams Book 4

Other novels by Christine

Madison’s Song

The Immortality Virus (SF suspense)

Touch of Fate (paranormal suspense)

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