Half Wolf (21 page)

Rena would have said he was smitten, when in fact imprinting changed a wolf’s cell structure. He felt that connection deep in his bones, as if it had always been there and had merely grown up with him. His need for Kaitlin was strong enough, and perhaps senseless enough to make him want to leave everything and take her home, where the world and its problems could pass them by.

Alpha.

Her voice in his mind caused a misstep. He had blocked those last thoughts from her, and she might have read him anyway.

“Yes,” he said to Kaitlin. “I know my where my duties and allegiance lie.”

Scenting Dylan cut that conversation short. The Were was walking fast in their direction and had agitation written all over him.

“Chavez doesn’t have them,” Dylan said with a hint of relief as he announced Tory and Adam’s fate. “I think that whoever lives behind that damn portal does.”

Chapter 24

D
ylan knelt down to speak directly to her. “Can you go in there again, Kaitlin? Behind that portal?”

Kaitlin twitched her muzzle, forgetting about being a wolf at the moment before sending a message the wolf way.
Not welcome.

“Then Tory and Adam wouldn’t be welcome, either. So how far could they get, if in fact they did get through that portal?”

I believe the gate might be guarded.

“By whom? What are they, and what are they like?”

Fey is the name Devlin used to describe them.

“You’ve seen them. Tell me what we’re dealing with.”

They’re beings who aren’t to be reckoned with. Their appearance was deceiving. For me, they were more like a feeling rather than beings with substance.

Dylan looked around. “Would they lure a wolf in there for bad reasons, if my friends didn’t go by their own accord?”

Kaitlin shook her head.
Don’t know.

Dylan sighed. “I’m not sure Tory and Adam would try anything so risky when we have a serious agenda here, and yet I’ve traced their scent back to that damn place.”

“Maybe they didn’t go past the curtain,” Michael suggested. “Both of them were there earlier. Their scent might have lingered.”

“True,” Dylan admitted. “Yet the scent was strong, so I’m thinking that might be a reason for the loss of communication. If they aren’t with Chavez, I should be able to sense them elsewhere.”

Kaitlin growled again to regain their attention. They both had to realize that Chavez, seeing that everything Dylan had told them was true, might be playing tricks and using some kind of sleight-of-hand to disguise his own agenda. Surely Dylan already knew that.

She let both Lycans in on that thought, while her gut told her that wasn’t the case with Tory and Adam. The beings that had met her beyond that portal would not have allowed more werewolves to cross their borders. They hadn’t been happy with her. Who knew what they thought after Michael’s wolfish rescue?

Dylan and Michael stared at her for several seconds before swearing in unison. For a brief moment, Kaitlin saw the similarities of their Lycan heritage. Both of these Weres vibrated with a metabolism that virtually hummed. Both of them were gorgeous examples of physical perfection, and incredibly smart.

They moved with a special degree of muscle awareness. Their eyes were deep-set and bright. Both of them seemed to prefer long hair, and were unfazed by naked bodies. They would have turned the heads of any and all females of multiple species, and the females they chose as mates would be extremely lucky to have them.

But there was no mistake about how dangerous each of these two Lycans were, despite the fact that her insides rumbled with the thought of being one of those chosen females.

“Show me where Chavez is hiding,” Michael said as they formulated a plan to start toward the college. “Maybe they’ve chased Chavez’s creatures there and are blocking communication for defensive reasons.”

To Kaitlin he added, “I don’t suppose you’ll go to my place and wait for me there.”

Because it wasn’t really a question, Kaitlin didn’t bother to answer. She was this Alpha’s mate, and had to prove herself worthy. Nevertheless, she had to be wary. The new day had dawned and people were starting to show up in the distance. She would have to slink through the trees on a parallel path to the route Michael was taking.

Their current direction was the result of Dylan’s insight into the last communication he’d had with his pack-mates, and he transmitted that information silently to Michael.

She heard every word.

Chavez, they believed, had claimed a basement for himself in one of the older buildings at the edge of the campus—an old warehouse that had fallen into disrepair. Students sometimes went there to fool around, believing the place to be haunted. All in all, it was a perfect place for monsters to choose. And if they had chosen it and brought their victims there,
haunted
would take on a much deeper meaning.

Clement truly was in trouble, and the images that trouble kicked up in Kaitlin’s mind were sickening.

“Kate,” Michael said, turning. “You can’t come along. You know that. You’re like catnip for some of these guys, and who knows if that lure extends to daylight. Let me do what has to be done without worrying about you. Please.”

Michael’s apprehension was contagious. The fur lifted on the back of Kaitlin’s neck. This was her Alpha. Her mate. He had said
please
, and she didn’t like that he had to resort to that word.

Go
, she sent back to him.

Still, he waited.

Erase me from the picture
, she said.
I will take care, I swear.

Michael dropped to his haunches in front of her, put his hands on the sides of her head and looked into her eyes. Wolf to wolf was how she wanted him now, her hunger for Michael tripling in intensity. Was more hunger in her future, too, if this fight with Chavez and Clement’s vampires turned out well?

She bared her lupine teeth in honor of that idea, and was rewarded with Michael’s brief, dazzling smile. He understood this desire perfectly, because he shared it.

“You will undo me, Kate,” he whispered.

As Michael joined Dylan, Kaitlin experienced an emotion that was like being torn apart. He had said
please
. She had to respect his wishes. Didn’t she? One good turn did deserve another.

She watched the Lycans move off, her wolf motor revving. When they had disappeared past the closest stand of trees, she lifted her head, sniffed the air and backtracked to find the place where she was going to press the advantage of being somewhat like those strange, sparkly, colorful entities that had offered her a hand in this world and made her unwelcome in another.

Fey.
That’s what Devlin had called them. And if Fey DNA ran in her blood, at least one half of her had a right to use that portal whenever she wanted to.

Fearful that Michael might be aware of her plan, and that she hadn’t fully mastered the fine art of the mental mate block...worried that he might turn around, angry with her propensity for ignoring his requests... Kaitlin utilized all the speed built into her wolf limbs as she raced for the site of what everyone called
that damn portal
.

* * *

The building was vacant, and spooky in its sad state of disrepair. Michael was aware of the college’s plans for an entirely new campus rising from the ashes of the older version. Building had already started. While the unused brick structure in front of him still had good bones, time and increased university budgets had rendered it useless.

He and Dylan paused to look the place over. The foul odor of werewolves in residence was easy for another wolf to pick up. Anyone human who ignored the posted warnings and trespassed here would have chalked the smells up to the odors of age and decrepitude.

It was likely that vampires had been here until the monsters had moved in. Although the place carried the stink of bloodsuckers, rogue Weres were the bigger threat. Rogue Weres could move around in the daylight hours and cripple a nest while the vamps enjoyed the breathless naps of the undead.

Perceiving nothing to stop them, and with no Weres to bar their way, Michael led Dylan into the dark, abandoned hallway. Stairs leading up to a second story were cordoned off. That left the stairway down, and another moment of déjà vu.

Unlike the other building where they had gone after Cade, this one had only one lower floor. Michael and Dylan crept quietly downward, sure they were alone for the time being, but on guard.

The stairs emptied into a one-room basement that was also dark and eerie.

Several rectangular windows, high up in the walls, that should have shown the feet of whoever passed by, had been boarded up. What light there was came from three plastic-covered fluorescent lights that buzzed overhead.

The room itself was large and square, with a gray concrete floor and no real insulation to protect it from the elements. Urine, feces and blood had been used to scratch graffiti onto the walls. Two words were repeated over and over in a fiendish mantra.
Wolf.
And
kill.

Some poor sucker’s claws had done that. The blood was Were blood. There was no evidence of humans here. Chavez was indeed setting up a fight club. The bastard had wasted no time at all.

“Does Chavez allow some of his victims to live, adding to his private army after they’ve been brutalized by virus-dipped teeth and claws?” Michael asked.

“Survival of the fittest, maybe, in terms of Chavez requiring a stronger race of beast,” Dylan replied. “As long as that victim isn’t a cop. He shows no mercy for law enforcement, or the people his victims leave behind.”

“Women, too?”

“As far as I know, the fight rings are for males.”

Michael mulled that over. Tomorrow a full moon would rise and this bite-and-claw club would see action, unless it was stopped. Tonight, Chavez’s beasts wouldn’t look and act like the monsters they were: part man, part wolf; both of those parts lethal.

“There’s no time to lose,” Michael said. “The only way to close this place down and sanctify the ground would be to light a match and watch it burn.”

“That’s what we will have to do,” Dylan agreed. “But not with his crew loose in your town. If we wait until the beasts return, we can turn the tables and trap them here.”

“Along with a few innocent people.”

“No. We see to it that doesn’t happen. We stand guard.”

“And Chavez?”

“He will be here. This is what he does. What he likes. He gets off on the show.”

Michael again scanned of the room. “There’s no sign of Tory and Adam. If we burn this now, Chavez might migrate to someplace else.”

“Possibly,” Dylan said. “Can we take that chance?”

Michael gave Dylan a sideways glance.

“I doubt if Chavez can be included in whatever the reason those vamps had for showing up,” Dylan said. “Chavez was in need of an escape from Miami, and ended up here.”

Michael shook his head. “The Were in the library was focused on Kaitlin. He said things to assure me she was his target.”

“Then something happened to put them on her trail. Maybe they followed the vampires on this one and discovered an unusual treasure.”

“Fey,” Michael said.

Michael felt his jaw begin to tighten.
Yes
, he thought.
That’s what this is. That’s what some of this is about.
But were Chavez and the vampires aware of the appearance of the Fey on Clement’s doorstep? Were the Fey what made his town the apex for the hell that was breaking loose, or was it a coincidence?

“In a fight between us, we’d be sadly lacking without Tory and Adam. We have to trap the beasts here.”

Dylan’s light eyes flashed angrily in the fluorescent lights. “I’m ready to do whatever it takes to get Chavez, even if it means that I die in the process. And I swear to you, Michael, that if I were to go down, I’d take that nasty sucker with me and leave the world a better place.”

Michael said. “Tory and Adam showing up would be a bonus.”

Insight suggested to Michael that he, too, had fallen victim to the Fey’s intrinsic charms buried inside a female who didn’t realize what she was. So, who stood a chance against the Fey if they were undetectable? Without smelling or sensing their presence, if those creatures beyond the portal wanted to, they could wreak havoc on anyone.

The Fey were the problem, and also the answer.

In the pit of Michael’s stomach, an excitement began to grow that had tentacles in both dread and the higher aspects of hope.

“Hell, Dylan,” he said. “We have to find them.”

Dylan glanced over. “Tory and Adam?”

“Those Fey creatures.”

Dylan waited for him to explain.

“They are the key, and possibly the path to ending this future small-town Armageddon. Kaitlin has to use that portal again and find out what’s going on.”

Michael had already reached the stairs.

They exited the basement quickly, inhaling the fresh air outside. Rena and Dev came sprinting in from their search of the park to meet them, wearing grim expressions.

“Oh, hell,” Michael snapped, predicting what they were going to say. “You didn’t find Tory and Adam.”

Chapter 25

I
n the early hours of daylight, the Fey’s curtain had taken on a pink glimmer that reflected the color of the rising sun. Anyone else, Kaitlin thought, would have missed it. The thing was very nearly imperceptible to the naked eye. She, however, didn’t have to see it. She felt the portal’s presence.

She was connected to this gateway the way she was connected to her wolf, and stood before the wavering curtain in human form, naked and curious.

She needed answers, and this was the only way to get them. With her head held high and her quakes in check, she said softly, yet adamantly, “I’m back.”

Nothing happened. No glittering hand appeared to invite her inside.

“Really?” she said. “You can withdraw your offer after having extending it?”

The curtain undulated as if it were alive and wanted to address her remark.

“With your blood in my veins, shouldn’t I be able to claim kinship? Isn’t that kinship why you’ve come? Everyone here believes that’s the reason, and their opinions have convinced me. Come out, or let me in. Those are the only choices if I was ever one of you completely, before fate changed that.”

The curtain rustled in a cool breeze that Kaitlin now guessed was of her making, since it had appeared each time she was about to face the unknown. As incredible as that was, the thought occurred to her that if she could do that, maybe her Fey side had other surprises in store.

“I won’t leave,” she added in a steely tone. “Since my family didn’t prepare me, I’m not to blame for having no information about you. I’m here because I need your help. My friends also are in need of your help. Possibly I have a right to ask that of you.”

The curtain waved, then began to dissolve. Kaitlin saw nothing where it had been hanging except for one blinding flash of light that she figured had to contain the power, spell or magic to allow her passage.

Without understanding what awaited her and where this portal might lead, or if it actually was still a gateway to another place or realm, Kaitlin took a giant step forward.

Two strong hands pulled her the rest of the way inside.

* * *

Michael, Dylan, Rena and Dev moved away from the building together, but stopped when they reached the trees. Someone was coming toward them, and it wasn’t just anybody. It was Adam. And though Tory wasn’t anywhere in sight, three Weres Michael didn’t know accompanied Adam.

“Brought reinforcements,” Adam said as he approached.

Dylan rushed forward to greet the newcomers, one of which was a she-wolf with dark hair that Dylan appeared to know particularly well. The other two had the same look of clear-eyed experience those in Dylan’s pack had.

From behind Michael, Rena muttered, “More visitors.”

Michael exhaled with relief.

Adam had gone for help. There hadn’t been time for a six-hour round trip to Miami so he wasn’t sure how Adam had gotten these Weres here so quickly.

Any way Michael viewed it, however, these additional Weres were a godsend.

Dylan made hasty introductions. “Matt Wilson, Cameron Mitchell and...” Dylan grinned when his eyes met the dark-haired she-wolf’s eyes. “Dana Delmonico. Miami, meet Michael, Rena, Devlin.”

Adam moved to the front of the group. “Where’s Tory?”

Dylan stiffened. “She wasn’t with you?”

Adam’s thick neck muscled twitched. “She was watching that portal. I left her there.”

Exchanging another look with Dylan left a bad taste in Michael’s mouth.

“Tory figured that Kaitlin would return to the portal,” Adam explained, “and wanted to be there when she did.”

“Damn it,” Dylan whispered, turning. “She wasn’t there a while ago.”

“You haven’t heard the rest of it,” Cade said, striding forward from wherever he had been lately. “Kaitlin went to the portal a few minutes ago. I saw her moving across the park and followed. By the time I reached the portal, she was gone.”

Michael whirled. “What do you mean by gone?”

“I couldn’t reach her in time,” Cade said. “She went through.”

The sun was rising higher over their heads. Michael’s energy was waning when it was needed in full form. They had monsters to chase down and people to protect. They had plans to make and a mad, brutal beast to thwart. In spite of all that, he had to find Kaitlin.

He searched the new faces and found them set. The new Weres gave off no vibes of being frightened over what was going on. Michael got the impression that all of these wolves were in law enforcement, and were therefore used to dangerous situations. He identified the smell of metal, which told him that all three of these Weres carried concealed weapons.

There was no time for further explanations. All he had said before he took off at a run was, “Have to get there. To her.”

He heard Adam utter a curse, but barely heard the sounds of his pack running behind.

* * *

Kaitlin stumbled to a halt once she got on the other side of the portal and took in a big breath of air. She scanned her new surroundings.

The colorful landscape she had seen during the last visit beyond the curtain appeared, this time darkened by an overlay of midnight-hued clouds. She glanced up to see a twinkle of stars.

She guessed that this realm had an opposite time schedule to the one she was used to. Sunrise in the world she had left was counterbalanced by nightfall here. The difference was disorienting, as was the implication of actually having been transported to another time and place.

When she looked again, she saw that she wasn’t alone. Two beings, perhaps the same ones she had encountered on her last brief visit, faced her. They must have ushered her through the portal.

“Thank you.” Kaitlin said this sincerely once she got her breath back. Going through the curtain had stolen her air.

The tall being across from her inclined her head.

“You know me?” Kaitlin asked, garnering another nod. “I was one of you until...” She couldn’t finish that remark since nothing made sense.

“Am I welcome here, in spite of what has happened?” she managed to ask, her voice deep, tremulous, hoarse.

No nod came from these Fey creatures, and yet both of them remained.

“I would have died,” Kaitlin explained. “I almost did. Michael saved me and I owe him for that and so much more.”

A reply came at last in a voice as deep as Kaitlin’s. “You carry his smell, even while walking on two legs.”

Kaitlin shook off her discomfort and rallied. “His actions have bonded us together. That’s the way he explained this to me. I am at the mercy of the wolf’s ways, and yet I seek your help in saving one of those wolves and his friends from an evil creature far worse than any you might imagine. That creature is a monster maker, like the vampires that came after me.”

“We sense their presence,” the tall being said, still cloaked in the sparkling glamour that hid the rest of her features.

“You don’t care?” Kaitlin asked.

“It does not concern us.”

“Then why have you come?”

“To help one of our own.”

“Do you mean me, or is there someone else?” Kaitlin pressed.

“We came for you,” the tall Fey replied.

The wind ruffled Kaitlin’s hair, providing welcome relief from the heat of her recent transition. She didn’t dare close her eyes for fear that all this would disappear.

“We came too late,” the tall Fey admitted. “The wolf had already cursed you.”

“I’m alive, and grateful for that.”

“You’re no longer one of us.”

“Enough like you to come here and speak with you. Enough like you to be able to call the wind and see visions of what this place is like when it’s hidden from me.”

These remarks were met with more silence. While waiting that silence out, Kaitlin’s eyes began to clear, as if the wind she had somehow called up was whisking away the spell cloaking this foreign landscape from her.

There were mountain peaks in the distance, and trees of all kinds. She knew the names of each of those trees, and what their shadows hid. In the back of her mind, Kaitlin remembered believing she had known these things once before, and wondered how she had forgotten that.

“Yes,” the Fey spokeswoman said, perhaps reading the wonder on her face. Possibly reading her mind. “You begin to understand what would have awaited you here.”

“If you had gotten to me first,” Kaitlin challenged boldly. “Before someone else rescued me.”

Another moment of silence ensued before the Fey spoke again.

“He comes,” the tall female said.

Kaitlin glanced over her shoulder. “The monster?”

“Your wolf.”

She nodded. “Michael would rescue me again. He would risk a lot to do so. You must see that these Weres are deserving of help from wherever they can get it. They watch over the people in this town and in others. They live in secret, having to hide in plain sight for fear of being persecuted by prejudices such as the ones you hold, and without the magical ability to disappear through portals to a safer location.”

“You do not understand about your lineage, Kaitlin Davies.”

“You are right about that.”

The other Fey spoke. “We are not uncaring. We do not travel easily, or to wherever we choose. You brought us here. Your call created this bridge to the mortal world.”

They had come to her rescue, perhaps hearing her calls and prayers the night she almost lost her life. But they hadn’t arrived in time to claim her as one of their own. Instead of becoming wolf that fateful night, she might have been like these two, Fey and shimmery and magically inclined. She had some kind of connection to them still.

She was also a wolf. And Michael was here, at the curtain, searching for her, waiting for her. She felt his distress and his need for her in a time of danger and strife.

Her body responded to him with a throb of desire strong enough to make her sway on her feet.

“I might have been Fey once, but that part of me has been trumped by Lycan blood,” she explained. “In order to be with Michael and be his mate, I need to be a wolf. I choose to be wolf.”

Suddenly, Kaitlin found she wanted that more than anything. More than the powers these Fey beings wielded. More than anything that anyone could have offered her to change her mind.

“I’m asking for your help, just this once. I’m pleading for you to help save those who saved me,” she said. “Please.”

The stars glittered overhead. Branches in the colorful Fey trees waved and creaked in the wind that surrounded her. Finally, before she could say anything further, the tall Fey female glided forward.

Kaitlin made herself stand her ground.

“Granted,” that beautiful Fey creature whispered, resting a pale hand on Kaitlin’s shoulder. “When the time is right, you have but to call on us.”

Then the atmosphere changed. Colors swirled around Kaitlin until she believed she had been swallowed by a rainbow. She felt as if she were tumbling end over end. Her breath whooshed out. When she opened her eyes she was standing in front of Michael, who without hesitation reached for her.

She was back in the arms of the wolf, where she belonged, having been dismissed by her what? Blood kin? Distant relatives? No matter the title, they had agreed to help if she asked. And that, Kaitlin figured as Michael’s arms tightened around her, had to be a step in the right direction.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Rena said, her words echoing thunderously inside Kaitlin’s unsettled mind. “Dev was right.”