Immune (23 page)

I didn’t question him, just turned and walked away as fast as I could without running. Our job was done, Ricky was delivered and now—

Three werewolves burst out of the building behind us, howling and snarling. Son of a bitch! This was what I’d wanted to avoid. O’Shea threw me behind him and I hit the snow, hard, sliding a good ten feet before tumbling to a stop.

Alex and O’Shea were back to back, the three werewolves surrounding them. Shit!

“Come on, you cocksuckers!” I got the attention of the smallest of the three. A thick grey pelt and bright green eyes peered at me, his muzzle pulling back in a wicked snarl before he leapt at me.

I yanked the whip from off my waist, snapping it through the air like a lion tamer, nailing the wolf in the face. He yelped, but kept coming, and I swirled the whip around again, getting it coiled around his neck. Like a giant leash, I yanked on it, putting all my weight into it. Around me, I could hear the howls and sounds of flesh being torn, but I couldn’t look away to see how the boys were doing.

The grey wolf snarled at me then tried to bite through the whip, whimpering when his tongue and lips came in contact with it. A surprised look passed over his face, and I laughed.

“Woven with silver, asshole,” I said, jerking it again, biting it deeper into the flesh around his neck. He growled and leapt at me. I dropped back, let him go over the top of me as I held up my sword. His momentum and the sharp blade did the trick. Rolling to the side, I missed most of the entrails sliding out of his body onto the white snow. He landed with a thud, crashing to the ground in utter stillness. A flick of my wrist and the whip uncoiled. Spinning, I turned to see things hadn’t gone as badly as I thought.

The other two wolves were laid out, one with his neck obviously broken, head looking like it had been screwed on backwards, and the third was missing the front portion of his throat.

O’Shea stood in the middle of it, Alex cowering at his feet, tail thumping lightly in the snow.

“I have to go,” he said, turning away from me.

“Liam, don’t, this isn’t as bad as you think it is.” I called after him. He wasn’t heading toward his truck, but in the opposite direction, toward the badlands and the open plains. Shit.

He said nothing else, just loped off into the darkness, his shadow fading until Alex and I were alone in the middle of the road, surrounded by bodies and blood.

*-*-*-*

The creature inside him raged. He should have killed all the wolves, including Alex. It had taken every last ounce of his strength to still his hands and teeth, to keep from tearing out the submissive wolf’s throat. Then to walk away, turn his back and run, not only from Alex, but from Rylee. It tore a hole in him, the creature he was becoming not appreciative of the finer points of life.

Mates don’t leave mates. Call to her, she will come.
It was as if a voice that was not his own spoke, a new voice, one that had no problem killing, no problem with bloodshed. She’d said she loved him, but how could she now? What if he ended up like Alex, trapped in a body and a mind that wouldn’t allow him anything but a submissive life?

He groaned into the icy wind, relishing the feel of it on his skin. It felt like there was a fire burning inside of him, scouring away what was left of the human he’d been, replacing it with the monster he was to become.

There was no way he’d be able to live a life now, not as he’d wanted, not even with Rylee. How could she be with him? It wasn’t possible. The look in her eyes, the soft acceptance, the understanding and love; she couldn’t know his thoughts, how he’d considered her fragile skin for biting into as much as for screwing.

Ducking his head, he ran into the wind, heading toward the badlands. He didn’t know why, but the monster inside of him spurred him onward. It was better this way—his leaving—better for everyone.

Most of all, better for Rylee. And if it was the last thing he did, he would keep her safe, even if it was from himself.

*-*-*-*

Jewel called me three days after we left Ricky on her doorstep, sobbing, asking me to come to the kid’s funeral. I declined. I also reversed the funds in my account; I couldn’t take money for finding Ricky, not when I still felt like his death was, in part, my fault. It didn’t matter that there were gunshot wounds, or that he’d been dead long before I found him, or had even started looking. My head and heart didn’t always agree on what was my fault and what wasn’t. This was just one of those cases that dredged up the fact I’d lost more kids than I’d saved. That simple fact was beginning to wear me down.

Two weeks came and went, the full moon crested and began to wane, and still there was no word from Liam. Thus far, I’d refused to Track him—if he wanted to deal with this alone, it was his choice. I was trying to respect that, but it was hard. By now, he was either just like Alex, stuck in a body caught between animal and human, or he was able to shift back and forth. With no word, and no sign of him, I feared the worst.

A phone call to Louisa had only intensified my fears.

“If Bear clawed him, it
could
have infected him with the shifting virus, but I doubt it. Most likely though, it was something else that got in the wound. Saliva is what carries it.” I must have been silent too long as she went on with her explanation.

“There was no way you could have known what he was going through, Rylee. The changes are so subtle when a human becomes a shifter; even I didn’t notice. Child, not even your second sight would have given you a clue to what was happening to him until he had already shifted.”

There was a shuffle on the other end and, to my surprise, Doran came on.

“Hello, beautiful Tracker. I hear your man has gone missing. My deepest condolences.”

I grit my teeth. “Yeah, thanks.”

“I wanted to tell you that you made it much safer here by taking out Jensen. Truly. For that, I will give you a favor. Free of charge.”

As much as he’d helped me, I was suspicious. “Why would you do that?”

His words rang alarm bells, as if he’d come at me with his teeth prepped for bleeding me dry. “I want you to trust me; I want you to let me help you.”

I hung up the phone, shaking. His words were an echo of Faris’, and I didn’t want any reminder of the vampire.

Thanks to all that was holy,
he
hadn’t made a repeat appearance, though I dreamed of Berget several times. Normal dreams, reminders of the past, and nothing more. I wasn’t sure if I was happy about that or not.

Mulling over Louisa’s words, I re-hashed the scene in her home in my mind, slowly realizing the mistake we’d made. I’d made. Liam had had open wounds and Alex had lain across them, drooling and bloodied around the mouth.

Alex had, because of my ineptitude, been the one to turn Liam. I slumped down against the kitchen counters, tucking my head between my knees, arms over my head. Shit, again, the blame for the loss of someone close to me lay squarely on my shoulders. With my face covered, I let the tears slip out, one by one, dripping onto the floor.

Worse, I’d made the mistake of telling Milly that O’Shea had contracted either bear or wolf-shifting virus, and since then she hadn’t eased her campaign to make me ‘see the light’.

As if thinking about her had rung a summons bell, her footsteps eased into the kitchen.

“Let me guess,” Milly said, coming closer. “You found out your agent man contracted the werewolf virus from Alex.”

I still hadn’t figured out what was going on with her, why she’d changed so drastically, what had happened? When I brought it up, she blew me off, said I was imagining things. Which only made me realize that there was indeed something wrong.

I lifted my head, wondering what had happened to the girl I’d known, the one I’d have called sister if someone asked. She wasn’t the Milly I’d grown up with—that girl was gone. Now she was almost a stranger, someone I couldn’t predict and no longer understood. There were no words in me to answer her, the guilt and blame lay truthfully on my shoulders. Having her rub it in did not help. It only made me angry. It was bad enough to lose O’Shea, but to know she was slipping away from me too only intensified my emotions and made me lash out.

“Go fuck one of your men,” I said, lowering my head again.

She crouched beside me, the swoosh of her skirt and the scent of rose petals washing over me. I had to give her credit, she always did smell good.

“So I was right, whatever. Get rid of him. You can’t keep Alex, not as long as Giselle and I are here. When you were alone it was no big deal. Now, you can see what I was worried about. And don’t worry about the agent man, you’ll find somebody else; I always do.”

I wanted to shove her away from me, scream at her that she was wrong. Alex was my responsibility. But logically I knew she was right; I was the only one immune from his bite, or even his saliva, god damn it! She was wrong about Liam, though. No one could replace him. There was too much history, too much between us to wash it away.

Alex was as much my family now as she and Giselle. I couldn’t choose between them.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Rylee, please, I’m not trying to be a bitch. I just don’t want to turn into a werewolf, like O’Shea. And I don’t want that for Giselle either. Can you imagine a werewolf that was pretty much insane? You’d have to kill her,” she said, tucking her head beside mine, slipping an arm around me.

I pushed her arm off and stood up. She was right. Grabbing my leather jacket I stepped outside into the cold, snow falling heavily in the late afternoon sun. Alex blitzed about like a madman, chasing imaginary prey. What the hell was I going to do?

The barn was empty now with Eve training in New Mexico; that at least was one concern gone for the moment. Even with the Harpy nowhere near, Milly hadn’t let up her tirade from the moment I’d gotten back. My heart was torn, and I stood there for a long time, staring at nothing, wracking my brain. There was the creak of the back door being opened, and then a frail set of arms wound around my waist. Giselle put herself under my one arm and I gave her a half hug.

“Why do you cry, Rylee?”

I thought for a minute, trying to put it all into one nutshell.

“Because life isn’t fair.”

She snorted. “Ah, well, that’s true. But I never said it would be. I said you should follow your heart, didn’t I?”

Giving me a quick squeeze, she left me standing on the back porch, watching Alex romp and play by himself in the snow. Leaping up, he’d bite at the falling flakes, then diving forward, he’d bury himself until only his tail showed. Milly was the sister of my heart, the person I thought I could trust with anything, the one who’d been my friend for years. Alex was, in essence, a child that would die on his own, but also a loyal friend willing to put his life on the line for me. Could I let him go, knowing I was sentencing him to death? I wrapped my arms around myself. Life was changing. I was changing, and it hurt me to think I would be walking away from someone I thought of as family.

For a brief second, I gave in and Tracked O’Shea, needing to feel him close even if it was just his emotions. Rage flooded me, bloodlust and shame following close on its heels. I sucked in a sharp breath, biting back tears and shutting down the connection between us.
Please God let him be able to shift form, please don’t let him be trapped as Alex was.

I stood there a few minutes longer, my mind whirling with possibilities, decisions and outcomes. None of which I liked. There was really only one way to do this, no matter how much I hated to.

Stepping back into the kitchen, I looked over at my friend. Milly sat at the table, her hands folded on top, an air of tension thrumming between us.

“Have you made a decision,” she asked, green eyes wide with hope.

“Yes,” I replied, and she smiled, relief on her face.

“I knew you’d do the right thing, Rylee.”

I didn’t smile back at her; this was the only way I could see working for everyone. Taking a long slow breath in, I held it until I was dizzy. Letting the air out, I said the words, knowing they would change everything.

“Alex stays.” I gripped the edge of the table. “And you have to move out.”

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Dark Waters

Sundered