License to Shift (16 page)

“Unless you want me to snap this needle off in your arm, you'll stay still.”

“Who the hell are you?” he asked. Damn his grizzly nose for being off-line right now. He couldn't smell anything.

“Friend of Bryn's,” Carl answered without really paying attention. His gaze was still on the screen.

Mark frowned at the woman. She was a wolf? Or just a normal in on the shifter secret? And why the hell did he care when Julie was with those bastards? Part of his brain was busy ticking off the seconds, counting up all the things those assholes could do while he was standing here with his thumb up his ass. It wasn't helpful and it sure as hell wasn't what he wanted to do. But at the moment, he was completely useless with his brain out of control. And in the middle of his frustration, a female voice interrupted his mental screaming. It was Julie's mother, her face tight with suppressed panic.

“Will someone please tell me what is going on? Where is Julie?”

Tonya moved smoothly to take hold of the woman's arm. Her voice was surprisingly gentle as she spoke. “I know this is upsetting, but please try to remain calm.”

“Calm my ass!” snapped the professor as he pushed unsteadily to his feet. “I demand to know what the hell is going on. Where is my daughter?”

Tonya took a deep breath and began to explain things in an edited fashion. In the blink of an eye, she went from irritated no-nonsense police officer to sympathetic, calming influence. The tiny part of Mark's brain that was paying attention was impressed.

“She's a cat woman.” Carl speaking. Who the hell was a cat? “Was she one of the cougars? From the wolf–cougar war?”

Oh. Bitch woman. Were the others cats? He hated the smell of cats. Made his nose twitch. They had Julie? Why?

Carl kept talking, his words slow as he searched through his memories. “Not one of the primaries, I think. Maybe support staff?”

Mark ground his back molars together. He wanted to bellow and yet no sound came out. He just hadn't the strength. Not with everything in his brain spinning at random. Another car coming up the lane. Police cruiser with the forensics guy Joey in the back. Everyone called him Mr. Science. Except his hair was more movie-star flowy. Where the hell was Julie? Gladwin wasn't large enough to have a full team. Mr. Science was shared with neighboring counties. Joey might find something they couldn't.

Julie!

“Mark! Go to the hospital,” Carl snapped. An order. “There's nothing you can do here and a ton that can be figured out there.”

Spinning out of control and so weak. Mark didn't have the focus to argue.

Carl gestured at the paramedic. “Make sure he gets full blood panels and the like.”

She snorted. “Like anyone's going to listen to me.”

He glared at her. “Use your nose. Figure out who's a shifter and tell them I said to do it. And if they need confirmation, then call me!”

She swallowed. “Got it, sir.” Then she looked at Mark. “Please come with us.”

Us?
He frowned and looked around. There. Middle-aged partner leaning casually against the ambulance.
Move!
he ordered himself.
Quit being a lazy shit!
The man looked bored and a little bit pissed off.

“Ready for my help now?” the partner drawled.

“Chill,” Mark snarled. Not a snarl. A weak almost-whisper. He recognized the guy as a longtime townie. He wasn't exactly in on the shifter secret, but he also wasn't completely ignorant. He probably knew that sometimes he just had to back away and not get involved. But that probably pissed him off. Why his mind was focused here was anybody's guess. But he took the moment of lucidity to grabbed for a joke rather than shove magic in the man's face. “I like pretty girls better than your ugly face.”

The man grunted. “Same here.” Then he opened the back door and gave a courtly gesture to invite Mark inside.

So weak.
Useless!
How the hell was he going to help Julie? “Carl…” he managed.

“Get your shit taken care of while I focus on mine,” the alpha snapped. “I'll let you know as soon as we find an answer.”

He had no excuse to argue, so he forced himself to nod. “Do it fast,” he said, because…
Julie!
Because…no focus.
Because…what?

Then he was inside the ambulance with the doors slamming shut. Trapped inside. Mind spinning. Where was Julie? What clue had he missed? Why the hell hadn't he saved her?

J
ulie came awake slowly. It felt like swimming upward through cotton candy. Everything felt sticky sweet and left a foul taste in her brain. It made no sense, but that's what she was thinking as she finally got enough neurons on board to hear what her body was saying.

First off, it was saying,
Yuck.

Second,
Ow.

Third,
What the fuck am I lying on?

Her face was cold and smooshed, her hip had a hot point of pain where it took the brunt of her weight, and her arm…
Oh, hell.
Her arm was numb. Getting the blood back into it was going to be a painful process.

She shifted, rolling awkwardly to her back. That made everything worse, but she forced herself to crack her eyes open.

It was dark, though not pitch black, thanks to a grimy window across the room. Metal bars surrounded her. Frantic, she scanned further and nearly freaked. She was in a cage with a small door padlocked on the outside. Panic tightened her throat.

Look further.

To her left was a long wood table covered with books, binders, and some computer equipment. To her right was a large furry lump. A really large furry lump. Her ears told her it was breathing fast and shallow. A steady rhythm, but not a healthy tempo. Whatever it was probably had a fever. It was in a cage, too.

Good. She wouldn't want to disturb the sleeping monster. Of course, she didn't want to be locked in beside a sleeping monster, either.

She started moving her fingers and toes, getting blood flow back. Then she noticed a dull Band-Aid at the crook of her elbow. Peeling back the covering, she saw that it covered an injection site.

Not good.

Nausea threatened to overwhelm her but she choked it a back. Every part of her felt clammy and sick. Was that a result of what they'd given her? Or was it just normal panic? Was there anything else wrong with her? She couldn't tell. It all ached, it was all terrifying, and she didn't know what the hell to do.

So she closed her eyes and tried to calm down. Unbidden, an image of Mark rose in her brain. She saw him kneeling before her, his heart in his eyes. The man was powerful. Not just physically and financially, but to the core of his soul. He was strong in ways that impressed the hell out of her. And in this image, he was kneeling before her laying all that power at her feet.

It was a memory, but a favorite one from a couple days before. She'd been dozing on the couch and he'd been kneeling beside her, watching her sleep. When she'd opened her eyes, he'd given her this smile, half wistful, half lustful. It said as clear as day, “Take me. Take everything I have and love me.”

She did.

She loved Mark.

And wasn't this a perfect time for that realization? When she couldn't grab the man and tell him, then make love with him until they dropped from exhaustion?

But panic had a way of crystallizing certain thoughts. And right now it really cemented the list of things she hadn't yet done in her life. She hadn't told Mark she loved him. She hadn't had children and watched them grow into fun people. And she hadn't mastered waterskiing, though why that was important, she hadn't a clue.

Well, then, she had plenty of reasons to get the hell out of this place. Or at least survive until Mark could come find her. That thought cheered her more than anything else because she knew for damn sure that Mark wouldn't stop until he ripped open the cage door and held her safe in his arms.

Unless Mark was dead. She remembered the pops, then hearing his grunt and the groceries falling.

No! She lost a full minute to the overwhelming despair of. No words, just a choking black fog of denial.

Her eyes went back to the furry lump. Was that Mark? She didn't think so, but how could she tell? The color seemed lighter, the size smaller, but in this gloom, how could she know? Hadn't Mark told her that the next time he shifted, he wouldn't be able to come back? Maybe that was him. Which meant the first step was to get him human again. So they could figure this out together.

“Mark?” she called softly. “Mark, is that you?”

She wanted to reach through the bars to touch him, but couldn't bring herself to risk that. Not until she was sure it was him. So she crouched next to the bars and called while searching for something to throw.

“Come on, honey. Wake up.”

No response. And the floor was a simple concrete slab. Dirty with clods of dirt and hay, but not with anything large enough to throw.

Okay, try something else. She wasn't a helpless maiden who needed Mark to rescue her. She might not be GI Jane, but she could try some basic things. First things first. She tested every aspect of her cage. It was depressingly solid.

Weapons next. Anything?

Not that she could see. She peered through the gloom looking for exits, sharp things she could grab or make sharp by breaking, and anything else that a smart person could make into something useful. One exit to her left. Microscope and other science stuff on a far table. Everything out of reach. Not even a bit of water, and she was getting really thirsty.

Damn.

She was about to start screaming in frustration when door abruptly popped open. She looked up with hope only to flinch away from the sunlight. There was a person there. A man with wild hair and glasses. A few more blinks and she figured out he was wearing jeans and a dirty tee.

He flipped on the light, blinding her even further, then shut the door. He hummed quietly to himself—a Beatles song, she thought—as he pulled on a lab coat that had been hanging on a peg. Then he turned to her.

“You're awake,” he said. “Good.”

Now that her eyes had adjusted, she saw the man who had to be Evil Einstein. Mark had only mentioned him once, but the name had always struck her as funny. Not so much now that she was looking straight at him. Wild hair, middling frame, genial expression, but crazy eyes behind the glasses.

“Why am I here?” She quietly applauded herself for keeping her voice steady.

With the light on, she could see this was nothing more than a large shed. Concrete floor, wood walls, cheap roof. She tried to peer through the grimy window just to get a fix on where they were. Anything would help, but as far as she could see, it was dirty out there. “Because I need you,” the man answered, his tone telling her she should have deduced that.

Fucker.

“For what?” Against her will, her eyes drifted to the furry lump. It wasn't Mark, she now saw. It didn't even fully look like a bear but a wrong combination of man and beast. The fur looked clumped and sparse, the joints and body proportions weird.

“For him,” Evil Einstein answered as he went closer to the creature's cage. He frowned as he peered inside. “He's unstable.”

Great.

“And you're going to help cement the shift.”

“I am so not helping you.”

He twisted, jerking his chin toward her arm. “You noticed the Band-Aid, right?”

She looked down, trying to ignore the itch she felt there. “What did you do to me?”

“Probably nothing. I gave you a small dose of what he had.”

She jolted. “What?”

“It's to activate shifter DNA.”

“I don't have any.”

He snorted. “How would you know? I think that everyone has some of it. It's all a question of degree.”

Oh, hell.
“So you tested me? You think I can shift?” The idea intrigued her almost as much as it horrified her. She'd been experimented on in God only knew what way, which made her stomach roil with fear. But the idea that she could be like Mark? That she could shift to bear was appealing on a gut level.

He turned to stare at her. “Does it look like I have a gene sequencer here? Some way to map your DNA in minute detail? I don't even have an autosampler anymore.”

“So you just injected me on the hope that it will work?”

He grinned at her, showing crooked teeth that were blindingly white. Freaky. “I injected you because I need more data. And because your only hope of survival is helping me.”

The man wasn't making any sense. “I thought you said it probably wouldn't work on me.”

“The first injection probably won't. Maybe it'll take three or seven. Or a hundred. I don't know, but I'm going to keep shoving it into your arm until I find a solution or you die. Either way I learn something.”

Nausea choked her, but she held it back mostly because she wasn't sure where she was going hurl. There wasn't even a bucket nearby.

“By the way, he only took three injections to become this.”

This was not good.

“Starting to see things my way yet?” he taunted.

Yes. No.
Hell, she didn't know anything except she hated him. “What do you want me to do?”

“You and your father have been researching bonding rituals. You're a bit behind the ball on that. Elisabeth already told me about them, and she was able to stabilize the others. But this one is being stubborn.” He kicked the other cage with a vicious curse. “So you're going to drink the potion, perform the ritual, and I'm going to see if it works.”

“Why don't
you
perform it?” Not that she was averse to helping the sick bear-person next to her. At this point, her sympathy was all with him. But she had to delay as much as possible and hope that Mark found her. And any information was helpful, so she'd just keep him talking.

“Because he won't bond with me. I'm a guy, for one. And I've been experimenting on him.”

Okay, so he had a good point.

“You, on the other hand, might just be what the grizzly needs. Plus, you'll be on your way to shifting anyway, so we'll hope that helps. Elisabeth says it does, so we'll go with that.”

“You don't actually believe in magic potions, do you?”

He snorted as he leaned down into a small refrigerator she hadn't even noticed before. It was beneath the large table and he pulled up a familiar bottle. “Experiment 7” was written in bold letters in her father's hand.

“Of course not,” he snapped as he held it out for her. “But there's science in the potions. And given what I've just done to your DNA, this just might work.”

God, he was insane. “Exactly how much of this stuff have you shoved up your veins?” Was she going to go loony toons, too?

“None!” he said stiffly. “No point in activating myself until I have a way to survive it.” Then his expression took on a wistfulness that was entirely too creepy. “I've got the bear DNA,” he said. “Once I've perfected this process, I'll be able to shift. Finally.”

This guy as a grizzly was not a good idea. But short of clocking him on the head, she had to survive anyway she could. Which meant she was going to bond with the poor bear captive because, at the moment, she didn't see any other choices. But then, she didn't have all the details yet.

“Exactly how do I do this?”

That's when freaky Einstein crossed to directly in front of her cage. He squatted down before her, his eyes narrowed, and his breath fouled the air between them with garlic.

“You don't know?” he asked.

“How the hell would I know?”

He looked to the side and the stack of books and things. A second glance now told her it was the material she and Mark had been studying. And those were her father's notebooks and probably his tablet. “You left the cabin. You went out to celebrate.”

“We took a break,” she said, her voice cold.

“You celebrated something. You were gone all night!”

They celebrated each other. They celebrated life. They celebrated falling in love, not that she'd thought to tell Mark that. “We didn't figure anything out. Ask Elizabeth for your answers.”

“Her name's Eli
sssss
abeth,” he said, lengthening the S. “She's very particular about that.”

“Fine, ask Eli
sss
abeth.”

He shook his head. “Can't. She's busy.” He held out the bottle. “Chug-a-lug.”

“You've got to be kidding me.”

“Do I look like I'm joking?” he snapped as he pointed to the cage next to her. “He hasn't got much time left.”

She stared at him, wondering if she understood what he wanted. “You've activated his bear DNA, but the shift is unstable. And somehow you think me drinking that shit will help.”

He released a sigh that seemed to come from his toes. Like he was tired of explaining his nuttiness to people less smart. “It's very simple,” he said. “I've activated his shifter DNA. I've started the process with yours. Thanks to your father, we've got the ingredients that force a chemical scent.”

“The magic potion?”

He snorted. “Magic is simply something the ancients didn't understand. I do. Drink this and your skin will secrete a scent that should cause a reaction in his brain. Call them pheromones, if you must. You and he will sync like a baby syncs with its mother.”

“Bonding,” she said, finally understanding what he meant.

“Chemical reaction in the brain,” he corrected. “But with measurable effects.”

“You think it'll stabilize him.”

He shrugged. “It's his only chance.”

She stared at him, trying desperately to think of a way out of this. She came up with nothing.

“Or I could knock you unconscious and pour it down your throat,” he said. “Though you might choke while I'm at it.”

God help her, she considered it. But she couldn't do anything unconscious, so she took the bottle from his outstretched hand. Mark had said there wasn't anything poisonous in it. Just indigestion and killer BO. So with a sigh, she took a tentative sip. Not bad if you liked drinking clove and vinegar.
Ugh.

“All of it. Now.” There was no quarter in his expression. She really did believe that if she stalled any longer, he was going to find a way to knock her out.