Men of the Otherworld (22 page)

Jeremy opened the door to my room and switched on the light.

“Do you need help getting undressed?” he asked.

I shook my head. He watched for a moment as I fumbled one-handed to undo my shirt buttons. When I didn't ask for assistance, he sighed and shook his head.

“Let me rephrase that. I
will
help you get undressed.” He unbuttoned my shirt and looked at the right sleeve, which they'd cut off to examine my arm. “Looks like we can throw this one straight into the trash.”

That was fine by me. I hated button-down shirts. Never saw the point, really. Why fuss with buttons when you can buy one that you could pull off over your head? And the button-down variety always felt like they'd been dipped in starch, stiff and scratchy. On the other hand, I never saw the point of clothes in general, unless the weather required them, but apparently I'm in the minority on this.

Jeremy was tugging my shirt off my uninjured arm when he stopped. I followed his gaze to a bandage-covered cotton-ball on the inside of my elbow.

“Oh, right, the IV,” he said, nodding. Then he froze again and his gaze traveled down my arm. “I thought they put the IV—” He looked at the bandage on my hand. “—there.” He blinked back a flicker of fear, and gently tugged the bandage from my
elbow. Under the cotton ball was a single blood-crusted pinprick. His eyes shot to mine. “Did someone draw blood from you?”

“I don't think so.”

“When I left for dinner did anyone—no, you were asleep, you wouldn't know. Did they move the IV? I would have noticed—”

“Someone came in when you were gone,” I cut in. “I was pretty sleepy. I felt something, but I thought they were fixing that other thing.”

“Okay,” Jeremy said, standing and inhaling deeply. “It's okay. It's only been a couple of hours. They won't have touched it yet. I can call the hospital, tell them they drew blood against my wishes and demand—” He paused and shook his head sharply. “I have a better idea. Just wait—No, let me get you into bed—No, lie down and rest and I'll be right back.”

I tried to answer that I wasn't tired, but he was too caught up in his own thoughts to hear me… just as he was too distracted to notice that I followed him downstairs.

I watched from the study doorway as Jeremy rooted around for a phone book. He called the hospital and asked for the phone number of their laboratory, then hung up. For a few minutes, he stood there, as if thinking, then he made a second call.

“This is Dr. Lawson,” he said, using the name of the doctor who'd attended to us. His voice took on a clipped, authoritative tone. “I've just been informed that someone took a blood sample from one of my patients—a patient who was not supposed to have any blood work done.”

Pause.

“Clayton Danvers.”

A longer pause.

“Yes, of course I know his family requested no blood work be
done. That's the problem, isn't it? Someone drew his blood against his family's wishes, and if his family finds out, we could face a lawsuit.”

Pause.

“Yes, that's the correct room, but the boy was in bed B, not D.”

Pause.

“I don't want to know how it happened. My only concern is making it
un
-happen. Take that sample and dispose of it immediately, then shred any accompanying paperwork. Can you do that?”

Pause. Then Jeremy's hand tightened around the receiver.

“I don't care if you've already started analyzing it—”

Pause.

“I don't care what the tests showed, his family was very clear—”

Pause. A line of sweat trickled down Jeremy's forehead.

“This is a matter of religious freedom, do you understand that? If his family doesn't want blood work done, we can't do it, even if we find something alarming—”

A pause. A very long pause, during which Jeremy went pale. He argued with the person for a few minutes, but it became obvious that whatever that lab tech had found, he was determined to report it.

“Yes, well, perhaps you're right,” Jeremy said at last, the words coming slow. “Let me contact the hospital administration and they can have our legal experts look into it. In the meantime, this stays between us. Have you told anyone else?”

Pause.

“You're the only one on tonight?” Jeremy said, his eyes closed. “I see. That's good. And your shift ends at… ?”

Pause.

“Why don't I meet you there then, and we can discuss your
findings, so I know exactly what I'm taking to the hospital board.”

They arranged to meet in just over an hour, and Jeremy hung up. When he turned, he didn't seem surprised to see me there.

“We need to go back to the hospital,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

I nodded and went to find my shoes.

I don't know what Jeremy did to the tech. Well, yes, I do know. He killed him. It's the “how” that I can't answer. This time when he told me to stay in the car, I did. After all, he was just going to speak to a human lab technician. That didn't require my protective eye.

It would be years before I figured out that he'd had to kill the man and destroy the test results. All I knew at the time was that I fell asleep in the car, and when I awoke, he was driving us home. I asked him how it went and he only nodded, eyes fixed on the road.

Jeremy didn't sleep for three days after that. Knowing he never slept well, I'd grown accustomed to waking and checking on him. For three days after my hospital visit, each time I went to his room at night I found it empty.

On the fourth day he made a phone call. That night, he slept for a couple of hours, and the same for the few nights following. Then, just over a week after the lab tech incident, a package arrived. It was a box of medical texts. That night Jeremy stayed up from dusk to dawn reading. Then, each night after that, he read for a few hours and slept for a few more.

By the end of the month, he was satisfied enough with his progress to sleep an entire six hours. Though he could never fix an arm that was fractured as badly as mine had been, he now had
enough knowledge of emergency medicine that he could have evaluated the break and my head injury, stitched the gash on my arm and given me the first aid I needed to make the trip to our doctor in New York. And that was what he needed to let himself sleep—the knowledge that he'd taken every possible step to ensure that what he had done that night, he would never need to do again.

And yet, although he'd solved the immediate problem, there was a larger underlying one that could never be solved. Humans would always pose a danger to us. Pack Law said we could kill them if they did. Jeremy had always thought that could be avoided. That night, when he'd killed the lab tech, he realized he'd been wrong.

That changed Jeremy. You can talk about disillusionment, about loss of innocence, about the tragedy of broken ideals. Bullshit. I have no idea what private hell Jeremy went through in those days after he broke his own rule and killed a human. But I know it was necessary—the first step along the road he was destined to travel.

I raced over the snow, head down, eyes slitted against the flurries thrown up by Jeremy's paws. Although Jeremy was cutting the path for me, I could still barely keep up, and with each bound, I fell farther behind. For once, he didn't slow to let me catch up. He couldn't. Just ahead of him ran a doe. Antonio kept pace on the deer's other side, reining her in and keeping her running straight.

At a soft growl from Jeremy, I glanced up. Still running, Antonio ducked his head to peer at Jeremy under the doe. Jeremy growled again, and they both checked their speed, letting the deer pull ahead. They fell a foot behind, then a yard, and the doe found her last reserves of strength and shot forward, all attention fixed on the field just ahead.

She made it another couple of yards. Then Jeremy's father, Malcolm, sailed from the bushes on her left. The deer skidded and wheeled on him, hooves flying.

As Malcolm danced out of her way, Dominic flew from the bushes on the other side. He vaulted onto the doe's back. Her thin legs buckled and she went down. Malcolm lunged at her
belly, teeth bared, but Dominic snapped at him and Malcolm veered out of the way, leaving the final blow for the Alpha.

As the deer's blood seeped into the snow, Dominic fed. Everyone else had to wait, which they did with varying degrees of patience, from Malcolm and the Santoses, who paced icy ruts in the snow, to Antonio and Dennis Stillwell, who stood poised like setters on point, to Jeremy, who found himself a clear patch of snow and laid down, head on his paws.

After Dominic took a few gulps, he glanced my way and snorted, jerking his muzzle toward the deer. When it came to eating, I wasn't expected to follow the rules of Pack hierarchy. I might have been the only child werewolf they'd ever known, but in this, like most things, they instinctively followed the rules of a real wolf pack. The feeding of pups was too important to be left to chance. So I was permitted to eat with the Alpha.

For the first few years, I'd accepted the privilege but at ten, I no longer considered myself a pup needing handouts. I declined Dominic's invitation with a grunt, and walked over to lie down beside Jeremy.

After Dominic ate his fill, it was the next highest ranking wolf's turn. As for who held that position … well, that was open to interpretation. Since Dominic's older son, Gregory, didn't hunt, his youngest, Antonio, usually ate second. But today Malcolm—who usually grumbled that deer hunts bored him to tears—had decided to join us.

When Dominic backed off, both Antonio and Malcolm stepped forward, approaching the deer from opposite sides. They looked across the deer at one another. Malcolm flattened his ears against his head and raised his hackles. Antonio lowered his head between his shoulder blades and growled. There was plenty of meat—and room—for both to feed, but that didn't matter.

As the two faced off over the deer, Jeremy pushed to his feet. When I glanced at him, his mouth opened, tongue lolling out in a wolf-grin. As Antonio and Malcolm growled and snarled at one another, Jeremy slipped up behind Antonio, stopping just behind his field of vision. No one else noticed, all too intent on the fight brewing.

Jeremy crouched, wiggled his hindquarters as he tested his grip in the snow, then vaulted forward, darting in right under Antonio's nose. He grabbed the deer's fore-haunch, ripped it free and backpedaled out of the way.

With a roar, Malcolm flew over the deer at his son, but Antonio knocked Jeremy out of the way, then fell on him, snapping and snarling. To an outsider, Antonio's thrashing would look real enough, but a wolf would notice that none of his snaps did more than graze Jeremy's skin. A playful drubbing for a good-natured trick.

As Antonio and Jeremy rolled together tussling, Malcolm stood back, hackles still raised, waiting for them to stop so he could let his son know what
he
thought of his trick. But they kept at it, tumbling out of the clearing, the deer forgotten. Malcolm snorted, then grabbed the haunch Jeremy had ripped off and dragged it away to feed.

Once Malcolm was preoccupied with the leg, Jeremy and Antonio raced back into the clearing, before the others could decide they'd forfeited their share. They ate together, side by side, bickering over the choice bits with mock snaps and snarls.

By the time Jorge and the Santos brothers moved in, it was apparent that there wouldn't be much left for me. I'd wind up with scraps, and I'd need to battle Stephen even for those. Time to find my own meal.

*   *   *

I had to cross the forest before I stood any chance of finding a rabbit. A Pack hunt is pure sport. Keeping quiet isn't a priority— if they miss their target and scare off every animal within a half-mile radius, it's hardly a matter of life and death. They can just head for the house and raid the refrigerator instead.

The first rabbit I found, I lost just as quickly. No big surprise. I could count on one hand the number of times I'd caught my first target. There were grown werewolves in the Pack who couldn't catch a rabbit if it ran under their nose, so I didn't feel so bad.

It took me a while to find rabbit number two, but when I did, I nabbed it on the first pounce. It'd been worth the wait. The first had been a scrawny winter-starved yearling; this one was a fat hare—more than a meal even for my appetite.

As I tore it open, another scent pierced the smell of fresh blood. As I lifted my head, I caught a glimpse of dark fur. Jeremy probably. Maybe Antonio. But when my muzzle rose above the rabbit, I got a better whiff and my hackles rose.

Stephen Santos slid out from the trees. He met my gaze, and his lips curled back in a grimace more sneer than snarl. I grabbed my rabbit and backed into the brush. Stephen advanced on me, nose twitching from the smell of fresh meat. Drops of saliva dribbled into the snow.

I growled, telling him to get his own meal. He bared his teeth and continued forward, ears going back, fur rising… as if he needed to make himself larger. The young werewolf was not only double my age, but nearly triple my weight, and filling out with more muscle each time I saw him.

I backed up another few feet and hit a solid wall of tree trunk. I looked from side to side, but the brush here was too thick. There was no chance of a breakway—not with a rabbit in my mouth, and I sure as hell wasn't leaving that behind.

I crouched. Stephen's mouth fell open in a grin, interpreting
my posture as a sign of submission. When I dropped my gaze, he snorted a chuckle and loped toward me. I watched his forepaws, waiting until they were close enough for me to see his claws. Then I threw myself forward, snarling and snapping.

Stephen fell back. Before he could recover, I wheeled, snatched my rabbit and tore past him. He jumped at me, but slid in the snow, yelping as he crashed into the thick brush. I kept running—and almost plowed headlong into a tall pair of dark legs. As I skidded to a halt, I caught a whiff of scent and my gut twisted. Still holding my rabbit, I looked up and met Malcolm's eyes.

Malcolm looked down at me, then over at Stephen, who was still disentangling himself from the bushes. He shook his head and shot a disgusted glare Stephen's way. Stephen rose to his feet, gaze fixing on mine, eyes blazing hate and humiliation. I looked from him to Malcolm. I was trapped.