Standing Before Monsters (Vorans and Vampires) (29 page)

Not wanting to teach the beast that it would be rewarded for each attempted and failed attack, Nick didn’t pour another drop on the next try. Its eyes looked questioningly at him and tried a fourth time with no reward.

“Use your hands to get it, if you want more,” Nick ordered showing the back of his free hand to the wolf. The intelligence deep inside seemed to grasp the teaching finally. Settling back on its haunches, the black wolf began to shift.

The human finally revealed, Nick gave him the water and said, “You are a slow learner, Bill.”

Once much of the glass had been drunk, the voran took it away.

“Hey!” the hunter protested, but Nick turned the man towards the cage.

“Sorry, I’ve spent enough time on you for today. Back in the cage, Bill,” Nick stated pushing the man on the shoulder as he tried to hesitate. He took direction as a human about as well as a wolf, the voran thought.

“No, I will not go back in there!” the man defied him trying to twist away, though Nick thought he didn’t comprehend where he could possibly run. Instead, he shoved the new werewolf back against the cage with a couple of pushes against his chest.

“You don’t get a say in this,” Nick told the man as the red eyes of a werewolf responded to his treatment almost immediately and as planned.

Falling onto all fours as the change took him, Nick shoved him through the open door before the wolf could regain its bearings from turning. The lock was in place before the wolf could attack the door again.

The trainer held the key in his hand and placed it on the floor beside the cage. Extending a wolf paw, Bill could move it, but with no thumb he couldn’t pick it up. This time the wolf’s eyes seemed less feral.

Nick drew up a chair to sit near the door beyond the key and lifted his hands as the wolf looked at him. “You might try shifting back to human if you want out. You need hands. Come on, think of your hands picking up the key and unlocking the cage. Do you want to be in a cage for a month? It will be almost that long before the next full moon.”

It took nearly a half hour before Bill could regain control from the wolf to change back and pick up the key. He unlocked the cage for himself leveling an angry look at the man sitting on the chair.

“You smug little jerk sitting on your chair. How dare you throw me back in there?”

The voran stood sliding the chair back and again shoved the hunter against the side of the cage. “How dare I? You are an animal, a wild, dangerous animal that should be locked up. What will you do if you get free? Kill your family by accident when the wolf takes you over again?”

His eyes looked appalled and angry. “I wouldn’t...”

“Yes, you would,” Nick stated and slapped his face. “You are too stupid to control your wolf. If we let you out of the cage, it will take you over and you’ll be a killer. If that is what you want, I’ll just kill you myself. I put down rabid strays all the time. You mean nothing to me. You are just another stray,” he finished striking the man a second time as anger drove another change.

Again, the voran tossed the wolf into the cage as he transitioned. He placed the key once more on the floor and this time Bill shaved off almost ten minutes from the last time before returning to human form. The man looked at him dubiously as he exited the cage.

When Nick pushed him back again, he whined, “Aw, come on. How many times are you going to do this to me?”

“Until you learn to control your beast. If you can’t control your impulses, you won’t be leaving this basement alive. There is an entire pack of werewolves upstairs that will kill you, if they think you are too dangerous.”

He slapped the man and gripped his chin making the werewolf look him in the eye as he continued, “We both know you must have anger management issues, either that or you are truly stupid. You’ve wasted more than an hour of my time this afternoon. I have better things to do than spend time down here breaking through that thick skull of yours.”

“I’m not stupid!” the man finally cracked as the werewolf started to take him over again. Nick sighed shoving Bill inside while still mostly human. He locked the door and held the key as he waited for the man to lose to the wolf. Bill fought it for a moment, but the wolf won again.

Two more rounds passed before Nick heard steps on the stairs and watched Charlotte gracefully come down into the basement. The woman picked up Raina’s pants, boots and ranger jacket before joining Nick where he sat waiting for the wolf to return to a man.

“Eric’s sending Raina back with the others and the dead man. She’ll need her pants, though the shirt and bra are completely ruined. This jacket will need to be cleaned, but it isn’t cut up,” the brunette stated. Thumbing towards the cage, she asked, “How’s it coming with this one?”

“It wasn’t easy, but he’s looking trainable, if just barely.”

Charlotte smirked and asked, “How many times have you managed to make him change now?”

“This will be the sixth.”

The woman mussed his hair as she laughed, “I told you before. We were just happy, if we could get a new wolf to turn back and forth once a day during the first week. You’re getting greedy after managing to speed train Raina and nearly this one as well. Eric thought for sure they were going to have to kill him.”

Her final words seemed too casual to the voran. Killing was becoming too easy even for someone like Charlotte. They had killed several vampires since she had joined him. Perhaps all that death had begun to change the woman in some ways. While she still held onto her caring nature, there was a bit of an ambivalent side to her in relation to the deaths of men like this.

Not wanting to bring such a thing up to her, especially here, Nick took the rest of her words to heart. “He is almost far enough along that Eric or one of the others can take over and finish his training. We can go home pretty soon.”

She smiled before bending over to kiss him on the lips. Returning up the stairs the way she had come, the brunette had barely closed the door when he heard the hunter say, “You’re a lucky guy. She is totally hot. I may not have been in my right mind, but I remember her taking all her clothes off to turn into a wolf. That is a sexy woman.”

Seeing the hunter crouching naked in the cage, Nick sighed. “Just keep your attention on what you need to do.”

Nick looked at the time on his watch. It was only a few hours until evening began. He had skipped lunch for the most part and supper was looming. The werewolf had managed ten full turns. He wasn’t as fast as Raina, but as Charlotte had said, it was more than they could have hoped for before he had tried.

He picked up Charlotte’s pants and shoes before heading upstairs. Letting Bill know that he would be sending someone to finish helping him, the voran joined the remaining werewolves. The big television had a split screen with regular programming occupying the main window and the camera in the basement on a smaller window.

Eric looked up at him expectantly.

“He’s getting there. I think you or one of the others can keep working with him. He is changing on his own, though it isn’t smooth by any means and takes awhile,” the voran stated feeling a little tired mentally. He had slept most of the night and shouldn’t feel that way at all for several more days; but the man could feel it even so. “I’m going to take the others home and leave him to you.”

The pack leader nodded and stood to shake his hand. “Impressive work down there, we’ll work with him and see if we can’t release him tomorrow or the next day. We’ll have to keep tabs on both of them, but maybe we can use them to smooth things over and make our imprint smaller for those hoping to trap the pack.”

He passed Charlotte her other clothing, though she looked very comfortable in her shorts and bare feet. In fact, the woman merely pulled on her tennis shoes and held the pants. Apparently she didn’t feel the need to change beyond that. Logan and Kate looked ready to go as well.

“Well, let me know if you need me, but it’s getting late,” the voran said trying to excuse himself.

“I know we never planned on getting you involved with werewolf business...”

“I’m a voran. Keeping the supernatural under wraps is what I do, whether it’s for vampires or werewolves, it doesn’t matter. I’ll do what I can to help you just like I take care of Marek’s little clan.”

Eric nodded and added, “And you know I’ll give what help I can now that our numbers have been reduced by so many. Maybe these two will work into our number better than I think.”

Nick chuckled and replied, “Your hunches aren’t always right. I managed to turn the hunter into a useful werewolf apparently.”

They were soon on their way back to the apartment. Logan looked a bit happier than Nick had seen him in awhile. The chance to be a doctor, even if it was for werewolves; had made him feel useful again. Wishing he could figure out a way for the man to use his skills and knowledge in a more productive way had been vexing him for weeks. The big man was a doctor, but most jobs required blood tests in those fields, which could reveal the werewolf’s genetic changes and endanger them all. Still it was the field Logan was meant to be in, so it was a bit sad to see him wasting his talents.

Then there was Charlotte, the man thought as he drove them further into the city. The pretty brunette sat next to him in front and had even managed to tuck her foot beneath her as she sat in the bucket seat. As sweet and beautiful as she could be, it was hard to juxtapose that side of her with her original drive to become a lawyer, though there were many types of lawyers practicing various types of law. Still, Nick knew that she was a very intelligent woman capable of a lot more than sitting around a house or apartment cleaning because she was a werewolf.

“Have you thought of finding a place to help people with what you know of the law?” he asked as they sat at a traffic light waiting for the change.

The brunette shrugged and looked a little sad. “I’ve seen movies and television where a lawyer comes in and helps save people from big corporations ruining the ecology and other stories. Helping people would be nice, though admittedly there’s rarely any money doing it. I’m not super worried over money though. I wasn’t going into criminal law or anything. It would have been something along that line of representing people with problems,” she finished with a shrug.

“If money isn’t an issue, then what do you want to do?”

Charlotte’s scrunched up her face as the question made her feel uncomfortable. Law had been the life she had wanted before losing her parents and becoming a werewolf. “I don’t know. Helping out, even as an assistant in a firm or a legal aid office, would be nice. Though family law would be cool also, I can see a lot of stress making it hard to control the wolf inside.”

By the time they arrived at the apartment, Nick was considering if there were contacts he knew that might have something for the woman to do. He knew she was bored and had been for years while sitting in the pack houses before now. She read often and had been to the library a few times already after exhausting his collection of books. He had considered getting some e-book readers or pads just to give the siblings something to do, since both were avid readers.

Though it was still light out as they entered the apartment, Nicola came to meet them looking reasonably awake and rested. For a vampire awake during daylight, the blond looked surprisingly aware while wearing one of his t-shirts that was long enough to touch her thighs.

“You’re finally back,” she greeted wiping at her eyes with her right hand. She closed the distance to give Nick a kiss before raising an eyebrow at Charlotte, as if she wanted to know the details of their night.

The look brought color to the werewolf’s cheeks. Like it was an invitation, Nicola took the brunette’s hand and drew her towards Nick’s bedroom. Noticeably ignored by the gesture, the voran took a seat on the couch to open his laptop and catch up on what he had missed during his time at the werewolves’ house.

Logan chuckled taking a seat in one of his favorite chairs while Kate looked unsure where to go. She finally picked up the remote and took one of the other chairs while turning on the TV. The big man spoke appearing amused as he said, “You are remarkably calm considering your vampire girlfriend just took your werewolf girlfriend into your bedroom to talk.”

Looking over at the man as his computer hummed to life, Nick was forced to shrug. “Nicola pushed for me not to wait. They’re both friends, though I admit that I don’t get it. Of course, we tend to live centuries, so maybe as a vampire it is easier for her to share than those whose lives are so much shorter.”

“Or she could just be putting up a good front for you?” Logan asked prodding the voran with his question.

“I’ve considered that, but I also know that she cares for Charlotte as well. I don’t think she would be willing to share with just anyone though, if it wasn’t an emergency, especially to help Charlotte; I doubt she would have pushed for me to help in that way,” Nick replied hoping that he was right. It wasn’t in him to be a player or have two girlfriends at the same time, but he did love them both enough to try.

“I don’t think I could be so magnanimous and share, so don’t look for anyone else, Logan,” Kate warned without seeming to remove her eyes from the television.

“No worries, I am quite content,” the big man answered opening the newspaper.

When the ladies returned from the bedroom nearly an hour later, they looked dressed for a party. Nicola wore a navy blue, shimmering dress, low cut and sleeveless with a short hem to show off her dancer’s legs. Charlotte wore a similar style in green as they both carried in their high heels.