Taken

Chapter 8

A day’s worth of driving had them a safe five hundred miles away, even with bathroom and food breaks. It was far enough that he couldn’t avoid having them stop, and a comfortable distance from a rabid upir attack.

They kept the Silence unless they were eating, and there seemed no reassurance that would get the new shaman to open up. After a few tries he gave up. She didn’t even respond to Brun’s gentle mealtime questions.

She even refused to eat, just huddled in the back under his coat and stared reproachfully at them all. When the Silence came back she trembled and closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. It was a good pretense, and he let her keep it.

Julia loftily ignored the girl except for a bathroom break, and Zach saw his sister pinch her as she was hurried toward another rest-stop bathroom.

He let that go. Another night in their company, smelling them, would trigger her—if the biochemical process hadn’t been started already by their proximity. Found shamans took longer than born shamans to adjust to life in a Family, to the responsibility and the shock of finding out the world held more than just regular old humans.

Then again, most found shamans were taken into a regular Family and trained by another shaman, finding and shifting to a Family of their own later. They weren’t taken off the street right after an upir attack by a half-wild shamanless Family who had just lost their alpha. It was the worst possible scenario.

And there was another thing. The instinct that had compelled him to grab her was circling the bottom of his mind even now, whispering other things.

Things like, Look at that hair, even all tangled up it’s pretty and it smells like sunshine. Or, Those hips have a nice curve to them, don’t they?

Or how about, Her lips look pretty kissable when she purses them like that.

And something less pleasant. We’re being followed.

Night fell in cold streaks of scarlet and orange, the Silence breaking naturally on its own. Clouds massed on the horizon along with the glow of a good-size city. A hotel on the fringes wasn’t hard to find. They were flush with cash, so he sent Eric in to get a room, then shepherded his weary Family up the stairs to a nice little room with two queen beds and a kitchenette, not to mention a television Julia immediately turned on and a bathroom the new shaman looked longingly at.

The flannel shirt was too big for her, and it was his. The sight of her wrapped in something he owned was guaranteed to distract him—just like the smell of her mixing with his smell and rolling off the fabric. Right into the middle of his head, and right below the belt.

Brun hopped out the door to get food, and Julia and Eric were sent to get toiletries, things the new shaman would need. That left him alone in the room with her, and as soon as the silence closed around them she edged for the bathroom, shutting the door with a bang audible even through the television’s yapping.

He turned the idiot box down and pulled the curtains, spending a few minutes watching the parking lot. The animal in him crouched watchfully. There was no reason to think they were being followed…but there it was. The itching between his shoulder blades and the nagging feeling in his gut just wouldn’t go away.

Trust that feeling, son, his father’s voice growled inside his head. It’s your best friend, and it’ll keep you and your Family safe.

His father.

That wasn’t a good thought, so he shut it away. The smell of smoke and the crushing weight of responsibility wouldn’t quite go until he took a few deep breaths and reminded himself that he had problems in the here and now, and thinking about the past wouldn’t solve them.

Kyle’s spirit was safely over the border now, into the shifting realm of the majir. Which meant he had to talk to her, and try not to screw it up too badly.

He gave her ten minutes, then turned the television off and tapped at the bathroom door. “You can come out, sweetheart. We need to talk.”

We definitely need to talk. The sooner you understand a few things, the better off everyone will be.

Nothing. No sound of running water, no sniffles, just a deathly silence. He was sure there was no window in there; he’d checked. But still, his hand hovered above the doorknob. It would be a simple matter to snap a cheap hotel-door lock and walk in.

He didn’t even know who this girl was. Sophie, okay. Married once, possibly married still. Curly hair and steel-rimmed glasses, vulnerable wintry eyes and curves to make a racetrack die of envy. She smelled good, but among Carcajou there was such a thing as courting a female. Even when she smelled like she was his already, her pheromones striking sparks against his sensitive nose.

He knocked again, suddenly acutely aware that he was unshaven, smelling of unwilling attraction and acrid worry, still wearing the same clothes he’d been in last night. She was bound to be confused, upset. He’d have to handle her carefully.

Yeah. Like you have a clue how to handle a woman carefully. You’ve been doing a bang-up job so far.

He’d been too young to even think about mating while his parents were alive, and the gatherings where young people of each Tribe eyed one another and courted were closed to them once they were on their own. And human women smelled like food, not mates. His entire knowledge of what to say to a human woman came from television. Julia was no help at all, either.

There was a slight scraping noise. What’s that? He listened so intently he could hear her pulse, quickening now, and the soft soughing of her breathing. Up to something in there. Huh. He knocked again, softly. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you, no matter what you think. I’ll explain everything. Just come on out, Sophie. Is it short for Sophia?”

Another soft sound. Was it a laugh? The animal in him perked its ears, expectant. It was like hunting, waiting for the prey to appear.

Only she wasn’t prey. She was something else. Something he wanted to run down and fill his mouth with. Something good.

He touched the doorknob, running his fingers over it. “Come on. At least say something.”

“Go away,” came the muffled answer. But her breathing was high and harsh now, and her pulse thudded, as if she was in some sort of pain. There were other scratching, wrenching noises under the thunder of her stress-laden breathing.

What the hell? He twisted the knob and pulled the door open, opening his mouth to ask her if she was hurt.

The blow came out of nowhere. Faster reflexes saved him; he ducked and caught it in one hand, her surprising strength sending a shock all the way down his arm. She was screaming like a banshee suddenly, trying to wrench it away—a cheap hotel towel rack, pried loose from the wall. He smelled blood, too, and instinct woke in a red blur. He ripped the thing out of her hands and caught her wrist as she flew at him, still screaming.

She beat at him with her free fist until he caught it, trapping it in his much-larger hand and yanking her around as if she weighed less than a feather. There was a clear space next to the bathroom door, between the jamb and a closet space holding an ironing board and hangers attached to a rod.

He shoved her back; her shoulders met the wall with a tooth-rattling thump, and trapped her there. She kept struggling until he got her arms up over her head and pressed against her, bloodscent teasing and taunting at the animal, and the acrid reek of a shaman’s fear tearing at his control.

Goddammit. She pitched from side to side, mad with fear, and tried to bite him. Her mouth landed against his shoulder, she drove her teeth in again, and he froze, fingers clamping down until she made a small hurt sound, an interruption in her screaming.

She was biting him. Teeth in flesh, a promise and spur all at once. A red tide washed through him, and he almost lost it right there.

Control. Memory rose—he was twelve years old, and the alpha’s fingers were crushing the back of his neck, holding him still. Control the beast. We are human, we are Carcajou. We are not savages.

Still, with a shaman in an ecstasy of fear, accidents could happen. Bad accidents. And she had no idea that her teeth in his skin were an enticement.

She tried kneeing him, but he was pressed so hard against her, a slim soft thing between him and the unforgiving wall, she couldn’t get any leverage. The ice-and-moonlight smell broke over him in a cresting wave, and confusion between the obedience bred into every Carcajou’s bones to that smell and the response to the feel of her against him, the sunshine aroma of her hair filling his nose and its softness rubbing against his stubble as he buried his face in the tangled curls, gave him bare seconds to take a breath before drowning.

He came back to himself piecemeal, a sobbing woman between him and the wall, his fingers bruising-tight around her wrists and violence just a hairsbreadth away.

Oh, God. Get out of this one. Control yourself, goddammit; nobody can do it for you! You’re not a savage. You’re Carcajou.

The animal in him didn’t believe it. Arousal was a lead bar in the lowest part of his belly, her fear dragging sharp claws over his skin. “Calm down,” he managed, in a voice that had precious little of humanity left in it. It was a snarl, pure and simple. “Calm the fuck down, girl, or we are going to have problems.” Problems that make this look like making out in the back of a Chevy. Jesus, don’t think about that. Control.

She quieted, her breath hitching as she tried to swallow the tears. And she stopped struggling, which was good. Except that he still wanted to press against her, irritating layers of cloth in the way. She was sweating, he could taste it, and the urge to press his face against her throat and flick his tongue delicately against her skin to taste it even further made a fine tremor run through the center of his bones.

Fur receded. The claws prickling out through his fingertips receded, as well. He won the battle with himself by bare inches, and the animal retreated, snarling back down to the floor of his mind, curling up and promising trouble later.

“I am not going to hurt you,” he whispered into her hair. “You hear me? We need you. You have no idea how much. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

“Why are you doing this?” Tears crowded her voice, but she didn’t move. Maybe she was smart enough to know that if she moved right now, he might very well snap and do something he’d regret. “Just let me go and leave me alone. I’m nobody, why are you doing this to me?”

What the hell? “You’re not nobody.” There was a rock in his throat; he managed to clear it and she almost flinched. So he pressed forward again, holding her still. “If you’ll be quiet, and sit down, I’ll explain a few things. We’re Carcajou. We were born different, and sometimes we come across people like you. We call you found shamans. You’re different, too, just a little bit. You can keep us calm, make us better.” He inhaled, drawing the smell of her all the way down into the bottom of his lungs. And I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re mine. Fight it all you want, but we’ll come to some sort of understanding. Sooner or later. “I’m the alpha now. The boy you saw get unzipped fighting that thing—the upir—that was my brother. I let him take the alpha because…” Shame rose hot and tight in his throat. “Because I was afraid, and because of…other things.” Inch by inch, his bones creaking in protest, he eased away from her, his flesh still holding the sensation of hers. “Now you know something none of them knows. You know I let him take it, even though he wasn’t strong enough. I suppose that makes me a coward, but I’m done with that.” I have to be done with that. There’s nobody else left.

Another deep breath. She was still afraid, and the taint of blood still maddened the thing crouching in the floor of his mind. His eyes traveled up her arms, her thin wrists caught in his fingers, pale against the darker tone of his skin.

That was where the maddening tang of blood had come from. Her fingertips were raw, probably from working the towel rack out of its holder. She must’ve been damn motivated to get it free, disregarding the damage to her skin.

“Goddamn, girl. Look what you did to yourself.” He brought her hands down, flipped them palms up, studied the ragged, bloody edges. “Jesus. What were you going to do after you brained me with that thing, huh?”

She swallowed, her throat moving. Her glasses were smudged, knocked astray, and she was biting her lower lip so hard he thought she might start bleeding from there, too.

If she did there was going to be even more of a problem. But her teeth eased free, thank God.

“I was going to dial 9-1-1 and get the hell out of here. Let the police come and keep you busy while I ran.” She sounded steadier, calmer, but hoarse. This was a fragile peace, the eye of the hurricane. If he handled her carefully enough now he might be able to make her understand a few things.

“Good plan. It would have delayed us for about half an hour. Then we would have tracked you and brought you back. You’re ours now. Get used to it.” The sooner we get that through your head, the sooner we can all breathe easier.

He realized just a little too late that sheer stubborn repetition might not be the best way to handle a terrified woman who flinched at all the wrong times. If he’d had a hand free he might’ve been tempted to smack himself in the forehead.

But it was too late. Her chin lifted a little, stubbornly. Then, the dam burst. “What was that thing? It killed Lucy, goddammit! And you—you’re not normal! None of you are normal! You don’t even smell human!”

Perceptive of her. “The thing that killed your Lucy was upir. That’s what we call it. They…you can call ’em vampires, if you want. We kill them where we find them and they return the favor, only most of them stay out of our way unless they’re stupid or rabid. That one was probably rabid. They go nuts if they get a batch of bad blood, and they act just like dogs foaming at the mouth.” He dragged in another deep breath, still holding her wrists. Come on, Zach. Give her something reasonable to hold on to. “We aren’t human, not like you are. Score one for you. We’re different but we’re still people. And we need you. I’m sorry I haven’t been nice about it, but—”

“Nice? You fucking kidnapped me!” Her eyes were all but spitting sparks. She drew herself up to her full height—still a little too short to be anything but adorable—and gave him a glare that would have done even Dad, the old alpha, proud. “You’re holding me hostage!”

“No, we’re not. We’re not asking anyone to pay for you.” It was out of his mouth before he could stop himself, taking refuge in the reflex of sarcasm. “Is there anyone who would?”

“The only person who might have is dead in a fucking alley—let go of me!” She wrenched her hands away and he let her. Her chest heaved, tears slicking her cheeks, and the sudden urge to press her against the wall again was stunning. It warred with the urge to put his arms around her and tell her everything was going to be all right. “I have a job. I have a life. It’s not much of a life but it’s mine, and I worked too hard for it to let you or anyone else take it away! I started out with nothing! And I’m not going to do it again, you hear me? You’d better let me go. You’d just…” She almost ran out of steam, put her shoulders back and her chin up. “You’d just better.”

That’s good. It gave him more to work with, and if she was angry she wasn’t crying or afraid of him. Anger he could deal with.

Anger he could understand. “All right, so you had a life. You want to go back to it? Work with us. We’d like a life, too. You think we want to live this way?”

“It looks like you like it, especially if you’re kidnapping innocent women.” She clutched her bleeding hands together. Her eyes were still glowing.

What? That makes absolutely no sense. “Well, we don’t. We lost our brother, our alpha, killing the thing that killed your friend. You could cut us a little slack here.” He suddenly began to get the idea he wasn’t controlling this situation nearly as well as he thought he was. “We don’t like this. We want to settle down. Once I know I can trust you, we can go back to your city and do it there. How about it?”

“Are you insane?” Her voice hit a pitch right under “scream,” and the ice-and-moonlight smell intensified. A flush spread up her throat, blooming in her cheeks, and he could smell the balance of her internal chemistry shifting. It was like smelling Julia’s sudden drift of estrogen once a month. Only much, much nicer.

Bingo. She was triggered. High emotion and proximity to Carcajou pheromones setting off latent potential. By midnight she’d be a Carcajou shaman, and it would take weeks to shift her to another Tribe. By next morning she’d be their shaman, and it would take months to shift her. The first critical step had happened.

Everything else would follow. It had to. She was their only chance, and he couldn’t fail this one last test like he’d failed all the others. There was nobody else around to take the fall for this one.

And God, how he hated what that said about him. He had to get this one right.

Her hands had curled into fists. “You’ve kidnapped me.” A very low, dangerous tone, stroking his skin until he felt the urge to shiver. “What you’re doing is illegal and wrong. You let me leave right now and I won’t go to the police. I’ll go home and forget about this, and go to work Monday morning. If you don’t, I swear to God I’ll—”

You’ll do what? Leave us to die one by one? His temper almost snapped. “What? Try to kill me? We can hold you for years until you calm down, shaman. Play nice with us. You said yourself nobody would pay for you. What the hell is back in that city you want so much? Your husband, maybe?”

Her immediate flinch, and the sharp note of fear cutting through her scent, warned him just before the animal lunged for freedom again. Her eyes turned big and wounded; her hands pulled back toward her chest and raised a little as if to ward off a blow—

The Change ran through him like a sword of hot glass, bones crackling and fur rippling. He fought it, desperately trying to retain control, but the animal knew better than he did, had seen something he hadn’t.

Your husband, maybe? A flinching woman. A flinching, frightened woman. His claws stretched, sliding free, and his left-hand ones sank into the flooring as he crouched. She’d lost all her air, backing up until she hit the wall again, not even screaming, the wash of terror from her glands enough to send him careening over into pure madness.

Control yourself! Clapping a lid on the beast wasn’t easy to do, especially when it smelled fear on something that belonged to him.

She doesn’t know that, she doesn’t know anything—just fucking control yourself! Words almost vanished in a sheet of red, but the ice and moonlight sent a silver thread through the crimson, stitching it together. It was a fine thread, a thin thread, and his human side clung to it with every ounce of strength it could scrape together.

Fur receded, claws slid back home, and she was staring at him, glassy-eyed with terror. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she’d forgotten everything she wanted to say. His jaw crackled, taking on a shape fit for human speech again, bone moving under the skin, muscles stretching and shrinking. Hunger tore across his midsection—it took a lot of energy to fuel the Change, even more to hover just on the edge of it.

He backed away, despite the howling of the thing inside him that wanted to leap on her. Her legs went; she slid down the wall and sat with a bump, her teeth clicking together hard.

“I’m not crazy,” she whispered, between deep whistling breaths. “I’m not. I’m not.”

“You’re not,” he agreed hoarsely. At least, you seem pretty normal to me. But what would I know? That was a good thought, a rational human thought, and he clung to it. The sharp bursts of terror from her were like painful static across his sensitive nose, cutting through the blandness of hotel room and the comforting blanket of fading musk from his brothers and sister. “I promise you’re not.”

“You’re a werewolf.” She said it flatly, like she’d watched all the movies and had everything figured out.

Great. Sometimes he wondered if the movies were worth it. They made Tribe into fairy tales, so nobody went hunting them anymore. But on the other hand, they made things like this…difficult.

“Carcajou,” he corrected. “It’s different. You don’t know how different. And we need you, Sophie.”

“I’m not crazy,” she repeated. “You’re a werewolf.”

“The Wolf Tribe’s different. We’re Carcajou.” It probably didn’t mean squat to her, but still, the comparison rankled. We’re not dogs, for God’s sake. We’re allied with the Ursa Tribe, and we are finer than the Felinii. But we’re not dogs.

“Are you going to…eat…me?” she whispered. It was impossible for her gray eyes to get any bigger. Fever spots stood out high on her cheeks, and her smudged glasses were askew. She didn’t even seem to notice.

Jesus. A bolt of revulsion shot through him. It killed the animal rage, which was a good thing, but that she could think that was horrifying. “Of course not. We don’t eat people. We’re not savages.”

“You don’t…” She blinked, going pale almost as rapidly as she’d flushed. “That’s a relief.” Amazingly, she looked—and sounded—calmer. “But why would you want to kid—” Another thought crossed her mobile little face, and he congratulated himself on making some progress. “Oh, my God,” she breathed. “That thing that killed Lucy. That was a—”

Not too shabby. Quick on the uptake, even. “Like I said, you’d call it a vampire. But it’s not like the movies, honey. Running water and crosses won’t stop them, and a stake will only make them mad. Unless it’s wielded by a Djombrani.” He shrugged, cautiously. Maybe the movies were good for something, if they gave her a handle on what was happening. “But we don’t mess with that Gypsy shit. We’re Carcajou.”

“Vampire.” Her pupils were so dilated her eyes looked black, rimmed with silver. “Right.” She paused, licked her lips. “Werewolves.” Another long pause. “Right?”

“Right,” he echoed. Are we finally making some progress?

“Right.” And she scrambled to her feet and bolted for the door.

He caught her halfway there, taking her legs out from under her and shoving so she landed on the bed. Which was all sorts of tempting, so he followed, pinning her, careful of his greater density. The mattress groaned once, sharply, its springs taking a sudden load it probably wasn’t designed for. “Keep trying,” he said, his nose inches from hers. “We’ll catch you every time, shaman. We need you.”

“Nobody needs me.” Her pupils shrank, her gaze losing its shock and fuzziness. “The only person who needed me is dead in that alley and you’ve kidnapped me. I am not going to be trapped again. I won’t do it. You’d better let me go. You’d just better.” Her voice broke on the last word, and he cursed himself.

Here he was scaring the hell out of her, when he should be explaining, gently and patiently, that she could do more good with them than with anything she’d left behind. That she was their passport to rejoining their entire fucking species. That they couldn’t afford to let her go, that they would do anything she asked except let her go. That she was a shaman, for God’s sake, and all she had to do was snap her fingers and they would jump.

That she would keep them—and especially him—human.

Human enough that he wouldn’t terrify a woman who probably needed gentleness more than anything else. Human enough that he wouldn’t feel the slip-sliding tug of rage and grief plucking at his control. Human enough that he could get through five or six breaths without wanting to beat his head into the walls and keen for his brother, for his Family, for the whole goddamn messy situation.

It would take so little from her to do so much for them—but why should she? He was doing everything exactly wrong, and he couldn’t figure out how to do it right for the life of him.

And here he was on top of her, on a bed, and she had gone very still.

Too still.

She’d closed her eyes, tears welling out from under her lids, her glasses tilted, and visibly braced herself for the worst. So he let go of her, an inch at a time, and as soon as he could stand to lose the feel of her under him he leaped free of the bed and put his back to the door.

She curled into a small ball and sobbed, each small hitching breath tearing at his heart.

Maybe one of the others could make her understand. Because he had a sinking feeling he’d just fucked up his one chance. She didn’t have a shaman to train her, and if they ran across other Tribe who found her in this state of abject misery and terror Zach would have a lot of explaining to do—and there weren’t many Tribe who would listen. He might end up being put on trial, and who would look after his Family then?

In other words, he was right back where he started. And she was worse off than ever.