Page 24 of Soulmates
He leads us to a conference room with a long cherrywood table in the center. An older wolf sits at the far end of the table, with three younger wolves on the right-hand side and two on the left. There were only two other seats at the table. Logic dictates that David should take the one on the end opposite his uncle. That leaves me and Cousin Marcus fighting over the last chair.
I let him win, preferring to stand near the door behind David.
The meeting starts benignly. They’re all related so had no need for introductions. Not that I would remember their names if they told me.
Uncle Brendan begins by rehashing David’s first night in town. He also mentions a threatening note, a choice little detail David had previously left out of his narrative.
Brendan’s voice has a soporific quality, and he rants on about David’s importance to the pack and how he shouldn’t put himself in danger andblah blah blah. From nowhere, Brendan pulls out a gun, but my reflexes are slow.
Then he shoots me, and everything gets slower still.
“What the hell did you do?” David leaps to his feet and heads for me, stopping only when his uncle makes him a target.
“Nothing permanent, unfortunately.” His uncle sneers the words, his manicured hands holding the gun steady. “He’s still with us. He just can’t move.”
That’s the Lord’s own truth. My limbs are heavy, stiff. I couldn’t have moved if the walls came caving in on me.
“We need to talk to David privately, so you can wait here while we go upstairs.”
“No.” David speaks with calm determination. “Anything you need to say to me can be said in front of Trajan.”
His uncle aims the gun at me again. “The first dose will wear off, but a second dose might not have such a happy outcome.”
David grimaces, plainly unhappy with this turn of events. I’m in no condition to deliver wisdom, but I might have told him that if you want to take over the pack, here’s your chance. Instead, he gives his uncle a long, hard stare, and capitulates.
The group of them surround David and file out. There’s a disturbing undercurrent of excitement among the men who are supposed to be his family, his pack.
David is in trouble. Big trouble.
As soon as the door is closed behind them, I struggle to move my right hand. Breathing is hard. My chest is heavy and my limbs feel like lead, but if I can get to my cell phone, I can send Sheena a text.
Either they didn’t correctly calibrate the dose of whatever they shot me with, or rage is a powerful antidote, because I manage to drag out my phone.
Upstairs.
That one word is all I can manage, but it should be enough.
Getting my phone back into my pocket takes some concentration. Sheena pops her head through the door, but my half-assed gesture toward the ceiling sends her off again. It’s a good ten minutes before my body recovers enough to take a step. I stagger into the hallway. It dead-ends in a door about thirty feet to my right. Every step makes the next one easier, and if I’m not moving with vampire speed, at least I’m moving.
The door opens into a stairwell, the industrial kind with perforated metal risers and gray paint. A man’s suit coat is draped over the railing leading to the floor above me. Dark blue. I catch the odor without touching it. David, but wilder. He must have stripped so he could shift.
Which means it’s not a real emergency, because he was still worried about his clothes.
Climbing the stairs, my pace slows. The effects of the drug are fading, but lifting my feet takes work. Each step echoes, and I’m filled with the sense that there’s something waiting for me. I taste the air. Cocoa butter from Sheena’s skin lotion, as familiar as my own scent. Wolf.
I reach the landing for the third floor and keep going. Every instinct is aiming me up. I stretch my senses, touching on a frantic heartbeat.Up.
Moving methodically, I reach the third floor. The landing is a small space, maybe eight feet square. There’s a narrow window set high in the wall, letting in the fractured glow from a nearby streetlight. A single door separates me from…whatever.
Something thumps on the other side of the door, and a low growl crawls over my skin. Tension spurs my hunger. My mouth waters in anticipation of sweet, salty blood.
Slowly turning the knob, I nudge the door open just far enough to catch a glimpse of the scene beyond. The room is a single large open space, an empty warehouse with windows along each wall. In the center, David and Sheena are standing back to back; well, Sheena is standing and David is on all fours. They’re surrounded by his uncle and cousins and a tall, rangy wolf.
David’s wolf is just as big and dark as I remember, and when anyone moves, David’s lip curls in a sotto voce growl.
“You’re being an idiot, David,” his Uncle Brendan says, earning himself another subsonic growl. “Just sign the form.”
Sheena snorts. She’s got a dagger in one hand and a pistol in the other. Her black clothing is dark enough to suck up most of the light in the room. “Have you met David before? No way he’s gonna do something he doesn’t want to do.”
