Fighting the Inevitable (7 page)

Millie would
be distraught but she was a fighter. Her tough childhood had
hardened her to the blows that life meted out from time to time. He
could only pray that Millie would be strong enough to help his baby
girl through the nightmare that was coming their way.

More searing
agony rocked his body as the wolf ripped into his torn flesh.
“Annie,” he groaned, coughing up blood as his vision swam. “I’m so
sorry.”

~~~~~

Rafe Armand opened his
eyes and wondered why the pain was gone. He lay still against the
warm padded floor of the very white room, his deep brown eyes
trying to adjust to the brightness around him. Where was he? What
had happened to him? He knew the memories were there somewhere, but
he couldn’t seem to reach for them no matter how hard he
tried.

He sat up gingerly,
waiting for the pain to come again, but his shoulder didn’t ache
the way it had the other two or three times he’d woken up. Memory
returned slowly and he looked around the white padded room slowly.
He
had
woken up in the same room before, he was sure of it.
There was no furniture, just endless white padding covering the
floor, the walls and even the ceiling. Hell, even the door was
padded in thick whiteness, only this time there were deep gouges in
it as if some wild animal had clawed madly to get out.

Once more, he was naked
as he had been every time he’d awakened. How long had he spent in
this padded cell? Time didn’t seem to make sense to him at the
moment. He started with surprise when he heard a key in the door,
and moved swiftly back into the farthest corner he could, his big
body coiling protectively around him. This was new. No one had come
in the door before. He was tense and alert, and extremely wary as a
large man entered the room and closed the door quickly behind
him.

The man was over six feet
tall and very broad in the shoulders and chest. He was dressed
completely in denim and had long black hair, which was tied at the
nape of his neck. His deep blue eyes were sharp, and showed a keen
intelligence as well as a hint of wariness as he regarded Rafe. He
held his hands up in a gesture, which plainly said he meant no
harm. He didn’t come any further into the room, merely rested
against the door.

“
My name is
Jared Hanlon,” he said quietly. “Can you tell me your
name?”

It seemed such a silly
question to Rafe. Why would the man think he wouldn’t know his own
name? “Rafe Armand,” he answered carefully, his eyes intent on the
man.

“
Pleased to
meet you, Rafe,” Jared said with a slight curve of his lips as if
he were pleased about something. “I know you’re probably feeling
pretty confused right now. You must be wondering why you’re here in
this room. It’s for your own protection. You’re going through
some...changes at the moment. The changes can be pretty violent at
times so the padding is to ensure you don’t hurt yourself too
much.”

“
What kind of
changes?” Rafe growled. “And why am I naked? I want some clothes.”
He looked up at the video camera in the corner above the door. They
were watching him, and he didn’t like the fact he was naked for
anyone to see.

“
You’ll only
destroy the clothes we give you,” Jared replied, his tone patient.
He’d had this exact same conversation too often in the last six
months. Finding the rogue was starting to become a real
issue.

The man before him was
the fifth forced turning so far and the first that looked like it
might reach a suitable conclusion. The other three men and one
woman had gone insane and died. Rafe must have a strong character
to be able to converse intelligently with him. He must have a very
strong desire to live.

“
I want
clothes,” Rafe persisted. “You want to spy on me with your camera?
You’re not getting any sick pleasure out of my nakedness!” He could
feel his temper bubbling under the surface, a need to rip out the
throat of the man before him. The thought stunned him as soon as he
had it and he blinked slowly.

“
What have
you done to me?” he whispered horrified. “There’s something inside
me, something evil that wants to take over me! What have you done?”
He literally screamed the last words at the man and saw him tense,
his gaze becoming even more wary.

“
Be calm,
Rafe,” Jared said firmly, using his Command tone and hoping it
would register with the furious man before him. He watched him
blink again and frown slightly as the command washed over him, but
he seemed to settle slightly.

“
We haven’t
done anything to you, Rafe,” he said calmly raising his hands again
to help ease the man down a bit further. “You’re right about
something being done to you, however it wasn’t us. You were bitten
while you were camping. We found you and brought you here to try to
help you.”

The moment Jared
mentioned being bitten Rafe’s memory flooded back, and he groaned
in fear and shrank further into the corner. He’d gotten up to pee.
The night had been well lit due to the large full moon in the sky
but he’d taken a flashlight anyway. He’d finished relieving himself
and was about to go back to camp when a wild animal had flown at
him, knocking him down.

The memories crashed
within him, the gut wrenching fear, the excruciating pain. Knowing
he was weakening and about to die. The last thing he remembered was
seeing Rhianna’s face before him and whispering her name. He knew
it would break her heart when he died. Then there was only
blackness until he first woke up in this white room.

“
Annie,” he
whispered, his eyes filling with tears as he turned to look at the
man called Jared. “How long have I been here? Does Annie know I’m
okay?”

Jared frowned and stifled
down a deep sigh. This was going to make things more difficult.
Rafe obviously had someone he cared about in the outside world.
“Rafe, I need you to listen very carefully to me,” he said. “The
wolf that attacked you was no ordinary wolf. He was what you would
most probably call a werewolf. He is part man, part wolf. When he
bit you, he passed the infection onto you, changing you. You are
what we call a forced turning. Someone who had been turned into a
Were against their will.”

Rafe stared at him
blankly, slowly shaking his head in denial. There were no such
things as werewolves. They were a figment of someone’s very active
imagination. Why the hell was this man standing there feeding him
this garbage? He wanted clothes, and he wanted to go home to
Rhianna and no one was going to stop him.

He growled low in his
chest feeling something stir deep inside him. He was leaving this
room even if he had to go through the man in front of the door to
achieve his goal. He tried to stand up but found he couldn’t. The
man was talking again, and he felt something tug in his head, but
he shook it to get free of it. He moved forward dropping onto his
hands and knees and staring in shock as he watched his hands start
to change a fraction of a second before he felt a deep pain inside
him.

He threw back his head
and tried to scream, but instead issued an agonised howl as his
face started to ripple and change. He felt bones being pulled and
tugged in every direction, loud popping noises occurring in time
with the pain. He whimpered and fell to his side, letting out
another long howl as his body shifted around him. Then mercifully
the pain was gone, and he tried to stand up.

He fell down immediately,
his mind registering complete shock as he realised his feet weren’t
there anymore. In their place were paws, four big enormous paws
completely covered in dark brown fur. He lifted a paw, and held it
up to his face and touched a long snout. He whimpered again, threw
back his head, and howled for what felt like forever.

When he finally stopped
howling he turned to the man Jared, but instead of a man he found a
large black wolf before him, deep blue eyes watching him
intently.

“
Be calm,
Rafe
,” he heard Jared say in his head, and he looked around for
the man but only found the wolf before him.

“
What?”
he gasped, hearing his throat rumble but no
words come from it. He couldn’t talk!

“
I can
hear you, Rafe,”
Jared said patiently, his tone soothing as he
sensed the wolf’s panic.
“You can talk to me like this too. Just
think what you want to say.”

“
I’m a
wolf,”
Rafe half sobbed.
“I’m not human anymore.”
The
full impact of the changes that had befallen him almost crushed
him. He wasn’t human anymore; he was some kind of wild beast
now.

The black wolf approached
him carefully and lay down so as not to intimidate him.

“
You are a
Were now, Rafe. You are not some mindless, wild beast,”
Jared
said soothingly
. “When you learn control, you will be able to
call your wolf form at will and will no longer be subject to these
uncontrolled shifts. You are doing very well. This is the third
time you’ve reverted to wolf form and the first you have been
coherent enough to understand what has happened to you and be able
to communicate with me. The other two times you were pretty
mindless and acted on instinct to get out of the
room.”

“
Who are
you?”
Rafe asked miserably, lying down across from the other
wolf.

“
I am Jared
Hanlon as I told you, and I am the Alpha of the Hanlon
Pack.”

“
Alpha?”
Rafe queried.
“Is that like the boss or
something?”
He blinked when the large wolf raised his head
slightly and grinned at him. A wolf could actually grin? For some
reason Rafe found that even weirder than everything else that had
happened so far.

“
I suppose
Boss is one way of terming it,”
Jared answered.
“I lead the
pack, yes. I am the Alpha and everyone is beneath me. They do as I
say when I say it. You are now part of my pack, Rafe. You cannot
return to your old life, it would be too dangerous. It takes a lot
of training to learn to control your wolf. Your forced turning
makes you particularly volatile. If you were to return to your old
life you might accidentally harm those you care about. I am
sure you wouldn’t want to harm Annie in any way.”

Rafe growled loudly and
jumped up, pacing away from the black wolf. The thought of even
accidentally scratching Rhianna, of possibly turning her into the
monster he now was, made him want to howl loudly. He could
understand the wisdom in the Alpha’s words but his heart was
breaking too.

“
I’m all
she has, Jared,”
he said forlornly.
“I’ve taken care of her
since she was three years old and our parents died. I’ve dedicated
my life to ensure she was always safe and happy. Her heart will
break when she knows she will never see me again.”

Jared could feel the
other man’s pain and he really felt for him. He didn’t want to add
to his pain but he believed in being totally honest with his pack.
“I’m sorry, Rafe, but you should know that she will already have
been informed of your death. You’ve been here three weeks already.
There was enough of your flesh for the police to find and perform a
DNA test on. Your Annie will have most probably buried you by
now.”

The shock of his words
rocked Rafe to the core, and his pain washed over him at the
thought of Annie and Millie arranging his funeral, crying as an
empty casket was lowered beside their parents’ graves. The wolf
howled within him and retreated, and he was once more a man lying
balled up on the floor, weeping for the life now lost to him
forever.

Jared left Rafe to his
grief and shifted back to human form before knocking on the door to
be let out. Aaron waited outside with a pair of jeans for him. He
slipped them on silently with a wry smile. He hadn’t expected to
have to shift today otherwise he’d have worn an old pair of sweats
before entering the safe room. He hated ruining a perfectly good
pair of jeans, but it was part and parcel of the life of a
Were.

“
Arrange some
sweats for him,” he told Aaron, “and socialise him a bit more. Have
different people entering with his food and water. A small amount
of small talk is permissible, but no direct answering of any
questions regarding pack life or what’s happened to him. I’ll deal
with those questions. If he asks for me, let me know as soon as
possible.”

Aaron nodded and gave his
Alpha a tight smile. He’d been working the safe room ever since the
man had been brought in, and he couldn’t help being impressed with
Rafe’s progress. Being coherent during a shift so early on boded
well for his chances. “He’s one big wolf, boss,” he said to Jared
who nodded his agreement.

“
I think he
may be an Alpha,” Jared sighed. “He was able to shake off my
command when he was shifting.” He met Aaron’s light blue eyes and
saw a note of concern in them. He understood his friend’s
concern.

There could only be one
Alpha in a pack. If Rafe truly was an Alpha, then it could create
major problems once he joined the pack properly. He could even
challenge Jared for his role as Alpha. He turned and walked away
leaving his beta to take care of Rafe.

~~~~~

Rhianna didn’t know how
she’d made it through the last few weeks. Millie had been there for
her constantly. She had helped her every step of the way and they
had spent many a night huddled in either hers or Millie’s beds
crying out their joint grief.