Forging Day (Crucible of Change Book 1) (26 page)

Leo didn’t move a muscle while Berto removed the cast, even though it had to hurt. His hand looked ghastly. Berto kissed his forehead, murmuring a quiet prayer. Evidently Leo’s hand took a little more juice than usual, because Berto was sweating by the time the last of the golden glow faded.

Leo flexed his fingers and clenched his fist. “Not bad work. I owe you one.”

“Don’t mention it, big guy.” Berto stretched and yawned. “I have got to get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day. Try to stay out of trouble for a few hours at least, my lovelies.”

Mikah gave me an uncharacteristic hug. “Be careful, Olivia. You’re running through those cat lives like water and we don’t want to lose you.”

I hugged him back. “I am being careful. The world just isn’t obliging.”

He and Berto disappeared into their room, leaving me, Kat, Cordie, and Leo alone in the kitchen.

“I want a shower, and then I’m going to research werewolves online.”

Kat flicked her ears at me. “Take the shower, but you need to get some rest. Healed or not, your body’s been through a lot. Do your research later.”

“I don’t want to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see that girl. I’m worried about Sharon, too. What if she turns? I want Berto to try and fix her, but I don’t know if he can.”

Cordie looked at me a long minute, and then headed off toward the library. She came back with a drink. “You know I think you drink too much, sis, but Kat’s right. You need to sleep. Get your shower and then have a drink. At least lay down for a bit and try to relax.”

I was a little surprised at this newfound accord between Cordie and Kat. Maybe they had a talk at the hospital? I didn’t see Gracie anywhere, and she wasn’t mentioned.

“I need some rack time too, sis. Busy day tomorrow. You have to sleep when you can.”

Kat perched there in the bathroom, not even letting me out of her sight to shower. Her attentiveness made more sense when I saw how much dried blood I had to scrub off of my skin. I must have looked like a horror show.

I sat at my desk and sipped my drink while Kat sat behind me and brushed out my hair. She kissed my neck and made me shiver. “Stop getting hurt. I can’t take this.”

I kissed her back. “I’ll be more careful. I’m working on it.” It took all my courage to do it, but I couldn’t go on without being honest with her. “Kat, I have to tell you something.”

She got very still. “What is it?”

“I want you to know I was with Frank last night. You and I didn’t make a commitment to each other, and Frank and I didn’t either. We were just there for each other as friends. I don’t want to keep secrets from you.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations,” she said, “but I’m glad you told me. No secrets.” She hugged me tight.

I thought I heard something at the window, but it was probably that damn cat. Doctor Evil was always staring at me.

Kat pushed the robe off of my shoulders, leaving me bare to the waist. I pulled my hair over my shoulder, and leaned forward as she rubbed the tension from my neck and shoulders. “Come to bed, love. I’ll keep the bad dreams away.”

“Does this mean Gracie decided it was okay for you to be with me?” I asked her.

She froze for a second before she kissed me again. “If someone feels like they have to order you to stay, it’s time to go. That’s not how you treat someone you love.”

“I’m sorry if it makes me a bad person, Miss Kitty, but I’m really glad you’re here with me.”

I finished the drink in two long swallows, and warmth spread through my body. I climbed naked into bed and let her get the lights. “Hold me, Miss Kitty. I was so scared.”

She wrapped her body around me, holding me tight, and kissed away my tears. I kissed her back gently, and then deeply. I wanted her. I wanted to feel alive.

I kissed her throat. “I need you.”

“You have me, always.”

She let me explore her body. I’d missed her warm curves. I bent to kiss her breast, and felt something hard when I took her nipple into my mouth.

She gasped and jerked a bit in my arms.

I sat up and turned on the bedside light. Her nipples were tight pink buds and pierced by tiny silver rings.

“Miss Kitty, what did you do?” I started to reach toward her and then stopped. “Please tell me I didn’t hurt you.”

She squeezed her eyes closed for a minute. “You didn’t hurt me, Olivia. They’re just really sensitive now. I got them a few weeks ago. Gracie wasn’t happy that my butterfly was gone, so she asked me to do this. I wanted her to be happy. Berto helped the healing along, after I got over being too embarrassed to ask him to do it.”

“Are they sensitive in a good way or a bad way?” I asked.

She kissed me and pulled my hand to her breast. “With the right person, they’re sensitive in a good way.”

Pushing her back onto the bed I drew her nipple into my mouth. I licked it gently at first, before flicking the little ring with my tongue until she moaned. Straddling her I suckled each nipple in turn. Slowly, I kissed my way down her body. She made happy sounds deep in her throat when I tasted her sweet arousal. Licking and kissing, I harvested her moans like nectar. Orgasm rocked her body as I held her hips. Her breath caught as I kissed my way back up her body until our lips met. Our tongues danced and I shivered at the caress of her silky fur. She slid down and knelt between my legs, quickly drawing forth my own release. As my breathing slowed, she tugged a sheet over us, holding me close until I fell asleep in her arms.

* * * *

I dreamed that evil yellow eyes were glaring at me as I slept. I woke up to find Doctor Evil perched on my dresser staring at me. Kat was missing, but I heard the shower running. I joined her. I loved morning showers.

It was past lunch when we got downstairs. Leo had his grown-up face on. “Why do I think you’re up to something?” I told him.

“I’m just doing some recon for a mission. I have to see a man about a dog.” He was dressed in civilian clothes and had a mostly empty duffle bag. He gave me a kiss on the top of my head, and sauntered out the door. The sounds of a motorcycle engine filled the yard, followed by the clang of the gate closing.

Cordie was surrounded by papers. “I’m trying to get caught up on some work. I’d like to be productive when I go in on Monday.”

“I’ll be in the library. I need to do some research.” I took some iced tea with me. “I know, Grammy, I’ll be sure and use a coaster.”

Online werewolf research looked to be about as unhelpful as online magic research had been. I got almost two million hits straight off. This was going to be a long day. I waded through a ton of stuff on the history of the werewolf legend. It was interesting to read, but not very helpful. Supposedly werewolves had superhuman strength and speed. I could vouch for those.

Wolf’s bane and silver through the heart were supposed to be the best ways to kill one. Some poking around led me to monkshood as the most common name for wolf’s bane. If I wanted some locally, it looked like I should have planned ahead and bought a plant from a garden center in the spring. Nobody was selling the processed form, at least online, probably because of that whole deadly poison thing. More research turned up that the local Botanic Gardens had a small display of said plant. The Botanic Gardens were close—just across the park. Yay! The Botanic Gardens were also infested with exploding bluebirds of hate. Not yay.

I tried calling a few Pagan bookstores. Sometimes they carried weird herbs and stuff. I got the same answer from all of them. “Try a garden center, and we’re recording this number in case anyone turns up poisoned.”

The lady that answered at the garden center was even less helpful. “I’ve had it with the prank werewolf calls!” she told me, and slammed the phone down.

The Botanic Gardens, sadly, were moving to the top of my to-do list.

I turned to the question of silver next. I remembered a book series where the bad guys injected the good-guy werewolves with silver suspended in liquid. I wanted to see if that was even possible—not that I intended to get close enough to the werewolf to tell it to roll up its sleeve. I found out that some people actually used colloidal silver—silver particles suspended in liquid—as a health aid. One guy took so much of it that he actually turned his skin blue. Super creepy, in my opinion.

The colloidal silver would have been an awesome idea, if not for the profound local shortage of same. I called several of the places that turned up online. They all were sold out and didn’t know when they’d be getting another shipment. Apparently there’s a device to make your own, but those were sold out too.

I was looking at maps of the Botanic Gardens when I drifted off, only to be jolted awake when the front door slammed shut.

“Olivia!” Leo yelled. His voice sounded off.

“In here,” I called back.

He staggered in, carefully lowering the duffle bag to the floor. One of his eyes was swollen shut and he was covered with blood. His shirt hung in tatters and I saw more blood through the rips.

“Leo! What happened? Berto, come quick!”

“You have the number for that cop from last night, sis?”

“Lieutenant Clark? Yeah. You want me to call him? Who did this to you?”

Berto ran in from the kitchen and hurried over to Leo, who held his hand up. “Later. I need the cops to see this first.” He looked back at me and added, “Sit down, sis. Short version, Colby is the werewolf and the cops need to know.”

My hands were shaking so bad, I finally had to hand the phone to Berto to dial for me. “Lieutenant Clark, please. Tell him it’s Olivia Mitchell and it’s about the werewolf.”

For the first time today, saying
werewolf
actually got a quick response. I don’t think I was on hold even a minute before he picked up. “What about the werewolf?”

“My brother is here and he’s been hurt. He says he knows who the werewolf is. He told me to call you.”

“Same address? We’ll be right there.”

After we hung up, Leo pressed a black thumb drive into my hand. “Tell them you found this in your room after you broke up with Colby. Just follow my lead when they get here. You can do it.”

This time we got a couple of squad cars, plus Lieutenant Clark again. He nodded to us when they came in and said, “All right, we’re here.”

Leo said, “The werewolf is a guy named Colby Green. He was dating my sister. I’m certain he’s the one that killed that girl and bit Officer Curtis.”

“And why would we take your word for it?”

“I have evidence.” Leo gestured toward the duffle bag. “His laptop is in there. And my sister found this drive.”

I handed over the drive he’d just given me. “It was in my room. He must have dropped it at some point and I didn’t notice it.”

“Care to tell us how you came to be in possession of Mister Green’s laptop? And how, exactly, is this evidence?”

Leo winced as he moved. “Olivia wanted me to fix her phone the other day. When I was backing it up, I found some explicit pictures. She told me her boyfriend had taken them, without her permission, and then emailed them to her. There were also some fairly explicit text messages that he’d sent to shock her. Everything she’d told me about this person led me to believe that he was the type to post revenge pictures online. I went over to his apartment to speak with him and make sure he deleted any pictures or videos he still had.”

I don’t think anyone believed that he went there just to talk to Colby—unless he meant with his fists.

He had a drink of water and continued. “When I got there, the door was slightly ajar. I heard screams coming from the inside and believed someone to be in need of assistance, so I entered the apartment. Mister Green wasn’t there, but he did have some violent pornography playing on the television and his laptop was running at the table. His screensaver was entirely pictures of young women in compromising situations. While I was watching, I saw a picture of my sister. Mister Green wasn’t in the apartment, so I took the time to search the laptop for anything with my sister’s name. I found a large number of pictures and videos. I also found a directory labeled
fun at the park
. After what happened last night, I had to look. There were pictures of young women, before, during, and after he finished with them.”

Leo’s face was taut with strain. “All of those girls looked a little like Olivia, before she Changed. I grabbed the laptop and threw it in my bag. I couldn’t risk leaving it there and him getting it before the police could get there. I went downstairs to call, and ran into him in the lobby. He had a young girl with him. She was intoxicated and partially exposed.”

“I admit it. I put down my bag and punched him as hard as I could. The girl screamed, and then Mister Green howled and exploded into fur. He said he was tired of my meddling and was going to take care of me for good. The girl ran screaming out the door. I was trying to hold him off when a couple of really big guys ran in with the girl behind them. Mister Green yelled, ‘this isn’t over!’ He shoved the guys out of the way like they were nothing and ran out the door. By the time I got up and made it to the door, he was gone.”

Leo gestured at himself. “He didn’t bite me, but he did a number on me with his fists and claws. The guys both said they were calling the cops. I get the feeling the young lady is going to try and pretend this never happened.”

The technicians finished gloving up and retrieved the laptop from the bag. One started checking it out while the second got Leo’s fingerprints.

Lieutenant Clark stared at Leo. “So you claim this guy, that you went to ‘talk to’, just happened to leave his door unlocked and open with a violent video running and a laptop playing incriminating photos?”

“I already admitted to stealing the laptop and throwing the first punch. What would I gain by lying about the door? Maybe he was in a hurry to leave. I don’t know.”

“Okay, so given what you saw, why didn’t you call nine-one-one immediately?”

“I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could, once I saw the pictures from the park. I was going to call from the lobby, but I couldn’t let him take another girl to his apartment. Not after what I’d seen. After I fought with him, I just wanted to get away before he came after me again.”