Laura's Wolf (Werewolf Marines) (21 page)

“Not at all,” said Gregor, in an annoyingly soothing tone. “A week’s separation is fine. Two weeks, and you’ll feel the strain. Nicolette held out for six weeks before she came limping back with her tail between her legs, but she set the record. No one else managed it for more than a month.”

Roy thought he’d been bitten about two months ago. If Gregor wasn’t conning her, Laura was impressed with how well Roy was holding up, all things considered.

Gregor smiled that toothy smile that made Laura want to punch him in the mouth. “Born wolves—born to werewolf parents—don’t need as much direct contact with their pack. They like it. But they don’t
need
it. Made wolves—the ones who were bitten—have to stick with their sire or die in agony. But on the bright side, made wolf powers tend to be much more interesting and impressive than born wolf powers.”

“They’re bigger and better wolves?” Laura asked.

“No, their other powers. Nicolette, tell Laura about yours, and what happened to it when you ran away from your sire.”

Nicolette resignedly addressed Laura. “I can tell when people are lying. After I’d been gone a while, I started sensing
all
the lies—not just deliberate ones, but lies people tell themselves. Then not just lies, but things they think are true but aren’t. Then I couldn’t hear anything anyone was saying, because everything that wasn’t true had gotten so loud. Wherever I went, it was like a radio blasting, ‘She doesn’t love me,’ and ‘She really loves me,’ and ‘I’m doing it for his own good,’ and ‘I’ll get to it in a minute.’ I couldn’t hear myself think.”

“That sounds horrible,” Laura said.

Nicolette’s gaze drifted past her, distant and shell-shocked. “And then I started hearing all the lies I tell myself. That’s when I went back.”

Laura knew Gregor had set up this entire conversation to convince her not to run, but it still shook her.

But if contact with one’s sire was so vitally important for made wolves, what in the world had DJ thought would happen to Roy without him? A Marine on active duty in a war zone couldn’t take off to stay with his wounded buddy. Even if Roy hadn’t been captured and locked up, DJ surely would have known his wounds were liable to keep him in a hospital for longer than a month.

Nicolette seemed to be telling the truth about her own experience, but she was the hostage of a small-time super-villain with every motivation to keep her in line. Laura was certain that Gregor was playing some kind of con game. For Roy’s sake—and for her own—she had to figure out what.

Laura spoke up. “So I can bail on you and your pack most of the time, so long as I check in every two weeks for my fix?”

Gregor shook his head. “I might forgive someone who runs away once, if they’re very useful to me or if I want to demonstrate what a torture it is to be cut off from the pack sense. But if they do it a second time, I kick them out of the pack.”

Donnie spoke up. “You don’t want that.”

“I guess not,” Laura said uneasily.

Donnie turned on to an unmarked dirt road that wound through the forest.

Second dirt road after Hillyard,
Laura thought.

She hoped Roy could track a specific car’s tires by scent, but she didn’t know for sure that he could. Nor did she know when Gregor planned to bite her. They were already halfway down the mountain, and Roy wouldn’t even realize she was missing till the following night.

And that was all assuming that Roy would realize that she was in trouble rather than thinking she’d ditched him. He knew she was a lying con artist; would he think she’d decided not to get involved with all his dangerous problems, lied to get him off her back, and skipped town? Even apart from the fact that it would torpedo her rescue, the thought of him believing that of her, and of how much it would hurt him, made her feel sick.

“Let me demonstrate Nicolette’s talent for you, Laura,” Gregor said. “So you don’t waste your time lying to me, which we all know you can do so beautifully. Feel free to lie or tell the truth to the demo questions, so you can see for yourself.”

“Okay,” Laura said warily.

“First demo question. Which of your parents are you closer to?” Gregor asked.

“My mother,” replied Laura.

“Lie,” said Nicolette.

Laura wondered if Nicolette’s supposed power was a con. Gregor could have researched to find that Laura’s mother had died when Laura had been a toddler. And Roy hadn’t said a word about having special powers.

“Does your father have a pet name for you?”

“No,” Laura said, testing.

“Lie,” said Nicolette.

“What is it?” asked Gregor.

“Cupcake,” Laura tried.

“Lie.”

“Little darling.”

“Lie.”

“Okay, fine,” said Laura, doing her best to sell her resignation. “It’s honeybunch.”

“Lie,” said Nicolette.

“Sweetie pie.”

“Lie.”

“Sweet pea.”

“Truth.”

Laura nodded, hiding her skepticism. It seemed unlikely for Gregor to know that, but it was possible if he’d tapped her phone or hacked her email.

“Third demo question. Who did you lose your virginity to?” Gregor asked.

“Seriously?
Seriously?
” Laura gave him a nice long glare. “Could you possibly think hard and come up with something a little more creepy?”

He spread his hands, as if he had no choice. “I’m assuming it’s information I couldn’t possibly already know.”

“I’m not giving any details,” she warned. But in a way, she was glad. If Nicolette could ferret that out, then she really was a human lie detector. And that was information Laura needed to know. “Carl.”

“Lie,” said Nicolette.

“Jackson.”

“Truth.”

“Okay,” Laura said reluctantly. “I believe you.”

She hadn’t thought of Jackson in years—she couldn’t even recall his last name, only that they’d laughed over his first name sounding like a last name. He’d thought her name was Angela Marks, her parents were divorced, and she was planning to attend the local community college. She’d never told Dad why she was so upset at leaving that town, but only claimed that she wanted to finish out her senior year at the same school.

Six months later, she’d graduated from a different school. But it had never even occurred to Laura to go back to that town (whatever town it had been) and look up Jackson again. He’d just been yet another person she’d lied to and left.

“On to the real questions,” Gregor said. “No lying, now.”

Laura wondered how precise the Nicolette’s power was. From what she’d said earlier, she could normally only detect the literal truth, not subtle intentions.

“Who’s the werewolf who was protecting you?” Gregor asked. “Tell me all about him. Nicolette, tell me if she lies.”

Laura flinched inside, but didn’t let it show. She had to make Gregor believe Roy wasn’t a danger to him, not worth worrying about and certainly not worth dispatching Donnie for a second try.

“His name is Roy,” Laura said. “He’s a Marine veteran. He’s homeless. My father was letting him live in the barn. I only met him a couple days ago.”

“Truth,” said Nicolette.

“Tell me more about him,” Gregor demanded.

As Laura spoke, she slipped into the state Roy had described, the place that lies beyond fear, where you feel completely alive and like you can do no wrong. Everything was bright and clear and simple as she talked for Roy’s life and maybe hers as well.

“His helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan,” Laura began. “He was badly wounded, and he almost died. He never completely recovered. Not just physically. He said he didn’t think he’d ever be able to fly again. He has nightmares and panic attacks. He can’t work. He sleeps with a gun under his pillow.”

“Truth,” said Nicolette.

“How did you learn so much about him?” Gregor asked. “What exactly is the relationship between you two?”

“We don’t have a relationship,” Laura said. Saying it aloud felt like taking a sledgehammer to her own heart, doubly so when Nicolette nodded: truth. “I took care of him after Donnie shot him because I didn’t want him to die.”

“He doesn’t sound like much of a threat,” said Gregor, ignoring her accusatory tone. “Though he must be strong to have gotten the gun away from Donnie. Enough about his sob story. Where’s his pack?”

“I don’t know. He never even mentioned having one.”

Gregor rubbed his chin, frowning. “Must be a born wolf. Did he offer to bite you?”

“No.”

“More fool him. Or maybe he already has a mate.”

Laura shrugged, trying not to think too hard about the fact that Roy didn’t have anyone and
still
didn’t want her.

“What’s his power?”

Laura let her eyebrows rise. “He can turn into a wolf.”

“Apart from that,” said Gregor, seeming to enjoy her sarcasm rather than being offended by it.

Laura had no intention of revealing any weakness of Roy’s that Gregor could use against him. But though “allergic to technology” might be some sort of side effect of a power, it wasn’t a power in itself. Roy had said he could track by scent, but surely all wolves could do that.

“I’m not sure,” Laura said.

“Think about it,” said Gregor. “It might be subtle.”

“Could be strength,” Donnie suggested. “Hard to say for sure. He’s a big son of a bitch.”

“No, wait,” Laura said, remembering. “He said he’s resistant to cold, up to a point. He did get hypothermic after he got shot and lay in the snow for a while.”

“Truth,” said Nicolette.

“Like I said,” Gregor remarked with a shrug. “Made wolf powers are more impressive.”

Even though Gregor was reacting exactly as she had intended, Laura couldn’t help feeling indignant on Roy’s behalf.

Donnie turned onto a narrow, unmarked dirt road.

“How did you get all those cuts?” Gregor asked. “Your car was scraped up too. Did you crash?”

“I was leaving Yosemite.” Laura chose her words with precision while taking care to sound natural. “Roy wanted to see a friend of his in San Diego, so I offered him a ride. I had a feeling it was a bad idea, but I felt so sorry for him that it overrode my judgment. Well, it
was
a bad idea, and I wish I hadn’t done it. We’d barely been driving for ten minutes before he told me to pull over. I could see there was something really wrong with him. I was scared. I didn’t pull on to the shoulder. I went around a few more curves, and then I drove into a bunch of thorn bushes. I jumped out of the car and ran through the bushes. Last I saw of Roy, he was headed back up the road.”

“That son of a bitch,” snarled Nicolette. “And after all you did for him! He probably only protected you in the first place because he was planning to rape you later.”

“I take it Laura’s account is true?” Gregor inquired.

“Oh, yeah, it’s all true,” Nicolette said. “That bastard better hope I never get my hands on him.”

Laura concealed her alarm. She’d been trying to ensure that Gregor wouldn’t expect Roy to come rescue her, not to set Nicolette on him like an avenging angel of female solidarity.

“No personal revenge-taking, Nicolette,” Gregor ordered. “Anyway, you’ll never see him again. It doesn’t sound like he’ll be back. Now, Laura, think about this one before you answer. Do you want to be a werewolf?”

In a way, she did. It would be a piece of magic, not only in her life, but in
her
. The way Roy had described it, being a wolf sounded amazing. And it had looked fun. She imagined running as a wolf beside wolf-Roy, easily keeping pace with him as they explored the woods together, and she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.

But becoming a werewolf had shattered Roy’s life. It could easily do the same to her. According to DJ, it had a fifty-fifty chance of killing her. And she couldn’t think of anything more repulsive and horrifying than being forced to become not merely Gregor’s prisoner, but his mate.

“I would love to be able to turn into a wolf,” Laura said honestly.
If that was all there was to it.

“Truth,” said Nicolette.

Gregor smiled. “Do you want to be my mate?”

There was no finessing that one.

“No, asshole,” Laura spat out.

Nicolette snickered. “Truth. Every word of it.”

Gregor seemed undisturbed, which unnerved Laura more than if he’d been angry. “You’ll come round.”

Donnie drove up to a walled enclosure in the woods and clicked a remote control. The gates swung open, revealing a garden, a garage and several parked cars in a driveway, and a huge mansion.

“My lair,” said Gregor, with pride and a touch of irony.

“Some day, all this will be mine?” Laura asked.

“Exactly. See, I knew we’d get along.”

Donnie parked in the driveway, and they all got out. Miguel, who had followed with Laura’s car, handed her keys to Gregor.

As they reached the front door, Gregor held up his hand, bringing them all to a halt. He took a deep breath and stepped through the closed door.

Laura’s jaw dropped. She was still standing there gaping when he opened the door from the inside and beckoned them all inside.

“So that’s how you got away after the—” Laura forced her mind away from
blood on the carpet
and
blood on my hands.

Gregor either didn’t notice her hesitation or didn’t care. “Yes. Unfortunately, I can’t carry anything out with me but the clothes I’m wearing, or I could simply walk into vaults and walk out with the money. When I’ve tried, the things I carry get… left behind.”

To Laura’s confusion, Nicolette and even Donnie looked horrified, then quickly wiped their expressions clean. Miguel gave a small, choked gasp, and his hand flew up to his scarred cheek.

“Miguel, Nicolette, you’re dismissed,” said Gregor. “Donnie, stay with me. Laura, I’m taking you to get those cuts cleaned up.”

Laura memorized the mansion’s layout as they walked through the ground floor. It was luxuriously furnished but in a lackadaisical manner, with some rooms full of antique furniture and some left completely bare.

Gregor beckoned Laura into a kitchen where a man was rapidly chopping vegetables. The cook was in his late twenties, tall and thin, with black hair, skin so pale as to be near-translucent, full red lips, and features that looked carved with a knife. He seemed incongruous in a kitchen; if he’d been an actor, he’d have been typecast as a decadent aristocrat or a villain who tortured the hero while making threats of an ambiguously sexual nature.