The Legend of the Werewolf (29 page)

"He doesn't want us. He doesn't want to be
our pack master. It's why he left," Brock pointed out
unhelpfully.

Fanny ground her teeth together. "I
know that. I just want him here until a suitable replacement can be
found."

A woman with a knitted throw wrapped
around herself scurried from the room. Her speed brought her where
she needed to go and back with a phone so quick it was like she
never left.

"Thank you," Fanny said, dialing the
number on the cordless.

"Before you call him," Brock
interrupted before she could hit another button with one of her
broken nails.

Fanny lifted a delicate, waxed eyebrow
at him. This was the most she'd ever heard the giant man
speak.

"There's something everyone in this
room should know about what I heard Bill tell Anne and our
guest."

"What is it?" Fanny asked.

"The reason why Mike left us. And why I
let them leave."

***

Westley slammed on the
breaks.

A hand wrapped around Mike's heart and
dug its razor nails into the beating muscle before squeezing. But
it had nothing to do with the dangerous, tire-screeching
stop.

What the fuck was
that?

Mike had made his call to his partner
Jason in Griffon City. He told the man about the situation and
where to meet him with as much backup and as many guns as
possible.

Jason assured him that it would only take
a few hours for them to arrive by air and offer assistance. Mike
satisfied himself with the knowledge that everything would be okay
now that the law was finally getting involved.

He handed the phone back to Westley,
and two minutes later his heart launched into a drumming panic
beneath his ribs.

He clutched at his chest and puzzled over
the sensation that could only be compared to that of jumping off a
cliff and having his guts fly north.

Then, Westley's phone rang again and
everything went to Hell.

Westley's face went as white as a blank
canvas when he stomped his feet against the break. The tires
screamed against the asphalt before the entire vehicle jerked and
they were no longer in motion

Mike shot forward, preventing his head
from impaling against the dashboard only by the seatbelt. The
sliding crash behind him followed by loud, painful cursing, told
him that Chris had not been so lucky.

"What the Hell is your problem, kid?" Mike
asked, spinning in his seat to make sure that the man behind him
wasn't injured. Chris clutched his head but Mike caught no sign of
wet blood mixing with his fire engine hair.

The cell phone Westley held to his ear
slipped from his hand. It landed on the seat next to him and sprung
back in the air. Mike reached out and caught it before it bounced
to their feet. He put it to his ear just as Westley leaned his face
against the steering wheel and shook.

"Who is this?" Mike
demanded.

"It's Fanny."

The window behind him slid open in a
furious slam. "Where did you learn to drive? I nearly smashed my
face in the—Wes?"

Westley did not reply, or even give
hint that he heard Chris calling him.

"What happened?" Mike asked.

Chris jumped out from the back of the
truck and opened the driver's side door. Westley still refused to
raise his head and acknowledge him. Chris put a hand on his
shoulder and tried to turn Westley’s face but the wolf resisted.
"Baby, are you alright?"

Westley shook his head, still hiding his
face and saying nothing as his shoulders shook.

"Gordon's dead," Fanny replied. Mike
nearly jumped. Dead?

Chris snapped his head up, no doubt his
dragon hearing allowing him to pick up the statement now that he
wasn't in the back of the truck with the wind blowing in his
ears.

Mike's blood froze. Somehow he figured
that it should have been Anne calling to give him the news. Unless
she was unable to do so. The squeezing in his chest started up
again.

"Where's Anne?" He demanded.

"Bill's pretty hurt here."

"I didn't ask about him, I asked about
Anne," Mike snapped. Icicles formed spikes that stabbed the insides
of his chest as she dodged the question, torturing his nerves with
horrific possibilities.

"We don't know where she is. Hadrian
came and took her.”

Rage boiled inside of him. With no other
outlet, he took it out on the voice over the phone. "Took her? What
do you mean took her? She has werewolf strength and he's an aging
man with limited powers, he couldn't have just forced
her."

There was no hesitation on Fanny's
side. "You're right. She offered to go with him so he would stop
his rampage."

"Rampage?" Bill told them his power was
limited, fading because of the curse he placed, and the sun was
beating down too powerfully for Hadrian to call any shadows. "He's
not supposed to be able to rampage anything."

"Because he’s losing his
magic?"

Mike's breath caught in his throat.
Westley and Chris turned to stare at him as they listened in on the
conversation. Mike ignored them.

He wouldn't beat around the bush and he
was tired of playing games. "Brock told you.”

Not a question.

“
Yes," Fanny said. "We know
you're not really the first werewolf." Her tone held an accusing
hint.

Mike bristled, ready to yell into the
receiver when Westley snatched the phone from him, wiping his face
on his sleeve as he spoke into the receiver.

"I'm coming back. Keep everyone calm
until I get there."

He flipped the phone shut and all but
threw it into the compartment above his head. Chris jumped back
into the back of the truck before Westley did his sharp U-turn.
Tires screaming again as they sped off.

He glared at Mike. "Don't even think of
telling me that was illegal."

"Wasn't going to. I thought you didn't
want to be pack master."

Westley gripped the steering wheel until
his knuckles turned white. "I don't but, with my father dead and no
one else ready, there's nothing I can do about it."

Mike sympathized with him for losing his
father, and for Chris, who sulked in the back for losing the one
chance they might have to elope. However, his primary thoughts were
with Annie.

Hadrian took Anne because of him, the
supposed first werewolf.

Wasn’t hard to figure out why. The
crazed man thought she was Luna. Bill said there was a slight
resemblance.

If anything happened to her because
that lunatic thought she was somebody she wasn't, Mike would never
forgive himself.

***

Anne's hand slid under the covers in a
search for Mike. Her brow came together when her fingers found
nothing.

Where is he? We’re supposed
to be sharing a bed.

The second the thought left her, she
snapped upright. The room was dark, would have been too dark
despite the moonlight that struggled to reach her room, but Anne's
eyes adjusted quickly.

A movement to her left caught her
attention. Lace curtains blew in the gentle breeze through an open,
floor-to-ceiling, arched window. The moon and stars outside didn’t
have their usual glow.

No clock hung on the wall or glowed
beside her bed. She couldn't tell what time it was, though she
didn't feel like she slept long enough for the sun to go
down.

Her skin pricked. Nothing in the room was
familiar. She threw the covers off of herself and gasped at her
clothes. Her jeans were gone. Her chest no longer bare from having
thrown her shirt and bra away.

They were replaced with an elegant gown
that resembled nothing she had in her closet.

S
he could tell it was white and in the
style of the Halloween costume she wore as a little girl when she
wanted to be a medieval princess.

A square embroidered neckline clung
tightly to her braless breasts. Her sleeves were tight, fitting
around her arms before flaring out dramatically with enough
material to make a few miniskirts, and a brown leather belt that
hung limply at her waist accented her figure.

She was no expert on medieval clothing,
but she was certain that no one from a thousand years ago ever
bothered wearing a white gown like the one she wore. Wouldn't they
get dirty too fast?

Her breath snapped out of her throat.
Oh shit. What if this was a wedding gown? It was white, so it made
sense, but Anne didn't even know what a medieval wedding gown
looked like.

If he thinks I'm going to
marry him then he's out of his mind.

The most uncomfortable fact about her
apparel was that she could feel that she wore no panties. That
alone made her feel naked and exposed through the tight
layers.

Anne's face heated. She swore then that
when she saw that weasel she would make him regret taking her
clothes off and dressing her in this strange get-up.

Anne adjusted herself so that her legs
hung over the side of the bed. She didn't bother rising to her
feet. The long gown made the hairs on the back of her neck stand
with fear of the possibility of tripping over it and landing on her
face.

She took a deep breath and closed her
eyes instead.

I need to find out where I am.
The second I know where I am, the second I can get out of
here.
Then
she’d shred the gown before she made a run for it just to teach
Hadrian a lesson about dressing unconscious women.

She hoped the dress was
expensive.

Not a sound greeted her ears. No smell
tickled her nose. Almost as though she were sitting in a
void.

Frightened, Anne snapped her eyes open
to confirm that she was indeed surrounded by material things and
not in some strange Limbo.

The curtains still moved in the breeze,
a shadow jumped in the corner. She was fine. She had time. No one
knew she was awake and planning to escape.

She closed her eyes again, ignoring the
unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach as she strained her
ears. She searched for the sounds of cars, tires zooming against
asphalt.

She waited until sweat gathered on her
forehead.

She brought her hand up to cover her
mouth. She needed to keep everything down, take deep breaths and
remain calm.

It was hard. Her panic made her stomach
muscles jump like a rabid kangaroo.

Nothing. Forget the road. There
was
nothing
within miles of this place. No crickets chirped, no owls
hooted, and no squirrels jumped in the trees.

There was no breeze, either. Anne couldn’t
hear or feel a breeze against her skin even though the window was
so close and the curtains still flitted around.

The answer made her want to be sick all
over again. She didn't close her eyes and feel like she was in
Limbo just because she was going crazy. She actually was in
Limbo.

"The Limbo of Shadows," she said,
remembering the words from Bill’s stories. If she were to look out
the window, she'd see a terrain that looked normal enough, only
shrouded in darkness.

The shadow she saw jumping were not a
trick of some far away light reflecting on something either. It was
a shadow warrior like the ones that attacked her family and tried
to kill Mike in the bar.

The curtains were not moving because of
some weak breeze either. It was another shadow man.

The hairs on the back of her neck
pricked again, this time with anger. They were her prison
guards.

The oak door at the far end of the room
burst open. A light so bright invaded her chamber that Anne had to
lift her hand to shield her eyes. The shadows screeched and escaped
the room.

She couldn't keep the hope from her
voice. "Mike?"

"Nay, ‘tis I."

Her heart sank as the almost womanish
voice stomped all over her hopes.

Her eyes adjusted. Hadrian, standing in
his usual black attire, looked down at her with nothing less than
adoration in his eyes.

The moonstone shone brightly in his right
hand and, with a start, she knew that the stone was the thing that
lit up the room like a small star. It chased the shadows from the
room and gave the appearance of daylight.

"I hope you don't mind the change in
garments. I thought you may prefer something more
familiar."

Anne growled. "I want my clothes back."
It didn’t matter if she didn’t have a shirt or bra to go with the
pants. As long as she could wear the jeans under the dress to make
up for the lack of panties, she didn’t care.

Hadrian's face fell. "Forgive me. I
should have asked for your permission before burning
them."

He took three steps towards the bed and
sat down next to her. Unhindered when she inched away from him, he
threw his hand out and snatched her wrist.