Picking up an armload of dog paraphernalia, I followed him, Keen trotting at my heels.
8
So how does one prepare for turning into a werewolf? Apparently, one stares at naked men. Who knew?
We stood in my new training area/cage in Chris’s old barn. It looked like a large horse stall, roughly the size of a single car garage. Metal sheeting ran from the floor to about chest height, and above that were thick steel bars that were welded to steel plates at the ceiling. The floor was also metal, although part of it was lined with wooden boards. Wood had been bolted over the sheeting inside the stall. The door swung on silent, heavy hinges, and there was a locking system that would have done Fort Knox proud.
I sat on the cot along a wall, observing Chris strip. Okay, I wasn’t into watching men strip, but there was a logic behind all this. Chris pulled his shirt over his head, his shoulder and chest muscles bunching and flexing as he did so. He was one hairy guy.
From an artistic point of view, I admired the definition along his rib cage. When he snapped open the button on his jeans, I was glad he turned around. Until I saw his back, and the world spun to a halt.
Scars. Scores of them, small and large, some so old they had faded to faint silver lines, others pink and puckered at the edges. Now that I looked, his arms were the same, and lines ran down his bare buttocks and the backs of his legs. His front was likely just as bad, only less noticeable due to the hair. Seeing the rest of him, I was surprised he had only one scar on his face.
Chris was retired from the RCMP, but no cop would end up with that many scars. I guess wulfan played rough. Really rough. But Peter was older than Chris, and he didn’t have them.
As he twisted to remove his jeans, I saw five fine silver marks running from beneath an arm across his ribs to above his kidneys. Claw scars. They spanned ten inches, and the injury must have almost split him in two.
Chris turned around without even a hint of self-consciousness. Comfortable in his own skin, like a wild animal, with clothing only an afterthought. Which is not far from the truth.
After a quick glance at his chest to confirm my theory, I looked away. “You’re an enforcer,” I said, my voice remarkably controlled, considering my racing heart. Peter brought me to an enforcer?
“Yes.”
Peter gave me to the man who will kill me if I can’t keep it together over the next few weeks. The ground opened beneath my feet.
Chris must have sensed my emotional overload. “You’re here because I’m your best chance to make it through this sane and alive.”
I met his eyes. “But if I don’t, you’ll kill me.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Have you done this before?”
“Many times.” His expression remained calm as he stood there, stark naked, in a cage.
“How many have you lost?”
I saw the shadows in his eyes and braced myself for a lie. But instead, he held my gaze, although a muscle jumped as he clenched his jaw. “That I guided to their first change?”
I wondered at the qualifier but nodded.
“Two.”
“In how many years?”
“I’ve been an enforcer for the last sixty-four.”
Sixty-four years? Chris had a face that looked ageless; I hadn’t been able to nail it down. But sixty-four years? How was that possible?
Chris interpreted my bewilderment. “Peter didn’t tell you?” I must have looked confused because he laughed. “Trust him to scare the piss out of you with all the bad stuff and not tell you about any of the perks.”
I was careful to keep my eyes on his face. “There are perks?”
“The virus not only helps you heal. It also maintains your health over the years, slows aging. I’m ninety-seven.”
My jaw dropped, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from doing a quick body scan. Ninety-seven? “How old is Peter?”
“A hundred and twenty-three, I think. Might have lost track of a year or two.”
Seriously? It jarred with everything I knew, including . . . “So Chloe isn’t really his niece, is she?”
“She’s family. Trying to track the exact relationships within wulfan families will give you a headache.”
This was messing with my head. Focus, Liam. “So if I make it through this, I’ll live a long, happy life howling at the moon.” Chris didn’t reply and I didn’t expect him to. “If you only lost two, how did you get so many scars?”
“Most aren’t from training wulfleng. I spent the first fifty years as an enforcer in Texas. I helped put an end to many uprisings.”
Okay, I’ll bite. “What’s an uprising?”
Chris held my gaze as he spoke. “Sometimes, when a wulfleng is created, the wulfan involved doesn’t confess his indiscretion. If the wulfleng survives the first moon, they might infect others, and what follows is what we call an epidemic. Sometimes, the infections are done on purpose. It is disgusting how many wulfan wish to gain power or influence by infecting humans to create their own little empire. When these spin out of control—which many do—we call them uprisings. Usually by the time the enforcers crash the party, it’s too late to save them. We have to clean house as it were.”
“Kill them?” I tried to imagine such a battle, and my mind shied away from it. His body provided all the evidence I needed. It was only slightly less terrifying than the thought of a multitude of crazed wulfleng loose on the world.
“I didn’t always agree with verdicts of the wulfan board,” Chris said, his mouth straightening into a hard line. “It was one reason I moved to Canada. Peter too. I joined the RCMP. Peter . . . retired.”
“But Peter wasn’t an enforcer.”
“No. But
