Tempting Evil

any description tended to catch a man's attention.

Rhoan was about halfway down the truck, thrown on the floor like so much rubbish, his face as beaten and raw as his body. In fact, the only thing that wasn't beaten and bloody was his genitals. It actually looked as if someone had gone out of their way to avoid that area, which was extremely odd.

I dropped down beside him and gently touched his forehead, brushing the sweaty, blood plastered strands of hair from his face. He stirred, and relief filled me. He wasn't as out to it as I feared, even if he didn't immediately open his eyes.

I lightly pressed the com-link in his ear, then leaned close and murmured, 'Jack, track this signal. When we are well clear of the gates, stop the truck. Bring medical aid for Rhoan.'

I couldn't hear his answer and didn't dare use my own com-link. I'd have to speak a little louder and it just wasn't worth the risk.

After a quick glance at the two humans in the front, I stretched out beside Rhoan and gently cradled him. He stirred again, then opened his eyes.

The brown was unsettling, alien. Not so his smile. 'I knew you'd find me.'

His voice was the barest of whispers, scratchy with pain, but to my ears it was the sweetest sound ever.

'Isn't that what little sisters are for?' I gently pressed my hand against his bruised cheek as his eyes drifted close again. 'Rhoan, who did this to you?'

'Starr. Moss.' He shuddered and the pain fury had been keeping at bay rushed through me like a tide. It wasn't just the pain of his injuries. It was the deadly fire of silver.

I licked my lips, trying not to panic. There was no silver knife of any kind stuck in his flesh, nor could I see a bullet wound, but that didn't mean anything. It only took a sliver imbedded under the skin to kill a wolf.

'Rhoan, where is it?'

'Butt.' He made a harsh sound that could have been a laugh. 'Idea of a joke.'

Then it was one I didn't immediately understand. I shifted, and ran my hand across his buttocks. Having been shot by silver myself, my flesh had become extremely sensitive to its presence. If it was under his skin, I'd feel it.

My fingers began to burn in the center of his left cheek. The sliver was about two inches long and needle fine. It was also too deep to drag out with my fingers.

'Take… out,' he gasped. 'Things going numb.'

It was then that I understood the so-called joke. Silver killed werewolves by destroying muscle and nerves and sensation, until the body was locked in pain and the ability to move and breathe was gone, and all that was left was a lingering, horrible death by asphyxiation.

I'd been shot in the arm, and the numbness had quickly traveled down to my fingers and up my neck. The bullet had been removed before any long-term damage had been done, but even so, I'd risked the use of my arm.

Rhoan was shot in the butt, so his loss of sensation was centered around that area—the butt and genitals. He risked the loss of something far more important to a wolf than a mere arm.

It was sick, and the bastards were going to die for it.

I touched Rhoan's cheek, drawing his attention again. 'I'm going to have to shift and bite.'

He nodded weakly. 'Do it.'

I took another glance at the men up front. They still weren't paying us any attention, so I called to the wolf within. The power swept over me, through me, until I was once again wolf rather than human. I licked my brother's face—a useless gesture that undoubtedly comforted me more than him—then slid my gaze down his body. In wolf form, the heat of the silver was more intense. The glow of it seemed to leak from his skin, a beacon that pointed to the precise spot.

I didn't let myself think about what I was about to do, just bared my teeth and slashed down into his skin. The taste of flesh and blood filled my mouth, followed swiftly by the fire of silver. I closed my teeth around it and ripped. Felt Rhoan jerk, and his body stiffen. He hissed, vocalizing the pain that reverberated through every corner of my mind.

I turned away and spat out his flesh. But his taste filled my mouth and suddenly I was gagging uncontrollably.

'What the hell was that?' one of the men in the front said.

Somehow, Rhoan found the strength to wrap a hand around my nose and hold my mouth closed. Bile rose up my throat but I managed to swallow it down. My body trembled almost as much as Rhoan's, and I wasn't entirely sure his grip on my muzzle was going to stop the tide for long.

'What was what?' The second voice was gruff, bored.

'That sound. Like someone coughing and throwing up.'

'Probably our passenger. Don't worry, with all the broken bones he's got, he ain't going nowhere.'

'Nowhere but the farming labs.'

They both laughed. Relief slithered through me. Rhoan released my nose, and as I glanced down, the golden haze of changing began to slide over his broken body, snatching his pain from my mind even as it began healing his wounds. He didn't stay long in his wolf form—it was hard to do so when the pain and the wounds are so great—but at least in shifting back, the healing was helped along that little bit further. I shifted shape myself, then wrapped my fingers around his and waited.

I had no idea how long it was before the Directorate arrived. It was probably only a few minutes later, but it seemed like forever before the truck rattled to a stop. There was no fighting, no nothing, just a stationary truck and two silent guards.

Then the backboard opened and Jack was there. 'About bloody time,' I muttered.

'We couldn't stop the truck any closer to the gates. They would have seen us.' He climbed into the truck and hunkered down beside me. 'How is he?'

'He'll live.' It was Moss and Starr who wouldn't.

'Good.' Jack's gaze went to Rhoan. 'Why did this happen?'

'I don't know.' He coughed, a hacking sound that tore at me. 'But he knew who I was.'

'How?'

He shrugged, and gave a bitter laugh, 'He gave me one small comfort, though. He said I was a good fuck and he'd miss me. At least I haven't lost my touch in that area.'

Something inside froze.

I'd heard those words before.

In the Blue Moon, when Rhoan had been snatched for milking and I'd only just started looking for him. I'd gone there to find either of Rhoan's mates in the vague hope they might know something. Liander hadn't been there, but Davern was. He'd been sitting at a table, getting pissed because he'd broken up with some guy. When I'd asked him why it even mattered, he'd repeated that same phrase. That exact same phrase.

That was why Starr's bloodshot eyes had seemed so familiar. Davern's eyes that night were the image of Starr's.

Davern was Starr.

But if that were true, why had Misha said that the ringleader of this whole shebang didn't know who I was? Had he been primed to say that at a certain question? Misha might have skirmished from the edges and found ways to avoid some of Starr's edicts, but in the end, he couldn't totally escape the control Starr had on him. And that control had killed him.

'Riley?'

I blinked at the sharpness in my brother's voice, and glanced down. 'It's Davern. Starr is Davern.'

'What?' Jack and Rhoan said as one.

'Where the hell did that conclusion come from?' Jack added.

I shrugged. In truth, I probably couldn't justify the statement with facts, but intuition had gotten me out of more trouble than it had landed me in, and I wasn't about to start questioning it now. 'When I met Starr for the first time, he felt familiar. There was something about his eyes I'd seen before—and now I remember where. In the Blue Moon, when I was talking to Davern and trying to find Rhoan. I thought at the time his eyes were red because of