Bewere the Night

“Breaking up your little love nest,” Jules said, arms crossed. “You left me for this?”

My nostrils flared. “I left you because you used me,” I said.

Jules jabbed a finger at my unconscious lover. “Like she isn’t? You’re just an infected to her.” She stepped forward and pain registered on her face, if only briefly. “I’m sorry. I never should have let Peter talk you into this. But once this is over, we’ll talk.”

“Once what is over?” A chill crept up my spine as I watched the wolf carry Ginny out the door. I started to struggle but the other wolves manhandled me to a less mobile position. “What are you doing to her?”

“As much as I’d like to, I’m not doing anything. We take the Seeonee territory tonight.” She sniffed at me. “You’ve already changed.”

“If you hurt her, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Jules spread her arms, inviting me to explain. “You’ll what, Claire?” She stepped towards me and touched my chin with her fingertips. I didn’t have the freedom to recoil. “Don’t you see how they were planning to use you?”

I did. Ginny had come clean with me about that. But that was Seeonee scheming. There was no way Jules could know. “You’re lying,” I said.

“Why would I lie to you?” Her hand moved from my chin and stroked my cheek.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I stiffened as I tried to turn my head away, and she dropped her hand.

“Then you’re a bigger fool than Peter took you for.” She took a step back. “The Seeonee were going to use you for murder and let the humans kill you for it.”

I blanched. How did she know?

I didn’t have time to think about it. Jules pulled a hypodermic out of her pocket and removed its plastic sleeve. The red wolves tightened their grip on my arms and one grabbed a fistful of my hair. Another held out my wrist.

The wolf inside my head snarled. “What is that?”

“A new batch of cocktail,” she said.

She came at me with the needle but I struggled. The claws in my hair tightened and pain lanced up my spine. Jules grabbed my face and brandished the needle in my field of vision.

“You can hold still and let me administer this,” she said with an undercurrent of a lupine growl, “or you can keep up the shenanigans and I’ll jam it straight into your tear duct. Which will it be?”

Terrified, I held still. She grabbed my wrist, tapped the veins there with the back of her fingernail, and stuck me. The fluid spread up my arm like ice water.

Tingling followed the numbness and the wolf howled inside my head, trying to claw its way out. Every muscle cramped. I started to faint, but shook my head violently to clear my vision. The change was coming again, the pain still familiar from last night. “Why are you doing this!”

Jules waggled the empty syringe at me. “Test subject.”

My skin crawled from beneath, as though she had injected me with a hive of angry bees. My legs faltered and the red wolves dragged me along as they followed Jules out of the apartment. I wanted to vomit. My head spun. Tingling spread to the rest of my limbs, my mouth watered and my vision tunneled. I forgot where I was.

Next I knew, I was dropped on my knees in the gravel of the driveway. I did retch, and felt a little better afterwards, except the drug was making my heart race and spots clouded my vision. I heard Jules’s voice, painfully loud in my ears. “Did you make the call?”

The plastic click of a shutting cell phone was as harsh as a gunshot.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “They barked my ear off. Pretty convincing, to their credit.”

Footsteps on the gravel crunched like a coffee grinder. I wanted to cover my head but my arms wouldn’t move. My shoulders, still aching from last night’s disjointing, popped again and I blacked out as they readjusted.

“They’ll come right to us,” Peter said. I strained through the blurry vision and saw him crouch down beside Ginny. He stuck a needle in her arm. There were more wolves in the parking lot, at least a dozen that I could see.

Jules walked over to me, straddled me, and draped a loop of chain around my neck. I growled a deep, horrible sound at her and it shocked me that I’d made such a noise. I looked down at my hands, but black paws had replaced them. The pain and rage faded.

I was conscious. The change had come, and I was still conscious. This wasn’t the same drug as before.

Jules tightened the chain and pulled my head up, but I felt her finger pressed against my nape, under the chain, to prevent it from choking me. She bent to my ear.

“I know you can hear me,” she whispered. I couldn’t see her and I tried to struggle, but she put a knee between my shoulderblades and yanked my head higher. “I know you can, Claire, so listen to me.”

A car pulled up with a blaze of headlights. The doors opened and Mae got out, along with two of the Seeonee, who dragged out a fourth person in chains. He was a scruffy man, bruised and beaten, but he wore designer jeans and a nice jacket. His eyes widened when he saw us.

I tried in vain to sniff for Ginny, but Jules’s quiet, urgent voice distracted me. “I told you I wasn’t lying. I knew what Mae was planning to do with you because Peter told me. Just watch.”

Peter sauntered to the car and, to my astonishment, kissed Mae. He put his hand on her swollen stomach. “How’s our son?”

Mae’s hand covered his. “Doing fine, sweetheart.”

“Peter?”

The voice belonged to the shackled man.

“Peter, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry to do this to you, David,” Peter said, putting an arm around Mae’s shoulders. “But you’re only human, after all.”

I could hear David’s panicked heartbeat.

Jules rested her other hand, the one that gripped the chain, atop my head. I thrashed but she was strong enough to hold me still. “That’s the man you’re supposed to kill,” she whispered.

Mae appraised me with a glance, then nodded and asked, “How is Geneva?”

“Ready to wake up with a bad temper,” Peter said. He glanced at his wristwatch. “When’s the rest of your pack due?”

“Any minute.”

“Good. Get your perfume ready,” said Peter. He stripped out of his suit. The two Seeonee that had come with Mae did the same. One of them handed her the car keys.

“Remember,” Mae told them, “These are our new packmembers. We can’t have an all-out war. Attack only the dissenters.”

“Including the Donnelly girl,” Peter added. A shadow crossed Mae’s face when he said that. “Do whatever’s necessary to kill her when she comes after your alpha.” He put his hands on Mae’s stomach again. “We’ve got a new heir, combining the bloodlines.”

I bristled. So, that was their plan all along. Unite the packs with deception, kill anyone who didn’t accept it. We’d all been duped. I snarled, and when Mae caught sight of me she flinched. She said to Jules, “Is she feralized?”

“Yes,” Jules lied. “She’ll kill David like you want, as long as he’s in her path when I unleash her.” At that, the smell of David’s sweat soured.

“Good,” Mae nodded and turned back to Peter. “Good.”

Howling sounded in the woods. I felt the immediate urge to answer, but Jules tightened the chain to prevent me. Peter stepped back from Ginny; she stirred and started spasming.

Mae stood back as Peter and the others changed. While they shifted, Jules bent and whispered quickly in my ear. “This has been in the works for a while, and I won’t follow an alpha who lies to the pack. When I let you go, do whatever you think is right. But know this—the fight is coming.” She hesitated. “I’m sorry I exposed you to this. I’m