Blood Ties Book Two: Possession

She sat up, a momentary frown crossing her face before she reached for him. Too shocked to resist, he sat motionless as she covered his mouth with hers.

It was as if he twisted helplessly in a powerful storm, relying on a woefully inadequate tether to anchor him to solid ground. He’d had this feeling before, this desperation for human touch that mirrored hers. He’d learned to guard himself against it. The crushing rejection on her face when he pushed her away shot suspicious pain through his chest. It steeled his resolve. “I won’t let you whore yourself to me in return for false affection!”

Her hurt boiled over into rage. “Why? You did it for all those other girls! You did it, then you killed them! Why not me?”

“Is that what you want?” Now that he’d touched her skin, heard her soft moans in his ear, the thought repulsed him. Perhaps he had more in common with those needy girls than he’d wanted to admit.

“I want to get it over with!” She flailed her arms and legs like a child having a temper tantrum as she screamed in frustration and despair. “I’m dead already! I just want to get it over with!”

Cyrus paced at the end of the bed, his heart hammering his ribs. How did one deal with humans when they lost control like this? In the first hours after he’d become mortal again, he’d felt panic and terror. He’d prayed for death. He knew her pain. If he could take it from her, he would.

In the weak moonlight that lit the kitchen area, he spied a block of knives on the counter. As soon as the Mouse was dead, he would have peace again, inside and out. No more doubting himself, no more fighting this frightening new humanity.

His anger dried up as her own temper subsided into small, childish sobs, and he felt like a monster again. No, monster was too strong a word. Craven. That described him better. Craven, to cower before such a formidable opponent as a weeping woman.

“Don’t cry.” He said it harshly, but he knew it was not a command she would obey. Cursing, he wrapped his arms around her shaking body and pulled her close, as if he could absorb the pain radiating from her.

“I’m just sick of waiting,” she sobbed against his shoulder. “I’m so scared, and I’m sick of waiting.”

He held her until dawn, though she’d cried herself to sleep much earlier. As sunlight filtered through the small, basement windows, the stupidity of his actions came crashing down on him.

You’re pathetic. It was his father’s voice, not his own, that echoed through his head. Look at you, staying at her side like a whimpering puppy.

As much as he hated the voice, he knew it was right. There was no room for his conscience in this place.

Still, he couldn’t tear himself from the comforting warmth of her body. And that frightened him more than any words his father might use to shame him.

In med school, I dreamed of one day owning my own practice. I’d envisioned exactly the right colors and furnishings to put my patients at ease as they waited to be seen.

The general should have called me for pointers. The waiting room of his office was as stark and white as the rest of the Movement’s underground compound. The general, however, took “stark” to a whole new level. Two cold, stainless steel chairs were the only furniture in the room. The fluorescent lights were so bright it seemed the place glowed, and the walls blended seamlessly into the floor, giving one the impression of floating in a void.

Like purgatory, only with folding chairs.

Max sat beside me, drumming his fingers on his thighs. “We weren’t supposed to keep him waiting, but he’ll keep us waiting?”

My nerves were too fried for me to bother concentrating on Max’s sarcasm. I’d anticipated the general would be a hard sell, considering the way Max and Anne had spoken of him, not to mention the fact he’d been the only staff member I’d heard of so far with a military rank before his name.

Of course, Max kept reassuring me things would be fine. I really wished I could believe that, but when the door to the inner office opened, I wanted to run.

My stomach returned to its proper latitude as my eyes bugged out of my head. A woman, tall and slender, dressed from neck to toes in black leather, strode through the door like a Bond girl. Her deep gold gaze slid over us, her slightly upturned eyes deadly serious. Her black hair fell down her back in a perfect, waist-length braid. She growled at us as she passed.

Max’s face flashed into feeding mode, his upper and lower jaws elongating to form a vaguely porcine snout with dripping canines. He snarled viciously, then his face returned to normal as quickly as it had changed.

The woman didn’t acknowledge him again, and when the outer door clicked shut behind her, he stood and kicked the chair. “Bitch!”

“What was that about? Bad breakup?”

Judging by the look on Max’s face, my humor was not appreciated. “That filthy dog? She wishes.”

I held up my hands. “Hey, I don’t know her, but I should inform you that it greatly offends my sense of sisterhood to hear you call another woman a dog.”

“That’s what she is.” He pointed accusingly to the door. “A stinking werewolf. The day the Movement let them join the ranks, I should have turned in my resignation.”

Morbid curiosity forced my gaze toward the closed door she’d exited through. “What is your thing against werewolves?”

“It’s not my thing against werewolves that makes me dislike that one. Bella DeCesare. She’s a real bitch.” He winced at the terminology. “Breton gives her all sorts of prime assignments, flies her all over because she’s his only assassin who can travel commercial. He says it’s because she’s got the best kill record of all the werewolves in the Movement. I say he’s boning her.”

“Nice.” I remembered Cyrus talking about lupins and how they’d distanced themselves from their more primitive cousins, but the way he’d described werewolves had made me picture hairy, half human beasts loping around in the woods, preying on innocent campers. The woman I’d seen had been anything but primitive. “So, they play for this side, as well. There were some lupins at Cyrus’s house, but I wasn’t sure exactly who they were.”

A look of utter disgust crossed Max’s face. “Let’s limit your use of that name to about zero times a day. But she’s not a lupin. She’s a werewolf. According to them, they’re not inter-changeable terms.” He sounded as if he didn’t care two figs for their differences. “They’re not as different as the lupins want you to believe. Werewolves are still tied to the earth and moon. There was some pack council a hundred years ago where they met to discuss controlling their cycles—”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “We are talking about their changing-into-dogs cycles and not menstruation, right?”

“Yes. And let’s go ahead and put that one on the zero tolerance vocab list, as well.” He gave another disgusted look. “Anyway, werewolves have always been really into that hippiedippy earth magic crap like Nathan’s got in his bookstore. Except they know what they’re doing, because they’re more or less ruled by nature. For centuries, they’ve dabbled in magic to alter time and skip over the days of the full moon’s influence. Then some of them turned to science, came up with an injection that will suppress the change. The resultant rift split the species into two clans, werewolves and lupins.

“The lupins believe they’re superior, because they advocate the vaccine that allows them to live as humans. The werewolves think the lupins are traitors for turning away from magic. So a war started, and since lupins have no problem feeding on innocent humans, the Movement sided with the werewolves. They join up and get the chance to kill lupins and vampires. Personally, I wouldn’t care if they lost their collective cool and ripped each other to shreds.”

“I’ll remember that, when it’s time to call in a cleaning crew to mop the fur and guts off the walls.”

I jumped at the cultured, but very commanding, British voice. So did Max. The man who’d spoken surprised me. I had definitely formed a picture in my head based around Breton’s military title. I’d expected a man in his fifties with an iron jaw, deep lines by his eyes and a haircut so precise as to be geometrical. Breton was nothing like that, except for the iron jaw. He’d probably been turned in his late thirties. His long, wheat-colored hair was pulled back in a severe horsetail, accentuating his sharp features and long, straight nose. His lips quirked in an expression that was either annoyance or amusement. It was hard to tell which.

“General Breton, I presume.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt as I extended my hand and prayed my palms weren’t sweaty.

The man didn’t take it. “We are not so formal here. You may call me General, Dr. Ames.”

“And you can call me…” I hesitated, rolling his words around in my brain. “Doctor?”

He gave me a cool, appraising look. “Come inside.”

We followed him through the door, Max showing Breton’s back the middle finger the whole time.

The inner office was a bit of a shock, considering the appearance of the waiting area. The walls were dark paneled wood, the carpet a deep, rich print. A huge desk with a carved emblem of a foxhunter dominated the room. Two stiff wing chairs stood before it, where Breton motioned for us to sit. It looked as if we’d entered a bad theme restaurant of British paraphernalia. A coat of arms and crossed swords rested above the mantel over a huge fireplace, and the Union Jack hung from a flag post in the corner. Behind the desk, two large windows—obvious fakes, considering we were below ground—showed a sunny country scene. Somebody’s missing the sunshine.

Not that I could blame him. I found myself occasionally longing for a lazy day of sunbathing on the beach.

“That’s very…pastoral.” I tried to sound friendly, but it came off wooden.

Breton’s eyes narrowed. They were gray, but nothing like Nathan’s. Nathan’s eyes were changeable, storm clouds with the occasional silver lining. Breton’s eyes were stone-colored, and just as formidable. “York. Lovely hunting there.” He settled into his chair, which looked infinitely more comfortable than ours, and placed a manila envelope on the desk. “These may be of interest to you.”

Max reached for the envelope. When he lifted it, glossy, black-and-white photographs slid out.

I covered my mouth, but couldn’t look away. The horrible pictures showed a woman, her head nearly severed, the column of her throat ripped away to the spine.

“I believe your friend Mr. Galbraith is responsible for this?” Breton asked, as though he needed confirmation.

A wave of sickness crept up my own throat as I nodded slowly. On the news, a witness had mentioned the victim’s throat had been torn. In reality, the whole front of her neck had been excised. The ragged edges of the wound were the impressions of teeth.

“Nathan’s been possessed by something,” Max explained, never looking at the photos. “That’s why we’re here.”