The Wolf in Her Heart Read online

  “Lou, this is suicide. You’re no match for Rick at this point!”

  Lou swallowed and nodded. “I know, but the aconite is wearing off. I’ll be turning soon.” She opened her eyes again and pulled off her jacket, her tee, her jeans. The sight would have been enticing in any other context. All of the clothes were stuffed quickly into one of the bookshelves as she spoke. “I don’t know if it’ll be soon enough, but if it is, then I’ll kill him. Nobody does this to you and gets away with it.“

  “What do you think is going to happen to me if I have to watch you get torn apart?” Samantha’s voice was breaking and she tried to shake the bars, but all she did was jostle herself. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t. Lou had to change her mind. “Open the door. Come in here. You won’t kill me! We’re mated. Please?”

  Lou hesitated. She wanted to open the door, Sam could see it in her eyes. A shiver pulsed through her naked form, and her mouth opened and closed, doubt furrowing her brow.

  Samantha was certain Lou was going to reconsider this plan.

  Lou’s eyes became wide, then wider. She turned her back to Sam, facing the doorway, then threw her head back and a scream loosed from deep in her. Her whole body shuddered as she fell to her knees.

  “Lou? Lou, what’s happening?” Samantha held her breath. Whatever aconite did, hopefully it wasn’t this.

  Samantha’s answer came when Lou’s hand strained, sick cracking and popping sounds coming from each one. Fingernails split open as thick, pointed claws pushed out of her fingers. The bones in Lou’s whole skeleton seemed to shake under her flesh, and her body expanded, a rippling crunching crackling spreading through her body amidst more agonized screaming. The spasms in her body shook the floor under Sam’s bare feet.

  Sam’s breathing was ragged as she watched Louann’s entire body seem to stretch and shift. Hair was everywhere by now, the length stopping after a few inches, the coloration radically unlike Rick’s nearly black fur.

  Lou fell onto her side, screeching, and her eyes rolled back to look at Samantha as her face wrenched itself over stretching bone. The nose Sam had booped any number of times spread wider, became blunter, the texture changing almost as fast.

  Then, the wolf that was Lou was still. The shape was somewhat like Rick’s wolf, save for the two breasts swamped under the fur. Lou had something approaching husky coloration, with whites and grays.

  “Lou?” Samantha barely breathed the word out. “Are you okay?”

  A crash in the smaller outer room prevented Lou from answering that question, even if she could have formed the words with her altered throat and mouth.

  Sam stared at the door of the smaller room, which was buckling under great force. Another crash and it fell inwards to the floor, revealing the hulking shape of the beast that had come for Sam after she woke up.

  Lou leapt onto all fours with great energy, but little shudders pulsed through her body. Sam couldn’t guess whether it was some residual effect from the aconite or just Lou recovering from the turn, but either way, it was clear to her that she was not at her best.

  Rick snarled, tilting his head, his eyes bright reflected points of light set on a backdrop of almost black fur.

  Lou snarled in response, letting it grow into a thick roar.

  For a moment, neither moved, as if somehow Lou was staring Rick down.

  The large snarling shape that Rick had become launched towards Lou in the air, knocking both of them against the bars of the cage. Snarls were punctuated with smacks and thuds and piercing whines as the two of them grappled, each one trying to get a better angle to bite or swipe.

  A plume of blood spilled out on the floor with a wet splat, almost reaching the cage Samantha was in. She backed away from it instinctively, her eyes lifting to the ball of fur and energy that was comprised of her asshole ex and the woman she loved.

  The image, again, flashed in her head—Lou, throat torn out, a corpse. It seemed to stop Sam’s heart and breath, and she shut her eyes. Bad enough if it happens, but she didn’t want to see it if it did.

  Another crash of wolven forms against the cage made her open her eyes again, but this time there was more blood on the floor. Some of it was in their fur, plenty was dripping from their muzzles, and more spilled as she watched.

  There was a lull, in the room around the cage, with both of them on hind legs, circling around one another. Lou had a gash on her side, but Sam couldn’t tell how deep it was. Rick had several smaller ones, one on his neck below the left side of his head, but it didn’t bleed much.

  The two of them couldn’t keep doing this. Rick would kill Lou, and Sam just couldn’t imagine what she’d do after that.

  She has my heart.

  Samantha swallowed, but could only imagine one useful way to affect the fight.

  Rick was closer to the cage than Lou now, with them circling each other.

  Samantha screamed. “Rick! Rick, goddamnit, look at me, you fucker!”

  The wolf’s ear twitched, his head turned perhaps five degrees at some deeply buried cognizance of the name or the voice or perhaps even just Samantha’s scent getting closer.

  It was all Lou needed.

  Louann launched herself at him, claws tense on hooked digits, and slashed at the unprotected front of his neck.

  He blinked as a waterfall of blood gushed forth, sprays of it issuing from the sides, and seemed to stare at Samantha for a split second before crashing to the floor.

  Lou’s eyes were on Sam.

  Sam gasped and backed up too fast, landing on her ass. She began to scrabble backwards but Lou was already at the bars. A claw shot between them, reaching for her, but it wasn’t long enough to reach her.

  Blood still dripped from the claws. The beast Lou became had the same green eyes, and some of the patterns of her fur had subtle shifts of direction that suggested she had the same scars on her body. There was blood leaking into her fur from the wound on her side, and the wolf whined, leaning its head down to lick at the wound briefly. It looked back up at Samantha and blinked.

  “Lou?”

  Another thick whine. Lou snuffled at the bars, then laid on her belly, watching Samantha. Behind her, Rick’s body looked a lot more like Rick, albeit minus most of his neck.

  Sam swallowed. All she had to do now was wait. Wait for the moon to set, or for the sun to rise, or whatever the exact point of turning back was. Lou had never been very clear about the particulars. Lou never wanted to talk about the wolf.

  She almost died.

  Lou’s wolf whined softly in front of her, staring at her.

  What if she’s dying now?

  Samantha shut out the image in her head of watching the wolf stop breathing, watching it become the bled corpse of the woman who came into her life out of nowhere.

  She had to believe that Lou was going to survive. It didn’t look like she was in massive pain at this point, either. It seemed likely the wolf was simply pining.

  Pining for me.

  Samantha tilted her head, then held her breath and slowly crept forward. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was about to was reasonable or even sane.

  Rick was dead, though. And Lou had said she’d be weak from the aconite, possibly for a while. If the Colbys retaliated, neither she nor Lou would be safe. Unless—

  Lou would die before she let Samantha get hurt, by the Colbys or anything else. Sam didn’t want to take that chance, though.

  She forced herself to take a few deep breaths, then closed the distance between herself and the wolf’s paw, taking hold of one claw. Lou blinked at her, but it wasn’t clear if she understood what Samantha was doing.

  Sam wasn’t quite sure what she was doing either. The fact was that imagining Lou dead was like eating ashes by the handful, and Sam didn’t want it to happen, ever, if she could prevent it. If she let the wolf scratch her, she could protect Lou when Lou needed it.

  Maybe she’ll forgive me, Sam thought, as the wolf pulled her claw back, away from Sam’s grip.
Sam held her breath and forced herself to hold tight, and the pain of the sharp claw digging in, dragging a thin trench in her flesh, told her the deed was done. Maybe, just maybe, Lou wouldn’t think about getting rid of her all the time, for ‘her own good’.

  Having Lou was for her own good.

  Samantha opened her hand to find a rich red gash across her palm, and a feeling seemed to vibrate through her hand, her arm, her whole body within seconds.

  A confused whine came out of Lou, her head tilting left and right, ears swiveling. Her nose twitched.

  Sam was a little more preoccupied with the pain deep in the center of her hand, a pain that spread out. She’d broken her arm once when she was eleven, falling off a swing. Now, the fused bones in her hand broke themselves, seemingly a thousand of the sharp cracking pains spreading through and stretching.

  Fresh, raw agony spiked through her fingertips as claws made their way out of her flesh, fingernails giving way with little resistance. Flesh tore and twisted, bones bent and expanded.

  Sam’s ears were filled with her own screams, her throat already sore and only getting more so. She fell onto her side, shuddering and wailing, unable to think, unable to feel, unable to process.

  The last thing she saw before she blacked out was Lou, watching her with large, sad, bright green eyes.

  Light cut into Sam’s eyes.

  Soreness washed over her awareness, every part of her body seeming to be bruised or smarting. Joints felt broken, but they weren’t. All her flesh cried out as she fought to get up from the floor.

  She was nude, and the strewn tatters of her clothing around her body told the tale of last night.

  Oh god. What did she do? Memory flooded back, and then the unreal transformation—all of it up to the point she blacked out.

  A scent tickled at her nose, raw and strong, somewhere between rare steak and raw meat that was starting to turn, but she couldn’t smell it enough. Sam pulled herself in the direction of it, and fresh pain crashed through every cell of her body at the movement.

  Samantha slumped to the floor of the cage, gasping for breath. Her face felt like it’d been beaten with a hammer, but probing it with fingers didn’t reveal any sign of injury. Nor did the rest of her body, when she checked all the pained spots out.

  Whatever the turn did to her body, it apparently fixed afterwards, at least structurally.

  A hangover would have been a mild comfort compared to this. Every bone in her body had a deep, throbbing ache simultaneously. Sam rubbed her face and got on her knees, focusing on the movement with great effort.

  Lou lay on the floor, snoring, nude. Her clothes were still stuffed into one of the bookshelves, but Lou herself was a mess. Dried blood matted half her hair into a sticky-looking mass. Blood was also dried on her stomach, sides, arms, and face, as though a wide paintbrush had taken random strokes over her naked flesh. With the blissful look on her face, an unknowing observer would make little sense of the sight.

  It made sense to Sam, somehow, on some level she was still learning to grasp. Lou had fought. Lou had won. Immediate danger was dealt with and things were as safe as they could be considering the circumstances. They weren’t, safe, of course, but the wolf didn’t know that when it fell asleep, exhausted, as near to its mate as it could be.

  Samantha knew better. It wasn’t going to be long before someone would come to look for Rick, or some staff would show up. How much time they had, she had no idea. It just wasn’t enough.

  “Lou! Lou, wake up!” Sam gripped a bar of the cage door and jostled it, trying to make more sound.

  Lou slowly opened her eyes. “Sam?” Instant panic tore them open. “Jesus fuck! What happened?”

  “That’s rhetorical, right? Because, y’know, I didn’t shred my clothes on purpose and lock myself in a cage.”

  “You got turned.” Lou shut her eyes, her lips tightening, and rubbed her face. “Christ. This is exactly what I did not want to happen. Was it Rick?”

  Samantha blinked. Lou didn’t remember what the wolf saw. The momentary impulse to tell a lie and save her a ton of guilt flitted through her mind, but she couldn’t make herself do it. “It was you, Lou.”

  “What? How? You were in the cage!”

  “I did it. I reached out. I took hold of your . . . paw. You were trying to reach for me, so it was in the cage.“

  Lou’s face fell. “Samantha, jesus! What the fuck is wrong with you?! Sam, this is—this is—“

  “This is how it is. It can’t be undone.” Samantha held out her hand, palm up, showing the scarred scratch along it. “Right?”

  “It never has been, as far as I know.” Lou’s brow furrowed and fire raged in her eyes. “Why the fuck did you do it?”

  Samantha swallowed. “Because I didn’t want you to have to die to save me next time something happens.”

  Lou rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”

  That wasn’t the only reason, but Sam wasn’t going to get into her insecurities at a time like this. “I love you. I don’t care. I knew you’d be mad and I did it anyway, because whether you like it or not I’m part of your life. For all I knew, I’d have to deal with some lackey of the Colbys by this point. I didn’t want to be defenseless.”

  “You wouldn’t have been. I’d—“

  “You poisoned yourself to save me. I don’t want it to happen again. For all I know, you’re still weak from the aconite. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, ever. Period.”

  “I am still weak from the aconite. That’s not the point.” Lou huffed and shook her head. “I wanted to protect you from this.”

  “You did. You will. We’ll be together. We can protect each other.”

  Lou raised a finger like she was about to say something, then opened her hand, palm facing Sam. “You know what? We don’t have time for this. Suffice to say I’m pissed. We have to get out of here.” Lou fished out the clothes jammed into the bookshelf and brought out a cheap, old flip phone. “Reggie? Reggie? Thank fuck. We’re at Brentwood.” Pause. “Yes, Brentwood.” Another little pause. “Great. Watch out, okay? I have no idea whether the Colbys or the cops know what happened here.”

  “Lou?”

  Lou closed the little flip phone, her back to Sam. “Don’t talk to me right now. I mean it. I’m—I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Lou, are you going to let me out of the cage?” Sam’s stomach was growling and she really, really wanted to get away from Rick’s corpse before instincts tried to tell her to eat up.

  Lou groaned. “Yes. Sorry. This is just—it’s a lot to take in.” She picked up the key in the corner and came over to the cage, unlocking it. She wouldn’t make eye contact with Sam. “We need to hurry.”

  “I’m naked, and I don’t think that I can turn any of those shreds into a bikini, Lou.” Sam sighed and rubbed her face.

  Lou hesitated. “Your suggested solution?”

  “There’s laundry service and a courtesy shower for the hunters. We can get all the blood off and probably steal me some clothes. I won’t look as fantastic as usual, but I won’t be naked, either.”

  Lou rolled her eyes. “The things rich people have. Well, what are we waiting for?” Lou ticked her head at the door. “C’mon.”

  It took a bit of looking to find the courtesy shower. Ten minutes later, Sam got out of a hot, quick rinse, mostly to get the blood spatter off her body. Lou had gone first, and was already getting dressed by the time Samantha got out.

  Lou gestured, a chill in her voice, at the hangars on the wall hook. Slacks and a blouse. “I already picked you out some clothes. We need to move.”

  Perhaps ten minutes later, Sam and Lou made their way to the front door. Fresh air swept in through the opening, and on it Sam could catch drifting odors of oil, animals, grass that had been cut a week ago. There was a rainbow of strange scents, things that must have been there last night but were imperceptible to her senses at the time.

  Lou gaped at the shattered glass.

  “It�
��s where Rick saw me.”

  “Yeah, I just—I got in one of the side doors. I didn’t know.” Lou took Sam’s hand, and finally met her eyes. “You must have been terrified. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”

  “I’m sorry about Rick was such an asshole.” Sam pulled her hand away and wrapped around Lou. “I’m sorry that I almost got you killed.”

  A beat-up sedan, one bumper ever so slightly cockeyed, pulled up in front of the shattered doors. Some stickers and smears were on the rear side windows, and in the front seat was Reggie, with a strained expression. “Get in the car. I’ll get yours somewhere safe.” He got out and went over to Samantha’s Spark.

  Samantha got into the sedan, greeted by the stale odors of weed and beer. There were thinner smears on the front side windows, and the stickers in the back were various unicorns and pegasi. “Lou, where did he get this car?” Definite scent of dog, no question, all the way through the thing.

  Lou shrugged. “Stole it, maybe. Bought it off someone for a few hundred, more likely. It only needs to get us a few counties over.”

  Sam nodded, shivering despite the warmth. She couldn’t help but think back to Rick’s corpse, the seemingly endless blood between his neck and his head after his body returned to normal, and the twisted look on his face.

  And god, the smell. Sam still couldn’t get it out of her nostrils, or maybe her lungs, or maybe just her brain. It spoke to her of nourishment and slaughter, of preparing for a fight, and kept her own blood pumping hard in her ears even now.

  “Hey. Hey.”

  “What?” Sam blinked, looking at Lou.

  “Get some sleep, Samantha.” Lou’s brow was tugged up in the middle. “You’re going to need it. A change takes a lot out of you.”

  “A change? What about you, Ms. Self-Poisoning?”

  “I’m used to it,” Lou hedged with a shrug. “I’ve used aconite before. It doesn’t tickle, but it’s survivable.”

  Sam put the seat all the way back and tried not to think.