The Wolf in His Arms (The Runes Trilogy) Read online

  “South America is on schedule,” another commander asserted.

  “And Asia.” Another voice chimed in.

  “And Australia.” Echoed another.

  “Africa is ready, sir.” The final commander assured.

  Nigel folded his hands. “Let’s not let Europe be a disappointment, shall we? I just left London, and everything is smashing there.”

  “The European campaign will not disappoint, sir.”

  Nigel smiled, his green eyes sparkling with power. “I’ve arranged for shipments of explosives to arrive at port warehouses on every continent. Be sure to include progress with their placement in your reports. Good day.”

  Nigel clicked off the video call and looked out the window, relishing his plans. “I’m making this new world for you, my daughter, my most perfect creation.”

  Translations

  Alec stretched in the sleeping bag, his back arching with the morning effort. Jared nuzzled against him, groaning grumpily, and then tucked deeper into his own sleeping bag. Sleeping in the basement was cold, damp, and musty, but as a once-a-month penance to keep Lucy safe, the act seemed like little sacrifice. Alec nudged Jared. “Wake up, Sleepyhead.” Alec turned the lantern on, filling the tent with a soft white glow.

  “No,” Jared said and tucked his head like a turtle.

  Alec smiled, and unzipped his own sleeping bag. The cold air pressed at him from all angles, a painful, almost tickling sensation that made him quickly pull on his shirt and jeans. “If you get up, I’ll pour you coffee.”

  “Whatimezit?” Jared mumbled, his head still covered. He suddenly flipped the sleeping bag from his face, resolved to waking. “I hate mornings.”

  “Eight-thirty. The sun’s been up for an hour.” Alec grabbed the thermos tucked into the corner of the tent and unscrewed the lid.

  “Great. Good.” Jared pulled on his clothes with a frown. “I hate putting clothes on dirty skin. Gross.”

  Alec smiled at him again as he handed him the cup of coffee. Even Jared’s complaints were cute to him. His persnicketiness amused Alec, the way he hated clothes on dirty skin, the way he couldn’t stand to have unwashed dishes on the counter, the way the cap left off the toothpaste made him nuts. “I’ll get Lucy.”

  Jared nodded and, sipping his coffee, watched as Alec opened the flap of the tent and pointed a flashlight down the dark hall. As Alec flipped the switch, the beam of light suddenly split the long, windowless hall that was still dark as midnight. Alec rapped on the heavy metal door and called, “Lucy?”

  He heard a muffled reply. Alec walked to her bag, pulled out a change of clothes, and unlocked the vault door. “Lucy?” He asked again, with the door ajar.

  “Knock. Knock,” she replied.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Lucy.”

  “Lucy who?”

  “Loose ye head, if I were still a werewolf.”

  Alec groaned. “Not funny,” he said, extending his arm into the darkness to hand her the clothes. He left her to dress and rejoined Jared, who was fully awake and less grumpy.

  “She okay?” Jared asked.

  “Typical of the morning after.”

  “She tell a bad joke?”

  “Yep.”

  “A new one or a repeat.”

  “New. Especially bad.” Alec rested his head on Jared’s shoulder. “So what’s the psychology of that?”

  Jared sat pensively, then offered, “A way to break the tension. It’s gotta be awkward, sitting naked in the dark waiting for us to open the door.”

  “I think she’s just being difficult.”

  Jared tapped Alec’s nose. “That’s my diagnosis of you.”

  “Is that right? Any cure?”

  Jared smiled. “I’m willing to try an injection.”

  “Coffee first,” Lucy said, as she approached them. “Sexual innuendo later.” Lucy plopped on the floor next to them and accepted the cup Alec offered. “Everything go okay last night?”

  “Quiet,” Alec said, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Super quiet,” Jared confirmed.

  “I need a hot bath,” Lucy said, standing. She looked around. “I hate this place.”

  * * * *

  Collin Stalinski completed the first class of his first full day with no greater trouble than boredom. The class was not a general high school requirement, but a stipulation of the Cornerstone Boys Reformatory. The class, entitled Civility and Civilization, focused on helping students understand the importance of rules. Collin found the class odd. He doubted any of the students failed to understand the importance of rules; he, in fact, was certain that was why they broke the rules, himself included. But, if it means getting out of here with a clean record, I’ll pretend to listen, he thought.

  The bell rang, and the students stood to leave.

  Collin stood with a resigned sigh; he feared changing classes. He knew even a school like this one, which seemed to work with a precision so perfect that it was frightening, could break into chaos between classes. Collin knew that his offense was by far one of the least severe in the school. For many of the students this school was their last hope before hard time. Some had been involved in gangs; others burglary, shoplifting, bringing guns to school, and battery. His vandalism (art) and resisting arrest (running) paled in comparison to the rough characters in the school.

  Collin cast his eyes from side to side as he entered the hall. He walked with his head up but avoided eye contact, hoping that his bluff would keep him safe for the three minutes between classes. Teachers, arms folded across chests, stood outside each classroom, eyes on the students. Collin, however, knew how easy it was to slip a cruel act even past watchful eyes.

  With his books resting on his hip, Collin navigated the hall, avoiding bumping into any other students. As he passed two students, they erupted into a fight. He jumped back out of the way, as they slammed each other into lockers with loud, angry grunts and streams of profanity.

  Two teachers, aided by four students, pulled the students apart before Collin had time to evade the area. His back against the lockers, Collin watched as the students were subdued and forced to the ground. Proctor Roth emerged from his office. His cold green eyes fell on the students. “I’ve told you we have a zero tolerance policy for disruption.” He turned his gaze to the students pinning them. “Take them to the pen.”

  “What the fuck!” One of the students yelled as he struggled to his feet. Collin watched as the young man twisted uselessly in the grip of the other students. He could see a glimmer of fear in the student’s stern, angry face.

  Proctor Roth turned to Collin. His green eyes bore into him. “Aren’t you going to be late to your next class?”

  Collin cast his eyes down. “Sorry.” He scurried away, hoping to reach his class before the bell. The pen? He wondered. Where the hell am I?

  * * * *

  A long soak in the tub left Lucy feeling refreshed, almost human. The warmth lingered on her skin as she dressed in her bedroom. Entering the hallway, she heard the shower begin behind the closed bathroom door. “I’m putting my earphones in,” Lucy teased not-too-subtlety to Alec and Jared as she padded past the bathroom door. The edges of her mouth curved in self-amusement as she popped the earphones in. Soothing chords floating in her ears, she sat down with the translations Jared had begun. She examined his translations of the runes, verified a few quickly, and then picked the page titled TheGen5Pack.

  Her concentration was never at its normal level the day after a full moon, but the act made her feel that she had a mind, a part of her that wasn’t uncontrollable instinct. She flipped from the translation page to the original document and found that, even with her faulty faculties, she was beginning to recognize some of the runes. Before long, she would have the alphabet memorized, and the translations would take her no time at all.

  Lucy cut her eyes from the page she was working on to the stacks of coded pages. She sighed. Well, almost no time, she thought.

  * * *
*

  Steam billowed in the air around Alec and Jared. Jared stood in the hot spray from the shower, eyes closed, as Alec lathered his back, adding a shoulder massage for good measure. He felt Alec nuzzle his neck, and Jared opened his eyes and tilted his head for a kiss.

  As Jared turned to face him, Alec dabbed his nose with lather. “Cute,” Jared said. He reached around and smacked Alec’s butt playfully. The wet smack was gratifyingly loud.

  “We have a lot of history in this shower,” Alec said between kisses. Water rolled down his bare skin and caught where his body pressed against Jared’s.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Alec closed his eyes as Jared’s hands explored across his back and rested on his hips, pulling him closer. “Good history.”

  “Yep.” Lather slid down their bodies, collecting at their feet and washing down the drain as they pressed their bodies together. Jared brushed a clump of wet hair away from Alec’s forehead. Alec’s gaze met his, and Alec placed his hands on either side of Jared’s face. He held Jared back for just a moment, then leaned in for a long, deep kiss. He clutched tighter to Jared, working their hips together as the water beat on their skin. “No harm in using up all the hot water.”

  Jared worked his mouth across Alec’s wet skin, across his neck, down his chest to his nipple. Alec tossed his head back with a sound that was half moan, half giggle. Jared’s trail of kisses descended, each sending new shockwaves of pleasure through Alec’s body. Alec winced as his shoulders rested against the cold tiles, but he didn’t dare disturb Jared. He worked his fingers into Jared’s hair, his eyes closed, as he floated away.

  * * * *

  As Alec and Jared walked into the room, Lucy looked up with a mildly bemused smirk, an expression suggesting the older sister who would always, to some extent, enjoy tormenting her younger brother.

  “Making any progress with those?” Jared asked as he nodded to the translations.

  Lucy extended a paper to him. Jared took it, and Alec looked over his shoulder. “Is this a full page, translated?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “That was quick, Luce,” Alec said.

  “Jared did the hard part of decoding it.”

  “No need for modesty on my account.” Jared sat in a chair, and Alec took the chair next to him so they could read the page together:

  The Gen5 Pack

  Project leader: Dr. Albert Morlock

  Project update: Dec-13-1995

  Report to: The Society

  Hypothesis: Through proper gene manipulation of the Lycan retrovirus, we can develop a stabilized variation, which mutates under controlled measures.

  While The Gen3 Pack trials had mixed results, The Gen4 Pack trials yielded great success with four fetuses carried to full term. The genetic alteration variant used in the successful Gen4 trials has been used in The Gen5 Pack. A sixth fetus has now been carried to full term, completing the test subject selection. All six pack members were born within seven years of the first insemination.

  Human parapsychological traits that Lycans have deemed “advantageous” have been identified as a genetic marker in each of the six test subjects.

  Test subjects:

  Jennifer Blackwell; Bull Mountain, Oregon; boy, 1988

  Helena Demeter; Las Vegas; girl, 1989

  Marla Kincaid; Easton, Connecticut; boy, 1987

  Georgette Michaelson; Chagrin Falls, Ohio; boy, 1987

  Ilene Rune; Detroit; boy 1992

  Mary Snug; Lime Springs, Iowa; boy, 1994

  Lucy waited for Jared and Alec to look up, signaling they had finished reading. “It’s hard to see our mothers listed as test subjects,” she said.

  “And ourselves,” Alec added. “Though were not named.”

  “So, these are the mothers of the pack.” Jared said with a solemn finality. He stood and pounded his fist into his hand. “We need to find them, so we can find the pack members.”

  “And when we do?”

  “Convince them to join us.”

  “And if they don’t want—”

  “Or don’t believe you,” Lucy broke in.

  Jared shook his head. “They have to.”

  “I didn’t believe you. Not at first.”

  Jared crumpled back into his chair. He ran his hand over his short dark hair. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “They could already be moving in on them,” Lucy said. “They came after both of you.”

  “We don’t know what they’re doing,” Alec said.

  “We know more than I knew a year ago,” Jared said.

  “Why can’t you home in on them, like you did with me?”

  “Because Darius led me to you. I don’t have him to follow.”

  “But if you had something of theirs—” Lucy began.

  “Yes?”

  “You could track them?”

  “Right.”

  “So we start with what we have. Their hometowns. We search them out Internet-stalker style and get you a scent to follow.”

  “People move all the time.”

  “People stay put all the time too.”

  Alec tired of their arguing and launched to his feet. He flipped the laptop on the table around and typed in Mary Snug, Lime Springs. “She’s still there,” he said.

  “Who?” Lucy asked.

  “Mary Snug. She’s still in Lime Springs.”

  “I guess we’re going to Iowa,” Lucy said and stood, as if she were ready to pack. She looked at Alec and Jared. “Am I going alone?”

  “Now?” Jared asked.

  “We can have lunch first.”

  * * * *

  A murky winter sun cast long shadows across the frozen land as Jenna Nichols stumbled out of the woods. In the bluish twilight of the setting sun, she emerged between trees. A narrow country road cut across the frozen landscape before her. Like a newborn fawn, tentative, and seeming to have little comprehension of cars, she stumbled, naked, onto the road.

  A car filled with teenagers swerved to miss her as the car headlights flashed on her naked, alabaster skin. They swerved to miss her, and their car skidded toward a roadside ditch. Snow burst into the air as the car collided with a snow bank. Jenna stared at the car for a long while before approaching. As the driver, shaken up but not hurt, called the police, a young girl in the backseat opened the door and called to Jenna. “Are you hurt?”

  “Help me,” Jenna sobbed. The girl then noticed the dried blood that caked one side of Jenna’s body. The girl scanned the woods, fearing whoever hurt Jenna now had them in their grasp. She realized with certainty that so many horror movies began this way. The realization sank deeper as she heard the car’s tires whirring in the snow, unable to find traction. She forced down her panic, and offered her coat to Jenna and helped her into the car.

  An hour later, Darrin Nichols received a phone call that his wife and been found, and he rushed to the hospital where she was being treated. Joy and apprehension wrestled within him as he approached the room where she was being treated. He pushed the door open. “Jenna?” He whispered.

  “Darrin,” she cried, raising her arms toward him. He darted to her and clutched her, sobbing in relief.

  Jenna’s memory of what happened was hazy; she remembered jogging, remembered finding the woman, but nothing else. She was treated for minor injuries, including a bite wound, and released from the hospital.

  On the nightly news, Darrin expressed his gratitude to all those who helped search for Jenna, and he wept joyously when he said, “I can’t believe she’s home.”

  A Midwest Mid-winter

  Looking out the car window, Lucy noted that mid-February was not a pleasant time to visit most places in the northern half of the U.S. Winter had grown old, bleak, and tired. Snow clung in gray-black clumps to the side of the road, and brown grasses and broken cornstalks poked through the white and black fields like liver spots. The sky droned on in a gray that nearly matched the dirty snow—and Lucy forced herself not to judge Iowa on this visit. Judging a pla
ce in February was simply unfair.

  From the interstate highway to a state route, they drove for almost nine hours. They exited the state route for a motel before reaching Lime Springs. Jared paid for the room with two double beds while Alec and Lucy waited in the car. Alec looked across the nearly empty parking lot, washed white by the halogen lamp overhead. A wind gust rocked the car, and he watched as debris skittered across the asphalt and out of the wash of the lamplight.

  Jared emerged from the office and waved them to join him as he walked to a first-floor room near the car. The door groaned against the wind as Alec pushed it open. He slung his and Jared’s bags over his shoulders as Lucy climbed out with her bag. Alec grabbed a cooler from the trunk before following Lucy into the hotel.

  “Cozy,” Alec said as he kicked the door shut behind him.

  “I’m just glad to be out of the car,” Lucy said. She yanked the bedspread down and flopped onto her bed. Jared flopped onto her bed with her, and she shoved him playfully.

  “I’m glad to have wine.” Alec removed the bottle of red wine from the cooler and filled three plastic cups. He handed Lucy and Jared their cups. Alec sat on the bed with them. “Cheers.”

  “Clank,” Jared added, imitating glass. “Do you think they’re ahead of us?”

  Lucy and Alec returned blank stares.

  “Sorry. The other werewolves. The bad guys. They have to be going after the pack, too.”

  “Without Darius, I wonder who they’re sending,” Alec pondered.

  “Let’s just hope we get to them first,” Lucy said.

  Alec stared into his plastic cup while contemplating. He looked across the bed at them as a warm smile bloomed on his face. “We haven’t done this for a long time. Just talked. Had some wine. It feels a little like old times.”

  “It’s hard,” Lucy said, “balancing the past and the present.”