“Fine. Let’s go.”
Jacob led her out a back door on the main level, away from the sounds of the deer being dressed and prepared in the large kitchen. A lot of that meat would be stored for winter.
The two of them stood outside under the bright moon with the mild near-summer breeze blowing over them. Thousands of stars were visible, all twinkling and unassuming. This was the same view she’d had on the roof more or less. But down here, outside the protection of the compound, it felt different. More wild. More free.
With each step they took farther from the big metal building, Sydney’s guilt grew. She’d get Jacob killed, and herself as well. But she kept walking, and he kept walking.
“I know where there’s a car. We can travel more safely that way than on foot,” Jacob said.
Sydney had never ridden in a car—that she could remember, anyway. She was sure at some point in her babyhood before the world had changed that she must have, but it was too long ago.
“What will we do when the sun rises?”
“We’ll find a place. There are a lot of abandoned houses now from when the people moved into the cities. Some of them have basements. We’ll be fine. We just need to get on the road.”
“Jacob, why are you helping me?” He seemed too eager. What if he was leading her to danger? Could she trust him when she fell dead for the day unprotected? He’d put the stake back into his boot after killing Elise, as if he might need it later. For her?
“You know how I feel about you,” he said. “You know I’d do anything for you.”
His hand was warm in hers as he took it and led her off to the car that would take them far from everything that had ever been safe.
2
Noah paced in the glass magic-reinforced cage. It was a hundred square feet, not nearly enough room for a wolf. The door slid open and raw meat was shoved in. He felt the glow come to his eyes, and he shifted. Raw meat was better in wolf form.
He shouldn’t shift. Any time he did, they just took more blood to use in their magic. The meat was drugged to sedate him so he wouldn’t struggle or hurt them when they brought out the needle. But sometimes oblivion was a good thing. It allowed him to dream about the good times when he was a pup.
He ripped into the meat, barely tasting the drugs. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have long term effects on his strength or health. Maybe it wasn’t a drug. Maybe it was a potion. It had an herbal flavor.
When the plate was clean, Noah drifted to the corner, the lethargy overtaking him. And he did dream.
He was seven or eight, right before he’d been taken. He’d been born in his fur and had only had a human form for about three years by that point. He still felt gangly and awkward as a human. It felt unnatural after spending so long living on four legs. It was as if the wolf was him and the human was what he shapeshifted into. Instead of the reverse.
He played under the sun with his den mates. The war was going on. It had been going on forever. But the hive and the surrounding forests and fields had been well-protected by a witch called Tam and a sorcerer named Dayne, along with a few others of their kind.
They were the only magical beings that reminded Noah that not all the magic users were bad. They weren’t all on the human side in the war.
Noah laid in the sun stretching his arms way out so he could be more tan like his dad. “Hey Mom, where’s Sydney? Why can’t she ever come out and play with me?” He didn’t understand why Sydney didn’t go in the sun like he did. The sun was great.
“She can’t, honey,” Jane said. “She has an allergy. You can see her when the sun goes down.”
“Great!” He ran to the stream to watch his den mates to see if they could catch a fish right out of the water with fangs and paws.
Syd was his best friend. He was going to protect her and take care of her forever.
His dad had seemed skeptical of that but wouldn’t tell him why except that, “The king would never allow it.”
Well, he wasn’t Noah’s king, so screw that. Sydney was too awesome to have that big angry vampire for a dad, anyway.
A black cat came out of nowhere and pounced on him, then ran back into the woods. Aunt Greta. One of these days he or one of the others might accidentally hurt her. But the werecat was fast! So maybe not. His dad chuckled from under a nearby tree.
Moments later, Greta emerged from the forest in some jeans and a T-shirt. She had clothes stashed in the woods all over the place. None of the wolves cared about being naked, but Aunt Greta was different. His mom called her reserved.
“Hey Jane,” she said, “Anthony’s being all crazy again. Let’s go kidnap Charlee for some girl time while he’s asleep. She needs to get out of that compound before she loses her mind.”
His mom stood and stretched then bent to kiss his dad. “I’m game.”
“Be careful,” Cole said. Like he needed to say that to Noah’s bad ass demon mom. Nobody could hurt Jane. She could make herself where she was like a ghost, and you couldn’t even touch her. And she had this scary demon form that sometimes Noah saw when he didn’t clean his cave. And she could shift into anything. She could become a bird and fly away. She was his hero.
“Careful is my middle name, babe,” she said. Before she left with Aunt Greta she turned back to Noah. “You be careful. Stay safe.”
Noah rolled his eyes at his mother. “Mom, I am the most powerful of all the werewolves that ever lived. I mean look at these muscles!” He held his arms up. They looked like regular kid arms and not the superpowered child he seemed to believe he was.
“Yeah, you are!” his dad said, chuckling.
Jane just shook her head, a wry grin on her face. “Just be careful.”
Noah jolted out of the dream, finding himself back in the sterile glass room. He whimpered and put his nose between his paws. He should have listened to his mother, and he still blamed himself for it. He’d only been a pup, but he still should have listened. He’d been old enough to listen. Even if he couldn’t manage it as listening to his parents, he should have listened to them as the pack alphas. No one else his age had gotten free passes like that. The alpha’s word was law to the pack.
It wasn’t long after that he’d been taken. He’d been playing chicken with the protected areas versus the unprotected areas with his friends. He’d jumped outside the protections at just the wrong moment and been taken by some magic users.
And he’d been here ever since.
Noah stretched and stood. Even more than being kept a prisoner, he hated that his blood might be used for magic to hurt more preternaturals. From what he could see, the humans had protected themselves well in tightly-controlled fortress cities. Now they were being aggressive because they could.
New clothes had been neatly folded and placed in the center of his cell. He shifted back to his human form and stretched again, then he ambled to the center of the room. He winked at the camera high in the wall over his cell. It was a holographic square patch that blended well into the glass, but he could still see it. Noah wasn’t sure if humans could detect it, but his vision was more enhanced than that. He could see the iridescent ripple that proved it wasn’t the same as the surrounding glass. He wasn’t sure if it was technology or magic. Over the past decade the two had blurred together until one was indistinguishable from the other.