Howling Mad: A paranormal wolf shifter romance (Badlands Book 2) (5 page)

Chapter Nine

Back at the motel, Byron flicked through the cash, counting it. They had several hundred dollars, even though he’d handed over a substantial wad to the little girl, and they’d left more than enough for Clem to make up for a day of lost sales. Naomi’s eyes kept drifting to it as she munched on her pizza. It wasn’t exactly gourmet dining, but after a diet of candy bars and soda, a slice of pepperoni-and-mushroom tasted like heaven.

He tucked the money into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, then sat on the floor beside her, back propped against the side of the bed. He reached for a slice of pizza, then said, “Go on. I know you’re dying to say it.”

“Well…” She put down her half-eaten slice on the box lid she was using as a plate and licked pizza grease off her fingers. “Doctor Dash? Roll up, roll up and buy my wonderful snake oil? It’s very charming and I want to believe it, but something doesn’t add up. How did you end up in the high-security wing, snarling at the wardens and shredding your jumpsuits into confetti? Did you hurt someone?” She hesitated. “Did you kill someone?”

Was there a flash of hurt in his eyes again? But he’d intimidated even the wardens when his feral behaviour had been at its worst, and they routinely dealt with some of the most dangerous shifters in the state. She hardly thought he’d been locked up there for running a few games of Find-the-Lady.

“I’ve hurt people,” he admitted. “Sometimes badly. You can’t be an Alpha wolf without a pack and expect to avoid challenges. That’s just the way it goes.”

“But responding to challenges is legal under shifter law,” she said. “I meant…”

“I know what you meant.” He linked his hands behind his head, and the movement pulled his T-shirt taut across his muscular chest. “I grew up on the streets, so I learned how to fight early on. Somehow I drifted in with a group of carnies. It’s a pretty good life for a lone wolf – carnival folks are accepting of people who don’t fit in, and if you do something on the shady side of the law…well, you’re never in one place for long.”

“And I take it you didn’t earn your living selling cotton candy.”

He grinned. “I did a bit of this and a bit of that, but when I stood in for the carnival barker on the sideshow, it turned out I had a gift for patter. So I started to specialize. Slight-of-hand. Misdirection. Scams and hustles and swindles – confidence tricks.”

“And that’s when you left the carnival and became Doctor Dash?”

“Oh, I’ve been a lot of different people. Chase Aston Junior, a very rich man with a very bad poker face. Nicolo Garibaldi, a penniless street musician who doesn’t know his violin is a Stradivarius. It’s true what they say – you can’t cheat an honest man.” He grinned that panty-evaporating grin. “Thieves, liars and bastards, though? They’re just lining up to get exactly what they deserve. But it was Doctor Dash who got me into trouble, yes.”

“How? My father would never tell me what you did, but…”

“Like I said, it was something he couldn’t let go. I was running my Doctor Dash hustle, but with a twist. What I was selling was a multi-shift serum.”

“Multi-shift…”

“You’re a cat shifter, right? Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to be an apex predator like a wolf or a bear?” He cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers as though casting a magic spell. “Just a single dose will transform your whole world! Are you a scaredy-cat in your feline form? When you’re an Alpha wolf you’ll be leader of the pack. Trouble with the law? Throw them off the scent – literally. While the cops are on that cat-burglar case, you’ll be out-foxing them in your cunning new vulpine form.”

Naomi laughed delightedly. “But that’s impossible!” Then her merriment tapered off. Byron looked… Well, he looked pensive. His pretty eyes were shadowed, his dark brows drawn together.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Except it turns out…it’s not. A multi-shift serum is one of the projects Dynamic Earth is working on. Among other things.” He looked grim.

“Like what?” Naomi asked, bewildered. “And what does it have to do with the rehabilitation center? The research branch is completely separate.”

Byron growled – he actually growled; not an expression of disapproval but a purely animal sound, wild and dangerous. “Oh, they’re not as separate as you think. All your pet cases? Magnus, with his berserker strength, and those little old ladies who set fire to things? They’re experimental subjects for Professor Stanhope’s laboratories. He’s working on artificially recreating rogue powers – super-strength, pyrokinesis, precognition…you name it.”

“But you don’t have a rogue power,” Naomi said. “You were institutionalized because you were semi-feral. Dangerous.” She knew feral shifters could become paranoid and fearful as well as aggressive. Had she been wrong to begin to put her trust in Byron?

“No,” he corrected. “I was institutionalized because I was too convincing for my own good. Dynamic Earth got to hear about my multi-shift serum, and they swallowed my sales pitch whole. They thought I really had come up with a formula that would enable shifting into multiple animal forms. And they knew it was possible, because they were working on the exact same thing.”

“Wh…what? Why?”

Byron gave her a tired smile. “If you can think of an innocent reason, I’d love to hear it. And they were desperate to keep it secret. And that meant they had to shut me up.”

“Then why…why keep you alive?” Naomi couldn’t bring herself to believe her father would kill to keep a corporate secret. She couldn’t. But she had to ask the question, because if Byron was so dangerous to Dynamic Earth, why had they kept him around for three years?

He shrugged. “They couldn’t be sure I didn’t know something that would be invaluable to their research. Was I lying when I sold the serum…or was I lying when I said it was cough syrup in a fancy bottle? And how could they find out for sure when it was obvious I was crazy?”

She gaped at him. “It was all an act?”

A shadow passed over his face. “After three years of listening to the screams at night in the high-security wing? Being dragged out of my cell every day by people who wanted to get at the contents of my brain? Anyone would be nuts.”

Naomi thought about it for a moment. It made a horrible kind of sense. And that meant her father wasn’t the person she’d thought he was. But that was too hard to think about right now – once she started to unpick the lies, she had a feeling she’d be opening up some raw and ugly wounds. So she put it aside for the moment.

“Why did you always growl at me, or turn away, or snap and snarl at the bars if I tried to talk to you?” she asked. “Did you dislike me because of who my father is?”

“I was wary of you,” he said. “But there was another reason.”

“What was that?” She’d started to reach out towards the pizza box again, but her eyes snapped to his when she heard his reply.

“Because I wanted you so badly. Just the smell of you was so good it was almost painful. Naomi, I couldn’t let you get close. It wouldn’t have been safe. For either of us.”

Chapter Ten

They traded the stolen motorcycle in at a repair shop that didn’t ask too many questions and was open after hours. It’d go on sale with new plates, new papers and a new paintjob, and they wouldn’t have to ditch it somewhere and risk it being discovered and putting Dynamic Earth on their trail.

In return for the motorcycle and most of their cash, they got an ancient monster of a machine that belched blue smoke, and no questions asked. Naomi didn’t know whether Byron knew the surly, musclebound men he made the deal with, and she didn’t ask. She just kept quiet and corrected the spelling of their tattoos in her head as money changed hands.

They were on the road as dawn broke, tearing up the asphalt as a chill early-morning wind whipped past and the sky faded through shades of dusky blue and salmon pink. Once the battered old engine was warmed up, it growled along happily, eating up the miles. The thrumming of the machine between her thighs and the smell of leather as she held tight to Byron’s waist punched through the early morning drowsiness, and adrenaline licked her senses.

At first the roads were more or less deserted except for the occasional trucker hauling a load cross-country, but as the sun climbed, traffic picked up and they were joined by carpooling parents and yawning commuters with bleary pre-coffee eyes. As the peak of the rush-hour traffic hit, Byron pulled into the parking lot of a roadside diner. He leaned the bike on its kickstand in the dappled shade of a tree and they headed inside. Naomi’s stomach gave an undignified gurgle at the smells of fresh coffee, frying bacon and pancakes oozing with butter and syrup. The dawn ride had sharpened her appetite.

They found seats towards the edge of the room, where they still had a clear view of the television set above the counter, and shovelled down scrambled eggs and sausage and drank cup after cup of scalding hot coffee. Byron nudged Naomi when the news channel showed the now-familiar mugshot of Byron follow by the unflattering candid of Naomi, and they turned their attention to the report. Fortunately, nobody else in the diner paid it much attention. Everyone was too intent on their breakfasts. A trucker-type was engrossed in the crossword page, chewing his pen in between bites of French toast. He had powdered sugar on his chin. The waitress, coffee pot in hand, was telling the fry cook about her new guy’s bitch sister’s smart remarks about her dye job.

Naomi’s father appeared on the screen. He was wearing another of his expensively tailored suits – he had dozens, along with a rainbow of subtly patterned silk ties – and once again he was in the family room. Cassandra and Magnus were visible in the background playing a game of chess. That was a bold choice on Magnus’ part, since Cassandra could see the future. Or maybe it was staged – Cassie usually preferred dice games, because they had an element of chance. She said it got boring winning every single time.

Dr Atkins was alone this time – Professor Stanhope was, presumably, overseeing some experiment or other. Naomi felt vaguely sick at the thought. Did he observe experiments on real people, people with unusual powers, with the same solemn objectivity she’d seen on his face as a child, when he’d showed her how to push copper and zinc rods into a lemon to make electricity?

She tuned back in to the newscast.

“…to appeal to all viewers to call Dynamic Earth’s security line if they have any information on the whereabouts of these two fugitives, who should be considered extremely dangerous.”

Naomi looked at Byron, who was gnawing on his thumbnail and studying the screen intently. He didn’t look upset or alarmed – he looked shrewd and confident, and she felt a swelling of affection for him. He knew how to look after himself – and she realized he’d look after her as well. She could trust him to keep her safe.

Her father made a show of accepting a piece of paper from someone standing just off-screen. She found it vaguely annoying, because her father would never appear on camera without knowing exactly what he was going to say. “Our surveillance experts inform me that the criminal known as Byron may also be travelling under the pseudonyms Doctor Dash, Chase Aston Junior, or Nicolo Garibaldi.”

A chill crawled down Naomi’s spine, spider-like, and she gawped at Byron in horror as he slammed back from the table and stood, toppling his chair. He was looking at her as if she’d stabbed him through the heart. She knew exactly what he was thinking. He wasn’t bugged – he’d crushed the listening device from his button before they’d even left the Dynamic Earth grounds. And that meant
she
must be.

He’d shared those personae with her – the incompetent card-counter, the penniless musician – less than twenty-four hours earlier. She knew he hadn’t confided in anyone else. He’d shared nothing of himself –
nothing
– for over three years.

He darted forward suddenly and wrapped his fist around the golden locket that hung from her throat. With one sharp wrench he pulled it free, snapping the chain. Her hands flew to her throat and her heart fluttered in her chest as he prised the locket open. He held it out to her on his palm, revealing within the tell-tale miniature circuit of a listening device.

His eyes locked with hers and they were as hard and cutting as flint. The betrayal in his gaze felt like a blow. He turned and punched the wall beside him, then he flung the locket to the floor and stormed out. The door swung closed behind him and Naomi realized an expectant hush had fallen over the diner.

She stammered an apology and threw down a couple of bills on the table without looking to see what she’d left, and ran after Byron. She couldn’t let him believe she’d know about the bug. Couldn’t let him believe that three years acting crazy was the smartest thing he’d ever done, and opening up to her the stupidest.

She skidded to a stop in the parking lot, scattering gravel. Byron was astride the motorcycle, revving the engine, and the look he cast over his shoulder at her was wounded and dangerous.

“Byron!” she called, but her voice was drowned out as he revved the bike’s engine and flipped up the kickstand. “Byron!” Clouds of greasy gray-blue smoke billowed up around him and the heavy smell of machine oil hit her nostrils.

A large, callused hand clamped over her mouth and she was yanked off her feet.

Chapter Eleven

Naomi kicked and struggled but it was no use – the man who’d grabbed her was incredibly strong, and his arm was like a band of iron around her chest, making it difficult to breathe. His hand over her mouth muffled her shouts – not that yelling would do her any good anyway. She’d lost Byron’s trust, and as far as everyone else was concerned she was a dangerous criminal being taken in by the authorities.

She fought anyway. If she was enough trouble to take in, it might give Byron a chance to escape. Even now she didn’t believe her father would allow any real harm to come to her…but she believed Byron when he said they’d have him killed.

She could hear the rising roar of the motorbike, and she dug her fingernails into her captor’s beefy forearm, yanking his hand away from her mouth so she could scream and swear. She left bloody furrows, and he bellowed his rage, dropping her. She managed to find her feet before she fell, but he grabbed a handful of her hair in his gigantic fist and yanked hard, dragging her to her knees. He shook her hard, like a dog with a rat, and she whimpered…then gasped as he used her hair to drag her up against his body.

She opened tear-filled eyes as he turned her, and adrenaline jolted through her body like an open-handed slap. Byron dragged the roaring bike around in a tight arc, throwing up dust and gravel, and opened the throttle, heading straight for Naomi and the thug holding her.

The Dynamic Earth tracker thrust her forward, his message unmistakable.
You wanna run me down, you’ll have to go through her.
The pain in her scalp was unbearable.

Byron crouched low over the handlebars and kept coming. It was like a grim game of chicken…except in this version, Naomi was pretty sure someone was going to die. Maybe all three of them. The vertebrae in her spine seemed to fuse as every muscle in her body clenched, bracing for bone-breaking impact. The thunder of the oncoming motorcycle filled the world.

At the very last moment, Naomi’s captor pushed her aside and scrambled out of the motorcycle’s path. She skidded across the ground, skinning her palms on the gravel, and Byron swerved to avoid her, steering the machine around and away, leaning into the turn with the full strength of his body. The bike screamed to a stop at an angle so acute it was almost on its side, and he leapt clear to avoid his leg being crushed beneath it. He was on his feet at once, running full-speed towards the Dynamic Earth thug.

He hit the guy at waist height in a head-down tackle. They went over in a rolling, head-over-heels tumble. Byron pinned the other man beneath him, punching him again and again in the face. Blood splattered in a gory arc. Byron yanked his opponent’s head up by the hair and smashed it back against the ground, hard.

There was a sickening, gristly cracking sound, and for a moment Naomi thought Byron had broken the man’s skull. Then she realized the thug was shifting. His face pushed out into a snarling muzzle and fur rippled over his musclebound arms like a shaggy dull-brown shiver.

A crunch behind her, and Naomi whipped her head around to see another stranger approaching stealthily across the parking lot. She backed up, hissing furiously at him. She could feel her hackles rising and her eye teeth lengthening to needle points. She could smell wolf on the guy, though – she’d never beat him in a fair fight. But he knew that too, and she’d bet he was macho enough to think that meant she wasn’t a threat at all.

She raked her claws across his eyes and he clasped his palms to his face. Dark, gooey blood oozed between his fingers and he howled. She took the opportunity to kick him as hard as she could in the balls, then darted around him. As she glanced back he was struggling to shift and heal the damage, but the pain hobbled him, trapping him between forms. He crouched and cowered, clawing at himself, a grotesque parody of a horror-movie werewolf with a stunted snout and twisted limbs.

A third man was running towards Byron and the bear shifter, fumbling at his waist for a gun. If he had silver bullets, Byron was as good as dead. She froze, torn between calling out to warn him and her fear of distracting him from the brute of a bear he was grappling with.

The crossword-solving trucker from the diner barrelled outside, with the waitress hot on his heels. They took in the situation, and the waitress called out to Naomi, “Hang on, honey – I’m calling the cops!” As she turned to run back into the building, Naomi seized the pot of hot coffee from her hand.

The guy with the gun was fast, but he was focused on Byron and his colleague – he didn’t register the trucker, who stuck out one big, booted foot and sent him flying ass over tip. As he sprawled on the ground, winded, Naomi dashed the scalding-hot coffee into his face.

His scream was hoarse and shrill. He clawed at his face as the syrupy-thick coffee raised angry scarlet welts on his skin, and as she turned away the trucker was rolling him facedown and planting a big foot in the small of his back as he relieved him of his weapon.

She felt sorry that the bearded, big-bellied dude was fighting on the wrong side, at least as far as the cops were concerned. It took a lot of bravery for a human to go up against shifters like that. But she didn’t have time to think about that now.

She ran across to the bike where it was lying on its side. It was incredibly heavy. At first she didn’t know whether she’d be able to get it upright, but she pulled until black stars flashed behind her eyes, then threw her weight forward to stabilize it when it threatened to tilt the other way and pin her down. She straddled the bike and struggled to kickstart it. On the third attempt it caught, choking uncertainly to life.

A group of bikers had pulled into the parking lot and were in conversation with the trucker, helping him to restrain the guy he’d disarmed. They were all leather and tattoos, and their expressions were not happy. A couple of them wore battered leather jackets with
Road Wolves
emblazoned across the back.

Marcus had gone wolf. He and the bear were locked in a ferocious fight – fur and fang and claw. The bear was bigger and stronger, but Byron was smart and fast. And he was
angry
. Every time the bear brought a massive paw around in a ponderous swing that would knock him across the parking lot, it hit nothing but thin air. With each lumbering turn it made to escape his jaws, he was there, relentless in his savagery.

His jaws raked gouges across the creature’s snout, and the bear reared back, snarling. Before it could retaliate, a motorcycle powered between them, followed by another and another. The riders formed a cordon around the wounded bear, revving their engines aggressively. As sirens sounded in the distance, Byron shifted. One of the Road Wolves scooped up Byron’s clothes and tossed them to him.

“Go, man – go!” he yelled, and Byron sprinted across the parking lot, half hopping as he struggled to pull on his jeans, and mounted the bike behind Naomi.

She headed out of the parking lot, wobbly at first but gaining confidence with the motorcycle’s momentum as balancing became easier. She hit the road with Byron’s arms wrapped around her waist and what sounded like a full-scale riot breaking out behind her between the shifters, the bikers and the cops.