Savage (20 page)

“Why couldn’t I?” she asked.

There was another stretch of silence. He was staring downward as if he was trying to figure something out, make a decision. “Katelyn, there’s only one creature that can put thoughts into the mind of another.”

She breathed slowly through her nose, feeling her breath hitch, her pulse flutter. She couldn’t feel his hands around hers anymore.

“At first I thought that it was the Hellhound talking to me,” she said.

He kept his eyes lowered. “That’s because it was.”

“But I don’t,” she began, the fluttering turning into a lit fuse. She could almost feel it burning inside her chest. “My grandfather—”

“Is the Hellhound,” Trick said. “And I am his apprentice.”

“No,” she said flatly, as the fuse ignited.

You know it’s true.

His lips weren’t moving. They weren’t, but she could hear him.

“No,” she said again. “Trick, this isn’t funny. You think it is—”

He pulled her against his chest and pressed her head against his shoulder. She tried to lift her head but she couldn’t. Inside she was imploding. Outside, she was as still as the bust of her mother that Trick had sculpted for her birthday.

Me
.

“You spied on me from the skylight? You’ve been sneaking into my room while I was asleep, like a stalker?”

Yes. Because I love you. And because it’s my fault a werewolf bit you.

She struggled to get away. He was a monster. A killer.

“I’m new as a Hellhound,” he said aloud. “I can’t control what I think. What you hear isn’t always what’s in my head. Sometimes it’s what’s in my heart. A Hellhound’s heart.”

“Let me go,” she said, trying hard to free herself.

He held her fast. “You have to listen to me. Me here. Now.”

“Those girls in the woods. Your own friends,” she said. “Mike Wright.”

He locked gazes with her and slowly shook his head. “Look at me, darlin’.
Not
me. None of them. I swear it, Katelyn.” When she pushed against his chest, he kept his arms around her very tightly. “Katelyn, it was not me.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Then it was—”

“We have nothing to do with humans, except to protect them,” he said. “From werewolves who break their own laws.” He looked hard at her. “Do you believe that of me? Do you believe I could do that?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.

“Why didn’t
you
tell
me
?”

They both smiled weakly.

“I’m new at this,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t control how I act. Even Doc struggles. The change comes on us like a whirlwind. We’re violent. Werewolves are smart to fear us.” He grimaced. “It’s what I am.”

She swallowed hard and nodded.

“And we’re ugly.”

They were. Hideously ugly. Hellish.

“Doc entrusted me with your safekeeping when you first came here because there’s nothing stronger than us,” he said. “That I’d keep you away from whatever was killing those girls in the forest.”

“Do you know who bit me?” she asked.

“No, but trust me I’ve been trying to catch him. It’s the same werewolf that jumped on the hood of my car.” He let out another breath, warm on her hair. “When you told me you heard two wolves growling I wanted to kick myself. Second one you heard was me.”

She nodded. “Catch
him
,” she said.

“Definitely male,” he said.

“But no one knew me. Why attack
me?
To get at the Hellhound?”

He gave her a skeptical look, and she shook her head.

“I guess the last thing you would want to do is piss off the Hellhound.”

“Ironic, isn’t it,” he said. “All those morons at school beating me up. I couldn’t fight back.”

“God, Trick. That’s so awful.”

“No more awful than it’s been for you. With
your
big secret life.”

“Do you know who . . . the other werewolves are?” she asked. “When they’re people?”

He bared his teeth and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Doc didn’t and neither did his predecessor. But thanks to you, now we know the Fenners are running the pack.”

Despite herself, she grimaced, and she knew he saw it. She told herself she did
not
feel loyal to the Fenners.

“You and Cordelia always hated each other,” she said.

He smiled sourly. “Werewolves can’t even tell their own kind when they’re in human form. Same goes for Hellhounds and werewolves. We don’t sense each other as people. Still, who knows? You’re right. I never liked any of the Fenners.” He looked at her. “But I know there’s more than Fenners in the pack.”

She flushed and pulled away slightly. Was he asking her for names? Would she give them to him? What would he do with them?

“If you know the Fenners are werewolves, why haven’t you killed them?”
Or me?

“We don’t just kill people for being werewolves. We kill them for breaking the laws, for endangering humans. Killing
them
.”

“The man we found,” she said, her stomach churning at the memory.

“I don’t know who did it,” he said. “Or who killed those other people. I think it was that crazy old alpha, Lee Fenner.”

“He’s dead,” she murmured. And had been, when Wanda Mae had been killed.

“I know.”

She took that in. “You know about the war.”

“The Fenners and the Gaudins. Just like the Hatfields and the McCoys. We have to adjust our sights in a huge way.”

“What do you mean? ‘We,’ us?”

He gazed at her as if he were trying to memorize every inch of her face, every eyelash.

As if he were saying goodbye.

“Darlin’, I can’t be with you. I’m a Hellhound. You’re a werewolf. We’re two very different things. There’s nothing about us fits together.”

She gave her head a quick shake. “But my grandfather wanted you to be with me,” she said, waves of anxiety rippling through her. “And he knows you’re a Hellhound.”

“He never dreamed you were a werewolf,” he reminded her. “And you were talking all the time about going to audition for the Cirque du Soleil once you graduated. He figured if you liked me, you wouldn’t mind me hanging around all the time. But that when the time came, you’d move on.” He scowled at a far-off place in his memory. “And it backfired. I didn’t protect you.”

Trick’s head swiveled around and he rose swiftly to his feet.

“Someone’s coming,” he said, his voice much deeper. “Get behind me and stay there.”

“What—” she began, but she lost track of all thought as he pushed her behind himself and then a deep, agonizing groan tore out of him as he shrank down into a shadow. She ran in front of him to see what was happening, and she made two fists and bit down on the flesh of her forefinger to keep herself from screaming.

A living silhouette, Trick writhed and shuddered, and then he began to convulse. Black spun around him as he crouched with his hands over his head; he panted hard, then gasped and threw back his head. Katelyn shot toward him without thinking, to help him.

“No!” he ordered as he became a black explosion of fur, fangs, and scarlet, smoking eyes. Bones cracked and snapped; skin stretched and popped and bled; black reedy hair sprouted in tufts over the tortured surface of his increasingly grotesque body. He wagged his head from side to side as all traces of humanity disappeared, leaving a nightmare in their wake.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she told him. His eyes were the most unnerving part — deeply red, with smoke issuing from them. Part of her kept denying that this was Trick.

But impossible as it was to believe, part of her liked his power and ferocity. His duty was to keep humans safe. Not to maul and kill. To
help
.

The Hellhound towered over her, but the monster was the guy she loved. Justin was always dark and seemed so dangerous, but compared to what loomed before her, he was nothing. She was both terrified and exhilarated as she took in the magnificence and horror that was Trick in his unnatural form.

“What’s happening?” she asked after a moment.

Others are coming
. His voice was clear in her head. Inside that body, Trick was still there.

“Who?”

He didn’t answer and so she waited what felt like an eternity.

At last Daniel, the leader of the Hounds of God, stepped from the bracken. He was wearing nothing but his simple brown robe in the snow, and he held his bare hands open, palms upward, as though to show he held no weapon.

Katelyn had the crazy urge to laugh. What weapon could he possibly imagine could harm the Hellhound?

“Hellhound,” he said.

Trick dipped his strangely shaped head.

“We come in peace, my brothers and I,” Daniel said, stepping forward. “We seek your counsel.” He looked quizzically at Katelyn. “You’re allies?”

Any answer she might have given was interrupted by the Hellhound as it issued a low, menacing growl. Uncertainty flickered over Daniel’s face.

He said to her, “We speak in an archaic way when we address the Hellhound. Don’t be surprised.”

Almost a dozen other robed figures stepped forward. Together they made an incredibly imposing, threatening group. Magus was one of them. He glanced briefly at Katelyn and then fixed his eyes on the Hellhound. In his gaze she saw awe and wonder, but very little fear.

Smoke poured from the Hellhound’s eyes as it threw back its head and howled. The large group jumped visibly, and Katelyn hugged herself. Then black light seemed to streak from the figure, like dissipating energy, and the head began to shrink. Hair gave way to human skin, and the large, distended limbs to arms and legs. The thing that was rapidly becoming Trick was wearing the jeans, T-shirt, and jacket he had been wearing before the change.

When it was over it was as though Trick had never changed in the first place. She was surprised that he was letting the Hounds of God see his true face.

“Hounds of God, and Daniel, their servant,” Trick said. “I will listen.”

Daniel fell to his knees, beside him, and the others quickly followed suit.

“We serve the hand of God and will follow Him into battle wherever he leads.”

Trick straightened his shoulders and raised his chin. He stood over everyone there even though in stature he was not the tallest. Was that what it felt like to be in the presence of royalty? Katelyn wondered as she studied him closely. His face was inscrutable, as though he were wearing a mask.

“That’s not what he told me,” Katelyn said. “He said they argue about you all the time.”

Daniel stared at her, and she lifted her chin. Standing beside Trick, she wasn’t afraid of Daniel and his weirdos.

“This must be why,” Daniel murmured. “We chanted for a warrior in this war. We thought it was you, Katelyn McBride. And you’ve led us to the Hellhound.
He
is our warrior.”

Smug, aren’t they? I sure as hell wouldn’t count you out
, Trick said in her mind.

And she managed a smile. He had to be wrong about their being together. They weren’t only wolf and Hellhound; they wore human skins most of the time. Even if they had to stay away from each other during their changes, they could build a life together.

“We have given warning to both sides that they must stop this war,” Daniel said, his head still bowed.

“You gave warning to neither alpha, but to outcasts,” Trick said, his voice colder than she’d ever heard.

Still on his knees, Daniel raised his hand like a kid asking for permission to speak in class. “We gave warning to the two who could
become
alpha, who were most willing and likely to end the fighting.”

Trick didn’t even glance Katelyn’s way, but continued to stare at the Hounds of God. She found herself examining his face, his hands. He had kissed her, held her. Could he really let her go?

“What do you ask of me?” he said.

“We ask for your help in stopping the madness before our secret is exposed to the world,” Daniel replied.

“You believe it has come to that?” Trick said, and he didn’t seem like her Trick anymore. Not the tortured poet Mike Wright used to bully. Not the douchebag Cordelia blamed for breaking Haley’s heart. Trick wasn’t part of the high-school-student equation. It was as if he had come from another world. How had he gotten like this? A bite? A magic spell?

Daniel nodded and all his minions did the same. “The Fenners and the Gaudins have feuded with each other for generations. But now even the death of the Fenner alpha does not give them pause. This war of theirs threatens not only exposure, but more death to both werewolves and humans alike.”

“Humans?” Trick asked, his face still unreadable, his tone frigid.

Daniel nodded. “We believe the human casualties in this area were the opening salvos of this war and that if we can end the war we will end the maulings.”

Katelyn crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She had nearly been one of those human victims and she had often believed that the same werewolf had to be responsible for all of it.

“Wouldn’t it be better to find the werewolf responsible?” she said.

Magus looked at her sharply, eyes wide, as though he had something to say. She met his gaze and he flushed, then gave his full attention to Daniel.

“The werewolf in question might even be dead already,” Daniel replied.

And if he’s not he will be when I find him
, Trick whispered in her head.

She shuddered, wondering if he could also read her thoughts. She hoped not, because if he could he’d know she was feeling uneasy, worried about the fate of her pack even though she had no reason to care about any of them. She was even more worried about Cordelia. If there was a way out of this for all of them, she felt that window was rapidly disappearing.

“And you want my help to do what, exactly?” Trick addressed himself again to Daniel.

Daniel cleared his throat. “We know that the Hellhound won’t allow this war to go on. All we ask is that we be allowed to help bring it to an end.”

“In exchange for what?” Trick asked.

“For peace. When things are settled here, we’ll withdraw to our home and we won’t come here again unless it becomes necessary.”