The Night Has Teeth (24 page)

As I lift myself off the concrete, a metallic taste
fills my mouth. I wipe at my lips, and sure enough, when I pull my
hand away the tips of my fingers are coated in red. Blood. My
blood. It’s all I can see. All I can smell. It triggers that
unwanted instinct within me. All I can think of is payback. Getting
to my feet, I race toward them. If they had tails, they’d be tucked
between their legs. I don’t make it past Roul, who grabs hold of my
arm. I push him away, trying to charge forward, and that forces his
hand. He yanks at me, and in the next instant I’m in a headlock,
snarling incomprehensible words at all of them. I blank out
momentarily until a voice brings me back.

“Go!” he instructs Trajan and Attila.

Fluttering in my vision, they make a hasty retreat
through the front gate.

“Let go,” I finally demand in a coherent
way.

“Not until you regain control of yourself,” he
counters.

“I’m fine!” I growl.

“No,” he insists. “You’re far from it.”

I struggle, but as it turns out, there’s no
resisting him. I’m utterly immobilized in his headlock. He’s
somehow managed to get his arms under mine, and his hands are
pressing against the nape of my neck. Drops of rain bead across my
face, the coolness both welcome and an irritant.

“Say the alphabet backwards,” he directs
me.

It’s what police officers do as part of a sobriety
test. Even though I’m not drunk, except maybe with rage, I do as
I’m told. I close my eyes and begin reciting from Z. My feelings go
from immensely outraged to considerably irritated, and eventually I
calm down enough to understand how irrational it was of me to think
I could take down two werewolves on my own.

“...C, B, A,” I say and he releases me.

There’s a part of me that just wants to keep moving
and go back to my place. But the other part of me is dizzy from the
physical exertion. With a few steps forward, I stumble and collapse
back onto the sidewalk.

“Are you following me too?” I ask,
annoyed.

“It seems to me that you’re keeping unwelcome
company.”

“What makes you think you’re welcome?” I
counter.

He extends his hand in a gesture to help me up, his
gunmetal gray eyes scanning me as his lips curl into a smile. When
I look down at his hand, I see another tattoo poking out of his
sleeve. A drawing of a wolf’s paw covers his lightly tanned skin. I
can only imagine the rest of the ink work connecting, maybe all the
way down to his foot. There’s also a scar on the palm, like a burn
mark only it’s the symbol of an eagle. Rather than accept his help,
I get up on my own. It’s not my intention to be rude, but his
pleasantries are unnerving when I know there’s an unpleasant point
at the end of it all. Why not just get right to it?

“We were never properly introduced,” he says, his
voice as mellifluous as honey. “My name is Rodolfus de
Aquila.”

“I know who you are.”

His smile broadens to one that’s humoring in nature.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“Look, I appreciate your stepping in and all, but
I’m too tired to deal with any of this.”

“At the very least let me offer you a ride.” I’m
about to protest but feel his heavy hand gripping my shoulder as he
says, “I insist.”

We walk down the tree-lined street, the rain falling
sporadically. Even though Roul comes off as more amicable than
Arden, I’m very much aware that’s part of his job as their leader.
The fact that so many werewolves have taken an interest in my life
does not go unnoticed by me.

“Did Amara not make it clear to you about
colluding with Madison Dallaire?” he asks.

“You make it sound like she’s a spy,” I
remark.

He looks me up and down with his steely eyes.
Standing on his left side, Roul appears to me like any other
businessman: well-groomed, wearing an expensive suit with a
confident demeanor. That said, I know there’s another side to him,
one that he hides well with his interactions but that he can’t mask
completely due to his extreme tattoo.

“There are things you should know,” he says.
“Things I can’t tell you. What I can say is that at the end of this
semester your scholarship will be revoked.”

“What?” I ask, unable to mask my shock. “How do
you know that?”

“The company I own issued it in the first place,”
he replies. “I know this comes as a surprise, but if it’s any
consolation, I have it in mind to cover the costs of the rest of
your schooling in New York. As a measure of good faith.”

“Wait a sec, you’re taking my scholarship away
because I’ve been hanging out with Madison? That’s just ...
ridiculous.”

“No,” he answers calmly. “I’m doing it because I
was mistaken about you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“As I mentioned, I’m not at liberty to say any
more. That you know what you do complicates matters
enough.”

We come to a stop in our tracks and conversation.
Parked illegally on the sidewalk is a shimmering white Bugatti
Veyron coupé. Werewolves seem to have a thing for fast and
expensive vehicles. When I slide into the car, I’m about to give
him my address but stop short because he already knows I’m
cohabiting with members of his pack.

As he starts the car and pulls onto the road, I take
a stab at a question. “What do you do ― in the daytime, I mean ― to
afford a car like this?”

He glances in the rear view mirror. The reflecting
light casts a glimmer in his eyes as he tells me, “I’m in the
pharmaceutical business.”

I squint, trying to figure it out. “Legal or illegal
pharmaceuticals?”

“There aren’t very many professions I’m afforded,
given my appearance.”

“So, you’re a drug dealer.”

He chortles, turning on the wipers as the rain beads
on the windshield. “In a way. Human laws are complex. As you’ve
learned by now, unlike humans, we werewolves bear no disease.”

“Boguet would argue that lycanthropy
is
the disease.”

“That’s rather short-sighted.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“My company develops drugs based on werewolf
biochemistry in order to alleviate conditions of human
disease.”

“That can’t be legal.”

“Almost none of it is above board,” he concedes.
“While these pharmaceuticals are superior to anything on the
mainstream market, most of them produce a wide array of unpleasant
side effects. Still, the vast majority of my clientele is facing
death ― a far more permanent consequence of their diseases. Side
effects aside, it’s best to keep underground whatever can be traced
back to werewolf DNA.”

The question I should have asked at the start pops
into my head. “Why were you following me anyway?”

“I wasn’t,” Roul admits. “You seem to have a
penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong
time.”

I’m about to argue the point but clue in to the fact
that he was actually following Boguet’s thugs. “I guess I should
thank you.”

Shrugging casually, he takes a silky blue
handkerchief from the breast pocket of his blazer and hands it to
me. “You’re bleeding.”

I pull down the passenger side mirror and, sure
enough, blood is trickling down from a gash on the side of my head
where it hit the sidewalk. As I press the cloth against the wound,
I notice my lip has swelled slightly. That’s twice now that I’ve
lost my cool in the past three weeks, but this time it came to
physical blows. When I think back on the moments when Roul was
holding me back, I can’t deny one of the thoughts running through
my brain was biting Trajan. It makes me cringe a little now.

“You know, life is complicated enough without
werewolves and mad scientists thrown into the mix,” I tell him. “Do
you know what it’s like to be a human teenager?”

He smiles thinly. “I’m familiar with the idea.
Adolescence is a journey from childhood to adulthood. The paths we
choose to get from one to the other are often arduous.”

“I just want to make it there alive,” I
deadpan.

“You’re almost there,” Roul says, taking a turn
onto a busy street. I don’t know if he means we’ve nearly reached
our destination or that I’m almost technically an adult. “What did
those two want with you?”

“What do any bullies want?” I throw back at
him.

He’s quiet, waiting for me to say more. After a
thoughtful pause, he remarks, “They work for Boguet, don’t they?
He’s a monster.”

“By human standards, all werewolves are monsters,
you know.”

His jaw tightens. “Yes, I’m well aware.”

“For the record, monsters are kind of on a sliding
scale to me lately,” I add, hoping to soften my comment.

That seems to appease him.

“What exactly am I supposed to do until the end of
the semester?” I blurt. “To protect myself, I mean. Your
scholarship is the only reason I’m here in the first place. Now
I’ve got these thugs who are either trying to kidnap me or kick my
ass, a mad scientist who possibly wants to conduct who-knows-what —
seriously, who knows, does anyone? — kind of genetic experiments on
me, and don’t even get me started on all the hot werewolf women who
would never in a million years look twice at me in real life. This
has all got to be a joke, right?”

Instead of addressing any part of my rant directly,
he merely instructs me. “Open the glove compartment.”

When I do, I see an object that takes me a second to
recognize. I’ve only ever seen a gun on TV. Unmoving, I stare at
the weapon. “Werewolves use firearms?”

“It wasn’t always this way,” he says with a heavy
sigh. “There used to be a good deal more space between humans and
werewolves. Enough that we didn’t need to trouble with each other.
Not that trouble couldn’t be found. There’s a hierarchy in the
world at large that humans have never been particularly mindful of:
predators don’t kill other predators.”

“Yeah, but you used to think humans were
prey.”

“I’d mind your generalizations,” he says in a low
voice.

“Amara told me,” I confide quickly.

He grimaces. “Her source is ― how do I say this
discreetly ― biased.”

“What, you mean Arden? I thought you two were
friends.”

After a hesitation he replies, “The best kind.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

His eyes dart over to me. “When gunpowder was
brought to Europe, some of the wealthier landowners armed
themselves with muskets. Boguet killed my predecessor with one.
Since pack leadership is earned through sheer prowess, I fought his
son for the position. I fought Arden.”

As I wrap my head around the information, Roul pulls
out the gun and makes an attempt to pass it to me. What he just
said goes a long way to explain the chip on Arden’s shoulder and
his extreme hatred for Boguet. No wonder he bit the man. And maybe,
after all this time, he knew from the start that he hadn’t killed
the man ― that he had cursed him. Before my brain can fully process
the consequences of what my body is doing, I take hold of the
weapon.

“Have you fired a gun before?” he inquires like
it’s a normal question.

I shake my head.

“It’s like
Call of Duty
.” His tone is airy, almost playful, as though this is the
easiest thing in the world for someone to get a grasp
on.

“I know the difference between a game and real
life, Roul,” I tell him. “And in real life I don’t think I’d able
to shoot someone.”

“Believe me, Connor,” he says in a broken tone.
“Even if you won’t fire a weapon to save yourself, you’d do it save
someone close to you.”

He doesn’t have to say any more. I know he speaks
from experience. There was a reason why he brought weapons to his
pack, beyond the death of Arden’s father. A reason why he felt the
need to fight fire with fire. I’m not about to delve into the
subject as he double parks outside my flat. It’s too personal and a
moot point besides. His loss became a catalyst for change in his
pack, and that’s all I need to know.

“The more you tell me, the more this war with
Boguet sounds like a vendetta.”

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t,” he admits.
“But sometimes revenge and justice are inextricably tied
together.”

Someone honks behind us, followed by a slew of
French curses as a car screeches by. I take that as my cue to
leave, but before I do he hands me his business card. My eyes scan
the details: Rodolfus de Aquila, CEO, Fenrir Pharmaceuticals.

“If you need anything from me or my pack, don’t
hesitate to get in touch.”

I shake my head at the surreal situation that I’m
in, tucking both the card and the gun into my inner jacket pocket.
Before stepping out the vehicle, I admit, “You know, it’s kind of
odd getting a business card from a drug dealer.”

“Sliding scale, Connor,” he throws back. “It’s odd
for me to trust a human with a gun.”

“Touché
.”

I slam the door, but before I can turn away, he
rolls down the passenger-side window.

“One last thing,” he says, tossing a small metal
object out at me. “In case you run out.”

Acting fast, I catch what I can only assume at first
glance is a gun cartridge. “Silver bullets?”

He grins. “Just remember who gave that to you.”