Shift Into Me (Werewolf Shifter Romance) (The Alpha's Kiss) Read online

  “I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting for it to be safe,” I said as I pulled myself to my feet using the base of a tree. “There’s something going on in there and unless I can find out what, we’re going to lose Damon… we’re going to lose both of them, and then God knows what will happen.”

  The old werewolf plucked a trinket out of his beard. It was a little thing made of bone.

  “What’s this?” I asked as he pressed it into my hand. “And what are you doing?”

  His fingers went to work. In his hand he crushed the little rock he’d pulled from his pouch. Wilton poured a tiny measure of strong smelling alcohol from a vial into the powder, and began to chant as he worked the mixture into a paste.

  “Hold it,” he said. “Take it. Hold the doll in your hand, hold it tight.”

  “Doll?” I turned it over in my fingers. Sure enough, when I squinted right, I saw that it was a tiny skeleton. Fashioned out of little white bones that had me wondering what kind of creature they used to belong to, with what I assumed was a skull made out of clay, the little figurine entranced me.

  “What does it do?”

  “Hush,” he said as the purple flames raged, and another concussion blast shook the whole world.

  That one even threw Hunter, which was lucky, because between him getting blown off his feet and then apparently being confused by all the spooky-looking purple that kept swarming him, he struggled to find the way back to the house.

  “Hold it tight,” Wilton said, still ignoring my question. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when I put this on you.”

  I looked down at his hands and noticed the previously white paste had become an almost unsettlingly bright shade of yellow.

  “What is it?” I asked, involuntarily curling up a lip. “It stinks.”

  Wilton grunted a laugh. “It’s a poultice. Anise, some ground up… uh… well, a lot of things.” A moment later, he added “toxicodendron diversilobum” under his breath.

  “Poison oak? I was a girl scout for six weeks. You can’t fool me with scientific names.”

  “You’re not allergic are you?” he said as he began rubbing the mixture in an intricate pattern on my face.

  “I hope not.”

  “Shouldn’t matter. The other things that make it glow, they should neutralize the toxin.”

  “Should?”

  He shrugged. “Like I said, never put this on a human before. Now, listen carefully.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but decided to keep it to myself. A little itch on the lips didn’t matter one bit.

  “Squeeze the doll. Hold onto it as tightly as you can. That doll,” he took a deep breath, “is all that is going to keep you from being consumed.”

  In the past few seconds, Hunter gained his bearings again, and was stalking back toward the house. He was fighting against a torrent of strange, twisting ethers that continually beat him back, but he didn’t give up his slow trek forward.

  “We don’t have long. Are you sure you want to do this? I can’t promise you’ll make it back. I can’t promise that you’ll be able to take him, anyway. You may well lose yourself in the nether. If that happens…”

  “Don’t give me the what-ifs,” I said. “I’m the only one who can do anything. I’m not going to let Damon suffer. Not when I can keep it from happening.”

  I clenched my jaw, my lips forming a hard line.

  “There’s danger to you. Great danger. You need to know what you’ll be facing, or it could surprise you,” Wilton said. “But in you there’s courage. I knew it when I saw you for the first time. You’re remarkable.”

  “I’m about to transport myself into a werewolf’s head, and then I’m going to fight a demon and maybe a warlock. Is there anything else you think I need to know?”

  The complex circle and lines of yellow-white paste on my face and my neck were warm. There was no pain, though I expected that wouldn’t last.

  I closed my eyes. “Am I ready?”

  “Hold that doll tight, child,” Wilton said, his voice trembling. “I won’t lose you, too. Hear my words as you travel. You’ll know what to do when you get there.”

  His voice was rhythmic and swirled around me. It felt like the tones were encasing me in armor. I clenched my fist around the figurine. The bones bit into my palm.

  Deep in my stomach, a knot formed as the magical symbol on my face began to tingle.

  The world vibrated, hues of green, blue, then yellow, flooded my vision.

  My mouth fell open as Wilton’s droning chant filled my body. Another wave buffeted my skin, warm then cool.

  But I was already out.

  When next I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in my body.

  I was staring at the cabin door with my hand on the knob. I flicked my eyes back and forth, then ran my hand over the door. It was hot to the touch, but not painfully so. I looked down at Hunter’s body, my temporary host.

  Blood coursed through my veins, pounded in my temples. I flexed my new arms.

  Suddenly, all the roaring and fighting and raging made sense.

  More than that, it felt really, really good.

  Thirteen

  I tried the knob, but somehow that didn’t feel right. I opened Hunter’s hands, feeling like I was really part of him, like his body actually was mine, not like I was just a guest star in a sit-com that was named after someone else.

  The purple flames dripping around the doorframe didn’t produce any heat, but when I poked at them, pain shot through my fingers. Tightening my jaw, I tensed up and remembered what I learned about punching through boards.

  Visualize your hand going all the way through. Take a deep breath, and…

  Turns out, when you’re a four hundred-pound werewolf, doors aren’t much of an obstacle. My hand plunged straight through the two-ply oaken door and then my shoulder did the rest of the work, blowing the door backwards off its hinges, and sending it scuttling across the floor.

  Clearing the busted wood off my silver-black arm, I looked around, expecting to see that demon woman again, but all I saw was Damon sitting bolt upright with his face contorted in agony. He was grinding his teeth, scratching his claws against the armrest so hard that I heard his nails scraping the wood.

  “Another one?” Carrell’s head snapped around when I threw back my head and roared.

  Might as well make an entrance, right?

  “I’m going to have to take care of him myself. This’ll be quick.” He popped his neck and removed his tie. “I haven’t done for quite some time, but I don’t think wolves ever forget how to kill,” he said.

  Slowly, he pulled down one suspender, then the other, and started unbuttoning his shirt. Of course he did. Why on earth would he want to dirty his tailored dress shirt, or, God forbid, rip it.

  I cocked my lycanthropic head to the side and watched him for a second. For some reason, his unceasing calmness really pissed me off.

  Opening my mouth, I expected to talk, but what came out was a roar that strained my throat. “Enough!” I shouted, surprising even myself. “Let… Go… of him.”

  Breath came out of my flaring wolf-nostrils in ragged bursts, and as I flexed my fists open and closed, I imagined wrapping them around Carrell’s neck.

  “Danness,” he said. “Give the boy Alpha another taste of the flame. I think he needs it to remember who is in charge.”

  I looked over at Damon, completely enraged at his pain. But then, a jet of purple came out of his eyes, and pulsed out from underneath his fingernails. I expected a scream. I expected to be even more infuriated when it came, but instead, Damon squeezed the arms of the chair harder and clenched his lupine eyes closed.

  Keep fighting her Damon, just keep fighting. Give me three seconds to get rid of this joker, and I’ll try to figure out how to help you.

  The sound of Wilton’s slow, trance-like humming buzzed in my ears. Somehow, that sound was enough to keep me grounded, just like he said it would. I was just about to throw my little
figurine at Carrell’s head and dive at him, but at the very last second, stuck it in my split-to-the-hip-pocket instead.

  Carrell watched me look at Damon. “Oh, my,” he said. “Isn’t this interesting? I didn’t expect for you to be able to invade him quite like this. Danness, we have another guest in the building. A sheep in wolf’s clothing, is it? Lily Kyle… I’m so glad you’re joining us. I can’t wait to kill this Alpha, and start a war that’ll decimate the packs. I’ll have the entire southwest under my control, and possibly better than all of that, you’re going to be mine to do with as I please.”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s not what decimate means.” I said in a low, rumbling growl. “I’m his. Forever. You’re nothing to me, I’ll never—”

  “Oh how quaint! She thinks she’s got control over her own destiny. That is quite wonderful and sad all at the same time. I suppose your mate never told you what it meant to be claimed, then?”

  “I…”

  “Good,” Carrell continued, pulling his lips back in a grin as he folded his shirt and lay it gently with the rest of his belongings. “I’ll tell you then. When an Alpha dies, his mate simply… changes hands! It’s so fantastically barbaric, isn’t it? Like you’re simple chattel. Oh, and since I’ll be the new Alpha, I really doubt you’ll find anyone stupid enough to try and take you back.”

  I scratched the ground with a claw, feeling the tightness, the tension in my legs. Every muscle in my body was twisted, ready to spring out and unleash hell. But at the same time, he gave me pause. Was that true? Was I really Pack property? That couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t, I was Damon’s and he was mine and…

  I shook my head, returning to my senses just in time for Carrell to take advantage of what he was obviously going for in the first place. All in one smooth motion, he crouched, groaned, and dove for me, claws flashing in my face.

  Ducking, I lifted up an uppercut into the soft part of his blue-black stomach. He howled in pain and shot upwards, crashing against the cabin’s roof, and sending down a small cascade of ceiling texture like falling snow.

  “If nothing else,” Carrell grunted, pushing off the ground, “you certainly learned quickly about controlling that body. Tell me, what happens to someone when you do that? Do they have any say? Or are you just using him like a meat puppet?”

  “Shut up,” I whispered through my dagger teeth. “I know what you’re doing and it won’t work. Not now, not ever.”

  “It already… has.” Carrell grinned, blood dripping from his lips. “Your precious Alpha isn’t himself anymore. My demon is in control of him, she’s…”

  “No!” I shouted. “He’s not yours! He’s mine!”

  My balled fist crunched against the side of Carrell’s head, popping it to the side.

  And then, as he spat a tooth, he got up, laughing. “You have no idea how easy you made this. Such a fool. Such a stupid girl. Driven by emotion and excitation.”

  I went to grab him, but a claw flashed out, ripping the skin on Hunter’s chest, and sent a pain shooting through me. My whole world went fuzzy with agony for a split second – just long enough for Carrell to get one of his claws in my mouth.

  With his fingers in a fish hook, he wrenched my head back and forth violently from side to side. “Do you want so see what she can really do to your precious boy wolf? Huh?”

  “Don’t hurt him!” I snarled, snapping my teeth to try and take one of his damn fingers off. “You’ll pay for this!”

  I reached out, trying to claw him, but the way Carrell moved, I couldn’t reach. I was able to lift a knee into his gut, but without enough force to do much of anything useful. It did get him laughing though.

  “What are you trying to do? Hurt me? Come on, child, you can hardly control your own limbs, and you expect to hurt me?”

  He cackled, dug his claw into my cheek and gum, pinching down until I screamed. “What’s that?” he said. “Did you say something, little girl? Here, why not come over here. Get nice and close to your boyfriend, so you can really hear his suffering when Danness takes him over. Oh!” he wiggled his fingers in my mouth. “I just had a thought. Wouldn’t it be fun to have her force him to kill you?”

  “N… no, you can’t,” I said, shaking my head despite the pain. “That’s not…”

  “Possible?” he hissed. “I think you’re wrong. Danness, demon, do my bidding. Make him break his chains.”

  About four million thoughts screamed through my mind at once.

  Damon wrenched himself back and forth, frothing at the mouth and screeching these horrible, ear-piercing sounds that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his lungs. Every time he jerked or pulled, the chains bit deeper, burning into his arms and his chest and his neck.

  “Now,” Carrell commanded. “Break the chains. Let’s have a fight, what do you say? Haven’t you ever wanted to give your boyfriend a slap in the face? I wonder if he’s ever wanted to hit you?”

  Laughing, the crazed wolf turned first to Damon, then to me, then back. “I can’t wait,” he said. “We’re not even going to have to do anything this time. You two will beat each other half to death, and then we’ll leave you here. You’ll be found and the war… my precious war, sixty years in the making? It’ll feel like Christmas.”

  Wilton. He doesn’t know Wilton is here.

  The humming in my ears reached a fever pitch, like he was fighting to keep me anchored. I pressed my palm against the doll against my leg. I heard Damon roar, and looked over at him to see every muscle flexed and straining, every cord in his neck taut. Veins running up the sides of his quicksilver face looked ready to burst.

  But the chains went first.

  With a war cry that shook me to my core and rattled the roof above our heads, Damon leapt to his feet. When I looked at him, concentrating for only a half a second or so, I saw it wasn’t him inside his head. Someone else was in charge. The demon had her claws wrapped around his brain.

  “A phylactery, a trinket… some physical thing,” Wilton had said. “Binds her to this realm. Destroy it and you banish her.”

  I rolled my shoulders to try and get enough leverage on Carrell’s wrist to free myself, but he turned and kept hold, laughing that dry, awful cackle the whole time. “What do you think you’re doing? Getting away?”

  Looking up at him, I noticed – somehow for the first time… probably because he spent most of our time together fish hooking me – that there was a pendant around his neck. A flickering amethyst, or something like it, that seemed to burn with a strange, unearthly flame. Who could possibly be arrogant enough to keep a summoned demon’s soul bound to their own chest?

  Well, I guess if someone was arrogant enough to summon one in the first place, obviously.

  For a second, I stared at the little gem as Damon roared and stomped and flailed his arms wildly at the walls and the windows. He ripped down curtains with such force that the rod didn’t bother to bend before it snapped clean in two. He grabbed either shard and clawed at his face with those huge hands before ramming the curtain rods straight into the wall and then turned back to me, nostrils flaring and shoulders raised to his ears.

  “Oh doesn’t he look strong?”

  Carrell looked at me with a sick, repulsive grin that made my stomach twist. “You’re going to love this. Danness, make him flex those big, strong arms.”

  On cue, Damon screamed and flexed his silver arms. The look in his eyes was so pitiable that he almost looked scared, but then when I gave him another second of a glance I realized it was pure rage flashing through in semi-second bursts when the demon’s clutches loosened.

  But what the hell was I supposed to do? I barely had control over my borrowed arms and legs, and I could hardly even fight the old wolf who had me pinned down and was twisting my jaw. My eyes focused on the little pendant dangling from his furry neck.

  I have to get that thing. Have to get it and… break it? I guess? I don’t even know.

  My hands started shaking. Muscled, hard fore
arms still felt alien to me but even so I was glad it wasn’t my body in here. That would have been quite a mess.

  “How do you like my puppet, girl?” Carrell twisted again, sending a shock of pain all the way through my neck to my toes. “Isn’t it a wonderful trick? Watch this one.”

  “Danness,” he called again to the otherwise empty room. “Make the boy Alpha pick up a chain and wrap it around his own neck.”

  “No!” I shouted, writhing again, uselessly. “Leave him alone! Kill me instead!”

  “What good would that do? I can either kill a meaningless pup… remember of course that no one will ever know what happened to sweet little Lily… you don’t look quite yourself at present.” He dragged me several steps closer to Damon who screeched, flexed, and picked one of the silver chains off the ground.

  The stench of burning fur and skin hit me almost as hard as his yelps of pain. I watched only for a couple of seconds longer until Damon, struggling with his own muscles, brought the silver links near his face and I just had to turn my head.

  “Oh, why do you stop watching? Look, look little girl,” Carrell said, his voice warbling and insane, “look what’s happening. You’re witnessing a sixty year plan coming together. Isn’t this exciting?”

  He winced. “What is that horrible noise?”

  I looked up at him and realized that somehow, he was hearing Wilton’s continual and increasingly frantic muttering. Even as Damon wrenched back and forth again, writhing as the silver burned crisscross patterns into his chest and neck, the sing-song like chanting grew louder and louder inside my head and, apparently, in Carrell’s.

  “It’s awful,” he said. “Screeching, burning in my head, I don’t…”

  His fingers in my mouth loosened just a little, and I bit down. For once, it wasn’t Damon shrieking. The old warlock librarian swore at me and recoiled, yanking his hand away and swinging a wild punch that caught the side of my head, but bounced off without doing any real harm.