“I don’t care if his name is Crap, or if you were a billionaire. I just want to go home!”
Luke smirked. “I have to admit I’m not worth that much, and Crap isn’t Alistair’s name. He might not appreciate that nickname, either.”
“Crap!” I yelled back. “Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap! Crap!”
There was a knock on the door after my tirade. “Is everything all right, sir?” Crap called from the other side.
“Crap!” I yelled.
“Quite all right, Alistair. Miss Rebecca was merely clearing her throat,” Luke replied.
“Crap crap crap!” My voice nearly drowned out theirs.
“There was a phone call for you earlier, sir. It was from Miss Stevens.”
I opened my mouth for another round, but Luke sprung forward and slapped his hand over my lips. Luke sighed. “What did she want?”
“To inform you that the meeting has been pushed ahead a week, and will start in four days.”
Luke’s eyes widened and he moved over to the door so fast I could barely follow his blur. He flung open the door and caught Alistair standing in the hall. “Four days?” he repeated.
Alistair had a grim expression on his face, and he nodded. “Yes, sir. She said it was by the request of Lance and Simpling.”
“Damn it!” Luke swore under his breath. He ran his hand through his hair and scowled. “Change our tickets and add one for Rebecca, and ready us to leave in a day.”
“But the full moon is in two days,” Alistair pointed out.
Luke shook his head. “It can’t be helped. We’ll have to make do with one of the inns.”
“We will arrive at Burnbaum’s on that day,” Alistair informed him.
A wry smile slipped onto Luke’s face. “I suppose there are worse places. At least his rooms are clean and have thick walls.”
“I’ll make the arrangements immediately.” Alistair bowed and hurried off, and Luke shut the door.
He turned to me and swept his hand over the windows. “It seems the extra precautions are all for naught. We need to hurry to an important meeting, and you’re coming along.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’ll have to keep me drugged the whole way,” I threatened him. I hoped that would mean I could stay at the house to try for another escape.
“If that’s what has to be done,” he nonchalantly replied.
“You’ll get a lot of stares carrying around an unconscious woman,” I pointed out.
He shook his head and smiled. “Not to our destination. It’s common to see initiates drugged to control them.” I cringed. This sounded like a trip on a slave route. He noticed my distress and sighed. “I promised you before that no harm would come to you, and I still keep to my word as an honorable werewolf.”
There was something not quite right about that oath. “A what?” I asked him.
“A werewolf,” he repeated, as though there was nothing unusual in that word.
I slowly slid away from him. “A werewolf?” I repeated.
He smirked. “I think we’ve established that.”
“Yeah, but not your sanity level, if it’s high enough to be measured,” I shot back.
He tilted his head and looked at me with admiration. “Even in this strange a situation you can still make jokes. Admirable,” he complimented
“Who said it was a joke?” I meant every word of it, and I also meant to get out of this crazy man’s clutches.
“You don’t believe me?” he wondered.
My back pressed up against the wall behind the bed. “I believe you need to be in a straitjacket, and I’d need one, too, if I believed that bullshit.”
“I’m afraid it’s quite true. I’m a werewolf, just as you will be in a few days.”
The color drained from my face. That didn’t sound good. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
Luke nodded at the empty table where there was usually a tray of food. “The wolf’s bane you consumed your first night here confirmed that you have the talent to become a werewolf, provided I’m in your presence come next full moon.”
My heart danced a sped-up version of the mariachi inside my chest. The next full moon was in two days. “And if I disappoint you by not changing into some hairy beast?” I asked him.
He chuckled, and my blood ran cold and my heart ran off. “You won’t.” He stood up and smiled down at me. “But I suppose since you don’t believe me you don’t have anything to worry about from the next full moon. Unless, of course, you’re completely wrong and I’m the sane one here.”
The twisted logic in there made my head hurt, and I glared at him. “Not likely.”
He shrugged and walked over to the door. “A little caution is wise, but don’t let your fear of me blind you to what I’ve told you. Goodnight.” He shut the door behind him, and left me with my doubts. Doubts are really indecisive companions.
I growled and tossed another pillow at the end posts of the bed, but that made me freeze. That growl I’d just made was really good, and really real. I glanced down at my hands and arms. They looked as hairless and as chubby as ever. I felt my ears and my hair. Still the same there, too. I frowned and scrunched down between the remaining pillows at the head of the bed. “I’m not turning into a werewolf, I’m not turning into a werewolf,” I chanted. The mental trick didn’t wipe away any of the doubt, but that and the remaining effects of the shot did lull me into a sleep.
6
I was awoken by the sound of dishes clinking against each other. I groaned and sat up to see Alistair at the table with a tray of food and drinks in front of him. He noticed my being awake and bowed his head to me. “Good morning,” he greeted me. Judging by his stern face the greeting didn’t go any deeper than his words.
I whipped my head over to the heavy planks on the windows. They didn’t let in so much as a sliver of sunlight. “I can’t tell,” I quipped.
“I can assure you the sun is still shining,” he replied.
I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him. “I’m really supposed to believe you on anything?”
“No, you’re supposed to eat some food.”
“What? So you can fatten me up so Luke, if that’s his real name, can eat me whenever he gets wolfish?”
Alistair glanced over my thick frame and the corners of his mouth twitched. “I don’t believe that needs tending to.” I admit I walked into that one. “As for the master being hungry when he’s, as you put it, wolfish, he prefers venison over humans.”
This guy was as batty as his master. “And let me guess, you’re a werewolf, too?”
“Yes, though of a lesser family. I was also instructed to change your bandages. If you would follow me into the bathroom, we can proceed.”
I glanced down at my hands. They were stiff, but no longer sore. Still, for any future escape I needed to be healthy. “Fine.” I followed him in there and sat on the end of the tub while he took out the gauze and disinfectant from the cabinet. He measured out the length of the bandages like a seasoned war veteran. “You done this a lot?” I asked him.
“Quite often,” he replied. He turned to me and unwrapped the bandages from both my hands. Some nasty, deep cuts were revealed to me, and I worried about infection.
“Shouldn’t I go to a hospital or something?” I suggested.
The corners of Alistair’s mouth twitched and he shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. The wounds are deep, but not infected.” He turned me so my hands were held over the tub, and then I swear he applied the disinfectant in gallon quantities with an added misery of tamping the wounds down with a dry towel.
With each pat down I cringed and flinched. “Mind being a little more lenient in the torture?” I asked him.
“The torture is necessary,” he calmly insisted. Alistair finished the cleaning and wrapped a new set of bandages over the wounds.
We returned to the main room. I ignored the food and plopped myself down on the bed. Alistair set out a plate and utensils, and pulled out the chair. “If you will be seated we can commence breakfast.” I stared suspiciously at the food. “I assure you it isn’t tainted with wolf’s bane,” Alistair told me.
“And if I refuse to eat it?” I challenged him.
Now Alistair really did smirk. “Then I’ve been instructed to tie you to the chair and force-feed you until the meal is finished, or you throw up.”
I scowled and grumbled, but he had such conviction and glee in his voice and face that I didn’t doubt he’d do it. There was one advantage I held, or rather packed around with me, so I folded my arms across my chest and remained seated. “Make me.”
“Make you?” he repeated.
“Yes, make me.” He had a thin frame that didn’t look like it could lift a child much less a full grown woman who weighted-well, who weighted a lot. Also, if I was going to remain a prisoner here then I was going to make myself the best pain in the ass in the history of prisoners.
He dropped the back of the chair and rolled up his sleeves to show off his scrawny, pale arms. “If you insist.” He marched over to the bed and I made myself as limp as the consistency of jello so he’d have to drag me to the table. There was no way he could pick me up and heft me over to the chair. However, I might have been a tad of with my guestimate of his strength, especially when he lifted me off the bed as though I was nothing more than a twenty pound bag of flour. I yelped and tried to push off his chest and out of his arms, but he held me in a vice-like grip. Alistair swung me down into the chair and produced a rough hemp rope out of thin air. He had every intention of tying me to the chair and force-feeding me. I had every intention of avoiding that terrible fate.