Chapter Eleven – Angela
Chapter Eleven
Angela
In addition to the eye I could no longer see through, I woke in the cage with an incredible headache. I came to with my cheek against solid concrete, facing one of the massive lag bolts that fastened it to the floor.
“She lives,” said someone behind me. I rolled over, slowly, and found Meat on the other side of the cage, sitting in the chair. Another pack member was pacing nervously, behind him.
“What time is it?” My jaw felt rickety.
“Late.”
I scooted myself upright, and rested against the cage’s bars. “I don’t suppose I could get some water?”
“Sure,” Meat said, heading out to return with a bottle and washcloth. He tossed them through the slats of the cage. “For your eye.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking a gulp, and then pouring some out onto the washcloth and putting it on my face.
“You shouldn’t be talking to her,” the other man—not much more than a boy himself—said.
“Shut it,” Meat said, and the other man did.
I wondered what Meat’s wolf was like—he was an unassuming man, wiry and tan, with a leonine amount black hair, and a chin-strap beard ending in a goatee.
He didn’t look that different from any of their other members, but I had a feeling that seniority here was not based on age, appearance, or time-served—it was all about your wolf.
“Not much of the old crew left, eh?” I asked, after dabbing cold water at my eye.
“Werewolves and gang members aren’t known for their longevity.”
I smiled at him and snorted softly. “Now that’s a three dollar word, coming from a one dollar mouth.”
“I’ll show you what you can do with your one dollar mouth,” the other man started for the door of the cage, one hand on his belt. He was so thin he looked like he could slide through the bars if he had to.
“That’s enough, Holt.”
“You’re not supposed to be talking to her!”
“Says who?” Meat asked, brows high.
“Daziel.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Meat said, so low it was almost a growl. From the look on Holt’s face, I knew Meat’s wolf was several ranks higher than his own.
“Fine,” he said, spitting through the slats of the cage at me, before storming off.
“Sorry,” Meat apologized, once Holt was gone. “Murphy was his friend.”
“Once upon a time, I thought that too.” I pressed the wet fabric to my eye again, and tried to stop from hissing.
He watched me and shook his head with a sigh. “You know your wolf’ll heal that, if you let her.”
“Yeah?” I asked, peering at him with my one good eye.
“How do you think we survive the transformation, if not by healing?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never transformed before.”
His eyes weighed me, then decided I was telling the truth. “That’s sad.”
“Not really. I had a life.”
“You mean being kidnapped and hanging out with strangers in a garage isn’t your idea of a good time?” he asked with a tease.
“Definitely not. Different priorities.”
The water did make my eye feel better. And Meat, whoever he was—I couldn’t see his name on his vest, because of his hair—didn’t currently seem threatening. I knew that could change though—I’d seen the look in Holt’s eyes. “So what now?” I asked.
“Now, we wait.”
“For?”
“For them to spring him.”
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “Who?”
“You know who,” he said.
I did. Gray. Out of the prison infirmary, and then back into my life. Acid rose in my stomach as my heart started to race.
“So you’re really his woman, eh?”
“No, I’m not.” Without meaning too, my voice laced into a wolf’s growl, as if I was answering for the both of us. Meat looked a little taken aback, but regrouped quickly.
“You know you can’t hide from him forever. You belong to him, until he dies.”
“Has anyone ever explained to you how utterly misogynistic your werewolf bullshit is?”
He slowly nodded. “Yeah. Because if they can’t find Rabbit…the plan is to keep you in here.” He looked around to indicate the cage and the surrounding garage. “And let Gray mate with you until you give him another son.”
The human part of me wanted to throw up in disgust, but my wolf—I lunged forward, faster than I’d ever moved in my life, and with more strength than I’d ever felt.
I wound up against the bars of the cage, reaching out for him with a clawed hand, and I could’ve sworn I felt the entire cage move with the force of my landing—and where it hit me, didn’t hurt.
Meat didn’t so much as twitch, despite the fact that my hand was just inches away from his knee—he just watched me with glittering eyes.
“I promise you I will die first, even if I have to claw my own neck open,” I growled.
He took a measured inhale. “I believe you.”
I pulled my hand back through the bars and cradled it to me like it was a child.
“Feeling better?” he asked, and I blinked at him—with both eyes. The swollen one was healing. I cupped it, and swore I could feel the lump recede.
“Yes.”
“Told you.”
“I didn’t transform.”
“Not all the way, no—but she’s there, inside you. I can feel her.” He tapped his own chest with one hand, the home of his own wolf. “She wants to get out.”
Now that I was silver-free—I could feel her too. Restless, yearning, like the delicious way Mark would make me feel right before he put himself inside me, hopeful, hopeless, happy and scared. “Yeah.”
“Full moon’s in two nights. Your transformation will go a lot easier if you’ve already tried things out. Trust me.”
So would any attempt I made on Gray’s life. As a human I was helpless, but if I had teeth and claws—“How?”
“Take off your clothes,” he said, and I frowned at him. “Do you want them to get ripped up?” he asked. “No. So take ‘em off. And then, let go.”
“You just want to see me naked.”
“I’m not complaining if I do,” he said, his face still stoic.
What’s the worst that could happen? I’d be sitting here, straining nakedly, for five minutes, and then he’d laugh? My hands went for my shirt, and I turned around.
He moved as it came off, I heard his leather crinkle. “Gorgeous work,” he said, when my tattooed back was exposed.
“Thanks,” I said, unlatching my bra. In seconds, I was naked—and I didn’t want to turn around. “Now what?”
“Like I said—let go.”
Let go. Like it was that easy. I’d spent my life collected, eyes on the ground, one step after another.
I hadn’t relaxed in so long, having to take care of Rabbit, my mother, my business—I couldn’t even remember what it was like.
Except for those brief moments with Mark and sometimes, in my dreams. When she was there.
I closed my eyes and let the wolf-dreams come. The feel of the wind brushing through fur I didn’t know I had, the scent of the garage—old oil and sweat—the piercing sensation as bones and teeth moved—
“Oh God,” I hissed.
“She’s not trying to hurt you,” Meat said from somewhere nearby. “Stay calm.”
I’d had enough tattoos to know how to swallow down pain and pride. My eyes rolled closed and I went to that place deep down inside me where it was always quiet and always dark and where nothing mattered anymore and—
We looked out. Of her eyes. They were lower—we were roughly at the level of Meat’s now fragrant to us crotch. My body wasn’t mine anymore, it was hers, and it was strangely glorious—my world would never be the same.
“Good girl,” Meat said, moving to a squat.
Through her eyes I could see the wolf inside him—shaggy and black, with a chest like a barrel.
And while I wanted to be angry at him for keeping us locked in here, she nudged her muzzle through the bars and licked out at him.
He reached forward, carefully, and set his hand on us, we felt it thump against our side, a million different nerves messaging as he stroked fingers through our fur, and scratched fingernails down our back.
And then something snapped. I woke up again for a second time, on a concrete floor, only this time I was naked. “What the fuck? What just happened to me?” I bolted upright, scrabbling for my clothes.
“Easy,” he said, waving a hand. “You just changed was all. And now you’re back, you’re you.”
“But what happened?” I scrambled, pulling my shirt on without a bra.
“You only switched over for a few minutes.” He tilted his head to look at me. “Have you ever gotten drunk enough to feel like you’re time traveling?”
I shook my head and he snorted.
“Well, you’re missing out. But it’s like where you have that one shot too many at the bar, and then ten minutes later you’re getting a blow job in your truck cab—even though you don’t remember how you got there, you know you must’ve said something right to the lady, and managed to walk out with your keys. ”
“If you say so,” I said, yanking my underwear up.
“It’s disconcerting, at first, but when you get used to it it’s just part of the flow.”
I’d gotten back to fully clothed. “So—I really did it? I was her?”
He was crouching now, beside the cage. “Yeah. And pretty sexy, if I do say so myself. Actually, not me, my wolf—we, uh, get along. I had a feeling we would. Wade told me about you.”
“Did he now?” I asked archly. “Which part?”
“The part where he taught you how to do tattoos.” He gave me an easy smile. “I always wanted to do art myself, but I’m no good.”
“Not the part where he raped me?”
Meat looked aghast. “Did he know you were Gray’s woman?”
“Gray was in prison.” I stood and hopped back into my pants.
“Wade was like a father to me,” Meat went on.
“Hello—werewolf lifestyle equals pretty fucking rapey. You know what happens to the girls you get pregnant, right? The ones who don’t make it?”
He had the decency to look embarrassed. “Yeah. I always make sure to wear condoms.”
“Hooray for you,” I said.
He stood and back away and I knew I’d lost whatever progress with him I’d been gaining. He sat down in his chair, flipping back his mane to reveal his name patch. Jonah. What the fuck—how had Jack known that name? And just what had Jack known?