Taken

Oh, my God. He killed that thing, didn’t he? “Upir,” he’d said. Her head hurt just thinking about it, spikes of glassy pain through her temples.

Nobody would miss her for another twenty-four hours, and by then, who knew how far away they would have taken her? Her ferns would die, she wouldn’t be at work Monday morning, and Battle-Ax Margo, the office manager, would have a conniption. Nobody knew she’d gone out with Lucy, and Luce was between boyfriends. What was happening right now? Were the police trying to find her? Trying to find Lucy’s car keys?

If I hadn’t divorced Mark someone would be missing me right now—but if I hadn’t run away in the first place I wouldn’t have been out last night. God.

Zach moved again, and she almost flinched, but he was handing her two monstrous apple fritters wrapped in a napkin, tucking them on top of the clothes she clutched to her chest. “Here. Hold these, sweetie. Why don’t you head on back to the car, and I’ll bring your coffee?”

The old man chuckled. She realized he was not just shortsighted; he just really wasn’t interested in anything she might say. “My wife was like that. Bit of a bear in the morning without her coffee, God bless her.”

“Go on, now.” Zach gave her a meaningful look, and when Sophie snapped a glance over her shoulder she saw the two other men at the open van, watching intently. They all had those weird pale stripes in their hair, like a dye job gone wrong. Maybe it was a gang sign?

Yeah, like the badass Lady Clairols. Come on, Sophie. Think of something!

There was nobody else around, and what could the old man do?

Nothing. She was just as helpless now as she’d been last night.

“Fine.” She backed up as Zach’s arm fell away. Her feet felt frozen, and if she stepped on anything sharp now she’d probably be too numb to care. Each step was another jab of freezing pain up her legs, and her toes felt clumsy.

The younger boy, sitting crouched just inside the van door, eyed her. He was a male copy of Julia, but instead of looking spoiled and unfinished he had a perpetually worried grin and a way of hunching his shoulders as if he was painfully uncertain. “You okay?” he asked, softly, tilting his head to the side. His eyes were red-rimmed and his nose a little chapped from crying.

The other one, bigger and broad-shouldered but not as tall as Zach, had odd, piercing blue eyes. He regarded her warily, hunching inside his tattered leather jacket. He had one hand raised, and as she glanced at him his strong white teeth worried a little at the leather cuff of his sleeve.

No, I’m not okay. How could I be anything like okay? But some instinct made her hold out the fritters with one hand freed from the clothes, despite the way her stomach growled. “Here. These are for you.”

“Hey, thanks!” The younger one grabbed one, took a huge wolfish bite, and grinned. The blue-eyed one took the other more slowly, but at least he stopped snacking on his sleeve. “I’m Brun. This is Eric. He’s our cousin. Gee, aren’t your feet cold? Come on up.” He moved aside, and Sophie mechanically climbed into the van. It still held a ghost of warmth.

They both peered at her, the one in the leather jacket nibbling at his fritter now.

“These are really good,” Brun continued. “Are you really a shaman?”

“She’s a found shaman, not even triggered. She wouldn’t know, not yet.” The blue-eyed one—Eric—eyed her speculatively. “This means we can settle down somewhere.”

“You think? It’d be nice. We haven’t settled anywhere since the farm …” Maddeningly, he stopped, and gave her a shy smile. Dark puppy eyes glimmered at her. “It’s nice to meet you. You’re going to take care of us?”

It was too absurd to even guess at an answer. “You kidnapped me.” She sounded flat and unhelpful even to herself. “I’m supposed to take care of you? “

“We’re Carcajou.” Eric shrugged. “Makes no sense to you now, but it will. And Zach’s—”

“Zach’s what?” Zach was at the door suddenly, his shadow filling it, and the other two fell silent. “Coffee, Eric. Courtesy of our new shaman. Isn’t she sweet?”

“Breakfast?” Julia arrived, looking fresh as a daisy, her glossy hair combed and her face pink from scrubbing. Sophie’s skin crawled, and her mouth tasted like ashes. “Where’s mine?”

“You don’t get any,” Zach said pleasantly. “I told you to watch her.”

“She’s right here.” Julia’s lower lip stuck out, and she looked supremely confident that she would get her way.

“Get in the van. If we lose our shaman like we lost our alpha, I’m holding you responsible. Even if it’s not on your watch.” Zach’s pleasant tone and even smile didn’t change, but something in his face shifted, and the morning grew a little chillier. Sophie eased back, suddenly very sure something awful was about to happen. She’d felt the same way before, whenever Mark was a certain type of quiet or smelled too strongly of liquor when he came home.

But Julia just bowed her head and hopped into the van. They all moved so gracefully it was unreal. The rest of them piled in, and Sophie was suddenly in the middle of a press of bodies. Zach thrust a foam cup into her hands. “Cream and sugar, sweetheart. And then we’ll figure out getting you a toothbrush and everything. You’re probably not ready for life on the road.”

That is such an understatement. Sophie stared at him. The van door heaved shut, closing the empty parking lot outside. It might as well be the surface of the moon. It was just as far away—and just as useless to her.

The weird crackling quiet folded over all of them. She was about to say something—plead, maybe, or point out that they were kidnapping her, or something equally useless. But the odd silence filled every corner of the van and stopped the words in her throat.

The van started up again, and she found herself huddling against the wall on the far side, the coffee in her numb hands and her face aching. It was no use.

She was trapped. At least, for now.

Chapter 8

A day’s worth of driving had them a safe five hundred miles away, even with bathroom and food breaks. It was far enough that he couldn’t avoid having them stop, and a comfortable distance from a rabid upir attack.

They kept the Silence unless they were eating, and there seemed no reassurance that would get the new shaman to open up. After a few tries he gave up. She didn’t even respond to Brun’s gentle mealtime questions.

She even refused to eat, just huddled in the back under his coat and stared reproachfully at them all. When the Silence came back she trembled and closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. It was a good pretense, and he let her keep it.

Julia loftily ignored the girl except for a bathroom break, and Zach saw his sister pinch her as she was hurried toward another rest-stop bathroom.

He let that go. Another night in their company, smelling them, would trigger her—if the biochemical process hadn’t been started already by their proximity. Found shamans took longer than born shamans to adjust to life in a Family, to the responsibility and the shock of finding out the world held more than just regular old humans.

Then again, most found shamans were taken into a regular Family and trained by another shaman, finding and shifting to a Family of their own later. They weren’t taken off the street right after an upir attack by a half-wild shaman-less Family who had just lost their alpha. It was the worst possible scenario.

And there was another thing. The instinct that had compelled him to grab her was circling the bottom of his mind even now, whispering other things.

Things like, Look at that hair, even all tangled up it’s pretty and it smells like sunshine.

Or, Those hips have a nice curve to them, don’t they?

Or how about, Her lips look pretty kissable when she purses them like that.

And something less pleasant. We’re being followed.

Night fell in cold streaks of scarlet and orange, the Silence breaking naturally on its own. Clouds massed on the horizon along with the glow of a good-size city. A hotel on the fringes wasn’t hard to find. They were flush with cash, so he sent Eric in to get a room, then shepherded his weary Family up the stairs to a nice little room with two queen beds and a kitchenette, not to mention a television Julia immediately turned on and a bathroom the new shaman looked longingly at.

The flannel shirt was too big for her, and it was his. The sight of her wrapped in something he owned was guaranteed to distract him—just like the smell of her mixing with his smell and rolling off the fabric. Right into the middle of his head, and right below the belt.

Brun hopped out the door to get food, and Julia and Eric were sent to get toiletries, things the new shaman would need. That left him alone in the room with her, and as soon as the silence closed around them she edged for the bathroom, shutting the door with a bang audible even through the television’s yapping.

He turned the idiot box down and pulled the curtains, spending a few minutes watching the parking lot. The animal in him crouched watchfully. There was no reason to think they were being followed … but there it was. The itching between his shoulder blades and the nagging feeling in his gut just wouldn’t go away.

Trust that feeling, son, his father’s voice growled inside his head. It’s your best friend, and it’ll keep you and your Family safe.

His father.

That wasn’t a good thought, so he shut it away. The smell of smoke and the crushing weight of responsibility wouldn’t quite go until he took a few deep breaths and reminded himself that he had problems in the here and now, and thinking about the past wouldn’t solve them.

Kyle’s spirit was safely over the border now, into the shifting realm of the majir. Which meant he had to talk to her, and try not to screw it up too badly.

He gave her ten minutes, then turned the television off and tapped at the bathroom door. “You can come out, sweetheart. We need to talk.”

We definitely need to talk. The sooner you understand a few things, the better off everyone will be.

Nothing. No sound of running water, no sniffles, just a deathly silence. He was sure there was no window in there; he’d checked. But still, his hand hovered above the doorknob. It would be a simple matter to snap a cheap hotel-door lock and walk in.

He didn’t even know who this girl was. Sophie, okay. Married once, possibly married still. Curly hair and steel-rimmed glasses, vulnerable wintry eyes and curves to make a racetrack die of envy. She smelled good, but among Carcajou there was such a thing as courting a female. Even when she smelled like she was his already, her pheromones striking sparks against his sensitive nose.

He knocked again, suddenly acutely aware that he was unshaven, smelling of unwilling attraction and acrid worry, still wearing the same clothes he’d been in last night. She was bound to be confused, upset. He’d have to handle her carefully.

Yeah. Like you have a clue how to handle a woman carefully. You’ve been doing a bang-up job so far.

He’d been too young to even think about mating while his parents were alive, and the gatherings where young people of each Tribe eyed one another and courted were closed to them once they were on their own. And human women smelled like food, not mates. His entire knowledge of what to say to a human woman came from television. Julia was no help at all, either.

There was a slight scraping noise. What’s that? He listened so intently he could hear her pulse, quickening now, and the soft soughing of her breathing. Up to something in there. Huh. He knocked again, softly. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you, no matter what you think. I’ll explain everything. Just come on out, Sophie. Is it short for Sophia?”

Another soft sound. Was it a laugh? The animal in him perked its ears, expectant. It was like hunting, waiting for the prey to appear.

Only she wasn’t prey. She was something else. Something he wanted to run down and fill his mouth with. Something good.

He touched the doorknob, running his fingers over it. “Come on. At least say something.”

“Go away,” came the muffled answer. But her breathing was high and harsh now, and her pulse thudded, as if she was in some sort of pain. There were other scratching, wrenching noises under the thunder of her stress-laden breathing.

What the hell? He twisted the knob and pulled the door open, opening his mouth to ask her if she was hurt.

The blow came out of nowhere. Faster reflexes saved him; he ducked and caught it in one hand, her surprising strength sending a shock all the way down his arm. She was screaming like a banshee suddenly, trying to wrench it away—a cheap hotel towel rack, pried loose from the wall. He smelled blood, too, and instinct woke in a red blur. He ripped the thing out of her hands and caught her wrist as she flew at him, still screaming.

She beat at him with her free fist until he caught it, trapping it in his much-larger hand and yanking her around as if she weighed less than a feather. There was a clear space next to the bathroom door, between the jamb and a closet space holding an ironing board and hangers attached to a rod.

He shoved her back; her shoulders met the wall with a tooth-rattling thump, and trapped her there. She kept struggling until he got her arms up over her head and pressed against her, bloodscent teasing and taunting at the animal, and the acrid reek of a shaman’s fear tearing at his control.

Goddammit. She pitched from side to side, mad with fear, and tried to bite him. Her mouth landed against his shoulder, she drove her teeth in again, and he froze, fingers clamping down until she made a small hurt sound, an interruption in her screaming.

She was biting him. Teeth in flesh, a promise and spur all at once. A red tide washed through him, and he almost lost it right there.

Control. Memory rose—he was twelve years old, and the alpha’s fingers were crushing the back of his neck, holding him still. Control the beast. We are human, we are Carcajou. We are not savages.

Still, with a shaman in an ecstasy of fear, accidents could happen. Bad accidents. And she had no idea that her teeth in his skin were an enticement.

She tried kneeing him, but he was pressed so hard against her, a slim soft thing between him and the unforgiving wall, she couldn’t get any leverage. The ice-and-moonlight smell broke over him in a cresting wave, and confusion between the obedience bred into every Carcajou’s bones to that smell and the response to the feel of her against him, the sunshine aroma of her hair filling his nose and its softness rubbing against his stubble as he buried his face in the tangled curls, gave him bare seconds to take a breath before drowning.

He came back to himself piecemeal, a sobbing woman between him and the wall, his fingers bruising-tight around her wrists and violence just a hairsbreadth away.

Oh, God. Get out of this one. Control yourself, goddammit; nobody can do it for you! You’re not a savage. You’re Carcajou.

The animal in him didn’t believe it. Arousal was a lead bar in the lowest part of his belly, her fear dragging sharp claws over his skin. “Calm down,” he managed, in a voice that had precious little of humanity left in it. It was a snarl, pure and simple. “Calm the fuck down, girl, or we are going to have problems.” Problems that make this look like making out in the back of a Chevy. Jesus, don’t think about that. Control.

She quieted, her breath hitching as she tried to swallow the tears. And she stopped struggling, which was good. Except that he still wanted to press against her, irritating layers of cloth in the way. She was sweating, he could taste it, and the urge to press his face against her throat and flick his tongue delicately against her skin to taste it even further made a fine tremor run through the center of his bones.

Fur receded. The claws prickling out through his fingertips receded, as well. He won the battle with himself by bare inches, and the animal retreated, snarling back down to the floor of his mind, curling up and promising trouble later.

“I am not going to hurt you,” he whispered into her hair. “You hear me? We need you. You have no idea how much. Nobody’s going to hurt you. I promise.”

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