Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels Read online

  “Their fertilized seeds can only be opened by the heat of a forest fire. If there’s no massive destruction of a forest, everything blazing, they can’t reproduce.”

  “So?”

  “So, death is part of the cycle of life, Dana. Imagine if no one died, ever. Imagine if everything living thing that ever existed still existed. What would happen?”

  “Well...” Dana was confused. What was he doing to her? “I guess that there wouldn’t be room for everything.”

  “Or resources, right? In fact, it’s entirely impossible, because all living things feed on other living things in order to stay alive, don’t they?”

  “Well, there are vegetarians,” she said, thinking of Hollis.

  Cole laughed. “I’d forgotten that plants no longer qualified as life.”

  She blushed, embarrassed for making such a stupid mistake. It made her even angrier that he was mocking her for not being able to think clearly when she was chained up in a basement with open wounds on her body and nothing in her belly except soup. “Whatever. There are different kinds of life, okay? No one gets upset when you uproot a potato, but people do when cats get run over in the road. It’s not all the same.”

  “Yes,” said Cole. “It is all the same. You only think it’s different because you’re focusing on things from a human perspective, and that perspective is skewed.”

  “Why do you keep saying things like that? We are human. Both of us.”

  “We’re wolves too, even though you and the whole of the SF seems to want to repress everything about our wolfness.”

  “Because it’s dangerous.”

  “And that’s the point,” said Cole. “Who says it’s a particularly good idea to keep all humans safe and to keep them from dying?”

  “Why would it be bad?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Cole, “maybe because humanity is killing itself anyway? Maybe because no matter how hard humans try to fight against nature, they can’t help but play into her hands? Maybe because fighting nature is pointless?”

  She strained against her chains. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He sounded even crazier than before.

  “Then I’ll explain,” said Cole. “In order for everything to function on this planet, there has to be balance. There’s a limited amount of resources, and to make more of one thing depletes something else. And all of it is necessary. Are you following me so far or is that too complicated for you to grasp?”

  “Fuck you.” She wasn’t an idiot. And if her thoughts were sluggish, she was hardly at her best. And whose fault was that?

  “If something uses up all its resources, it dies,” said Cole. “That’s the natural order of things. In order to maintain balance, the system attacks whatever is screwing everything up. Kind of like when you get an infection. Your body kills it off before it kills you. Our planet functions on the same principle.”

  “Oh shut up,” she said. “I’ve heard this argument before. Humans are not a virus, and the earth isn’t alive.”

  “Doesn’t matter whether or not the earth is alive or not,” he said. “It hosts all living things. And it has natural means by which to keep balance. Things like floods and earthquakes, and, yes, even war. Humans fight against nature, but we are all natural beings. We can’t all live forever. Some of us have to die, and if we don’t want to screw everything up, then a lot of us have to die, because there are too damned many humans on the earth.”

  She snorted. “So that’s your justification for killing people. You’re fighting overpopulation.”

  “I don’t need a justification,” he said. “I’m a wolf, and I do what comes naturally. If we all do what comes naturally, everything works itself out all right in the end. In fact, if the SF weren’t meddling in everything, there wouldn’t be so many werewolves as it is. The system creates more because the ones who are here aren’t functioning properly. Did you know that the percentage of werewolves is double what it was just one hundred years ago?”

  “That is the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  He walked over to her, his face inches from hers. “It doesn’t matter what you think, Dana. It’s inevitable. That’s the way nature works. There are too many humans on earth, and one way or another, a lot of them will die. It will either happen from werewolves, or because a volcano explodes, or because humans themselves put so much pollution in the atmosphere that they make the environment inhospitable and kill themselves off. It will happen. The system cannot function out of balance. Fighting it is exhausting and pointless. Giving in is exhilarating and relieving. Give in to your wolf.”

  “I hate my wolf.”

  “Then you hate yourself. Because the wolf is part of you.”

  “No,” she said. “It’s not. It’s a disease. That’s all.”

  “I’ll have to show you,” he said. “But I can’t do it until you shift. Shift for me, Dana.”

  She shied away from him. She would have run if she hadn’t been chained up.

  He walked around her, so that he was behind her. He leaned close. “Relax,” he whispered.

  She didn’t. She struggled against the chains, wanting nothing more than to be free of him.

  He grabbed a handful of flesh at the base of her neck, and something inside her went limp and malleable.

  “Shift,” he murmured. “Shift for me.” He tugged at her flesh, so that she was suspended by her neck and not her chains.

  An involuntary yip escaped her lips.

  Before she could quite tell what was happening, she felt the change rushing at her, scrabbling its way up her spine, hot and yearning, the thing inside her ready to stretch its limbs.

  Cole let go of her neck. “Good.”

  She screamed. Every bone in her body was changing shape. Fur was pushing its way through her skin. It itched. And as the shift built up momentum, it all sped up. Her thoughts began to fritter away, scatter. They were replaced by strange sensations and feelings. Hunt. Run. Howl.

  And then there was nothing but darkness, like there always was. The wolf swallowed her whole, and Dana was no more.

  * * *

  Dana leaned back in her chair in Hollis’ hotel room. “Cole thinks that humans have messed up the natural balance on the earth, and that nature is doing whatever it can to try to restore the balance by killing humans. He thinks werewolves are just part of that. The natural urge to kill is something they should give in to, not fight, like the SF teaches them. Near as I can tell, the first phase was Cole eliminating werewolves who hadn’t killed anyone, because they were useless, and they hadn’t fulfilled their natural edict to kill.”

  Hollis laughed a little. “You’re kidding me.”

  She shook her head.

  “It kind of makes sense,” he said.

  “It doesn’t make any sense at all.” Thinking back over being with Cole, remembering the way he’d made her shift, was making her uncomfortable. It was as if the wolf inside her had suddenly gotten antsy. She could feel it stirring inside her, teeth and claws and fur. It wanted out.

  “Well, I mean, it doesn’t make sense because he’s justifying killing people,” said Hollis. “Society pretty much dictates that when someone decides to do that, they’re crazy.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “There are justifiable reasons for killing people, like self-defense. Cole was cold-blooded.” She struggled with the wolf, trying to shove it down, the way she usually did. The wolf wasn’t listening. Its claws were at the back of her neck, trying to bust out.

  “Cold-blooded and rational,” said Hollis, grinning. “This is way better than I thought.”

  Dana stood up. “I don’t know if I can keep going with this tonight.”

  Hollis furrowed his brow. “Did I upset you with the questions? You didn’t seem to be.”

  The wolf turned Dana’s head, narrowed its wolf nose and eyes on Hollis. He was still sprawled on the bed, helpless and prostrate. Easy prey. Dana could hear his blood pulsing at his neck, his wrists. She could
smell him. He smelled... delicious. She had an idle thought, wondering if Hollis would taste better or worse considering he didn’t eat meat. Her tongue snaked out to run over her teeth.

  Hollis sat up straighter, looking concerned. “Dana?”

  Jesus. Were her fangs coming out? Dammit. She concentrated on making the teeth retract.

  They weren’t going anywhere.

  Dana rolled her head on her shoulders. “Hollis? Why’d you stay with me all those months when I wasn’t putting out?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I guess I liked you, Dana.”

  The wolf was still sizing Hollis up, but Dana was having trouble telling where the wolf ended and she began. She was keeping down the fur, the claws, the muzzle, but the lust... Skin. Blood. Mouth on skin. Sex. Things were feeling strangely blurry. She smiled at him. “You still like me, don’t you? That’s why you kept calling me. That’s why you keep trying to get me to go on dates with you.”

  “Um...” Hollis was staring at her, confused. “Are you okay? You seem... different.”

  Dana climbed onto the bed and began to crawl toward Hollis, deliberate and slow, stalking her prey. “What I can’t figure out is why you like me. Wasn’t our relationship mostly... frustrating?”

  Hollis swept his gaze over her. “See, I don’t think there’s a good way for me to answer that. That sounds like a trap.”

  She was practically on top of him now. She moved closer, her hands on either side of his body, her legs straddling him. She rubbed her face against his, buried her nose in his neck, breathing in his scent. He was so fragile, a tiny layer of skin the only barrier between her and all that glorious... meat.

  “Did you just smell me?” Hollis’ voice had a note of fear in it.

  That excited her. She opened her mouth, scraped her teeth against his clavicle.

  Hollis drew a ragged breath. “Okay, Dana, I’m not gonna deny this is... really fucking hot, but—”

  She kissed him, sweeping her tongue into his mouth, tasting him, marking him. Hers. Prey. Boyfriend. The words seemed like they meant the same thing right now. Didn’t he belong to her? Wasn’t he hers to do with as she pleased?

  Hollis moaned against her mouth, his hands coming up to explore her body, roaming over her back, her hips, her waist.

  She broke the kiss, leaning back so that she was straddling him, resting on her knees, her hands free. She cocked her head. “I want to tear you apart.”

  Hollis swallowed. “Whoa. That is officially the sexiest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  She stretched her jaw.

  He saw her teeth. He backed away from her. “Jesus, Dana.”

  She giggled. “Try to get away. It’ll be more fun if I chase you.”

  Hollis scrambled off the bed. “When you said ‘tear me apart,’ you meant...”

  She bounded after him, and she wasn’t sure who was in control anymore. The wolf, or her. What she did know was that she wanted her teeth in him. She wanted the blood spurting into her mouth, running down over her pelt, the hunt, the glorious hunt. Run, she thought at her prey.

  And he did. He threw open the door and ran out of the room.

  She waited for a second before following. She didn’t want to catch him too quickly. Then she was after him, through the door herself.

  He was several doors down, knocking in a frenzy. “Avery Brooks, your partner is going insane.”

  She leapt on him, letting out her claws and teeth. She dug into him, just deep enough to keep him from moving.

  A door was opening.

  Her claws were deep inside his skin, ripping and tearing. Blood splashed, and she was lapping at it.

  “Gray?”

  Then there was a loud sound. A gun shot.

  She yelped when it bit into her flesh.

  She turned away from Hollis to see Avery over her, his tranquilizer gun trained on her.

  She whimpered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I don’t even know why you’re still here.”

  “This is a story happening right under my nose, man. I’m not going anywhere until I talk to her again.”

  All Dana knew was voices. It was dark, and people were talking.

  “Like she’s going to have anything to say to you. And you can’t write about this.”

  “I have to write about this. Are you kidding?”

  She was on a bed, she realized. It was dark, because her eyes were closed. She opened them. She was in her hotel room, lying on her bed. Avery and Hollis were standing over her. It was their voices. They were arguing.

  “You can’t.”

  “I witnessed this. I was in the middle of interviewing her. I’m going to write about it.”

  Why were they arguing? Oh. That was right. She remembered now. Crap. She struggled to sit up. “So that’s what it feels like to be hit with one of those tranqs.”

  Avery and Hollis both turned to look at her.

  “Gray,” said Avery. “You’re awake.”

  She swung her feet over the edge of the bed, grunting. “I’m awake. I feel like I got hit by a truck. How long have I been out?”

  “Not long,” said Avery. “You were half wolfed out. It must have made the tranquilizer work through your system faster.”

  She nodded. “Right.”

  “Dana,” said Hollis, “what were you trying to do to me?”

  Avery put his hand on Hollis’ chest. “Back off. She’s not ready to answer questions. Why don’t you just go back to your hotel room? You’re fine.”

  Hollis pushed Avery aside. “You dug your claws into me. You made me bleed.”

  “No,” Avery said, “you’re fine. She didn’t hurt you.”

  “Am I?” said Hollis. “What if I caught the lupine virus?”

  Dana’s head hurt. “Not from claws, you wouldn’t.” She tried to get up off the bed, but didn’t make it.

  Avery was next to her right away. “Hey, take it easy.”

  She looked at Hollis. “Did I hear you say you want to write about this?”

  “I’m going to,” said Hollis. “Has that happened to you before? Is that something Cole Randall did to you, or did talking about him bring it up? Do you really think you’re stable enough to be back at work?”

  Dana buried her face in her hands. “Oh hell.” This was not good. How had she let this happen? Ursula had wanted a hero piece, good publicity for the SF. Thanks to her, Hollis was going to publish how crazed and unstable she was.

  Avery glared at Hollis. “Maybe we should give him the virus. He’d be locked up in the SF for a month until he got his wolf under control. Maybe that would kill his damned story.”

  She lifted her face. “Please do not write about this, Hollis.”

  “If I leave this out, I’m going to basically be lying. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

  “You don’t have to say anything to him,” said Avery.

  “I lost control,” she said. “I lost control of my wolf. Cole did things to me when I was with him. He made me shift and he... He had all this stupid crap about accepting the wolf and integrating it into my sense of self. I didn’t believe any of it. I didn’t think it did anything to me.” Except for the fact that she’d been ignoring how often the wolf seemed to try to get out lately.

  “Jesus, Gray, it’s not even a full moon,” said Avery. “Why are you having issues with your wolf?”

  The moon doesn’t matter anymore. The wolf is too strong. Cole saw to that. “It was only because I was talking about Cole. If I hadn’t tried to dig the past up for that interview, I never would have lost control,” she said.

  “So that’s what Randall did to you,” said Hollis. “That’s why you can’t be with anyone at all. You don’t trust yourself.”

  That was just a hair better than the truth, which was that she didn’t seem to be attracted to anything except that psychopath. “I can’t have that in print, Hollis.
”

  “But you’re back at work—”

  “It doesn’t have to do with my job,” she said. “It was because I was thinking about Cole. And because we were...” She looked at him meaningfully.

  Hollis opened his mouth, then closed it. He nodded slowly. “That kind of stuff makes you lose control.”

  “Apparently,” she said. Wasn’t true, of course. She’d gotten intimate with Hollis because of the wolf. The wolf hadn’t come out because she was kissing him. But it was a good cover. “To put it in print, you’ll have to admit what we were doing when it started. Do you want to reveal that to the world? Do you think that will make you look like you’re objective when it comes to me?”

  Hollis sighed. “Fine, Dana. I keep this under wraps. And I think we should do future interviews at the Sullivan Foundation. It just seems safer to me.”

  She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. He’d gone for it.

  “I’m only doing this because I like you,” said Hollis. “Even after you dug your werewolf claws into me.”

  “Fine,” said Avery. “So, are you going to go now?”

  Hollis looked back and forth between the two of them. “I guess I should find some bandages.” He left the hotel room.

  As soon as the door closed, Avery turned on Dana, his eyes flashing. “What the fuck, Gray? What the flying fuck?”

  “Brooks, don’t.”

  He pointed at the closed door. “Is what you told him the truth? Is this affecting your work or not?”

  “It’s not,” she said. “Hollis and I were... getting closer—”

  “No, I figured that out,” said Avery. “So, you’re saying that’s all part of this weird thing you’ve got going on with Randall and everything else?”

  “I guess so,” she said in a tiny voice. Honestly, she didn’t know what had happened. Not really. Only that whatever Cole had done to her had made it next to impossible to control her wolf. She was going to have to do something about it, but she didn’t know what.

  “I suppose you don’t want me to tell King.”

  “Not really.”

  Avery shook his head. “It better not happen again, Gray. If it does, we both look like idiots.”