Dani Harper - First Bite

“I have seen that movie. Twice. You are the sister.”

Neva was getting damn tired of this “the sister” crap, but now was not the time to complain about it. Baker! She focused her thoughts for him only, not wanting to give away his presence to Zarita.

I’m trying to get into Riley’s cell. He’s in bad shape, but he’s alive.

Zarita looked startled. Baker had once again completely failed at shielding his mindspeak. That wasn’t surprising, but the woman’s next question was. “You are trying to help Riley?” More surprising was the sudden hope that lit the doctor’s face.

“Yeah, we are. And Travis, too. Why?”

“I can help you. Riley will die if he doesn’t get out of here soon, and—and I do not want that to happen.” Zarita set her lips—gingerly—into a small, thin line, as if to prevent any more details from spilling out.

“And Travis?”

“I do not know his name. There was a big blond man in a cell near Riley who calls himself Trouble. Blue eyes, frown here .” Zarita pointed to a spot between her brows.

Neva almost laughed until she reran the words through her brain. “Wait, was here? But I can smell him…” Her senses told her the truth then: the scent was a leftover, and it had already faded slightly in the small amount of time she’d been here. “Where is he now?”

“I was too late. He was taken upstairs before I came back here.” Zarita hung her head. “I was going to help him escape if he would take Riley with him.”

Upstairs was not good. Downstairs was undoubtedly a death sentence, but upstairs was her twin and that could be worse. “ Where upstairs?” She knelt and gripped the small woman by the shoulders. “Please tell me where!”

“Your Travis has been placed in a guest room on the third floor. Meredith has been sleeping for many hours in her penthouse, and she will be ravenous when she wakes. She finds his blood appealing.”

Horror gripped Neva by the throat and squeezed hard. She stepped back until she could feel the cold wall behind her. “Is—is she a vampire?” If there was such a thing, she was certain that her crazed sister would aspire to become one.

“Not in the physical sense of the word. But blood has many, many uses in dark magic. Your man’s blood is particularly rare and powerful, and she will make use of it as long as she can, for anything she can think of. Perhaps it is a small comfort, but I don’t think she will kill him very soon. I just do not know when—or if—he will be returned to his cell.”

“You’re sure giving me a lot of information. Why?” Neva narrowed her eyes at the woman. “You’re her personal physician, and I’ll bet she pays you plenty. Why should I trust anything you say?”

Zarita stood with a curious dignity. “Meredith does not pay me in money. She knows where my children are, and she allows them to live. To keep them safe, I would have served her my entire life.”

Which was worse, Neva wondered—being kidnapped yourself, or having your family held hostage? If the doctor’s story was true, she wouldn’t want to be in her shoes. “But?”

“But lately…her madness has been growing in leaps and bounds. She has always been selfish and cruel, but careful and calculating. Something has changed. She kills on impulse, even when she does not want to, even when it ruins her own plans. She loses control and destroys the very things she likes, and weeps over them afterward. Most of all, she does great damage to her own pack, the pack she is trying to build. Many were slaughtered simply because Meredith was angry that you had escaped.”

Neva felt the color leave her face. People died because of me.

“See? You feel pain because of this. You are nothing like your twin. Nothing. I was afraid at first when I saw your golden hair, the way you are dressed, that you were trying to be like her. I was afraid that I could not trust you .”

Jesus. “Look, when I left this place…well, I tried to make sure that Meredith couldn’t use me to hurt anyone. Travis saved me. And I need to go find him now. Please help Baker and Riley get out of here, and for heaven’s sake, get yourself out, too. Go to your children and hide them.”

“They are grown, and they will not hide. They do not believe in werewolves and magic. But I will help Riley and your friend.”

Zarita could be lying and her offer might be nothing but a trap, but Neva’s instincts and those of her wolf detected nothing amiss. She was just going to have to take a chance and trust her. Baker, I found you some help! I’m going after Travis.

Impulsively, she hugged the small woman, then ran back the way she had come, all the way to the private elevator. She didn’t care how out of character it looked or sounded. On this floor, at least, it no longer mattered. If Travis was on the third floor, then that was where she had to go, and fast.

The soft stroke of a hand across his forehead roused Travis at last. Had the doctor come back? “Don’t take any more out,” he said muzzily. “It makes me too tired.” He must have been out for a long time…there was a glow on the horizon, but the rest of the sky was dark and the room with it. The feminine shadow by the side of his bed, however, was familiar. He knew that scent, that shape, that—

“Neva?” he whispered, then came fully awake. “Neva, what the hell are you doing here? I told you not to come here. I told you to stay away!”

“I couldn’t leave you here,” she said, leaning close. “Besides, the wolf wouldn’t let me.”

His night vision made use of the ambient light to study her, mentally checking off her features. Her soft dark hair was in its usual careless ponytail, the scattering of freckles across her nose and cheekbones in all the right places. Most of all, her golden-brown eyes were warm and kind. Did he dare believe it was really her?

Before he could decide, she knelt and began untying the cords. “Are you okay? Can you walk?” she asked.

“For Christ’s sake, Meredith will kill you!” he protested. Shit, shit, shit ! He cursed his wolf, cursed it for taking over and claiming Neva without the approval of either one of them. The terrible consequence was plain—Neva couldn’t help herself from coming here, might even think it was her own idea at first. Her wolf would drive her here to be with its mate. In his head, he shouted at his lupine self: You put her in danger! And cursed it again when there was still no frickin’ response.

“I doubt it. She doesn’t want me dead,” said Neva. “Besides, Meredith’s not even here. She flew off to go shopping for a couple days. Now get up, we have to hurry. The guards are drunk off their asses, but somebody might still be awake.”

He sat up and rubbed his wrists. Every inch of skin the cord had touched was now throbbing with pain, as if it had been burned with acid. He grabbed a silken red loop of the stuff and stared at it, as trying to discern its secrets. “I should have been able to break this.”

She simply took it from him and began gathering it into a neat coil, gradually pulling it from under the bed where it had been crisscrossed in order to reach all four bedposts. “Fenrir’s Cord,” she said simply, winding the end around the bundle and hanging the whole thing on her arm like an oversize bracelet. “In Norse mythology, Fenrir was a giant wolf whose destiny was to kill Odin. The gods—”

“The gods bound him with a silken cord,” finished Travis. “It was enchanted so he couldn’t break it.”

“Everyone thinks that’s a myth. But I’m finding out that nothing is just a story, not where Meredith is concerned. Either she found the real cord or she made one like it. So I’m taking this with us in case we need it.” Neva tugged at his sleeve and tried to pull him toward the door. “Get a move on, will you? We have to get going.”