Awaken: Book One: London Read online

  He turned to face me a moment. I forced myself not to back down from his eyes. I wasn’t one of his pack. I didn’t have to stare at the floor. I could tell he didn’t like it but he hid his irritation. ‘I will get you a laptop.’ As if that solved it!

  I bit my tongue as he locked the door and reminded myself that there was still someone else in the room with me. I turned slowly towards her. She was still smiling sweetly from beside the bed.

  ‘Hi,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m Ceri Hatherton, but I’m guessing you already knew that.’ The next few minutes would dictate whether or not I would be enjoying my physical.

  She nodded. ‘Hard not to,’ she had a soft Caribbean lilt to her accent. ‘I’m Dr Cara Haymes. James is my mate.’

  I lifted a brow. ‘Who?’

  ‘James Trevelyan. You broke his leg yesterday.’

  I winced. This was going to be a long day. ‘Sorry. I, er, didn’t really know what I was doing.’

  She laughed lightly. ‘Please don’t apologize. James is Wolfe’s second. It’s been a long time since he’s been challenged by someone stronger than himself.’

  I frowned. ‘And that’s a good thing?’

  There was a glint in her eye. ‘We’re animals, Ceri. We’re made for war, not peace.’

  ‘Isn’t that a strange sentiment coming from a doctor?’

  ‘I’ve only been a doctor the last fifty or so years.’ She swept her hair over her shoulders. It was still strange having no idea how old people were. She looked younger than me. ‘And we’re not human. Humans fear fights. The more dominant wolves were made to protect the others. Nowadays, protection mostly means stopping them being detected or hunted, but it used to mean much more.’

  ‘You’re telling me that London’s full of werewolves suffering from years of pent-up aggression? That doesn’t sound very safe.’

  She laughed a little. ‘It’s not aggression. It’s raw but it’s not bad. We train to get this energy out. James trains with Wolfe, but it’s not the same. Wolfe is that much stronger. He has to exert a lot of control when he spars with the others. James either fights with someone weaker, or forces himself to attack his alpha.’ What did that mean for Wolfe? Or was it somehow a given that you wouldn’t be able to match off against anyone as an alpha?

  ‘Yeah, that doesn’t sound any better.’ She smiled at me but I didn’t feel like smiling back. I didn’t want to be the punching bag to help werewolves channel their raw aggression. Even if I could take it. ‘So, you’re giving me a check-up?’ I prompted.

  She took in a quick breath and nodded. In brisk movements, she led me over to the desk and asked me to sit on it. After all the usual doctor’s tests – ears, eyes, blood pressure etc. – she pulled out a small case of vials from her bag. The glass was opaque so I couldn’t tell what was inside.

  She picked up one of the vials and removed the stopper. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Blood.’

  I cocked a brow. ‘And what are you planning on doing with it?’

  ‘I want to test your reaction to some things.’ That didn’t reassure me. ‘It will help me gauge how accessible your wolf is to you.’

  I stayed very still and tried to look relaxed. It didn’t seem like a very clever thing to test when we were alone in a locked room and I apparently had no control of my beast. I told her as much but she simply smiled.

  After a while of shaking the vial, she removed her finger from the tip and presented me with the drop of blood at the end. ‘Do you want me to sniff it?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Taste it.’

  I pulled a face. ‘I don’t really want to,’ I told her awkwardly. I also didn’t really want to lick her finger but she lifted it closer to my face. Ugh, fine. I let out a short breath, then wiped the blood onto my own finger and stuck it in my mouth.

  ‘What can you taste?’

  ‘Hepatitis?’ I ventured and then focused on a flavour that appeared at the back of my mouth. I frowned and concentrated harder. It was sweet but there was more than that. ‘What is that?’

  ‘What does it taste like?’

  ‘Cream? It’s quite buttery, isn’t it?’ I looked at the vial as if it might give me clues. ‘Is it a farm animal? A cow or a goat or something like that? Milky?’

  She looked at me for a while. ‘Fish.’

  My building excitement left me. It turned out that I didn’t have the amazing taste buds I’d thought.

  She tested me on a few others. For cow, I’d guessed dog; for chicken, I’d guessed moose. In the end, I gave up trying to taste flavours and resorted to naming random animals. I had as much of a chance of getting them right as I did relying on my tongue. After all, most of them tasted the same.

  It didn’t bother her as much as it had bothered me. For some reason, finding out that I was some sort of uber-werewolf had convinced me I’d suddenly have amazing superpowers. But, though my sense of smell, taste and hearing seemed to have improved a little since meeting Wolfe, I was still essentially me.

  Cara turned back to her selection of vials and eyed them carefully. Then she picked up the last one. ‘I’m going to go outside, Ceri. Once I’ve closed the door, I want you to open this one.’

  I nodded. ‘Okay. Why outside?’

  She packed the rest of her things meticulously into her case. ‘Because I don’t know what your reaction will be.’

  I frowned. ‘You’re saying you think I’m about to do something bad.’ I stared at the bottle. It was identical to all the others. ‘Surely, if it would have that much of an effect on me, I would have scented it when you brought it into the room.’

  ‘This is just a precaution,’ she told me, but I could detect a nervousness in her voice as she left the vial on the table next to me and moved to the door. ‘If nothing happens and you cannot tell what it is, simply close the vial and I will come and collect it.’

  ‘How will you know when I’ve finished?’

  ‘I’ll be watching on the monitor.’

  I stood and glared at the ceiling. ‘There are cameras in here?’ Maybe tell a person that before you lock them up… I let out an irritated grunt and folded my arms. My reaction made her wary but she maintained an outwards calm.

  ‘Are you ready for the next test?’

  I let out another breath and shrugged. ‘Yeah, sure.’ What did I have to lose?

  She sent me a nod and left the room. I heard the door lock and turned to the vial on the table. It looked harmless enough. Perhaps this was actually some kind of psychological test? Testing my ability to follow orders and do as instructed. After all, for all I knew, there was nothing but coloured sugar water in each of the containers. Maybe they wanted to know if I would answer questions honestly. I preferred that overbearing act to the idea of tasting blood.

  I picked up the little glass bottle. It was only an inch or so high. I gave it a shake even though I couldn’t see inside, and glanced at the door. At least I wasn’t going to hurt anyone if something happened in here. I might damage the TV, though, which would be annoying.

  Well, here goes nothing…

  I let out a breath and pulled the stopper free from the glass.

  Chapter 7

  When Vince came in around lunchtime, I had been sat in the same position for hours with my arms folded tightly across my chest. He was good enough not to mention the shredded bed and destroyed electronics. I wondered if he’d seen what had happened on the monitor. I wanted to see it too, but not yet. In that state, did I just look like some woman having a massive temper tantrum and rockstarring a room to shreds?

  He set down the Chinese food and a big black bag I assumed was full of work, and pulled up the other half of the sofa I was sitting on. He sat and began extracting the food.

  ‘I got you some chicken and noodle thing, but you have to share the spring rolls.’ He placed some boxes and chopsticks on my lap and started digging into his own food. ‘Eat,’ he said after a while. ‘I hate eating alo
ne.’

  I sent him a look but started on my noodles. ‘What’s in the bag?’ I asked when I was finally able to swallow.

  ‘Work.’ Lucky me – I’d been right. ‘I brought the stack of papers from your desk and your notepad. Someone’s coming with a laptop later.’

  ‘A free laptop and all I have to do is be chained up in a cellar and experimented on,’ I said sarcastically. I was in a bad mood. The truth of it was that my blackouts were scaring me. From the sound of it, my wolf was crazed. In other words, there was something uncontrollable and dangerous inside me that did whatever it wanted. I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t figure out whether I had blacked out for ten minutes or an hour. I was grateful to be in a locked room if I had no control over it. Grateful and scared.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, setting half a spring roll down to look at me. ‘You are dark today.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘What happened in here?’

  I picked up a spring roll and let out a long breath. ‘I sniffed some blood and apparently went mental.’

  ‘What kind of blood?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re the first person to come in here since my blackout.’ He shifted a little. I couldn’t help notice his eyes dart to the door. Well, there was a vote of confidence. Thanks, Vince. ‘I think I’ve got it out of my system now.’

  ‘That’s good to know. Yesterday, you threw me across the lab.’ He said it like a joke but I wasn’t laughing. I still couldn’t believe how I had been capable of that, let alone why. And now it had happened again.

  ‘I don’t remember doing that. I don’t even know how I could have done that! The last time I went to the gym was over a year ago and I can’t even do a proper push-up!’

  He watched me a moment and then put a comforting hand on my leg. ‘Relax. Seriously.’ I took a long breath. ‘Wolfe will sort it out.’ That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It wasn’t Wolfe’s problem, it was mine. I needed to sort it out.

  I rubbed my eyes. I felt tired. ‘Do you think I’ve had blackouts without realising it? You talked about the moon before. Does that really have an effect?’

  He shrugged and pushed a spring roll into my mouth. He was determined that I ate. I chewed. ‘The moon calls us, but your wolf is…inactive, I guess. We would have heard if you’d attacked anyone. You can’t really hide that kind of thing. Anyway, I think Wolfe’s brought it out. You seem to react to him.’ I frowned so he continued. ‘He makes your wolf want to come out and play.’

  I thought back to the three blackouts. Wolfe had been there for two of them. If he was causing my wolf to fight whatever had subdued it, maybe the vial of blood had been his. That would explain my reaction.

  I found myself considering an easy solution: stay the hell away from Zosimos Wolfe. After all, it had worked well for the last four hundred years.

  We finished the food and reorganised the room to make it a little more homely. We piled up the stuff that was too broken to be used and left it by the door to be collected, then attempted to work. It was difficult to focus given the state of the room and lack of windows. I’d never really thought about it before, but I needed to feel like I could leave at any minute to be able to knuckle down to my research. In the end, we resorted to throwing pen lids into a cup and then pillow rugby when that got boring.

  It was late when someone came into the room to take away the junk, and even later by the time Wolfe returned. He seemed unimpressed when he walked in just in time to see me tackle Vince to the ground to steal the pillow. He sent him out immediately.

  ‘I thought you had a lot of work to do?’

  I shrugged. ‘I got distracted when your doctor made me taste some blood and trash the place. Did you see the video?’ I asked. ‘Oh, and thanks for letting me know that there are cameras in here!’

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘The last blood was mine.’

  ‘I figured that out already,’ I told him. ‘You’re the catalyst that brings the wolf out.’ I studied his reaction. He was a difficult man to read, but I wondered if I could make out pride. Wrong sentiment. I straightened. ‘It makes sense to separate, then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘You are pack. We are bonded. We cannot separate.’

  I frowned. ‘Ever?’ That couldn’t be what he intended. ‘I have a life outside this world. You can’t honestly expect me to spend the indefinite future waiting for you to figure out a way to cure me.’

  ‘Cure you? What you have is a gift.’

  Surely, he couldn’t believe that. ‘What I have has killed and hurt people,’ I countered.

  ‘You have saved many.’

  ‘All I hear is that I’m a killer. People are scared of me!’

  Flecks of gold appeared in his eyes. He took a step towards me. There was the ghost of a smile on his lips. ‘Yes,’ he said. He was proud of that fact. ‘You command respect.’

  ‘I don’t want that kind of respect. I want to go back to my flat, put on my pj’s, and get back to watching Only Fools and Horses reruns.’ Ah, real life.

  ‘You can watch that here.’ He was missing the point.

  ‘It’s not about the series! I don’t want to be here.’

  He let out a short breath. He found my words irritating. For some reason, I could read his emotions more and more clearly. It wasn’t that I could tell what he was thinking, he was just becoming easier to understand. I wondered whether it was just intuition or something to do with the connection we were supposed to have.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Now?’ He nodded. It wasn’t difficult to decide. ‘My flat.’ I wanted to change my clothes and have a chance to regroup.

  He gave another nod. ‘Okay. I will take you there now.’

  I remained cautious. ‘I want to sleep in my bed tonight.’

  ‘Okay.’ He turned and indicated for me to pass before him to the door. I took slow steps towards it.

  ‘As in the bed in my flat,’ I further stipulated. ‘Whilst it’s in my flat.’ I’d seen too many films about people making deals with the devil to know you have to spell everything out. What if he simply had my bed removed and put in another holding cell? That wasn’t what I had meant and I needed to make sure he knew that.

  ‘Yes,’ he said simply. He opened the door and indicated the way through the maze of corridors as our pace became less hesitant.

  I glanced at him and then nodded. ‘Okay, then.’ Although he came with me in the car to my flat, it wasn’t until I had the key in the door that I realised he intended to stay too. ‘I’m sleeping alone.’

  He barely bothered to disapprove of my statement before he pushed open the door and went in before me. If werewolf senses were as strong as I had been led to believe, he knew exactly how I felt about that. And chose to ignore it.

  ‘Ceri? Is that you?’ Fi’s voice called from the kitchen. I nearly kicked myself. How was I supposed to explain this?

  ‘Yeah,’ I called back, closing the door. I shot Wolfe a warning look and cleared my throat. If he refrained from conversation, maybe I could pretend this was something work related? Or maybe I could pretend that the multi-trillionaire needed a place to crash for the night? I frowned at myself. Surely I could do better than that?

  Before I had a chance to say anything she continued. ‘I tried to phone you earlier. You have to tell me everything about last night! I can’t believe you spent the night with—’ I winced when she appeared from the kitchen and froze. ‘Zosimos Wolfe.’

  I watched her eyes flick between us and gave a nervous laugh. ‘Fi, this is Zosimos Wolfe,’ I said as I weighed up my options. ‘Turns out we went to school together.’ Wolfe cocked a brow at my lie but said nothing. ‘Wolfe, this is my flatmate, Fiona Stratford.’

  I could tell Fi was trying to figure out the correct etiquette for the greeting. How does one meet the head of a company you’re trying to work with when they turn up at your flat with your friend?

  Wolfe stepped forwar
ds as if this was an everyday introduction and offered his hand with a polite smile. ‘Miss Stratford,’ he said as she shook it.

  Fi’s eyes were still wide when she straightened and stared at me. ‘Well, I was just about to go out.’ Liar. ‘I am staying with my sister tonight.’ I nodded and pretended it had all been arranged weeks ago, instead of a misguided last-minute enjoy-some-privacy decision.

  ‘Oh, right. Yeah.’ I played along. It probably was easier for everyone involved if I argued with Wolfe about personal boundaries in private. At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter if Fi thought we were fooling around. She thought I was too antisocial as it was. Perhaps bringing him home increased my social standing.

  Ignoring the food in the oven, she grabbed a few things and slipped out of the flat, throwing a last wink to me on the way. I waited until I heard the lift ping and then turned my attention on Wolfe. He seemed to be inspecting the flat and all the ornaments inside. I didn’t like it. It made me uneasy.

  ‘When I said I wanted to sleep in my own bed, that wasn’t an invitation.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, lifting a large textbook on first year organic chemistry from the bookshelf.

  ‘And yet you’re here,’ I prompted.

  He turned to face me. ‘I cannot leave you. As the only person who can calm your wolf, as alpha, as your mate, I have a responsibility to protect you.’

  ‘You are the cause of my problem,’ I reminded him. I felt something heavy weigh down the room again. It pressed down on my shoulders, on my head. I frowned and forced myself to straighten. Was that him? Was that his wolf, his power? ‘Stop that,’ I snapped before moving into the kitchen to turn off the oven. Fi had made a huge lasagne. Despite already eating, my mouth watered at the bubbling cheese as I took it out to cool a little. ‘I’m going to shower and change. Help yourself to food and TV and stuff.’

  I turned the TV on and passed him the remote. He looked as though he was holding back a deep irritation but took the remote nonetheless. I hovered a moment. It felt awkward leaving a stranger in my flat with Only Fools and Horses on the TV.