The pain from coughing nearly made me pass out again. I had no idea what time it was or how I’d gotten back here. The last thing I recalled was fighting with Chaz in that house.
That, and failing to beat him.
So what the hell had happened? How did I get back here?
“Ah, you’re awake? Good.”
Chaz’s voice. If I hadn’t been so busy coughing up a lung, I would’ve launched myself off the couch to attack the bastard again. What in God’s name was he doing here? In the secret sanctuary of the White Hats, no less?
His hand pressed against my breastbone, shoving me down into the cushions. He brushed my fingers away from my mouth and placed a soft-rimmed cup there; I scrabbled at it to pull it away before I realized what he was giving me—and began taking painful gulps of the oxygen. It took a minute or two, but the coughing eased off, and it became relatively easier to breathe. I glared at him over the plastic as soon as I blinked the tears out of my eyes. He gave me a humorless grin, showing me very clearly the newly formed gap where I’d knocked one of his teeth out.
“I’m going to take my hand away. You’re going to sit still. Got it?”
He took my wordless glare as an affirmative and withdrew, tossing the face mask aside and turning off a small cylinder I hadn’t seen earlier at the foot of the couch.
I tried to sit up, but the pain in my back made the pain in my ribs feel like a minor twinge in comparison. Chaz gave a short, harsh laugh when I collapsed back, breathless and gasping.
“You finished?”
When I nodded, he called back over his shoulder. “She’s up.”
There was a shuffling sound coming from downstairs. People coming to join us. Judging by what I could smell of myself, though somebody had obviously used a washcloth to wipe off the worst of the ash and grime and changed me into a T-shirt and someone else’s boxers after the fight, I wasn’t in any condition to be dealing with whatever was coming. My hair hung lank and oily around my shoulders, and I didn’t even want to think about who had undressed and then put new clothes on me.
Chaz didn’t look at me or say anything else until Jack, Nikki, and a few Weres wandered in. One of them was new to me: a tall, slender woman with dark hair and hazel eyes. She’d linked arms with Nick, a Were I remembered from my trip to the Pine Cone Lodge. He looked the same, still covered in piercings and tattoos. Simon was there, too. He’d helped in the fight against Max Carlyle. There were a few more whose faces I recognized, but whose names I didn’t know. Lower-ranking Weres. The room got pretty crowded very fast.
Kimberly was noticeably absent. I sorely hoped the bitch had died back in that house.
The White Hats looked uncomfortable, but weren’t making any move to attack the werewolves. Either I was drugged up, or there was something really wrong with this picture. Maybe both.
“Jack,” I said, my voice gravelly from what I assumed was smoke inhalation,“you feel like letting me in on what’s going on here?”
He settled on the arm of the couch by my feet, his arctic irises scanning my body with the clinical gaze of a scientist studying a bug under a microscope. There was nothing comforting or human about it.
“You almost died when you decided to Lone Ranger into that house. Your boyfriend here—”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Chaz and I both said at the same time. Then glared at each other.
“Fine. Ex-boyfriend. Whatever. He dragged you out and called for a truce. Long story short, he told us what’s been happening behind the scenes, who betrayed me, and who’s behind the murders. Looks like your boy wasn’t the one responsible for the death of that reporter. Remember that fight in Carl Schurz Park? The guy in the hat and trench coat? You almost got him. It was someone from a rival pack, the Ravenwoods.”
That gave me a nasty start. Some of the Ravenwoods were behind the Embassy Incident. The same altercation that had landed my name and face in the papers months ago and changed my life forever. If I hadn’t been feeling exceptionally brave that day, I never would have become so well known by the Others. The Circle never would have decided to draw me into their affairs and hire me to fetch the Dominari Focus from Alec Royce. Though I hadn’t known it at the time, it had also put the wife of the Ravenwoods’ pack leader in my debt. Patricia Hutchinson had promised me I could call on her if I ever needed her help.
Chaz knew all about that. He didn’t seem particularly upset or put out at the news. He’d had more time to come to grips with this strange twist than I had.
Nikki was watching Chaz with narrowed, distrustful eyes from her seat on the edge of a chair across the room. Smart girl. “The Sunstrikers are going to help us take the Ravenwoods out.”
That prompted a few snorts of derision and wry chuckles from the Weres. Simon, once he managed to stop snickering, gave her a pointed look. “You mean the White Hats are going to help the Sunstrikers kick some Ravenwood ass.”
“Semantics,” Jack said, giving Nikki a shut-up-if-you-know-what’s -good-for-you look I knew all too well. She said nothing, turning her face away. Good to know she still considered Jack to be in charge.
“We are willing to work with you,” the woman who was arm in arm with Nick said. Her English had a slight French lilt to it. “You should be grateful. This woman nearly destroyed herself taking only a few of us down. The rest of your warriors could not bear to face us in open battle. How do you think you would fare against an entire pack that rivals the Sunstrikers in size? You require our aid, and we could use yours. I fail to see the difficulty here.”
Chaz ran a hand over his face, as though this was an argument he’d already heard one too many times. He turned his attention to me, his expression so hangdog, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of regret. If only I could have stayed ignorant of what he was, never known anything about the supernatural side of his life. We might not have stayed together, but now that I wasn’t in the middle of fighting for my life, I could appreciate that he had done his best to incapacitate me while I’d killed his friends and been out for his blood.
He’d certainly succeeded at beating my ass to a pulp. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to eat other than through a straw for the next couple weeks, let alone try for round two.
That prompted another worry, one that should have hit me based on how weak and badly in need of a shower I was. I was so jolted by the thought, it prompted another coughing fit. I had to wave off the oxygen when Chaz tried to administer it again.
As soon as I could speak, I choked out a few words. “When... how long...”
Jack knew what I was asking. “A few days.”
Chaz glanced back and forth between us, understanding dawning. “You weren’t kidding back at that house, were you? You think you’re turning Were.”
I flinched at hearing it put so bluntly, then nodded. He reached for me, and I shrank back as Jack and Nikki got to their feet, alarmed. Chaz took hold of my arm, waving the hunters off with his other hand and lifting my wrist to his face to take a sniff. He frowned and leaned closer, sniffing again before releasing me. I tucked my hand under my chin so he couldn’t grab me again.
“Funny,” he said, touching his thumb under his nose and making a face like he’d smelled something rotten. Great. Nice to reaffirm that I reeked as badly as I thought. “You’re... different. I can’t tell what you are. Not quite Were. Not quite vampire. There’s—you smell like both.”
Oh, that was reassuring. His brows lowered, and he looked me over anew, like he was seeing me for the first time.
Nikki, on the other hand, was unimpressed. “Why am I not surprised? We should kill her, then. Get it out of the way before she turns. There are only a couple days left ’til the full moon. If she managed to destroy half as many of your wolves as you claimed, we can’t afford to let her loose once the wolf in her comes out.”