Nika didn't want to believe Garrick was a werewolf, but seeing him turn into something that looked half human and half wolf, how could she not? The sight of him in that form had scared the crap out of her. And hearing her captor and Garrick calling her Garrick's mate had done nothing to keep her fears at bay. She didn't understand how any of what she'd seen could be possible. Werewolves weren't supposed to be real.
Her mind still had a hard time processing what her eyes and ears told her.
The van stopped, and she braced herself for what her captor had in store for her next. The engine cut out. Nika's heart tried to thump out of her chest as minutes passed.
The back doors finally opened, and the sound of chains rattling reached her ears. She heard grunts, and the van bounced as if something heavy had been taken out of it. Nika cowered back away from the sound. They had to have taken Garrick.
Next, someone unhooked her bound wrists and dragged her outside. With her head still covered, Nika had no idea where they were. The strong hand that held her upper arm pulled her into motion. It wasn't her original captor who held her this time, because the body that brushed up against her every time she stumbled was much larger. It had to be one of the larger werewolves who had attacked Garrick.
She was taken inside a building and then forced to sit on a cold cement floor. Her bound hands were once again secured to something in front of her. The sack was yanked from her head, and it took a few seconds for Nika's eyes to adjust to the lights.
Blinking, she glanced around. The building looked like an empty barn, one that would have been used on a dairy farm. There were plenty of farms in the Norwich area, and this could be one of many.
Looking to her right, Nika found Garrick, still in werewolf form, beside her. They were chained to the same raised metal bar that had been cemented into the floor. He was still unconscious. Her captor moved to stand over him, then bent down. She noticed the syringe in his hand just as he pushed the needle into Garrick's furred arm and pushed the plunger down.
"What did you give him?" she asked shakily.
Her captor stood, wearing a satisfied smile. "Nothing you would know. It's a concoction of mine that I have been working on and finally perfected. It'll stop Garrick from shifting back to his human form."
Not thinking clearly enough to realize it would be better to keep her mouth shut, she asked, "Why? Wouldn't he be weaker in his human form?"
Luckily, her captor didn't seem annoyed with her questions. "Normally, yes he would be, but not now. With his wounds, he's at his weakest if he stays like he is. If he were able to, the shift would instantly heal them. What I gave him will buy me some time to decide what I want to do to your mate before I end his existence."
With a sinister laugh, her captor motioned for the other three men to follow him as he walked away. A few seconds later, the building's door slammed shut.
Nika was at least thankful they left the lights on so she wouldn't have to sit in the dark. She turned to look at Garrick. In his werewolf form, he was even larger—height and muscle mass—than when he was in his human one. Light brown fur that matched the color of his normal, human hair completely covered his body. He even had a tail.
Sharp claws tipped his fingers. Seeing them shoot out the ends of them while he was still human had been disconcerting, but actually watching him shift—his body blurring as it took on another form—had been even worse.
She shifted her gaze to Garrick's lupine head. Gone were the lips she loved to kiss so much, that had given her so much pleasure. In their place was a wolf's muzzle.
Even his ears had changed. They were pointed like a wolf's and on top his head. She looked down the rest of him again. His hands and feet, though furred and tipped with sharp-looking claws, were still human in shape. His body showed where the other werewolves had clawed and bitten him. There was a particularly nasty bite in his throat, as if one of them had tried to rip it out. Blood glistened in his fur.
Garrick made a low, rumbling groan and blinked open his eyes. Even they had changed. The brown of his eyes had almost taken up the white. They were a true wolf's eyes. He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, and Nika skittered away from him as far as her secured and bound wrists would allow.
Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs, her fear increasing now that Garrick was awake. "Don't come any closer," she said.
"Relax, Nika. It's still me."
His voice sounded different, deeper, and more gravelly. "You sure as hell don't look the same."
He gave her a sad look. "I'll shift and see about getting us out of here."
She shook her head. "He said he injected you with something that is supposed to stop you from being able to shift."
"Who?"
"The one who bit me."
"That's not possible. There isn't anything I know of that is capable of doing that."
Garrick's body blurred slightly, but he remained in his werewolf form. Nika watched him try twice more before he gave up.
"I told you," she said. "He said it was something he had been working on, and that he'd finally gotten it right."
"Mother fucker," Garrick said with a loud growl. He yanked on his hands that were bound and shackled in chains to the metal bar. "I guess Nathan thought of everything. These chains are too strong for me to break, and my wounds will keep me from regaining my strength."
"So we're stuck here until they come back and do who knows what to us," Nika said with a shiver. She didn't want to think about what horrors the other werewolves would inflict on her. Being bitten was bad enough. At that thought, she stiffened. "He—
Nathan—bit me. Does that mean I'm going to turn into a werewolf too?"
"I need to look at your back, Nika," Garrick said.
She shook her head. "No."
"Nika," he said in a calm tone. "I'm not going to hurt you. I may look different on the outside, but I'm the same on the inside. I'm not some kind of beast that will try to rip out your throat the moment you come near. That would be Nathan and his kind of werewolves. They are more beast than man. In their werewolf forms, they don't have the ability of speech as I do."
She still wasn't ready to put her fears aside and snuggle up to Garrick when he looked like he did. "I take it this is your big secret. Were you going to tell me tonight?"
"Yes, and yes again. I had wanted to wait until you got to know me a bit better, but you forced my hand. I don't want to lose you, Nika. You mean a great deal to me."
"As in, I'm your mate. I didn't miss you and Nathan both referring to me in that way."
Garrick's wolf-eyed gaze met hers. "You are my mate."
"How can you know that? We hardly know each other. Or is it some kind of animal thing only you can sense?" Her last question came out tinged with the revulsion she felt.
"Even though it won't do anything to make you think of me as less than an animal, I'll tell you the truth. You stirred my wolf the first time I met you. With women I've been attracted to in the past, my wolf half never came into play. I've never touched a woman and had my eyes go wolf and my claws come out. And what happens when we make love . . . that is only supposed to happen with my mate, only with you."
Nika closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath before she looked at him again. "So you going more animal than man told you I'm your mate?"
"Yes, it does, but I'm more man than animal. I was born mortal, the same as you.
I had a human mother and a father."
"So it's true? You're immortal?"
"I see Nathan told you lots of things about me when I wasn't awake. I would have never guessed him to be such a gossip." At her frown, he said, "Fine, I can see you aren't any closer to loosening up around me. Yes, I'm immortal. I was born in the late 500s A.D. here in the area of Norwich. I was a warrior in my king's court, King Raedwald of East Anglia. He, along with me and four other of his warriors, were chosen by the Anglo-Saxon god, Tiw, to protect mortals from those werewolves sired by Fenris the wolf, the son of Loki, another god. In return, we were gifted with immortality and the ability to shift into what we hunt each night to give us better odds.