Luke handed back the biscuit and stood. Many of the other passengers gathered around us. "Nothing serious. Most of us are just shaken."
"So there weren't any humans aboard?" the head medic wondered.
Luke shook his head. "None, thankfully, or you would have work."
The medic and his team visibly relaxed, and a few of them even smiled. "That's a relief." He turned to the engine. The fire was out, but the machine was totaled. "What exactly happened?"
"We're not sure, but we'd like to get away from here as soon as possible," Luke replied.
"Oh, of course. This train can take you all the way to Wolverton," the man told us.
A cheer went up from the crowd, and we carried ourselves and our luggage over to the new train. The train crew hopped out and helped us inside to soft, comfortable seats and warm food. There were two rows of two seats with an aisle between them, and Luke guided me to the center of the car. He took the seat beside me and gave me the window view, and Alistair took a position in front of us. Abby waved wildly to me from the front of the car until her mother made her sit down. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I shut my eyes for a quick rest that stretched out into most of the day.
11
The jostle of the train woke me up, and I glanced outside to see we had left the woods and entered a bustling town. The buildings here were taller and more packed together, and many of them were built in a more modern, blocky fashion. One in particular stood above the rest for its ten floors and extreme gaudiness. The builders tried to imitate the old-fashioned clapboard look, but with fake materials that made the whole thing look tacky.
Behind the buildings, silhouetted against the sky, were some of the tallest mountains I'd ever seen. They towered above the valley in which was settled the small town, and they cast their long shadows over the buildings. Their peaks were capped with white snow and the sides were heavily forested, with only a hint here and there of civilization in the form of selective logging. The trees crept up behind the buildings that stood on the extreme edges of the town and stood there as though waiting for everything to come to ruin and they would take over the land.
The sun and my watch told me it was late afternoon, and I glanced over to find Luke staring at me. "Sleep well?" he teased.
I stretched my back and winced when it went off like a string of fireworks. "Sort of," I admitted. I frowned when I felt a strange unsettling sensation shift inside of me.
"An aching feeling?" he asked me.
I shrugged. "A train wreck does that to you. Well, if you're still human," I replied.
"We have overnight reservations at the inn in the next town, but I'm afraid you won't get much sleep tonight," Luke told me.
"Yeah, I don't sleep well after taking a nap," I agreed.
He shook his head. "Not that. There's a full moon tonight, and your change will take place."
I frowned. "Maybe it'll just have to wait until the next full moon. Surviving a track wreck takes a lot out of a girl."
"I'm afraid it can't wait, but you'll learn soon enough about that," he secretively replied.
I opened my mouth to give him a good yelling, but our train slipped into the new city's train station. The station was in built in the same style as the previous one, but much larger. There were two platforms on either side of a pair of tracks that led off behind us and in front of us. A large crowd met us at our platform, and we passengers were helped off the train and into a bus just off the platform.
I was prepared to go out into the welcoming crowd, but Luke pulled one of his arms over me and stopped me from standing. "Not yet." He stood and leaned over me, and his eyes searched the crowd.
Alistair did the same, and after a moment he pointed at a man who stood off from the crowd of welcomers. "There, sir."
"What's wrong?" I asked him. Everyone else was already off the train, and I wanted to stretch my legs.
"Just a precaution," he assured me. I wasn't comforted.
"Precaution for what? Is this train going to derail in the station?" I quipped. The look he cast me froze my blood. His expression told me that, at least to him, the scenario wasn't entirely impossible. I nodded out the windows to the bus beside the platform. The other passengers were being loaded into it. "Why can't we just go with them?"
"I would rather we take a separate car," he insisted.
I frowned. "You're not telling me something. What is it?"
"I'll tell you when we reach the inn. For now you have to trust me," Luke replied.
I scoffed. "Trust you? You're my kidnapper, remember? The guy who held me prisoner in a white room and-"
"-and I know what I'm doing. Everyone else trusts me as a good man. You should, too," he insisted. I wanted to argue with him on both the 'good' and 'man' parts, but he yanked on my arm and pulled me to my feet. "Alistair, you first."
"Yes, sir." The servant strode out of the car with us close behind him. Alistair led us to the stranger at the edge of the platform.
Luke stopped us a yard from him. "Are you from Mr. Burnbaum's inn?" he asked the stranger.
"Yes, sir. Mr. Burnbaum thought you might want a private means of getting to the inn," the man replied. The man reached into his coat, and I felt Luke stiffen by my side. The stranger only pulled out a slip of paper and held it out. "My credentials, sir."
Alistair took it and read over the contents. "He speaks the truth," Alistair confirmed.
"Very well, let's get going," Luke replied.
The stranger led us off the side of the platform by means of a short flight of wooden steps and over to a black car. He opened the door for us, and Luke herded me to into the backseat. Alistair took the front passenger seat while the stranger donned a driver's black cap and got into the driver's seat. We shot out of the station in record time, but I managed a glance back. A man in a dark coat and wide-brimmed hat stood at the end of the platform and watched us leave. "Don't stare too long," Luke advised me.
I turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "You knew he was there?" I asked him.
Luke nodded. "He was one of the reasons we couldn't leave on the bus."
"One of the reasons?"
"There was more than just him."
"Uh, mind telling me why my life just went from a horror movie to a James Bond flick?" I wondered.
"Would it be enough for me to say I've made some enemies over my long years?" he asked me.
"I'd like an answer with a few more specifics."
Luke sighed and pursed his lips together. "I suppose you have a right to know what I'm dragging you into."
"It would help me know whether I need to panic or not."
"My enemies are rival werewolf clans-"
"Naturally," I quipped.
"-and they'd like to reverse our roles with humans."
"I'm guessing this isn't like job swapping?"
"Werewolves hide in the shadows or live in small communities of trusted humans, as you saw at Townsend and here at Wolverton," Luke explained to me. "Some of the leaders would rather we exist in the open and have the humans live in fear and subordination to us."
"So they want to do to humans what you've done to me?" I shot back. Luke gave me such a glare that I cringed. "Sorry."
His voice was low and held a tremor of anger. "If you want to meet a true monster than look in the faces of my enemies. They have no mercy for humans, and not much more for werewolves who disagree with them."
"We're here, sir," Alistair spoke up.
Luke turned away from me, but I still felt the oppressive weight of his words on me. He'd been angry with me before, but not like that. My comparing him to his enemies had hit a personal nerve, and I wondered if maybe I hadn't gone too far in accusing him of being a monster. He had helped all those people at the wreck site.
The car stopped, and I turned my attention to my surroundings. We were parked in a circular drive in front of a two-story building made from hewn logs. The cracked and weathered wood exuded a great age. On the left side of
the building was an old coach house that had been transformed into an enclosed garage. A pair of thick wood doors at the front of the main building were open and led to a large lobby with a decor that hearkened back a few centuries to when women wore billowing dresses and men sported hats and long, pulled-back hair. Tapestries hung down and covered the wooden walls and old lamps hung between them. Their glass casings once held candles, but now were filled with fluorescent bulbs.
A short, hefty man with a wild black beard stood beneath a wooden frame that covered the entrance. He wore a pair of black dress pants with a white blouse, none of which matched the wild appearance of his hair that stuck out in odd angles from beneath a beaver hat. We got out of the car, and he smiled and hurried forward to us. His stomach bounced up and down like a bowl of jello. "Good evening, my good friends," he greeted us in a thick Russian accent. He clasped Luke's hands in his own while Alistair gathered our luggage.
"Good evening, Burnbaum. How goes the business?" Luke replied with his own grin.
"Very good, very good, but I hear of trouble for you. Everything is all right now?" he wondered. His voice told me he didn't think the trouble was over.
"I'm afraid not, but I'd rather talk about this inside," Luke insisted.
"Of course. I have your rooms prepared for you." He led the three of us inside while the driver drove the car to the garage.
To our right stood a large room with a few dozen square wooden tables scattered about the floor. Guests sat at the table dining on a wide assortment of dead things, and I wasn't meaning vegetables. I recognized the usual fowl and hoofed animals, and noticed several pieces of meat that weren't familiar. To our left was the large front desk and a hallway that led back to the employee-only section of the inn, including to the garage. In front of us was a wide wooden flight of stairs that led upstairs to the rooms. That was the largest set of stairs I'd ever seen. The banisters alone were hewn from five-inch wide trees, and the steps themselves were carved out of a dozen four-foot thick logs. To the right and behind the stairs were a pair of doors that were shut tight, but I heard music drift out from between their cracks. Overall the place was beautiful, and a nightmare for an environmentalist.
Burnbaum led us to the front desk, slid a large ledger toward Luke, and picked up an old-fashioned quill pen. "If you would sign in we can talk."
Luke raised an eyebrow. "Why not before?" he asked him.
"It is by orders of the Council. They want to know everyone who comes to stay," Burnbaum replied. His eyes showed a bit of mischief in them and he wagged his bushy eyebrows. "Sign here with name that pleases you. I mean, if it pleases you to sign name," he corrected himself.
Luke grinned, took the pen, and wrote down a few names in the ledger. I glanced over his shoulder and saw he wrote Mr. and Mrs. Smith. He dropped the pen on the desk and turned to the busy dining hall. "Where's a quiet spot to speak?" he asked our host.
"It is this way, in your room," he told us.
12
Burnbaum led us upstairs and straight down the long hall that reached to the end of the deep building. Halfway down was a hall that ran perpendicular to the main hall and spanned the width of the inn. There were dozens of rooms, and each of them had thick wooden doors. I had no doubt they all had very thick walls, too. We were led left along the perpendicular hall to the very end. A window sat at the end of the hall and looked out onto the wooden-shingled roof of the old carriage house.
Burnbaum opened a door on the right, stepped aside, and gestured for us to enter. Luke led the way with Alistair close behind him, but I hung back. "You will like it, I promise you," Burnbaum spoke up.
"It's not that," I replied. I glanced down at the other rooms. "Don't I have my own room?"
Burnbaum chuckled, and it was mesmerizing watching his belly bounce up and down. "My Lord takes only one, and all others are full."
My face drooped and I sighed. "Just my luck. . ." I grumbled.
Luke stepped out of the room and glanced between us. "Is there a problem?" he wondered.
"No problem. The lady here just asks about rooms," Burnbaum replied. "How you like yours?"
Luke smiled. "Perfect as always, but now we need to talk about business." He turned to me and nodded toward the room. "Wouldn't you like to see the room?"
"Our room?" I guessed.
"The bed is large enough for three, but yes, our room," he told me.
I sighed and stalked past him. The room was in the same elegant barbarism as the rest of the inn, complete with a four-post bed made of small logs and thick boards. To the right Alistair was busy putting away our clothes in a wooden dresser, and beyond him lay a door to what I assumed was the bathroom. I checked it. Yep, definitely a bathroom, and done up in the modern plastic style rather than the wood decor.
Burnbaum was the last inside, and he closed the door behind himself. Luke's face lost what little humor it had and he turned to our host with an impatient air. "What can you tell us about the train wreck?"
Burnbaum pursed his lips together and shook his head. "Very little. Lance and Christian passed through two days ago, and some of their men stayed here. I do not know when they left, but I heard they went along the tracks toward Townsend on their own train and come back the next day."
"And no one knows how far they went?" Luke asked him.
"No one but each other, and they won't tell," Burnbaum replied. "Do you suspect they blow up the train?"
"Not the train, but the tracks were set with explosives. I don't know if they meant to kill anyone, or if it was just a warning," Luke mused.
"Just a warning?" I exclaimed. "The train could have all fallen over and we would've all died!"
Burnbaum chuckled. "It would take more than metal to kill us unless it is silver."
"Unfortunately, there was more than just explosives in that bomb," Luke revealed. He turned to his manservant. "Repeat to me what you found, Alistair."
"At least some parts of the explosive device was silver. I inspected the engine and found fragments of silver nitrate wedged into the machine. Fortunately, the impact was minimal and the engine took most of the damage," Alistair told us.
Burnbaum scowled. "I do not like this one bit. There are disagreements, I know, but this is no good. They will kill innocents."
Luke smirked. "I'd like to think I'm an innocent, but I see what you mean. Lance or some of his compatriots desperately wanted to keep us from the Council meeting."
I raised my hand. "Could I get in on this conversation? Who exactly are these Lance and Christian guys?" I'd heard the name before when that lady had called and warned Luke about the moved meeting.
"The monsters I told you about," Luke replied.
"Oh, those guys. I take it I don't want to get to know them?" I guessed.
Luke shook his head. "No, but that can't be avoided. They're the leaders of two other werewolf regions, and will be there for the vote."
"What vote?"
"For High Lord, or First Alpha, the grand leader of all the regions. It's the highest executive position in our loosely bound government."
I gagged. "Bureaucracy? Couldn't I have stumbled into a world without a messy government?"
Luke and Burnbaum chuckled, and the larger man stepped forward. "Our government is good. It has worked for several thousand of years."
I raised an eyebrow. "Thousands of years? I don't think any country's been around that long."
"Ours is a country without borders," Luke assured me. "But as I was going to say, Lance and Christian possibly planned our detour to keep us from the vote for leadership. Only those region leaders present at the election can be elected. This is so a werewolf leader in rebellion can't be voted into the office by sympathetic factions."
I sighed and plopped myself down on the bed. My head suddenly hurt and I squirmed on the sheets. "Great. I've been kidnapped by a politician."
"It's an inherited position, but yes," Luke agreed.
I rubbed my aching head and fanned myself. "Is i
t getting hot in here?" I asked the others. Luke raised an eyebrow and glanced at the others. Burnbaum smiled, bowed his head to us, and hurried out. Alistair pursed his lips, but bowed and also left. I was alone with Luke and outside the sun set behind the mountains around the town. "Did I say something wrong?" I wondered.
"On the contrary, you said something perfectly fine," Luke consoled me. He strode over to the door and turned the old-fashioned key in the lock, and then removed the key. He set that on a nearby table and turned to me with a wide grin and glistening eyes. His voice, too, had changed. There was a deep growl to it. "As I told you this is the night when you become a full werewolf, providing I'm with you."
I scuttled back to the head of the bed and waved my hand at him. "Then get out because I don't want to be a were-anything," I protested.
Luke smoothly stepped over to the end of the bed and grasped one of the bottom posts. I noticed his hands were longer and thinner than I remembered, and his nails were sharpened to points. "I'm afraid there's no going back," he growled.
The need in his voice was unmistakable, and it awakened within me my own lust. My breath quickened and my heart beat faster in my chest. I felt a wave of heat wash over me as I thought of his long arms around me, seducing me to his whims and fulfilling my own carnal desires. My deceitful thoughts kept me from noticing Luke as he slipped away from the post and set himself on the bed. He crawled on all fours over me so his hands were on either side of my legs, and one clawed hand reached out and grasped my thigh. His touch burned like fire, a roaring flame of sensual need that overwhelmed my senses.
Luke growled and I whimpered. Outside the last rays of the sun disappeared and with it my desire to fight him. His hand traced up my thigh to my waist and leg long, deep cuts in my jeans that revealed my uncut, quivering skin. I slipped down so I lay atop the luscious pillows and my breasts heaved with my impatience. Luke slid up and lay himself atop me, where he buried his face into my neck. His sharp teeth nipped and suckled at my tender skin. I gasped and clutched at his shirt. The cloth was aggravating me, keeping me from him, so I pulled and tore at it. My strength surprised me when the shirt ripped in two, but my eagerness to touch him dulled my confusion.