Kate Daniels 03 - Magic Strikes

problems could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t crouched down in the darkness and called out, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
    “What happened next?”
    “Eventually the Pack invited me to one of their gatherings to discuss things in greater detail. You’ve seen how they treat outsiders. Bite first, apologize later. They brought me to their Keep in the middle of the night and led me underground to this huge room. I stepped inside and found half a thousand shapeshifters and they weren’t happy to see me.”
    “Were you scared?”
    “I was scared I’d blow it. I realized by this point that if I couldn’t get the Pack to work with me, I’d make things a lot harder for myself. I had gone from a no-name merc to making arrangements with the head of the People and the Beast Lord, and I was seriously outclassed. I wasn’t used to that.”
    “I know what you mean,” Julie murmured. “You try your best and only make yourself feel stupid. Everybody seems to know some sort of secret that you don’t and that makes them better than you.”
    I reached over and petted her wispy hair. “The school’s that bad, huh?”
    “Sometimes. It’s okay usually. But there are mean people and they do nasty things, and if you call them on it, they make it seem like you just don’t get it.” She squeezed her hands into tight fists and said through clenched teeth, “They make me so mad. If we were on the street, I’d punch them. But if I do punch them, that will just mean I can’t win by their dumb rules.”
    “Well, then you know exactly how I felt.” I could do the punching. Punching was easy. It was the clever banter and dealing in convoluted half-truths and almost-lies that made me want to jump out of my skin.
    “So what did you do?”
    “I made my way down through the room, and this group of young shapeshifters barred my way and started making lots of noise. I knew Curran had put them up to it to see what I would do. One of them reached out and touched me, and I took him over with a power word and made him guard me against the rest.”
    “Derek,” Julie guessed.
    “Yep. And then it turned into this huge complicated deal, because Curran thought I was challenging him by taking his wolf . . .” I waved my hand. “In the end, Derek swore a blood oath to protect me so Curran wouldn’t have to kill him. He’s released from the oath now, but you remember how he is. He decided he’s responsible for me and I feel responsible for his ass—”
    With a hoarse scream, Derek jerked upright and ripped the IV tubes from his arms.
    “Get Doolittle!” I lunged to the tank.
    Gnarled hands gripped me. Deranged eyes flared white from the mangled face. He clawed at me, crushing my arms, agonizing screams ripping from him.
    “Safe,” I yelled into his ear. “It’s okay, it’s okay . . .”
    His skin bulged, ready to rip. The dark slash of his mouth gaped open. “Hurrrts! Hurts, it hurts!”
    And then Doolittle was there with a syringe and Raphael’s long fingers clenched Derek’s wrists, pushing pressure points to make him let go, but Derek hung on to me with desperate ferocity. The pull of his arms jerked me off my feet and dragged me into the vat. He clung to my shoulders, gouging my skin.
    “Hurts!”
    “Get her out!” Doolittle sank the needle into Derek’s arm with no effect. “The pain’s too much! He’s going loup!”
    Raphael wrestled Derek’s arms, trying to separate him from me, but Derek just held on tighter. Doolittle dropped the syringe and grabbed Derek’s left wrist. Fangs cut through Derek’s disfigured lips.
    “Get her out!” Doolittle screamed.
    Someone thrust a piece of bloody meat into Derek’s mouth. He released me and clutched on to the meat, shredding it. Bloody juice and flesh flew everywhere. I got the hell out of the vat.
    On the other side of the tank, Jim dangled another raw rib eye before Derek. Derek snapped it from his fingers and ripped into it in a frenzy.
    Jim’s melodious voice was sweet like a lullaby. “Eat, wolf. Eat. Safe now. That’s it. Eat. Leave the madness behind.”
    The terrible battered thing that was Derek snarled and stabbed the meat into its mouth. The eerie, juicy sounds of a predator feeding filled the room. I shook the green crap off my arms and caught sight of Julie in the doorway, pale like a wraith, eyes fixed on Derek.
    Jim pushed her out of the way, stepped out of the room, and carried in a trough filled with hamburger meat. He set the trough on