Werewolf Marine Roy Farrell, scarred in body and mind, thinks he has no future. Curvy Laura Kaplan, running from danger and her own guilty secrets, is desperate to escape her past. But together, they have all that they need to heal.
Laura’s Wolf
(Werewolf Marines)
Chapter One
Roy
Caged Wolf
Roy Farrell paced in circles around his cell.
He tried to tell himself that it was a private hospital room, not a jail cell or a cage. But he wasn’t convinced.
If it’s locked from the outside, it’s a cell, he thought.
When he’d first woken up stateside after his helicopter had been shot down in Afghanistan, a doctor had told him that he was in a military hospital for wounded soldiers with “unique issues.”
Roy hadn’t taken it in at the time— he was too busy trying not to pass out or throw up. The glare of the overhead lights felt like red-hot knives stabbing into his eyes, the hum of the machines filled his head until he couldn’t think straight, the chemical smells nauseated him, and all of it together made his heart speed up like he was in the middle of a firefight.
Once he’d managed to tell them what was wrong, he’d been moved into a darkened, quiet room and repeatedly asked if he’d injured his head (maybe), or had a history of migraines (no), or had been exposed to chemical weapons (not that he knew of).
His wounds healed, but his senses remained stuck on overdrive. They gave him all sorts of medications, none of which did anything but make him sick or knock him out. They tried gradual exposure to various stimuli, as the doctors called everything that bothered him, which did nothing but create a depressingly long list of ordinary things that now hurt like hell. They gave him test after test, with results that were always inconclusive. At least, that was what they told him.
Finally, a woman came in and informed him that she was going to be his therapist. He’d assumed she meant physical therapist, and waited hopefully for her to give him some exercises. Instead, she asked him to imagine a bright light and tell her what emotion that made him feel.
That was when Roy figured out that “unique issues” was the polite way of saying “broken and crazy.”
But what military hospital— what psych ward, even?— wouldn’t allow him any contact whatsoever with the outside world? And what hospital of any kind never let the patients so much as see each other?
Roy finally told the main doctor, Dr. White, that he refused to cooperate with any more tests until they put him in touch with his commanding officer.
“You’re not ready for that yet,” Dr. White had said.
When Roy shouldered him aside and started to walk out, the doctor pressed a button on the little black box that all the personnel in this place carried. It never even touched him, but Roy dropped to the floor, unable to do more than twitch like a gaffed fish. Two guards dumped him on the bed, where he lay paralyzed for hours.
High-tech straitjacket, Roy thought. Some bureaucrat had undoubtedly written up the whole incident, with a note like, “Violent outburst – not safe for release.”
The room seemed to get smaller every day. Pent-up anger and frustration surged through Roy. He wanted to punch the walls. But they were solid concrete— he’d checked, quietly, when his candles had burned out— and the last thing he needed was a set of broken knuckles.
He dropped to the floor and started doing push-ups, concentrating on speed and perfect form, trying to drive all other thoughts from his mind.
Sweat soaked his shirt and dripped from his face, making a tiny pool on the floor. His muscles burned, but he kept up his pace. Pain was information. This pain told him that he wasn’t yet up to his usual strength. He’d stop when it told him that he’d tear a muscle if he kept going.
He paused when he heard a knock. Before he could ask who was there, the door opened. Roy shielded his eyes against the glare of the corridor until the doctor closed the door again, leaving them in the flickering candle light.
In the low light, Roy could recognize the man: Dr. White, who had last visited him a week or so ago. It was hard to track time in this place. Roy didn’t know how long it had been since he’d last seen sunlight.
But he would have known the d
octor even if he’d been blindfolded, by the man’s smell of burning rubber. Everyone had their own distinctive scent now, beneath whatever cologne they wore or antiseptic they used to clean their hands. His therapist washed her hair with lavender-scented shampoo, but her scent beneath that was hot and pungent, like fresh-laid asphalt. The guy who brought his meal trays smelled like green apples.
Roy hadn’t mentioned that aspect of his newly-heightened senses. The human odors weren’t unpleasant, even when he couldn’t bear their real-world equivalents, and he didn’t want to get sucked into yet another tedious round of pointless tests.
He got up and wiped the sweat from his face, eyeing Dr. White warily. The doctor had the little black box in his right hand, with the business end aimed at Roy. Of course.
“Hello, Roy,” Dr. White said. “How are you?”