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With a tingling adrenaline rush, she rose to her feet, braced and ready to bolt.
Nothing but murmuring now, from that hidden bed: Two voices, deep and low . . . were having an argument, like the one who’d gone Pop-eye on her was getting reprimanded.
“What the hell,” she muttered.
The boots she’d had on were right next to her on the floor, and she put them on one-handed, keeping the butt of the gun in her palm. As she futzed with the laces, she kept checking the curtain over and over again, bobbing her now-throbbing head up and down.
If one more fricking person hit her in the back of the skull, she was going to lose it.
Probably literally. When her brains leaked out of her goddamn ears.
Back on her feet, she focused on the makeshift clinic’s door. It didn’t matter that she had no clue where she was. A nine millimeter was a helluva map, wasn’t it—and she didn’t want to wait for Luke to come back. He was a complicating factor when he just couldn’t be.
As always, she had to do her best to balance getting information with getting herself hurt or killed, and the instability in this environment was obvious. Even though she wanted to fully explore, she was going to have to gather what she could on the way out. Ending up in a grave was not the way to bring Mozart and these suppliers to justice.
Glancing down at the bed, she remembered the kiss she had had with Luke.
No goodbye.
And the next time she saw him, it might well be after she got him arrested.
Why the hell, after all these years of not being particularly interested in sex, did she have to be so attracted to someone like him? She’d been doing just fine living like a monk.
At least she could go right back to the celibacy. Not a problem. Especially after what had happened on the floor of that apartment.
Rio started to move toward the door, tiptoeing in her boots, trying not to put her full weight into her feet—what, like she could command gravity or something?
No squeaking, she thought at the floor beneath her feet. No creaking—
Oh, it was concrete. Right.
As she went by the empty beds, she counted them down. And as she came up to the drapery—
There was a choked sound of pain from inside the sheets.
Rio stopped. The two men were still talking softly—there was another groan, now, as if someone who hurt all over was attempting to find a better position. And failing.
Go, she told herself. Get the fuck out. Right now.
When she realized that her feet had stopped, she looked to the door, as if she could refocus their effort. Or will the exit to come to her.
After a moment, they did start moving again.
Not toward the way out, though.
In front of the Executioner and his wall of Rorschach tests, Lucan dropped down onto his haunches. Around the throat of the dead wolf was a steel collar, but not the kind that came with the tracking or the explosion-upon-removal stuff. Releasing the buckle on the generic restraint, he took the thing off and eased back.
Was there enough life left in the still-warm body’s cells for the change? If Lucan had still been staying in the territories of the clans, he might have recognized the patterns of gray and white and brown in the fur. But it was a long time since he’d been near his bloodline—okay, half of his bloodline—and God knew his brain had jettisoned those memories for more useful ones tied to surviving in the prison camp—
There was a hissing sound, like air was escaping from the lungs due to rib compression. And then the transformation began, the fur that had been totally static moving in waves as each individual follicle retracted into its pore, sucking back into the wolven’s shifting corporeal form. While this was happening, the fore- and hind legs began to elongate and re-form, the front paws differentiating into hands with separated fingers, the back ones pushing out into bare feet. The torso also expanded, shoulders protruding on both sides of the narrow canine chest and causing the body to roll over so that it was faceup.
So that the gunshot wound in the center of the chest was visible.
Meanwhile, down below at the waistline, the pelvic girdle broke outward and flattened to accommodate the thickening thighs as well as organs consistent with the male sex.
The face was what he was waiting for.
Up at the head, the muzzle retracted and the short nap fur disappeared, the nose, chin, and cheeks emerging as the bone structure changed, above them the flat forehead and arching brows manifesting—
The eyes flipped open and focused on Lucan, as if his scent had registered. Then the mouth started to move, the words more breath than syllable, blood speckling the lips.
