Nature of the Beast Read online

  “Hey Jonesy,” Booker greeted the redhead female in dinner dress and high heels in.

  “Hey yourself Booker, thanks for cutting short my date night.” She muttered searching one of the werewolves paws for it’s microchip under the fur. “I was just about to go out and hopefully, get lucky. I wish you guys would be more consistent with were you put the chips, either in the ear, like normal pets, or between the thumb and index finger part of the paw. I’m going to need a metal detector soon, just to do fully body scans for them.”

  “You such a good sport Jonesy.” Booker replied. “You know I wouldn’t call on you if I didn’t need to.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s lunar week most of your kind are out of commission when it comes to doing their own dirty work. Hence the skeleton crew kick in. It’s understood. Aren’t you lucky so many kids want to grow up and be vets or animal liberationists?” She replied looking at him. “Otherwise animal control would be here and it wouldn’t be going down like this.”

  “Yeah well, we can’t have werewolves roaming the streets of Brooklyn freely now, freaking people out, can we?” He replied tiredly.

  “So what about you? Why aren’t you out of commission, I mean, moon is out right?”

  “Advantages to being an alpha. Can kind of pick and choose when I want to shape shift. Most of the Breukelen pack are beta’s, they don’t get that much choice in the matter. Anyway, what have you got?” He said as Jonesy ran a hand held scanner of the paw of the dozing werewolf across her lap. “That I believe was the last one we could find in the area and according to my list, I got no Conall Wakely.”

  Booker frowned and stared at the small computer screen on the laptop beside her.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes. You sure it was fifteen Werewolves? Like you’re sure on that number? Cause I got twelve were’s all Breukelen and four vehicles.”

  “No, it was a bit of a guess. I’m not sure I saw all of them.” He replied. “But there was definitely five vehicles here. “

  “We got two pick up trucks, one car, and one van.”

  “There was a SUV or something like that.”

  “We’ll check the area again, but we can’t stay long, the Tranqs will last for about forty minutes. Long enough for us to get them and their cars out of here and somewhere safe were they can’t hurt anyone. I’ll probably take them to Haven, it’s a bit closer than any of the other safety houses. We’ll cage them until morning and I’ll report in the morning to you before any of them are released.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Booker said walking back off up to his car.

  “Hey Booker!” Jonesey called out to him causing him to turn around. “I’m sending the dry cleaning bill to you for this.” He nodded his head and slid back into his car.

  “That, is the least of my worries.” He said starting the car back up and driving past the skeleton crew as they were known, since they were all humans. “If only the rest of it was going to be that easy to handle. It’d be a fairly pleasant lunar week then. Not the current mind field of mayhem it is.”

  It occurred to Booker that if one of the vehicles was gone and Conall Wakely was gone, that perhaps somehow Conall was on his way to find Bg again. Although, that couldn’t be right, surely Conall couldn’t shape shift back so quickly? No Beta wolf could, that he’d ever heard of.

  “Best I just give Addison and Paris a heads up anyway.” he muttered to himself and dialled Addison’s mobile number, which went straight to voicemail.

  13

  Seven hours. Seven hours, she would never get back, could never get back. Seven hours she couldn’t account for. It was one of the annoying traits of beta werewolves, at least, it was for Bg. She never retained her werewolf memories.

  Bg Sommers awoke in her family house, on the couch, naked but warm under the morning sunlight. It often made her wonder how different the world was, when she was in wolf form and whether she felt more content and natural as a werewolf than she sometimes did as a human.

  She looked around herself. “Paris? Booker?” Bg called out into the empty house. She frowned looking down at her naked form as she walked out into the hallway entrance. Most times when she shape shifted at the Sommers family home grounds, she somehow knew, where her room was and she almost always came to in her room, either on the floor or the bed.

  Stopping short, Bg bent to pick up the mobile phone on the floor, it had a blank screen. She pressed the power on button. But nothing happened. It was flat, dead battery. Bg walked down to her room, poking her head in the other bedrooms as she went. Nobody but her appeared to be home.

  She walked into her bedroom and looked around, confused by why she was home again. Something about it was not only terribly repetitive, but hand an odd feeling to it. She walked over to her wardrobe and pulled on some clothes.

  A shower could wait. She had to find people and find out what was going on. Because if this condition of hers was going to continue to happen throughout Lunar Week then she needed to figure out the best way to deal with it. Probably speak to Doctor Wagner again and get some tests performed to make sure her black outs weren’t from Conall’s attack on her. And if they were, the best thing she could do for them, or how to stop them.

  She picked up her hairbrush and ran it through her long black hair. Bg was used to being in the family home alone. Especially recently with her father in the hospital and the Sommers family keeping a constant vigil by his bedside for the duration.

  But now, waking up alone in the house. Bg got the feeling that something was decidedly not right. Where was Paris her date? If he’d popped out to get her breakfast, then why hadn’t he left her a note, or a sign of his presence there and why wouldn’t he wake her, to tell her, he was going out for food? And where was Booker? He was supposed to be her bodyguard chaperone guy. If Bodil knew he had abandoned his post, her being his post, so to speak, she would flip out. Booker would get lectured from there to eternity.

  Which left Bg with another thought. Booker would never abandon his post, drop his responsibilities or deliberately seek the wrath of Bodil Sommers. Ever. So if he had, If, then there had to be a good reason for it. If he hadn’t, which was more like it, because let’s face it, Booker was a solid, reliable guy. Who understood the importance of following pack orders from on high, then it meant something had happened to Booker.

  Which worried Bg even more. Because if something had happened to Booker and he had been with her, then that likely meant, something had happened to Paris too. Because hadn’t he been with her last night? She tried to remember. Tried to focus on the last memory of the night before she had. Something about a warehouse and a lycan.

  She remembered those things, but not sure why. After all, she knew Booker technically speaking, whilst a Breukelen, was a lycan. That was to say, he wasn’t a natural born werewolf. He’d been infected with a bite and lived to become a lycan, with alpha abilities no less. A pretty rare thing indeed. Bg slipped on some trainers onto her feet and walked back out towards the front of the house with the mysterious mobile in her hand. She unlocked the front door. It was locked from the inside. But she was the only one inside the house?

  “Why does this not make sense? Why am I alone?” She asked herself opening the front door, slightly weary of what she might see on the other side. But the days light showed her it was day time, and that Paris’s Porsche was parked out the front of her place and the gates to the Sommers Property were closed.

  “Why are they closed?” She walked down the front stoop and towards Paris’s Porsche tentatively cautious. Lest she find something terrible inside. Why would his car be here but not him, with her locked inside her own house?

  Bg walked up to the car and put her hand on the car door’s passenger side handle and opened it to find nothing. Just a regular car interior. Nobody inside, no sign of anything out of place.

  Nothing greeted her, but her own questions and suspicions of what the hell had happened and was going down. “I don’t understand anythin
g.” She muttered to herself putting the trunk lid down again and walking back up into her house. “And it’s beginning to freak me out a little.” She closed the front door behind her and walked into the kitchen, and unlocked the front gates, before reaching for the wall telephone.

  Her sister might be a pain in the ass, but she was the only one Bg had and she would calm her down, even if she didn’t know what was going on. Bg dialled Bodil’s mobile number. Knowing it by memory.

  14

  Suffering, affliction, distress, shock, sorrow, painful regret, anguish, heartache, misery, sadness, melancholy, moroseness, numbing, mournful agony, impact, disturbance, staggering, astounding, stupefy, paralyse, stun, startle, stupor, blow, daze, jar, jolt, taken aback, balled over, cumulating, collapse, traumatise, affected, striking, unexpected, anxious, overwhelming, sobering, upsetting, fearful, lost, screaming, deceiving memory, tortured, tormented, guilt, defeated, breakable, suppressed, hollow, shattering, fragile, faithless, crimson, crushing, drowning, swept up, mentally thrown, breaking down, hysterical, spun, lingering thoughts, swallowed, surging, hatred, anger, and realization were all words that could be used to describe the mixed emotions coursing through Bg Sommers when she heard the news that her father, the leading alpha of the Breukelen Pack, had died overnight, when she was out of it and in werewolf form.

  Yet none of them seemed sufficient enough. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many flowers before in my life time.” Bg stated looking about her family home. The same house she’d been in hours earlier and wondering around like she was the last woman on earth in. Now, the dark wooden hallway was overflowing with bouquets of condolence and thoughtful prayers and various bouquets of floral arrangements of many colors. The smell they created was amazingly comforting in their scents.

  “Your father was a well-liked and respected man of the Brooklyn community, we all feel his loss.” The flower delivery guy said to her, as he brought in two more deliveries for her. It’s started not long after her phone call to Bodil. The flowers had started arriving at their home and they hadn’t stopped.

  Bg tried to smile, but couldn’t. He was right of course, it wasn’t just the Breukelen Pack who had lost their leading alpha, the greater Brooklyn community knew her father as Dolph Sommers too. She had no doubt his impact would be felt far and wide.

  “Where would you like them?” He asked softly. Bg shook her shoulders loosely.

  “Where ever there’s room, maybe over there?” Bg sighed pointing out a place and looking at her sister and mother in the kitchen talking quietly amongst themselves. “You know what? Um, maybe give us the cards for the bouquets, but send the rest to some of the local hospitals, hand them out to people, I’m not sure we have much more room here?” She watched the floral delivery guy agree and walk back towards the front entrance, looking up in time to walk around the visitor at the front door.

  Paris stood there quietly. Bg caught her breath. She knew there were things she should say to him, ask him. But right then and there, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It wasn’t the right time. She walked over to him and he opened his arms, folding them around her.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about your father.” He said hugging her tightly. “If there’s anything I can do.”

  Bg pulled back from him and looked up into his face. “Get me out of here, please. I feel like I’m suffocating. I can’t do anything, everything’s being taken care of and I’m just engulfed in this.” She waved a hand about. “It’s too much. I need a break. I need to get out of this house.” She said turning back into his shirt covered chest. “I need,” She paused pulling back as he relaxed his hold on her slightly.

  “What do you need Bg?”

  She pulled back entirely out of his arms. “It’s so selfish to say it out loud, especially now, after all of this.” She ran a hand through her hair quickly.

  “Say it anyway, I’m the only one listening.” Paris encouraged her.

  “I need one night with you. Just you, away from here. Feels like I’ve been in this house now, forever. I think I’m starting to get cabin fever.”

  “That I can do.” He said holding out his hand to her. Bg reached for it, slipping her own in his. “Do you want to let your mother and sister know that you’ll be with me.”

  “No, let’s just go, now, no looking back. I’ll phone them on the way tell them I’m staying with you tonight. The funeral’s not for another two days. I’ll be back in time for that.” Bg said glancing out towards the kitchen as she scooped up her handbag by the front dresser and Paris and her headed back out the front door.

  The car ride over to Manhattan was smooth and fast, and still Bg Sommers managed to fall asleep all too easily. The past few day’s events wearying her and catching up with her body.

  “Hey sleepy-head, we’re here.” Paris said softly, gently waking her up.

  “Here –where?” Bg mumbled opening her eyes and seeing they were in an underground car park.

  “My place in Manhattan, well, one of my places. This is my Tribecca address.” Paris said slipping out of the car. “The place I like to get away from pretty much everything in, it’s my little escape place.” He said as Bg exited the car and closed the car door.

  “How many places do you have exactly?” She asked with a little smile as he set the car’s alarm system, which flashed it’s lights quickly in succession.

  “Three. granted, one was an inheritance. The other two I worked for, am still, working for.” He grinned at her, reaching out for her hand as they walked over to the underground elevator. “I have an apartment in central Manhattan, my condo in Tribeca. Hence why I’m still working for it. A place in the Hamptons which I rent out for most of the year, and occasionally holiday at.”

  “Wow, so much more impressive than saying I still live at home at age twenty eight.” Bg joked as they stepped into the elevator.

  “Maybe just a little.” Paris agreed pressing a button. “But I got years on you, so you know.” he said with a shrug of his shoulders loosely.

  “And you have your own underground car park,”

  “Street parking is a bitch. They police it, you know.” Paris commented.

  “With a lift into your own house.” Bg replied letting out a low whistle showing she was highly impressed with his surroundings.

  “It’s good for delivery van guys. They love it. Makes their lives a lot easier.” Paris smiled at her, placing a kiss on the top of her head as the lift slowly came to a stop. He opened the metal grate doors and stepped out into a small foyer with an outer door, letting go of Bg’s hand so he could unlock the door.

  “Security conscious.” she replied.

  “Well I have to be, don’t want any robbers ransacking this place. I’ve spent too long on it, doing all my little projects in it.”

  “Projects?” Bg asked as she followed him through into the house and stopped. The interior space was huge. The ceiling was high, and showed exposed, glazed, wooden cross beams on one half of the room. And a more traditional roof with stylized down lights on the other half. It was a mixture of the exposed wooden beams in the room, polished wooden floor boards and good use of light. Bg noted checking out the large windows.

  “Yeah, Sanding down wood re-doing the varnish on it, even re-cut some of the woodwork detail on this bit here.” Paris said with a smile pointing to the end ornate circular wood grain work, under the banister’s end.

  “So you’re a handy man.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Mostly the things I do here, are kind of like, therapy I guess you could call it. Some people cook, others hit the gym, or actually go to a therapist. I retreat and start doing bits and pieces around here.” Bg nodded her head in understanding.

  “Now, what would a well-adjusted, romantic soul like yourself, need therapy from Mister D’Arenberg?”

  Paris laughed at her as she walked into his arms again. “You’d be surprised.”

  She grinned up at him. “So this might be a bit of a personal question, fe
el free to tell me you don’t want to answer it.”

  “And asking what I needed with therapy wasn’t?” He joked.

  “But there’s a lot of wood here, the beams, the floor, the roof, banister. Does that make it more masculine for you or comforting, in a werewolf sense? Kind of like, an urban forest in your own home, if you know what I mean.”

  Paris nodded his head as he looked about the condominium. “That is a very astute observation.” He said as Bg wandered over to the large brick feature wall with artwork on it. “Either that or you noticed the very minimal furniture I have down here and a few scratch marks in some of the beams.”

  Bg turned around and started looking at the base of the beam closest to her. “Which might make you think this is the place I shape shift, that it’s my secure, safe place.”

  “We all need safe places to shape shift, I know pack wolves, whole families of inner city werewolves, who pack up and go country when lunar week hits. Not all of us have adjusted to being urban hybrids through the generations, it would seem.”

  “And you?” Paris asked her stepping closer to her again. “Would you only shape shift at a house you were familiar with, around those you know?”

  “Most of the time we’d be at Conall’s place.” Bg said shaking off a cold shiver that ran over her back suddenly. “But not all the time. We’d also use the clubs and the rooms they have there.”

  Paris shook his head. “Pay for the privilege of what you can do for free somewhere else, equally as safe? Like a home, hardly makes sense.”

  Bg let a small smile creep her face. “Well sometimes, when you’re being ridden by hormones and moon heat, you just can’t wait thirty minutes to get home and shape shift.” She watched desire form in his eyes.

  “You ride down the moon.” He commented in a low voice. That was a thing werewolves did to excite the sexual aspect of their mood by testing themselves. “That’s got to be a little bit dangerous, isn’t it?”