The Shifter's Choice Read online

  “Sir?”

  “Touma?” His tone became cautious and his eyes narrowed.

  She swallowed back her uncertainty and ignored the voice that warned that she should just mind her own business.

  “Johnny told me he doesn’t remember the attack.”

  His familiar frown deepened the lines on his face.

  “Of course he does. He was there.”

  “He doesn’t, sir. He told me he doesn’t.”

  “Amnesia?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Just wanted to bring it to your attention is all.”

  “I’ll look into it. Now meet Johnny at the lab. He’s on his way. I’ll see you there.”

  She saluted and when he returned it, she did an about-face but did not get far before his words stopped her.

  “Thank you, Private.”

  She glanced back, surprised to see the sincerity of his expression.

  “Yes, sir.”

  She reported to security and was guided to a different part of the facility and directly into one of the lab’s examination rooms. She’d expected to find Johnny but the room was vacant. It could have come straight from any doctor’s office except there were no windows. The heavy metal door swung shut behind her. The moment the door clicked she felt trapped. Cold sweat covered her as she tried to breathe, but the walls seemed to close in on her and she found herself panting like a dog.

  She pounded on the door until her arms ached. Finally the door swung open and a marine stood there, one hand on the latch and his eyes on her.

  She flung herself at him and he wrapped his arms around her while she shook like the last leaf on the tree.

  “Hey,” he cooed. “What’s wrong?”

  She gasped as the tears welled from her eyes and streamed down her face.

  He made a shushing sound and stroked her back. She pushed back and felt a moment’s resistance before he let her go.

  Sonia heard the growl first. An instant later the marine flew away from her and landed on the opposite side of the examining room, crumpling in a heap. Johnny glared at her and she shrank against the wall, suddenly afraid of the fury she read in his yellow eyes. Johnny’s gaze flicked back to the young man.

  A lightning bolt of terror went through her as she realized that Johnny was out of control. She knew in her pounding heart that Johnny would kill that marine because he had touched her.

  “Johnny, no!”

  Johnny stopped and turned to her. She signed as she spoke. “It wasn’t him. I was scared and I threw myself at him.” She had to get him to believe her. Had to stop him from hurting this man. “It was me, do you hear me? I did it, not him.”

  Johnny stilled. His body trembled and she read the betrayal in his eyes. The marine scrambled to his feet. Johnny turned and ripped the steel door from its hinges and threw it toward the marine but it went wide. Intentionally, she thought. The marine ducked and then ran for the opening, streaking between them and tearing down the hallway, screaming as he fled. “Help! He’ll kill her. Help!”

  She turned to face the angry werewolf. Then her blood went cold as Johnny’s gaze flicked from the retreating marine to her. She tried to speak but the look he gave her froze her blood and her larynx all at once. She lifted a hand and signed, Sorry.

  Johnny roared. Sonia clamped her hands over her ears. It was a sound she hoped never to hear again, a long agonizing cry, full of anguish. Then he turned to the table bolted to the floor and ripped it from its attachments before hurling it against the concrete wall opposite her. He threw the stainless-steel side table. The wheels exploded from their casings on contact with the wall and the frame collapsed as if made from aluminum foil. The counter fell next, torn from the wall, sink and all. Water now poured onto the floor and out the open door. Sonia watched Johnny attack the large surgical light as if it were a serpent. He paused a moment to look at her and then lifted the door, throwing it halfway down the corridor.

  Just like her mother’s rages, she realized, curling into a ball and whimpering. Sonia looked at the open door and Johnny lifting the ruined examining table over his head to beat it against the floor again and again.

  Sonia ran. She ran from her past and from her future and from Johnny’s pain, but got no farther than the hall before her legs gave way and the shaking started. In her heart, she had known that what he felt for her was more than friendship. She’d let him give her comfort, disregarding the warning signs, so she could have dinner in her make-believe house with a man whom she didn’t have to fear would get too close. But he had. What had she done?

  She’d crossed some line, screwed this up, too. Now the captain or Johnny would send her away.

  This was why she didn’t let people in. She couldn’t save them. Not her mother or her sister or Johnny. God, she couldn’t even save herself.

  The captain rushed past her and she rose to follow but Scofield grabbed her arm, halting her.

  “What’s going on?”

  Captain MacConnelly charged down the hall at a run.

  “I’ve never seen Johnny lose control,” said Scofield. “What set him off?”

  It grew quiet except for the pounding of her heart slamming into her ribs. She knew exactly. Her eyes met Johnny’s and she saw the question in his eyes.

  “Touma. I asked you a question. What happened?”

  They’d blame her. She knew it and she knew they’d be right. She had turned to another man for comfort. No, that wasn’t it. Did his rage stem from knowing that comfort was all he could give her, all she could accept while he was a wolf? He knew it. She knew it and...oh, she had to get out of there. Before the captain found out and called the MPs.

  The major’s hand slipped from her wrist as he turned toward the crashing coming from the examining room. She saw a flash of gray fur, the captain, she knew and then Johnny’s black coat as the two spun in circles like all-star wrestlers.

  She couldn’t stay to see how she had disappointed one more person. She never meant to hurt him. But she had.

  She kept going, out of the lab, the hall, the waiting area and out of the building. She kept moving, a walk at first and then finally a full-out run. She had to get away.

  * * *

  Johnny wanted to kill Webb for touching Sonia, for doing what he had dreamed of doing every day since he had met her. Last night, when she was sleeping on his couch and he had covered her with a blanket he had leaned over, wanting to kiss her. Only he couldn’t kiss anyone. He couldn’t because he had a snout instead of a mouth.

  Mac had him from behind. It didn’t stop him from lifting the table and throwing it again, taking out a row of ceiling tiles.

  Mac’s growl rumbled through him. Johnny’s arms when slack. His shoulders drooped. Mac released him and stepped back.

  He couldn’t have her, not as long as he was stuck like this. He had to face it sooner or later. They were teaching him sign because he wasn’t coming back. They all knew it. All these tests and research, it was just to keep him busy. They didn’t have the first damned clue.

  Mac watched him. Johnny punched both fists through the cement wall which collapsed into powder. The rough edges of the hole did not even scratch his skin. It didn’t even hurt. He couldn’t break his hand or cut his skin or put a bullet through his temple, because his hide was too damned tough. He could still put the barrel in his mouth, pierce that soft palate and then on to the squishy tangle of his brain. Sonia had forbidden it. Then she had turned to a stranger.

  Johnny threw back his head and howled again, pouring out all his rage and pain.

  Since Sonia arrived in his life, he hadn’t thought about putting that pistol in his mouth. He hadn’t thought of the poison that he had kept beside his mouthwash. Instead, he occupied his mind with Sonia, what she looked like with the sun on her face or the ocean mist beading on her dark hair. He spent his time away from her trying to learn as many signs as possible so his conversations with her might flow naturally. He’d cooked for her. He’d taken her on walks, gone swimming wi
th her and watched movies into the night. But she didn’t see him as a man. More like her pet Cocker Spaniel. He was crazy for her. But now she’d seen what he really was and she had left him, too.

  He knew his father hadn’t left on purpose. He’d died, but he was still gone, leaving Johnny to pick up the pieces alone, care for his mom. Johnny dropped to his knees. Care for his sister.

  His dad was gone. He couldn’t see his mom or his sister or that baby, the one they’d made from his sperm. Now Sonia was gone, too, and he was here, alone, a monster. Still. Always.

  He covered his face with his hands, hating the long wolfish slope of his snout.

  It wasn’t her fault. Who could blame her if she turned to a man for comfort and it wasn’t him? Because he wasn’t a man. Johnny felt sick to his stomach. He wrapped his arms about his middle and let his head sink. Mac draped a long furry arm about him. Johnny did not resist as they sat side by side.

  He’d thought she was different because Sonia had managed to look past the beast he had become and see him there underneath. He’d let her in and she’d let him in. It had been a battle and he wasn’t proud of his tactics, but he’d cracked open that tough shell. She had been closed up tighter than a walnut and now he understood why. She’d been through a lot.

  Johnny dragged his claws over the floor again and again in a restless repetitive motion and only stopped when he realized he’d ripped through the floor tiles and a half inch into the concrete subfloor.

  She was gone like a lovely dream that fades in the light.

  The captain’s arms fell away and he gave Johnny’s back a pat.

  Johnny made a fist and rubbed it in a circle over his aching heart. Sorry. Sorry. So damned sorry for all of it.

  But the captain lifted his brows in confusion. He couldn’t understand him. Only Sonia could do that.

  Chapter 8

  Sonia kept running. Acting on instinct now, using her lizard brain, she called it, as she did when things got too frightening. Her lizard brain told her to run. So she ran. She didn’t plan or notice what direction she headed. Somehow she was outside while her mind played a video loop of that marine crumbled on the floor. Just like her mother, Sonia thought, picturing her mama sprawled out drunk on the floor of the kitchen or the bathroom or the hallway and once on the front steps. She’d run then, too. To the park or the library or the YMCA. Somewhere, anywhere where she could blend in and act as if she was there for some benign purpose other than escaping her miserable, drunken mother and her own miserable sober life. She’d run many places but she’d never run to the bottle.

  Sonia’s sprint ebbed with her energy. She glanced behind at the way she had come, trying to orient herself, trying to think. She couldn’t go back. They’d lock her up if she went off base. But if they blamed her for Johnny’s outburst, then they might send her back to prison anyway. She hurt Johnny, her fear becoming his pain. She knew something like this would happen. Nothing ever worked right for her. He’d gotten attached, so had she, but what was she supposed to do about it?

  She was just his teacher, wasn’t she?

  And perhaps his only friend. Sonia swiped at the tears.

  Johnny obviously saw their relationship as something more than friendship. What he wanted, she could not provide. Had she given him mixed signals? Was this her fault, too?

  She’d screwed it up, as usual. Like with her mother.

  She knew her mother didn’t drink because of her. Her mind knew it. But in her heart she always felt that she had never been enough. Not enough to keep her sober. Not enough to fill those holes—in her mother and she sure the hell was not enough to fill them in Johnny.

  Sonia didn’t get far. She didn’t even make the main gate before a Jeep with two imposing, chisel-jawed marines with MP bands on their arms cut her off. The one in the passenger’s side swung gracefully out of his seat and strode to her. Only her wobbling legs kept her from turning tail and running again.

  “You Private Touma?” he asked.

  She nodded, trying not to fold in half and grasp her thighs as she sucked in the oxygen she lacked from her run. Instead she placed a hand on the hood of the Jeep for support and burned her hand before retracting it.

  “You’re to report to Captain MacConnelly’s office ASAP,” said the burly MP.

  Sonia glanced toward the road. The closed gate and guard booth did not stop her from looking beyond to the open road. How many times in her life had she thought of running away? How many times had she actually gone? And how many times had her situation gotten worse as a result? She frowned, recalling being returned to her mother in a squad car. The cops had taken one look at her mother wobbling on her heels, wreaking of booze and called protective services. Two months in foster care that time. Worse. Run—caught—worse problems. Not this time.

  Sonia dragged her feet as she walked beside the Jeep. Her silent companion tipped his seat forward and indicated that she should crawl in the back like a child. On the short drive to the captain’s office, she rehearsed several ways to explain. Maybe if she set it out correctly he’d give her another chance. Then she thought of all the damage to that room and grimaced.

  She had just enough time to wear a groove in the rug in the captain’s office before he arrived. As she held her salute she wondered where he kept little stashes of clothing. He bared down on her, leaning close and scowled so hard that the furrows in his forehead turned white.

  “You want to tell me what the hell happened in there?”

  She really, really didn’t.

  Finally, he returned her salute and she dropped her weary arm to her side, but remained at attention as the captain began to add to the groove she’d started. He spun and marched and spun and marched.

  “Start talking, Touma, because I’d like to know why Johnny, who has never shown violence without provocation, would suddenly go crazy and trash an examining room.”

  Sonia’s throat went dry as she opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish who suddenly found herself on the kitchen counter instead of in her bowl.

  “Webb said Johnny threw him across the room. If Johnny had bitten that marine, Webb would be turning werewolf right now. And Johnny would be responsible for that forever, for changing a man to a monster.”

  She’d never seen the captain look so fierce. His eyes were changing from sapphire blue to the ice blue of a wolf. The tint rising to overtake his natural coloration. Was he transforming?

  It occurred to Sonia suddenly that the captain had unintentionally changed Johnny to a werewolf and that this situation must be striking him close to the bone. She started backing toward the door.

  “Do you know how difficult it is for a werewolf to control the impulse to attack when angry? So I’ll ask again, if you know what provoked him, you had better speak up.”

  She didn’t. Instead she clamped her lips together as her chin began to tremble.

  The captain folded his arms across his chest. To Sonia, he seemed to be holding himself in. When he spoke, his voice seemed different, harsher, like a growl.

  “Was it Webb or you or Johnny, because someone is responsible. Start talking, Touma.”

  Sonia considered saying that she didn’t know what had set Johnny off because the captain was intimidating as hell on a good day but when he was angry, like now, and the veins in his throat and forehead pulsed with blood, he was positively terrifying.

  But if she tried to pull that, then they might think that something was wrong with Johnny. They might put him in the cage and she absolutely could not let that happen.

  “Sir, they told me to wait for Johnny in exam room one.” There, she’d gotten that part out and her voice only trembled a little. Maybe he didn’t even notice. “Then the door shut behind me and I couldn’t get out.”

  The captain’s scowl deepened so that his brow was so furrowed that she thought she might want to plant some vegetable seeds along the rows.

  “Locked in?” He shook his head in confusion. “Those doors work with a panic b
utton so they can be opened without using your hands. Didn’t your escort show you the red button beside the door?”

  Sonia went still. “Button?” Why hadn’t she seen a big red button beside the door? “No, sir.”

  “Was Sergeant Lam trying to get you out?”

  “No, sir, Corporal Webb opened the door from the outside.” She lifted her hands to glance at the bruises and cuts there from her efforts to escape. Why hadn’t she seen that button? “I wasn’t thinking and I just threw myself at him.”

  “You attacked Webb?”

  She dropped her head to stare at the rounded toe of her shiny shoes. “No, sir.”

  “Ah. What happened then?”

  “Webb held me and I was crying and hugging him and...”

  Her captain made a sound that fell between a groan and a growl.

  “Johnny dragged Webb off me. It was my fault, sir. It just happened and Johnny moves so fast. But Captain MacConnelly, sir, I didn’t understand how Johnny felt. I thought we were becoming friends, but I never knew how he...”

  She lifted her head and saw the captain’s face flushed with blood.

  “I wasn’t thinking and Johnny saw us.”

  “Holy shit.” The captain raked a hand over the stubble at his temple. “You’re saying he did this because he was jealous?”

  Sonia lowered her head as she fought the tears at facing yet another failure. She’d really wanted to help Johnny deal with this but it was too much. Instead of making his life easier she was complicating it and as much as she liked him, she was not prepared to take their relationship any further. He knew her well enough to know that sticking to anything wasn’t her strong point. Why he even wanted her was baffling; she was such a screwup.

  “I’ve failed to keep our relationship professional, sir. Johnny is lonely and I’m female and he seems to think he has feelings for me, which he might very well have.” This was so embarrassing. “I’m not helping him, so I think I should go.”