The Shifter's Choice Read online

  “True to form,” muttered the captain. He pinned her with a gaze so cold she shivered. “Private, we are a hair’s breadth away from fixing this mess. But we need Johnny’s cooperation. In the last month he has been ordered to the lab a dozen times but he only showed up twice, both times with you. You haven’t failed. He’ll get over it. So will you.”

  “Sir, he could have killed Webb.”

  “That might just keep me from doing so.” He rested the knuckles of his right fist on his desk and leaned toward her. “The day you came I told you that your file said you were cautious about entering new relationships. Well, Touma, let me be the first to tell you that you are in one. You have managed to reach Sergeant Lam when no one else could and you have kept him from doing anything to hurt himself. So I don’t give a shit about the exam room.”

  She blinked at him.

  “The day you arrived I also told you that Lam needed understanding and not a woman who would hit and run. So this time, Touma, you are not running.”

  She swallowed before she spoke aloud her other reservations. “Sir, Sergeant Lam sometimes cooks supper for me.”

  “So?”

  “And lunch.”

  He gave her a look that showed confusion blended with irritation.

  “And breakfast.”

  The captain’s brows shot up. “Are you saying you are sleeping with him?”

  The shock straightened her spine. “No, sir. But I did spend last night on his couch and we watched a movie together.”

  “On his couch?”

  “I fell asleep during the movie. But, sir, I didn’t report back to base until oh nine hundred. But I couldn’t find my supervisor, sir.”

  “She noticed your absence and she reported it to me. How I proceed depends a great deal on your actions moving forward, Touma.”

  Her stomach squeezed and twisted as if being consumed by a boa constrictor. “Sir, I’ve screwed this all up. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t tell if I’m teaching him or he’s teaching me.”

  “What exactly is he teaching you?”

  How to trust. “Swimming.”

  “My wife told me you spend downtime together. Also that you eat meals together.”

  A shiver went down her back as she thought of Brianna, not just appearing to talk, but also sneaking about without either of them knowing.

  “I asked her to keep tabs on you. Johnny knows. He can smell her whenever she enters his territory.”

  “I’m not a good teacher.”

  “Really?” The captain rounded his desk and sat in his chair. “So your complaint is that you are getting to eat really good food, swim in a lush tropical paradise and watch movies. What, is the couch lumpy?”

  Sonia was not letting go so easily. “It’s not a professional relationship. I tried but...” She let her insecurities pour from her with the perspiration. “He knows signs that I never even showed him. He’s learning on his own from the book I left him so I don’t even know if he needs me to teach him. I didn’t tell you because I like Johnny. I tried to be firm and professional but it didn’t work. The only thing that did work was if I answered his personal questions. If I answered, he stayed. If I didn’t, he took off. I’ve mismanaged everything. That first day when he showed you his signs—” she lifted her gaze to peek up at him as the fear made her stomach ache “—those were curse words, sir.” She dropped her gaze to the carpet. “That’s what I taught him because I lost my temper. I’ve been walking on egg shells afraid you’d find out what a terrible job I’ve been doing. It’s completely out of control.”

  “What is, Private?”

  “My relationship with him. He obviously thinks it’s personal.”

  “And you don’t.”

  She threw up her hands. “I do, too. But it wasn’t supposed to be. I tried to keep him out, but I couldn’t because I had to show progress or you’d...” She sighed. “You’d follow through on your threat, sir.”

  “I don’t make threats, Private. And, I’ll admit that I expected you to fail.”

  And she had. Her shoulders rounded and her throat began a familiar burn.

  “But my wife was right. She told me to choose someone who couldn’t quit and you didn’t.”

  A tiny pearl of hope bubbled up inside her.

  “Let me lay this out for you, Touma. Johnny needs to learn sign, but that’s not your job. Never has been. Your job is to give him hope and make damned sure that he is occupied, engaged and interested. I don’t give a fart if you sleep over and get breakfast in bed. I don’t care if he knows how to swear in sign.”

  She winced, realizing that the captain had known all along what Johnny had said that first day.

  “Johnny is happier than I’ve seen him since he was attacked. So you must be doing something right.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m doing at all, sir. Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning and I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “We are close to a treatment, Touma. I am telling you. We nearly got this nailed. We’ve isolated the protein Johnny needs to be human again. So let me be very clear. You have my permission to eat Cheerios on his porch and learn how to cliff dive if you want to. Just stay with him. That’s your job. Johnny’s big and burly. He might look solid as a rock, but there are cracks, Touma. Serious cracks. So don’t break him.”

  Knowing what the captain expected momentarily filled her with relief until the weight of his expectations pressed down on her. This was worse than being his teacher. She was responsible for so much more than teaching him sign language. She lifted her hand to salute. “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ve got another series of tests this week. So don’t hug anyone else until then.”

  Her face went hot at his words but she nodded her understanding.

  He rose. “And now, Private, you and I are going to see Johnny because he won’t use the white board with me and I can’t understand a thing he is signing.” He rummaged in his drawer and retrieved a flip phone. He tossed it to her. “My number is in there with some others. My wife has asked that her number be included on your phone. Brianna wants you to call her. Seems you’ve made an impression all around.”

  The mention of his vampire wife’s name made her skin tingle. Suddenly all she wanted to do was to get Johnny and get back up the hill.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Follow me.”

  They walked in silence down corridors and through automatic doors, each of which had a bright red button the size of a grapefruit that was used to open them. Panic did funny things to a person. It made her brain stop working. She’d been sweating and it was hard to breathe. Right now she had a cramp in her belly just thinking of Johnny. Was he still upset?

  The captain stopped at a door that was clearly an exterior exit judging from the solid steel and the panic bar. He peered down at her.

  “Upbeat, Touma. Upbeat and optimistic,” said MacConnelly. “We nearly have this.”

  She nodded and he opened the door and held it. She passed through first and out into a central grassy courtyard that ringed a Koi pond. Wooden benches sat nestled before sprays of palm fronds and blooming tropical plants. A place of serenity in the center of the medical research lab. It seemed as out of place as an orchid in the middle of a gravel quarry.

  “This was created at my wife’s insistence. She said Johnny should have somewhere peaceful to wait before tests and lab work. You know when we draw blood we have to take it from his mouth because it’s impossible to puncture his skin?”

  She didn’t, but the information just made the entire testing process more horrific. They’d been at this for six months? No wonder he was depressed. She began scanning for him. The door clicked shut behind them and Johnny emerged on the opposite bank, straightening from where he seemed to have been feeding the fish, judging from the number of the bright yellow, orange-and-white Koi swimming practically up onto the bank.

  Why weren’t they afraid of him?

  Probably because they didn’t know how much fish he
ate. She smiled and started toward him, taking the fastest route over the high-arching foot bridge that spanned the narrowest part of the pool.

  He was signing already. Sorry. So sorry. Not try scare you.

  The captain’s shoes rapped smartly on the wooden planking behind her. “What’s he saying?”

  She signed to Johnny. It’s okay now.

  She started signing and speaking in unison. “I was afraid. I thought I was locked in that exam room and you weren’t there. I just panicked.”

  “And Webb is an idiot,” added MacConnelly.

  Johnny signed to his captain and Sonia spoke nearly in time.

  “He says, ‘I just lost it. It was stupid. I know how strong we are. No excuses.’”

  “You did hold back,” said the captain. “If you didn’t you would have killed him. It’s easy to kill a man now. And you didn’t bite him. I know that took restraint.”

  Johnny closed the distance to her and then paused looking uncertain. His hands moved with the grace of a dancer. Forgive me, please. Don’t want to lose you, too.

  He had lost so much already, his family, his squad, his old life and even his body.

  “What did he say?”

  “Apologies again.”

  “All right, Johnny. No more of that.” He turned to the sergeant. “Touma isn’t yours. She is a translator and a teacher. You need to check that territoriality. You got me?”

  Johnny nodded.

  The captain swiped both hands over his face and then drew a breath as if preparing to launch a missile strike.

  “Johnny, is it true you can’t remember the attack?”

  Johnny stilled and then glanced at Sonia as he gave a slow nod. Her gaze dropped. Why did she feel like a traitor? He’d never shared any of her secrets, but she had shared his.

  “What do you remember?”

  Johnny began to sign and Sonia translated.

  “He says it doesn’t make sense because—” she paused waiting for more signs and then continued “—he saw the wolf jump but you stepped in front of him. He saw it bite you.” She pointed to her shoulder a moment after Johnny. “Here.”

  Johnny kept signing and Sonia drew a startled breath at his words.

  “Next he was on the helicopter. But, sir, he says he thinks he was still human. He saw you change, sir.”

  “Maybe he just hadn’t changed yet.”

  Johnny’s hands continued to move.

  “He said he was uninjured, sir.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said the captain. “We both changed. We’re both werewolves. I bit him. I saw the report.”

  Sonia turned to watch Johnny and then began to speak. “He says his memory isn’t clear. Maybe he’s wrong, but that’s what he remembers.” She stared at one and then the other. “Haven’t you ever talked about this?”

  They both shook their heads. Men, she thought. They sucked at communication.

  “I’m ordering an investigation,” said her captain. “Anything else you want to tell me, Johnny, before I send you home?”

  Johnny nodded and began to sign. Sonia found her words stuck as she tried to speak. “He says, ‘I was prepared to die that day, Mac. But I wasn’t prepared for this.’”

  Johnny finished by sweeping a hand over his face and form.

  Who could have ever been prepared for this?

  “Give us a few more days. We are on to something now. The dogs aren’t dying and they are still changing. Just hold on.”

  Sonia watched Johnny lift a fist.

  “He says he’s holding on.”

  The captain glanced from one to the other. “Dismissed, you two. Touma, call my wife.” He rested a hand on Johnny’s shoulder and Johnny pulled him in for a hug. The men clapped each other on the back. She heard the captain say, “I’ll make it right for you. Swear to God.”

  Then the captain was retreating with a hasty step.

  Sonia moved in to the place the captain had been. She wrapped her arms around Johnny’s middle. “Let’s get you home.”

  They walked side by side up the narrow winding path. Sonia fell into step with him. Johnny could probably climb the hill in a matter of minutes but he slowed his pace to match hers and did not hurry her.

  Once back at his quarters he stopped and grinned at her signing.

  We are home.

  She cast him a sad smile. “When I was a girl I imagined a house of our own with a swing in the yard. Now I just want a place I can heat without turning on the oven.”

  Johnny stared down at her. Had she said all that aloud? She’d never told anyone that before.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a bummer.”

  He signed to her. This home, my home is your home. Make it yours.

  She laughed at that. “Don’t be silly.”

  Captain says you stay here or at base. You choose. Come. Go. Up to you. So, this your home now, too.

  It was sweet of him to say. But it wasn’t true. A home, well that wasn’t just a place it was... Sonia stilled as she realized that a home was where you wanted to be. Where you felt safe and where you were with the ones you cared most about. By that definition she was indeed already home and that scared the crap out of her. She pulled back, staring, stunned, at Johnny.

  What?

  “It’s not my home.”

  It could be.

  “No. I’m not playing house, Wolf. I stay or go at someone else’s whim. It’s not up to me. So I’m not unpacking or settling in because I know what this is. It’s a job.”

  He cocked his head. Scared.

  “Hell, yes, I am most of the time.”

  That night Johnny cooked short ribs, the best she’d ever tasted. After supper he gave her the master bedroom with that enormous bed he never used. She stayed the night and the next morning she woke to an empty house. Johnny left a note that he was training with his assigned friends, the wounded warriors. Beside the note he’d left three things: a glass of juice, a bagel and a magazine with a scrap of paper set between the pages on an article about the decorative touches that make a house a home.

  She pushed the magazine aside in favor of the bagel. Damned if she was going to be his interior decorator, too.

  Over the course of the next three weeks their lives fell into a pattern. She had the mornings to herself. Sometimes Brianna came for a visit, always keeping a distance and never touching Sonia. The more time she spent with Brianna, the more she liked her. She wasn’t frightening or distant, just cautious. She knew the harm she could do to humans by simple contact. Being a vampire that drew energy from other beings made her a prisoner of sorts. She was isolated just like Johnny, but unlike him she had no hope of recovery. Sonia felt terrible as she realized Brianna would spend her life in a self-imposed isolation to protect others from her powers. It would make for a lonely life. Thank goodness that werewolves were immune. That meant she had at least one friend in Johnny and a husband who could hold her in his arms. Better than many. Better than herself, she realized.

  Johnny seemed distracted and she knew there was a shadow hanging over them both. He was still in werewolf form. Each day of waiting, the unspoken hung between them. Could they fix him? Because if they couldn’t she would rather have him as he was than lose him in a failed attempt to make him human.

  Sonia went still as she realized how much she feared the end might come at anytime. What if she lost him, too?

  The call came the next morning just as they sat down to breakfast on the patio. The messenger surprised her. It was Brianna who appeared from nowhere on the lawn below the porch.

  “They want Johnny at the facility at fourteen hundred to run a trial. And they want you there, as well, to act as his translator.” Brianna smiled at Johnny. “This could be it, Johnny. They believe this will change you back.”

  Johnny signed and Sonia translated.

  “He says, ‘Will you come?’”

  Brianna smiled, but shook her head no. “I’d have to be too close to the others. I’ll wai
t here.” She turned to Sonia. “Perhaps you can call me to let me know how it goes and if all is well, perhaps you two might have dinner with us soon?”

  Johnny nodded his acceptance.

  Brianna lifted a hand in farewell and vanished.

  Sonia shivered. “I hate it when she does that.” She faced Johnny who offered her a ginger-pineapple muffin grinning broadly.

  For her, this news was like preparing to hear a jury verdict and she didn’t know if Johnny would win his freedom or be sentenced to death. Either way she’d lose him.

  His wide grin faded as he dropped his black jowls over his white teeth.

  “What if something goes wrong?”

  Already went wrong.

  “But something might happen to you.”

  Worth the risk.

  She disagreed but it was not her decision.

  “I’d rather have you as you are than see you...” Her words trailed off. She couldn’t bring herself to say what was in her mind as if keeping from speaking that word would somehow keep him safe.

  Die, he supplied. Then he took her hand before releasing it to sign. I would rather die than live like this.

  “Is it so bad?” she asked, tears welled in her eyes, making his image swim.

  Yes.

  Her little fantasy bubble burst. Had she really thought that she and Johnny could live together in this bungalow on the hill forever? That he would be content with her companionship and nothing more?

  Chapter 9

  Sonia watched as Dr. Zharov stroked his tie speaking to Johnny who lay on the surgical table. There were lead lines from his body to various machines taking his heart rate and reading brain function. The machines scared her silly. Zharov had six assistants. If it was safe, why did he need so many doctors and why was there a crash cart behind the table?

  “I’ve isolated the absent protein from Captain MacConnelly’s blood. My team inserted the protein into your own blood cells to prevent the kind of rejection you witnessed. The injection works on dogs and monkeys. We have had zero fatalities with this new procedure. I have advised that we wait another two months. That is twice the time that we saw any negative outcomes but unfortunately that is not my call.”