Chapter 5

Chapter 5

>Hospital. Day<

At the hospital, I instruct Lucas to head for a room with one of the animal attack victims in, while I go and talk to my boss. 

“I´m so sorry for not calling in, but I had a family emergency.” I lied to Lydia.

“Your mom´s in town?”

I hesitate for a second. I feel bad lying to Lydia. “No, it´s someone else.”

“Well, whatever it is I´m sure you´ll get through it. I´ll file the necessary papers for your leave. I´ll see you when you get back.”

“Thank you, Dr. Wilde.”

Lydia says good-bye and gets back to her duties.

“Laura.”

Oh no. My heart jumps as soon as I hear his voice from behind me. I turn and see Patrick standing there. Suddenly, I feel all hot and bothered.

“Patrick.”

Please don´t come near me. But he does. He approaches so closely that I am overwhelmed by his scent. He has this strong musky odor that arouses me. 

“How are you? Are you not working today?”

“Family emergency.”

“I hope everything turns out okay.” Patrick touches my arm, consolingly. As he does it sends electricity through my body. Oh god. I ball my hands into fists, struggling to maintain my composure.

“Thank you.”

“I´ll see you soon.”

I don´t want to see him go. I´ve just got to have him.

“Patrick.”

“Yes, Laura?”

“Can I talk you in private?”

He looks at me curiously for a moment. “Sure. There´s an on-call room just right around that hallway.”

We slip inside the empty on-call room. And the moment Patrick closes the door, he starts to kiss me. I push him away.

“I didn´t come here for that.” But I can´t deny myself any longer. I decide to give in the urge. “Who am I kidding? Kiss me.”

Patrick smiles and begins to kiss me hungrily. His mouth finds its way down the base of my neck and bites down hard.

“Aaahhh!” I yelp out in pain as my hand flies to my neck. It´s bleeding. But I feel it healing very rapidly. “You are one naughty doctor.”

We resume kissing, but the door suddenly bursts open. 

An angry Lucas stands by the doorway. “I knew this was a bad idea. We need to go now.”

I look at Patrick apologetically. “I´m sorry. I have to go.”

“I guess I´ll see you some other time.”

>Lucas´ house. Afternoon<

The three of us gather in Lucas´ living room. Liam has just disposed the body of the werewolf he killed this morning.

“Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing who this werewolf was. But I noticed some similarities with my friend.”

“What are they?” Lucas asked.

“They both have these puncture wounds on their sides that never healed.”

“I didn´t notice those last night on your friend because it was dark.”

“I have no idea what it was. But that means they are connected. We´re just going to have to investigate this further. What have you found out about the animal attacks?”

“I´ve seen the wounds on one of the victims. It´s definitely a werewolf bite.”

I gasped. “Wait. Does that mean that they´re going to turn into werewolves as well?”

“Well, they seem to have survived the initial fever, so yes.” Liam answered.

“Werewolf venom is very potent. Either you die or you turn.” Lucas added. 

“But if they´re all going to turn into werewolves, then all those people in the hospital, the patients, the employees, they´re all in danger.”

“Which is why we need to devise a plan to extract them. To remove them from that environment.” 

I´ve never seen this side of Lucas. He sounds very military. It´s as if they´ve done this before. 

“How are we going to do that?”

“There´s no we. I´m not going to involve you in this. It´s too risky.”

“Lucas, I need you to start trusting me.” It takes an immense amount of effort to resist the urge to punch him. With a sheer force of will, I manage to restrain the rage inside me.

“Not until you turn and start training to control your powers.”

“Okay, that´s enough.” Liam interrupted. “Listen to Lucas, Laura. He just wants you to be safe.” Somehow, Liams´ words compel me to obey.

“All right.”

Lucas gives me a curious look.

“So, what´s our extraction strategy?”

“I think, it´s time to pay the old troops a visit. We need to bring in the Tank.”

>Lucas house. An old war room<

It´s almost sundown when Lucas brings me inside the room that´s remained locked ever since I´ve known him. It turns out to be a war room. Ancient weapons adorn the walls. Suits of armor stand as a perpetual vigil in all corners of the room.

“So, this is why you´ve been keeping this room locked all these years.”

“That, plus I´ve just never had the need for this room until today.”

“When you said Liam is an old friend, you used to belong to the same pack, didn´t you?”

“That´s correct. We were the last pack remaining in Wolf Springs, until Liam was elected to go into exile. We all went our separate ways since then.” 

Suddenly, the doors to the war room burst open. A tall, hulking older man enters, followed by a pretty girl in her early twenties, who´s got her arms hooked to Liams´. I feel a sudden twinge of jealousy.

“It´s nice to be back! Lucas! How are you, my man?”

“I´m good, Tank. This is my friend. Laura, this is Tank.”

Tank embraces me in a bear hug, leaving me perplexed. “It´s so nice to meet you, Laura. Welcome to the pack.”

“We are not a pack, Tank. This is just a temporary arrangement until we reach our goal.” Liam pointed out.

“Oh, all right.” 

Liam turned to the girl. “Laura, this is Amelia Knox, Lucas´ younger sister.”

Amelia smiles and shakes my hand as I glance at Lucas, whose face remains expressionless. He´s obviously averting the gaze of his sister. 

“Laura Fuller. It´s nice to meet you.”

“Same here.” She replied.

I didn´t know Lucas has a sister. And they don´t seem to be on good terms. He sure has been keeping a lot of secrets from me.

“I realize now that I really don´t know Lucas all that well.”

I pull Lucas to one side and ask him in a whisper. “You never told me about your sister. You´ve been keeping a lot of secrets from me. What´s up with that?”

Lucas sighed. “It´s complicated. This is a different life I left behind and I wanted to forget. We´ll talk about it some other time.”

“We´d better. Because I feel like I don´t even know you anymore.”

“I´m sorry, okay?” Lucas rejoins the group.

“So, where is the old man?” Lucas turned to Liam.

“Old man Lobo is out of the state. He won´t be joining us on this mission.” Liam walks over to a mini bar. “Laura, what drink will you have?”

“Scotch!”

Liam hands me my drink with a wink. He then proceeds to pour and give everyone a glass of liquor. 

“So, that´s it? We just extract those people from the hospital, and we´re done?” Tank asked Liam. “Basically, yes. Until we can discover any further information about what is really happening, I think we should lay low following this. There can´t be many wolves here in Wolf Springs. It´ll be like placing a target on our own backs.”

“Easy peasy.” Tank nodded.

“It´s getting dark outside. Lucas, you are going with Tank and Amelia to the hospital- Tank will brief you all along the way.”

Lucas is clearly not delighted at the prospect of having to work with his sister.

“Meanwhile, Laura and I are staying here. I´m going to assist her with coping with her transformation.” “Why don´t I stay with Laura instead?” Lucas gave Liam a suspicious look.

“You´ve been to the hospital, Lucas. You know where the victims are. So, you go.”

Lucas rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

>Lucas´ house. Garden. Night<

Once the group has left, Liam and I sit on a stone bench in the garden as the moon begins its ascent in the sky.

“You should feel it any minute now. As the moon reaches its apex.”

What I didn´t count on was a romantic setting to my first transformation.

Liam is sitting so close beside me that it becomes so difficult to resist the sexual urges that I´ve been having for him. Now that we´re alone, I can´t deny my attraction for Liam.

Under the light of the full moon, I can still make out the features of his handsome face. My eyes fall on his lips. I long to touch them. I squirm in my seat, resisting the urge to reach out and touch him.

“Do you feel it?” Liam pulls me out of my thoughts.

“I feel something all right.”

Without another word, I lean in and kiss him. His mouth is tender and tastes sweet. I pull away to look at him. His hands cup my face and he presses his lips against mine.  This time the kiss is hard and hungry, devouring all the restraints I have remaining.

I give in the sensations that are overwhelming me as he adores my mouth with his exploring tongue. We suck and bite each other ravenoulsy, our hands exploring each other´s bodies. His mouth finds its way down to my neck. And that´s when he stops.

“Why? Why did you stop?”

I breathe heavily, pining to taste his lips once more.

“Laura, you have been marked!” Liam is looking at the mark that Patrick´s bite left on my neck.

“What do you mean I´ve been marked?”

“It means-”

“AAAHHH!!!” 

I suddenly scream as an unforgiving pain consumes me. It feels as though every bone in my body is going to break, to the extent that I fall to the ground and thrash uncontrollably. Then out of nowhere, the pain stops and my instincts take over. I do not feel completely in control. It feels like there´s this beast inside that wants to be unleashed. I run.