Embracing Carly Read online

  Carly stood rooted to the spot, speechless. How could they think she was a female werewolf?

  “But—but I’m not a werewolf. I’m human. Let me out of here!” She ran to the glass, beating on it until the skin on her knuckles split open and her hands bled. She leaned against the glass, then slid down to her knees, whimpering, “You can’t do this. I’m human.”

  “That’s what they all say.” The sound of the deep, cultured English accent drew her head up, and she looked through the glass.

  Carly’s heart slammed in her chest as she stared at the man who she somehow knew was responsible for her capture. She ground her teeth together, glaring at him. “What do you want with me?”

  The man smirked, drawing a pen out of the pocket of his lab coat. About five-feet ten inches tall, he was not a handsome man. His nondescript brown hair was thinning on the top, and he was a little thick around the middle. The man had an air of superiority about him, as if he was sure he knew things that others did not.

  “To see you change, of course,” he said, smiling.

  Carly wasn’t dumb enough to think the man was talking about her clothes. “Change?”

  He clucked his tongue. “Come now, don’t be coy.” He walked around the console to stand in front of the glass. “We all know what you are. I don’t understand why you continue to deny it.”

  “Because I’m human.”

  He smiled. “We shall see. Your blood will tell.”

  “What happens to me when you find out I’m telling you the truth?” Carly paced the length of her cell, dreading the answer to her question. “Will you let me go?”

  “She has a point, Richard. What if she is telling the truth? Can we let her go? She doesn’t know where we are. She couldn’t possibly tell anyone where to find us. And they’d most likely think she was crazy if she tried.”

  The man looked down at the woman and frowned. “Are you having second thoughts, Cassandra? You know we can’t let her go, even if she’s really only human.”

  Carly’s heart pounded as she looked between them. “Why not? Why can’t you let me go once you find out I’m a human? I’ll obviously be of no help to your research.”

  Richard’s eyes brightened as if something wonderful just occurred to him. “You would still be quite invaluable to our research.”

  “How?” She was almost afraid to ask. The man was crazy.

  “Why, you can be our first test control subject,” he said with a grin. He turned to Cassandra. “Don’t you think that’s a splendid idea, my dear?”

  A loud beeping came from behind them and Cassandra hurried to her console, tapped a few keys on her keyboard and frowned. “She is human, Richard. I cannot be a part of this anymore. You’re going to have to find another doctor. No one said anything about torturing people or keeping them against their will. You led me to believe that all your test subjects were here voluntarily.”

  Richard turned his head, calling to a man standing several feet behind him. “Martin, bring the serum. We have a new test subject.”

  Carly’s stomach roiled, her vision focused on the woman and her companion as they walked to her door. A large muscular man walked behind them, approaching slowly as if he had all the time in the world.

  She could no longer hear what the woman said, but Cassandra didn’t look happy. She grabbed onto Richard’s arm, pulling him to a stop as she quickly said something heated. He summoned a few guards and had her removed from the area. Martin joined him on the other side of the glass.

  Richard swiped his ID in a card reader just outside her door, before it swung open on silent hinges. Carly backed further into the room.

  “This won’t hurt a bit,” Martin said, grinning as he entered, holding a large hypodermic needle and syringe.

  “Martin,” Richard said, shaking his head with a phony smile. “Don’t lie to her.”

  Carly’s heart raced as she looked between them, still backing away, until she was up against the wall, trapped.

  “Okay, I lied. But it’s just a little pinch.”

  “Yeah, for the shot,” Richard said, enjoying himself.

  Martin paused, looking back at his boss. “What if this kills her?”

  The man just shrugged. “Then we’ll just have to hope it doesn’t. The military test subjects are going to be much harder to replace. Not to mention, more expensive. I think the General would appreciate our testing it on another subject before giving it to one of his men.”

  “You can’t do this!” Carly’s teeth chattered. “What... what is that?” she asked, staring at the syringe with growing horror.

  “It’s a serum we made with werewolf blood.”

  “Oh, my God, you people are crazy!”

  “Crazy?” Richard shook his head. “Crazy is being aware that were-beings exist and not doing a damn thing about it. Now, that’s crazy.” He leaned back against the door, crossed his arms, and stared at her inquisitively. “You know, Martin, I think it might be better if she understood exactly what’s going on. Maybe we should show her that were-beings really exist.”

  Martin nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”

  Carly couldn’t help the sigh of relief that she released when Martin lowered the syringe and she slumped, glad the immediate threat was over.

  Suddenly Martin rushed her, stuck the needle in her arm and depressed the plunger, forcing the fluid into her thigh. Afterward, the two scientists left the room laughing, closing the door firmly behind them.

  Carly ran over and grabbed the knob, yanking as hard as she could. “Damn!”

  Tears burned her eyes. What was it about her that identified her as a victim to raving lunatics? Either she was cursed, or she was just damned unlucky. Turning, she paced her small cell. Her anger and frustration giving her more energy than she knew what to do with while in the confines of her small prison. Finally, after what seemed like hours of pacing, Carly sank down onto the floor, rested her head on the side of the bed and cried herself to sleep.

  “Time to wake up.” The deep male voice carried through the speaker was loud.

  Carly raised her head and looked around the room with bleary eyes. She frowned when she realized where she was. She looked through the glass and flipped Martin the finger. “Go to hell.”

  “Maybe someday, but not today, sweetheart.” He chuckled. “How are you feeling? Anything different?”

  She just stared at him. “I wouldn’t tell you anything if I was. If you think I’m going to make your job easier, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “If you’re changing, you won’t be able to hide it for long.” His voice boomed over the intercom and she flinched. Did he have to talk so loud? She fought the urge to cover her ears.

  “Turn down the damn speaker before you break my eardrums.”

  Martin grinned, reached up and pulled a lever on the console down. “Better?”

  Carly nodded. “Yes, thank you.” It rankled her that she felt the need to be polite after everything they had already done to her. However, as her mother had always said, you catch more flies with honey...

  Martin bent his head and scribbled on a pad in front of him. “First indication of change for test subject sixteen is enhanced hearing.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? There’s no sign that I’m changing into anything but a bitch.”

  “Interesting choice of words, Ma’am,” Martin said chuckling through an oily grin.

  Carly paced the room, pissed. She couldn’t turn into an animal. It just wasn’t possible. Even if it was, how could she become what they wanted? She would be an animal and, therefore, she would be terrified of herself. How dumb was that? She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and tried to get control of herself. In two three, out two three, she counted her breaths. The familiar exercise gave her some small measure of control.

  The door opened and Martin strode in. Two men with tranquilizer guns entered behind him. “Come on, it’s time you got to see what changes you have in store.”

  They le
d her from her cell, taking her across the center island to stand in front of another room nearly identical to hers. A movement behind the glass of a nearby cell caught her eye. Cassandra sat on the narrow bed, her arms wrapped around her stomach as she rocked back and forth.

  Carly covered her mouth with her hand. These people had no scruples, no conscience. They had even put one of their own colleagues in these rooms to experiment on.

  “She’s been rocking the boat for months. Trying to get us to stop our research, telling us it’s inhumane to treat the animals like this and that they are all miracles of nature. If you ask me, they’re all freaks of nature,” Martin sneered. “If you’re feeling guilty about her being in that cell, don’t. She is where she’s at because Richard found her trying to notify the authorities. Now she’ll avoid them like the plague. She won’t want them to know what she is.”

  “Oh, God,” Carly said, putting her hand to her mouth. Tears ran down her face. If they could do that to their own colleague, what were they capable of doing to the rest of them?

  She turned, staring with morbid curiosity, as the men entered the stall in front of her, carrying a syringe. They injected the obviously drugged, black panther with a strange-looking turquoise tinted serum, then quickly left the room.

  Black panthers weren’t common. In fact, Carly was pretty sure they were rare. It was strange how she’d seen two in such close proximity. After a few moments, the panther let out a long, low growl before it jerked and convulsed.

  Carly stared, unable to believe her eyes as the muscles on the big cat contorted and its hind legs grew out of proportion.

  It looked at her through the glass and snarled, growling as it convulsed on the floor of the small, impersonal cell. First, his hair disappeared. It didn’t fall out. It just disappeared. The claws, fangs and fur seemed to be absorbed into the body, until a perfectly proportioned man lay naked on the floor before her.

  Damp jet-black hair lay over his forehead, dangling into his eyes. He remained on the floor sweating, his body still quivering from the trauma of the change. The man opened his eyes. Dark as midnight, those eyes bored through Carly, told her he was dying. He no longer had the will to live. Or the hope.

  “Dimic, meet, Miss...” Martin glanced over at her. “What’s your name?”

  “Does it really matter?” She shot him a look filled with contempt.

  “Well, we need to call you something. Your name would be best. However, there is always Test Subject Sixteen. That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  “Charlene, my name is Charlene.” She would be damned if she told them to call her Carly. Only her friends called her that, and these people were definitely not her friends.

  “Well, Charlene, what did you think?”

  “Of what?” What did she think of the indignity and degradation these men forced their prisoners to go through? They were all on display like some sort of zoo animals. It was criminal.

  “The Change, of course.” Martin frowned.

  Turning away, she wrapped her arms around herself as she felt the beginning of stomach cramps. Were the cramps why Cassandra had been rocking on her bed with her arms wrapped around herself?

  Apparently, Martin and Richard thought she would believe that computer generated show she had just watched. She had to admit though, her pain seemed genuine enough. Carly would figure out how they made it appear as though they had injected a big cat when it was just some sort of hologram or something later, when she could think.

  Turning back to her captors, she rested her hands on her hips with a scowl. “I might have had an easier time of believing that show, if you hadn’t used the name Dimic. I know that Sasha’s mate died eighteen months ago in a car accident.” Carly turned her attention back to the man behind the glass, who now stared at her with interest. He couldn’t be Sasha’s mate, could he? Could this all be real? She shook her head.

  Martin laughed. “Yeah. He died in a car accident we orchestrated. We have been looking for his mate ever since. Was she the female panther you helped escape?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Carly turned back to Dimic. She raised her hand and placed it on the glass, needing to give him some sort of comfort. “Although, if I had a mate, I guess I would want to know he was alive and well. That he hadn’t wasted away to nothing during my absence.”

  She tilted her head, staring at the man before her, needing to give him some hope. “Sasha isn’t dead, Dimic, if that’s who you really are. She’s been at a... friend’s house, recuperating, trying to deal with your loss.”

  The man’s expressive face told her thank you. He closed his eyes and, bringing his hands to his head, he curled up into a ball, rocking himself back and forth.

  Carly wasn’t sure he could hear her. She wasn’t even sure she was completely sane anymore. However, she had to try. Reaching out with her mind, she attempted to communicate with him the way Malcolm had with her the day before.

  She killed one of them when she escaped with the wolf, Dimic. They are coming back for us. We can’t give up hope.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The two men turned and, grabbing Carly by the arm, dragged her back to her cell where she collapsed on the bed shivering uncontrollably. What was happening to her? Was she really going to change into...something that wasn’t human?

  Carly stubbornly thinned her lips. If she was going to change into some kind of animal, she wasn’t about to let them watch. The whole idea for them to do this to her had been to see her change. Well, they wouldn’t see a damn thing if she had anything to say about it.

  Standing, she grabbed the edge of the bed and tipped it over onto its side, letting the mattress fall to the floor against the wall. There was no need to be uncomfortable. After creating a tent with the top sheet, she turned, and glared through the glass. Then she made a face at the strategically placed camera in the ceiling of one corner of the room. Carly smiled and flipped it the finger. She might not have a choice in this matter, but she’d be damned if she’d make it easy for them to watch.

  The shaking returned when she finally collapsed on the mattress, followed by cramps that hurt so much she wanted to die. Perspiration dripped from her, plastering her hair to her face. She wanted nothing more than to go into the bathroom and sit beneath the cool spray of the shower. Carly probably would have if she hadn’t remembered there was another camera in there.

  At one point, she screamed, begging them to come in and shoot her, to put her out of her misery. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she curled up in a little ball and cried. Her claws grew first. They were long and gray, growing from oddly shaped fingertips. Fangs came next. Her face elongated, bones snapping and reshaping as her jaws stretched into a muzzle. Then the fur grew on her arms, legs, and hands. After that, Carly had the ridiculous thought that she would need a truckload of depilatory to remove her unsightly body hair now.

  This can’t be happening! People don’t change into animals. They simply can’t. She was having another nightmare—she had to be. It would explain why her arms and legs had shortened and became more muscular. A nightmare was also the only way to explain how she felt the strength of the beast she had become, snarling for her to set it free.

  She woke an hour later with a killer headache. What is that smell? Yech! She lifted her head away from the mattress. It was disgusting. It reeked of body odor, sweaty feet and urine. Standing up, Carly did an about face and laid back down.

  Well, no matter what her loving parents had ever told her to the contrary, she was a dog. She sighed dejectedly. Would she ever be human again, or was this change thing a one-way ticket to the zoo? She looked through the opening in her little tent.

  Ha! Dogs do not see in black and white. The room still looked the same as it had before, when she was still human. Everything seemed larger, though that was most likely because she was shorter now.

  A part of her wanted to walk around getting the feel for her new body. She stayed where she was. Carly refused to giv
e them the satisfaction of catching her on film. Stubbornly, she stayed where she was, determined to wait it out.

  Carly just hoped her bladder could hold out as long as her stubbornness could. If not, she was going to have to find a way to use the toilet.

  How weird was that? She curled her lip, trying to smile. It was too damned bad she had refused to eat the night before. She could have left them a nice little doggie present on the floor right in front of the door where she could be sure they wouldn’t miss it.

  A few hours later, long before her bladder gave out, she felt the peculiar wrenching in her bones that she would forever associate with changing from one form to the other.

  The pain was still excruciating, but thankfully, less intense this time. Perhaps, with any luck, it would continue to hurt less every time she changed, if this was a permanent situation, and something told her it was. It was in her blood now.

  Sighing, she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. It was too much to deal with right now. Maybe she could find the strength to think about those things later. The cramps came and went with little more discomfort than a bout of gas. However, the change itself was still painful. Would she ever get used to it? Did she even want to?

  One thing was certain, the hospital gown they had forced her to wear fit her human form a whole lot better than her animal form. She would have to remember to take it off the next time she changed. Otherwise, her wolf would look ridiculous if they caught her on film after all.

  Crawling out from under her makeshift tent, Carly looked through the glass partition and frowned. Where was everyone? Not once in the three days that these monsters kept her captive here at this Horror Hotel had she ever seen the computer and research area empty. Today, the space was completely devoid of people.

  There had been times, of course, when most of them left. Carly assumed those remaining were on the night shift, though she had no real way of knowing since there were no windows to let in the sun.

  She couldn’t be sure how long they’d kept her in the facility. She had just assumed days passed every time she’d slept.