Bound to Night by Nina Croft Page B

could hear the recognition in his voice.
    “Well, I’m certainly not a ghost.” She thought for a moment. “Why did you attack me?”
    When he didn’t respond, she reached out with her mind and plucked the answer with ease. “He did it for the money,” she told the others. “He was paid to kill me.”
    She turned back to him. “So why didn’t I die? Why did you leave me alive?”
    “What are you?” he asked. His glance shifted to Sebastian, and this time, real fear showed in his face. Tasha ignored his question and searched deeper.
    “He was paid by somebody else,” she said. “They knew about the telepathy, and they wanted me, but they also wanted a live werewolf. They found a way to get both. He attacked me and sold me to The Facility.”
    Sebastian hissed, and she glanced at him. “We have few rules,” he said. “But the most sacred is we never give information to humans. We do not sell out our own kind. It’s the only reason we’ve remained secret for so long.”
    “Does he know the name of his contact at The Facility?” Jack asked.
    “Yes, it’s Dr. Latham. You met him. He was in charge of my case.”
    “What about the man who paid him to kill you?”
    “I don’t know.” She concentrated on Oswald, and saw a picture inside his head—a man handing over money. She tried to deny what she was seeing, but it was impossible. “Why?” she whispered.
    “Tasha?”
    She glanced up to find Jack staring at her with understanding in his eyes.
    “You knew,” she said bleakly.
    “I suspected.”
    “My father paid to have me attacked?”
    “No, he paid to have you killed.”
    “But why? And how did you know?”
    “We don’t know why yet, but we found his name in certain records.”
    “That’s why you made me question him, isn’t it? It wasn’t because he wouldn’t answer. You just knew I wouldn’t believe unless I saw it for myself.”
    Her world was falling apart around her. She stood alone and abandoned in the ruins, searching for some sort of explanation. Her father would never have harmed her. But the truth sank in, and she dropped into a chair, her legs refusing to hold her any longer.
    She couldn’t go home. Even if there was an explanation, she couldn’t go home until she knew what it was.
    “What do we do with him?” Jack said to Sebastian.
    Oswald looked up, fear in his eyes.
    “You know what you’ve done is punishable by death.” Sebastian shook his head in disgust. “Take him away. Do what you like with him.”
    Seth grinned and dragged the man from the room.
    A shiver fluttered down Tasha’s spine. “What will they do to him?”
    Jack looked at her thoughtfully, and then shrugged. “I like my blood given freely. Seth prefers to take his.”
    She shivered again, suddenly cold, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “So what’s next?”
    Jack came over and crouched down in front of her. “You could forget about all this. Forget about your family. Let others deal with it.”
    “I can’t. You don’t understand—my father is all I have.”
    Sebastian moved to stand besides Jack. “You have the pack now. They are your family. You’re one of us.”
    She jumped up. “But I’m not! For years, everyone has told me I’m a werewolf, but I’ve never turned. Why? If I’m one of you, why don’t I turn?”
    Jack went over to the side table and poured himself a drink. He swallowed it in one gulp and poured himself another.
    “Can’t you just tell me?” she asked.
    Jack glanced over at Sebastian, who shrugged.
    “Sex,” Sebastian said.
    “What?”
    “You’re a virgin. When you have sex, you will turn.”
    She stared at the werewolf, unsure whether to believe him.
    “Normally, it happens soon after the attack,” Sebastian continued. “We don’t, as a rule, change children, and once our blood is in your veins, your own blood flows hot.”
    “Mine didn’t,” she said. She could have added that at least it hadn’t until she met Jack.
    “Probably your age