Page 215 of Vampire Kings Box Set

Nobody uttered any kind of greeting. They were angry at him, judging him for all he had done of late. They did not like what he had chosen to become. Henry had transitioned from captivity back into civilization with barely an issue. Will felt some small spark of jealousy at that. It made him feel like a worse creature. Actually, that’s what all of them did. Maddox. Lorien. Henry. Every single one of them was a presence to remind Will of his many failings.

They drove quite a long way, out of state. Will thought it probably didn’t matter. Gideon was the kind of evil who wouldn’t be stopped by state lines. He wouldn’t be stopped by anything, come to it.

“What is this?” he asked roughly. “Some kind of shitty silent intervention?”

“We’re trying to help you,” Henry said gruffly, immediately confirming Will’s suspicion.

Will hated the way he felt right now. Prickly, slightly guilty, wrong. When he was on his own he could follow his instincts precisely and never feel wrong at all. It was only when he compared himself to others that the wrongness came in.

He also hated the way his shoulder was intermittently rubbing against Maddox’s arm. It was a casual intimacy, and every time it happened he was jolted with feelings he did not want to feel, and yearnings he would have denied if accused of having.

This car was claustrophobic. This situation was untenable.

“You stink,” Lorien added, unhelpful and judgmental as always.

“Lorien…” Henry said his name chidingly, and Lorien shut up.

Maddox did not engage verbally in the fray. He stayed where he was, unmoving, unyielding, perhaps entirely unfeeling. Will had the urge to force some kind of emotion out of him. This unfettered ultra-dominance could not be all there was.

And so, on the interstate, Will took his wolf form. It was an act that was very disruptive indeed even without his flashing white jaws, because he was far larger than the back seat.

Almost instantly he managed to Alice in Wonderland himself out the windows of the car, his big, shaggy black head out one window, his angrily wagging tail out the other side. Henry and Maddox were variously crushed in the back with him. Henry cursed and pushed at his ribs in the attempt to make enough room to breathe.

Something clamped around Will’s back leg. Something cold. Something painful. It was a moonsilver shackle, and it reversed his transformation instantly and completely. Will collapsed back into the car, entirely naked, bloody, and now screaming because moonsilver was incredibly painful. Torturously so. So painful that even Gideon had not used it on them very often during the wolves’ captivity.

“You forget things so quickly,” Maddox mused as Will screamed in agony. “I think you need to be medically inspected.”

“Take it off! TAKE IT OFF!” Will reached for it, but touching it with his hands only made the pain worse.

“I will take it off when you show some sign of human intellect again,” Maddox replied, looking down at Will dispassionately.

Will was writhing unrestrained over Henry and Maddox in a humiliating way. The pain was so intense and so unrelenting he would have promised anything to have it removed.

“Please, take it off.”

“Oh, you do still have some manners, how fascinating,” Maddox commented.

“Maddox…” Henry spoke up. Mad lifted a hand and shook his head at Henry. He was not going to allow anyone to intervene on Will’s behalf.

Tears were pooling in Will’s eyes, tears that almost immediately began to run down his face through the sanguine filth caked there. It was humiliating all over again to be so completely broken so very quickly, and to know that he had brought it on himself through a fucking stupid act, taking his wolf form in the vehicle. If Mad wanted to be cruel to be cruel, he would have put the silver on the moment he captured him.

Will cried openly and shamefully, thrashing around vulnerably until finally Maddox relented. It had perhaps only been three or four minutes with the silver on, but it had made an impression.

He sat up, avoiding Maddox’s gaze as he tried to regain some composure. This was the moment Lorien would start smirking and crowing, and Henry would behave as if terribly disappointed and Maddox…

“Put your seatbelt on.”

9

Will was taken to a house in the countryside, remote, naturally. It was a hideout, a place surrounded by trees and high wrought iron fences.

It frustrated him so deeply that no matter what he did he always seemed to end up captive one way or another. There was no freedom for a man like him. There were no choices, no chances. He had been captive all his life one way or another.

When the car stopped and they all got out, Maddox told him to follow. Though Will’s eyes darted to the forest and the fence, the memory of the silver on his skin kept him from making anything like an escape. He was broken all over again, and he loathed himself for it.

Henry and Lorien took up the rear, speaking quietly with one another. They must be so pleased with themselves, laughing at him with how easily he had been captured.

He was still wild. He had to hold onto that wildness, or all would be lost. It was the only true safety, and the only real freedom.