Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) Read Online Free Page A

blood pouring from his chest. DJ’s fangs sinking into Roy’s
shoulder. Roy becoming a wolf in the medevac helo.
    Once DJ opened his eyes, he’d find out if Roy
had made it. As long as he pretended to be asleep, DJ could keep on
believing that he had.
    He’d never been good at keeping still. Or at
letting curiosity go unsatisfied, even when he knew the news would
be bad. He lay vibrating with suppressed energy, wondering where he
was and what had happened to Roy, if he was alive and if DJ’s ploy
had worked and—
    DJ opened his eyes and sat up, throwing off
the covers. He was in a small, windowless room. The air that blew
through the vents was cool and dry and smelled faintly of
antiseptic. A private hospital room? There was no call button,
though.
    He wore white cotton pajamas, presumably
hospital-issue, and the cuts on his leg and arm had healed to pink
scars. DJ frowned at them. He’d been unconscious for at least a
couple days, then. No wonder he was so stiff and sore. He had a
caffeine withdrawal headache, too. Maybe the corpsman had
accidentally overdosed him, or maybe he’d had a bad reaction to the
sedative. It wouldn’t be the first time meds hadn’t worked on him
the way they did on one-bodies.
    There were two doors in the room. One
wouldn’t open, but the other was ajar and led to a bathroom. He
considered knocking on the locked door, then decided to take
advantage of the bathroom first. He used it, washed up, and then
cupped some tap water in his hands and drank. It was completely
tasteless, unlike the overly chlorinated water at his base in
Afghanistan or the mineral-heavy water of Camp Pendleton. He drank
again, wondering where he was. A different base in Afghanistan? A
military hospital in Germany?
    He reached out for the pack sense, but wasn’t
surprised when he felt nothing. Camp Pendleton was only forty miles
from San Diego, but even that was too far for him to sense his
pack. He smiled at the memory of how his sister Five would reach
out to him every time she drove past the base on her way to or from
Los Angeles, holding the contact until she finally faded out of
range.
    When he returned to the main room, a
middle-aged woman was standing by the bed. She had shoulder-length
hair the color of dust, and wore a doctor’s coat without rank
insignia. A civilian employee, probably.
    “Dale Torres? I’m Dr. Semple.” The woman
offered her hand, which DJ automatically shook. In her other hand,
she held a small black box— some medical device, DJ supposed.
    “My buddy, Roy Farrell—” DJ, caught between
“How is he?” and “Is he alive?” broke off without finishing the
sentence.
    “Please, sit down,” the doctor said,
indicating the bed.
    DJ sat, then stood up. “How— Look, if he’s
dead, just tell me.”
    “He was taken to a shock-trauma unit,” Dr.
Semple said.
    DJ sank back down on the bed. “So he’s alive?
How is he?”
    “Let’s talk about you for a moment. You
seemed to experience some combat stress. Has that happened to you
before?”
    “Yeah, a couple times. How’s Roy?”
    The doctor didn’t answer directly, which DJ
hoped was because she didn’t know rather than because she was
trying to break the bad news in stages. “Does your combat stress
always show up as outbursts of rage?”
    “No.” DJ wished he’d claimed he’d never
gotten it before. He didn’t want to discuss his fake rage or real
stress. “How’s Roy?”
    “Let’s not get off-track. We’re talking about
you now.” Maybe it was DJ’s paranoid imagination, but he could
swear the doctor was enjoying herself. “Do you have nightmares? Or
insomnia?”
    Those last few months, Roy had barely slept.
Sometimes Marco had to threaten to send him to the aid station
unless he lay down and closed his eyes. Then Roy, who never
disobeyed orders, would lie down and close his eyes. And Roy, who
ran out under fire to rescue wounded men without a second’s
hesitation, would wake up shaking and drenched in