Nero bit his kneecap. And it wasn’t a light bite either. He’d drawn blood!
“What the—ow!”
Another nip, this time on the other knee. And when Nero came at him again, Josh had no choice but to shy backward. Which meant Nero could advance. Another nip, which Josh tried to block. He got a bloody forearm for his trouble. And before he could recover, Nero bloodied his thigh, a half inch above the other cut.
It was the triumph of brawn over brains, the whole fucking story of his childhood. Josh had no choice but to stumble backward or lose more blood. And the longer Josh refused to run forward, the more he was jumping backward to avoid getting bitten. So he could do the whole run in backward hops or turn around and run straight.
He ran. And with every step on his numb feet, he cursed Megamouth, Nero, and even Captain M, who had abdicated her responsibility by leaving a psychopath in charge. He let the hatred boil through him—for at least fifteen minutes. But that could only last him so long, and it took too much energy to maintain his fury.
So he switched to plotting revenge. For him, that took no effort at all.
Chapter 16
NERO FELTlike an ass even though he knew they were doing the right thing.
Training new werewolves was a very straightforward process. Piss off the new recruit enough until they attacked. Most times they unconsciously shifted to the wolf and tried to bite out your throat, like Bing had (though the hypnotism was new). Calm the biter down, and then suddenly new guy realizes he knows how to shift. It took time and practice to learn how to go wolf without being in a blind fury, but eventually everyone mastered it. And since Yordan knew better than anyone how to piss people off, he was an ideal drill sergeant. Especially since he was big and bad enough to defend himself no matter what attacked.
The problem was that Josh was nothing like the typical werewolf. When he got furious, he fought back with his mind, not his body. Physical attacks were no big deal. Mental weapons like whatever the hell Josh had said were beyond what Yordan knew how to deal with. So he threw Josh back into the body in the form of endless freezing runs and then left Nero to enforce the order.
Nero nipped at Josh constantly, forcing him to run, run, run while fury poured out of the guy like sweat. Nero thought for a bit there that it would work and Josh would freak out and explode into his wolf form. That was what had happened with Wiz, way back when. But something changed on the second mile. Josh went quiet. His shoulders locked in place, and his breath came in steady sawing gasps. He’d found a rhythm for the steady pound of his feet, and that set the guy’s massive brain to thinking, which was the last thing Nero wanted him to do.
Nero did everything he could think of to break Josh’s concentration. Biting, tripping, tackling—everything. Josh simply got up, started moving, and never really focused on anything his body was doing. He was all in his head, probably plotting revenge. And damn it, that was dangerous for everyone.
In short, if Yordan’s method was going to work, it would have already, back in the gym when Josh went ballistic on Nero’s face. Which meant that Nero had until they made it back to the mansion to think of a new plan.
Just like with the fire blast, he completely failed. No brilliant ideas sparked, no clever ruses. Fortunately Yordan stepped into the breech. While Stratos helped Josh clean dirt out of his many cuts, Yordan filled him and everyone else in on the plan.
“Right after your boo-boos are taken care of, you’ve got forms to fill out and questions we want answered.” He dropped a six-inch-high stack of paper on the counter. Nero knew that the paperwork was another way to piss off the new recruits, but Josh might be the only werewolf who preferred filling out forms over beating the shit out of someone. “You know, if you shifted, your feet would be lily white again and pedicure perfect,” Yordan taunted.
Come on, Nero thought as loudly as he could in his wolf form.Give him a smartass response.
Nope. Josh smiled benignly and said, “Good to know.” Which told him Yordan was in serious trouble, because Josh was thinking up something truly devious.
Meanwhile Josh looked at Stratos. “Thanks,” he said softly. “He letting us have any food yet?”
She mutely shook her head, her eyes glittering with her own anger. And here was yet another person plotting revenge. Nero sure hoped Wiz was ready for it.
“Okay,” Josh answered. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Stratos held his gaze for a moment, the look significant in a shared-prisoners kind of way. It said loud and clear:Whatever you’re plotting, I’ll help.
Great, the recruits were plotting against their trainers. And worse, Josh got the message. He nodded with a short dip of his chin and then winced as he got back to his abused feet. And Yordan was completely clueless as to what shit was about to hit the fan.
Damn it, he had to think of a solution fast.
Nero padded along after Josh, keeping within biting distance in case he had to disrupt a sudden chemical attack. Nothing happened, of course. There hadn’t been time. But Nero was on alert as he followed Josh to his bedroom and muscled his way in enough to stand fully in the doorway. There was a long wait as Josh stared at him and Nero looked back. Then Josh finally curled his lip and drawled, “By all means, join me.”
Which roughly translated to:You can’t do jack shit to stop me from destroying you. But go ahead, you can watch while I plot.
Which is exactly what Nero did. He sat down in the middle of the bedroom like a freaking pet dog. He watched Josh’s every move as the guy walked awkwardly into the bathroom and turned on a hot shower. Nero even watched as Josh stripped and stepped into the hot spray. Nero wouldn’t put it past Josh to MacGyver together soap bubbles, toilet paper, and herbal shampoo into an IED, but if he did it right then, Nero didn’t see it.
And then he got an inspiration.
While Josh was standing with his head bowed beneath the steaming showerhead, Nero finally found a plan. It was a radical thought, something they’d never done with the new recruits before, but what the hell. So far nothing had worked the way they’d intended. It was time to step outside of the box.
Taking a deep breath, Nero switched back to human, then went to sit on the bed and wait. He felt the strain on his system, the heat and the pain that always came from shifting. That was the curse for lycanthropes. Too many movies had werewolves shifting in agony, so he suffered from that concept. The good news was that he wasn’t tied to the moon like so many. In fact, the current full moon boosted his strength, but not enough to want to go through that pain again for a while. He was staying strictly human for now, which made this next step more dangerous.
Josh came out of the shower bristling with antagonism. It wasn’t an obvious thing. In fact, his movements were beautifully casual as he finger-combed his hair while keeping a towel neatly wrapped around his hips. He had the lean build that Nero found so attractive. Lanky, often flexible, and with a long stride and a laid-back carriage that seemed relaxed until the guy exploded into motion. Right now he was moving with practiced ease, though the temperature in the room seemed to have dropped twenty degrees.
