Immortal Wolf - By Bonnie Vanak Page 0,64

Becoming immortal. He calmed his fury, willed his emotions into submission. Reacting would accomplish nothing. He needed to think, figure out a plan to destroy them.

Once they ingested enough of his blood, the Burke Morphs would become immortal. They could not be killed. The consequences for their race, and the innocent humans they would terrorize, were too terrible to bear.

Silver weakened him and subdued his powers, but the blood loss drained him physically. He still had enough strength to fight them one-on-one.

Keeping his thoughts guarded, he sank to the ground, pretending defeat. Inside, his brain was racing over a plan. He searched out for Emily, touched her thoughts. She was in the forest, but she sensed he was endangered. Raphael sent a soothing message to her, blocking her from seeing his pain. She must be kept safe. All his protective instincts rose to the surface.

“You’re reaching out to Emily, your draicara,” Urien noted.

He didn’t look up, but he heard the sneer in the leader’s voice.

“We know she’s yours. You can’t hide the fact from us. Now that we’ve had a little taste of your blood, we can sense who you truly are. What you are to Emily. It’s programmed into your DNA. We are you, Kallan.”

You will never be me. They could not know his thoughts, his mind. Raphael kept silent.

“This is pointless, Urien,” Bridget said sharply. “We only need his blood, and to keep him chained here as our energy source. Nothing more.”

“Oh, but there is so much more,” Urien said softly. “He’s very clever. I sense he’s already working out a way to escape. And it’s not enough to take his blood. I need to know what he’s thinking. Put on the protective gloves.”

Raphael backed to the corner and snarled as they came at him. They threw the netting of pure silver over his lower body, their gloved hands protected from the metal’s effects. Ten of them held him down, forced him to lie on his side, his left side exposed. He writhed and fought but was too weakened. He felt a hand almost tenderly brush back the hair from his face and expose his ear.

He looked up to see Maureen, the one Emily thought she had killed, suddenly vanish. Urien held out his hand and bent down. Raphael could see nothing in the male’s palm.

“Maureen has graciously volunteered to investigate your mind. She’s now Taenia solium. The pork tapeworm. Usually the parasite is ingested and then develops into a worm that moves into the bloodstream and then the brain. It’s nasty and causes seizures. In your case, I thought we’d expedite the process.”

Urien’s nasal voice became a buzzing in Raphael’s ears. The male leaned over and put his index finger on the fresh scalp wound. Raphael bit back a moan as he felt the worm inch into the wound and enter his blood.

“The worm is usually harmless to the brain until it dies. Not this time. I need to find out what’s happening inside that mind of yours, Kallan. I will find out.”

The silver net lifted off his body. Dimly he saw the others shift back, saw the soles of their feet scuffle away. He tried to summon the energy to sit, not lie on the dirty floor like a kicked dog. Raphael pushed himself upright, the silver chains rattling.

Pain speared his head as if someone hammered into his skull with a sharp chisel. Moaning, he collapsed onto the ground again. Had to overcome it…he could do this. With the last ounce of his discipline and strength, he willed himself to ignore the pain. He sat in a cross-legged position and placed his hand on his knees to center himself.

Breathe in. Breathe out. He began to concentrate, the meditation soothing his mind.

More pain followed, then his entire body convulsed. He went into spasms, his body jerking.

Memories flashed by. Oh, dead goddess, that thing in his mind, that thing that once had been Emily’s beloved cousin Mo, was piercing his temporal lobe, burrowing into the cortex that held the hippocampus. Invading his memories, making him relive. No, no!

He held his head, trying to fight the parasite, but the pain trebled as if Mo were cloning herself into hundreds of tiny worms burying into his brain. Tears gushed involuntarily from his eyes as he went into a fetal position. As the memories surged forward, Raphael moaned.

“Good,” Urien said softly.

Raphael was endangered. Emily felt it in her bones, felt it in the spear of pain in her heart. She crept