Jared streaked past only a second before Clay and Seth joined ranks with me, rounding the sacrificial Jeep to the bloodbath on the other side.
Two shifters lay motionless around Vivian and Charity’s feet while five more attacked viciously. One got a hold on the back of Vivian’s neck and an ear splitting cry of pain assaulted my ears before my wolf all but blacked out with rage.
I tore the beast from her back with a lock on its neck in retaliation. It was easy to overpower him, and I didn’t stop as blood gushed into my mouth or as his cries rang loud in my ears. I cut off the sound with a sharp jerk of my head, snapping his spine and leaving him to grow lifeless on the forest floor.
Something slammed into my side, and I grunted in pain before rearing up on my hind legs to attack.
The wolf’s ears lowered in submission only a moment before my strike fell, but I couldn’t stop myself. There would be no mercy. Not from me and definitely not from my wolf.
My jaws clamped around his shoulder, taking him down with ease until I had him pinned beneath me. Still, he didn’t move to fight. He lay there prone beneath my paws and teeth, snout pressed to the dirt, a sickly whine humming between his lips.
I growled at him, putting my face in his, my need for blood temporarily nullified by the sight of the pathetic creature beneath me.
They’re getting away! Jared called, and I snapped my head up, seeing what they saw. Three more corpses lay on the ground now, making a total of five. The remaining two were fleeing and Vivian was hot on their heels, her sandy fur matted with the blood of her enemies. An all-consuming rage gleaming in her eyes.
Stop! I demanded. We stick together, Viv. I’ve already got one here. Let them go.
I can’t.
Vivian!
Clay bolted after her, I’ll bring her back, he promised, and I had to believe they’d be fine. That Clay would catch the fleeing wolves and help Vivian end them before they got too far away.
My other mate approached, a slight limp in his right leg. I’ll take him, he offered, and I grudgingly relented my hold on the shifter still blowing dirt with his incessant whining.
Everyone whole? Charity asked, and I lifted my head to her, checking her over. She seemed all right save for a gash in her collar that was already quickly healing.
I tested my legs, afraid that the hit to my flank might’ve broken some shit, but it seemed I was only badly bruised.
Yeah. All good.
I allowed a momentary flash of pride at what we’d managed to accomplish here today. We’d been outnumbered and had come out whole anyway. I credited the element of surprise, but not above the skill of my packmates.
For what I’d asked them to sacrifice here today, there were no words. In the battles we’ve had to face in the years past, there had been death, but never before now had I asked them to fight for me, for our pack. To shed blood in the name of our family.
And not one of them looked as though they regretted it, though I sensed it may haunt them for a time, regardless.
We waited for Clay and Vivian to return before doing anything. The rest of us waiting in patient silence as we collected ourselves. Let our bodies settle and heal.
It didn’t take long. Within a few minutes, they returned. Both of them looking a little worse for wear, but mostly unharmed. Vivian loped over to me with her ears pressed down against her head while Clay followed only a few steps behind. A darkness rolling off him in waves.
Sorry, Viv sent through the pack bond. I couldn’t...I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
I shook my canine head. It’s all right.
It wasn’t, really, but what was done was done and they were both all right. Next time, and I fucking prayed there wouldn’t be a next time, I’d need to command her to stay with the group.
Have you questioned him yet? Clay asked, leaning down over the still-keening wolf pressed to the dirt beneath Jared’s white paws.
I was waiting until you got back.
Let him up, I instructed Jared, and everyone formed a ring around the shifter as Jared lifted his paw.
The shifter didn’t even try to get up. He kept his head pressed flushed to the earth, sides heaving with even more alarm now that he was released.
I shifted back, grunting as the transformation made something in my hip pop where a bone must have been slightly knocked out of the joint.
“Fuck,” I groaned, earning myself a worried look from Clay which I waved off. “I’m good,” I assured him before turning my attention back to the shifter on the ground.
“Shift,” I ordered him. “We need to have a little chat.”
The wolf let out one last sniveling whine before shifting, turning into a tan boy with short black hair who couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen. His dark brown eyes peered up at me from where he lay, slightly covering his face as though anticipating an attack.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I decided, pity spurring the words from my lips. “Not if you tell me what I want to know.”
He nodded, lowering his hands from his face with twitching slowness.
“I-I can’t,” he stammered. “He’ll kill me.”
Clay growled, and I bared my teeth at the boy. Pitiful fucker or not, I would have the answers I needed to protect my pack. No matter the cost. A hollowness formed in my gut, and I winced at the thought of hurting the boy, but steeled myself against the feeling.
This is what it means to be alpha.
“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll kill you,” I promised him, shocked at the sincerity in my voice.
His red-rimmed eyes welled up and honestly I had to wonder who the hell sent this child on an attack errand. There was no fucking way I’d have sent someone like him. He clearly wasn’t ready.
“P-Please, I just—”
“Start talking. I want to know who sent you. I want to know where they are. What they’re planning. How large their pack is. And where the hell he’s keeping the shifters he captured.”
His brown eyes widened.
“Now.”
Vivian punctuated my demand with a fierce snarl that sent the boy to shaking again.
“Okay!” he shrieked. “Okay, I’ll tell you.”
I crouched down closer to his level, putting the full weight of my stare on him.
“H-his name is Devin.”
It took me a moment to register what the kid said, my mind refusing to translate the syllables of his name into anything meaningful.
What. The. Fuck.
Clay charged the kid, knocking him from his side to his back and pressing his paws down into his shoulders. His claws drawing blood as he snarled in the boy’s face, hot saliva dripping from his jowls. His bright blue eyes crazed with fury.
“Clay!” I barked, drawing his attention just long enough for him to get ahold of himself and step off the sobbing teenager and stalk away into the trees. Not far enough that he couldn’t hear, but far enough that he could hopefully stop himself from killing the kid. He began to pace between the trees.
“I want to make sure I’m understanding you,” I said, swallowing down my knee-jerk reaction to scream. “Your pack alpha is Devin Wright?”
He lowered his gaze from mine, wiping at the snot beneath his nose. “Yes.”
Yes.
Fucking yes.
Devin Wright.
My high school boyfriend. The one who slapped me around and called me a whore. The very same sadistic psychopath who kidnapped me and shackled me in a fucking cave because he was convinced I was his one true mate. The same Devin Wright that sunk his canines into my shoulder and sealed my fate.
Absently, my finger trailed over the scars on my shoulder. The jagged edges of them from where his fangs tore open my flesh beneath the full moon.
I swallowed back bile, my stomach simultaneously filling with dread and burning with a rage so hot I feared it would consume me. My wolf battered at my defenses, feral with rage of her own. Her focus narrowing until inside, all we could s
ee was his face...and how we would absolutely mutilate it.
“Keep talking,” I said, my voice a distant monotone.
“O-our pack is the largest in the whole state. He took over five other packs in the last year alone by challenging their alphas.”
How had we not fucking heard of this? And how had he even managed that? He must’ve had something up his sleeve. Some secret weapon. Otherwise succeeding in the takeover of five different packs in one year would be downright impossible.
I shared a look with Jared in his wolf form, whose amber eyes looked more like fire in this moment than they ever had.
“How many?” I demanded.
“I...I don’t know exactly. Maybe seventy.”
I couldn’t conceal my gasp of alarm at the insanity of that number. I’d never even heard of a pack so large. We had close to fifty and were considered the largest pack in the western United States.
“What does he want?”
Vivian snarled impatiently, and I knew she was getting antsy not knowing where Destiny was. I shot her a look that I hoped conveyed that was what I was going to ask next and she needed to chill for a sec.
“How should I know?” the boy asked in a shrill voice. “I just j-joined when he took over my p-pack a few weeks ago.”
I glared at him.
“I don’t know,” he insisted, and the scent of his fear wrinkled my nose even in my human form. All sour and sweet. “But I know that y-you...that your pack is his endgame. He’s been g-getting us all ready for this s-since my pack joined.”
I nodded, surmising that he was telling the truth. If he knew more, I had no doubt he’d say it. “Okay,” I gritted out, my teeth near cracking at the tension in my jaw. “Fine. Where is he keeping the shifters he captured?”
He curled in on himself, lowering his head as though waiting for the blade to drop.
“Hey!” I shouted. “You tell me where they are or I’ll—”
“I don’t know!” he cried, panting, his entire body trembling. “I s-s-swear I don’t. Th-This was my first run with the attack crew. We were supposed to t-take that one,” he glanced briefly at Jared, his Adam’s apple bobbing, “straight to the alpha. He said he wanted to handle him himself.”
My wolf almost leapt out from my throat and swallowed the kid whole, but I managed to rein her in at the last second, my own body trembling with the effort of keeping her caged.
Just wait, I urged myself. Urged my wolf. We’ll have our revenge. We just need to wait.
“The others he c-captured aren’t at pack camp. He keeps them s-somewhere else. Nobody knows where except his inner circle.”
Sam. Would Sam know?
Vivian shifted in a lupine cry of anguish that morphed into a very human shriek in the span of one shared breath.
“He’s lying!” she hissed, stepping forward with her hands extended, her fingers tipped with deadly sharp claws that didn’t look at all like they were receding.
“Viv!” I warned, and she hesitated, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Guilt lashed through me like the biting edge of a whip at the sight of her ribcage, clearly visible through her pale skin.
I turned my attention back to the boy. “If you’re lying—”
“I’m not,” he choked out through sobs. “I p-promise. I would tell you if I knew. I would.”
Vivian’s glowing eyes met mine, frantically searching my gaze as though I might have a better answer for her than this boy did.
“Where is his camp?”
“We move every c-couple of days. We’re on the eastern s-side of Mt. Hood right now.”
Far, but not that far. Jared told me that Mt. Hood was home to more than three small packs a long time ago, but after a battle between them leaving only one the victor, none wanted to remain there anymore. They abandoned their camp and moved south. Mt. Hood was no-man’s-land now.
“Devin wants something,” I muttered, trying to think through the red haze of my rage tainting my every thought. Think, Allie.
“And he’s not going to stop until he gets whatever it is.”
I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted blood, and the tang of it combined with the sharp bite of pain brought me the clarity I needed to make the call.
“Tell your alpha I want to meet.”
“Allie, what the fuck are you doing?” Clay’s growl came from the trees as he charged back to where the rest of us stood, his face a shade of red that might’ve scared me once upon a time.
I clenched my fists and stood my ground. “I’ll meet him at the eastern border of my territory. There’s a lacrosse field there at the college in Beaverton. Saturday at noon. I’ll be waiting at the northern entrance under the bleachers. He knows the spot.”
Bile rose in my throat at the memory of his hands on my body. How I’d craved his touch. How I’d let him in. How I let him drag me beneath the bleachers when I should have been watching my best friend’s lacrosse championship game.
The boy looked like he was either going to shit himself or pass out in relief. “Y-you’re letting me go?”
“Run. Before I change my mind.”
He pressed himself up from the ground on shaky legs, cautiously glancing at the giant wolves and furious humans who all looked like they’d rather take a bite out of him than let him leave.
“This is a mistake,” Clay hissed under his breath as Jared shifted back to his human form, a vacant look in his eyes.
“Go!” I all but screamed at the boy and he tripped in his haste to flee, scrambling to get back to his feet and shift back into his wolf form.
“We should have killed him,” Jared said plainly. His face pale. “Clay wanted to and I stopped him. If we’d killed him—”
Clay hauled off and slammed his fist into the nearest tree, sending wood splinters scattering into the air with the force of the blow. A bloody smear was left in the mangled trunk, but he didn’t even seem to feel the injury as he tore the lowest branches clean off the thing and threw them to shatter against other trees.
His emotions wreaked havoc on my already chaotic thoughts and my tenuous hold on my control. I clenched my body tighter, willing my wolf to give me the inner peace I needed right now. The level headedness of an alpha. A leader.
“Clay,” I called in a low voice, waiting as he unleashed his rage on the forest around us while Charity and Seth dutifully remained in their wolf forms, keeping their ears pricked to any sign of approach and Viv and Jared stood mutely by. Angry and numb.
“Clay,” I tried again, and he whirled on me, face a mask of pain.
“What?” he demanded in a voice not quite fully human.
“You were ordered to let him leave pack territory by Ryland. That was his punishment. If you had disobeyed—”
“And what about after?” he demanded, stepping up to me until he was so close I could smell his sweat. Hear the hammering pulse of his heartbeat. He put his face in mine. “After you became our alpha and I stopped keeping tabs on him, hmmm? I should have gone after him. I should have ended him.”
“I wouldn’t have let you.”
His upper lip twitched as he rolled his shoulders back, challenging me. Clay would never hurt me, I knew that, and yet for a fleeting second I wondered if he might really lose his control this time.
Guilt crushed me as his hands gripped my arms and yanked me to his chest, pressing me against the dirt and sweat, tucking my head beneath his chin. “This is my fault,” he said in an exhale, his body twitching as the muscles attempted to relax with the adrenaline still flowing through them.
I pushed him away. “No, it’s not.”
I sent a pointed look at Jared, urging him to meet my gaze. “It isn’t either of your faults. It’s mine.”
Jared opened his mouth like he might disagree, but I shook my head. “It doesn’t fucking matter now, does it? I’m assuming he wants some kind of revenge against us for forcing him out of Forest Grove. For me denying him.”
“Then you can’t go there,” Vivian said. “You c
an’t meet him. It might be exactly what he wants.”
I knew it must have pained her greatly to admit that, especially since meeting with him might’ve been the only way for us to find Destiny and the others. But there was one other possibility…
“I’m not,” I told her, making all the others turn spurious looks my way. “Haven’t you ever seen a movie? Read a book?”
“What are you saying?” Jared asked, his brows lowering.
“We’re going to plant a phone there. And at noon on Saturday, we’re going to call it.”
Surprise flashed across Clay’s eyes, and he cocked his head at me like he never knew I could be so crafty. Dick.
“Guess there is a use for all those books you read besides getting you all hot and—”
“Ew,” Vivian interrupted, looking like she might vomit.
“Everyone cool with this plan?”
They all nodded, Seth and Charity included with slight inclines of their lupine heads.
“Good. There’s just one more thing.”
I sent an apologetic look Clay’s way, but this was it. It couldn’t be avoided any longer. They needed to know. And as soon as we got back, we needed to find out what Sam knew.
If she knew where Destiny and the others were being kept this whole fucking time, I would feed her to Vivian.
“What?” Vivian asked, and I could tell she was internally bracing for what I’d say next.
“It’s Sam. She’s been lying to all of us.”
19
I sensed something was wrong before we could even cross back over into our territory, and by the time we got to second ring patrol, I was certain of it.
The patrol wasn’t out. The scents of Archer, Jacob, and Danny were there, but they were faint. They hadn’t run this section of the ring in a while. Maybe an hour. Could be more.
Something’s wrong, Clay said through the pack bond, causing the others to slow, catching on to what my and Clay’s noses already had.
Where’s the patrol? Jared asked, as though one of us might have an answer. We didn’t.
Hurry, I growled through the bond. We have to get back now.
Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel Page 17