Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel

by Lawson, Elena

“I need to go. He’s going to kill them if I don’t.”

  She shook her head, and I cocked mine at her in response. She clenched her jaw and tugged a tiny chunk of pencil shaved almost all the way down to the eraser end out of her pocket. She searched for something to write on, and I hurriedly pulled off my nightgown, thrusting it at her.

  Her eyes lit up, and she pushed the gown against the wall, beginning to write something.

  Not safe yet. Need to wait. Trust me.

  My brows drew together as I glanced between her and my freedom. The leafy pattern lying in shadows against the stairs told me she was at least smart enough to have camouflaged the opening. But the covering was sparse. If someone looked too closely…

  “Is there someone on patrol nearby?” I asked in a whisper.

  Piper squinted at me and I realized she was looking at my mouth, trying to understand what I was saying. I repeated the question more slowly, giving her ample opportunity to read my lips.

  She nodded and held up four fingers.

  Four of them.

  In my wolf form, maybe I could take them. But definitely not like this.

  She then held up two fingers with one hand and made a zero with the other before pointing to her wrist as though she were wearing a watch.

  “Twenty minutes?”

  She nodded again and went back to writing on the white shift for a painfully long minute before turning it to face me again.

  He was never going to let any of them live no matter what. I’m sorry. I thought he was different. I didn’t know how far he would go.

  I remembered how Devin knocked into her in the tent and how he warned her off ever touching him again. She definitely got a good earful of his thoughts during that quick exchange, and it was obvious he’d never allowed her to read him before. Otherwise, I was willing to bet she wouldn’t have been so eager to help a psychopath.

  I held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. I just have to get back to my pack. If I’m fast enough, then maybe I can still save my mates and the rest of them.”

  Her lips parted, and she hurriedly scribbled out two more words.

  Still alive.

  “I know,” I replied, confused. “I would feel it if my mates were dead.”

  She shook her head, flustered.

  The other ones, she wrote. He said he killed them, but they are not dead yet. They are still alive. He sold them to the witch.

  My wolf stirred within.

  Still alive?

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and I tried to count the hours between when the witch cast his spell on me and now. Would that be enough time for him to arrange pick up and transport of that many shifters?

  “Do you know where they are?”

  She nodded again, and I snatched her up, pulling her hard to my chest for an awkward, trembling embrace. My heart squeezed in my chest. Alive. They were all still alive.

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked in a watery voice. “Why betray your pack?”

  She chewed her bottom lip and wrote something out near the hem of the gown and passed it to me.

  You’re good.

  He’s not.

  She had that all wrong. The part about me being good anyway, but I didn’t argue. “How much longer?”

  Piper considered, listening closely to the sounds of the forest outside. She held up a one and five apologetically, and I ground my teeth. How the fuck was I supposed to sit here uselessly for fifteen more minutes.

  “Do you know where he went? Where Devin went?”

  She shook her head, and a chill snaked through me. I had to believe he wasn’t going after Clay and Jared, at least not yet.

  Piper settled into silence, sinking down to sit cross legged with a fresh swath of gown in her lap. She set to drawing something, and I peered over her shoulder in the dim light to find the beginnings of a map.

  “Hey,” I interrupted, crouching down to her level. “You can’t stay here. He’ll know you helped me. Your scent is bound to be all over this room by now.”

  She frowned, though it certainly didn’t seem like news to her.

  I wrinkled my nose. She knew he’d kill her and still helped me anyway. I couldn’t say I condoned what she’d likely done in helping him build this army, or in getting my mate’s sister killed for switching sides, but…

  I understood what it was like to feel like you didn’t have a choice. I knew the urge for self-preservation above all else was the hardest thing to give up.

  “Come with me.”

  She cocked her head at me.

  “Come with me, and if we survive...if I can kill him...you’ll have a place with my pack.”

  Her eyes filled with unshed tears and instead of trying to write anything, she snatched my hand, squeezing it in what I could only assume was a form of thanks.

  “Don’t thank me, yet,” I muttered. “There’s a pretty good chance neither of us will survive until tomorrow.”

  A lump formed in my throat as I tried to come up with some semblance of a plan. I needed to rescue my packmates before anything else, even though my heart yearned to make a beeline straight for my mates. I owed it to them to save them and once that witch had his hands on them, there was no telling where they’d wind up.

  I may not be able to find them then.

  I couldn’t risk that.

  Okay, find the shifters Devin has captive, free them, then what?

  The taste of blood filled my mouth as I bit down too hard on my cheek trying to think of a way out of this, but I was coming up empty.

  Fuck.

  Okay, first things first. Get the hostages freed and then work out the rest.

  Like Jared would’ve said: one step at a time.

  A gentle tap on my arm drew my attention back to Piper and the new message she had written over the top of the map.

  I was coming to find your pack when he found me first, it said. He promised me safety if I helped him. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have so many shifters in his pack. He used my ability against them.

  She signed that she was sorry and it was one gesture I did remember from that old textbook.

  “You were coming to find my pack?” I asked, not needing the explanation of the rest. Devin could be very convincing and quite charming when he needed to be. Besides, I had no doubt this poor girl was hated everywhere she went. No one wanted someone being privy to their private thoughts. I could imagine the trials she would’ve had to face in trying to find a pack, and everyone knew that being a lone wolf wasn’t the safest way to live as our kind.

  I heard you took in same sex mated pairs and that you had a seer and had mated to two shifters. I thought if anyone could understand, it would be you. I had no idea Devin was after you. None of us knew until it was too late to do anything to stop him.

  She didn’t have to tell me the rest. The way he treated Piper now told me all I needed to know. She’d helped him of her own free will at first, not knowing the truth that hid behind carefully crafted smiles and an easy laugh. And when she decided she didn’t want to help him anymore, he made her anyway.

  I patted her leg, practically bouncing on the balls of my feet in anticipation of getting the fuck out of here. “You don’t need to explain to me. I know him. I understand. I may not be able to promise you safety, but I can promise you freedom.”

  She nodded resolutely, discarding the remaining nub of pencil with the shirt on the floor. She held up five fingers.

  Five more minutes.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance and both of us jumped at the sound, sharing a look. I was almost afraid to breathe and break the spell.

  If it rained, our scent would be harder to track. Hell, if it rained hard enough, it would be near impossible.

  We listened intently as the first droplets began to fall, a dark cloud passing over the sun above, erasing the shadows on the stairs.

  A wide grin split my face and deep within, awoken by a new hope, my wolf lifted her weary head.

  2
7

  Piper gave me a loaded look when it was time, her jaw clenching tightly. I could hear her heartbeat from a foot away, and erratic as it was, it was a comforting notion. My wolf was breaking through whatever kept her walled away at my center.

  But I didn’t think it had anything to do with the witch and everything to do with having lost hope. Of not wanting to bear witness to what she thought we’d have to endure at the hands of Devin for the sake of our mates.

  I truly had meant to give in to him if it meant saving them, but even without my wolf to influence me, I just couldn’t do it.

  “Ready?” I asked, listening to the sounds of the rapidly darkening forest outside. I heard nothing save for the pelting of rain on leaves and earth. The patrol had moved on, or perhaps they were switching out.

  I just had to hope there weren’t several rings of patrol we’d need to get through, or if there were, that Piper knew a way through undetected.

  It wasn’t lost on me that I was putting a lot of faith in a person that I’d only truly met today. Someone without whom none of this might even be happening.

  My wolf bristled within, making my upper lip twitch into a snarl, but this teenage girl was not the enemy. At least, she wasn’t anymore.

  I followed Piper out through the narrow opening she created toward the wet cement steps. A curved shape caught my eye, and I paused to pry a rusted meat hook from the wall near the exit, clutching the bar end in my palm to wield as a weapon if needed.

  I wasn’t sure yet if my wolf was strong enough to take over and I’d need to be prepared if she weren’t.

  Piper raised a brow at me but quickly recovered, gesturing upward to the covered opening and then to the northeast with two quick jerks of her fingers. We needed to exit quickly and run in that direction.

  I nodded that I understood and my body flooded with adrenaline, hairs standing on end as the chill air met my flushed skin.

  Piper inhaled sharply and cleared the steps in a single bound, shoving the branches and bramble from her path as she vanished into the rain.

  I cleared the exit only a second after her, shivering as cold rain coated my naked body, pressing my hair flat to my scalp.

  For a little thing, she was fast.

  Piper kept in a low crouch as she weaved through the trees, her footfalls so light they were almost inaudible above the rush of the rain.

  I kept my eyes fixed to her simple gray paper-bag dress, but it blended in so well with the shadows that I nearly lost sight of her a couple times and had to keep right on her heels to keep from losing her completely.

  My tan flesh was definitely better than the white gown I’d been wearing as far as camouflage went, but I’d still be spotted easily in comparison to her. The white blonde hair wasn’t helping, either.

  I rushed to tap Piper on the arm and held up a hand, mouthing one sec as I set down the meat hook and dug my fingers into the earth at my feet, scooping up two fistfuls of muck. I smashed it into my hair and rubbed the excess down my arms and chest, remembering another time I’d done the same. While trying to escape the very same monster who would hunt me the moment he noticed I was gone.

  Except last time I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know what I was up against. And he’d won.

  This time would be different.

  “Okay,” I whispered, grabbing my meat hook and gesturing forward. “Lead on.”

  She nodded grimly, and I wondered why she hadn’t shifted yet. Surely we were far enough from camp now that no one would sense her or catch her wolf’s scent? If she weren’t shifting, I had to assume there was still at least one more patrol ring we’d need to pass through.

  We’d be faster on four legs, though, if my wolf would allow the shift. I had no idea how long Devin would be gone, nor how long it would be until someone noticed I was gone or stumbled upon the exit Piper had found hidden in the trees.

  Not long, I guessed.

  Not long at all.

  A head start was the best we could hope for, and I prayed it would be enough.

  I almost ran into Piper when she stopped dead in her tracks, lowering herself down until her fingertips kissed the mud.

  My body went rigid as I heard what had given her pause. A sort of snuffling sound. Like a wolf trying to track a scent.

  They were close, and getting closer every second. They’d caught our scent even through the rain. We must have walked right into them.

  I closed my eyes and listened, separating the sounds of two distinct canters. Two. There were only two of them.

  I held up two fingers for Piper to see, and she nodded then shrugged as though to say what now? It was clear she wasn’t a fighter. Her frame too wiry and thin beneath the baggy dress.

  I swiped the rain from my eyes and mouthed stay here, before creeping past her, careful not to disturb the brush at the base of a wide oak—the rusted meat hook clenched tightly in my palm.

  She caught me by the wrist, signing something I couldn’t understand. I shook my head to tell her as much but that only made her hold tighter, making me have to jerk myself free.

  I held up a hand. “This isn’t your fight,” I mouthed as clearly as I could, watching her read my lips.

  Her face fell, but she didn’t move to stop me again, instead hunching down lower in the brush to wait for my return.

  I slipped through the foliage, squinting through the rain and shadow for them. My vision narrowed, helped along by my inner wolf, until I caught sight of one snuffling the base of a tree no more than twenty yards away.

  So busy watching the shifter’s every movement, I wasn’t prepared for the other one to attack from behind. Good thing he wasn’t as light on his feet as another shifter I knew or else I’d be dead. The squish of his paws in the mud were enough to alert me to his presence a split second before he attacked.

  Without thinking, I whirled, arm outstretched, until the rusty hook clenched in my palm sunk deep into the throat of the wolf tumbling atop me.

  Hot blood sprayed across my chest as we fell. Stars burst in my eyes as my head connected with something hard, and I was crushed under the weight of the shifter.

  A horrible gurgling sound dug into my ears as the wolf thrashed and then began to still.

  I called on my wolf, drawing her out as I worked to get the dying wolf off of me, knowing the other would be coming. But I’d only just managed to roll the beast from my chest when the other descended on me. I cried out as its teeth sliced into my forearm, dragging me back.

  My body bumped over a tree root as I swung at him, unable to land a single blow. I switched tactics, fighting for something to grab hold of to stop him dragging me back. Each vicious tug of his jaws tearing deeper into my flesh.

  Why hadn’t I pulled the hook back after that first goddamned swing?

  I cried out as the shifter bit harder and a gush of heat slid down my arm faster than the rain could wash it away.

  My shoulder was near coming out of its socket as I fought his hold, and he was so focused on not letting go that he didn’t see her coming.

  Piper slammed into his side with a wet smack, managing to get her slender jaw around his throat before he could buck her off. But he was quickly gaining the upper hand, their enormous bodies twisting and tumbling together until I could hardly tell where one of them ended and the other began.

  Piper let out a sharp whine, and I felt around in the mud for something to use, the only thing I could come up with a small boulder that I could barely lift. One of my arms useless with blood loss and severed nerve endings.

  I hefted it above my head with a shaking grip, willing my body to heal faster. As soon as I saw an opening, I smashed it down. It cracked against the shifter’s skull, dazing him long enough for me to hit him again.

  And again.

  Until I was left staring down at a grotesquerie of bone and I didn’t want to consider what else.

  I dropped the stone with a thud at my feet and hurried to kneel next to Piper, feeling her out for injury. Her collarb
one was broken, and I gave her an apologetic look before using my full body weight to hold her down and guide it back into place for her to heal.

  A broken cry came from her canine lips, but after a minute, her breathing evened out and I was able to release her. It definitely wouldn’t be the best setting I’d ever done, but it would have to do for now. If we lived long enough to get back to camp, I’d have it set properly.

  “You good?” I asked as she got to her feet, needing to repeat myself a second time for her to interpret the movements of my mouth.

  She nodded shakily and nudged her nose to my chest before tipping her head to gesture behind her. No, not behind her, to her back.

  “No,” I replied. “You can’t carry me while that’s still healing.”

  Piper’s lupine face screwed up in a scowl as she tipped her head to one side. Not understanding. Clearly she thought the witch’s magic had worked on me. Forrest had always been a loudmouth. I was willing to bet everyone in his hellhole of a camp thought they’d seen the last of my wolf.

  They were wrong.

  Now or never.

  I crouched to one knee, planting my fists against the earth.

  Wake-up, I commanded, tipping my head back to regard the moon, studying its near-full curve during a break in the cloud cover.

  “Come on,” I commanded through gritted teeth, offering myself to the power of my beast. Offering her the full control she always craved but I never gave.

  I need you.

  Wake!

  She shattered through whatever barrier had been erected around her, surging to the surface like a bolt of white-hot fire.

  A guttural growl forced hot steam to cloud around my mouth as my body broke and bent, being reclaimed. Reforged.

  Reborn as the wolf I was always meant to be.

  I snapped at Piper, and she took off running, leading the way as fast as her legs could carry her.

  Failure was not an option anymore. Not even a thought in our shared mind. Our purpose narrowed to a single focus, punctuated only by the steady beating of our heart in our chest and of our paws against the earth: revenge.

  28