Crystal Lake Pack: The Complete Series: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance

by Candace Wondrak

  Forest debated on this, as if he could truly forbid me from coming. “Fine,” he said. “But this time, we’re running there. Try to keep up.” To Dylan, he said, “You should stay here and rest. I’ll keep an eye on her, better than I did last time.”

  Dylan acted as if he wanted to come, but Maze moved to his side, touching his brother’s uninjured arm. “I will keep her behind me, Dylan. If I see her hurt, I’ll pull her back.” I shot him a glare at that, but Maze ignored me, focusing on his brother. “And I will run slow for her.” He grinned.

  “Protect her,” Dylan pleaded.

  “You know I will.”

  Okay, everyone was getting a bit too serious. Plus, way too naked.

  I saw too many dicks before turning away, before they shifted into their wolves. Maze gave me a soft bump on the side as he whispered, “Can’t wait for the day when you don’t act like me being naked is the worst thing in the world.”

  Just because the others had shifted did not mean they couldn’t understand what Maze had said, which mortified me beyond all belief. I felt my cheeks burning, and I managed to say, “You’ll be waiting a long time.” A total, huge, unbelievable lie, because I already liked him being naked.

  It was just…it was too soon for that, and I wasn’t the most experienced girl around.

  It didn’t matter how I responded to Maze though, because by the time I’d said it, he was already on all fours, furry and muzzled. Nearly a dozen wolves stood near me, and while I might’ve felt odd about it a few days ago, I was more than fine with it. Each wolf’s fur was the same color as his hair, the eyes a more metallic hue but still much the same. They were all unique and strong in their own right, though none held a torch to the presence Forest had.

  Forest was the only pure black wolf around, the tallest and the widest. A loud exhalation puffed from his nostrils, and then he was off, dashing away. The rest of the scouting party followed him, and Maze kept his word and hung back, trotting along my run.

  I might not have been as fast as the wolves, but I was faster than I was before. Perhaps it was due to my knowledge of what I was, my self-awareness of my inner wolf, but I was quicker on my feet, able to run for longer before becoming winded. It was the same feeling I had that morning, when I’d sprinted to my pond.

  Running like this, feeling the wind caress my skin, I felt free.

  Maze ran beside me, tossing my looks every now and then, probably to make sure I was all right. And I was. I was better than all right. Honestly, I felt great, despite where our destination was. If I felt this good running with wolves while I was human, how much better would it be when I was shifted?

  We ran around the lake, trailing alongside the crystal-clear shore for as long as we could before it grew rocky, then we dashed into the forest, a single unit, with a slightly lagging tail made up of Maze and I. Soon the trees began to block out the sun, and they took the familiar path we’d made the day before.

  Things happened, changed so fast around here, didn’t they?

  After a while, right when I started to wonder if maybe the barrier was gone, I felt it. A jab in my lower stomach, a knife cutting through me. It caused me to stumble, and Maze barked, alerting the pack. The other wolves slowed, turning their heads to look at me, their wolfish gazes curious and confused. Forest and Maze were the only ones who were not.

  “It’s still here,” I spoke through my teeth, moving a hand to my stomach, as if it would stop the pain. It wouldn’t, and the farther we went, the closer we got, the worse the pain would be. “Let me go first.”

  Forest’s blue eyes squinted, like he wasn’t so sure about letting me take the lead, but soon enough his head bowed a few inches.

  The group of wolves parted, allowing me to move between them. Maze followed me, though he hung back a few feet. With each step I took, my skin flared, the temperature seeming to double. Suddenly a thousand knives poked my stomach, every organ inside of me. My heart constricted, and I had to close my eyes.

  “It’s right there,” I said, pointing to the ground before me. Each word I spoke came up like a razor blade, searing up my throat and cutting my tongue. It took every ounce of strength inside of me to remain standing, to stop myself from falling over and collapsing. Letting the pain take over would be the easy way out, so I would fight this, fight the owner of that creepy voice, until I could fight no more.

  Maze nudged a rock, rolling the stone near me.

  I could not bend over—because if I did, I knew there would be no getting back up—but I did manage to kick the rock and send it towards the barrier. I wasn’t sure what I expected to happen, but I knew I wasn’t anticipating nothing to happen.

  Fire, a little explosion, something invisible making the rock roll back to me. Anything.

  But nothing happened.

  The rock slowly rolled to a halt, stopping five feet in front of me. It rested on the dirt, wordlessly mocking me as much as an inanimate object could. I clearly didn’t know much about magic.

  Forest didn’t need to be human to give instructions, or maybe the other wolves just knew what to do. They broke apart, sniffing, looking, searching for any hints and clues, though none of them went toward me. Behind me, Maze barked, trying to tell me to back up, to move out of the pain-filled area, but I was too busy realizing something.

  The pain, while still there, had lessened. It lessened enough for me to straighten my back out and study the area before me. Something tickled the back of my neck, my hair waving in a wind that was not there, not really. And then, deep down, I knew. I knew I had to keep going, to move forward.

  Something called out to me.

  I took a step forward, one foot in front of the other, over and over until I walked through the barrier. An invisible shield I could feel, something I knew nothing of, and whatever knowledge I had was instinctual. I knew I was through the barrier, knew I’d walked through it, because I just…knew.

  A primal instinct, something that did not belong to my wolf.

  I stopped the very same moment the pain dissipated completely, pausing to turn around, hoping to see that Maze had followed me. He didn’t. He stood ten feet back, whining and pawing at the ground. He did not take a single step forward, and his eyes were unfocused, like he couldn’t see me.

  “Maze,” I said, “can you hear me? Can you…see me?” I thought not, considering how he kept whining and shifting his gaze around. I crossed the barrier and those on the other side couldn’t see through it.

  This magic stuff was weird.

  I knew I should turn around and go back, but whatever instinct I’d followed through the barrier continued to call to me. Almost as if I had no control over my body, I turned and kept walking. My feet practically dragged as I went, and though I knew I had to carry forward, a nagging suspicion told my mind I would not like what I would find.

  Within ten minutes, the forest gave way to a small field. The trees had been sawn at their trunks, grass sprouting between their root systems, tall and unkept, weeds galore. Thirty trees, maybe more, all cut down, for what? I wondered. The area was nothing but woods, a forest with no city nearby. Who would cut down the trees? Who would want to live out here?

  My gut twisted, and not in a good way, once the stumps were well behind me. I knew I would not like what I found, but I had no idea just how bad it would be. I’d stumbled into the messiest of messes, the one who’d been plaguing the pack.

  Even if I could turn around, it was too late.

  He had me.

  Chapter Eighteen – Addie

  It was…a massacre. A gravesite. A cemetery with rows and rows of hand-crafted crosses, haphazardly stuck in the dirt, each above what I suspected was a grave. The cemetery sat just beside the rows of trees that had been cut, an eerie feeling settling in the back of my head. All of those crosses belonged to wolves, to shifters that would’ve been my family, had they not been taken away by some madman.

  I turned my head away, unable to keep looking at the makeshift gravesite. An inten
se sadness rose inside me, a deep sorrow; I knew those wolves had families, friends, people in the pack who cared about them. None of them deserved to be here.

  When I looked away from the hand-carved crosses, I spotted a small log cabin laying in the center of the field. The reason for all the tree stumps littering the surrounding area. Someone had made a home here, hunting these wolves. Someone who could use magic to keep himself hidden—the man that had spoken to me in the vision.

  The door to the cabin was closed, but when I looked at it, it slowly swung open, inviting me inside. From the outside, it looked to be a simple cabin, though when I moved closer, I saw there were no windows, and only the one door. Odd.

  I felt my skin crawling. Turning back was not an option. Even if I could have—which I seriously doubted I could if I tried—I would never know what lay within the cabin, because clearly the wolves could not cross the barrier. Only I could. But why?

  What was so special about me?

  Within a minute, I stood before the door, hesitating. Inside, the cabin looked black, full of shadows. No lights at all. It had to be another trick, more magic. An illusion. Heaving a heavy breath, I stepped over the cabin’s threshold and into the shadows. And, just as I suspected, the shadows did not remain dark.

  The moment I walked in, the inside of the cabin came to life, like someone had just turned on a light, flicked a switch. A metallic, gross smell entered my nose, assaulting my senses and causing me to gag. Even without a wolfish sense of smell, I knew what it was, primarily because I could see it coating every surface in the cabin. A three hundred square foot space, windowless and bare of furniture, all coated in blood.

  Blood. So much blood it was all I could see. Thick in the air, some of it dried, some of it fresh. I could nearly taste it with each breath I took. It was the blood of dozens of shifters, tossed about like twenty crime scenes thrown into one.

  A fireplace sat on one wall, though there had been no chimney or brick outside. The fire burning inside it was a dark red, the same color the moon had turned in my vision, the same color as the fog. The flames danced in the air, burning nothing. No wooden logs or sticks. Everything in this cabin was kept alight by magic.

  I wanted to turn on my heel and walk right back out, but something in the corner stopped me.

  A cage. The only bit of non-red in the cabin’s lone room, no bigger than a dog cage, and inside it sat a wolf with scraggly brown fur matted in red. It rested on its side, its chest slowly breathing, meaning he was still alive—barely.

  Landon.

  I moved to the cage, falling to my knees before it. “Landon,” I whispered, trying to pry open the metal gate. Though I could see no padlock, no lock at all, the bars would not budge. I watched as his blue eyes opened, slowly, as if it was painful for him to do it. And, judging by the wounds and cuts on his furry body, I knew it was.

  No matter how much I shook the bars, no matter how I rattled and pulled at the door to the cage, I could not open it. Landon was in no state to help. I didn’t know him, and the first impression he’d given me had been a downright awful one, but my heart ached to see him like this. He was this badly injured, his spirits this low, after being gone for not even a full twenty-four hours.

  What kind of monster could do this?

  “I’m going to get you out,” I said. His blue eyes closed, as if he didn’t have the strength to keep looking at me. Somehow, I added to my thoughts. I would somehow get him out and back to the pack. Maze and Dylan would be devastated if he didn’t come back, if death took him in its cold embrace. “I’m going to…” I was going to say find a way, but heavy breathing behind me stopped me short.

  Rough, ragged breathing, harsh and violent in each inhale and exhale. It sounded like it came from a monster. Which was ridiculous, because there were no monsters here, save for the man who did this. There was only me, Landon, and—I discovered as I stood and turned around—a second wolf.

  I stood, staring at an unfamiliar wolf. Bared teeth, fangs dripping in saliva. Narrowed green eyes, their metallic sheen full of anger and hatred. Ashy blonde fur on a body I’d never seen before—and I’d most definitely remember seeing him. The crazed glint in his green-eyed stare would’ve been a difficult thing to forget, not to mention the scar under his throat. It was like someone had tried to tear his throat out, but he somehow survived. What fur had grown over the old wound was thin and spotted, mostly unable to grow over the scar tissue.

  The new wolf lunged, snapping at me. I jerked back, stumbling to the right, trying to evade it somehow, maneuver around it until I could reach the door. If it had remained me and Landon, I would’ve found a way, but now, as it was, I didn’t trust this new wolf not to bite me, not to scratch me.

  Not to kill me.

  Not dying was definitely on my agenda for the day.

  The wolf trailed me, lunging and snapping its strong, vicious jaws, though it never came in contact with my skin. It wasn’t trying to kill me.

  I moved along, not once giving the beast my back, fearing if I did, it would end me. I wasn’t ready to die.

  Its hackles were raised, its nose scrunched as it feigned a bite to my left ankle. I recoiled, stumbling back to dodge it, thinking the wolf was truly going after me, but something a few inches off the ground behind me caught on the back of my foot. Something cold and hard.

  I fell onto my butt, seeing for the first time a human-sized cage. I’d tripped on the bottom of the cage’s front. It was a cage that was not here moments ago, a cage I definitely would’ve seen when I studied the inside of the cabin.

  Landon was only a few feet beside me, stuck in his own cage, though his eyes had opened again, and he’d watched the new wolf corner me. I was too freaked out to wonder if he was only curious or concerned.

  Before I could scramble to my feet and get out of the cage, the scarred wolf darted to the open door, pushing its head against the bars and slamming it closed. I heard a lock mechanism click in place, and even though I crawled to the door and rattled it, I knew I was screwed.

  There was no getting out of this now.

  “Good boy,” a male’s voice entered the cabin, and I looked to the door. Under its frame stood a man dressed in all black. A suit, crazy enough. His hair was oiled and slicked back, his face painted all black, save for a single white stripe down the center, from the top of his forehead to the bottom of his chin, traveling further downward along his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. His eyes were a dark brown, blending in.

  The scarred wolf’s tail tucked between his legs, his ears bending down a bit. Even the wolf was scared of the man, and I totally understood why.

  “I call him Rufus,” the man said, moving closer to the cages, primarily the one I was in. The wolf moved aside, sitting on its haunches near the fireplace, watching the man. “Found him a few years ago, all alone, without a pack. I thought, perfect. Here comes a wolf, practically gift-wrapped. He’s just what I need.”

  I wasn’t quite sure where this story was going, but I knew I could not interrupt him. To do so would be most unwise.

  “But what I needed from him, I just couldn’t get. You see, whatever Rufus went through in his past, well, it severed the link between his wolf and his shifter side. Stuck as a wolf, the poor thing. But—” The black-faced man held up a single finger, and I noticed one hand was gloved while the other wasn’t. His visible hand was painted black just like his face. “—I thought, he would make a great guard dog.” He laughed. “Do you know how easy it is to control a wolf? Pathetically easy. Would you like to see?”

  The man turned to Landon. His dark eyes flashed a bright red, glowing the same color as the magical fire. “Stand.”

  In his cage, Landon clumsily got to his feet. Even his stomach and chest were littered with wounds, and I felt the courage to shout, “Let him go.”

  “Now, I’m not finished with my demonstration,” he said. To Landon, “Turn around, counterclockwise, and then ram your head into the bars as hard a
s you can.”

  “No,” I said, but I couldn’t stop him. I watched in horror as Landon spun around and then body-slammed his head against the cage so hard he knocked himself out.

  I’d stumbled into the lair of a madman who took joy in other’s pain. Maybe it was the pessimist in me, but I had the feeling I would not escape this place unscathed.

  The man’s red eyes returned to brown, and he looked at me with a smile, startlingly white against the black-painted skin of his face, though his teeth matched the brightness of the single white line. He looked to be about thirty, though it was hard to tell with all the paint. “It is remarkable what we can do with a bit of blood. I am not closer to finding what I came here for—until you showed up, anyways—but I’ve gotten remarkably good at making wolves listen to me.”

  I glared at him. Beneath my lungs, my heart beat rapidly, so fast I thought it might just pop out of my chest and run away. That’s what I felt like doing, anyway. Running seemed like a very good option right now, an option which was also currently unavailable, given the cage around me and the wolf that would chase me down if I managed to get out.

  “You,” he said, smiling, “you are just what I need to finally get out of this dump. I’ve been waiting for you, you know.”

  A thousand questions rang in my head. “Me?” Of course I would ask a self-centered question first, because I was human. Half-human, technically, but self-involved all the same. Why would I be what he needed? I wasn’t even a shifted wolf; I was a half-breed.

  “Yes, you,” he said. He waved a hand, and suddenly a blood-soaked table appeared behind him. He yanked over a chair, spinning it so he sat with his legs around the chair’s back. Like he was trying to be cool. “You are quite the conundrum, aren’t you?”

  I thought I was the least interesting person around, and I’d never considered myself a conundrum, but clearly this man knew things I didn’t. Maybe if I kept him talking, the others would find a way to break through the barrier. Maybe I’d be able to delay him enough.