Before I could even tell myself to be calm, to think of happy things, the rain was pelting down, fast, unrelenting, drenching me through in a few short moments, making an already miserable day that much worse.
Unable to pull it together, I climbed under the closest tree with the fullest canopy for minimal protection from the fat drops of water as I curled up on my side in a bed of dry leaves and pine needles, brought my hands up to my face, and let it out.
I was never going to stop the rain until I exorcised all the negative emotions swirling through my system at a break-neck pace.
So I let it out.
I cried in a way I couldn't remember doing since I was a little girl.
I cried loudly, wailing, when the sounds rose up in my throat and begged for escape. My body jolted with the sobs as I used the soaked sleeve of my cloak to wipe at my eyes, then nose, only to be overcome with another wave of misery, of helplessness.
I don't know how long I lie there, but my chest felt achy, my face raw from my tears.
And then, it happened.
A nudge.
A ridiculous surge of hope swelled within me.
Lycus.
He'd come—even through the torrential downpour—to bring me back.
My eyes fluttered open, finding my lids swollen, squeezing my eyes into slits.
Which was what I blamed the image on at first.
Tired, tear-puffy eyes.
Because, surely, that was the only thing that made any sense.
There was no way a massive wolf was standing before me.
Wolves weren't even native to this area, as far as I could remember. Coyotes, yes. Wolves, no.
But even as my eyes adjusted and the rain suddenly stopped, when fear—instead of sadness—became my prevailing emotion, and the moon and stars shone through the sparse canopy of trees, there was no denying it.
This was a wolf.
A pure black wolf.
With big yellow eyes.
Staring right at me.
I'd never seen a wolf in person before, but, surely, this one was larger than usual. He was beast-like, more bear-sized than wolf-sized, towering over me, his massive paws bigger than a man's hand in the mud at my side.
"Good puppy," I cooed at it. When in doubt, I found soothing baby animal voices did wonders, even on predators you may run across in your travels. "That's a good puppy," I added, my gaze averting, head ducking, but keeping it in my peripheral as I slowly raised a hand, closing around my own throat, wanting to protect my most vulnerable spot. "That's a good puppy. I'm not going to hurt you, so you don't hurt me, okay?" I asked, trying to convince myself to stay calm, knowing dogs could sense that kind of thing.
But there was no use pretending I wasn't terrified when I felt massive, sharp teeth dig into the wrist of my hand at my throat pulling me to my feet, until I as following dumbly behind the giant beast lest his teeth sink further in.
I could feel a trickle down my hand, and I couldn't tell if it was his saliva, my blood, or a combination of the two as he pulled me through the woods alongside him, seeming to have a destination in mind.
Where?
To his pack? So they could all enjoy eating me alive?
My stomach flipped, sending the food I had eaten earlier up my throat, needing to swallow hard to force it back down.
Maybe I should have fought. Surely, I stood more of a chance of surviving trying to fight off a lone wolf instead of an entire pack of them, but a small part of me was clinging to hope that maybe it didn't intend to kill me.
Could it be possible that it was a pet wolf? A massive pet wolf. Who was bringing me home to his master?
That was what I was trying to convince myself as it picked up the pace into a trot, expecting me to keep up even though he had a two-leg advantage on me.
Sweat poured as we kept the breakneck pace. I lost a shoe, felt the bottom of that foot getting chewed up by twigs and rocks and brambles, but was unable to pull to a stop because anytime I did, those huge teeth just sank deeper.
The metallic note of blood met my palate as the never-ending trek led us up a steep incline, causing my thighs to scream, my lungs hurt.
Then, just when I was sure I couldn't take anymore, the wolf slowed, puffing out his breath through his nostrils, then pulling me into a giant rock formation, down into the cavern-like depths.
There, deep inside, his teeth released my wrist. His massive head whacked into me, shoving me in another couple of feet as he huffed again, turned in a circle, and lay down in the opening to the only exit.
With nothing else to do, I slid down the wall, cradling my wrist to my chest, pulling my wounded foot up onto my other thigh, taking deep breaths, trying not to cry out.
The wolf's gaze pinned me, but he made no move to attack, to do anything but stare at me with the oddly knowing eyes of his.
Then I heard it.
A howl, far off in the distance.
Followed by another. Then another. And another.
Until, finally, my wolf threw his head back and joined in, the sound so loud it made my ears ring.
Dread filled my belly as I kept hearing these calls, answered by my wolf, getting closer and closer with each passing moment.
They were coming.
To see what their friend had found.
And I was a sitting duck with bleeding wounds.
I had no idea what fate lay ahead of me with the demons, but I was pretty sure it would be preferable to being torn apart by wild wolves.
But pretty soon, the howls stopped.
Because I could hear the distinct tap-tap-tap sound of giant claws on the rock floor.
They were coming...
Chapter Ten
Lycus
She was gone.
My stomach plummeted at that realization when we made it home later that evening after going to a local MC meet-up, networking, handing out product, trading it for different kinds, building our stockpile for the next party that was already being planned.
"Fuck!" I roared, grabbing the edge of her nightstand, flipping it up, flinging it against the wall, feeling the Change taking over me, not even bothering to try to control it.
"What the fuck is going on?" Ace called, running down the steps. One look at me, in nearly my complete True Form, with the nightstand tossed and broken, and Ace's eyes were blazing red too. "She got away?" he asked, his fingers stretching into talons.
His having been around much longer than the rest of us, it was rare to see Ace lose control of the Change. Even when his temper flared, you never so much as saw the red overtake his eyes. He controlled it.
Except for now.
Because of my fuck-up.
Because I had been in a pissy-ass mood with the witch, and left in a rush without making sure to lock the door when I knew none of us would be around to keep an eye on her.
"Damn it," he roared, tearing back up the stairs, calling out for the others.
Ace, whether he had shared it with the rest of us or not, clearly had a good feeling about this witch. He'd never given a shit about the others, always seemed to know the moment they arrived that they weren't exactly what we were looking for. He would use them all the same, but it was like he was going through the motions.
He thought Lenore was something special.
He thought she might have been the one we had been waiting for.
He thought she was our only hope.
And now she was gone.
Fuck.
I tore up the stairs as well, finding the others gathered around, casting anxious glances at our leader as he paced, the change flickering in and out in its intensity, something wild to see.
"Aram and I will take off on our bikes, track the roads," Red suggested, ready to spring into action.
"It rained," I murmured, looking out at the droplets on the windows.
"We will go to the coven," Drex added. "Get another one."
"It rained," I said again, getting ignored. "Hey!" I yelled, mak
ing Ace turn, pinning me with his red eyes. "Ace, it rained," I told him, trying to make him understand, not sure how rational he was being in the moment. "Just around this area. Remember? On the way in, it was dry except down this street. She made it rain. She's somewhere and she was upset about it. It has to be the woods," I added, looking out the darkened back window.
"Go," Ace demanded, back to pacing.
I didn't need more than that.
I turned and I was running, vaguely aware of Minos breaking into the woods about the same time I did, but the two of us taking off in different directions.
I didn't think she ran away, not really.
She didn't want to have another member of her coven have to take her place because she was a chickenshit. Knowing her, she got a wild hair, and wanted to take a walk in the woods to remind herself of her home. And then she got lost. Or hurt.
Fuck.
Why was there an aching sensation in my chest at the idea of the latter?
It shouldn't have mattered to me if she was lost in the woods and wounded. If anything, it would have made her easier to find.
But it mattered.
I cared.
My heart was thudding against my ribcage at the idea of her being prone, and some predator coming upon her. Bear were especially ravenous this time of year, gearing up for hibernation. And while black bears didn't typically eat humans, you never really knew, did you?
I stopped a few yards into the woods, closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, allowing the anger at myself, at this situation, at something potentially happening to her overtake me.
The Change came upon me faster than ever before, horns tearing through my temples, talons shooting through my fingertips. My senses honed in, making the dark woods seem brighter, the sounds crisper, the scents sharper.
Inhaling deep, I found the lingering traces of ripe fruit, a smell I knew only belonged to Lenore.
Then I was running.
Following the creek at first, then inexplicably going uphill.
Where she thought she was going, I had no idea. I didn't pretend to understand witches. Maybe she had some kind of sixth sense about an animal in danger, or some fucking herb was growing wild that she wanted to pick, or some other shit. Who knew.
But doing stupid shit like that would explain how she got so lost so quickly, and was upset enough to make it start raining.
Sure, she'd grown up in the woods, isolated from everything. But those were her woods. She knew the trees there, the paths home, how to find food, and water, and protection. She didn't have any of those advantages here.
And if she got hurt on top of that, that would sure explain why the ground was sopping wet, my boots slogging through slippery, thick mud as I followed the scent of her deeper and deeper into the woods.
I was faster than she would have been, taking off at a dead run, but also being longer-legged, and more powerful, but she must have been walking for hours before she came to a stop in the spot I was closing in on, her scent stronger there, though not strong enough that she was still there.
As I got closer, though, my stomach clenched hard.
Because it wasn't just the sweet scent of fruit there.
Oh, no.
There was the coppery scent of blood.
"Fuck," I hissed, pushing through the last few yards, finding a downed tree and a human-sized imprint in the mud beside it.
She'd been laying there during the rain.
And then something had made her bleed.
Night vision nowhere near as good as my day vision, even with the Change, I reached for my phone, turning on the flashlight, and looking around.
I saw nothing for a long moment.
And then...
"Fuck," I yelled, raking my hand through my hair, forgetting about the talons, feeling them ripping across my scalp. But I barely noted the pain as my mind raced, and I tried to figure out my move.
Every ounce of me wanted to follow the bloody trail, wanted to find her, save her.
But a very small, still rational part of me understood something else.
I couldn't do it alone.
I scrolled through my contacts to make a call to Ace as I started running back, but the woods were shit for reception, so I gave up, pushing my legs harder, ignoring the burn in my lungs as I called out for Minos as I got closer toward the property.
He appeared out of the tree-line almost at the same time, just as rundown, half-Changed, and eyes wild.
"What is it?" he asked, following me inside as I called for Ace.
"What?" Ace asked, mostly Changed back, but his eyes were still red, and there were small points of his horns in his forehead. "What is it?"
"They have her," I gasped out, trying to catch my breath enough to get more words out.
"Who?" Ace demanded. "Who has her?"
"I saw tracks," I added, taking a slow, deep breath.
"Fucking tell me who has her, Lycus," Ace snapped.
"The shifters," I told him, shaking my head, seeing the dread cross his face as it had crossed my heart and mind back in the woods. "The shifters have her."
Chapter Eleven
Lenore
There were a dozen of them in all once they all came in, all different colors from black and brown, to brindle, to sandy, to pure white. All their eyes were different colors as well, practically glowing in the dark.
Their thick coats reeked of wet dog as they filed in, forming a semi-circle around me, noses in the air, taking deep sniffs, but not making moves toward me as I pulled my knees into my chest, wrapped my arms around my legs protectively in case of an attack.
There was next to no movement from them for a long while, save for the sniffing and the occasional whining noise.
Then the white one moved toward the center of the circle, head tipping to the side as it looked at me, then slowly inched its way closer. Almost, if it was possible for a predator to do so, carefully, as if not to spook me.
It walked up, sticking its big wet nose in my face, my hair, over my injured hand, then foot, then turned away, letting out a huffing sound, and moving to sit in the center of the semi-circle.
This was some unspoken wolf-conversation because, one by one, the other wolves did the exact same thing, each inspecting me, seeming to be looking for something about me, but none appeared to find what they were looking for, giving up to go lie down back in their places in the semi-circle.
After the last wolf moved away, the massive white one in the center, letting out his own huff, rolled his head around, much the way a person would to remove a crick.
Then, as it leapt to a kneel, it seemed to explode into the air, replaced instead with the form of a man, tall, incredibly muscular, sweaty, blond-haired, blue-eyed, with a massive scar down the side of his face.
And stark freaking naked.
I didn't want to look, but from my position, when I glanced up, there it all was, hanging out. Big and commanding but not, it seemed, interested in me.
Small miracles, I guess.
I probably should have been shocked. To see a wolf turn into a man. But there had been tales of shifters in even the most ancient of our holy texts. True, over time, we had mostly relegated them to the same sort of thing as fairy tales, but to have those old stories proven true wasn't as shocking as coming upon an actual shifter with no prior knowledge of them would have been.
The transition itself was magnificent, made all my powers seem small in comparison, but I wasn't sitting there disbelieving my eyes.
If anything, I was racking my brain to try to remember what the stories said about shifters, their loyalties, and their feelings toward my kind.
But, in the moment, I was coming up all blank.
"It has been a long time since I've seen a witch," the white wolf declared, voice sounding rough. Whether that was his natural voice, or his throat was raw from the earlier howling, was anyone's guess. "I was starting to think you'd all died out." I couldn't seem to force my mouth to say anything to that
. Part of me was scared to reveal that there were still covens around, not knowing the intentions of these shifters. The other part was too scared, too tired, too hurt, to think of anything else. "You're lucky we found you. There are all kinds of bad things in these parts," he said in a way that made me think that, while he didn't know about witches, he did know about demons. And that he had some opinions about them. None of them good. "What were you doing in the woods?"
"I, ah, I was taking a walk," I told him, it being mostly the truth. "And I got lost." That was also true. He didn't need to know the motivations for the walk.
"And then got caught in that storm," the white wolf said. "It was good that Lex came across you," he went on, waving toward the big black wolf that had dragged me through the woods. "Though he could have been easier on you," he said, acknowledging my bloody hand and foot. "Come on over here and climb on," he offered, motioning to Lex's back. "It is the least he can do, to give you a lift back to our clubhouse."
He didn't exactly phrase it as though I had any kind of choice in the matter. But, still, now that I knew he was an actual human under all the fur and teeth and paws, I felt really strange at the idea of riding him like a horse.
"I can walk," I assured the leader, giving him a wobbly smile.
"Witch, it's been a long night. Just get on Lex, so we can all get home, get something to eat, then figure out what to do about you." The words weren't overly sharp, but the tone sure was, making me slowly unfold, hobbling over toward Lex, who was still lying on the ground.
There was no use trying to fight.
I was outnumbered.
They had fangs and claws.
I stood no chance.
Even if I suddenly found the anger to zap them.
So I carefully grabbed some of Lex's fur with my good hand, lifting my bad leg, and pushing it over his back, immediately sliding over.
The Sacrifice: A Paranormal MC Romance Page 9