There were beautiful sounds in the night, the owls, the wind, the occasional howl of nature in the distance and the crisp crackle and spitting of the wood as it burned.
He wasn’t sure how long it would be before he would be checked on, but he decided that being asleep wasn’t the way to make a good first impression.
They both enjoyed the night, the fire and the smell of the freshly brewed coffee. They didn’t speak much but passed the time in companionable silence before Ecaterina wished him a good night, saying that she would see him in the morning.
He had kept his eyes focused away from the fire so that they weren’t blinded when staring out into the dark. While he watched Ecaterina go to her tent, he saw that she was very careful where she put her feet. He took a sip of his coffee and added a mental flag to the map that said ‘here be traps’ by her tent.
After another hour, he decided to hit the sack himself. His eyes flicked over to Ecaterina's side, but he was old enough and had been through enough relationships to be able to rein in the stupidity of approaching someone with her skills at night. No matter how interesting she was.
He got into his tent and lay on top of the sleeping bag. He let his senses roam and listened to the surrounding area. He would sleep very lightly tonight. Plus, he had gone around the campsite an hour before and dropped his sensors. That would give him about a hundred yards of awareness and anything inside that he should sense.
He could hear her soft breathing across the clearing.
Bethany Anne was enjoying her descent when the wind, which had been wafting up the mountain her whole way down brought new scents she hadn’t categorized before.
She knew enough about humans, male and female, to pick them out but there was more to this than she had experienced so far.
She had smelled two humans, a male and female, much earlier in the day and a little later two more males. Now, she was picking up an animal of some kind. The problem was that none of the males had smelled completely human to her, and the animal seemed to share the scent with the three males.
“TOM, do you have any idea about the other scent that smells like a male human, but not really human, that I’m smelling?”
No. I understand the difference, but if it were a change that we had initiated I would be able to tell as they have certain olfactory characteristics when they consume blood and perspire the poisons back out of their bodies. The nuances you are smelling are not something I’m familiar with.
“Could it be one of the other five, or God forbid, the seven making changes here?”
She could tell he was thinking, and with the headache coming on he must be accessing the computer. “You’re giving me a headache. Give it your best shot without calculating it to perfection, all right?”
Sorry, it seemed a good question and I didn’t stop to think about it affecting you. While it is within the realm of possibility that the unknown humans are related to the Kurtherians, I don’t think it has a high probability.
“Un-fucking-believable. I don’t just have your race screwing us around, but now I’m going to have another race of modified humans with some other interstellar busybodies doing God knows what to deal with. Michael completely failed to give me the appropriate updates, I think. Or I didn’t think to ask what else was out there and it slipped his and Carl’s mind. Either way, are they aware of the Vamps? If they are, are they friends or foes and will they attack as soon as they know I’m Michael’s?”
Well, it would be difficult for them to say you are ‘Michael’s’ as he wasn’t responsible for turning you, I was. You haven’t drunk any blood recently, so you don’t have the Vamp scent on you. It’s daytime and you’re not affected, unlike almost all of Michael’s children. I’m not sure they will have any idea you aren’t human at all.
“Oh, is that so? Goody. Let’s go and invite ourselves to this little party. Although I’d rather stay away from the animal if that’s possible. Stick or no stick, I hate being a raging bitch when they’re just being what God intended. Well, actually, considering the scent maybe a bit more than God intended.”
She picked up her pace, deciding that it might be a little fun and informative to see what it felt like to jump twenty feet at a time, from boulder to boulder on her descent. At one point, she landed on some gravel and her foot slipped off. Her adrenaline kicked in, and dropping the stick, she spun on her axis twisting in the air to face down. Shoving hard with both hands off of the boulder she flipped backwards to land on her feet below the boulder in a crouch.
A little shaken by how quick her reactions had become, she stood for a second and thought about how fast that must have happened, and how fast it seemed like it went to her. She bent down, picked up a stick and held it as high as her head. Dropping it, she watched it hit the ground. Bending down a second time, she flipped it up in the air a foot and switched into high gear. Now, the stick seemed to float lazily down, allowing her to reach out and snag just the tip with two fingers before it fell a quarter of an inch. Dropping back into normal speed, her perceptions were heightened, but not so much that everything seemed to be in super slow motion like it was a second ago.
Leaving the stick and picking up her staff, all she thought was ‘hmmm’ and she started the long, ground eating jumps again in the direction of the lake before slowing down about a mile away. She decided to stay at that distance and approach in the morning. There wasn’t a good reason to rush it and arriving at night just freaked people, and potentially non-people, right the hell out.
That night, she experimented with her speed to understand it better. TOM said it didn’t expend too much energy, she was still increasing her reserves after her meltdown the other day.
She was using her senses to take in all of the wildlife and noises she could hear. It became obvious that the animals knew about her as the area went quiet when she came through.
She decided she must give off some sort of dangerous vibe the animals picked up on.
It was a couple of hours past dawn when she headed off towards the people. She could hear talking from that direction and smell the smoke.
Then she heard the gunshot.
18
Carpathian Mountains, Romania
“Gott Verdammt that hurts like a motherfucker!” Nathan had been getting up to get another cup of coffee from the pot that Ecaterina had set up before breakfast when a bullet ripped through his shoulder, flipping him around and onto his back on the ground, the report from the gun reaching him in his sudden agony.
The shooter had to be at least a few hundred yards away for him not to have sensed them, and for the bullet to have reached him so far ahead of the sound traveling.
If he hadn’t been getting another cup of coffee, that might have been a headshot. While he healed pretty well, headshots were a dicey proposition and you might, or might not, come back with your brain screwed back in correctly.
Instead of the wound healing, it still hurt horribly. They had used silver in the frangible. That was going to be a cold-blooded bitch to get out. Well, at least it let him know he was up against other Weres. No one else in their right mind would use silver in a bullet because it was expensive and truly a poor substitute for other alloys and a right pain to make.
Ecaterina had dropped her plate and shimmied over to her tent, grabbing her rifle and then sliding behind one of the trees facing back towards the direction the shot had come from.
Nathan wasn’t staying still. He was fighting the desire to change. The pain from the silver was incredible, but he had endured much worse in the war. He was trying to keep his anger tamped down. He didn’t want to lose Ecaterina. If these idiots showed up as wolves, that was going to tear it. She was going to have to be wiped or something else horrible and he really didn’t want to go down that path. He hadn’t known her long, but it felt like he had been a lover of her spirit for ages. Those that love the outdoors and breathe it as the life-giving essence it is are rare. He didn’t want to lose this chance—if he even had one with
her.
But he needed to keep her alive to get that chance and he hadn’t brought so much as a weapon up here. He hadn’t expected to be tailed by wolves on a bear’s mountain. That was not very wise at all, and nothing he had seen so far had suggested this team were idiots.
Until now.
He grabbed his Bowie from the tent. It had some silver in the blade, but not enough to truly harm a Were. That was why he had ten silver stakes with barbs. They went in easily, but if you tried to pull them out you made a hell of a large, painful, not easily healable mess.
Kind of like frangible silver bullets.
He wouldn’t cry any tears over their pain.
He checked Ecaterina. She had almost vanished into the underbrush. Incredibly good for a human, but she didn’t realize she wasn’t fighting humans, and he could smell her from where he was.
Taking off his coat left him in a blood soaked long sleeved shirt. Better than staying in his coat while trying to be quiet out there. He started to head toward the direction of the gunshot.
He assumed these guys, he didn’t smell a female, must be from the local pack. He picked up at least three distinct opponents.
He stopped, listening, and it became obvious something was coming at him at speed from his left. Something running on four legs.
Stupid fucking youngsters, he thought. Well, I don’t have the option of giving this one a chance to learn.
Nathan moved to the right of a large pine, putting the tree between him and the oncoming Were.
Thinking that it would be able to surprise him, the Were dodged around the tree growling and leaped at his throat, teeth bared, ready to bring him down.
Nathan calmly swung his right fist, holding the knife, into the wolf’s neck as he dodged out of its way by ducking under the jump. As it yelped in pain from the silver—and the massive hole in its neck—it lost the focus to land properly and broke its right front foreleg.
Rushing over before it could move, Nathan grabbed the muzzle and the back of the head and gave a guttural grunt as he twisted it quickly, snapping the vertebra. The wolf, little more than a young adult really, stopped moving.
Nathan pulled his knife out, made the sign of the cross over the body and drifted into the woods again.
A sudden scream got his attention and a second later a male voice came from the camp, “Lowell, we have the girl. We can end this quickly, or we can take our time. You’re not getting off this mountain. Sorry to say, but you seem to have picked a bad side to join, my friend.”
Nathan was pissed. He was supposed to leave Ecaterina behind, he had an operation to focus on. The chances of her truly surviving this situation were getting infinitesimally small. If he died, she was surely a dead person. If he lived, but showed the UnknownWorld to her and she talked about anything, she was signing her own death certificate in advance. The chance that he could take out both… No, he could sense three now, other Weres, without her getting hurt in the process was becoming highly unlikely.
What did the SWAT teams back at home say about this? Oh yeah, it sucks to be the hostage.
The others, however, had attacked both of them. For that, they were going to die. The only question was how soon. They would need to kill him to stop his retribution and since they had obviously planned on that happening, it rather made the outcome a choice between them or him. He always bet on himself. But how to help Ecaterina?
As he was circling back around the campsite, he heard one of the Weres yell, “Bitch!” Nathan heard a smack and a thump as a body hit the ground.
Then he heard, “Nathan, I can’t say that she will die quickly and cleanly— can’t let that attack go. But now she’s going to have to wake up. What do you say, you want this quick or shall we draw it out? I can always hurt her slowly and painfully.”
Good for you Ecaterina, thought Nathan. She wouldn’t take any shit from anybody. He wasn’t sure how they had caught her, but Weres in their natural habitat, whether as humans or wolves, could almost ghost across the ground.
He could see into the clearing. Ecaterina was draped across a log near the fire. She must have been sitting down and bitten a hand holding her there. Slapping her knocked her out, but he couldn’t see her face on the other side of the log.
They wanted him to come back into the clearing, back where their sniper obviously had another shot.
That wasn’t going to work. Not unless he darted across there as a wolf.
That’s when the roaring started.
Alexi was pissed. He had taken a leisurely stroll from his den over to the clearing where Ecaterina had bedded down and then he went fishing in the lake. He enjoyed the fish on the south side the most and he decided there was no reason to talk to them that evening. He would go tomorrow morning and have his discussion with the FNG.
As he was coming up from the lake, he heard the gunshot and started getting his ponderous body moving up towards Ecaterina’s location, getting both a full run going and a righteous and bloody anger, driven partly by fear of what he might find.
He knew that Ecaterina wouldn’t take a shot unless something was stalking her. He doubted she would allow her customer to even bring a rifle. This meant that someone was hunting and they were very near Ecaterina.
He could smell the wolves, the Weres, they were from the Brasov pack. They had dared to come onto his mountain and hunt? This was too much. He roared in anger, he roared his announcement that there would be no capitulation, he thundered into the clearing, seeing Ecaterina’s body draped over a log near the fire, one of the pack working his hand as he stared at Alexi’s huge bear-form coming for him through the trees.
The pack member, tall, in a red shirt with a huge chest turned to face Alexi as the first bullet ripped into Alexi’s shoulder, causing him to stagger to the right. He only grew angrier, the pain from the wound paling against the prospect of getting his teeth into the animal in front of him.
The second bullet tore into his back left leg, causing him to stumble again and roll before he shook his head and roared his response to the cheap tricks of this pack, not even honorable enough to face him in combat, who shot him from afar.
The pack member roared with laughter, looking at Alexi, knowing the next shot was the kill shot as Alexi couldn’t move as quickly now.
They heard the report, but nothing raced down to end Alexi’s life. The pack member looked over his left shoulder up and across a small valley when a huge black blur raced from his opposite side, bowling him over, and they both left the clearing, crashing through the bushes and into the trees.
Alexi stood up and took painful steps to Ecaterina’s body. She was breathing but had a horrible, bloody gash above her right eye. Alexi roared his anger that anything should hurt his niece. He landed back on his feet, blood coming from his shoulder and his leg. Without their sniper, there was no way that anything else would happen to his niece, or he would be dead.
19
Carpathian Mountains, Romania
The bear occupied the focus of the Were near Ecaterina. Nathan stripped out of his clothes. Taking the Bowie and a stick from the ground, he bit on the stick and used the Bowie to dig the silver bits out of his shoulder. The pain from the silver in the Bowie was horrendous. The desire to protect steadied his hand as he worked to get the bullet’s pieces out. Sweat beaded his forehead.
He heard a gunshot.
He pulled the knife out and used his right fingers to dig into his shoulder and grab the last piece and threw it down in disgust. The silver was out, his natural healing was already working and now he could focus enough to change.
One second there was a naked man, blood from his shoulder dripping down his torso, the next a black wolf with green human-like eyes. Wasting no time, the wolf took off at speed as it heard a second shot and laughter coming from the clearing.
Focused on both speed and stealth, Nathan took too long to get back to the clearing. He heard a third shot.
Coming through the trees from behind his own tent, he
saw a man looking in the other direction. The bear was in obvious pain, but was starting to get back up and had eyes only for the guy by the fire.
Tough shit. This asshole was his and he hit him going as fast as he could run, taking the asshole’s shoulder in his teeth as they both started tumbling into the bushes.
A little shaken up, it took Nathan a few seconds to get his bearings and look to see where his adversary ended up. About twenty feet away, the guy had ripped off his clothes and just finished his own change.
Nathan was huge for a wolf. Even for a Were he was a spectacular size. But this guy had him beat by twenty pounds at least. Dusk colored, his black eyes bore almost no intelligence beyond animal cunning. Growling, the two wolves circled each other, looking for an opening.
His opponent barked, there was a returning bark from the campsite, and Nathan could hear another wolf coming towards them.
Great, it was going to be two on one. Fine. That left one for the bear and he couldn’t complain later that Nathan had taken the easy way out.
The other wolf came into the clearing and now Nathan had to work to keep them both mostly in front of him. If either one of them could come in and grab a back leg in their teeth, his day was going to go into the shitter, for sure.
The gunshot was ahead and to her left.
She started running, but this time it was different. She was in her zone now, every leaf, every branch was in complete detail as she chose exactly where to place each foot, each handhold, as she jumped over fallen trees, dodging between trees or using branches as shortcuts through the dense foliage.
Dimly she heard a roar. The sound took forever to travel, to reach her as she moved. What she could, she ran over. What she couldn’t, she would run through or across. Nothing was stopping her from finding the shooter.
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 15