***
She met me at the edge of the forest, her eyes glowing as she took in his battered face. “This is a dangerous game you play, Drusilla.”
“Game?” I dropped him at her feet. “I thought I was doing your bidding.”
“Do not mouth off to me,” she hissed, stepping forward and I flinched back. “He knows our secret.”
“He knows nothing.”
“He’s seen you.”
“As a woman,” I lied carefully. “He’s curious. Nothing more.”
“And when he figures it out?” She demanded. “When his curiosity is satisfied and he exploits you?” My lashes lowered, hiding my eyes from her burning gaze. “When he sells you to the highest bidder?”
“He’s not a hunter,” I protested, realizing my mistake a second too late.
“And you know this? You would stake your life on it? Your sister’s life? The lives of everyone here?” Pressure built with each question, making it hard to breathe, as I waited for the final blow. “Wasn’t your father’s life enough?”
I bowed my head, my throat tight, as I struggled against the old guilt. I finally managed to reply bitterly, “I’m not a child and he’s a wolf, not a hunter.”
“And I trust no one,” she answered sharply, and I knew she meant absolutely no one, myself included. “Wolf or not, he will destroy us if given the chance. A lesson you should be well versed in, Drusilla.”
“I’m a wolf,” I reminded her, my stare defiant.
She gripped my chin, her fingers pinching painfully. “You are of my blood. You might be a half breed mutant, but my blood flows through your veins and I will be damned if I lose another child to a beast,” she hissed. She forced my head up, intentionally avoiding my amber eye when she met my gaze. “They are not our equals. You would do well to remember that.” She released me and I stumbled back. “Put him back and this time make sure he can’t escape or I will hold you responsible.” Fear sent a shiver down my spine at the implied threat, the reaction ingrained, as she swept away, trusting I would do exactly as she commanded.
I grasped Caleb’s arms, dragging him toward the underground cell, wishing he’d left when he had the chance, because I knew Gran would never change her mind and without a miracle, he’d die there.
Chapter Eight
Caleb
I kept my body loose as Dru dragged me over the rough ground, not wanting to alert her to the fact that I’d regained consciousness during the conversation with her grandmother. What I’d heard disturbed me, but it was Dru’s sense of hopelessness that concerned me the most. Her emotions had been all over the place, and not a single one had been positive, making me even more determined to get her away from her grandmother’s influence.
She stopped, and as damp air touched my skin I knew we’d reached the stairs to my cell. I prepared myself for the jarring descent down the steps as she readjusted her grip, but the expected jostling didn’t happen. Instead, my body hovered a couple inches above the ground and I floated down the steps next to her.
Suddenly, their mention of a secret took on new meaning. Paige’s healing ability could be attributed to wolf genes but I’d never heard of a wolf being able to levitate someone. The door clanged open and I was gently lowered to the cold ground.
Do you want me to heal him? Paige’s voice drifted through my mind, even though I knew she’d meant the question for Dru. It appeared I was tuned in to their frequency, a fact they seemed unaware of.
No, it would defeat the purpose of me beating the crap out of him, Dru grumbled and I sensed she stood in the doorway, watching me. Gran is never going to let him go.
Maybe she just needs time, Paige suggested hopefully. She might change her mind when she sees he isn’t a threat.
You didn’t hear her. She’s made up her mind. She’ll only be satisfied when the wolf is gone. My heart thumped painfully at the sadness in her voice, feeling like I was missing something. She’ll do what she always does. I wanted to shout, “What does she do?” but was afraid if they knew I could hear them they’d clam up. She’ll experiment until there’s nothing left of him. Paige was silent, telling me she didn’t have an argument, and I didn’t feel any better knowing their grandmother experimented on wolf shifters.
The door scraped as it swung shut, but Dru didn’t leave. “Are you awake?”
I debated pretending to still be unconscious but if I’d learned anything in my twenty eight years it was that when someone asked, they already knew. I sat up, wincing as my body protested the movement. “I’m awake,” I answered with a groan. “Did you have to bruise the face?” I gingerly prodded my cheek. “All I have are my good looks.”
She snorted, a smile fighting to break through and I wanted to pump my arm in victory, except I didn’t think my ribs would appreciate it. “If all you had were your good looks, then you’re welcome,” she teased, her expression lightening.
I grabbed my chest. “Ow, shot right to the heart.”
“Your pride, you mean.” I scooted back, resting against the wall as she leaned on the bars. “Go ahead,” she sighed. “I know you must have heard something.”
“More like everything,” I admitted and her eyes closed briefly. “We really need to work on your kick.” An unwilling chuckle escaped her as her eyes met mine, and once again I was caught by her clear gaze. Her eyes intrigued me. They were a glimpse into the two halves of her soul. I recognized the wolf who stared boldly back at me, but it was the shadows hiding in the cool blue that kept me searching for answers.
“No questions?” She spoke lightly, but her lashes lowered, breaking the connection as our eyes held a beat longer than comfortable.
“Where are the other wolves?” It wasn’t the question I meant to ask, and based on her face she wished I hadn’t. She pressed her lips together so tightly their soft pink faded to white and I pushed myself up until I was standing. “I haven’t seen any, there’s no scent but yours, and I haven’t heard a single howl.”
Her chin tilted up. “Then it sounds like you already know the answer.”
“Tell me,” I commanded, needing to be sure. “Tell me the truth.”
A brittle smile formed as she rocked against the bars. “The truth?” She shook her head. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Dru,” I said softly and she nodded faintly.
“The truth is I’m the lone wolf here.”
I’d suspected something like that but hearing her say the words was a punch to the gut. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words didn’t come. I cleared my throat. “How long?” The only lone wolf I’d met was Trent and even he’d had Dom. What Dru was telling me seemed impossible, but it explained so much.
“How long?” She repeated, shrugging lightly. “What do you mean?”
“There were other wolves…right?” I asked, glancing around the cage I was in. “Clearly, there were other wolves. This was built to contain a wolf. What happened to them?”
She gazed at the reinforced steel bars, but her thoughts appeared far away. “They died.”
“All of them?” I questioned sharply, moving closer as her emotions pulsed through our link, guilt being the predominant feeling. “Dru,” I barked, and her gaze snapped to mine. “I need you to explain. What happened to your father?”
“He was killed by hunters.”
My forehead wrinkled, perplexed at how hunters would have gotten the jump on a shifter. “Was there a Pack here then?”
“We had always been a small Pack,” Dre replied, her voice faraway. “Gran’s husband was the Alpha, my great grandfather.”
“Whoa, wait a damn minute,” I burst out. “You’re telling me your grandmother,” I paused, correcting myself, “Great grandmother. The one who is crazy powerful and hates shifters was married to a wolf shifter?”
Dru nodded, watching me warily. I shook my head in disbelief, but motioned for her to continue.
“None of his children or grandchildren could shift.” She cast her eyes down. “They all had blue
eyes.” I nodded but didn’t interrupt. “He saw it as a weakness. He blamed Gran.” Her gaze lifted to mine, the blue eye glowing faintly. “He tried to cast her aside.”
“I take it that didn’t go well.”
She shook her head lightly. “She took his position.”
“I didn’t think that was even possible,” I muttered incredulously.
“You’ve felt her power.” Dru raised her eyebrow. “Do you doubt her?”
I exhaled. “No.”
“The Pack was small but strong under her leadership. We kept to ourselves, but guarded our borders fiercely.” The words sounded as if they’d been recited many times when her tone changed. “It wasn’t until,” she paused, taking a deep breath. “Until I was born that things changed.” My hands curled around hers over the bars that separated us. “There had never been one like me.”
“Unique, distinctive, one of a kind,” I offered, resting my head next to hers. She turned her head so I could only see her amber eye.
“An omen,” she said softly. “Harbinger.” She swallowed, licking her lips. “My father sensed the wolf inside me, but it was my mother’s blood that cursed me,” she continued bitterly. I squeezed her fingers gently, wishing I could do more to ease the pain she carried inside. “Some called for my death. They claimed I was unnatural. An abomination.” She fell silent, staring at our linked hands. “They may have been right.”
“They weren’t,” I denied instantly, tightening my grip.
She smiled, but there was no happiness in it. “It divided the Pack. Gran gave them a choice. Leave or die.” I nodded, for once in complete agreement with her Gran. “A few left.” She looked up at me, her eyes shimmering. “It was a mistake. She should have killed them.” Anger contorted her face. “They were no longer under oath. They had no loyalty to the Pack. Sparing their lives was not enough to keep them silent.”
“The Hanleys attacked us,” she murmured. “They thought we were weak. They weren’t prepared for Gran. Or my grandmother and mother. Three generations of powerful women.” She smiled grimly. “I can only imagine the chaos they unleashed on them. They drove the Hanleys away, but,” she paused, her jaw locking. “They managed to kill my grandmother.”
“The Hanleys,” I verified and she nodded.
“They tore her apart.”
I closed my eyes, picturing the horrific scene and starting to understand Gran’s hatred for wolves. During my travels, I’d been forced to watch a Pack kill a traitor in their midst and they’d ripped him limb from limb. It wasn’t an easy death and for a mother to witness it….Gran’s rage was starting to make sense.
“The wolves that stayed were older. Slowly, they all died. Various fights with other wolves who came thinking they could take the Pack and the land. My father was the youngest and he died when I was nine.” Remorse flooded through me, but it belonged to Dru.
“What happened to your dad?”
She tucked her head down, and the feeling of guilt increased. “As rumors spread about me, others came looking.”
“Others,” I repeated.
One of her shoulders tilted up. “Hunters, I’d guess you’d say, but they didn’t come looking for a trophy to mount on their wall.” Tales I’d heard over the years came back to me, stories of how some hunters captured shifters and sold them to the highest bidder. “I’d never met an outsider.” She smiled mockingly. “It’s not much of a defense.”
“You were…nine?” I commented, thinking back to when she said her father had died. “You can’t be held responsible.”
“Can’t I?” She inhaled, holding her breath for a long second. “I lead them straight to my father. They killed him….so quickly. One breath he was there and then he wasn’t.” A long exhale. “I had never shifted before and I didn’t then. I ran screaming for my mother.”
I waited, barely breathing as her eyes lifted to mine, brilliant blue and golden amber fierce in the dim light.
“You think my Gran is terrifying,” she whispered softly. “That day I watched my mother flay the flesh from their bones with nothing more than her raging grief.” She blinked, washing away any hint of tears. “She saved me, but I will never forget the look on her face when she realized it was at the expense of my father’s life. I had broken the rules and brought strangers into our home. A sin so great she would never forgive me.”
“You were a child.”
“I was the reason they were there,” she countered bitterly, her voice a barely intelligible snarl. “I cost my father his life. The only person who loved me, who didn’t look at me….,” she swallowed hard, “Paige never got a chance to know him or our mother because of my actions.”
“What happened to your mom?” I forced the question out, not wanting to know, but knowing she needed to tell me.
“Her grief was too much for her.” Dru tugged on her lower lip with her teeth. “At least that’s how Gran put it, but don’t ever ask her about it. Losing a daughter was too much, but a granddaughter as well and over a wolf?” I smelled the blood before I saw it as Dru released her lip, the spot where I’d bitten her bleeding again. “She watched me every day waiting for the moment I would shift.” She rested her head on the bars, her gaze searching mine. “She tried to stop it, you know. That’s why there are so many traps,” she whispered the words as if she was telling me a secret. “Unwary wolf shifters, curiosity seekers, or just foolish boys. She thought if she could reverse it, she could stop it.”
I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “It didn’t work.”
Dru’s gaze swept the dark, cold pen I stood in. “No, but she learned a lot.”
My spine tingled at the hollow words and the memory of bones twisting and breaking, an echo of Dru’s pain when she shifted, I suspected. “Your mother died right after your father?”
“My mother committed suicide,” Dru corrected me. “It was almost a relief.” I jolted at her words and she smiled bitterly. “The way she looked at me? If I’d known how I would have killed myself to escape it.”
“Dru.” Her name escaped my lips, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Two weeks. She tried….for two weeks.” Bitterness laced her voice. “It’s inherited you know.” She tapped her blue eye. “Passed down from generation to generation, each one stronger than the last.” I reached for her hand as she dug her finger a little too deeply in her eye. “Except when you commit suicide.” She smiled at our entwined fingers, knowing what I was doing. “Interesting fact, it goes back to the earth. But her,” Dru sighed, “But her grief corrupted it. It’s why your senses don’t work in human form. It’s why there’s barely any life in the forest here. Even the animals run from her pain.”
I nodded slowly. Her story explained the wrongness I’d sensed in the forest, but it had happened years ago. “It’s been twenty years?” I guessed, since Dru had to be at least my age.
“Twenty-one.”
“Wouldn’t it have faded by now?”
Her mouth quirked. “Our mother had inherited her mother’s pain when she died. My mother was powerful indeed.”
I didn’t know what to make of her answer. For everything question Dru had answered, I’d thought of a dozen more, but only one concerned me at the moment. “Why tell me all of this? Why now?”
Dru studied me, then leaned forward until our cheeks touched. “I thought you should know the truth,” she whispered softly, brushing her lips against mine before untangling our hands and stepping back. “Before she kills you.”
***
Her words lingered long after she had escaped up the stairs. My brain felt overloaded and empty at the same time, and I knew it must have something to do with the mating bond, but at the moment there was no one to ask. My Pack was a scant two hours to the south but it could have been a million miles. I wouldn’t drag Dom into a situation I’d created for myself, not at the risk of his life.
And I knew it would be his life at risk.
Dru had given up hope, but I was determined to fi
gure a way out for both of us - no matter how impossible it seemed at the moment.
I paced the cell, not bothering to test the strength of the bars. It wouldn’t be brute strength that won this battle. I still wasn’t entirely sure what I was up against, other than an old woman powerful enough to oust an Alpha and retain control of his Pack.
“Pack,” I whispered to myself. “Ghost Pack, but there is no Pack.” I’d aptly named the Pack, albeit unknowingly. It truly was a pack of ghosts. All the wolf shifters were gone or dead besides Dru and it didn’t appear like she was under the control of an Alpha.
I stopped pacing, but couldn’t remain still, positive I was onto something.
“No Alpha,” I muttered aloud, trying to remember long ago lessons from my own Alpha father. He’d drilled them into me repeatedly, trying to shape me into his image, and I’d spent the last decade doing my best to forget them. But now, they might come in handy. “The Pack ceased to exist before Dru shifted, leaving her without a Pack to shift into. Her Gran inherited the previous Pack, but once it was gone, she was no longer Alpha.” Technically, everything I was saying was true, but I’d never once heard of a non-wolf shifter being able to assume an Alpha role either. I also still didn’t know what Dru’s great grandmother was exactly, besides insanely powerful.
“And dangerous. Don’t forget dangerous,” I muttered to myself.
Your lips are moving but there’s no one here who can hear you. I twisted to find Paige staring at me, her head tilted curiously. Dru did beat you up, she added, sounding impressed.
What are you doing down here? I glanced at the stairs, sure I would have seen her. How did you get down here?
I walked? She suggested, giving me a look like she thought I was the crazy one. How else would I do it?
I threw up my hands. Walk through the wall? At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past these blue-eyed women. What are you?
Lone Wolf (The Pack Book 5) Page 5