by Kian Rhodes
I nodded. "To get his stuff."
"That," Colby said with a smirk, "just happens to be exactly where Scotty and Harley were headed."
I looked over to Clint and he gave a resigned sigh. "We ride?"
"We ride," I confirmed before looking back at Colby. "Some of us, anyway."
In another unusually obedient moment, Colby just smiled instead of disagreeing with me. "I think I'll grab Leia and head over to spend some time with Trevor, then." He laid his hand over mine on my hip and squeezed. "That way you have nothing to worry about."
Chapter Thirty-Two
Harley
"You banned Zade and Rafe from your hospital room? Really?" Levi clapped his hands over his mouth, but his eyes were positively gleeful. "I can't believe I missed that!"
Scott chuckled softly, stroking his thumb against my palm. "It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds, Levi. Honest."
We were sitting around the kitchen table, comfortably stuffed from the meal that Levi had insisted on preparing shortly after we'd arrived back at his and Zade's house. I yawned and leaned against Scott's shoulder as I tried to fight back my impending food coma.
"We should get some rest," Scott suggested, wrapping his arm around me and pressing his lips to my brow.
"Too early," I mumbled even though I was losing the battle to keep my eyes open.
Scott snickered and stood up, scooping me into his arms and holding me to his chest. "Sure it is, Har."
"His room is over there," Levi offered and I assumed he was pointing down the hall.
"Nope," Scott said with a soft laugh. "His room is out in the driveway, right, Har?"
"Mmhmm," I agreed, rubbing my face against the soft fabric of his shirt.
"We'll pop back in after he's rested for a bit," Scott said. "I know you've got security and all, but if you need anything.." he trailed off.
"I'll call you," Levi agreed. "Thanks." There was a pause. "You're different now, Scotty." Scott didn't answer, but I imagined him raising his brow because Levi continued. "You seem younger now that you've found Harley," he said softly. "You're more relaxed. Not as, well, stiff and formal as the night we met. I like it."
Soft fingers ghosted over my cheek and I knew the touch was Levi's. "Sleep well, Harley."
~*~
"Harley! Wake up!" Scott's frantic voice jolted me out of the nightmare world where I was fleeing from a horrible beast with a humanoid body and the horribly misshapen, oversized head of a wild boar complete with massive tusks dripping blood.
I jolted up in the bed, fighting against the sweat-drenched blankets twisted around me until large, strong hands peeled them away. The air I was gasping in was thin and stale with fear. My eyes darted around the interior of the van, searching each shadow for the beast that had been squealing at my heels seconds before.
"You're okay, Harley," Scott continued to speak softly, rubbing my back. "It was just a dream. A nightmare. It wasn't real."
Except, I knew better. I wasn't sure how, but I knew that the creature hadn't really been left behind in my nightmare.
"It was." I concentrated on controlling my breathing, knowing all too well that it was the fastest method of stopping the panic. "It was real, Scott. It is." Even in the dark I could sense his skepticism. I could smell it, if that makes sense. Except, of course it doesn't make sense.
"It's here," I pressed on, glancing out the window at the early morning sky. The deep blue was barely beginning to pale. "Out in the trees."
To his credit, Scott didn't huff in annoyance or humor me, he simply handed me the jeans that he'd peeled off me before our nap and reached for his own. "Show me."
Clinging tightly to Scott's hand, I started across the open grassland behind the house, uncertain where I was going but somehow knowing that I was headed in the right direction. The tall grasses began to give way to the scattered trees that announced the beginning of the woods and the shadows deepened. The air became heavier, almost damp, and the light breeze carried a scent that made me freeze in fear even though I didn't know why.
The path that we followed narrowed until it was barely recognizable as a trail and through a break in the trees loomed the outline of a ramshackle building hidden deep in the woods.
"There." I whispered. "It happened there."
"What did?" Scott stared at the roofline that was visible in the distance. "You mean.." He trailed off and tried again. "Is that where they took you, Harley?"
Scott's voice was too loud in the artificial hush of the woods around us. I turned to shush him, but I knew it was too late. The sentries had been alerted to our presence.
"We've got to get out of here," I muttered, turning to flee and yanking him down the trail with me. "They know.."
"Who does, Harley?" Scott dug his heels in, pulling me to a stop. "What do they know, Harley?"
Fear flooded me as a hissing snort came from behind us. Turning slowly, I drew in a deep breath and gagged on the foul stench that emanated out from the monster stalking out from the brush.
"They do, Scott," I managed to say as I tried to back away. "They know that we're here."
Chapter Thirty-Three
Scott
When Harley woke from his nightmare, oddly insistent that the monster haunting his sleep was real, my reactive response was to say show me.
As we'd worked our way through the thickening trees, the air took on a heavy mist that told of a body of water somewhere in the vicinity and I realized that we were in the setting from Harley's nightmares. The deeper we went into the dense forest, the more familiar it became until Harley stopped suddenly, his sharp eyes trained on the shadows in the distance.
"There." The terror in Harley's whispered words made my gut clench. "It happened there."
I followed his gaze and was able to make out the outline of a building through the fog. I wondered briefly if we were still on Blue Ridge land, but the thought was pushed to the background when Harley started to back away, his already dangerously high anxiety level spiking.
My attention was squarely focused on Harley when a fetid odor began to fill the air around us. An odd combination of sulfur, acetone, and another, stronger chemical overtone that I couldn't identify assaulted my nose and crept into my mouth to burn my throat.
"They know that we're here."
Before I could press my terrified Omega for clarification, a massive beast stumbled from the brush, snorting and bellowing as it lumbered toward us, arms waving and massive claws grasping at nothing.
I released my grip on Harley's arm, shoving him behind me so hard that I heard him stumble as I tried to focus my eyes through the airborne mist. My brain kicked into overtime as I fought to determine what the fuck I was looking at.
The body seemed to be human, nearly as tall as I and with shoulders that were easily twice as wide and stout, muscular legs. When the legs tapered down to cloven hooves, the resemblance ended. My horrified eyes traveled back up the creature's body, noting the absence of any visible genitalia, and instead seeing thick scars crisscrossing both the groin and grotesquely over-muscled chest.
I had to fight back a wave of revulsion when I arrived at the massive head that seemed to sit squarely on the hulking shoulders with no evidence of a neck. The head was oddly oversized and I was torn between whether it was the head of a bull or a wild boar, but eventually settled on the boar when it closed enough of the distance between us for me to see the snout crusted with dried blood set beneath tiny black eyes that were dull and flat.
Dead eyes in a living animal.
Nothing about the horrifying chimera in front of me made sense. Without taking my eyes off the still-approaching monster, I pinched my thigh hard enough to sting.
Nightmarish or not, there was no doubt that I was awake.
"Scott!" Harley hissed from behind me. "We have to run."
"No, baby." I disagreed softly. "I can't. I don't know what this thing is, but I'm pretty sure it’s a threat. I can'
t just run away. You get back to Levi, okay? Tell him to get Rafael's crew up here ASAP."
I could feel Harley's hesitation and, with the threat only a dozen yards away and still closing in, I sighed and called on my Alpha voice. "Now, Harley! Go!"
Relief barreled through me when the sounds of retreat came from behind me and I turned my focus back to the current threat.
Without knowing what, exactly, I was staring down, I wasn't sure which of my forms had the best chance of defeating it.
My human had better dexterity, clearer reasoning skills, and the ability to use a weapon – assuming I could find one – whereas my wolf was faster, stronger, less concerned with the damage it inflicted, and, of course, came pre-loaded with its own formidable arsenal of razor-sharp claws and vicious teeth.
"What are you?" I asked out loud, deciding to take a shot at diplomacy no matter how absurd the thought was.
The monster stopped in its tracks and tilted its head, staring at me in confusion.
Taking advantage of its hesitation, I stepped to the side and began to creep in the opposite direction from the one that Harley would be taking back to Levi, hoping to lead the beast back into the deeper woods and away from my Omega.
A sharp whistle pierced the air and the hog-like man shook off his stupor, snorting a spray of blood from his snout as he bellowed in anger and charged me. Recognizing that it was too late for me to shift, I grabbed a branch from the forest floor and hefted it to my shoulder. I swung and the branch connected solidly with the side of the creatures massive head, the recoil making me grunt as pain radiated from the still-healing wound in my back. The beast dropped to its knees before toppling over in slow motion.
I held my position, club raised, but other than a single body twitch, it didn't move. Exhaling sharply, I moved away and leaned against a tree, wincing when the rough bark pushed the fabric against the wound that I'd clearly reopened…again.
I could smell the blood dripping down my back and dropped the branch in favor of removing my shirt to try and fashion a makeshift bandage before starting my trip back to meet up with Harley. I was already thinking ahead to my meeting with Zade and Rafael when they arrived, trying to decide if I needed to secure the corpse or if it would be undisturbed until they arrived and so on. My distraction proved to be my undoing when I noticed that the odor in the air had changed again, the smell of fresh blood muted by the now familiar nose-curling chemical cocktail.
I barely had time to register that I was no longer alone when I was struck from behind and pinned to the ground, the rich, fertile smell of the rotting leaf litter clogging my nostrils as my flesh was ripped and torn by an unseen adversary. I called my wolf forward but a sudden impact knocked the weight of my attacker off of me before my transition began.
Rolling over, I was met with a sight that I hadn't been sure that I would ever see again. The shimmering mahogany fur of Harley's wolf was slick with blood as he pinned a second creature to the ground, his brilliant white fangs glinting in the darkness as he dismantled the creature, piece by shredded, blood-soaked piece.
Rising to my feet, I stumbled over to pull him off the mutilated corpse. He fought me for the briefest moment until I spoke. "It's okay, Harley. I've got you, baby. You killed it. We're safe."
Deep in my mind, I heard my Omega for the first time since we'd been relocated. The thought was pained, horrified, and full of self-loathing.
I remember. Gods help me, I remember.
I staggered several feet from the second body and dropped down to my butt, cradling the bloody wolf in my arms as he shuddered and whimpered, tears running down my cheeks as I tried to offer some small measure of comfort to the broken Omega that couldn't get close enough to me.
When the search party came upon us hours later, that was exactly how they found us.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rafe
"What the fuck..?"
I raised a hand to silence him, but inwardly I echoed Zade's appalled response to the horrific scene in front of us. The brush surrounding the small clearing was spattered with blood and other body fluids. The ground was littered with body parts. The sun-warmed air reeked of blood and death and something else – a stomach-turning combination of chemicals and rotting flesh.
One corpse had been all but shredded.
The second was in a heap at the base of a huge pine tree.
Ten or so feet from the scene, Scott sat cross-legged against the base of another pine, his clothing red with blood and Harley curled into a naked, trembling ball against his chest, his eyes were closed and every so often a sob escaped him. He watched us approach warily but didn't move to greet us.
"Are you two okay?"
Harley's body jerked at the sound of my voice and Scott winced, his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed.
"It's okay, baby. It's the cavalry," Scott murmured into Harley's ear. Scott looked up at me with haunted eyes. "He remembers."
"Okay." I knelt down next to them, recalling all too easily when my own Omega had retreated inside himself to escape. "We don't need to talk about it yet. I'm gonna touch you, okay?"
Harley managed a partial nod and I raised my eyes back to Scott's. He gritted his teeth, but also nodded. As quickly as possible, I ran my fingers over Harley's limbs, checking under the layers of blood for injuries but finding none.
"He's not hurt."
Scott shook his head.
"You?"
"I reopened my shoulder again," he admitted quietly. "But it quit bleeding hours ago. I'm fine."
"We should get you back and call a doctor."
"No!" Harley's shout took us by surprise and I tried to back away only to fall on my ass in the mud. He lifted his head from his Alpha's chest and spoke through chattering teeth. "We have to go to the laboratory. There could be more."
I raised a brow to Scott and he tilted his head to the south. "Over there."
Squinting against the sunlight that was streaming through the leaves overhead, I saw the outline of a building of some sort and turned to Zade. "Is that yours?"
Zade shrugged. "I really don't know. I don't remember seeing it on the asset list for the pack."
I nodded. "Okay, Harley, we will check it out, but first we have to go back. You're in shock and I need to get a warrant since Zade isn't sure who it belongs to, okay?"
Harley closed his eyes for a long moment and released a ragged sigh before reopening them. "Okay."
Scott stood, Harley still cradled in his arms, but staggered as he tried to step forward.
"Shit!" I braced one arm around Scott's waist while Zade jumped forward to lift Harley from his arms. Scott's snarled and tried to reach for his Omega. "Man, I think you lost more blood than you realized. Let us help."
Scott gave no sign that he heard me, instead trying again to reach for Harley.
"Hold on, Scott." Clint stepped forward, meeting the agitated Alpha's eyes. "What if I carry Harley for you? You know you can trust me."
Scott stared into the werewolf's face for a moment and then relaxed, nodding his acceptance.
"Come here, kiddo," Clint said softly, bracing Harley against his chest and stepping into place ahead of me to ensure that Scott could see his Omega was safe. "Let's get you home."
A movement from the side caught my eye and I turned my head to see Zade casually stripping off his clothing and setting it aside.
The sounds of his shift were nearly nonexistent as his wolf eased forward – a hard task to master. I nodded my understanding of his silent declaration. Rather than continuing to make Scott uncomfortable in his agitated state, Zade would stay and guard the scene until I could get back to begin the investigation.
~*~
The forest was still unnaturally quiet when I led my team back through the woods a little over two hours later.
"Where the hell is he?" Snake hissed in my ear as we approached the crime scene. It was untouched, but also appeared abandoned.
&
nbsp; "He's here, somewhere," I replied absently. I knew too much about Zade's service record – had made it my business to learn as much as my security clearance allowed – to even consider that he might have wandered off. Or that he could have been overpowered without adding to the body count. Fool me once, and all that.
I lifted my nose and scented the air, but before I could isolate his scent from the foul stench of the carnage around us, something bounced to the ground and rolled to a stop against my boot.
A tennis ball.
I chuckled and bent to pick it up, tossing it back up into the foliage above me. As expected, when it came back down, it was resting in the gleaming teeth of a striking blue-roan wolf.
"Hey, man."
Zade spat the ball out onto the ground and threw himself into his morph.
"Hey. Is Harley okay?"
"Levi tucked them both into bed and called a doctor."
"Good." Zade glanced at the line of shifters that had followed me from the path. "They made good time."
"They were only about thirty minutes behind Clint and me," I explained, watching as Bane and Snake took control of the site, stretching the crime scene tape from tree to tree around the perimeter. I reached into the interior pocket of my jacket and pulled out a folded paper. "It seems that COPSD is already carrying a full load in this area, so the council asked us to take point on the investigation, so they'll start cataloging the evidence here while we move on to the building."
Zade nipped the paper from my fingers and unfolded it. Scanning it, he looked up with a thoughtful frown. "It does belong to Blue Ridge, huh?"
I shrugged. "According to the county documents, your official territory extends an additional ten acres past that building. I pulled a warrant anyway, just to be sure."
Zade nodded and began to pull on his clothes. "I'm ready when you are."
The building ended up being further away than it looked, and by the time we reached the edge of the trees that bordered it, the sun was high in the sky there were no shadows left for us to use to disguise our approach.