Wolf Fated

by Nicole R. Taylor

  I slid over, and he sat, though we hardly fit on it at all. My right arse cheek was hanging off the edge, and the revolver I’d refused to relinquish pressed into the small of my back.

  “You smell like crap,” I said, delaying the inevitable.

  “There was no remorse in him, kid,” he said, ignoring my insult. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault I share DNA with a psychopath.”

  He grunted and rubbed his eyes with his big fist.

  “Have you slept?”

  He shook his head. “Have you?”

  “Can’t,” I replied.

  “That ain’t good for your health.”

  “What’s going to happen now?”

  Gasket lowered his head, his gaze studying the dusty smiley faces I’d drawn on my boots.

  “We have no choice,” he said. “If you want to talk to him before… Chaser or I will go with you.”

  I rose to my feet and moved a few steps towards the nothingness of the bush. Before they killed him? My stomach rolled, even though I knew this was the inevitable outcome. He was still my father. He’d loved my mum once, didn’t he? He had her engagement ring, so there had to be some feeling…right?

  “Sloane?”

  I raised my gaze towards the sky, finding the blue endless. Out there, where the sky became dark, was a universe larger than any of us. We were insignificant and pointless.

  What was the point?

  “Not today,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  That night, I still hadn’t managed to gather enough courage to return to camp. The moon was nearing its apex, casting a silver glow clear across the open field, and the wolf within thrashed at the edges of my psyche.

  I’d only turned once, and I wasn’t requited to again, but I felt the draw of it all the same. The rest of the pack would have to turn in a few days, but where?

  “Gasket said you’d walked off.”

  Turning, I saw Chaser looming out of the landscape, weaving between the scrappy undergrowth.

  “I wanted to be alone.”

  “I know. Just wanted to make sure you weren’t lost.”

  “Of course not. I can sniff my way back.”

  “Of course.” He sat beside me, pressing into my side. He just melted into me like it was the most natural thing in the world. We were two pieces of a puzzle slotting together.

  “Of course,” I drawled, turning my face towards him. “I’ve got an amazing sense of direction without my werewolf superpowers.”

  “You’re not worried about being out here in the dark?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  I snorted, thinking back to the night we’d been run off the road by two Hollow Men. I hadn’t liked the way the wild landscape had made me feel, but now I craved it. The isolation was soothing, and now that Chaser was here, it was perfect.

  “I can see why you like looking at the sky,” I said. “I can barely count a handful, let alone them all.”

  “No one can count them all,” Chaser said, glancing up. “There are stars out there whose light has never reached us at all. Maybe it never will.”

  “Do you regret it?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Starting all this?”

  “Why are you asking?” He was avoiding the question, and it made me bristle

  “I think about it sometimes,” I murmured. “If I’d escaped, or if you’d let me go.”

  “I don’t believe in what-ifs,” he stated. “After I was bound to the pack, I…” He sighed. “At first, I dwelled on them to the point it drove me to despair. You can’t build a life on what might’ve happened.”

  “I imagine that’s why you’re so…” I trailed off, not wanting to be that person. The person who stuck the emotional knife in and twisted.

  “Inhuman?” Chaser asked. “Was that the word you were going for?”

  I grunted, turning my face so he couldn’t see the regret pooling in my eyes. I shouldn’t have said that. After everything he’d been forced to endure, turning away from his humanity was his only choice.

  “We all deal with our shit in different ways,” he went on. “This is mine.”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  His arm snaked around my back. “We are who we are, Sloane. People never change, not really. Not even vampirism or lycanthropy can change who we truly are. Views and motivations might, but our core always remains the same.”

  I took his words as a hopeful sign that underneath all his bland indifference was the man he was before his life had changed for the worse.

  “You don’t want to speak to your father?” he asked when I finally turned my gaze on him.

  “Not today.” I shook my head. “I don’t even know what to say to him. I can already anticipate his answers, so it’s like…why bother?”

  Chaser tightened his embrace.

  “Besides, we still have to worry about the other half of Fortitude…the renegades. Then there’s still the Hollow Men,” I added. “They still want me for their blood sacrifice.”

  “What do you want, Sloane?”

  “Huh?” I thought we’d already worked that out. Freedom for all. The end.

  “What happens after this?” Chaser asked. “If we get what we want, then what?”

  Ah, the bit after the end. I shrugged. “I always thought Fortitude as we know it would be disbanded and rebuilt into a family. Continuing to run the pack as a glorified criminal organisation isn’t right. Though, nothing has exactly turned out like I’d hoped.” I turned my gaze on him. “What about you?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve been so fixated on revenge, I got lost in my rage. I saw nothing past that…not until I told you I’d leave it all behind.”

  My heart swelled, and I leaned my forehead against his. “You did, didn’t you?”

  “It’s hard for me,” he murmured. “Saying these things.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve held onto her for so long…”

  I didn’t want to feel jealous of a dead woman, but I couldn’t help it. He’d loved Loretta so much that they’d married, and in the aftermath of her passing, he’d given up everything to go after the bad guys. I wanted to inspire that much love and devotion in someone, but it wasn’t something I could make happen. Love was fickle and only reared its head when it was good and ready.

  Still, I wanted Chaser to love me like he’d loved Loretta.

  “We’re fighting for something better,” I said. “Revenge isn’t the right word anymore. I doubt it ever was.”

  “Then what is?”

  I thought about it for a moment. We wanted to take over the pack—granted, that didn’t work out—and unite against the threat of the Hollow Men. We both had our reasons, but maybe it was more about justice for the wrongs that had been committed against us. For Chaser, it was what’d happened to Loretta and his century of forced servitude. For me, it was what my father had planned to do to me, now and then. We’d both picked up a few more bullet points along the way to solidify our cause, but it all boiled down to the one thing.

  “Justice,” I whispered.

  Chaser grunted, his opinion on the matter remaining a secret.

  “See that star with the red tinge?” he asked after a moment. “That’s Mars.”

  “Really?”

  “And that’s Venus on the horizon…” he trailed off, his body tensing as we saw the same anomaly.

  “What’s that light?” I asked, rising to my feet.

  Chaser stood and grasped my arm, tugging me behind him. Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones.

  “Fire,” he said. “The cottage is on fire.”

  Chapter 26

  Sloane

  “Who do you think it is?” I asked, reaching for my gun.

  “The other half of the sword,” Chaser replied, rubbing his finger over the tattoo on my thumb.

  He was right. It couldn’t be anyone else.

  “Do you think we have a mole?” I asked, feeling the weight of
the revolver pressing into my back.

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  Gunfire popped in the distance, and I broke out into a run with Chaser hot on my heels.

  “Sloane,” he exclaimed behind me. “Stop.”

  I’d cowered behind Chaser all those times on the road; I’d run from danger and did nothing to save myself. I was beginning to doubt I’d fought at all, but now I had the power and the guts to point and shoot. I wouldn’t let anyone take away my justice.

  Pulling the revolver out from the waistband of my jeans, I hurtled towards the smoke and flames, driven by the shouting and gunshots. The wolves who’d followed us into this mess were fighting for their lives. Good men. Ratchet, Watts, Rhodes, Spike, Butcher, Hopper, Stewie…all of them.

  A bullet flew past my head, the shot so close I felt air rush past my skin. Cursing, I ducked behind the closest car and pressed my back against the door. Chaser was beside me in a flash, looking like he was about to unleash Armageddon on anyone who came close.

  “Do you see anyone?” I asked, holding the revolver at the ready.

  He shook his head. “Smoke’s blowing this way. Even I can’t see through that.”

  Gasket appeared out of a plume of smoke, firing at a man brandishing a shotgun at his head. The man dropped, and the wolf slid behind the car we were using as cover.

  “Gasket,” I said, clutching his arm. It was red with blood, but it didn’t seem to be his.

  “They came out of nowhere,” the old wolf said. “Someone tipped them off to our location.”

  “No shit,” Chaser replied.

  “They brought war on us,” I stated. “Do unto others, or so they say.”

  “You don’t want that stain on your soul, girl.”

  I eyed Gasket and shrugged. “Too late, old man.”

  “We’re going to go around the back and cut them off,” Gasket went on, narrowing his eyes at me. “Surround them and force surrender.”

  “Then what?” Chaser asked with a scowl. “Lock them up in the basement and give them parole hearings?”

  “We’ll figure that out once they stop shooting.”

  “The only way this will end is by not stopping,” Chaser growled. “Keep firing until the cowards run and the stupid die.” He leaned over me and eyeballed Gasket. “All you have to do is say the word and I’ll finish them off.”

  “I won’t have this turn into a bloodbath, Chaser.”

  “They will kill everyone, Gasket,” the vampire hissed. “Everyone.”

  My blood ran cold. It wasn’t just men here. There were women as well. I doubted that mattered to the renegades. Women died just the same.

  “Where are the women?” I asked. “Where’s Shondra, Kelly, and the others?”

  “Hopper and DeLuca got them out once the first shots were fired,” Gasket replied. “They’re out in the bush someplace. DeLuca knew where he was going.”

  A rain of bullets clipped the car we were taking cover behind, and I ducked my head. The sound was awful. Thwack, thwack, thwack.

  “Who cares,” I declared. “We’ve got to move before they blow the tank on this car.”

  Chaser curled his hand around my arm. “You’re with me.”

  “Obviously.”

  Gasket nodded. “Go. I’ll cover you.” He leaned over the top of the car and fired.

  Chaser and I ran, working our way around the edge of the cabin and through the tents.

  Smoke and gunfire were everywhere, disorienting my movements. If it weren’t for Chaser, I would already be lost in the chaos.

  Deep breaths, Sloane. I breathed in, the air tinged with the rank taste of the firefight. I stepped over a body, then another—their wolf-eyes wide open and vacant, their bodies torn by bullets.

  Chaser dragged me behind the workshop, and we peered around the corner, surveying the scene.

  “Stay here,” he said after a moment. “Take cover, and don’t make a sound.”

  “You can’t bench me,” I complained, my entire body humming with adrenaline. “Not now.”

  “This is not up for debate. If anything happens to you…” He grasped my face.

  Chaser’s eyes were full of something I’d never seen in them before. Fear. He’d lost before, and he was afraid of losing again. First Loretta and now… No.

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said, prying his hands away. “I’m a wolf, Chaser. I’m strong, maybe not vampire strong, but I’ve got more power than—”

  “The moon is almost full,” he interrupted. “You don’t.”

  “I’m not arguing with you while more wolves die.”

  Chaser let out a frustrated growl as I leaned around the corner of the workshop and scanned the yard. It was quieter around here, and I could see the only access to the basement where Marini was being held. The cottage was on fire, the flames spiralling towards the sky. The heat radiating off the building was increasing as the inferno took hold, eating its way towards the back.

  There was no way of knowing if Marini was still down there or if he’d been freed before the fire was set. If he was trapped, the only way out was the window I was staring at.

  “If my father tries to escape, we have to stop him.”

  “If he’s still down there,” Chaser replied, voicing my thoughts. He’d seemed to have resigned himself to the fact that I was going to fight no matter what. Once this was over, I was positive there was going to be a ‘discussion’ about the clear reemergence of my ‘too stupid to live’ attitude.

  Leaning back around, I trained my gaze on the window, hesitating when a group of men rounded the opposite side of the cabin. There were four, and they all broke off as they searched the tents.

  I saw Rocket advance with a shotgun in his hands and my blood boiled.

  “You’ve only got six shots in there,” Chaser murmured in my ear. “Don’t let them go all at once.”

  “Shotguns are slow,” I retorted. “Two shots, slow reload.”

  “Wrong. He’s got five, with a minimum fifteen-second reload speed, not to mention he’s high on bloodlust and strengthened by the approaching full moon.”

  The sound of breaking glass turned my head and smoke billowed out of the basement window. I clawed at Chaser’s arm as a head emerged. Marini.

  Before I could do anything, Chaser strode out from behind the workshop and raised his gun and fired. One, two, three. Bodies dropped. My heart stopped as Rocket turned and aimed the shotgun right at his chest, then he fired again. Four.

  Holy shit.

  Marini had wormed his way out of the window, his head turning from side to side. He saw Chaser looming through the mass of tents, saw his men lying dead on the ground, and scrambled to his feet. Then, he ran.

  Chaser aimed but couldn’t seem to get a clear shot. He tensed, his muscles coiling as he moved to pursue, but before he could take off, I made my move.

  Pushing off the wall, I sprinted after Marini as he broke out into a run and disappeared into the bush.

  “Sloane!” Chaser roared, but I wasn’t listening. I only had eyes for Marini.

  I sprinted through the darkness, dodging low-hanging branches and leaping over rocks, following the sound of my father’s pounding footsteps as he ran in front of me. Behind us, the glow of the burning cottage faded and the sounds of the firefight dulled.

  I could see his back as he flitted through the landscape, fleeing into the bush. He dashed to the side, doubling back towards the road and the renegades. I never missed a beat. My heart galloped in my chest, my lungs burning and my thighs aching with exertion. There was no way in hell I was letting him get away.

  He twisted and leaped, throwing me off his tail for a split second. It was all it took. I skidded to a halt and held the revolver at the ready, the sound of my heart thumping in my ears and my laboured breathing loud in the nothingness.

  I’d barely practiced with my new wolf abilities, but I tried now. My hearing sharpened and my wolf sight illuminated the darkness. I felt the power of the moon ab
ove and my bones began to ache.

  I took a step forwards. He had to be lurking somewhere, hiding behind a bush like the coward he was.

  There was no love left in me for him now. To be honest, I doubted there ever was. The love of an innocent child, perhaps, but not the kind he deserved. Gasket was a thousand times the man Anthony Marini was.

  I took another step, the revolver shaking in my hands. What was I going to do when I caught him? Was I going to shoot him? Could I pull the trigger? I couldn’t even face him down in that basement.

  Marini leaped out of the darkness and swung his fist at me. At the last second, I realised he was clutching a large rock and ducked to the side. His fist whooshed past my head, causing him to swing and show his back to me. I slammed my elbow into the base of his spine with a cry, and he stumbled forwards.

  Swinging, I raised the revolver and aimed it right at him.

  “I will shoot you, so help me God,” I snarled.

  Marini righted himself and turned to face me, the rock still clutched in his hand. His silver hair shone in the moonlight, his body silhouetted by the orange glow of the burning cabin.

  “I’m your father,” he said. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Have you met you?” I asked, curling my lip. “I’m half you, remember?”

  “You’re half her, too.”

  His words sliced through me. He was right, but he was also trying to hit me where it hurt. I couldn’t let him manipulate me, not now.

  “Shoot now, and you’ll be just like me,” he said. “You liked that gun. You said it was pretty. Do you know what I use it for?”

  “Shut up,” I snarled.

  “I was saving it for King,” he went on, his lip curling. “I was going to kill him for you.”

  “Liar!” I exclaimed. “You were going to hand me over. You were going to wire me up as a magical bomb and let them drain my blood. Admit it.”

  “That’s what I wanted them to think.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Do you think you’re better off with Chaser and Gasket?” He took a step forwards. “They can’t keep you safe from King, but I can.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I took a step back. “They killed my mum because of you.”