by Helen Scott
“The day Sam had said he was getting me out, I was supposed to go with him on one of his runs for the alpha. Looking back on it now, I think he knew something was wrong. People had been acting strange around us all day, so instead of introducing me to his outside contact himself, he had me peel off a few blocks earlier. He gave me all the info and told me where the contact would be, before he continued on alone.
“The alpha was waiting at the drop-off location. When he confronted Sam about me, my brother told the truth—that I’d left somewhere in the city and he had no idea where I was. He definitely didn’t know that I’d tailed him to make sure he was okay. The alpha shot him point blank for letting a valuable pack asset go. I never went to Sam’s contact, too scared that he’d hand me back over to the alpha.
“Watching him get murdered and not making a sound was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my whole life. It hurt more than anything I’d ever thought possible. Erik may as well have ripped my heart from my chest. Because I didn’t know how far the betrayal went, I never contacted the person I was supposed to meet for the fake IDs and everything that Sam had set up for me. I’d been too scared to get turned over to the alpha as soon as I did. It meant I had no ID, no bank account, nothing. I tried to buy a bus ticket as soon as I could, but they wouldn’t sell me one, at least not one that would get me out of the city, without an ID proving I was old enough to buy one without my parents’ permission. That was how I ended up living on the streets.
“I knew I had a limited window to make the situation work and not just resign myself to selling any part of me I could to get enough for food, since the money I’d had in my backpack when I ran had been running out faster than I hoped. It was why I started asking around at businesses begging for someone to give me a job without needing references or an ID or anything. Clark was eventually that person. He had the mechanic at the time teach me everything I needed to know about cars. Poor guy had no idea that as soon as I knew what I was doing, Clark was going to fire him since he only had to pay me half as much and didn’t have to provide insurance or anything like that. He even let me sleep in the office until I could find somewhere that would rent to someone in my situation.” I took a deep breath and realized that I’d just blathered on about way more than they asked about. “Ohmygod, I’m sorry. You asked about my parents and I practically gave you my life story.”
“It was good to hear it, beautiful,” Micah replied quietly.
“I’m sure I can speak for all of us when I say I’d rather know more about you than less. If you want to give me a five-point argument on why you think cerulean is the best shade of blue, I wouldn’t object. I want to know about you, Nina. You’re my mate, our mate. Any insight you give us into that amazing mind and stunning heart of yours, I will gladly accept,” Blake said as he reached out and grabbed my hand with one of his own, squeezing it as his fingers twined with mine.
I cleared my throat and tried to push the jagged, painful memories from my mind. “So who else had a fucked up childhood?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
As though it had sensed the downturn in our demeanors, the weather was changing to match, clouds that looked ready to burst with rain rolling over the horizon toward us. The wind was picking up as well, which meant our scents would carry farther. The uneasy shifting of my mates told me I wasn’t the only one who’d had that thought.
“My mom wanted me to be a celebrity,” Micah said, surprising all of us.
“A celebrity? Not like a musician or an actor, just a famous person?” Blake snorted as he posed the question.
“Well, singer, I guess. She drove me to all these competitions and lessons, trying to get me noticed by some bigwig and get me in one of those boy band groups or something. She was sure I ‘had what it takes’. Claimed she’d had a vision of me when I was a child, standing in front of a huge crowd of people, all of them cheering for me. She was determined to make that happen. Thought it would be our meal ticket, you know? Apparently, I have a crap voice though, so after a few years, one of my vocal coaches finally told her she was wasting her money and that it was never going to happen. It crushed her. She never really recovered from it, but she’s why I love music so much.”
“Didn’t your father have an opinion?” Roman asked.
“Dad skipped town as soon as he heard my mom was expecting. He went and joined some commune out west where people are in their wolf form most of the time, and we never really heard from him again.” Micah shrugged as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
“We should find somewhere to set up camp and fast. This storm is going to hit hard,” Roman said as he looked up at the sky. His words distracted me from Micah and had me glancing upward to try and see what he did. All I got for it was a raindrop to the eye as the first shower of water began to fall.
“Get farther into the trees,” Blake called as he dodged between trees.
I glanced at Roman, who just nodded in Blake’s direction with his head. I guessed the Shadow Forest was going to be our cover to wait out the storm. I just hoped that said storm ended before the wolves that claimed the forest as their territory found us.
A crack of thunder sounded over our heads, making me scurry deeper into the trees, more like a little mouse than a wolf. “We should try and get the tent up so we don’t get soaked!” I called, the guys already doing what I’d suggested as though they were aware of my thoughts before I was. I grabbed some stakes and a mallet and began hammering them into the ground as quickly as I could. They were putting poles together and tossing our packs into the tent for protection against the weather as they went, while I tried to make sure everything else was secured to the ground. It wasn’t that our packs weren’t waterproof, they were, but if we didn’t have to risk it, then we didn’t want to. I mean, it wouldn’t have been difficult for one of the packs to have a tear or for the waterproofing to be cracked in some places, and even letting a little water in at this point could make everything so much more difficult, which was the last thing we needed.
It was as I was hammering the last stake down and the guys were covering the top of the tent with the tarp we’d used on the inside last night, to give us some extra protection from the damp of the ground, that we heard it.
Or rather them.
Growls came from the edge of the trees, right next to where we were camped. As I looked up, I could see a variety of wolf-like eyes glowing in the dark light of the storm. I glanced around and quickly saw that we were surrounded.
It seemed that most of the wolves were on the outside of the forest, with only a few brave enough to step inside with us, though I would hardly say we were in the forest. We were between the trees, but it was still more like the scrubby edge. I felt that was an important distinction, at least if these wolves were the ones from the forest. They could just as well be Jax’s wolves though. We had enough people after us and enough potential enemies that there was no way to really nail down who these wolves belonged to without them telling us. As they hunched down to the ground, almost like one collective unit, I suspected they were Jax’s men.
When one of them snarled, they all leapt into the air, charging at us, each with what appeared to be their own target. The speed with which they moved was impressive, and I barely had a chance to get my arms up in front of my face before sharp, white, drool dripping teeth were snapping at me.
A one-on-one fight with a wolf shifter was not something I was sure I could win, unless said wolf was my mate like Blake and was distracted by the mate bond.
This guy or girl was definitely not my mate, and they were pissed. A quick glance behind me told me that I wasn’t going to get help from anyone else when they all had their own combatants to deal with. I had no choice but to do this myself. I just wished I felt sure I could win.
5
Roman
The wolves that that asshole had sent this time at least appeared to be smart. They’d waited until the worst possible moment to attack, and now we were f
ighting them with a tent that was about to fall down at our back and rain streaming through the trees. Not only was it hard to see, but it was hard to maintain stability on the quickly muddying ground.
I shifted into my wolf, letting my fur ripple over my skin and my bones shrink and lengthen into the right shapes until I was on all fours with a vicious snarl parting my lips. The T-shirt and jeans I’d been wearing were in tatters around me, and I shook any of the pieces that were still on me to the ground. They’d been some of the nicer pieces I had in my pack, and now they were ruined, thanks to these fuckheads.
Anger was riding me harder than ever before. I wanted to make each of the wolves that were attacking us suffer, but even more than that, I wanted to make sure Nina was safe. My mate couldn’t shift, and though I’d seen her fight wolves before—in human form and in wolf form—in one-on-one combat, that didn’t mean I wanted to see her do it again. Every time we had to fight, my heart felt like it couldn’t beat correctly until I knew she was safe.
Nina was my everything—my sun, my moon, the stars in my sky, the ground beneath my feet, my heaven and my hell. Though that last bit was only when it came to how scared I was for her sometimes. One of these days, we’d be safe and we could actually relax and enjoy each other and our lives, the way mates were supposed to.
For now though, we had to fight.
I lunged to the side, dodging the attack and also getting closer to Nina, which I hoped the others were doing as well. I could sense that I wasn’t the only one that had shifted, which meant that Nina was likely the only one left in human form. It was a weakness I hated being exposed, and make no mistake, in situations like this, it was definitely exposed.
The wolves that were attacking us would no doubt twig on to the fact that she was refusing to shift or, as her mates knew, couldn’t shift. Once they realized that fact, it would only be a matter of time before they tried to use it against her. I didn’t want to see it come to that. This fight needed to be over long before that point.
I lunged at the nearest attacker and tried to bite at his neck, only able to gain purchase for a few moments before he kicked me away. I may have punctured the skin, but that would have been about it. I needed to do some serious damage if we were either going to chase them off or make a run for it.
The brief moment of respite from my attacker was enough for me to glance over my shoulder and see that Nina was there, grappling with a wolf that looked like it was trying to eat her face off, not save her for Jax. One of us needed to get over there as fast as possible, and judging from the way everyone else was still stuck in battle with one of the attackers, I knew it would probably have to be me.
I also knew that I was done playing nice. If given the opportunity, I would kill these wolves. They’d attacked us. They were threatening to kill my mate. I would be well within my rights to take them out, so that’s what I would do if I could. Dealing with scum like this was exhausting, and if I could prevent us from having to deal with one of them again, then I would.
When the wolf attacked again, I waited until the last possible moment to respond. He almost got his jaw around my throat, which could have been deadly, but as soon as I was able, I ducked out of the line of his attack and turned to pin him to the ground where he landed. The problem was he’d anticipated my move and had decided that it was worth taking the blow of landing without his paws to catch him if it meant that he could face me, which he was. I was already leaping toward him though, so there wasn’t a lot I could do to change course.
I braced for impact, knowing that he would have the advantage, and tucked my muzzle so my neck wasn’t exposed. Displaying the weak squishy parts of our bodies like our throats and stomachs was a sign of submission, and there was no way in hell that I was submitting to this idiot. There was no choice other than bunching myself up to cover my weak areas before I landed a moment later.
As soon as my feet touched the floor I was moving, kicking, biting, attacking anything that I could. It was a blitz, there was no other way to describe it. I moved so quickly, so erratically, that there was nothing he could do to stop my attack. The only downside to this method was that the attacks, though more frequently successful, were lighter.
A heavy attack would take the wolf out for sure, but it would also be harder to be successful with that kind of thing.
Right now, I needed success more than I needed to knock him out or kill him. If we could just drive them off, then that would be good enough.
He lashed out, snarling and biting at me, all of which I was able to avoid, until I heard a yelp of pain and knew that one of Nina’s mates, one of the men I’d come to think of as friends, was hurt.
I had no time to check on him though, as the next pained sound came from Nina herself. My heart felt like it split in my chest at the sound. It was funny, but she hadn’t even made a sound when she was shot. It was like the bullet and the silver poisoning had been so overwhelming that she couldn’t talk, but the sound she’d just made sent a chill down my spine.
She’d healed from the bullet and the surgery that went along with the silver poisoning nicely, but that didn’t mean she was one hundred percent better. I had no idea if the others had noticed, but there were some motions that made her wince, or at the least hold her breath as though she didn’t want us to know she was in pain. I was fairly confident we all knew though.
Pride was something wolves had in spades. You would’ve thought it would be more common in the big cat shifters, and I was sure they had it as well, but wolves were just as much, if not more, prideful. We often thought we were the be-all and end-all when it came to the shifter world, but the truth was, we were just one small section. A very private, small section that gave everyone else the middle finger.
Pride wouldn’t stop me from getting to Nina though. I was off the wolf I’d been attacking as fast as possible and jumping over other fighting pairs until I got to Nina’s side.
The wolf had her pinned.
It was only the fact that he was so focused on her that allowed me to attack him as hard as I did. I rammed into him like a fucking goat and knocked him off her, but instead of stopping to make sure she was okay, I let the rage consume me.
This bastard had hurt my mate, my heart, my very soul. There was no way I was going to let something like that go unpunished.
He was still scrabbling to get up when I pounced on him. His feet kicked at me, trying to gut me, but failed. The growl that resonated from me was more vicious than I’d ever let loose before, and I could see the fear and uncertainty flash in his eyes.
Anyone else may have hesitated seeing that, but I didn’t. To me it was just the final nail in his coffin. He wouldn’t have shown mercy to any of us and just because he was scared, because he finally realized what he’d got himself into, didn’t mean I was going to be the bigger man and show him mercy.
I might try to be the bigger man most of the time, but I was vengeful and petty when I wanted to be. My jaw clamped around his neck before he could shield himself, and I bit down.
Blood and bone exploded into my mouth as I snuffed out his life. The bastard was dead, and that was one less for us to fight.
I stepped away, blood and gore dripping from my teeth and lips. Part of me wondered if Nina would shy away from me like this. I knew what I looked like, a dark demon wolf from hell most likely, but I wouldn’t change what I’d done. I’d never stop protecting my mate, which was why when the wolf I’d been fighting with before launched himself at her, I jumped in the way.
If it was within my power, I’d never let anything hurt her again, but I knew that the best I could do right now was to keep these assholes at bay. The wolf I’d jumped in front of hit me, and the two of us went flying before we both fell to the ground, growling and snapping, trying to get inside each other’s defenses. We were fairly equally matched though, so it wasn’t a fight either of us could easily win.
When another yelp sounded from one of the others, I knew we weren’t going to win. They
were getting hurt. Hell, I was hurting from some of the nips and bites I’d taken, but I was fairly sure at least one of them was hurt worse.
We needed to get out of there and fast, before anyone got so badly hurt, we lost that option. Without pausing, I shifted to my human form and began punching the wolf I’d been fighting in the face. Was it awkward to punch a wolf in the face? Yes. Did that stop me or slow me down? No. It helped that he hadn’t been expecting it at all. Surprising an opponent was one of my favorite things, and not something I got to do all that often.
When the wolf under me was down for a few seconds at least, I called out, “Time to move, pack!”
“Roman!” Nina’s voice was a prayer and a curse all in one.
I lunged forward and grabbed her hand, pulling her to her feet. The other arm was fairly torn up, but nothing that wouldn’t heal. I hated seeing it though. Nina should never be hurt, and that she was made my wolf howl with the need to spill blood in return. I’d already done that a little, but it was never enough for my wolf, especially not when our enemies were still surrounding us.
Before I could stop her, she ducked down and slipped into the tent. I moved so I could better guard the entrance and protect her while the wolf that I’d been fighting seemed to be coming around. The last thing I wanted was to be standing there naked with my dick at biting height. The asshole would probably try and tear it off as payback, and that was not about to happen, not when I had Nina to take care of.
She emerged a second later with two packs on her shoulders. I grabbed one and slung it over my own shoulder while I took her hand, and the two of us edged deeper into the forest. The wolf that had been attacking me seemed more reluctant to follow, since this was the direction we were going. Technically, we weren’t in the Shadow Forest yet, these were just the outskirts, but I knew the pack that lived in the woods didn’t take too kindly to anyone so much as coming close, so it wasn’t surprising that he was hanging back. We’d all heard the rumors about these wolves and what they could do.