by T. S. Joyce
When she turned back, the big gray wolf was right there. He snapped his teeth too close to her hand, and she pulled it away just a millisecond before he broke her skin. Blaire locked her legs against the ice and skidded onto her backside because there was a line of wolves blocking the road right in front of her. Her tailbone felt like it had blasted up into her throat, but there was no time for recovery. She scrambled up and away from the gray wolf who was herding her into the center of a loose circle of wolves.
And then Gentry was there, circling her tightly, attention drifting from one wolf to the other. He tossed back his head and let off a loud howl. It was short, but so loud it hurt. Blaire hunched her shoulders and covered her ears as she searched frantically for a hole big enough to escape through. She hadn’t been fast enough, and now she and Gentry were both easy targets.
He went after a black wolf who drifted too close but didn’t engage before he bolted back to her and placed himself between her and Big Gray.
Blaire could clearly see the pack dynamics in play. The others were drawing Gentry away from her one by one, ducking closer and tempting him to lock onto them, while Big Gray paced closer.
A distant howl rose into the air, followed directly by another, and the effect on the pack was instant. All heads lifted and drifted in the direction of the woods where the haunting notes had come from. Ears were all erect, and Big Gray snarled, baring blood-stained teeth. The woods were alive with movement and glowing eyes as two monster wolves, much bigger than the others, sprinted toward them. One was black, but not like the other wolves. He was demon black with white eyes, while the other was gray mottled with brown and white with eyes the color of the sun.
Asher and Roman were here.
Gentry kept his focus on the pack, and when one ducked in with determination, he had no choice but to engage.
Big Gray let off a deep bark, and the pack lunged as one for her and Gentry. Blaire screamed as the two closest wolves’ sharp teeth sank into her jacket and yanked her arm so hard she slammed to the ground. The sound of snarling was so loud now, and all around her was war. The Strikers were ripping into the pack with a vengeance, and the snow was being painted with crimson. But it was the two wolves on her that kept her attention. Both were a mottled gray color. They would’ve been beautiful if not for the horrifying looks of violence on their faces. It didn’t matter that Blaire was fighting and hitting and kicking as hard and as furiously as she could. Their bites pierced through her clothes, and the first puncture of teeth was agony. The second was less, and so were the third and the fourth, and finally the pain ran together until it dulled suddenly. There was no point in screaming now, so she let the scratchy sound die in her throat.
Both wolves were ripped off her by Roman and Asher as Gentry battled Big Gray. The other wolves were scattering into the woods, limping, bleeding, escaping. The Strikers stood like sentries beside her as her mate snarled and bit and tore into the alpha of the Bone-Rippers.
Did he know her life was over yet?
Did Asher understand in this form? Did Roman?
Tears streamed down her cheeks. They were the only warm things about her. Inside her body, her blood had chilled to ice, stretching like clawed, dead fingers from the seeping bite-marks on her arms until it reached her chest, her stomach, her legs.
Gentry had pinned Big Gray, his teeth on his throat, poised to shred his neck and end his life, but Asher bolted forward and blasted into Gentry. Why? Why not let him end this? Why not let him avenge their dad? Avenge her?
Something big passed between Asher and Gentry with a look, and they both allowed Big Gray to drag his broken body toward the woods.
Blaire didn’t feel well. The woods were beginning to spin around her, and she swayed where she sat. A cold sweat broke out all over her body, and she could feel a poisonous fog filling each vein. She looked down at her shredded arms. Red, red, now I’m dead.
“Gentry,” she whispered weakly.
He looked over at her, locked his gaze on hers, and then dragged those firey green eyes down her body to her offered arms.
She wanted to say she was sorry. Sorry she hadn’t run fast enough, sorry she hadn’t given him more of a chance to save them, sorry she’d been weak, sorry she hadn’t left when he’d asked her to. She wanted to say sorry she was ending them too soon. Her heart was breaking. Nothing was fair. All she could do was close her eyes against the spinning woods as she fell backward into the snow.
When she opened her eyes, the glowing blue moon was there, full and low in the cloudy sky. And then something even more beautiful was there, leaning over her, agony written into his face.
“No,” Gentry whispered.
Gentry cradled her body against his chest as he shook his head in denial.
“Call the witch,” Asher said low.
“Man, she can’t do anything for her!” Roman said from where he paced right on the edge of her vision. “Fucking black magic, Asher? Really? She’ll turn Blaire into one of those zombie wolves you imagined in the woods, and that’s if Blaire’s lucky. You’ll owe a blood-debt to a witch, Gentry. Maybe Blaire will survive the bites.”
“Three percent, Roman. That’s the odds for a woman.” Gentry stood slowly with Blaire in his arms, his eyes empty as he walked her up the road toward Hunter Cove.
So strong.
He acted as if her dead weight was nothing.
Dead weight.
Dead.
“Gentry!” Roman said. “Odine can’t save her!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Asher snarled out in a voice more wolf than man. “Zombie wolf or no, at least she would have a chance at living. Open your eyes, Roman. They’re bonded. If she dies, Gentry dies.”
“That’s not possible. She’s human!”
“Yeah, well, witches and werewolves aren’t supposed to exist,” Gentry barked out over his shoulder. “Anything’s possible.” He looked down at Blaire and repeated that last part through gritted teeth. “Anything’s possible. Do you hear me, Blaire? Don’t quit on me.”
“You’ll die, too?” she asked weakly.
“No, because you’re going to be okay.” He looked back up at the road with a fierce determination glowing in his eyes. And as he lengthened his stride, he swore to her, “We’ll both be okay.”
Chapter Eighteen
Gentry sat in the back seat of Asher’s truck cradling Blaire’s head in his lap.
This was one of those moments he would never forget as long as he lived. It was like a black and white snapshot he’d seen once of his grandpa. He’d never met his grandpa because he’d died before he was born, but Gentry used to stare at the old photograph in Dad’s cabin of his grandpa standing next to the inn, leaning against an old water pump with this hardened look on his face, like life had kicked the shit out of him, and that was as close to a smile as he could muster anymore. Gentry used to look at it and think it so strange that he was dead, and this was the only thing people had to remember him by.
Gentry couldn’t explain it, but he got that same feeling now. Like this was the life-kicked-the-shit-out-of-me moment before he died and left no legacy. And what legacy did he even care about if Blaire wasn’t around? This moment was frozen. Roman was in the passenger’s seat, biting his thumb nail, staring out the window. There was no song on the radio, no talking. Asher was driving, and his profile was rigid and angry. And in the back seat, Gentry was stroking Blaire’s hair out of her face. Already she was drenched in sweat. That would be the fever starting. The poison did that. He was poison.
Asher growled and tossed him a fiery look. “Cut that shit out, Gentry.”
Gentry frowned, and Roman looked over at their oldest brother, too, with a confused look.
“Can you read minds now?” Gentry asked suspiciously.
“No. But I can feel your damn thoughts, and you need to keep it to yourself. You won’t help her that way.” Asher heaved a sigh and took a right onto a road Gentry didn’t recognize. “Odine isn’t what you think.”
“What?” Roman asked. “How do you know about Odine?”
“Because she’s the reason we have our wolves.”
Gentry sat up straighter. “What do you mean?”
“Mom was human, Gentry. The three of us? We were born human. Odine gave us wolves. She tried to erase the memories, but I started having dreams about it when I was twenty. I came back looking for answers. I found Odine. I didn’t realize she and Dad were a couple. I just thought she was a witch he’d hired. Now I don’t think he hired her at all. I think she was a part of our lives when we were kids, and Dad asked her to make us like him so we could be part of the pack.”
“Or so he could be alpha,” Roman spat out. “And I’m no human. I never was, so your dreams are bullshit.”
“What Odine is going to do…” Asher murmured, ignoring Roman’s outburst. When he glanced at Gentry in the rearview mirror, his silver eyes looked haunted. “You won’t want to be there.”
“I’m not leaving my mate,” Gentry growled out, his head spinning with the implications. Born human. Human? Couldn’t be. Wolf was a part of him. Separate but part of him. But…that would explain why he’d chosen a human mate when he wasn’t supposed to even be attracted to them. It explained why Dad had picked Odine instead of Nelda. He’d already been attracted to humans before her. He’d been attracted to his mother.
The deeper he dug into Rangeley and all the buried secrets here, the more the memories of his father flickered like old lightbulbs.
Gentry ran a light touch over the bandages on Blaire’s arms. She was here because of him. Because he’d thought the Bone-Rippers were salvageable. Because he’d expected more of them. Because he’d trusted his memories more than his instinct to tuck his mate under his arm and run with her.
“I want to know,” Blaire whispered. Her pupils were blown. “I want to know why you didn’t kill that big gray wolf. That was Rhett, right? The man who killed your father. The man who ordered this.” Her voice tapered, and her face crumpled as a tear slid out of the corner of her eye and down her cheek. “Why, Gentry?”
“Because killing Rhett would make Gentry alpha of the Bone-Rippers,” Asher said. “Can’t have that.”
“Surely you would be a better alpha than Rhett.”
Gentry shook his head. “Maybe I would’ve considered it if the pack hadn’t gone after you like that. They hunted together though, Blaire. They hunted a human. They hunted my human.” His voice shook with fury, and she winced. “I don’t know if a single one is worth saving, but I can’t put myself on the throne of monsters. We need more time.”
Asher pulled up to a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps to Blaire with her dull human senses, this place would feel like any other home, cozy even, but thick, sickening fog drifted over Gentry’s skin, raising the hair all over his body. The stink of magic nearly choked him.
Roman gagged in the front seat, and when Asher looked back at Gentry, he was pale as a ghost. He waited there, as if asking Gentry if he was sure about this.
“Come on,” Gentry said low. He got out and scooped Blaire into his arms. She was still awake, but just barely. She was staring at the sky, unblinking, even when snowflakes brushed her dark lashes. Her pupils were so enlarged that her eyes looked black right now. Gentry wanted to kill the entire Bone-Ripper Pack, but revenge would have to wait.
Odine sat on the front porch, bundled in a thick wool blanket and shivering like she’d been there for a while. “Took you long enough.” She admonished him behind chattering teeth. “How long since the bite?”
“How did you know?” Gentry asked, resting his boot on the bottom stair.
“She had a broken lifeline. When I traced it with my finger, in my head I had a vision flicker back and forth, back and forth. In one vision, the lifeline picked up again and continued for a long time, curved beautifully under her thumb. In the other vision, it stopped in the middle of her hand and didn’t continue. It was always up to you which vision would come to fruition.”
“I don’t understand what that means,” Gentry gritted out, good and fucking tired of riddles.
“You could come to me for the wolf, or you could watch her die. I’ve already been gathering supplies, but I need a few more things.”
She rested her pitch-colored gaze on Asher.
“You need them alive?” he murmured, gaze averted to the snow.
“Need what alive?” Roman asked.
“I need big power to save your she-wolf,” Odine said. “I need living things to draw that power from.”
“Jesus,” Roman muttered, pacing away, then back. “And you expect Asher to bring you these living things?”
“Yes,” Odine said without hesitation. “Because I know he will.”
Chills blasted up Gentry’s forearms as he looked at his oldest brother. Blaire let off a pained sound, and he cradled her closer.
Odine sighed out a frustrated sound and stood on the top step. “Bring me sick animals that won’t make it, or bring me something stuck in a hunter’s trap.” She gave Roman a dirty look. “It’ll take longer, so you can help.”
“No. Make Gentry help.”
“Gentry is good, and I want to keep him that way,” Odine snapped as she disappeared into the dark cabin. “Besides, you heard him in the car. He won’t leave his mate. Now hurry, scurry, Strikers. A storm’s a-comin’.”
“A storm’s always coming,” Gentry muttered as he followed her into the cabin.
“I’m not talking about the weather.”
Gentry turned in the entryway to see his brothers both standing in the snow, staring up at him with haunted looks. And then the door slammed closed.
“Fucking rude,” Roman called through the barrier.
Gentry smiled despite how very un-funny this entire situation was. Leave it to Roman to talk to a witch like that.
“Lay her there,” Odine said, gesturing to a table in the middle of a cluttered kitchen.
Above him, bundles of drying plants hung from the rafters. The counters were covered in a mismatched disarray of differently sized glass jars full of powders. The labels were printed in a language he didn’t understand.
Before he did this, he had to make sure. “Blaire,” he murmured, settling her on the wooden surface as Odine busied herself stoking the fire in the hearth.
“Mmm,” Blaire said, staring vacantly up at the ceiling above.
“Do you want to do this? Do you want Odine to try and raise your wolf? Do you want her to try and fix this?”
Blaire rolled her head to the side and locked hollow eyes on Gentry. “Will it save you?”
Gentry swallowed hard. Of course, she would think of him instead of herself in this moment. She was walking through Hell, and her concern was saving him. She was an angel. She was everything. Already he could feel her sickness through their bond. It curdled his stomach and made Wolf crazed. If she died, he wouldn’t be far behind her. If she lived…he lived. He’d always dreaded a bond, avoided women, hated the idea of his life being so tethered to another’s. But now, he didn’t want to live unless it was with her.
He nodded his answer.
“Then yes,” she said on a breath. “I want Odine to save you.”
Chapter Nineteen
Blaire was stuck between dream and awake. She was pinned in the in-between. On one side, there were hallucinations of horrible things. Pain and monsters with sharp teeth. Something was constantly snarling right behind her. Glowing eyes in the dark. Fear.
On the other side, in lucid moments, she could see Odine working over her. She chanted things Blaire didn’t understand. It smelled bad. It had to be the plants she was burning over and around her, but it smelled like something more. Death? Was that her own death she could sense? Against the wall, Gentry stood, watching over her. Always watching over her. Who was screaming? His fists were clenched. Sometimes he looked away, but not for long. Not her Gentry. He would never leave her alone to lie here. When his lips would snarl back and he would growl,
it would match the sound in her head. That’s always when the clarity flickered. It was as if he was calling to the dark monster behind her, and the shadow was calling back. And it always, always sent her spiraling into the dark again.
Odine would switch to English just in time to whisper, “Let her have you,” before Blaire was swallowed up by the hallucinations again.
It had been infinity, or maybe a day, or maybe a week, she didn’t know. Her body was weak and needed food. There was yelling. Gentry was yelling. Someone stop that screaming! Asher was there, stone-faced, telling Gentry he needed to eat or sleep. Telling him to take a break and leave for a while. She wanted to laugh. Silly Asher. Gentry couldn’t leave. They were bound, stuck together like a magnet to a paperclip. If he left, he would drag her soul with him. Gentry wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t. She wanted to bite Asher for suggesting it. Bite him? Yes, that felt right.
Roman was squatted in the corner. He looked sick, but his face morphed from his handsome, bearded, worried face, to his snarling wolf with the gold eyes. They’d come for Gentry on that snowy road. He’d called, and they’d come. They’d come for her. Too late. The screaming was so loud in her ears, but it changed to something steady. Something with a tone that held. Something beautiful.
Blaire tried to smile. One of the boys was howling. She arched her back against the table in an effort to see which one. Which one of her boys was singing for her? Her pack was calling her home.
Gentry stood in the middle of the room, his eyes wide and reflecting strangely in the firelight. His fists weren’t clenched anymore, and under his beard, he was almost…smiling. When had he grown a beard? He looked handsome in it. She wanted to touch him and kiss him and tell him everything would be okay because she was fighting for him. She was fighting to live so that he could keep breathing. So she could keep his heart beating because it was the most important sound in the world.