Wild Wolf Chasing

by Rhyannon Byrd

  Snorting under his breath, he said, “It’s freaky how well you can read me sometimes.”

  His best friend laughed. “I know the feeling.” And then the guy sobered, a frown pulling between his brows. “But why has she been giving Skye the cold shoulder?”

  “It’s a long story. One she’s probably explaining to your girl right now.”

  “So then why don’t you go ahead and share as well? Does it have something to do with what Lev said about her being theirs?”

  “Elliot, man, I promise I’ll explain everything. But right now, we’d better get down to his cabin before we miss the meeting.”

  Elliot reluctantly agreed, and they made the walk down in silence, both of them lost in their thoughts. Despite his lingering rage, Max was damn glad to see Eric Drake, a fellow Runner, when he walked into Lev’s packed living room. The pureblooded Lycan had taken him in when tensions within the Silvercrest pack had been at an all-time high, and Max would be forever grateful to the man for what he’d done for him and Elliot all those years ago. Eric remained a close friend, and Max was happy as hell that the guy had found so much happiness with Chelsea, his human life mate. The two were still crazy about each other, and they were expecting their third child at the end of April.

  Beside Eric sat the Runner’s older brother, Eli, and Carla, who was not only Eli’s wife, but also a fellow Bloodrunner. Theirs was another blissfully happy marriage, but one that none of them had seen coming. The two butted heads at times, but the pureblooded Lycan, who had worked with Lev and the others as a mercenary for years, accepted that his wife was a serious badass. One who would have been at the warg fight down in Wesley with all the other Runners, if she hadn’t been left in charge of security back at the Alley.

  As Max looked around the room, he realized that most of the guys in this group were in their forties now, but they were still in their friggin’ prime, and some of the deadliest fighters he’d ever seen. They were also accepting and loyal, and he figured that would be the only thing that helped the mercenaries make it out of the coming conversation unscathed, given the weight of the secrets they’d been keeping.

  Standing in front of the fireplace, while everyone packed into the room, Lev cleared his throat and got started. “So, I’ve listened to enough comments over the years to know that you’ve all picked up on the fact that me and the other mercenaries aren’t pureblooded Lycans. Our fathers were, but our mothers were Venatrix, which is the name for a female Venatori.”

  “Venatori?” Mason repeated in a low voice, sitting beside his wife, Torrance, at the end of one of the room’s crammed leather sofas. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  Swiping at his split lip again, Lev said, “The Venatori are Fae, and very secretive. They’re also the world’s most lethal demon hunters.”

  “Demons?” Jeremy laughed, the husky rumble of humor trailing awkwardly off when he realized Lev was being deadly serious.

  “And Vivian is one of you?” Elliot asked, sounding confused. “How is that even possible? I mean, her best friend believes that she’s human.”

  It was Kyle who explained. “That’s because she was. Venatori don’t experience an awakening until their late teens or early twenties. Vivian’s father was a Venator, but he never shared the family secret with her before he bailed on his wife and kids.”

  “Son of a bitch,” more than one Runner muttered, while others just shook their heads in disgust.

  “Vivian basically had no idea what was coming,” Max put in, his low voice roughening with emotion as he thought about all that she’d been through in such a short amount of time. “I think that when the wargs attacked her at the girls’ apartment, it kickstarted her awakening, and that’s what saved her life.”

  “Jaysus,” Cian murmured, his accent always more pronounced at times of turmoil. “She got feckin’ lucky.”

  “Did they know what she was?” Carla asked. “Is that why they wanted her?”

  He explained about the private party at the Velvet Rope that Vivian had been lured into working, and how she later recognized two of the wargs from the party at the club on the night that he’d tracked her down in Charity. The same two wargs who had attacked her at her apartment, and then tracked them down in the diner parking lot, where he’d ended up killing them.

  “They must have run recon on her after the party,” Elliot muttered, “which is how Skye ended up on their radar.”

  “I think so too,” he agreed, before going on to share what Vivian had told him about the creepy blonde female who had been with the wargs at the party, as well as the additional attempts the wargs had made to kidnap her once they’d hit the road.

  “So Venatori, huh? Actual demon hunters,” Eric mused, hooking his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his chair and looked from one merc to the other. “How does that work exactly?”

  “There’s a Venatori Council based in Italy that assigns the hunts to specific groups,” Kyle said. “Some Venatori choose to hunt alone, but most, if they’re smart, will work with a small unit, like me, Lev, Sam and James have done.”

  The next question came from Brody. “And how do the demons get into this world?”

  “Without a bridge, demons can only escape through a veil: a crack between the hell plane and this one.”

  “Hell plane?” Mason muttered.

  “It’s a realm where pure evil dwells in a variety of species that we call demons, and while some are fairly harmless, the majority of them are vile, predatory creatures.”

  Jeremy gave a harsh laugh. “Of course they are. Not like we expected them to bake cupcakes and love quilting.”

  Jillian shot her husband a look that was much like the one Wyatt had given Max when he’d been warning him to behave, before she signaled Kyle to go on.

  “When they manage to make it through a veil, it’s called a shadow crawl. They’re not fully here, and they’re easier to kill.”

  Sam snorted. “But still damn difficult.”

  “So these veils,” Wyatt said, while his wife, Elise, leaned in closer to his side. “Where are they?”

  “They’re found in places called Dark Woods.”

  Max cursed under his breath, before speaking up again. “It’s a long story, but Vivian and I stayed in a cabin that was in the middle of a Dark Wood the second night after we met. Place was eerie as fuck.”

  Brody leaned forward so that he could look over at him, since he and Elliot were sitting by the front door in a couple of chairs that had been brought in from the kitchen. “How did you end up there?”

  “Believe it or not, we were about to get our asses kicked that night, but were saved by a biker gang called Heaven’s Reapers. The cabin was one of their safe houses, and they sure as hell weren’t human.” Looking over at the jackass mercenary he still wanted to go a few rounds with, he asked, “Are they Venatori?”

  “Hell no,” Lev said with a rusty laugh. “And they’re even bigger pains in the ass than we are.”

  “They do have nice rides though,” Kyle said wistfully.

  Lev’s blue-green gaze slid toward Elliot. “They’re also the ones who helped scare off the wargs when they came after you and Skye.”

  Max looked at his partner. “You met them too?”

  Elliot shook his head. “No. I never even saw their faces.” Looking over at the mercs, he said, “If not Venatori, then what are they?”

  Again, it was Kyle who explained. “They’re brutal, but exceptional hunters who fight in family units, twenty to thirty large. We have similar goals as they do, just different targets.”

  “So if you hunt demons,” Eric said, “what in the hell do they hunt?”

  “Fallen angels,” the merc muttered behind his hand, looking as if he knew damn well that his response was going to cause a commotion.

  Sure enough, Cian coughed so hard that he started to choke, and Brody had to whack him on the back before the Irishman could wheeze, “I’m sorry, did you just say angels?”

  “F
allen ones, yeah.”

  The Irishman blinked, and then his head went back as he gave a deep, thunderous bark of laughter. “God, this is priceless,” he gasped, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye when he finally lowered his head again. “So we’re actually talking real angels here, as in wings and heaven and the pearly gates?”

  Lev exhaled a rough breath as he shoved a hand back through his hair. “Call it… Fuck, I honestly don’t know what you should call it. Just that it’s a place not of this world or dimension or whatever name you would put to this reality we exist in.”

  “Christ. This is getting way too heavy without any damn whiskey,” Jeremy remarked with a quiet laugh, and Max silently agreed. Angels and demons and creepy-ass veils that separated different planes of existence… It all made his head spin.

  And he still didn’t understand why the Reapers would build their safe houses in the middle of those disturbing forests. What the hell was that about?

  “So you and the angel hunters,” Eric murmured, sliding Lev a questioning look. “There must be a story there. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they be helping us out with this Chiswick prick?”

  With a tired sigh, the merc said, “Unfortunately, we avoid each other whenever possible.”

  “Why?”

  A wry smile twitched at the corner of the guy’s busted mouth. “Bad history. Bad blood. Bitterness and mistrust. You can take your pick.”

  “Let me guess,” Cian drawled with a smirk. “You were an ass?”

  “Not Lev,” Kyle murmured. “The history behind the feud goes back centuries.”

  Cian grunted, sounding unconvinced.

  Clearing his throat, Sam said, “A long time ago the Reapers helped a group of Venatori, and it had catastrophic consequences for both sides. So long story short, we now stay the hell out of each other’s way.”

  It had sucked at the time, but at least Max finally had a better understanding of why Arra and her brother Leo had been so damn stingy with information.

  “So are we seriously talking about a Ghostbusters moment here?” Jeremy laughed into the heavy silence that followed Sam’s words. “Like you can’t cross the hunting streams because it might destroy the world as we know it?”

  Brody shook his head as he glanced at the Runner. “Ghostbusters? Seriously? You’re going there now?”

  A wide smile spread across the blond’s face. “What? It was a good analogy.”

  “Jesus, man. Your mind is—”

  “Brilliant. Yeah, I know,” Jeremy murmured, patting Brody on the shoulder. “But let’s stop talking about me and try to focus on what’s important.”

  “So going back to these Dark Woods,” Eric said. “How many are there?”

  “More than you want to know,” Kyle responded.

  Wyatt clucked his tongue. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “Eli, did you know about all of this?” Elise asked, sending a frowning look at her brother.

  “Some of it,” he admitted, scratching his jaw. “Not everything.”

  “Still, you’ve been home all this time, and you never told us a damn thing,” Eric muttered, looking as disappointed as he sounded. “We need to work on our communication, brother.”

  Eli held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “I get that you have reason to be pissed, but it wasn’t my story to share.”

  “No, it was theirs. And they chose to keep this shit secret, while living on our feckin’ land,” Cian said in a low voice, looking as if he’d enjoy nothing more than going a few rounds with Lev himself.

  “Look, if it’s going to make you feel better, then we can fight about what we should and shouldn’t have done later, once all this crap is over,” Sam said in a hard voice, sliding an even harder look over the room. “But right now, we need to start thinking about a way to prepare.”

  “Prepare for what?” several voices asked at the same time.

  “A possible breach,” Lev grated.

  “A breach?” Eric repeated, lifting his brows. “Is that like when they use one of those bridges you mentioned?”

  “It’s exactly like that. And when it happens, the demons are here, in our world, in their complete physical forms.”

  “And at full strength,” Sam added. “Which makes them nearly impossible to kill.”

  “So what’s the sudden rush?” Wyatt asked, his deep voice edged with frustration. “I mean, I get that it’s urgent as hell, because Chiswick has those poor women, and his men are still hunting Skye and Vivian. But we’ve known about the wargs for days, and you guys are talking like you’ve just learned something new.”

  “We did,” Lev and Kyle said at the same time.

  “They didn’t know that Chiswick was after a Venatrix,” Max muttered. “And this morning, before we left the cabin where Viv and I were staying, the nearby lake turned black and started bubbling.”

  “Was this place in a Dark Wood too?” Jillian asked, her golden brows knitted with worry.

  Lev shook his head. “No. But it wasn’t far from one of the nastier ones. So who knows what kind of connection between the two locations could have been made underground.”

  Everyone took a moment to think that over, their expressions equally troubled, and then Eric asked, “So are we talking about end of the world as we know it kind of shit here?”

  Sounding exhausted, Lev said, “I’m starting to think it’s a possibility. Especially with how focused the wargs have been on getting their hands on Vivian. Wanting a Venatrix that badly, it makes me think they could be looking for a bigger meal day. And that makes me think they could be trying to break out some assholes who would be serious bad news.”

  At the words meal day, Max felt bile rise up into the back of his throat, and he had to give a hard swallow before he could say, “Are all the demons in this hell plane looking to escape?”

  “Not really, no,” Sam replied. “Some just don’t give a damn about this world. Unfortunately, the ones who do give a damn feel that way for a reason.”

  Everyone stared intently at the dark-haired mercenary, waiting for him to go on.

  Wearing an expression that was as grim as his tone, Sam sat back in his chair and said, “Humans are a walking, talking source of power for them. One that they can easily take down, and a lot of these sick fucks get off on inflicting pain, especially during sex, which means they like to feed primarily on women.”

  “How have we never heard of this?”

  “How often does it happen?”

  “Are any of these Dark Woods near here?”

  People were suddenly talking all around the crowded room, throwing out one question after another, until Mason gave an ear-piercing whistle, and it finally quieted down.

  “Thankfully, what Sam described doesn’t happen often,” Lev said, dabbing at his split lip again with the back of his hand. “Shadow crawlers are the things that we’re usually called out to hunt, and since they don’t have a complete physical form, they usually have to work together in a large group in order to make a successful kill, which is risky for them to do, seeing as how it’s easier for us to find them then. But the ones who cross with a bridge… They’re the sons of bitches who can cause all kinds of destruction.”

  “These shadow crawlers, can they only cross at night?” Max asked, trying to wrap his mind around everything that he’d learned.

  “Sunlight burns them like a motherfucker,” Sam said. “So yeah, they only cross once the sun has set.”

  “And once here,” Kyle added, “they stick to dark places.”

  “So when did a demon last cross over with a bridge?” Elliot asked.

  Sam worked his jaw a few times, then muttered, “If we’re talking a small bridge that can only support the release of a single demon, then those usually happen every few years or so. But the last time that a significant crossing took place was about twenty-five years ago, and four of the most dangerous breed of demon came through. Within hours of the breach, four Venatrix were tasked with taking them down. B
ut they failed.”

  Max sat up straighter in his chair. “Your mothers,” he blurted, recalling what Kyle had said that morning at the cabin. “They were the four Venatrix, weren’t they?”

  Rough curses and a few gasps spread through the room in a wave of concern, and Kyle nodded his head once, saying, “It was just before our awakenings.”

  “Shit, that sucks.”

  “We’re so sorry.”

  “That’s so awful.”

  “What happened to the demons?”

  Choosing to answer that last question, which had come from Torrance, Sam said, “A special hunting group was eventually put together, comprised of some of the most powerful Venatori in existence, and rather than take them on, the four Vadmeous demons, who are some of the most sadistic pricks you can imagine, eventually fled back to the hell plane.”

  “Holy shit,” Jeremy muttered. “Are you guys thinking it’s this same four who might be trying to come across now?”

  “It could be,” Lev said, his deep voice tight with strain. “The guys and I, we started hearing rumors, not long before Eli returned to the Silvercrest, that there was a lot of activity taking place on the East Coast. Seems the veils were weakening here at a faster rate than anywhere else.”

  “That’s why you moved here,” Cian murmured, almost sounding as if he were talking to himself as he moved to his feet and started pacing behind one of the sofas. Sliding a knowing look toward Lev, he added, “If the four who killed your mothers decided to use the weakening veils between the planes to break through, you wanted to be nearby.”

  “You bet your ass we did,” the merc growled, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in a heavy breath. “We’ve been waiting decades for this. No way were we going to miss our shot.”

  And now things were really starting to make sense. Max had always wondered why none of the four mercs had ever managed to settle down in the eight years that they’d lived in the Alley, but he finally got it. They were still waiting for their revenge. Plotting for it. Dreaming about it. And it was difficult as hell to start a new life when you were still living in the old one.