by T. S. Joyce
“What?” he answered quietly with a glance over his shoulder for his sleeping mate.
“I’m calling in my favor.”
Dalton’s face went slack. “Clayton?” He stood to go outside, eye on the reception on his phone, but the second he stood, the bars dipped down to one. Shit. “What kind of favor?”
“I have a kill order.”
“What? Have you lost your damned mind? I’m not an enforcer. If you want to put down a problem shifter, give the order to one of your sons.”
“This mission is off the books. I trust you’ll be discreet, both to my sons and to your alpha.”
“Link? Let me get this straight, in exchange for getting rid of the video, which would label you a decent person by the way, you want me to satisfy a kill order?”
“If you want that little sex tape to reappear to haunt your new mate again, tell me ‘no.’” Clayton sounded off. Weird. Nervous, like he was bluffing. Like he needed Dalton to do this for him. He was scared.
“Who?”
Three heartbeats of silence preceded Clayton’s answer. “Emanuel Vega.”
“Vega?” Dalton gritted out. “He isn’t a shifter, Clayton. He’s human. You want me to run a kill order on a human? I’m not a fucking man-eater. If you want a human murdered, send in a McCall.”
“I need this done quietly—”
“Clayton—”
“I need it done quickly—”
“Clayton!”
“You’ll do this,” Clayton yelled into the phone, “or I’ll do much more than re-upload your mate’s video. You owe me. This is your duty now.”
“Tell me why. I deserve that much. Tell me why you need Vega gone. Tell me why I have to do it alone.”
“Don’t pretend you’re a real pack, Dalton.”
“Fuck you, Clayton. You know nothing about our pack. Tell me why.”
“Because he is a threat to you and your mate and all of us. You want to keep Kate safe? Cut Vega down at the legs, or there will be blood spilled. Shifter. Blood. I can’t say more than that. I don’t like giving a kill order on a human—”
“Don’t like it, but you’re still doing it. This is a declaration of war against the humans. You get that, right? And you’ve chosen me to be your assassin.”
“He knows what you are.”
“And he’s done nothing with that information! Nothing. Until he does, I can’t justify killing a human. I can’t. You’ll turn my wolf mad, and Link needs us steady under him. If I go down, the pack goes with me.”
“I’m doing this for Link!” Clayton barked out. “He can’t know, can’t be involved. Your alpha is one year into the McCall Reset. Vera keeps me apprised. He still struggles to maintain control. He can’t be in on this kill order or the bloodlust will push him over the edge. There is a reason the bears handle this shit, Dalton. They’re built for blood, but you werewolves are different. You’re weaker.”
Dalton allowed a single, surprised laugh. Clayton really didn’t know anything at all about werewolves or bears. Maybe Clayton was better with blood, but his sons, Ian, Jenner, and Tobias struggled a great deal with the kill orders they’d had to fulfill through the years. Killing always came at a cost. “Then do it yourself if your bear gives you such mental protection from taking an innocent human life—”
“Your first mistake is in thinking Vega is innocent.” Clayton’s voice went empty and strange. “You forget who you’re talking to. I alone hold the power to destroy you and everyone you love. Do it tonight, do it quietly, call me when it’s finished, and we’ll be even. Just you. Fuck this up, and you’ll never find a hole deep enough to hide your mate from my wrath.”
The phone clicked, and the glow of the screen faded to black.
Fury filled Dalton like red fog, bathing everything he saw in it. The moonlight drenched wooden walls, and the rafters above him turned crimson. He ran his hands through his hair and glared upward, searching for a way out of this. He’d only just gotten his happiness back, and this put everything in jeopardy. He’d known better than to trade favors with Clayton, even if it was to save Kate from that damned video. He’d made a deal with the devil, and now he would pay with his soul. Killing a human? Fuck. He’d be no better than the McCalls that Link and the Silvers had hunted down and ended last year. Killing humans was against shifter law. If he did this, it would give Clayton cause to put a kill order out on Dalton the minute he stepped out of line. It wasn’t just him who was affected by this threat. He had Kate now, and her safety was being threatened to control him.
Kate’s hand rested on his back, and he jolted still under her touch.
“You can’t.”
He slid her a look over his shoulder, and her emerald eyes were filled with such worry.
He swallowed hard. “How much did you hear?”
“Everything, both your side and his. Dalton, you can’t,” she repeated.
“I know. But you don’t know the man on the other end of that line. He’s king.”
“King murderer, and you’ll be his mercenary. That’s no king, Dalton. Vega is an asshole and knows more than he should, but he’s just a man fighting some inner demons we don’t understand. He hasn’t done anything to the pack and hasn’t said a word to me since he was fired.”
“Should I wait until he does?” Dalton asked, standing to his full height. He paced the length of the bed. “Clayton sounded scared of him. Scared of Vega, Kate. A human. Clayton isn’t afraid of anyone.”
“Dalton, you’ve told me about Clayton, about the type of father he was, how he hid who he was from his sons for years while he gave them kill orders to enforce. What about the secrets he kept about Link’s father and his interest in the McCall curse? He had Vera Turned against her will and trapped on an island of psychopaths for years, Dalton. He has moments of good. Moments. But the in-between times, you can’t be certain what angle he is playing.”
“What are you suggesting I do, Kate? He can ruin us. He can hurt you. His hands are in everything in my world.”
“Our world now, and I won’t let you sacrifice your wolf so he can cover your hands in blood.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should slow down and think about this. One thing I learned with raising sled dogs was the importance of numbers. One winter, we had a wolf problem. Just one, so we thought. A female. Night after night, she came closer and closer to the shelters, howling louder and louder. Calling to our dogs. Tempting them.”
“A lure?”
“Yes. And when one of our lead dogs broke his chain one night to follow her, he was killed by her pack, and all we found were bones picked clean in the woods. Why would Clayton require you to do this alone? Why would he separate you from the pack?”
Chills blasted up his arms, and he stopped his pacing. She was right. He was in it, already planning on ways to kill Vega discreetly to protect what he’d found with Kate. He was ready to run off into the woods on Clayton’s whim with no real explanation of why Vega needed to die at his teeth, and his teeth alone.
Dread pumped through him with every beat of his pounding heart.
Clayton was the lure.
Chapter Eighteen
Dalton sat on the front porch, his shoulder muscles bunched and tensed, making the phoenix on his back look fierce.
The soft, constant snarl was the only sound in the quiet night. It wasn’t the happy or satisfied sound he rattled off when they were intimate. This was different. It was chill inducing. It was a hard warning that someone was going to bleed tonight.
“You smell like terror,” he said in a voice too low and too gravelly to be mistaken for human. And when he ghosted her a glance over his shoulder, his eyes were so light they were almost yellow, glowing from the inside out like twin flames.
If she hadn’t been scared before, Dalton would’ve pushed her over the edge.
Mustering her courage, she padded over the porch and rested her palm lightly on his shoulder. “It’s time,” she s
aid.
Dalton arched his eerie gaze to the woods. “Do you remember the plan?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He narrowed his eyes at her, and she gulped down the coward in her middle. “Yes,” she said louder, more firmly.
“I’m going to Vega’s land. I’ll do as Clayton says, but I want you safe. I want you to stay here, stay inside, don’t come out, no matter what, and keep a rifle right beside you. Anyone who walks through that door that you don’t recognize, you blow them to hell, do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, the answer more confident than she actually felt.
He was going out there after Vega. A hundred things could go wrong. “Dalton—”
“Don’t. I won’t be able to do this if you put your worry on me. Tonight I’ll become a man-eater, and I need you steady beside me. I need you to anchor me.”
Her stomach dipped to the floor with what he planned to do, but she blinked hard and nodded, determined to stay strong for him. Her mate stood in a blur. One moment he was sitting below her on the porch, and the next instant he had her pulled flush against him, his hand cupping her cheek, his lips harsh on hers. He moved his kisses down her jaw and to her neck, gripped her hair. Too tight. “Listen to me,” he whispered so softly between kisses she could barely hear him. “I can smell them in the woods. Vega isn’t alone. Remember the plan. Let me draw them away.”
She wanted to beg him to stay. Wanted to plead with him not to leave her alone to go willingly into this trap, but he’d already made up his mind, and now he smelled of fur and nothing else. Clinging to him, she closed her eyes and absorbed the last moment she was guaranteed with the man she loved.
He kissed her once more, too hard, too rough, then turned and jogged lithely down the stairs and into the yard. With one last yellow glance, Dalton’s head snapped backward and his body bowed as he grunted in pain. He fell to his hands and knees as the sound of breaking bones echoed through the clearing. His teeth were gritted against the pain as his face slowly elongated, stretching his skin until he ripped and reshaped.
Kate wanted to look away. She wanted to run inside and bury her face in her pillow until Dalton’s Change was over, but he was allowing her to see all of him, and the least she could do was stand her ground and be brave for him.
Minutes felt like hours as Dalton slowly disappeared and a massive black-furred wolf was conjured in his place. As he stood and shook his fur out, Kate’s breath caught at how beautiful he was. How powerful and terrifying. He faced her, thick chest out, massive head high, ears erect, and his eyes burned like two suns against all that pitch black fur. He looked nothing like Miller’s small, rangy-looking gray wolf. Dalton was a titan wolf with giant paws, and his eyes didn’t have the look of madness in them. Dalton’s hard expression said be ready. He bore his teeth once, white and jagged like scalpel tips, before he turned and trotted slowly into the woods, disappearing like a phantom into the night.
And now he would be hunted while she sat here huddled in the cabin, wondering what was happening out there in those woods, and hoping to hell everything was going according to plan. She cursed Clayton for whatever treachery he was pulling and backed slowly into the house. She felt watched out here, exposed, and the chills that had risen on her arms with the terrifying sound in Dalton’s throat hadn’t gone away when he’d left.
These woods were haunted right now.
She winced as her back hit the door frame. Her new bite mark still stung under the bandages Dalton had doctored her with. A stiff breeze washed through the trees, swaying branches and filling the woods with the soft creaking of the sturdy pines.
She turned to escape the lonely sound.
“Hello, traitor,” Vega said from his seat on the couch.
She startled violently and gasped. He looked different. His shaved head, pallid skin, and bloodshot eyes were the same, but he wore a dark cloak with a hood that covered most of him, and he seemed calmer than she’d seen him in months. His eyes weren’t shifting back and forth suspiciously anymore, but steady and black as onyx on her. A cruel smile lifted the corners of his lips, transforming his face into something ghastly.
“Wh-what are you doing in my house?”
“You mean your den?” Vega asked, forehead wrinkling deeply with the question. “You left your back door unlocked. Fatal move.”
“Get out. We haven’t done anything to you. Get out now!” she screamed.
“I saw you,” he said, standing. He approached slowly, backing her toward the open door.
She slid a glance at the rifle hanging from pegs on the wall, but Vega angled himself between it and her with a wicked grin. “No guns, love. That’s not how this works.”
The loud shot of a rifle sounded outside, and she jumped. It was close, and the sound of a bullet connecting with something made a sickening thunk at the end.
“What I meant to say was guns won’t work for you,” Vega said, looking unsurprised. “Going on a wolf hunt, a wolf hunt, a wolf hunt,” he sang in the soft, off-key notes of a madman.
“Dalton!” Kate screamed, bolting out the open door. She skidded across the porch and jumped over the stairs, landing hard in the yard, losing and catching her balance in a moment before she sprinted toward the woods. No, no, no!
“Bring her to me,” Vega ordered in a bored voice.
She was almost to the tree line. If she could just make it out of the glow of the porch light, she could get lost in the trees. But something was behind her. Something big and too fast. Her boots squished through the mud, and it bogged her down, but whoever chased her suffered from no such problem. She could feel him breathing on her neck as she pushed her legs harder. She could sense him behind her. Evil. These men were evil. Adrenaline dumped into her veins as she ran for her life—for Dalton’s life. She had to help him. Had to save him because everything had gone wrong. This wasn’t part of the plan! Vega was hunting Dalton, not her. Everything was falling apart.
Kate screamed as something hit her like a cannonball from behind. She hit the mud hard, but harsh hands flipped her over and picked her up, then slammed her back down. Glowing eyes, crooked teeth, a hungry smile, and then his scarred knuckles were barreling toward her face too fast for her to do more than lurch to the side and take the hit across her cheek. She gasped in pain as her vision doubled. Half of her face felt ripped off, but her attacker wasn’t done as she struggled for the knife Dalton had made her put in the back of her jeans. The man was sitting on top of her, straddling her, weighing her down. She fought like an injured wild animal, but he picked her up by the throat and lifted her feet off the ground. Clawing and scrabbling at his hands, she kicked at him and writhed, trying desperately to loose herself.
“Harlan!” Vega yelled. “Let her down.”
The grip disappeared in a moment, and she fell to her knees, choking and sucking at the few air particles that could make it past her tightened throat.
Warmth trickled down her cheek, and her face throbbed in rhythm to her heartbeat, but she couldn’t pass out. Not now. Not when there was still work to do. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she sucked in as big a breath as her throat would allow and pulled Dalton’s long hunting knife from the sheath at her back. Harlan was turning away from her now to face Vega.
“You said we would kill them,” Harlan whined.
“And we will, but not like that. There are traditions to uphold, dear Harlan. Bring her inside.”
In a rush, she mentally rattled off the arteries in the human body and determined the one she could reach, the one that would do the most damage. With a grunt, she pressed the knife against his leg as Harlan turned and with all her strength, she bore down and split him open.
“Fuck!” he screamed, holding his thigh. Red seeped between his fingertips in waves. “You stupid bitch.” Harlan fell onto her as she jammed the knife upward, but he was too fast this time and wrenched the knife from her hand with a painful jerk of her wrist.
“Harlan!” Vega ordered. �
��I said bring her into the cabin. It’s almost time.”
Rage filled Harlan’s too bright eyes, but his face morphed into a smile. “I can’t wait to watch you burn,” he whispered, inches away from her face.
Burn? She yelped in pain as he pulled her up by the hair and shoved her toward the cabin.
“That was a surprise with the knife,” he gritted out from behind her as he shoved her roughly again. “I like being surprised. Vera used to surprise me. It turned me on, but Vega won’t let us touch you like that.”
She should definitively keep him talking and stall. “You know Vera?”
“We all do,” he said darkly.
Kate skidded to a stop in horror as three other men melted out of the woods, all shrouded in the same dark hoods Vega and Harlan wore.
“Everyone thought poor Vera was trapped on Perl with misfits for her to experiment on. We weren’t misfits. We were bodyguards, making sure she kept on task, making sure her medicines worked, making sure she could suppress our animals.” He laughed, but it sounded off. Insane. “Dalton isn’t dead.” Harlan gripped her shirt and pushed her forward so hard she stumbled to her knees. “Not yet.”
“Where is he?” she gasped out.
“You’ll be happy to know that his wolf won’t feel a thing when he hangs from that noose. Clayton gave us some of Vera’s medicine to cure him. Safety precautions, you see. Werewolves are…unpredictable.”
“Dalton!” she called as desperation clawed its way up her throat.
Vega pulled her up by the scruff of her shirt and dragged her struggling body to the porch stairs, then turned her.
“No,” she said in horror as she dragged her gaze to the chopping block one of the cloaked men had propped under Dalton’s bare feet. He was naked, skin smeared with dirt, and red streamed down his shoulder, covering half of his entire torso. He was human again, hands bound behind his back, and around his neck was an old-fashioned hangman’s noose.