Every breath burned her lungs. Her legs ached as they pumped. She'd never run this fast in her life.
Becca. Where the hell was—?
Sound exploded behind her. Something went whizzing past her ear.
Great. He remembered to grab the gun.
Where was Becca? Ally couldn't hear her, couldn't smell her. She prayed the kitten had run up a tree, out of reach of natural wolves and other predators. At least she was safe from Stapkis for the moment.
A few feet behind her, he bellowed and took another shot. This one hit a tree, bark exploding everywhere. Thank God werewolves couldn't change while in motion or she'd have been long dead.
Though it slowed her down, she started running between the trees, zigzagging to make it harder for him to shoot at her.
Where were Cade and the others? What happened to them?
“Ally!”
“Ally!”
Dec and Michael’s voices echoed through the woods.
Stapkis yelled again, right behind her.
Wolves howled, first Dylan and then, thank God, Cade.
Relief washed through her, so profound her legs went weak and she stumbled.
Keep running, Dead Girl. Would Eir resurrect her a second time? She didn’t want to find out.
Racing into a clearing, she paused a fraction of a millisecond. That was all it took.
Stapkis was right behind her. As she plunged back into the woods, he shot again. A burning pain sliced through her right thigh. Pure adrenaline kept her going a few more yards before her leg buckled.
She heard him right behind her, fancied she could smell his rancid breath. Curled into a tight little ball, her arms covering her head, she tensed and waited for the next shot. Or for Stapkis to start tearing her apart with his bare hands. Or for Stapkis to shift, then eat her. Or…
Cade howled. It sounded like he was on top of them.
Eyes still screwed shut, she heard Stapkis’ yell climb several octaves and turn into a scream. She felt a rush of air as something huge flew over her, heard a crash, and felt the ground reverberate.
Cade. It had to be Cade and Stapkis—
Dec and Michael were still calling her name, closer now. Dylan was still howling. But the loudest noise was near her head—teeth ripping through flesh. Stapkis didn’t make a sound, and she knew why.
She stuffed her fingers in her ears, but even without her wolf’s hearing it wouldn’t have blocked the wet, squishy noise of werewolf teeth and werewolf claws slicing through human guts. The smell of the blood made her gag. She swallowed hard against the bile rising in her throat. Knowing what a wolf could do was completely different from having him do it three feet away.
“Ally!”
Dec dropped to his knees beside her, took one look at her leg and started ripping her jeans up to the bullet hole.
“Where’s Becca? What happened to Becca?” yelled Michael.
“I don’t know!” she sobbed. “She ran, I don’t know where, I lost her, I— Dec, she’s a cat! Becca’s a cat!”
“Shh, love, I know. Lay back and let me look at your leg.”
“The hell with my leg! It’ll heal!” she shrieked. Both wolves winced. She was screaming so she wouldn’t have to listen to Cade. She couldn’t look at him. “Would one of you make him stop that?”
“We can’t. You can,” said Dec.
“How?”
“Yell at him,” Michael replied. “Isn’t that what you usually do?”
“Cade! Stop eating Stapkis!”
The squishy, crunching sounds ceased immediately.
“Okay, he wasn’t really eating him, Ally. We’re not cannibals…”
“Shut up, Michael! Go find Becca!”
But he stayed where he was, his body fairly vibrating with tension, the odor of distress rolling off him. “She’s a cat? You said Becca’s a cat?”
“Yes. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear—”
He swallowed and closed his eyes. “I believe you. I do. I dreamed it. Sometimes I dream stuff and then it happens, but I thought— I thought this, this would be too fucked up, you know? I mean, how—?”
“Michael, please, let’s look for Becca. Dec will explain all this later because if he doesn’t, I’ll make Cade eat him. Got that, Dec?”
“Yes, love.”
“Help me up.”
She held out her hand, he hauled her up, and she stood with all her weight on her left foot.
“You can’t walk around like that!” Michael exclaimed. “You’re gonna collapse! It’ll get infected. You can’t—”
“I won’t get an infection. It’ll heal. Until it does, I’ll limp.”
“But you’re—”
“A freak. Let’s get moving.”
Dylan howled from somewhere nearby.
“What will we do about Cade?” she fretted, not looking at him or Stapkis’ body.
Dec waved a hand impatiently. “I’ll stay with him. You two find Rebecca.”
Michael nodded and put an arm around Ally’s waist. They started off, she leaning on him for support.
“Ally,” said Dec.
They stopped.
“She’s not dead. I’d feel it if she were. Our girls are almost as tough to kill as we are.”
“But, Dec, she must be scared to death! And these woods are enormous, and how—”
He gave her a quick hug. “Shh. Go. We’ll find her.”
As she limped away into the trees, she heard him say, with rough tenderness, “All right, pup. You need to get two-footed, quick. I’ll be right back.”
He came out of the change with his uncle standing over him, holding his clothes. MacSorley waited patiently for Cade to return to himself, giving him time to figure out where he was, to grab the memories of what had just happened before they dissolved into distant, hazy impressions.
Becca. Stapkis was dead. Ally was alive. Where was Becca?
MacSorley knew what he was thinking. “Easy, pup. I know she’s around here. We’ll find her.”
He leapt to his feet and grabbed his clothes.
When MacSorley handed him the shirt, Cade said, “Why’d you bring this? I ripped it to shreds.”
“Not for wearing, for wiping down. Clean Stapkis off yourself. Your mate’s never been up close to a wolf while he was ripping someone’s throat. She was disturbed.”
They both looked down at Stapkis’ remains.
“Did she think I was gonna hold him until the cops showed up or something?”
MacSorley shrugged. “Females. Six hundred years and I still don’t understand ’em.”
“Baby Girl! It’s Daddy! I’m here!”
They’d been calling to her, stopping every few feet to listen and smell.
“Do you think Adnar would keep her from me?”
“No. I think Dylan’s right. Adnar came here to see Eirny, not to hurt her family. He loved your mother.” MacSorley stopped, frowning. “I’d always assumed he’d hate you because you were Louis’ son.”
“Why would he think she’d ever want to see him again?”
They didn’t stop walking, scanning the ground and the branches of trees as they talked.
“Becca! Baby, where are you?”
“Cade, he’s a fourteen-hundred-year-old Fae. They don’t think like we do. Besides, he’s been crazy, even for a Fae, for a very long time. He never accepted the loss of your mother, never stopped thinking of her as his wife. Killing your father, to him, was justified. For all I know, he thought she’d had time to get over it and would be ready to return to him. Even though she never loved him in the first place, which he also never accepted.”
His uncle hadn’t noticed that while he was babbling, Cade had stopped, frozen in his tracks, staring at him. His mouth was hanging open. He shut it. He opened it again but nothing came out. His mind seemed to have gotten stuck like a record needle, the same words going in circles around and around in his head.
Females. Six hundred years and I still don’t understand ’e
m.
Loss of your mother…her as his wife…she never loved him in the first place…
MacSorley stopped, put his hands on his hips, and looked around with an exasperated sigh. “But if he did follow Stapkis, I don’t know why the hell he hasn’t shown up. Surely he can hear us.”
Cade found his voice. “One of us is insane. I hope it’s you, because I don’t have time to lose my mind right now.”
MacSorley was still talking to himself. “She’s a tiny little thing, and if she’s hiding under something…what was that, pup? What did you say?”
“I said, I hope to God you’re crazy.”
It would explain a lot. Hell, maybe MacSorley wasn’t even his uncle.
But Sindri trusted him, so that part, at least, had to be true.
Okay, so the wolf was his mother’s brother. And Adnar was definitely his father’s murderer. But the rest of it…
“My mother wasn’t married to that—that freak. And I don’t know what the hell the crack about six hundred years was supposed to be about. Uncle or not, you’re out of your mind.”
The Irishwolf gave him a look of such sorrow and pity that Cade wanted to kill him.
“No, pup. No, I’m not crazy.” MacSorley sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Cade felt like he was looking in a mirror. He had to repress a shudder.
“I’m old, I’m careless, I’m selfish and I’ve forgotten how to be part of a family,” MacSorley continued. “It takes me far too fucking long to do the right thing. I should’ve sat down and talked to you two months ago. You might have still hated me, but Christ, we could’ve avoided some of this.” He held his hands out in a helpless gesture at the woods surrounding them. “But I’m not crazy.”
“Then you’re a liar.”
MacSorley shook his head. Again with the sorrowful pity. “No. I’ve not lied. You’re a Vargalf, Cade, just like me and your grandfather and great-grandfather and uncles and cousins.”
An icy shiver snaked up Cade’s back and across his scalp.
Vargalf. So that was the word.
If he wanted proof his uncle was crazy, he wasn’t getting it.
He didn’t want to ask the next question. Something loomed. Something was about to change his life more profoundly, and less positively, than Ally or Dylan had. He sensed a chasm opening in front of him and he didn’t want to look down or take one step.
With a deep breath he growled, “So what’s a Vargalf, Uncle Dec?”
“A Vargalf is a Fae wolf. A werewolf with Fae talent and Fae longevity.”
The chasm loomed wider. He felt himself teetering on the brink.
“Sometimes Vargalfs have shape-shifting daughters,” MacSorley continued. “Which is why your daughter is a cat. And your mother was a selkie.”
Cade lost his mental footing and went sliding down the side of the abyss, bumping his mind the whole way down. MacSorley just kept talking.
“Many years ago, Adnar stole Eirny’s coat, so she had to live with him as his wife. I stole it back from him and freed her. He tried to kill me. That was the first time the Fae put him in prison. He escaped and found your family in Scotland. After he killed your father, they imprisoned him a second time. He escaped again.” Dec paused. “I don’t know if they’re stupid or if they just don’t fucking care. I suspect they just don’t fucking care.” He trailed off and cast a worried glance at Cade. “You okay, pup?”
Not by a long shot. He felt lightheaded, like he’d been holding his breath way too long.
It made Ally’s tale of death and superhuman revival sound kind of normal.
After what seemed an eternity, all he could think to say was, “And no one ever thought to tell me all this?”
MacSorley smiled sadly. Suddenly Cade could believe the wolf was six hundred years old. “Oh, barn. If your mother had lived… But she didn’t, and Sindri blamed himself, and Louis’ family took the two of you away. And Sindri kept pesterin’ me to come and find you, and I kept saying I would, but I never did, and the years passed, and the longer I stayed away, the harder it got to come, and…”
There was a rustle of leaves behind him. MacSorley broke off with a startled exclamation, his eyes widening. Cade spun around.
Adnar stepped forward with a small black cat in his arms.
“Becca! Baby, where are you? Becca!”
The wound was healing. She could feel the bullet lodged in her thigh working its way to the surface.
Michael walked slowly, allowing her to keep pace with him. They scanned the ground and the trees as they called.
“And she just shifted? Right there?”
“Yeah. And Michael, it was fast. Less than a minute, I swear.”
He quirked his mouth, thinking. “Makes sense, I guess, someone so small. I don’t know of any species that starts shifting before puberty, though. Holy shit,” he murmured, shaking his head for the thousandth time. “A female. Shifting. It’s bizarre.”
She remembered what he’d said a few minutes earlier. “What was that about a dream you had?”
He sighed and shook his head again. “It’s—it’s weird. Not as weird as Becca turning into a cat, but weird. Let’s find Stinky Butt first.” He started calling for her again as he walked away. Ally followed, only to stop short a few yards later.
“Sarah Jane! How’d you get here? And who are those guys?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. Am I too late? Where’s Adnar?”
“It’s her.”
“Yes, pup. It’s her.”
“It’s her,” he repeated to himself. “God almighty. It’s really her.”
The kitten leapt from Adnar’s arms to Cade’s.
In one swift, fluid motion, Adnar dropped to his knee and, quicker than Cade’s eye could register, pulled out an enormous, curved silver knife. It was bigger than any hunting blade Cade had ever encountered. The Fae held it out, handle first, to Cade, his expression betraying nothing as their gazes met. The wickedly beautiful blade glinted in the late afternoon sunshine trickling through the canopy of leaves above them.
Cade’s head swam as he stared at the weapon. For a moment—a mercifully short but gut-wrenching moment—he was back on Scarista Beach.
“Oh, fuck me,” MacSorley said softly.
Cade opened his eyes. “What? What’s he doing?”
Voice heavy with disgust, the Irishwolf replied, “I think he wants you to kill him.”
“What?” Cade whirled to face his uncle, who crossed his arms and sighed.
MacSorley said something to the Fae. The Irishwolf’s voice was suddenly deeper, rougher, carrying an authority Cade had never heard in it before. He realized with a shock that his uncle now smelled like an alpha. Cade had never known of a wolf switching between beta and alpha, turning his dominance on or off. That phenomenon, as far as he knew, existed only in human bedrooms.
He’d never seen the real Declan MacSorley before. Neither, he was certain, had Ally or Dylan or Seth.
The Fae responded without looking at MacSorley, his gaze fixed squarely on Cade. Cade found Adnar’s lack of emotion unsettling. He wasn’t just stoic—he was cold, alien in a way Sindri and the other lesser Fae Cade had known were not. No flicker of feeling crossed Adnar’s face, and he never so much as glanced at MacSorley. Still, Cade suspected he wouldn’t have needed his telepathic gifts to recognize the Fae’s loathing for the Irishwolf.
When Adnar quit speaking, Cade looked at his uncle expectantly.
“It’s like what he did with Lind,” the Irishwolf said, “only because the offense is so much greater, he’s offering his own life.”
“What offense?”
“Eirny’s death. Bastard’s feeling sorry for himself,” MacSorley sneered. “Says he doesn’t want to live knowing she’s dead because of him.”
“So he wants me to kill him.”
“Yes. He wants you to slit his throat. This is unbelievable, Cade. Suicide is almost unheard of among the high Fae. And I’ve never heard of one offering the ultimate ato
nement to the likes of us.”
“The likes of us?”
“Vargalf.” His uncle smiled grimly. “They like us even less than normal werewolves. We’re beneath them.”
“Huh. Well, fuck you too,” Cade said to Adnar, who remained motionless, arm raised, fingers gripping the blade of the knife. “Is that why he won’t speak to me directly?” he asked his uncle.
“Huh? Oh, no. He doesn’t speak English.”
“Okay. Weird.” Then how’d he tell Cash and Mrs…never mind. Least of my worries right now.
“So. What are you thinking, pup?”
“What happens if I don’t take his life?”
“He goes back to prison.” MacSorley lifted his head and gazed about him. “And very soon, I’d say.”
“But if he goes back, how do I know he won’t just escape again?”
“You don’t. Of course, he might not have a reason to. Both times he’s escaped, it’s been to look for your mother. And to be fair, the first time they locked him up, they managed to keep him for two hundred years. I do rather like the idea of him living another century or two knowing he killed the only woman he ever loved. On the other hand, I dearly love the idea of you slitting his goddamned evil fairy throat.” He looked up and scanned the woods again. Something caught Cade’s attention as well—not a scent, exactly, and not a sound, but something weirdly between the two.
“Someone else is here, aren’t they?” he asked.
MacSorley nodded. “I think the cavalry’s arrived and if they know what he’s trying to do, they’ll stop it.” His uncle turned to look at Cade. “Would you like some advice?”
“No.” He thought another moment. “Right. Here, take Becca.”
The kitten mewled and scrabbled at his shirt. Cade dropped a kiss on the furry black head—his daughter, a cat—and Becca allowed her great-uncle to take her.
“Come on, my love,” Dec said, nuzzling her to his cheek. “Let’s go find your mama and grandmother.”
Cade took the knife.
“I don’t like the idea of her running around out here, either,” Sarah Jane said once Ally had explained the situation, “but there’s nothing telling me she’s in danger any longer. Stapkis is dead and Adnar wouldn’t harm a child. And in cat form she’s very fast. She’ll be fine. You need to get off that leg, honey.”
Yours, Mine and Howls: Werewolves in Love, Book 2 Page 29