by Kyla Stone
She should ignore him. She shouldn’t give him anything, not even her words. If it was her fate to die, she was determined to do it on her own terms.
But with every minute that ticked away, with every precious, painful breath, her resolve eroded. Hope, after all, was the very last thing to let go. Even in the face of catastrophe, of a devastating apocalypse, of utter despair, it held on.
The wind shrieked around the tiger house, beating the maple’s branches against the wall. Thunder boomed and crashed. It felt like nature itself was screaming its outrage.
Finally, she croaked, “What is it?”
Cerberus grunted as he shifted against the cement wall. The razor edge of the knife glittered. “The white wolf. You came back for him. A few of the men say they saw you with both of them in the woods. You know where they go.”
She thought of the den Luna had led her to, of the night sleeping between the wolves, the steady heat of them, the coarseness of their fur pressed against her skin, the dank, wild smell filling her nostrils. The awe and wonder and beauty of it.
“You can take me to the white wolf.”
She closed her eyes. Dread settled like a stone in her stomach. “You want the pelt.”
“Those wolves are like nothing I’ve ever seen. Like mods…but not. The white one is…marvelous. He’s the alpha, there’s no doubt. I’m an alpha. He’s an alpha.” She could feel him grinning in the dark. His eyes shone greedily. “We’re meant for each other.”
“Luna is an alpha,” she said with a grim, terrible satisfaction. “But he is a she.”
Cerberus was silent.
“Wolf packs are families. The alphas are paired, male and female. In some ways, the female makes more decisions than the male. She chooses who to hunt, picks a specific prey animal out of the herd. She tells the other wolves when and where to strike.”
“Enough!” Cerberus snorted dismissively and rose to his feet. “Enough nonsense.” His gaze raked over her, lingering on her face. His lip curled. “There is a place for you in the world that remains. You are quite the specimen. Beneath the dirt and that ugly scowl, your delicate Asian features could serve you well. You could be taught to be a proper woman. If you learn to hold that tongue and respect those empowered to rule over you.”
“Go to hell,” she whispered between split lips.
He laughed mirthlessly. “If you bring me to the white wolf, I will spare your life. If you do not, I’ll allow Ryker do as he wishes with you.”
“You’re lying.”
His expression went cold. He raised his voice over the crash of thunder. “I am a man of my word. If I say it’s going to happen, then it will. You’ve been watching us these last few days, I presume. Then you know my men respect me. They will obey me, whether they like it or not.”
She couldn’t find the wolves, not for certain. But she had an idea where they might be. Besides, the wolves would come to her. She knew they would. They trusted her. They’d made her pack.
Cerberus sheathed the knife. His shadow loomed over her, blocking out everything else. “Decide now.”
She felt her powerlessness like a crushing weight, insurmountable, hopeless. But beneath her despair, a steady thrum like a heartbeat, an insistence, an urgency, a fierce will to live. I will survive this. I will survive this. I will survive this.
Instinct, as ingrained within her as any wild animal. That desperate impulse for self-preservation above all else, above honor and goodness and even love.
Damien was right, after all. Her father was right. Humans would do anything to survive.
Life or death. Death or life.
It was her only choice. Her only chance. She stared bleakly at the darkness above her. Consuming, absolute.
“I’ll do it.”
He turned for the door, the pouring rain. “We leave before dawn.”
38
The storm raged for hours. In a single night, most of the leaves were shorn from the trees. Early the next morning, the clouds were still thick, the sky a gray bowl of ashes. The air was cold and brittle.
Raven tasted the wild tang of ozone on her tongue. The storm wasn’t finished yet.
She hobbled between Damien and Cerberus, with Ryker right behind her. Scorpio, Oman, and a few others took up the rear. Her hands were bound in front of her with zip ties. The men all carried semi-automatics, their expressions grim.
They hacked their way through the dense undergrowth, thorns raking at their legs and arms, cursing as their clothing snagged on thickets of thorns, their clumsy feet tripping over roots.
Rain began to fall, heavy and full, splatting on the branches, the matted ground, streaming in rivulets from the bushes. In minutes, they were soaked, clothing sodden, boots sloshing through damp mud.
The wind howled and shrieked through the empty trees, rattling the bare branches. Pine needles glistened. The tree trunks gleamed darkly. Deep in the forest, the air was rank with moisture and decaying leaves, thick with the promise of winter.
They’d been hiking for almost two hours. Raven’s wet pants clung to her body, but her arms and torso beneath her jacket were dry—still freezing, but dry. She lifted her head and drank the rain, soothing her parched throat.
“Hurry up,” Ryker growled, prodding the small of her back so hard she stumbled over a tree root worming across her path. Pain stabbed her left ankle. Damien tightened his grip on her arm, holding her up.
Cerberus had injected her with one of the adrenaline stims from their med kit. It dulled the pain, sharpened her senses, and kept her on her feet, with Damien’s help.
She hated his nearness, hated how she needed him to walk, hated how he kept shooting her tense, heavy glances, his brows knitted, his eyes full of shadows.
“You okay?” he whispered between gritted teeth.
Raven ignored him. She had nothing to say.
“I know, stupid question.”
They trudged through the wet and the gray, heads ducked against the rain. Cerberus marched on ahead. “Tell me when to turn,” he growled darkly.
Rain sluiced off her hood. Her skin was chilled, clammy. The raw, unrelenting wind scraped her hair back from her face, pummeling her already sore body. But her misery was nothing compared to the dread and horror tangling in iron knots in her gut, nothing compared with the darkness howling inside her heart.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Damien said softly, low enough that only she could hear beneath the blur of the rain. “You were free.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” she said. Guilt dug into her ribs. “I couldn’t just leave her.”
“I tried to do something.” He looked at her, eyes bleak. “It wasn’t enough.”
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
She glanced at his narrow face, pointed chin. Rain trickled down his face, plastered his russet hair to his scalp, beaded on the silver ring piercing his lip. His features were as cunning, as sharply handsome as she remembered. But his expression was solemn, pensive.
“Why didn’t you turn me in, back at the lodge?”
“You were brave,” he said after a moment. “I…maybe I admire that.”
She said nothing. There was nothing to say. Her bravery wouldn’t help her now. It was too late for that.
She stumbled; Damien caught her. His hands were strong. His nearness was strangely comforting. He wouldn’t save her, but at least he was here. It was something.
“Move faster,” Ryker hissed behind them.
She pushed away the pain in her ankle, focusing on reading the signs of the forest. A gnarled trunk of an oak with knots in the shape of a triangle. An outcropping of rock beside a spruce with its top half sheared off.
A paw-print here and there, almost—but not quite—smeared by the rain. Mostly hare, raccoon, badger, and deer tracks. But a few others. She noted bent and broken twigs, a torn spider’s web, a crushed leaf, a snarl of her own black hair snagged on a bramble.
She had no SmartFlex now, no GPS to guid
e her, but her father had taught her how to find her bearings in the middle of the woods, how to track the creatures of the forest—even if that creature was herself.
Scorpio hunched inside his coat, dark and glowering, his head bent against the wind and rain. “How much longer?”
“This is a waste of time,” Ryker growled. “Just give me the girl and we’ll be done with this mess.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done,” Cerberus said, his voice sharp with warning. Scorpio and Ryker fell silent.
They reached a steep incline. Raven shuffled past the stump of a great oak as tall as her shoulder, the broken off bits jutting like teeth. On her right, a cluster of boulders. Rhododendron bushes creaked in the wind.
She stepped into the clearing and lifted her head. The sky was dark, chaotic, turbulent clouds churning overhead. The rain splattered her face, soaked her hair.
“What are you doing?” Ryker stepped into the clearing behind her, his face darkening. “If you’ve tricked us, so help me—”
“We’re here,” Raven said.
She whistled. One long note, two short ones.
39
“The white wolf’s den is here,” Raven said. “Across the clearing.”
The Headhunters entered the clearing. They spread out, rifles up, scanning the ground, the trees. Thunder groaned. Lightning splintered the sky.
The keys were still there beneath the large rhododendron bush in the center of the clearing. They glinted like a treasure, the rain washing away the dirt and leaves. Gomez’s sodden baseball cap lay crumpled beside them, brown as dirt, barely visible through the sheets of gray rain.
And there, a few yards from the bush—her pack on its side, the hoverboard still sticking out of the top.
It was a huge risk, bringing the Headhunters here. But she didn’t know what else to do. She wouldn’t betray the wolves. She refused to give them Luna or Shadow. It might have saved her life, but that wasn’t the life she wanted to live.
It was a desperate move—a rash, reckless, foolhardy choice in a very short list of options, each more terrible than the last. There was only one chance to get out of this alive, both for Raven and the wolves.
If it didn’t work, at least she would die on her own terms. And the wolves would be free.
Would Vlad spare her a second time? She believed he would. She had to believe. She was betting everything on it.
She strained her ears, even knowing she wouldn’t hear him. Fresh adrenaline shot through her veins as her gaze swept the treeline. There was nothing to see.
There wouldn’t be. Not until he was ready to attack.
“I didn’t want this to happen,” Damien said in a low voice. He’d remained beside her at the edge of the clearing. “What Ryker did to you…”
“You stood there and watched.”
“There was nothing I could do.”
“Is that what you tell yourself?” But there was no venom in her words, no blame. Not anymore. She understood now the feeling of being trapped between two impossible choices, each with terrible consequences. In his own way, Damien had found himself trapped, surviving but caught in a life he hadn’t chosen to live.
She saw guilt swimming in his eyes. Remorse.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said.
She shook her head, blinked water from her eyes. “I can’t expect you to sacrifice your life for me, a stranger.” Survival was about more than keeping yourself breathing. It was about choices and sacrifices, choosing what you could live with, and what you couldn’t. Everyone had to make that decision for themselves. “You helped me twice. More than I could ask for. Thank you.”
He looked at her, startled. “You’re welcome.”
“Over here!” Scorpio called, his voice shaking. He stood behind the rhododendron bush. He’d found the body.
Ryker, Cerberus, and Oman followed him. Ryker and Cerberus swore. Oman stumbled back, his face going ashen beneath his beard. He turned and retched.
“So that’s what happened to Gomez,” Ryker said coldly.
“Those damn wolves tore him to pieces,” Cerberus said, both in horror and awe.
Raven clenched her jaw and said nothing.
The Headhunters milled around the wide circle of the kill. “Here’s an arm,” Scorpio said hoarsely. He almost sounded afraid. If he wasn’t now, hopefully he would be soon.
Raven eyed her backpack. Twenty yards, if that. She would have to run straight across the clearing, grab the pack, and head for the opposite treeline. Once she got a bit of a head start, she’d jump on the hoverboard and escape without leaving any further tracks.
She yanked her arms, the bindings digging tight and painful into her wrists. It wouldn’t be easy to get to her knife with her hands bound. And she’d be hobbling across the clearing—not running. Her jerky, fumbling movements would trigger Vlad’s prey response.
Unless he was otherwise engaged.
Cerberus and Ryker strode toward her. Cerberus’s face contorted in rage. Ryker’s black, flinty eyes shone with triumph—and anticipation.
“Bring her here!” Cerberus ordered.
Damien tensed beside her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand.”
Damien’s jaw pulsed. He tightened his grip on her arm and led her deeper into the clearing. “You don’t have to do this,” he said to Ryker in a low voice.
Ryker snorted. “You going soft on us, boy?”
“There’s no shame in sparing her—”
Ryker shot him a contemptuous look. “Shut the hell up and give her to me.”
Damien hesitated. He grimaced, dread and fear flashing in his eyes, and she saw how every word he spoke cost him something. “And if I don’t?”
Ryker sneered. “How about I gut you both together? That what you want?”
“Watch yourself, Ryker.” Cerberus’s voice went cold and hard. “Damien, give him the girl.”
Damien hesitated, his expression taut, sharp eyes flickering between Cerberus and Raven. His piercings glinted as lightning streaked the sky. “I don’t think—”
“Damien!” Cerberus growled.
Without waiting for Damien’s response, Ryker sprang forward and shoved Damien aside. Damien went sprawling, landing hard on his backside in the wet grass.
In one fluid movement, Ryker unsheathed his hunting knife, grabbed the back of Raven’s head, and pressed the blade to her throat. “Now,” he hissed in her ear, “where were we?”
“Where’s the den?” Cerberus asked her. He barely glanced at Damien, who was pulling himself to his feet, scraping the mud from his pant legs. “I’m only going to ask you once.”
Raven swallowed, the knife jabbing deep. “It’s here, just through the trees—”
Ryker’s eyes narrowed, shiny-dark as beetle shells. “Liar.”
“I told you what would happen if you played me.” Cerberus’s tone was flat, but his eyes flashed with anger. He nodded at Ryker. “She’s all yours. Get it over with."
Ryker gave her an empty smile, full of sharp white teeth. He was going to enjoy killing her. She could see it in the menacing gleam of his eyes, his lips parted in expectation, the thrill of it contorting his lean, knife-edged features.
Damien stood silent, muddy and rain-slicked, his gaze anguished. But he did nothing. He said nothing. Raven was on her own.
Lightning lit the underbelly of the clouds, streaking across the sky. Torrents of rain poured down. Wind roared over the clearing, bending the grass sideways, creaking through the trees, clawing at her with cold, frantic fingers.
She’d miscalculated. Vlad wasn’t here. For whatever reason, he’d abandoned his kill early and moved on to greener pastures.
It was over. She’d gambled and lost.
Cerberus swore. “For the last time, where is the damned wolf?”
She blinked the water from her eyes and raised her chin in bold defiance. She was going to die, but she hadn’t given them everything. They hadn’t
won. She’d made sure of that. “The wolves aren’t here and never were. They got away. You’ll never find them. You failed.”
Cerberus lunged at her, enraged, but Ryker seized her hair and dragged her against him. She couldn’t help it. She screamed. She tried to wrench free, but the knife blade bit into her throat, drawing blood.
At least she was in the woods when death came for her. At least she would die with rain and wind on her face, grass and dirt beneath her feet, the mouth of the sky swallowing her up.
At least—
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it.
A streak of motion bolted into the clearing. Then another. One white, one black. Twin demons of growling, snarling fury.
40
Raven swallowed a horrified scream as the great black wolf launched himself at Cerberus.
Almost simultaneously, the second wolf, white as pure driven snow, slightly smaller but no less ferocious, charged Ryker.
The clearing exploded in shouts of confusion and fear.
Luna sprang at Ryker. She lunged, closing her powerful jaws around Ryker’s forearm. Ryker fell back from the force of the blow, shrieking as the wolf’s teeth sank into flesh, muscle, bone.
Raven stumbled with him, entangled in his flailing limbs, dragged to the ground. The knife was wrenched from her neck. A line of fire seared her throat. She rolled in the wet grass and managed to clamber to her hands and knees.
“No!” Raven screamed. “Run! You’re supposed to run!”
The wolves were supposed to be far, far away, running safe and free and alive. They weren’t supposed to come back here. They weren’t supposed to save her.
Scorpio and Oman ran toward Ryker, who was on the ground, Luna atop him. They screamed and shouted, their rifles drawn but unable to shoot for fear of hitting the Headhunter.
Ten yards away, Cerberus managed to slam the butt of his rifle against Shadow’s muzzle. Shadow let out a pained whimper and darted out of harm’s way. Three other Headhunters armed with semi-automatics were sprinting toward them.