Fighting for Her Wolves: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Hungry for Her Wolves Book 5)

by Tara West

  “You’re a fool, Balban,” he growled, his eyes turning blood red as he steered back onto the road, “and you’re going to get us both killed.”

  “Shut the hell up!” She turned away, anger making her blood boil.

  “They will follow her scent,” he continued. “What will we do when a whole tribe of shifters comes for us?”

  When they come for us, Balban thought, I will be in the she-wolf’s body, and they will take me back as one of their own. Balban chose not to voice her thought aloud, her anger rising while he continued to nag her.

  She cringed and grabbed onto the dashboard when he slammed on the brakes again, pulling over with such violence, her seatbelt pinched and the she-wolf tumbled to the floor with a groan.

  “Kick the shifter bitch out of the truck.” He jutted a finger toward the door. “I will not let you send us to hell!”

  She took off her seatbelt and pulled the girl back onto the bench seat, dismayed when she saw a bloody gash on her forehead.

  “Look what you’ve done,” she hissed. “You’re going to ruin this body!”

  “If you won’t get rid of her, I will.” He unlatched his seatbelt, opened the door, and yanked the shifter off the seat by her wrist.

  Balban was left with no other choice. Pulling out Agent Miller’s gun, she shot Aosoth in the forehead, then jerked the girl away from him and kicked him away before he could switch bodies. He fell to the road with a heavy thump, mouth hanging open and eyes wide with shock.

  With no time to mourn her dead lover, Balban climbed over the moaning shifter and sat in the driver’s seat. Aosoth’s winged spirit broke free of his mortal skin, howling to the heavens while the embers of his dragon’s breath shone through his throat like hot coals. She pulled the door shut and locked it, mouthing an apology to the demon as he released his fire, melting the glass.

  She put the truck into gear and drove over Aosoth’s body with sickening thumps. With no nearby body to occupy, it was only a matter of seconds before hell’s portal opened and sucked him through, trapping him for at least another ten thousand years while he clawed his way back to freedom. A rumble sounded behind her, followed by a thunderous crack that rent the air. She dare not look, because she knew the portal had opened and Aosoth was no more. She mourned his loss, for he had been useful and such a gifted lover. She’d have to train her four young lovers how to do the things Aosoth had, especially the rough anal foreplay. Though the prospect should’ve excited her, she felt a twisting in her gut. What if the amethysts didn’t work, and she wasn’t able to steal the she-wolf’s body?

  When the shifter moaned, her hand rising to her forehead, Balban took out her dart gun and fired another shot into the girl’s leg, hating having to drug her again. She wouldn’t be able to steal the shifter’s body until she woke up; stealing a sleeping skin would make her too vulnerable, and she had no idea how long two doses of sleeping medicine would last.

  She glowered at the girl. “You’d better be worth it. I lost a perfectly good fuck, thanks to you.”

  MAGNUS CAUTIOUSLY APPROACHED the crushed and blood-splattered body of a huge human. “Who is this?” he asked Van Thunderfoot.

  Van grimaced and kicked the lifeless corpse until it lay on its backside, mouth agape and eyes staring blankly at the sky. “The other demon.”

  A swarm of hornets raced through Magnus’s veins. “If both demons are dead, what happened to Annie?”

  Van frowned at the corpse. “Something’s not making sense.” He pointed his nose in the air, inhaling deeply. “There’s that lavender perfume again.”

  Magnus crouched down, scenting the corpse. “It’s not on him.”

  “It’s wherever that redheaded demon has been. I smelled it on her at the bar last night.”

  “There must be more demons,” Raine said, circling the body, searching for clues.

  “Who all wear the same perfume?” Van asked.

  Magnus had run out of ideas. “Who all wear the same perfume and keep killing each other.”

  Van shook his head. “That makes no sense.”

  “They are succubi.”

  Magnus looked at Tor’s grim expression and stony eyes.

  “What?”

  “Annie said the redheaded demon was four hundred years old. How do you think she’s lived so long?”

  Magnus froze, his mind reeling. “I-I don’t know.”

  Tor looked horrified. “Switching bodies.”

  All moisture evaporated from Magnus’s mouth, making it feel like he’d swallowed a mouthful of sand. “Y-you mean stealing them?”

  Tor’s features hardened. “Yes.”

  “Do you think she took Roy’s body?” Van asked.

  “That would make sense,” Tor answered. “Then she used Roy’s body to lure Annie away.”

  Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

  Magnus felt as if the earth was about to open up and swallow him whole. “So then what about this demon? Whose body did he take?” Somewhere in his subconscious, he already knew the answer.

  Tor didn’t respond, but his dark look softened to one of pity.

  “The demon took Annie’s body,” Raine said, storming up to Magnus and giving him a look that could melt steel.

  At that moment, Magnus wished the earth would open up and swallow him whole. He ripped off the blood-splattered scarf that Annie had given him, letting it fall to the ground. It had been the last thing she’d given him—the only thing. He didn’t deserve it. He’d failed his mother, and now he’d failed his mate. Father was right. He was a worthless protector.

  BALBAN PULLED UP IN front of the unassuming two-story farmhouse with faded white planks at the end of the road. This place was one of their many exchange posts and had worked well for them the past several years. It wasn’t as big as their fortress near San Antonio, but that house was no longer an option after the wolves found it. The wolves would soon locate their other hideout, which was why it was urgent she switch bodies. Hoisting Annie into her arms, she walked around to the back of the house. The old wooden stairs creaked as she climbed to the porch.

  A guard let her in, exhibiting a wicked grin as he looked over Annie.

  Balban glared at him. “Touch her, and I slice off your dick.”

  The guy visibly swallowed, then nodded. Though most of her guards were native Spanish speakers, they knew enough English to understand the meaning of her threats.

  She carried Annie upstairs and laid her on top of a large crate they used to house their sex slaves. Frightened eyes blinked at her, like curious forest animals watching her through underbrush. Only these animals were girls in cages, each one with the potential to make them a profit of four thousand dollars a day. Balban thought about the money she and Aosoth had saved over the years. It was enough to ditch the stress and drama of running a sex trafficking operation and live comfortably in another country for a century. Someplace tropical, where the waiters brought drinks in coconut shells. She wondered if she’d fucked up by killing Aosoth. He would’ve brought her much sexual pleasure on that tropical beach, but he was at the bottom of hell’s pit now. No use mourning what she could no longer have.

  After securing Annie in a cage, her rumbling stomach reminded her she needed to feed her mortal skin. One thing she hated about this body was his constant need for nourishment. According to the agent’s thoughts, he’d been starving himself for months to financially support his invalid father. Humans were so foolish. He should’ve put a bullet between his useless wheelchair-bound father’s eyes instead of sacrificing his own pleasure and well-being to keep him alive. If Balban had been forced to remain in Agent Miller’s human shell much longer, she would’ve put the old man out of his misery herself.

  She went to the kitchen, pleased when she found a bag of tacos in the fridge. She ate three of them straight from the bag, too hungry to care they were cold. When her stomach rumbled again, she decided to eat three more, though this time she wanted them warm. After setting them on a paper plate, she zapped them in the
microwave.

  “Where’s Señor?”

  It was the foreman named Miguel. Either he’d snuck up on her or she’d been too focused on food to hear him come in. As head foreman, Miguel had been following Aosoth’s orders the past three years. Aosoth had paid and treated him well only because he’d planned to use him should he need to switch bodies. Now that Aosoth and the beautiful redhead were gone, she didn’t expect Miguel to take orders from Roy. That left her with only one choice. She’d have to take Miguel’s body just long enough to give instructions to the second in command. After that, she’d kill Miguel.

  “Dead,” she answered, wishing she was in the redhead’s body so she could use her cleavage to distract him. “I’m in charge now.”

  Miguel shook his head. “Señor left me in charge, not you.”

  “Fine.” She threw up her hands. “You’re in charge. Here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. “Señor told me to give this to you.”

  He greedily held out his hand, making it too easy for Balban. Latching onto his wrist, her soul easily slipped into his skin like water flowing from a jug into a glass. Miguel’s terrified scream was quickly silenced as she squeezed his soul, sending him to the abyss. She gave herself a minute to adjust to her new body. Agent Roy Miller fell to the floor in a motionless heap, looking as lifeless as a corpse. She didn’t think she’d occupied his body long enough for his soul to be permanently stuck in the abyss, but she’d been wrong before.

  Miguel was easily twice Agent Miller’s size, and she found lifting him to be no effort at all. Though she hated male bodies, she valued their strength. After depositing Roy in a cage across from Annie, she sneered at the trembling girls, hating them for their weakness.

  Balban talked to Miguel’s second in command next, a scrawny Mexican kid named Jose. He couldn’t have been more than twenty. Not only was he a man with unwelcome dangly parts, he was skinny and sickly, but he made a decent guard, and they needed all the guards they could get.

  “Order all men to stand guard,” she rattled off to him in Spanish, pleased with herself for knowing the language so well. “Shoot anyone who comes near. Notify me when the girl wakes.”

  “Sí,” Jose answered and marching out with purpose in his stride.

  She sat at the table and ate, her appetite significantly decreased in the new body. She only managed two tacos before a twisting in her gut warned her to stop. What the hell was in those things? Oh, well. It made no difference. She’d be out of this body soon enough.

  MAGNUS STOOD WITH HIS brothers, facing Tor and Cesar while several other alphas and trackers circled the map of Texas Cesar had laid out on his kitchen table.

  “If we leave at sunset, we can get to Cotulla by truck in an hour.” Cesar pointed to the south Texas town. “We leave our vehicles outside Cotulla and shift, then follow the trackers to the ranch.”

  Magnus already saw holes in Cesar’s plan. “What makes you think they’d go back there again?”

  “Our trackers scented Roy’s truck going in that direction.”

  “That makes no sense.” Jax rubbed his chin. “They have to be aware we know about their compound. They shot at our trackers last night.”

  “Our trackers have much more experience than you.” Cesar gave Jax a condescending look. “They said they were headed there, and I believe them.”

  Jax bristled, and Raine laid a hand on his arm. “Easy.”

  Magnus didn’t appreciate the slight. Cesar meant to insult Jax because he hadn’t served in the Army, but now was not the time for rivalry. Annie needed them. They could kick Cesar’s ass later.

  “Did you send trackers to the compound?” Magnus asked Cesar.

  He shook his head. “I made them come back.”

  Magnus gritted his teeth. “Why?”

  Cesar gave him a blank look. “Because I didn’t want them getting shot at again. We’ll wait until nightfall.”

  Magnus threw up his hands. “That makes no damn sense. How can we be sure she’s there?”

  “Tor,” Cesar asked the senior alpha. “What do you think?”

  Tor shot Cesar a withering look. “If I’d known you ordered the trackers to come back, I’d have followed them myself.”

  “If she’s not at that compound,” Cesar said, “we’ll make them tell us where she is.”

  “Curse the Ancients!” Jax hollered, his eyes shifting to blinding gold. “Our father might have been a belligerent drunk, but he was a hell of a lot smarter than you.”

  Magnus balled his hands into fists, expecting Cesar to strike out, but the alpha hung his head.

  “It’s not easy being chieftain,” he muttered. “I never asked for this damned job.”

  Jax backed away from the table, waving to his brothers. “We’re wasting time here.”

  “Where are you going?” Tor asked.

  Jax’s features hardened. “To find Annie.”

  Chapter Eleven

  JAX KNELT AT THE SIDE of the lonely dirt road, checking the tire tracks and inhaling the faint scent of lavender perfume. “Well, what do you think?” he asked Van Thunderfoot, a far more experienced tracker.

  Van tasted the dirt, then gazed east. “I think you were right to lead us here, Jax. You’re a natural tracker.”

  Van’s praise would’ve gone to his head if he hadn’t been so worried about Annie. “Thanks.”

  “Look at this.” Raine held out his phone, showing them an aerial map of the area. Jax’s eyes honed in on an old farmhouse, protected by a high fence. Beside it was a red barn and four newer trucks. “What does your instinct tell you?” Van asked.

  “That Annie’s in that house.”

  Van stood, eyes narrowed on the horizon and the distant setting sun. “I agree. There’s a ridge on either side. We split up and each take a ridge.”

  Jax froze at that. The Thunderfoots were leaving them? He would have to rely on his tracking skills without Van? He released a slow exhale. He’d gotten them this far. He could do it. He had to. Annie was counting on him.

  “And then what?” Raine asked.

  Van gave Jax an assessing look. “What would you do?”

  A plan quickly unfolded in his mind. “I’d set fire to the barn to create a diversion.”

  Van smiled. “Good idea.”

  “And while they’re putting it out, we get inside the house and free Annie. We don’t attack unless we need to,” Jax added, worried she would get caught in the crossfire if the guards started shooting. “Our main goal should be getting her to safety.”

  “Excellent.” Van rubbed his hands together. “Who starts the fire?”

  Jax stepped up. “I will,” he barely rasped the words. He’d never been trained in reconnaissance, and now the entire operation relied on his ability to sneak into the compound and set fire to a barn that no doubt contained weapons or drugs.

  “Good, good,” Van said. “Let’s get started.”

  ANNIE WOKE, HER HEAD feeling like a cracked egg. She rubbed an aching temple, not surprised to find a crusty cut and a massive bump. What had happened? Where was she? She sat up and found herself looking through the bars of a cage into several other cages. Each one held a sleeping person, mostly slender girls from the looks of it. They were illuminated by pale moonlight shining through a narrow window on one wall. A lone man was caged across from her, his chest rising and falling with erratic breathing while he thrashed in his sleep. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled his familiar scent.

  “Roy?” She poked her fingers through the bars, then pulled back when she recalled he had attacked her in the barn. He was probably the reason she was in a cage. No, wait. That wasn’t Roy. It was a demon who looked like him. Roy would never harm her. But why was he in a cage?

  She probed his mind, listening to his thoughts as he woke up. Where am I? What the fuck happened?

  His eyes flew open, and he blinked and rolled onto his side.

  “Roy!” she whispered.

  “Annie?” Hunched over, h
e clasped the bars and gazed at her.

  “Do you remember anything?” She rubbed her sore neck, recalling the pain and pulling out a dart. It had to have been laced with a sleeping drug. Had they drugged him, too?

  “The last thing I remember was this redheaded woman touching me and then I went to a dark place.”

  Had Balban possessed him? She berated herself for not warning Roy about the demons. She’d had no idea they would involve him. “We have to get out of here.”

  He straightened, then slouched when his head hit the top of the cage. “Do you have anything that can pick the locks? A hairpin or an earring?”

  “No.”

  “What about your claws?”

  “Good idea,” she said, then closed her eyes and summoned the change. Nothing happened. She cursed the demon who’d shot her. Something was preventing her from shifting. “I can’t shift.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Glaring at the bloody hole in her jeans, she pulled them down and saw a red, inflamed wound on her leg. “My skin itches.”

  Roy shook his head in dismay. “Amethyst darts.”

  “What?”

  “I had amethyst darts in my trunk.” Fuck! No wonder she couldn’t shift. Amethysts were a shifter’s weakness. “Why?” She couldn’t deny she was hurt that her brother would carry weapons that could cause her and the Amaroki harm.

  “For Vidar,” he said and laughed hoarsely. “Why else?”

  Damn Vidar! She couldn’t blame Roy for wanting to protect himself after Vidar had attacked him.

  She heard footsteps. “Someone’s coming. Pretend you’re sleeping.” She laid down, praying to her fathers for help when someone poked her with a stick.

  “Get her out,” a gruff voice said.

  Strong hands dug into her arms and dragged her out of the cage, depositing her on the floor.

  Roy rattled his bars. “Leave her alone!”