Luke collapsed to the floor, his knees giving out, and refusing to let go of me took me down with him. I felt boneless. Sated. Well and truly fucked.
“Evangeline,” he murmured and rubbed his nose into my neck. I shivered. The way he said my name made it sound dark and dirty. “I love you too, sweetheart.”
Ignoring my startled look, smiling, he pressed a warm kiss to my lips. He pulling me close and wrapped his arms around me. Helpless, I clung on and with a sense of dread. If anything happened to him there would be nothing left to hold my world together. Burying my head in his chest I dug my fingers into his back and held him closer.
He turned to let his gaze drift over my face lazily then jerked away and stared out the window.
I stroked his jaw in question, starting to lift my own head from his smooth chest to look at what startled him.
Luke’s hand came down around my neck and held me down. Laughing I pushed at his hand but he held firm. There was a sudden and frightening hardness in his eyes. I pushed at him again to get him to release me, but he closed his eyes and increased the pressure on my throat. My hand came up to push at his face but he slapped my attempts away with his other hand. With a wave of panic, I clawed at his sides, his back, and bucked my hips but he held firm, keeping the heavy pressure on my throat constant, halting my ability to breath.
My eyes lashes fluttered and my limbs drained of energy – got too heavy to lift and use. My mind shut down and my vision blinkered completely. My head felt like it had been smashed into the side of the mountain ten times and black spots clouded my vision. I managed to see flashes before I was able to focus enough to piece what was going on around me together. Luke shifted me on the bed, hovered above, muttered to himself, and rocked the bed with his jerky movement. The pressure at my wrists and ankles is what woke me fully. Brows pulled together in anger, I peeked one eye open. There was harsh, panicked breathing above me and I shook off the remaining veil of sleep and opened my eyes fully to see Luke standing over me with a look of fear mingled with regret. Still muddled, instinctively, I reached to soothe him but when both my hands moved up I looked down to see them lashed together with ripped fabric, my feet too. I opened my mouth to yell at him when a rag was stuffed into my mouth and another tied over the top.
Eyes wide I glared at him. What the hell did he think he was doing? Picking up a glass from the side of the bed he smashed it beneath a piece of the blanket then disappeared from my sight under the bed, taking the blanket with him. Moments later he was back up and yanking me toward him.
Was he going to kill me? Had this all been some sick twisted little game to him? Possibly a plan to win my confidence and have me to feel for him then torture me as I begged him to let me go? Hell no, that would never happen. I would never beg, I’d rather die.
I struggled, jerking and kicking my bound legs. Luke slapped my ass once hard and I was so shocked I stopped. He lifted me off the bed with ease then knelt down and placed me carefully on the floor, on the blanket. Jerking up he looked to the right, where the window was and swore. He ducked back down, his face apologetic and sad. He pulled my head up and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my ear. “But I couldn’t risk you. My heart is yours, you know me, so never doubt that. Let our love set you free of this place, of the past.”
He didn’t look into my face again. He set me down and pushed me deep under the bed.
Luke stood and the moment he’d turned around the door crashed open. Heavy boots stomped into my small cabin and I heard the clicking of guns and harsh shouts to fire.
Luke roared.
There was an explosion of gunfire in the small cabin and flickering of bright lights in the dark.
I screamed, but it was muffled by my gag and swallowed by the sound of bullets slamming into a body.
The firing stopped and shell casings tinkled to the floor. A gruff voice squealed over a two-way radio breaking the deafening silence.
Luke keeled over and hit the floor hard. He didn’t move and rivers of blood started to run across the floor and pool beneath him, under the bed and toward me. I bit the inside of my mouth to silence another scream and pressed my head into my shoulder, my legs kicking out as I fought the need to bang my body on something to relieve the pain tearing through me.
The radio squealed again but this time a muffled voice barked something. “Beta Unit to Base,” a male voice spoke. “The old man was right, we’ve got him. Target is down and we’re bringing him in. Over.” The owner of the voice paced forward and nudged Luke’s head with the tip of his boot. “Yeah, he’s finished.”
Another set of boots came in through the open door. “What about Evangeline? I can’t find her.”
I knew that voice. Bobby Cartwright. He sounded concerned worried for me, and if my heart hadn’t been breaking I would have noted how warm that made me feel.
“We don’t have the time, lad. We have your sister’s killer and my orders are to bring the body to your dad immediately. We don’t have time to search such a wide area. There was no blood, so we can hope she escaped him and will figure it’s safe to come home before she freezes to death out there. Take him and bind him just in case.”
The men descended on Luke, shackling him roughly. His face was slack and his eyes glazed over. I tried to transmit a message though my face, but there was not a flicker of recognition or life. He stared straight through me. They hauled his body up and filed out at speed leaving nothing behind but melting snow and blood.
Keening, I struggled with my bonds, needing to be free, to get to him, but I couldn’t move. The reality of what had happened crashed down on me, and I couldn’t understand, or fully accept what my ears had heard or my eyes had seen.
Luke had saved me, given his life for mine. They would leave the mountain now they had what they had come for and I would be safe again. Alone. Again. Rather than running away he had stood and faced his problem head on. He had proven his love with a selfless sacrifice I could never thank him for. My heart couldn’t take it, the swift change from the hope and joy of caring about someone to the sudden and cruel absence of him. Breathing heavily, I felt anger swell in my chest and choke me until I felt nothing. I was empty. A void. With an eerie sense of calm I felt around with my hands until I felt glass slice open my palm. Even in the face of death he had thought about my needs first. Maneuvering myself so I could grip the glass, I angled it so I could rub it against the fabric and after a few scrapes felt the material give.
I would not cry, or sob, or lie there and grieve. Those men had stolen my hope, had taken something that was mine. They were in my territory.
Luke’s blood ran from the puddle at the foot of the bed to trickle through a wider gap in the floorboards. Leaning over I darted my tongue into the salty thickness and swallowed, calling to my Wendiga and wallowing with her in the pain of the loss of our mate.
My skin rippled even as my binds tore and my spine ripped through the flesh of my back. I screamed my rage, heaving the bed off me and hurling it across the room. It smashed through the wall leaving a gaping hole so I could see the stars and moon.
They were dead – all of them. Dead.
Chapter 11
There are some things in life, which no matter how bad things get you assume are sacred. I would never betray my Da, even though Luke had explained that it was impossible for him to have conceived me with my mother. Yet he had betrayed me. It would have been kinder for him to put a knife through my heart as I slept.
I smashed through the door of his cabin and it crashed to the floor, shattering the wood to splinters. My chest heaved; eyes glowed with malice. I could feel the electricity from the gathering storm crackle around me, zipping across the strands of my hair. I bared my teeth, fisted my hands and roared, dragging in the winds from behind me to amplify my rage and might.
My Da teetered on his toes and was knocked over, back onto the tattered couch he’d jumped up from as I had entered.
; “Where?” Voice deep and elemental I sounded like I’d been unleashed by mother nature herself.
He stood back up, clutched his rosary and raised a shaking hand, pointed a crooked finger to the distance in condemnation. “Who is that devil to me? No one.” He lifted his chin, eyes radiating distain. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.”
Stalking over to him as he stumbled back, eyes flashing in panic, in two strides I towered over him and wrapped my claws around his throat. The fury I felt broiled beneath a veneer of calm - fixed in place by the notion this pious fool was my only way to find Luke. The only reason I was here is because I had run to the curvature in the mountains I had told Luke I was certain Cartwright’s assembly camped in and had found … nothing. I had been wrong. I needed to find them before they passed beyond my reach. One handed I picked him up in a dead lift and brought his wrinkled face to mine, a quick snap away from my jaws.
There was a slap of liquid dripping onto a hard surface and I glanced down to see a yellowish stain spreading out from his crotch. It stank. I felt no sympathy, no pity. This wasn’t about him or me or our dysfunctional relationship.
“Lissss … en … old … man,” I rasped. “You … tell …me … where!” I shook him roughly and paused to let my words sink into his alcohol laced and age addled brain. It was frustrating because it was difficult to talk in this form. I could only manage one or two short words. With finality I hissed, “De … ccccide.”
He soiled himself. Sniffing the stench from my nostrils, I gave him a moment to come to terms with his situation. He knew I meant it. He’d seen me before, peeling the flesh of a man’s back as I fed. Before today the horror of it may have made me stammer to apologize for what I was, plead for his forgiveness and love. I was beyond that now. He had betrayed me, his own daughter. Regardless if we were blood or not surely he should still love me since I am my mother’s child?
Silent, deadly seconds past before he nodded once. Who said this level of communication couldn’t work? Sealing myself as the dominant party in our arrangement, I exerted a little pressure and squeezed his throat.
I dropped him and he landed on his face, trembling. Fear saturated the air around him. Good. Keeping him terrified of me would ensure he wouldn’t try to lie or do something foolish I would have to tear him apart for.
“Where?” I repeated with emphasis.
He swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. He peered at me through his greasy gray hair. “He knew things, about your kind. He knew you could call to the storms and that you were bound to the cold. He said you avoid the heat, and cannot see the heat, so the heat was where he would hide.”
I hissed in his face my eyes going wild and frenzied. The hot springs. I never went there since the warmth from the naturally boiled water was dangerous for me. The same went for fire; it was fatally dangerous for Wendigo’s to go near open flame. Our skin caught light like kindling. And they had taken Luke’s body there. In the midst of the mountains and isolated freshwater basins there was a relatively small, but deadly pool of bubbling warmer water. The one place I feared to go. It didn’t matter. Luke’s body was there, his killers were there, and so there I would go. The heat could never compare to the scalding ache that came when I watched Luke fall to the floor and lie motionless. As I lay bound, unable to help him.
My Da nodded at the dismayed expression on my face. “He’s taking the body back with him to where he came from. Did they manage to kill him in beast form? He’d wanted to mount the head on his wall.” My Da rubbed his throat thoughtfully. “Like a trophy.”
I had already been stalking across the room for the door, but at the callous words my stride faltered. A growl erupted from my chest and I slanted him a look of malevolence over my bare blue shoulder. He made a strangling noise and limped back.
Pausing I decided it was now I had to get this off my chest. I may never get another chance. I couldn’t voice the thoughts out loud so instead I pinned him with my stare. All I wanted was your love. But always did I have to beg and plead for it. He gave it to me unconditionally and without reluctance. I will never forgive you for this.
Ducking under the frame, I bounded out the door, not bothering to latch it behind me or spare a thought for the man inside. I had no time. The springs were at least an hour away with me running flat out, and I could not risk going that fast. I would run out of energy, become human, and I needed to remain in beast form long enough to avenge Luke.
Mentally, I was strained, and holding my beast back by visualizing her in a silver cage, but I knew I couldn’t last long. Luke had said the day I embraced my Wendiga self was the day I would be able to exert control over her. Could I risk it? No. What if she ran off to find food instead of going to avenge Luke? The hot springs was a place she never went, that she avoided at all costs. I needed this. If it meant I died so be it.
Nothing mattered anymore. He was gone and nothing mattered.
The land sank down into a bowl and the air gradually became warmer. I sped up, my hair whipping behind me, branches glancing off my skin as I powered forward. I spotted lights in the near distance and snarled when the smell of human flesh curled into my nostrils.
I didn’t sneak into Cartwright’s camp. I blazed past a man taking a walk at the border of the camp, slashing my claws across his face before he could even think about crying out.
I came to a dead stop in the centre and twitched at the most unexpected and beautiful sound I’d ever heard. I immediately located Luke’s still body on the far side of the camp.
The men surrounding me fell silent and froze. The falcon from before was perched on a tent nearest to the centre and it flapped it wings, crying shrilly. One man was relieving himself against a tree trunk and tuned to face me until he was peeing over his own boots, mouth wide-open and flaccid penis in hand. Another was bent over a small cooking fire, stirring a pot of soup. Another shaved his beard his face half foamed and half smooth, eyes blinking dopily. None were armed and all expressions went from baffled to horrified in ten long seconds as they realized a vicious predator had caught them unawares.
There was the sound of a gun cocking in the silence.
“Stop!”
A small, stocky man dressed in black combats and cable knit jumper came walking out from the tent the falcon rested on and stopped a few paces from me when I shifted my paws apart. He regarded me silently then his gaze went over his shoulder to where Luke’s body lay.
He looked back at me, his furrowed brow smoothing. “You have come for him,” he muttered.
I took a step forward and a big bald man whom had the gun sighted on me cocked it and aimed it at my face again. “Don’t get any ideas, bitch. My silver bullets will take you down.”
“Chill the fuck out, Monty. She’s not attacked nor done any real damage yet, has she?”
“Tell that to Stevens.” Bald guy jerked his head to somewhere over my shoulder. “Half his fucking head is missing where she slashed him.”
There was a pitiful groan from behind me and I assumed that was Stevens mourning the loss of an eye and the ability to move one side of his face.
“She’s here to see her dead mate. The Wendigo’s are animals, but seem to be in tune with nature and highly ritualistic. She probably wants to bury him in a ceremony. I’ve read about them. Fascinating.”
What a jerk-off. I wanted to fillet him not partake in some glorified funeral. Ignoring him and the bald guy’s silly weapon my gaze drifted back to Luke. I inhaled deeply then looked back at Cartwright. I tilted my head at him, inquisitive, and astounded by the depth of his ineptitude. Did he honestly not know? Was one of his goons nudging Luke in the head then declaring him ‘finished’ really how they determined death? Everything about him screamed amateur.
A young boy came running into the camp. “What’s going–” Bobby Cartwright screeched to a halt and stared at me slack jawed. Unlike the others whose faces where glued to my na
ked body he met my eyes. The shock on his face and utter disbelief startled me. He recognized me. “Evangeline?” he stuttered.
His father’s head whipped round to him. “You know her?” he barked and Bobby jumped.
“Ah, well, yeah. This is the woman we met in the woods earlier.”
After an astonished pause, Cartwright doubled over in laughter. “Of course it is. How could we be so blind?”
“What shall we do with her?” Monty asked, his finger flexing on the trigger of his gun.
I curled my lip back at him, baring my fangs and he paled, his hand shook, but never did he take his eyes off me.
“It seems a shame to kill her,” Cartwright murmured. “What are the chances we’d ever get to find a female again? The first one was for vengeance, but this one … this one might be useful.”
I tossed my head and the entire camp flinched. My anger had dimmed to a steady simmer beneath the surface. Listening to the older man drone on had half my attention. The other half was focused on the faint and erratic heartbeat that was thumping from the other side of the encampment.
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