by J. E. Taylor
Her heart pounded in her ears and she judged the distance between where she perched on the branch and where he hung over the vat. It was a distance she could cover in mere seconds if one of those traps didn’t get her, but she wasn’t sure she could get there in time to save him. Not with gravity pulling at him.
Between each number, Winters’ lips moved, but the speaker didn’t pick up his words. Winters announced the number five in the microphone, still looking up at Hunter with a sadistic smile. Hunter bellowed an angry growl and he glared at Winters with such violent intensity, that Alessandra reacted.
She hopped to her feet and bolted down the length of the thick branch, using the bounce at the end like a diving board. Throwing herself in the air, she twisted enough to aim and pull the trigger of the crossbow before she released it from her grip. She didn’t wait to see if she hit her target, instead, she shifted, stretching out her front paws and aiming for one of the poor bastards in the traps.
She landed on the wolf closest to the clearing, using him as a springboard, landing a few paces shy of the pot. The chain holding Hunter to the crane released and her chest constricted, pushing the burn of adrenaline through her. He fell straight towards the vat and she launched herself in the air.
The heat from the boiling silver singed the fur on her stomach, but it paled in comparison to the burn of terror racing through her bloodstream. She had one chance and when her mouth clamped down on the metal pole he was tied to, another burst of energy flowed through her and she flung him towards the executioner’s platform. He slid to a stop and her front paws hit the wood, but her back paws missed.
She let out a bark of surprise when her hind paws landed on the hot edge of the vat. With a surge of panicked strength, she pushed off with all the power in her hind legs and landed in a skid next to Hunter.
Before her heart had a chance to beat, she turned on the executioner. He stood with a silver sword in his grip, but it wasn’t held in an attack position and his gaze was not focused on her. She turned towards the council, where his gaze was locked, and understood why his eyes were so wide and his mouth hung open.
Her last lunge for safety had tipped the vat over, drenching the entire council in silver. Some of the stragglers behind the council screamed in pain as silver flooded into the third row of chairs before cooling enough to halt.
Metal clanged against wood and Alessandra’s gaze snapped to the executioner. His gaze was now on her but it transferred from shock to a kind of awe she wasn’t sure she deserved.
“Let my pack go,” she ordered and then realized she had shifted back to human form.
He nodded, and tossed her the keys hanging from his belt. And then the man dropped to his knee and bent his head in submission. Alessandra raised an eyebrow and glanced at Hunter. He was staring at her with the same wide eyes the rest of her pack gazed at her with.
“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious. She wrapped her arms around herself and that was when she understood. She glanced down at what was left of the front of her dress. It was in burnt tatters, revealing her creamy, unscathed skin. They had seen her naked and drenched in deer blood, so the sight of her flesh shouldn’t be a big deal, and yet it was. Hunter’s gaze was locked on something she couldn’t see, and she pressed her breasts in and gasped.
The werewolf leader symbol had formed in the ash on her stomach. No wonder the place was bathed in silence. She had wiped out the entire werewolf council and now wore the symbol of leader, a position she had no idea how to carry. Instead of focusing on what it meant, she crossed and knelt next to Hunter, unlocking his cuffs.
He stared up at her but didn’t move, except to rub the burn marks on his wrists. He winced and did a poor job at smiling. He still carried the smell of death on him and she swallowed the lump in her throat.
“I still can’t move my legs,” he whispered.
She palmed his cheek and leaned down, pressing her lips to his in a gentle expression of everything swirling inside her. “You need rest to heal properly,” she said when their lips parted.
He glanced at the sky and nodded after a moment. “Yeah,” he whispered, and his eyelids slid closed. Hunter’s breath remained steady and she glanced up at the crowd gathering around her.
“He needs help,” she said. Her pack, newly freed from their cages, picked him up and carried him down the ladder. The only vehicle that still had working tires was the original truck he had been tied to. Alessandra had him laid out on the backseat with his head in her lap.
Nathan, one of the older pack members, climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car. “Where do you want to go?”
“The nearest hospital. He needs stitches and we need to find out just how serious his back injury is.” She met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “And it will give you time to talk about what’s eating you,” she added.
He pulled out and skirted around the silver puddle. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“For freeing us. You didn’t have to return.”
“Neither of us knew you were imprisoned. If we had known, we would have come sooner.” She brushed the hair off Hunter’s forehead. “He would have come sooner,” she clarified.
“You wouldn’t have?”
She kept her eyes averted. “One of you turned us in,” she said.
“None of us said a thing, Ally.”
Her gaze snapped up to his. “Then... how come our faces were plastered everywhere for what we did?”
He let out a sarcastic laugh. “I’ve been listening very carefully to the council member conversations. They tried to get us to talk, but even sweet Charity didn’t tell them what happened. As horrific as it was to watch, those beasts deserved what you and Hunter did.”
“I’m still not understanding how they knew we killed humans.” If the pack hadn’t turned them in, why were they being held? It didn’t make any sense. She kept running her fingers through Hunter’s hair. It was as soothing to her as she imagined it was to him.
“The council sanctioned it. They grossly underestimated our pack. We were supposed to kill you in that field, and in turn, die ourselves.”
She knew the deer blood had been used to mask her scent long enough for the pack to bite her, but still, the thought of them killing her wasn’t anything she entertained, despite what Jeremy had said. “Well, they tried to hide my scent with the deer blood.”
“Actually, they expected us to kill you because you were dying.”
“What?” She wasn’t sure she heard him right. “Why the hell would they think that?”
He chuckled. “I guess it’s the norm in other packs. When one becomes too sick, the pack turns on them to thin the herd.” He visibly shivered. “I guess that’s what they were hoping for.”
“What the hell kind of wolf pack does that?”
He glanced back at her and shrugged. “Apparently, a lot of them.”
“That’s so fucked up,” she muttered. She may have been as self-centered as Hunter indicated, but she would never intentionally hurt her pack, and Nathan obviously felt the same way as she did. She knew Hunter agreed on that. The pack was her family and she could never intentionally hurt them. She glanced at Nathan. “Why would they want the pack dead?”
Nathan’s glance dropped to Hunter and then returned to the road. “You need to ask Hunter about that when he wakes up.”
Alessandra looked down at Hunter’s unconscious form before glancing back at Nathan. “I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner.”
He just gave her a nod and handed her something from the front seat. She took the fabric and unfolded it. With a soft laugh, she slid the chambray work shirt over her shoulders, threading her arms into the sleeves and buttoning it up before the heat reached her cheeks.
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” he said.
Silence settled over the cab while he drove through the woods. The jostling of the truck pulled a grimace to Hunter’s face, but he didn’t wake. She let out a si
gh of relief when they finally hit the blacktop.
Wolf Moon Chapter 10
The steady beep infringed on his dream, and he went to roll, but couldn’t move away from the sound. Hunter’s eyelids flew open to the white floor tiles below him.
“Hold still, Mr. Blaez,” a voice said.
He moved his gaze until white shoes came into view.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“The hospital. We had to fuse one of your vertebrae together and need you to remain still for another couple of days. You had extensive damage to your spinal column, but with the traction you underwent prior to arriving at the hospital, and the fusion of your broken bone, we are hoping to reverse some of the damage to your spinal column, but you must not fight the position we have you in, okay?”
His eyes closed as it all came flooding back. The car accident, the clearing, everything. “Okay,” he said, ignoring the reference to traction. That was actually an attempt to tear him in half, but if it somehow helped, he would not correct the nurse. Instead, he relaxed. “Is Leigh here?”
“Your girlfriend?” the nurse asked.
“Yes,” he said, refraining from nodding.
“She went to grab a bite to eat and to tell the rest of your friends how the operation went.”
Coolness passed into his hand, burning through his blood and he sucked air between his teeth.
“That should help you relax. I will be back in a little while to check on you.” Her feet disappeared from view.
The burn altered, sending heat through every muscle, turning him into a giant mass of putty. His eyelids drooped. The soft patter of feet brought his fuzzy brain back to the moment instead of somewhere out in space.
Her scent filled his world. Warm cinnamon and spice, with a pinch of underlying power that was undeniable.
“Leigh,” he whispered, intoxicated by her.
“Jake.”
Her breath tickled his ear, sending cooling heat through him that tingled all the way to his toes. His eyes snapped wide. His toes tingled and he jerked in the restraints.
“Easy, there,” she said and her painted toes came into view clad in flip-flops. Alessandra’s hand caressed the back of his head. “You need to stay still for another twelve hours.”
“My toes tingled.”
Her hair came into view and then her beautiful face. A face he didn’t think he’d ever see again; and he blinked back the sudden mist that blurred his vision.
“The only way to heal is to stay still, even if you’re starting to get some feeling back. This puts the least pressure on your spine, so just chill, okay?” She put her drink on the floor and stretched out underneath him. The way her hair fanned out on the white tile stirred a need in his core and she smiled up at him. “You definitely can’t do anything related to that,” she whispered.
Hunter raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?” he asked, toying with her.
She reached up and gently patted his cheek. “Did you know your scent changes just a little whenever you’re aroused?”
“Really?” Hunter had no idea. He knew women had different pheromones when they were horny, but he never really noticed a change in the male scent.
“Yes. It reminds me of salted caramel,” she said.
He stared into her eyes and his smile faded. “Why didn’t you run like I ordered you to?”
Her fingers slid away from his skin and she sighed. “I couldn’t let you take the fall for what I did. Besides, I saved your ass, so, no harm, no foul.”
“You have no idea what Winters had planned. If you hadn’t gotten lucky...” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Winters had told him that his trophy room would be a fitting place for Alessandra, especially with Hunter’s silver-cast body forever witnessing her suffering. He had promised that what those fraternity boys had done would be mild foreplay in comparison to what he and his pack would do to Alessandra. Winters’ foul words still clouded his thoughts.
“He would have marched us all to our death,” she said thinking she was accurately finishing his sentence.
Hunter laughed. “Not all of us. The rest of the pack and I would have died in that field. But you, no, he wasn’t going to kill you.” His stomach turned sour at the thought and he chose his next words carefully. “You would have served his pack.”
Her head cocked for a minute and then her eyes widened as the color drained from her face. Hunter didn’t break her gaze.
“He had some very graphic descriptions for me, between his announcements to the crowd,” he added. The coil of anger burned in his stomach and he drew a long slow breath, calming his tightening muscles.
“Let it go, Jake,” she whispered. Some of the color returned to her cheeks. “We made it out alive.”
Hunter nodded but didn’t comment. He wasn’t sure what kind of life he would have going forward, but he didn’t want to lay that on her right now. That would have to wait until she wasn’t lying on the floor looking up at him. That was more of a sit-on-the-side-of-the-bed type of conversation.
“Nathan said I needed to ask you why the council wanted our pack dead.”
Hunter closed his eyes and pressed his lips together for a moment. “Because I wouldn’t give Winters the evidence my father had against him.” Silence filled the space and he opened his eyes. “He warned me that he’d tear down everything I cared about if I didn’t do as he commanded.” He wished he could reach out and caress her cheek. “I should have known he’d use you against me. Especially with the shit my dad had on him.”
They stared at each other for a moment.
“Why didn’t you give the evidence to authorities?”
Hunter laughed. “Because the bastard has greased palms all the way up to the White House and the justice system is equally as corrupt. I didn’t know who the hell to get it to.”
The shuffle of feet and a throat clearing pulled Alessandra’s gaze from his to her right. Hunter couldn’t see anything but from the sudden tension in her jaw, he could tell it wasn’t someone she wanted to see.
“Ms. Tate?” the voice inquired, and relief flooded Hunter. He didn’t want to discuss this anymore.
Alessandra put her finger to her lips and Hunter smiled. He raised an eyebrow.
“Ms. Tate. I know you are in here.”
Alessandra rolled her eyes and sighed.
“What Hans?” she said without moving.
Hans? He mouthed at her and she gave him that single shoulder shrug. The pop of knees pulled his gaze to the side, and an older gentleman peered under the bed.
“As I told you earlier, we need to sort out some... issues,” Hans said.
“What items are you referring to?” Hunter asked.
The man’s tiger-like eyes swiveled in his direction. “Council business,” he nearly barked.
Hunter narrowed his eyes, glaring at the intruder.
“Jake is the council,” Alessandra said, leveling an equally as intimidating glare.
Hunter jolted in place as if his entire body had been plugged into a socket. His gaze bounced to Alessandra and she gave him a small smile.
The man straightened out of his sight and Alessandra sighed. “We’ll talk later,” she said very softly, and slid out from under the bed.
He stared at the spot she had vacated, his mind circling around the conversation as well as her last statement. The medicine fogged his brain and his vision blurred. He let the high take him into a sedated stupor.
Wolf Moon Chapter 11
Hans brought Alessandra to Winters’ old house where the local police had converged. Nathan stood next to the entrance, along with an officer who was scribbling in a notebook as Nathan spoke.
For a second, Alessandra had the urge to flee. Her muscles burned with it, but she forced herself to cross the snow covered lawn to the front door. Nathan gave her a nod, but there was no warmth in it.
“Nathan,” she said as she approached. The officer closed his notebook and retreated, leaving Alessandra, Hans and Nathan alone.
“Ally,” he replied, but even his tone was frosty. His gazed moved to behind her. “You didn’t need to bring her here.”
Alessandra cocked her head, but Nathan just gave her an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“She is the head of the council. She deserves to know,” Hans said from behind her.
“What the hell is going on?”
Nathan traded a glance with Hans and then met Alessandra’s gaze. She couldn’t read anything beyond his poker face. He didn’t speak, just waved her inside the house. The house crawled with police, they lined the hallways, filled the office space studying files from open cabinets. But it wasn’t the police or the rooms on the main floor that caught her attention.
The scent of death and decay made her nose wrinkle. She didn’t want to see the source of that stink, but it seemed that was exactly where Nathan was leading her. As they approached the far end of the house, doors leading to what she could only surmise as hell, leaned open on broken hinges.
“You don’t have to go down there,” Nathan said from behind her.
“What am I going to find?” she asked, numb from the deep seated fear spreading through her. She turned and met his gaze.
Nathan inhaled before he licked his lips. “Ally,” he started, and shifted his feet. His gaze dropped to the ground before moving to Hans and back.
“What—”
“—Your parents,” Hans blurted.
The numbness encompassing her turned to a burning fire, and her feet moved faster than her mind. She skidded to a stop at the bottom of at least two stories of stairs. Her hand shot to her mouth at the display of silver coated death posed for Winters’ entertainment. Mounted heads covered the walls and figures littered the floor. In the middle of the room lay empty chains, but the videos the police were cataloging showed enough.
Hunter’s earlier comment about servicing the pack weren’t exaggerated. His choice of words seemed tame in comparison to what was flowing on the screens. She shivered and rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms, trying to return the heat that had fled from her the moment she stepped into this hellish trophy display.