After seeing what Elisa was capable of, however, I didn’t doubt that they were awesome. A whole pack of werewolves working together like that must be really dangerous. The more I considered it, the more I felt we could have taken it out without Amorie after all. Just probably not without casualties.
Thinking of Amorie reminded me of swords and my side started throbbing as if on cue. I looked down and started picking at my bandage but Raelya glanced up and nipped at my hand. After a moment of glaring and staring me down in wolf form, she shifted to her human self and glared at me some more.
“It will be slower to heal than a normal wound, Dakota. The blade was silver. It will heal more like how a normal human heals.”
I pouted. “But it itches… I just want to—”
“You pick those bandages apart and I will have to wrap you up all over again. Keep your hands away from it. Or else.” Raelya gave me a stern expression that reminded me of Elisa. I laughed, regretted it, and went on laughing anyway.
My laughter petered off as I suddenly put two rather important facts together in my head. I chewed at my lip for a beat before glancing over at Raelya with a thoughtful expression. She tilted her head curiously. “I was just thinking. You know that wolf-thing that was stalking me at work? And then the scrying magic?”
Raelya frowned, nodding. “What about them?”
“Well, when it was put forth that the Skinwalker might have been after me in particular, I considered that the wolf-thing could well have been the Skinwalker.”
Raelya nodded slowly. “And then, perhaps, the Skinwalker could also have been the one who stole your hairbrush to scry on you for more information. If it was hunting you to steal your skin, that would make sense.”
I nodded. “Or it could have been working with someone else, like we considered with Elisa. Regardless, I had figured that those events were connected.”
Raelya tilted her head. “But…”
I shook my head. “But I scented the Skinwalker out in the woods the night of my first run. I didn’t know what it was then, but thinking back, I know it was the right scent. And the wolf-thing wasn’t the Skinwalker.”
Raelya frowned deeply. “You are right. Andrei would have recognized it from the run if it had been the same.”
I nodded. “Didn’t connect that at the time, but it makes sense now.”
Raelya leaned her head on my shoulder, frowning worriedly. “That means something is still after you.”
I shrugged gingerly. “Or at least, something is watching me. Something other than the Skinwalker.”
Raelya pursed her lips. “Perhaps the Skinwalker was working with someone else and the wolf-thing was yet another associate.”
“Maybe. But my gut says there’s something we’re still missing in all of that.”
Raelya nuzzled my shoulder softly. “Then we must be on the look out for further clues. But whatever is stalking you, at least you will not have to face it alone.”
I blinked against the warm tears in my eyes as I nuzzled Raelya back. “I know.”
We snuggled together for a few minutes in contented silence before Raelya started giggling. I tilted my head and she shook hers. “I was just thinking back on the fight in the truck—”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “It’s been a bad month for trucks.”
Raelya snorted and shook her head again. “No, just, the things you said while you were fighting the Skinwalker. You are so crazy, Dakota.”
I grinned. “What can I say? When I’m scared, I run off of adrenaline and bad jokes.”
Raelya nodded. “That! You started making those Mad Max references and—” She giggled again. “Dakota, I was trying to drive!”
I laughed, wincing at the pain in my side. “And you were witnessed, Imperator. You shall ride eternal, shiny and chrome!”
We devolved into helpless laughter that left me gasping for mercy by the time I got it under control. Raelya hopped up to get me some painkillers. She assured me they wouldn’t last long, but they should take the edge off for a while. She smiled at me warmly as she stepped out into the hall.
I called Amorie as soon as the sun went down and languished in the velvet purr of her voice for a while. Her work was busy as ever and I wouldn’t likely have a good chance to see her again for a few days at least, but we could always talk. After watching her fight the Skinwalker, I had a dozen questions or more, but I could wait until I could ask her in person. I wanted to see her eyes sparkle and her sly little smile when I asked her for the story from her point of view.
I hoped she would be as excited about that as I thought she might.
Raelya and Elisa had me on bed rest for the next several days, and I might have gone crazy if not for the pile of reading material I still had left over from SII training, and the company of Raelya and Nita who dropped by repeatedly to check on me throughout the week. We spent a deal of time talking about the Skinwalker and what had happened, and I had the chance to thank Nita in person for the information she’d given me, but as soon as we’d run that circuit once, I stopped talking about it. I could tell that Nita still found the whole thing disturbing and I liked to see her smile and rant far more than I liked to see her frown and shudder when she thought I wasn’t looking.
A couple of weeks of rest did me plenty of good and the nasty cut that ran from just below my rib cage all the way to my hip went from a deep, life-threatening wound to something that looked nasty, but reasonably survivable in those few days. It still looked like someone had tried to steal my kidney for drug money, and the bruising was truly spectacular all around it, but it could have been worse. I was going to have an impressive scar and no amount of werewolf regeneration was going to stop that. Elisa was proof that we could scar, and I knew silver was one of the prime reasons why we did.
I was going stir crazy by the time Mama Wolf and Raelya started letting me move around the house again and I found myself wandering out to the back yard to take in the fresh air more often than not. I was sitting on the grassy hill, watching a few squirrels playing at the tree line when Jack sat down next to me out of nowhere, chewing at a long piece of grass.
“Don’t get yer tail in a twist, girl. I ain’t here to pick no fight with ya. ‘Sides, looks like y’already lost one of those.” Jack nodded toward my still bandaged side with bit of respect in his eyes. “I came to talk.”
I eyed Jack suspiciously for a moment then turned my attention back toward the squirrels with a shrug. “You have a mouth, so talk.” I said in my best impression of Tevye, which was a really, really bad impression. From the way he tilted his head and scrunched at his eyes, I imagined Jack wasn’t a Broadway kind of guy. I shook my head and gestured dismissively at my own joke.
“Been thinkin’ about some things while you’ve been down an’ I got an offer for ya.”
I cut my eyes to the side and narrowed them slightly. I might have grown a modicum of respect for Jack in seeing how he’d stood up to the Skinwalker on behalf of his pack, but I still didn’t like him as far as I could throw him. “Can I refuse it?”
Jack huffed in mild amusement. “I actually understood that one.” He shook his head and kept his eyes focused on the blade of grass he’d plucked from his teeth to fiddle with in favor of actually facing me.
I shrugged. “Gotta happen sometime. So what is it?”
“Well, kid, you don’t seem to like me none, and I can’t say as I care for you very much neither. But the way I figure it, the pack working like it ought to is worth a hell of a lot more than any little feud we got goin’ on. ‘Specially since, you bein’ so far down an’ all, it ain’t gonna go good places if we keep throwin’ down every time we’re in the same house or out for a run. Y’hear?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, so what do you propose we do about it?”
“Well, I reckon I’ll go about my business and you’ll go about yours. You keep from gettin’ in my way an’ settin’ me off, an’ I’ll do the same for you. Assumin’ you got what it takes to work you
r way on up through the pack, you an’ me, one day we’ll settle stuff for good. I figure that saves us both a mess of trouble in the in between.” He cut his eyes toward me without really trying to make eye contact. “So what d’ya say? Deal?” He stuck his hand out toward me and I was mostly just grateful he didn’t spit on it.
I made no move to reach for his hand just yet. “So… I avoid snarky remarks that will set you off, and you don’t flip your shit if a girl you like would rather spend her time with me?”
Jack inhaled deeply and let out a slow, heavy breath. “Somethin’ like that. Though you could start by shuttin’ up about things that ain’t none of your business.”
I nodded like I agreed with him. “Well as long as we’re talking about things that aren’t my business, and not say, Raelya who is my friend, I guess that works.”
Jack shook his head and gave a little humorless laugh. “You ain’t got a lick of sense. I don’t reckon this is gonna work out after all then?”
I took a deep breath and did my best to calm myself down. The werewolf temper was easy to set off, and Jack was capable of pushing my buttons just by breathing in my general direction. But the pack meant more to me than that, and I wasn’t going to unsettle the pack over something like that.
Besides, he had a point, at least a little one. “Nah. I can handle that if you can.” I stuck my hand out. Jack looked slightly surprised, but shook my hand and stood up, settling the dusty old Stetson on his head as he did.
“Welp, I guess there’s nothin’ more to say then. You hold to it, an’ I will too. ‘Sides, I ain’t much worried about you challengin’ me anytime soon. There’s a hell of a lot of wolves, friends of mine even, in the way, and plenty of them’s made of tougher stuff than a—” Jack bit off his word and grinned at me humorlessly. “Well, than you anyway.”
“We’ll see.” I shrugged as casually as I could manage and turned my attention back to the squirrels.
“Yeah, I reckon we will.” Jack turned and walked back toward the house and I spent the next ten minutes thinking of things I would have enjoyed saying to him if I hadn’t been desperately trying to keep the peace with the misogynistic old bastard.
32
Wake Up Call
It took most of a month for Elisa to declare me well enough to go back to a normal life, though she still glared at me regularly if I tried to lift something heavy or if she caught me rough-housing with one of the other wolves in a way she deemed unacceptable for my condition. She’d healed up far faster than I had at any rate. None of the wounds she had taken in her fight with the Skinwalker had been edged in silver the way mine had, and she was a hell of a lot tougher than I was.
As soon as I was fit and able, I started meeting up with Nita again on a regular basis and we started transitioning from reading and conversation to more practical training. I was ecstatic about the career I had landed with SII. It was exactly the sort of thing I had always dreamed of doing; protecting people and making a difference. I had finally found a way to take up that path I’d always wanted, and there was finally nothing standing in my way.
Amorie’s work settled down again after a few weeks of sparse contact and irregular visits, and we started making plans for her to take a night off so we could catch up. I didn’t mind so much that most of the dates we’d had so far were interrupted at one point or another with a phone call at best, or her having to run off to deal with something at worse. I was in a relationship with a wonderful, loving woman who had shown me that I could trust her no matter what others thought of her kind; nothing else mattered next to that.
I settled into life with the pack and my new work schedule which would have me working mostly afternoons into late evenings if things stayed regular, which Nita assured me, they wouldn’t. Not entirely. Nothing was ever that simple.
But we shifted our training sessions to the time of day that would most likely encompass my new shift whenever I was deemed ready enough to start minor field work and I fell into the routine of meeting Nita every day at the SII Knoxville office so it wouldn’t be so hard to adapt when my real work began.
Nita spent extra time working with me on my willpower and magical control. She figured it’d be doubly useful for me considering that training my willpower would not only help me master the Hellfire, but being a werewolf, a little extra control never hurt anyway. I think I surprised her when I asked if I could learn how to conjure things like Amorie. She assured me it was possible, and sent me home with yet another pile of books to read.
We found a nice clearing in the mountains not too far from the pack house where I could practice my Hellfire without much threat of setting the forest on fire, or the SII building, or someone’s house for that matter. Nita had me meditating every night to increase my discipline and awareness, and I had been learning to control the amount of Hellfire I released at a given time.
She had me practicing on some rock formations, honing my precision and ability to call the fire back. It was going pretty well right up until the point when the lambent flames decided to flare suddenly and a gout of fire rushed forth from my palm, bigger than any I’d seen since the dragon-Skinwalker.
“Woah. What the hell was that?” Nita crossed her arms, assuming I’d botched my control.
“I have no idea.” I frowned. “It was really weird.” I turned my hand over and stared at my palm as the Hellfire munched happily on the rocks nearby. Well, I’m not sure “happily” is the right word, but it made me feel better than other adjectives I could have ascribed to the way it chewed at the stones. “It was almost like something just… shoved at the Hellfire. Like something other than me.”
Nita stiffened slightly and stared at my hand. “That doesn’t sound good, Dakota.”
“I know.” I lifted my hand toward the rocks and called the Hellfire back into my palm. It came as willingly as it ever did, which was encouraging for the moment. “What do you think it means?”
Nita considered for a moment before bending to scoop up the small cooler of drinks we’d brought. “Nothing good.”
“I figured that much.” I fell into step with her as she started down the little wooded path that would take us back to her car. “Any thoughts?”
Nita paused mid-step and turned to face me. “It could be nothing. The Hellfire almost has a mind of its own. Maybe it was just… eager or something.”
I frowned. “But that’s not what you think is most likely.”
Nita smirked at me and rolled her eyes. “No, it’s not, Sherlock.” She pressed her lips into a tight line. “It could be Her.”
“I was hoping you weren’t going to say that.”
Nita met my eyes and gave me a long, serious look before speaking any further. “It may be best for you to go and meet with her, like you were considering.”
I nodded. “It may be best for everyone’s peace of mind if nothing else.”
Nita hesitated, then set the cooler down beside her, straightened back up, and grabbed my hands. “You’re my friend, Dakota. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I smiled at Nita and squeezed her hands. “Thanks, Nita. That means a lot to me. But I may not have a choice in the matter.”
Nita nodded. “I know, and it pisses me right off that you got stuck with this in the first place. I mean, you didn’t ask for this! You shouldn’t have to worry if you’re going to be okay, or if something’s just going to happen to you because some asshole sorcerer decided to go rogue and meddle in things no sane person ever—”
“Nita.” I put a finger up to shush her, waited to see that I had her attention, then smiled at her earnestly. “Thank you for caring.”
Nita quirked her lips to the side and let out a breath. “Sorry. Just… If you do decide to go see Her… Please be careful.”
I nodded as I bent to scoop up the cooler which I promptly settled onto my shoulder like a 90’s boom box. “I will.”
“No, I mean really careful. Not ‘Dakota decides to fight the Skinwalker in her war f
orm’ careful. I mean serious, actual, ‘dealing with a demon and walking out alive’ careful.” Nita fell into step with me again as I continued down the path.
“I promise, I’ll be as careful as possible, given the circumstances.” I glanced up at my friend with a smile. “Besides, what’s the worst that could—”
Nita glared at me. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
I grinned at her instead, and changed the subject. “So who do you think would win in a fight between Deadpool and Alucard from Hellsing?” We argued about superheros and anime vampires all the way back to the car. It was a silly little game, but we enjoyed it. Nita was great at arguing, and I enjoyed mentally sparring with her on a topic we both enjoyed. But in our line of work, it was important to be able to think outside of the box.
And with our job, knowing the difference in powers and abilities between an immortal assassin and an ancient vampire might actually come in handy.
Want More Dakota?
The story continues with Hunted
(Auralight Codex: Dakota Shepherd #2)
Hunted is the second book of what I expect to be a long series that I’ll be writing for years to come. If you want more of Dakota’s snarky wit and heartfelt antics, be sure to check out the rest of the series, coming soon from DarksbaneBooks.com.
Auralight Codex :
Dakota Shepherd Novels:
Awakened (#1)
Hunted (#2)
Driven (#2.5) - Soon!
Blooded (#3)- Coming Fall 2015
Risen (#4) - To Be Announced.
And many more…
Auralight Codex is the cultivation of many stories that I intend to explore in the future with multiple series, so be sure to sign up for our mailing list at DarksbaneBooks.com to always receive our updates on upcoming releases, promotions, and special offers.
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Hunted (Auralight Codex: Dakota Shepherd Book 2) Page 25