Wolfen

by Alianne Donnelly

  Casey reached for the canteen to drink.

  Desiree pulled it away. “No, honey, you need to drink that.” And she nodded for Arik to give her a sip of the licorice brew.

  Casey didn’t like it, but it wasn’t much of a struggle to get some of the tea into her; she was too scared and weak to resist. One sip at a time, she downed the liquid. One breath at a time, she calmed and quieted, drowsing against Arik.

  “What happened back there?” Desiree asked later, voice low so she wouldn’t wake the girl.

  Arik glanced at Casey, then ducked his head. “Guess we led the dogs right to our door.” He shrugged. “Best I can tell, converts latched onto the scent of the troops Klaus sent out and followed them back to Haven.”

  Where they’d finished off the rest. It’d been a glorious night for the gray bastards—all available human chattel, dead in a matter of hours. Clean sweep; wham-bam, thank you ma’am.

  “Jesus.”

  Arik tossed another piece of wood onto the fire. “It’s done. We might still have a decent head start, so I say we use it. We have cars; let’s just get the hell out of here and not look back.”

  If only it were that easy. What would they do for food and shelter? It could be thousands of miles before they found people again—if they found people again. One able-bodied man with a little girl and a cripple. What would they do when they ran out of gas?

  It would have been less painful if they’d just stayed in Haven for the slaughter.

  But Desiree was beyond giving a damn anymore. She was tired of being afraid; tired of feeling weak and useless; tired of being less than, damaged, without purpose. Klaus was dead, and damn, if Aiden hadn’t been right—she was glad of it. They were free and clear, and the only things she had to worry about were the direct consequences to her actions and one crazy Wolfen. She could handle this. For the first time in her life, it felt like she had some smidgen of control over her existence. She wasn’t about to give that up. Not for anything.

  As the evening started to grow long, Casey breathed easier. Still hissed a little, but improved enough to lie down and sleep without Arik freaking out over her not waking up. They let her rest while Arik gathered more wood and did a perimeter check. Desiree cataloged their supplies in the meantime.

  The good news was Arik had managed to grab some pretty important basics that would be hard to come by from now on: knives and tools, a collapsible fishing rod, space blankets, and the medical equivalent of a sewing kit would be a lifesaver. The bad news was none of it was edible. They’d need to hunt for their sustenance, which meant relocating to an area with wildlife bigger than a fly.

  Desiree rubbed her face tiredly, and stoked the fire. It’d get cold during the night. Already the temperature was dropping, and the little flame wouldn’t last them very long. She hoped Arik came back with a truckload of wood.

  Casey was finally asleep, cheeks a healthy pink. She’d make it ‘til morning. After that was anybody’s guess. The licorice would last through a few more tea brews, maybe ten if they rationed. It was by no means a long-term solution. They needed help.

  A branch snapped.

  Desiree twisted around, groping for her gun. “Arik?”

  No answer.

  The sun was setting, and every pass of wind through the foliage made her think something was out there. Despite her brave front, nighttime in the open was creepy as hell. She palmed the handgun and switched off the safety.

  “Stop playing around—this isn’t funny!”

  Movement in the darkness, too steady to be random. Footsteps approached, and Desiree raised her gun, blindly pointing in the general direction of their source.

  The footsteps stopped, then resumed, slower, more cautious.

  Desiree squinted at a pair of fireflies, then gasped when she realized they were eyes. Aiden. He stalked toward the fire, human enough in body, but something in his posture and the piercing eyes trained steadily on her, made Desiree question just how human he was in mind.

  Factor seven, she reminded herself. On a scale of one-to-nine, he ought to be safe. But his recent history begged to differ. The gun wavered in her hand, and he took another step forward.

  “Stop right there!” she snapped, and tightened her hold to steady the gun. Her balance was precarious enough as it was; she needed her free hand for support.

  Casey stirred. “Aiden?” It was her voice, not Desiree’s, that stopped the Wolfen in his tracks.

  He tilted his head, crouched to the ground, knuckles against the earth and an arm braced on his knee—a predator preparing to strike. “Put it down,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice so calm, it chilled her.

  No! No more cowering. You live, or you die, but you do not give up!

  “Aiden?” Casey sat up, excitement making her breathe faster, harder. Too soon after her attack. She’d relapse if she wasn’t careful. “Aiden, you’re back!”

  The Wolfen didn’t even glance at her, all of his focus trained on Desiree and the gun.

  Picking up on the tension, Casey didn’t rush to him. She frowned and hugged her knees to her chest. “You left me!” she accused, chin wobbling. She sniffled, and Desiree detected a wheeze.

  So did Aiden. His eyes flickered to Casey, and just as quickly returned to Desiree. “You have one shot before I tear that gun from you, along with your arm.” Every word he spoke flashed a hint of fang. Not as huge as before, but there, nonetheless. “Think you can make it count?”

  It should have cowed her, and for a second there it did. But then Desiree raised her chin and steeled her spine. In point of fact, she could make the shot count. She could do irreparable damage to him quite easily. All she had to do was aim at Casey, whose plaintive breaths grew louder by the second.

  But there was no surer way to set Aiden off again, and Desiree didn’t want to blow her advantage. Aiden hadn’t attacked yet and wasn’t blustering to intimidate her. He wanted the girl badly enough not to risk a full-throttle assault. Good. It meant Desiree still had a chance to get out of this with her neck intact. “I think if you were going to kill me, you would have done it earlier.”

  “I was caught off guard. It won’t happen again.”

  He meant it. His claws dug into the ground. Given half a chance, he’d tear her apart without a second thought.

  Desiree licked her lips nervously. “Where’s Arik?”

  Aiden smirked. “He can’t help you now.”

  “Aiden, I’m scared,” Casey said. “Don’t leave me anymore.” Her pout was all game, but the wheeze wasn’t.

  Desiree pressed her advantage. “You need me alive,” she said.

  “I really don’t,” Aiden countered, creeping closer.

  Her finger tightened slightly on the trigger. “Then resign yourself to watching Casey die!”

  That stopped him, and he snarled, hair rising like hackles with his anger.

  “Stop. Stop it!” Casey shouted, crying for real this time. Her next breath was a gasp.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Aiden demanded.

  “Asthma,” Desiree said. “She had an attack when you abandoned her earlier. This could be a relapse. She needs treatment—and fast—or her airways will close off completely and she’ll suffocate.”

  “Do it,” he barked, gaze switching rapidly between her and Casey. He was tense, a male Wolfen toeing the line, holding back by sheer force of will.

  The old Desiree would have balked, dropped the gun, and followed his orders to the letter, fearing repercussions. The temptation was still there. Her gun arm was getting tired; she felt herself weakening with an overwhelming urge to curl up and pray he tired of hitting her, before her body tired of holding onto life. She’d always done that with Klaus.

  But Klaus was dead, and Aiden wasn’t a psychotic dictator with an army. The rules have changed. She had an advantage here, and the sense of power it brought made Desiree reckless to the point of insanity. She dropped the gun—too heavy to hold up, anyway—and turned her back on him. “Eh, maybe lat
er. First we’re going to talk.”

  “H-help,” Casey wheezed, reaching out to Aiden, even though Desiree held the key to her recovery.

  Aiden snarled, snapping his teeth like a rabid dog, closer than he’d been a second ago.

  Desiree flinched, but sat up straighter. She wouldn’t back down. “Have a seat,” she invited.

  “Please, help.” Casey’s voice grew harsh. She was looking to Desiree and reaching for the herb box.

  Desiree pulled it from her reach, eliciting a moan of despair.

  Aiden was at her back instantaneously, rumbling a pissed-off growl at her ear.

  Desiree squeezed her eyes shut and hugged the herb box to her chest. “The longer you stall, the worse she’ll get.”

  Casey whined a little.

  Aiden gathered her up and sat across the fire from Desiree with a glare promising death at the earliest opportunity, while Casey clutched at him as though he were the only safe place in the world. “You’d let a little girl suffer to get your way. You’re sick.”

  “You forget,” Desiree snapped in answer, “I was a little girl once, too, and plenty of people saw me suffer, and didn’t do a damn thing about it. I am what they made me.”

  Aiden didn’t like that. His eyes glowed brighter, and his face rippled with the start of a shift, before he pulled it back again. “Ten guesses what you want.”

  “To live,” Desiree said simply, sprinkling licorice into the pot of water. “You can buy her life by giving me mine; I can keep her alive until you get to where you need to go.”

  “Which means I need to take you along for the ride, right?”

  She inclined her head. “Naturally.” He had to have a home somewhere, and if not, he’d have to make one for Casey. It was a chance for Desiree to start fresh, a new life. “I’m not without purpose. I could be useful to you.”

  He growled. “And if I refuse?”

  Desiree shrugged. “Then she dies, you kill me, and the world will be two weak links short.”

  Casey must have said something to him, because Aiden patted her on the back to comfort her, displaying a level of gentleness that clashed with the savage countenance he turned on Desiree.

  He only had to look at her, and Desiree shook with fear, which pissed her off. So she took a deep breath and shoved down all of it: fear for herself, for Casey, for Arik—who still hadn’t returned—for what might happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. Right now, she had all the power in the world to dictate the terms of her own life. She would not be cowed into squandering it.

  “I didn’t lock you up,” she said. “I didn’t consign you to that cell. You volunteered, and you did it, knowing exactly what kind of people you were dealing with. You don’t get to blame me for that.”

  Aiden snarled, with less heat behind it. She’d spoken the truth, and he knew it, whether it suited him or not.

  “When all is said and done, I hurt you for one day, and you were left untouched while you healed. You, on the other hand, have caused me pain that’ll keep hurting for weeks—out here, without any sort of way to protect myself. You destroyed my leg and cut my chances of survival by more than three-quarters. I think that makes us even.”

  Casey’s wheeze was getting louder. She twisted around in Aiden’s arms to face the fire, then leaned forward as she had before.

  Aiden’s patience was wearing thin, so Desiree laid out her terms very quickly. “Here’s the deal: we clear the slate right here and now, and start over. I help Casey, and you let me live. You assure me safe passage to wherever you’re going, and swear to me you won’t hurt me again, through action or inaction, and I’ll make sure Casey gets there safe and sound, and tell you how to keep her that way, until she’s grown enough to take care of herself.”

  Aiden took time to consider her proposal, time Casey didn’t have.

  “Ai-den?” She looked over her shoulder at him, equal amounts of fear and betrayal in her small voice. Had she finally caught on to how dangerous her new best friend really was?

  He softened at once, rubbing Casey’s back. “Understand, if any harm comes to her at your hands, your life is forfeit.”

  Desiree nodded.

  “Fine,” he growled.

  She quickly tossed him the lavender pouch while she swirled the tea in the pot. “Have her breathe that while the tea brews.”

  Only when Aiden had finally broken the staring contest did Desiree allow herself to relax a little. Night was falling on a veil of cold silence, but she didn’t mind. In fact, she almost smiled, knowing, for once, she’d make it. If Aiden cared enough about Casey to give up his grudge, he wouldn’t let any harm come to her. And that meant Desiree was safe by association. A good deal, in her book. She’d pat herself on the back for it later.

  By the time Arik returned, dragging a small mountain of firewood in his wake, Casey was resting comfortably in Aiden’s arms and Desiree was half asleep. He took one look at the scene, and dropped his burden with wary resignation. “All right, what did I miss?”

  42: Aiden

  Vengeance is supposed to be a righteous undertaking, the act of becoming Justice, tipping the scales back to neutral in some small way.

  It’s not.

  Vengeance is selfish. It’s a vain man’s pastime with a price I can’t afford.

  I might know Wolfen biology down to the molecular level, but human ailments have never been my concern beyond calculating how quickly they’d take a person down. With Casey, it’ll be too damn quick, unless I can find a way to get over this grudge against Desiree and learn to work with her rather than against her. Pack comes first, always. For Casey, I have to be the bigger man.

  So I guess that’s what I’m going to do. Be all Zen and shit.

  There is wisdom in looking into the eyes of your enemy and admitting when she’s right.

  That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

  ~

  Only one of the cars still had a functional battery, so they repacked everything, siphoned out what little gas was left in the other vehicle, shared some dried meat among the four of them, and set out.

  “Where to?” Arik asked.

  “North,” Aiden answered. Arik didn’t trust Aiden behind the wheel, relegating him to the passenger seat. It was a concession Aiden still regretted, but he swallowed it, and settled in for some seriously obnoxious navigating instead.

  “We should find a road,” Desiree suggested. “Roads lead to cities.”

  She and Casey were in the back seat, which made Aiden twitchy. He didn’t trust the gimp with his girl. Just the fact that she’d have sat there and watched Casey die left a bad taste in his mouth for agreeing to let her live. And now she smelled familiar, which made it that much worse.

  Aiden hadn’t lied to Bryce; he still didn’t believe a blood exchange made any difference whatsoever in the way people felt about each other. But it did change them on a basic, chemical level. Every time Aiden scented Desiree, his instinct ran completely opposite to what he knew in his mind he ought to do. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it if it became necessary. It just meant ripping her throat out would be a hell of a lot more difficult.

  Had she done it on purpose? Did she know?

  “No cities,” he said. “We steer clear of any settlements or man-made structures.”

  “But—”

  “I said no. We take the easiest path north until I say otherwise.”

  “Easiest would be a road,” Arik muttered. “Just sayin’.”

  “Cities still have things in them,” Desiree insisted. “Clothes, tools, supplies, cars and gas. Things we need.”

  “Yeah,” Aiden agreed. “You know what else they have? Convert hives. We don’t go into cities. End of discussion.” He glared at her to drive his point home.

  Casey played with her doll and stared out the side opening where a door should have been. Aiden had strapped her in with the seatbelt, but seeing her so close to the edge still made him nervous. He reached back, tugged her closer to the middle,
and she rewarded him with a smile so bright it made his heart melt.

  “What happens when we run out of gas?” Arik asked.

  “Then things will become very interesting for some of us.”

  The car was as off-road as twenty-first century military engineering could make it. Still, it was no mule; it made so much noise, Aiden’s head pounded after an hour, and it shook and rattled across the uneven ground, making them all queasy. More than once, the wheel got stuck in a hole, forcing Aiden to get out and push. Menial labor. God, how he missed the mule.

  He kept watch for signs of life, but in terms of fauna, much of the landscape looked pretty dead. Still, the farther north they went, the more greenery there was. Better odds for finding food.

  They drove for hours, until thirst forced them to stop and, of course, Desiree had to comment. “I told you we should have found a road.”

  Aiden’s hackles rose. He shook himself off, then got out to look for underground water. Trees, moss, and moist earth meant an underground source had to be somewhere nearby. He just had to find it. He cut off a forked branch and cleaned it into a dowsing rod.

  “Really? You’re going to divine water?” Aiden could hear the eye roll in Desiree’s voice.

  “No,” he retorted. “I’m going to look for a magical pot of gold, and go to the convenience store on the corner of that patch of dirt and that rock over there to buy you some Evian. Sound better?”

  “Whatever.”

  Aiden bit the inside of his cheek and focused on his task. It was a long shot to begin with; he didn’t need anyone undermining his efforts with their negativity. Twenty yards out, the rod twitched. Aiden swept the area again, but only that one spot elicited any sort of response. He marked it, then went back to the jeep for a small spade.

  Arik had turned off the engine to save gas, and was now stretching while he had the chance. Clearly, this was his first road trip.

  Aiden shook his head, and started back toward his mark.

  “Wait!” Desiree called. He had half a mind to ignore her, but decided not to. Must be civil to the cripple. When he turned back, she tossed him the canteen. “Take this.”