Chortles and laughter.
Hix and Gabel exchanged scowls. Romero made a noise of utter contempt.
Dinner tasted much better, and I devoured it with relish. I ate some off Gabel’s plate, too, and he suffered my presumption in furious silence. Platinum practically howled her rage from a few tables over.
That night, a knock on our door pulled Gabel out of bed.
Gabel unerringly found his way through the complete darkness. Without a strip of clothing on he opened the door, light from the hallway sliding around his perfect silhouette. One of the young night-watch wolves was on the other side.
“Alpha,” the wolf said, “Donovan brought this.”
Gabel unfolded the piece of paper. “Is Donovan still here?”
“No. Left and gone.”
“More cat than wolf,” Gabel muttered. Then he growled, low and threatening. “Wake the First Beta.”
He closed the door and flipped on the light, then put the piece of paper on the dresser as he headed into the closet to dress.
“Who is Donovan?” I had heard the name a few times since arriving.
“A Hunter.” Gabel emerged from the closet still sashing a kilt around his hips. “Go back to sleep. This won’t take long.”
Once he was gone, I slid off the bed and retrieved the note. Donovan’s handwriting was exquisite: educated and ornate script, like he wrote with a quill pen and ink well while out in the field. It also reeked of unwashed male and was covered in grimy fingerprints.
“Whew.” I did not want to smell Donovan in person if I got that much from a note.
Beyond MarchMoon and to the south of GleamingFang was a large pack called RedWater. Back in Shadowless there had been speculation if Gabel would bid for Shadowless or RedWater first. With Shadowless having rolled over, it was only a matter of time before Gabel turned his attention to RedWater.
The note concerned RedWater, but the rest of it was written in pictograph scribbles I couldn’t discern: the language of Hunters. Just like Oracles had their runes, Hunters had their own pictographs they’d scrawl onto rocks, trees, dirt, notes to communicate with other Hunters. The alphabet also contained about two dozen wild card pictographs that a Hunter would re-purpose to his pack’s use, so he could communicate with his brethren in secret.
Mingled with the actual pack names were the standard pictographs—I recognized ‘border’—but not much else. Gabel hadn’t raced off or punched a hole in the wall or started howling, so it couldn’t be that bad. He also hadn’t celebrated, so it couldn’t be that good.
Gabel returned two hours later, chuckling with dark, violent amusement. I curled up under the blankets and prayed for dawn.
At breakfast Gabel tapped his fingers on his glass, glaring at me, then stood. “Wolves of IronMoon!”
All attention turned to him. Romero twisted over the back of his chair and winked at me. I shuddered.
Gabel raised his wine. “Tomorrow Beta Hix, myself, and some of our fine warriors,” he gestured to the other tables, “will face the RedWater!”
Howls and cheers.
I hadn’t seen any preparations for a war party with the news that had arrived. If Gabel really intended on attacking RedWater, surely he would put more planning into it. Gabel made no further statements and sat down to resume his meal. The wolves who had been chosen had already been informed.
That was it? Just that? I caught Romero grinning at me.
Later, in private, I asked, “You’re going to RedWater?”
“We are not going to RedWater.” His lips curled into a predatory smile. “The RedWater are coming to us.”
“What?”
“Alpha Holden thinks he is being clever.” Gabel sat down on the edge of the bed. He glanced at his phone, then looked at me. He enjoyed my bewildered expression. “You’ve told me there’s no point focusing on Anders. Fair enough.”
That’s not what I had told him, but his vision had been for him, so if that’s what he had taken from it, that was his business.
“RedWater is intending to hunt on IronMoon territory,” Gabel elaborated.
“A formal hunt? How?” There were rituals to such a thing. That must have been what Donovan had seen: the preparations for a formal hunt, which explained why Gabel was moving so quickly.
“They’re forming up on that narrow strip of unclaimed forest between RedWater and MarchMoon.”
“Cheeky,” I said for lack of anything else to say. There was a narrow strip of land—little wider than the interstate that was paved through it—that created a boundary between RedWater and MarchMoon. “And you don’t think Alpha Marcus of MarchMoon knows about this?”
“Who do you think tipped Donovan off to it?” Gabel raised a brow.
I flushed at my stupidity. Holden of RedWater must have felt very powerful indeed to offer such an insult. They’d take deer, or goats, or rabbits, or whatever else there was, then leave marks on the trees to show they had been there, then gloat to the other packs about how they had taken IronMoon’s prey right out from under us.
“It’s cowardly of RedWater,” I said. “Not big enough to come directly at us, just going to piss on some trees.”
Gabel laughed. It startled me with how big and clear a laugh it was. “You do have some cute little fangs to you, don’t you.” He tapped me on the cheek, and his gaze trailed over my body. “Have I told you you look lovely today?”
“You always do,” I said.
“You will come with me, buttercup,” Gabel informed me. “You should see the southern perimeter anyway.”
“What?” I had no business being on a war-hunt. Gabel wouldn’t be satisfied with just chasing the RedWater onto their side of the border. This was going to get bloody, and if a single RedWater returned home alive, it would be impressive.
“You do know how to hunt, don’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“I would have my BondMate at my side. You will run with me, buttercup.”
So I hadn’t been good enough to be at his side of Anders, but I was supposed to be at his shoulder for a bloodbath. This was why Romero had been grinning at me. Everyone knew I’d have no business being there.
“A future Queen should know her domain,” Gabel added. “You’ve been training with Flint, after all. You can’t be completely useless in a fight.”
“There’s an easier way to get rid of me that wouldn’t involve the disgrace of getting me killed,” I snapped.
“I don’t want to get rid of you, buttercup.” He traced three fingers along the healed wounds of my Mark. His eyes trailed over my arm, down, over my breasts, lower, and then his heavy gaze met mine. He smelled of heat and salt and ash. “Be ready to go at dawn.”
His words pressed downward, more resolve than predatory violence. I instinctively reached out and pushed my hand into his chest. He didn’t budge, and neither did I.
My jealousy belonged to me, and so did my fear. I wouldn’t lay them before him for him to add to his trophy case.
I pushed into his strong chest as he leaned into my hand. I met his blue-green gaze as if I were staring into an abyss. “As you wish, Alpha Gabel.”
Flesh
Running through the woods at Gabel’s side, the pack around us, the Bond between us singing with glee and joy, the scent of the hunt and wolves and earth all about, was exactly as things should be.
Except that it was all wrong.
All I had to do was think about Gabel’s lips brushing Platinum’s hand, and him declaring to Alpha Anders “perhaps,” and the reality of things hit me full force. My soul wanted to believe. It was lungs that wanted to breathe, a heart that wanted to beat, a stomach that was starving, or a throat that was desperate for water.
Gabel was a large wolf with shaggy, rough-looking fur the color of charred iron. His bones were large, and there was a raw ugliness to his wolf form. It seemed like his skin was stretched a little too tight over his large frame. His fangs were large, but instead of gleaming white, were tinged yel
low. His claws tore up huge clods of dirt as he moved. He reminded me of the stories of the Hounds that guarded the gates of Hell. When summoned by the Moon to take away a damned soul, they’d descend upon the soul in full cry, and hunt their quarry without pity, until finally they fell upon it and devoured it.
Raked onto his raw-boned shoulder in bright, pink proud-flesh lines, was his Mark. Cut into my Moon-silver fur was mine.
Matching Marks. He might be Alpha, but I wasn’t going to be his Luna.
We ran through the woods in silence. No howls yet. No point in alerting the RedWater to our arrival.
The southern perimeter was rocky forest, where the ground was uneven and punctured with rocks, and covered with a thick carpet of rotting leaves. The pack slowed, and Gabel directed one of the scouting wolves to go find us a path.
The wind blew the scent of unfamiliar wolves toward my snout. I lifted my muzzle and sniffed deep. Many male wolves, but it was hard to tell much more than that. They were still a mile or so away.
Gabel moved over to a tree to sniff it, then pushed his snout into the ground cover. To my left, Beta Hix waited with his group of warriors. He met my gaze, and his amber eyes drifted to Gabel, then back toward the wind’s direction. He was a large wolf in a jet-black pelt and had large ears that flopped forward when not perked.
It would have been cute, except it was Beta Hix, and nothing about Hix was cute.
His back leg was missing a large patch of fur. He also had a few patches of missing fur on his shoulder and spine.
We waited until the scout returned.
“Come,” Gabel told us after conferring with the scout. He nodded to Hix. The plan was for Gabel’s small group to sweep around behind the RedWater and drive them back to Hix and his team.
“Lady Gianna should stay here,” Hix protested as Gabel moved off after the scout.
“Her place is at my side.”
Hix slicked his ears back, and his tail lowered, even as his spine stiffened. “She is not a warrior. She has no business being in the front assault group. She should remain here under protection.”
Gabel’s displeasure with Hix was both scent and sensation for me. He growled. “She is coming with me, Beta. Her place is at my side!”
It was hard to fathom Gabel was actually trying to get me killed. That would be cowardly, and that would be surrender. His goal was something else.
Perhaps just to scare the shit out of me. if I could silently punish him with contempt, then he could punish me with fear.
Good luck with that. I was not going to give up. I had nothing to lose. He had already gone as far as he could possibly go. He’d stolen my soul and stomped all over it.
No orders were given for any males to keep an eye on me. I fell back off Gabel’s shoulder into the greater pack. At his side didn’t have to mean literally at his side.
The scout led us down a twisting hillside. Just as they wolves came into view below us, Gabel howled a war cry.
It grabbed my spine and twisted it with fear.
Ahead of us were half a dozen RedWater males. They broke off their track, and their cries sent the birds out of the trees. I fell back even farther into the sea of IronMoon warriors as Gabel’s raw-boned form plowed forward.
The tide of wolves pulled me forward into the fray. The pack took over.
One of the RedWater lunged at me. I flung myself left and hit one of my own wolves. Another warrior surged forward and grabbed the RedWater. Gabel was several wolves deep making short, violent work of two RedWater.
A new wolf impacted me. I rolled into the leaves, scrambled to my paws, and squirmed to the left. The plan was to herd the RedWater toward Hix, so staying behind Gabel seemed the smart thing to do.
Another RedWater lunged at me. I yipped and scrambled past him, and he chomped down on my tail. I yipped again and pulled free.
Panic knocked on my brain. I couldn’t panic! I’d die if I panicked. I’d panic later. The sea of bodies and claws and howls and barks felt like the Tides, churning and tossing me everywhere as I tried to ride the waves.
Gabel’s glee surged under my panic, and his laughter echoed in my breast.
I hate you, Gabel!
Panic and laughter mingled into pure rancid hatred. Gabel’s form loomed huge in the middle of the fray and then the scent of blood hit my snout.
Then some actual physical blood followed it.
Hot and coppery and alive, it sprayed me and several wolves around me. No idea where it came from or who it belonged to. The IronMoon warrior next to me wrestled with a RedWater, and I instinctively snapped at the RedWater’s foreleg. My panic shattered, and fury replaced it. The RedWater struck at me, I bounced back, then shot back in for another try.
The courage came from somewhere. Instinct, or perhaps Gabel’s bloodlust and cruelty. He wanted to see me panic and scream?
I’d faced the abyss. I could face the Moon’s own monsters. I bit down on the RedWater’s flailing foreleg and heard a shriek of pain. The taste of blood ran over my tongue.
Beta Hix’s team crested the hillside and coursed across the leaves to us. His eyes burned amber even from a distance. He saw me and barked as he leapt over a log. Two wolves separated from the pack and charged toward me.
They wrestled me off the dying RedWater wolf. One grabbed my ruff in his teeth and hauled me back up the hillside, while the other pushed with his much larger body. Once a safe distance away from the fray, they stood guard over me while the IronMoon broke RedWater’s collective spine.
Then it became still as all the surviving RedWater pressed together in defeat.
The world seemed to stop to observe the outcome.
The IronMoon milled around, tails wagging, yipping and barking. One threw his head back in a victory howl. Hix barked for him to be silent.
Eight of the RedWater had survived. The rest lay in the leaves and dirt. None of the IronMoon had been killed, or even seriously injured. Gabel stood in front of the survivors, hairless, rat-like tail up and spine taut, reeking of power and glory and cruelty.
The IronMoon wolves settled down in a circle around the RedWater.
Gabel wasn’t one for speeches. He ordered the highest ranked RedWater to come forward. The ranked RedWater came forward, his tail up in a gesture of disrespect, ears back. Gabel wagged his own tail, entertained.
Gabel advanced on him, sniffed him, then withdrew. “Who is in command?”
The wolf indicated one of the broken bodies.
Gabel’s discontent churned in my own belly, the most awful, cruel desire yet. The courage of the wolf in front of Gabel failed, and he curled onto himself, tail pressed between his legs and head bowed.
“Pah!” Gabel spat. “Coward!”
His right foreleg snapped forward, and he raked his claws across the RedWater’s wolf’s face. Skin peeled up, and blood welled to the skin, strips of fur and flesh dangling. The RedWater whimpered, but that was his only response.
Gabel shoved his paw back into the dirt. “Run, little RedWaters. Run. I will give you a chance to survive. Your dead can rot here.”
The IronMoon jumped up, tails wagging, yipping, eager.
What? No! What was Gabel trying to do? Wolves didn’t abandon their dying!
Gabel threw his head back and howled.
The RedWater bolted, leaving behind their dead and dying like cowards, as half the IronMoon chased after them in full cry.
I stared in disbelief at the receding tails.
Gabel grunted and spat on the ground to show his contempt.
Two of the Red Water bodies, too injured to run, were still alive. Their sides heaved and shuddered on each ragged breath.
I broke from my guards and trotted down the slope to the closest one. It was a large male. His belly was split open, and pink loops of intestines spilled out onto the leaves under him. I lowered my head to his.
He rolled one amber eye to me, his breath shallow and sweet on my nose. He knew he was dying. But that was nothing to the aw
ful truth that his pack had abandoned him.
“I am here,” I whispered.
“Gianna!” Gabel barked.
I yanked my head up. Gabel had moved a distance away. “He is suffering.”
“So?” Gabel growled. “Let him die there.”
“Respect costs nothing.” It would take hours for the wolf to die. Maybe days. His family had abandoned him to die. Death would be a mercy to him. “This wolf has done you no wrong to suffer such a death! End his life and we’ll be done with it.”
The RedWater had come to hunt on IronMoon land and offered grave insult. But no IronMoon had been injured, no game had been taken. There was no reason for them to die like this.
Behind me I heard the IronMoon in full cry, pursuing the cowardly RedWater. Oh, those RedWater deserved what horrible death they were about to receive. They had abandoned their packmates to die without even a glance.
“Pah.” Gabel spat again. “They do not deserve respect.”
“Would you see IronMoon wolves left like this?”
“If they died to weaklings like the RedWater? Yes.”
“These wolves will die because of IronMoon.” So Gabel would not honor the wolves who had fallen under the paws of IronMoon warriors? It was almost an insult to the IronMoon warriors. “You cannot leave them here to die like this! It is cruel. It is wrong.”
Gabel shrugged his raw-boned shoulders. Some of the wolves walked with him. Some others hesitated, glancing between the both of us.
“Let them suffer,” Gabel said. “Let the RedWater know their warriors are cowards who leave their fallen to die.”
“But these have not fled. The IronMoon cannot spare even a shred of dignity for a fallen warrior? The IronMoon warriors didn’t finish them off. You are so scant on remaining strength you cannot spare them a swipe of your paw?”
“I cannot bother getting my paws dirty on that trash.”
“If you cannot give his death meaning, you can give it dignity. His pack has abandoned him to die. He has done us no wrong to suffer like this.”
Gabel turned his back to me and ambled away.
The Alpha's Oracle Page 9