He put his hand back, and one of his brothers handed him a knife. He brought it up to Harm’s cheek. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
But Harm’s arm shot up, chained yet, but his wrist closed on Rifter’s, pulling it slightly away long enough to croak, “She’s my daughter.”
Rifter’s mouth dropped open, and he squeezed Harm’s throat harder until the wolf turned blue and struggled against his bindings nearly hard enough to shake Rifter off. Harm would be hard to take down completely, but he’d inflamed Rifter with his lie.
What if it’s not?
Rifter’s world had already shifted on its axis. Now it spun completely out of control and threatened to never right itself again.
He’d really lost his fucking mind.
“Bullshit,” Vice growled from behind him. “No female Dire has ever been found, so there’s no fucking way. Let me have him, Rifter.”
“No.” Rifter backed away and stared at Harm, who coughed for a few minutes. “Who’s her mother?”
“Human.”
“There’s no way.”
“Apparently there is, King Rifter.” Harm hadn’t lost his cocky sarcasm—it was what drew millions of screaming women to him and made him and Rifter spar constantly when they were on their Running.
Selfish fucking bastard. “Her mother couldn’t have been human.”
“Don’t you think I would’ve known if she wasn’t? She was an artist—a painter—a good one until she got pregnant and went on the run with Gwen.”
“How did she survive?”
Harm shook his head, like he was refusing to answer. Finally, he said, “I made sure she did—for a while. Then she lost my track and got killed, or at least I thought that’s what happened. Later, I found out that Seb’s sister, Cordelia, had been tracking me for years.”
Had Harm loved someone?
No way—the man was too selfish to love anyone but himself. “Tell me Gwen’s the only one.”
“She is.”
“And she has no idea?”
“Her mother was killed when she was ten. Gwen moved to the States with her aunt and uncle with a sizable settlement from me. But they never touched the money. I don’t think they ever told her about it.”
He recalled Gwen’s words about her parents, about never knowing her father. If her mother made that up to keep her safe…
“This is impossible. And that makes no sense for her aunt and uncle to never touch the money.” He turned to his brothers, who were all equally stunned, although Vice still looked skeptical.
“Maybe they knew what Harm was… maybe they knew a way to keep her safe,” Jinx said, his eyes the most feral Rifter had ever seen them as they locked Harm in their gaze.
“Or they thought they did,” Rifter said. “Her aunt and uncle were killed in a fire—Gwen was supposed to be there. The weretrappers have obviously been tracking her for a long time, with Cordelia’s assistance.”
Gwen had been right—people around her dying by fire was no coincidence. And that meant the weretrappers had had the witches helping them for longer than the Dires had originally thought.
Had Seb known?
“Wolves didn’t kill them,” Harm said. “The weretrappers and witches made it look that way. Or else they made Weres do it… maybe moon lust.”
Rifter turned. “Why not take her sooner?”
“They were waiting for a shift that never came,” Harm said. “She’d been medicated in hopes of preventing it from happening.”
“The seizures,” Rifter breathed.
“Yes—the medicine helped stop the shift,” Harm said. “But the seizures are killing her.”
Harm’s grim proclamation made Rifter crumple the knife in his hand as if it was made of powder. Smoke rose and blood ran down his arm and the floor, and his brothers just stared at him.
He didn’t wipe his hand, remained silent. He’d welcome the tight pain that would come with the shift his body so desperately needed, but he forced himself to stay in the present.
“She’s not taking the meds any longer,” he said tightly. “She’s still having… episodes.” During sex, which was a sure sign of a Dire shift coming down the pike.
How could he have been so fucking blind to this? The smells, the changes… her need to run. Her appetite.
“The bruises,” Rifter breathed as Jinx shot him a look. He pictured Gwen’s back as he’d looked on it a short while ago and realized that what he’d assumed were bruises from the earlier attack were now gathering in a very distinct pattern. “Her wolf glyph’s coming out.”
He traced around the edges of her Sister Wolf in his mind. Brother Wolf howled at the thought that she’d been trapped for so long, but Rifter soothed him.
He recalled when his own glyph began to appear, the pack pride that accompanied it. A month later, he was out on his Running. He hadn’t been able to return home after that, because there’d been nothing left. Total and complete destruction. He’d walked through the rubble, wept over the dead men, their Brother Wolves slain with a slash across the men’s and women’s backs that rendered their wolf glyphs completely destroyed.
Cutting out the glyph was akin to killing the wolf in those days. Today it would do nothing to the surviving Dires.
“If she doesn’t shift, she’ll die,” Jinx said. “And if she does shift, she might die anyway.”
“No.” Rifter spoke as if his will could command it.
“The weretrappers won’t give up—neither will the witches,” Harm said.
“And what—we should turn her over to them because of that? We know that’s how you roll, but not us.” Vice had Harm pinned to the wall, his mouth at the other wolf’s throat, and for a long second, Rifter considered letting Vice do what he needed to.
But there was more to hear. And Rifter had to know every last, bitter truth. “Vice, off.”
Vice complied, slowly. Licked his bottom lip and shuddered as he tried not to shift. A flash of lightning lit the room, while overhead, thunder rolled across the sky like a bowling ball hitting all the right pins, and Rifter swore the house shook. A chill went through him, stronger than any electrical current. March in upstate New York was not the time for this weather.
“I say we give him to the witches in place of Gwen,” Rifter said. “It’s what a father would’ve done in the first place.”
“You don’t think I tried that? They wouldn’t take me,” Harm insisted.
“So you picked us.”
“Seb asked for you. I had no choice. You could survive the witches and the trappers. Gwen would’ve never made it out alive. The experiments…” Harm shuddered, and Rifter’s fists tightened. The urge to kill Harm hadn’t dissipated in the least.
“You have to believe me. I offered myself. I went there—put myself in chains,” Harm insisted.
“Why the hell wouldn’t they take a Dire offering?” Vice muttered. “This makes no sense.”
Rifter could sense that Gwen had fallen asleep—peacefully so—and he was pacing and growling because he needed to get inside Gwen’s mind and check on Sister Wolf, but he needed Harm’s information just as badly.
“Vice is right. So talk.” It came out as a wolf’s growl and it made Harm bare his teeth. Spending the majority of the last fifty years around humans hadn’t muted any of the man’s instincts.
Harm came as far as the chains would take him—inches from Rifter’s face—and Stray and Jinx and Vice all bared their teeth too, their canines lengthened, eyes changed, and the testosterone in the room was off the charts.
Harm knew exactly why, swallowed hard before he spoke between the booms of thunder. “She’s got the power to kill us all.”
Vice tried to hold it together, but his shift came with a hard howl and his Brother Wolf bounded for the window. Three floors down was a long trip, but for the adrenaline that raced through his body, it was nothing—the cuts and bruises he’d suffer only fueled him further, and when his paws hit the wet grass, he skidded an
d ran on bloody paws until his body ached so fiercely he could barely stand it.
And then he ran some more.
Chapter 20
Rifter hadn’t moved in what seemed like hours after Harm’s announcement and Vice’s impromptu, uncontrolled shift and subsequent dive out the window.
“Not safe for him to be out alone,” Rifter finally growled, and Stray shifted and followed him. Jinx refused to leave, although Rifter heard his harsh breathing behind him like nails on a chalkboard. And then he turned his full attention back to Harm. “Explain.”
“There’s something about her blood—Cordelia discovered it. I’m sure Seb knows too. That’s why the trappers won’t stop until they have her.” Harm blinked hard and Rifter remained frozen, trying to stop the storm of emotions threatening to take his much-needed logic away.
“And her blood can really kill us?” Jinx asked, and Harm nodded.
Gwen was the very key to ending their immortality… and that of the Weres as well, at least those opposing the weretrappers and witches.
Without the Dire wolves and Liam’s pack to enforce the order, the weretrappers and witches would—and could—run wild and take over the world far more easily than they could now.
Part of their ultimate punishment for being born Dires was that they needed to stay alive to save the humans. Vice was correct that the wolves weren’t meant to save the humans on an individual basis, but rather, the race as a whole from whatever supernatural force threatened them.
Before Rifter could say anything, Vice came in with Stray, both in human form, and naked and dripping wet, panting slightly from the rapid shifts. Vice’s eyes still glowed, the anger and confusion in them hard for Rifter to take.
“We need to kill her,” Jinx said, his words cutting Rifter to the bone. Vice’s nature would no doubt make him agree. Stray was a crapshoot.
“No,” he told his brother.
“She puts us all at risk,” Jinx persisted.
Mine.
Brother Wolf howled, threatened for the first time Rifter could remember to shift without his consent, and all for the sole purpose of fighting for his mate.
Mate. “Gwen’s mine.”
“You mated with her?” Jinx asked. “That is not possible… yet.”
It wasn’t—not fully, since he and Gwen would’ve had to have slept together three times and Gwen would have had to shift in order for the mating ritual to be completed—but the process had begun and Rifter refused to turn back.
Mating for the Dires was complicated—ceremonial, dictated by the old ways and unlike that of the Weres, who were not tied to any kind of mating ritual.
In order for the mating to be effective, the Dire male had to be chained, and the female would shift uncontrollably after they’d had sex. Mating therefore equaled danger for the male—he needed to be able to prove he could handle his female wolf.
Mating on the third time Dires slept together was an old custom, since they didn’t encourage sex without mating. This was why the aftermath of sex had been painful and unsatisfying for the Dires since the Extinction, since it went against their mating protocol.
Once the Elders had been created by Hati, the maker of the Dires, the wolves would go before them to have the mating blessed. This was a fairly new custom created in the years before the Extinction, put in place by Hati.
It was said the Elders could deny a mating, even if the other rituals had been completed. Whether they had or not was something Dires had often gossiped about in hushed tones, Rifter remembered.
“Not your concern,” Rifter told them all now.
“You are fucking kidding me. This is all of our lives,” Vice said.
“A life you don’t care about,” Rifter pointed out.
“That’s never been our decision to make,” Jinx said when Vice went silent.
Rifter caught him by the throat, the next words he uttered taking everyone by surprise, including himself. “Gwen is mine. Do you understand? Mine.”
“Yeah, okay, Rift, she’s all yours. Put the big wolf down and go get her before the others do,” Stray said, his voice oddly calming, and Rifter dropped Jinx, watched the wolf gasp for air.
“Bastard,” Jinx wheezed. “You fucking bastard.”
Vice pulled Jinx back as Rifted commanded, “Stray—give me the keys to the cuffs. And all of you, leave—I need to speak with Harm alone. Now.”
“Now he wants to play at being king,” Vice snarled, but the three Dires did as he asked, leaving both wolves who would be king alone.
Harm was staring at him—half father, angry at the daughter’s mate, half unsure of what to do at all. “You can’t complete this mating.”
“You don’t tell me what to do.”
“You can use Gwen to poison us—we can finally be free, Rifter.”
Rifter moved toward him—as Harm tensed, Rifter merely used the key to unlock all but his left ankle. He looked at Harm and told him, “Don’t ever let it be said I don’t fight fair. I’m going to let the rest of them rip the flesh from your bones when I’m done. You can regenerate in hell.”
“Take her blood and then let her die,” Harm said, speaking in the old language, as if that would appeal to Rifter more. “Don’t curse her to the life we have.”
Rifter fisted his hands and growled, but the warning didn’t stop Harm.
“You know I’m right. Would you rather be that selfish and keep her?”
She’s mine.
Brother Wolf was in full agreement. They’d both been waiting forever for a mate. Had been sure they’d never get one, and now Rifter had to evaluate the sanctity of her life. And even as Rifter fought the urge to rip Harm’s throat out, his claws emerged with a tight snap. Then he gave up the fight and the satisfaction of claws ripping flesh, not caring that the silver burns he experienced wouldn’t abate.
Rifter didn’t bother to fully shift. Instead, he and Harm rolled on the attic floor, both men getting out a lifetime’s worth of hate and anguish.
This man had fathered the woman he loved. How the hell could any of this work?
After Rifter shut them out, Vice broke off from Jinx and Stray, went into the second door on the right. He closed it behind him and, naked, battered and bloodied, sank down next to Rogue.
“We’re in trouble, man,” he whispered, and nothing. Frustration rose again, and with no way to battle it down, he began to smash things in the room. Nothing hit Rogue—no matter how much control Vice lost, he would never let that happen.
And when his emotions pushed him to the point of complete calm, he sat among the ruins of the room and wondered how much longer all of this could go on.
He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.
He’d thought about death for thousands upon thousands of years, but when faced with the real possibility of it, why did it freak him out so badly?
“This wouldn’t bother you,” he whispered. Spirits were drawn to Rogue because he was an other—a supernatural being like they were. He could see them as clear as day, and sometimes it drove him crazy.
It had been easier when Rogue was actively helping. Now a part of Vice felt as dormant and helpless as Jinx did. Witches practiced ceremonial magic and conjured spirits to help them do their bidding—and now that of the weretrappers. That’s where Rogue’s and Jinx’s relationships with the spirit world came in mighty handy.
“Hey.” Jinx was in the doorway, nowhere near as calm as he appeared—not when his eyes were lupine. “Get dressed—we’ve got to go. Lots of activity tonight.”
He barely looked at Rogue—Vice knew it was getting harder for him to do so with every day that passed, which was why Vice spent enough time in here for both of them.
He’d clean up all the shit in the morning.
It was fortunate Vice’s extremes never let him remain in any one mood for very long—in a way, it was damned balancing. Much like being a goddamned schizo without hearing all the voices.
Except Brother Wolf’s, which he didn’t count
. Much. Ah, fuck it, they’d deal with this shit at the house after the ghost crap.
“We need Seb’s grimoires—we destroy that book of magic spells and he’s got nothing,” he said as he toweled the mud off himself and grabbed for a pair of black leather pants he’d left on the floor. He grabbed a black shirt and his black leather jacket and boots and followed Jinx down the stairs.
“If it exists, it’s spelled,” Jinx said over his shoulder. “Do you really think Rifter was right about mating with Gwen?”
“Seems pretty attached to her—it would explain a lot,” Vice said. It certainly wasn’t a full mating, though—there was more to it than onetime sex. But Rifter was acting like a possessive-as-shit, mated alpha, and that meant trouble for all of them.
Weres could have more than one mate. Dires mated for life. To find his mate after all this time and have her ripped from him… well, that was gonna be one hell of a wound.
They stopped talking when they found Liam waiting by the truck. The young wolf had his mind set on grabbing Max, and hell, Vice couldn’t blame him. Obviously, women were really nothing but trouble, and they needed to look no further than their own house for evidence.
Still, the idea that they could end their lives with Gwen was certainly appealing and had apparently shaken Jinx to the core. He didn’t say anything about it, but Vice had known the guy for three hundred years.
“I’m going,” Liam stated the obvious, getting into the back of the truck even as Jinx told him, “We’re grabbing Max afterward—you don’t need to be there.”
“I do.” Liam shut the door and Jinx let the discussion end.
“Think Harm’s okay with Rifter?” Jinx asked Vice instead.
“Not at all. But he promised to leave a piece for each of us.” Vice climbed into the driver’s seat and pumped up AC/DC for the drive.
Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan Page 14