Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan

by Stephanie Tyler

  “It won’t happen again,” Rifter said, and it was taking all his control not to think about that time in the snare of the humans.

  The chains, the drugs…

  “They hated us, wanted us destroyed, and I could understand it. Respected it, in a way, after what our kind did to theirs. But then something changed and they decided to use us for their own purposes. They think if they can control an army of wolves, they can rule the world.”

  “Could they?”

  Rifter stared at Gwen, his eyes Brother Wolf’s. “Yes.”

  That shook her. “We—you—have that much power inside of you?”

  Again, he simply told her yes. She stared down at her own hands, the knowledge of the power she held overwhelming and heady all at once.

  “We can’t let it happen,” he said.

  “How many Weres have they slaughtered?”

  “Too many to count. We’ve killed weretrappers as well, but with the help of the witches. The Weres are easier to spell. Especially the young ones. The trappers capture the moon-crazed ones and use that to their advantage, try to reprogram them. So far, they haven’t been successful. Weres they’ve tried to fix, so to speak, haven’t survived.”

  “What do the witches use?”

  “Drugs and spells. Wolves don’t fare well with either… our metabolism can’t handle the drugs. The spells…” He shook his head and tried not to let his body shudder at the thought of what they’d tried on him.

  “Why did Seb agree to help them instead of joining forces with you against them?”

  Rifter had never been able to figure out a satisfactory answer for that—he’d long pondered it, but thinking on it and talking about it were two different things.

  There was a time he considered Seb a brother. Vice and Rogue had always warned him to be cautious, but Rogue never elaborated as to why, and Rifter dismissed it easily. He’d served side by side with the man. That created a brotherhood all its own.

  “Seb’s an Adept—a master witch. Beyond time, although he looks human and lives among humans like us. He was charged to go back to his own coven, who’d made the pact with the trappers. Cordelia was the head witch of the coven and she wanted him back in the fold. I know he was worried he’d bring the wrath of witches on us, but he didn’t give us a chance to help him. He just left, damn it. And then he’s been selling out Weres ever since.”

  “I understand that the witches weren’t working with them until recently. But how is it that they didn’t grab me between the time they joined forces with the trappers and now?” Gwen demanded. “You keep skirting the question. I’ve been vulnerable, so why wasn’t I found earlier?”

  “Harm made a pact with Seb—they were watching out for you, until Seb left us and went to the coven,” Rifter finally said, and she stilled.

  “Harm—the man chained upstairs. What, he’s my bodyguard?”

  “No, Gwen. Harm is your father.”

  Chapter 30

  If she hadn’t been sitting, Gwen definitely would’ve fainted. As it was, she turned really pale, and Rifter found himself holding her semi-upright while Jinx brought her soda and told her to “keep fucking breathing, Doc,” which she didn’t appreciate if her “fuck off,” was any indication.

  It made him feel better, though. When she pushed away from him, she downed the Coke. “Stronger.”

  Vice got up and went for the Jägermeister, because they’d finished the Jack Daniel’s Green Label. Poured her some neat and she did three shots before she spoke again. “Why is he chained?”

  “Because he’s the one who turned Rogue and Rifter over to the trappers—in exchange for your protection,” Vice said.

  For once, Rifter was grateful for Vice’s lack of impulse control—no way in hell would he have been able to get those words out. The look of hurt on her face was hard enough—better he hadn’t been the one to put it there.

  Well, technically, he had.

  It was his turn for drinking—he grabbed the bottle and downed half. It took his wolf a lot more to get hammered. That would barely take the edge off.

  “How long have you had him here?” she asked.

  “Since the night I met you,” Rifter said. “So I’m guessing none of this is really coincidence. He killed twenty weretrappers outside another bar—they were headed your way.”

  “Rogue is hurt—you were hurt… because of me,” she said, repeated it a few times like she was trying to burn it into her brain.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Kinda is.” She took the bottle from him, but only to stop him from drinking more. “What’s going to happen to Harm?”

  “We don’t know,” Rifter admitted.

  “Does knowing why he did it change anything?” she asked quietly. “I mean, I just found my father. And I’ll have to lose him.”

  Vice walked out of the room, which was probably for the best. Jinx followed, and Stray remained quiet for a long moment before saying, “He betrayed us long before you came along, Gwen. There’s a lot more history there.”

  “I understand,” she said quietly. But Rifter knew she didn’t. Couldn’t. “Can I at least talk to him?”

  He couldn’t deny her that; he nodded, and Stray slid off the counter and left them alone.

  “They’re angry.”

  “Yes. Wolves take loyalty seriously.”

  “So do I.” Her eyes glittered with anger—and with tears. “But he’s my family.”

  “So are they. Tonight’s the first I heard of him being your father.”

  “He kept it from all of you?”

  “We haven’t seen him for a while.” Like for thousands of years.

  “Are you really going to let me talk to him?”

  Better now, while he still retained all his limbs. “Why? What do you want to know?”

  “More about my mother. Do you think my mother and my aunt and uncle… knew what I was? Were they killed because of me? Did Cordelia know?”

  The floodgates were opened—there would be no stopping her from making the connections. And even though he hated the man, Harm had helped to create Gwen, the woman he and his Brother Wolf had decided to mate. “I think your aunt and uncle knew, yes.”

  “They were so good to me. But I didn’t look or act like them at all. And then I was sick—a burden. They never said it, but how could it not have been?” She hugged her knees to her chest. “And now I’m finding out that they knew I was a wolf. Half wolf.”

  “What if they’d told you?” Rifter asked. “They probably thought they were helping you so you didn’t make a connection between the seizures and the shift. I don’t think they knew they were putting your life at risk by not letting you shift.”

  But that’s what had happened nonetheless. And if Gwen’s mom did know what Harm was, he would’ve told her about when the shift might occur for Gwen. “They were protecting you,” Rifter continued.

  “By killing me,” she finished for him. “I can’t blame them as much as I blame Harm. He knew—he could’ve stepped in at any time. But he didn’t.”

  They hadn’t had time to deal with Harm, to decide what they would do to him for the betrayal—and beyond. Sending him out to the weretrappers, however, would put them all in danger. He knew it as well.

  But one day at a time. “Harm said he lost your trail for a while—your aunt and uncle hid you, which, in the end, served you well.”

  “The paintings—the wolves and the moon… you saw them. The wolf looks like a Dire wolf, but not you or your brothers. Did you recognize Harm? Is that what he looks like when he’s… shifted?”

  “I knew there was something familiar about them. I was drawn to them, but I didn’t have time to study them for long. I needed to get to you.”

  As much as she wanted to be part of a family—of this family—she was too much of a danger to them. “Rifter, was Harm right? Am I a weapon?”

  “Don’t think that—don’t say it.”

  She would always be a threat to the Dires. Th
e Weres too. And if Rifter was king and she was mated to him, what kind of queen would she make? Who would ever trust her? “I’d never be able to leave the house, go anywhere without the fear that they’d grab me and use me against you. And I could never live with that. Never.”

  Not that she would necessarily live—no one knew if she could even pull off a shift. Maybe nature would make that decision for her—survival of the fittest and all. “Even Harm thinks I should be allowed to die.”

  Rifter’s expression was pained. “I can’t make this decision for you. I want you here. Having to let you go now would kill me in every way except the one that counts. Immortality’s a heavy burden, but we’d be together. Mated.”

  She’d already felt the pull—there was no denying its power. “This is all incredible. Unbelievable. My father is chained up because he tried to save me at your expense. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about all of this. I need to… go somewhere. To breathe, away from all of this.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Right, because for all intents and purposes, I’m a prisoner and a ghost.” She spat out the words. “Maybe you should just let me die—would’ve been easier on everyone.”

  “Don’t you say that. Don’t. You. Dare.” His eyes went lupine. Feral, like he’d flipped a switch.

  “Why do you care so much?”

  “Because you’re mine.”

  “I’m not anybody’s,” she whispered. Because no one had ever wanted her like that, with an intensity that could burn her worse than the sun on a hot summer’s day.

  “You are mine.”

  “Because you say it?”

  “Because you know it,” he said fiercely, his voice ringing through her like an electric zing right before he split the kitchen table in two with a single hand and a roar, and walked outside.

  Anger vibrated through him as he slammed outside, but it quickly turned to something else, an emotion he’d never thought he’d feel. One Rifter still wasn’t sure he wanted to feel, although the choice seemed to not be his.

  Would the Elders finally find them worthy of mates? And why now?

  Because Gwen is dying.

  Could they be that goddamned cruel? Of course they could. Even from his first meeting with them…

  The young Dire sat on his haunches, staring at the moon. He bit back a howl, he and his Brother Wolf still trying to reconcile themselves as one.

  The initial encounter with the Elders was something not every Dire experienced. In fact, many dreaded the thought of being called in front of their mystical creators.

  He was no exception, wished he wasn’t quaking with fear as he tried to remain still. Since then, things hadn’t changed much.

  The Dires met with the Elders only in shifted form—the shift occurring uncontrollably in their presence. It was humiliating as shit to have that kind of submission happen involuntarily, and even their Brother Wolves didn’t like it.

  And it came out of nowhere. A light flashed and the trio morphed in from a portal.

  They took human form—all had wolves’ eyes and ethereal beauty that you couldn’t look at too closely. Looking at them was a bit like looking directly into the sun.

  In the past months, Rifter had gotten down on his knees in the middle of the woods and begged the Elders to come down and help Rogue.

  He’d gotten shit in response.

  The Elders didn’t like his attitude. They never had, and they berated him for trusting a witch. Like he wasn’t doing that a million times a day on his own.

  He’d been born into the most lethal pack the Dires had ever known—both feared and revered and eventually exterminated because of their inability to control the excesses they’d grown to crave. Wolves always had primal callings, and those were to be allowed, even cultivated. But their humanlike wants, like money and power, were things that the wolves shouldn’t have been concerning themselves with.

  But Rifter had been trained in those old ways, and that did not simply fall away. The desire to hunt, to rule, had been born and bred in him, would rise up with a fierce need that was nearly impossible to tamp down most of the time.

  He would not be responsible for leading the men to a new Extinction. That wouldn’t be an honorable death, no matter how badly they’d welcome it.

  But now, with a mate, the thought of dying or even having to leave her behind made him want to rail at the moon—and the Elders.

  Made him want to lock her in a room and not let her out until they could keep her safe. Which would never be possible.

  His mate was beautiful and strong. Smart. She made him laugh.

  In the short time they’d been together, she’d made him care. She mattered to him in a way he hadn’t been able to let anyone matter. Not since his brothers, but that had been a different kind of bond.

  This was beyond fate—he felt like the luckiest man in the world.

  He didn’t want to lose her. He’d already lost so much, and he railed at the unfairness, mainly to her. Because all she wanted to do was live.

  He’d thought about begging the Elders to spare Gwen, to take him instead of her, but they didn’t bargain that way. Instead, he spoke into the silence that haunted him. “I’ll be a king—a real king. Whether you spare her or not, I’ve decided to take the title.”

  The epiphany rocked him, the total truth in his words undeniable and long overdue. And they did nothing to lessen the pain he felt at knowing Gwen could leave him. He reeled.

  A week of happiness, if that. A week spent possibly watching her wither and die, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  The howl tore at his throat, strummed the air with a ferocious echo, and for the first time, he understood what it was like to truly mate. It was as if his heart was ripped from his body whole and held in someone’s hand. He hadn’t realized how incomplete he really was.

  How utterly terrified he was at the thought of losing her.

  Mated to a Dire who might not survive her shift, all he could do was remain still under the moon’s pull.

  *

  As Gwen watched, Rifter stood alone in the rain, then went to his knees and howled, a mournful sound that rang through her, skittered up her spine.

  Her belly tightened—fear and sadness—he was already mourning her.

  He’d be devastated if she died during her shift. The whole time she’d been thinking about it as her body, her life… nothing about the fact that, according to Dire law, she and Rifter were halfway to mating.

  It wasn’t just about her any longer. And that was something she’d always wanted but never thought she’d be able to have.

  She was throwing it away whether she meant to or not.

  It was in that moment she knew she would need to survive. For herself, for Rifter—for their mating. Everything welled up in her—the sadness, the fear, the pain—and she let it go for the first time in maybe forever.

  She would live because she and Rifter were meant to be together. To throw that away, when she’d fought so long to live, to find love, would be the most foolish thing she could ever do.

  No matter the consequences, she was his. Had been from the second she’d met him, and not because of any strange mating ritual of old. Besides, they hadn’t fully mated yet. And even if it didn’t prove true, she’d never believe he wasn’t meant for her.

  There was no reason to deny it any longer.

  Before anyone could stop her, she was outside, walking toward him in the rain. His back was straight and strong, and he stared up at the moon like it could give him the answers.

  From the way he howled, even though he remained in human form, she guessed he wasn’t getting any.

  “Rifter,” she called softly, much too low for him to hear, but he did, because he lifted his head and turned it a bit. Of course he heard… he was a wolf.

  Like you, her Sister Wolf said, quite clearly.

  “Please, I need you to turn around and come back inside. I didn’t mean to scare you…”

 
He rose from his knees and faced her, but there were several feet still separating them. She thought it best to leave it that way while she explained. “I haven’t been part of a real family for a long time. I’ve been alone. And the thought of hurting more people who accept me, who I could love… I can’t have that on my soul. People around me die—you already know that. You couldn’t die, not before I came to light. And now you can, because of me.”

  “You’ll need to shift,” he said hoarsely. “I hate that you have to go through that pain.”

  “I know. I will. I want to—for you. For us.”

  At those words, Rifter walked to her, but even though he stayed close he didn’t touch her. “If you stay with me and shift, you’re not safe. After surviving all of that, you still won’t be. If you leave, you’re not safe.”

  “So I’m pretty much screwed, and not in the good way, right?” He finally broke a little smile at her words. “Thank God you finally liked a joke.”

  “It’s a very serious situation, Gwen. You must know this.”

  “I do.” But the surge of power running through her made her feel… indestructible. “I thought the house was spelled.”

  “Wolves need to run. We need space to do so—we need the outdoors.”

  “I can fight,” she reminded him. “You can train me as well, the way you are Liam. I can be a warrior, like you.”

  “I don’t want you to need to be.”

  “But I need to be.”

  “They will never stop looking for you,” he continued. “For all of us, but you, you’re special.”

  “To them—or to you? Because you’re all I care about.”

  He stiffened at her words, obviously not too used to kind ones. “I’ve been waiting for a long time… I thought I’d wait forever. I’m worried I might still have to.”

  She hugged him, waiting for him to relent. When he did, his mouth sought hers in a brutally demanding kiss.

  Exactly what they both needed. She reveled in the taste, the feel of him. The danger… and the comfort of knowing that finally—finally—she belonged somewhere.

  And she belonged to someone. Now she just needed to prove to Rifter that he belonged to her as well.