The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3)

by Daniels, May Ellis

  He’s too exhausted to keep his animal caged.

  Its roaring to the surface, eager for a final moment or two of freedom.

  “It’s okay now, Father,” I whisper. “You’re fucking free. You don’t have to fight him anymore. The woods await. You’re free to run and hunt.”

  The Father’s eyes lose focus.

  Blood leaks from the collar cutting into his neck.

  He’s slipping away—

  Then Father Andres coughs, shakes his head, grips a tree root in one hand and my wrist in the other. His skin is burning hot. He tries to speak again, fails, slumps his head into the soaked grass.

  Takes a few long breaths.

  The old man’s a fighter. He’d have to be, to make it this long.

  I’m looking down at Father Andres, then a moment later I’m lost in my wolfmind. Prowling the sandbank along a slate-blue mountain river. Late autumn leaves glow the golden-red colors of a sunset. I’m hardly more than a yipping pup, a child, dutifully following my alpha. The rest of my pack is fanned out behind us. I sense my brother Sorry stalking at my side. Sometimes the fucker even brushes against me, pretends to trip me up. I snarl and spit, but our struggle for ascendance is still many years off.

  My pack is traveling swiftly, noses bent to the riverbank, stepping over water-worn stones. Our alpha is setting a grueling pace. We’ve been on the move for weeks, stopping only to drink and eat decaying salmon. He hasn’t even permitted us to hunt. We’re racing across a broad mountain range. Something’s driving our alpha, an unspoken instinct or ancient bloodlust, and now I scent it, the primal, unmistakeable reek of pack war—

  Father Andres’ words arrive. So quiet the rain drowns them out when he first speaks. I lower my head close to the Father’s lips and listen.

  “The One We Answer To,” he whispers.

  His voice is paper thin.

  I try and hold on to what Father Andres is saying.

  Try and make sense of it.

  But my wolfmind is too powerful. I lose my grip on this world and then I’m with my pack as we switchback up a steep mountain slope. Our alpha pauses on a ridge overlooking the next valley. There, gathered in the swampy valley bottom, is the largest animal pack I’ve ever witnessed. Thousands strong. Not only wolves, but creatures of every description. Deformed, misshapen things with the bodies of two or three animals crushed together. A flash of stark, instinctive fear makes me plop on my haunches. This ambush is the first foray that will begin the One War. The animals below scent…unnatural. Stricken by the Atrocity. My alpha turns to survey his pack. He’s everything a pup and heir alpha wants to be. Strong. Confident. But most of all: just. His pack follows him because they love and respect him, not because of fear. Their loyalty is unquestioned—

  “The One We Answer To,” Father Andres repeats.

  I shake my head.

  “Don’t call me that,” I say. “You’re wrong. I don’t want it.”

  I feel torn between two worlds, two truths.

  Dizzy and tight of breath. Disoriented.

  My head’s pounding, my mouth bone dry.

  Blue gives me a look like: I fucking told you so.

  I smile at the Father in a way I hope is benign and helpful, trying to ease his last few moments, but really I’m thinking he’s delusional with fever and pain—

  “The One We Answer To,” Father Andres whispers again. “Admit who you are, Aaron of the Mountain River.”

  “No.”

  The ancient wolf memory takes over. Our alpha has a thick coat of blue-white fur. He stares at his pack, searching for weakness and cowardice. Any who might abandon him during battle. I know he’d rather murder them here than watch them betray his pack. Finding none, he turns and sprints down the mountain, straight at the advancing Stricken army. My brother and I race to follow, trying to catch up, but he’s too fast, he drops us easily, and then I’m on the valley bottom, leaping through a waterlogged marsh and then there’s a pained shriek followed by a long, bloodthirsty howl—

  The One Who Struggles has led us to war.

  I burst from a stand of stunted alder and straight at my prey, a horned cougar that outweighs me by a hundred pounds. The cat screeches and bares its fangs and for a moment I hesitate, my legs weak with terror. Then I hear my alpha’s howl echoing through the valley and the sound steels my will and I rush at the cat, sidestep its claws and sink my teeth into its neck. My mouth fills with black blood and the taste sends me mad with hunger and I’m snapping down on the cat’s neck while it rakes and scratches at my sides. Its claws dig into my hind quarters and the pain nearly makes me release my jaws but I hold on, and soon the cat’s legs give out and it slumps to the ground and I’m tearing into my first Stricken feed—

  The rain comes down.

  I brush my fingers across Father Andres’ sweat-soaked brow.

  He doesn’t have long.

  Nothing to fear in death. It’s natural law.

  Only Skins, who live a life that violates natural law, a life of self-interest and waste, are burdened with a morbid fear and fascination of death. We Purebloods are immune to their sickness. Our animals force us to live clean, in the eternal now.

  I grip Father Andres’ hand and close my eyes.

  My wolf leaves the dead black-blooded cat and prowls deeper into the fray. I’m scenting for my brother. An enemy wolf with a snake for a tail makes to flank me. I tear him apart, then aid one of my packmates in murdering a hissing monkey-creature. I hear a sound like a locust swarm settling onto a crop. A quick clicking sound. There, in the middle of the brackish swamp, is a massive three-eyed red wolf with the head of a praying mantis and a pair of fluttering eagle’s wings. A half dozen of my packmates have surrounded the mantis-wolf. He’s fighting them off, knocking them back, murdering them one by one.

  My alpha charges at him, leaps into the air—

  A growl rumbles deep in Father Andres’ throat.

  I growl I recognize.

  “It’s you,” I say in awe. “I remember you now. Your wildborn name is Aker. Aker…Arud. But I thought…everyone said—”

  My grandfather squeezes my hand. “You can stop…calling me Father Andres,” he whispers in a weak, pained voice. “My Skin name…always made me feel…weak.”

  “What’s up?” Nash says, lighting a smoke. “You fucking know this guy, Prez?”

  “He’s my grandfather,” I say, my voice raspy.

  “Oh, shit,” Blue says.

  “But why?” I ask my grandfather. “Everyone thought you were killed. Why hide—”

  Suddenly I’m seeing things. Only not a vision of the past through my wolfmind. It’s more like a thousand different movies playing in my head at the same time. I’m seeing through other eyes. Like I do with the shadow-wolves. Except the eyes I’m seeing through…they’re living Purebloods.

  My packmates. My kind.

  There’s a snow leopard perched on a rocky outcrop, glaring through wind-whipped snow, waiting for an ibex that’s wandering up a narrow ravine to walk under the outcrop so the leopard can pounce—

  A great white shark cruising along the edge of coral reef off the South African coast, following a blood trail, narrowing in on a kill—

  A python winding around a wild pig deep in the Amazon—

  A wolf, no, a dozen grey wolves loping through snowy woods, tracking prey, twelve minds joined as one by eons of evolution—

  “Do you feel them, grandson?” Aker asks. “The lives you were born to lead?”

  I blink, not understanding.

  Or refusing to.

  “Do you see them?” my grandfather asks again.

  “I see them,” I whisper. “I see them all.”

  Aker grins. “Then summon your Pureblood packmates.”

  I reach my wolfmind into the Purebloods, and one by one they lift their heads and listen, and then I’m howling, my head raised toward the old oak, my wolf roaring in triumph, neck thickening and silver-black fur rising from my skin, all the raw, pu
re and elemental energy of earth’s wildest lands surging through my howl, the sound rising into the overcast sky and carrying around the world, to the ears of each and every Pureblood, and in my mind’s eye I see my brothers and sisters stand and begin moving toward the direction of my howl, apex predators of every kind, from every corner from the globe, my motherfucking animal army, and a part of me understands they’ve been waiting to hear my call, waiting to rise against the Stricken and the First Fallen, waiting to be led.

  Because Aker Arud, my alpha grandfather, The One Who Struggles, is right.

  I am the One We Answer To.

  Nash is barking and chattering and hopping around the church grounds, his hyena choking against the cruel iron collar. Blue’s doing the same, toppling over stone crypts, flinging massive chunks of granite through the church walls, getting his wreck on because there’s a wild energy coursing through me, fueling my packmates, a berserker energy that knows no restraint, no cages and no collars, and suddenly I’ve had enough of the fucking collars, I tear my grandfather’s cassock back and hook my fingers under his collar. Icy blue light glows from my hands and I snap the collar clean off and my Pureblood packmates, the ones who heard my roar of summons, feel that collar snapping as if they were standing right here beside me. Every one of them feels it and their animals scream and thrash and howl in envy—

  I hold the broken collar in my hand. Stare at it in shock.

  Eons of imprisonment.

  Of fighting our animals and fearing our true selves.

  That age has ended.

  The Purebloods roam free.

  “Do you remember how the collars came to be?” my grandfather asks.

  “No.”

  “The Purebloods who survived the One War forged them. We swore our animals would never hunt free. We mistrusted our wildborn nature. And so we collared ourselves with iron, hoping to prevent another slaughter.”

  Aker Arud’s wolf leaps out of him. The old man’s bones twist and snap and his face shifts and his teeth lengthen. He’s lying on the wet grass beneath me and fucking hell if he doesn’t look like an older version of my brother Sorry, Radulf Arud, and a part of me howls in loss and mourning because I wish my brother was here to witness this joy.

  Sorry understood all along.

  Saw the apex alpha lurking in me.

  My brother had faith.

  Even when I didn’t. Especially when I didn’t.

  That’s why he yielded that day on the river, back when we were youths roughhousing. When he had me pinned down. He yielded because he sensed this power. And he trusted his instinct—

  I stand over my grandfather and raise my fists and roar, and then I whirl and Blue shambles to me and kneels and I free the fucking Kodiak, an animal so magnificent and powerful he brings tears to my eyes. Nash the nattering mad dog is next. I have to fight to get my fingers under my bro’s collar because his neck is so swollen, and when the collar snaps apart and Nash goes full animal I realize that maybe, all right, some of us Purebloods are gunna need a little time to learn to control our freed animals, because as soon as Nash collarless his hyena goes all yellow-eyed and launches straight at my throat.

  Nothing personal. Dude’s confused is all.

  Lost in kill-lust. Unaccustomed to freedom.

  Mistaking his alpha for prey.

  Fucking dumbass.

  Nash slams into me and his fangs rake across my chest and then I’m holding him by the throat and slamming my fist into his face. It takes three punches before the murder glow fades from the hyena’s eyes and he shakes his head and gives me a little yelp to let me know he fucked up and I hit him once more, just to make sure the message is loud and clear, then drop him on the ground.

  Blue sweeps Nash up and hurls him against the church’s stone walls, then lumbers over to me and roars. I hold my ground and return the Kodiak’s roar. The bear pauses, then lowers down and wanders out among the gravestones behind the church. Nash picks himself up, shakes his heavy head and looses a barking laugh.

  My grandfather hasn’t moved from beneath the oak tree.

  I kneel beside him.

  Aker’s trembling.

  “Why’d you leave us?” I ask, needing to understand.

  “I stepped aside. It was time.”

  I’m tempted to call the old man a coward. But maybe there’s a lesson in what he did. Maybe there’s courage in realizing when its time to exit the stage with dignity. My grandfather fought and struggled his entire life. The man deserves some peace.

  “We needed you.”

  My grandfather closes his eyes. “No. We needed you.”

  I set my hand on the wolf’s forehead. Feel his life-force fading. There’s a world of questions. But only time for one. So I ask: “Will we win?”

  “No,” he whispers. “But you won’t lose.”

  ***

  The fast among us chose to stay in their uncollared animals and run.

  They abandoned their Harley’s outside the church and stayed wild after I freed them from their collars. A few brawls broke out, a bitchy little weasel overstepped himself and got shit-kicked by a mean-as-hell tiger named Cuft.

  No big thing.

  The Pureblood Predators are rediscovering their animal hierarchy.

  Me and Nash and Blue and Tate just kicked back, slammed a bottle or three and watched the fireworks.

  Sometimes you gotta let mother nature take her course.

  Now we’re back on the road, heading north. The interstate’s clogged with cars and dead Skins so we stick to the smaller side roads. It’s still pissing rain. My Harley makes a snake-like hiss as its tires track through puddles that stretch right across the road. Occasionally I hit a puddle too fast or at the wrong angle and start hydroplaning, fucking surfing along the water’s surface, the bike suddenly weightless beneath me.

  Bad time for wreck.

  Still, I’m feeling…frisky.

  You gotta ride into the slide. Trust the bike. Throttle her down.

  Let momentum carry you through.

  You start hesitating, second guessing corners, getting all fucking timid and shit—that’s when you wreck.

  Same is true in life.

  Just throttle the bitch and lean in hard.

  Ignore the dull-eyed chickenshit assholes preaching about security and safety and responsibility. They got you hemmed in. Caged. Making you afraid of the big bogey-man so they can peddle some expensive piece of gimmicky junk you don’t need. Pointing their bony, narrow-minded little fingers at the outlaws and riders and freaks and fuck-ups of the world. Saying how reckless we are. How antisocial. How self-destructive.

  Self-destructive? Suck a dick.

  Self-destructive means not living life how you see fit.

  Letting the weak and frightened cage you in.

  It means letting someone else decide how fast you hit the corners. Being a back-seat bitch in your own life.

  Take the risk. Throttle her back and make the call. That’s outlaw instinct. That’s courage, and the kind of freedom you can’t buy with a credit card.

  It’ll all work out. And if not?

  So what? You’re dead.

  There’s a fast-as-hell uncollared cheetah sprinting along beside me.

  Forget the fucker’s name. One of the MC Nash brought with him.

  Bastard’s egging me on, edging ahead then dropping back, his tongue hanging between his fangs as he eats up the road with massive thirty-foot leaps.

  I lower my chest close to the bike, squint against the rain stinging my face and howl at him, then crank the Harley’s throttle, hit 170 mph and rip right on past.

  We’re twenty miles outside Seattle when I scent something that makes me slam on the brakes and skid to a screeching halt. My MC piles around me. Nash leaps off his bike and sprints around, chuffing and barking, in half-hyena form. The wolves among us circle and scent. Bears stand on their hind legs and sniff the air. Reptiles scurry into the bushes alongside the interstate, doing whatever the fuck rep
tiles do.

  Blue catches sight of the expression on my face, sets down the bottle of bourbon he’s slamming, flashes me a broad grin and says, “Never seen you look like a lovesick puppy, Prez. It’s cute. In a make-me-puke kinda way.”

  “Wait until she’s actually here,” Nash scoffs. “And keep a paper bag handy.”

  “Piss off,” I growl, scenting the air.

  It’s her. It has to be.

  She’s somewhere off in the woods, but the wind’s blowing hard, obscuring the direction of her scent.

  She smells…injured.

  I lift my head to the sky and loose a long, plaintive howl.

  My pack follows my lead, and soon there’s two dozen wild, half-wasted biker Purebloods screaming at the sky.

  It sounds terrible.

  Damn. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.

  Might frighten the fuck out of her.

  I resist the urge to leap into the woods after Lily. My boys are playing cool with the lovesick thing, but beneath their shit-talk they’re still worried about where my loyalty lies. It says enough about how much they trust me that they agreed to follow me to the middle of fucking nowhere looking for her instead of staying in Seattle and claiming a new club headquarters.

  I can’t risk acting the fool and losing that trust.

  “What’s on your mind, Prez?’ Blue says.

  Damn. Blue was always the perceptive one.

  “Thinking about my grandfather,” I say quietly. “About the end game.”

  Blue nods. “That’s good to hear, Prez. You should be doing the thinking.”

  “I mean…fuck.” My inner circle leans in, listening. Waiting for my word. I take a breath and say, “I want the West Coast. From Alaska to the fucking Baja and east to Denver. The End Days Chapter of the Pureblood Predators is going to rule the West. Got me?”

  My crew hollers and fist-bumps and howls.

  “We got you,” Blue says, grinning at the MC.

  “That’s a whole lotta miles,” Tate says.

  “Yeah,” I say, “It sounds like a lot of work. Good thing you’re not a lazy, stoned-out rasta.”