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

by Daniels, May Ellis

  Trish and Nash share a long look when they see it.

  The professor’s remaining hours are numbered. The bullet wound’s swollen up tight and angry red. Nasty fluid’s leaking from the hole in him.

  Melchuk’s eyes roll in his head when he sees the infection. Trish holds his head up, leans him against a Harley and shouts for water. A prospect comes running with a bottleful. Trish runs some water down the professor’s face, then puts the bottle to his lips. The professor takes a few weak sips and nods.

  “This is my fault,” Lily says quietly. “My fault and no one else’s.”

  I brush her bangs from her eyes. “It doesn’t help. Kicking your own ass. You didn’t force anyone to follow you.”

  “But that’s just it. I did! I called them. They sought me out, believing I could protect them—”

  She bites her lip, stifling her words and another hurtful sob. Then her face twists in anger and she grinds her jaw tight and says, “That fucking bitch. Shiori. That fucking traitorous bitch. I should’ve done something. I knew she’d challenge me. That’s the worst part. It wasn’t even a surprise like it was for—”

  “Me?”

  Lily’s face softens. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Lily pauses. Studies my face.

  Maybe I’m closing down as well. Shutting her out.

  Maybe there’s too much bullshit piled between us.

  Too much heavy history.

  Maybe this should be just business. Her pack and mine united against the Fallen. Then we go our separate ways—

  Lily takes a slow breath, then continues, “My animal scented Shiori’s intentions. I should’ve gone on the offense. Challenged her first. Run her off.”

  “Nothing more toxic than a packmate you can’t trust,” I say, still thinking about my dead brother.

  “I wish you were with me, Aaron. When it happened? I didn’t know…”

  Suddenly Lily’s legs give out. She collapses into me and it’s all I can do to get her propped against my Harley. Her eyes flutter open, then closed. She’s in and out of consciousness.

  Hurt worse than I thought.

  Trish digs through the medical kit, scowls and asks if it’s all we got.

  I tell her yes, and Trish answers, “We need a doctor. The professor’s wound needs to be properly cleaned and bandaged. Lil needs something for that fever.”

  No one says a word, but we’re all thinking the same thing: it’s the end of the world. Everyone needs a doctor. Trouble is, the Stricken hunted them down like all the rest.

  Lil looks up at me, so I ask, “Where are the others? Your…pack?”

  A pained expression passes over Lily’s face. “Gone. Lost. Dead. I wish I knew.”

  “Shiori turned out to be even sketchier than she looks,” Trish says to Nash.

  “Fuck,” Nash says.

  “She took Pimniq with her, Aaron,” Lily whispers, her face pale.

  “Took? Where?”

  “Flew off with her,” Trish says. “Abducted that little girl. In a cloud of nasty wasps.”

  “Fuck sakes,” I say. “Where?”

  Lily’s shoulders slump. “To find the First Fallen. Shiori tried to convince Anik to go with her. To abandon me.”

  “And did he?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lily says uncertainly. “But he was close. And when I tried to stop him leaving—”

  “Anik did this to you?”

  Lily shakes her head. “Tornarsuk.”

  “The motherfucker.”

  Lily runs her fingers down my chest. “It wasn’t Anik’s fault. Aaron? Please? You’ve got to believe that. The bear was just…enraged. Confused. Trying to protecting his own. He charged after Shiori and Pim.”

  “Tornarsuk?” Blue growls, his shoulders tensing.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Mean something?”

  Blue crushes a meaty fist into his palm. “Nah. Just a funny name is all.”

  He’s lying. I know my oldest friend well enough to know that. But I decide to keep my mouth shut. He’ll tell me later. If he thinks he needs to.

  “So it’s just you three?” I ask, nodding at Lily, Trish and the egghead professor.

  “Yeah,” Lil says. “Just us party animals.” She looks me in the eye, then says, “Connor…got taken. By the Stricken. He’s…gone.”

  Nash and me share a look.

  “Aaron?” Lily says. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Forget it. That prick. Can’t stand hearing his name.”

  Lily gives me an odd glance.

  I decide not to tell her about Lerrick and Collazo and the Risen in Mexico City. She’s tired. It’s a shit time. She should rest.

  Plus, I’m selfish enough to want a few hours or days with my bloodmate before we open old wounds.

  “How long you been in the woods alone?” I ask Lil.

  She shrugs, studies her scratched hands. “Hard to tell. A few days?”

  Fuck sakes. No wonder my bloodmate looks haunted.

  “Mia ran off after—” Trish says.

  Lily lays her hand on Trish’s arm to quiet her, but I’ve already heard, and knowing Lil is also trying to keep things from me after what happened between us…that fucking stings. Pot meet kettle, I know.

  That mountain of bullshit, of half-truths and omissions and outright lies, it just keeps on growing.

  “Mia?” I say. “Mia was with you?”

  Lily nods. “It’s not a good time. To talk.”

  “No. It isn’t. We need to get moving. Been here too long as it is.”

  I decide to let the news about Mia drop. Maybe it’s best to nurture the art of not giving a fuck. A kind of zen detachment thing. Maybe if you try to give a fuck about everything you just end up batshit crazy, locked in a concrete compound like Lily’s pops.

  The last thing I need is that snake chick clouding my mind right now.

  “I might know where they’re going,” Lily says into a heavy silence. “Shiori kept mentioning somewhere called the Pyramid of the Sun—”

  “Oh yes!” Professor Melchuk says, suddenly brightening. “I’ve been meaning to say…about that. There’s only one Pyramid of the Sun that I’m aware of. Which means, if you’ll pardon an old man his professional hubris, that there is only one Pyramid of the Sun.”

  Lily breathes a long, exasperated sigh while Trish cracks a smile that says lets please humor the old windbag.

  “Where?” I ask.

  “You’ve been alive on this earth for how long, Aaron?” the professor asks.

  “A good long while. Why?”

  Melchuk smiles. “Thought you’d recognize the name, is all. It was a very important temple in its time.”

  “I tend to not give a fuck about temples at any time.”

  “That’s a shame,” the professor quips.

  “You care. I don’t.”

  Melchuk presses his hand against his shoulder, winces, then says, “The Temple of the Sun is located outside of Mexico City. It predates the Aztecs. A glorious structure built along a ceremonial processional pathway named the Avenue of the Dead and flanked by the Pyramid of the Moon. Is this…ringing a bell?”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard of it. Fucking hellhole. So what?”

  “Hellhole?” the professor asks. “Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t built by Skins,” Blue growls.

  Lily’s lips tighten. “Who then?”

  “No one knows,” I say, hoping to end the conversation. But I’m thinking about Carlos Collazo and Connor Lerrick and that prick who’s claiming he’s an Aztec god reborn—

  Blue glances at the black vulture riding thermals a mile overhead. “Some Purebloods think the pyramid was built by Stricken. By the original Stricken.”

  “The First Fallen?” Lily says.

  “You smell that?” I say, sniffing the air. “Smells like bullshit.”

  Lily casts me a fiery glare.

  All right. So some subjects are off lim
its to shit-talk.

  The Fallen’s one of them. Fair enough.

  “Why do some of your kind believe that?” Melchuk asks, clearly very curious.

  “Because none of us can get close to the fucking thing,” Blue growls.

  “Please explain,” Melchuk says.

  Blue gives Melchuk a stony glare, then says, “You ever held a dog whistle right to a dog’s ear and blown it as long and loud as you can?”

  “No, young man. I can’t say I have. But I would imagine it would cause…terrible discomfort.”

  “It maddens the animal,” Blue corrects. “And that’s what happens when a Pureblood comes within a hundred miles of that pyramid.”

  The professor places two delicate fingers on his pasty chin. “Some speculate the pyramid is an ancient tomb.”

  “Of course they do,” I snap. “Everything’s a tomb to you Skins.”

  “The human race does possess an historical fixation with—”

  “That’s where Shiori took Pim,” Lily interrupts. “Anik and Mia followed after her.”

  “No prize for guessing where we’re going, I guess,” Nash says.

  Lily almost smiles. “We’re going to speak to my father and find my son Lachlan. You boys do as you please, though. That’s been proven many times over.”

  “No way, Lil,” Trish says. “You and the professor need a doctor.”

  Lily shakes her head. “No doctors. There’s no time, Trish. My father…my son? He could be…” Lily takes a breath, winces, places a hand over the wound on her forehead. “I used to think my father was the First Fallen. But now with Shiori challenging me and fleeing for that temple…I don’t know. I’m not sure of anything. My son could be anywhere. I need to find him. If he’s alive. I’ll heal up—”

  Lily’s voice is taking on a rambling, incoherent tone that makes my hackles rise. She’s lost. Reaching for straws and hoping for a knock-out punch, and the alpha wolf in me sees her and understands why Shiori challenged her.

  My bloodmate’s not fit to lead. Not now, anyway.

  “But you’re not healing,” Trish says, her black eyes flashing. “Nevermind Melchuk.”

  “Trish is right,” I say, taking another look at Lily’s wounds. “That cut is deep.”

  “Well, that’s awesome, guys,” Lily says, her lips twisting in derision. “But hey! In case you haven’t noticed? It’s fucking armageddon! Finding a doctor might be a tad—”

  Suddenly a few of the guys keeping an eye on the sky begin hollering.

  “The vulture!” Nash yells, dragging a very reluctant Trish across the road and down the embankment.

  I get Lily crouching beside the motorbike, then look up. The vulture’s in full kill-mode, wings tucked close, diving straight at us. I scream at my MC to open fire. Assault rifles pop and flash, loosing a wall of booming artillery. I got my AK-47 up and blazing, screaming at the motherfucker.

  A layer of blue-white frost spreads thick on the ground.

  The metal AK is freezing in my hands.

  The carrion bird’s shadow brings unnatural cold.

  Our bullets don’t slow him.

  The vulture’s close enough I can see his beady red eyes, wickedly curved beak and hooked talons. And something else. Something I thought I saw when the fucker snatched me off Connor the prick Lerrick. A pair of curving rams horns sprout from the vulture’s head.

  I drop the AK and call my fucking wolf.

  My bones shift and crack and a familiar pain makes me grin and howl as the carrion bird dives still lower—

  At the last possible second the bird unfurls its wings. Cold air ripples across my fur. I crouch down and leap into the sky, knowing the bird’s smart enough to stay out of reach but not caring. I get to within a few feet of my prey. My jaws snap closed on empty air.

  The vulture looks me dead in the eye.

  Flaps its wings once.

  Opens it mouth and caws.

  The sound is like a death-scream.

  Then I’m falling to the road, the vulture’s scream echoing and crashing around me, and when I land I see Lily’s lying flat on her back beside my Harley, eyes closed, covered in sparkling blue frost, her entire body twitching like she’s having some sort of convulsion, pink-white froth spilling from her mouth—

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  LILY

  IN THE WEEKS after I gave Lachlan up for adoption I suffered terrible nightmares. They were only made worse by knowing it was the right choice. I wasn’t ready—emotionally or otherwise—to be a mother.

  But still the nightmares came.

  There was nothing rational about them, and no matter how hard I tried to reason with myself every night I still woke up, my pillow soaked in sweat and tears, sobbing.

  Sometimes the right decisions hurt the most.

  The dream never varied. There was something sinister about this…relentless repetition. Night after night after night. The same dream. It felt mechanical, like a clock ticking through the gears, like a life winding down, and that was another part of it—I always felt very small in the dream.

  Helpless.

  Like a bystander in the story of my life. A wooden marionette with an invisible puppeteer tugging on my strings, making a leg jerk here, an arm lift there.

  I tried not sleeping for several days, hoping I’d fall into one of those deep, dreamless sleeps. Didn’t work. All I got was more exhausted.

  The dream itself wasn’t that bad.

  I was with my son in a park I can’t name—in the dream I didn’t even know I was with Lachlan until the very end—and I was lifting him up and swinging him in the air with that joy unique to parents of small children.

  Lachlan was laughing.

  I couldn’t see his face. It was blurred out in that odd way some dreams are. But I knew it was him. Lachlan was laughing as I lifted him into the sky.

  “Up, up, up you go, little bird!”

  I’d say the same thing every time I lifted him.

  “Up, up, up, you go, little bird!”

  Lachlan laughed, kicked his little feet and waved his baby-chub arms in the air.

  Three times. I always said it three times. And in the dream, when I said it the second time, I knew what was going to happen. I knew I had to stop myself from saying it that third time. Every fibre of my being shrieked at me not to say it.

  But I always did.

  “Up, up, up you go, little bird!”

  And suddenly my son stopped laughing.

  The dream became silent.

  I was still spinning and lifting him, but it was like watching a silent movie. The sun rotating overhead. The sky crystal blue. And my son, spinning and laughing without sound.

  That was it. The dream ended.

  Not that bad, right?

  Well.

  The next thing I knew I was…emerging from sleep. Very slowly. Part of me, some secret consciousness, understood I was asleep, and having the familiar nightmare again, and for a moment I felt…trapped between the worlds of waking and dreaming.

  Like I was in transit from one world to another.

  In both, but of neither.

  I wasn’t scared yet. Not yet.

  But then what happened was…while I was in that strange state between worlds…my son’s laughter started again. It wasn’t threatening or frightening. It was just him laughing as I spun him, except this time I was almost awake and the dream was gone and there was only darkness and the sound of my son laughing and that’s when I realized my son was dead.

  I’d open my eyes and be in my bedroom.

  Hear someone sobbing and realize it was me.

  Feel wetness on my cheeks.

  And the loss and grief at my son’s death…it was so real for a moment it was the only thing that was truly real. The dream-world was gone, and yet I wasn’t fully immersed in this one. So all I had as I lay there sobbing, all I had to make me…real…was the knowledge that my son was gone forever.

  And that? Yeah.

  That was terr
ifying.

  ***

  There. That laughing sound?

  My son. Laughing in the half-dream darkness.

  My beautiful baby boy.

  Returned to make me suffer what for what I’ve done.

  ***

  I wake screaming my son’s name.

  At first I think I’m calling for him.

  Lachlan! Lachlan!

  But that’s not what I’m doing.

  I’m screaming his name to try and drown out his laughter.

  Trying to make him stop.

  ***

  The sky billows above me.

  An odd green color glowing in the darkness.

  Then a flapping noise.

  I groan, blink through the heaviness weighting eyes.

  Where am I?

  Aaron?

  “Aaron?” I whisper.

  Nothing. The asshole’s deserted me again.

  Left me to die, like he did when he dumped me in the alley—

  “Aaron!” I try and yell. But I’m too weak. The word comes out a bare whisper. Tears track down my cheeks. I hug myself, shiver against an unnatural cold. A cold so deep I feel my bones grinding together.

  “Please Aaron please,” I whisper.

  The flapping sound grows louder. Like fabric caught in fierce wind. Then a rustling sound and a shadow looms above me. I cower down, trying to sink into the earth, hoping this shadow doesn’t scent me—

  “Lil?”

  It’s him. My bloodmate.

  Relief floods into me. I try and sit up.

  Manage to barely lift my head.

  Aaron’s powerful arms slip under my back and wrap around my chest.

  He’s holding me. Just holding me in his heavily muscled arms.

  He’s warm. Wonderfully warm.

  I fight the urge to press close.

  What he said. About loving me?

  It’s not enough. Even if it’s true.

  Not after what we’ve done to one another.

  Love isn’t a magic cure for all ills. You can’t apply liberally and make the bad turn good. The bad’s still there, still hurting.

  All love does is make leaving harder.

  I never expected to see him again. Thought I didn’t want to. Or at least…most of the time I believed that. And now that we’re together…all I can think about is what I did. Aaron’s a constant reminder of our unborn child imprisoned in the Bloodless Land with Opiyelguabiran the Dog God. And the longer I’m with Aaron the shittier it’s gunna feel if I don’t tell him. Already the guilt’s worming into my gut. At least before, when he wasn’t around, I could tell myself I’d get our son back and Aaron would never need to know.