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

by Daniels, May Ellis

  Maybe she wants this. Maybe I’m doing her a favor.

  The guilt must be eating her up—

  “Fuck you!” I scream as my claws cut through the tree an inch above Lily’s head, showering her with splinters.

  Then I’m on my knees, slamming my claws into the rocky soil, flinging dirt and rocks into the air, and Lily’s still sobbing and flinching and begging me to stop, please Aaron stop—

  Lily stands, screams, “You want to hurt me, you bastard? You want to cut me? Is this what you want—”

  I watch as Lily drops her claws and rakes them across her forearm, opening herself deep.

  “Is this what you want?” she shrieks while her blood runs down her arm. “Is it?”

  My chest’s so tight I can barely speak.

  “Is it?”

  “Lil…no,” I whisper, still not sure what she’s doing. “Lil? Stop it.”

  Lily’s eyes blaze like the red lightning crashing around us. “Fuck you, Aaron. You can’t hurt me. Get it? You dirtbag biker piece of shit!”

  Lily drags her claws across her arm again, leaving four bleeding, bone-deep gouges.

  “You can’t hurt me more than I hurt myself,” Lily says while thunder explodes and the burning forest shakes.

  I’m on my feet now, trembling and…drained. Empty. The anger’s gone, and it’s too soon for guilt, so all I have is fear and worry and the knowledge that my bloodmate’s self-destructive, nearly insane about what she’s done.

  “Don’t Lil…you don’t need…don’t hurt yourself please—”

  “Why not?” Lily screams. “Because only you can hurt me? Is that it? Because I’m a hysterical woman who’s out of control? It’s all right for you to be out of control, but not me? Fuck you, Aaron. You fucking condescending misogynistic redneck. There’s no hurt you can give me I haven’t already given myself. No anger you can lay at my feet that’s not already there.”

  Lily looks me straight in the eye and cuts herself again.

  Lifts her arms. Closes her eyes.

  And the worst thing is, every time she slams her claws into her arms she looks…calmer somehow. More peaceful. Like the guilt and self-hatred that’s dammed up inside has finally found an escape. It’s flowing from her wounds. Which is real bad, because that means she might make this hurt a habit, something she needs just to go on living—

  Lily’s blood is streaming from both forearms now, showering onto the soaked grass.

  “I’m finished getting stomped on, Aaron,” Lily whispers as she stares at her bloody arms. “Finished getting…I’m just…finished. So tired.”

  I take a step toward her.

  Hold out my hand.

  I want to say something.

  Give her a reason for the bullshit way I acted.

  Explain it away. Say something to help her through tonight. That’s the goal. Because I’m suddenly worried she might not make it through, worried about her being alone with herself, and I think about all the shit she’s been through, how much hurt life’s heaped on her recently, and then my own guilt slams into me, choking me, and nastiness rises in the back of my throat as I realize what she needs to hear—

  “We’ll get him, Lil,” I stammer. “We’ll get him back—”

  I don’t know if it’s true. In fact I think it’s probably isn’t.

  But it’s what she needs to hear.

  Sometimes the truth…the truth just isn’t enough. Sometimes we need to lie to ourselves, even for a little while, just to make it through a single night.

  Lily moans. Stares at me in a way that says she knows I’m lying, then at her bloody arms. She’s wavering on her feet, the loss of blood making her dizzy—

  “He’s gone, you idiot,” she mumbles, dragging a single claw across her arm. “They both are. Both my beautiful baby boys. Gone. Because of me. The one person who should’ve protected them no matter what…”

  I try and say something.

  Open my mouth to tell her another easy, comforting lie.

  No sound comes out. I’m…frozen. Lost.

  There’s no part of me that knows how to deal with this.

  My mind’s just…blank.

  “So tired,” Lily says as she leans against a tree, her eyes flickering closed. “Please just let me be, Aaron? Just let me be. Go away. I’m finished fighting. I’m finished…caring too much… about everything…”

  Lily’s stopped cutting herself, but her arms are sliced to ribbons. She’s bleeding out right in front of me. I’m only a few steps away, my hands raised, desperate to hold her, to help her, but here’s this…barrier between us. A wall of mistrust and hurt I can’t seem to break through, and so I’m standing stunned and motionless, not knowing what to do, not sure if I rush to help Lily she won’t hurt herself even more—

  My wolf’s howling, pacing, scenting the air. He scents his bloodmate’s hurt and wants to rage and attack. But attack what? He’s confused. Uncertain. There’s nothing like this in the wild. This is unnatural. A result of living like a Skin, distanced from your true self—

  Act.

  The word like a command burning through me.

  No more doubt. No more thought. Trust your instincts.

  Act.

  So I do. I leap at my bloodmate, and before she can cut herself again I’m holding her arms, pinning them at her sides, and then I lean my weight into her and we’re falling into the soaked moss. Lily screams at me to get off her, get the fuck off, screaming she hates me, that I’m a worthless shitbag, that she never wanted this, but I don’t listen, I know it’s the self-hatred talking, another way of harming herself, and that makes me wonder if she’d leave me just to hurt herself more, because she feels she doesn’t deserve what we have, and I wrap my arms around my bloodmate and hold her close while she’s pierced by deep, wracking sobs—

  “We’ll find them,” I whisper the needed lie, over and over while Lily shakes and sobs beneath me. “We’ll find both of them, I swear it, we’ll fucking find them…I’m sorry I came at you like that…the fucking anger…it just hit, you know, and then that’s all I knew, that blind, raging anger…”

  Lily’s struggling on the moss beneath me, our naked bodies slick with rain, sweat, blood, tears and dirt, everything raw, elemental, and she’s writhing and trying to break free but I’m too strong, I overpower her easily, hold her down in a way that’s fierce and forceful but also gentle and loving, because she might hate me but right now she’s her own worst enemy—

  Lily’s claws are gone.

  She feels so weak and cold.

  Trembling and sobbing.

  Broken and weak and afraid.

  “You’re not alone,” I tell her. “You don’t have to do this alone. You hear me? I know you’re strong and stubborn and you fight hard but sometimes it’s too much, I feel you when you say you’re sick of getting beat down, because I am too, it’s like just when I get my feet under me and open myself up something comes along and screws me over and every time that happens I feel myself closing up…it’s like I lose a part of myself, some good part of myself, something I can’t even name. But we don’t have to be alone anymore. Right? We’re together and we need one another and I can admit that—”

  Lily’s still fighting against me, still trying to throw me off, but her struggles are weakening and I know she’s listening so I say, “You deserve this, Lil. You gotta believe that. What we have? Being together? You gotta believe you deserve it no matter what—”

  “Say it.”

  A whisper. So quiet I almost don’t hear.

  I lift my head and look into Lily’s eyes. There’s a world of hurt broiling in them. But also…maybe something else. Hope?

  “Say it,” Lily says again.

  “I love you.”

  Lily tightens her lips, shakes her head no.

  Thunder smashes overhead, making the trees shudder, sending a shower of leaves and needles and branches around us.

  Lily shakes her head no again, then tells me to say it.


  Which, okay, is so fucked up.

  I brush the wet tendrils of hair from her forehead and tell her again, I love you, I say, I love you, the words like a chant to ward off the darkness, the hurt, the fear of being alone against the world, and Lily’s shaking her head from side to side, refusing to listen, refusing to hear even though she asked me to say it, so I cup her face in my hands and look her straight in the eye and say it again, very slowly, and this time the tears are different.

  They’re mine.

  They slip down my cheeks before I know what the fuck’s going on. Tear after tear, tracking down and losing itself in the pouring rain, and Lily’s staring at me, watching me tear up—

  “Don’t do that again,” I whisper. “Please? I can’t stand to see you—”

  Lily lifts her head, kisses the tears running down my cheeks.

  Wraps her hands behind my head and pulls me close.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I love you. I’m sorry.”

  A strangled breath escapes my lungs. My chest loosens.

  Those words.

  Before Lil, no one’s ever said them to me.

  I’m silent.

  Staring into my bloodmate’s beautiful eyes.

  Just letting her words wash into me.

  Feeling their energy. Their power.

  Because Lily’s words do have an energy. My wolf senses it. He’s sitting on a mountain outcrop, looking across the mountains as blue-grey mists settle on the snow-capped peaks. He lives closer to his true self than me. He’s less corrupted by living in this polluted wreck of a world. Less shut down. He still feels. He’s still connected to the larger things around him: the sunsets, mountains, rivers and forests. My wolf understands—in his gut, not his head—how small and fleeting he is against these ageless things. He knows how cruel natural law can be. How meaningless life is unless we allow ourselves to love.

  That’s what a pack is about.

  It’s about love.

  About being stronger together.

  Not about dominating so an alpha can sit up high on his pyramid, looking down at those he’s beaten into submission.

  Not about ego and greed and lust for power.

  I’ve always been cynical about those who love. Laughed at them.

  Believed saying the words meant I was weak.

  A coward. A bitch.

  What a fucking fool I am.

  I’ve had it backwards.

  Maybe I’ve been living in fear my whole life. Closed off from the rivers and sunsets. Closed off to beauty. Afraid of letting people in. Afraid of being hurt. And now, gripping my bloodmate’s wrists so she can’t harm herself, I understand why Lily’s animal submitted to me. Even though she’s a Risen, and stronger. The All Encompassing permitted herself be commanded because of love. Lily might lead her Risen packmates in the One War, but my animal leads the entire army.

  “Will you let me help you?” I whisper, relaxing my grip on my bloodmate’s wrists. “Will you let me try?”

  Lily nods. She’s still terrified. Still guilt-stricken.

  But she doesn’t look…defeated.

  The wounds on her arms have stopped bleeding, and her skin is slowly curling over them.

  She’s healing.

  I slide off my bloodmate. Search around and find my jeans and Pureblood cut. Sit beside Lily, rub my face, take a long, halting breath, and just as I finally start to chill out the forest explodes in flame—

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  LILY

  I BELIEVE HIM, I think as Aaron settles on the moss beside me.

  I believe him, although I don’t know if it’s enough—

  I’m still naked. Feeling really exposed and self-conscious.

  I’m about to ask Aaron where my clothes are when the horrible red lightning forks down and hits a tree only a few yards away. My teeth hum and my bones vibrate. The tree explodes in flame and another lightning flash slams down, even closer this time. The explosive energy flings us both several feet in the air. Bulky black storm clouds churning overhead swirl into a shape I recognize—

  “Oh god no,” I whisper. “Not now. I can’t do this. Not now. Please no—”

  A hideous three-eyed mantis-wolf leers down at me from the clouds.

  The First Fallen. My brother Vuk.

  My beautiful sister—

  My brother’s words scream through my head.

  “He’s found us,” I scream as my animal shrieks at me to free her. She’s raging, her nostrils filled with her brother’s scent, her hackles rising in boundless hatred—

  Not now. I can’t free her now.

  I’m too weak. Too uncertain of my place.

  She’ll overpower me.

  My sons will be lost.

  Aaron’s on his feet, his wolf rippling close beneath his tattooed skin.

  But there’s no enemy to fight.

  Only this brutal, malicious, willful firestorm.

  The tinder-dry forest has ignited. A wall of orange-yellow flame races toward us. More red lighting crashes down, and then the storm clouds glow yellow-red and a massive bolt of fire shoots from the sky. It impacts about a hundred hards away. The earth shudders. Full-grown cedars explode into splinters. A shattered branch whips by my face, buries in the dirt at my feet. Another inch or two and it would’ve impaled me—

  “We’ve gotta run, Lil,” Aaron snarls, grabbing my wrist. “The fire’s moving too fast—”

  But I can’t move.

  I’m standing frozen and transfixed while the world burns, staring into the glowing clouds at my fallen brother’s shifting shadow.

  My beautiful sister—

  He’s not trying to murder me.

  He’s inviting me to join him.

  “He’s close,” I say, my words nearly lost to the roaring rush of flame. “He believes two of three Risen will stand beside him—”

  “Two?” Aaron screams, lifting his head to glare at the sky. “Shiori? And that prick in Mexico City?”

  “He’s calling me,” I say, my voice distant. “Inviting me to be the third to join him. We’re too late, Aaron! Someone’s gathered my Risen packmates at my brother’s side. He’s Becoming—”

  “Tell him to go fuck himself!” Aaron snarls.

  Three wolf shadows flit between the trees.

  Aaron’s called the turquoise amulet’s shadow-wolves.

  I reach my animal mind into the world. Grey-black smoke filters through the trees around us, burning my lungs, making my eyes water. It would be so easy to summon her. Become my animal and walk into the flames.

  Accept my brother Vuk’s invitation.

  Let this madness and struggle end.

  What I told Aaron is true. I’m tired. I can’t fight anymore. Not for myself. Not for my friends. Not for this shitball world. Not even for my lost sons. My brother’s stronger than me. A true wildborn apex alpha. He deserves to lead. It’s natural law. The strong rise above the weak. All I have to do is summon my creature and walk into the flames and kneel for him and this will all be over—

  “Lil?” Aaron shouts, gripping my shoulders, screaming at me, his face inches from mine.

  I let my eyes flicker red.

  Aaron freezes. Looks at me with horror.

  “Lil?”

  “Release me, Pureblood,” I say, my creature’s hot breath slipping between my lengthening fangs.

  Aaron lets me go. Staggers backward.

  Raises his hands to his chest, touches the smooth burn scar.

  “Remember, Lil?” Aaron asks. “What you are? Your role? The All Encompassing? The choice you make determines everything.”

  “Fuck you!” I scream, furious at having this horror placed on me. “I can’t fight him,” I say, my voice growing raspy. “Aaron…I can’t fight her.”

  Something snaps at the base of my spine. My bones lengthen. My muscles bunch and shift. “I don’t want to fight anymore. It’s the Age of Discord. The time of Risen. It’s too late. There’s nothing I can do—”

&n
bsp; The desire to accept my brother’s offer and become the third Risen packmate to join him is overwhelming; a hot needle drilling into my skull.

  Let him rule. Let him lead.

  I never asked for this.

  I’m not strong enough.

  Maybe his reign won’t be so terrible. Are we wrong about him? Have the legends made him out to be a monster? Maybe if I roam beside him I can influence his rule—

  “Fight him, Lil,” Aaron screams, whirling to face the burning woods. “You’ve got to fight—”

  “We’re too late,” I say, my voice soft and resigned. “He’s already won.”

  “Bullshit,” Aaron yells. He lifts his fists to the shadow-creature sprinting across the storm-sky and screams, “I’m here, you fucking coward! The One We Answer To. I offer a death challenge. Reach down and grab your nuts and man the fuck up, mantis boy. Animal against animal—”

  A bolt of crimson lightning shoots from the sky.

  Aaron leaps to the side, smashes into a burning tree and lands in a crumpled heap, groaning and shaking his head while the lightning strike burns a gaping crater in the earth.

  “We’re too late,” I whisper, sinking to my knees.

  I release my animal.

  Maybe she’ll fight him. Maybe she’ll kneel.

  It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m finished—

  The vision arrives from my animal’s wildborn mind, carried on the scent of fire and more, a scent I recognize, my brother Vuk’s scent, and suddenly I see my father’s corpse lying in a mountain meadow. His beautiful pearl white coat stained red. Vuk’s leaning down, tearing at my father’s entrails, his wings fluttering behind his massive wolf body. I emerge from the forest, paws silent in the grass, scorpion tail whipping in the air behind me, drawn by the scent of blood and a newly ascendant alpha.

  My brother’s scent is powerful in my nose.

  Vuk lifts his head as I approach.

  His blank, reflective insect eyes glare at me. He bares his bloodstained teeth and growls. Fear freezes my blood. He’s always been my rival. My older brother by minutes. Part of a litter of five. The alpha ascendant.

  Two creatures circle around Vuk.

  A spotted leopard. A giant wasp.

  My packmates. My brother and sister.