by Myles, Eden
“Why?” Kevin panted. “So you can hold me prisoner, use me like some kind of breeding stud, the way you do Roman?”
Anya dropped her fur coat to the ground. “Roman is well cared for.”
“A well cared for animal in a cage is still an animal in a cage.”
Anya didn’t respond to that. She did say, “I’ll give you one last chance to come back willingly, Kevin. After that, I’m all out of mercy.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“In that case, you leave me no choice.” She slid the spaghetti straps of her dress off her shoulders and stepped out of it. Under the dress she was slim and boyish, with narrow hips and small breasts, but within seconds that all began to change. Like Kevin and Roman, she was a Pedigree. She was also the first of their kind, according to Roman. The Eve of the Werewolf underworld. She shifted seamlessly, with no effort at all. Her eyes flashed blood red and turned wolfen and then the rest of her followed…transformed.
Anya—or Freki—shimmered into her half wolf form, over ten feet of watery, sinewy muscle. Her fur was long, silky and shining like burning winter on her slender, nimble body, and her claws as long as swords. She reared up on her powerful hind legs, positively towering over the smaller, darker pack members to either side of her. Both were shifting with more effort and trouble and giving off grunts of pain as their bones broke and re-mended. Their queen snarled, her dripping jaws falling open to reveal a bright red tongue and double rows of long, shark-like teeth. Her open, gaping mouth was large enough to swallow Kevin whole as she shambled forward menacingly.
“Oh god,” Kevin said, wondering if he was going to be sick. He glanced behind him, but the alley was a dead end; there was no escape that way. He shifted quickly into his half-wolf form, even though he was still two heads smaller than she. He hoped he’d be able to escape, but Freki was upon him so quickly she was like a pale blur.
Her teeth sank into his shoulder, making him scream in pain and outrage. He tried to reach for the Wolfsbane in the pocket of his ragged jeans, but Anya knocked his hand away. Her strength was shocking and unnatural, even for a werewolf. She snagged one gigantic, clawed fist in the front of his shredded shift and lifted him up as if he were made of straw. “Traitor!” she snarled in his face, flecking him with foam and saliva. She ripped at his backpack with her claws, scattering the important documents that Roman had given all over the alley before throwing him against one wall.
The impact knocked the breath from Kevin’s body and he wheezed as he slid to the ground, his vision doubling, his body crippled by pain from his various broken bones and contusions. He groaned, scrambled against the ground to find purchase as Freki lunged at him again, faster than any wolf, as fast as a shark, but his body was a long way from healing and he felt like what he was at the moment—a broken bag of bones.
Freki’s jaws slashed the air in front of her, saliva flying. Her teeth snagged his jeans and she tossed his head, throwing him like a bag of dirty laundry against the opposite wall, his bones crunching alarmingly on impact and making him heave with the pain. Then, before he could even catch his breath, she lifted him up with her claws and tossed him down again. Kevin whined pitifully as more bones broke and blooded jetted from between his lips. His body was lanced with searing, unbelievable pain. His brain vibrated with agony. He spat blood and tried to crawl away, but Freki sank her claws into him and ripped eight deep furrows down his back, shredding his fur and skin. Kevin felt his head spin and his vision darken.
“Time to come home with me, little wolf,” Freki said, throwing him effortlessly over one shoulder, but before she could take even a single step, something huge charged her like a locomotive, driving her into the wall and making her drop Kevin on his side.
Moaning, he clenched up in a fetal position, then forced himself to turned over just in time to see Toby in wolfen form standing there on his hind legs. He was huge—not as tall as Freki, but at least as wide as she. He lashed at the air with teeth and claws, his ebony fur shining, his golden eyes narrowed menacingly. His tail swished back and forth with anger as he stood between Freki and her prey.
“T-to-oo-by,” Kevin croaked. “No…Toby…!”
“That’s right, Toby,” Freki hissed almost like a snake, her greedy jaws snapping like a metal trap. “Run away, little black wolf. Run back to the fold before I destroy you.”
Toby snorted and stood his ground. “Fuck you, bitch.”
“That’s fuck you, your majesty,” she roared.
Toby slashed at the air with hooked claws. “Go away, Freki, and leave Kevin alone!”
“Don’t make me laugh, pup,” Freki taunted him. “You were nothing but a slave when Roman found you. You’re but a slave now. Give him to me!”
“No!” Toby shouted, bearing huge, ragged teeth. “I serve my alpha. I don’t serve you!” And then, over one shoulder. “Run, Kevin. I’ll hold off Freki and these two clowns.”
Kevin groaned as he pushed himself up, covered in blood, sweat and city grime. He wanted to cry with the pain; his bones felt loose and shattered and every breath he took made it feel like he was trying to breathe through broken glass. He trembled all over with his injuries, but he was still running on adrenaline, and that got him through. Somehow, he managed to make it onto his hands and knees despite his broken bones and what was likely a punctured lung. “No, Toby,” he croaked, “she’ll kill you.”
Toby eyed his queen as Freki’s two bodyguards moved forward a step, their tails lashing the air angrily. “She killed Jonah, so I don’t care.” He growled savagely to warn back his enemies, then snapped his huge jaws until the two smaller betas whined and backed off. Freki barked at them, driving them forward once more. Toby threw Kevin a look. “See that ledge?” He indicated a second-floor window. “Go. Get to your sister. I’ll hold them back as long as I can.”
One of the werewolves launched himself at Toby, but Toby easily knocked him back with a massive uppercut, boxing like a professional. The second moved faster, latching onto Toby’s arm. Toby yelped and brought a giant fist down atop its skull like a gavel, shattering it. The second wolf slumped away, dead, but not before the first was on him once more. Toby grabbed its jaws, cracking them wide open so blood and foam poured from the monster’s mouth. He tossed the first one away like garbage.
Growling with frustration and bloodlust, Freki moved forward to engage Toby herself.
Kevin weaved to his feet and spat penny-sized droplets of blood onto the asphalt. He was far from all right, but his wolfen blood was healing him much faster than if he’d been a mere beta. Besides, it was only a matter of time before Freki turned her attention on him once more, and there was no way he could defeat her—not without help. He looked at Toby, but realized there was no way he was going to be able to talk the big man down.
“Thank you,” he told Toby, then dived for the wall and scrambled up the bricks to the windowsill. He’d just crawled into the window when the sounds of growling and the tearing of flesh, followed by Toby’s piteous cries, rose up over the city, turning his blood to ice.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jonah was dead. Toby was dead. Terror, more real than Kevin had ever felt, surged through his body and brain, driving him on despite his many injuries.
Having stolen some new clothes from out of the apartment complex, Kevin rushed to Matthew’s place. The security officers in the lobby knew him well and waved him by without question. He took the elevator up to the sixth floor and sprinted down the long hallway to Matthew’s flat. He started pounding on the door, but it fell open on him.
Kevin stopped and stared at the open door. No one in this city left their door open, not even for a minute. He immediately knew something was wrong. “Hannah?” he called softly, as if afraid he might awaken something terrible within. His heart was slamming upward, trying to crawl into his throat. Then he realized how foolish he was being. He didn’t have time for these games. Hannah didn’t have time. “Hannah
!” he cried. “Matthew!”
No answer. He rushed inside only to find the entire living room ransacked, the soft lying on its side, an end table toppled, a light broken, broken dishes scattered everywhere. The sofa bore several long, claw-like furrows in it from which the stuffing had been ripped, and there was blood on the floor—not a lot, but enough to make Kevin despair. Enough to make Kevin angry.
That bitch had invaded the sanctity of his family!
He checked the whole apartment top to bottom to make certain no one was left behind, but his sister and her boyfriend were gone. Taken. The only thing he found was a disposable cell phone lying on the kitchen table and a note next to it, written in blood. The note said: Take me.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kevin sat in the dark of his living room, the cell phone in his lap, waiting for it to ring. He thought about picking it up and dialing the police, filing a missing person’s report, getting a citywide manhunt going for Freki and the pack. But how would he explain something like that?
How do you tell the police that your sister and her boyfriend were abducted by an angry pack of werewolves? Who would take him seriously? Besides, it had only been a few hours. Hannah was an adult; he knew the police would want to wait twenty-four hours before searching for her, and by then…he didn’t want to imagine what condition his sister would be in. And even if he could somehow persuade an officer to investigate, Freki was powerful. Roman himself said there were people high up in the government who took care to cover up the pack’s indiscretions. No, the only thing he would accomplish would be getting the police’s suspicions up.
So he sat there in the dark and waited three endlessly long hours before the phone went off, playing “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran. Before the first strains of the tinny song were even over, Kevin scooped up the phone and hit Talk. “Freki, where the hell is my sister?”
“Patience, little wolf, patience,” came her silky voice. It ended on a low, growling note, like she was in some transitional phase of her shift. “Your dear sister is with me, and quite well, I might add.”
“I want to talk to Hannah!” Kevin shouted into the phone. “Put her on!”
“You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust you, you bitch. You murdered Jonah. You murdered Toby!”
“I’ve murdered a lot of people over the millennia. And you don’t have any other choice, do you?”
Fuck, she had a point. Kevin worked on getting his temper under control. If he flew off the handle, he’d get nothing from Freki, he knew. He decided to try and reason with her. “Look, this is between you and me. Hannah and Matthew have nothing to do with any of this…”
“I disagree. I think Hannah has a lot to do with you staying in the human world. However, being a fair type, I think I may be able to offer a trade of sorts—your life for hers.”
“Anything. I’ll come back if you let her go. I’ll be your wolf, your mate, just so long as she goes free and unharmed.”
He sensed Freki’s smile. “Meet me at the lodge and we’ll talk. Be here by sun up, or Hannah dies. See, I can be fair.”
With a tittering laugh, Freki hung up.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kevin was shaking like an epileptic as he approached the lodge. The drive up to the mountains had been a nightmare, and he was feeling relieved just to be at his destination. He didn’t think he could endure one more mile of road in his present state of mind.
There were a collection of familiar vehicles parked on the gravel outside the lodge, but otherwise it looked dark and deserted. No one looked to be home, but he knew that meant nothing. The werewolves could be hiding in the woods, just waiting to ambush him. He checked the gun he’d stuck in his belt—it was a .45 S&W that belonged to Jolene. He knew she kept it in her office for break-ins and had gotten it out of her desk before driving up, though she knew nothing about it. Southern girls and their guns. He wasn’t sure it would kill a charging werewolf, but he felt somehow safer for having it.
He got out, his hiking boots crunching on the white luxury gravel, and made his slow way up the drive to the front door. He stopped to check the Wolfsbane in his pocket, gave it a nervous squeeze. Then he drew the gun, regulated his breathing, and tried the door.
It was unlocked. He pushed it half open, lifting the gun and half expecting the pack to descend upon him like a swarm of angry bees, but the foyer and connecting common room was empty and dark. Nothing stirred, though a whining noise came from upstairs. It sounded like a creature in pain.
He hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Hannah? Hannah! Matthew!”
No answer.
When he got to the top floor, he followed the sound to Roman’s bedroom. A large cage was set up with a black wolf pacing nervously inside it. It was panting and whining, but it stopped when it saw him and gave him pleading yellow eyes. “Roman,” Kevin said before rushing to the cage and kneeling down.
Roman shifted back to his human form. His body was streaked with dirt, his hair snarled and full of leaves and twigs. It was obvious the pack had been making sport of him in the woods. Dried blood coated his body up and down, though there were no obvious wounds—his body had taken care of healing him, it seemed.
Still, Kevin felt his heart break at the sight. “Are you all right?”
Roman nodded. “Yes,” he said, his voice tired and hoarse. “I heal quickly.”
“What did they do to you?”
Roman averted his eyes. “What the pack does to traitors…to anyone who doesn’t follow the queen.” He reached through the bars and took Kevin’s hand, squeezed it. “You need to get out of here before they return.”
“I’m not leaving you like this! And I’m definitely not leaving Hannah!”
“Hannah isn’t here! Freki took her and her human lover out to the woods to hunt them.”
“Don’t you dare say that!” Kevin roared. He grabbed the big padlock on a chain around the door of the cage and rattled it with anger and frustration. The metal screeked but held. Even his rage couldn’t seem to break it. “Was she all right when you saw her…?”
Roman nodded. “She was fine when Freki took her out. They both were.”
“I’ll skin that bitch if she hurt Hannah…!”
“I don’t think she will, Kevin. Without Hannah, she has no leverage on you.”
Kevin yanked on the padlock in disgust. “Do you know if Freki took the key?”
“She keeps that in her bedroom.”
Kevin stood up and looked down at his lover kneeling in the cage. “She’s done this to you before, hasn’t she?”
“She’s caged me when I’ve displeased her, yes.”
Just another reason to kill Freki when he saw her. Kevin swallowed hard against the knot in his throat. “I’ll be right back.” He made his way to Freki’s room. Really, it looked more like a fancy boudoir than anything else. He flung open her closets and threw her clothes everywhere, then ripped into her dressing table, tearing everything apart. He finally found the key in her makeup case, but as he was making his way back to Roman, he heard a door open downstairs and people returning. The little hairs on the back of his neck stood at rigid attention. He flattened himself against the wall of Roman’s room and listened for sounds of Hannah, of humans. He found none. If they had hurt Hannah he was going to kill them all. He’d wipe the pack out, or die trying. Roman saw the determination in his face and shook his head, but Kevin ignored him. He tossed the key to Roman before walking to the head of the long, curving stairwell.
Freki stood at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by the rest of the pack. Some of them sneered up at him—these beautiful young men who had welcomed him into their lives only a month ago. A few started changing, but Freki lifted a delicate white hand for them to stand down. “Kevin, I’m impressed by how quickly you made it here.”
“I’m impressed by how stupid you are to have targeted my sister.�
�� He pulled the gun loose and cocked it, aiming it at Freki. “Where is she?”
Freki ignored the gun and wagged a well-manicured finger. “Tsk, tsk. Your social graces need work, young wolf. We’ve all been taking a walk, getting to know one another.”
“Running, more like,” one of the pack sneered.
Another said, “Guess what we were running after?”
“Long pig,” someone laughed, and Kevin swallowed against the bile in his throat.
“You bitch…” he whispered and squeezed off a shot, the gun bucking in his hands.
Freki’s hand moved faster than he could follow, but suddenly the bullet was in it. She dropped it. Determined, he cocked the gun and fired again, but Freki moved subtlety, catching that one as well before it could penetrate the companion beside her. She dropped the crumpled bullet to the floor. “That’s rather rude, Kevin, considering we didn’t catch her. Your little blind scamp of a sister managed to elude us somewhere down by the river. Imagine that. She’s more resourceful than we thought.”
Kevin tried to fire the gun a third time, but it jammed. Rage made him throw the useless weapon aside and start down the stairs toward Freki, but he stopped when several of the pack growled at him. He couldn’t possibly take them all; there were seven big, muscular, naked guys waiting to rip him apart. He didn’t like his odds and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Here’s the deal,” said Freki. “It’s simple, really. You run. We chase you. If you find your sister and manage to get out of these woods alive, you both can go free. But if we catch you, you return to the pack.”
“And be your prisoner,” Kevin added.
Freki made a “What can you do?” gesture. “Deal or no deal?”
What choice did he have, really?
“This isn’t over,” he said.
Freki smiled winningly with her lipstick-red lips. “I dare say I wouldn’t have it any other way, little pup.”
“Let me through,” Kevin said, and the others parted for him.