Stag and the Ash (The Rowan Harbor Cycle Book 5)

by Sam Burns

  The derision in her voice told Jesse everything he needed to know about that. He supposed none of them had been terribly interested in Josh’s worries about the very nature of being a werewolf. It didn’t excuse Josh’s actions, but it did give Jesse a pang of grief for what might have been.

  Jesse backed out of the room and left through the front door. Miss Vander was standing on her small porch. “I called the police,” she told him. “And that boy ran off down the jogging trail into the woods.”

  He’d done that before, Jesse remembered. He must be going somewhere specific out there.

  “Thanks, Miss V. When Wade and Fletcher get here, tell them Josh was the plant, he attacked Anthony, and I’m following him out into the woods.”

  “Should you be doing that? Your mother told me you were poisoned last night.” Her head whipped around in the direction she’d indicated Josh had gone. “Did that boy poison you? Why, if I’d have known, I’d have smacked him about the head and shoulders with my umbrella.”

  Jesse didn’t laugh, but only because he didn’t think he had the energy for it. Instead, he motioned to the sapling that was beneath the now broken window. It had a scrape down its side from a large shard that had landed on it. “Could you possibly help them out? Wish I’d had time to move them before now, dammit.”

  “Don’t you worry about little sibling,” she assured him. “I’ll clean up the glass and get them into a pot, so you can move them somewhere else.”

  He nodded to her, but his attention was already refocusing on the jogging trail. “Thanks, Miss V. I’ll be back.”

  “You’d better,” she called after him.

  He wished he could promise that with as much certainty as he had Anthony’s recovery, but he had no idea what he was going to find in the woods. He had a fair guess, but it wasn’t a reassuring one.

  8

  Back to the Future

  The jogging trail split just inside the tree line, one path going across the river toward Jesse’s old family home, and the other following the river for a while before heading back out of the woods into a park.

  Josh’s scent trail followed the riverbank. When the jogging trail broke away from the river and headed back into town, there was a footpath that continued to follow the river, straight through Oak’s grove. Josh’s scent continued on that path.

  Jesse hated how many strangers and dangerous people had found their way near Oak in the last six months. The dryad didn’t deserve to live in fear of assholes who wanted to threaten the people of Rowan Harbor.

  He wondered if they ever wished no one had settled their land, and they were still alone with the creatures of the forest. It would be safer, if less interesting. He didn’t know how much Oak cared about interesting, but he hoped they liked it a lot, so it helped make up for the worry.

  Josh was moving fast, but Jesse didn’t have it in him to hurry that much. He was still tired from the aconite poisoning—those fucking werewolf movies were a menace—but hurrying was probably a waste of energy anyway, since he assumed Josh would stop somewhere to meet up with his accomplice.

  Charles.

  The full force of that realization hit him. He almost stumbled and came to a stop in the middle of the path, bent over, hands on his knees and breathing hard. His stomach hurt, but didn’t feel like last night’s attempt to turn himself inside out. No, this wasn’t from the poisoning. This was sheer panic.

  “Are you well, Jesse Hunter?” Oak’s voice came to his ears as a bare whisper. The dryad was probably nervous about being heard by the strangers. “You are very white today, and damp.”

  Pale and sweaty, his mind corrected. Great. Maybe it was still the poisoning. He was convinced it wasn’t, though—that it was panic because he had realized that Charles was somewhere in his woods.

  The wolf bristled. The unworthy, unwanted, not-mate was in his territory. The betrayer did not belong on pack lands. They would drive him out.

  He looked up to find Oak standing next to him. They moved so silently sometimes that he thought they might be capable of teleportation.

  They reached out to brace him as he straightened back up. “Should you return to your home?”

  He shook his head and took a few slow, deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves and his stomach. “I’m okay. I need to do this. Did a kid pass by here?”

  “Yes. There was a crying boy with a cloud of blood in his wake.” Oak pointed in the direction Jesse had been walking, along the little-used section of trail. “There is another human in that direction. He came recently, in the black of night. The forest does not like him. We are staying far from his camp. I attempted to tell Devon Murphy in his dreams, but I was stopped from doing so, I know not how. I am sorry for being remiss in my duties.”

  Jesse shook his head. “No, Oak, this isn’t on you. We’ve been distracted because of the threat and the werewolves. Devon told you about the threat?”

  “Yes. Did the crying boy injure the mystic?”

  “No, thank goodness. Turns out I was the target. And he hurt someone else, a friend of his, trying to escape when we realized what he was doing.” As much as he wanted to stop and chat with Oak, mostly to avoid continuing down the path to find Charles, he needed to go. “Thank you, Oak. We’ll come tell you about it when it’s taken care of, okay?”

  Oak nodded, but there was something sad in their expression—their eyes focused on the ground, and their mouth turned down at the corners. It wasn’t in their nature to complain, so whatever their concerns were, they didn’t voice them. Jesse decided that the next time he went on a picnic, he’d come to the grove. Maybe he could talk to them, help with whatever was weighing on their mind.

  As he walked, Jesse tried to reconcile himself to what came next.

  Unfortunately, that was Charles.

  He’d confronted Charles once and knew he could have bested the man in a fight back then. That was years ago, before Charles knew what he was. This time, he would have armed himself against werewolves in particular. He probably carried something like the vampire had used on Wade, a bomb of powdered silver. Jesse shuddered.

  He was caught between hoping Wade and Fletcher would catch up with him soon, and hoping that they didn’t follow at all, so they wouldn’t have to be anywhere near Charles. So Charles couldn’t hurt them.

  But no. That wasn’t going to happen, because Charles might know Jesse’s weaknesses, but Jesse knew his too. Not the fragile human weaknesses that could be overcome with mental fortitude, but the emotional weakness of being a self-involved man-child with no comprehension of his own limitations. Unless Charles had changed more than Jesse thought possible, he was filled with hubris and probably feeling cocky about his situation.

  Jesse knew when he was getting close to them, because he could hear the yelling. They weren’t even trying to be subtle. It was like they didn’t realize there was a chance someone had followed Josh.

  “It doesn’t make sense!” Josh said. His voice was shaking with emotion. Jesse hoped it was anger or remorse, but it could just as easily have been fear.

  Something smashed, sounding like metal against wood, and Jesse had a memory of Charles throwing the television remote against the wall because Jesse had questioned his choice of what to watch. “I fucking knew you were too much of a coward to do the job right. Should have put you out of your misery instead of trying to help you. You don’t appreciate my help. You don’t really want to be human again, do you?”

  “Of—of course I do,” Josh answered, voice cracking. “But they said killing the alpha won’t make me human again. And the legend said it was supposed to be the alpha who turned me, and Jesse didn’t turn me.”

  “And I’m telling you, that pitiful asshole isn’t any kind of alpha. It’s his shrew of a mother.” All the emotion had gone from his voice, as though the previous anger had been for show.

  That was something else Jesse remembered all too well—moods shifting wildly from one moment to the next. How had he not recognized that the
re was something wrong with Charles? He hadn’t wanted to realize it.

  “No.” For the first time in the conversation, Josh sounded like he was in full control of himself. “It’s Jesse. He’s the alpha. His mother defers to him. I saw it happen five minutes ago.”

  There was a sound of frustrated mocking, presumably from Charles. “If that’s true, there’s almost no point in killing them. With such a worthless excuse for an alpha, they might as well be dead already. If you’d poisoned him right, it would be over now.”

  There was sound of a fist hitting a tree. “You told me half of it was enough to kill any werewolf. I used all of it, and he didn’t die. He’s more than you think!”

  That was sweet, in a strange way, but Jesse wished Josh would stop talking up his abilities. Charles underestimating him was a good thing.

  “Please,” Charles scoffed. “He’s a fucking pansy. Flinches at loud noises.”

  “You’re his ex-boyfriend,” Josh said out of nowhere. He sounded shocked, like it was an incredible revelation. “The one he said was an asshole. The abuser. You never thought me killing him would turn me back. You were using me to hurt your ex-boyfriend, and I fell for it. Fuck, I’m so slow. If anyone’s a coward here, it’s you.”

  Fuck. That was ballsy, but also a good way to get Charles—

  Jesse came around a tree in time to see Charles level a rifle at Josh and pull the trigger.

  “No!” he shouted, for all the good it did after the shot had already left the barrel of the gun.

  The shot threw Josh back a foot, and he hit a tree, blood spreading from a hole in the right side of his chest. He stared at it, then at Jesse. He looked surprised, as though he hadn’t known Charles was a murderer, when the man had been encouraging him to kill people.

  “Anthony?” he said, tone questioning.

  It took Jesse a second to realize he was asking if his friend was okay. Charles was readying the rifle to fire again, so Jesse didn’t have time to worry about that. Putting on all the speed he could muster, he lunged for Josh, wrapping his arms around the guy’s chest and pulling him to the other side of the tree. It had a nice, heavy trunk, which he was thankful for a fraction of a second later, when the rifle shot sounded through the woods, and a round impacted the tree where he and Josh had been.

  He tried to do a damage assessment. If Josh could survive just a little while, it would be long enough to let his healing ability take over. He was angry with Josh, and there needed to be a reckoning for what he’d done, but he didn’t deserve this, dammit. No one deserved to be murdered by a bigot for the crime of being a werewolf.

  “This is going to hurt,” he whispered. Without waiting for a response, he put pressure on the wound, almost enough to break the ribs beneath his hands, enough to keep him from bleeding out. “Just hold on a minute, Josh, you’ll be okay. Anthony’s gonna be fine, though I’m not sure he’ll ever forgive your stupid ass.”

  “Shouldn’t help,” Josh ground out past gritted teeth. “Better off dead. Can’t live a monster.”

  Jesse glared at him. “I swear, if you weren’t trying to die of blood loss, I’d kick your ass for being so fucking stupid.”

  “An’ your asshole ex.” Josh coughed on the last word, and Jesse had to dodge flecks of blood. Still, he assured himself, it could be worse. The kid was talking. That was a good sign that he might make it.

  A less good sign was the sound of a gun being loaded, followed by footsteps headed in their direction.

  Fuck.

  “Jesse, baby,” Charles said. Had his voice always been that annoying, or was it only the fact that Jesse hated everything about the man now? “It’s been too long. How’ve you been? Dropped out of school, I heard. Back to working at the grocery store is it? Your parents must be so proud.”

  Not too long in the past, that would have twisted a knife in Jesse’s heart exactly the way Charles intended.

  “You can’t stay here’n help me,” Josh whispered, the words weak and slurred, but coherent. “He’ll kill you.”

  “Shut the fuck up and stop trying to die, you jackass.” It probably wasn’t the best thing to say to a man who might be dying, but Jesse was all out of patience.

  Josh made an excellent point, in that standing there would get both of them killed. Charles’s footsteps were slowly but steadily heading straight for the tree they were hiding behind. It wasn’t as though they could be anywhere else, with the hole in Josh’s chest, and Charles knew it. If Jesse tried to get the kid somewhere else, together they’d be a huge, slow-moving target.

  There was a wild thrumming on the edge of his consciousness. Not a frightened rabbit running through the underbrush, but something much bigger, that had started far away, and was getting closer. Fletcher or Wade, maybe. He wasn’t sure if he hoped it was them or not. The asshole had a gun, dammit. Jesse didn’t care if they were cops; he didn’t want them in danger any more than anyone else he loved.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” Charles wheedled. “Not talking to me? You always were one for pouting when you didn’t get your way. Such a whiny bitch. Only I didn’t realize at the time how spot-on ‘bitch’ was, did I?” He laughed at his own pathetic excuse for a joke, and Jesse wanted so much to take a step around the tree and punch him.

  Which was exactly what Charles wanted, and it would get him shot square in the chest. Or worse, the face.

  Josh coughed again, but there was no more blood. Did that mean he was healing? That Jesse could stop trying to hold his chest closed like he was trying to keep the boy’s insides in? That they could try to move instead of standing there waiting to get shot?

  “You really trying to help that little asshole, Jesse? He’s been planning to murder you since before you met. Unless he lied to me about it, he poisoned you. Not the person you want to defend with your life.”

  “God,” Josh choked out, “you love to fucking talk. He’s not you. Not gonna kill even me.” As he spoke the words, Josh struggled against Jesse, trying to push him away. “Run,” he mouthed.

  Jesse wasn’t going to run, of course, but it seemed like a good sign that the kid was trying to push back, and not hanging limp in Jesse’s arms.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Charles said, his footsteps pausing on the other side of the tree. “I can kill you both just fine.”

  “I’m gonna have to disagree with you on that,” Sean’s voice came from farther into the clearing, somewhere behind Charles. What the hell?

  Jesse’s hands fell away from Josh’s chest and, without conscious thought, he ducked around to the left of the tree. For a fraction of a second, he worried the whole thing was a trick to get him to show himself, but why would Charles have bothered? He’d been in an easy position to kill both of them without a distraction like that.

  Jesse didn’t see Sean anywhere. Charles had whirled to look behind him, but when he saw Jesse move, he raised the rifle, so Jesse ducked back behind the tree.

  “Brought a friend, did you?” Charles asked. “That’s okay. We can have a freak party. I’ve got enough bullets for everyone. The boss is gonna be so mad he wasn’t here for this.”

  There was another footstep, and another, and Charles came around the tree, rifle braced against his shoulder and pointed at Jesse. Then a person-shaped missile hit him and sent them both sprawling to the forest floor.

  Jesse reached down and snatched up the rifle where it had fallen, pulling it away from where Sean and Charles were rolling on the ground, one over the other, each trying to gain the superior position. Even if Jesse had a clear shot, he had no idea how to use a gun, other than as a club. He considered that, hefting it in his hand to test the weight, but then dismissed it. The off chance he would hurt Sean was too high.

  Behind him, Josh leaned over and started coughing uncontrollably.

  In front of him, Charles punched Sean across one beautiful cheekbone, and his head snapped to the side.

  Jesse’s vision narrowed to that contact. Charles, putting his hands on Sean. Charles, the
interloper, who had been bad enough when he was the creature of Jesse’s nightmares. Jesse yanked his shirt over his head and didn’t bother stripping off anything else before he let the shift take his body.

  People always worried that it hurt, turning into a wolf, when the truth was the opposite. A mad rush of joy filled him whenever he gave over to the wolf, overshadowing any discomfort or momentary vertigo.

  There was no vertigo at all this time. The wolf’s sharp eyes focused immediately on Charles. Betrayer. Intruder. The sharp scent of that familiar cologne, mixed with blood and sour sweat brought him back to that moment in the kitchen of their shared Berkeley apartment.

  This time, the wolf would not allow the villain to escape and hurt his loved ones. There would be no more trolls. No more monsters hurting his friends and his family and his Sean.

  The wolf launched himself at Charles, knocking him off of Sean and onto the forest floor. The human’s eyes went wide when he beheld the enormous wolf, and its sharp white teeth, snapping at him. He screamed and tried to roll away, but the wolf pounced.

  “Jesse!” Sean yelled.

  That made the wolf pause. Jesse? Jesse was him. Sean was mate.

  He didn’t allow the prey to move, teeth clamped around its throat, but he glanced over at where Sean lay on the ground, panting and staring at him. “Jess? Do you understand me?”

  Silly mate. Of course he understood. Did his mate want the kill? That didn’t seem right. The mate didn’t kill. Only the wolf killed.

  “I know you want to kill him, but that’s not you, Jess.” Sean sat up, clutching his stomach and wheezing. The wolf growled at the sight of his mate in pain. “Jesse.” Sean rolled his eyes. “Boo, you’re better than him. You don’t have to kill him.”

  But Jesse had killed before, hadn’t he? The old man who had pointed a gun at him. That had been different. The old man had been predator. This was prey, and it was nothing he wished to eat.