Wolf's Cage

by Laura Taylor

  “Sir?” Hank whispered from beside him. “When you’re ready.”

  Miller was about to signal the attack when one of the wolves suddenly shifted, turning into a middle aged woman. As before when he’d seen the animals shift, the sight was both startling and captivating, the transition smooth and effortless, unnatural, and yet the most beautiful thing in the world. The woman had long, flaxen hair, an indulgent smile on her lips, and she scolded the escapee, causing his shoulders to sag almost comically as he pouted and handed over whatever it was he had to the young woman.

  It was like watching a family picnic. Friendly rivalry, good natured teasing, some of them playing while others stood around patiently and waited for the others to get on with things. And it struck him once again that there was so much he didn’t know about these people. After the lab had blown up and Melissa had been shot, he’d been furious, putting aside his curiosity to focus on his job, on paying back the damage they had done. He’d lost good friends in the explosion, and that anger and grief had kept him from thinking too deeply about the shifters themselves for a while.

  Now, though, after crossing more than half of Britain to get here, and summoning a small army to take them out, he was dismayed to find himself suddenly having second thoughts.

  The girl in particular was a concern. Either they were going to kill her, or she would be captured and taken back to the lab. He shuddered to think what Jacob would do to her once she was there, but the thought of simply shooting her horrified him. She was so young. So innocent…

  “Sir?”

  “On my count,” Miller murmured, shoving his misgivings aside and holding up three fingers. Two. One.

  The men moved as a single unit, up and out of cover in a split second, guns drawn, dogs straining on the ends of their leashes as Miller aimed his gun straight at the escapee and yelled, “Freeze! Nobody move or you all die!”

  Tank had fired his first shot before he even knew he’d drawn his gun, taking out one of the men who had appeared like ghosts out of the forest. He shoved Skip behind a tree, then dived for cover himself, a bullet grazing his shoulder, and he watched one of the Polish shifters go down. The rest of them scattered, and he cursed, popping off round after round as he realised that he and Marianne, the alpha female from the Norwegian Den, were the only ones who had guns. Fuck!

  But the others weren’t going to let that stop them, he realised with a rush of dread. One of the Russians, still in wolf form, went for one of the men, leaping for his throat, a hideous, gurgling scream emerging from the man before he died. But then one of the man’s team mates shot the Russian.

  Tank took out another man, then spun around as Skip screamed. She was staring behind them, and he realised there were more of them in that direction. But that wasn’t the worst of the day’s surprises.

  Beside the men, straining at the end of their leads, were six dogs. Huge dogs, mastiffs and Rottweilers… and they had Kevlar body armour covering them from head to tail. Tank ejected his clip, reloaded the gun, and cursed with every foul word he knew.

  Peering into the bush where Kwan insisted there was a bird’s nest, the sound of the first gunshot made Caroline’s head snap around. She was in wolf form an instant later, head cocked, ears twitching as she sought out the source of the sound.

  The second shot had her bolting through the trees, heading for the clearing without a second thought. The rest of her team were at her heels, camera and backpack abandoned, game forgotten.

  As she ran, they crossed paths with a dozen more wolves. There was Baron, his wolf huge and black in the undergrowth. Silas and Annabelle, Nikolai right behind them, more wolves rushing down from higher up the hill.

  Howls started up throughout the forest a moment later, positioning calls as the entire pack worked to locate each other, to determine the source of the gunshots.

  And then a sound that had Caroline doubling her speed, heedless of the danger she was running into. The sound of a scream, and after eight years of living under the same roof, her heart was in her throat as she recognised Skip’s anguished voice echoing off the hills.

  Cassandra watched the wolf-humans in horrified fascination. Several more of them changed into people, and her mind raced to try to make sense of what she had just stumbled into. Was this some bizarre science experiment? A testing lab for a new chemical weapon? Super soldiers being bred for an undercover war?

  She had just about made up her mind to turn around and get the hell out of here, back up the hill the way she’d come, when the other men arrived, soldiers, by the look of them, dressed in camouflage green and carrying military style guns. For a split second, she thought maybe this was a war game, a training exercise for a covert arm of Britain’s army…

  Until the first shots were fired, and all hell broke loose. A scream lodged in her throat before she could give it voice as she saw one of the werewolves get shot, another one returning fire, and she sank to her knees, petrified into immobility, her mind scrambling for a prayer that would let her reach the end of the day alive.

  Waiting with Eleanor by the manor, Caleb frowned as a harsh noise ricocheted off the hills. “What the hell…?” He jumped to his feet, abandoning the coffee they’d been sharing. “Is that… gunshots?”

  Eleanor joined him, listening carefully. The first few shots were quickly followed by a volley of rapid fire, and there was no more denying it.

  “We’re under attack,” Eleanor concluded quickly. “Go. They’ll need your help.”

  But Caleb shook his head. “You’re a Councillor. I am not leaving you here undefended-”

  “Your pack is in danger,” Eleanor insisted. “And I’m not nearly as fragile as I look. No one joins the Council without being a seasoned warrior. And I come with my own protection,” she added, pulling aside the edge of her jacket to reveal a handgun.

  Caleb glanced off into the forest again, then back at Eleanor, torn between two equally vital duties.

  “Go!” Eleanor snapped, pulling out her gun and heading for the manor – as defensible a spot as she was likely to find, and that made up Caleb’s mind.

  Already running for the forest, he checked the gun at his side, the extra clip in his pocket, and then he was running on wolf feet instead, his howls joining the melodic echo filling the forest, a haunting backdrop to the drums of war.

  Miller wasn’t surprised when the shifters scattered and returned fire. He dived for cover behind a rock and lined up each shot carefully. While he was under orders to capture as many of the animals as possible, it was a foregone conclusion that some of them would die. But even so, he tried to aim for non-fatal shots, leg wounds, abdominal wounds that would disable the shifters, but that could be treated once they got them back to the Noturatii base.

  His heart rate kicked up a notch when the shifters in wolf form attacked his men – they had a suicidal kind of courage, and he rapidly reassessed his expectations of the fight. The escapee had taken shelter behind a rock, the young woman behind a tree, but even though he was reluctant to hurt her, he knew his men wouldn’t share his reservations. Suddenly one of them leapt up and dashed for the girl, grabbing her in a headlock and using her as a shield as he fired at the others.

  Five of the eight shifters were on the ground by now, two injured, three dead, and he was struggling to focus on the others…

  All at once, the sound of howling filled his ears. He should have expected that, he berated himself mentally. There was no reason to think they would all be in one place. But he’d come here expecting four or five of them, and finding eight at once had made him assume they’d found the whole group.

  But no, he realised, his blood turning cold in his veins. That wasn’t the sound of one or two extra wolves. The hills echoed with howls, the sound of heavy bodies crashing through the undergrowth, the noise coming ever closer. And Miller realised just how big a mistake he had made. Wolves flooded out of the forest, filling the clearing, racing towards him and his men. A dozen. Two dozen. Thirty of them…r />
  Holy fuck, he thought, slamming another clip into his gun. They’d stumbled into a fucking shifter convention. There must be fifty of them, all swarming out of the hills, hell bent on ending his life, and the lives of his teammates.

  There was only one chance for survival now, and he dared to take his eyes off the shifters for a moment, glancing around at his squad. Six dogs, Rottweilers and mastiffs. The biggest, meanest, toughest animals they could get their hands on. He had to force his throat to start working as his fear tried to smother the sound before it could escape.

  “Release the dogs!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  It took Silas only a split second to assess the battlefield as he raced into the clearing, and a moment later he’d changed course, heading back into the tree line, closing the distance between himself and the Noturatii where there was more cover.

  Tank was already putting his gun to good use, he was glad to see. Two of the Noturatii were already dead, but so were some of the wolves. He glanced around, looking for suitable cover where he could shift and make use of his own gun… but then he saw the man holding Skip hostage. He’d backed himself up to a large rock, using it to cover his back while Skip was used as a body shield… and Silas saw red. No one harmed Skip. Ever.

  He darted behind a tree and shifted, aware that he was partially exposed in his current location and dismissing it as a mere inconvenience, and he lined up a shot. The men wore helmets, body armour, but their faces were still exposed, and it was the work of a mere moment to pull the trigger, planting a bullet in the man’s right eye, Skip not even flinching as the bullet came within an inch of her ear. The man tumbled to the ground, dragging Skip down with him, but Silas was on them a moment later, grabbing Skip’s arm and pulling her to her feet. She came willingly. She wasn’t the most experienced in battle, and certainly not a strong fighter, but she’d been trained in what to do in these situations, and he was relieved to see that she didn’t seem put out by the rough treatment. He pulled out his second gun and thrust it at her.

  “Take this,” he told her, “and get back to the manor.”

  Skip didn’t argue, just took the gun and checked for an escape route, then began a careful withdrawal up the hill.

  Now, Silas thought, taking cover behind the rock and scanning the field. Who would be the next to die?

  Baron hurtled onto the battle field, outraged that his pack was being attacked on their own turf. How the hell had the Noturatii found them? He could see six men, assumed there were more hiding in the rocks and bushes, and mentally ran through a list of who would be armed among his own pack. Caroline, Tank and Silas would have guns. Annabelle, Marianne, Nikolai. Andre, of course. There was a chance some of the others from the foreign Dens would have guns as well, but the bulk of their number were unarmed, and would be forced to fight in wolf form, if they were to have any chance of success.

  But wolves could still be taken out by bullets, and-

  Baron’s blood ran cold as he suddenly saw the dogs, released from their leashes and rushing to meet the wolves head on. Oh fuck. Six of them, and that was enough to make even him hesitate. He was a big wolf – many of those with him were, their size on average larger than the grey wolves of the wild – but even so, Rottweilers and mastiffs outweighed them all. There was only one way they were going to win this fight, and he didn’t hesitate to put it to use now.

  He dived for cover behind a tree, shifted and glanced around, spotting John racing down the hill a little to his right. “John!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “Dogs!”

  John’s childhood had been brutal beyond all reason. He’d been converted young, and from the time he was a teenager, his wolf had been used for sport as a fighting dog, battling against big, mean brutes bred for nothing but killing. But against all odds, he had survived. Which meant he was one of the few wolves here capable of bringing down a Rottweiler by himself.

  John slowed a fraction, assessing the risks, choosing a target, and a look of unholy glee appeared on the wolf’s face. Then he barked, increased his speed and flung himself into battle, tackling two of the dogs at once.

  Baron shifted again a moment later, knowing that odds of six to one were a death sentence even for a seasoned fighter like John, and he felt a rush of relief as he saw Nikolai heading towards them. He was a big wolf, not quite as large as Baron, but solidly built, more muscular than the average shifter, as the grey wolves were naturally lean, and he’d more than pull his weight in a fight against the dogs. He was in human form at the moment, keeping the trees between himself and the Noturatii as he approached, and he paused behind a large pine, glanced out, and then fired a shot. Baron saw a man fall to the ground a short distance away, glad that one more of their enemy was dead… and then he stopped in his tracks, standing dumbly in the middle of the battle and risking getting himself shot as he stared at Nikolai in disbelief.

  After shooting the man, Nikolai had looked around, seen the dog bearing down on one of the Russian shifters, and… vanished. A light crackle of electricity was the only sign that he’d ever been there, and then he reappeared a moment later, right beside the dog, leaping up to catch its throat in his jaws as the dog seemed as stunned by his sudden appearance as Baron was.

  Holy fuck, Andre had been right. Nikolai had learned to teleport! Baron’s surprise lasted only a moment longer, as he saw another dog heading for Aaron, and sprinted towards him to cut it off. But the dogs had the advantage here, he realised. Size and numbers aside, they wore body armour, greatly reducing the target area where the wolves could get a grip on them, the parts of their body they could bite and tear.

  The Noturatii had prepared well for this, he acknowledged with a heavy heart. And he sent a prayer to Sirius to receive him with honour into the afterlife.

  Fucking hell, where were all the wolves coming from, Miller thought desperately, shoving another clip into his gun. There were more and more of them, flowing like water out of the trees, and he watched as three of them tackled one of his men, gore spraying and a blood-chilling scream cut off with a gurgling sound.

  There were a dozen shifters with guns, back in human form, firing from behind rocks and trees, but they almost needn’t have bothered. The wolves worked as a team, a true pack mentality at work here, small groups breaking off to circle around one of his men and cut him off, using distraction and harassment techniques to keep him off balance until one of them could go in for the kill.

  He glanced around for the young woman he’d seen before, horrified at the thought of her being killed in this bloodbath, but she was nowhere to be found. Did that mean she was alive and in hiding, or lying dead in a bush somewhere? His gut churned with uncertainty, and he fought to keep himself focused on the fight.

  There was that warrior woman he’d seen back in the lab, dressed in black leather and sheltering behind a fallen log as she kneecapped one of his soldiers, sending him to the ground for the wolves to finish off.

  And holy fuck, there was Trench-Coat, minus the coat this time, but the last time Miller had seen him, he’d been using explosive-tipped arrows to blow up half the lab. He was every bit as lethal now, calm and controlled in the midst of battle, ignoring a bullet that caught his arm as he shot a soldier right between the eyes.

  Miller glanced around for his men, and a cold weight settled in his chest. There were only three of them left now, including Miller. And he himself was still alive only by virtue of his vantage point, nestled in between a cluster of rocks that made it difficult for even the wolves to sneak up on him.

  But there were dozens of shifters left, though a handful of furry bodies lay dead on the damp grass, and Miller imagined he could hear a bell tolling, a long way off, a distant echo through the hills. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, he recited morbidly. It tolls for thee.

  John grappled with the two dogs in front of him. One was a Rottweiler, a huge ball of solid muscle, strong, but not as quick as he could have been. John darted in, grabbed his leg and bit down, th
en released the limb a split second later, bolting away while the dogs gave chase, then spinning back to attack again.

  If he’d been fighting just one dog, it was a simple case of go for the throat and hold on. Once his jaws were in place, is was just a question of time before he managed to cut off the dog’s air supply.

  But when fighting multiple targets, focusing on just one left you vulnerable to the others. So a quick strike and retreat strategy was needed.

  Baron and Nikolai were tackling a mastiff together, struggling to reach the throat with all the Kevlar in the way. And Tank was in the thick of it now, blood turning his white fur red. He’d grabbed onto a dog’s leg, biting hard, working his jaws until the limb was nothing but a mangled strip of flesh. But the need to tackle the dogs created a serious risk - while the wolves were fighting with them, it left them exposed to the guns of the Noturatii.

  John dashed forward again, using his smaller size and greater speed to grab a dog’s throat as he slid beneath him, latching onto loose skin and ripping. It wasn’t a deep wound, hadn’t got anywhere near the arteries or veins yet, but it was a start. And his next bite on that flap of skin would go deeper.