by Laura Taylor
Patience, John reminded himself, suddenly feeling claustrophobic and trapped. He was in a field, he reminded himself, as the next dog came for him. Not in a fighting cage. These were his pack mates around him, not leering spectators placing bets on which dog would be the one to tear him to shreds. The old scars on his body pinched as he remembered the wounds that had caused them, the teeth and claws that had paid no mind to the fact that he wasn’t a mindless beast, but half human.
He sent a prayer skyward as he prepared for the next attack. But it wasn’t a prayer for Sirius to receive him into the afterlife, though he knew that was the customary request when facing a battle that one wasn’t likely to win. Instead, he asked for strength, for courage, for a cold brutality to rival that of his enemies. He would bring glory to the House of Sirius, not by dying with honour, but by painting the ground with the blood of the Noturatii.
Andre fired at one of the dogs fighting John. There were four left now, and only three Noturatii men. The bullet hit the edge of the Kevlar vest, making Andre curse in Italian. Such a small target, and a constantly moving one… even with his skills, it would be more luck than anything if he managed to hit something vital on the raging animals.
He longed to shift, to go and fight the dogs as a wolf, but with three armed men still lurking amongst the rocks, he didn’t dare leave them unattended.
He skirted around to his right, keeping low, behind the rocks as much as possible. There was one, his back to Andre, shooting at the wolves trying to fight the dogs. He waited, and then got a split second window as the man altered his position slightly. It exposed his neck for half a second, but that was more than enough. Andre’s bullet slid through skin and muscle, neatly severing the carotid artery, and the man went down in a gurgle of blood and foam. Two more to go. Not long now…
Racing through the forest, Caleb made a beeline for the clearing at the bottom of the valley. Moments ago, he’d run across Skip, heading back up the hill with a gun in her hand and a terrified look on her face. He’d intercepted her – in wolf form, so she wouldn’t be alarmed, thinking he was a soldier come to attack her – and then he’d shifted, checking whether she was hurt, and listening as she blurted out a hasty report on the situation down below. Noturatii. Guns. Dogs. She wasn’t clear on the finer details, and Caleb didn’t wait to hear more. He was off again in a heartbeat, back in wolf form, preparing himself for the carnage that waited below…
What the hell…?
Caleb slowed to a halt, his feet suddenly silent on the bare earth in this part of the forest. There was a woman crouched in the bushes ahead of him, and at first he thought it must be one of the shifters, one not skilled at fighting, trying to retreat, as Skip had done. There was no shame in recognising that a battle was beyond one’s capabilities, after all.
But there was something furtive about this woman, and as he got closer, he realised he didn’t recognise her. He sniffed deliberately, letting the light breeze carry her scent to him… Human! And from the looks of her, not one of the Noturatii.
What the hell was a human doing on the estate? She was staring at the battle, so he knew she’d seen the shifters, the guns, and the secrets that could not be allowed to escape.
Caleb rose up to his full height, raised his hackles, and growled.
Cassandra spun around with a cry as she heard the low growl behind her, and she was on her feet in an instant, adrenaline overcoming her paralysed fear as she faced the beast that stood not five metres from where she hid. She backed up a step or two, stopping when she felt the bush behind her. Where could she go? She went to move right, but the wolf moved with her, head low, teeth bared…
In a sudden burst of panic, Cassandra broke cover and ran, trying to head up the hill, but every time she found a gap in the undergrowth, the wolf was right there, blocking her way. So she ran through the tree line at the edge of the clearing, blind panic setting in, the men and the guns and the other wolves forgotten as she desperately sought a path to escape her own grizzly death.
14 Years Ago
Andre stepped into the cold, stone-walled room, feeling his heart beating in his chest. But far from the rapid thudding of a terrified rabbit that he had expected, he was quietly shocked to know that it beat with its usual slow, steady rhythm, his breathing quiet and regular, the gun in his hand a familiar weight, as if it was an extension of his own arm. His mind, on the other hand, was being nowhere near as obedient as his body.
Inside one of the iron cages was a woman, twenty-four years old, by the name of Lorne. She was lying on the bed, unconscious, as she’d been drugged to make this as easy on her as possible. Her hands were tied behind her back, her clothing stained with mud, her hair a bedraggled mess.
She’d been a new recruit from the Den in Germany, joining the shifters eagerly, completing her training with enthusiasm… until she’d hit the six month mark in her first year, and suddenly changed her mind. She’d tried to run away, getting only as far as the nearest town before the Den’s alpha had caught up with her and dragged her back, and then handed her over to the Council when she couldn’t be reasoned with.
After two weeks during which a diplomat for the Council had tried to talk her through her doubts and fears, she’d tried to run away again, and the Council had finally called for Andre.
He approached the cage, and a burly guard unlocked the door. Andre stepped inside and looked down at the woman, taking a deep breath, his heart still beating slow and regular, his hands steady, his skin cool. Could he do it, he wondered silently? Two Council members were at the door, watching. The guard waited beside the cage. Could he really kill this woman, unarmed and completely helpless?
He raised his gun, aiming straight for the middle of her forehead. A quick, painless death, the final grim mercy he was able to offer her. She would not suffer. Il Trosa had no regard for torture as punishment, never prolonged the death of even one of their worst enemies for longer than was absolutely necessary. Others might torture, might take pleasure in the pain of others, but Il Trosa would stand by its honour, regardless of the hellish morals of others.
A wave of nausea hit him suddenly, along with a burst of adrenaline, a thrill of power that was completely at odds with the horrified disgust at what he was about to do. He was going to take a life. Not a Noturatii enemy, not a politician on the wrong side of the law or a police officer turned to corruption. But a young woman whose only crime had been to make a bad choice, one that, on reflection, she found herself unable to live up to.
Without allowing himself any further time for thought, Andre fixed his eyes on the girl’s face, sent a silent prayer to Sirius, and pulled the trigger.
And his training, he now knew, was complete.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Present Day
Miller watched as the shifters tore apart the last dog. It had been terrifying to watch them fight, the one with all the scars in particular. Hank had been shot just moments ago, the last of his men still alive, and Miller sat motionless in the sudden and eerie silence. They knew he was here. He had no back up, was on his last clip of ammunition, and had no possible chance of retreat.
He was a dead man.
He waited as the shifters gathered around his hiding place, some of them shifting to become human, others staying in wolf form, hackles raised, teeth bared, and he found himself hoping that his end would come with a swiftly delivered bullet, rather than being torn apart by those teeth. Was it a lack of courage, he wondered, heart pounding in his chest, or merely good sense?
Trench-Coat was staring at him now, not bothering to keep in cover. And there was no need, really. He could shoot the man, but what good would that do? There were a dozen more men standing there ready to shoot him the instant he moved. He recognised the leader of the pack from when they’d come to the lab, a huge man with dark hair and a short beard. Their former captive was back in human form now, but it had been a shock to see him shift, his wolf huge and white, the most beautiful animal Miller had ever see
n. Until his fur had turned red, thick with blood, and it had been like looking at a demon, a spirit of rage come to life, dripping with gore as he tore flesh and shattered bone.
Warrior woman was also there, cold fury on her face, and he found himself fearing her anger more than the others. She wouldn’t let him die quickly.
“Come out,” Trench-Coat ordered, sounding impatient. “Put your gun down and your hands up.” Miller’s heart sank further. Rather than just shooting him, it sounded like they wanted to interrogate him instead, and after seeing the brutal methods the Noturatii employed for that purpose, he could well imagine the horrors that awaited him. Perhaps he should try fighting his way out after all, forcing them to shoot him rather than handing himself over for weeks of pain and torment.
Suddenly, a crashing sound came out of the forest to his left, an unholy snarl and a woman’s terrified scream, and the shifters turned to meet this new threat, the ones closest to the forest aiming their guns at the sound, the ones further away keeping their eyes locked on Miller’s hiding place.
A human woman suddenly ran out of the trees, a wolf at her heels, a look of terror in her eyes. She pulled up short as she saw the gathered crowd, dead bodies lying in bloody puddles, half a dozen guns pointed right at her, and if the situation hadn’t been so profoundly serious, Miller would have found it almost comical, the way the shifters all hesitated, glanced at each other, more shocked by the appearance of the girl than they were by the presence of a dozen Noturatii.
But then the reality of her arrival hit Miller like a freight train.
She was a human, he realised quickly. Not a shifter, not if these men and women didn’t know her as one. A human who had seen the battle. Had seen the wolves shift. A leak in their carefully guarded secret, and a threat to everything that Miller fought to protect.
He lifted his gun to aim at her… and found that he simply couldn’t do it. He’d shot shifters, men and women, as humans and as wolves… but he couldn’t shoot an innocent girl. His conscience would haunt him forever…
But it seemed Trench-Coat had reached the same conclusion as he had: the girl was a security leak that put them all at risk. With none of Miller’s hesitation, he lifted his gun, looked the woman in the eye, and pulled the trigger.
She hit the ground, a bullet lodged directly between her eyes.
The wolf who had been chasing her shifted, and Miller recognised him as another man from the lab – the one with only one eye. He glanced around the battle field, disgust and grief written all over him, and then he spotted Miller. His gun was out in an instant-
“Don’t shoot him!” Trench-Coat ordered, just in the nick of time, and One-Eye hesitated, glancing from Miller to Trench-Coat, to the dead girl in consternation.
“Is she one of yours?” the Leader asked Miller, eyeing him through a gap in the rocks.
“No,” Miller called back. “I’ve never seen her before. She’s not with us.”
“Then what the fuck?” the Leader demanded of One-Eye.
“Human,” One-Eye said shortly. “Hiker, maybe. Found her at the far end of the clearing.”
“Fuck!”
“What was I supposed to do?” One-Eye demanded, clearly unhappy about both the situation and the Leader’s reaction to it.
“No.” The Leader shook his head, softening his tone a fraction. “Not your fault.” He looked like he was about to throw up.
But it was Trench-Coat who really got Miller’s attention. Utterly stricken, his face was pale, his hand shaking, and it was with an effort that he holstered his gun. Miller felt a sickening kind of relief that he hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger, and felt like an utter bastard for daring to have the thought.
Good God, and the Noturatii thought these men were vicious beasts, without conscience or morals. But Trench-Coat was feeling the weight of the girl’s death far more deeply than Miller, and as it was, Miller was fairly sure he wasn’t going to sleep for a week.
Another man slowly approached the dead girl, an older man with streaks of grey in his hair. And in one ridiculous moment, Miller noticed the absurd detail that he only had one shoe on. Where had his other one gone? The man crouched down beside the girl and closed her eyes reverently. “May your soul ride the night winds,” he said, in a thick accent that sounded vaguely Russian, “and Sirius guide your spirit to the next world.”
That broke something in the rest of them, jarring them out of their focus on Miller and the girl to realise that their dead comrades lay in the grass all around them. Miller did a quick headcount – eight shifters were dead, a dozen more nursing bad wounds, stoic and silent, though their pain was evident in their eyes.
One woman moved, crouched down beside a dead wolf and ran her fingers reverently through the thick fur. Then she said, in a strong French accent, “I have measured your steps, this last day that you run.” The rest of them joined in, making Miller feel like he was trespassing on a sacred and private ritual. And he realised in that moment that everything he knew about the shifters was completely and utterly wrong.
“Greet our brethren at the gate,” they recited. “Bold warriors, brave and true.
Wait for me in the Hall of Sirius until the setting of the sun,
When I will join you.”
Tears fell from the French woman’s eyes, and then she suddenly stood up, drew her gun and marched towards Miller, no doubt intent on ending his life-
“No,” Trench-Coat said, stepping in her path. “We need him.”
The woman spat something in French, and Trench-Coat replied in the same language. “Merde,” the woman said, when he’d finished speaking, and she holstered her gun with a look of utter disgust.
“Come out,” Trench-Coat said again. “No one will harm you.”
It was the look on his face, rather than his words that made Miller pay attention, and he set his gun carefully on the top of the rock where they could see it, then slowly emerged from behind his shelter with his hands held up in surrender. He didn’t know what the man wanted, but a strange instinct was telling him that he was trustworthy. Despite these most bizarre circumstances.
“You guard our secrets from humanity just as closely as we do,” Trench-Coat said, then pointed to the dead girl. “She’s human. Probably a hiker. Probably staying with friends or family, not too far from here. They’ll be looking for her.” He swallowed hard, and Miller was struck by the strange thought that he was fighting back tears. “We can’t cover this one up,” Trench-Coat said, his voice shaking just slightly, cold resolution in his eyes. “We don’t have the time or resources to explain how an innocent girl ended up dead in the middle of the forest with a bullet in her skull.” He looked Miller straight in the eye. “But you do.”
It was true, Miller realised joylessly. The Noturatii had a long reach, access to police departments, spy organisations, political figures… they had the means and the power to invent a story, move a dead body without attracting attention, break the news to the girl’s family in a way that would not arouse suspicion.
They were going to let him live, he realised in shock. They were going to let him walk away, because they needed him to make the dead girl conveniently disappear, and there was no other way for that to happen.
Miller nodded. It was the most pragmatic solution, and ironically, not in violation of his own orders. The directive to keep their war a secret from humans overruled any and all other operations, missions and goals. He was well within his rights to let this mob of shifters walk away, no questions asked, if it meant that their secrets stayed hidden from humanity. “So how do we do this?” he asked.
The Leader stepped forward. “You have a vehicle?”
Miller nodded. “West of here, at the border of this property.”
“How many bodies will fit in it?”
Miller glanced around at the dead soldiers. “Maybe five?”
“Then we’ll escort you back to your car. Help you load what we can into it, and we’ll clean up the rest. You tak
e the girl with you, and do whatever it is you do to make this go away.”
Miller took a step forward, preparing to go and collect the girl’s body, but the Russian-sounding man, the one who had closed her eyes, stepped between him and the body. “I will carry her,” he said, then turned to the others. “But I’ll need someone standing guard. I don’t trust this Noturatii to keep his word.”
“I’ll go,” the former captive said, then he turned to Miller, a predatory grin on his face. “It would be a pleasure to get reacquainted.”
Miller nodded his agreement, knowing he couldn’t argue, and making a mental note not to do anything to further antagonise this man. Several other shifters rapidly gathered five bodies, and Miller was impressed with their strength as they hefted them onto their shoulders, paying no attention to the blood that rapidly soaked their clothing.
“This is the second time I’ve let you walk away with your life,” Trench-Coat told him, just before he turned to leave, warning and speculation in his voice. “Don’t count on there being a third.”
“I won’t,” Miller told him seriously. He waited for another bizarre moment, as the former captive gave the Russian-sounding man his shoe back – had he lost it in the battle? If not, how had the captive come to have it? And then a moment longer as the man put it back on.
“Once you reach the car, wait half an hour before you let him leave,” the Leader ordered. “We’ll need time to clean up here and be on our way before he calls in reinforcements.”
“I wouldn’t bother,” Miller said, not expecting them to believe him. “You’d be long gone before they ever got here.”
Then the two men led the way up the hill, the others carrying the bodies following behind him. He had sorely underestimated these people, he mused as he walked. They felt more grief at these events than the Noturatii ever would. They didn’t quarrel or bicker over their course of action, no misguided shooting themselves in the foot just to get revenge at him. They were a united front, a military unit with the finest training he had ever seen, the ability to put aside petty squabbles for the greater good, and the discipline to focus on the most urgent issues, leaving heartfelt emotions for later.