by T. S. Joyce
Sable.
She froze. She hadn’t heard that voice in weeks. That low hiss, that evil tone. Her head had been clear since the day Levi had gone with her to meet Cassian.
The hair on her arms rose, and in the corner of the office, a shadow appeared.
It was so faint, she blinked hard to make sure she wasn’t imagining it. Terrified, she scented the air, but there was no smell of vampire. Wait. She smelled blood.
Split. Splat. Split. Splat.
Her own blood.
She looked down at the inside of her arm, and it was gushing blood in rhythm with her heartbeat from the two old puncture wounds of her bite.
“What the hell?” she murmured, shoving off the desk.
“Marissa?” Grey demanded. He was getting closer. Running? His footsteps echoed through the shop, and when he reached her, he spun her around, shook her slightly by the shoulders. “What’s wrong? You smell terrified.”
She blinked hard and searched her arm, but there wasn’t blood there anymore. She looked behind her, but there wasn’t a shadow either. Closing her eyes tight, she whispered, “Can you smell blood?”
“No.” Grey lifted his chin in the air and sniffed. “Not at all. What’s wrong?”
“Marissa?” Levi’s voice echoed through the shop and into the office. In a moment, he was there, pulling her from Grey’s grasp. He hugged her tight. “Babe, your pupils are blown and you smell terrified. What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing.” She was going crazy. “I thought…I thought…”
“Thought what?” he asked as Grey searched the perimeter of the room.
“I thought my arm was bleeding.”
His blue and brown eyes searched her face before he gripped her elbow, studied her arm. The scars had turned silver over the last few weeks. They were barely even there anymore. They had started healing the day Levi had been branded into Grey’s pack. Into her pack.
“Marissa, there’s nothing there, baby. Jesus.” He pulled her into a hug. “I felt something awful over our bond. I thought you’d been hurt.”
“No. No, I’m fine. Everything is fine.” Damn the tremble in her voice. She’d thought the visions had disappeared, and now she was so disappointed. She’d been so stupid to think Levi could chase away her ghosts. “I just thought I saw something.”
“Something in this corner?” Grey growled from where he crouched just beside where the shadow had been.
“Yes,” she whispered, rushing toward him.
There was something drawn on the wall near the floor. An emblem that she would recognize anywhere. It was the circular brand of the old Silver Wolf Clan, drawn in what looked like blood.
Levi knelt down and sniffed at it. “How does it have no scent? Is this blood? It should have a scent.”
“Morgan,” Grey rumbled and bolted out the door in a blur. “Morgan!” he roared from outside.
“What’s wrong?” Morgan responded from farther away.
Marissa huffed out her relief. “Levi, something is happening. Cassian has been messaging me. He said he has some information he needs to tell me in person.”
“Fuck that.”
“He said I can bring you and the whole pack if I want. I think he knows what’s happening. I don’t know if all of his gossip circles fed him new info or what, but he’s been blowing up my phone with this urgency that scares me.”
“Can I see?” Levi asked.
She pulled out her phone, and as Levi scrolled through the messages, she shifted her weight from side to side. He looked up and stared thoughtfully into the shop. “The timing is weird.”
“Really weird. That,” she said, pointing to the symbol on the wall, “feels like a beacon.”
“For the vampires?”
She nodded.
Levi pulled a massive knife from the sheath at his back and jammed it into the wall over the blood emblem, then cut a square of sheet rock out of the wall. He took it straight outside to a small firepit, sprayed lighter fluid on it, and lit a match to it. She shielded her eyes as it went up in a blue blaze. The flames morphed to a bright red color.
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and connected a call. “Dean? It’s Levi. We’ve got a Silver Wolf brand drawn in blood in the shop.”
“Vampires?” Dean asked on the other line.
“Yeah.”
“It’s too early, though. That’s why you’ve been staying nights here. It’s the only reason we were comfortable with y’all working at Grey’s place during the day. They can’t be in the sunlight. Shit! Okay, I’ll call the boys. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Levi?”
“Yeah?”
“You and Grey keep them safe. We’ll be there as soon as we can. We’ve got you.”
Levi hung up the phone and grabbed her hand. “Come on.” He bolted across the yard to the front porch. She had to push her legs to keep up. Gads, he was fast. Inside the front door, Levi shoved open the storage box that she’d thought was only there for decoration. It was full of wooden stakes, smoothed and polished. What the hell?
“There are stakes hidden in every room and every outbuilding. Look for the scent of cedar,” he murmured. “I made it easy for us to find them. Turn around.”
Shocked, she turned around and held her arms out as he slid three thin wooden stakes in the back pocket of her jean shorts. Outside, it was warm but breezy. The wind drifted through the open door and lifted her hair, and through the evening shadows, something moved in the woods.
She squeezed her eyes closed and opened them again, but the shadows were still there.
“Levi,” she whispered.
He looked outside. “I know.”
“You already saw them?”
He shrugged. “I feel them. Grey! Reinforcements are coming.”
“Do you see the woods?” Grey asked from upstairs.
“Sure do.”
There had to be two dozen shadows among the trees.
“What are they waiting for?” she asked.
There was a snarl in Levi’s throat when he answered, “My guess would be sunset.”
Automatically, Marissa looked to the sinking sun in the west. It would slide below the horizon in fifteen minutes, give or take. Shit.
“Go on upstairs and get in the safe room with Morgan and the kids.”
“Won’t work, Levi. They get through walls like cockroaches. I met Larius in that safe room.”
“Well, it’s not the same as it was before. We made some improvements.”
“Good,” she said, feeling numb as she stared at the shadows. “We keep Morgan and the kids in there. “I’m staying out here. With you.”
“Marissa—”
“No, Levi.” She turned to him. “That’s not how this works. It can’t be two of you against all of them. I’m fighting with you.” Sharp pain sizzled through her arm and landed in her brand. She clutched her shoulder and grunted, went down to her knees at the excruciating burn.
Upstairs, Morgan screamed and Grey snarled.
And Levi, tough Levi, he only frowned at his arm where his brand glowed bright red and streamed blood.
“They’re marking us,” he gritted out. “They’re marking the Silver Wolf Clan.”
Tears of pain streamed down her cheeks, and she couldn’t even bring herself to look at the awful burn on her arm.
“Breathe in and exhale the pain out. It’ll fade soon,” he murmured, scratching her hair gently.
“Should we make a run for it?” she asked. “We could get Morgan and the kids to the truck.”
“We wouldn’t even make it to the main road.” At a clomping upstairs, Levi lifted his face to the ceiling and sniffed. “Grey, is that you?”
“Yeah, checking the rooms. I hear an engine.”
“It’s Dean,” Marissa said, feeling relief flood her veins as the burning sensation faded from her arm.
“No, it has more horsepower than Dean’s rig,” Levi murmured, frowning at the road. He stepped out onto the porch, and the second th
e Maroon and chrome diesel truck broke the tree line, fury blasted from his body. “Are you fucking serious?”
It was Cassian. His face was set in a grim expression as he skidded to a stop in front of the porch. “Get in,” he yelled through the open passenger side window.
“What are you doing here?” Marissa asked, jogging down the porch stairs.
“Marissa,” Levi warned, and she froze. Why was the front seat leaned back?
“I need you to get in,” Cassian said, pleading in his eyes.
She backed up the step. Something was wrong with him. His eyes were glowing with fear and something else she didn’t understand.
Levi grabbed her hand and yanked her backward just as a man sat up in the front seat with a gun. Levi shoved her to the side as the deafening noise of the gunshots rang out. Bam. Bam.
“Levi!” she screamed as she hit the porch railing.
He was hurled backward, and a man was on her before she could even stand up. He yanked her upward and threw her into the open back door where two familiar men were waiting. It stank of werewolf in here. Cassian had brought his pack.
She fought viciously, hitting and slashing at the two men with her nails as they struggled to restrain her. She got glimpses of Levi on the porch on his hands and knees, blood pouring from his middle.
“Grey, help him!” she screamed. God, let him hear her.
Just as they peeled away, Levi locked eyes with her. They were full of fury but not pain.
“He’s still moving. He’s still moving!” the man in the front seat said in a frantic voice.
“Hit him again,” Cassian demanded.
“These are silver bullets! How is he moving?” Cassian’s packmate yelled, aiming his gun behind them. Boom! Boom!
And that was enough of that. Red flooded her vision like blood in water. She pulled a stake from her back pocket and slammed it into the shooter’s neck with a scream. He struggled, panic in his eyes as he unloaded an accidental shot into the roof of the SUV. She swung her hand through the opening between the seats, grabbed his gun, and aimed it at the man who had gripped onto her leg from the back seat. His eyes went wide with realization in the millisecond before she pulled the trigger. The explosion of the shot should’ve shocked her, but she had turned off her emotions. He went limp in the back, a hole in his forehead. The werewolf next to him covered his face and screamed, “No!” as she pulled the trigger on him. Click.
Fuck, she was out of bullets. She gripped the gun and slammed it into the side of Cassian’s head. He swerved dangerously on the long gravel drive. They were already halfway to the main road.
When the meaty man in the back seat lunged toward her, she hit him on the top of the head with the gun. She jerked his head to the side, sank her teeth into his throat, and ripped.
Raul had tried to trap her, and that had been the last thing he’d done. Over her years here, Morgan and Grey had taught her wolf how to never get trapped again.
“We had to!” Cassian screamed as she turned to him, a growl in her throat and blood streaming down her chin. “The vampires were going to kill my entire pack. Our families, any ally packs, everyone.”
“What did you bargain?” she snarled.
“All we had to do was separate you from the Silver Wolf Clan. All you had to do was say yes to me! I would’ve taken care of you, and the vampires would have left us all alone after they were done with the Silver Wolves. They have some deal where they can’t kill them unless you’re separated from the pack.”
Marissa screamed in his ear, and he jerked the wheel dangerously. Hands shaking, voice shaking, he smelled like piss. “Weak,” she murmured against his ear. “They would’ve killed my family, and then they would’ve killed the rest of us to tie up loose ends.”
“Please—”
“You picked the wrong side, traitor.”
Something massive slammed into the side of the truck, and they rocked hard up on two wheels. Marissa lost her balance and was thrown into the passenger’s limp body. The truck was hit again on Cassian’s side, and he cussed as he lost control, desperately turning the wheel. She saw the tree right before they hit it head-on. She only had time to throw her hands over her face as the glass of the windshield rained down on her. The impact felt like a cannon hit her. It took her a few seconds after the truck rocked to a stop to open her eyes.
On the demolished hood of the truck stood a wolf with scars. One eye blue, one eye brown. He was bleeding freely from his belly, and his lips were curled back, exposing the biggest teeth she’d ever seen on a wolf.
Cassian only had time to murmur, “Oh my God,” before Levi lunged through the shattered front window and onto him.
Marissa grunted as she pushed herself over the body in the front seat and out of the open window. She hit the ground hard and curled in on herself. The truck behind her rocked dangerously, and Cassian screamed a gargled sound.
All around her, the vampire’s shadows were gathering, solidifying moment by moment. They’d followed them here, deep in the woods. Now they were shaped like men, their outer edges still fuzzy, but she could see differences in the vampires now. Long hair, short hair, broad shoulders, slight frames, and all had clawed hands. Fuck.
Change, Change, Change! Wolf, I need you.
Marissa didn’t dare close her eyes as her wolf began breaking her body. The vampires were so close. So terrifying. It was getting darker.
She gritted her teeth against a groan, but it was too late. Too late. She didn’t have enough time to Change. The vampires were on her.
Levi’s massive body blocked her view. He had a massive mohawk down his back as his hackles rose and he snarled his death-promise.
“Owooooooooooooo,” he howled.
In the woods, he was answered immediately in a lower voice. “Owooooooo.”
Levi perked his ears and looked to the west, where the howl had come from. It wasn’t Grey, and it wasn’t Dean. That was a howl she didn’t recognize.
As the first vampire solidified into a hissing, pale-faced, black-eyed monster of her nightmares, Levi charged and latched onto his throat.
Hurry! She urged her wolf, closing her eyes and pushing the Change. Blinding pain overcame her for a few moments before she sat up as fast as she could in her new body.
There were four vampires on Levi, and two vampire bodies crawling on the forest floor beside the gravel road, feeling for their decapitated heads that had rolled near her.
Okay, that’s how to do it. Couldn’t kill them with a stake in this form, but Levi apparently knew what he was doing.
And oh, Mylanta, did he ever know what he was doing. He was on autopilot, murder edition. He was being flooded with vampires and didn’t even seem stressed. Just turned and bit, shook his powerful head, snap. A head went flying, a body hit the ground on its hands and knees. Onto the next.
He was still bleeding bad, though. He was painting the forest floor red.
Marissa bunched her muscles and charged the vampire running toward the pile. But something strange happened. The creature hissed and tried to avoid a collision with her. What the hell?
He skidded to the side to avoid her, but she twisted and latched onto his leg so he couldn’t flee. Two other vampires passed her by as she ripped this one apart. They weren’t after her.
They were only after Levi, but why? Were they trying to let her live? But he meant nothing to them?
Well too bad, mother fuckers. He means everything to me!
He was taking too many hits, and she lost her mind, scared she would lose him under the weight of those awful evil creatures of the night. They were getting stronger. More and more solid. One disappeared into a puff of black smoke as soon as she latched her teeth onto his arm and shit! This fight was about to get awful. Them being powerful enough now to disappear meant they would be harder to rip apart. The vampire reappeared right beside Levi and swung his arm through the air, his long nails out.
She yelped a warning. Levi turned at the last possibl
e second and latched onto his wrist, pulled him down. The thing screamed a horrid sound, like nails on a chalkboard, as Levi tore him apart. Okay. Okay! They couldn’t poof away in their clouds of smoke when Levi had ahold of them.
Too much blood. Levi was losing too much blood, and it was probably drawing them in like chum in the water. Another howl filled the air, closer now. And another. And another. The packs were coming, but they would be too late.
She was a flurry of motion, bite, clamp down—fuck, they tasted like death in her mouth—turn, rip another off the pile. Too many vamps. Too many.
Was Morgan okay? Were the kids? She stumbled and felt the nails of a vamp close around her neck. Fury wracking her body, she twisted violently and jumped, latched onto his shoulder and dragged him to the ground. He tasted like an old corpse.
Levi.
She got glimpses of him through the bodies. Through the masses that were trying to end him. He fought like some demon come to earth with a vengeance she’d never seen before. She’d never seen a wolf fight like him. The vamps were disappearing and re-appearing, but it didn’t faze him. It’s like he knew where they would reappear, and he would already have his teeth on their throat. He was a blur of violence, but he couldn’t go on like this forever.
So many vampires were flooding out of the trees now. Panicked, Marissa looked back at the pile of clothes she’d shredded during her Change. She had two stakes left. She bolted under the arms of a vampire and skidded to a stop next to them, shook the shorts hard until one of the stakes fell out.
Levi, please understand what I’m doing. She picked it up and flicked her head, threw it right at him, sharp end first. Levi didn’t even look. He just Changed in an instant and caught it with his human hand. He slammed it into a vampire’s chest and spun away from the pile of ashes it made, slammed it deep into another as she charged the woods where they were coming from.
A monstrous wolf stepped out of the shadows, his head low, his eyes looking so familiar. They were different colors. One green, one blue. He was dark gray and scarred all to hell. He peeled his lips back, and the snarl in his throat sent her hackles straight up.
He must’ve been one of Cassian’s pack. Or a friend of the vamps? Or—