I immediately felt like I’d just drop-kicked a kitten down a mountain. “Lacy, I’m sorry,” I apologized, reaching out and grabbing her by the shoulder. “You didn’t know. You were just trying to help.”
Frowning in the moonlight, she touched my hand. “It’s okay. I know I fucked up. Big time. But, if you’re really intent on saving Richard, we’d better get to it. Even though he doesn’t need our help.”
“He needs it,” I promised as we headed up the edge of the cabin’s rear wall and peered around the side. “Believe me.”
The dimly lit side of the little building was clear of any bikers. Together, the three of us crept forward with me in the lead, Lacy behind me with her pistol now drawn, and Sheila in the rear, unarmed. We crept forward through the longer, knee-length yellowing grass, the pine trees with their long, needled branches reaching out to us from the forest like the bogeyman looking for his next victim.
Then, I heard the low howl of a wolf, closer than the calls I’d heard earlier. No, it had to have been a coyote. Wolves hadn’t been in the high country in decades. They’d wanted to reintroduce them, but hadn’t yet. I pushed the thought from my mind, though. There were more important things to worry about than whether or not packs had returned to Colorado.
Up ahead, the bikers began to cheer. I scrambled ahead, with Lacy grabbing and tugging at my shirt to hold me back, as sudden worry for Richard gripped me. I shrugged off the younger girl’s insistent hand, ran forward to the edge of the building and poked my head around the corner.
Richard and Wyatt Axelrod, stripped to their bare chests, stood in a loose circle of bikers. Wyatt, with his big shoulders, flabby stomach, and prison tattoos. Richard with his chiseled physique, rippling muscles, and defined abs and back. Both men were unarmed.
“This how you want it to be, then?” Richard asked from the middle of the circle. “Bare-fisted, boxing it out like men?”
“Like men,” Wyatt sneered. “Just like in the good old days.”
“My experience, even the old days were pretty shitty. I got your word the women go free, Wyatt? You leave here after?”
“My word, Murdoch,” Wyatt replied, turning his head and spitting into the grass without taking his eyes from Richard.
“Good,” Richard said, bouncing up and down a little on the balls of his feet. “Let’s do this.”
I gasped as they began to circle. There was no way anything good could come of this, and I knew it. How was I supposed to save Richard from a group of men like that? With just an ax in hand, and Lacy with her pistol? If what Sheila said was true, Richard would be dead no matter how this fight ended.
My shoulders slumped, and the ax suddenly felt very heavy and pointless in my hands. Lacy was right. There was nothing we could do.
We were powerless.
I was powerless.
Chapter Forty-three
Richard
I had no illusions about how this would end if I won.
Wyatt had said he’d let us go if I fought him, no matter what the outcome was, but me, the bikers, Sheila, Jessica, Lacy, we all knew that was pure USDA grade A bullshit. They had no intention of letting me walk if I beat Wyatt in a fair fight. This was just so he could try and regain some honor in front of his men. But, if I lost, maybe I’d have a chance. Maybe this wouldn’t devolve into the kind of bloodshed I was worried about. I really didn’t want a dozen men on my conscience, or even a chance at some kind of feud between myself and the Skull and Bones.
I’d had enough killing during the war.
What I needed to do, though, was stall for time so the women could get away in the woods, in case I either accidentally won, or he didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.
Wyatt and I circled each other, naked from the waist up, our eyes locked on one another for battle. “Just wanna be clear,” I called loudly enough that I was sure my pack would hear me where they crouched low and motionless on the fringes of the clearing, “if I win, you leave. You win, you still leave. You just want a fight, right? That’s all this is about.”
“That’s all,” Wyatt replied. “Just here to see who the better man really is, is all.”
“Then let’s do this,” I said, bringing my fists up in front of my face.
I gave Wyatt a clear opening in the hopes he’d swing first, and he delivered with a slow and clumsy opening right hook.
I fought my natural inclination to dodge or block it, and made sure he hit me right on the chin, even angling my face to fix his aim. Pain blossomed through my face, sending me staggering back. He might have been slow and inaccurate, but his fists still hit like a Mac truck, knocking the sense right out of my head and sending me into one of the Bonesmen surrounding us.
The bikers all cheered their president, their rowdy voices making them sound like there were ten times their actual numbers. “Don’t quit now!” the biker yelled as he flung me back into the circle.
I stumbled forward, the coppery, metallic taste of blood filling my mouth as I exaggerated how much I was feeling the punch drunk. I needed to make this look good, after all. He’d know if I made the fight too easy on him. I swung wildly, a haymaker that was clumsy and off balance.
He danced right underneath it, jabbed me twice in the stomach as he came around.
The wind went right out of me, and I almost took a knee. Instead, I tightened my arms around my torso, blocked as he came on again like a devil, battering me with almost half a dozen more hits.
He danced back, lighter on his feet than I remembered, thumbing his nose at me. He came back at me with a right jab.
I easily knocked it aside with my forearm, and bullied my way back in. I delivered a set of jabs to his chest and gut, knocking the wind from him again. “See how that feels,” I yelled, backing away from him as he stumbled back into the arms of his buddies, a set of boos and murmurs coming from the assembled men.
The bikers around him helped him back up, righted him. Wyatt grinned wide, showing me his row of rotten teeth. “You in the game now?” he crowed. “Huh? You taking this seriously yet?”
I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. I held it back, just like I was holding back the urge to just shift and tear his throat out for even thinking to threaten my mate, or Lacy. Instead, I flew into him, released my frustration as two quick jabs to his face.
He partially blocked both, but my fists still slipped through. His head snapped back with each blow, his eyes wide with shock as I bloodied his nose like earlier in the day, sending streams of crimson and gore down his face onto his chest. Wyatt stumbled back into the men, and they roared their disapproval as he shook his head and clamored back into his stance.
“Think you’re hot shit?” he asked in a nasally voice, circling around me. His nose was broken, I could tell, but it apparently wasn’t slowing him down this time around. “Think you’re real fucking hot shit, don’t you?”
“Shut up and fight,” I said.
He growled deep in his chest, a guttural noise like an animal, and came at me again, his fists a flurry. I blocked a couple of them, but let the rest slip through, his bare knuckles connecting with my nose and cheek bone, splitting my skin and snapping my head back.
My vision went dark for a second, punctuated only by white fireworks of surprise and pain as I stumbled back onto my ass. I tried to get back up, to buy the girls more time, but my body was weary. I could feel the toll the fight was taking on me, on my endurance, and I had to struggle to my feet. Who knew being a punching back was so exhausting?
“Had enough?” Wyatt asked in that same nasal tone.
I shook my head, tried to get my senses focused again.“Not yet,” I replied. “Gimme me a couple more shots.” I took a step towards him.
He laughed as I stumbled, my ankle twisting a little in the gravel of the drive. He slashed me with a left hook, followed it up with a right jab.
My headed rocketed back again, his bloodied knuckles leaving a trail over my bruised and broken skin. I grunted as his jab sent me back into
the crowd again, my arms pinwheeling a little.
“How about now?” Wyatt asked, still fresh as a daisy.
I licked my broken lips, tasted more blood. I wiped the back of a balled fist across the blood, smearing it over my chin and mouth. “One more,” I said as I lunged forward, jabbing him with a surprise left that I pulled at the last moment.
“Getting weak there, Murdoch,” he said as he recovered. Then, surprisingly, he lunged at me again, his fists flying at me faster than I thought he could muster.
I went to block them, intentionally being clumsy and weak, and let most of his punches through. It was time to end this, to let Wyatt have his way, no matter how much I hated having to give him even the fake victory. My body was like a mass of pain already, and the punches just seemed like more acute points of it spreading throughout my body, like when your hands are cold already and you decide to grip and ice cube. The world darkened for a brief moment, and I fell back to the ground, blinking. I stayed that way for a moment, hoping this would all just be over soon so Wyatt could crawl back beneath his rock and I’d be done with the whole charade. Around me the bikers cheered, hooting and hollering and slapping their boss on his naked, sweaty back. “Way to go, Wyatt!” one man called.
“Pull ‘em to his feet, boys,” Wyatt Axelrod called after a moment, “that way we can show him what happens to people who fuck with Skull and Bones.”
Just a little more, I figured as the bikers dragged me to my feet. Hopefully, the girls were gone by now, disappeared into the woods like I’d told them to. I couldn’t smell any of them, not even Jessica, because of the hits my nose had taken. After this, they’d let me go. And, if they didn’t . . . well, the pack was here.
Wyatt, a big, lopsided, evil grin plastered to his lips and his eyes fixated on me, put his hand back over his shoulder. I watched through heavily lidded, swollen eyes as one of the bikers slapped that big chrome revolver back into his hand. “Gonna find out what happens when you fuck with Skull and Bones, Murdoch.”
Stupid Wyatt. I’d given him an out! A way to avoid what was coming, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I shook my head, coughed so hard my body wracked itself painfully. “So what?” I asked. “You going back out on our deal? Kill me anyways?”
He walked slowly up to me, closing the distance in twice the time it normally would have taken, each boot crunching in the gravel loudly as he crossed the circle. “We ain’t just gonna kill you, Murdoch. We’re gonna find your women-folk out in the trees, too, and we’re gonna have a little party in this cabin here. Don’t worry, though, we’ll put you in a shallow grave out back so the girls ain’t gotta smell you while we’re having our fun. Wouldn’t wanna ruin the mood and all.”
I growled and narrowed my eyes at him, struggled against the men holding me. “Fuck you, Axelrod. Fuck you and your stupid fucking gang. You’re all a bunch of fucking bitches.”
“Ain’t my fault you brought fists to a gunfight,” he said with a wicked grin, swinging the gun down in front of him and pressing the barrel to my forehead. “Bye bye, Mr. Murdoch. Been real shit knowing you.”
“No!” a woman’s voice screamed from beside the cabin. “Don’t you dare! Fuck you, you lying pussies!”
“Jessica!” I shouted. “No! I told you to run! Stay back!”
Wyatt didn’t even flinch at her shouts, though. He just grinned more widely. “Bye bye, now.”
He did flinch, though, when I began to shift.
Chapter Forty-four
Jessica
If either Sheila or Lacy had told me it was possible, I wouldn’t have believed it for a moment. If the New York Times ran a breaking news story, or CNN covered it all day, everyday, for a solid year, I still would have thought it was a hoax, a giant lie.
How could werewolves be real? How could a man become a wolf?
And here it was, right in front of my eyes, not more than fifty feet away, and I still didn’t believe it.
We all, me, Sheila, and the bikers, watched in horror as fur sprouted from Richard’s body, as his legs became somehow larger, more powerful, as his ears shifted position on his head, as his nose and face lengthened into a snout. “Run!” he growled with still human vocal chords. “Run, Jessica!”
Sheila and I stepped back, silently screaming in horror as the man I thought I loved turned into a giant sandy colored wolf, the bikers dropping him from their grip as he slid from his jeans, the waistline no longer tight enough to keep them on.
A gun fired, Wyatt’s revolver I thought, but couldn’t tell for sure, and one of the bikers fell to the gravel, screaming he’d been hit.
“Jessica,” Lacy shouted as she grabbed my arm, tried to pull me back towards the woods. “Sheila, Jess, we gotta go! Richard’s fine, okay?”
I brought the ax up defensively, both hands gripping the haft as I spun on her. “You knew! Didn’t you? You knew!”
“Of course I knew!” she shouted in my face. “How else would I know he was going to be safe, and wasn’t worried!”
Behind us, lupine snarls filled the clearing. The night became a cacophony: brush breaking, limbs snapping, men screaming. More wolves were pouring into the clearing, their pony-sized bodies slamming into the leather clad bikers.
“Come on,” Lacy screamed, “you don’t want to see this! The guys will find us in the wood afterwards!”
It was like my whole world was crashing down around me. Everything I’d known, about biology, about life, about the animal kingdom, about magic not being real, about monsters not being real, all of it was bleeding away from my mind, a whole building of beliefs and knowledge coming apart brick by brick by brick. I shook my head fervently, backed away from her. “Sheila,” I said, “we need to go. Do you have your keys?”
“Yeah, girl,” her voice barely a mumble. I could hardly hear her over the din behind us.
“To your car. We need to get to your car,” I said, pausing to lick my parched lips. “We need to get to your fucking car right now, Sheila. Right fucking now!”
Lacy threw her hands up in the air. “I’m not invited? You’re just going to leave me here?”
“You lied to me!” I snapped back, raising my ax. “You all fucking lied to me! Of course you’re not fucking invited!”
“Look, Jessica,” she said. “It’s not something he can exactly broadcast. He cares about you!”
My eyes went wide with rage. “He’s a monster!” I screamed. “He has paws!”
“We have to go, Jess,” Sheila said, her voice becoming more frantic as her mind began to process what was actually going on, her hand tugging at my sleeve and pulling me back to her car. “We have to go now, before they get hungry for more!”
“You’re safe!” Lacy called as Sheila and I both turned and ran into the edge of the trees, trying to circle back around to her car. “You’re safe, I promise! They can control themselves!”
Her words of reassurance fell on deaf ears as we scrambled around the fray and headed back to Sheila’s Lexus.
The clearing in front of the cabin was a battlefield. Men’s blood soaked into the gravel, hobbled, disfigured men screaming for their mothers as the giant wolves with bloody muzzles continued to fall on them, cutting them down like grain before a scythe. Gunfire split the air, and a wolf yelped in surprise.
Sheila and I, though, we kept our heads down, kept out of the middle of it. We reached the Suburbans and began to circle around the front of one of them. So close, we could almost reach out and touch Sheila’s ride!
One of the bikers must have seen us, though, and he came running up from behind. “Wait!” he screamed. “Wait!”
I looked back over my shoulder, right into the terrified eyes of Wyatt Axelrod.
“You have to take me with you!” he screamed, gun in hand.
“Fuck no!” Sheila spat as she fumbled for her keys.
“Why should we help you?” I growled. “You’ve been terrorizing me for weeks!”
“What?” he asked, genuine confusion on his face. “
Ain’t you that gallery lady? We just fucking met!” Sheila got the car door open, hopped in.
“Jessica, let’s go!”
“No!” Wyatt shouted again, cocking back the hammer on his big silver revolver, leveling it at me.
A wolf, a big sandy colored one, came streaking out of the shadows from the other side, its white fangs bared in attack as it growled like a Harley.
I sprang back from Wyatt, screaming in surprise. It was Richard!
Richard sank his giant teeth into the biker president’s hand, shook it like a Rottweiler with a hold on a pork chop. The revolver clattered from Wyatt’s hand and into the gravel as he yelled bloody murder, in a sudden tug-of-war with the giant-sized wolf in front of him. Richard released the grip on his hand, his slathering jaws falling open as he leaped paws first onto his chest, slamming him back into the Suburban. The biker screamed again, falling beneath the weight of the beast.
I lunged forward, landing on my hands and knees as I scrabbled for the fallen revolver. I picked up the heavy piece of steel with both hands and rose, backpedaling towards Sheila’s Lexus.
“Let’s go!” Sheila yelled behind me. “Jessica!”
“No,” I yelled back as I leveled the pistol at Richard and my tormentor. All those things he’d said? About what he was going to do with Richard dead and gone? Screw this guy. He deserved to be chewed apart by wolves, gunned down in this forest haven. He didn’t have a right to anything.
“No!” Richard yelled suddenly, his voice back to human as he looked back at me over his shoulder, his face and mouth covered in blood, all his cuts and scrapes from the fight perfectly healed. I watched as the fur receded from the rest of his body, as his limbs began to shorten and become human again. He was hunched down over Wyatt, naked as the day he was born. “Don’t! You can’t kill him, Jessica! I don’t want that, and neither do you.”
“Get out of the way, Richard,” I growled deep in my throat. “I’m going to end this.”
FROST SECURITY: Richard Page 21