by Hazel Gower
His eyes went wide as he froze in the spot. She turned and went straight to the large man. He was once again kicking sand in her brother Logan’s face. This, she assumed, must be Major Cullen. He kicked sand in the next man’s face and he coughed. As she got closer she could see Devlin standing by the water as the five other men continued to jump off the cliff and swim. When he saw her, he started walking over to her. She arrived at Major Cullen only to see two of the men had blue lips and were as white as ghosts. They almost looked dead. Before he could move back to her brother again she spoke up.
“If you don’t stop now you will seriously regret it.” She stood with her hands on her hips and glared.
He glanced her way and smiled. “What will you do, woman? Human woman, I might add. Go back home.”
He shooed her away, but not before she saw her brother wince, which made Major Cullen grin. She grinned too because she was pissed now.
“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you.” She knew she had a wicked grin on her face.
He turned fully now and looked her over. “Are you going to stop me?”
He smiled and she heard Rane growl, still in the stop she had told him to stay.
Devlin came to her. “Kirby, let’s go. Rane will sort this out.”
Jamie came from somewhere behind her and tried to guide her, which just made her angrier. Her brother seemed to smother a chuckle as she stomped her foot.
“Take your hands off me now, Jamie.”
He took them away and Devlin froze, looking at her. She shivered in disgust as Major Cullen grinned and reached to touch her, the growling from Rane was extremely loud.
“Call them in,” she ordered.
Major Cullen shook his head and frowned as he called a halt to the five men jumping from the cliff, and called them over, then he turned to her. “So, little redhead, do you have a name?”
She continued grinning. “It’s Kirby Brown.”
Rane roared in frustration. “Wolfen.”
She shrugged. “Wolfen now, I suppose.”
Jamie laughed and Devlin chuckled, and the major’s eyes grew wider.
“Are you related to this Brown?” He kicked sand at Logan, and this got her more pissed off. No more Miss Nice Girl.
She jumped up at him, smacking his nose, and said, “Bad, bad dog. Down now on all fours, no changing.”
He froze and did as she said. She glanced behind her to see Jamie and Devlin doubled over laughing. The major stared up at her from all fours, his eyes wide as he muttered, “How on earth… Magic doesn’t work on werewolves.”
She laughed. “You haven’t heard the good news. Fate has changed the game a little bit. You see, because I am a mate and have some werewolf magic, my powers now work on werewolves too.” She looked down at him and giggled. “Isn’t that great?”
The major’s eyes widened even more.
She continued to smile down at him as she shouted, “Rane, you can come now. The bad dog is not going anywhere, are you?”
Her brothers and the other men were smothering chuckles.
Rane’s arms came around her as he said against her neck, “Don’t do something so foolish again. I need to protect you. It’s not just you now, you have to be more careful, you’re pregnant.”
He turned her in his arms and kissed her lips. She heard her brothers choking; Logan was swearing and trying to get out of the sand. When she turned and saw the state her brothers were in she smacked the major again.
“How long have they been doing this?” She smacked him again as he tried to get up to answer. “Stay, you don’t move until I say so. How long?” She was so angry she said this in all the wolves’ heads, and they winced.
Major Cullen muttered, “Since six this morning.”
“What! You have to be joking. No wonder they look almost dead.” She whacked him again.
Rane growled as he said, “We need them tomorrow.”
“Do you need the major tonight?” Kirby asked.
Rane sighed, but they were shocked as Kane spoke up as he came over with Faith following behind. “Cullen, they look like corpses.” Kane turned to Kirby. “Did you do this to him? Because he isn’t standing to greet his alpha.”
Kirby shrugged. “He’s an arsehole. I’m teaching him a lesson.”
Faith laughed and clapped her hands. “All we have to do is get you mad. Look at you.”
Rane groaned and hugged her tighter.
Jamie laughed. “You should have seen her, she even froze Rane. It was hilarious. She told Cullen that he was a bad dog and whacked him on the nose.”
Faith giggled and Kane turned and raised an eyebrow at her. Kirby shrugged again and then turned back to Cullen.
“Okay, up now. Let’s go, I’m going to have to check all of the men over,” said Kane.
Cullen didn’t move, he just glared at Kirby. Kane went to help him and Kirby was still so frigging angry as she glared at Kane. “Don’t move him, don’t touch him.”
Kane froze halfway leaning down. Faith’s giggle turned into laughter, Jamie and Devlin joined in, and even Rane chuckled. Kane glared at her, which she swore a weaker man or woman would’ve caved at.
“Release me now.”
Kirby shivered at the power of that order. “I’ll let you up if you promise you won’t touch the major, he will not be moving. I really hope you don’t need him tonight.”
Kane sighed and looked behind her at Rane which just pissed her off more.
“Kirby, he was just doing his job.”
She raised her eyebrow at Kane. “So his job is to kill these men before the demons and minions do?”
Kane winced and sighed again. “Okay, I promise not to touch him.”
She let him go, and he straightened and looked at Rane.
“I think we need to bring Cullen in our van tomorrow, so she can be angry when we go into the tunnels.”
Rane chuckled and kissed her forehead, and his chuckle turned into a growl. “I don’t want her to come, because it’s too dangerous.”
She frowned and looked up at Rane. “Don’t even think about me not coming tomorrow.” She looked at Kane again. “If Cullen does what these guys did here until morning will he still be able to come tomorrow?”
Kane grinned. “Piece of cake, as long as he gets at least three or four hours sleep.”
She groaned and looked at Rane. “I don’t want it to be a piece of cake. What will make it hard?”
Rane kissed her lips, chuckling against them. “Little red, we are werewolves, what these boys—I mean men—did today is what we do to start our training at seventeen or eighteen.”
She gasped and her hand went straight to her stomach. She didn’t even realize she’d done that until she glanced down.
Faith chuckled. She went over to Cullen, who was still on all fours, and placed her hands on him. She swore and said one word, “Powerful” before she fell.
Kirby shook herself as she snapped Cullen out of his command, yelling at him to grab Faith. Seconds later, Kane grabbed her off a terrified Cullen, yelling at everyone behind him to follow now. They walked up the winding path for a few minutes until Kirby saw Kane’s house coming into view. When they reached the large back doors Kane turned with Faith still in his arms.
“Rane, take them all into the lounge room. Take the ones that are still blue and warm them slowly.” He smiled down at her. “Call my parents and tell them to get over here. Could you please check on Remy? I think even Ben is getting sick of her surliness. If she hears all of the noise she’ll want to know what’s going on. I cannot wait until Arden gets here.”
Half an hour later Faith came to, to a strained room anxiously waiting for the information on the vision. Glancing around, she looked right at Cullen but spoke to Kirby.
“No punishing him, Kirby. Tomorrow will be enough punishment. We need to leave tonight and be ready to hit the demon stronghold at first light.” Tears were streaming down Faith’s face as she looked at Cullen. “You need to be one
of the first in, Cullen, and go down the tunnels to the right as far as you can. Keep going right, follow your nose before you open a door, and make sure you are not in half-change mode.” Faith started to sob. “I don’t…I don’t know how long she has been down there, she…she… Oh, she’s so young. I don’t even know if she’s as old as me.” She paused and looked Cullen straight in his eyes. “No growling, don’t growl at her.”
Cullen was pale and was growling, his hands had changed and his fists were clenched.
Faith sobbed again. “We need to go now. We need to go now, please. I know they have thirty-six people down there. Most of them are women. Eight of them… Oh God, eight of those…” She buried her face in Kane’s chest. “Eight of those are children.”
Kirby could feel tears falling down her own face.
Faith then looked around the whole room. “We’re going to need everyone, and I mean everyone.” She looked at Jack. “I mean all the women fighters, even elders capable of leading. You’re going to need someone strong to hand things over to, because you’re going to have to fight too, Jack. It’s a pity Arden won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon. The poor new werewolves won’t even get to have one peaceful night in a bed before they fight.”
Faith sighed and looked at her. “Kirby, you will have to be like you were today, we’re going to need you. You have to rest now, because tomorrow is going to be a big day. We are going to win. We are going to save them all, because we have to.” She snuggled into Kane and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter 13
Rane carried his sleeping mate to the van. The doors opened and he could see everyone had already been picked up. There was Cullen, Jamie, Devlin, Griffen, Logan, his granddad, Sandra, and Kane, who also had his mate in his arms, Faith. It was one full minibus. His dad was driving, and his mum sat in the passenger seat. Logan looked extremely uncomfortable. When he saw Rane with Kirby in his arms, he had a worried look on his face.
Rane wondered what his sisters were up to and who was looking after them as his grandmother was directing and organizing people so new houses and rooms would be ready for the survivors. “Who’s looking after the girls?”
His mum turned to face him in her seat. “Ava decided to stay back. All the women that are left are pitching in, helping to have everything ready for worst case scenario and best.”
Rane nodded, knowing it was the best plan. His sister Ava had never been a fighter like her twin Eve. Ava was the mothering type, and very bossy. She was always cooking, cleaning, looking after children, and pretty much trying to organize everyone.
Turning to Kane he asked, “What time will we get there? It’s late now and when I spoke to you earlier, you said the ten enforcer groups that were still out patrolling would meet us there.”
“It’ll take about three and half hours to get to our destination, and set up will take twenty to thirty minutes. I’m hoping to sleep now, so I’m more than ready for what’s to come.”
Rane grimaced and hugged Kirby tighter to him before he rested his eyes and drifted to sleep.
Rane woke as the van stopped. He looked around to see hills and grass land—a farming community. A good place to hide, he thought. Rane saw that already three large tents had been put up and everyone around was hauling equipment. He got out, careful not to wake Kirby as he walked over toward six military trucks and two medical military tents. A very determined, tall black man stalked toward them, his eyebrows drawn together and his jaw locked, like he was grinding his teeth. His fists were clenched at his sides.
He turned to Kane. “I know they’ve brought doctors, but who’s that guy headed straight for us, because I know he’s not military.”
Kane kissed Faith’s head and hugged her tighter as he answered. “Faith said we should bring him. She thought we would need him. Jerome Stark is a friend of mine from the hospital I used to work at. He’s the doctor that operated on Faith.” Kane put up his hand awkwardly around Faith. “I know, I know before you say it, Faith said she had a feeling…well, she really said there won’t be enough doctors or medical staff, and I needed to get the military to give us more medical people and call in a friend. She then suggested Jerome. She also said that he would keep our secret and that he would come in handy in the future.”
Rane grinned at his brother as he continued.
“She wants him for her baby doctor.” Rane chuckled as Kane growled out. “She said I would not be able to deliver our baby, and since she isn’t allowed to go to a normal doctor she wanted the next best thing.”
Faith moaned, waking up in Kane’s arms. “You’ve got that right,” she said. “There’s no way my mate is watching down there while I squeeze a werewolf baby out. If your mother goes on one more time about how she did it all by herself with you guys, I swear I’ll knock her out.”
Rane bit his lip, trying not to laugh so he didn’t wake up Kirby, but the look on Faith’s face… He gave in and gave a big belly laugh just as Dr. Jerome Stark came upon them.
“What the hell is going on, Kane?”
Kane sighed and Faith jumped out of Kane’s arms, straightened, and looked Jerome in the eye. “You’re not going to believe us unless you’re shown. Kane, change to full wolf and give him fifteen minutes to get used to it before you change to half-change. Then we’ll tell him what we can …if he doesn’t pass out,” she added.
Kane changed into a big, dirty blond wolf and to Jerome’s credit he only stepped back two paces, rubbed his eyes, and looked around him, then looked at Faith.
Rane could feel Kirby waking up. She stretched and kissed him on the cheek before getting down.
Faith was explaining as much as possible to Jerome, and he was doing fine until Kane changed into half-change werewolf mode. Jerome yelled, “Holy shit. You’re a monster.” He darted glances around them and slowly walked away mumbling, “Crap! I didn’t sign up for this shit. What the hell is this world coming to?”
Rane walked with Kirby in silence to the largest tent where everyone was. There were one hundred and twenty-six werewolves, including women and other weres, eleven trained military men, eight human mates with powers ranging from water elements, earth elements, air elements, witches, and of course an animal affinity, and psychic.
Rane shut his eyes, hoping there were a lot less demons then they originally thought because all up they only numbered one hundred and forty-five. They had even brought two away teams home and had new werewolves sent over from overseas. The problem was they were a small pack to begin with, and the land mass they protected was so large.
Rane walked over to his dad who was standing with Tray, Cullen, his mother, and Blake.
“How’s it all going, Dad?”
His dad let out a weary sigh. “How do you think, son? I have two werewolves coming out of retirement, and five elders helping with communications. On the positive side, Arden will be coming here instead of home, he’ll be here any minute, and Eve was granted leave and will be arriving in about fifteen minutes, so that will be an extra two. Oh, and Lexie is an earth element, she has been communicating with the earth. Here is the worst news of all—the tunnels are everywhere in this region. At the moment she’s with the elders helping map as much as she can. The witches are doing good though—they’re coming up with a spell to cloak us so we don’t draw attention when we bring out the injured and any rescued supernaturals. Last, but certainly not least, Sara is with a conjurer, and they’re at the well, using the water to ice extra blades and knives.”
Kane nodded to his dad, and Kirby spoke up with a question he should have thought to ask. “Can Lexie feel where the rooms are, or where the tunnels are bigger?”
His father smiled at Kirby. “I thought Rane would’ve asked that question.” His dad winked at him. “That’s probably the best news so far…she’s found fifteen rooms, one that she said was bigger than the rest. We think that’s the one that will have the most demons and minions. Sorry, Kirby, but that’s where we’re going to need your help.”
Rane couldn’t contain the growl and he snapped at his dad. “No fucking way is my mate going to be going into a room where you think the most demons will be. Not going to happen. I don’t want her here in the first place, because she’s not experienced enough.” He held up his hand before his dad had a chance to butt in. “I know you didn’t let Mum do any fighting. I know she did do some a time or two but by then she’d had forty to fifty years of training. Whereas Kirby was thrown in five days ago, so fuck no. It’s bad enough she’ll be down there at all, but there’s no way she’s going into that big room.”
He had growled out the last bit so loud that everyone was now looking at them. An elbow to his stomach made him look down into furious brown eyes and a face set in an angry frown. Kirby’s cheeks were bright red and her hands were on her hips.
“Do you want me to show you how good I have become, again?” she said through clenched teeth. He went to put his hands around her, when she yelled, “Change now.”
He and all the werewolves in the room changed
She looked down at him in wolf form. “How’s that?”
She walked toward the exit only to be stopped by Arden, as he looked around the room, then at Kirby. “Holy shit! Faith and Rane weren’t kidding.”
Eve came in beside Arden and burst out laughing. He watched in wolf form as Eve pulled Kirby in for a hug, saying, “I’m going to love you. You are so perfect for Rane. Welcome to the family.”