Shit.
Enough. He had to fix this. He’d go back home and let Ryan and the others deal with Sarah and the Trident. It cut him up to think Sarah might be harmed in any way, but seeing that Trident with his hands on Lydia had sent him into a tailspin earlier, and he could deny it all he liked, but the truth was that it was Lydia he’d thought of when he’d jumped at the male. It was Lydia he’d been trying to protect, not Sarah.
So what are you doing here?
What indeed.
He got up and made his way out of the bedroom and down the stairs, back towards the kitchen, but froze in the hallway when car headlights flooded in through the window.
They’re back!
He ran towards the kitchen door, shifting as he went, and oh, fuck, he still had to open it!
He jumped up at the handle with his paw and got the door off the catch on the third try. If Sarah saw him here she’d freak out big time. Her terrorised face still haunted him from last Halloween, and now from tonight – he didn’t want to be the reason she looked like that ever again.
He heard the car engine die. It was definitely them. He could smell them and he could hear their conversation, faintly – Sarah sounded … fine. And she still smelled human, although it wasn’t a full moon, so that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising was that the Trident hadn’t enslaved her or hurt her; that he’d brought her back here surely knowing that werewolves would be looking for them now. What was his game?
From the shadows of the garden, a movement downwind of him caught his eye.
A huge, dark wolf emerged under the setting moon.
Ryan.
What was it? Five in the morning? The sun would be rising soon. Was Lydia all right? Had Lawrence taken her home?
Sarah’s voice travelled up the driveway along with her heels clacking on the cement.
He turned from her voice and glanced at Ryan. I want to go home. Can I leave Sarah with you?
Ryan stood still, assessing him.
It was no small thing he asked, but it was the only way he could think of to make up for his stupidity earlier. They had entrusted Lydia to him and he’d let them down. Now, he was entrusting Sarah to Ryan, regardless of the outcome.
This was goodbye. This was how letting go began.
Ryan’s wolf dropped his head in affirmation.
Taylor threw him a telepathic thank you and sped towards the end of the garden, up onto the lowest branch of the willow tree, then leapt over the fence into the neighbour’s before sprinting his way home.
~*~
“I’m going to say goodbye here, Sarah.” Amil scanned his surroundings. He damn well knew there were at least two werewolves nearby. One of them was the wolf that had attacked him earlier, and the other was the Alpha they had caught last month.
This didn’t bode well, although he doubted they’d try anything with Sarah right there. If they had any sense at all, they’d wonder why he’d brought her back – it was hardly the Trident way.
It was only now that he was in the vicinity of her home, with the smaller werewolf’s scent permeating the area, that he could finally understand the connection: he had lived here.
That had been his home – his and Sarah’s home. It still carried the smallest trace of his scent, and he still carried the smallest trace of hers. That’s why her scent had been on the blouse – because of him.
Interesting.
Amil wondered what he had been to her. Her brother? Husband? Whatever he was, she was clearly oblivious, which meant Amnesthipine had been used on her.
He sighed. What a mess. Amnesthipine only worked thoroughly when combined with hypnosis – which it would have been – but regardless, it was a one way deal. There was no way back after taking the drug. Whatever memories had been taken from her, he hoped Sarah was strong enough to be whole without them.
He tempered down the anger that swirled in his gut over what was done to her. No use getting tetchy – he’d had nothing to do with it. Damn likely it had been the only alternative.
It didn’t matter anyway. He had to let her go.
“Now?” Her voice trembled and werewolves be damned. He took her in his arms and kissed her, willing her not to hurt over him even though he knew she would.
“Yes, now,” he whispered. “Knowing you has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Will you call me?”
“I’ll try.”
“Is it, er … is it political? The stuff you’re involved with? Does your family have political roots?”
“Sarah. It’s best you know nothing about it.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I did say you didn’t have to tell me.”
“Darling,” he brought her face up to his, “it’s just not a hundred percent safe right now. I can’t put you in danger.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek, but she put on a brave face and smiled at him.
If only she knew his heart – the one he thought he’d lost until he’d met her – was being torn into pieces.
“Three months?” she asked, refusing to let go of hope.
Oh, my Sarah…
“Three months,” he affirmed. Tonight, he would start praying again – the first time he would have done so since he was ten years old. “Goodbye, Sarah.”
“Goodbye,” she replied, barely a whisper, then turned so he wouldn’t see her face crumple. It made no difference – he could smell the salt of her flowing tears.
She raced up her steps, fumbled a bit with the front door, then finally closed it behind her without looking back. The slam of the door felt like a nail in his coffin.
He turned with a heavy heart, wondering whether he should be grateful he could feel it at all, when he saw the Alpha wolf leaning against his car.
“Where’s your friend?” asked Amil. “The one who attacked me earlier.”
“Can you blame him? You had two females in your grasp, both of whom are precious to him.”
“One of them is no less precious to me.”
“So I see, although I don’t believe it.”
“What you believe is of no consequence to me.”
“I could take you out right now.”
“I’m sure you’d try if it weren’t for the fact that precious woman number one might just be looking out of her front window.”
“What the fuck are you doing with her?”
“And that is no consequence of yours.”
The Alpha growled at him in warning.
Amil didn’t flinch. These were games he didn’t want to be a part of any more – no longer had time to be a part of. “The only thing I’ll tell you is that I’d rather die than hurt a hair on that woman’s head, which is the sole reason I haven’t taken her captive for the full moon. I could have, you know. I could have kept her for mating and then I’d have my longevity… But she would be ruined forever.”
“Damn, I forgot my violin.”
Amil smirked. “As facetious as you were last month, I see. I have something for you, but I need to reach into my jacket pocket to get it.”
“Pull the other one. Your hand disappears into that jacket and so does the rest of you because I’ll strangle you with it.”
“Then how about I take my jacket off and throw it to you so you can get it out?”
“What is it and why are you giving it to me?”
“It’s a key to your salvation as a species, and I’m giving it to you because I have no use for it or any of the little enterprises Tridents like to part-take in.”
“Throw your jacket into the middle of the road.”
He whipped it off him and did as instructed.
“Now take ten steps back.”
He did, making sure they were large steps.
“If this jacket explodes when I touch it I’m ripping you a new arsehole.”
“It won’t.”
The wolf walked towards the clothing, never taking his eyes off Amil. Carefully, he picked it up and patted the pockets until he felt the tell-ta
le bulge. “What is it?”
“A vial.”
He placed his hand inside the pocket and took out the Poly Grip bag that held the small container filled with the yellow liquid.
“The wonderful Loretta was going to use that on you last full moon. It’s the formula that kick-starts the process of turning werewolf to Trident.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
He snorted. “Put it under a microscope with some werewolf blood and you’ll soon find out.”
“Why would you give me this?”
Amil sighed. “Does everything have to be so difficult? Can’t you just take it with a ‘thank you’?”
“It’ll be the end of you if The Trident discover you’ve done this.”
“It’ll be the end of me in three months anyway. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get into my car. I have a plane to catch.”
After a moment of hesitation, the Alpha stepped out of his way.
“Thank you.” Amil strode towards his vehicle, thinking about how he’d ‘broken down’ on purpose here just three weeks ago. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
With a wary glance at the wolf, he opened his door, got in and started the engine.
The curtain in Sarah’s front window twitched and maybe it was his saving grace that Ryan noticed it too … it might just be the reason he was still alive. But Sarah was his saving grace – he knew that now.
“By the way,” he rolled down the window, “The Trident know about your storm-wielder. They don’t know who she is, but they’ll look for her now.”
The large male nodded once and Amil was sure that was the most civility he’d ever get from a werewolf, not that he could really blame them. His species had spent the last few centuries brutalising them.
Sticking his car into reverse, he backed up, then changed gear and pulled out into the road, taking one final look at the home that housed the woman who had come to mean so much to him.
After nearly five years waiting to die, he’d finally found something worth living for.
Chapter Fourteen
Lydia had ridden home on the back of Lawrence’s motorcycle in silence. All in all, the evening had been anti-climatic considering all his fuss about Russell Maddox.
The actor had done his show, hung around to sign autographs, then packed up and left without a word.
Clearly, the greatest threat to them was the Trident that had made off with Taylor’s wife, and Taylor was still nowhere to be seen.
They had left the theatre near two in the morning. Lawrence had decided that whatever great secret he was going to tell her could wait a while since everything had gone tits up, and she had gone straight to her room to shower.
Now, it was dawn and she hadn’t slept a wink, all of her energy spent worrying about Taylor and going over the information about her family that Lawrence had relayed to her.
Looking up at the pink-grey sky, she could still feel a storm in the air that had never quite manifested. It had spotted with rain; it had thundered a couple of times, but no storm. Could storm-wielders get electrical headaches? Because she was pretty sure she could feel one coming on.
If she had been a good storm-wielder, she’d have brought that threatening storm down to ground, but she had no idea how she’d done it before.
Looking to pass the time, she made her way to her desk where Lawrence’s books were scattered from where she’d abandoned them almost twenty-four hours ago. Now, where had she left off?
Right. Mythology.
It didn’t take her long to find the passage she’d read earlier, and it was an absorbing read: a god and a goddess ruled by anger had split themselves apart, creating, for all intents and purposes, duality. But they quickly discovered they could not live without each other. Loneliness and loss consumed them, and it came to be that the only way they could rejoin since their separation was when the lightning (the god) penetrated the earth (the goddess).
Interesting…
In these moments, Yemet’s determination renewed, as did her anger, and she vowed to find a way to rejoin with Himet.
One night, under the full moon, which reflected Himet’s love for her when the sun could not, Yemet led her most prized and loyal animal – the wolf – to the top of the highest mountain. She let her grief, her sorrow, her loneliness and her anger pour out of her until she manifested a storm. Himet responded, joining in her dance, and at the exact moment he sent down his lightning, she placed the wolf in its path and infused herself with it.
Himet cried out in terror, but he could not pull back the lightning. It hit Yemet while she was in the physical form of the wolf – whilst she was mortal.
“Why?!” he asked her, his sorrow consuming him.
“I could not see, but now I do,” she replied with her dying breath, “to have all of you, I must yield all of me. Take my life, Himet. I trust you with it. I give it freely.”
“Is that it? What happened next?”
Annoyed, she turned the pages and found no more of that particular mythology. “It can’t end there!”
But all that stuff about the lightning was interesting. So, did that mean that the wolf was borne of the goddess? And is the wolf destined to die over and over again in a bid to become one with her mate once more? She wondered if that’s what the female’s transformation was: a sort of death through bonding to join with her mate.
I should ask Lawrence about this.
Yeah, she could just hear the response. “It’s a fairy tale, Lydia. It’s not real.”
“Pffft! Yes, and neither are we I suppose.”
The book slipped from her hand and fell to the floor, face down.
Damn. I hope it’s not an antique or something. She bent down to pick it up and noticed what had skipped her by before. On the binding of the page where the story ended, there was an almost unnoticeable roughness where the next page joined the current one, and the next page was a little loose.
Odd. I think there’s a page missing…
A flock of birds took off from a nearby tree, clearly disturbed by something.
Lydia wandered over to her window and pushed it upwards so it opened. The roar of an engine came from about half a mile south.
“My truck!”
She dropped the book and sprinted out of her room and down the stairs, legging it out the front door towards the rumble. She may not have had her baby long, but she knew that sound.
She raced into the woods, glad to have put on her jeans and not her pyjamas after her shower. Her bare feet would smart though.
Who’s driving the truck? Taylor? Brendan? But this was private property – how would Brendan drive in with the gates locked?
The rising sun disappeared from view as she ran deeper into the woods, but the engine had died and she was losing her sense of direction.
No. It was straight ahead, I’m sure it was.
Continuing on, she darted over foliage and through overgrown branches.
Not long now.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Aunt Gladys’ perfume was in the air again, tickling her nasal passages with its god-awfulness. She’d totally forgotten to mention it to the others earlier, but she wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it. She wasn’t sure she was really smelling it now, because it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, another more sinister fragrance taking its place.
Oh, god.
What the hell was that smell?
It made her blood run cold.
Blood.
Blood.
And the faint aroma of motorcycle oil.
And bacon grease.
Blood.
Her heart thudded as she forced her feet to move. The flaked red paint of her truck came into sight. A few more steps forward and she could see there was no one behind the wheel. She shivered – the truck hadn’t driven itself. A dark, bulky object sat in the passenger seat. Her rucksack.
“Hello?”
Silence. Total silence. The kind where you couldn’t
hear birds or crickets, or anything at all.
But she could hear the blood roaring through her veins.
Blood.
That smell…
Something snapped inside her and she found herself jogging towards her vehicle in a near panicked state.
A warning bark sounded off somewhere behind her to her right. That was Taylor, but he was still some way off. Somewhere within, she registered her relief that he was okay. It was almost enough to have her turning away from what was in front of her … almost.
“Lydia!”
That was Lawrence.
She should respond, but she was in motion now, focused on a task she hadn’t realised she’d set herself – she was moving and she couldn’t stop.
She reached the door of her truck and there was Brendan’s scent as strong as if he were standing right there.
And blood.
“Brendan?”
Her gaze landed on the back of the pick-up truck. A tarpaulin lay across it. That hadn’t been there before.
“Lydia!”
And another bark from Taylor, but she wasn’t really paying attention, her eyes resting on the shape that lay under the green canvas.
No.
No no no…
A roll of thunder from the storm that never came, cracked across the skies and this time she felt it as if it cracked across her heart.
The same thing happened that had happened in the warehouse: she left her body. She watched herself walk over to the back of the truck; reach out with her hand and grasp the cover…
Above it all, she saw Taylor as a wolf sprint towards her from the right.
Lawrence, in his human form, ran at full speed from the left. “No! Lydia, stop!”
They know. They can smell the blood too.
Beneath her, she watched with a strange detachment as she yanked the canvas back.
The scream that ripped through the air seemed to come from far away, until she all at once realised it was coming from her. She realised it the minute she landed back in her body, bringing the whole damn sky with her.
Cry Of The Wolf (Eye Of The Storm) Page 15