by Mia Rose
Two hours had passed, and the full moon hung high in the sky when Declan decided to take a small detour to his plan. The family of deer were closer, and they’d been moving closer and closer to him the longer he stayed in the woods. He raised his head off of the ground and followed their trail. Deer were some of his favorite prey, always easy to take down and they led you straight to their herd.
Declan picked up the pace, his paws pounded against the ground faster than he remembered ever moving before. The flash of white of a doe’s tail stuck out against the backdrop of the dark woods. Declan’s long tongue flopped over his lips, and he lunged forward. A shrill scream erupted from the herd of deer, and Declan’s body fell on top of the doe. His teeth pulled apart the tendons in her neck, and the buck readied his antlers to the left of them.
Declan smirked, and with a savage growl, lunged forward. His weight was too much for the buck to bear, and its feet collapsed underneath it. Declan tore into it, it’s bloody flesh between his teeth was eagerly welcomed. Declan had spent the past two weeks surviving off unsatisfying human food.
Declan jerked his head forward, and a bullet whizzed by his left ear.
He snapped his jaws together and commanded, “Come out here! Come face me!”
From behind the cover of an oak tree, Noelle slid into view. There was still a thin stream of smoke flowing into the air from her pistol. Her eyes widened and she ground her heels into the dirt. Declan narrowed his eyes as he watched her raise her pistol and aim for the space in between his eyes.
“I figured out what you’ve been up to, Noelle!”
Noelle lowered her gun and whispered, “Declan?”
“Don’t act like you didn’t know,” Declan growled, he took two steps forward and Noelle raised her gun.
“Wait! I didn’t know, I thought that you were the only human in the building out of a bunch of werewolves! Don’t move or I’ll fill your brain with silver.”
“I haven’t been human for an extremely long time,” Declan said, watching the news settle in on her face.
“You not only attempted to assault three members of my pack, you’re the one that maimed Cassidy, aren’t you?”
Noelle’s expression contorted into a mask of confusion and she said, “Your fiancé. She’s not your fiancé at all, is she? She’s your mate.”
“Tell me what you did to her and how we can fix it.”
Noelle slid her finger onto the trigger and replied, “It’s not that simple.”
Declan snarled and scraped his claws against the dirt, “What’s so difficult about it? I’ll spare your life if I never see you in these woods again, and if you tell me how we can save Cassidy.”
“You didn’t care about Cassidy this afternoon, or that day in your office…”
“Shut up!” Declan roared. He pressed his limbs against the ground and lurched forward. Noelle yelped and fired her gun, the bullets were sprayed above Declan’s head and in between his legs. Noelle turned around to duck for cover, but tripped over her ankles. Declan landed on top of her, the hot saliva oozing from his jaws splattered onto Noelle’s face.
Noelle stuffed a scream deep inside of her and said, “You don’t want to do this. You’ll die.”
Declan’s body hummed, he pressed his heavy paw into the center of her chest.
“I don’t think that you’re the one who should be making threats. Tell me how to heal Cassidy’s wound.”
His large, bulging, olive-colored eyes reflected off of the moonlight. For a moment, Noelle dared to remember the kind, green eyes of the man that she had fooled around with that same afternoon.
“You. You were always one of them? You were always a part of that pack?” she asked.
Declan leaned down, and pressed his wet nose into hers. She cried out and her legs quaked underneath him.
“I’m the Alpha of the pack.”
Chapter 14
Wolf
“Why is it that your wolf isn’t as bad as the others?”
Noelle’s fingers twitched, she slid her thighs against the dirt and tried to raise them. It was no use as Declan’s heavy, warm, wolf body wouldn’t allow for her fingers to reach more than an inch of above the handle of her blade. She swallowed a lump of spit, and smoothed away the shocked expression she wore at Declan’s admission. She’d spent years training for a moment like this, a moment to face off with an alpha of an entire pack. It could potentially weaken the whole group.
I could save so many humans if I can take him down.
She smirked, and said, “I’m not feeling generous enough to tell you how to help Cassidy if you’re going to treat me like this.”
Noelle wore a blank face as Declan leaned down; his giant tongue rolled out of his mouth and he ran it along her left cheek, leaving a dribbling trail of slobber.
He snapped his jaws and said, “You have two seconds to start being helpful or I’m going to start with your face first.”
“That’s a lot of talk for an alpha that couldn’t even recognize a hunter amongst his pack,” Noelle teased. Declan glowered, pressing the weight of his body down on top of her frozen form.
It felt like someone dropped a bag of bricks on her lower leg, the sickening crack that rose up from the impact made Noelle smash her teeth down on top of her bottom lip. She inhaled deep, hoping to send a fresh burst of oxygen to her abused bones. Noelle erupted into a primal scream. Her shoulders acted as a lever, and she gathered any strength left in her upper body. She propelled her forehead straight into Declan’s snout.
Cool liquid ran down the valley carved into Noelle’s face by her nose and cheekbones, and a scowl screwed up her pretty features as Declan fell backward. Two quarter-sized drops of blood hit the dirt beside her and she pressed her hand to the bloody wound on her forehead. Noelle pressed her palms against the dirt and used the tight muscles in her abdomen to scramble to her feet.
She ripped the knife attached to her thigh out of the holster and said, “I told you that you were a little too sure of yourself.”
Declan shook his head from left to right, and drops of Noelle’s blood splattered against his fur.
“You got one lucky hit in. What will you say when my entire pack has hunted you down, Noelle? Do you honestly think that I haven’t memorized your scent by now?”
The wind shifted, and carried the smell of dirt and sweat into Noelle’s nostrils.
She raised her blade and said, “You can either come at me or we can talk like adults.” Noelle touched two of her fingertips to her face and when she pulled them away they were bright red.
“Or I can rush you, I could take you down right here. Your legs are already trembling from the blood loss.”
Declan scraped his claws against the dirt and his wide eyes followed her as she moved forward. Noelle let the blood fall freely, a droplet hung onto her upper lip; a bright red stain on top of lush, pink lips.
“Noelle!” Declan growled.
Noelle raised her hands into the air palm side up, and the blood-stained knife fell to the ground.
She dropped to her knees less than a foot away from Declan and said, “I know that if you’re serious about half of the things you’re threatening, you’ll just let me bleed out here.” Her eyelids closed over her watery, electric-blue eyes.
What is she planning?
He was close enough to rip apart the tendons in her neck and chest with little resistance. And the pale skin on her neck rose and fell slowly, and Noelle’s eyes fluttered open. She wore a small smirk, and raised her hand toward him.
“What the hell are you doing, Noelle?”
A gust of wind passed her lips, her chest flattened and her bloody fingers twitched in his direction. Declan’s paws stiffened, his body was frozen in his place as Noelle’s fingertips grazed the underside of his chin.
“You’re soft,” she mumbled.
A modest puddle of blood had gathered underneath Noelle’s head and she closed her eyes again. Declan lifted one heavy paw into the air, poised to brin
g it crashing down onto her rib cage.
“Why is it that your wolf… isn’t as bad as the others?”
She drew small circles underneath his chin, and her fingers danced along on his silken fur and she said, “I don’t want to make an enemy out of you.”
Declan backpedaled, stepping just out of her reach and away from the warmth that radiated from her fingers.
“What are you doing?”
Noelle raised her head, “I don’t want to fight against you.” She pulled herself up into a sitting position and said, “I don’t think that we’re meant to be on opposite sides… do you?”
Her face had been wiped clean of the fury or outrage that she felt a moment before.
She repeated, “You don’t think that we’re meant to be on opposite sides. If you really thought that way, you would have killed me the moment that you took me down.”
Noelle shivered, the woods had settled on a nighttime temperature of forty-two degrees. Declan lifted one of his feet off the ground. Then he walked toward Noelle, and straight through the rushing current of thoughts telling him to do the exact opposite. He was split down the middle, he craved to taste her blood in between his teeth in retribution for what she’d done to Cassidy… and what she planned to do to the rest of the pack. The other half of him, something softer that he hadn’t struggled with much before, demanded that he sweep Noelle off of the ground. All so he could see to her wounds. It demanded that he didn’t let whatever bubbled up between them sizzle out, and that he shouldn’t ignore his gut instinct to be near her.
As the wind sighed through the treetops. Declan’s long, fiendish wolf face gave way to his flawless features came into view. Noelle’s eyes followed him like two spotlights, waiting for him to deliver a crushing blow while he stood above her in his human skin, or to offer a hand. Declan knelt next to Noelle with his eyes narrowed, he chewed on his lip as his emerald eyes walked up and down the length of Noelle’s body.
“I should have killed you,” he said, it hung in the air between them and neither of them wanted to touch it.
“I’m glad that you didn’t.”
She reached out and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. Declan flinched, but allowed her to caress him. Noelle leaned forward and placed a soft kiss onto Declan’s lips.
Declan’s wolf raged, and he balled his fists together and said, “Get yourself together and get out of the woods.”
He shrugged off Noelle’s hand and rose to his feet, he stepped around her and didn’t stop walking until he reached the entrance to the woods.
“Why is it that your wolf isn’t as bad as the others?”
Chapter 15
Declan
“What are you up to, Declan?”
Cassidy pulled herself off of her wrinkled, sweat-soaked sheets. Her right hand drifted up toward the window beside her bed. It chilled the inside of her palm; a small source of relief for the near-constant fever that raged through her body. Cassidy’s cheeks were flushed, and damp clumps of hair stuck to her forehead. A flash of gray against the black of the asphalt became visible from the corner of her eye.
Cassidy knitted her brows together, she looked four floors down and watched Declan slam the door to their modest sedan and head inside of the building. She frowned, and lifted her phone off the windowsill. It was just after two am.
I thought that everyone was holding off on hunts for now. Why is Declan going alone, especially without any backup like Gabriel?
Cassidy folded her arms across her chest, and focused her gaze to the bedroom door. If she possessed the ability to, she would have burned holes into the peeling, cheap wood of the door. Her ears, with the soft skin now a bright red, twitched to listen. Her finely tuned hearing caught the whisper of the floorboards creaking, and the soft steps of a longtime pack member sneaking into the bedroom of a new pack mate.
Cassidy and Declan came to the conclusion years ago that it was probably better if members of the pack slept with each other, instead of impregnating a human that would be clueless as to why their baby was born with a pair of bright, luminous eyes. This, a common trademark of a dormant werewolf. However, she and Declan had never created a rule that prohibited the wolves in their pack from getting together with a human. They especially hadn’t made any such rule that would apply to the alpha of the pack.
Cassidy had been reluctant to accept that she was being left out of major decisions for the pack because of her illness, but Declan had become more and more reclusive over the last few weeks. He sat behind his desk downstairs until late, and never approached any subject that strayed outside of whether the wound on her back had acquired any new, or much more terrifying features. She held her breath and kept her ears open for a second step of footsteps; for Declan’s heavy footfalls as he pounded up the steps.
The sound of the rusted bolts turning at the front door never came. Cassidy turned back toward the window, the empty streets were illuminated by one, orange glowing street light that hung just above the gray sedan.
What are you up to, Declan?
With her eyes narrowed into slits, she shook out the thin blanket that had slid into a crumpled ball at the end of the mattress. She pulled it up the length of her body, and held it tight against her chest.
Cassidy closed her eyes, and fell into the curve of the pillow beneath her. She pressed her ear against it, waiting for the creak of the floorboards to rise up and through the pillow.
The door clicked softly against the frame, and Declan hovered in front of his desk. A small chime sounded from his computer, and he knew that underneath the wreck of papers on his desk, there was a couple of completed rental applications. They were from people that were genuinely interested in renting an apartment in Clifton Towers. Declan’s back rested against the cracked white wall by the door and his eyes fell shut. When he opened them, the sound of another email flying into his inbox rang in his ears. A growl rose up from deep within his chest, and he raked his arm across the packed, pile of mess on top of his desk.
His jaw seized between the chiseled, smaller bone of his human features, and the elongated, powerful bones of the wolf that was buried inside. His mind ran wild with thoughts of his pack, now that he’d let Noelle go relatively unscathed. And how was he supposed to keep them safe from her?
Cassidy… he’d let the woman that very well could have been responsible for Cassidy’s early demise go. His chest heaved, and his face burned as he sat on top of his desk. A flurry of white papers fell to the floor. It wasn’t like him to let a woman leave his mind like this. It was a furious, foggy mess. Years ago, he wouldn’t have let the possibility of rolling around in the sheets with a raven-haired beauty come between him and Cassidy.
Declan slid off his desk and walked around it, he jostled his chair from the space behind his desk. He slammed his body into it; his hands hung loosely in between his thighs. His shoulders were heavy, pressing down onto his sullen form.
What’s wrong with you? You’re an… Alpha.
With a heavy sigh, Declan gripped the edges of his desk and pulled himself closer to his computer monitor. On the screen, a bevy of emails and his daily schedule was reflected back to him. For today’s date, he was scheduled to fasten doors on their hinges and run drills with Gabriel and the rest of the pack. Declan minimized his schedule and typed, “Colorado Real Estate” into the search bar. Thousands of results appeared. Including older houses, manors, abandoned apartment buildings, as well as a couple of hotels. He narrowed his eyes, and dragged the mouse down the screen. While he’d probably have more luck expanding his search outside of Colorado, the forested areas in some parts of the state were a necessity for hunts. He refused to move his pack to a bustling city outside of Colorado and encourage them to eat frozen sections of raw beef. A pack wouldn’t thrive and blend in with humans if their base desires weren’t being satisfied.
Maybe there was something inside of me that wasn’t being satisfied.
Declan shook his head, and strained his eyes
for the next three hours, sorting through pages upon pages of ads; each building or location was less likely to work than the last. When birds flew overhead, signaling that the day had begun for any being that wasn’t nocturnal, Declan dimmed his glowing screen with a single click. He rotated his stiff neck and his muscles popped in resistance. It had been several months since he last had to hold his own in a fight. Declan stood up, and pushed his chair back. Light footsteps were moving along the old, creaky floorboards outside.
Maybe that’s where I went wrong.
Reflecting on all the times in previous months that he chose paperwork and upholding the front that was managing Clifton Towers. He’d done it instead of supervising hunts, and sparring with new pack mates. Even knocking Gabriel back into line every so often so that he always knew who was the alpha.
Declan stepped into the hall, and pulled the door to his office shut. The sound of the wood scraping against the floor snagged the attention of a young woman that was walking along the apartment. She turned her head, and Declan remembered the long nose with the pointed end, and the sandy brown hair that she always wore in a ponytail. Aria, was her name.
His fingers massaged his eyeballs, and he pulled a smile out of his reserve.
“Good Morning, Aria.” His eyes flicked toward the large windows that faced the sidewalk in front of the building.
The sunlight hadn’t reached them yet.
Declan turned his head back to her and said, “Were you out for a jog?”
Aria blinked new life into her serious features and grinned, “No, I was just coming from upstairs. Cassidy is an early bird, and I am trying to keep her company.”