Growl

by Eve Langlais

  Blaez grabbed Kira then, pulling her close to his side. “You don’t want to do this,” he told Penn.

  For the first time in she couldn’t remember how long she saw what might be true emotion in her father or, rather, the alpha lycan who stood across from her. His mane of wild black hair stood up wildly, his fangs long and sharp as he opened his mouth to howl his response back to Blaez. His body surrounded in a gruesome dark haze depicting that of the evil and demented, sparks of red representing his deep anger adding to the mixture. She knew what it was she saw now, knew what she’d been seeing for the past couple of weeks. It was the lycan’s true form, his most inner emotions displayed on the outside for only her to see.

  With her heart pounding at what Kira realized must be the power she was promised as one of the Selected, she spotted Cody in her peripheral, charging forward. He too had looked red in the night, his quickness met by Phelan’s mighty growl as he crashed into the younger lycan’s chest full on, knocking him off his feet. As for the others, Kira heard growling and thumping in the distance and knew that they were fighting.

  Channing and Malec were battling to save her. Phelan had just taken a blow from Cody but was retaliating with double blows of his own, jumping on Cody as he fell on his back this time, growling with the full force of his beast in Cody’s face. That’s when Kira felt it, the pull and tug against her own skin, the ripping of her claws as they extended even longer. Unlike Dallas’s, hers weren’t poisonous, but they were still deadly and inches longer than the other lycans’. Her claws were like knives attached to her fingertips, and as her own fangs elongated she opened her mouth to match the growls sounding around her, rolling her head once more, this time feeling the immediate growth of her hair, the drooping of her forehead, and the bunching of her muscles.

  “Mine!” Penn said again with more persistence before reaching out to grab her arm.

  Dallas surprised them all by moving from his place near Blaez to stand in front of Penn. “No, old man. This is my bitch!”

  The air around her sizzled, like there was a lightning bolt or some strange sort of energy emanating in the area. The cool breeze that she’d felt the moment Blaez had opened the door picked up until even the trees rocked back and forth, the ground beneath her shaking so hard she stumbled forward, landing on her hands and knees.

  Cool grass ruffled beneath her fingers, the surface still vibrating as a familiar scent permeated her senses. That feeling of togetherness, of being two connected instead of one, washing over her immediately. It was strange and then again it wasn’t. A part of her knew exactly what was happening, exactly what needed to happen.

  And that’s when she saw it. Standing right next to her, with a body as tall and broad as hers, its fur a glistening white and gray, eyes sparkling sapphire blue. It was a wolf, the same one from her dreams. Its flanks moved in and out, in conjunction with her own breaths, its fur blowing in the breeze. There was a great power in this wolf; Kira felt it in the air around them and going deep down to the ground beneath. This was definitely the wolf she’d dreamed about. The one that now bared its teeth, leaning toward Dallas in a definitely predatory way, its power rippling straight through the earth, surfacing where she stood, and wrapping its protective aura around … her.

  CHAPTER 14

  The first bite was to his leg, knocking Dallas onto his ass, in a more permanent nature this time. The lycan fell back, howling in pain as Blaez, in his wolf form, climbed atop him, growling down into his face.

  “No!” Penn yelled. “Don’t!”

  “He tried to rape me and you still protect him!” Blaez heard Kira yell. He knew she was talking about Dallas and that’s why he’d bitten the lycan the first time. Now Blaez continued to growl, thoroughly enjoying how afraid and confused Dallas was looking up at him, just before he took a bite out of his other leg.

  There was no other lycan walking the earth who could turn into a full-fledged wolf. None who had the strength, the cunning and intuition that he had. They didn’t have the power of a god because the only blood that ran through their veins was that of Nyktimos with the wolf traits he’d inherited from Lykaon.

  Blaez had so much more.

  “You lied to me about my mother’s death and now you’re protecting him. You don’t give a damn about me!” Kira yelled.

  “You belong to our pack; there’s nothing you can do about that,” Penn responded.

  “Not anymore. Not without my mother,” she countered.

  “She’s dead because she betrayed me and the pack. She should have told me what you were and she should have let me decide how to deal with you. Instead I let Dallas deal with her,” Penn continued. “I’m not going to let you destroy what I’ve worked so long and so hard to build. And I’m certainly not going to watch you join forces with this disgusting spawn of Nyktimos! I’ll kill you myself first!”

  Before Penn could do anything Blaez was on the move. In the back of his mind he’d heard her scream, even though her father had yet to strike. Blaez had felt her pain like shards of glass pelting his own skin. He growled loudly before leaping away from Dallas, to land on Penn, Blaez’s teeth sinking into the alpha’s neck with deadly accuracy to its jugular vein. And as Blaez knew Penn’s life was draining out of him he heard Kira’s growl.

  “You bastard!” she yelled. “You killed my mother, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  “She was as hardheaded and uncontrollable as you are. But I will control you, Kira. I will claim you and bend you to my will. With you I will leave the world of a lowly beta to transition to the most powerful alpha this world has ever seen,” Dallas informed her.

  The lycan must have begun healing from Blaez’s bites, enough so that he could get up off the ground.

  “Never!” she yelled, and when the wolf turned this time it was to see Kira, mouth wide, fangs sharp and glowing in the moon’s gaze, jumping on Dallas.

  This time the lycan did not fall but swatted his beefy arm just in time to knock Kira onto the ground. He jumped on top of her then, ripping at her chest with his deadly claws. The wolf saw the moment Kira’s body went still and growled before jumping on Dallas’s back and sinking its teeth into his neck, then quickly administering another bite to the back of his skull. The lycan growled loudly, lifting up off of Kira, arching his back with the wolf still attached biting into each of his shoulders and when he finally fell to the ground once more the wolf tore off his hands, rendering the poisonous claws defenseless and their owner dead.

  “We’ll get her inside!” Phelan yelled. “And we’ll take care of the others. You go. Go!”

  The wolf looked at Kira as Phelan lifted her still-paralyzed body from the ground.

  “Go! Before they see you too!” Phelan yelled at it once more.

  Blaez growled again, before taking off at a run into the forest, away from the house where the betas from Penn’s pack were obviously still alive. They couldn’t see him like this. If they did they would have to die. Nobody could know who and what he really was. That wouldn’t be safe for anyone.

  * * *

  “What time is it?” Kira asked, her throat and lips dry as she tried to sit up.

  Channing was sitting beside her, pressing hot, wet towels to her chest, which felt like somebody had taken a good punch at her.

  “Whoa there,” Channing said. “Let’s take this slowly. I don’t know what aftereffects those poison claws usually have.”

  “Dammit!” she cursed, lying back on the pillows with a thump and closing her eyes. Dallas had scratched her. In those moments she remembered the razor-sharp tips of his claws sinking into her skin, felt the heat of the poison seeping into her bloodstream only seconds later.

  He’d been on top of her, glaring down at her the same way he had the night of the last full moon when he’d tried to claim her. Tonight, even in lycan form, his dick had been hard, his heart beating wildly to match the look in his eyes. He was going to do it, right there in the open. He was going to attempt to claim her.

&n
bsp; But he would have failed. He was not whom she was Selected for. Kira knew that as certainly as she knew her own name.

  He’d bared his teeth to her the second he decided to cut into her with his claws. She’d lifted her arms, wanting to catch him in the face or somewhere else with her own claws first, anything to give her a few seconds to roll out of his reach, but that hadn’t happened. She’d been too slow and he’d paralyzed her. In that moment he’d thought he’d won.

  Except the wolf had been there. It had come soaring through the dark sky, its bright eyes and coat of fur like some type of god coming down from the heavens. It had killed Dallas, but Kira had not been able to get up and go to it or to even turn her head and see it before it ran off. She hadn’t been able to thank it … him … Blaez.

  “Where’s Blaez?” she asked quietly, her eyes still closed. She knew they were all there, could feel their steady gazes on her. But none of them spoke.

  She opened her eyes then, looking around to see that she was lying on the big sofa in the living room, the one she’d seen Channing, Malec, and that female leaning against a week ago. Channing was still sitting beside Kira, his hands seemingly frozen over the towel on her chest. Malec stood behind him, his face fixed in a grim frown. Phelan she had to turn her head slightly to see standing closer to the door. He was waiting for Blaez.

  “Will he come back on his own?” she asked Phelan specifically. He’d turned to her; his scar looked puffier, redder, than she recalled ever seeing it, his arms folded over his chest.

  “He always does” was Phelan’s clipped reply.

  She blinked, took a deep inhalation, and was glad when she didn’t feel that deep pang of pain again, which meant she was already beginning to heal. “When?” was her next question.

  “When it’s time” was Phelan’s reply.

  “Just relax,” Channing told her. “We’re here and we’ll take care of you.”

  “Penn,” she said in an almost whisper. “Where is he?”

  “Dead!” Malec snapped. “Him and that bastard that tried to take you!”

  There was definitely malice in Malec’s voice, laced with the anger that was still simmering around this room. So it was over, she thought with another slow blink of her eyes. Then why were they all standing watch over her like they expected something else to happen?

  “Cody and the others? Where are they?” she asked, but was met with total silence.

  She moved again, this time slowly, lifting up the upper half of her body, giving Channing a gaze that dared him to try to stop her. “I want to know what happened and I need one of you to tell me.” She put her hand on top of Channing’s, moving the towel from her chest so she could look down at it.

  Four jagged scratches showed, ripped flesh still raw and puffy but no longer bleeding on the tattered pieces of her shirt. She grabbed the pillow from behind her head, quickly putting it in front of her chest as she looked at them again. They looked tired but still lethal as hell, with muscles protruding and glares so angry and tight the tension just about radiated from their skin.

  “We had to kill them,” Malec told her. “There was no other choice.”

  “I don’t think the two we had saw anything,” Channing added, his lips drawing in a thin line after he finished.

  “They would have figured it out!” Phelan snapped. “We all know what that means. So they had to die.”

  She’d been looking from one to the other even as Channing took her hand in his. “They can’t know who or what he is, Kira. There’s too much at stake if anyone ever finds out.”

  Her heart was slamming against her chest at this point, her mind whirling with the things that they’d been saying. “What … what is he? Why can’t anyone know? Tell me, Channing!”

  “It’s his story to tell,” Phelan said dryly. “When he wants and to who he wants.”

  “But I’m…” she started. “I’m his—” she attempted to say, then stopped. She knew, without any doubt; at this very moment Kira knew.

  It was like a light, that bright light that she’d seen radiating around him that very first night in the woods, filling her completely on the inside. That light brought knowledge, a warmth settling over her as everything became clearer. Her. Blaez. The day she’d envisioned seeing him hurt. The dream of his wolf. It was all very clear and very meaningful.

  She had been Selected for Blaez. And whatever he really was, however dangerous he perceived that to be was why he continued to deny it, to deny her and their destiny. It wasn’t only what had happened to his family; it was his wolf that now stood between them.

  They all looked at her expectantly, like there was so much hanging on her next words. And there was, she thought clearly. Her next words, her actions, all of their lives—this pack that she was so ready to call her own and Blaez’s included—depended on what happened next.

  “I’m going to get him,” she said.

  She tossed the pillow down and was trying to move her legs to get off the couch, but Channing was still sitting there, blocking the way.

  “Where … you don’t know where he is. None of us do. We just wait. He always comes back; as soon as the moon is gone once more, he always comes back,” Channing told her.

  “This is the first time he’s killed like that,” Malec added as if that made a difference.

  “Like a wolf,” she said. “Blaez is a wolf.”

  The realization hit her just like that cool breeze of air had earlier this evening. She wasn’t shocked, but she knew she should be. “Why is he a wolf? None of us have a complete shift like that. Why does he?”

  “It’s his story!” Phelan yelled as if he was exasperated with her in particular.

  Kira didn’t care; she pushed Channing to the side and stood from the sofa, stalking over to where Phelan was standing to get in his face. “Let’s be clear here, Phelan. I’m in love with him, whatever or whyever he is. I was Selected for him,” she said, feeling the truth of those words trickling into every pore of her body.

  None of them spoke for what seemed like endless moments.

  It had taken her a little longer than it should have for her to get up the steps, change her shirt, and come back down. She was still a little light-headed from the poison, but the scratches were continuing to heal and would most likely be gone within the hour. While she was in Blaez’s bedroom—the one she’d been sharing with him—Kira glanced at the clock to see that hours had passed since they’d first gone out to greet Penn’s pack. The sun would be rising soon. And Blaez would come back. That’s what Channing said.

  But the full moon would be over.

  Kira wasn’t going to wait. She knew where Blaez was. That same light that had filled her and told her that she’d been Selected for him gave her knowledge of where she could find her mate. He would be there; she only had to go to him.

  “He wouldn’t want me to let you go out there alone,” Phelan said, still standing watch by the front door like that was his designated spot for the night.

  Kira nodded, respecting the second in command of Blaez’s pack in a way she never had before. “Then let’s go,” she said. “You’ll have to keep up.”

  Kira broke into a run the moment she’d cleared the door, calming her mind as Blaez had taught her and focusing on that light still blossoming inside her. It seemed as if the moon shone its brightest here in the thicket of trees, as she was able to see perfectly while moving along an untraveled path. His scent was different now, yet she’d still held it, from the moment that wolf had stood beside her. She continued to run wondering how she’d missed what was so clear to her now. How had she not realized? Her mother had told her there was something more out there for her and then he’d appeared as if, at the same time, that she’d been searching, he’d been looking too. Blaez would probably never admit to that, but Kira knew it to be true. In her heart and soul she knew that she and Blaze were meant to run into each other that night in the woods; they were meant to spend these weeks locked in that lodge together. That time
was preparing them for this moment, for this slice of time that the goddess had carved out for them. The moment they would become one.

  That realization still hummed along her conscience, pushing her to go even faster, to find him before it was too late.

  Kira moved faster until her arms and legs burned with the exertion, her chest beginning a dull ache. Then, as suddenly as she began, her feet were skidding to a halt, dirt and rocks being kicked up as she came to a stop, only inches before going over a cliff with a steep drop down. Phelan was right there, grabbing her arm to keep her from toppling over.

  She looked up at him in thanks and he nodded as if neither of them needed to actually speak a word. He thrust a backpack toward her and for a second she looked at it and wondered if he was sending her on her way. But the backpack wasn’t hers; it was black instead of blue like the one she’d carried here.

  “He’s going to need these,” Phelan told her.

  She nodded, realizing the backpack must contain Blaez’s clothes, and the memory of that beautiful wolf that had saved her life appeared in her mind.

  “Thanks. I’ll be all right now,” she told Phelan, looking back down to the lake and knowing now why she’d really stopped. Blaez was down there somewhere; his scent was stronger here. And when she’d looked down into the dark ravine again, she would swear she’d seen the quick flash of his blue eyes.

  “Be careful,” Phelan told her as if he too knew that Blaez was down there, which would be the only reason he would leave her alone.

  “I will,” she told him as she turned and headed down.

  It was steep and rocks crumbled rolling downward as she moved. With each step her heart beat just a little faster, Blaez’s scent grew stronger, and that full moon above shone brighter. When Kira made it to level ground she walked in the direction where she’d seen the flash of blue. She hadn’t glimpsed it again, but it didn’t matter. There was a copse of trees just ahead, beside what looked like a cave driving into the side of the mountain. That’s where she was headed.