by Lucy Lyons
I felt a tingle and the familiar, almost audible pop when the protective circle took effect. I yawned to unblock my ears and glanced back at the witches as they worked, two polar opposites in method and appearance, yet in complete harmony as they strove to keep us as safe as possible. Caroline bent over with her hands on the floor, her stomach swaying beneath her as she etched runes onto the floor in her own blood. Henny followed behind, breathing magic into the symbols until they glowed.
Once the sight of my friend writing in blood would’ve sent me running for my weapons. Now I was simply grateful that she was willing to risk herself to save our pack from fracturing and splintering off into violent factions. She and I had lived through that with the society of hunters. Neither of us would let it happen to the people we claimed now. I felt her presence pressing on my mind and our eyes met. She nodded, and I knew she’d heard my thoughts.
Go get em, Tiger, I heard her voice in my head. Just don’t get yourself killed. Your goddaughter needs you.
She and Nick had been keeping the gender a secret, and my chest clamped down on my heart with conflicting joy and fear that Ashlynn and I had put them in danger.
I moved to first position at the door and paused, making eye contact with each wolf and waiting for them to signal their readiness. Ashlynn moved up beside me and took my hand. Her power surged through me, and I was flying high on the excess, my senses reaching out to far beyond the camp as she touched me. I glanced down at her in wonder, and her eyes, molten chocolate in a sun-kissed face, smiled up at me knowingly.
“You ready to blow the top off?” She said, threading her fingers through mine. My body thrummed with violent possibility, and my mouth went Sahara dry. I gulped, nodded, and grasped the door handle in my other hand.
“OK, folks, time to go furry or go home.” I dropped Ashlynn’s hand and shifted mine into the same clawed abominations as the others, growling as my face lengthened into a furry muzzle. I’d forced myself to look in the mirror one night after I let myself change into what the movies would call a “wolfman.” Knowing what I looked like, I refused to look back at Caroline, afraid she’d see me the way I did.
“Time to go, wolf boy,” came a husky, thick growl from my elbow. I glanced down at Ashlynn, who was still changing as she spoke. In moments, a cinnamon wolf shook the mucoid lubricant from the shift all over the inside of the cabin and laughed as only a wolf could, a chuffing sound that made me smile until I remembered the form I’d taken and how grotesque a smile it was.
I felt the power of my combined packmates at my back, and the comfort of the spells folded around us. The knob was awkward in my inhuman hand, but I turned it with a jerk and flung the door open. I was met with the howls of packmates who now considered me the enemy, and I replied with a battle cry of my own, echoed by those behind me. But it was Ashlynn who leaped out into the mass of furry bodies outside the cabin door and disappeared in the mess. They turned on her almost as one, mad with the rage that whoever was leading had whipped up in them.
The doorframe shredded in my claws, wood splinters flying into my face as I followed her into the fray, howling for blood. Victory would be mine or I would leave a river of my enemy’s blood behind me in my defeat. The last thing I heard before I hit the swarming mass of fur and teeth was thunderous wings descending from the sky.
Chapter Five
I could feel the vampires landing around me and focused on the enemies in front as I tore my way through them to get to Ashlynn. Whatever my personal issues with her evaporated as the scent of blood filled my nostrils, and the wolf rode the wave of bloodlust that lead me to protect my alpha.
A howl of pain and rage was ripped from my throat as teeth sank into my shoulder. A smaller, female wolf clung to me when I tried to shake her off, digging her claws in for purchase until I got a grip on her and jerked her over my shoulder and threw her to the ground. My jaws wrapped around her throat and she lay almost perfectly still, panting breath and the minute twitching of her muscles as she lay terrified. I wanted to close my jaws and bleed her out completely. Instead, I growled a warning to her, picking her up by the scruff and tossing her toward the cabin.
She crossed the line of protection that ringed the building to the smell of singed fur and yelped but lay down just inside it and licked her wounds. She’d accepted my dominance and was no longer a threat, and the still human part of my brain cheered. If I could force the wolves to submit, we could escape the coup without deadly consequences.
All around me, though, wolves tore into each other and vampires ringed us, waiting to help those of us Caroline had marked. I went to the edge of the clearing where the vampires stood guard and shifted back to my human form in front of Colette.
“If we can get wolves to submit, we don’t have to kill them. Most of the wolves fighting don’t want to. They’re being forced by a superior power on one side or the other. We just have to figure out who that ‘other’ is.”
Colette nodded and turned to a vampire I didn’t know, standing to her left. She murmured something even I couldn’t hear over the din of the fight, and the other female flashed a quick grin, baring her fangs. She motioned to the vampires on the other side of her, and they took off, pushing off the ground like they were trying to high jump and disappearing against the clouds for a moment before reappearing. The three of them dove into the mass of furry bodies and shot back into the sky, each one carrying a wolf.
“Those are unmarked wolves. We’ll start questioning them, and we’ll call in the rats to back you up. They’re waiting by the cars,” she explained. It made sense that they’d been left behind in case of extreme emergency, but I didn’t want to drag in another shifter society just yet.
“Leave them there. I think we can cover this with the witches’ help.”
She nodded then paused as she started to turn away. “Be careful, though. Caroline’s magic has been sketchy lately. The baby’s messing with her the closer she gets to the end. Just don’t take any stupid chances based entirely on Caroline’s ability to keep you alive.”
I nodded my understanding, and she melted into the trees with the ease of centuries of practice in being unseen. There was a tug on my shirt, and I spun to see Ashlynn, her fur blood-soaked as she tottered on her feet. I picked her up and ran toward the cabin, spinning off course as two grappling wolfmen crossed our path. My abrupt course change sent me directly into a pair of wolves who were attacking a third, who I recognized as Roger. I set Ashlynn down as close to the cabin as I could and, beginning to shift, I grabbed each wolf by the scruff of their necks and yanked them back as hard as I could, throwing them over my head as I fell hard on my back.
Roger leaped between me and the two as they charged again, buying me time to finish the shift and join him. Claws slashed at my face as I danced around my opponent, looking for a weakness to exploit so I could force him into submission. Finally, after he snapped and swept his paw at me to drive me back, I found my opening and lunged at him, clamping my jaws over his throat and forcing him onto his back on the ground.
The beast inside me exulted, and I fought to not bite down all the way and tear his flesh from his body. I shook him hard enough to make him whimper, and he relaxed his body, completely submissive to me. I growled at him and herded him backward until he crossed the runic line with the same fizzle and yelp as the small female. I looked all around me for Ashlynn. She waved, back in human form, from the front porch of her cabin where she was assessing her wounds. As I watched, she limped down from the stairs and placed her hand on the smaller wolf’s head, who licked her hand and rolled over onto her back, showing her belly in the ultimate submissive pose.
The male also crept closer to Ashlynn, and I curled my lip back over my fangs to warn him away from her, but he too rolled onto his back, whimpering for his alpha to forgive and protect him. My wolf half and my human half mirrored confusion as Ashlynn kissed each wolf on the bridge of their noses and murmured to them gently. She’d forgiven them the moment they gav
e up the fight, something I didn’t know was in my alpha’s repertoire.
A yelp behind me brought me back to the fight, and I pivoted and bit a wolf on the flank as he straddled wolf-Roger and tried to crush his spine at the neck. The wolf released him and spun to meet me muzzle to muzzle, snarling and showing his fangs. We circled one another, and I waited for the attack that never came. Instead, I was picked up and hurled across the clearing by a force I didn’t recognize and could not describe until I found my feet and looked back to where I’d started. Caroline’s husband, Nick, was throwing wolves left and right, with no regard for which side they were on.
Something about the pure rage and panic in his normally unreadable face made me think of Caroline, and immediately I tried to reach out to her mentally. The wolf lowered my consciousness to a primal level, but when it came to my mental link with my friend, it actually elevated our communication. I searched for her. Not only did I not get a reply, but I couldn’t find her inside the cabin or in the clearing.
Nick’s panic became my own, and I raced back toward the cabin as vampires waded into the fight, spurred on by their master. I rubbed against Rachel, Nick’s general, and gave her hand a quick lick to let her know I recognized her, and she helped me cut a swathe through the core group of still battling wolves to get back to the master.
Hiding behind him and partially over the runic line, I shifted back to my human form, not caring that my clothes hadn’t made the change with me, and I was standing before the vampires naked as a newborn.
“Nick, what happened? Caroline’s in there. She’s supposed to be in there, safe,” I panted, and he gripped my shoulder, making me wince as he found one of the many bite marks on my neck and upper body.
“Thank you,” he said. “I lost her, which can only mean she’s unconscious. Can I get inside that building without disrupting her spells?”
I glanced out at the fight then back at the cabin door as I replied. “I’ll go first, but I think you’re fine. She wasn’t protecting against vampires.” I took the stairs in two steps and stuck my head in the darkened doorway, just as I was blasted backward and down to the ground at Nick’s feet. My head rang from being bashed against the hard ground, and I barely managed to grab Nick’s ankle before he raced up the stairs himself.
“Vampire,” I coughed, and his face transformed into something monstrous and alien. I’d never seen him like that before, and I struggled to regain a vertical position as Rachel helped. I sniffed the air and coughed again. “What is that stench?” It was reminiscent of another vampire battle we’d fought together, and just the memory of that other fight made my stomach churn with fear and repugnance of the rotting vampire we’d defeated.
Nick started up the steps, and I cast around for Ashlynn, who was nowhere to be seen. I sniffed the air again, dismayed when I found her strongest scent was inside the cabin, not just the lingering pheromones that we all leave in our spaces but the active scent of her, the tang of blood from her wounds and the acrid tinge of fear under it all.
I leaned on Rachel’s shoulder, and she walked us toward the little wooden front porch, sitting me on the top step and peering past me into the half-dark beyond the doorway. I tried to stand again, but she pushed down gently on my shoulder and shook her head.
“Stay out here and regroup with the pack. Tend to your wounded. That smell means that whoever is in there can kill you with the wounds you already have. Don’t risk yourself.”
“Rachel, my alpha is in there, and she’s wounded. I can’t just leave her.”
“Don’t be stupid right now, Clay. I haven’t the patience for it. Just do as I ask, please.” She shrouded herself in glamour right in front of me, and I watched her fade from view before a slight movement of the air by me face indicated that she’d moved toward the door. I stood and rolled my shoulders, testing the severity of my pain, and stepped back across the line to face the wolves still circling one another, tongues lolling out as they staggered around, trying to look more menacing than any of them felt.
I strode into the middle of the clearing where the black cinders from the fire were ground into the dirt and ash coated my feet. Wolves to my right growled low in their throats and advanced to within striking distance as I stood naked in the middle of the fire pit. It was so well trampled and disbursed that it the remnants barely warmed my toes as I turned in a slow circle in the middle of my clan.
The nearest of the opposition slunk toward me, guarded but submissive in his stance, keeping his belly close to the ground like a natural wolf would. I stretched out my hand, fingers curled under, and offered it to him. He sniffed it and flinched back quickly. It was still strange to me that while we could understand human speech in our wolf forms, we had no way to interact with our brethren when some of us were in one form and the rest in another. Only the wolfman form could speak to both, and that was why we tried to have as many as possible only half shift before a fight.
That none of the wolves had been able to maintain it spoke to the severity of the injuries being inflicted. I reached forward and gently scratched between the wolf’s ears then gently turned his head to check for neck and throat injuries. I sighed as I felt sticky, damp fur under his left ear.
“Sorry, buddy. We should’ve set better rules before we fought. I didn’t want my people getting hurt at all. Now our alpha’s in there with bad vamps, and we’re all too injured to do what’s right by the pack.” The wolf inched closer and dropped his head on my shoulder, shuddering and whimpering in pain.
“This is over,” Bernie boomed from behind me. “Too many are hurt, and we’ve lost lives. Three have died tonight. I glanced around at the few wolves that lay without moving on the ground, scattered all over the clearing. “You who opposed the alpha, gather our dead for the funeral pyre. Those who stood with the alpha, gather your strength. I have a feeling we have a much larger fight ahead of us.”
We turned to the cabin, standing silent and still, the door hanging open in a forbidding yawn. We’d left our most important assets inside to keep them safe. What nightmares would we find inside?
Chapter Six
Ashlynn was lying naked on the floor in a puddle of blood when I crept through the doorway. The cabin was pitch black, artificially dark outside the circle of light that fell on Ashlynn, and I knew I had to have been seen by whoever, whatever, was inside, even though I couldn’t see. I slid along the wall, feeling my way in the unnatural inky blackness until I stumbled on a chair and hit the corner. I felt a hand on my back and comforting breath on my ear as Roger whispered that I was the first link in a chain the pack had made.
“Oh, children, why don’t you all come in?” came a raspy voice from the darkness. “Let’s see the witch’s pets come a little closer.”
I hesitated, and Roger took the first step forward, hissing as something sharp slashed at his face. I felt the air move as it sliced through and dropped low, kicking out with one leg and catching someone behind the knees. The rasping voice chuckled and the lights went up, blinding me for a moment. I blinked quickly and tried to make sense of the blurry colors that bled together in front of me.
The table was still where Ashlynn had moved it, and now Caroline, Simi, and Henny sat in the high-backed chairs, each kept still and quiet with blades at their throats, held by the vampires who stood behind them. Nicholas was on all fours, his face contorted with silent rage as he glowered at the vampire who beamed down at him like a parent to a toddler just learning to walk.
“Master Nicholas of the west coast doesn’t look so scary now, does he?” the vampire mocked, and I glanced at Nick, then back at the newcomer.
“I dunno, Nick looks scary as hell to me right now. You better not take your foot off the neck of the tiger or he’s going to rip your head off,” Bernie’s reply came from the back of the room. A couple of pack members chuckled in response, and I figured anyone who could had already come back from fur to skin.
Nick met my eyes for a moment, and I saw fear flicker across them.
It wasn’t for himself, and I shared his concern for Henny and Ashlynn, and my Venatores friend, as well as his wife.
“Malcolm, you were welcomed into our clan when Glory was defeated, and you’ve been treated fairly in your time with us. Why would you throw it all away and commit suicide instead?” Nick asked the vampire, and Malcolm laughed, a simpering, high-pitched sound that made my skin crawl.
“Aw, Nick, Nick, Nick. You can’t really believe you’re the best offer in town. Not after you pissed off the remaining members of the council the way you did.”
“We raised our Night Mother from her prison and gained her favor. How is that not the best offer in town?” Caroline gasped, and the wolves all turned to her as the knife at her throat bit through skin and fresh blood trickled down to the neckline of her top.
“Some of us never worshipped the night hag, you human whore. That thing growing inside you is an abomination, and you’re all going to die for your sins.” Malcolm gestured to me and then pointed at the floor. “You, dog-boy. Kneel at my feet. You’re now my animal to call. At least until I kill you,” he laughed, and the vampires with him laughed along.
I stepped forward to the spot he’d pointed to on the floor, much closer to him than I would’ve preferred. He stank of rotten flesh and fetid water, the musty stench of decay cloying in my nostrils. I dropped to one knee and rested my hands on the other, looking up at him as he swayed drunkenly and continued to laugh at his joke.