by Lucy Lyons
The first guy had gotten back to his feet and snarled down at me, his yellow, nicotine-stained teeth bared. I felt more than saw his leg swing back and waited helplessly for it to swing through and smash me in the head, but the blow never came. I squinted up at him and he stared back down at me, a look of shock on his face. It took a minute for me to realize my side was wet, and I looked down to see him wetting himself. His right leg was still out of view, but as I watched, blood ran down his left leg, mingling with the piss, soaking the ground next to me.
Panicked, I tried to wriggle away from him as his buddy danced around precariously close to my head and yelled, “What the hell? What the hell, man?” I searched the canopy above us, looking for the only person I knew who had that sort of surgical precision to her work. Squinting my eyes almost closed, I could almost see the shimmer of Venatores combat camo in a tree nearby and silently cheered for Simi.
“What happened, man?” the second guy was still bleating, and it made my head feel like it could only be an improvement if it exploded. In frustration, I reached out and caught the back of his knee with my arm as he almost stepped on my face. I swung my arm across my body, sending him flying backwards, and took the opportunity to scoot away from the pee and blood and screaming that was threatening to blow my eardrums.
A light flashed somewhere over my head, and an arrow lodged itself in the one-legged man’s chest. He gurgled and sank to the forest floor, and I kept scooting away from them, pulling myself with my arms and digging my heels into the earth to propel me back. Just as I reached the thicker trees and undergrowth, a set of hands grabbed my shirt at the shoulders and yanked me hard. I rolled over in a backward somersault and swung out with my fists, catching my new capture in the face.
“Damnit, Clay. Watch where you swing those things,” Roger hissed, and hearing his voice startled me into stillness. “We got people all around, and we’re letting your guys get the kills here so they don’t smell it on us. We got to get that blood off you, like, yesterday.”
I forced myself into a sitting position and felt the back of my head. Under the dirt and caked blood were two big gashes and, I was pretty sure, a few cracks in my skull. Roger and a wolf just outside my bleary range of vision were whispering, and in a panic, I realized I couldn’t hear them.
“Oh, God. Oh no. Roger, I can’t hear you. I can’t barely hear like a human,” I panted, and instantly he was back at my side.
“Never mind that. It’ll come back. You got hit so hard things are still shaking in there. I’m sorry. I told her to do it.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I figured.”
“I’m real sorry, Clay, but I didn’t have time or a way to tell you to play along, not with all those witnesses. I told her to make it look good so Gregor wouldn’t hurt her. I always planned to save you, though, you ungrateful cuss. You been with those hunters too long, if you can’t trust your own clan to do the right thing.”
I chuckled then moaned as the pain intensified. “No, I am grateful. But my head freaking hurts, and I can’t fight like this. I’ll get killed out there. I guess I could’ve given you guys a little more credit, considering you helped me become the well-adjusted wolf I am today. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’ll be the proudest wolf-papa in the world when you take your place at the head of the pack, boyo,” I heard Bernie chuckle.
“I’m holding a front-row seat for when you kill Gregor,” Roger added as he pressed a pouch into my hands and another wolf brought me a water bag. When he got close enough, I saw that it really was Bernie and let him pour some cold water into my mouth.
“Roger told me everything, Clay. I told him I don’t blame you one bit. Everyone has been acting for their own interests or not acting at all, including me. You need us. We’re here for you. I won’t let you go down for my mistakes.”
“None of us will,” Roger added, and I snorted, thinking of Ashlynn. “Henny said you’d need something for pain and bleeding if they were torturing you. I guess they didn’t get that far, so maybe only half of it?” he asked, opening the strings of the leather sack. I took it from him and poured the crushed herbs into my mouth and motioned for the water while I chewed and tried to swallow the sawdust-like mess.
“Never only half, Roger. The Venatores taught me that. You take half. That pain’s gonna sneak up on you and kick your sorry ass before the enemy can.”
He chuckled and held out a hand to help me stand up. I wobbled, asked for more water, then drank as much as my stomach could handle. Bernie poured another canteen’s worth over my head, which made me feel better within seconds. Roger let me sling an arm across his shoulders, and he led me away from the carnage in the woods behind me.
We weren’t heading back to camp; the sinking sun was in the wrong position for that. But I was too weak still to fight and figured if Roger and Bernie had stacked up against me, Simi would just find them and kill them too. As if reading my mind, Roger glanced back over his shoulder the way we’d come.
“That little girl’s something else, isn’t she?” he asked, his voice low and respectful. I chuckled and agreed, sure that if I tried to roll my eyes at him, they’d fall out of my head.
“There’s no one I’d rather go into battle with, and that includes Caroline,” I said, testing my feet out without Roger as a crutch. When I stayed standing, I motioned Roger ahead of me, to speed up our travel.
“She’s awfully pretty. I can’t imagine what it would be like to look up at her when you’re taking your final breath.” Roger made it sound as though dying at Simi’s hand would be a gift, and I gagged a little.
“She’s a Venatores, Roger. Not a wet dream,” I reminded him. “And she’s not pretty,” I added. “She’s… ethereal, beautiful, exotic…even magical. But pretty? That’s like saying Caroline is a ‘decent witch.’”
“Or Ashlynn’s a little spoiled,” Bernie added. Roger chuckled but my hackles went up.
“She’s not spoiled.” Roger stopped in his tracks and turned to face me, his eyebrows raised. “She’s not spoiled,” I repeated. “She’s terrified. She’s a survivor, and I completely threw her under the bus because I was jealous. I thought she didn’t fight hard enough to get him off her,” I explained. “She didn’t fight at all. I just didn’t figure that maybe it meant she was too scared to fight because it’s happened before.”
Roger whistled softly and glanced at his brother. “Clay, that’s how she was changed. We took her in because she was so damned broken we were afraid of who else would find her.”
“A heads up would’ve been nice,” I griped.
“Not my story to tell,” Roger retorted. “Besides, would you have believed me if I told you that earlier?” I heard a snap in the boughs above us and shook my head quickly.
Somayo dropped from the lower branches to the ground and threw his arms around me in an agonizing hug. I whimpered and he released me with an apologetic smile.
“It’s good to see you Clay, even if you’re not as well as we’d like you to be,” he said, and his low, mellow voice made my head hurt a little less too.
“Thanks, Somayo. I’m really grateful you came. I know how much of a risk it is for you to even be near me.”
“No risk, Clayton. If anyone asks, we got an anonymous tip, wink, wink,” he jostled me with his elbow, “that kids were being abused and we took care of the abusers, who happened to be preternatural, so their deaths are justified.” His broad smile glowed in his dark face, and I cupped my hand in my palm as Roger let out another whistle.
“That’s cold. I mean, we’re standing right here, and you’re talking about justified homicide like we’re animals,” he huffed. “Never mind. Scratch that. I don’t want to have a discussion of philosophy over the realness of werewolves versus natural wolves right now.”
“Good choice,” Simi panted as she clambered down a line from the trees. “Soma, I don’t think the nice werewolves want to hear how easy it is to get away with killing them.” Somayo blinked s
lowly, then realization dawned on his face.
“My apologies, men. I’m still getting used to the knowledge that creatures are not always the…bad guys. It’s easier to see Clayton as a victim, a casualty of war because he was a good soldier, like Caroline,” he offered, bowing low to Roger. Roger’s face grew ruddy and split with a grin as he tried not to stare at Simi’s skin-tight uniform.
“It’s nothing, ah, sir. Misunderstandings abound at the camp right now.”
I ignored the dig and tried to get my bearings. We still weren’t headed back to camp, but there was just enough sun left above the trees to figure out which way was home, even with my nose and ears and just about everything else the wolf gave me on the fritz. I made it a few feet before Roger stopped me and turned me back.
“Oh no, buddy. Can’t go that way.” He guided me back to the others. “If Gregor sees or even smells you coming, it’s game over. He’ll know his trap didn’t work, and it’ll be war between the packs.”
“We can’t have the children fighting full grown wolves, especially after Petra’s been brain-sucking them. They won’t survive to be rescued,” Simi pointed out.
“Fine. Sounds like I’m not the man with the plan anymore,” I complained, but I let them explain the change of plans.
“We’ll go back while you recover a little more with Simi and Somayo, here,” Bernie directed. “When you can change, stay downwind and wind your way around to the ring. We’ll set it up so that you have some time but get to fight before the young ones are forced into the fray.”
“What about Ashlynn? Someone needs to be with her at all times. If Gregor can scare her that bad on his own, how is she going to face him and Petra?” I pushed. Somayo gripped my shoulder, making me wince.
“They know what to do, Clay. They came and got us, didn’t they? And told Fin and the other shifters what happened? Everyone is in the know, and we all get the plan.”
I stifled my irritation that “the plan” had apparently included letting me get my brains bashed in so I could go undercover and managed a smile.
“Hey, I may be bleeding brains out my ears, but you’re right—everything’s going to be fine. After all, tonight, I get to be a hunter and a wolf, and nothing will stand between me and the hot blood beneath the flesh of Gregor’s throat.”
Chapter Nineteen
Somayo led the way toward the safe zone the rats had waiting near where we’d met earlier, with Simi catching me up on the Venatores as we talked. She seemed happier than she’d been in a long time, ever since Caroline had left the society. The Pope had stepped in and righted some wrongs, including Dominique’s murderous cousin, the lady Sophia di Borgia, who was currently excommunicated. Last Simi had heard, Sophia and a few of her most fanatic followers were hunting Dominique and her new mistress across the globe.
“Well, at least I now know the real reason Dom won’t come out of hiding,” I quipped. Knowing she was on the run from her cousin made it easier to be glad I hadn’t met with the queen yet. It would have to come sooner or later, but tonight I could focus on real innocents.
The herbs were definitely working by the time I met with the wererats and the moon was starting that strange pull I’d been feeling, despite not having risen yet. Even the rats seemed to feel something in the air. They jostled and laughed more than I’d seen from them before, but everyone seemed to go very quiet when they noticed I was watching them. Paranoid about the hunters taking out the teenaged-Stockholm sufferers, I reiterated to the rats that they needed to tranq and bag every kid they found, regardless of whether they fought.
The sun sank low enough in the sky that the only sign it existed was a light edge of light that stretched over the tops of the trees while I paced. The wererats had left me alone on the side of the mountain with instructions not to go to the ring before I could see the moon. The eclipse was at full moonrise, after the duels were supposed to be over, when the victors and the new alpha were to lead the wild hunt under the darkened sky.
Even with the pull of the moon, my skin stretched thin and tight, the beast had chosen to withdraw, and I couldn’t muster the energy to shift. It was either the herbal drug cocktail I’d taken or the coming eclipse that made me feel gamy and hungover. If I were gambling, I knew where I’d put my money.
“Stupid herbs, Henny. Shat did you give me?” I muttered aloud. “Take ‘em all, Roger, don’t ever take half.” I mocked myself and groaned at my stupidity. If it was Percocet, take them all, I amended in my head. If it’s anything from Henny’s magic bag of tricks, tread lightly and don’t plan on driving.
I focused on the pull of the rising moon, the soft, gentle tug on my skin and my heart as it sang of running through the forest, chasing, heart pounding as my prey stumbled before me. I remembered the dream I’d had of Ashlynn, her taunting howl as she led me through the forest. Tonight, I could have that chase again.
I glanced down at my hands too big to grip my thighs and saw that the change had begun without my willing it. Grateful for once to see my limbs and digits changing form, I stripped out of my clothes, even though being dragged through the rocks and underbrush had mostly reduced them to shreds and the shift would’ve finished them.
I let the moon speak to my wolf, sing the siren song of my people until it rubbed along the inside of my head like it was scent marking me, happy and still a little dopey from the pain killing herbs. But I wouldn’t need the medicine much longer. The beast reached out and my fingers elongated more, the nails extending into claws.
My eyes could suddenly see the mouse hiding in the shade of a fern leaf on the other side of the stream, and I knew if I caught a glimpse of my face my eyes would glow with internal moonlight; my face that was almost a wolf muzzle jutting out from my skull so my canine nose could smell every amazing scent on the breeze, from the grass and the trees to the deer that bedded down in the thickets where the trees grew thick and tall.
My spine burned and ached as my vertebrae reformed, adding inches to my height, but the beast reveled in the pain, and I nearly forgot not to howl to my packmates in joy at the freedom of my form.
The moon was visible above the trees, and I circled down toward the ring. I could sense the wererats nearby, but they stayed out of the wind too. I looked all around me in the trees and found two shimmers in the darkness. Simi and Somayo had my back as much as they always had. I prayed that they showed the wisdom to stay away from the fight and kicked my legs harder, leaning forward and using my claws to find purchase in the soil so I was almost running on all fours.
I couldn’t sense the vampires, but as the moonlight sang through me and the anticipation of battle pumped my blood ever faster. I didn’t need vampire power or witch’s magic. I was an alpha, made to hunt, to fight, and to protect my people. The beast in me was angry for my weakness, for depending too much on others instead of my own strength. For not being more like Ashlynn, independent and forceful despite her fears.
There was blood on the night breeze and the sounds of fighting when I crept around to the ring. The fighters exchanged blows, their claws drawing blood and painting the dirt of the ring and each other while both packs looked on. I let my gaze rove over the gathered audience of werewolves in human, wolf-man, and giant wolf form. Ashlynn was sitting with Gregor at her side and a striking blonde next to him. Petra. I could taste her fear and despondence that anyone would save her from the people who had caused her so much harm. Possessive fury welled up in my gut, and I flexed my claws, my beast demanding justice. I felt the roar deep in my throat just before it escaped, and all eyes, human and wolf, turned to me.
“Petra!” I bellowed her name and the duelists in the ring fell away from each other in surprise. I climbed the fence that hemmed in the fighting ring and perched there, waiting for a response. Gregor’s face was pale in the moonlight, and even from fifty feet away, I could hear his heart rate speed up.
The blonde stood and placed her hands on her hips. She shook out her short, platinum hair and scowled down at me
, not frightened in the least. Not that it mattered. If anything, it was better for her to be overconfident and unaware than cautious.
“Who’s asking?” I stretched to the moonlight and grinned at her, baring my teeth. “Oh, it’s the mutt who thinks he’s a wolf. I’ve heard of you.” She scoffed and sat down. “Let the duel continue,” she called out, and my gaze shot to Ashlynn, whose face froze at the careless intrusion on her authority. There was no mistaking who Petra thought was in charge. I fumed that a human would think themselves superior to any wolf and roared again, leaping to the top rail of the fighting ring and crouching there, my eyes on the fighters.
The first to die, a part of me pled, but my humanity was still in control enough to stop the thought before it solidified in my head as a good idea.
The two young challengers seemed lost, unable to continue fighting, and Ashlynn waved them away. Dejected, they slunk off to the side of the ring and waited for direction. I strode into the center and stood waiting, refusing to let anyone in unless they fought with me.
“Your men failed to keep me away, Gregor. I apologize for the disappointment that must be to you.” A gasp went up from the Rainier pack members in the audience, followed by snarling and low growls as they readied for a fight to defend my honor
“I’ll just have to speak with them later, I suppose,” the alpha replied smoothly.