Heart of Darkness: Part One Taint of Shadow

by Cassandra Moore

  The muscles in Peter’s jaw twitched. His shoulders drew straighter. “I want to hear what he has to say,” he said quietly. “It seems you were wrong, Regina.”

  Somewhere, a night bird chirped. Leaves rustled as a breeze blew through them. The gathered wolves watched in profound quiet.

  Peter’s words had left her with no voice. Her jaw gaped open, but no sound came out as her mouth worked. “Then tell us,” she forced out in a snarl at last. “Did you kill two vampires last night? Against the alpha’s orders?”

  “I had Lord Vincenzo Pirelli’s permission. I did not violate the truce.” Now Noah turned his attention to the infuriated woman before him. “They were killed for their involvement in an offense against one of our members.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Regina bit out a raw laugh. “Is this about your little vendetta? Your personal war? No one cares anymore. The pack is tired of hearing about this!”

  Someone cleared her throat. “I care. I think the pack deserves to know more.”

  Regina whirled, hands curled into claws. “No one asked you.”

  “That’s enough.” Peter stopped her cold.

  She inhaled a sharp breath but somehow kept her temper under control. “What offense? What could they have done? The whole reason for your—your disobedience—is right there with you. Did you two plan this?”

  Attention focused on Kayla. Part of her wanted to hide from their keen scrutiny, but the time for that had passed. No known force could make her anything but what she was, and the pack would have to accept it. So she stood before them, unflinching, and pulled her glasses from her face.

  Several werewolves gasped. Peter frowned. “Kayla? What happened?”

  “Regina lied to you.” She didn’t know how many times she’d rehearsed this moment in her head, gone over the words again and again until she was satisfied. Now that she had arrived here, all her careful planning flew away. “Ask her. Ask her about the ritual. About Paul Kiplinger.”

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about.” Regina lied well. She had plenty of practice.

  The moon drew higher. Kayla’s inner wolf had little patience for these games. She’d waited too long already. “Did you tell them how you moaned when Kiplinger left those marks on you? While Miles and Mason Bristol dragged me off to where you kept the other werewolves, how you ran back to lie about how you’d been attacked? How you gave me to them, you lying bitch?”

  She sneered. “You’ve gone too far. What do you think you’ll accomplish with this story? I’m the alpha’s mate. Who are they going to believe? You or me?”

  “It’s true.”

  Startled, Kayla watched as Todd stepped forward. Whether he had broken under the strain of expired lies or had found his tarnished honor, she couldn’t say. Somewhere beneath his stooped shoulders and shamed demeanor, perhaps the man they had known still lived.

  “Of course you would say so!” Regina’s laugh had the edge of hysteria. “You’re Noah’s best friend.”

  “I was there. I helped. And I called you last night, when you sent the vampires to burn down their apartment. I told you Kayla had come back, and I told you where she was.” He turned to face them. “I’m so sorry.”

  Behind Kayla, Cameron and his men shifted to close ranks. Their support was clear to all who watched.

  “I saw you with those strange wolves last night, Regina,” Cameron said.

  Regina turned to Peter. “You can’t believe any of this.”

  Hurt showed in every line of Peter’s face, deep, profound pain that cut to his soul. All that he had tried not to see, he could no longer ignore. He had loved his mate. He mourned the woman he had bound himself to so long ago. “No more lies,” he said hoarsely.

  “Peter—”

  “No.” His chuckle had no humor in it. “Do you even know how to tell the truth anymore? I’d ask you why, but I don’t know that it would matter. The pack has suffered... How many people have you hurt? God, you have made such a fool out of me.”

  Contempt oozed from her look. “You’ve always been a fool.”

  “Not anymore. You’ve cured me.” He turned to Kayla. “I’ve allowed this to happen. As alpha of this pack, as her mate, she was my responsibility. I can’t take back anything that happened. But I’ll do what I can to repay what you’ve lost.”

  “Then give her to me for justice.”

  It was a challenge. A demand. And he obviously knew what it meant; he closed his eyes against it. Kayla had asked for a fight to the death.

  “Does the pack have any objections?” he asked after a moment, opening his eyes and looking around the gathered pack.

  Regina’s eyes had gone cold. “You fucking coward,” she growled. “You can’t even deal with me yourself. What did I ever see in you? Spineless bastard.”

  No one voiced an objection. Peter looked torn, unsure if he wished they had or not. “You know the rules. You fight in a circle of your peers. We will let only one of you leave.”

  “These are not my peers. You want to know why I did it? Because we are wolves. We’re not dogs, living in the backyards of humans and taking whatever scraps they give us.” She shouted at Peter’s back as he turned to take his place in the circle. “You aren’t an alpha. You’re a mutt in a pound, just waiting for them to put you down.”

  Noah said nothing. Instead, he cupped Kayla’s face in his hands. Blue eyes met hers, searched them, before he leaned down to give her a long, warm kiss. She saw no doubt in him, despite the tension in his muscles. To him, only one outcome was possible.

  Then he walked away to stand beside Peter. Cameron and his enforcers stood outside the circle, the final line in the sand. Cameron patted her shoulder as she stepped into the ring.

  Wolves smell fear. They also smell arousal, sadness, excitement. The scent of anticipation hung thickly in her nose, thick enough to taste. She couldn’t remember the last time a call for justice had ended in a death, and it seemed no one else could, either. Tomorrow, they would feel the loss of the pack’s relative innocence. Tonight, it was catharsis, an end to the misery of the previous year.

  The circle closed the moment Kayla stepped into it. Regina wasted no time, taking her half-form before the last spectator had taken their position. Still human, Kayla rolled to the side and dodged the massive brown-furred form that flew toward her. Her opponent landed hard on the ground but found her feet without hesitation.

  For hours, the wolf had paced, demanded its freedom. She let it loose at last and felt her bones shift, her body bulk, her skin stretch as fur covered it. Power coursed through her, wild, untamed energy gifted by the full moon that shone overhead. In this ring, she didn’t have to fear herself or her killer’s instincts. The shadows roiled within her, and she rejoiced in them. Take me. Give me strength. Win me peace or earn me death, but let it end tonight.

  They circled, growling deep in their throats as they sought a weakness in the other. Regina left herself open. A feint proved her speed. It was a deception, a ploy to lure her opponent in. She played her strengths.

  But Kayla was the monster Regina had helped make. And she couldn’t wait any longer.

  She bunched her muscles then uncoiled like a spring. Their bodies collided in a tangle of limbs. Teeth bit into her arm, but she didn’t care. Her own jaw closed around Regina’s shoulder. As her teeth bit in, she thrashed her head with vicious shakes. Flesh tore free. A yelp split the air.

  Blooded, Regina flailed her limbs until Kayla flew free. She didn’t pause but launched back into the fray. Momentum rolled them over once, again while their claws raked blindly over each other’s skin.

  She expected pain, the burn of cut muscle. It fed her rage, each wound more fuel for the uncontrolled blaze within. But she didn’t expect the unnatural numbness that touched the edges of each claw slice. Her mouth tasted sour, stale. Dead.

  Regina had drunk blood from a vampire.

  It was the vampire’s defense against the werewolf. Pain riled the beast i
nside, so the undead left a lack of sensation instead. Kayla’s dark nature conferred some immunity to it, but another wolf couldn’t say the same. Another plot, another betrayal. Anger exploded inside her.

  All the world disappeared but for the enemy. Gore dripped down Regina’s arm from her torn shoulder. She didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she launched herself at Kayla, aiming low, and hit her in the midsection. In her distraction, the white wolf saw the leap but too late.

  She had no traction. A turtle out of its shell, she had gotten trapped on her back. Claws raked down her sides, first with a white-hot burst of pain. Then the numbness, cold and flat. Teeth tore at her thigh. She kicked Regina in the head, hard, again and again, until she disengaged.

  One arm tingled. Her sides itched with dribbles of crimson. And the blood in her mouth did not taste like victory, but ashes.

  Her opponent leaped. Kayla saw it this time and drew her knees up at the last moment. Her hands closed around Regina’s upper arms. Kayla held fast as she raked her clawed feet down Regina’s midsection in a brutal rabbit kick. Flesh ripped away with each successive tear. Like a rag doll, Regina flew as the white wolf shoved her away, and she landed in a heap of limbs.

  Regina tried to stand. She struggled to regain her feet, but her ruined torso had taken too much damage. On one knee, she tried to fend the shadow wolf off, but her injured arm had grown too weak. Kayla beat her down, pummeled her with merciless blows until the brown pelt had turned red. Then the fur receded and Regina lay broken, barely breathing, on the ground.

  Kayla threw her head back and howled, the signal that alerted the pack to a kill. With the moon so high and the roar of her own pulse in her ears, it took all her strength to rein in the beast. She wanted death, the crunch of a neck in her jaws, but she pulled her back, held her down. She had questions that needed answers.

  A wet wheeze came with each breath Regina took. Blood trickled out of her mouth and nose. Her eyes rolled right, then left, but seemed to see nothing around her. Kayla knelt next to her, and she could see the violent purple glow of her eyes reflected in that empty gaze. “Where is Kiplinger?”

  Heinous laughter turned into soggy coughs. “Far away. Safe— Safe from you.”

  Wrath gripped her. Her jaw ached as she clenched it too hard. “Where is he?”

  “Ungrateful. We gave you...” Pink foam flecked the corner of her mouth as she coughed again. “...power. More than you know.”

  “I didn’t want it.” Kayla shook with unreleased tension. The moon did not stop its climb to watch its children fight and die. Soon, she would lose what control she had.

  Regina’s eyes rolled again. “So close. The pack... Almost mine. In my hand. The city. In my hand. My time. Our time. Should have...known your place.”

  “Where is he? Damn you, where is Kiplinger?” Unable to hold back, Kayla gripped the woman by the arms and shook. She battered against the ground, unable to fight back.

  “Back...” She gasped. “...where it all started.”

  Regina’s muscles seized, and her back bowed. A moan, blank but terrible, escaped her lips, then she dropped back to the ground. Tremors shook her body, but somehow, she lifted her arm to reach toward Peter.

  Then she went slack. The soft whistling from her lungs quieted. She was dead.

  For the span of a heartbeat, no one moved. Noah shifted, half-wolf, and lifted his head to give a long, mournful howl. The pack followed suit, until melancholy notes haunted the night and echoed from the mountainsides. Betrayer or traitor, Regina had once served the pack, and they would give their fallen comrade one final lament.

  Noah took his human form again when the last howl died away. The time had come. He wished he could give Peter longer to grieve, to pull himself together, but the moon’s relentless climb gave him no choice.

  Regret smothered the triumph he had thought he would feel. He had imagined wresting control from a strong, determined alpha, not a broken man who stood before his disgraced mate’s body.

  “Peter,” he said as Kayla came to stand next to him.

  Peter looked up, expression somewhere beyond sorrow. “I know,” was all he said.

  No, this wasn’t how he had envisioned it. “Then I challenge you for leadership of the pack.”

  The wolves had not dissipated from the previous fight. With a sigh, Peter stepped into the circle next to the imploring hand of his dead lover. “I accept your challenge. Enforcer, it is your duty to declare the new alpha, by the traditions of our kind.”

  “I will do so.” Cameron looked grim.

  Noah stroked Kayla’s hair once, for luck, for strength. Then he stepped into the circle. At another time, he would have pressed the attack right away, but tonight, it seemed disrespectful.

  And Peter had no fight left in him. Instead, he went to one knee and bared his throat to Noah.

  “The alpha yields,” came Cameron’s voice. “Noah is our leader.”

  No cheers, no howls, no barks of anger or celebration. Only a solemn silence, and the breath of wind through the leaves of the trees.

  “War has come,” Noah said when he couldn’t bear the weight of it any longer, “but not from the vampires we know. This is a new enemy. A new fight. Everything that we’ve known will change. It has to.

  “More than ever, we have to come together. Stand with each other. In the coming weeks, we’ll meet again, when the full moon isn’t over our heads and in our spirits. We’ll try to understand what has happened and decide what we need to do. But tonight, we hunt together, as a pack, and we remember who we should be.”

  Someone called out, “We’re with you, alpha,” and Noah smiled.

  “Cameron. Bring Todd to me.”

  The big enforcer grabbed Todd’s arm in an iron grip. Dale grabbed the other arm, and together, they hauled him forward, trapped so he couldn’t run.

  Noah didn’t think he would. Like Peter, Todd had no resistance left. He shuffled forward between the men that held him, and Noah saw in his eyes that he expected to die.

  Kayla’s eyes met Noah’s, indigo depths filled with trust. His heart swelled as he brushed the pad of his thumb over her lips. Days ago, she would have ripped Todd to shreds with her own hands. Now, she left the decision with her alpha. Her mate.

  He knew what he had to do. “By all rights, I should kill you,” he said to the man who had been his best friend. “You helped the enemy. Because of this, two pack members, Kayla Schinn and Derek Anderson, were caused harm that we can’t undo.”

  Someone gasped. They hadn’t known about Derek.

  “Because of you, our apartment was burned down by vampires, and by the shadow wolves you helped to create. You helped to create this war, and you ought to be its first casualty. Instead, I’m going to give you a chance at life.”

  Todd blinked. “What?”

  Noah took a deep breath. “Now’s your chance to make up for what you’ve done. You’ll tell us everything you know. Every piece of the ritual, what you heard, what you saw. Who else is involved. Arm us with information, and you’ll earn exile. But decide now.”

  He’d never know why Todd made his choice, whether out of the remains of a friendship or fear for his own skin. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  Deliberately, Noah reached forward with a furred hand. He dragged his claws over Todd’s face, leaving four ragged gashes from his forehead to the opposite side of his jaw. The enforcers held him still as he cried out, writhed, then drooped into their grasp. Even in wolf form, the mark of the exile would show, and once they saw it, no pack would accept him, no werewolf would help him. Now, he was truly alone.

  “Tie him to a tree. We’ll come back for him when the hunt is over.” Noah turned his attention to those gathered, the sad, uncertain faces who looked to him for hope. That was all he had to give them. They didn’t know what threatened them, and he wished he could keep it that way.

  Overhead, the silver moon lit the sky. It called to him, as it called to them all. In its glow, he lost his w
orry for the future. It comforted the sadness of the past. The wolf inside didn’t know regret. It only knew that it wanted to run, to chase, and feel the moonlight on its fur.

  He looked to Kayla. “Run with me,” he told her, and her answering smile recalled a night one year ago when two wolves, one white, one gray, raced through the trees, happy, in love, and free.

  Power waited inside him. He tapped it, and around him forms shifted, once human, now lupine, always children of the night. Howls rose in the air, full-throated, lusty bays that filled the woods and startled sleepy birds from their chosen perches. The moon reached its zenith.

  Together, they ran.

  The End

  Author Bio

  Cassandra Moore is an eccentric, thirty-something insomniac with an overactive imagination and a deep lust for words. Writing is her preferred vice, and has proved more addicting than even chocolate. Usually, she is found at the computer, headphones on, interrogating her Muse until the poor thing sings.

  If she is not absorbed in her word processor, you might also find her reading, working with her aquarium, or playing with yarn and pointed sticks. She lives in Arizona with her husband, two children, two cats and pair of spoiled guinea pigs.

  The author can be found at www.cassandra-moore.com