Tribal Spirit: Forged Alliances

by Katherine McIntyre

  No one stood watch as she’d expected.

  Sierra crept to the back, trying to ignore the shouts and yowls coming from inside. The fresh-cut grass overpowered most of the scents around this place, but a hint of something tinny caught her attention. Her snout trailed along the ground as she soaked in the rich loam of the dirt below, the smells causing her nose to tingle. The urge to fight thrummed through her stronger than ever, but it now warred with a sense of wrong, one she couldn’t quite place.

  Feet away, something metallic glinted in the grass.

  Sierra padded forward, each step cautious. The closer she approached, the more the scent filled her nose—metal, decay, and something unidentifiable. The moonlight illuminated the object, making her stop still in her path. Pipes bound together with an electric fuse on the end and a timer attached.

  This wasn’t a negotiation in the slightest. This classified as either outright annihilation or a trap.

  Those bastards had brought pipe bombs.

  Rage burned fiercely inside Sierra’s chest, followed by dread. That thing could explode at any moment while Dax and the others were all inside the house. She nudged the timer with her snout to get a glimpse of the numbers, but without hands, she couldn’t move it to the right angle. Somehow she doubted any of Drew’s men waited around in there, not with the literal ticking bomb out back. She shifted into her human form at once, breaking into a run even before she settled on two feet. The grass slipped beneath her bare soles, but she tossed her hands out for balance, not pausing for a moment as she rocketed toward the door.

  The couple of steps creaked under her feet as she raced up them before colliding with the door. It gave under her force with no effort, presumably left open by whatever bastard had sneaked out to leave the surprise. Inside, growls lit the air as Dax hunched over in the main room, shifted to two feet as he worked at slicing the bonds of a family who’d been bound, husband, wife, and their three kids. Ally had pitched in, but Sierra’s wolves were nowhere to be found. Chances were, like her, they’d taken inventory of more immediate concerns. More houses marked this stretch.

  “Don’t bother untying,” Sierra commanded, her voice filling the room. “Get them as far away from this house as possible. There’s a pipe bomb out back.”

  The word itself detonated in the thick air, a serious threat unable to be ignored. Dax’s eyes widened, his nostrils flared, but rather than wasting breath responding, he got straight to work. Sierra rushed up and grabbed one of the girls, who couldn’t have been older than seven. The little guy by her side had already been untied, and his other older sister grabbed his hand.

  “Follow me,” Sierra said. The little boy looked up to Dax, who nodded in confirmation as he lifted the mother, carrying her across the threshold of the house as they headed for the door. Ally finished sawing through the cord keeping the father bound. Sierra didn’t look back, already heading for the door with her precious cargo. Ugly burns wound around the skin where the cord touched, and the second it scraped against her skin, the area sizzled where a residue imprinted. Bastards must’ve coated the cord in colloidal silver and bound them while wearing gloves.

  Anger ripped through her in a wildfire blaze that they’d threaten this family, that they’d torture and try to kill children. That the cowards would defy the Tribe rules of fighting by the claw and fang. Guns and bombs were human weapons, dishonorable to shifter-kind.

  She burst out the front door with the children. Based on the way the pipe bomb pricked her nostrils, the explosive was ready to blow.

  “Keep running until you reach the cars,” she urged, giving the oldest kid a push. The girl tugged on her little brother’s hand, guiding him forward to keep running on their own. Sierra’s claws flashed out quick as she snipped the final cords binding the girl in her arms and set the kid down before nodding ahead. Once the patter of feet sounded behind her, she whipped around.

  Right in time to see the house explode into flames.

  Chapter Eight

  Dax had just risen to his feet when a blast of heat rolled his way. Light sparked in his eyes when he turned toward the house, the blinding gusts rolling out of it spelling seven shades of destruction. Rage ignited his veins and scorched his soul at witnessing the destruction Drew had caused to his own people, the family and friends he’d grown up with. He scanned for his packmates. Sierra had staggered far enough away while the kids sprinted past him as fast as their short legs could carry them. Safe.

  Ally and Rick raced away from the house, but not fast enough.

  Flames gusted behind them, the black, oily smoke pouring into the sky in torrents. Dax’s throat squeezed tight. All this destruction because he’d challenged his brother for the role of alpha. Now his people suffered.

  “I’m going to check the other houses,” Sierra said, emanating calm despite the chaos raging around them. Her gaze glowed amber, and with fluid agility, she transformed into wolf form before launching off. Gratitude pounded a heavy beat in Dax’s chest for her level head and for her strength. After witnessing her competence in action, he trusted her to protect his pack.

  He hurtled toward Ally, who’d stumbled to the ground. Rick thrashed around, trying to extinguish the flames threatening to devour his skin. Ally’s brows drew together, her teeth gritted in pain as she pushed herself up. She leaned on her left leg, the right one hanging limp with a streak of the colloidal silver from Rick’s bonds melted there. A long, jagged wound ran down her calf, blood rushing at an alarming rate.

  “Marcy,” Dax called out, “hand over a piece of cloth. Anything.”

  Marcy kicked leaves as she rushed over, the brunette ripping a section of her camisole off and passing the fabric his way. A second later, her knees slammed to the ground next to her husband. Tears streamed down her face, but the woman took firm action, stomping out the residual flames. Dax knelt by Ally’s side, taking the rag and wrapping it tightly around the gushing wound on her calf. Already sweat beaded on her brow, and she swayed where she stood, the shock settling in. With the colloidal silver impeding quick healing, this would leave an ugly scar.

  “Can you make it to the car?” he asked. She nodded, her fierce gaze steady despite the pain. “That’s my girl.” He squeezed her shoulder before stepping away. If his brother was tying up his people and planting bombs, this wouldn’t be the only house under siege. This neighborhood was one of the largest clusters of his pack, one his brother had targeted without mercy. In the distance, a wolf’s fur shone under the moonlight, running with those long, loping strides that marked her apart. Sierra headed for the cabin on the far right.

  A couple of other packmates sprinted from their houses, followed by the wolves Sierra had brought with her. They rushed as far and fast as possible in the direction of the road or their cars parked along the unpaved circle that constituted a road out here. The pop and crackle of Marcy and Rick’s house filtered into his hearing, the sound jolting the adrenaline in his veins. He shifted, hitting the ground on all fours and taking off at the sort of run to make the breeze ruffle through his fur. His brother would pay for this. Causing him problems was one thing. Hell, attacking him, fine. But taking out this split on their people?

  Unforgiveable.

  His paws pounded against the ground with the increasing crescendo of a war drum, the sound thrumming in his ears. Despite the chaos that reigned, Drew and the elders of Silver Spring were nowhere in sight. Dax tuned out the shouts, cries, and the sight of his packmates fleeing their houses, before following Sierra to the house on the far right. Lana and her husband, Greg, lived in that house, and his brother never would’ve let those tough fighters alone.

  Sierra prowled around the back of the house as he neared. She lifted her head, catching his gaze. He dipped his head in acknowledgment—she’d investigate for a bomb while he went to release anyone inside. In the distance, a boom quaked the air, the sort to make his fur stand on edge. He couldn’t look, not yet. If he caught sight of the destruction, he’d be pulled toward
the chaos, beyond the logic of doing what he could to save whoever waited inside here.

  He rammed against the door, and it flew back to slap against the wall, left ajar by whoever had intruded.

  The second he stepped in, he wished he hadn’t. Sobs echoed through the house, soul-destroying ones, the sort signaling the worst sort of devastation had already descended. His stomach clenched as he approached, padding past the overturned benches in the foyer, a bent lamp, and the shattered glass of broken picture frames. The sound carried from the kitchen. He peered around the corner, his muscles tensed and ready for action. However, only one person sat tied to a chair in the middle of the room.

  Lana’s hands gripped tightly around the edges of her chair. She was unable to shift due to those cords applied with colloidal silver. Greg lay sprawled on the floor, unmoving. Dax leaped to his best friend, sniffing around the body. Blood pooled, the scent pungent. Greg didn’t blink, didn’t twitch, and even this close, Dax couldn’t hear the distant pulse of a heartbeat and didn’t spot the slow rise and fall of breathing. Cold doused him like ice water.

  He’d grown up with them, run through the woods by their side as they learned to control the shift, as they trained together under the elders. Greg and Lana had been smitten since they were kids, the fated type of romance most of the pack longed for. He’d been the gruff sort, but her joyful spirit coaxed him out and softened his edges every time. Now Greg wouldn’t smile again. Wouldn’t scrap with Dax when the rage burned fierce or run a late-night diner trip to stave off their inevitable hangovers.

  Dax shifted to two feet, barely aware of his surroundings as he walked over to the kitchen drawer and tugged the metal handle to pull out a knife. Lana didn’t pay attention to him, tears coming too fast and furious to notice. He sliced through the bonds, and those hateful cords collapsed to the ground. Without the silver-soaked tethers holding her in place, Lana sagged, careening to the kitchen floor.

  He knelt in front before she could hit the ground, and instead she collapsed against his chest. Dax wrapped his arms around her, the wetness from her tears imprinting on his skin. The door creaked, drawing his attention up.

  Sierra stepped into view, already shifted back to human form. Her brows furrowed, a line creasing between them at the sight she witnessed. “No bomb out back. Didn’t realize they’d already achieved maximum damage in here.”

  Even as he held Lana in his arms, his rage numbed to shock that his brother would’ve gone this far to grasp power. Someone rested a hand on his shoulder. He looked to Sierra, whose dark eyes shone with empathy.

  “I’ll carry her over,” she volunteered. “Dax, your people need you right now. Many of them are gathered in the parking lot, watching the blaze steal their homes. They need their alpha. If your people require safe haven, Red Rock will open our borders.”

  His heart strained in his chest. She’d been steady as stone, an equal in every way throughout this entire nightmare. He hadn’t questioned she’d watch his back as they’d dove into the flames together. And when he needed it most, as his childhood friend lay dead on the floor, she reminded him of the duty he’d fought for. Of why these individuals had been targeted in the first place. The worst thing he could do for them now was cower or indulge in his grief. He had to rise up and prove they’d made the right choice, despite the heavy cost.

  She placed her arms around Lana’s shoulders from behind as he rose to his feet. “I’ll meet you out there, alpha.”

  Even though grief threatened to tear him to pieces and even though every step away from Greg’s body haunted him anew, Dax made his way to the door. He broke into a flat run the second he stepped outside. The mountain lion within begged to come out, to race and roar, but he remained on both feet, needing to stay levelheaded. His lion would drag him to claim vengeance against his brother after the destruction wrought here tonight.

  Thinking with the wild side, with his heart and not his head, was what got him into this mess in the first place. It was what brought him to Sierra Kanoska’s doorstep searching for help. The cool head she kept even amid the worst rage, that was the sort of alpha a pack respected. The sort they needed right now. And that was what Dax Williams would be.

  The ground changed from the soft squish of earth to the flat roughness of gravel as he sprinted along to his truck. Shifting to two feet first, he nabbed his spare clothes from inside. Dax tossed them on and zipped his jeans as the pack gathered around him.

  Their footsteps echoed and their gazes pressed into him, the tension in the air so thick he could taste the grief. The loss. The rage. He rolled his shoulders, letting the intensity of their emotions rush through him. They surrounded him here, but beyond, flames licked the cabins, the incendiary glow striking a similar spark inside him from the injustice they’d faced tonight.

  “Men and woman of the Silver Springs pack.” His voice boomed through the lot, drowning out the distant crackle of their homes. “Tonight we have suffered at the hands of those we considered our brothers and sisters. Those who we grew up alongside, who we believed could never betray us.”

  Sierra approached from the distant house with Lana in tow as the woman sagged against the alpha. His people continued to gather closer and closer to his side while he spoke, capturing their attention. Even though his heart stretched like frayed rope, he sucked in a deep breath and continued.

  “Drew ordered this attack on the very people he once wished to govern, but that is the furthest from what an alpha does. An alpha protects his own. We respect the rules passed down to us from the Tribe, passed on from the great spirits of the animals we shift into. We settle our disputes honorably with claw and fang. Never with pipe bombs set outside the houses of families and never to harm our innocent and young.”

  Marcy’s eyes shone with tears, running her hands through Rick’s fur. He’d shifted into his cat form to further his healing, but the burns created vivid ragged spots where the fur had scorched off.

  “We won’t sit idle.” His voice grew deep and dark with the raw anguish of what they suffered. “We’ve called the Tribe in, and I’ll make Drew face me fairly in a battle for our land. I’ll beat him, and we will reclaim our lands so the Silver Springs pack is no longer severed in two. My people, we will fight to keep our homes, because you—you are loyal and you are strong. United, we won’t let this horror go unpunished. We will prevail.”

  He lapsed into silence as the energy sapped out of him, poured into every word he spoke. Glistening eyes and somber faces surrounded him, but as his shoulders relaxed and his mouth closed, his pack reacted. One by one, their growls lit the air, their cries a mournful cacophony taken to the stars. Sierra lifted her chin and howled, even in her human form, the sound piercing and eerie enough to prickle his arms. Everyone surrounding him rumbled with rage and grief, responding as one pack, the Silver Springs he was so honored to be a part of. The pack he was determined to lead until his dying day, no matter what the fates spelled out for him.

  “In the morning we will begin to clear the rubble and figure out a way to proceed. As it stands, we have packmates sustaining serious injuries. Help who you can into cars, and let’s get them to safety.” The second the words left his lips, his pack launched into motion. Ignitions turned, bringing car engines to life, and shifters in human or lion form piled into trucks, sedans, whatever possible. Ally curled in her mountain lion form in the bed of his truck.

  Sierra approached with Lana, her arm around the woman’s shoulder. “Here’s your girl. I’ve got to grab my people, but my lands are open for any of your pack.”

  Dax met her gaze and held it for a moment, wishing he could communicate the depth of admiration welling inside him at how she’d stepped up tonight. At how she’d inspired him, keeping him strong when he came close to crumbling. He’d never met a more remarkable woman.

  He clapped a hand on Sierra’s shoulder. He wrapped his other arm around Lana, who slumped against him, numbed from shock. “Thank you. Truly.”

  She flash
ed him a grim smile and offered a salute before racing toward her packmates waiting by the car. Dax tightened his grip around Lana as he began trekking to his own. He had a long night ahead of him.

  * * * *

  Dax turned the knob to his place, and his shoulders sagged as he stumbled in through the door. Already, the thin air of predawn descended, and he’d expended so much energy tonight he wanted to sink into his couch and go comatose. Once he sauntered in through the main room, a familiar scent pricked his nose, drawing his attention.

  “If you’ve come to fight me, plunge a knife in my back and get it over with. I’m fucking exhausted,” he called out, too tired to bother with sneaking around or subtlety. He’d lost the capacity for that earlier in the night when his pack had been bombed in their own homes. A creak sounded, followed by slow footsteps in his direction. Dax braced himself for a fight even though every muscle in his body screamed for rest.

  “No need to embarrass yourself, kitty cat,” Sierra’s voice echoed through the corridor as she emerged, those gorgeous hips swinging from side to side.

  Dax lifted a brow and crossed his arms. “Funny, I don’t remember handing you the key to my place.”

  Sierra snorted. “Not my fault you left your window unlocked. Didn’t even need to bust up your locks.” She pulled a bottle of Jack from behind her, the amber liquid sloshing around in the bottle. “Thought you might need a drink tonight. I’ve weathered my fair share of rough calls.”

  Even with the scratches on her cheek, her skin glowed with freshness, and between her shower-wet hair pulled into a ponytail and the lingering scent of soap, she’d clearly seized the chance to clean up. She was the sort of gorgeous that made him salivate, though given how much he reeked, right now he shouldn’t be in the same county let alone the same room as her.

  Dax accepted the offering of Jack and unscrewed the cap while they walked toward his couch. He caught a whiff of the campfire smell radiating from his shirt and tugged it over his head. The fabric hit the floor with a soft whump.