The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1)
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I doubt it. Not with the anger and blood and pain and fear this night’s delivering. She’ll be gone, slipping into the street and down into the sewers, a nightmare vision.
So this is goodbye.
There’s only one smell in the room right now: fear.
It smells like fucking roses.
Guy number two is closer, about ten feet away. He lifts his gun; yup, a MAC 10, aims it at my chest and all things considered I’m pretty impressed by the composure these Skins are showing given my current half-fucking-animal state. I should probably be taking, y’know, some kind of defensive action given the dude’s about to unload a clip in my chest but my animal’s rage is searing through me I leap onto a table and raise my arms out at the shooter and roar, fucking daring him to shoot me because fuck defensive action and fuck ducking and hiding and most of all fuck this guy.
I’m gunna paint the walls with his insides.
The glass around the bar and in front of the building shatters when I scream and the Skin is only eight feet away now. Close enough: I crouch and spring. I’m in the air when the bullets loose. I catch one straight in the chest and another and another and as I fly through the air there’s a thought, a doubt, buried way back in the throbbing hate and fury-filled redness of my mind, that I might not live through this and wouldn’t that be a treat, after all these years of slinging Stricken, to be brought down by a couple punk Skins on a weeknight in my own club?
I land right in front of the Skin. My legs give out but my momentum carries me forward into him. We crash backward together. The gun goes flying. His fear is thick in my nose and he’s screaming now, damn straight he is, because he has this…thing…crawling up him, this bleeding, busted open half wolf creature that’s all snapping jaws and scratching claws and howling bloodlust.
Tell you what, though.
I always wanted to die a wolf in the woods. Not a half-formed monster in a dive bar in a shithole city, but a wolf in the woods, fast and free, the forest loam crisp in my nostrils and the trees whispering overhead and the sky heavy with stars to remind me there’s a gift called natural beauty in this world. The Skin’s have nearly forgotten that, haven’t they? Dying in the woods with my wolf body rotting into the dirt and a roaming night animal or two plucking at my whitening bones.
The circle of life. That’s how I wanted to die.
Not like this.
But oh well. Dreams be dreams.
So I’ll settle for plunging both hands into the Skin motherfucker’s stomach and tearing out his stinking insides, which I do now. I’ll settle for clawing and biting my way up his chest, worming my way toward his neck because I can’t feel the lower half of my body. I’ll settle for his throat in my jaws, grinding and tearing, severing his carotid artery and the blood flowing like a fountain where wild things make their last wish.
Yeah, I’ll settle for that, because that’s all I got.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LILY
THERE’S A SOUND in the darkness. Distant, blurred. A sound I nearly recognize. A sound that makes me wonder if there’s something beyond this blackness.
Go away, I think. Leave me be. It’s quiet here. Maybe I’ll finally get some sleep. Maybe I won’t see any more visions. Maybe I’ll stop thinking about the son I abandoned—
But the sound continues, growing louder, coalescing in the darkness into something I almost recognize.
Lily.
Lily.
Lily!
Someone’s repeating that sound over and over, like a chant.
Go away.
The darkness feels good. Wonderful, even. I don’t have to think about my mother. How she died. How she looked when I found her. How my little girl mind was so curious about the red paint spreading across the entryway floor. Where did it come from?
Momma, you made a mess. Get up, Momma. I’m hungry. Please, Momma.
The three days I spent in that house with her, too afraid to leave even though Momma told me what to do if anything bad happened. Told me over and over, bending down to look me in the eye, gripping my shoulders and saying—
Run.
“Why?”
But she only clamped her lips closed and wouldn’t answer.
I’m sorry Momma.
I didn’t run. I stayed in the house with you. Waited for you to get up and clean the sticky red mess. Waited to help, hoping you’d let me use the mop to show you how I knew how to use it properly. Waited for dinner, and when that didn’t happen climbing on the footstool, reaching up into the cupboard and eating Cheerios from the box while you were lying dead in the next room.
I’m sorry Momma.
I was so hungry.
But I should have run.
I know that now.
Because they found me.
They found me and they took me away from you. Took me to a room with bright lights and hard chairs and a lady who asked me questions I didn’t want to answer.
There’s a a patch of something soft in the blackness.
Leave me alone. Some mistakes you can’t outrun.
A kind of light: dim, fragile. And the sound again.
Lily. Lily. Lily.
It means something important.
I just need to get to it. Need to see.
That’s what Momma said. You need to run, Lily. Please.
Lily.
My name.
There’s a whooshing noise, like the air being sucked from a room, and with it the darkness goes and something else fills the the empty space that remains: pain.
Now there’s a second sound.
Screaming.
I open my eyes. I’m lying on my side in a wreck of broken glass and pool balls. There’s a hundred dollar bill next to my face. Stained red, the color that pooled out beneath my mother.
Blood.
“Lily! Lil! Get up! Get up now!”
Someone’s shaking my shoulders. Hard.
The screaming begins again. My throat hurts. I want the screaming to stop. And it does, and I realize it’s me screaming.
Hands lift me from the floor. My head feels so heavy. The world flops and spins and all I want to to lie back down.
Let the darkness take me.
“Get up Lil! Stand up! We need to get out of here. Now!”
I look into a face I don’t recognize. A black woman, very pretty, almond eyes wide in fear and pain or both, forehead splattered in red, hair matted and wet with something dark and sticky.
Trish.
“You’re a mess,” I try and say, but my tongue won’t co-operate and the words come out all garbled.
Trish has her arm wrapped around my waist. She’s counting. One…two…and for some reason that seems really funny. Reminds me of being in school. The kids counting while the teacher points to the numbers on the chalkboard.
But at three Trish heaves me to my feet. The blackness is still there, hovering in the corners of my vision, threatening to swoop down and take me again.
Let it.
“Is she all right?” I ask.
“Who?” Trish says.
“Momma. My Momma.”
Trish doesn’t answer. Drags me a few steps to a table, leans me against it. I waver, my head falling forward so my chin hits my chest and my knees buckle.
“Whoa,” Trish says, pressing her shoulder into my chest to keep me upright. Then she grabs my chin and squeezes. I blink against the tears in my eyes.
“Take three breaths with me, Lil,” Trish says, looking into my eyes. “Take three breaths and then we move.”
Sound seems more real than what I see right in front of me. Sounds of glass crunching and people shouting and moaning and then, off in the distance, the sound of police sirens.
I breath. There’s a stabbing pain in my chest and the breath gets cut short.
Trish nods. “Broken ribs. Okay. You’ll be fine. Your ma—that fucking biker prick. He took the bullets. We got no more time now. You ready?”
Ready? I think. Ready for what?
Then we’re staggering toward the back door, me leaning heavy into my friend. Trish is swearing, telling me stand up, that she can’t carry me, that I have to walk. Move.
Run.
Because they’re coming again, aren’t they?
They’re coming, and there’ll be another too-bright room and more questions I can’t answer—
I try and ask Trish what happened but manage only a strangled moan.
Other people stagger to their feet around us. A few leather cut wearing bikers. A few underdressed women. A college kid or two. They blink slowly, like they’re just waking up, trying to remember what happened as well, or like they’re trying to come to terms with the fact that they’re still alive.
In shock.
The words pound through my head. From my Seattle P.D. training.
They’re in shock.
A sharp pain in my head makes me wince.
I try and remember where I am. What happened?
A pool game. Icy blue eyes. A scent that made me—
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Trish screams, and I open my eyes to see a scowling, bearded, thick-necked guy wearing a leather cut standing in front of a steel door. The cut looks familiar, and somewhere in the corner of my mind it makes me think of something, or rather it makes me feel something like need.
“Not going anywhere, bitch,” they bearded guy says.
Trish slows, then sighs. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. Help me lower her to the floor?”
The guy moves to me. His hands grip my waist. Trish lets me go and I slide down the wall to the floor. The guy is still bent over me, about to turn around and stand when Trish clasps her hands together, raises them over her head and brings them down on the guy’s neck. He’s out like someone flicked a switch, collapsing in a heap on the floor beside me.
“Dumb motherfuck biker,” Trish says, leaning down and hauling me to my feet. The sound of sirens is louder now, screaming down the streets and alleys, and as Trish kicks open the steel door I see a wall of heavy, driving rain and then we’re into the night, the rain beating against my face as we scramble arm-in-arm down an alley.
But what happened back there?
I think I lost something.
I think I lost something I didn’t even know I had.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ANIK
DARKNESS.
I LIE in my icy grave for what feels like forever, my life force as fragile as a candle in a breeze.
I’ve nearly killed us both.
A quiet sound. Regular. Rhythmic.
It’s the sound of water dripping around me.
Running over my fur.
I realize I’m terribly thirsty. I try and move my head to the sound of dripping water. Nothing happens at first, then a stabbing pain as the broken bones in my neck grind together. The pain makes me chuff and growl. I try again, manage to move my head to the water. I lap my tongue out, drinking.
The chill water reminds me of another ceaseless need.
I want to feed. I will feed.
The dripping water is coming faster now. Drip-drip. Drip-drip. The glacier ice I’m entombed in is melting around me. I’m warm, and growing warmer. Something pops back into place in my leg. I’m healing.
I think of Pimniq. How long have I been gone? Have they sent a team out searching for me?
The thought of a team of men nearby makes my stomach growl.
I lash out with my paw, raking into the ice, suddenly furious.
I want out of this icy-wet grave. Want to feel the sun warm on my face. Want the scent of prey in my nose.
I know I’m feeling these things through him.
This is his body.
I wonder if I can cast him aside once we’re healed and free from the ice. Am I strong enough?
I don’t think so.
I moan and lift my head, sniff at the ice, trying to determine which way is up. There. It’s night above me. The stars are out. Sila the wind scours the rubble-strewn glacier. I rake my paw against the ice again, tearing off a chunk that lands heavily on my broken ribs. The pain doesn’t matter. Only escape matters. Freedom.
I claw at the ice with both paws, my heart beating loud and strong. Nearly there. My claws are hot enough to melt through the ice.
I dig and scratch at the ice wall, my mind focused on that overpowering dream of freedom.
I want to roam.
Soon my right paw punches through. I pull it back, stare through the tiny window in the ice and up at the stars and sniff the air.
There are men above. Far away.
But men move slow in the land that never melts.
Two more powerful scrapes and the hole is large enough for my head. I get impatient, thrust my head into open air without digging the hole large enough for my chest, and get stuck. I rage and thrash and bellow until the ice gives way, then crawl out into the open.
I try and stand up, but my hind legs won’t listen. I’m not yet fully healed. I need the energy only a kill can provide.
Moaning in pain, I dig my front claws into the ice and drag myself forward.
The men have a campfire. Fools.
The smoke is like a road leading me right to them.
They’re not as far off as I thought.
They will have guns and dogs. It would be smart to stay here, rest until I’m fully healed, then track them later. But they might slip into their boat and return to the mainland.
The ground is littered with house sized boulders and crisscrossed with crevasses that plummet a mile deep into the glacier. I crawl forward, inch by slow inch, dreaming of a kill.
It takes me all night to crawl to to within striking distance of the camp. When I see the shadows of their tents I pull myself beneath a huge boulder and rest, content in knowing they cannot escape me.
I wonder what it’s like to live as these men are now: dead without knowing it.
***
I wake before dawn.
My rear legs are weak and can barely support my weight. But they do, and I lumber toward the camp, the hunger so deep it’s like a blade slicing into my belly.
There are five men in the camp, each reeking in that uniquely human way that’s both nauseating and hunger-making.
The dogs of men catch my strange scent and begin barking.
I lift my head and roar, not caring how many dogs there are, not caring what weapons the men have, then I charge down a short hill covered in slick green moss and patches of snow.
The dogs see me, a pack of a dozen huskies, and quickly flee in the opposite direction, but they’re tied in a long line to a stake set in the ground and when they realize they’re trapped they go mad with fear and turn on one another, biting and snapping and howling.
The dogs of men were proud animals, but that was long ago.
A man emerges from a large canvas tent only a few paces away. He’s pale, a newcomer, dressed in grey flannel underwear. He has a moment to realize he’s going to die before I lash out at him, taking off half his head. He falls at my feet as another man ducks out from the same tent, sees his companion on the ground, screams and ducks back inside. I circle around the tent, toying with him.
There’s a metallic click as he loads a hunting rifle. I turn to face the sound. Then a booming explosion as the rifle goes off from inside the tent. The bullet hits me square in the chest and barely penetrates my fur.
I stand on my hind legs and roar, then leap on the tent, crushing the man beneath me. I snap my jaws onto him, taste his blood, rake my claws into him, then another rifle shot echoes out as a third man behind me shoots.
I roar and leap backward, charging the third man head on.
He’s an Inuit, and when he sees my massive bulk and three gleaming black eyes he whispers, “Tornarsuk”, drops the rifle and runs.
I let him go.
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If I’m still hungry after I feed I’ll track him.
The man in the tent behind me is still alive. He’s screaming in pain and terror. Which is as it should be.
Two more men emerge from the second tent, each carrying high-calibre hunting rifles. One, a pale, is wearing an blue with gold trim RCMP uniform. He soils himself when he sees me, but manages to raise the rifle in his shaking hands and fire. The bullet glances off my skull, narrowly missing my middle eye. The second man fires and catches me in the front leg and then I’m on them both in two leaping bounds. I sweep the first man into my paws and crush him dead. Bones snap and blood leaks from his eyes and nose and mouth and then I toss him into the final man, who’s frozen in horror. They both sprawl into the mud. I step on the final man’s leg, snapping it.
It’s over.
I lumber to the first kill, the man whose head I nearly took off, and begin gorging myself. The man with the shattered leg is trying to crawl away, which makes me chuckle and snort as I feed.
A few of the luckier huskies have chewed free of their leather harnesses and escaped. I won’t be bothered with them. They’ll die out here on the ice and become food for other hunters.
The dogs of men forgot what it means to be a predator long ago.
***
I wake up broken, but I wake up a man.
I’m lying on my side in the snow on a small knoll. Behind me the valley narrows as it sweeps uphill toward the imposing granite spire of Sivanitirutinguak. The spire, the sight of my near-death, is shrouded in white-blue cloud. Judging from the sun it must be mid-afternoon. Below me the valley widens until the the glacier meets the ocean. A few icebergs drift aimlessly in the ocean’s current. From there the valley becomes a fiord, and at the end of the fiord lies the village of Pangnirtung, population one thousand four hundred.
My home.
The copper taste of blood in my mouth reminds me of my spirit animal’s kill. Below, only a mile off, I see the camp of the search and rescue party sent to look for me. Even at this distance I see the blood coloring the snow. I don’t need to go closer to know what I’ll find there.