The All Encompassing: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 1)

by Daniels, May Ellis

  It wasn’t a mistake, their bringing me here. It was a test. Anik helped me connect with my true soul. I’ve revealed myself to them now. They’ll never let us live.

  Sedna Mistress of Hell sits on a plush armchair. Her body is a desiccated corpse with blackened skin. Her fingers are missing, her face has been shorn of flesh, and her body is decorated with necklaces and charms and bracelets of body parts. Yellowed jaws hold multiple rows of teeth.

  As Anik runs to her an evil breeze circles the room, rustling the bones at my feet. The sound of the bones clicking and rattling in that foul wind makes my skin itch and crawl. Then the bones rise around me, skeletal hands reaching up to grip my ankles in a strong, lifeless grip. I close my eyes and try to summon the swarm, but nothing happens.

  She’s robbed me of what lives inside.

  “Unleash him,” I scream at Anik. “Let him free!”

  Anik turns and stares at me. His face is blank, his eyes solid black. Bones rustle and rise, stirred by the wind, skeletal hands pinning me to the floor. I should never have come here. It was her wish. I should have fled alone.

  “Remember the sun,” I say to Anik. “Remember the sun glinting cool on the cool blue ice. Remember the name the truth of what you are.”

  “She’s a rather tiresome nag, isn’t she, my love?” Sedna says, turning her hideous skinless face in my direction. “I can only imagine the poison she’s poured in your innocent ears.”

  “Have I displeased you?” Anik says. His voice is distant, unrecognizable.

  “Not at all,” Sedna says. “In fact I am very pleased. The pale girl is slight, but her heart beats warm and strong. You’ve brought me a feast.”

  A skeletal hand crawls up my leg, over my chest, caresses my jugular vein, then clamps around my throat, cutting my breath and silencing me.

  “There. That’s better, Sedna says, smiling. “Perhaps the wretched little insect would like to watch? Is that agreeable to you, Anik? Shall we permit your packmate to watch you fuck me?”

  “Please yes,” Anik whispers. “I have…may I offer you…a small gift?”

  “I’m charmed, as always,” Sedna says, lifting the finger necklace from her neck. “Another little piece of you, perhaps?”

  “Yes.” Anik lifts his hand, offers Sedna his severed thumb. “I’m sorry I can’t offer more.”

  Sedna’s eyes widen in delight. “It’s lovely, Anik. What a thoughtful man you are.” She studies him, opens her legs, allowing him to see her. Anik staggers a step closer. “Tell me what you want,” Sedna whispers as she threads Anik’s thumb onto her necklace.

  “You. Always and forever. Only you.”

  Sedna places the necklace over her head. It settles on the countless necklaces underneath. Then she points to me and pouts. “But perhaps I’ve changed my mind, love. Perhaps I don’t desire her to see us. Perhaps I require…you prove your love and loyalty. A show of sacrifice, if you will.”

  Anik turns to me. His face twists in fury.

  “The trespasser,” he says, snarling.

  “Yes,” Sedna answers. “Will you do that for me? Will you prove your loyalty?”

  Anik looks at me, then at his uninjured hand. “Of course. I knew the moment the bitch arrived she must die. She upset our balance. I was afraid…afraid I nearly lost you.”

  A pair of black wings unfurl from behind Sedna and settle over Anik.

  “You will never lose me,” Sedna says. “I’m yours forever.” The hooked claws on Sedna’s wings dig into Anik’s back and lift him off the floor. His skin stretches with an awful tearing sound.

  I close my eyes. The bones at my feet rattle in the unnatural wind.

  The thought of death no longer frightens me. But the thought of failing the All Encompassing does.

  The skeletal hand gripping my throat loosens, only for a moment, while Sedna busies herself with Anik. But it’s enough for me to drop a single ant from my mouth. The ant plops into the bones and vanishes, then makes his way toward Sedna, staying low and invisible in the rustling bones.

  The ant crawls over through the rotting corpses piled around Sedna. There’s a horrible sucking sound coming from behind her wings. She’s feasting on Anik’s good spirit. Draining the life from him. Anik’s naked body, suspended in midair, quivers and shakes as Sedna consumes him.

  The ant climbs to Sedna’s throne. I see through its eyes. The fractured image of Sedna’s razor stiletto. The ant marches up her stiletto, onto the soft, rotten flesh of her arch, rubs its mandibles together greedily, and bites into her.

  Sedna flings Anik from her wings, leaps from her throne and screeches at me. The skeletal hand at my throat clamps down, strangling me.

  “You silly little whore,” Sedna shrieks as the wind increases, becomes a tornado whipping around the lair, stirring the bones from their slumber. “You stupid. Wretched. Silly. Whore!”

  The hand at my throat clamps still harder, its sharp fingers digging into my neck. Oh Guardians give me strength—

  I try and tear the hand from my throat but the bones rise over me, pinning my arms to my sides, swallowing me whole.

  Then I hear a deafening roar and look at Anik. Only it isn’t Anik. It’s a massive polar bear, his fur shining brilliant white, three black eyes in his head gleaming.

  Sedna sees the bear too. Her sneering smile falters.

  The bear roars at Sedna, lowers his head, and charges.

  The Mistress of Hell flaps her leathery wings and launches at the enraged bear. Their collision sends bones flying across the room.

  The cavern begins trembling.

  Dust and stones fall from the ceiling.

  Sedna wraps the bear in her leathery wings as he plows into her. His long, razor-sharp claws cut into her belly. She screams as the bear opens her midsection. A cloud of choking grey dust pours from her corpse, covering the bear’s face and filling the room. He rears back, swatting at the dust, moaning in pain, then swipes at her again. Sedna leaps back, the wound in her belly healing almost instantly.

  The bear paws at his face, blinking and moaning.

  The dust has blinded him.

  Sedna’s foul dust settles over me. I hold my breath, waiting for the familiar burn of my lungs crying for air, and when I can no longer stand it I inhale.

  The dust tastes of ash and ancient rot.

  “You fucking fool,” Sedna seethes at the bewildered bear. “I could have saved you. Freed you. Taken this filthy animal from you forever.”

  The bear charges again, but he seems slow. Weak.

  “You chose her,” Sedna cries, easily sidestepping the bear’s charge and gesturing to me. “Her? The pale little whore? Over me? You betrayed me. They always betray me.”

  My lungs are on fire, like when I nearly drowned in the night ocean. The skeleton hands are wrenching at my flesh, trying to tear the skin from my bones. She’s too strong in her lair, and I realize we’ve made a terrible mistake.

  “Am I beautiful to you, Anik?” Sedna coos. “Do you still want me?”

  The bear hesitates, rolls his great head from side to side, uncertain.

  Sedna walks to him, gesturing with her hands, mesmerizing the beast with her words. “Return to me, my love,” she says. “Don’t leave me alone here. Not again. Please. I’ve been betrayed. Hurt. You know this! Don’t forsake me like they did.”

  The bear lowers onto his rump. The cavern stops shaking.

  An ancient silence fills Sedna’s lair.

  She’s turning him.

  Sedna continues stepping toward the bear, her leather wings fluttering behind her, and when she’s in arm’s reach the bear snatches her in his arms and pulls her close and squeezes. Sedna shrieks and sinks her snapping black teeth into the bear’s neck, but still he holds her, crushing her in his powerful arms.

  Sedna’s brittle old bones begin to snap. She pounds on the bear’s back, saws her teeth into him, drowning in his red blood. The bear moans in pain, its eyes bulging madly, but he fights off the pain and holds
her, digs his claws into her back.

  The skeletal hands holding me fall away as the strength of Sedna’s sorcery is weakens, and suddenly I’m free. I open my mouth and scream, unleashing a black cloud of biting flies. They swarm around Sedna’s head as the bear continues crushing her. The flies bite the rotten flesh from Sedna’s face, silencing her screams.

  The great bear twists his claws into Sedna’s side, nearly cutting her in half, while the biting flies begin eating away at her bones. She twitches and smacks at the bear, her wings fluttering uselessly, then the bear throws Sedna to the ground, lifts his head up and roars so loud the noise sends stones showering around us.

  The bear plants a giant paw on Sedna’s chest and glares down at her.

  Sedna smiles at him. Blows him a kiss. Her wounds are healing. The flesh returning to her face even as the bear glares down in triumph. The biting flies swarm above them both, a hovering cloud of death awaiting my command.

  “I know you love me,” Sedna whispers. “That’s all I need.”

  The bear leans his massive bulk onto Sedna’s chest.

  She’s right. He does love her. In spite of everything. In spite of seeing her true spirit. He loves her. The fool.

  The bear nods, nuzzles Sedna’s neck, drags his teeth across her black flesh. He could take her head off with a single bite.

  But he doesn’t.

  “She’s calling us, Anik,” I scream. “Please! The All Encompassing needs us, Anik. Can’t you hear her? We belong with her. Roaming free. This does not end here.”

  Sedna reaches up and strokes the bear’s ears. “I think it does,” she says softly. “I think it ends for you and your nasty swarm right now.” She’s looking Anik straight in the eye. “All you need do is prove your love, Anik. I forgive this travesty. I promise. Nothing will stand in the way of our love. No power. No pack…”

  My biting flies fall to the ground, dead.

  “She’s returning!” I yell, running at the great bear, hoping to make him see the truth. “Siphoning your strength, Anik. Feeding from you. You must murder her—”

  The bear lifts his great head. His third eye sparkles and begins to glow a deep-black blue, like a sapphire in moonlight.

  “No,” I say. “It can’t be. This isn’t the way…this isn’t what I’ve witnessed—”

  “What you’ve witnessed is the dream of extinction,” Sedna spits. “This is the beginning of our story. The First Fallen is Becoming. The One Without Value! We’ve waited so long. And now he draws near. Without Anik your pack will turn on itself. Risen against Risen.” Sedna peers into the bear’s eyes, then whispers, “Anik is mine. He is to remain mine.”

  The bear’s eye glows bright blue-black, an odd light that seems both part of the darkness and wholly different from it.

  “Join me, brother,” I say, my voice a buzzing sound in my ears. “Remember the hunt. The kill. The gift your prey grants you.”

  The bear looks away.

  “Yes,” Sedna whispers. “Return to me, my love. Do not forsake the forsaken.”

  The light emanating from Anik’s eye falls upon Sedna’s naked body, lands on the necklaces and ornaments hanging heavy around her neck. The fingers on the necklaces begin to move.

  Sedna’s eyes widen. “No,” she says. “Stay with your love. Remember what I gave you. What no one else can.”

  The bear snarls and spits. Bathed in the blue light emanating from the bear’s third eye, the fingers on Sedna’s neck crawl up her chest, toward her throat. She tries to squirm away, smacks her hooked wings into the bear’s back, cutting him, but the bear holds firm. The fingers inch over Sedna’s skinless chin, pry open her mouth, worm into her throat.

  “No,” she says. “He promised me. He promised me—”

  But her words are silenced. The crawling fingers split her jaw open and pour into her, stuffing her mouth full.

  The walls of the cavern begin shaking again.

  Sedna’s head thrashes madly from side to side as the fingers choke her.

  Anik lifts a paw and brings it down, cleaving Sedna’s head from her neck, then tears open her chest to reveal a beating black heart. The sight of the black heart makes my stomach churn with hunger. I rush to him, wait while he eats his fill, then scoop what he leaves for me in my hands and feed.

  The taste of Sedna’s beating black heart reminds me what it means to hunt.

  ***

  The bear steps away and when I finish feeding and turn I see Anik, my packmate, bloody and broken, staring at Sedna’s mutilated corpse.

  “She suffered more than one spirit should ever have to,” Anik says. “She didn’t deserve this. Didn’t begin life this way. She began a lonely princess staring across the sea, wondering over her future. Like all of us.”

  “Bitterness and anger turned her,” I say, staggering toward the door as stones shower around me. The cavern walls are beginning to split and crack. “There are more, aren’t there? Like her? The black-hearted? Up above?”

  Anik nods. “They brought me to this place. They stole…they stole my little sister.”

  “Do they know who she is?”

  “I think so. They must.”

  “Then your sister is in great danger. If she has our blood…they may turn her.”

  Anik looks at me with a broiling, dark expression. “Do you know what you are?”

  “I am your packmate.”

  “No. I mean inside. Your…animal?”

  I hesitate, not sure what to tell him. But I decide on the truth. “A plague,” I say. The black heart I consumed courses through me, warm and nourishing, and suddenly I’m hungry for more. I ask Anik: “Are you able to walk?”

  Anik nods, takes a step forward, collapses into the bones scattered around us, shivering uncontrollably. “Don’t leave me here,” he says.

  I smile. “We need to find the one who leads.”

  Anik shakes his head. “My sister…Pimniq.”

  “Without the All Encompassing we’re lost.”

  “I can’t…abandon my sister.”

  “Seeking Pimniq now means ruin. They’ve grown too powerful. Our pack is stronger together. United under the All Encompassing…we might be strong enough to rescue your sister.”

  Anik lays his head down in the shaking bones. “I wanted rest,” he says. “Wanted to be left alone. Wanted to be rid of the thing inside me. But he’s not inside me. He doesn’t possess me like a demon or malign spirit. He is me. I didn’t believe that, and Sedna turned me against myself.”

  “Stand now, Anik,” I say. “We have to leave this place.”

  Anik grimaces, pushes to his feet.

  “Can you scent the way out?”

  Anik nods. “And if there’s more? I’m too weak—”

  “I’m not. Trust me. The time will come when you carry not only me, but all of us. But for now…”

  I open my mouth, unleashing a vast cloud of buzzing red-winged flies. The flies circle under Anik, build onto him until they form a solid mass beneath him, then lift him into the air. Another cloud swarms around the door, consuming it in seconds, and as we walk into the corridor I ask, “Did you love her?”

  “I wanted to,” Anik says as my flies swarm around us. “I thought I did. But it wasn’t love. No love creates ruin.”

  We enter the corridor. Anik scents the air and nods left. We continue in silence. I think on Anik’s words and remember Priest Gabriel.

  My packmate is wrong.

  Love is ruin.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  AARON

  I WAKE IN the back of a cargo van so busted and tired I can barely move. Nash is at the wheel. Mia’s riding shotgun. Sorry’s sitting beside me, his usually mellow face dour and grim. Before I can say a word Sorry nods to the back of the van.

  There. Half-hidden in shadow, is my bloodmate Lily.

  She’s hog-tied. Eyes closed. She looks dead.

  My heart leaps in my chest.

  Then she shakes her head and moans.

  �
��Untie her,” I say, my words coming real slow through my rage. “Or I swear I’ll gut every fucking one of you.”

  Sorry’s eyes gleam. “Can’t do that, brother.”

  I make to move. Blinding pain flashes through me, sends my head knocking against the cargo van’s metal panel. Mia whips around and glares at me.

  “Welcome back, lover boy,” she hisses. “You and your Skin girlie had one hell of a ride.”

  Sorry tells her to be quiet. Mia smiles and faces the front window.

  Nash hasn’t said a word. That’s not a good sign.

  “Tell me what happened, brother,” Sorry says.

  I choke down my nausea and say, “Prez. Remember? I’m your fucking Prez.”

  “Yeah. You are. We haven’t forgotten that.”

  “You think I have?”

  Sorry shrugs.

  We drive in silence for a long while. Sorry rubs his knuckles while I watch Lily. Wave after wave of conflicting thoughts crash through me. She’s just a Skin bitch. She’s my bloodmate. She’ll ruin me. She saved me from that fucking—

  “Tell me what happened, Prez,” Sorry says. “Tell me everything.”

  I look into my brother’s eyes. He’s always been the level-headed one. The one I turn to when shit gets out of hand. I trust him beyond question. So I tell him about Lily carrying us through that RV. About the orange-red light and her burning skin. About the spirit-eater. And the more I tell him the more I understand what has to happen.

  Sorry’s shoulder’s tense as I speak. He’s bigger than me. Bulkier.

  And I’ve always wondered, if it came to a challenge—

  “We have to kill her,” Sorry says once I’m done. “If you’re right about who…what she is. We have to kill her before she Becomes. It’s the only way we live.”

  “No.”

  “You know what happens if she lives, Aaron. Her pack rises. A new species. Our time—”

  “Our time is over,” I say, my voice heavy. “Whether she lives or not. The fucking Stricken that burned Nash? The breeding lairs? It’s over.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Sorry says. “But I know this: you choose that Skin chick over your pack, I can guarantee your time is over.”