by Jessica Snow
Oh, at first things seemed like they would be great. They would finally get some respect from the more established packs in the area. Sherry had been born to a wolf who failed in a foolish attempt trying gaining Alpha status within his pack. Unfortunately for Sherry’s father, he was no Alpha Wolf, and the pack leader tossed him out on his ass. Still, somehow, he had found a human woman who was willing to have babies with him, and Sherry was the result, a halfling who was looked down on by every purebred wolf in the area. She’d never known what it was like to grow up in a pack, and it had sucked being the girl that all the other young wolf bitches laughed about. She’d kissed up to Crystal Lilly simply because she seemed willing at first to give Sherry a shot at being a lackey if nothing more. And Sherry had to admit, she personally had a thing for walking on the wild side. So, of course, falling in with the other outlaw wolves had seemed natural to her. Hell, at least with the other outlaws, she had people who didn’t look at her like she was worthless. And of course, Jerle had seemed like such a bad ass as well.
All that changed the minute crazy bitch version of Crystal showed up, months after she’d last come around the outcast wolves. In less than forty-eight hours they’d gone from feeling the highest of highs to running through the forest scared for their fucking lives. Sherry still remembered the insane attack that night. Sure, maybe part of her had wanted to see the Bone City Prince Charming get his fur singed. Even when Sherry had hung out with Crystal, Liam hadn’t done much more than acknowledge that she existed. So, while she hadn’t been all that crazy about the idea of burning him at the stake simply because he had ditched Crystal at the altar, it was no skin off her nose. After all, the last time she had tried to get a job at the Greyson meat packing plant, Liam hadn’t even given her a second interview. Crystal hadn’t even invited her to the mating ceremony, too. Screw it, she knew when she wasn’t wanted.
And then the attack came, looking like something more out of Monty Python or a bad joke than an actual attack. Seriously, what do you call it when some crazy big girl, two werewolves, at a psycho chick who looks like she was trying out for a remake of The Matrix come charging out of the woods? Even when the girl suddenly changed into a gigantic fucking bear, Sherry didn’t understand what the hell was going on. All she was sure of was that when the fight was going on, her side was winning.
Since then, things had gone to hell. Jerle was back in charge of his ragtag outlaw pack again, but rather than being ignored or looked down on by the other packs in the area, they had instead been constantly skirmishing and fighting with the others. Part of it, of course, was that Jerle was obsessed with trying to find Kat and Liam. Somehow, though, they disappeared, with almost nobody seeing them for most of the past five months. For a while, Sherry thought that perhaps they had skipped town, but Jerle said that he could find traces of Liam Greyson’s scent in the city when he went around certain areas. Not that it helped, it always disappeared almost as soon as it entered the woods.
“For fuck’s sake, will someone please throw another log on the fire?” Jerle fumed as he came storming out at the barn that made up the headquarters of the outlaw pack. “This place looks fucking depressing right now.”
Nobody had the guts to tell Jerle that all in all, things were pretty depressing. He was still the strongest wolf in the pack, even though Sherry knew that he was still nursing injuries he has sustained in the fight with Liam, injuries that had never healed properly perhaps because of the witch’s magic that night. Sherry went over to the woodpile and grabbed a couple of logs and tossed them on the fire. “Is that better?”
Jerle looked at her with a sort of impotent rage that she has seen more and more often in his eyes. She knew why in fact, she had been the wolf who had escorted him back after his last run-in with Lance Greyson. It had not gone well, with Lance putting a beating on Jerle that was perhaps even more vicious than the one his son had put on him. To take a beating was one thing, but to take a vicious ass-kicking from both the Greyson father and son wounded Jerle’s pride as much as his body. Still, Sherry knew that he was the closest thing she had to a pack leader, and she tried her best to support him.
“Thanks,” Jerle said quietly when she came closer. “Looks like a small group tonight.”
“It’s only a Wednesday, you know a bunch of the crew has to work tomorrow. The economy is getting tight and all.”
Jerle laughed, a glimmer of his former cocky swagger coming back. “Yeah, like this group ever worried about being perfect office workers before. Face it, Sherry, a lot have turned pussy on us.”
Sherry could not deny the truth in his words. With the constant fighting with the various packs, as well as the disturbing news that was coming from around the city, the lone wolves and the outcasts were feeling the pressure. Sometimes as much as it might suck, it was better for them to cut bait and find new hunting grounds instead of sitting around and waiting to get killed. Over the past month, the pressure had been higher, and the outlaws had dwindled to less than fifty if Sherry counted the occasional members who were trying to play both sides. “There was another report of the Mountain Monster,” she whispered, using the term the urban legend media was giving the supposed creature that was stalking people in the woods around the city. “Frankly, a lot of people are getting worried.”
“No shit,” Jerle said. “They’re thinking the same thing that a lot of us are thinking.”
“I am just thinking that when the big packs want to find someone to pin all of this shit on, they are going to be looking for us,” Sherry replied. “Hell, I’m surprised we haven’t gotten another visit from Lance Greyson, not after that Molotov was tossed into his son’s townhouse.”
“He knows it wasn’t us,” Jerle growled. “That ain’t my style. If I was going to go after his little pup, I would do it face-to-face, if I could find his ass.”
Sherry was going to reply but then another one of the group, a young man named John, came running through the woods up to the fire, his eyes darting side to side. “The Lillys are dead!”
At first, Sherry was confused. Why would somebody be so upset about a bunch of flowers? It took her a moment to realize that John met the Lilly family, not the flower. Jerle, on the other hand, was much faster on the uptake. “Which ones?”
“The mother and father,” John said breathlessly. “Fuck man, I was there! I saw the bodies!”
It took Sherry another moment to remember that John did have a normal job, a rarity in the outlaw group. He was an autopsy assistant at the county hospital and would cover for all the wolves if a body was taken to the morgue. “What the hell happened to them? As powerful as they are, it should have taken being run over by a train.”
“Or a couple of silver bullets to the brain,” John said with a shiver. “I pulled the fucking things out myself, I couldn’t believe it when I saw them in my hand. And then, shit this is turning my stomach just thinking about it, but it looked like somebody had taken their afternoon snack out of their arms and legs. Like, big chunks man. The woman had literally no ass left.”
“Shit,” Jerle grumbled, “How many people is that so far?”
“Six or seven I think. All since...” John started, but shut up when he saw the look Jerle was giving him. “Listen, I’m just saying, it could be her.”
Jerle looked like he was about to protest, then sighed. “Maybe. Shit, I thought she was just crazy in the sack, maybe wanted a little bit of a walk on the dark side. Seems she might be totally off her rocker. No, it couldn’t be her, I still think it’s probably the bloodsuckers. They’re probably trying to start some shit between the different packs, trying to get us off our game.”
Some part of Sherry, the part of her that remembered sometimes being friends with Crystal, wanted to agree with him. She remembered the old Crystal. She hadn’t been all bad, not at first. Sure, she’d been spoiled, and the only reason she let Sherry hang around with her and her girlfriends was because Sherry made a pretty good gopher, but it wasn’t until she started dabbl
ing with man-eating that things really started going bad. Being rejected by Liam just seemed to be the final straw. Still, to go from a spoiled, vindictive bitch to being a mass murderer who’d take a bite out of her own parents… that was pretty cold shit. And sadly, Sherry remembered Crystal as being cold at the end. “Jerle, I know what you’re saying. But still, the vampires don’t usually try to munch on people. And there’s been attacks in the daylight too.”
“So, you really think it’s your old friend?” Jerle said. “Do you have any proof?”
“Oh, don’t worry, it was me all right,” a voice from the darkness said, and everybody in the nearly twenty-five strong person group turned to see Crystal Lilly emerge from the woods. Sherry was shocked at how different she looked. Part of it was that Crystal had somehow lost even more weight than she had before, she looked like even in human form she couldn’t weigh more than seventy-five or eighty pounds. But what was even scarier were the bald patches and scars on her face. Crystal’s previously long and lustrous hair looked like something out of a madman’s assault on a mannequin, with swirls of knotted pink skin sticking out. Her face wasn’t quite so twisted, at least physically, but in her eyes, all Sherry could see was madness. “Hello, honey. Long time no see.”
Jerle reacted quickly jumping towards Crystal with his claws already extended, but the crazy bitch was even faster. From seemingly out of nowhere, the pistol appeared in her hand, two shots cracking through the night and hitting him in his chest. Sherry froze, scared out of her mind as she saw the gaping maw of the pistol pointed at her next. “Well, well, well, it’s been a long time, Sherry. How have you been?”
Sherry tried to play it cool, even as Jerle’s body hit the dirt and he groaned, twisting side to side in agony. “Uhhhh, I guess I am doing okay Crystal, what about you? You’re not thinking of shooting me with thing, are you?”
“Not if you’re willing to let me be the one in charge around here from now on,” Crystal said, her eyes darting from side to side. “I’m the Alpha now. If any of you got a problem with that, you can get taken care of, just like Jerle here. And just like my parents.”
There were a few screams, and a couple of people took off running for the woods, but Sherry was too close to Crystal, she knew there was nowhere she could get away in time. Instead, she raised her hands up and out like she was ready to hug Crystal, smiling.
“Yeah yeah, no problem Crystal. I’ve got no beef with you being the alpha around here,” she said, while inside she prayed that Crystal’s mental instability included her not being able to see that Sherry wanted anything other than that.
“Speaking of beef,” Crystal said, turning and grabbing the still writhing Jerle and picking him up with one hand, “it’s been a while since I have a snack.”
Sherry felt madness creeping in on her as she watched Crystal carry the bleeding, probably mortally wounded Jerle over to the barn. There was a thick nail sticking out of one of the main support posts near the door. Sherry didn’t know why it was there, it was as thick as a railroad spike and had been there since the first time she came here years ago, but she watched in horror as Crystal impaled Jerle on the spike. Holstering her pistol, Crystal reached out with her rapidly extending claws, peeling a thick chunk of thigh muscle off Jerle and taking a big bite. Sherry thought she was going to be sick but was even more horrified when Crystal peeled off another chunk, the gush of blood from the severed artery bathing her face as she held it out to the stunned group that was left.
“Who wants to be my new pack beta?” she half growled, half spoke, her gun in one hand and the piece of muscle in the other. “They get the tastiest bites.”
Sherry felt her head swim like she was going to vomit, as Crystal’s eyes swept over her. She was sure that Crystal was going to force her to eat the chunk out of Jerle’s leg, even as his chest heaved its last and the blood started to pool underneath his body. Instead, though, someone else stepped forward, and Erick, the creepy fucker who she trusted about as far as Sherry could throw his ass, stepped forward, his hand out.
“If I help you, you let me get my freak on with that bitch McKenzie?” Erick asked, and Sherry only barely forced herself to stay in place to preserve her own life as Erick took the chunk of meat from Crystal’s hand and put in his mouth, chewing like it was fine steak. “I want a piece of her ass.”
“You’ll have a piece, and after that, I’m eating her fucking heart,” Crystal said, grinning. She looked around, her eyes flaring with madness. “The first order of business, we’re finding Liam and the rest of his fucked-up group, and we’re going to kill them and eat them, saving my former betrothed and his bear mate for last. I want them to watch while I eat their young in front of them.”
Sherry shivered, ignoring for the moment how Crystal might know that they had children. Still… she might not like the idea of Kat being a werebear, but eating kids? What the fuck? “But Crystal, we’ve been looking for them for months. Jerle hadn’t found jack shit about them.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Crystal said, turning and using a claw to carve another chunk of muscle from Jerle’s body, his left calf muscle this time. She turned and held it out to Sherry, her eyes demanding she eat it or die. “You see, while you have been sitting around the fire and stroking your egos or your dicks, I’ve been actually getting things done. I already eliminated Liam’s townhouse, and a little bat I know has found out exactly where they’re staying. Like the prey they are, they’ve been hiding in the caves.”
“Caves?” Sherry asked, trying to do anything she could to not reach out and take the chunk of meat. Yeah, she knew that she was a wolf and that it wasn’t unheard of for wolves to eat one another, but that was wild animal wolves. Not her kind. “If they’re in the caves, it could be hard to find them. Those are all over the place, and they’re easy to defend.”
“Then we draw them out if we have to,” Crystal said, grinning. “But I know just the cave. Now, eat up. You need your strength for the fight ahead.”
Her look gave no quarter, and Sherry reached out with trembling fingers, taking the slimy, still dripping hunk of meat, putting it in her mouth, and hoping that she wasn’t damned for doing so.
Chapter 41
The trees rustled slightly, too softly for even Ashley’s trained ears to hear it at first, but Kat’s hearing was good enough that she heard Zack coming a good ten seconds before he emerged into the small clearing, his face shell-shocked. “My parents…”
“What about them?” Liam asked, his ears immediately picking up on the note in his voice. “Is everything okay with them?”
“They’re... they're dead,” Zack whispered back, his hand trembling slightly as he knelt in the dirt. “I’d snuck back to see if I could talk with some of my friends, the ones who are still on our side, and when I got closer to the house I could smell the fire. The house was firebombed, just like your place, but the place is too much stone and concrete. Dad had fallen in love with what he called the brutalist style, all hard concrete and stone angles and...”
Kat could tell that Zack was rambling, probably still in shock over the death of his parents, despite his outer maturity he was still a boy in high school for fuck’s sake, and she reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Zack.”
Even Ashley, who barely trusted Zack at all even though he’d been a good member of the pack in the past nine months, stilled. “What was done to them?” she finally asked, not cruelly, but still with her voice focused on the task at hand. “A simple fire wouldn’t take down a pair of Alphas like your parents.”
“No, they were shot,” Zack replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “Silver. And... oh God...”
Kat winced, knowing what he was going to say even before he said it. They had a tablet computer up here sometimes, she’d kept up with the local news and knew about the ‘Mountain Monster.’ “How much?”
“Not much, just enough to know that whoever had shot them had taken a few bites,” Zack rumbled. “At least, that�
�s what the paramedics said. I can see it in your eyes, Katerina. We’ve wondered for months, but this is pretty much proof.”
The unspoken accusation hung quietly in the air, stirring Kat’s deepest fears. Vampires, vindictive parents, even other werewolves hunting them, that was one thing. But suspecting Crystal Lilly was back in town, that was another. She had no limits and was crazier than a shithouse rat. Two things that meant she was totally unpredictable. Kat shivered, then looked to her left, down at the large compound below. “Well, we’ll be in a better position when we get my father out of there. He’ll be able to help me with my own abilities.”
“Who’s watching the kids?” Zack asked quietly, looking around. It touched Kat, and was the main thing she liked about him, he was nearly so affectionate with her triplets that she already thought of him as their sort of step-uncle or something. Even now, in the middle of a mission and dealing with the trauma of his parents being killed and perhaps cannibalized, he thought first about the triplets. “Carly?”
“And Elizabeth,” Liam said. “They’ll be fine. Come on, let’s get Big Mike out. Ashley, you ready?”
Ashley answered by lifting her twin pistols, twirling them twice before putting them in the matching socketed holsters. It was funny and reminded Kat that despite her badass outer persona, deep inside her was still the fun-loving girl whose greatest goal in life, Kat had once thought, was to twerk her way into a music video. Liam even gave her a little bit of a smile before he reached for the hem of his t-shirt, peeling it over his head as he started stripping prior to his change. Kat could feel the heat rise in her face as her amazing mate revealed himself, his hot body stirring deep passions within her even after triplets and spending most of the past year running for her damn life, and being just minutes from attacking a compound that might be guarded by some of the few humans prepared for what was coming. Ashley turned around to give him some privacy, although Kat helped herself to a big helping of visual beefcake, reminding herself that if it hadn’t been for Ashley’s news about her father, she’d be in the woods feeling on that body right now.