Daring Fate: Silver Tip Pack series

by Megan Erickson

I glared at her.

  She smiled and patted my arm. “Anyway, I imagine if your mom had a mate she cared about, she would have acted a lot like you.”

  I swallowed around the sudden lump in my throat as Reese and Mav drew closer. “Thank you for saying that.”

  My mate rounded the corner, carrying Mav on his shoulders. Mav giggled, his hair flopping as Reese bounced him. I quickly shoved Cati’s words out of my mind and plastered on a smile. “Hey, you two.”

  “I could live down here,” Reese said. “I can’t believe how well supplies are stored. The more I learn about this pack, the more I cannot understand how Xan plans to sustain his.”

  I was still concerned about the state of the Bluefoot pack. And I was going to have to make some decisions soon regarding it. “We’ve worked hard to get to this point.” I handed him the bolt of fabric. “Could you two take this up to Cati and Mav’s room? I want to talk with her a minute.”

  “Sure,” Reese said. “Come on buddy.”

  “Vaughn is in the Forum if you need anyth—”

  “We’ll be fine,” Reese called over his shoulder, still bouncing Mav.

  I waited until they’d left the storage room before turning to Cati. “So have you heard any rumors about Gage?”

  Cati crossed her arms over her chest. “Rua is worried, said he’s been discontent lately. And I overheard one of my seamstresses say that her son has been hanging around Gage a lot and it’s making her nervous. Apparently he came home the other day talking about how we should be taking over the Striped Tail pack rather than trading with them.”

  I held in a growl. The Alpha of the Striped Tail was a no-nonsense female who thrived on peace. Her pack was small but well-equipped. “Gage is a fucking idiot. Just like his uncle.”

  “I’ll keep my ear to the ground,” she said. “Anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks. And you know if anything happens—”

  “Come in here, move the shelf in the far-left corner, enter the code and hide in the bunker with Mav.”

  “Good.”

  “I would never trade him or regret choosing you to get me through my heat. But I never forget that I have the Alpha’s kid running around, and sometimes his blood feels like an albatross around my neck.”

  I cupped her cheek. “I understand. But you’ve got the strongest neck in the pack, right?”

  She grinned at that. “Damn right.”

  “All right.” I led the way to the door. “Let’s make sure those two didn’t take a detour.”

  “Yeah, it’s nap time soon for Mav, and Reese always gets him riled up. If I lose out on me-time because of your mate…”

  I closed the door behind us and locked it. “You have my permission to smack him. Lightly. No permanent marks.”

  Cati’s laugh rang out down the hallway in front of us. “Deal.”

  Reese

  * * *

  Later that day, I bounced on the balls of my feet at the front gate, eager to see beyond the stone walls.

  Dare gripped the back of my neck. Hard. “Calm yourself.”

  I was stir crazy from being inside the compound for so long. “Sorry, I’m excited.”

  “This isn’t a party,” he growled. “We need to get supplies and manage not to get eaten by Noweres. It’s the farthest from a party you can get.”

  I huffed. “I know, I know.”

  He dropped his clothes as we waited for the rest of our group to arrive at the gates. “I’m trying to keep us alive. Be glad I’m letting you come with us.”

  He was right. “I am.”

  We were heading out to gather some wood and do a general check of the surrounding area. After replacing the chair Dare broke, and a couple more pieces of furniture, we were running low on lumber.

  Bay trotted toward us, naked except for a huge grin. “Hey, little wolf,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. Any other Were who said that to me—other than Dare—would get a nut punch, but Bay’s tone held nothing but affection. The best part about Bay was that I knew he had my mate’s back.

  “G’s staying back with Jude,” Bay said. “He’s not comfortable leaving him alone with Gage acting like he is.”

  Dare nodded. “That’s fine.”

  Dare introduced me to Tan, who was one of his scouts. Also along for the scavenging party was Vaughn. He wore that ever-present smirk, which he aimed at me as he stretched his limbs.

  So our total group consisted of four Weres and a feisty werewolf. Dare said he didn’t often leave the walls, preferring to remain with his pack. But sometimes he liked to see for himself what was going on outside the walls and not solely rely on scouts.

  It’d taken some major convincing and a lot of time on my knees to get him to agree to take me. It’d been three days since I’d spoken to Jude about my escaping, and this was my opportunity to work on my plans—to see how the gates worked, what the terrain was like right outside the walls, and if any Noweres were around.

  I planned to leave the next time Tan left to scout. My instincts were at war, some pulling me to rescue my sister, some tugging me to stay with Dare. I wasn’t sure how my body wasn’t ripped apart yet. My heart sure felt like it was being torn in two.

  “So.” I tried for casual. “Have you ever had a problem with anyone outside trying to dig under your walls?”

  Dare lifted an eyebrow at me. “Our walls go ten feet underground. They’d be digging for a while.”

  Okay, well through the gate it was, then.

  Dare signaled for the gates to open. My gaze followed the rope and pulley system to the two Weres who strained to raise the heavy wooden door. There was no way I could get out myself, which was why I had to wait until they were opened for Tan. But directly inside the gate was a large storage facility. I could hide in there and slip out. The gray walls should help disguise me in my wolf form so I could slip out undetected. The Weres lifting the gates couldn’t actually see the opening. They relied on voice commands to tell them when to lift and lower. So as long as I stayed hidden from Tan, I should be okay.

  Okay being a relative term.

  With my nerves bunched like vipers in my chest, I tried to focus on what I needed to do next, which was shift. Dare had already shifted to his four-legged wolf form, and was looking back at me expectantly along with Tan, Bay, and Vaughn.

  So I dropped onto all fours as I shifted, shook out my fur, then followed the Weres as they bounded outside.

  The Silver Tip compound was surrounded by dense woods, which was where Noweres liked to roam. Xan’s compound was in a several-mile-wide clearing, so venturing a short distance outside the compound was a little less risky.

  That didn’t mean I had ever been allowed to leave. Hell no. The only time I’d been out of those walls since I arrived with my parents was when I escaped.

  Even though I didn’t feel trapped in the Silver Tip compound and there were plenty of places to run, my wolf knew I was caged within walls. And he hated it. None of us were ever meant to live like this, but we had no choice. Now, unrestricted by walls, with the sky big and blue above me, I stretched out my body and I ran and ran and ran, the scent of my alpha providing security, the absence of Nowere stench spurring me on.

  At one point, Dare slowed down and tipped his nose up to scent the air, then he lowered it and continued on.

  Maybe I should have been scared, but it was hard when my heart was singing with freedom.

  Eventually we reached an area that had clearly been harvested for lumber. It was littered with wood dust, and stray branches surrounded tree stumps. Some axes lay nearby too.

  Dare shifted to human, and we all followed suit.

  Bay and Vaughn immediately picked up axes and began to chop trees at the edge of the clearing. The trunk Vaughn worked on was twice the size of me. Vaughn’s massive shoulders bulged as he hacked away, and when he caught me staring, he blew me a kiss. I gave him the finger and turned away with a sneer.

  Dare stood at the center of the area, hands on
his hips as he glanced around. Tan climbed a tree and crouched down on a sturdy branch to scan the distance.

  I walked over to Dare. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Stay here with me. Listen and scent for Noweres.”

  The memory of the stomach-curdling Nowere stench made me nauseous. “Does the chopping draw their attention?”

  Dare’s jaw clenched. “Always.”

  Shit, okay. Running was fun, but this was serious business. I wasn’t about to get eaten by a Nowere today.

  Dare roamed the perimeter, sometimes leaving my side as he weaved in between the trees and stayed on high alert. I remained in the center, doing my best to be a good lookout.

  Vaughn slammed his axe into the trunk one last time and then whistled to give us a heads-up as it crashed to the ground. Bay’s wasn’t far behind.

  They chopped down two more each, and just as I was getting confused about how they were going to carry all this shit back, they shifted to Weres and picked up three trees each. “Wow, okay, you guys are fucking handy,” I muttered.

  Dare and I walked ahead of them, alert for any undead Weres. Tan ran ahead of us in wolf form.

  “You’re happy to be outside,” Dare said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m guessing Xan never allowed you to leave.”

  “Hell no.” I lifted my head so the sun warmed my face. “The sky looks different when you’re not behind walls. Brighter, bluer.” I smiled. “Don’t you think?”

  He was watching me closely. “Sure. I do think so.”

  “I hate walls,” I said. “I think sometimes about what it would be like if there were no Noweres. What would life be like? I haven’t known any different.”

  Dare shook his head. “Me either.”

  “What do you know about the virus?” I’d learned the origin of the Noweres was a tale that varied per pack, a legend with a dozen variations.

  Before the virus, Weres and werewolves lived among humans. We kept our true natures a secret, remaining in human form, working everyday jobs alongside the other species. We still met with our packs, but the connection was looser. At the time, there’d been small pockets of Weres who sought to take over civilization, but they were outnumbered and never gained the strength needed to overthrow the human leaders.

  Until the virus, which wiped out humans, depleted Were numbers, and sent us all scrambling away from cities and into the country where we hid behind our stone walls.

  Many records were lost in the early days of the virus. All we knew for certain was the human race was wiped out completely, unable to defend themselves from the slaughtering Nowere packs. Were numbers were greatly dwindled as they became infected with the virus, adding to the Nowere numbers. As for werewolves, we were immune to the virus, but Noweres could—and would—kill the fuck out of us.

  Dare glanced over his shoulder at Bay and Tan. “You tell me what you know first.”

  “Well, in Astria, we were told a Were found some sort of bite on him. A day later, he was dead and, an hour after they moved his body to have it be burned that night, he woke up and tore apart his whole village, turning every Were into a Nowere.”

  Dare nodded. “I’ve heard that one.”

  “Xan told everyone that Weres were too welcoming of anyone, and let visitors mingle with everyone else. And in doing so, let in a virus. It’s why he’s crazy about outsiders. That entire pack is inbred as fuck. I was one of the last groups of wolves he let in.” The only way to survive was to fortify packs in compounds, so Xan’s paranoia was free to breed.

  Dare snorted. “Well, in this pack, we’re aware there are a lot of stories. The one we believe the most is that a Were leader created the virus for population control, but it didn’t quite work the way he wanted.”

  “Holy shit, so they think this was…created on purpose?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who would do something like that?”

  He tilted his head. “You have a hard time believing in the evil of Weres and werewolves?”

  I kicked a root. “Shit. Good point.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now how it started. No one knows how to stop it, and that’s all that matters. And as far as we know, these things aren’t dying.”

  I didn’t know much about Noweres. In hindsight, one of the mistakes my pack in Astria made was thinking they were safe behind their walls. The Whitethroats didn’t educate about the Noweres. So when we were breached, no one knew what to do. “Xan’s only caution against Noweres was to stay within the walls. He said they’d made humans extinct and would do the same to us if we weren’t careful. How does a Were get infected?”

  “It’s through blood transfer. So a bite. A scratch alone won’t kill us but if any Nowere blood gets in the wound? We’re done for.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone get bitten?”

  His answer was low. “Yes.”

  “What’s it like?”

  He was quiet for a long moment. “It’s the saddest, most helpless feeling, to see a Were with a soul fall, and then come back to life as a mindless predator.” There seemed to be a story there, but he clamped his lips shut and glared straight ahead. “The Were population now isn’t big enough to fight the Nowere numbers, and we can’t afford to lose Weres to strengthen the Nowere packs.”

  “So you’ve thought about a solution?”

  “Rua’s scouts have been gathering as much information about them as they can. I’ve been interviewing pack members to see who’d like to study the Noweres extensively. I’m not content for my legacy to be that I kept the status quo against our greatest threat.”

  I blinked up at him. His face was set in lines of determination. If only every pack had an Alpha like Dare. Maybe this world wouldn’t suck so bad. “That’s amazing, Dare.”

  He smiled tightly. “We’ll see, Reese. We’ll see.”

  We soldiered on, and made it back to the Silver Tip gates in one piece. Dare whistled and the gates opened for us. Tan ran in, while Vaughn and Bay trudged inside, dropping the lumber at their feet before shifting to human.

  I turned around to watch the gates close, mourning a little at the loss of freedom. Every day I looked at those gates from Dare’s window, and it was time to admit that my only way out of this compound was through them.

  My heart warred with itself, because the thought of leaving made me nauseous, but the thought of not trying to save my sister was unacceptable.

  I wasn’t sure if that made me a crappy brother, or a good mate.

  Either way, I wasn’t any closer to figuring out how to be good at both at the same time.

  Chapter Eleven

  Reese

  * * *

  Mav sat on the edge of Dare’s bed, kicking his legs while he gnawed on a chicken leg. Cati was off doing whatever single female Weres did when they didn’t have a novus underfoot. I’d been taking up a lot of Dare’s time lately, and Mav looked happy to be in his father’s presence again.

  And it made my heart ache for my own family which would never be complete again. My parents sure as hell weren’t coming back to life.

  Dare stood at the far side of his room putting away our clothes, which had just been laundered. I sat on the floor, eating a cookie. Because I was an adult wolf, and if I wanted a cookie for lunch then I could have one.

  “Hey, Dad,” Mav said, green eyes round in his small face. “Kep said if you cross your eyes for longer than twenty seconds, then your face will stay that way.”

  “Who’s Kep?” I asked.

  “My best friend,” Mav answered.

  Dare closed the door of his bureau and leaned against it with his arms crossed. “Oh yeah? Try it.”

  Mav gasped. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want my eyes to stay crossed.”

  Dare shook out his hands and cracked his neck. “Okay, I’ll try.” He crossed his eyes and said, “Count for me, Reese.”

  I leaned back against
the wall and laughed. “All right, here goes. Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen.”

  “Dad!” Mav jumped to his feet. “No! They’ll stay that way forever! Stop!”

  This was so mean, but I had to admit, it was fucking hilarious. As I counted, Mav began to paw at his father’s legs.

  “Twelve. Eleven. Ten.”

  “Uh oh,” Dare mumbled. “Something’s happening.”

  “Dad!” Mav ran in a circle around him, beating him with little fists.

  “Five. Four. Three.”

  “Nooooooo!”

  “Two. One.”

  Mav stopped in front of his dad, hands curled at his mouth, eyes wide. He didn’t move, and Dare blinked his eyes. He held out a hand and said in a trembling voice. “I guess Kep was… he was…”

  Mav started whimpering.

  “He was…” Dare uncrossed his eyes. “He was dead wrong.”

  “You’re mean!” Mav pulled back a fist and slammed it into his father’s stomach.

  I toppled to my side in hysterics as Dare made an oomph sound and buckled over laughing while Mav continued to holler.

  Finally Dare scooped up a scowling Mav and hugged him. “I was just kidding with you. I’m sorry. But now you know not to believe everything Kep tells you.”

  Mav went slack in his arms. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “You can always ask me, and I promise not to tease you next time.”

  Mav rolled his eyes. "You always tease."

  Dare began to tickle him, and Mav giggled and writhed in his arms.

  My face hurt, and when I lifted my fingers to touch it, my lips were still stretched into a smile. I wasn’t sure how long it’d been since I laughed that hard and smiled that long. My stomach flopped as I remembered the way my father used to tease me, the way he tickled me right in the ribs and squeezed my kneecaps, which would always send me into a fit of giggles.

  Fuck, I missed them. The way they loved their kids, the gentle way they disciplined us, determined that we grow up to be good and kind wolves. I hadn’t let myself mourn for ten years, and now all of a sudden the grief was rushing up like a tidal wave.