He let her take the lead, and when an arrow thudded into the ground before her, she came to a halt. She backed up a few steps, realizing that they were trapped. The feral look in her eyes had Fergus step in front of her protectively when five humans stepped out from the trees.
Their lack of scent gave it away, and the wolf alpha showed his teeth when he smelled the rot of death from them. It was subtle, but it was there. In the torture chamber, it had been disguised under the already existing multitude of scents, but they had no way of hiding it here.
There was no doubt that all five of these men were humans, but their scents were all wrong. They were alive, but the scent of death had him shudder with disgust.
It wasn’t even the weapons in their hands, which had Fergus’ hairs rising. It was that damned uniform. Now that he noticed, those three men had also been wearing similar garb: black clothes, with grey fittings. The way they moved and raised their weapons at the same time without even bothering to speak gave away their professionalism and the seriousness of their mission.
The wolves around them surrounded Diana in a protective circle and, dazed, Fergus realized that some things never changed. For some reason, his mate inspired such loyalty from these creatures that they were willing to lay down their life for her.
Although taking on five humans would not be such a challenge any other day, these humans held weapons that were supposedly very powerful. That meant not only would he have to tread carefully with them, he would also have to make sure that his mate stayed out of harm’s way.
One of them cocked the huge bazooka-like weapon that rested on his shoulders, and Fergus took advantage of his distraction to attack.
They may not have had his speed, but they were well trained.
A black arrow from a crossbow that one of them carried nearly caught him on the shoulder, but he deftly moved to his right and avoided it.
He sank his teeth into the legs of the human closest to him and immediately spat out the blood.
Different.
It was different.
These men were different from the three they had encountered back at the cabin, and Fergus’ guard was immediately raised. For one, their blood was bitter, something that even he could not tolerate.
He had brought the human to his knees, and the latter lifted his weapon to fire at him.
He wouldn’t be able to escape.
The thought came to Fergus as he saw four of the five weapons trained on him.
He jumped to avoid the strange colored bullet that came his way and jumped on the next man, only to be thrown across the clearing with a strength that no human could possess.
Diana saw Fergus fly across and hit the tree with a loud crack, and her blood ran hot. The rage that filled her was not one she could identify, and she felt that same pulsing within her chest, only this time it was louder and more vivid.
She wanted to rip these humans apart.
She wanted to make them bleed.
The wolves rushed around her, their eyes angry as if reflecting her emotions. Their attacks didn’t take the humans by surprise, but they were outnumbered.
Fergus raised himself up with a little effort and watched in amazement as the wolves swarmed the men. It was almost like they were obeying Diana’s will.
His eyes detected a movement from the left, and he saw the archer edging to safety, his crossbow aimed at Fergus’ mate.
Fergus moved. Putting himself between Diana and the archer, the wolf tried to intercept the arrow, but white hot pain on his side had him slowing down.
He bristled and bared his teeth as more of those strange humans emerged from the trees.
Just how many of them were there?
The wolves were being dropped one by one, and he could feel his mate’s pain at their loss. Fergus backed up, taking a stand in front of Diana. By his count, there were at least more than a dozen men right now. Even if he attacked one, that would mean leaving Diana at their mercy, and he couldn’t let that happen.
The only course of action that he could see was distracting them and having her run.
The few remaining wolves stood by his mate, ready to attack. But there was no way out of this.
I’m sorry, Diana. He pushed that thought to her through their mating bond, knowing that in its dormant state, it might not get through. However, the pulse of alarm, followed by the sharp anger that resonated back to him, had him reevaluating his earlier theory that the passage of time had dulled the bond.
It seemed that it was being suppressed by something else entirely. Something to be considered at a later time, if he survived.
He took a step forward and watched the human closest to him fall.
A wisp of smoke, undetectable to the naked human eyes, moved between the humans and one by one, their faces turned pale and they collapsed.
The smoke turned into a pale man that Fergus recognized immediately.
Gael, a master vampire, was a part of the Council. His beautiful features were something a woman would envy. Those dark eyes held vague annoyance, and his slick hair was tied back in a small ponytail.
“You’re more trouble than you’re worth, wolf.”
Fergus shifted and frowned. “You’re late. I expected you two days ago.”
Gael’s black suit was unruffled, and he eyed the red wolf that stood behind Fergus. She bared her teeth at him, and the vampire raised a brow. “Rather hostile, isn’t she?”
Fergus took a few steps back and let Diana sniff at him again. He caught the bundle of clothes that Gael tossed at him and opened it to reveal two hoodies and jeans.
This time, it was his turn to raise a brow.
“Your entrance into the city needs to be concealed,” Gael said by way of explanation.
Fergus looked at Diana, who shifted after a few seconds. “City?”
She put on the hoodie to cover herself, but her movements were slow, jerky. “I don’t want to be surrounded by humans.”
“You’re not being given a choice. The Morbus are combing this part of the forest, looking for you right now. You need to disappear.”
“Morbus?” Fergus asked.
Gael’s reply was grim, “A disease. A human-based organization which is the equivalent of one.”
Diana’s face was pale as she registered those words. “They’re looking for me?”
The vampire looked at her. “You were in their captivity for ten years. They wanted you alive for something.”
“The pack?”
Diana almost sounded hopeful, and Fergus hated crushing that hope, but he had to. “We can’t risk leading them to our home.”
Her nod was a jerky one, and Fergus gripped her hand. “I’ll be with you the whole time,” he said.
Gael started leading the way and commented, “You will also need to be trained by me. Now that you’re part of the Council–”
“One thing at a time, Gael,” Fergus said tersely. He didn’t want to burden Diana with too much right now. A proper bath, some food, a bed, and then they could discuss her new status – and her old one.
***
The mansion was built to showcase wealth and status, and both wolves felt particularly grubby, standing there in the marbled front entrance. The butler that greeted them at the front door nodded at Fergus who grinned at him in return. “Sebastian. How have you been in–”
“Would you be needing anything, Sir?”
The question was asked of Gael, and when the latter shook his head, Sebastian gave a haughty sniff in Fergus’ direction and walked away.
“He still doesn’t like me, huh?” the wolf alpha commented ruefully.
“Well, you did break in and nearly wreck the place the last time you were here.”
“Forgive and forget,” Fergus said easily.
The master vampire raised an artfully designed brow and told him, “It seems that Sebastian is not the forgiving type.”
They followed Gael into a sitting area.
The few vampires they ran int
o greeted Gael respectfully and eyed their guests with a certain amount of hesitation and disdain.
“You two need a bath.”
A young woman appeared, clad in a modest uniform. “Yes?”
“This is Hill,” Gael introduced her. Despite how cold he seemed, the master vampire treated his people with respect. “Diana, Hill will see to your needs.”
The woman was pretty, but she was not a vampire, and Fergus remembered her from his first time here. Gael had been protecting her.
The fact that she was human had Diana back into her mate, but there was something so warm about the woman. She reached forward and grasped Diana’s hand. “You look terrible,” she said. “Come on. I’ll give you a bath, and we’ll do something about that beautiful hair.”
The wolf found itself taken aback at the openness of this human female.
She was human, but she felt different.
Her wolf quivered in interest and wanted to sniff at her. Diana looked back at Fergus and then let herself be led away by this human who was still chattering. For some reason, her voice was pleasantly calming to her ears.
As soon as Diana left the room, the smile slid off of Fergus’ face, and Gael noted, “You’re keeping up appearances for her sake.”
Fergus sank into a chair, mentally exhausted. “I don’t know what appearance to keep up. She doesn’t know who I am. Our mating bond is there, but it’s buried under something.”
Gael looked at the door from where Diana had just left. “She doesn’t seem very traumatized.”
He gave a short laugh that lacked any humor. “Diana has always been resilient. What you’re seeing is a ghost of who she was.” Blue eyes met black ones. “My mate is not weak.”
Gael placed a hand in the pocket of his designer suit. “I never said she was. She was chosen to be a part of the Council. However,” he turned to face the wolf alpha, “she needs someone to help her harness all that power inside her.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“We are at war, wolf. This organization is like a hydra. You cut off one head, two more grow back. We need the Council at full strength.” He adjusted the cuff link on his shirt. “And that means I need to train your mate to break down those barriers she’s built up and use her gift.”
Fergus stared at him. “She just got out of imprisonment. She needs to heal.”
Gael was not impressed with the show of temper. “And how do you suggest she heals? By sitting in a corner and licking her wounds?”
Fergus was on his feet and snarling, but the master vampire smoothly ignored him. “She needs to come into her own. You probably blame yourself for what happened to her, but that doesn’t mean you make her a cripple for the rest of her life, by making her depend on you. She needs to train, and she needs to know that she can protect herself. This is for her sake as much as for the Council’s.”
The wolf alpha glared at him, but he couldn’t say anything because Gael was right. Diana did need to know she was strong enough to protect herself. Knowing that she had the ability to defend herself would go a long way in building up that confidence again. Glimpses of her raw strength had been there today. Her fearlessness had shown through. It just needed to be coaxed out.
And he may not be the right person for the job.
His mate needed someone who was not so emotionally invested in her.
When Diana was led to the dining room a few hours later, she looked like an altogether different person, and Fergus had to stop himself from going and touching her to see that his eyes were not seeing things.
Her long, red hair was tied in a thick braid, and she wore a white tank top, over which she had adorned a leather jacket. Her blue jeans fit her like a glove, and despite the fact that it was quite obvious she was in desperate need of nutrition, she looked so much like her old self that Fergus had to hold onto the back of the chair he was standing beside to steady himself.
Gael greeted her and offered her a seat beside him.
The dining hall resembled something from a royal palace – a huge room with a table that extended to the end of the room. The master vampire sat in the host’s seat, while Fergus sat on his left and Diana was offered the seat on his right.
Diana stared at the seating arrangement and then went to the seat that was directly next to Fergus’. Her silver wolf was in the process of pulling out the chair for her when she put a restraining hand on the back of it.
He stopped and looked at her.
“I can do it myself.” Her words were quiet, and she caught a flicker of something in his eyes, before he smiled a smile that was both happy and yet fiercely sad.
Was it something she did?
She pulled out the chair and seated herself. It felt like a small rebellion every time she did something for herself. She was divided into two parts. One was filled with fear, a wariness that told her she shouldn’t trust anything or anyone. The other part of her was full of anger. There was so much anger inside of her. She wanted to destroy, maim, and hurt. She wanted to inflict pain on everyone so they could feel an ounce of what she went through.
Her anger was at the world. It was at this wolf that sat next to her who had been nothing but kind to her, whose hands offered her safety and comfort. It was at the cool and composed man who had saved their lives and had forced them into the midst of a human populace.
Within all the anger and fear was a small emotion that struggled to survive. It was something she could not put a name to. She had felt it when her silver wolf was tossed against that tree. The unknown emotion made her use her anger and tell the wolves to attack. It was both powerful and weak.
The woman, Hill, had shown her an entire wardrobe of clothes and asked her whether she wanted to choose her outfit herself.
After such a long period of time where she had not felt any cloth on her skin, where she had been vulnerable to those humans, it had made her hands tremble when she looked at all those articles of clothing.
Hill had pretended not to see the tears that fell down her cheeks as she grabbed the clothes one by one. The blonde walked over to the bath and busied herself in filling the tub.
The outfit that she wore right now had felt right, almost familiar. Hill allowed her to bathe herself and when her strength had left her, the woman’s soft touch moved over her scars and bruises with tender care. As she helped dress her, the human woman told her that she admired Diana for being so brave all this time.
Those words had struck a chord inside of the battered female wolf. This woman in front of her acknowledged her survival and her bravery. Somebody was telling her that they knew it wasn’t easy what she had gone through and that they knew she had done her best. The tears that fell at those words led Hill to hold her until she cried herself out. Then she cleaned her face and replaced the denim jacket with a leather one, saying with a sniff, that it looked more ‘badass.’
“You’re not eating.”
Those crystal blue eyes held concern, and Diana looked at her plate to see the beef steak in front of her, lying untouched.
“Sorry, I was…” Diana looked at Fergus and saw the lines of exhaustion on his face. “You’re tired.”
“Just a smidge.” She heard the lie in his words and saw the weary smile that accompanied it.
“You’re also not eating,” she commented.
She saw him look at his food and murmur something that she didn’t quite catch. In his wolf form, he was beautiful, but his human form was also very handsome. When he had touched her in the forest, her mind was in shambles, and she drew strength from his wolf. Now, when she looked at him, she wondered if he held her, would she feel anything.
There was a certain spark about him, that had her brutally-beaten wolf looking up in quiet interest. Her tail wagged slowly.
This wolf was hers. The claim was there. But what did it mean?
The meal was a quiet affair where even Gael could see that both shifters were exhausted.
“I’ve prepared rooms for the–”
/> “One room,” Fergus spoke.
The events of the past few days had caught up with him now, and there was no hiding the feral glint in his eye. “Diana sleeps where I sleep.”
Should she protest that?
If somebody else had said that, Diana thought she might have. But, she agreed with this wolf’s sentiments. She didn’t want to be apart from him.
Gael’s words were sharp, “She might not want–”
“I will stay with Fergus,” Diana echoed.
A moment of silence, and then a sigh. “Very well.”
The room given to them was a reflection of the rest of the house: a huge, four-poster bed, with a large sofa, and a view of the outside of the mansion overlooking green pasture.
Diana looked at Fergus who stared back at her.
“Well.”
Chapter 6
The bed was comfortable, the room lavish beyond belief, but both shifters found it hard to rest. Diana curled up in a chair, adorning her human form, while Fergus talked on the phone to first Kevin and Nina, and then Raoul and Luke.
Diana’s green eyes followed his form as he paced the room.
Once he was done with his phone calls, Fergus walked over to the bed, sighed, and threw himself on his back, his legs dangling from the edge of the bed. The back of his hand covered his eyes.
Frustration, anger, confusion. A soft hand on his forehead made him still, and he peeked through his fingers to see Diana sitting next to him. “You look angry.”
Fergus considered lying, not wanting to upset her. But honesty had always worked for him and Diana. It had been at the core of their relationship. He removed his hand and looked up at her. “I am. I want to take you home to the pack. I want you to recover and get better. I want you back.”
Diana was quiet. “You said we knew each other.”
Fergus grabbed her hand and pressed it against his lips.
Diana flushed, not knowing why.
The wicked charm in the wolf’s eyes, although tempered with a layer of emotions, was not completely hidden. However, even the smile at her reaction held hints of sadness.
“We were…” Fergus paused, feeling choked. “Friends. We were very good friends.”
Loved by Alpha Wolf Page 4