Thrown To The Wolf (Pack Heat Book 3)

by Sam Hall

  “Right, well, beggars and all that,” I said. She looked at me quizzically as she plopped another big spoonful of mashed potato onto a plate. “Beggars can’t be choosers?”

  She thought about that for a second, never stopping her dishing up, then nodded, apparently approving of the aphorism. “Well, don’t take your eyes off yon men. Won’t get ‘em back if the women swarm. None of the Volken will step in, fearful of being clawed to pieces themselves. We lost our Bradley that way.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear about that,” I said.

  She just shrugged in response, but as Slade walked up, she paused in her slopping, looking him over slowly.

  “Be a pity to lose something like him to those bitches.”

  “Yes, indeed, that would be terrible…” What was her name? I’ve just been chatting to her. Surely at some point she mentioned her name, so what was it?

  “Gwen,” Slade supplied helpfully, earning himself a smile from the kitchen hand.

  “Yeah, thanks, Gwen,” I said, and then pushed the cart away to join the rest of the guys.

  “You’re all ready?” A Volken stood at the mouth of a long corridor that led under the building we’d been working in. We all nodded and responded with the appropriate honorific. “Where’s the girls? We don’t usually let blokes in, especially at this time of the year.”

  “We’re down some staff due to the Longest Night celebrations, m’lord,” I said, dropping a little curtsey for good luck.

  He chuckled at that, a dark sound that extinguished all hope. “‘Spose you would be. Alright, someone’s gotta go in, so it may as well be you. The big ones look like they can handle themselves.” His smile was sly, his eyes lingering as he inspected the guys. “Watch yourselves. Those bitches get one sniff of red-blooded men, they can be hard to control. We’re not riding to your rescue. We’ll lock you down in the complex, let nature take its course, you clear?”

  We all agreed to that, my fingers tightening on the handles of the trolley, my heart beating loudly in my ears.

  “You been down here before?” the Volken guard asked, reaching into a small cupboard by the main doors. All our eyes followed him pulling out a big set of keys.

  “No, m’lord,” Finn said finally as he watched him unlock the door.

  “I’ll show you where everything is then. We’ll be up at the Great Rite tomorrow, and the kids will need a feed, if not the women. We won’t be bringing the inmates to them, no guards to make that happen, so they’ll be feral. Just toss something through the slots. They’ll survive, mostly. We all clear?” We nodded at that. “Into the belly of the beast then. Come this way.”

  We pushed the trolleys into a large empty foyer. The walls were smoother and painted white instead of dank stone, but there was a similar air to it.

  “You get in through here,” the Volken rather redundantly pointed to the only other door in the room. “Lock the door behind you, every single time. I can’t stress that enough. You want to be stretched out on the altar upstairs at the height of the Great Rite? Leave a door unlocked.”

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  He walked over to the door and held the key up with a flourish before opening it, ushering us in when it was opened.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. We entered a long corridor and on either side were rooms with a couple of small windows. On each door was a name. I read the closest one but didn’t recognise it, then saw the other was, ‘Lian.’

  “Each room is labelled for the father if they’re high ranking, or a number if they’re not. Make sure you do the named rooms first. The women and their brats do remember and will report you to the higher ups if you’re stupid enough to mess with the hierarchy. Unlock,” the Volken demonstrated the process, “go in, give them their food, and then lock it back up again. On your way out, unlock, grab the plates and anything else you brought in. Everything but the food must be accounted for. You leave stuff behind, you’ll be down the Great Wolf’s throat before the end of the day. Some of the little bitches have made weapons from shards of crockery, so be on the alert. Now…”

  The Volken walked over to a door with a piece of bright red fabric swathed over it.

  “Any door that has red fabric on it, you don’t enter. It won’t be a problem tomorrow as we’re not bringing the inmates down, but do not go in there. These are the women who’ve come into heat.” We all jumped when we heard a thump and then a muffled scream from beyond the door, making the Volken chuckle. “The kids have been moved into surrounding rooms for their safety, but these women are dangerous. If you’re dumb enough to go in there, you’ll get your just desserts quick smart. Now, I’m going back to my post on the other side of the door.” The Volken tossed the keys to me. “Lock it once I go through, and don’t come out until you’re done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A weird kind of quiet settled over the complex once the lock was clicked, broken only by whatever was happening behind the red covered door.

  “Almost makes you wanna find out what’s going down,” Slade said, attempting to smile.

  “Except it's probably Grey or Rhydian they’re throwing around in there, forcing them to desecrate their vows to my mother,” Finn replied.

  “Shit, I’m sorry—” Slade said.

  “Bloody easy way to get the keys,” Jack said, eyeing the set in my hands. “This has all been pretty easy. You seers got any divine insight into why?”

  “That vision I had yesterday with Jules was the clearest I’ve had since I told you what I was,” Brandon said with a shrug, Aaron’s hand landing on his shoulder.

  “Clearest?” Finn said. “What’s that mean?”

  Brandon shook his head. “I get glimpses of stuff, mostly just really boring stuff, like someone having a smoke or taking a shit or something.”

  “But…” Finn prompted.

  “Sometimes it’s just an empty field. Green and peaceful.”

  “And the other times?”

  “Darkness.”

  “Very enlightening,” Sylvan said. “The keys being within easy proximity tells you a lot about how seriously the women are taken as a threat. Let’s just do this. Let’s go to Lian’s family first. They’re high up the hierarchy, and I have a contact in there.”

  I nodded and then took the keys and turned the lock.

  We crept inside, everyone’s heads whipping around when we heard the wheels of one of the carts squeak. Hawk stopped pushing it, moving to join us as we moved further in.

  If you’d asked me what I’d expected, this wasn’t it. Which was weird, as I had seen rooms like it before in the vision Sylvan shared with us. I flicked a look at the seer as he followed us, but if anything, he looked the calmest. He strode forward, taking the lead, walking past the beautiful paintings and sculptures leaned up against the walls and the overstuffed couches covered in rich silks until we entered the main room. Huge, I wondered just how much space they’d excavated under the city to create it and the many others besides. Then they came.

  Looking like feral supermodels who just couldn’t take another day of the Diet Coke and Tic Tac diet, beautiful women appeared, from the small accompanying bedrooms, from couches, and from a room that had been set up as a schoolroom. They approached us with halting steps, long slender legs poised and ready to retreat at a second's notice, and I saw why. Twined around their bodies, hiding behind their skirts, were the children. They stared at us with eyes the size of saucers, nostrils flaring as they looked us over. Each step we took had them flinching back, but they persisted in their inspection, until they saw the seer.

  “Sylvan…” one woman said, her voice soft and sweet. “Is that…? Is that you?” She came forward, her hand wrapping itself around her daughter’s, drawing the child along with her. She had a long tumble of auburn hair and striking green eyes that seemed to pierce our souls with one glance.

  “Of course, Arelia,”

  “And you’ve brought…” Her voice trailed away, and her eyes wid
ened as she took in the guys. She froze on the spot, pushing her child behind her skirts as her nose worked to take in the scents of the guys. “You brought breeders to us? Here?” Her voice started to waver as she shot questions at the seer, cracking when she turned to her daughter. “Kiralee, go to your room, now.”

  Kiralee must have been her daughter, as she pushed the child to do her bidding, but the little girl seemed resistant to the order, her fingers grasping at her mother’s skirt, clinging hard even as she was pushed.

  “No, Arelia, not breeders. Let me—”

  “These men reek of Tirian,” one woman said.

  “But not of rut,” another said, peering at us.

  “I’m not sure I care,” a dark beauty with grey eyes said, slinking forward, her child left to fend for herself. “These are much better specimens than those we’ve had before. I could think of worse ways to spend the Longest Night.” She strode over, the dress she wore swishing around her hips as she went, her eyes flashing red for a moment as she approached.

  “Stop!” Sylvan said. His voice was clear and crisp, and held a note of authority I hadn’t heard the black wolf use before.

  “Do not think to order me around, interloper,” the dark woman said.

  “They are not here to breed with you. They’ve brought you your lunch.”

  “Well, I know what I’d like to eat,” she purred, reaching for Hawk, but he stepped free of her. Her face was no less beautiful when she was pissed, but it was doubly scary. “You refuse me? I’ll have you returned to your cells to rot!”

  “Not one of your captive dicks,” he replied, staring her down. “No cells to go back to.”

  She studied him closely, her nostrils flaring as she did so, then she spun on her heel and stalked away from us, her daughter left behind with eyes scanning the room, trying to work out where she should be.

  “Who have you brought us? I thought you had escaped the city,” Arelia said.

  My spine began to straighten as I realised what we’d done. These were the daughters and granddaughters of Lord Lian, one of the highest ranking Volken of the city. I looked closely at each woman’s smooth, perfect face. They could scent us like the guys could in Sanctuary. We’d basically announced what we were and who we were to every single one of them, just by walking in. What would they do with the information?

  “I had, and now I’m back.”

  “To do as you said? The prophecy…?”

  He looked into Arelia’s eyes without flinching in the face of all that hope and longing.

  “I don’t know, Arelia. Nothing's clear. My visions… Something’s coming, that's for sure. Change of some sort, but I don’t know what.”

  “And we’re trapped down here, to wait it out,” another woman said, crossing her arms and frowning.

  “What if you weren’t?”

  I blurted the words out before I’d even thought about it, but as I looked around the gilded cage the women were forced to raise their children in, it was hard not to consider the possibility.

  “Jules!” Aaron snapped. I got why. We didn’t know these women, these Volken daughters, didn’t know where their loyalties lay, or even if they wanted their freedom, but I found I had to know.

  “What would you do if you could get out of here?” I said, watching each one of them react to the idea. Some went wide eyed, minds blown too far to form a response. Some got immediately restless, their arms going around their children, but too many went flat and still. Like prey under the paws and claws of a predator, playing dead in the hope they wouldn't be. I didn’t need anyone to answer, their reaction was eloquent enough.

  “I’d run,” the dark-haired woman said. Those grey eyes landed on her daughter, who had shrunk down against the couch with no one to hold her. “Away from everything here. I’d run and I’d run and I’d run, until there was nowhere left to run and then finally, I would be free.”

  “Kerin…” Arelia said, taking a step forward.

  “Well, I would. No one wants to live and die in a cage, no one. Not even if it’s pretty, not when our father deigns to visit, not when I’m forced to mate over and over with men who despise me and who I loathe in return. Not when I’m forced to bear child after child, only to have the males torn away. I would take any opportunity to get out of this place.”

  Kerin didn’t look at her daughter, but I did. I saw the tears well in her eyes, then silently run down her face, and wasn’t sure who to empathise with. Kerin was right, and I wondered how much I’d love a child I’d been forced to have, despite the fact her daughter patently needed someone to love her. How would you bond with a child, knowing it was either going to be ripped from you or forced to live out her days as you did? My hand strayed to my stomach, something that caught several of the women’s eyes. They watched me carefully through narrowed eyes, until one of the little girls piped up.

  “I’m hungry, Mummy.”

  “Can I have some food please, Mummy,” the woman said in the carefully calm way mothers often used. The little girl parroted the response back, and her mother nodded, straightening up to look expectantly at me. The women and children moved as one, sitting down at a long dining table, backs straight, hands in their laps as we placed plates and cutlery before them.

  “I’d move as far away as possible,” one woman said as she picked up her fork, pausing with the tines pressed into the tablecloth. “I’d go somewhere where they’d never heard of Tirian or Lonan, find a little house, perhaps a mate. I’d bring Layla up in peace, make sure she went outside every day to feel the sun on her face. Let her fill the house with wildflowers.” Layla, a girl of about seven looked up at her mother with a bright smile. “I’d give her everything my mother wanted for me but couldn’t give.”

  For a moment, all you could hear was the sounds of us moving around the table, but it was soon broken.

  “I’d run, in Tirian and human form, and my children would run with me, all of them.” The woman squared her shoulders. “My boys as well as my girls. We would move for the pleasure of it, never staying in one place for more than a night, never leaving a mark on the earth. Just being, drifting like feathers on the wind.” She eyed the walls around her. “I’d spurn gold and marble, velvet and silk for the simplest of homespun. We would have nothing, and it would be glorious.”

  “So, you would beggar your children?” Kerin said.

  “What would I care for wealth? What has it done for us here?” The woman poked the golden candlestick with her knife. “I’m Lyrica, by the way.”

  “Jeananne,” the woman who’d spoken beforehand said, “and my daughter, Layla.”

  “I’d have a child,” one of the women said. She sat between two other women, no child at her side. “I’d have one for myself, with someone of my choosing, for me to keep forever.”

  “Unlike the ones you smothered in their sleep?” Kerin said.

  “Kerin,” Arelia said.

  “What? It’s true, isn’t it? But all this talk is for nothing, isn’t it?”

  The red shine in Kerin’s grey eyes worried me as she turned to face me. The Black Wolf and Lonan weren’t the same things, but for now, they operated under an unholy alliance. Who looked out at me when that red tinge leached in? Kerin, Lonan, or the Black Wolf?

  “Is it? I have the keys, don’t I?” I said, shaking them in front of them, which was probably a mistake.

  Fuck, Kerin was fast. Her lips peeled from her fangs as she leapt across the table at me, scattering plates and pulling cries from children and women alike. My free hand snapped around her wrist, and I was thankful when I managed to hold her still. The guys clustered around me, low growls building in their chests. Kerin went limp, more or less, in my grip, her eyes flicking to the guys then me.

  “You’re a pack. You’re Tirian.”

  She looked almost affronted. Punching her square in the face wouldn’t have surprised her as much as this, I was willing to guess.

  “You exist, outside of all of this.” Kerin flung her arm
up, gesturing widely to the suite. “You… All of these… No one…” She just pulled herself off the table, unmoved by the fact plates and cutlery came with her, splattering on the rich carpets. I caught her arm when she staggered, righting her, then watched to see if she had this.

  “You did bring them,” Arelia said, standing up and staring at Sylvan.

  “I don’t know what I brought.”

  “But you said. You always said.”

  “Fuck, Arelia, I don’t always remember what I said. When the dreams, the visions come, I’m offline. I’m the puppet of whichever god is riding me.”

  “But you told me. All those nights, you told me you’d get us out.”

  Most women, when they get upset, start to go red and blotchy, getting sniffy and snivelly, but not Arelia. She stood there, every muscle in her body quivering, looking as terrible as a goddess as she stared down the table. Kiralee’s hand reached for her mother’s, and Arelia took it, which drew all of our attention.

  “She’s…” Jack said, and I nodded.

  We hadn’t noticed it at the start, each one of the women a kaleidoscopic array of beautiful. Every hair, eye, and skin colour was represented in the…sisters or half-sisters at least, so a child with long black hair and bright green eyes like her mother was stunning, but no more stunning than any of the others here. But as my eyes were drawn down, I noted the strong stance in the little girl’s feet, her eyebrows pulled down, her eyes burning into mine in ways her mother’s couldn’t.

  “Get us out,” Kiralee said. An alpha rumble in a kid’s voice was the last thing I expected to hear, but the rest of us stood straighter as we felt her will beating down.

  “Now, look…” Finn said in what he probably thought was a reasonable tone.

  “Get us out,” the child repeated, and then I saw it.

  Why would Sylvan come back? His heart seemed to be firmly ensnared by Branwen, but as I looked at Kiralee’s mother, it wasn’t hard to see why he would have. Let your eyes blur, trade the knowing look of Branwen for the rather more nobly desperate one of Arelia, and it was easy to make the swap. My eyes dropped to her daughter. As Sylvan had obviously done at least once.