by SJ Himes
“I understand,” Kane nodded and sank down to his side, careful not to touch his mate’s badly burned hands as he curled around him. He put his forehead to Ghost’s temple, smelling smoke and sweat, and his mate’s own unique scent. Kane closed his eyes and breathed, trying to calm his nerves.
Finding the connection between them was easy. It was everywhere, his thoughts encapsulated by Ghost’s presence in his mind. Even unconscious, his little shaman was present, his starlight restrained and fitful, but there. Kane knocked down all his mental walls and breathed through the sudden vulnerability of his open mind to the wolfkin nearby. Kane could hear the far off murmur of many minds, but turned his focus away from them and gave it all to Ghost. He was fully recovered now from the explosion, and his strength was now his mate’s.
A river of crimson energy flowed from his center, where the red and black star burned. His spirit, visible and realized in a way he’d never thought about before mating with Ghost. He followed the energy, and it twisted through his being until the color began to change, lighten, rivulets of silver and white energy twisting through the crimson. This was where he joined with Ghost. Their spirits becoming one, every heartbeat drawing them closer to being one soul. Kane never knew he was incomplete until he found contentment and joy in Ghost’s embrace. Here, in the vast nether of their spirits, Kane hovered at the place where he ended and Ghost began. He drew in his will and pulled on the crimson power of his star. It answered and roared down the river of light towards Ghost’s spirit, spilling over the edge of an abyss, to a tiny speck of light that fitfully burned in the distance.
Kane floated in the heavenly spaces, sending every atom of energy he possessed to his mate’s star, a far-off glimmer that grew brighter as the stars swirled in the heavens above.
“Kane,” a whisper broke through the quiet, echoing. He ignored it and concentrated on keeping the flow of energy constant. The silver-white star was again vibrant, flares of brilliant light shooting off into the abyss, a tumult of energy that spun tendrils out to him, through him, into him.
The echo returned, his name spoken over and over, gentle chiding calls that irritated and soothed in a confusion that finally broke through his concentration. He was pulled from that heavenly place and back to reality. Kane gasped and his whole body jerked on the mattress, eyes opening to meet lovely silver orbs full of emotion.
“Ghost,” he sighed and he cupped the sweet face of his mate, kissing his pink lips. Ghost sighed in his mouth, opening for him, tongues mating in a languid dance. Kane pulled back, but only enough to look down, and see the fresh skin flushed with a healthy glow on Ghost’s healed hands.
Kane tilted his head to see River sitting on the other side of Ghost, looking exhausted but satisfied. The older shaman nodded, blue eyes quiet as he gazed at Ghost. Kane’s mate whined and curled into a ball on his side, burrowing under Kane and breathing out a long sigh of exhaustion.
“Get some sleep, both of you.” River slipped off the bed and turned off the lamp before heading for the door.
“Wait,” Kane whispered, River pausing at the doorway, one hand on the knob. “Burke?”
River looked back at him, eyes flashing in the light from the hall. “Burke is alive and well. Minor injuries. Go to sleep.”
The door snicked shut behind him, and Kane sighed, muscles going limp as he curled around Ghost and held him tight.
SOPHIA PUNCHED the wall. She snarled at the pain radiating up her wrist and went to strike again. A big hand grabbed her wrist, and she spun, lashing out with her other hand, claws out and ready to slash whoever dared touch her.
Gerald dodged her strike but kept his grip on her wrist, tugging her to his chest and wrapping both arms around her, effectively keeping her from hitting him. She brought her knee up, enraged, ready to lay him out, but he twisted, and the blow landed on his thigh instead of his groin. He grimaced, but held her fast.
“Stop, woman,” he growled. “Save your anger for the enemy, and spare the walls…and my hide!”
“Enemy? What enemy?! We could be surrounded by traitors, but we don’t know who they are!” she cried, frustrated and angry. “Waiting on reports like this is killing our chances of finding them.”
Her fear after the bombing had morphed to rage, but after rescuing Burke from the tree, there was nothing to do but wait for word on Ghost and Kane’s condition. The soul-bonded mates were with the shaman, and the White Wolf was hunting, searching for the person or persons who planted the bomb that nearly killed them all.
With Burke unconscious, and Andromeda gone, Sophia was left in charge. The Black Pine wolves were waiting on word of everyone’s condition in the large living room of the Clan Leader’s cabin. Every able-bodied beta was out patrolling the park, circling back to report at the cabin as they finished their sweeps before returning to patrol another section. With Burke out of commission and Andromeda busy, Sophia was left handicapped by her class. As a beta, she could be many things, warrior to mother, but she was horrible at speaking mind to mind, and with more than a couple of wolves in a link, she got lost. Here was where Burke was invaluable; he could hold several simultaneous conversations at once with multiple wolfkin and not drop a link or confuse the threads. She was no Speaker, so the wolves on patrol either had to stay in human form and use cells or radios, or return to the park center and communicate one on one with Sophia.
“Let me help you,” Gerald said softly. She frowned and looked up at him, his swarthy face flushed with a red hue. “I am no Speaker, but I can help.”
“What?” she was so confused that she didn’t notice when he’d stopped restraining her, and the embrace changed to holding. She rested on his chest, hands on his hard pecs, and her eyes went wide as she finally understood what he was offering. All alphas, lesser and greater, had the gift of command, to varying degrees. Gerald’s reach was substantially longer than her own, even if he was a lesser alpha. “By the Goddess, can you?”
She surrendered pride and went with necessity. Gerald nodded, his eyes locked on hers for a long moment before he let her go and strode for the front door where the next wave of runners were coming. With Gerald handling long-distance communication, she could focus on the rest of Red Fern. She let him deal with the wolfkin in their four-legged forms, and she grabbed the radio from where it hung from her waistband when it squawked with a new update. She took down the all clear and noted the border section, and then watched the alpha through the front windows, wondering if the explosion had finally knocked some sense into the older wolfkin.
Gerald, son of Caius, and Kane’s newest wolf, may not be the greater alpha Fate demanded of him, but a lesser alpha was better than no alpha.
“Sophia,” a faint voice called, and she looked up to see River coming carefully down the stairs, moving like he’d been in the blast instead of his patients. She hurried to join him as he made the ground floor, and his expression was all she needed. She exhaled, and her stress levels dropped a few notches.
She opened her mouth to ask, but River held up a hand and beat her to it. “Burke is awake and asking for you. First door on the left at the top of the stairs. Be quiet, Kane and Luca…sorry, Kane and Ghost are sleeping next door. They need their rest, so don’t be long.”
“Thank you, Shaman,” she replied, giving him a respectful nod before she took the stairs three at a time.
She felt his eyes on her as she went up, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t as happy as she was about the astounding luck of her team mates.
Treasonous Acts
“DO WE know if any targets were killed?” Simon asked, tightening the straps to his tactical vest, eyes on the illuminated map projected on the wall of the situation room. His temporary base of operations was located at a closed campground on Katahdin Lake, southwest of Baxter State Park.
“Our source says there were some injuries, sir, but no fatalities,” the tech answered, hi
s headset chirping and his face pale from perennial lack of sunlight and nerves. “The shaman was present, sir.”
“Our spy was able to plant the bomb inside the cabin?” Which was the plan, to take out the Speaker and the Heir’s First Beta, reducing the monster’s chances of mounting an effective defense when his teams breached the park’s borders. Roman was convinced that Kane was too strong to fight directly and needed to be defeated by grief instead of brute force. Killing his wolves one by one would leave the Heir vulnerable to grief, and perhaps his control of the Voice would diminish enough for him to be rendered unconscious. The source said the Heir and the long lost shaman slept the night before in the Clan Leader’s cabin, so logic said they should be there again that night. Killing the shaman and the Heir now wasn’t the plan. “Was the shaman one of the ones injured?”
“No information, sir. We lost contact with the beta after the bombing. Source said the wolves in question returned sooner than expected and the placement wasn’t on target. No contact since then,” the tech answered, clicking away at his keyboard, studiously avoiding making eye contact with Simon.
“Fuck,” Simon muttered, not liking the idea of going in blind. They needed their spy in place feeding them information so this wasn’t a repeat of Sebastien’s blunder fifteen years prior. Sebastien messed up in letting his insider wolves leave the park prior to the ambush at the gates—if they’d stayed, then perhaps Remus Acquisitions would have their multi-billion dollar military contract producing super-soldiers. “That’s what I get for sending an amateur in to do a professional’s job.”
Not that he had much choice, since the park was shut tighter than St Pete’s Gates to a sinner. Simon pursed his lips and whistled, the shrill sound making most of the technicians in the make-shift control room jump. Though nothing made the humans more nervous than the sound that came a heartbeat later, a deep, low rumble of a growl that swept through the room. If he wasn’t so impatient he would have regretted the folly of whistling for Roman like he were a family pet, but he was past the point of caution.
A shadow passed through the projector beam, blocking the map as the beast that was Roman stalked around the tables and desks, head down, eyes glittering in the light from a dozen monitors. Quick flashes of shiny teeth reflected as the beast dropped his lower jaw, heavy bellowing pants loud in the closed space. Simon swallowed, doing his best not to let his hands shake. Roman, a deeper shadow in the artificial lights, appeared and disappeared, and Simon peered into the darkness, about to order the lights turned on and damn his view of the map.
Hot breath misted the back of his shoulder and a ripping noise made him jump. “Turn on the fucking lights!” Simon shouted. The lights clicked on, revealing the nightmare wolfishly grinning at him with unholy glee. He swore, backing away from the demon dog that tossed his head in a canine equivalent of laughter and spit out a black shred of his sleeve.
“Not funny, asshole,” Simon snarled, and sent a lethal glare at the techs as some struggled not to laugh. A few snickers escaped, but he didn’t want to take his eyes off the werewolf long enough to reprimand anyone. They were all worthless anyway.
Where the shaman in New Brunswick had been a big, intimidating creature with devilish silver eyes and snow white teeth, this monster was truly frightening.
A shaggy, thick coat in deep browns and blacks in a subtle brindle pattern covered the massive frame of the werewolf, his eyes black pools of liquid shadows that seemed to glow even in the overhead lights. Standing, they were nearly the same height, the wolf’s head coming to the center of his torso, and the animal’s powerful frame was a few hundred pounds of densely packed muscles. A thick neck and massive skull dominated by giant jaws and large eyes attached to the equally huge chest and shoulders of the beast showed very clearly the hunter that almost killed off mankind at the dawn of civilization. Claws that retracted like a cat’s gauged at the floor as Roman paced in front of him, eventually turning his back to Simon, thwacking him hard on the hip with a huge bushy tail. He could damn near count each bone in the appendage from the force of the blow, and Simon gritted his teeth to hold back his indignant cry.
There was a mass exodus in the make-shift command room once the noise akin to the snapping of wet wood rose from the now sitting beast. A whole body shudder rippled under the fur, a second before a wave of flesh rose through the dark strands, raw and angry looking before it changed, melting into blemish free human skin. Limbs contorted and bent, snapping and straightening. The skull’s transformation was the thing of horror movies, the transition rough and incredibly painful looking, and when teeth receded back into the warping jaw Simon almost lost his supper. Simon knew that the more powerful of the wolves, the greater alphas, made the Change in a swift and almost graceful transition, but the lesser wolves struggled. It seemed the lower the wolf’s power-ranking, the harsher the Change.
He’d heard from the other wolves on his payroll that some betas could transform in seconds, as smoothly as a one of the ancient Greater Clan Leaders, but he’d yet to see proof. Betas and lesser alphas were the magic runts of the werewolf society, the shamans and greater alphas holding all the true power. Simon had yet to get access to a greater alpha of enough power to influence a large number of wolves, and his attempts to capture a shaman were all fruitless, the closest he and his team had come being the gray one in Canada. If he’d known the werewolf was a shaman and not just a lone and vulnerable beta, Simon would not have risked trying to take him. Shamans were dangerous and crafty, always slipping away before his traps could snare them. Simon’s belief in the shaman’s magic had been nearly non-existent right up until one chased him through a house with a wall of conjured fire and scorching hot air.
The only shaman DNA they had was a corrupted sample from Gray Shadow’s body, taken hours after his death as he was prepared to be burned on a pyre. Roman had stolen the blood, and due to the increased vigilance after Sebastien’s failed abduction attempts, Roman wasn’t able to get the blood out to him in time to keep most of the sample viable. It wasn’t until Roman was sent to retrieve Sebastien for retribution that Simon got the sample, and by then, it was almost too late. It was contaminated by silver, and the minute strands of DNA they recovered were enough, to prove they needed more.
A very naked and sweaty Roman stood at last, his muscular frame covered in hard muscles and flushed skin. Simon tore his eyes off the beast’s ass, still astonished at how human he appeared when he was anything but. Simon wasn’t gay, not even a little, but he was well aware that the werewolf was an envious specimen of masculinity, despite his nasty personality. Whenever they were in the same space, Simon was incredibly aware of the creature, as if his senses refused to forget there was an apex predator nearby. At least, that’s what he hoped it was, and not a constant reminder of the creature’s physical perfection and casual disregard for clothing.
Roman turned and Simon saw his smirk, as if the werewolf knew he’d been looking. The naked creature stalked him, cock long and intimidating even flaccid, swinging slightly with each step, and Simon could smell musky male heat and the sweat that misted hot smooth skin as Roman towered over him. His stomach quivered and sweat pooled at the base of his spine. He wanted to touch the smooth flesh exposed to his gaze, the desire sudden and unexpected, and incredibly disturbing. Roman’s scent filled his nose, and it was so powerful he could almost taste the werewolf’s skin under his tongue.
“See something you like?” Roman growled, and Simon made a concentrated effort not to look down, the beast so close now that he could feel the intense heat emanating from his groin. Simon frantically shook his head, and Roman grinned, an evil twist of his lips that flashed a hint of fangs. “Be careful, human. Your scent betrays you. I may ignore your words and slake my lust in your tight ass. I haven’t had a man’s ass in years. Ever been fucked?”
“Back off, you animal,” Simon tried to demand, but it came out a breathy whisper. Roman leaned down just a s
light amount and sniffed at Simon’s neck. Simon was horrified that his limp cock twitched, and he held his breath. Somehow he was pressed back against the table behind him, hands desperately grasping at the edge of the table, Roman leaning over him. The creature’s body heat rolled over Simon, and black spots danced in his eyes.
Roman’s mouth opened on his neck, and he felt dagger-sharp fangs scrap over his skin. Roman nuzzled down under his collar, and Simon gasped, sucking in air and forcing himself to stay still. He felt Roman’s hard cock pressing eagerly against his stomach, and Simon was about to risk pushing the beast away when Roman struck.
Simon’s cry was strangled as fangs sank into his shoulder where it met his neck, under his collar. White-hot pain lanced the muscles as Roman sank in deep, huge arms wrapped around his body, thighs spreading his legs, taking him off his feet, forcing him back over the table. He struggled, but Roman growled with a mouthful of flesh, hot blood spilling past his lips. Simon froze, instinctively holding still as the predator marked him. Roman didn’t tear into him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.
Roman growled in satisfaction, sucking, rubbing his hard cock over Simon’s abdomen, making him whimper in fear and pain. And confusion. His cock was thickening in his pants, pressing against the zipper, hardening at the pain caused by the strong suction on his neck. Roman was drinking his blood, lapping at his flesh with his fangs buried deep. Simon was aroused, even as his heart drummed with panic and his head went dizzy.
Abruptly Roman released him, throwing his head back, lips covered in Simon’s blood. Trails of hot liquid ran down Simon’s chest under his shirt, and Roman lifted a hand, ripping his shirt to bare the wound. His tactical vest was ripped from his chest, landing on the floor with a thunk. Simon struggled, but Roman held him easily with one arm, the free hand sliding down over his chest and stomach. A hard hand grabbed his throbbing cock through his pants, squeezing hard, making him cry out, hips jerking. Roman’s grip hurt, and he squeezed a few more times, making Simon writhe in his arms in an attempt to escape. It may have hurt, but his cock responded to the stimulus, growing harder, aching with need while Roman’s rough touch made him whimper. He’d never let anyone touch him like this, and his body was going up in flames as Roman took what he wanted.