by L. A. Banks
His grandfather nodded, and Max’s muscles uncoiled. He had to run . . . run from his past, run from the hurt, run from the lies, run from it all. His wolf form shed his clothes and he was a moving shadow against an endless carpet of snow.
Somewhere near the border of Uzbekistan . . .
PILFERED ISLAMIC GARB hid their sunburned faces and weapons. Wild game and stolen water had sustained them. The goal was to push ever north, where the sunburned faces looked more like theirs, where they could blend in as possible Russians. From Russia they could get to the Ukraine, then to either Poland or Romania where some sort of safe house existed.
Woods pulled out a map and compass, his fingers blackened by filth and animal blood. Fisher kept his nervous gaze on the horizon in lookout. Thankfully they had made it away from the open desertlike environment that had little water and was hard to hide in. The coolness of the shadows around them from the foliage felt good and the underbrush was bursting with life. Local farmers also had goats that could be quietly picked off from their pens.
“We’re living like dogs,” Fisher muttered. “We stink, we’re out here eating with our hands, slobbering down half-raw meat because a fire burning too long could alert border patrols.” He rubbed the hair down on the back of his neck and closed his eyes. “I just want to know what we did wrong. That’s the part I don’t get. Why are they after us, Woodsy?”
“I don’t know, but Doc has our backs. He said be cool and stay alive, so right now, that’s the focus. We may be living like dogs, but we’re living.”
“The problem is, you should be living like wolves,” a strange, growling voice said from the shadows.
Before they could lift a clip something sharp pierced their throats—then there was blackness.
SASHA LOOKED AT the porch of Max’s grandfather’s cabin and slowly climbed the steps. Fatigue clung to her like a worn-out lover. She was mentally spent, more so than physically, but her body registered the despair as one and the same.
As she’d expected, Doc was waiting for her, seated at the long knotty-pine dining room table slowly sipping a cup of tea with Silver Hawk. Both old men looked up at the same time, but seemed to be waiting for her to speak first.
“I’m going back down the mountain,” she announced quietly. “Gotta get ready to report in on Monday morning at nine hundred hours.”
“Do you have a plan?” Holland gently asked. “Anything I can help with?”
She shook her head. “Not yet . . . I’m sorta getting used to this new reality and making it up as I go along. But I’ll have a plan by Monday. And don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything stupid. The one thing I’ve figured out is that the people who did this to us had at least a twenty-five-year jump on us, maybe more. So whatever I do, it’ll be strategic . . . not half-cocked and crazy.” Her voice tightened as she looked at the somber faces before her. “When it’s time for payback, they’ll never see me coming.”
Nodding at them both, she spun on her heels to leave. Silver Hawk stood.
“My grandson hasn’t returned yet, but you should have an escort. We had words. His temporary disappearance has nothing to do with you.”
“You can ride back with me, Sasha,” Holland offered.
Sasha stopped walking, but didn’t turn around. “Right now, I’m not real good company, and I don’t think anybody or anything wants to screw with me. I know the shadows . . . a bit. I know where the safe house cabin is, where I left weapons stashed. I know where the snowmobile is and the truck. From there, I know my way home. Tell Hunter I said I’ll catch him later.”
With that she opened the door and didn’t look back, immediately becoming a fleeting shadow.
LATE AFTERNOON SUN filtered through the trees as she made her way back to the safe house cabin on the outskirts of the pack’s private land. So many emotions were competing for priority within her that she simply focused on her breath, the way her muscles felt as they expanded and contracted beneath her skin. Soon the burn came, the urge to be one with nature, to be a wild thing running and hunting and a part of the very fabric of the forest.
Clearing a fallen log with ease, she pushed her body, sending all the anger and pain of betrayal into the run, into the snow, into each footfall—Then the hair on her neck rose.
Something was chasing her. Something large.
Survival instinct changed her jogger’s pace into a panic run. Moving swiftly over obstacles and cutting hard pivots, she could now hear many forms whipping through the underbrush at the speed of lightning. Treelines became a connected blur in a flat-out dash. Then she made the fatal mistake of trying to get a glimpse of what it was, glancing over her shoulder while still hurtling forward— her mind diverted from the wolf to the woman as she reflexively reached for a Glock nine-millimeter . . . but it wasn’t on her hip. The gun was at the safe house. The momentary loss of focus made her lose her footing.
She came down hard with a muffled thud in a small clearing and immediately pushed herself up and jumped to her feet, although semidazed.
Ready for hand-to-hand combat against whatever and however many there were, she widened her stance, lowering her center of gravity, and listened with sharpened senses for the attackers to show themselves. Bear, cougar, wolves, frickin’ wild boar, what was it? One or many? Panic was blocking her senses. All she was sure of was that the threat moved too damned fast.
Sasha’s gaze darted between low-hanging branches and scanned the ground for anything she could use as a potential weapon. Shit. Nothing. Her nostrils flared, trying to pull in the scent to decipher it. But after a moment, that wasn’t necessary. It became perfectly clear what it was.
Four lean wolves loped out of the underbrush, one coming from each cardinal point to hem her in. Each growling a low warning.
Sasha turned slowly, assessing each predator. A huge ivory wolf with golden eyes stalked her from behind. One the color of dense smoke with a barrel chest seemed the most aggressive and was baring its fangs as it carefully positioned itself with a furious, deep brown stare. An amber-hued wolf and one with the markings of a German shepherd covered her flanks.
An eerie sense of déjà vu threaded through her along with a sense of violation. Wait a minute . . . Normal wolves didn’t chase and hunt humans—that much she knew from bored nights at home clicking past cable channels. Uh-uh. It was still day and not a full moon, so werewolves were out. She was going back the way Hunter had taken her, hadn’t messed with any animal’s food sources, hadn’t desecrated any territory . . . This was bullshit!
White-hot memories flashed in her mind. Being picked on at school. Country kid raised in the city; city kid moved to the country. Rich jocks trying to run a train on her under the bleachers. Date-rape drugs in her cola. Broken bones. Theirs, not hers. Girl betrayal. Wrong accent wherever you’re from. They’d drugged her for the boys. Ain’t got no momma or daddy. Orphaned brat. Gotta take your meds. Foster care don’t care. Don’t ask, don’t tell how you were made. Who’s your daddy? Rod is dead. Special Agent Baker feeds your fish Fred! Even Hunter knew some.
One moment she had been standing in a kickboxer’s stance, then in the next moment she had shed her clothes and was on all fours growling. Instantly the smoke-colored predator rushed her, and with single-minded determination she met the attacker midair, going for the throat.
Angry barks and snarls from the other three wolves echoed in the back of her mind as razor-sharp claws tore at her sides. Yanking her head back, she’d avoided a sharp bite to her neck as they hit the ground in a hard roll. Snapping quickly, she got hold of an ear and raked the length of a torso. Her aim was basic, get to the belly and open that sucker up.
Ripping the ear off, using every bit of combat training, physical training, and all the rage in her, she pinned the aggressor down, sliced into its belly, and lunged in to tear out its throat—but a submission yelp gave her pause. Even in her crazed state the pitch was so piercing that it offered the two seconds of hesitation needed for a volley of whimper
s to follow.
But she wasn’t budging off the downed wolf, her paws pressed hard on its chest. Fury split her throat with a howl and she launched angry barks low in the gray wolf’s face that simply made the beaten creature close its eyes.
“All right! Enough!” a female voice yelled, much to Sasha’s surprise.
She looked up from the wolf beneath her with a possessive growl. Three very attractive nude women each with hair the shades of the wolves that had just circled her stood in the clearing. The gray wolf beneath her transformed into a female body, dark hair wild, eyes frightened, ear missing and severely bleeding. Sasha looked at her harder and growled, not clear in the least how to change back—not sure that she wanted to before she’d finished the job.
Three mournful howls joined to echo through the clearing. The sound set Sasha’s nerves on edge and only made her lower her head in an angry snarl. When the woman beneath her tried to move her hand to cover the bloody stump where her ear had been, Sasha’s fangs clamped over her windpipe in a brutal warning: move and you die.
Slowly, calmly, a huge black wolf parted the brush. Sasha kept her eyes on him and could tell he was male right away. He was a head taller and much thicker than any of the others. She scented him in the air and then saw a glint of silver chain around his neck. Instant recognition made her pull back. Friend, not foe. Despite her rage, her tail wagged slowly.
His eyes held hers for a moment and she watched him change form, wishing like hell she knew how to do that.
“She’s not backing off!” one of the women complained.
“She won, now our shadow sister must be healed!” another argued.
“That bitch tore off an ear—that’s not part of the code!” the third challenged.
“I don’t even know you!” Sasha shouted, suddenly back in her body. She stepped over the woman on the ground, pointing her finger as she railed, spittle flying she was so outraged. “I didn’t do jack to you. You oughta be glad all she got was her ear ripped off—because if that mutt had come at me in human form, she might have gotten a Bowie knife shoved up her ass. Be clear—don’t you ever come at me like that again! You don’t know me! I didn’t do anything to you. But since she started it, I finished it.”
Max shrugged, his tone unfazed. “I don’t know why you called me,” he said, addressing the other women. “Rather than show her the courtesy of meeting her at the home of our pack elder, you decided to sneak around and challenge my . . .” He let the words trail off, sending his gaze toward Sasha. “My friend,” he said, lifting his chin.
“Your friend and not your mate?” the amber-haired woman said, clearly aghast as she folded her arms over her impressive bosom and glanced at her shadow sisters.
“As I was saying . . . challenged my friend without my consent,” Max said, not even breaking stride in his statement or addressing her question. “But I think the results are clear. She’s alpha female pack enforcer. Shadow Falcon steps down. Any questions?” He looked around the disgruntled group. “Just for the record, Sasha’s verbal threat was not adrenaline-inspired bravado. She’s combat-ready, Special Forces trained . . . in case you ladies want to test her again, that’s not a good idea. Shadow Falcon is really lucky that she’s still breathing.”
Unable to steady her frayed nerves, Sasha walked in a tight circle around the woman on the ground. Every hot flash of emotion that she’d suppressed for years was now a pinpoint migraine behind her eyes. She snatched up her clothes but her skin was still on fire, burning up. She was sweating hard, everything was wet, so wet and slippery . . . She looked down and felt dizzy. Blood was everywhere, much of it hers.
Sasha swallowed hard, watching as the woman on the ground rolled over, moaned, and her warrior sisters ran to her aid. She was gonna be sick. She could see flashes of white rib bone, a little raw flesh hanging out where there was once skin. Vanity and pain collided. She hadn’t felt it before but she felt it now, and only pride was keeping her upright.
“Get me out of here,” she said to Max, trying not to make it sound like a plea.
“No problem,” he said calmly, giving her his elbow and careful to remain expressionless, as he helped her.
If she weren’t in so much pain, she could have kissed him for that. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and then glimpsed the closest shadow. The others couldn’t see his expression, but it clearly asked if she could make it a few feet without limping. Sasha bit her lip and nodded, then threw her shoulders back and stiffly walked into a shadow on his arm.
The moment he had her cloaked within a shadow, she collapsed against his side, panting. Moving as fast as he could, he lifted her under her legs and beneath her shoulders, and cringed as she bit her lip to keep from crying out. Then he was pure motion.
Aware that every leap, every bound, every jostle, was pure agony for her, he zigzagged through the forest using the path with the fewest obstacles, which unfortunately was not the most direct route. By the time he got her to the cabin and stretched her out on the bed, she was nearly in shock and had lost a lot of blood.
Working fast, he pushed together the shredded skin on her left side, eliciting a deep moan of pain from her as she roused from semiconsciousness.
“I have to,” he said quietly, beads of sweat forming on his brow. “I don’t want it to scar, and if I don’t bring it together and flatten it out as it knits, it’ll leave raised keloids where the wound filled itself in.”
She nodded, squeezed her eyes shut, and clutched the sheets as he brought both hands over her ribs and began pressing the skin together, pinching and pushing torn muscles and flesh back in its housing. Fat tears rolled down her face as she split her own lip from biting down, began panting, then gasped, and finally cried out in agony.
CHAPTER 11
THE SUN HAD long since set by the time Sasha roused. Max sat in a corner of the bedroom watching her intently and had only moved from the chair in the shadows to put on his clothes and boots. The runs, the fight with Fox Shadow, and Sasha’s healing had drained him, but no matter how exhausted he was he refused to close his eyes until she awakened. Then he would feed her. She, more than he, needed to be replenished.
Blood from uncooked meat, hunted wild game laced with adrenaline, was what she required. Raw meat, with all the precious enzymes and proteins. Meat still practically twitching and warm was what her body needed to fully mend. But as he stared at Sasha’s fitful sleep, he knew that while she was not in her wolf form the thought would probably make her hurl.
He sat forward in his chair with his fingers laced together supporting his chin, elbows on his knees, gaze intent. Even in the moonlight-washed darkness he could see the tender pink lines that tracked her sides from just near her breasts to the swell of her hips. Shadow Falcon was such a bitch. That had been totally unnecessary. Sasha wasn’t trying to vie for pack dominance. The only reason she was attacked was to drive her away, and if the females did it one by one, then by law, he couldn’t intervene. Only if they’d jumped her and outnumbered her could he have evened the odds. Otherwise, his involvement would have stripped her of credibility before them . . . something else he knew they wanted. Yet she’d held her own like the champion she was.
Quiet pride filled him as he watched her sleep. Bloody, ragged, ripped up, but victorious—Sasha had walked out of her first dominance challenge an undisputed winner, and it would be a very long time before another challenger came for her. One more swipe and Shadow Falcon might have had a mortal gut wound . . . She was that far from entrails spilling onto the forest floor. It would also be a nasty healing. The amputated ear might require Western medicine by way of a good plastic surgeon. Shame, too, because Shadow Falcon was fine. Gorgeous on the outside, twisted on the inside, but that was Fox Shadow’s choice. They were meant for each other.
However, he would have to clue Sasha in on the finer points of battle types. Battles for dominance within a pack usually needn’t be so brutal. Those were different from territorial or defending attacks.
It was assumed that once one showed the others who was boss, the defeated pack member was to remain alive to contribute to the group as a valued, unmaimed hunter. He’d have to tell Sasha that it was more like a regulated boxing match than a back-alley street fight where anything goes.
It was Shadow Falcon’s misfortune to have gone after a she-shadow who had grown up rogue, outside a pack. What had the ladies expected? Sasha, clearly, had grown up fighting with no one to watch her back, no rules of engagement. If something or someone was coming for her, most likely her only option and baseline experience was ultimate force—deadly force and zero tolerance so the predator couldn’t get back up.
Max smiled. She was beautiful in that state. He was just so sorry she’d been so badly injured, and the pain she’d suffered still made him ache. But he was glad she did what she did, for her sake, not his. This way, no matter what, her name would carry on the wind. The worldwide pack network would hear of a new, legitimate alpha female warrior. She would have to be given courtesy passage and safe lodging, if she were stranded. Whether she was his mate or not, she’d established herself among her own, on her own. Maybe for the first time in her life she’d know that different wasn’t bad, or evil . . . that she was beautiful just the way the Great Spirit had made her, no matter the circumstances of her conception.
He watched her stir, thinking about everything probably harder than he should. Deeply philosophical streams of consciousness flowed within him as she groaned sleepily and awakened.
They were opposites and yet shared so much. He was a rogue within a pack; she was a rogue outside of the pack. She worried about her genesis, her conception, how she came to be, which made her different; he worried about the other end of that continuum, namely the circumstances under which he was born and, therefore, how he’d probably die. She was pure, sexy, silver shadow blur in motion; he was midnight, the very darkness itself. They both distrusted authority, but both were bound by it. Both had male elders who loved them dearly but had betrayed sacred trusts. Both had suffered isolation so vast the tundra couldn’t compare . . . loneliness that echoed inside their bodies until they ached. And both were shadow wolves.