“She asked me to,” Liala answered, sounding strangely calm and collected even to her own ears, and surprisingly human. “I would have never done it without her consent.”
“No shifters, that’s the only rule we have here,” Jason snapped at her.
“And what about him? He’s a shifter.” Liala gave back, incapable of saying Nate’s name.
“Because I am not a shifter,” he rumbled, his glare still glued to the ground. “I am a wendigo.”
So much about Nate suddenly made sense now. Liala knew the lore about wendigos. She knew that once turned and having tasted the flesh of their own, they couldn’t take on human form anymore. But Nate had been born human, or shifter, or wendigo. He was one of a kind. A wendigo that could take on human form. Clanless. Packless.
“I am more family to him, than your mother’s clan ever will be, Liala,” her captor continued. “And I will be the same for you.”
She growled at him.
“Didn’t your own flesh and blood abandon you, when you were ten? Didn’t your mother leave you behind? And didn’t she simply replace you with a new family, and a new daughter, forcing you to grow up and take care of your infant half-brother?” he asked her, pulling on the chain to make her look at him.
He was telling the truth.
“Your father, the man who raised you, isn’t dead,” the leader of the hunters told you. “We just made it look like we killed him. Just like Nate killed Jason. It all wasfake.”
Liala swallowed against the knot in her throat.
All lies.
“I wanted to bring your little brother back to him, I had aimed for Kiana to be just wounded, not killed,” her captor continued. “But I had to do to you what you let happen to my daughter. Unlike your mother, I do not condone innocents getting killed. Sometimes you must hurt them in order to protect them. Your mother crossed a line by allowing her bastards to kill my daughter.”
“You killed my father,” Liala gave back, ignoring Nate, who was standing so close and yet so far away.
“He wasn’t innocent,” the leader of the hunters leaned in, pulling her closer towards him by using the chain.
“My brother is a shifter, too,” she hissed at him.
“He carries the gene, but with the same meds you were taking, it could be prevented from happening to him.”
Liala wanted to stall so that she could find a way out of this. But there wasn’t any.
“I’m your mother’s enemy, I could be your friend,” her captor explained after a pause.
“I am a divine blooded shifter, I am what you want to destroy, remember?” Liala answered. “So, don’t lie to me. Do what you want, just” – she turned to glare at Nate, “don’t lie to me.”
“You could be my domesticated wolf,” Brenna’s dad gave back and she just knew that he was being honest this time. “I would make sure that you would have everything you need. A wolf to fuck,” he looked at Nate but she didn’t follow his glance, “a forest to run and hunt, your little brother and adoptive father unharmed.”
“I wanted to go to university, I wanted to have a family of my own someday, I wanted a normal life,” Liala spoke now, wiping away the tears from her eyes.
“You could have that, why not?” her captor shrugged, much to her surprise. “If you don’t get children of your own, only adopt them. I would even allow Nate and you to marry and have this normal life.” He made quotation marks speaking the last two words. “But for that, you have to get me your mother.”
Liala figured that in this half-wolf form her expression would be unreadable for humans.
“Can’t Nate get you into the village?” she asked.
“It’s not that easy,” Nate spoke and this time his voice made her shudder. “There are four sentinels guarding the gate at all times.”
So, that explains it.
She looked at her captor for a long time, his words regarding her mother and her clan echoing in her mind. It was true that nothing her mother had done had been easy for Liala to understand or forgive. She did abandon them, her husband, her daughter, and her infant son. She stood by as Brenna was raped and murdered. It was way too easy to believe that she hadn’t cared about Nate either until she ‘found’ him.
“Okay, fine,” Liala answered after what seemed to be an eternity of her thinking things through. “My mom died almost eleven years ago, anyway.”
From the corner of her eye she could see Nate move, looking up from the ground for the first time since he had decided to not look at her.
“But I want to return to my dad and my little brother,” Liala said, standing up for the first time on her hind-legs. “And you will have to promise me to not hurt Kiana, again, or any infant within the village. I’ll find a way to let you inside.”
“Oh, we already have a plan,” her captor chuckled. “And you are already a part of it. See, Nate’s gonna lead a team to break you free, which will render the village close to unprotected. He will disappear from his team and show up severely wounded at the gate and then your mom will throw all caution to the wind and open the gate.”
“So, what do you need me for then?” Liala shrugged.
“For this,” Brenna’s dad grinned with glee, pointing at the phone that was sitting on a trunk, obviously filming her. “To show your bitch of a mother that even her own, first-born daughter is willing to betray her.”
“We don’t do deals with shifters,” Jason scoffed and started laughing.
Liala growled at him, making him jump backwards and turn dead silent. She then flung around, using all the strength her body could muster to pull on the chain that was holding her and reached out for the phone, only for Nate to grab it faster.
Her captor yanked at the chain, forcefully, making her almost fall backwards, but Liala managed to keep her balance. Securing her stance, she glared at Nate, who now looked at her again in surprise, because she had been fast.
“Bastard,” she hissed at him, clinging to the anger in her heart, while she tried to do her best to push the pain and utter disappointment aside, and still it crawled into the sound of her voice. “I will kill you.” The words almost got stuck in her throat. “No,” she shook her head. “I will make you live to regret this.”
“Stop it, girl,” her captor shouted, yanking at the chain once more, forcing her to retreat; but Liala still glared at Nate, while she shuffled backwards.
Using the momentum, of her captor’s force, she then suddenly turned around and lunged at him, all fours in the air, making him fall onto his back. Striking out, her clawed hand was stopped mid-movement, and just the glimpse of an eye later, her collar became electrified.
Liala screamed as she tumbled backwards, being pulled by the weight of the one that had stopped her from killing the hunter’s leader. She reached for the collar with her other hand instinctively, but it didn’t change the electric current that was now running through her body.
The only consolation she had was that Nate, who had stopped her from killing Brenna’s dad, now suffered the electricity along with her. The downside was that her body was clenching its muscles right on top of him.
As soon as the electricity stopped, Liala jumped off Nate, and glared at her captor, who still held the chain in his hand, telling her that it wasn’t made of metal.
“Bad girl,” her captor pulled on the chain once again. “I will have to punish you for this misbehavior.” He shook his head, patronizingly. “But for now, I will just not give you dinner. To teach my little bitch a lesson.”
Liala took a deep breath. There was no use in trying to attack him when he could shock her like that. She was lucky that Nate had been touching her, because otherwise she would have felt the entire charge of the collar.
“Now, go over there, and lay down at the bottom of my bed,” he pointed at the other side of the desk and Liala had no choice but to obey.
She walked over and got down on her knees, and rolled her body together just as a cat would. Having enough for one day, she c
losed her eyes and hoped that her captor would be satisfied with her obedience.
Liala could hear him binding the chain to something – probably a bedpost – and then he dared to reach down and pat her head. She fought the instinct to snap at his hand and rip it off.
“Okay boys, it’s time to hit the hay,” her captor said, but she kept her eyes shut.
There was another day for defiance tomorrow.
14 – Crossroad
Liala woke from a strange sound, but she only dared to open her eyes and search the interior of the dark tent with her night vision, forcing her body to stay completely still. It had taken her an eternity to fall asleep in this unfamiliar body, and the movement of her captor in his cot had torn her from her uneasy sleep at least a dozen times. So, Liala believed that Brenna’s dad had turned in his sleep once again. That was until a second scent reached her nose, that and the smell of blood and urine.
Liala was on her feet before she could really think of getting up. Instantly she turned around to look at the man who degraded her to a fuck slave and animal, to see that there was a long almost shimmering blade sticking inside his body, at heart’s height. Liala had never seen a sword before, but she had never thought that it would look so pristine, and ethereal. Realizing that there was one hand holding it and another resting on the top of the grip, her eyes traced the arms back up to the face of its owner, who was staring at her with an unapologetic expression.
Rick.
Her heart started to race as she recognized the young man, who had been just a friend of Jason’s, but saved her brother and father, and now was rescuing her.
Yet, she could see pain and sorrow in his expression when realization struck him that she was looking at him.
“I hate to kill,” he spoke lowly. “It’s so… absurd.”
Such strange words.
Her eyes returned to the body that had been impaled by the sword – a real sword – and watched how Rick’s upper hand moved to close his victim’s eyes that had been opened in surprise. After that he looked around, obviously searching for something, and then finding it around the dead man’s neck.
Rick pulled the remote from the body and looked at it closely, before pressing a button, determinedly. A snapping sound, way too close to Liala’s ears, pealed. Quickly, she brought her hands up and pulled on the collar, opening it somewhat easily before she tossed it away, thoughtlessly. She realized too late that this action could have created a sound that would have given them away.
Almost instantly after being freed from the collar, Lia felt a change in her body and she was shifting back into her human form. Sitting on the floor naked, she looked at Rick, who had just pulled the sword from the body and cleaned it with a rag. Even without this action his sword looked unreal and somehow reminded Liala of the tale of King Arthur, his round table, and the sword Excalibur, because its blade looked more like silver than like steel.
Once more Rick looked around, this time walking over to the trunk and opening it. Retrieving some pieces of clothing he returned to Liala and handed them over. It was a set of military looking pants, boxers, and a t-shirt, into which she slid easily.
“We need to be very quiet, Lia,” Rick told her, when she was finished, and stepped into her personal space, to speak lowly, only for her to hear.
Lia couldn’t help but think of what they had done earlier that day, and having Rick that close made her heart beat faster and her breath turn shallow as the wetness between her legs increased. For whatever reason, she wanted to reach out and touch his face, sense his skin under her fingertips and taste his lips.
While she was staring at him, following her thoughts, he stayed completely and perfectly still, just looking at her. Lia blinked in confusion as she realized this.
“Are you ready to go?” Rick asked calmly and quietly, seemingly indifferent about her staring at him.
Liala managed to nod.
“Stay close to me and try to not make a sound, okay?” He told her and once more she nodded.
Before Rick started moving, holding his sword in front of him as if it was the most normal thing to do, he reached out and took Liala’s hand, who instantly felt energized by his touch. When she first met him, he seemed so mediocre, so normal to her, but the Rick right in front of her was someone else entirely. There was something about him she couldn’t put in words. Liala didn’t know if it was because they had sex, or if it was something else. Right now, Rick was her knight in shining armor, with all but the latter missing.
Moving forward to the opening of the tent, Rick used his shoulder to slide through the entrance to the other side and Liala did the same.
Outside, the night had thrown her black cloak over everything and only the full moon was towering, over it all. To her eyes, he did have the same green shimmer he had in her brief dream, when Malia had tried to warn her about the traitor.
Rick could still be it.
Just because he was rescuing her, as Nate should have done, didn’t mean that he was a good guy. Liala already had misjudged a character once; she didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. But why the sword then?
Liala couldn’t take the time to find an explanation for Rick’s choice of a weapon, she was too busy thinking to flinch when her bare feet stepped on something sharp or edgy. Guiding her through the camp that appeared larger than she had estimated, Rick never let go of her hand, which was extremely cute and charming, yet uncalled-for.
Just when she thought that their escape was way too easy, Rick brought them close to one of the tents that were scattered around, pressing his body into the side of the construct and Liala followed his example. A moment later two men were passing them by, chatting quietly, but still watching their surroundings.
Liala held her breath and watched Rick closely, how he allowed the men to just pass by, instead of simply killing them. That’s when she remembered what he had said, standing over her captor’s body.
I hate to kill… it’s so absurd.
“Who are you?” Liala repeated her question, this time speaking the words, somewhat quietly.
“Not here,” was Rick’s almost silent answer.
After he had waited for a short time only he could measure, they continued their trail through the hunter’s camp. Liala remembered what their leader had told her. That Nate would lead a search party for her, only to return alone to the village and trick her mother into opening the gate without security measures.
Liala did her best to follow Rick without making a sound, in which he appeared to be far more trained than her. It felt simply too easy to walk through this camp without being detected, but as soon as the thought had manifested in her mind, another set of two men stepped into their path without noticing them at first. Yet, Rick and Liala now were out in the open with no chance of taking cover since the tent Will and Pat stepped out of had been the one the two absconders had been headed towards.
Why didn’t my senses warn me?
With the enhanced senses of a shifter, Lia was certain that she should have heard them get ready to step outside, but she hadn’t, and now it was too late.
“What the…?” It was Pat who spoke, too surprised to shout or call for help, because he didn’t get the chance to do any of it.
Rick dropped Liala’s hand, bringing his hand back to the grip of his sword and simply pulled it up to draw a half circle while moving forward. And just like that Pat’s throat was cut, rendering him unable to speak or shout. He went down onto his knees, still desperately trying to shut the gash Rick’s blade created. But his blood kept gushing from his throat, and after a few seconds his body toppled over, hitting the ground, lifeless.
Liala wanted to take care of Will, who stared at what was happening to his colleague and friend, but she didn’t get the chance. Instantly after slashing Pat’s throat, Rick redirected his sword into the other direction, drawing what looked like the first half of a lying eight and then finished the cypher by bringing his blade to Will’s throat, cutting it in one
swift movement. The way Rick coordinated his steps, his posture, and his weapon was swift, fluent, and clean, which made it look rather like a performance at the ballet than something that was used to end people’s lives. It all happened within mere seconds, and when Liala looked up from Pat’s body, Will’s already was dropping dead beside him.
That was when Liala realized that Rick wasn’t only a supernatural creature as well, but that he could lay waste to the entire hunter’s camp, if he so chose to. But he hadn’t, and Liala already knew why.
Before she was able to ask Rick why he chose to spare some lives and end others, his hand returned to hers seemingly without him noticing. It almost seemed that taking her hand was pure instinct and completely normal; and it pulled Liala’s heartstrings.
As if nothing happened, Rick continued to navigate them through the camp, stepping over the two bodies as if they had never been alive. Liala, however, couldn’t help but look at the two men who had raped her, fascinated by the blood still pouring from their slit throats. To her, they got only partly what they deserved, yet this had to be enough. Going on, all she needed was to etch the image of their bodies into her mind.
Nothing in Rick’s behavior indicated that he already had killed three men to bring her to safety.
Liala grew not only fascinated by him, but also in his sword, which had just tasted the blood of two men but seemed to repel blood, which was dropping from the blade as if it was cleaning itself.
After a few moments, she felt as if she needed more than just Rick’s hand holding hers. Liala wanted him closer again, as close as a few hours before. It confused her. They were fleeing, he was breaking her free. Why did she want to feel his skin against hers all of a sudden? Before she could try and find an explanation for what she was feeling, Lia felt a strange sensation that was making the hairs on her body stand straight. Instinctively, she pulled on Rick’s hand and he stopped dead in his tracks as a response.
Just a fragment of a moment later Nate stepped into their path from the shadow of a tent, yet too far to strike out and hurt either of them. Liala knew, if she hadn’t acted on her instinct, Rick might have gotten hurt.
HOWL and HUNT the HEIR: HOWL 1-3 (Dark World) Page 20