Wicked Tales Anthology

by Brandy Slaven

  But it wasn’t easy.

  Though they were armed with mercury, the weapons were old—antiquated. They had needed human tech to modernize them to take more than two bullets.

  Six bullets. To take down a Wolf that had left carnage behind him in America, then had brought it to the shores of Europe.

  He’d never thought anything of it before.

  Six mercury bullets were more than ample. But when his mate was in the vicinity?

  A thousand wouldn’t have been enough.

  Shit, a million, and ripping the SOB into a red mist of blood and gore wouldn’t be enough. Not when Elena was here. Not when she was in danger.

  “Where do we stash her?”

  Disgust penetrated the scent of dirty Wolf—it was an odd trait. Rabid Wolves scented of dirt. Not the unclean kind, but like the earth. They scented like what his mother planted her basil in, which seemed too many kinds of wrong.

  They were from the earth, after all.

  Wolves usually scented of nature and all things fresh. There was the faint hint of dog, he guessed, especially when it was wet, but nothing too strong. Mostly, when he was in human form around another Lyken, it just scented of the O-Zone.

  Now? The area was overwhelmed by that earthy, pungent stench, and it made his Wolf crazy because Elena’s essence was playing havoc with his beast’s strengths, turning them into a weakness.

  But he’d die before he allowed Elena to be hurt.

  It was a vow he made to himself, and one he knew his brothers would share.

  Their mate, whether she was bonded or not, would be protected.

  If they had to die trying.

  ***

  Damien

  What a fucking time to come face to face with the bastard they’d been seeking for so long.

  Hatred rattled through Damien’s core. He hated rabid Wolves. Not only because he’d been hunting them for so long, but because they were sick sons of bitches who took pleasure in hurting and maiming innocent people.

  They were the psychopaths the humans discussed on the news, they were the crazy people they tried to lock up. Tried being the key word, because they never succeeded. Never would, never could.

  Death was the only thing that would stop a true rabid Wolf, and a trained Hunter who was prepared to stop at nothing to make that happen. And while nothing had changed in the past hour where that was concerned, everything was completely different too.

  He now had a mate.

  And that mate was close to the rabid cunt who had, only last month, ripped apart a little girl who was out camping with her family in Galicia.

  Some rabid Wolves could control who they selected as their prey, but this one didn’t give a damn.

  He’d left a mile-long string of heartache and destruction behind him, and Damien, though considered to be the more relaxed of his brothers, was riled up with the need to make this fucker pay.

  “Take her inside,” he growled at Adam, who had a tight hold on her.

  Elena, not having understood the byplay, grunted, “Take who inside?”

  “You. No time,” he whispered gutturally, peering around as he tried to discern if they were well sheltered.

  Barcelona’s old town was narrow and labyrinthine, but it wasn’t accustomed to having Wolves wandering around its cobbled and mismatched paved streets.

  The scents of piss, spilled alcohol, and blood overwhelmed the air as he tried to sift between the odors to pinpoint their prey.

  It sounded like the growl had come from above, which wasn’t an impossibility considering these buildings were apartments, but it was unlike Wolves to attack from a height.

  They could jump from great heights, sure, but that didn’t mean they were impervious to damage to their knees and ankles. Yes, such a slight injury would heal, and it would do so quickly, but at the same time, it would and could slow them down.

  That sure as hell wasn’t a good thing when you were faced with three Hunters of his and his brothers’ caliber.

  And by now, the Wolf had to know that he was being hunted by the Lyndhovens.

  News had spread around the continent when, two years ago, they’d landed in Britain—the center of the European Pack. Before the bastard had led them on a not-so-merry dance.

  “Come out, come out wherever you are,” he mocked, pitching his tone low enough for the Wolf to hear but for those in the vicinity, the humans, to remain dumb as to what was occurring.

  The quieter the streets were, the fewer casualties there would be.

  Even as he called out, Elena began struggling as Adam started to haul her back around the corner to the doorway of the club they’d only just left.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “Who is Damien talking to?”

  For a second, the words didn’t penetrate. Then, when they did, he felt emotion gather and form a lump in his throat.

  No one recognized them.

  No one could tell them apart.

  Not his mother, not his fathers. But their mate? Without the mate bond uniting them, she still knew them.

  That knowledge was in her veins.

  If the scent of her hadn’t been proof enough of that, then they just had the verification there and then.

  “He’s talking to a creature we’ve been hunting.”

  “Hunting?” Elena’s voice was more of a squeak than anything else. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “We’re Hunters,” Adam explained patiently, even as he tried to drag Elena around the corner to the relative safety of the club.

  “Well, that clarifies nothing,” she snapped. “Ostras! Tell me what’s going on and I’ll go there without you having to drag me.”

  “Just tell her,” Luca snarled, his instincts on high alert as he scanned the tall buildings around them for their prey’s location.

  “It would have been so much easier if you’d been raised in a Pack environment,” Adam grumbled.

  “I’m sorry you’re disappointed!” she snapped, stung.

  “Adam!” Damien growled. “It isn’t her fault. Just explain and don’t have an attitude.” He took his gaze off the buildings he was scanning too and caught Elena’s eye. “Adam can be a prick sometimes. I apologize for my brother’s rudeness.”

  Adam grunted but though Elena’s mouth tightened in irritation, she nodded. “Thank you,” she told him, her tone more gracious than it had been moments before. “Now, what do Hunters hunt? Humans?” she queried, her voice a squeak again.

  “No. Rabid Wolves.”

  She repeated the words then shook her head. “Rabid is crazy, no?” she murmured, sounding so Spanish at that moment, Damien could have walked over there and kissed her senseless.

  It was easy to forget she was Spanish when she spoke English flawlessly, with a truly British accent. Hell, King George had sounded less English when they’d met during the war.

  Damien scrubbed a hand over his chin and quickly explained, “Certain Wolves take control of the human halves. They need to be exterminated before they’re a danger to the rest of humanity.”

  She blinked, and those large brown eyes of hers were like honey and molasses rolled into one. They certainly triggered a surge of lust that slid through his veins with the same consistency as treacle.

  “And one is here? Now?” She sounded calmer than he’d expected.

  Adam murmured, “Yes. That’s why we want you in the club. It’s safer for you there.”

  “If you’re hunting him, why is he hunting you?” she asked, and the question wasn’t unreasonable.

  “We’ve been on his trail for close to twenty-four months. He’s always stayed a town ahead of us. We came to Barcelona and wanted some downtime.” He blew out a sharp breath. “Should have realized that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.”

  His grimace seemed to trigger a smile from her. “At least you’re not perfect.”

  He scowled at that. “Aren’t you good for a man’s ego?”

  She grinned. “I’m very good f
or a man’s ego. It just depends on the man.”

  “Men,” Luca corrected, his tone husky as he took his gaze off the perimeter and caught hers in it.

  For a second, Damien’s world came to a halt as everything he did and would hold dear centered itself, making everything right in his universe.

  Then, the growl snarled again. Their split second inattention, a child’s mistake, sent shards of sensation ripping through the atmosphere.

  He shuddered. Not out of fear. But out of the need to shift.

  As the TriAlpha’s heirs, they were some of the strongest in the world. That meant their Wolves were strong too. Daily, they battled them. Daily, they struggled to keep the beasts under control. And when they came face to face with a rabid Wolf, it was with the awareness that they too were only a hair’s breadth away from that particular madness.

  That snarl?

  It called to his beast. Made him want to fight, triggered instincts Damien wanted to deny, wanted to keep buried but couldn’t.

  The snarl came again. And another, making the hairs at the back of his nape stand to attention.

  “Get her out of here,” Luca managed to bite out, his own control surging and breaking.

  But Adam was as under the thrall as they were.

  The need to fight, to destroy was as insistent an ache as the urge to take his mate and make her theirs.

  The thought cleared his brain some. Not much, but enough to see that Elena was petrified.

  In Adam’s claw-like grasp, she was shivering and trying to pull free. The scent of her terror dispersed through the air, bringing with it a kind of stench that was as revolting to his Wolf as the odor of rotten trash. Only the fact it came from his mate stopped the Wolf from wanting to attack such visceral weakness.

  “Where are you?” he called out, wanting this showdown over with.

  The bastard had balls, thinking he could take on not only one, but three Hunters. And not just any three Hunters, either. But three of the best.

  The sounds of padded feet, of nails clicking against the stone street, were so loud he felt them resonate as deep inside as the thud of his heart.

  Then, there was a whoosh of air as the Wolf appeared at the mouth of the alley, and with a charge, ran straight at him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Elena

  Elena couldn’t withhold the scream that sprang free from her lips. It poured out of her like a torrent of bubbling liquid as she saw…

  Well, she saw the animal.

  It was a Wolf, that was for sure. But it was large. She’d only ever seen her mother shift, and females weren’t the biggest. Even strong ones. But seeing her mother in her other form in no way prepared her for the Wolf that hurled itself at Damien.

  And it no way prepared her for the sight of Damien shifting into a bigger Wolf.

  Her screams became hoarse then. Because Adam and Luca, seemingly triggered by Damien, both shifted.

  In front of her, there was a Wolf the size of a Lion she’d seen at the zoo. She’d seen natural wolves too, and they were bigger than dogs, but Lyken Wolves were twice the size of them.

  The triplets’ Wolves were bigger still.

  A few thoughts flashed through her mind.

  If she screamed again, louder and longer, she’d bring attention to the alley. And even though she wanted help, wanted to be anywhere but there, drawing attention to this tableau wouldn’t do anyone any favors. Not the Wolves who could be maimed by one of the policia’s bullets, not the policia who could be mauled by one of the beasts.

  More than that though, she felt no fear.

  She had before, that was no lie. It had been as potent a chemical in her blood as any drug could have been. But now? No. She wasn’t afraid.

  Even though she’d been thrown headfirst into a world she didn’t know, that she barely understood, she knew these men would keep her safe.

  Her mother had spoken of love and lust. Had told her how it was in the Pack. She’d done so when she was drunk. When she was wistful and sad for what might have been. She’d spoken of mates in her world. Had spoken of her sadness that she’d never found her own, and that she probably never would even though Lykens lived a long time.

  Elena knew what a mate was. Knew how they were everything to a Lyken, and because she was half of one, she’d never thought she would share the possibility of having a mate.

  What she and Miguela knew about their culture could be written on one hand.

  Her father had been the Lyken, and he’d dumped her mother too. It had been by sheer chance that they’d gone to the same school and had noticed the same traits in one another.

  The preternatural hearing.

  The faster than average running.

  The skills that made them smart, smart enough to be at the top of their year, and all without much effort. Yet they were unable to be studious, were terrible at exams, and could barely focus without the desperate need to be doing something, anything, active.

  They’d been enemies at first—if eight-year-olds could have enemies, that is—but after time they’d seen how similar they were and had compared notes.

  What they’d found had astonished them, but the lack of information was something they’d both had in common.

  Miguela had been desperate to tell Elena’s mother about herself, hoping that the older woman would share the truths of their heritage if she knew Miguela was half-Lyken too and was without the capacity of learning of her heritage from her Lyken parent.

  But Maria-José had been insistent.

  She was human now.

  Her husband was human, and she’d become a part of his world. Not even for two lost little half-Lykens would she change that.

  But Elena had told Miguela of the little her mother had shared. As a result, the two women were aware of the mate bond, and Adam had said this, whatever this was, was the mate bond at play.

  She could argue it, could reason and explain it away, but there was no need.

  She knew if that Wolf, the one with drool dripping from its fangs and the weird stench of dirt clinging to its fur, hurt one of the triplets, she’d kill him.

  Or die trying.

  And Elena didn’t have a death wish.

  She and Miguela were survivors to the core, but for these men? No, she’d die avenging them.

  Even if she was willing to die saving them, there was no way she could save anyone from a rabid Wolf. Even if she understood what they were capable of, she was only one woman. One useless half-Lyken with zero abilities in comparison to a full blooded She-Wolf.

  Adam gave a roar that drove her from her thoughts, and she saw Luca, Damien, and the stranger had been in some kind of showdown.

  One that involved a lot of growling, posturing and waiting, but little else. Adam’s low snarl warned her that something had changed. And she saw what.

  The Wolf’s hackles were raised and his focus was set fully on her now.

  He’d changed targets.

  The thought hit home because she realized that for these three males, she was their weakness, and that stunned the hell out of her.

  These three males, three triplets who were obviously old—the way they spoke told her that—who were strong, their Wolves huge and powerful too, had a weakness now.

  Her.

  Maybe it was crazy. Hell, there was no crazy about it. It was insane. But she knew that there was no way she’d be considered their weakness. She was a woman, yes. She was half-Lyken, yes. But she wasn’t the little woman who needed to be rescued.

  Jaw tensing, she made sure her gaze was trapped in the Wolf’s. It was hard. Harder than she could have imagined to hold the beast’s stare.

  Having never come across another in her life, not just Lyken but a real and regular wolf without a safety barrier between them, it was tough stuff facing the bastard down.

  Time seemed to have slowed. She knew, at any moment, one of her men would pounce. She didn’t have to be in communication with them to know that they’d be bristling at
the fact that she was in the rabid beast’s line of fire. He’d shifted the stalemate the four had been in, and that limited the odds in their favor.

  And so, with her eyes glued to his, she reached into her purse, and pulled out the small hand gun she carried when she and Miguela went out into the city at night.

  It wouldn’t do much. Her mother had told her that bullets didn’t harm Wolves, but a point blank shot to the head would definitely do some damage. It had to, didn’t it?

  She raised the gun, set up the shot, and in less than three seconds, fired.

  ***

  Luca

  Luca leaped forward the minute the sound of the bullet echoed down the narrow alley.

  It was like the starter pistol at a race. He hadn’t been waiting for that, hadn’t been waiting for his mate to get off a shot, hadn’t even fucking known she had a gun, and yet, she did.

  She had.

  She’d changed the balance of power.

  With her in the Wolf’s sights, it had been impossible to take down the creature on the off chance that, with luck on his side, he could have gotten the chance to leap at her and to hurt her.

  He, Damien, and Adam seemed to be on the same page where that was concerned.

  Luca was, he’d admit, for the first time in his life at a disadvantage.

  He’d never been paralyzed with fear before, but he now knew what that felt like.

  As he tore into Lucian Devaney’s throat, ripped it from his body and slashed into him, destroying him as he’d destroyed so many innocents over the years, that fear was what fed him.

  He had a mate.

  That mate was here. Had played witness to this, and had, within moments of meeting them, been in danger.

  It didn’t even matter that she’d been armed. What were bullets to one of their kind? Even as the one she’d fired had sliced into the man’s skull, his body would have been rejuvenating. Only mercury would seal a deal of that nature.

  But, there was no point worrying.

  That shot had been all the difference between Elena getting hurt and Lucian Devaney.

  With that opening, they’d pounced and now, Lucian wasn’t around to hurt anyone else.