by AJ Skelly
“Where are you hurt?”
“Just let me hold you a second,” he mumbled into my hair. I melted against him, my heart hammering as my fingers felt hard muscle beneath them, assuring myself that he was here.
Headlights danced across the front of the house as a beat up white sports car pulled into the drive. Sam released me but kept his hand around mine, cinching his gray robe tighter with the other. Mary leaned in and pulled Sam close.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“No, Sammy. This is not your fault.”
Jennifer got out of the car, and Kyp followed out the passenger side. I realized that the gathered pack members had converged and had formed a semicircle around us. Jennifer and Kyp approached tentatively.
“Let them through.” Sam turned to address the rest of the pack. “Thank you all for coming so quickly. Your Alpha and your Beta were ambushed tonight by some of Victor Atwood’s pack. I don’t know why, but they clearly meant to hurt us. They still have Dad. We are going to get him back. Steve, Corwin, Jonathan, Rev, please come into the house. We’re going to form a plan, and we’re going to move quickly. The rest of you, stay close. I was drugged, and not all my senses are fully functioning. As soon as the all call is working properly, expect to move out.” He nodded at Jennifer who hesitantly moved up the walkway to the house. Sam put his arm around my shoulders and leaned on me more than I expected.
“Bad?” I whispered.
He nodded and grimaced as we limped together to the door.
Chapter 53
Sam
It was a strange combination of feelings as we moved up the walkway. The terror of the abduction, the relief that Megan was safe, the pain still shooting up my leg, and the weight of responsibility all pressed in on me. I squeezed Megan’s shoulder and leaned on her probably more than I should have, but I was so tired. Adrenaline flooded my system while the stress and pain urged me to give in and shut my eyes.
“Sam, do you have any idea what they might have drugged you with?” Jennifer asked quietly as she came up beside us.
I shook my head. “No. I don’t. But it’s dulled all my wolf senses, and it took a while for me to be able to call the wolf out. I couldn’t shift.” I shivered, remembering the panic of not being able to access such a vital part of myself. Megan squeezed my hand.
She nodded. “Suppressant. Kyp, run back to the car and grab the black duffle out of the back seat, please.”
“Do you know what it is?” Megan opened the door.
“Not one hundred percent, but I have a good idea. The pack in Kentucky used a suppressant as a form of discipline.”
“No wonder you left,” I muttered under my breath. What kind of Alpha would encourage, let alone allow, such a torture?
Steve Rivers, Corwin Banks, and Jonathan Stone followed us in along with Cade, Mom, and Rev. I dropped to the couch and pulled Meg down with me as the rest filed into the room and found spots.
“Leg?” Jennifer guessed.
“Right one.”
She glanced around then moved the coffee table over a few feet. “Can you prop your leg up?”
Wincing, I put it on the table. She moved the robe back and there was a collective inhale as everyone saw the bloody, mangled mess of my leg. It was healing, but it looked nasty. Blood still oozed in places and there was a thick, dried crust of blood, dirt, and forest bits stuck all down my calf where my makeshift bandage had slipped.
“Okay. I need a cookie sheet, a couple big containers of water and some towels, and a trash bag, or we need to move into the bathroom and use the tub,” Jennifer said.
“Guys, get water in here. We need to strategize now, and we won’t all fit in the bathroom.” I gave a rare order. I was acting Alpha, and I found my instinct to give orders to get things done was coming more naturally than I expected.
There was a scramble of bodies as everyone in the room moved at once to get tubs, water, and towels. Only Meg stayed still beside me.
Kyp knocked twice on the door and then opened it, bringing the large duffle in with him.
“How you doing?” he asked as he put the bag down beside the couch. His eyes widened as he took in my leg.
“Been better. Our pack is usually safer than this. Still want to join?” I smiled, but there was more truth in my words than my tone let on.
“Absolutely.” There was no hesitation and his eyes held conviction. “What do you need right now?”
“Right now, we need to get my dad back and get whatever they put in my system, out.” The last bit came out on a growl. Now that I was home, safe for the moment, I was intensely frustrated with my situation.
“You were drugged?”
“Your mom said she thought it was a suppressant, whatever that means?”
“There are a couple types floating around, but there’s a pretty easy compound made from wolfsbane and aspirin that will keep the wolf silent.”
“Wolfsbane? Are you serious?”
“I guess that’s not a myth?” Megan asked.
Kyp cracked a wry grin. “Not a myth. Hurts like the devil. Right here, behind the eyes.” He pointed with two of his fingers to his own face. I thought of the pounding headache I had when I’d come to with the bag over my face—the headache still lingering, like a giant hand squeezing my scalp and poking my eyeballs from the inside. I thought it had been from the wreck, but maybe it was the drugs?
Jennifer came through from the kitchen with Mom’s best cookie tray. Quickly, she knelt and arranged a few instruments, gauze, and iodine as the rest came back in carrying water in Mom’s pots and Tupperware and a large metal basin that Mom kept for large pack gatherings.
“First things first. Is there anything to get this drug out of my system sooner than to let it run its course?” I asked Jennifer as she wet a towel.
“I have something that will lessen the effects if they gave you wolfsbane. But if they gave you something else, then there’s nothing I have that will help.” I hissed as the water hit my broken skin.
“Will it do anything if it’s not wolfsbane, and I take it anyway?”
Jennifer glanced at Kyp.
“It might make you tingle weirdly in your paws and make you clumsy, but I didn’t have any other effects. But I’m only half wolf.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if it would be different for you.”
There were some inhalations as Kyp’s revelation went around the room. Not everyone was privy yet to Kyp’s bloodlines.
“I’ll take it anyway. Take a blood sample first, though. I want to know what this is,” I told Jennifer. She nodded, then rummaged in the black duffel. “Also, Mom, would you grab some human pain killers? Are those okay to take?” I asked Jennifer. She nodded and continued to wash the gunk off my wounds.
“Where did they take you?” Jonathan, a man approaching forty with distinguished salt-and-pepper hair, asked.
“I’m not sure. It was about ten miles outside town at least. I have a general idea, and I think we can work with it. They ran us off the road, then I think they drugged us and took us to a little ramshackle dump in the middle of the deep woods. I didn’t recognize anything, but the good and bad news is that there is a large blood trail we can follow back.
“I don’t know how many they have, and I don’t know if they will have moved Dad, which is why I think we should move as quickly as possible, in case they do move him. Any trails would be fresh tonight. If it rains, we’re sunk. They will have to move him at least part of the way on foot. There is no road going in or out past their building. It was a path.”
Jennifer handed me a white square of something that looked like baking soda covered cardboard about the size of a quarter. I raised an eyebrow.
“It tastes terrible, but it works on the wolfsbane,” Kyp offered. I chucked it in my mouth, chewing and swallowing as quickly as I could before the fizzy, burning solution could stay on my tongue.
As Jennifer began assessing each puncture and cleaning them out, we began to plan.
Chapter 54
Megan
Plans to go and take back Dominic swirled around the room. It was clear that the men Sam had called in with him had experience in this sort of thing, although in my weeks as a wolf, I had not heard of the pack ever needing to take aggressive action. Wolf paced weakly inside me. She knew how desperately the pack needed its Alpha, but I was scared silly at the thought of Sam going back out there and fighting against the wolves who had kidnapped him, then ripped his leg into ribbons. My heart beat painfully against my ribs as I listened while they formulated plans. Sam’s leg was healing but healing slowly. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but there were still deep holes. Jennifer wrapped it securely after cleaning it out and packing some sort of green goop into it that would help it heal and keep out infection.
By the time she was finished, the men and Mary had formed a plan. They were going to take part of the pack and scout their way back through the woods. Sam knew the general location of where he’d been, so half their numbers would circle around the back through the woods and head to the general location of the shack, scouting as they went. The strongest fighters would move forward, spread out like a net, and converge on the shack from the front, following Sam’s blood trail.
It sounded sketchy to me, but I kept my mouth shut. I knew nothing of battle strategy, wolf fighting, or scouting blood trails in the middle of the night. I just knew I wanted Sam safe. With me. Terror and dread sat heavily in my stomach, weighting me down to the couch. I gripped Sam’s hand like a lifeline. I couldn’t accept anything other than that he would be back with me in a few hours.
“Cade, Meg, come with me for a minute,” Sam said as he limped toward the stairs, testing his leg. It was better, but not great. His all call still wasn’t fully functional. It was patchy, and he was growing more frustrated by the minute.
He led us upstairs to his room and shut the door behind us.
“Cade, I want you to stay with Megan.”
“What? No way, you need me out there watching your back! No offense, Megan.” He turned to me, indignation still flashing in his eyes. I agreed. I wanted Sam to have every asset possible with him.
I opened my mouth to say as much, but Sam spoke first. “You know there is no one else I’d rather have guarding my back. But there is also no one I trust more than you. I can’t focus on getting Dad back if I’m worried that Megan is unprotected. She has something to do with this. Someone has tried to kill her twice. Will you stay here and be her protection detail?”
Cade’s mouth thinned into a line. “You know I will.”
The relief that washed over Sam was visible. “Thank you. I don’t know how many Atwood has, so we need all available fighters. I don’t like leaving the two of you alone.”
“We’ll be fine. At the first hint of anything amiss, we’ll head to the vault.” He referenced the room Mary had shown us. “It bolts from the inside and short of an atomic bomb, there’s no getting in there.”
Obviously, Cade had been down there before. I was a little disturbed that there was a potential need for such a room.
Sam nodded. “Okay. Go ahead and grab what you need. Meg and I will be down in a minute.”
Cade’s dark head nodded. His blue eyes were shadowy with concern. The door closed quietly behind him. There was the shuffle of people getting ready to leave below, but for the moment, only the two of us existed in his room. The two of us and my terror.
He took my hands gently as he stared into my eyes. My stomach clenched. His face was serious. His eyes were deep pools of steady water. He’d become more a man in the last few hours than in all his years prior.
“Megan,” he started, then stopped. He shrugged. “I’m not sure what else to say.”
I shook my head, unable to speak over the emotion clawing its way up my throat. I untangled my hands from his and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing myself against him tightly. Immediately his arms encased me.
“Please, please be careful. Come back to me.” I’m petrified that you won’t, my brain added.
“Always,” he whispered before putting his lips on mine. He kissed me deeply. It was tinged with regret, and as he moved his lips against mine once before pulling away, I tasted the slightest hint of goodbye.
I stared at him, shook my head, and kissed him back. You have to come back.
He pulled away again, gently, but it still left me cold.
He nodded once and was out the door.
I love you, echoed in my brain.
Sam? I called back trying our link. Nothing. Nothing but the black void.
Chapter 55
Sam
Night was always blackest a few hours before dawn, or so the saying went. It was midnight. And this black was tangible, blanketing everything, smothering us in its darkness. The temperature was dropping, and a few flakes of snow swirled around us as we crept in our net-like formation to the shack. My blood trail might as well have been a neon beacon signaling the path. My gut twisted as the wildlife around us quit chittering. The nocturnal creatures of the forest were absent. As were the wolves who had held me prisoner hours before.
It’s too quiet. Anyone see or hear anything? I sent to the pack. Every pack member of majority would hear me, so the entire adult pack would be able to receive my all call directives. Cade, and Megan by proxy, would be in the loop, which gave me some comfort.
Nothing on our side, but agreed that it’s too quiet, came Jonathan’s reply. He was leading the pack from the back. He’d been an army Ranger and had experience with battle.
We continued, senses on high alert, finding nothing of note. When the building was in view I crouched down and waited, watching. Everything was still. No movement, no anything.
Dad? I tried. No response. I wasn’t surprised as I assumed they’d given him a heavy round of drugs or worse, beat him into unconsciousness after he created such a spectacular diversion that allowed my escape.
Mal, I called one of the younger wolves who was probably the fastest runner we had with us, move forward. Stay low to the ground but move closer. Try to scent if our Alpha is still there. Run if anything feels off. I kept my instructions on the all call so no one was surprised when Mal moved forward. She inched along, nose to the ground, eyes and ears alert. She made it all the way to the door of the cabin. At once her ears went flat, and she backed up rapidly.
Someone’s in there! She called, right as the door burst open and a wolf the size of Goliath came bounding out. He was huge, brindled, and had drool slinging off his canines as he charged Mal.
Before she even had a chance to back up more than three paces, he was on her, jaws snapping. Mal yipped, but before the brindled wolf could get at her, Jonathan charged from the bush, his teeth sinking into the big wolf’s throat. There was thrashing and whimpering, but it only lasted a moment as the big wolf went down hard, immobilized by Jonathan’s teeth.
Is he dead? I asked from my spot in the brush, heart thrumming, leg throbbing, anxiety well over the healthy limit.
No. I bit a pressure point. He’ll be down for a while. Jonathan sniffed the air again. No one else is here. They must have expected a solo or small party rescue.
Cautiously, I moved toward the cabin, my wolves following my lead.
Mal, you okay?
I’m not hurt.
Fan out. Find out what you can. I put my nose to the ground and immediately picked up Dad’s scent. The others soon had it, too.
We need to keep our numbers concealed, Jonathan suggested.
Taking his experienced advice, I gave the order and we melted back into the wood. I alone stayed on the path. I walked boldly, despite my fear and trepidation.
We heard the voices before we could see them, and I knew they sensed us at the same time.
“They’re here!” someone called. Immediately, we could pick up the noises of underbrush crunching, growls working their way out of chests. The stench of motor oil and gas hung in the air. This was the transport spot. Dad might be up ahead!
> Go!
As one, we moved through the underbrush nearer the enemy pack. As planned for this scenario, Jonathan’s group stayed behind, letting my group take the lead.
A small clearing came into view and a dozen wolves were on the ground, teeth bared, hackles raised. Like a gun sounding the start of a race, they lunged toward us, and we met them in equal force. Though Wolf pushed to enter the fray, jaws open, I tried to stay back on the fringe of the clearing. It was important that I wasn’t heavily engaged because I was the only one who could do the all call. Without my voice, my pack couldn’t move as one. We couldn’t be effective.
The enemy pack knew this, too. Immediately, a brown wolf sized me up as he came at me. Jaws wide, teeth glinting in the weak moonlight that filtered down through the canopy on the fringe of the clearing. We met in midair, paws swiping heavily. My right paw found purchase on the wolf’s neck, batting him down while his teeth snapped harmlessly at the air. It took less than a second for him to right himself and even less time to ascertain my injured leg.
Using the bulk of his muscled body, he knocked into me, sending all my weight on my injured leg. An involuntary yelp escaped, and I used the momentum to move into a roll that put me beside the wolf’s back legs. I wasted no time in biting down, much in the same way my own leg had been bitten earlier. Blood filled my mouth, and Wolf reveled in the power of the taste. I shook my head hard, and the wolf came down, whimpering as I locked my jaws in place. With another shake of my head and twist around to miss his swinging front paws. I cracked the wolf’s leg against the ground and felt the wet snap between my teeth.
The wolf howled, and I let go, knowing the wolf wasn’t an immediate threat now. Where that wolf had been, a large black one now took its place, slavering in front of me with eyes narrowed to slits and trained on my throat.
My leg throbbed, but I didn’t have time to dwell on that or on the battle going on around me. All of my part of the pack was engaged with enemy wolves, and in my quick glance, several from Jonathan’s group were coming in to swell our numbers.