Adding insult to injury, my side screamed every time I twisted it. There was an unfortunate amount of twisting involved in peeling off a jacket that fit like a second skin.
Ignoring the pain, I continued both undressing and cluing Carly in at a volume too low for my human ears to pick up on. I only hoped skinless ten feet away from us would be similarly inhibited.
“There’s a window above you—don’t look at it. And a knife in the boot I’m handing you. I’m going to make a distraction, then I want you to use that knife against anyone who tries to stop you. Get out the window, turn left, then left again, and there will be too many people around for anyone to grab you. You’ll have to be fast.”
“What about you?” Carly asked.
I winced. If I could hear her then everyone else could hear her.
I tried to put an extra wriggle into the motion as I shimmied out of my jeans, but that wasn’t enough to distract Victor. “No talking,” he demanded. Air currents on my bare skin suggested he’d taken a step toward our not-really-secluded changing space.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured Carly while spinning around to face the skinless who planned to take me as his mate. It was time for the distraction I’d promised.
Reaching behind my back, I unclipped my bra.
“CARLY DOESN’T NEED your underwear,” Aunt May warned.
But none of the men were complaining. Their eyes jerked down and stuck to the only weapon I had remaining. I hoped no one but me heard the clatter of metal against metal as Carly pushed cans sideways on the rack in an effort to clear enough space to clamber up.
Of course, skinless ears are superhuman. “What’s she doing?” demanded Carl.
Without my pelt, human muscles were no match for those of a werewolf. I blinked...and Carl was behind me. His hand clamped down on Carly’s ankle before she could pull herself one shelf higher and out of reach.
And Victor, to my surprise, barked out an order. “Don’t touch my cousin.”
For half a second, everyone froze. Like when Luke had made his pronouncement about race contestants, Victor’s words sucked all oxygen out of the room.
I licked my lips, surprised to find I could move even that much. But I wasn’t attached to my pelt. No wolf, no effect from alpha compulsions.
Which meant I could speak.
“Carly, use the knife!” I demanded.
Rather than obeying, the girl hunched and hesitated. As the object of Victor’s compulsion, I noted, she wasn’t affected by his command. Instead, she was frozen by her deeply ingrained meekness.
After all, she’d spent her entire life obeying those older than her. Males, especially, were to be heeded no matter what.
And yet...Carly had shown her strength just days ago. The night I’d chosen Luke as my mate, his niece had leapt to the fore during our hunt. She’d chosen a strategy that led us all to victory.
“Remember the elk!” I added.
It wasn’t an alpha command like Victor’s had been, but my order was still effective. Carly’s shoulders straightened.
One moment, she was a pack princess unable to do more than scurry away from danger. The next moment, she was a strong young werewolf who owned claws, fangs, and—most relevant while two-legged—the thin stiletto of a borrowed knife.
“Don’t you dare,” Carl growled. “You’re my mate. You obey me.”
Carly didn’t manage a retort, but her actions got the point across. One swipe of the blade across her betrothed’s knuckles, then Carly was free to jerk her leg back up out of reach.
THERE WAS BLOOD ON the air. I couldn’t quite smell it, but the aftereffects were vivid.
All three of Carl’s henchmen wrenched themselves free of Victor’s order. They lunged toward Carly...which is when I moved on to distraction number two.
Grabbing soup cans off the shelf beside me, I pelted skinless. Dove and rolled, kicking upward at just the right moment to knock one shifter off his feet.
“Don’t you dare point a gun at my niece!” Aunt May shrieked through the cacophony.
Despite myself, I spun around to look.
Carly was perched on the top shelf of the rack just beneath the window, pounding the latch with the butt of the knife I’d given her. Unfortunately, the window didn’t open. The mechanism appeared to be painted shut.
Beneath her, Carl clutched a gun in one hand. The muzzle was pointed halfway up the wall rather than at his betrothed. But with skinless reflexes, that could change in the time it took to inhale a single breath.
“Carly, I need you to get down now,” Victor called from ten feet away. Why he didn’t use an alpha command was beyond me. Maybe he simply wasn’t powerful enough to play the same card twice?
Either way, he tried to talk down his ally. “Carl, don’t blow this. I promised you’d have my cousin as a mate and I stand by that. We’re stronger together than either of us is separately.”
“Boss, do you want us to...?” one of Carl’s men started. But the blond teenager raised his hand to silence his underling.
“I have your word on this, Victor?”
“You have my word on it, Carl.”
The bonding moment would have been sweet...if the two hadn’t been enemy werewolves intent upon mayhem. “Hurry, Carly,” I thought. And it was almost as if she heard me. Because her knife slammed yet harder against the stuck window latch.
Its release was loud enough to capture Victor’s attention. “Carly, I won’t protect you if you go out that window!”
His young cousin—obedient to everyone, especially the males of her pack—didn’t look back. Didn’t answer.
Instead, the cellar filled with the scent of ozone as the window flew open and a furry werewolf leapt out.
Chapter 35
The force of Carly’s jump dislodged the rack from the wall. Metal legs tilted precariously. Cans rattled. Then, almost in slow motion, the rack and all of its contents tumbled down upon Carl’s head.
He wasn’t mortally wounded. I could tell that from the roar of rage, only partially muffled by cans of chicken broth and green beans that surrounded him. Perhaps that’s why Victor ignored his newly rebuilt partnership and snapped out an order to the shifters who called Carl boss.
“Find my cousin now.”
Whatever Victor’s reasoning, the three armed men ignored him. Instead, they dove into the pile of rubble as a unit. Apparently, external alliances paled in the face of danger to a downed leader.
Victor’s response to being ignored was deep and guttural. He took a step toward the door—padlocked, I could see now. Who had the key? One of Carl’s goons? Victor wasn’t getting out that way any more than I was.
He and I both turned to consider the window Carly had wriggled out. The window with no rack beneath it. The window far too small to allow an adult human to pass through.
And an adult wolf? I hoped not. Still, Victor took a step forward...only to be interrupted by his grandmother’s suggestion.
“Bite the woelfin.” Aunt May’s words weren’t an order the way Victor’s had been. Instead, they were soft and soothing. How a pack princess learned to speak when she needed to bend stronger pack mates to her will, perhaps?
Either way, her grandson listened as she laid out a plan. “Carl’s men will catch up to Carly once they’re done with their cuddle pile. A pack princess won’t make it far alone in the city. We need to consolidate what we have left.”
For two different reasons, Aunt May and I were on the same wavelength. If I couldn’t escape, then my goal had to be slowing pursuit to give Carly time to reach my sister.
So when Victor reached out to grab me, I let him. When his teeth lengthened into canine fangs, I didn’t flinch away.
“Do you willingly submit to this mating, Honor Warren?” Victor asked, his words slurred by the enlarged dentition. His breath turned the air around my neck into a whirlwind of cinnamon.
I opened my mouth...and Luke spoke in my mind as strong and clear as if I hadn’t been flailing arou
nd in search of this connection for the better part of a day now. “Please don’t, Honor.”
Was that all I’d needed to reopen our line of communication? Let a pack mate breathe on my scar as a supernatural power boost?
For a split second, warmth filled my belly. Luke and I could still have everything I’d hoped for. Standing up to him, asserting my independence—neither was a deal breaker. As he’d promised, there was still a chance to find a middle ground between woelfin and werewolf.
But Carly came first. And I had to do this to save her.
So I didn’t take the time to apologize or explain my reasoning. Instead, I rattled off cross streets for the location where Luke’s niece would end up if she’d followed my instructions. “Find her. Help her,” I demanded.
Aloud, I merely said, “Yes, Victor. I submit.”
VICTOR’S BITE WAS NOTHING like the throbbing of my feet and the relentless burn that seared down my side and across my belly. No, it was far, far worse.
Because the tearing of teeth into flesh came with a connection to a mind similar yet dissimilar to Luke’s. The bite sucked me down into a whirlpool of Victor’s memories with no ability to claw my way free.
“This will all be yours one day.” Aunt May peered down at us—at Victor—from such a height she might as well have been a giant. “You must be strong and smart and bide your time.”
We evaded her searching gaze in order to consider the pack. They were torn and soiled by the old alpha’s mismanagement. Mamaw was right. We could do better.
We nodded our pint-sized head.
“I was born to be alpha,” we said, repeating words we’d heard dozens of times now. “You’ll be proud of us, Mamaw. Just wait and see.”
“I know I will.” Her hand on our head was a benediction. Something warm and fierce in our belly awoke.
Time passed, flickering by in pockets of memory. We won fights among our age mates. Led hunts and always made the kill, sometimes through prowess and sometimes through subterfuge. Grew tall and powerful until our words were heeded not only by the young, but also by the old.
The pack almost healed, once, twice, many times. But healing would mean they didn’t need a new alpha. Healing would rend our special bond with our grandmother in two.
So we didn’t let the pack heal. And, one day, something broke. In the clan. In our leader.
“I’m done waiting,” we told our grandmother. She was shorter or we were taller. Either way, our stomach tightened with anger, our hands clenching into fists. “Look at this. This is heresy.”
We’d been trying to avert our gaze from the awfulness, but Mamaw wouldn’t let us. Instead, our eyes followed hers back to the body lying atop crumpled sheets. Our father. His throat ripped out and blood coagulating beneath his bare human ass.
There’d been no fair fight. No public challenge. Instead, our father had been murdered in his bed, in his sleep, like a prey animal too insignificant to be offered a fair fight.
Pack rot. Not just from underlings, but from the alpha.
“If you challenge the pack leader now, you’ll die and the pack will die with you,” Aunt May advised. “I’ll tell you when the time is right.”
Then, the moment finally arrived. Hot air slick against a sweaty brow. The scent of the old alpha’s blood seeping into damp soil as we followed his trail through the forest.
All we had to do was find him and kill him. The time had come for a new alpha. We’d take a mate, excise the rot, finally allow the clan to heal.
Our stomach leapt with anticipation. Only to fall as Luke—the prodigal cousin—materialized out of nowhere to steal our rightful inheritance.
“I was born to be alpha,” Victor growled aloud around the blood streaming down my neck, slicking red the hollow between my breasts. Despite the gore, he wasn’t a complete monster. He’d been manipulative and manipulated, but at least half of his intention had been protecting his family. He’d spent far more time fixing than breaking his pack.
Understanding roiled like bad meat in my gut. Our gazes met and Victor nodded, smearing blood across his cheek as he wiped his chin.
“With you as mate, I will be unbeatable,” he intoned. “Our pack will be unbeatable.”
I swallowed, the dim cellar swimming around me. Thrust out of Victor’s memories, the present had gone watery and dreamlike.
Perhaps because I didn’t smell like myself. I was no longer enfolded in cinnamon. Instead, even without my pelt, I could smell it...feel it.
I stunk of road tar and raw liver. Victor’s scent. Mine now also.
Closing my eyes, I let the darkness eat me up.
Chapter 36
A howl wound its way into the nothingness that surrounded me. A howl, followed by Carl’s voice:
“Who’s that?”
“That’s my niece.” Aunt May was smug, as if she’d foretold Carly’s inability to survive on New York City’s streets for even a few minutes.
Or a few hours. I had no idea how long I’d been lost to the darkness. Not that I was fully awake now. The conversation around me continued as if part of a dream.
“Give me the key,” Victor demanded. “I’ll let in my cousin then I’ll take Honor in the back. Wake her up. Finish this.”
So he hadn’t been willing to have sex with my comatose body. That knowledge should have heartened me, but instead the world remained distant and dim.
Vaguely, I noted footsteps receding. The lock clicked open. Two halves of the door clanged one after the other, as if they’d been thrust upward too rapidly.
Then a gasp.
“Shit! He’s holding the door! I need help here!”
I struggled to open my eyes in the face of Victor’s horror, but the lids seemed to be glued shut. Instead, vision flickered into my brain without passing through corneas. I saw what Victor saw.
A wave of wolves coursed down the sidewalk, bearing down upon him. Someone tall and broad stepped out from behind one half of the cellar door, refusing to allow the metal flap to fall down into place.
For a moment the newcomer was backlit. Then he angled his head sideways and I recognized him. We recognized him.
Victor’s heart pounded in our chest. Our fingers tightened, whitened.
“You smell like my mate,” Luke growled.
It really was a growl. More wolf than human.
His teeth were fangs. He leaned in closer.
Once again, my borrowed vision went black.
SNARLS. HIGH-PITCHED shrieks of pain or terror. A shout from Carly: “No!”
I clawed my way back to reality with an effort. This wasn’t a dream. This was intrapack warfare. The Alpha’s Hunt. Precisely what Ruth had been trying to prevent by guiding her relatives toward formal challenges and stealing tokens from the sword maiden.
From me. I’d accepted the job; I needed to do it. Not continue drifting along with my eyes glued shut.
So I pressed hard against the emptiness inside me. Forced out the yearning for unattainable cinnamon. Blinked back dampness. Swiped a hand across my face to dislodge whatever gunk had ended up there. Focused at last on what actually existed right in front of my face.
I swallowed, trying to make sense of the fountain of red falling around me. Was that...?
Yep. It was a river of blood.
Not blood in the past tense, static and finished. No, this fluid was spurting out of a furry body no more than two inches from me. The beast’s barrel chest didn’t move up and down. This wolf wasn’t going to make it out of the basement alive.
I didn’t see Ruth until she rose from where she’d been crouched on the other side of the dying wolf’s body. “You can thank me later,” she said, dropping something dark and soft into the blood pooled between us. “Put this on and deal with your mate.”
Which mate? My brain felt like mold had grown over top of it.
Then Ruth nudged the dark softness a little closer with one toe, focusing my vision. My voice was a croak as I breathed out realization. “My pel
t.”
“What did you think it was? A coonskin cap?”
Ruth snorted, the abrupt exhale of air spurring my motion. Muscles screamed as I uncurled one arm from beneath me and reached toward the pelt. Fingers sunk into my own fur and I breathed deeply for the first time in what felt like hours.
“You’ll deal with it?” Ruth demanded.
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“You’ll need this then.” A sword—my sword—clanked down onto the hard cement beside me. Then Ruth was shifting, shimmering to wolf form midair before leaping four-legged into the fray.
She’d brought my sword and my pelt. Everything I’d ached for a few hours earlier.
Well, everything except Luke.
I reached for a spark of intention, but couldn’t find it. Instead, I lay there panting, watching paws and feet interlace at eye level. To my bleary eyes, they seemed to move to the drumbeat of my heart.
The skinless weren’t dancing, of course. They were killing each other. So many skinless and none appeared even faintly rational. What exactly had Ruth expected me to do about this?
The tiniest tendril of cinnamon floated toward me. Not from my neck—which still reeked of road tar and liver. From elsewhere in the dank little room.
I was still exhausted. Still empty in a way I’d never been previously. And yet...that hint of cinnamon was enough to prompt me to drag my pelt over my shoulders. The resulting burst of strength allowed me to teeter to two feet.
Erect, I could see better. Even with half the storage racks tumbled down, the cellar was too small to contain its current inhabitants. They made up for lack of space by roiling together in a mass of wolves, women, and men.
Carl’s armed henchmen must have been dealt with before my eyes opened because I didn’t hear any gunshots. I did, however, catch flashes of silver as equally dangerous blades sparkled in the lone window’s wan light.
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