Obviously, I’ve been duped.
“You three here to learn contemporary dance?” I ask as I take a few more steps toward them to let them know I’m not intimidated. “You just missed it, but the next class starts up on Thursday, cupcake.”
Two of them let out sinister chuckles, while the one taking point gives me an ugly snarl. Honestly, all three of them should be gorgeous--their physiques and faces are flawless from what I can see—almost too flawless. But they’re hideous; maybe it’s the malice in their eyes. Their haircuts and clothing immediately bring the word ‘soldier’ to mind but more like action figure dolls than human soldiers, unreal and too idealized. They’re clearly the beefy front line of defense in this pack skirmish.
My gaze searches their belts and ankles for the tell-tale bulges of guns, and thankfully, I don’t see any. For a werewolf, being struck with a silver bullet, even in the leg, is a death sentence.
“You like this?” the one taking point says, cupping the front of his pants and thrusting his hips forward.
“She’s checking you out—she’s checking all of us out,” the guy to his rights says. “We could always give her what she wants for a little while before we tie her up.”
“Or after.” The third guy snickers. “We could take pictures and show it to her boyfriend before B-team kills him.”
Kill Zane?
I lift my gaze to look each of them in the eyes, one by one. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Never you mind,” point man says.
“You will tell me what you’re talking about.”
My wolf pushes forward, and I can feel her heady delight. She knows for the first time in a very long time—she’s going to be allowed to play. The sensation of her joy disturbs me so fundamentally that I push her back down, hoping I can somehow sort out this situation without resorting to a bloodbath.
“What is B-team, and what does my boyfriend have to do with this?”
“Two teams, sweetheart,” says the frontman as he takes a step forward. “One for him, and one for you—but we’re obviously the lucky ones.”
Holding up my hands in a quelling gesture, I give one more try for peace. “Please, listen to me. Go tell your alpha to face me himself. I don’t want to kill anyone else.”
They laugh, but they have no idea how much pent up aggression they’ll be unleashing if they even attempt to lay one hand on me—hell, I don’t even know what would be unleashed. I shouldn’t feel guilty about what I’m going to do. Obviously, they’re not great guys, they’re threatening to rape and kidnap me—they’ll probably even do it. If anyone deserves death in my eyes, it’s werewolves like these, but I don’t want to be the one to deliver it.
I never want to kill again.
Point guy charges me without so much as a warning. He probably thinks he’s catching me off guard; he’s wrong. My wolf pushes forward once more—and for the first time in a long time, I welcome her fully. As she fills my body, my teeth and claws elongate. We do nothing at first, standing with our hands hanging loosely at our sides, watching the werewolves leap at us. He aims for my waist, clearly intending on ramming me in the stomach rather than dodging or feinting. He shifts his right hand, and five curved claws burst forth. With his hand raised, he slices forward, aiming for my middle. I wait for one more millisecond before turning clockwise and allowing his momentum to propel him forward past me so his back is exposed.
“You should have surrendered,” slips through our half-changed muzzle.
And then we’re flying through the air and our claws and teeth tear into the man’s back. He lets out a pained howl and stumbles forward to his knees, but I keep on him, riding him down. I’m tearing so fast, it’s as if I’m digging through him, my claws severing through his muscle and bone.
The werewolf screams and fruitlessly attempts to swipe back at me, and even though my wolf knows we could end his suffering and move on to the next, we don’t want to. We keep tearing and clawing until a sharp pain slices through our right side and back.
The other two don’t want to wait their turn. Teeth sink into my side and attempt to wrench me away, but I push the pain away.
Pulling out my bloody claws, I grab the first man’s neck from behind and twist it with a sickening snap. I leap off him, pulling away from his friend's jaws as he crashes to the floor in a dead heap. His mouth gapes open, his eyes wide with surprise.
I scream as I tear away from the wolf’s fangs, feeling the skin of my side shred and then begin to heal. Bearing my sharp teeth as blood drips from my mouth and chin, I growl, “I hate killing!’
Both have completely shifted to wolf. They’re big fuckers, standing to my shoulders—about the size of black bears in the wild. They snarl, showing fangs much bigger than mine. One of the assholes has a lot of my blood staining his face.
Cowards.
You either fight as wolves or as humans and always one-on-one. These two are so scared of little old me that they decided they need all the advantages they can get.
Howling their rage, they attack together.
I dive for the wolf with a bloody muzzle and drop to my knees as I dodge his sideswipe. My legs collide with his foreleg, and I flip my hand forward and slice my claws through his fur and into his neck. It’s just a graze, though, and I know my best chance at surviving this is to change into a wolf fast. Grabbing onto the wolf’s leg, I slide under him and kick at his hindquarters until he stumbles onto me, directly in the path of his friend who’s biting me.
Bloody muzzle mews with his friend’s blow, and he attempts to stumble away from where I’m lying under him, pulling at his paws, but I have them. I can only keep hold of him for moments as the burning pain of changing to a wolf takes me. My hands spasm and release as thick pads form on my fingers, then my shredded bits of remaining leotard snap and fall to the ground. Everything blurs around me, though my vision is sharpening. My consciousness retreats, and my wolf fully takes the reins.
Chapter Fifteen
Lance
I circle the shelter twice, keeping my speed just a little under the limit. There are at least three men stationed around the building, but I suspect there are really four. For some unknown reason, they hesitate to enter.
That’s good.
The glint of a gun at one of the men’s sides isn’t such a good thing, however.
It definitely isn’t the situation my brothers originally described—one man-eating sicko. These men look more like private militia wolves—though I don’t know of a pack west of Kansas that hires out for paramilitary missions, and all those have to go through an approval process by the council. But my instincts have me circling the block rather than moving on to the next shelter.
I park in a spot directly under the streetlamp one block over. I’d bought the van in preparation for our journey here, needing something more circumspect than my motorcycle to survey the area, and at this moment, I couldn’t be more thankful that I had. I slide the back door open slowly, grab onto the roof of the van, and pull myself onto the ridged metal. Once on the roof, I lay on my belly, making sure the coast is clear. It is. Moving into a crouch, I leap to the neighboring roof.
I can clear seven-and-a-half feet on a good day, and though I don’t quite manage to clear the ridgeline, I land softly just beside it. The shelter is made up of two conjoined buildings, from what I can tell. Thankfully, the werewolves seem to be hiding out in the shadows around the first building, likely meaning that’s where their target is.
I crawl down the shale roof, keeping my motions silent. The man with the gun is my first priority—if this is a situation I truly need to involve myself in, the gunman will need to be taken out first.
Standing outside what looks like a dismantled back door, two massive werewolves push their backs against the wall. Their chests rise and fall in rapid, huffing breaths. The gunman fights to lift his firearm while his companion covers the pistol. Even from the neighboring rooftop ten feet away, I can smell their sweat and a ripe
r ammonia scent of fear. Huddling just out of sight of the door, the men quaver, staring at the opening as if they expect the devil to walk out.
Through the shroud of shadow, the hand covering the gun whitens with strain. Clearly, the gunman is hoping to aim and fire, and his companion plans to thwart him—but they grapple for the firearm without making a sound.
“Carl,” the one holding down the gun breathes in what could barely be considered a whisper, “Jones instructed us not to harm her.”
“Jones is dead,” says the gunman. “They’re all dead—and we’re next.”
“And if you kill her, do you have any idea what he’ll do to you? Those weren’t our orders—he said bring Scarlet Riley in any state but dead.”
A strange, unexpected terror rises in me as the man confirms my suspicion. My heart beats in my ears, loud as thunder. Claws push out of my fingers before I know what’s happening and bite into my palm, drawing hot blood. The pain feels very far away as I stare down at the men who are about to die.
“Fuck our fucking orders,” the gunman says. Shouldering his companion aside, he pushes toward the open door and aims his pistol through the doorway.
As soon as the man’s back is turned, I pounce and land just behind the gunman. Wrapping my arm around the man’s head, I twist it like a top. An audible crunch rips through the heavy silence, and when I spin to face the gunman’s companion, I find the werewolf sprinting away in the alley, his footfalls echoing like the beat of a fae battle drum.
I pull the gunman’s dead fingers from his pistol, raise the gun, and fire.
A crack rips through the air, and the werewolf thuds to the ground.
I drop my hand to rest at my side, knowing that I should feel guilty as that soldier was possibly sent from the council to take out the man-eating werewolf, but I don’t feel anything but terror. I circle the building once when a wolf jumps out of the shadows, and I shoot him midair.
I slowly enter the shelter and come to an abrupt halt. The scene is absolute carnage. Eight corpses lay in pools of blood, one partially changed werewolf and seven fully changed wolves. Fur and chunks of bloody remains litter the couches and drip off the tables. Blood splatters across the walls and coats the ceiling.
“What the fuck?” I whisper as I attempt to step through the bloody chunks on the floor.
The smallest of the wolves jerks, and I spin to see its red fur disappearing into smooth flesh. A long muzzle morphs into a small, upturned nose, full lips, and a sharp chin.
“Shit!” White, hot panic surges in me as I dive to the floor and gather Scarlet’s naked body into my arms. As I hold her, I realize that my hands are still claws, and I use all my concentration to pull back my wolf.
Scarlet winces and pushes at me weakly as I lift her to reveal that her underside has been ripped open to the bone. Before my eyes, muscles slowly knit together over her ribs, but the injuries look so severe and the healing so sluggish, I don’t know if her body can heal the wounds before she bleeds out.
“You’re not healing fast enough—you need your alpha, now,” I yell.
“Lance?” Scarlet whispers, and my name on her lips feels like a physical blow.
Why hadn’t I acted faster? Why hadn’t I charged right in here? In situations like these, every second matters.
She lifts her head, but for some reason, she doesn’t open her eyes. “My wolf –I just—I just need a little time on my own—give me fifteen minutes. I’ll be right out.”
She’s obviously delirious. The scene of carnage blurs around me. I have no fucking clue what the best course of action is, so I lift Scarlet in my arms and run. She feels so light. It’s as if with every passing drop of blood from her destroyed side she grows less substantial.
Scarlet raises her head but keeps her eyelids tightly shut. Her hand bats at my white shirt, smearing streaks of blood. “Seriously, just give me a few minutes to myself.” Her words are almost impossible to understand through her slurring. “You can’t be here—you can’t watch.”
As I turn the corner toward the van, a man and a wolf come bounding from the opposite side of the street, Aaron and Darrel. They clear a downed trash can without breaking stride before skidding to a halt before the van.
“Where the fuck have you guys been?” I snap as Aaron braces himself against the vehicle.
Aaron waves his hand behind him. “Tracking that wolf—and we heard the gunshot—is that...?” Aaron reaches toward Scarlet, but an overwhelming territorial impulse causes me to bare my teeth, growling low. Raising his hands in surrender, Aaron says, “Lance, man, are you…in control?”
“Of course I’m in control…I’m always in control.” I let out another low grumble from my throat.
Darrel’s gray fur retreats into his skin, and he slowly stands. His white, crisscrossed scars seem to glow in the moonlight as he glares at me. “Brother, you always were in control. But maybe I should take Scarlet while you drive us wherever it is she needs to be.”
“To her alpha, and I am in fucking control,” I bite out, “As I always am.”
“Well, no, I’m going to be holding her here, guys.” Grabbing the handle, Aaron slides open the van door and climbs inside. “You’re naked, Darrel, and so is she. I’m sure it would be a little disconcerting to wake up from an injury clutched in a naked man’s arms.”
“Point taken,” Darrel says as he crouches. Fur sprouts from his pores as his body stretches and morphs, and in seconds he’s a wolf again.
Aaron shoulders off his leather jacket and holds out his arms. My wolf doesn’t want to let her go, even though, as a man, I know it’s the best way to save her. My whole body quakes with the effort of suppressing my instincts as I set her down in Aaron’s arms. Darrel immediately jumps up beside them a second later, taking the majority of the back seat beside the pair. I just catch sight of Aaron wrapping Scarlet in his leather jacket before I slide the van door shut.
Jumping into the front seat, I bring the engine to life, slam it into gear, and take off down the deserted street.
“We tracked him, but he was nowhere near that shelter. He was heading west toward Eureka on Old Arcata Road,” Aaron calls over from the backseat. “He must have doubled back.”
I glance into the rear-view mirror where Aaron cradles Scarlet. He wears no shirt now, holding the material to Scarlet’s injured side.
“Ten werewolves,” I manage to growl as I take the next curve at speed. “Looked like hired muscle, only one carried silver bullets—had to be an abduction attempt from what I overheard.”
“What the hell is the matter with them? She’s a female, a pack alpha’s daughter. How could they risk her life by attacking her like that?”
Killing a female wolf counts as two murders in the eyes of the council as, in most packs, there are two to three males for every one female. The Six Rivers pack has a higher ratio of females to males than any pack I’ve ever seen, and that likely had to do with my late brother Jacob sending so many males away or involving them in dangerous crime.
“I have no idea what fucking happened there,” I admit. “But it looked like something tore all of them apart—her included. The scene was—unlike anything I’ve ever seen, I—”
“I killed them.” Scarlet’s voice is barely audible, the quietest whisper, but it seems to echo around the car all the same.
“You’re shivering. Are you cold?” Aaron asks in a quiet voice. “Who sent them, Scarlet? Why were they attacking you?”
“Wait…wait no, I forgot you sent them—my wolf is confused. I don’t want to kill anymore—just let me…”
“What the fuck is she saying?” I growl.
“Scarlet, we didn’t send anyone after you. You have to know that. Obviously, your wolf does, because you didn’t attack Lance out of instinct when he picked you up,” Aaron reasons in a measured tone. “But I guess that answers the question of if you know who did send your attackers. How fast do you heal, Scarlet?”
“Really slow when I can’t be with
my wolf,” Scarlet slurs, wheezing. “Nearly died four years ago when your brother clawed through my back.”
My head spins so fast, I almost turn the van into a street lamp. I narrowly avoid missing it as I swerve back into the lane.
“Shit…I wasn’t supposed to say that,” she mumbles. “I think. I’m not sure why. Why is no one supposed to know Jacob almost killed me?”
“Jacob tried to kill you?” Aaron snaps.
Hot rage surges through my chest, and my view of the road blurs, blackening at the edges. If my brother wasn’t already dead, I’d find him and end him for good.
“You sound so mad,” Scarlet says. “Honestly, Jacob only realized how badly he hurt me at the end. He was trying to get me to submit.”
“Submit to what?” Aaron asks.
“Him. Sex. Marriage. Prison.” She laughs. “Wait…where are we going? Why am I in a van?” She slurs the last word almost past recognition.
My gaze shoots up to the rearview mirror to see Aaron shaking her gently.
“Stay with me, Scarlet. I know shock is setting in, but I need you to try to keep it together,” Aaron says. “Stay with me.”
“Is she passing out?” I call back as I desperately try to see into the back seat.
Scarlet reaches up and places a finger on Aaron’s lips. “No one is supposed to know. Shhh, don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t.”
Aaron gently takes her hand in his, placing his palm against her cheek as she rests there. He leans his forehead against Scarlet’s and inhales her. It’s an oddly intimate and romantic gesture, and I don’t know what the fuck to think of it coming from Aaron. I’m also uncomfortable with how it makes me feel so damn jealous. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Darrel treat Scarlet that way, but from what I’ve seen, Aaron isn’t the affectionate type. While Aaron is always gentle with the women he is intimate with, I’ve never once seen him be tender like this. My eyes go from the rearview mirror to the road.
And Aaron isn’t intimate with Scarlet—I’d know if that was going on.
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