by Haley Weir
I didn’t need the woman’s help anymore. Not only could I shift again, but I could do it at exactly the pace and place that I wanted to. If this was what she had meant about using the fear to make me stronger, then I would no longer shy away from being afraid. Instead, I would harness it to do exactly whatever I wanted.
Chapter Sixteen
Jasper
When Addicus brought both me and another of his shifters along with him to Rye in the morning to meet with Peyton, I knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to taunt Peyton by parading me around in front of her in the hopes that it would make her crack and agree to whatever he demanded. Addicus truly was a master at playing both sides. That, and being a complete asshole. With the blood oath still in place, there wasn’t anything that I could do yet. The first opening that I got to kill him—I would. Until that happened though, I just needed to be patient and wait. At least I knew that Peyton was safe, and that she was no longer his target.
When we arrived in Rye, Cerise was there to meet us at the edge of the town. I half expected that she would look at me acting like Addicus’ personal lapdog and laugh, but yet again she surprised me by appearing to be upset and uncomfortable with it. We followed her back to the pub, where Peyton was waiting to meet with Addicus.
As soon as I walked into the pub and saw Peyton, it was complete and absolute torture. She immediately began to stand, as if she wanted to run to me, but there was a shifter beside her—the outspoken one who had challenged me to a duel and then pledged his loyalty to me—put his hand on her shoulder to calm her and coax her into sitting back down. He was right in doing so. Addicus loved the fact that he was playing me against Peyton’s emotions. He loved getting a rise out of us both. Peyton sat down and I have her a small smile to let her know that I was okay. But she couldn’t return the gesture. She was too upset and too worried, and I knew exactly how she felt.
But—I also noticed something strange about her, something different. It wasn’t until my eyes fell onto her hands that I saw what it was. Her wolf claws, long, sharp, and deadly, were at the ends of her fingertips. Her eyes were a golden yellow that beamed through the dim light of the pub. And what I had thought was the scarf around her neck, was actually a thick mane of her own fur.
“How—” I whispered under my breath.
Cerise shot me a look to silence me. She knew what I was acting shocked about but was warning me not to draw attention to the matter. Peyton was half-shifted. An ability that I had only heard stories of as a child. The most that any of us had been able to do, was sometimes extend a claw or two. But never anything like this.
I could tell that Addicus immediately noticed it too. He didn’t say anything, but I could sense that he was instantly more nervous as soon as he saw her. I could hear the low thrumming beat of his heart speed up and saw the tightening muscles in his jaw. He saw what Peyton could do, and it worried him.
“I guess you picked the wrong one of us to tie to your allegiance in a blood oath, didn’t you?” I taunted as I leaned closer to Addicus’ ear to speak to him quietly. “You should have chosen her—she’s much more powerful than I am now.”
The intent of my comment was to unnerve him, and I could see that it was working.
Addicus raised his hand and slapped me across the face. For a split second, I felt my muscles tense and I was only moments away from trying to tear him apart, but then I regained control and ignored the strike completely. Peyton, however, was shifting uncomfortably in her seat. Her heart was breaking, and she was trying desperately not to lash out in an impulsive reaction to Addicus. It was, after all, what he was trying to incite.
“Why have you come here to meet with me?” Peyton asked in a voice that sounded so strong and commanding that I hardly recognized it. “You refused my offer, so why are you here at all?”
“I figured you would be happy that I brought your mate along with me,” Addicus jeered, trying to provoke her.
“What do you want?” she said as she tried to choke down her anger.
“I want more than just Rye,” he said. “And I want more than just Jasper. I want you both.”
“Excuse me?” Peyton said with a raised eyebrow.
“I want both Jasper and you to join my pack and pledge your allegiance to me,” Addicus said arrogantly.
Peyton surprised everyone in the room by laughing boisterously aloud at his request. I could see that her act of defiance angered him almost instantaneously.
“She won’t do it,” I blurted out, protesting and refusing on her behalf. There was no way that I was going to let her get mixed up with Addicus.
“If you agree,” Addicus said to her, ignoring me entirely. “Then both of you will remain unharmed, and together. Both of our packs will fall in line under my leadership, and together we will attempt to combat the shadow beings.”
I could see that Peyton was now considering his offer and I wanted to shout at her and tell her no.
“If you refuse,” he continued. “Then I will kill Jasper.”
Peyton gasped audibly and I could see that it was over—she would agree to anything that he demanded if he threatened to end my life. That was the whole reason that he had brought me here—the bastard.
“I’d like to see you try,” huffed at him with my nostrils flaring.
I was about at the end of my threshold. I would rather make an attempt to kill him now, then seem him bully Peyton into agreeing to join him too. But just as I readied to try and take him down, more shifters loyal to Addicus came out of the woodwork.
Where in hell was he getting all of these men?
It was like I kept killing them and they kept respawning.
I watched as my pack members filtered into the bar and stood beside Peyton. They had been upstairs, in the same hidden apartment that she and I had found sanctuary in, and now they sensed the threat and came to fight beside us. But this was no use. We were outnumbered—again.
Chapter Seventeen
Peyton
Against Jasper’s please of protest, I agreed to Addicus’ deal. And I, along with the misfit Wolfpack that Jasper and I had created, agreed to join Addicus in his fight against the shadow beings who were taking over East Sussex. Addicus acted as if we were all one united pack now and declared that all of the shifters in Rye be allegiant to him. Some of them resisted at first, but in order to make sure that they stayed alive, Jasper urged them to go ahead and except Addicus as their new pack leader. Reluctantly, they did as their true alpha asked, and pledged a temporary and non-genuine allegiance to Addicus. It was obvious that many of them were still loyal to Jasper on the down-low, but for now, everyone’s hands were tied.
At last Jasper and I were reunited and given a room alone together for the night. I was so overcome with relief and longing for him, that before anything was even discussed or thought through, all I could do was push my mouth onto his and relish in the feel of our tongues encircling each other. I knew that we should have been talking about what we were going to do. We should have been talking about how we were going to get rid of Addicus, or how we were going to face the shadow beings as they strengthened their presence throughout East Sussex. It wouldn’t be long before they came back to Rye. But neither of us could talk about any of that right now. All that we could do was give in to our desire, and the passion that had been burning and eating us alive from the inside since the moment we had been separated.
After we had satisfied our needs, I laid in Jasper‘s arms as we talked about our plan to assassinate Addicus, and get out of this mess before the shadow beings were upon us again.
“Aside from wanting to get out from under Addicus,” Jasper said. “None of us will survive an attack from the shadow world under his leadership. He is a terrible alpha. He is inconsistent and untrustworthy, and he will just as soon sacrifice his own shifters to save his own ass. Our only chance at survival is to run and hide until we are able to reach the other packs throughout all East Sussex and rally them to fight against the shadow
beings alongside us.”
“But how will we get out of here unnoticed?” I asked. “And what about the blood oath?”
“The blood oath will hold, as long as I do not directly betray him. And I will need it to hold until I have the opportunity to assassinate him and get out of it completely.”
“If we ever get out of all of this mess,” I said. “You had better not do anything like that ever again.”
“What do you mean?”
“You and I stay together,” I said. “That is nonnegotiable.”
“Peyton, the only reason I agreed to serve under Atticus was to keep you safe,” he said.
“Yes, I know,” I said with a growing annoyance in my voice. “But you must promise me that you’ll never do anything like that again, I don’t care if it is to keep me safe or not. You’re the one that’s plucked me out of my life, remember? You are the one that claimed me. And now that I have let you, I need to be sure that you will always be by my side. Promise me Jasper, promise me that we stay together from now on. No matter what happens.”
“Okay,” he said as he kissed the top of my forehead. “I promise.”
He wrapped his arms around me, and I pressed me ear to his chest to listen to his heartbeat.
“We’ll follow Addicus’ stupid directives for now while we are here together,” he said. “And I’ll instruct the rest of our pack to do the same so that we can make sure that everyone is safe from his wrath for now. As soon as there is an opening to either escape or to kill him, we’ll take it. But, I have to be the one to kill Addicus. The blood oath will only be broken if he dies by my hand.”
I nodded my head against his chest in agreement.
“Peyton,” he said with a slow and curious intonation. “How can you half-shift?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I couldn’t sleep with you gone and so I went to train. I got emotional, and let my fear and sadness start to consume me. But then, instead of being swallowed up by it, I suddenly just shifted. Well, I partially shifted. It was like that woman from our pack told me—I used the fear instead of letting it use me. Or at least I think I did. It all kind of happened on its own.”
“What woman?” he asked.
“Just one of our pack members. But the important thing is that after it happened that one time, I was suddenly able to do it whenever I wanted. I can shift, or partially shift, any part of my body at any time.”
“Do you have any idea how incredibly rare that skill is?” he asked me as he tilted his head down to look in my eyes.
“No,” I said. “Is it?”
“I’ve only heard stories about shifters who could do such a thing. But most of those stories were considered fairytales and fiction. I don’t think there’s anyone alive who actually believed that what you are able to now do, was possible.”
Wow. I had no idea that it was such a unique ability.
“Do you think it had something to do with my mother?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t know your mother. What makes you think that it is because of her?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was just a thought.”
But when I answered him, I got the chills because I immediately knew that I wasn’t being completely honest. It was true that I didn’t know why my mother would have anything to do with it. I didn’t even remember that much about my mother since she was killed when I was a small child. But the one thing that I did remember about her, was that she was special. So special, that my father hid my entire shifter nature away from me to protect me from meeting the same fate as she did.
Chapter Eighteen
Jasper
As Peyton and I tried to keep all of the shifters that were loyal to us safe under Addicus “rule”, whilst also trying to prepare for an attack by the shadow world, Cerise secretly relayed our message of our plan to the other shifters. What better time to try and execute an escape and assassination, than a training session?
The training session started as they always did with Addicus at the helm. He barked orders at the shifters, matched us up by skill and ability, and then stood back and watched as he criticized technique that he knew less about than I did. This time, instead of simply being disgruntled, I would use it to my advantage.
“Addicus,” I called over to him, after I had already matched three fights with fellow shifters and had easily beaten them all within seconds. “This is beneath me. Everyone here is too weak to match me.”
“Are you calling your own shifters weak?” he asked as he tried to start trouble.
“No,” I said unshaken. “I am calling myself stronger than all of you.”
Addicus snorted in offense.
“You’re not stronger than all of us,” he said arrogantly.
“Then maybe I should match you,” I said as I baited him into a match.
Take the bait. Take it.
Addicus looked around warily. He knew that it was a bad idea to fight me. He knew that I wanted to kill him, and that if I succeeded the blood oath would be broken. But he also had an ego to feed and an image in front of his pack to protect. His own ego deluded him into thinking that he could still defeat me in combat.
“Yes,” he said as he fell ignorantly right into my plan. “Maybe you should.”
Everyone backed up to give us room.
“The rules,” he said in order to try to give himself extra protection during our match. “Are a fight until one of us yields.”
I nodded to show my agreement, or at least my attempt at my appearance of being in agreement. For such a “powerful” alpha, Addicus sure was stupid. Arrogance has that effect on people like him. They are blinded by their own delusions of power. We readied for our training match, and I readied to kill him. If I was successful, the blood oath would end. If I wasn’t, then our situation was about to drastically worsen.
As we began our training fight, I let Addicus get a few shots in. He actually wasn’t a bad fighter; he just wasn’t as good as I was. When it looked as if his followers were solidly convinced that this was a harmless practice match, I made my move. On cue, thanks to Cerise being able to deliver the message of our plan to my pack, all of our own pack members blocked the other shifters so that there was no interference. And I began to fight for real.
“I should have known you would try something like this,” Addicus snarled.
“Yes, you should have. I guess you really haven’t been paying attention all these years,” I said as I landed a solid strike to his chest.
“Oh, I’ve been paying attention all right,” he said with a groan as he lifted himself up again. “You are a prodigy, just like that half-shifting mate of yours is. You are stronger, faster, smarter than any other shifter I’ve ever had in my pack. And you were growing discontent. I knew that it wouldn’t be long before you tried to kill me and overtake me as alpha. Someone as powerful as you can’t go on forever without wanting to usurp more and more power for themselves. It’s an addiction.”
Addicus moved to hit me, but I tossed him aside as easily as if he were a fallen branch that had gotten in my way.
“You said that you wanted to unite shifters,” I growled angrily at him. “You said that you were only trying to gain power so that you could use it to protect us against the shadow beings when they attacked. You have lied this entire time.”
“We all lie, Jasper,” he said as he began to get breathless and beaten down. “Life itself is one great lie that we all play into. Don’t think for a second that you and your pretty mate are going to find a happily ever after. Her entire existence is a lie that you have yet to find out about.”
“What are you talking about?” I barked at him.
“Do you really think that she can just control all of that newfound power of hers?” he jeered. “Do you really think that if a power like that—a power that her mother also possessed—existed, that we would want to snuff it out instead of celebrate it?”
“What do you know about Peyton’s mothe
r?” I asked as I held my hands still and steady without making a move. “Tell me what you know and maybe I’ll let you live to see another day.”
Addicus laughed. “No you won’t,” he said as he lunged toward me.
As soon as he was close enough for me to reach, I shifted and caught his chest between my open jaw. When I clamped my teeth down into his ribcage, I felt the last breath leave his body.
There was too much to process in that moment—what he had said about Peyton’s mother, what it meant for her. The warm blood of my alpha ran down my jaw, even after I shifted back into a human. There was not even a moment of reprieve to celebrate the victory from Addicus’ wrath, or the elimination of the blood oath, because the shadow beings were here again to infiltrate the town. But this time, there were so many of them that they looked like a moving darkness that covered all of Rye. Peyton, Cerise, and I, along with all of the other shifters, now found ourselves at the center of the battle for dominion over humanity.
Chapter Nineteen
Peyton
This was definitely not good. Not only was there an onslaught of shadow beings waging war on my little town, but Jasper had just finished a training session and fight and was still catching his breath. The rest of the shifters were scrambling, some still processing the loss of their alpha by Jasper’s hand, and others standing in shock as they watched the shadow beings start to ravage the town. Even Cerise looked shaken.
The humans were completely unaware of what was going on, until they suddenly found themselves standing in the midst of a battle amongst creatures that they never knew existed before. Some of them stood outside of their homes in a frozen stupor, while others ran inside and barricaded the doors. This was a disaster.
