by KT Strange
“Right,” he said as he turned to us. “Pack your things. Leave nothing behind that you value or cherish.”
“What?” Finn’s head jerked as he stumbled. Eli caught him. Ace’s eyes were wide as Wolfe strode toward the door of the jam space.
“But you said,” Ace trotted after him, ”we’re facing somebody off, whoever sent those guys.” Wolfe let out a laugh, turning as he opened the door.
“I’m mad, not barking. We’re leaving, tonight. Ah, Darcy, my sweet witch, there you are.” She’d emerged from the doorway, her face white as a sheet. I was relieved that she’d stayed inside, out of harm’s way. Wolfe seemed pleased as well, for he embraced her in a quick hug. “Get dressed, love, in your warmest. We’re going up the mountain and it just would not do if you caught a chill.”
Sixteen
Darcy
Chapter 16: DARCY
Listening to my loved ones battle while you hide had to be the most cowardly thing I’d ever done. Even though Finn had pulled me aside, staring down into my eyes, and made me promise that I wouldn’t set foot outside unless my own life was in danger. I’d agreed, but I still felt like I’d let them down. I pushed past Wolfe when I saw Finn, blood staining his shirt and splattered all down the leg of his jeans.
“Finn,” I gasped his name and rushed to him. He reached for me and I collided into his chest.
“Easy, shit,” he hissed. “I’m okay... I’m okay.”
“That’s bull.” I blinked away tears, pulling back to look at him. Cash eased an arm around Finn’s shoulders, helping Eli walk Finn toward the door as I stepped aside.
“Yes, yes, he’s fine, what part of murderous horde of idiots do you not understand?” Wolfe snapped from the door. “Come in and pack. Let Finn bleed on the couch for a few minutes, it won’t hurt him.”
“Like fuck it won’t,” Finn growled, but he stumbled into the warehouse regardless. I trailed after them, feeling lost.
“Darcy,” Ace grabbed my hand as I wandered by. “Help me pack the clothes?” He dragged me away as I stared after Finn being helped onto the couch by his twin.
“How’d Eli get here?” I asked, confused.
“Hey.” Ace’s hands cupped my cheeks. “Look at me.” I gazed up at him. He frowned. “Wolfe,” he called quietly. The vampire was there in a moment. “I think she’s going into shock.”
“I’m not hurt,” I insisted. It was hard to breathe.
“Shock,” Wolfe murmured. “She’ll be fine in a few hours if we let her be calm and quiet. We need to get this place cleared out of anything you don’t want those monsters pawing over.”
“I can help.” My tongue was thick in my mouth.
“I’ll get packing,” Ace said. “Cash? Can you and Charlie get the gear? It’ll fit in the van.” His voice faded away as he walked over to them. Wolfe took me by the hand.
“I need you to help Finn,” he said, his voice oddly gently. I was used to him yelling at me for letting him make my powers spark up. The change in his tone set of a pulse of panic in my chest. I tried not to think about why. “He needs someone with him while we get things ready. Can you do that?”
Eli rushed by, first aid kit in his hand, his fingers bloody. There was a lot of blood. Finn was leaning on the arm of the couch, a pained expression on his face. His shirt had been ripped off of him, and the cut was raw, jagged, tracing down the side of his stomach, growing thinner as it moved over his hip-bone.
“They didn’t get the muscle,” Finn said as his twin leaned over him, pulling out something that looked like a small toothpaste tube from the first aid kit.
“This’ll hold you together until your healing kicks in.” Eli swabbed over the skin with an alcohol wipe, his expression impassive when Finn swore at him.
“Jesus, fuck my life, that stings,” Finn said.
“Worse than getting it?”
“Worse only because I’ve got your ugly face leering at me while it’s happening,” Finn shot back. I had to hold down a laugh. Finn’s face was just like Eli’s.
“C’mere.” Wolfe settled me down next to Finn and grabbed his hand. “Hang onto him.” I sat, obedient, holding Finn’s hand in mine, and tried not to think too hard. The world was tilting slightly, and I was starting to see what Ace and Wolfe meant by shock. I took an uneven breath and Finn squeezed my hand.
“You alright, pretty girl?” Finn asked, a wince crossing his face when Eli put that toothpaste tube to good use. Clear gel squeezed out of it.
“That looks like it hurts.”
“Nah,” Finn said with another wince. “Tickles. That’s all.”
“Stop talking,” Eli ordered him. “This dermabond shit gets everywhere if you move.” Finn rolled his eyes and winked at me. We stayed there for a minute, Finn obeying Eli, although the injured wolf did squeeze my hand a few times. I still felt foggy when Eli stood up with a sigh. “No sudden movements. Alright? Just sit tight.”
I glanced past him. Half the music equipment was already picked up, and Ace came around the corner of the bedroom area with duffel bags slung off his arms and shoulders. He held my backpack in one hand, and from the looks of it, it was stuffed.
“Come close, sweetheart,” Finn urged me, and I turned toward him, closing my eyes to block out the sight of the guys dismantling their home.
“We’re going,” I said, rolling the words over in my mind.
“Seems like it. Never really felt settled here anyway,” Finn’s words were light, but I could hear the hurt in them that he was trying to hide. This was their home. Hunters had come here to take that from them, that sense of safety, the feeling like we were hiding in plain sight. We’d just been eating at the dinner table only a little while ago—
“Max!” I was on my feet and barreling toward the door, knowing that I needed to get to her right there and then, and not knowing how that was going to happen, but the urge to go to her was too intense to ignore.
“Whoa there.” Wolfe grabbed me by the shoulders. His face filled my vision, his brown eyes calm. “You need to sit back down before you fall on your rump. Your friend is fine.”
“But—Eli’s-he’s here, and she’s—“
“She’s safe.” Wolfe said, and the word echoed in my mind. I stared at him, not certain if I should believe him. “I promise you, that she is safe. Now please, sit, before you take a tumble and worry your dog-boys.”
Eli growled as he walked by, shouldering a drum bag, and carrying a guitar case. I trusted Wolfe. Of course I did. I’d call Max when I figured out where my phone was. And if she wasn’t safe? I’d make them go get her so she would be.
The guys packed the van in silence, Finn holding me to his uninjured side. As the time ticked onward, Wolfe grew increasingly agitated and irritable, but tried to keep himself calm. I could tell in the way he was almost-snapping at all of them. The boys didn’t seem to mind though, given how they were eyeing him with some new measure of respect they hadn’t before. Cash came up to us, as the jam space had been slowly emptied, a forced smile on his face.
“We’re good guys. How you feeling, Finn?”
“Hurts, but it’s getting better by the minute,” Finn said, shifting on the couch. Ace passed him a shirt and offered him a hand. I scrambled out of the way to let Finn get to his feet. He grunted and shook his head. “Feels weird. It’ll be fine. That dermabond works better than the tape does.” He fingered the line of skin glue. Already the wound looked like it was pulling together, flesh knitting into itself. I felt ill and had to look away.
“Right.” Wolfe clapped his hands together, nearly making me jump. “You’ve your directions. I shall meet you there.” He glanced at me briefly. “Do not stop for anything until you are well out of the city. I want whatever magic that’s tracking you to die here.” He gazed around himself. Eli’s eyes tracked the same path and he shook his head.
“Let’s get going then,” he said, voice gruff. A frown pulled at my mouth.
“How’d you get here?” I asked. He was
supposed to be with Max. Eli grunted in response. Finn squeezed my shoulders.
“Let’s load up and go,” he said, and urged me outside. Eli didn’t meet my eyes as I passed by. “Drop it,” Finn murmured to me, making a spark of indignation flare inside me. I’d talk to him about that later though. I got into the back of the van, getting settled. The back of my neck was itchy, and I kept looking behind me. Stuck in the jam space, I hadn’t seen the fight, but there were dark patches on the ground I was certain had to be blood.
It unnerved me.
Eli was in the driver’s seat, talking to Wolfe through the open window. Wolfe gave a short nod, and patted Eli on the shoulder before stepping back. I blinked and he was gone. Jerking forward in my seat, I stared at the blank space where he’d been, a noise clawing its way out of my throat.
“He can teleport,” Eli said, his voice rough. “Don’t ask questions. Seat-belts, everybody.” Telling me not to ask questions just lit the slow fuse inside me, but I settled anyway. My wolves looked worn out, from the hurried pack-up job, and the earlier fight for our lives. As the small trailer, filled with our gear, rolled out smoothly behind us, I glanced at Ace who was sitting kitty-corner from me in the middle row.
“You guys did that fast,” I commented. Ace met my eyes for a moment and looked away.
“Let’s just say we’re used to running,” he said, his tone flat. My heart squeezed painfully.
“Yeah. We didn’t have to get used to being on the road cause of tour,” Finn added, sending a sorrowful look over his shoulder as we pulled out onto the street, leaving the jam space behind us. I pressed up into his good side and he sighed, leaning back into me.
A burning anger was smoldering inside of me. If only I hadn’t listened and gone out to confront the hunters myself.
“Darcy,” Charlie’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I lifted my eyes to meet his. He glanced at my hands. When I looked, my fingertips were sparking, small static lights glowing along my skin. Fuck. Taking a deep breath, I willed myself to be calm. The night was around us. We were safe. Even if we had to leave our home behind, we were all alive. Max was safe, or so Wolfe claimed, and I had no choice but to trust him. It probably wasn’t safe to go checking on her at the dorm if they’d sent hunters right to our doorstep. The only thing I could do was sit back and wait for us to get to wherever we were going.
Cool air rushed into the van, waking me up. I opened my eyes. Pre-dawn light filtered in through the windows. We were stopped somewhere with trees, lots of them. Great pine giants formed gray and black shadows against the sky. The sleepy song of birds greeted me when I shifted in my seat.
Finn was asleep beside me when I glanced at him, his chest rising and falling slowly.
“Shhh,” Ace whispered. “Let him sleep. Wolfe’s meeting us here.” I sat forward in my seat.
“Meeting us where?” I whispered back. In front of me, Charlie’s head was bowed as he too, slept. I didn’t want to wake him either. I’m sure he hadn’t been resting all that well on the rooftop and the last few hours of our lives had been hell.
“We’re just outside the gate to his property at Mount Baker.” Ace seemed wide awake in his seat, eyes wide as he surveyed the area around us.
“Property?”
“Where he wanted you to study before we told him it wasn’t possible,” Eli rumbled from the front. Beside me, Finn stirred. I put a soothing hand on his shoulder to calm him back to sleep. He really needed his rest. “I don’t have any more information than that.”
“I think he owns a few hundred acres or something,” Cash said. “I was looking at the map on my phone, and all this area backs onto state parks. Not another person around for miles.” The relief was evident in his words and I calmed somewhat. That was good news. We were in the middle of nowhere, knocking on the door of a vampire, but the actual humans who wanted us dead were hours away and not likely to know where we were. The only thing that was still bugging me was Max. It wasn’t the time to bring that up though. Wolfe had said she was safe, and Chelsea trusted Wolfe implicitly.
The only thing I could do was trust. Funny enough, my gut instincts were telling me to do just that too.
There was a shift in the shadows along the side of the road, and I saw the flicker of a flashlight. Eli made a low grumbling sound.
“Who the fuck is that?” A metallic screeching sound filled the air, and a fence swung out, painted matte black to blend in with the shadows. The pines shrouded around it, but under their low-hanging boughs was a road, just wide enough for our van and small trailer. A shorter figure approached the car, slim built, a young man by the looks of it. His face was a pale smudge. Ace stiffened, and then Cash inhaled.
“Frank?” Ace whispered, and half-stood as much as he could in the van. “Holy—”
Cash threw open his door at the same time as Ace crawled over Charlie, who woke up with a growl. Ace got to the sliding door. Without an apology, he tumbled out the side of the van and raced over to the young man.
“Frank!” Ace yelled.
Finn jerked awake beside me, sitting straight up.
“The shit?” Charlie asked. “That’s—” Charlie’s seat-belt went flying as he followed Ace. Eli stayed sat, although his shoulders were tense. Outside the car I watched my three wolves converge on the young man, grabbing him into a huge hug, almost dog-piling the poor guy. He was maybe a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, and had a young, unfinished look to him.
I licked my lips.
“So um, yeah, I got some questions,” I said. Beside me, Finn shifted, clearly still in pain.
“So do I,” Eli replied. “Like how come Wolfe has a member of our pack squirreled away up on his compound and never told us.” He eyed Finn through the rear-view mirror, his expression furious. He threw open the car door and got out, stalking around the front of it. The headlights glanced over his clothes, his whole body giving off a vibe of irritation. As he approached Frank and our boys, though, his expression melted from angry to something softer, almost hopeful. He reached out a hand, and the boy or young man really, named Frank, nearly jumped into his arms with a cry.
Finn shifted again, breathing out a sigh.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. I... this complicates things. Not in a bad way, just—yeah, you have questions? I do too.” He cleared his throat. “Frank’s from our pack, our old pack. He was just a pup when... yeah.” He closed his eyes, and made a pained noise, although if it was from his injury or from seeing one of the Phoenix pack wolves, I wasn’t sure.
“You thought he was dead,” I said.
“Yeah,” Finn sounded wrecked. I put a hand on his knee. He was shaking.
“Hey,” I whispered. “It’s okay.” His blue eyes opened, lashed heavy with tears. Behind me, I could hear the guys approaching the van, Ace and Frank talking a mile a minute. A grimace of a smile crossed Finn’s face.
“Just wondering who else is going to come back from the dead,” he said, words hollow.
Seventeen
Darcy
Chapter 17: Darcy
Frank was a young wolf, barely an adult by werewolf standards, and up close it was easy to see that. His muscles hadn’t filled out like my guys, and he was lanky. He had a shock of dark brown hair that stuck up in every direction. When he smiled, his hazel eyes glowed, and two dimples emerged in his cheeks. He was downright adorable, and apparently overjoyed to see what was left of Phoenix pack. He climbed into the van with us after closing the gate once we’d pulled onto the gravel road, and he sat on the floor between Ace and Charlie’s seats, facing backward so he could talk. His hands moved with animation as he described Wolfe’s ‘compound’ as he called it.
Every so often his gaze flicked to me and then away, and he would hesitate before glancing at Ace. From what they explained, Ace had been a few litters older than Frank, and they’d sort of grown up together, until the hunters had come, anyway. From the way Ace was pretty much vibrating in his seat, if he’d been in w
olf form, his tail would have been wagging so hard he’d be whacking everything in his radius. Even Eli had unbent enough, a smile gracing the profile of his face. Cash reached down every so often, ruffling Frank’s hair, the epitome of a big brother move if I’d ever seen one.
The gravel road bumped and dipped, cause Finn to curse under his breath and hold his side a few times.
“You guys get the lower cabin, down by the creek,” Frank said, eyeing me again, his cheeks going pink. “Are you guys really mated to her? She’s a witch.”
Eli barked out a laugh.
“Well, not all of us are mated,” he said.
“Yet,” Finn said softly, so only I could hear, which made my belly warm.
“Hasn’t Wolfe taught you manners?” Charlie asked, although his tone was more indulgent than annoyed. Finn shook his head and chuckled.
“There’s nobody to sit on him up here. I bet Wolfe hasn’t dunked you in that creek once for talking back,” he said.
“Hasn’t had to. I’m perfect,” Frank said, giving the blond wolf a cheeky grin. His expression softened and he looked at me with a weird sort of longing. “Must be nice to have a mate.” My heart panged for him. Had he grown up all alone, with a vampire for his only companion? He’d never known what it was like to pile into a bed with the rest of his pack, their warmth keeping him in good company at night. I glanced at Finn and, from the sad smile on his face, he was thinking along the same lines as I was. He hugged me into his side tightly.
“It’s alright,” Cash drawled. “It’s nice to have someone new to snuggle up to, and someone who doesn’t snore at night.” The rest of the guys groaned, and Frank laughed, his face open and happy. Even though wolves aged differently, I could tell he was definitely young. The sky streaked with gray as we pulled outside what Frank called the lower cabin.
