Wickedly They Dance: After Darkness Falls Book Three

by Sage, May

  Avani felt a shift in the air around them when they crossed the borders of Oldcrest, though there was nothing to see; they were on a highland plain one second, and then, running on the very same stretch of grass. But the energy around them had changed. The protection at their borders wasn't hiding them from view anymore. They were in the regular human world.

  The world she had left so many moons ago, returning to it on very rare occasions, guarded and watched carefully.

  The feeling that had troubled her when Draiden had mentioned the hunt the first time came back to her, only worse. Much worse. Despite the euphoria running through her veins at running with the pack, everything in her told her this was wrong. Unsafe.

  For the first time since she'd joined the Elder Pack, there were no guards around them. Just the pack enforcers, beta, and Draiden, who headed the hunt. She couldn’t feel the solemn and obtrusive presence of Knox’s guards anywhere. Who would stop them if they went out of line? And they might. They were pureblood wolves—wild, savage things. She seriously doubted Knox would have okayed their hunting outside of Oldcrest without any guard.

  She was almost certain that they were going rogue. There was no other explanation. The Wolf wouldn't have condoned their hunts.

  What was Draiden thinking? Avani was appalled. But what could she do about it?

  She slowed down, falling back toward the rear for their procession. She saw Zayn's large black wolf turn to her and bark, half demanding, half confused.

  As part of their pack, she should have been able to hear the thoughts of the rest of the wolves when they were in animal form, but she never had. She could understand Draiden's commands, and that was about it. It didn't take a genius to know why Zayn was upset though. She'd run to his left, almost next to him. Mostly because she couldn't surpass the beta without challenging his position, and going slower than him would have been too tedious for words. She'd never slowed down before.

  Zayn liked having her next to him—too much. It suggested that she might be open to becoming the beta female, his mate. Which she absolutely fucking wouldn’t. She just liked to run fast.

  She wasn’t surprised that he’d bristle at her keeping her distance for the first time. But right now, she needed to think. Was it too late to turn back home? Whatever was happening, she didn’t want to be a part of it. She wished she'd run with her clothes in her mouth—some women did, so that they could get changed if they needed to return to their human form. Normally, Avani didn't have enough modesty to hinder her run like that. Still, if she'd had her pants, she could have had her phone and called Knox for advice.

  He'd told her—many times—that she could contact him if she ever needed to. She never had before, yet something told her that today, she should have.

  She smelled a distinctive scent that made her come to an abrupt halt.

  What the hell? She could smell…people. Regular humans. They were approaching a village, or maybe a gathering, she couldn't tell.

  When the pack left Oldcrest on their supervised outings, they normally headed to Edinburgh, bypassing the smaller towns. Why waste their one day of freedom on boring little places so very similar to their own village? They went to shop, party, eat, and fuck. Avani wasn't very well versed in Scottish geography. She knew that Inverness was somewhere north, a couple of hours away from Oldcrest. Fort William, the same distance south of their territory. There were a few towns closer. When they'd left the wards, she'd assumed they would have headed for the national park to the east. Why the hell were there humans nearby?

  Her stomach sank. No, it couldn't be. Draiden wouldn't have ordered a hunt on humans. He couldn't have. Surely?

  She shook her head in disbelief. She was just imagining this. He wasn't dumb enough, cruel enough for this, right?

  The problem was, she wasn't so sure. Draiden was a dumb bully, just like his son, only older and more arrogant. There was a reason why she stayed away from the pack authority. The pack was strange. Sick.

  But were they that sick? She didn't want to believe it.

  Then the screams started.

  She took off again, running fast to catch up with the rest of the pack. A mile ahead, she was close enough to see. They hadn't approached a town; it was a camping ground where fewer than a hundred tents had been erected. Ahead, the pack was chasing panicked humans who ran to their cars, attempting to flee as fast as they could.

  The pack didn't care. She could see their strategy, analyzing it like the seasoned predator she was. They'd done it many times, with deer, hares, pheasants. Go for the herd, force them to run, and then once they'd headed out, go for the weakest ones left behind.

  Her past flashed in her mind. The beach bonfire where she’d been attacked by a feral hadn’t been too dissimilar to this camp. Although she’d been too young to remember the details, she still had nightmares about feeling trapped, cornered. The fear had frozen her in her tracks. Then, there had been pain…

  Monsters. Her pack would be the monsters in these people’s nightmares now.

  Eleven cars rushed away, leaving three humans behind.

  One young, one large, the last one, old.

  And fifty wolves watched them like the snack they were to them, licking their lips in anticipation.

  They leaped forward, Draiden's humongous light gray beast descending on the closest prey, the large man in his fifties. He went for the ankles to prevent him from running away, his powerful fangs breaking the skin.

  Avani was going to be sick. They were really doing this. Little as she might have trusted or even liked most of her packmates, in her wildest dreams, she wouldn’t have imagined it. How could sweet Julie or vibrant, creative Leonora take part in the slaughter?

  Even as the question popped in her mind, she knew the answer. Right now, the pack were wolves. Wild wolves affected by the blood moon. They wouldn’t have questioned their alphas at any time, but the human part of them that might have balked at attacking innocents was buried so deep there was no reaching it through the fog of bloodlust.

  Avani’s gaze cut to the alpha. The only person in charge of this. He’d planned it. There was no blaming the wolf when Draiden had purposely led them out on a hunt out of their territory right now. It was all his fault.

  The beta male, a slim but fast and muscular wolf with brown and white fur, closed in on the seventy-something human who was too weak to do anything except cry and beg. Yves wasn't one for subtlety. He went straight for the throat, wounding the woman fatally, although it'd take her a while to bleed out. Then he turned his attention to the teenager the rest of the pack was focused on, Zayn ahead of them. They could have killed or wounded him already, but the young boy was full of life, vibrant. Entertaining. They were playing with him. He'd grabbed a wooden log from the ground and was trying to beat them back. Silently, the beta and some enforcer were circling him to get him from behind while some youngsters kept him busy up front.

  In the distance, the moon was red over the hills, bright and compelling. Avani watched it, half-expecting to feel her mind slip, her bestial nature to take over and demand she join in with the rest of her pack.

  She couldn't recall consciously choosing to move, although she was suddenly running so fast she barely even felt the ground, restlessly pushing her legs to move, again and again and again.

  She tackled the boy, hard enough to knock him down. She hadn’t been ordered to do anything. The rest of the pack was unmoving, somehow stunned and confused. So was the boy.

  Now wasn't the time for him to freeze, dammit.

  Avani dipped her head and whimpered, once, making her meaning as clear as possible. For a wild half-second, as the pack closed in, she thought the boy didn’t get it and she would have to shift to fight hand-to-hand. Thankfully, he got to his legs and jumped on her back.

  He was a tall and lanky teen, weighing about a hundred pounds, but shifters were strong—stronger in their wolf forms.

  She took off like her life depended on it.

  And she knew
it did. She'd gone against pack interest, against the lead of the alpha. She'd protected their prey, which was as good as siding with an enemy.

  If—when—they caught up with her, they would have one clear order.

  Kill her.

  No one had ever beaten her in a race—not for years. But she had a hundred-pound human awkwardly riding her and pulling on her damn fur.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  That's what she got for having a damn conscience. What now?

  Dream Island

  In the long list of things that were toxic, mind-addling, and therefore irresistible to him, Alexius had a particular predilection for cigars. He had a few Cubans in his study that he kept for special occasions.

  Zombies qualified. He sat on his balcony, a Cuban in one hand, a glass of port in the other, enjoying the warm August night. It was a blood moon, which meant that no doubt little Avani was up to a number of despicable things.

  Part of him wanted to head over to the woods right now and join her, introduce himself, offer his services as her entertainment for the night. He'd had a wolf or two on blood moons. They were crazy in the best way. Even so, he doubted that Knox's request to look after her included the hundred ways he was thinking about pleasing her right now. Besides, entering the woods on a blood moon without an invitation was asking for many, many bites. Not the kinky kind.

  He wasn't afraid of the pack, but at seventy against one, they could take just about anyone.

  He'd have to introduce himself another day—and somehow make up for his dismissiveness last Sunday night. He'd been less than civil; she'd interrupted a good fuck—well, to be fair, an average one. With a walking corpse. No wonder he'd been irritable.

  A lightning bolt cracked at his side, and he sighed as Seth Stormhale leaned on the white stone banister in front of him.

  “You absolutely put the devil up it, didn’t you?” Seth’s words sounded intrigued and amused, more than accusatory.

  Alexius feigned ignorance. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m aware that it’s British for fuck you, you know.” Seth pointed to the box of cigars. “Want to share the goods? You owe me.”

  Alexius sighed again, but he threw the box in the direction of the annoying blond vampire in a tailcoat.

  Seth caught it and pulled one cigar out, smelling it with appreciation.

  A buzz of electricity crackled in the air, and one end of the cigar started to smoke.

  “So, you didn’t fall for it? I underestimated you.”

  Seth glared, taking his time inhaling smoke, and blew out a neat ring. “I absolutely fell for it. It was only when I was packing that I realized I’d been manipulated. And the Devil is far too straightforward to think about playing with my pride like this. ‘Don’t rush him, Mikar, getting close to the inner circle of our enemy is far too dangerous. He has to take his time.’”

  Alexius laughed at Seth’s imitation of Levi’s lower, throatier accent.

  “You jumped, didn’t you?”

  Seth sneered, confirming his suspicion. Then he turned around, looking down to the long stretch of garden extending a hectare down the hill.

  “I can’t blame you. I should have gone weeks ago. But I can’t deny this place was…peaceful. Without being boring or stuffy. I can understand why you guys live here.”

  If Seth wasn’t aware of Alexius’s curse, he wasn’t going to enlighten him.

  “You can always come back. The hill is officially yours and your sister’s, now that Levi has banished the rest of your clan.”

  Seth snorted. “You mean, if I don’t die on the queen’s island.”

  The silence that stretched wasn’t uncomfortable. Young—and yes, annoying—as Seth could be, Alexius didn’t dislike him.

  Or maybe he was just that desperate for companionship and entertainment.

  He did end up asking, “What was it like? The island.”

  Seth snorted. “Like paradise. Imagine a world, hidden from humanity like Oldcrest, hidden from most vampires, shifters, and other sups, too. Scarcely twenty thousand square miles, but every single inch of that place made for us. The rulers of this world. Imagine marble columns and ivory sculptures, fountains of wine, rivers of blood. Imagine a glimmering palace at the center of it all, where there’s a party at any time of the day or night. Imagine blood donors so fucking beautiful they could make you come with one look. Imagine that they’re all into you. Not paid or bullied to be there; purely, honestly eager to please.”

  Alexius scoffed.

  Seth grinned. “After ten years of service, the best of them are granted immortality. Those who don’t pass are given enough money to buy islands of their own. So, yes. They want to be there.”

  “Sounds like prostitution to me,” Alexius said with a shrug.

  He saw no issue with paying people for their blood, but he’d never paid for sex, and never would.

  Seth smiled. “Perhaps. It didn’t feel like it. It felt like I was in another world. A world where everything was possible.”

  “And yet, you left,” Alexius pointed out.

  Seth’s grin widened. “Well, yes. All these things don’t come without a price. I’d have to kneel to the queen. Kneeling has never been my thing. Stiff joints, and all that.”

  Alexius could imagine that. He respected the boy; not many would have resisted the temptation, even out of pride.

  “Will they take you back?”

  Seth didn’t hesitate. “Obviously. I’m me. The problem is what might happen once they figure out I’m sniffing around for the wrong reasons. Most of the vampires admitted to the queen’s services are warriors. She has healers, seers, hexers, and the like. More than anything, she’s built an army. Everyone I recognized was a fighter known for their strength. Those I didn’t had an air that made it clear they could destroy us. Effortlessly.”

  Alexius focused on the youngster, trying to remember his age. Thirty, forty at most? He’d stopped aging in his twenties.

  He was annoyingly handsome, with an air of confidence rivaled only by Fin, but the surface did nothing to hide just how powerful he was.

  And yet, he was worried about his fate on the island.

  “You need backup. A way to signal us so we can get you out of there if need be.”

  Seth smirked. “You have a pretty witch with a hotline to my brain. I’ll buzz her if I’m in a pinch.”

  Alexius lifted a brow. “Oh?” He’d missed that. “Greer?” he guessed, naming the hottest witch he knew.

  But mental attacks weren’t her strength.

  “No, the Lawson girl. Blair.”

  Now Alexius was intrigued.

  He could only place her directly because Blair was one of Chloe’s friends, and she’d spent time on the hill. Other than that, she didn’t stand out. She had eccentric hair, overused eye liner, and was annoyingly cheerful at all times. To Alexius’s knowledge, she’d never distinguished herself as a particularly powerful witch.

  “You might want a more reliable source, with your safety at stake.”

  Seth took a minute to consider his remark. “No, I don’t think so. She’ll do.” He puffed the rest of his cigar. “Well, nice talk. If I die, I do hope you feel immensely guilty.”

  “I shall,” Alexius vowed. “Good luck, Stormhale.”

  He hadn’t finished pronouncing the name before lightning struck for the third time, and Seth disappeared, probably transporting himself to the other side of the continent.

  Alexius tried not to feel too jealous. And failed.

  He sighed, finishing his glass of wine in one go and getting up to fetch another one.

  As he turned to head back inside, something held him back. He couldn’t put a name on it, a feeling more than an actual tangible disturbance around him. But he was a sup; ignoring his gut would have been foolish.

  Something was amiss, he would have sworn it.

  Alexius approached the banister, looking around. From his house, high on Night Hill, he had a good view of the entire ter
ritory. Everything seemed relatively calm—as calm as it could be on a Saturday night, with students drinking at the Adairford pub and in their dorm.

  He should go back in. Everything was just fine.

  True Monsters

  It was just a run. Just a friendly competition with her pack mates. She’d done it a hundred times, and won each time. Just one step at a time. She could do this.

  She kept telling herself that over and over, willing herself to believe it, but the growls of the curs on her heels made it work to delude herself.

  Avani was one of the largest wolves in the pack—certainly the largest female, and Draiden, his son, and his beta were the only males taller than she. She was leaner, her body clearly made for speed and agility. She’d liked that in the past; now, her build worked against her. Light as he was, the boy’s weight was starting to slow her down.

  And she couldn’t. She couldn’t slow down. Not if she wanted to live.

  Realistically, she realized that the likelihood of her making it until dawn was close to nil. That said, it wasn’t the first time she’d run for her life, hopeless. She hadn’t given up then. She wouldn’t now.

  She knew she had one hope, slim as it was.

  Knox. The Immortal Wolf was her guardian and protector. If she could call him, let him know what was going on, he could…

  What? Materialize himself and talk a pack of feral beasts into letting her go? She couldn’t question herself; there was no other solution she could think about, and if she gave in to doubt, she’d slow.

  “Watch out!” the boy shouted, an instant before a heavy weight cracked against her flank, propelling them both on the ground.

  Shit.

  Zayn. She should have smelled him. He didn’t hold a candle to her in a sprint normally, but with the boy on her back, he’d managed to catch up.

  She could smell his smugness, his triumph. And something else, underneath it all. Arousal.

  For the first time, she was afraid, understanding precisely what was going to happen to her.