Aching Silver (House of Wolves Book 1)

by Amber Naralim

  48

  Chapter

  Abel shifted his shoulders. This stance pulled at the muscles after a fashion. There was a time he would have held perfect stillness. Now, that was a show of respect you had to earn. House Martine didn’t deserve it. The Martine’s were grasping backstabbers. Not a one of them could be trusted even an inch.

  Boasts of cleverness in the old songs meant little. Chess players are savages. They are willing to sacrifice every piece to make it so one can make it across the board. Cold and cruel were sang of to accompany it.

  Abel could almost excuse it if they’d only use those compulsions to benefit the clan. Not just themselves.

  He opened the car door, staring straight ahead. Three men came toward him. Three-piece suits the lot of them, one of them was Gucci. Abel physically sighed when Caleb got into the passenger side of their SUV.

  He swore they got younger every time he was part of a detail. Baby-faced as a guy could get. Still in his teens for God’s sake. He wanted to scream at Risguard. The guy was running the clan into the ground. They just kept letting him do it, no matter how many were injured or what was lost.

  Caleb was still a kid. Fewer pups were born each year. Even fewer still made it to adulthood. Their life was dangerous. But to throw them away? What the hell was Risguard thinking?

  Abel slammed the door a little harder than he’d meant to. It forced him to check his running commentary and frame what he could deal with. It was a long drive into the city. Remmy Martine liked to pretend he wasn’t putting lives in danger every time he stepped out his door. He chose to make Abel’s life difficult by driving himself.

  Abel got into the SUV and took his time putting on his seatbelt. Childish little acts of vengeance such as those were the only thing keeping Abel from snapping. He turned the key in the ignition and spent an extra moment adjusting the mirrors. Finally, Abel led the motorcade out the front gate of Black-Briar manor.

  Passing scenery reflected in his sunglasses. Long drives were either good or they weren’t. As a passenger he found them relaxing. Driving kept him from sinking into the quiet rush. The kid looked uncomfortable. He kept jumping at shadows. Anticipation so high he leaned into every curve.

  Martine rode his ass. He kept revving his engine. He’d back off a little just to get impatient a few minutes later and close in on his bumper. Every time he did Abel shaved a single mile per hour off of the vehicle’s speed out of spite.

  “You trained with Adler? Right?” Abel asked making conversation.

  “He’s still kicking,” Caleb answered with a smile.

  “He still waking up naked on the roof of his house?” Abel smirked.

  The kid nodded. His shoulders relaxed and he sat back against the seat.

  “I was really hoping that was only a one-time thing,” Caleb lamented.

  “No, that’s what you call a feature.” Abel laughed.

  The Cadillac ATS-V swung around him revving its engine and shot up the road. It turned so hard the tires squealed. The car disappeared around the corner.

  “Of all the petulant idiots,” Abel remarked speeding up to follow him.

  “What is he doing?” Caleb asked.

  “He’s throwing a damned tantrum. That’s what he’s doing,” Abel complained.

  A cacophonic burst shook the trees. Honking horns and tearing metal, the sound dropped the bottom out of Abel’s stomach. The radio squelched.

  “What was that,” the voice on the radio asked.

  By the curious and surprised look on his face, Caleb was thinking the same thing. Abel hit the brakes and turned the corner. The world slid into place and a semi-truck slammed into them. The SUV skidded careening off the side of the road. The passenger side crumpled, glass shattering. Caleb screamed. His arm was pinned. The Semi’s tires squealed with the effort of forcing the SUV in another direction.

  Men boiled out of the trailer. Hopping from its height a blond man with thick hair and a full beard hit the ground at a roll. A few others moved into position from the corners.

  Framed by the haze of a smoking engine Martine’s car sat on its back, lug nuts up in the air. Someone kicked at the upside-down window. The plastic housing for the steering wheel cracked. Abel put every ounce of his preternatural strength into fighting the truck’s momentum. He wasn’t sure how much longer the frame could hold before it crumpled in swallowing Caleb whole.

  Abel yanked the shifter down into reverse and stomped on the gas. The SUV shot backward to the sound of tearing metal and Caleb’s screams. Skin tore at the elbow; the bones splintered severing most of his forearm.

  Abel moved the front end into position. Shifting gears, he hit the gas pedal at the same time. The SUV roared forward giving just as good as it got. The windshield spiderwebbed and the tires smoked.

  Caleb lifted the severed half of his arm with his other hand and held it to the piece still attached hoping and begging for it to heal, for the searing pain to ease. His body shuddered with the exquisite ache of having his arm ripped off.

  Abel groped for his Desert Eagle. He had it aimed and safety off a second later. A glancing blow cracked the side view mirror and honed his vision down to a tunnel. Silver exploded the driver of the semi truck’s forehead. He slumped forward. Abel’s second shot blew out the passenger window of the blue semi.

  The SUV’s engine whined inching forward, Abel took two more shots at half-seen opponents. No wonder they didn’t do much more than keep them ducking. The truck rubbed and pushed but could not hold against the onslaught of the SUV. It skidded backward tires losing all traction and collided with a tree that crumpled the other side like an accordion.

  Abel kicked his door open and reached around the seat for the box they kept AK-47 rifles. He slid out onto the edge of the road. Hooking the strap over his neck and shoulder Abel wasted no time. He rounded the side of the mangled vehicles and shoved the barrel of his gun through the window. Two shots point-blank to the side of his head had that guy seriously rethinking his life choices. His third bullet missed the driver trying to squeeze out through the twisted frame.

  Automatic spray went off in the distance. Caleb’s cries were ear-splitting. He kept screaming, “It won’t heal. It won’t grow back! Why won’t it grow back?”

  A group of men, several of them in body armor armed with automatic weapons swarmed. One of them waving and gesturing orders at the others. Three of them came up on their six making full use of cover. But they weren’t after Abel.

  Remmy Martine wriggled his way out the broken window blood dripping from a cut on his forehead. His leg was pinned beneath the seat.

  Their folk back up were cut down in seconds. They did damage to their attackers but they had cover. The road had nothing but open space on this side. Ambushes are rarely fair. They were flanked and outmaneuvered. The primary arsenal they carried was in the other SUV. Abel couldn’t even see it from here. He had to move forward to protect the asset. Here’s too limited options.

  “Caleb, I need you to get it together, kid!”

  Abel pressed the Ak-47 to his shoulder squeezing off three-round bursts to keep them pinned behind the trunk of an aspen tree. The black guy in body armor screamed. His knee exploded in a shower of blood and bone. He fell to the ground unceremoniously. The black guy used both hands to scoot back behind the trunk for full shielding. His counterpart ducked low using the distraction to take aim at Martine.

  Gunfire went off like popcorn. Martine threw his hands around his head and curled into a ball. It was all he could do. Blood soaked into his two-hundred-dollar shirt. Sparks flew as bullets ricocheted off the side of the flipped car.

  Another folk went to the pavement in a hail and mist of red. One on their side cried out heaving violently with a hit but he didn’t go down. A shotgun blast boomed loud as thunder. The blonde with a buzz cut stepped over his fallen comrade and took cover behind a Honda Civic.

  The windows of the SUV fell to pieces raining jagged nuggets of glass all over Caleb. He sucked in
a ragged breath biting back on a scream. A caustic ache radiated from the end of his missing arm. Like a river of fire flooding its banks and wiping everything away in its path. Its scream occupied all his thoughts. Abel’s voice drifted through the spikes and pierces wracking his brain.

  Caleb fumbled for the door latch. It took everything he had to get that far. Pain sapped his energy. Left him in a fog he could not push through. Gunshots cracked in the distance, drowned out by the pulse racing through his ears.

  He stumbled out of the wound the semi left in the SUV, only its twisted outer wall kept him from going to the ground. He shivered. The cold running through his veins was frigid as any day in December. Sweat dripped down the side of his face. A spike hammered through his chest and he curled in on himself begging the universe to make it stop.

  A bullet tore through his thigh and he was introduced to a whole new level of agony. Caleb shrieked. Abel turned to the sound and opened fire. Four shots riddled a man’s upper chest. Two of them drew blood. The others were stopped cold by the Kevlar vest the man wore. He went down, but not before opening up with a spray of bullets directed at Caleb.

  His body rocked back and forth before he slumped to the ground dead. The Kin are hard to kill, but perforate enough organs with silver and even they went down. Few of the Primordials were truly immortal. Death just doesn’t like to be denied

  The number of enemy soldiers he’d spotted was too high. Even with the wishful thinking that all of them were folk, he was outnumbered and outgunned. Abel was rapidly running out of bullets too. A three-round burst had a guy ducking behind the mangled semi-truck. Abel spun one hundred and eighty degrees and dropped a man. Blood sprayed from his throat like a fountain.

  Two men sprinted toward Martine. The bald one knocked his head in with the stock of his rifle and they dragged him away. Pushed back Abel ducked behind the SUV considering his next move carefully. The AK was out of ammo and getting into the car from here for more was suicide. The amount of spent silver cartridges was like a physical weight on Abel’s skin. Silver had always made his palms itch.

  He didn’t get it. They had Martine. Why hadn’t they gone anywhere? Why risk a clean getaway?

  A three-round burst, his last, rattled Abel’s teeth. Smoke rose from the barrel. Abel tossed the spent gun to his feet and made his decision.

  Calling the beast was always tricky. It isn’t just the Metri who struggle with control. The beast was an elemental thing. Opening that door always had consequences. He was just out of choices.

  His heart hammered a beat to signal the flood of adrenalin that swallowed him whole. A wash of overly light tingling and the shakes heralded the change. Pressure built up to a crescendo crushing him under its thumb driving him to his knees. His jawbone lengthened by inches just to crack with such force it tore a hole through his skin. It healed a moment later. Flesh knitting over it the bone forged and changed. The structure of his face widened and pushed outward to form the shape of a wolf’s muzzle. Sharp crescent teeth shunted through his bleeding gums.

  Abel’s shoulders expanded, arms snapping and popping. Black claws oozed through the ends of his stretching fingertips. He pitched forward. His spine broke. Curving, it grew three inches. Clawed hands tore great handfuls of flesh away from his chest and throat. He fell to all fours, body rocking. The skin of his back split over the raising vertebra. It sloughed and flaked away like dried paint to reveal the gray fur beneath. Abel threw his head back with a roar of anguish.

  It isn’t the rage that drives the Kin into the arms of madness, no matter what the storybooks say. It’s the pain. The shock of every synapse screaming as one, of crushing bones and tearing flesh. Engulfed in fire and dragged out through the other side. The chemicals glutting his brain kept him conscious to endure every caustic second. Nothing like this could simply evolve. Only magic could be so cruel.

  The white of his eyes obliterated the walls of his iris’ filling in and drowning out the lovely brown. Abel clutched both sides of his head. He lurched one way and then the other with his bellowing cries before he fell to the ground once more. His claws drew down his face pulling the flesh away in stretching lines that fell away.

  Abel stood tall, a monster. Growls spilled from his blackened lips. He towered a foot higher than his normal height of six foot two. Corded muscles and supple skin matted with grey fur tipped in white. His eyes shimmered like polished amber.

  Two men moved up on his flanks. Left would get here sooner, but Right sported an AR-15. Left only had a pistol. Silver is silver. But the handgun topped out at three slugs max before your aim went to shit. There was no dodging full auto.

  The massive beast leapt over the hood of the SUV. Snarling jaws snapping, he collided, knocking the athletic-looking black man to the ground. His head cracked against the grass shattering his skull. Razor-sharp teeth ripped out his throat, spraying blood like a font.

  A bullet missed the monster by millimeters burying into the trunk of the splintered tree. The body shuddered and bucked and then it went utterly still. Abel reared back muzzle red, a roaring growl spilling from his barrel chest.

  The pop and crack of gunfire was finally dying away in the background. That didn’t spell good things for Abel. Only one man from his side was still kicking. And he was pinned down behind their car on the other side of the battlefield.

  Red soaked into his button-down shirt, and sweat poured from his forehead. His chest heaved too fast, breath too shallow. He wouldn’t last long.

  Pain flared to life, and the force of the blast jerked Abel to one side. Silver ate through his thoughts bestial and human alike. A cold fire, it obliterated everything in its path, consuming him utterly. Another explosion of agony accompanied a second hit, this one just a little higher in the meat of his shoulder.

  It scored the front of his shoulder blade every time he moved, lodged near the bone. Hopeless as his situation seemed, Abel had something to live for now. He had a purpose. He had a reason. Abel realized with that bullet, he could let go.

  And with that epiphany want won the battle against his guilt. Abel wanted to kiss her pale lips. He would give anything to be with Izobel now. But to see her again he had to live through this. Instead of going at the man who was shooting at him, Abel took off in the other direction.

  49

  Chapter

  The winding driveway snaked through the trees to a tiny Tudor cottage tucked in the back corner of a glen. Stacked stone and wrought iron, cut glass windows, fruit trees dotted the sprawling front lawn. Nora parked the car and they piled out. Even the cat. Izobel led them down a sloping hill and around the back of a well-tended garden.

  Izobel walked inside without even a knock. Well-appointed furniture interspersed with tasteful design gave the room a modern romantic feel. Tall windows bathed it in light. A woman sat in a comfortable chair placed in the corner. One leg crossed over the other, she scanned through the pages of a book. Steam danced around her teacup.

  Platinum blond waves fell around her strong jaw. A classically sculpted nose and thin, pink lips, she was pale as milk and lovely as could be. Her feminine silk blouse and wide-legged trousers added something to her statuesque lines.

  “There you are, darling,” she said without looking up from her book. Her accent had just a little bit of a European edge. “I was just about to give up.”

  “I ran into a little bit of trouble.”

  “So I see,” she said cheerfully. Slipping a bookmark between the pages, she set the paperback onto the table and came to her full height. It was impressive Nora had to admit. “I trust you gave as good as you got, my dear?”

  She crossed to Izobel and embraced her. Her hand on Izobel’s cheek, she regarded a bruise with a clucking noise. “A little rosemary should do the trick, I think.”

  “Did you find anything?” Izobel begged. She didn’t really have time for pleasantries. The full moon inched closer with every passing moment.

  The woman stood head and shoulders over Deklan. L
ong neck and powerful hands she was a goddess. Her piercing blue eyes were hard as steel.

  “Magic isn’t some universal fix, Bells,” Deklan parroted for Claudia’s benefit. It was reflex at this point.

  “Don’t call me that. It makes you sound like my boyfriend,” Izobel snapped.

  She ignored the complicated expression he gave her. Derrick was many things to her. The love of her life just wasn’t one of them. Izobel frowned. But he could well be a life on her conscious if he didn’t give up this fool notion of involving himself in this.

  “My sister’s life depends on it,” Izobel argued her case to Claudia. She was who Izobel had to convince.

  Claudia sighed. She and Deklan shared a glance. Claudia moved across the living room floor and pulled a book off the shelf. Leather-bound and handwritten she hoped it would help Izobel make the right decision. The girl was looking for a needle in a haystack. A dangerous one at that. Weighed against the chance they might need the child in the future, Claudia chose to indulge her.

  “Have you thought about writing the enchantment yourself?” Claudia asked handing it to her.

  Her mouth dropped open to answer. Izobel had thought about it. It was rapidly solidifying into her plan. Only one or two things kept her from experimenting. Izobel opened the book and flipped through until she found the pages Claudia marked. She held it open to the images scratched in fading red ink.

  A dead body with two witches on either side. One had his hands buried into a cut down the center of the body’s abdomen. The other drew symbols of blood into the air. Claudia shrugged.

  “Some magic only life and death can pay for. You might try an effigy.”

  Izobel raised her a quizzical brow. “Would it be powerful enough?”

  “There are ways to focus it.” Claudia stepped to her side flipping a page. She pointed out the passage. “You’ll need three. A full circle is better,” Claudia scolded.

  “Werewolves are really territorial. I’d have to get Abel’s permission to bring the circle to them. He’s their Alpha or whatever.” Izobel closed the book. “And that’s if the circle would even come.”