Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel

by Lawson, Elena

  The only other way, by my understanding, was to blind them and sever their hands, and I wasn’t quite prepared to go that far, even if my wolf heartily disagreed with me.

  “I still don’t think we should’ve brought him here,” I groused to Jared, the tension returning to my muscles as we rounded the edge of the cabin and the moon chamber came into view, the stone painted in gold from the setting sun.

  “There was nowhere else to take him,” Jared replied. “We’ll make sure he’s either blindfolded or unconscious when we bring him back to town and cut him loose. He won’t be able to get back here on his own, and if he tries, then it’ll be his funeral.”

  I hadn’t needed to use the moon chamber for a long time. Another perk of being the twin soul wolf. But Layla and Viv had to use it for their first year of moon-triggered shifts, give or take. In the beginning, it was almost impossible to control the inner wolf during a moon-forced shift. Which was why they needed to be chained, to keep them from lashing out or hurting anyone, or god forbid, wind up biting another human.

  Now, the only being chained in the moon chamber was a witch. He slouched against the wall about halfway down the length of the chamber. His hands chained at his back, anchored into the wall. A rock on a leather cord strapped around his neck, resting against his clavicle.

  Clay’s upper lip curled as he watched the witch slowly come to. Moaning and squirming like a babe.

  I shucked off the weaker Allie and left her at the threshold, barring her from following me inside. This wasn’t the time to let my anxieties get the better of me. I needed answers, and I needed them now.

  For Trey and Todd. For Luke.

  “Gregory,” I said by way of greeting, barely recognizing my own voice as I went to stand next to Clay in front of our captor. “Thought I told you to stay out of my town?”

  He spat on the dirt floor and squirmed against his binds, glancing down at the stone resting below his throat. He grimaced, looking pale as he realized what it was.

  “Bindstone? Where did you get it? I thought we’d destroyed all that was left.”

  Clearly they hadn’t, but I wasn’t here to talk about a stupid rock.

  “I’m going to cut to the chase,” I said, lowering into a crouch to put myself at eye level with him. “We seem to be short a few members of our pack.”

  I studied his expression, searching for any evidence of falsehood while I asked the direct question. “Are you responsible for their disappearances?”

  His brows scrunched together, brown eyes flaring with something I couldn’t name beneath the surface. My wolf growled and the sound came from my still-human lips.

  “Answer me,” I gritted out between my teeth, a tremor rattling down my spine and raising the hairs on my arms.

  “What is this?” he asked, and I scented the first whiff of fear evaporating from his flesh. “You have no right to hold me here. If you release me now, I will not report this to the council.”

  Rage tightened my core, heating me from the inside out as I resisted my wolf’s urge to bite his head off and be done with it.

  “Allie,” Jared warned in a low voice from somewhere behind me, probably sensing my murderous intent. I didn’t care.

  “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, you won’t be going anywhere.”

  My voice came out stone cold and so devoid of emotion I had to wonder if it was even my own. I would not stand for anyone hurting the people I cared about. I would not allow my family to be messed with. It was my job to protect them, and it was the one thing I would not fail at. Not while I was still breathing.

  Gregory seemed to be judging my sincerity, his gaze narrowing while his breathing picked up a tick.

  “Fine,” I muttered when he didn’t speak. “Have it your way.”

  Clay darted forward like he would stop me, but I already had my hand wrapped firmly around the witch’s ankle, and a beat before Clay could reach me, it snapped beneath my palm and Gregory’s scream echoed into the night.

  His eyes welled, and he cursed repeatedly, staring wide-eyed at his broken ankle like he could heal it by sheer force of will. For all I knew, maybe he could. But he wouldn’t be doing that with a hunk of bindstone around his neck.

  “Allie, we should—”

  “Don’t,” I snapped at Jared, raising a hand to silence him. My rage was enough to chase away the guilt of not allowing him to rein me in. I didn’t need to be reined in right now. I needed to be let loose.

  My wolf ached for freedom. She wanted to see how his slender neck would feel with our jaws around it. I licked my lips.

  “Talk,” I barked at him. “Talk or I break the other one.”

  “You crazy bitch!”

  Wrong answer.

  This time, Clay and Jared didn’t bother stopping me as the bones in his other ankle crunched and then snapped. They did nothing even when a bit of jagged white tore through his flesh and bright crimson glinted in the moonlight as it ran down into the earth.

  Bile rose in my throat, and I gagged on it, but managed to keep it down. Managed to keep a straight face. The weaker Allie I left at the door was begging me to stop, but I couldn’t.

  This bastard was a threat to us. My bones sang with the truth of it. My heart recognized a snake in the grass when it saw one.

  Trust your gut.

  It was what my dad always used to tell me. What Hazel told me. And it hadn’t steered me wrong yet.

  “Still think I’m bluffing, asshole?”

  I reached for his kneecap, and he dragged himself back from me, wincing and shaking, until he was pressed up against the stone wall.

  “Stop,” he cried. “You fucking heathen, just stop and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  “Everything,” I hissed.

  His lips parted and a worried crease formed in his brow, but then he sighed and dropped his head. Resigning himself to betraying whatever confidence the Arcane Council member had in him.

  He sucked a breath in through his teeth as a cool breeze funneled through the moon chamber, whistling over his broken skin.

  “Start with where the fuck my friends are.”

  His jaw twitched and I couldn’t see his expression because of the shadows from his hair falling over his forehead, but he shook his head. “I don’t know where your missing shifters are.”

  “Liar!”

  He snapped his gaze back up and glared at me. “It’s the truth!”

  I didn’t believe him, not for one second, but I’d play along for a minute.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s like I said; I’m here to bring you to speak to a representative of the Arcane Council.”

  “Get Hazel,” I shot to Jared. This clown may be able to lie to me, but he wouldn’t be able to hide his nature from her.

  He left a second later, and I stood, taking a steadying breath. It was a damn good thing Hazel was blind. I didn’t want her seeing what I’d done to the witch, though I was sure she’d be able to smell the sweet tang of his blood soaking into the earthen flood.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why? Why does he want to speak to me?”

  The witch slouched against the wall, his breathing evening back out. If he thought I was out of danger just because I’d stood up and moved two steps away, he was mistaken.

  “Please,” he moaned. “Let me heal myself.”

  He pulled against the chains holding his arms behind his back and choked out a wet cough, turning to spit on the ground.

  “Not until we’re finished.”

  A lie.

  I was starting to realize our mistake and what I’d need to do to fix it...

  Gregory couldn’t leave Forest Grove. He could never be allowed to walk out of here. Even the smallest possibility of his retribution—of the retribution of the Arcane Council against my pack…

  I shuddered.

  It wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.

  Jared walked just behind Hazel as she made her way insi
de, walking straight to where I stood, her milky gaze sweeping the ground.

  “I need you to read him,” I explained. “Can you do that?”

  Hazel ran her tongue over her teeth, considering, before she finally nodded.

  I looked to Jared and then to Clay. “Unbind him. Hold him steady.”

  Jared’s face was a mask of horror as he knelt to do as I asked. I had to block out his emotions as he passed. They threatened to crush my resolve. I gravitated to Clay as he also moved to Gregory, on his opposite side. He was brooding and furious, shocked, worried, but not disgusted.

  Jared unlocked the manacles and my mates each took one of Gregory’s arms while he pulled against their hold, protesting in indeterminate mutterings.

  “What…” he breathed, his hands balling to fists. “What is she going to do to me?”

  “Open his hand,” I ordered Clay, and he forcibly unfurled the witch’s fingers. Not wanting to wind up with more broken bones, the bastard didn’t fight him much.

  I led Hazel to Gregory’s left side and guided her hands to his open palm.

  “What is she doing?” Gregory demanded, baring his teeth.

  I crossed my arms and waited as Grams ran her fingertips over the uncallused skin of his palm. As her body hunched in on itself and her features twisted. Her milky eyes lit with the glow of her wolf, and Clay ripped her away, clutching her by her wrist while he held Gregory steady with his other hand.

  “What is it?” he asked in a snarl, and Hazel’s murderous stare found Gregory through her blindness.

  “He has wolf blood on his hands,” she said in a low whisper. “Vampire, too.”

  His eyes went wide.

  “He likes the thrill of it,” Hazel continued, not knowing that each of her words was hammering a new nail in this fucker’s coffin. I was feeling less ill at the thought of ending this monster’s life by the second. “Even though he’s acting on orders and not of his own mind.”

  “Can you tell if he’s hurt Trey and Todd? Luke?”

  She solemnly shook her head. “No. I can only sense his darkness. Feel the texture of it. His emotions. No specifics.”

  I ground my teeth.

  “Thanks, Hazel. You can go.”

  “Think I’ll stay,” she said, her face pinched as she backed out of my way to stand sentinel behind me, crossing her wrinkled arms over her long nightdress.

  I didn’t have it in me to argue. She could think of me what she wanted. This needed to be done.

  “I’d start explaining if I were you,” I growled. “Where are my friends?”

  “I d-didn’t touch them,” he argued, and I saw Clay’s grip on his arm tighten, making him grit out a little squeal. “It’s the truth! I have done what she said, but it was orders, nothing more. I was sent here to bring you in—for testing. Because you’re different than the others. Rumor has it that a vampire’s compulsion has no sway over you. That you can see through a witch’s ward. It’s unnatural.” His upper lip curled back. “I’m not here to kill you or anyone else. Just to bring you in.”

  “So that your superior can do what?” Clay demanded, twisting his arm. “Torture her with some fucked up testing and then kill her.”

  Gregory’s lips sealed closed, and it was as much an admission of guilt as if he’d spoken.

  “There can be no evidence,” he muttered so low I wasn’t certain I heard him correctly. It didn’t matter though, I’d heard enough.

  “If you don’t know the whereabouts of my missing pack mates, then you are of no more use to me.”

  I waited, allowing those words to soak in. Allowing the weight of my stare to convey my intention until the reek of his fear permeated the air. He opened his mouth to speak a few times before closing it again for good.

  Either he truly didn’t know or he was willing to die to protect the secret. I was starting to assume the former, but there was one way I could be sure to prevent further harm to my pack: eliminate him from the equation. He said he was working for one of the Arcane Council members.

  I had to assume it was a corrupt one. That no one else except that singular alchemist knew Gregory was here. And he wouldn’t go reporting his missing assassin to anyone if Gregory never returned because that would be tantamount to admitting what he was doing.

  Round and round the thoughts parried and lunged in my mind. Trying to find the best—the safest—option. I had to trust that this option was the one that would lead to the least amount of harm. Otherwise...I didn’t want to think about otherwise.

  Trust your gut.

  “There isn’t any way I can trust your word,” I spoke in a low rumble, lengthening up through my spine as I sized up the blade clipped to the waistband of Clay’s dark denim jeans. “But there is one way I can make sure that if you are responsible, you can hurt no one else.”

  “Y-you said you’d let me go,” he croaked, his face twisting just as much as he tried to twist in Clay and Jared’s grip.

  I shook my head solemnly. Giving him a moment to make peace with my choice. To say a prayer if he wished. He did neither of those things though as I numbly knelt in front of him, drenching my knees in the cool damp of his blood in the dirt.

  “Allie, we can’t…” Jared pleaded, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he looked between the witch and me. His heart beat hard against his ribcage; I could hear it from here. Like a caged beast smashing against iron bars.

  “Let me do it,” Clay offered, cutting me a hard stare from the corner of his eye while Gregory devolved into racking sobs and the smell of urine prickled my nose.

  “Clay,” Jared snapped. I looked at the blade on Clay’s waistband, a question in my stare. His jaw tightened, but he nodded, giving me permission.

  Jared’s wolf crashed to the surface, urged almost to bursting free from his heightened emotion.” We aren’t seriously going to—”

  In one swift movement, I leaned forward, freed the knife from Clay’s waist. The solemn click of the blade flicking open came only an instant before I dragged the honed edge against the witch’s throat.

  Hot blood spurted and spilled down his neck, and his eyes went wide with shock as he fought for air, burbling and croaking his last as his body convulsed and then began to sag.

  Jared dropped his arm as though stung and skidded backward, looking green.

  Clay gently leaned the dead witch against the ground and closed his still-staring eyes, pressing down with his thumb and index finger on the witch’s eyelids.

  I stared mutely at the evidence of the lengths I would go to in order to protect my pack and felt…

  Nothing.

  For once, the awful flutter of anxiety in my chest had eased. The shaking was gone, and I felt an unfamiliar stillness in my bones that I hadn’t for some time now. The gore made me a bit queasy, but that was the only bit of discomfort I felt.

  My brows drew together as a darkness crept into my thoughts, whispering how I must be a monster to feel this calm, this at peace, with the body of a man I’d just killed not even cold yet at my feet.

  I eliminated the threat. I’m not sorry.

  I hadn’t even realized I’d spoken aloud until Jared lurched to his feet and left the moon chamber, chucking the manacle keys to the dirt before he vanished.

  Light hands landed on my shoulders, and I breathed in Hazel’s baked goods scent, letting it chase away the shadows with dreams of gooey chocolate and warm brown sugar. “You did what you needed to,” she told me, and for some strange reason, it was those words that undid me. A stinging pain raked up my throat and burned in my eyes. My stomach twisted.

  Hazel patted my shoulders, and her long silver hair tickled my cheeks when she leaned in. “Go rest now. Let me and my grandson clean up here.”

  Clay grunted as he rose to his feet and pulled me up with him, tugging me into his chest and out of Hazel’s grasp. My tears wet his shirt as I inhaled his familiar scent, letting it wash over me and take away the sting.

  “It was the right choice,” he reassured me
, whispering against my hair. “The only choice.”

  He pushed me back to hold me at arm’s length, jutting his chin out to gesture to where Jared had just left through the door. “He knows that, too. Just give him some time to realize it.”

  I nodded even though I didn’t fully believe that. “I should help. We’ll bury him on pack land. Somewhere no one else will come snooping. The second ring maybe? Out by the caves?”

  Clay squeezed my arms before letting go. “Go be with your girls. They’re waiting for you inside. We’ll clean this up and then I’ll stay with you tonight.”

  It went without saying that Jared would spend the night elsewhere. Whether at the quarry or the old cabin in the woods was anyone’s guess. I really hoped he was smart enough to go to the cabin and not the quarry though. He’d be alone there and the nearest patrol route was a mile and a half out. At least the cabin was warded. Only members of our pack could find it, and only because my ability to see through witch’s wards now extended to them.

  I sighed and gave in, the prospect of a nice cold whiskey enough to get my legs moving even though an emptiness was forming in my chest, hollowing out my bones. With each mile I felt Jared move away from camp, from me, a hole formed in my soul, and I had to wonder if I was any better than the previous pack alpha.

  A knot formed between Clay’s brows, and he shook me, getting my attention again. “Hey. What’s going on in there?” he demanded, bright blue eyes flicking between my gray ones.

  “It’s nothing,” I replied, swallowing past the lump in my throat as I slipped out of his grasp. “Get back soon?”

  “I will.”

  “And take at least two others with you. If he was telling the truth, then the threat is still out there. We may not be safe. Not yet.”

  11

  Layla and Viv were there for me when I dragged my suddenly very heavy feet through the front door. They’d curled themselves up on the couch in the living room and had a movie playing on the tv that really didn’t ever get much use.