by Kaye Draper
I shook my head and twisted side to side, popping my spine. Emerson came over to me, his brow furrowed as he frowned down at a piece of equipment in his hand. I knew next to nothing about tech, but Em was a genius with it. Proving yet again that the "dumb ogre" stereotype was nothing but bull.
"What's up?" I asked, as he drew close. "Is it the map?"
He had managed to create a system that hacked into one of the few remaining satellites and gave us a pretty good view of any massive problems with the road that might have come up in the last day or so.
He shook his head and glanced at me. "No. Map's good. This is something else I've been playing around with." He tapped the small screen with one massive finger and turned it my way. I saw a circle on the screen that blinked as it moved.
"What is it?" I asked, trying to orient myself on what looked like a grid of sorts, maybe a map.
He came to stand behind me, his massive body dwarfing me as he held the device up so we could both see it. I turned with him as he spun in a slow circle, apparently scanning the area. The blip was only present when he faced south. "Vibrations," he said, making his own vibrations as his deep voice rumbled through his chest and against my back. I wanted to purr in response.
Whoa there, Sam. For fuck's sake, I couldn't even be close to him anymore without wanting to climb the poor guy like a tree. My animal instincts were clamoring for something I didn't understand. A mating bond, maybe? Just more kinky giant sex? Who the fuck knew, with me? But now was so not the time. "Vibrations," I said, forcing myself to focus, even with his solid heat behind me. "Like…movement? A herd?"
I felt his nod. "Maybe. I just came up with this. And it's probably not reliable. But…that could be something making the ground vibrate not far from us, and it's getting closer."
I twisted to glance back at him over my shoulder. "Like that charm the siren made for the unicorns?"
He nodded again, shy as always about his ideas and inventions. "That's what gave me the idea. I…bought another one from him. A smaller version. And I kind of…merged it? With the tech bits."
I blinked at him. It was fascinating how his mind worked. Most people were either all for magic and completely against tech or the other way around. But merging the two made a lot of sense. "You're amazing, Em," I said without thinking.
He shifted a bit, dropping one big hand to my hip to turn me toward him a bit more. "Sam…." He licked his lips and I froze like a damned rabbit. Like prey, instead of the hunter I was. My breath stuttered to a stop as my heart did this gross little bottoming out…thing.
"Sam!" Ahura came around the end of the camper next to us. "Oh. Hi, Em. Sex Sam up later, big guy. We need to gear up. Something's coming."
I jerked away from Emerson. What the hell was wrong with me? Turning to Ahura, I pushed past her and headed to the camper to get guns. "Theo! Get your ass inside." I shoved a handgun into Theo's hand. Though, he'd probably end up shooting himself with it. "What did you see, Ahura?"
I grabbed some ammo and a shotgun. Theo wasn't moving fast enough, so I grabbed him by the waistband of his jeans and tugged him to me. Ignoring the sharp flash of…something…in his golden-brown eyes, I turned him and shoved him through the camper door.
Fuck, I hated being responsible for anyone but myself.
Ahura took a riffle from the trunk under the bench seat and grabbed some shells. "I can't see anything yet. But I can feel it in the earth. Paws pounding toward us.
I tilted my head at her. "You can feel it. What kind of shifter are you?"
She smirked at me. "The kind that lives in the sand. Up top?"
I sighed and nodded. For some reason, she kept her cur identity close. But I didn't really care what she was, as long as we could trust her not to screw us over or let us down when we needed her.
"Emerson! Fin!" I called, turning to find them right behind me.
Fin had his sawed-off shotgun. Emerson had a long, thick blade. After a lot of trial and error, we'd decided he was more comfortable and more efficient with that than a gun. Weapons of any kind made him uneasy. He was our tech guy. Even if he looked like an ogre berserker.
"Emerson, stay in the back with the human," I ordered. At his resigned look, I patted him on the arm. "You're the last line of defense. If anything happens to that moron, we'll all be in hot water."
He sighed and went to do as he was told. Because, unlike someone else I knew, Emerson knew how to follow directions.
"Get in the camper," I told Fin as I yanked my hair back into a short ponytail to keep it out of my eyes.
He gave me a mutinous look. "I'm not a child."
I rolled my eyes at him. "I know, Fin. Get in the damned camper."
He huffed. "I'm going up top with you."
I knew his dwarfism made him push to prove himself, and I really sympathized. But this wasn't the time. I crossed my arms and looked down at him. He glared at me from about the level of my navel. "I know you can take care of yourself, Fin," I said evenly. "I know you're good with that gun. So get in and line up from one of the front windows."
He opened his mouth, and I went to my knees in front of him, not caring how much shit Ahura was going to give me later. I cupped Fin's square jaw in my hands and made him look at me. "You just can't take a beating the way I can, Fin. So you'll be inside, behind the armor. Where I don't have to worry about losing you. I won't be able to concentrate if I think you're in danger." I lifted one of his small hands and pressed it against my chest, over my heart. I knew he could feel the low rumble of my cat side, the half-growl that I couldn't entirely shut off because the man it called "mate,"—stupid shifter bullshit—wasn't tucked away safe when danger was barreling toward us.
His green eyes met mine and he glared harder. "That's playing dirty, cat."
I shrugged. "I never claimed to be nice."
He huffed and pulled away to clamber up into the camper and roll the window down enough to have a good place to brace his gun.
I stood and climbed the metal ladder to the top of the camper, Ahura close on my heels. I could see the pack approaching now. We could get in the camper and attempt to drive away, but chances were whatever this pack was, it could move faster than our lumbering vehicle. And no fiend was going to just let a potential meal wander away, even if we were encased in metal. Better to face them down now than risk them making us breakdown somewhere. I pulled on my shift, sinking into the enhanced senses that came with it. My vision sharpened a bit and I sighed. "Hyenas."
Ahura shuffled herself around enough to lay flat on her belly and site her gun over the luggage rack. "Yep."
I knelt and propped my shotgun on my shoulder. Of course, they weren't regular old, garden variety hyenas. They were hyena beasts—misnamed by humans like every other fiend they encountered. The things cackled as they approached, the sharp barks of laughter chillingly human-like. They were spotted like Earth hyenas, and their muzzles were vaguely dog-like. The similarities ended there. These things were four feet tall at the shoulder and had multiple rows of teeth. Their long front legs ended in hooked talons that were weirdly birdlike. And when one of them killed something, it sent them all into a mindless frenzy.
I'd killed them before. But the sound of their laughter always put me on edge. It was some of the creepiest shit I'd ever encountered.
"Whoever gets more of them sleeps on the big bed tonight," Ahura said in challenge.
I grinned at her. "Then you're sleeping on the floor."
The camper had one full-sized bed and a couple of fold-out spaces. And I wasn't going to sleep on the floor in my own damned transport.
She fired, a smile stretching her full lips and her red eyes glowing with glee as she kept count under her breath.
I shook my head and sighted down the barrel of my gun, squeezing off shot after shot and reloading in a rhythm as natural as breathing.
"Six," Ahura muttered as I racked another shell.
I cocked the gun with a sharp click, sighted, and pulled the trigger, wa
tching my latest kill slide to a twitching halt near the camper's front bumper. "Seven."
She scoffed. "We tie and you're my pillow, pretty thing."
But we were out of time for jokes. The pack had reached the camper and they were clawing at the sides, snapping, growling, and cackling like mad, driven on by the smell of their fellow packmates' blood. Fin had picked a few off himself, but they were congregating at the open window.
"Roll it up, leprechaun!" I barked out, aiming downward and shooting one in the skull as it tried to lift itself up enough to crawl through the window. I heard Fin muttering something about bossy, know-it-all shifters, but the window went up. It was still breakable, but the thick glass was warded to be shatter-proof, so I was pretty confident it would hold up against hyenas.
I turned back to scan the pack for where to aim next, but something wrapped around my ankle and yanked.
I pitched forward and slammed my chin on the luggage rack, biting through my tongue in the process. My mouth filled with blood and I turned my head to spit as I rolled onto my back and kicked at whatever had grabbed me, my gun still held in one hand, but not loaded. There was a weird tearing noise, and Ahura hissed, still looking down at the ground on her side, unaware of my dilemma. "They're shredding the fucking tires!"
She squeezed off a shot, then glanced back at me, just as I went skidding over the edge.
I clung to the luggage rack with my free hand, but the thing pulling at me was strong. I used the shotgun to bash it in the arm to get it to let go of me, but the thing just snarled.
"Sam!" Ahura was reaching for me, but a hyena had managed to jump up on the hood and was scrabbling up the windshield toward us.
"Focus on the hyenas," I yelled. "I got this fucker."
I punctuated my words with a viscous kick to the monster's face.
I nearly managed to get free, as Ahura turned to keep shooting the hyenas that were gathering around on the ground in the hopes my attacker would drop me.
Blue eyes met mine, set in a face that wasn't quite hyena, but wasn't quite human either. It was misshapen and covered in the same spots that made up its animal pelt. The hands were tipped in those talon-like claws. The back legs were hyena. But the torso was roughly man-shaped and covered in fur.
Not a fiend. A cur. One who couldn't fully shift. Like me. It bared its fangs at me, and I smashed it in the head with the butt of my riffle. It batted the gun out of my hand, not losing its grip on my ankle. My leg felt like it was about to come out joint at the hip and knee. Growling, I pulled my free leg up so I could get a hand on my leg sheath. Grinning, I kicked the cur again, right in the chest. Then I slashed upward, my blade nearly severing the hand that held my leg.
The thing howled as it fell, but it got right back up on its feet. This time, a bit of human intelligence flashed in its eyes and it looked at the camper door. Motherfuck. I bet no one inside thought to lock the thing, since we were fighting monsters without opposable thumbs or knowledge of how doors worked.
The cur lunged toward the passenger side door and scrabbled at the handle with its uninjured hand. "Damn it," I huffed, pulling my other knife and moving to crouch on the roof nearer the thing. "Ahura, cover me," I yelled.
Not waiting to see if she heard me, I leapt, landing on the cur just as it yanked the door open. For half a second, Theo stared into my face as he scrambled across the seat to shut and lock the door. I saw him panic. Felt magic surge around him as he got ready to activate one of his protection wards. Then Fin was poking him with his sawed-off shotgun and shouting at him to close the door.
Thank fuck my leprechaun didn't choose that moment to go all sentimental and get them both killed. Theo slammed the door and locked it. Fin poked his gun out the window. Then, I had better things to worry about.
The beast under me lunged and I rolled with him, plunging my knife into any soft part I could reach as he raked me with his talons. Pain flared across my cheek and along my ribs, just over my soft, vulnerable blood vessels and organs. I wrapped my thighs around the thing's waist and clung, plunging one knife into its solar plexus, while I brought the other up to sink into its chest.
Gunshots sounded all around me as we fell to the ground. I knelt over the bleeding, panting cur. The animal craze that had overtaken its features faded, the human in him coming to the forefront for a moment as the haze receded. "Shifter?" he managed, blood pouring from his fanged mouth and confusion in his eyes.
I clenched my teeth and buried my hand in his thick hair, tilting his head back. Then I drew my blade across his throat, quick and sure.
Hot blood gushed over my hand and the cur's look of surprise faded into blankness.
I stood, half crouched, spinning to take in my environment. I felt feral myself, my beast side riding me hard. One of us. I'd just killed one of us. My own kind. And all I wanted was more blood.
Ahura jumped down from the top of the camper. "They're gone," she said, kicking a carcass that was still twitching before putting an extra bullet in it, just to be sure.
She came over and peered down at the cur. "Must have been their alpha."
"Why was a cur with the fiends?" Fin said, coming to join us.
"Probably couldn't live with the curs or humans," Ahura said with a shrug. "Poor bastard chose to go full beast instead."
"Or was driven to it," Theo added softly. His brown eyes met mine. "Did you have to kill him?"
I scoffed at the question. "Well, I wasn't about to let him kill me instead."
The human crouched down by the cur's body, running his hands over the crossbreed’s eyes, closing them with reverence like he was at a fucking human funeral. "We could have tried to rehabilitate him. So often, it's not choice that drives them mad, it's the trauma."
I stared at him. Of all the fucking nerve. What would a human know about the trauma of being a cur. I strode off toward the camper. "Get your asses inside. We're leaving." I took a glace at the tires. The durable material of one back wheel was shredded. But they were designed to run damaged. I’d get us out of here, then deal with it later, somewhere where the tempting reek of our kills wouldn’t draw out more predators.
Theo stood, but didn't move from the cur's side. "We should bury him. At least treat his body with some respect."
I spun and stomped back over to him. "Respect? You think your fucking respect does him any good now? After he just died like an animal in the dirt? Where was all that respect and human fucking decency when he was still alive? When he was struggling to fend for himself in a world where every single other fucker shoved him to the outskirts of society?" I lifted my knife to point the bloodied blade at the human's face, rage boiling beneath my skin. "Get your mewling ass into that transport now, human, or there'll be another corpse here to feed the crows."
Theo’s face blanked, but his eyes glowed golden in the harsh sunlight.
A big hand landed on my shoulder, and I hissed at the contact. "Sam, we all know you did what you had to do. It's okay."
I rounded on Emerson and growled. "Don't."
He hunched his massive shoulders, his big brown eyes flinching away from my angry gaze. "It's okay to cry, Sam."
I threw up my arms. "I'm not crying, you moron! But you’ll be crying, if you don't all get in the fucking transport right fucking now."
I headed to the camper and yanked the driver's side door open, throwing my bloody blades up on the dash. I couldn't put them in their sheaths until I cleaned the gore off them.
The cur blood.
Yeah, I killed my own kind. Killing monsters was what I got paid to do. And when a cur went bad, either from genetics or from plain old mental instability, I pulled the fucking trigger so we could all survive.
It didn't bother me.
I stared down at the wetness that hit the back of my hand. It took me several seconds to realize why my face was wet and dripping. I lifted the hem of my t-shirt and scrubbed it over my face, rubbing until my skin burned. Damn. This had never happened to me before. Hunters didn'
t cry over their fucking kills.
Taking a steadying breath, I hauled myself into the camper, only then realizing Fin had taken the co-pilot's spot. He watched me with his knowing green eyes. "Well?" he said impatiently. "We gettin' the fuck out of here or what, Saber?"
I let out a relieved breath. Emerson was always fucking pushing me to be softer. To accept the damned weakest parts of me like some stupid girl. But Fin knew when to let me have my hang-ups and leave well enough the fuck alone.
Slamming the door, I started the engine and started driving. The sooner this fucktastic mess was over, the better.
Chapter 5
I got the big bed. It was my fucking rig, and my Godsdamned job, and everyone else could fuck right off. If they didn't like it, they could sleep outside with the fiends, which I told them—emphatically—before I climbed into the bed and pulled the curtain that served as a door.
Emerson had claimed the fold-out, since it was the only thing long enough to accommodate his big form, and Ahura and Theo each grabbed a front seat and reclined it back. Fin, the sneaky little bastard, ended up in bed with me. I didn't grumble too much. It wasn't like he took up much space. But I was a little worried. He'd slept with me a few times, so he knew about the nightmares. But I was afraid to sleep next to the smaller man after I'd just put down a cur. For some reason, that always made things worse. Pulled all my old bullshit right to the surface.
I rolled onto my side, facing away from Fin, with his short arm wrapped around my waist, and tried to focus my mind on the rest of our trip. On what Theo's damned cousin was like. Probably as uptight and arrogant as he was. Humans were in a league all their own when it came to willful ignorance of their weaknesses. I managed to avoid sleep long enough that I felt calm. But I should have known my distraction techniques wouldn't do any good.
Strong hands held me down. Always stronger than me. Their touch always cruel. I was weak. Half a shifter. Half a man. Half a person. Taunts and jeers echoed in my head. Hands dragged me from my bed, across the forest floor, sticks and stones scraping my weak crossbreed skin.
