Fated Hearts

by Garrett Leigh

  Broken metal spiked millimetres from Devan’s face. He winced. The shifter grinned. “Wherever they are, they’re not coming back for you. We killed each one we caught, and there’s no way they’ll get back through our lines to collect their dead.”

  Laughter bubbled in Devan’s chest, but once more, he swallowed the reaction down at the very last second. “They wouldn’t come back for me anyway. I’m of no consequence to them.”

  “That right?”

  “Yes. I’m nobody.”

  Another menacing growl rumbled between them. Devan sensed the gaze of the young woman on him but resisted the urge to glance at her. She knew exactly who he was, and these were her people. Why hadn’t she given him up? They shared a connection—he’d healed her—but he hadn’t seen her since. What was he to her?

  And why the hell is she still in a cage?

  The shifter questioning Devan lost interest and wandered off, taking his brothers with him. Exhausted by the exchange, Devan slumped on the cold ground. It took him a moment to remember the girl.

  He forced himself to look at her, though the cracked floodlight somewhere behind her hurt his eyes. “Why are you still in this cage?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t recognise anyone, so I’m assuming they don’t recognise me.”

  “You don’t recognise the scent of your own pack?”

  “My pack was decimated at the border. I don’t know who these clowns are.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not that complicated. The northern pack is just that—one pack. In the south we are many, brought together to fight one war.”

  “So you fight with strangers? To what aim? And why didn’t they kill you if they thought you were northern?”

  Something flickered in the girl’s eyes. “Twenty years later and I still don’t know what the aim of this war is, and as for why they haven’t killed me, they’ve figured out I have enhanced hearing and they’re trying to figure out if I’m worth more to them alive. But whatever, dude. You’re the one fighting for a pack that’s not your own.”

  “They are my pack.”

  “How? You’re not a—”

  The end of the sentence was drowned out by a wave of pain so intense Devan cried out, rigid as it coursed through him, searing every nerve. His skin burnt and his eyes watered as if he was corroding from the inside out. Gods, this feels like radiation poisoning. He’d seen such things in eastern Europe many years ago, and the memories were indelibly etched in his mind.

  His brain buzzed as he tried—and failed—to apply logic to the increasingly outlandish theories that zipped through his mind. Bright images of death that were fascinating and terrifying at the same time. “I think I’m hallucinating.”

  “I think you’re right.” The girl’s voice was closer than ever. “I’m so sorry, but I think you’re really, really sick.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Vengeance had carried Zio from the border to the compound. Had kept him alive as they’d fought against an enemy that outnumbered them four to one.

  They’d barely escaped.

  Fear kept him upright as they fled their home and regrouped in the forest. So many. How did they amass those numbers undetected?

  Having been absent from the compound and township for weeks, Zio had no idea. Perhaps Gale might’ve known, but Zio would never get to ask him because Gale was dead. His unit ambushed and destroyed at the hospital. At least, that’s what wolves he’d managed to gather for the retreat were telling him.

  In the relative safety of the forest, Zio skidded to a stop and shifted into human form. Cuts and scrapes healed in an instant. A gash to his thigh took longer, even with his self-healing powers enhanced by Devan’s magic-laced pills. It’s not the pills that are magic—it’s him.

  But Zio shook off the thought. Pushed Devan out of his mind, keeping him safe at the border camp where he’d left him.

  More wolves joined him beneath the thick canopy of trees. Soldiers, brothers, workers from the administration building. Thankfully, all the children had been in school in the township and were now guarded by humans. But it was a small mercy. Hundreds had died, all of them someone’s child once.

  Danielo limped into the glade in human form. Drawn to Zio, he joined him beneath a large oak tree, gaze haunted. “Where’s Michael?”

  Pain flared in Zio’s heart. “I don’t know, but he’s not dead. We’d feel it.”

  “How do you know?”

  Zio laid his hand over Danielo’s racing heart. “We’d feel it, brother.”

  For a moment, Danielo seemed almost convinced, but whatever he saw in Zio’s eyes clearly didn’t match the conviction in his voice. They both knew that their psychic connection wouldn’t hold if they were too far from each other to keep it alive.

  Zio’s hand slipped from Danielo’s bare chest. “How many do we have?”

  “Fighters? Or in total?”

  Zio glanced around. “Both. We’re going to need every able soul we have if we’re going to retake the compound.”

  Danielo’s expression morphed from grief-stricken to one filled with fury. “Are you fucking serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious. What do you suggest we do? Hide out here until the bad guys get bored and go away? Until the humans get bored of guarding the township and go home, leaving the rest of our people to the same fate as the others?”

  Danielo shook his head. “It’s not possible. There’s hundreds of them in the compound, probably more by now if they were hiding reinforcements at the hospital too. We don’t even have a healer among us.”

  “Not yet. We can bring Devan here.”

  “You want to bring your mate on a suicide mission? Gods, you’ve lost your mind.”

  “He’s not my—”

  “Yes, he fucking is!” Danielo exploded, his shout ringing out around the small clearing. “Whatever the technical state of this bond bullshit, if he comes with us, he’ll fight to protect you and you to protect him, which leaves the rest of us exposed to your bad fucking judgement.”

  Zio flinched, flayed open by the very thought of Devan in danger and Danielo’s clear disgust at his leadership. “We have to do something. If we don’t, the township will fall too.”

  “I know that,” Danielo snapped. Then the fight seemed to drain from him, and he slumped against a nearby tree. “But what can we do? Because it seems to me, whichever way we turn, we’re gonna be wiped out.”

  Wiped out. Decimated. Destroyed. All the terms fit, and each one left a deeper trail of fear to Zio’s heart. His own death he could live with, but not his brothers. His family. His pack. And what about Devan? With Zio gone, who would protect him? Love him? Make him smile that damn-fucking smile that lit up the whole world?

  No. There had to be another way.

  Another wave of wolves made it to the clearing. Zio scanned them with unseeing eyes. The need to separate the injured from those who could fight was as pressing as anything else, but his focus was shot. Danielo was right—he was no leader right now. Perhaps he never had been.

  “The fuck?”

  Danielo’s murmur broke through Zio’s daze. He followed Danielo’s stare to the wolves trooping past them but found nothing untoward.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Danielo pointed at the wolves who’d escaped with them and the ones just arriving. “No injuries.”

  Zio frowned and flicked his gaze between the two groups, one huddled together on the ground, covered in blood and filth, the other without a scratch on them. It didn’t make any sense.

  He grabbed the nearest wolf to him. “Shift.”

  With a fleeting shimmer, a young man carrying pack scent but an unfamiliar face appeared in front of Zio. In human form, the healing scars on his bare skin were clear to see.

  A slow thud began in Zio’s chest. “Who healed you?”

  The kid shot a confused glance at Danielo.

  “Answer him,” Danielo said. “You’re not in trouble.�
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  “It was Devan,” the young man said, as though it made perfect sense. “He healed everyone.”

  A growl burst out of Zio’s chest. “That’s not possible. We left him at the border, and we took all the vehicles.”

  “Yes, but . . .” The young man bit his lip.

  “Go on,” Danielo said.

  “Shadow Clan are faster than wolves. If Devan shifted and followed us—followed you—here, he wouldn’t need a vehicle to catch up.”

  A roar sounded in Zio’s ears. It took him a moment to realise it had come from him. He stepped towards the young northern wolf. Danielo grabbed his arm, but Zio shook him off and seized the boy, drawing him close enough to run his nose up his throat. A scent so faint it was barely detectable sliced through what little composure he had left. He swallowed another pained roar. “What are you saying? That he’s back there? In the compound?”

  The young man nodded. “He was.”

  Was.

  The past tense hit Zio like a speeding freight train. He dropped the boy and whirled around, raw power already surging through him.

  Danielo grabbed him again. “Don’t. If you go, we’ll follow, and we’ll be slaughtered.”

  The conflict that had raged since the very first time Zio had caught Devan’s scent was a sharp pain that lanced his chest. He couldn’t put his family in danger any more than he could leave Devan at the mercy of the savages at the compound.

  He summoned what little remained of his beta authority and laid a hand at the base of Danielo’s throat. “You will stay here and give shelter to any wolf who escapes the compound. Retreat as necessary, treat the wounded if you can, keep the pack safe—”

  “Zio—”

  “Keep them safe—”

  “Zio.” Danielo fought Zio’s superior strength until he fell to his knees with an anguished cry. “Don’t, Zio. Please—”

  “Let him go.”

  Varian’s command cut through the clearing, his authority absolute.

  Danielo crumbled, collapsing in a heap at Zio’s feet. Zio wavered but managed to stay upright and turned to face his alpha.

  Varian was dirty and bloodied, a healed gash on his temple. In his arms he carried Tomas, limp and lifeless.

  His mate was dead.

  “Zio,” he said. “You must do what your wolf commands you to do. Follow your heart. In these dark moments, it is all we have left.”

  “I need to find Devan.”

  “Yes. You do. And you have my blessing.”

  “He’ll be killed,” Danielo said.

  “Maybe. But he will not live if he fails to do all he can to save his mate.” Varian laid Tomas on the ground. “Go, Zio. Fight hard and fight clever. I believe Shadow Clan forces are an hour away. If you can find Devan and keep yourselves alive until then, you may stand a chance.”

  Zio crept through the thick undergrowth at the east of the burning compound. His heart screamed at him to storm ahead, but Varian’s last words kept him hidden. Fight hard and fight clever. Charging the compound would achieve the first, but not for long. The compound was heavily guarded. Even fuelled by wolf-deep instinct to get to Devan by any means possible and lacking the logical thinking of his human form, there were too many for Zio to fight alone, and he couldn’t risk unleashing his gift while he didn’t know Devan’s location.

  With growing desperation, he slunk along the perimeter, scenting the air every few seconds, searching for any recent trails that would lead him to Devan. The air was thick with unfamiliar shifters, with blood and death, but a hundred metres from Varian’s house, he froze, nose twitching. It wasn’t Devan’s scent, but . . .

  Zio followed it out of the bushes in the wrong direction and found Michael at the foot of a tree, bleeding heavily but conscious.

  In a heartbeat, Zio was human. “Did you see him?”

  “Who?”

  “Devan.”

  “No. I didn’t see anyone.”

  Zio took Michael’s hand. “I thought you were dead.”

  Michael hummed. “Me too, but I took the herbs Devan gave out for blood loss. They’re working. Just need a few minutes.”

  Judging by the still-open wound to Michael’s abdomen and the wan tone of his skin, he needed more than a few minutes, but regardless, it was time Zio didn’t have. “I’m alone,” he said. “Varian, Danielo, and some others are gathered in the forest. I don’t know if they’ll be able to launch a counter-attack any time soon. Tomas is dead, Gale, Track, Kate, Ishmail, and Xan. All of them.”

  Michael shook his head. “No, not Gale. I felt him, I think . . . from a distance. He was alive.”

  “He was here?”

  “Somewhere. I don’t know. Not Vicky, though. I found her outside the intel building. Maybe he was looking for her.”

  Zio closed his eyes, committing the information to his brain to deal with later. His heart ached for his pack, for his family, but he could do nothing for Vicky now, and with no clue to Gale’s whereabouts, he couldn’t help him either.

  “Z, there’s something else.”

  Zio refocused on Michael, squeezing his hand tighter. “What? What is it?”

  “Vicky. She wasn’t killed in a wolf fight . . . she was shot . . . with a gun.”

  Michael’s eyes fluttered. Zio shook him. “Are you sure?”

  “I smelt it—gun smoke.”

  Zio sniffed the air and found nothing he hadn’t smelt before. But . . . “We saw them. On the drone footage. They had guns and a silencer.”

  Michael nodded. “And they’re not afraid to use them, even though the humans are all over us. It’s like they’ve lost all reason.”

  Zio agreed, but he’d run out of time. “I have to go.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Soon, brother.”

  “As soon as you can walk, you need to get away from here. Get to the clearing by the oak glade. Find the others.”

  “I will.”

  “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Go, Zio. You have to find Devan, no matter the cost. Find him and come back to us. Make our pack whole again.”

  Zio stood and, after a lingering glance back, shifted and darted for the undergrowth again. The air still held no trace of Devan’s scent, but as Zio circled the compound, whispers of it reached him. Devan. He called out with every instinct he had, but there was no reply. Desperation clawed at him, the primal need to find his mate overwhelming his wolf. He had no idea how Devan had come to be in the compound or what had happened to him since, but of one thing he was certain, Devan was in danger. Every thud of his heart and twist of his gut confirmed it. Something’s wrong.

  A silent howl burst from Zio’s chest. Hold on. I’m coming.

  Devan lay on the ground, his head pillowed by flesh that wasn’t Zio’s or Dash’s or anyone else he’d ever sought comfort from before. His mind was thick with pain and grief, not all of it his own, but beyond his links with any nearby wolf, something else simmered. A fog he couldn’t shake. I’m dying. He couldn’t say why or when, but every facet of his being—human and beast—knew it.

  A cool hand touched his face. “There’s fighting not far from here. I think your mate has come back for you.”

  Devan could no longer speak, and he’d given up denying that Zio was his mate hours ago. The southern female—Mari—didn’t care for his arguments.

  “The technicalities don’t matter anymore. You’ve claimed each other, whether you know it or not, and this won’t end until you’re together or you’re both dead.”

  At this point, death seemed the most likely conclusion. Agony racked him, shuddering through his body in angry waves. Mari tried to soothe him, but her touch was alien, her compassion inexplicable to Devan’s jumbled mind.

  He drifted, straining his ears when it sporadically occurred to him to try and hear what Mari could hear. But it was no good. As he faded out a final time, he remembered that the abandoned bunkers Varian’s pack had hurriedly rep
urposed to house Mari were sunk into the ground, designed from wars past to mask sound and scent. Even if Zio was still close enough to find him—if he’d survived the assault on the compound long enough to pick up Devan’s scent among the chaos of the battle—the chances of him tracing Devan to the cells were next to zero.

  I’m gonna die underground in the arms of a wolf from the wrong pack.

  Devan’s scent was everywhere. Strong and perfect, it seeped into Zio’s senses, pulling him forward, step by step, as he fought to stay downwind of the enemy wolves guarding the compound. Our compound.

  Fresh anger flared in his veins, tainted by the vengeance that had carried him from the border to the moment he’d realised Devan had followed him, but he swallowed it. Owned it. Only the rare patience Varian had battled to instil in him for moments like these kept him from breaking cover and slaughtering every enemy wolf he found until they cut him down with their damn-fucking guns.

  Devan’s scent was strongest around Varian’s house, in the garden, where Tomas fed the birds every morning. Zio crept as close as he dared, grateful to Varian and Tomas that their penchant for privacy had led them to grow tall and thick conifers around their home. He was pushing his luck, though. A few more paces and his black fur would be visible to the shifters patrolling the garden. In human form, they were vulnerable to Zio’s wolf, but once they’d caught wind of his presence, they wouldn’t be human for long. Take out the biggest dude before he shifts. Bury the rest.

  Zio summoned his powers and set his sights on the hulking shifter by the garden doors. Getting to him required evading the three other shifters between them, but Zio barely glanced at them, his focus so absolute even Devan’s scent faded a touch.

  The respite was fleeting, though. Panic flared in Zio’s chest, but it wasn’t his own. Fear, pain, defeat. And something else too—love, warmth . . . regret. No. Don’t give up. A growl built in Zio’s throat. Devan was close; he had to be for his emotions to be blasting Zio through the connection they’d forged since they’d met. And he was dying.

  Zio knew it like he knew water was wet.