The Trouble with Beasts (Howl for the Damned: Book One)

by D. Fischer

  Once I got them calmed down to make sense of Chip’s results and theories, I wholly agreed with him.

  Jinx, for reasons unknown to me, had bristled further when I sided with my packmate. Shifters cursed by a shaman make more sense in this situation than any other theory she might concoct. She had stormed out before I could demand she tell me what her problem was. Does she think this taints her father’s memory? It was a lot to absorb. Maybe she’s just being stubborn because the evidence is overwhelming. Perhaps she needed to feel in control of a past she had no involvement in but a past that falls on her shoulders, nonetheless.

  Amelia, Chip, and I had agreed that the tribe, or maybe her father, had done something - some kind of curse – to the Bane Pack. This curse is preventing them from shifting. If it were me and my pack, I’d surely seek out someone who could break the curse, and since they’re after Jinx, I’m guessing they suspect she can break it. Maybe even her death could break it.

  Now, alone in my office after I kicked them all out to think, I scrub a hand over my face. They’ll kill her if they get their hands on her. I just know it. The Bane Pack is brutish – kill first, ask questions later.

  I look at the clock. I swear it’s louder, each tick a taunt to the weight of my responsibilities.

  Evo will arrive at any minute. The situation has turned more dire than we first thought, and we plan to discuss how we’ll handle it. Jinx isn’t the only one who’s in danger. If the Bane Pack is roaming the city, everyone is in danger. The Bane often kill for fun, and right now, they have no prize to keep their bloodlust busy. Innocent people could be harmed simply because they don’t have Jinx in their possession.

  A shaman. I snort. A shaman started this all. I know it down to my bones. Jinx’s father, Adriel Whitethorn, was the one who cursed them. Why? Why did her father curse them? What immediate reasons did he have for such extreme measures? I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that the pack stuck their murderous tendencies where it didn’t belong.

  If that’s the case, then I believe Whitethorn’s death wasn’t an accident. The only question is, why didn’t that break the curse he put on them? At first, I believed that the witches had killed him for falling in love with Jinx’s mother, Tabatha. Now, at a second glance with all this new information, I believe the Bane Pack was behind it. I haven’t told Jinx that, though. She has enough on her plate.

  I pick up Amelia’s handwritten notes on Jinx’s family tree. Using mindspeech, I tell Amelia, Damien, and Cinder to track down this so-called sister of Adriel’s. Jinx needs to get a handle on what she is, and the best person to help her do that is someone who shares blood and heritage with her.

  Now? Damien responds testily.

  Do what I tell you, I growl back. Get in the fucking car, and drive to the reservation. Take Jinx with you so her aunt is more willing. Perhaps seeing the daughter of her brother will convince her to help more than your brutish persuasion. The last thing we need is Damien man-handling Jinx’s aunt. That’s not how I want to conduct this.

  A few minutes later, I hear the gentle grate of tires against the gravel, and I sit back to look out the window. Jinx and her escorts are leaving while another car pulls in. Just as the car with my pack disappears around the corner, Evo, Bre, and Jeremy step from their car. Bre is largely pregnant, and I have a hard time looking at anything but the transformation of her body. Her sweater barely covers her belly. I never thought I’d see the day when she would settle down and start a family.

  I haven’t seen much of Jeremy – he’s one of the quiet ones in the Cloven Pack. Bre, on the other hand, I’ve had several run-ins with. I used to pine after her and was turned down at every advance I made. I didn’t know that she was already pursuing her true mate, Ben, the Cloven Pack beta, at the time. I suppose everything works out as it should. I just hope that’s the case for the situation we find ourselves in at the moment.

  I chew on the inside of my lip. I wonder if there ever was a true mate for me before the war. If she died in the war. Or if she’s still roaming the Earth Realm in pack’s unknown to me. If it wasn’t for the changes in our laws of nature, I’d still have to wait for her or die mateless. I can mate whoever I want now, but at this moment, with everything hanging over my head and the nightmares that plague me, I have no desire to find one.

  My wolf snorts inside me, completely at odds with my thoughts. He brings up an image of Jinx in my head. I grit my teeth and grip the arms of my chair tighter. Not a chance in hell, buddy.

  She may be appealing in the physical sense, but mating with a fiery-tempered woman would mean a different sort of battle for the rest of my life, I say to my wolf. This only encourages him.

  It doesn’t take my three friends long before they’re tucked inside the compound. I leave my office, jog down the hall, and descend the steps down two at a time. In no time, I’m joining them at the front entrance. I pull Brenna into a hug, her belly pressing into my abdomen, and then shake Evo and Jeremy’s hands in welcome.

  They take in the front entrance made of plush chairs, gleaming wood coffee tables, and simple short and tall lamps. It truly is a grand entrance with sweeping stairs to the left and right leading to the second floor.

  When Glenda had redecorated this space a few years ago, she made it as homey as possible while keeping the original school’s catholic charm of brick, stones, and polished brass. Long and spacious red rugs lead down the hall behind me. Their patterns are inviting, leading the guests to other areas of the main level.

  Arching grand stairs hug both sides of the sitting room to the second level of the compound, freshly polished if the lingering lemon oil aroma is anything to go by. Honestly, I don’t know how Glenda finds joy in cooking and cleaning.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say.

  “Trouble always follows a woman,” Evo says in a way of dismissal to the inconvenience of being pulled into our situation. Instead of being annoyed, he looks intrigued. Perhaps our situation gives him a break from fatherhood for a while.

  Bre slaps her brother in the chest, and I grin. “That it does.”

  “What’s the plan?” Jeremy asks, rocking on the back of his heels.

  Stepping aside, I gesture for them to go further inside the compound. “I thought we’d discuss it over a sandwich.”

  Jinx Whitethorn

  We were told by the internet that the reservation was fifteen minutes away from the pack’s territory. Convenient. Way too convenient. It sky-rockets my anxiety with little to no time to process any of this or the implications of what my father had done. What he’s been accused of is basically supernatural castration. I’d like to think there’s a good reason for it, but I didn’t know the man. He could have easily bound their wolves simply because he could. Simply because he doesn’t like shifters. It wouldn’t be uncommon for such prejudices between races of the supernatural. And in not liking shifters . . . well . . . that goes against the future that keeps forming in my head despite my best efforts. I’m at home here. I’m myself with friends who understand me on a level that I’ve never had at the coven. For the first time, I have plans for the future here if they’ll have me. If Jacob will have me.

  As we pull away from the compound’s driveway, I let Amelia’s and Cinder’s banter fall over me while I stare out the window in the back seat. Cinder is in front, one hand on the steering wheel with the other fiddling with the car’s GPS screen. Damien sits beside me, pressed against his door in an attempt to make sure our shoulders don’t touch. His smothering agitation about sitting next to me threatens to skyrocket my already high anxiety, and it requires all my concentration to ignore it with the air of bad vibes rolling off his tense posture in waves. So instead of joining their banter, I watch the trees as we pass them at a slow speed and the wolves who watch us from within.

  Once we pull out onto the main road, another car pulls in. I lift myself higher to get a peek at the car. “Sorry,” I mutter to Damien distractedly as my arm brushes against his. He grunts in response.r />
  Cinder and Amelia pay this new car no mind, and Damien’s too focused on his seclusion to see out my window. At first, I believe them to be nothing more than more of Evo’s pack, but when I lock eyes with a man inside this new car, my own gaze travels to the brand on his neck.

  Saliva pools in my mouth, not from hunger or thirst but from an undiluted, sudden surge of fear. I grip the handle of the door so tight that the plastic groans. Cinder, completely oblivious, continues to drive and hold a taunting conversation with my psychiatrist friend about how to approach my aunt.

  “Stop the car,” I whisper. My stomach rolls and rolls, threatening to upchuck my lunch.

  Amelia turns in the passenger seat and frowns. “Why? Did you forget something?”

  “Stop the car!” I shout, and Damien startles at my outburst.

  Cinder does, quietly and calmly pulling to the side of the road. The car jolts when he puts it in Park.

  Pushing the door open, I stumble my way to the ditch, and bile rises and burns in my throat. Vomiting isn’t pretty, but no matter how hard I try to keep the contents inside my stomach, the organ has its own ideas. The sandwich I quickly consumed on my way out of the compound decorates the weeds and grass.

  Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I feel a cold hand rest against my spine, running smooth circles. “Are you okay?” Cinder asks, slightly amused. “Did you get carsick or something?”

  I wrench myself away from him and pivot to Damien beseechingly. Damien is glaring at me. Amelia’s still in the car, drumming her nails against the headrest. “We have to go back,” I plead with them.

  “Why?” Damien asks, his voice a rumble.

  “Those guys,” I pant, pointing down the pack’s driveway less than a quarter-mile away. The sound of the other car is obscured by all the surrounding trees. “It was the Bane Pack.”

  Cinder scratches the back of his neck and looks down at me with a disbelieving expression. Amelia rolls down the window. “The car we passed?”

  Damien’s jaw ticks. “How do you know?”

  I point to my neck. “The diamonds. I saw it on one of the passengers as we passed each other.”

  Amelia climbs out of the car while Damien stares at me, considering, searching. He’s trying to decide if he should believe me or if I’m a frivolous girl looking for danger at every corner outside of the compound. I want to scream in his face.

  “Should we call Jacob and warn him?” Cinder asks quietly. He places his hands on his hips.

  “No,” Damien says firmly.

  “No?” Amelia challenges, her eyes glowing green as her wolf pushes forward to the danger of the situation.

  “No, because it’s too late,” I whisper. Shifters have excellent hearing. If they’re close enough to the pack’s compound, they’ll hear the call. According to Cinder, only alphas can initiate the mindspeech, so that’s not an option either. “I doubt the Bane Pack is there to discuss matters over tea. They came for me.”

  “What do you want to do about it?” Damien asks.

  I blink at him. That wasn’t the response I had expected from him. I expected something along the lines of, “We will give you to them to save my pack the trouble.”

  I wipe my mouth one more time and scan the trees. The shifter eyes that were watching us are no longer there. They must have heard our conversation and took off to the compound. “The only thing we can do.”

  Damien steps up to me and stares at the pack’s territory. “Tell me.”

  Somehow, I get the feeling he’s testing me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Jacob Trent

  “Basically, nothing’s changed then. You’ll continue to protect Jinx,” Evo says and then takes a large gulp of water. The water splashes inside the cup, but it’s quickly drained. Nothing about his tone is accusatory. In fact, it’s taunting. He’s pressing for . . . for what?

  Hovering over the food trays in the kitchen, Brenna and Jeremy glance our way every now and then. I know they can hear us. That’s the hazard of shifter senses – nothing’s a secret. Bre rubs her belly absentmindedly, absorbing the gossip. Perhaps she knows what Evo is pressing for.

  “What are you getting at?” I ask, looking at him down my nose.

  “Nothing.” Evo exhales. “I think the most important thing is to get Jinx to gain some control over her skinwalker magic. You’re right. Her aunt can help her.”

  I scrub my jaw, running the pads of my fingers over the stubble. “Probably. We know Jinx can skinwalk into a wolf, but it makes me question what else she can do. She told me her father could speak to animals or something. Get them to do what he wants by calling to their spirit on some kind of magical level. Order them around as an alpha can to our shifters. At least, that’s what her mother remembers.”

  “That’s something,” he mumbles. “Maybe there’s more that she can do. The question is, when will she be able to control it?”

  “Imagine what she could do if she called upon a shifter’s wolf’s spirit,” he murmurs as an afterthought.”

  I stretch my neck, masking my uncertainty over the topic. “That’s why we’re finding her aunt. They’re hoping their research is true and the lady is, in fact, Adriel’s sister. If that’s the case, they’ll be able to help her more than we can.”

  Evo shrugs. “Who knows.”

  “Time does,” I mumble. Time we don’t have. Time we need. Time is a nuisance sometimes, especially when we have the Bane Pack and their threats to consider.

  A wolf howls outside, faint inside the cafeteria. Evo straightens. “Trouble?”

  I quickly send mindspeech to the wolves running the perimeter. Fast-talking answers pummel the inside of my head, all different variations of the same thing. My wolf’s growing agitation skyrockets my own, and he snarls inside me, shoving himself forward to defend and protect.

  My eyes wander to the table, searching the flat crumb-speckled surface while I sort through the details of the chatter in my head. My heart hammers in my chest, thumping roughly against my ribs. Fear. This is fear.

  It’s happening all over again. The fear through the link. The snarls. The rage.

  I flash back to the memory that circles this fear, to the blood sprays, the creeping vines that severed bodies in two, the screams of beasts from nightmares. All of it – all of it circled in hues of orange, the flames of the dragon so bright. Ash had sprinkled my wolf’s fur, and it took me a long while to realize it wasn’t ash from the smoldering grotesque trees of The Tween but from bodies of the dead.

  The last time I engaged in any sort of attack was the war. And here I find myself again...

  “Evo,” I whisper, glancing up at him. Damn it, my voice shakes. “Take the front of the compound with Jeremy. Send your sister to my office.”

  “What?” Brenna protests, hands on her hips. The action only makes her belly stick out further.

  “You’re pregnant,” Jeremy says to her. He peers at me warily. Ushering her past the tables, he points her down the hall that will lead her to the stairs going up to the hall that holds my office.

  “You can’t help here,” he adds, patting her back lightly. “And Ben would kill me if something happened to you or the baby.”

  “And you?” Evo asks while searching my face. He’s been studying me ever since I had stiffened. “Are you okay?”

  I know he means more than that. He’s wondering why my hands are shaking, why sweat beads across my shaved head and dribbles down my neck.

  No. No, I’m not okay. I thought I was over the hard part of mentally recovering from that war. My body is proving me wrong, threatening to seize control in my panic. I can’t lose any more of my pack. We won’t recover from it. I won’t recover from it.

  I can’t. I can’t!

  With my shifter senses, I smell Rex’s scent and hear the thump, thump, thump of his feet as he descends the stairs at a run. He barrels into the cafeteria, face calm considering what that sort of howl usually means.

  His presence comfor
ts me. Stabilizes me even, reminding me that I’m not back in that hellhole of a war. I’m here. Home.

  My fingernails dig into my palms. You’re home.

  “I’ll be fine. Rex and I will take the back. Don’t let them in, Evo. They’re here for Jinx.”

  “But Jinx isn’t here,” Jeremy says. “Can’t we just show them that?”

  “No,” Evo and I say together. In doing so, we’d be allowing them to take control of this situation. In doing so, they’ll think it’s okay in the future to trample across my land uninvited. They’re not here for a chat.

  I shove my fear down, down, down until it’s nothing but a small sliver of dread in the pit of my stomach. In the kitchen, the click of a shotgun is being cocked. Glenda strides out. Her apron is full of flour, but the weapon gleams under the cafeteria light.

  “I’ll guard your office,” she says. My office and Jinx’s book, she really means.

  Glenda doesn’t shift anymore. Not for fights. She prefers the old method of “You’ll get off my lawn with two legs or in a body bag.” She’s too elderly to challenge younger wolves in a fight, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her uses. I’ve seen her practice with that gun and empty tomato cans. For that reason alone, I’ll never cross the woman.

  I nod to her and huff a breath through my nose as I turn my attention back to the men.

  “They aren’t here peacefully,” I mutter to the group, looking into their eyes and forcing them to see the gravity of the situation. Travis shouts mindspeech, and I relay it to Evo. “One of my wolves already went down.”

  “Killed?” he asks, gripping my upper arm to stay my sway.

  “No, I didn’t feel his pack bond snap. Sam is still alive, just unconscious. He was at the outer edge of the perimeter.”

  Evo runs a hand through his hair in a tugging sort of way. “If Chip’s assessment is correct and they truly can’t shift, it’ll take them longer to get to the compound.”