“Whatever it turns out to be, we will figure it out.” In one, smooth motion, Forest had his shirt off, his defined muscles rippling in the sunlight. His body was any straight woman’s dream. They all were.
While the rest of them worked to rid themselves of their clothing, Addie spoke hurriedly, before Forest could unzip his pants, “I’m coming with you.”
Forest debated on this, as if he could truly forbid her from coming. “Fine,” he said. “But this time, we’re running there. Try to keep up.” To Dylan, he said, “You should stay here and rest. I’ll keep an eye on her, better than I did last time.”
Dylan acted as if he wanted to come, but Maze moved to his side, touching his brother’s uninjured arm. “I will keep her behind me, Dylan. If I see her hurt, I’ll pull her back.” Addie shot him a glare at that, but Maze ignored her, focusing on his brother. “And I will run slow for her.” He grinned.
“Protect her,” Dylan pleaded.
“You know I will.”
Okay, everyone was getting a bit too serious. Plus, way too naked. Addie saw too many packages before turning away, before they shifted into their wolves. Maze gave her a soft bump on the side as he whispered, “Can’t wait for the day when you don’t act like me being naked is the worst thing in the world.”
Just because the others had shifted did not mean they couldn’t understand what Maze had said, which mortified her beyond all belief. Addie felt her cheeks burning, and she managed to say, “You’ll be waiting a long time.” A total, huge, unbelievable lie because she already liked him being naked.
It was just…it was too soon for that, and she wasn’t the most experienced girl around.
It didn’t matter how she responded to Maze though, because by the time she’d said it, he was already on all fours, furry and muzzled. Nearly a dozen wolves stood near her, and while she might’ve felt odd about it a few days ago, she was more than fine with it. Each wolf’s fur was the same color as his hair, the eyes a more metallic hue but still much the same. They were all unique and strong in their own right, though none held a torch to the presence Forest had.
Forest was the only pure black wolf around, the tallest and the widest. A loud exhalation puffed from his nostrils, and then he was off, dashing away. The rest of the scouting party followed him, and Maze kept his word and hung back, trotting along Addie’s run.
She might not have been as fast as the wolves, but she was faster than she was before. Perhaps it was due to her knowing what she was, to her self-awareness of her inner wolf, but she was quicker on her feet, able to run for longer before becoming winded. It was the same feeling she had that morning, when she’d sprinted to her pond.
Running like this, feeling the wind caress her skin, she felt free.
Maze ran beside her, tossing her looks every now and then, probably to make sure she was all right. And she was. She was better than all right. Honestly, Addie felt great, despite where their destination was. If she felt this good running with wolves while she was human, how much better would it be when she was shifted?
They ran around the lake, trailing alongside the crystal-clear shore for as long as they could before it grew rocky, then they dashed into the forest, a single unit, with a slightly lagging tail made up of Addie and Maze. Soon the trees began to block out the sun, and they took the familiar path Addie and they had made the day before.
Things happened, changed so fast around here, didn’t they?
After a while, right when Addie started to wonder if maybe the barrier was gone, she felt it. A jab in her lower stomach, a knife cutting through her. It caused her to stumble, and Maze barked, alerting the pack. The other wolves slowed, turning their heads to look at her, their wolfish gazes curious and confused. Forest and Maze were the only ones who were not.
“It’s still here,” Addie said, moving a hand to her stomach, as if it would stop the pain. It wouldn’t, and the farther they went, the closer they got, the worse the pain would be. “Let me go first.”
Forest’s blue eyes squinted, like he wasn’t so sure about letting her take the lead, but soon enough his head bowed a few inches.
The group of wolves parted, allowing Addie to move between them. Maze followed her, though he hung back three feet. With each step she took, her skin flared, the temperature seeming to double. Suddenly a thousand knives poked her stomach, every organ inside of her. Her heart constricted, and she had to close her eyes.
“It’s right there,” Addie said, pointing to the ground before her. Each word she spoke came up like a razor blade, searing up her throat and cutting her tongue. It took every ounce of strength inside of her to remain standing, to stop herself from falling over and collapsing. Letting the pain take her over would be the easy way out, and she would fight this, fight the owner of that creepy voice, until she could fight no more.
Maze nudged a rock, rolling the stone near Addie.
She could not bend over—because if she did, she knew there would be no getting back up—but she did manage to kick the rock and send it towards the barrier. Addie wasn’t sure what she expected to happen, but she knew she wasn’t anticipating nothing to happen.
Fire, a little explosion, something invisible making the rock roll back to her. Anything.
But nothing happened.
The rock slowly rolled to a halt, stopping five feet in front of her. It rested on the dirt, wordlessly mocking her as much as an inanimate object could. Addie clearly didn’t know much about magic.
Forest didn’t need to be human to give instructions, or maybe the other wolves just knew what to do. They broke apart, sniffing, looking, searching for any hints and clues, though none of them went toward Addie. Behind her, Maze barked, trying to tell her to back up, to move out of the pain-filled area, but Addie was too busy realizing something.
The pain, while still there, had lessened. It lessened enough for Addie to straighten her back out and study the area before her. Something tickled the back of her neck, her hair waving in a wind that was not there. And then, deep down, she knew. She knew she had to keep going, to move forward.
Something was calling her.
Addie took a step forward, one foot in front of the other, over and over until she walked through the barrier. An invisible shield she could feel, something she knew nothing of, and whatever knowledge she had was instinctual. She knew she was through the barrier, knew she’d walked through it, because she just…knew.
A primal instinct, something that did not belong to her wolf.
She stopped the very same moment the pain dissipated completely, pausing to turn around, hoping to see Maze had followed her. He didn’t. He stood ten feet back, whining and pawing at the ground. He did not take a single step forward, and his eyes were unfocused, like he couldn’t see her.
“Maze,” Addie said, “can you hear me? Can you…see me?” She thought not, considering how he kept whining and shifting his gaze around. She crossed the barrier and those on the other side couldn’t see through it.
This magic stuff was weird.
Addie knew she should turn around and go back, but whatever instinct she’d followed through the barrier continued to call her. Almost as if she had no control over her body, she turned and kept walking. Her feet practically dragged as they went, because though she knew she had to carry forward, a nagging suspicion told her mind she would not like what she found.
Within ten minutes, the forest gave way to a small field. The trees had been sawn at their trunks, grass sprouting between their root systems, tall and unkept, weeds galore. Thirty trees, maybe more, all cut down, for what? She wondered. The area was nothing but woods, a forest with no city nearby. Who would cut down the trees? Who would want to live out here?
Her gut twisted, and not in a good way, once the stumps were well behind her. Addie knew she would not like what she found, but she had no idea just how bad it would be. She’d stumbled into the messiest of messes, the one who’d been plaguing the pack.
Even if she could tur
n around, it was too late.
He had her.
Chapter Eighteen
It was…a massacre. A gravesite. A cemetery with rows and rows of hand-crafted crosses, haphazardly stuck in the dirt, each above what Addie knew was a grave. The cemetery sat just beside the rows of trees that had been cut, an eerie feeling settling in the back of Addie’s head. All of those crosses belonged to wolves, to shifters that would’ve been her family, had they not been taken away by some madman.
Addie turned her head away, unable to keep looking at the makeshift gravesite. She felt an intense sadness rising inside, a deep sorrow because she knew those wolves had families, friends, people in the pack who cared about them. None of them deserved to be here.
When she looked away from the hand-carved crosses, she spotted a small log cabin laying in the center of the field. The reason for all the cut-down trees. Someone had made a home here, hunting these wolves. Someone who could use magic to keep himself hidden—the man that had spoken to her in her vision.
The door to the cabin was closed, but when she looked at it, it slowly swung open, inviting her inside. From the outside, it looked to be a simple cabin, though when she moved closer, she saw there were no windows, and only the one door. Odd.
Addie felt her skin crawling. Turning back was not an option. Even if she could have—which she seriously doubted she could if she tried—she would never know what lay within the cabin, because clearly the wolves could not cross the barrier. Only she could. But why?
What was so special about her?
Within a minute, Addie stood before the door, hesitating. Inside, the cabin looked black, full of shadows. No lights at all. It had to be another trick, more magic. An illusion. Heaving a heavy breath, she stepped over the cabin’s threshold and into the shadows. And, just as she suspected, the shadows did not remain dark.
The moment she walked in, the inside of the cabin came to life, like someone had just turned on a light, flicked a switch. A metallic, gross smell entered her nose, assaulting her senses and causing her to gag. Even without a wolfish sense of smell, she knew what it was, primarily because she could see it coating every surface in the cabin. A three hundred square foot space, windowless and bare of furniture, all coated in blood.
Blood. So much blood it was all she could see. Thick in the air, some of it dried, some of it fresh. Addie could nearly taste it with each breath she took. It was the blood of dozens of shifters, tossed about like twenty crime scenes thrown into one.
A fireplace sat on one wall, though there had been no chimney or brick outside. The fire burning inside it was a dark red, the same color the moon had turned in her vision, the same color as the fog. The flames danced in the air, burning nothing. No wooden logs or sticks. Everything in this cabin was kept alight by magic.
Addie wanted to turn on her heel and walk right back out, but something in the corner stopped her.
A cage. The only bit of non-red in the cabin’s lone room, no bigger than a dog cage. And inside it sat a wolf with scraggly brown fur matted in red. It rested on its side, its chest slowly breathing, meaning he was still alive—barely.
Landon.
Addie moved to the cage, falling to her knees before it. “Landon,” she whispered, trying to pry open the metal gate. Though she could see no padlock, no lock at all, the bars would not budge. She watched as his blue eyes opened, slowly as if it was painful for him to do it. And, judging by the wounds and cuts on his furry body, she knew it was.
No matter how much she shook the bars, no matter how she rattled and pulled at the door, she could not open the cage. And Landon was in no state to help. Addie didn’t know him, and the first impression he’d given her had been a downright awful one, but her heart ached to see him like this. He was this badly injured, his spirits this low, after being gone for not even a full twenty-four hours.
What kind of monster could do all this?
“I’m going to get you out,” Addie said. His blue eyes closed, as if he didn’t have the strength to keep looking at her. Somehow, she added to her thoughts. She would somehow get him out and back to the pack. Maze and Dylan would be devastated if he didn’t come back, if death took him in its cold embrace. “I’m going to…” She was going to say find a way, but heavy breathing behind her stopped her short.
Rough, ragged breathing, harsh and violent in each inhale and exhale. It sounded like it came from a monster. Which was ridiculous, because there were no monsters here, save for the man who did this. There was only Addie, Landon, and—she discovered as she stood and turned around—a second wolf.
Addie stood, staring at an unfamiliar wolf. Bared teeth, fangs dripping in saliva. Narrowed green eyes, their metallic sheen full of anger and hatred. Ashy blonde fur on a body she’d never seen before. And she’d most definitely remember seeing him. The crazed glint in his green-eyed stare would’ve been a difficult thing to forget, not to mention the scar under his throat. It was like someone had tried to tear his throat out, but he somehow survived. What fur had grown over the old wound was thin and spotted, mostly unable to grow over the scar tissue.
The new wolf lunged, snapping at her. Addie jerked back, stumbling to the right, trying to evade it somehow, maneuver around it until she could reach the door. If it had remained her and Landon, she would’ve found a way, but now, as it was, she didn’t trust this new wolf not to bite her, not to scratch her.
Not to kill her.
Not dying was definitely on her agenda for the day.
The wolf trailed her, lunging and snapping its strong, vicious jaws, though it never came in contact with her skin. It wasn’t trying to kill her. Addie moved along, not once giving the beast her back, fearing if she did, it would end her. She wasn’t ready to die.
Its hackles were raised, its nose scrunched as it feigned a bite to her left ankle. Addie recoiled, stumbling back to doge it, thinking the wolf was truly going after her, but something a few inches off the ground behind her caught on the back of her foot. Something cold and hard.
Addie fell onto her butt, seeing for the first time a human-sized cage. She’d tripped on the bottom of the cage’s front. It was a cage that was not here moments ago, a cage Addie definitely would’ve seen when she studied the inside of the cabin. Landon was only a few feet beside her, stuck in his own cage, though his eyes had opened again, and he’d watched the new wolf corner her. She was too freaked out to wonder if he was only curious or concerned for her.
Before Addie could scramble to her feet and get out of the cage, the scarred wolf darted to the open door, pushing its head against the bars and slamming it closed. She heard a lock mechanism click in place, and even though she crawled to the door and rattled it, she knew she was screwed.
There was no getting out of this now.
“Good boy,” a male’s voice entered the cabin, and Addie looked to the door. Under its frame stood a man dressed in all black. A suit, crazy enough. His hair was oiled and slicked back, his face painted all black, save for a single white stripe down the center, from the top of his forehead to the bottom of his chin, traveling further downward along his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. His eyes were a dark brown, blending in.
The scarred wolf’s tail tucked between his legs, his ears bending down a bit. Even the wolf was scared of the man, and Addie totally understood why.
“I call him Rufus,” the man said, moving closer to the cages, primarily the one Addie was in. The wolf moved aside, sitting on its haunches near the fireplace, watching the man. “Found him a few years ago, all alone, without a pack. I thought, perfect. Here comes a wolf, practically gift-wrapped to me. He’s just what I need.”
Addie wasn’t quite sure where this story was going, but she knew she could not interrupt him. To do so, she knew, would be most unwise.
“But what I needed from him, I just couldn’t get. You see, whatever Rufus went through in his past, well, it severed the link between his wolf and his shifter side. Stuck as a wolf, the poor thing
. But—” The black-faced man held up a single finger, and Addie noticed one hand was gloved while the other wasn’t. His visible hand was painted black just like his face. “—I thought, he would make a great guard dog.” He laughed. “Do you know how easy it is to control a wolf? Pathetically easy. Would you like to see?”
The man turned to Landon. His dark eyes flashed a bright red, glowing the same color as the magical fire. “Stand.”
In his cage, Landon clumsily got to his feet. Even his stomach and chest were littered with wounds, and Addie felt the courage to shout, “Let him go.”
“Now, I’m not finished with my demonstration,” he said. To Landon, “Turn around, counterclockwise, and then ram your head into the bars as hard as you can.”
“No,” Addie said, but she couldn’t stop him. She watched in horror as Landon spun around and then body-slammed his head against the cage so hard he knocked himself out. She’d stumbled into the lair of a madman who took joy in other’s pain. Maybe it was the pessimist in her, but she had a feeling she would not escape this place unscathed.
The man’s red eyes returned to brown, and he looked at Addie with a smile, startlingly white against the black-painted skin of his face, though his teeth matched the brightness of the single white line. He looked to be about thirty, though it was hard to tell with all the paint. “It is remarkable what we can do with a bit of blood. I am not closer to finding what I came here for—until you showed up, anyways—but I’ve gotten remarkably good at making wolves listen to me.”
Addie glared at him. Beneath her lungs, her heart beat rapidly, so fast she thought it might just pop out of her chest and run away. That’s what she felt like doing, anyway. Running seemed like a very good option right now, an option which was also currently unavailable, given the cage around her and the wolf that would chase her down if she managed to get out.
Limitless: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Crystal Lake Pack Book 1) Page 14
