Survivor

by Sam Hall

  And that fed me somehow, that straightforward expression of affection and lust, the feel of his feathery hair just as nice as the thrust of his tongue, so for a moment, I lost myself in that sensation until he finally pulled away.

  “I want to be worthy of your bite,” he whispered.

  “I know. You will be.”

  “C’mere,” Aidan tugged at my arm, extricating me and pulling me close. My head came to rest in the hollow of his neck, his arms caging me in. “When you… I was going, and I did it because I knew it was for you. I’d made my choice.”

  “And I made mine. I’d do it again, fair warning, just as you would for me.” That quieted them, but there were nods all around. “That’s the way it works to make a pack. We’re in this together. We have each other’s backs.”

  The weird emptiness that had filled me since I came back actually made it easier. My mind had never been quieter, my constant stream of worries silenced. There was only this—certainty.

  I kissed Aidan slowly, letting his taste overpower the persistent one of coppery blood, and then crawled over to Peter.

  “Back where I started,” I said, smiling. He turned up at that, like a flower to the sun, and I stroked that square jawed face, liking the fur like feel of his stubble, the warmth of his skin under my hands. He held me, folding me up small and tight, and holding me as close to inside him as he could. We just listened to the musical sound of kids playing and trees swaying and breeze rattling leaves.

  “Flick, if we’re to be a pack, they need to know,” Sen said.

  I sighed as their focus sharpened, then nodded.

  41

  The day Rick reached Sanctuary was a quiet one. Ophelia and the matriarchs had been notified. We couldn’t risk any other families being used as ‘practice’ even if we knew he was coming for us. So we roamed the night with other packs in shifts, patrolling the streets, watching, waiting.

  “It’s the dark of the moon,” Sen said, glancing at the sky.

  I glanced up at the night sky that felt like velvet on my skin, stroking me, soothing me, bringing my focus back to the world around me.

  “We better stay close to the house,” Peter said. “He’ll come tonight.”

  He wouldn’t come to the house, I could feel that in my bones, but I just nodded and followed them back.

  “Hey,” Cooper said, emerging from the gloom of the veranda, the rest of Aidan’s dads following suit. “We figured we’d need…”

  His words trailed away, but Aidan walked over, putting a hand on his arm.

  “I think we’re all feeling it.”

  “The blokes have emptied out of the singles’ mess, the pub, and the club,” Smokey said. “Every bloke in the town is out on the streets. We’ll catch the fucker, Flick.”

  “No you won’t, but I’ll need you to keep Kade safe. That’s very, very important.”

  “Of course, love,” Cooper said. “I know you need to get involved after what happened, but, sweetheart, you can leave it to us. It’s what us fellas do.”

  “Not this time,” I said, lifting my hands when I felt the stretch in the tips, and everyone saw the claws pushing through. “His sacrifice is mine. It’s how I got back here. I promised.”

  My eyes shone red, I was sure of it, as did Sen’s, and the men stiffened around us.

  “Then I’m calling the boys,” Vin said. “The sons have gotta come home, circle the fucking wagons. I’ll ask some of that tribe of Moira’s to come and provide back up.”

  “Carissa’s too,” Cooper said, flicking his eyes over to the next-door neighbours. “We can consolidate what we have here. If he’s coming for Kade…”

  “He’s coming for someone. The children, protect them,” I said, and then strode up the steps, into the darkened house and down the hall, flinching away from the light burning in the bathroom to open my child’s bedroom door.

  Will he slink inside like this? I wondered, dropping down beside his bed, my hands sliding across the bedcovers. Will he touch him like this? My hands curled around Kade’s. I got no answers, just the steady rhythm of his breathing. I glanced out the window, half expecting to see his silhouette against the glass, but that wasn’t right, was it? Kade was endgame, his prize once he had what he wanted. I got to my feet, striding outside without another look.

  The men were clustered in the driveway, talking in that spare, muscular way they do, leaving me with a feeling of satisfaction that the den, the cub was safe. My pack peeled away from them without saying another word, following on my footsteps, as sure as the beat of my hair on my shoulders as I strode forth.

  Rick wanted me, always wanted me. To annihilate me, destroy me, as I was evidence of something he could not bear. He looked into me as one would a dark mirror and saw all of it—the obvious weaknesses, the pathetic inability to hold his temper, his confusion and fear at his complete failure to self-regulate, his lack of discipline when it came to alcohol and drugs, his vicious words turned in on himself. Every fucking day, he got up and built that flimsy house of cards that was his identity, and I smashed it down by merely breathing.

  I strode down the street, blindly moving away from my home. I would not bring this fight to my son. I’d rip his eyes from his skull before Rick set them on Kade again, let alone anything else. The moon shone so brightly for most of the cycle, bathing all of us in her glow, her love. And that was me ninety-nine percent of the time. I was a mother, a lover, a pack leader, a teacher, a caretaker. But right now? My smile spread across my face, a quite different crescent. Right now, she had turned her face away from the world, shrouding us in perfect darkness that only artificial lights could try to broach. So many monsters of mythology were female, because who was more tied to the moon’s tide than us? My fingers twitched, and my claws clicked dully against each other.

  They stood waiting for us in the central square just outside the fenced off area. Ophelia and several elders of such advanced age, I’d never seen them before, a cluster of matriarchs.

  “Bringing down the moon?” one snapped. “You want one tainted with him working this ritual?” She stabbed a finger at me. “It’s a bloody dangerous thing with proven members of the matriarchy, let alone an outsider. But that man of hers, with those red eyes…”

  “There’ll be more of them,” Ophelia said. “You know that.”

  “So you say,” another woman said. “This Brandon and his pronouncements. I thought all that had dried up for him, that a woman was to take his place.”

  “She will, when she’s old enough.”

  “Why are we doing this? For one woman, one child?”

  “Pfft…”

  The small sound from one of the eldest women, hunched over with age, silenced the group.

  “Simple children. Too soft by half ye are. Think this place was formed on sweetness and light? All loving packs and pretty mates? We knew this was coming. You had many good years with which to come to your power. Now you need to use it. ‘The line remains unbroken, when the balance is returned.’ You always forget the other half of it. Now, this raddled interloper is on the outskirts of town. You can either form the circle and draw him here, or let the diseased workings of his brain decide who he will attack first. This is what being a matriarch means. They have the children, the love, and we have the power. We use it to protect them.”

  My spine pulled endlessly taller as I turned to stare up the long road that led newcomers in through the big gate, then down here to the square. Dark things moved on the road beyond, but I couldn’t see if it was him yet. I heard the women moving around me, linking up hands, caging me and the boys within. Then more footsteps came. Arelia, the woman I’d met at the playground, and her sisters approached on one side.

  “Let the mothers in,” an imperious little voice said, and the circle parted to admit Kiralee, one of my son’s friends.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, walking over, feeling my claws recede, my voice softening. “This is not the place for you.”

  “Isn’t it?” He
r eyes flashed red in the darkness, something that raised a flurry of splutters from the circle. “Crone, mother, maiden. That’s how it’s done.”

  “So it is.” The elderly woman, who had spoken before, hobbled forward with Ophelia at her side. “You know the words?”

  “I heard them in the beat of my mother’s heart, before I was born.”

  “So you did,” the woman said. “I am Flora, child. Your mother will bring you to me after this?”

  Arelia nodded stiffly, but her eyes shone in the low light.

  “But you don’t know the words, do you, Lady Mother?” Flora said, eyeing me. “Nonetheless, we have enough power within us. From death comes rebirth.” Flora grinned, her lined face transforming into a skull. “I’ll go first.”

  The woman’s voice ripped through the still of the night in a hoarse and ragged tone. It wasn’t precisely a song. There was no regular cadence, no determinable rhythm, the sound more a mix between an inarticulate cry and a rasping scream. The guys clustered close to me, and I felt them brush against my skin as my claws reformed.

  “So how does this go down?” Aidan asked in a hushed whisper.

  “We back her play,” Noah replied.

  “Fan out. Flank her. We ring this cunt and bring him down,” Sen said.

  “No, we catch her when she falls,” Peter said.

  “What he said,” I said, and strode forward, the circle fanning out, forming an honour guard as I went. The same ugly beautiful sounds erupted from their throats as I passed, joined by the crystal-clear notes of a young girl’s.

  I wasn’t staying still, waiting for my prey to come to me. I was the motherfucking hunter, and I was taking the threat to my home down. I ran with shadow light feet, my mates at my back, until I sighted him.

  My nightmare made flesh waited under the gate of Sanctuary, his eyes gleaming red. But mine did too. We were each the Black Wolf’s puppets, and we were about to see who was gonna come out on top. He shifted until he stood under a streetlight, the illumination unkind, picking out the ravages his excess had wrought as well as my violence.

  “Hello, Felicity,” he said in his best bad guy purr.

  I narrowed my eyes, noted his fingers twitching in time with mine, and then did the only thing reasonable—I laughed.

  Many have said it was the laughter of women that drove abuse. That we could see all that an abuser was, with his puffed-up facsimile of real masculinity, and find it amusing. But rather than find actual strength in themselves, they used it against us, as if that would stop the world laughing.

  I circled Rick, moving in a lazy loop, inspecting every inch of him. Had he always been so small, flabby flesh with muscles lurking below? Those hands seemed fragile now, not capable of smashing into me, not capable of doing anything, despite the rings of rusty blood under his nails.

  But he did, that was the bitch. So many men got up each day, looked themselves in the mirror, and decided they were OK after hurting, lying, brutalising their partners and kids. I didn’t say “not all men”, that was obvious. I had four of them at my back and a network of them roaming the streets, ready to take down anything that got in the way of their loved ones, and there were millions who’d do the same in your everyday suburban street. But that men like this could be allowed to exist…

  His lips pulled back in a pathetic attempt at a snarl. He had some of what we were inside him, I could see that in the longer fangs, the gleaming eyes, but not enough.

  As always, Rick was gonna fall short.

  “You stupid fucking bitch!” he screamed at me, his voice so shrill.

  Right, so we were back to that then.

  I slid out of the way of his clumsy swipe, leaving him to go careening into Peter, who met him head on and slammed that boulder sized fist into my husband’s face, sending him flying backwards. I watched the moment his skull bounced on the tarmac with a cocked head, but the red in his eyes flared harder, and he was scrambling to his feet moments later. I licked my lips when I saw blood trickle down the side of his face.

  “You dumb slut. You think these fucks you’ve managed to lure in with your sloppy cunt will be enough to stop me?”

  He lunged, then lunged again, which I sidestepped effortlessly. I drove my elbow into his exposed back, arrowing in on the kidneys so he dropped like a stone.

  “Stay down, you stupid fuck,” I said. “There’s something riding you that I need to get rid of.” That was the threat, I realised, not Rick. He was just an insecure, pathetic, abusive fuck. A nice long jail sentence could maybe have dealt with that, but that wasn’t what kept peeling him off the tarmac. It was the thing inside him.

  Lonan, my beast said. The old avatar of the Black Wolf. Twisted, sick thing, his shade does not lie quiet. Exhaust your anger on this man, then bring him to the crone.

  But of course, he couldn’t just lie there and take it, could he? I felt a thrill of excitement as he wriggled out from under my grip. I was trying not to give into the itch in my fingers and cut this lumbering git into ribbons, but he just kept on coming.

  Time to try something a bit more direct, I thought, driving my fist into his stomach as he swiped at me, causing him to careen into Aidan, who caught him with a snap, headbutting him with a brutal efficiency before shoving him towards Noah.

  My pale lover glowed in the pool of light as he held a writhing, sobbing, bleeding Rick at arm’s length. Rick tried with every fibre of his being to lash out at Noah, but my lover just watched him scrabble with a faintly amused expression. One that twisted the longer he looked at him.

  “I don’t need to do anything to you,” he said, awe creeping into his voice. “You’ve done it to yourself. You hurt Flick and Kade. You saw everything that they are and figured the best response was violence. You’re so fucking pathetic, you’re not even worth it. There were so many moments of possible redemption, and you shat on every single one of them. Just die. That’s all you can do right now.”

  He thrust Rick away with a flick of his wrists, sending him careening over into Sen’s hands.

  There was no such mercy in my dark lover’s eyes, his red gaze burning into Rick’s. He held him by the collar, dragging him up to his face so they were mere inches apart.

  “Show me,” he snarled, his voice a full-throated alpha command. The other man went dead still within his grip, then Rick’s mouth curved into an unnatural smile. Because it wasn’t Rick doing the smiling, I realised. He laughed, spitting blood on Sen’s face, but he refused to look away. “Show me!”

  I knew what Sen was seeing by the change of expression. I felt a pang of something I hadn’t for a while, not since I’d seen Aidan on the table—of loss. Every time Sen saw me going forward, this would be there. All my current strength and badassery would be lost under the avalanche of memories. Of Rick’s cutting remarks and laughing put downs, his mates cackling like hyenas. Of petty tyrannies, of inspections of my ‘work,’ of aspersions about everything, including my sexual performance, housekeeping, and value as a mother. And of course, the physical abuse, me screaming, crying, begging. I strode across the space as Sen’s hand raised, his lips pulled back in a snarl.

  “Yes…” a voice said, but it wasn’t Rick’s. “Do it!”

  And that’s when I knew where I fitted in all of this. It wasn’t my revenge trip, my turn to pummel the ever loving shit out of Rick. The Black Wolf could have killed any of us if he tried that day at the waterhole, but it hadn’t been him. It was this Lonan, and he wanted Sen to commit this act of violence for a reason.

  Power, my Tirian said. Power to take a more acceptable avatar.

  “Sen,” I said in a low growl, but he wouldn’t look away, his hand shaking with the effort of holding back. “Sen!”

  I’d never used an alpha’s whip before, but I heard my voice crack over the whole square. When he looked up, Sen’s eyes had gone to grey, haunted now with shadows that hadn’t been there before.

  “Sen, this is what he wants, whatever is inside Rick. He wants you to kill him
. You’re the one he’s wanted all along.”

  “But he… He…”

  “I know, love. I was there. I went through it and I was strong enough to get past it, and so will you. Give him here.”

  “I’ll keep coming for her. Her son, her—”

  My fingers slapped over Rick’s face.

  “And my little dog too? Shut the fuck up.”

  I hauled him away from my pack, trying not to be too happy when my claws dug into his skin. He screamed the whole way, thrashing like a little bitch, past the women until I reached the square.

  “You relinquish your right to vengeance?” Ophelia asked when I brought him before her, Flora now holding a silvery sickle of a knife.

  “You can put an end to what’s inside him?” I replied.

  “For now,” Flora answered, stroking the handle of her knife. “Until there is balance, there will be threats like this.”

  “Sounds all very Jedi,” I said. “Fine. The Black Wolf asked for him as a sacrifice, for bringing me back. Let's give him over.”

  If I was a better woman, I’d have some sort of kumbaya moment where I got Rick separated from Lonan, put him on the path of rehabilitation, and he went out into the world a changed man. I didn’t. He was broken, Lonan was broken, and if they were the coin I had to pay the ferryman with to stay with my pack, it would be paid.

  “The mother is love, nurturing, but she is also dark,” Flora said with a witchy smile. “She is the animal swallowing her young whole, crunching them between her teeth.”

  “Right fucking now she is,” I said. “Let’s get this done.” I stamped down on his hand when he started trying to claw at my feet.

  If I thought the sounds the women made were ugly before, they were damn near satanic now. Kiralee and Flora muttered dark imprecations over the backdrop of humming from the other women. Arelia came forward, placing her hands on her child’s shoulders. I knelt down and pushed Rick’s chin back, knowing somehow what was coming. The blade darted down like an arrow from heaven, slitting his throat, the blood spurting black in the darkness and quickly pooling on the concrete below us.