“You made a huge mistake not getting away from here.” Cabh’s voice was low, almost a whisper. “Just as I’m making one coming to find you. You need to go back to the den, grab your mate, and run for your fucking life, brother. I don’t know if it’s already too late to save her.”
Dread pooled in Dubh’s belly. In the ten feet between them, he shifted as he pounced on Cabh, his hand closing around his brother’s throat and squeezing hard. “Explain yourself, Cabhan.”
Eyes dull and listless, Cabhan didn’t resist the Alpha’s iron grip. “After I ran, I followed Mal’s trail. Picked up Killian’s along the way. There was a small pack about three miles away, outside your boundaries. Killian and half a dozen lackeys from Fergus’s pack.” His breath shuddered out. “Malachi has been accepted back into the fold, has settled into position as Killian’s right-hand wolf. I have not been accepted, because I asked you to let me redeem myself. They’ve held me captive since the day I ran, starved me, beaten me for sport while they waited for today.”
Pity welled inside Dubh for his brother’s plight but he refused to let it show. Cabhan made his own bed, just as Malachi had. There was no returning to Dubh’s pack now. “What’s today?”
Cabhan closed his eyes. “Killian called for reinforcements. Fergus himself has travelled over from Ireland and brought with him two dozen wolves. They want Raine, Dubh. I don’t know why, but you were right when you said she is the reason for everything.”
“Fuck. They’re here?” The change sprang over him, rapidly thrusting the wolf back into position.
“They were preparing to move out as I escaped. There’s confusion in organizing that number of wolves and I took advantage of it. Malachi has orders to kill me,” Cabh added somberly. “He won’t hesitate to do so. I was headed for the den to warn you when I picked up your fresh scent, but I’m leaving now. I don’t belong with either pack so it’s time I found my own. Go save your mate, Dubhlainn, and run as fast and far as you can before you even pause for breath. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the brother you d-d-deserve...”
A strange expression flickered over Cabhan’s face, shock and relief wrapping into one. He staggered back a step, further into the bushes behind him, and the strong smell of raw flesh and blood hit Dubhlainn’s nose like a sledgehammer an instant before Killian’s foul odor snaked into the clear air.
Amber eyes, already dying, met Dubhlainn’s as Cabh mouthed, “Run.”
He paused an instant too long, mired in grief so acute it almost brought him to his knees as the light in Cabhan’s eyes extinguished. He heard the rending of flesh an instant before his brother’s torso tore asunder in a shower of blood and gore, dropping to the ground almost in two separate pieces.
But it wasn’t the white wolf staring at him from its hiding place in the bushes, Cabhan’s body between them. Dubh accepted the shock of seeing dark green eyes gleaming maliciously at him from a pelt as black as his own and threw back his head to howl.
Malachi licked blood and flesh from his claws nonchalantly, then transformed as though murdering his own kin hadn’t just etched a black mark into his soul. “Such a shame Cabhan’s loyalty came into question, isn’t it? I knew when he came crawling after me, he wasn’t to be trusted. Did you not take his warning seriously, big brother?”
Dubh sniffed again, confused for a moment until something clicked into place in his head. Malachi’s scent was muted, masked beneath that of the pack assassin, but they were the only foreign odors he could smell. Warily, braced for an attack, he shifted until he faced Malachi in human form. “Must be lowering, Malachi, to find yourself in the position of fucking a mute albino wolf to gain authority within the pack. I’m assuming you take it up the ass and not the other way around.” Dubh rubbed his chin thoughtfully as Malachi’s face filled with angry red heat. “Yeah, I can see that. Only a pussy would murder his kin in cold blood by stabbing him in the back.”
“Fuck you, you sanctimonious prick!” he snarled viciously, hands fisting at his sides. “Killian has so much planned for you, Dubh. For you and that bitch you call mate. We have her, you know. Almost as soon as you left your den and your whore, Father’s team went in to...retrieve her. They’re waiting for you to begin the festivities.”
Even as horror filled him, Dubhlainn kept his cool. Regardless of whether or not Malachi was lying to get a rise out of him, he wasn’t going to be anything less than an Alpha. Raine wasn’t alone, and Quinn and Finn would fight to the death to keep her from harm. “Fergus’s team,” Dubh replied coolly, his brother’s reference to their father not overlooked, “will not live to see the sun rise if they’ve harmed her.” He shifted his weight as Malachi came forward, his toes touching the corpse at his feet. “Same goes for you, boy.”
“Already had that cunt, brother. Wasn’t anything special.”
He didn’t flinch, didn’t let the barb slide under his skin and stick. But regret for ever letting this piece of shit lay a hand on Raine sat heavy in his gut. Never again. He just chuckled darkly, letting his wolf linger beneath the surface, ready to shift at a moment’s notice. “Bet you lay there on your hands and knees, taking Killian’s cock down to the knot—or do you let him go all the way—and imagine fucking my pretty little mate while you whore yourself into a pack that’s yours by birthright anyway. You’re a fool, Mal. A reckless, ignorant fool and I’m not playing fool’s games tonight. Fergus wants me, he can have me.”
Malachi was almost purple with rage, yet not one word of denial crossed his lips. His breath came in rapid pants that whisked away on the slight breeze, and he snarled like a cornered bear under the heavy breathing. “It was never you he was after.”
Enough! Dubhlainn’s wolf screamed the word, deafening him. It yanked control from his grasp, leaping at Malachi without pause, shifting in mid-air. They collided with a nasty thud, the wolf slashing and biting Malachi’s vulnerable human form with all the ferocity of a rabid animal. It cared not this was their brother, born from the same womb, cut from the same cloth.
It wanted the blood of the one who threatened their mate, and it took what it wanted.
Through the wolf’s eyes, Dubh watched his brother try to shift, saw the ripple of fur wash over his shredded flesh. But as the shift healed his wounds, Dubh’s wolf made more. Blood splattered, muscles ripped with hideous force. Malachi’s screams were drowned out by the wolf’s furious growls and Dubhlainn was thankful Cabhan’s death had been quicker, less painful.
This was as horrific as it was just.
Rather than going for the quick kill and ripping out his throat, Dubh’s wolf unleashed all its frustration and rage on Malachi by attacking his weakest area. Screams turned to gurgling whimpers and whines as the wolf tore out intestines and vital organs, all but flinging them from his carcass like a toddler tossing toys in a tantrum.
In the space of ten minutes, Dubhlainn realized he’d lost two brothers. Two members of his family, two segments of his life and his memories. Yet he only felt harrowing grief for one of them. He tried to rein in the wolf as it mauled Malachi’s lifeless body—there was no sense in desecrating the corpse, it no longer housed the damaged soul that had been Malachi.
But the wolf had other ideas. It dropped the body and spun, bounding along the pathways blindly, urged by some signal Dubhlainn didn’t understand. They covered ground quicker than they ever had before, the beast driving itself into a frenzy the faster they ran.
As they drew close to home, Dubhlainn smelled the upheaval around his home. Fear, anger, and the signature trails of numerous unwelcome wolves. A few of them he vaguely recognized from Ireland, but most were new to his nose. Charging through the trees, he skidded to a halt on the edge of the woods and simply stared.
Cabhan hadn’t lied about the number of wolves at Fergus’s disposal, and he hadn’t lied about the Alpha of the Galway pack being present. It eased Dubh’s heart to know his brother had been honest in his last moments and had tried his best to offer help at the end.
Fergus s
tood large as life in the middle of the yard, flanked by Killian on one side and a big red mutt on the other, both in wolf forms. In front of them, Quinn and Finn knelt, apparently unrestrained. Quinn sported a black eye and split lip, and Finn’s torso was coloring with bruises from fists, but otherwise they seemed more pissed than hurt.
But Raine...fuck, she was a vision.
Naked, she struggled viciously against the hand collaring her throat, kicking and clawing at Fergus without thought for her own safety. Her body was too pale, shivering in the cold, but it wasn’t deterring her from trying to do his father some damage.
And surrounding them all...a good thirty wolves, some in shifted form, some in human. Outrageous odds but Dubhlainn was willing to accept them if he could get Raine out of harm’s way before the fighting erupted and sucked her into the violence of a pack war.
“Dubhlainn, my lad! So glad you could join us this evening after you rudely declined my offer to return home.” Fergus spoke jovially, and to the casual observer might seem earnest in his welcome. But Dubhlainn knew that tone of voice, saw thick fingers tighten around Raine’s throat and lift her an inch higher. “We have a couple things to talk about after so long apart, but I won’t be keeping you long.”
Dubh’s claws dug into the earth.
“Where to start, lad? Congratulations are in order, so I hear. Claiming a mate is a rite of passage, and she’s a little bit of a looker, isn’t she? Got some fighting spirit in there too; the feisty ones always make the best fucks and the best mothers.” Fergus laughed as though he’d cracked the funniest joke of the year. “Heard she gave you some trouble before she came into heat. Hope you sorted the little bitch out.” He shook her roughly enough that her toes danced in the dirt.
Gray eyes blazed with hatred so keen it should’ve sliced every wolf within reach into cauterized pieces.
Pacing, Dubhlainn assessed the situation as Fergus postured and preened. He was outnumbered completely if he couldn’t get Quinn and Finn on their feet. His chances of victory weren’t much better with them by his side, but he wouldn’t have anyone else fighting beside him for their lives.
With half a strategy in mind, Dubhlainn took a deep breath and asked the wolf to step down. After a brief and unhappy debate, it grumbled fitfully but receded, leaving Dubh standing in front of the one man he’d wished he’d never have to see again.
Some wishes simply weren’t meant to be.
“Take your hands off my mate, Fergus.”
“Oh, it’s Fergus now, is it? I try do right by my children, and this is what I get. The big shot who calls himself Alpha, a guilt-ridden beta, and a fucking holistic pussy. Not to mention the traitor who couldn’t commit to one pack or another. I think the only one of you with spine is Malachi and, judging by the blood on you and his scent, I’m presuming you’ve sent him on his way to hell.”
“We are what you made us, Fergus.” Dubh met Raine’s eyes, saw the terror lurking under her anger and willed her to keep it hidden. Fergus loved nothing more than a female held prisoner by her own fear. “I told you to take your hands off my mate. I won’t ask again.”
A throbbing rumble of discord passed through the ring of wolves. A warning he should heed, he knew, as more than a few of them were creeping forward, ready for the command to attack. He recognized ten of them, older wolves he remembered from times past, and another half-dozen younger ones he thought he’d run with as a teenager. None of them would have his back when this kicked off—they were slaves to Fergus and his regime.
Fergus chuckled and lifted Raine off her feet completely, grinning as she kicked and wheezed. He pressed his face to her neck, breathing deep. When he looked at Dubhlainn again, his amber eyes—twins of Cabhan’s—were dilated with lust. “Mmmmn, there’s nothing quite like the scent of a bred bitch when she’s scared enough to piss herself.” He licked a line along her shoulder, smacked his lips. “You did well, boy.”
Dubh stepped forward, intending to snatch Raine back to him, but Fergus shook his head slowly, his fingers closing hard around her throat and cutting her air off completely as she dangled. Her struggles intensified for a few moments, then slowed.
Hands raised, Dubh stepped back in frustration.
“Always was a smart learner, lad.” Fergus released Raine completely, letting her drop to her knees with a painful thud. “Move, lass, and it’ll be the last thing you do before I rip your legs off. Maybe even your arms. The only thing I need from you is that tight cunt I’ve heard so much about.”
Her head shot up, alarm in her eyes as she met Dubh’s. He watched her fight the urge to run toward him, applauded her. She might not know the monster at her back, but he did. Fergus did not make threats lightly. “Dubhlainn.”
Fergus grunted lewdly. “What a sweet voice. I do believe I’m going to enjoy making it hit the high notes when I breed her.”
An ominous feeling sank into Dubhlainn’s heart, his guts. The wolf salivated, prepared to rip into their sire and end this fiasco. “Fergus, she is bred and she is mated. There are rules even you have to follow.”
“Two years I’ve waited for you to bring home a suitable bitch. Two years of failures and procrastination from all five of my sons. Disappointments, the lot of you. Did you think I’d hand over leadership of one of the oldest shifter packs in the world to a failure like you?”
Dubh scoffed and caught Quinn’s eyes. His brother inclined his head slowly. “I never wanted to be Alpha of the Galway pack, Fergus. The happiest times of my life have been away from the fucking place. Give me my mate and my brothers and fuck off home, Fergus. No one here is a threat to you or yours.”
“You’re not getting it, lad. There’s been a shortage of bitches available to the pack for some time now and we needed an infusion of fresh blood. I sent you five out in the hopes you’d be driven by ambition to hunt down unrelated and compatible bitches and bring them back to the pack where they’d be...distributed to the more loyal members of my council, the ones with lines too old and valuable to lose through inbreeding.” Fergus rested his hand on Raine’s head, threading his fingers through her hair and fisting it tight. “But mistake after mistake, you failed me. Until her. This one is...I might just keep her for myself, fuck a new heir into her belly.”
The wolf couldn’t comprehend the meaning of Fergus’s words, but Dubhlainn could, quite easily. His hands curled into fists, claws breaking through his skin as he fought to keep from shifting. “End me and you kill her, Fergus. This isn’t a win-win situation for you.”
“Oh, I don’t need to kill you or Quinn. Your desire to protect your bitch will keep you in line, I have no doubts. The pussy however...” Fergus raked Finn with a disgusted once-over. “Unless he proves his worth, he’s useless to me. He can spend his last days fighting in the pits. As for your brats in her belly, well, that’s easily remedied, isn’t it? And just in time for her estrus to return in a few days. By the time we return to the village, she should be just about ripe for the fucking.”
Raine yelped as her head snapped back; Dubhlainn gripped his wolf by the scruff of the neck with both hands to hold it in place, but his resolve was slipping.
Wolves howled as Fergus hoisted her to her feet by her hair, spinning her around in a circle to flaunt her in front of his pack like a trophy. Then he yanked her around so she faced him, and Dubh almost warned him not to get too close. But before Raine could react, Fergus grinned and slammed his fist into her exposed belly, chuckling as she gagged and doubled over as best she could with her hair still wrapped around his hand.
“The problem with new pregnancies, especially the ones in the early stages of development,” Fergus said conversationally as all three of his sons surged into action as one, “is that they are so ridiculously simple to abort. Give the host some emotional trauma or just beat the shit out of her, and those little lights inside her wink out without a whimper.” Another punishing blow to her gut, one that stole her knees from under her, and he still kept her upright by her hair alone.
“The only pups coming out of this bitch will be mine.”
The wolf saw red. Hellfire red.
Dubh registered Quinn rolling to the right, shifting through the roll and throwing himself at the massive red wolf guarding him. Finn took a different tactic, lunging up in human form and tackling Raine from Fergus’s hold with a battle cry any warrior wolf would be proud of.
She cried out in pain as her hair ripped from her scalp, but Dubhlainn saw her steel herself against it and bring her attitude into play in the moment before his wolf turned into a berserker and went on a killing spree.
There wasn’t much time to think of anything after that; wolves joined the fray from all sides, and the yard became a bloodbath of fur and gore as teeth and claws mutilated flesh.
Raine ran for the house, disappearing through the front door with a gray wolf on her heels. Even as Quinn swung around to give chase, slashing his claws over the throat of his opponent as another pounced on his back, an inhumane howl cut through the cacophony of the fight and the gray wolf staggered back out, falling off the porch with a small hand axe buried in its neck.
Dubhlainn grabbed a sable-pelted wolf by the scruff, swinging it off its feet and slamming it down hard enough for bones to crack. He finished it off, ripping out its throat, and froze when Raine stomped naked down the porch steps, pausing for the briefest second to yank the axe from the dead gray wolf before stepping back into the chaos with murder in her shadowed eyes.
Finn grappled with Fergus, the boy finally loosing his aversion to bloodshed and taking on their sire with a fury worthy of his beast. Neither Finn nor Fergus had taken wolf form, and Fergus taunted his son with mocking criticism. A seemingly bad move when Finn howled like the devil possessed and smashed his fist into the older man’s shocked face.
Motherfucking assholes.
Dubhlainn’s heart lifted with delight when he heard his mate’s voice inside his head. He wanted to laugh and sweep her into his arms, but there wasn’t time. Bodies of dead wolves were piling up quickly but no one was unscathed; Quinn was bleeding from nasty wounds down his back and flanks, Dubhlainn had bite marks on his haunches and shoulders, and Finn was a bloody painting.
Monsters & Guardians Page 25
