“The Red River pack master?” Lex shot out of his chair. “You let one of our new wolves catch his attention.” He paced in front of Anthony for a moment, resisting the urge to grab his wolf by the neck and pin him to the wall. He knew Kylian’s secret, the one he’d kept from the pack for centuries. Kylian was a god. He’d been looking for a way to drag the man out of the protection of his pack and take everything from him since the day the pack split. Lex wanted what was his. “We’ll fix this.” He glanced at Anthony. He could use this to his advantage. “We’ll have her come here for the full moon. As soon as you go get her. I don’t want you to leave her alone again.”
“She has the choice of joining the pack or not.”
Lex smiled. “No, no she doesn’t. She runs with us; we make her mate you. She knows nothing of us and nothing of our ways. Our pack isn’t like Kylian’s. We follow the old rules, so she follows our rules.” He looked at Anthony who hadn’t moved. “You do want this woman as your mate, don’t you? You’re always pouting when she turns down your offer to move in and make things more serious. You want her.” There was a small demand in his voice letting him know that he was alpha. “She will join you as your mate.”
Anthony nodded. “Yeah. She will, by my side until the end of time.” He clenched his fists. “She was meant to be mine. My wolf wants to devour her in every way.”
“That’s the mating call right there. Forget everything the myths and legends tell you. You’ll be an alpha soon. You take what you want and leave rage and blood in your wake.” Lex clamped Anthony on the shoulder. “So where can we find this woman?”
“All she needed to do today was pick up meds; she always uses the same store just down the road.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “And I think she was scheduled to return to work today, but after last night I don’t think she will.”
“Then we catch her at home. You know her routine well enough. Bring her here, if she doesn’t shift…we’ll make sure to change that.” Lex nodded. “The more wolves in our pack, the better chance we have of taking over Kylian’s pack.” He would just have the wolves continuously attack her until she was infected. Anthony may not have wanted it that way, but that didn’t matter. No, all he needed was more wolves to kill Kylian’s.
3
Ares paced the room, waiting for Julia to get back with Casey. It turned out that Anthony was pretty willing to talk to a wolf who pretended to be a rebel against her alpha. Little did Anthony know, Ares sent her back for information. All Julia had to do was sleep with him to get him to start talking. He wasn’t a fan of using women that way, but it worked, and it was Julia’s chosen tactic. She had strict instructions on what to tell Casey, and the most important of those was not to give away who and what Ares actually was. To make sure that Casey received his human alias, Kylian. Some secrets needed to be kept.
He heard a car pull up outside the pack house and forced himself to stay in the main living room. He sat on the couch, crossing one leg over the other and leaning on the arm, pretending he’d been patiently waiting this whole time. Luckily for him, there were no other wolves around to catch him in his lie.
The front door opened, and he heard the voices of the two women. The scent of fear coming through the air gave him a thrill. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. If he hadn’t been trying to help the woman, he’d continue to terrify her until she gave him information on the Muddy Creek pack, but there was nothing she could tell him. No, it was clear that Anthony wasn’t even going to introduce her to the pack.
Julia walked in with Casey. The woman looked around the large room filled with deep brown couches and chairs scattered around the lounge area facing the wall-mounted television. Her eyes landed on him, and he flashed her a smile. “Hello again.”
“Hello.” She nodded. Julia pushed past her and jumped on one of the couches.
She patted the cushion next to her. “Come sit and chat.”
Ares resisted rolling his eyes. “Julia, why don’t you go for a run while Ms. Mathues and I chat?”
Julie nodded and pushed off the couch. Casey watched the woman walk down the hallway. She turned her eyes back to the man in front of her.
“So you know my last name too, now.” Casey crossed her arms. “Seems that you and Julia know an awful lot about me.”
He nodded. “Anthony is really chatty when he’s a bit drunk and has a one-night stand. You sure picked a winner in your fiancé.”
She clenched her jaw. “He’s not my fiancé. Hell, after tonight he won’t even be my boyfriend. Not after last night.”
So she did have some common sense. “Smart woman.” He bowed his head. “But him chatting Julia up just confirmed everything I already suspected about you. First, I want to offer my apologies. I have reason to believe it was one of my wolves that attacked you.” Admitting fault or mistake was always a good way to open a conversation.
Instead of being grateful for the apology she snarled at him. “One of your wolves? He attacked me for trying to help him. He nearly tore me to pieces, and I was left to die in the forest.” Her voice lost force towards the end of her accusation. “Or…at least I thought…”
“You are correct. He remembers seeing you laying on the ground, bleeding. He couldn’t recall if you were still breathing, but he left you there and didn’t tell anyone until it was too late.”
She sat down slowly, looking away from him as if trying to remember. “I woke up in the hospital. The doctors said that I was bitten by a dog and hit my head when I fell. I was released the next morning.”
“That was two, no, three nights ago. Rapid healing, like you experienced, is common for a werewolf and is normally the first sign of being infected with the lycan virus.” He folded his hands over his knee. “Anthony should have taken care of this. He should have seen the signs.”
She hung her head. “Anthony told me that I wasn’t remembering things right. That I had a bad dog bite and that everything else was an after effect of hitting my head.”
“And you believed him?”
“I didn’t know what to believe. I mean, evidence said that I was only bit once. Not almost torn apart. Hell, the doctor said it was probably a wolf hybrid because there aren’t any wolf packs in Colorado.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, they apparently don’t look too hard. I don’t know what Anthony’s game is, but I don’t like newly changed werewolves walking around town without the help they need. Eventually, they can fall to the madness and end up killing someone.”
“Julia kept mentioning the madness as well. What is that?”
He leaned back and stroked his chin, trying to think of the best way to put it. “In each werewolf, there are two natures at war in your mind, your body and your soul. The constant battle is what a werewolf learns to control, which is a fight to keep the human mind and form, and at some point, it becomes second nature. But, when that victory begins to slip, or in your case, hasn’t been won, the madness takes over, and you become more animal than human.”
“The injured wolf in the forest, he was fighting the madness because of the injury?”
Ares nodded. “A hunter injured him and instinct kicked in. I talked to him, and he had no recollection of attacking you, which meant that his wolf mind was enjoying a victory. He only remembered seeing the aftermath.”
“Is there any way to stop the war? Have perfect control over each part?”
He met her gaze. “Myth says a mate will help with that, but I have yet to experience it, and I’m the alpha.”
“What about others who have mates?”
“They claim to have control, but it may be just because having a mate and having that bond of love makes the battle easier.” He shook his head. “Enough about that though. You’ll be staying here until you gain control.” It wasn’t an offer or a question. It was a command, and he could see from the look on her face she didn’t appreciate it.
“I have a life.”
“You won’t have one if you accidentally eat a human.
” He shot back and stood up. “Trust me; they tend to frown upon violent murders.” He motioned to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. “There are a few other pups that are here right now. So you won’t be alone.” Like new soldiers, they’d all bond together and become more than comrades, but family.
“And how do you expect me to learn to control this?”
“I’ll work with you. Don’t worry. Hopefully, we’ll get you back to a relatively normal life in a couple weeks.” He saw the sadness in her eyes and knew that she was mourning her human life. Imagining what kind of horrors this new world held for her, and for once in his long history of being alpha, he wanted to comfort someone. He reached forward and pulled her into a hug. To his surprise, she buried her face into his chest and started to cry.
Casey pulled away after a couple moments and wiped her eyes. She looked up and began to apologize, but stopped at the awkward grimace on Kylian’s face. He looked torn between shoving her away and patting her head in comfort that didn’t come naturally to him. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s a big change.” He stepped back but kept a hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to help you through this. Like a pack is supposed to do.” He motioned to the hall again. “I’ll show you to your room.”
She glanced back at the front door, debating on running, the new fear of never seeing her home again flooded through her and increased the pain in her head. She put a hand up to it and tried not to gasp at the pain.
“That there, that’s part of the fight. What were you thinking of?” Kylian leaned against the hallway door jamb. She studied the curve of his shoulder that led to the strong muscles of his arm. The way he held himself demanded attention, a predator waiting for his prey to make a move.
What was she thinking about? At the moment, how sexy he looked against that wall. “I…um.” She shook her head. “I was debating on running out the front door.”
“Ah, flight or fight instinct. This makes you feel trapped.”
She looked down at the hall. “I feel like I’m giving up my independence.”
“You aren’t. I want to give you that independence back. Think about your past couple days. The fear you’ve lived in, between trying to figure out what has happened and the lies Anthony told you. This…this is just a vacation so you can get back to life.”
A vacation. To learn how to be a werewolf. “I can come and go as I wish?”
“I’d prefer if you stayed on pack grounds, but if you take someone with you, not another pup, but a more experienced member of the pack, then you can go into town.”
Okay, there were conditions, but…she thought back to her destroyed bedroom. What would have happened if there had been a human there? Yeah, conditions were okay. “Deal. I’ll need to go into town to get some things. Including my computer so I can work from here.”
“That answers my next question about your job,” Kylian muttered. “Okay, Julia can take you back into town, and she’ll have you back here by sundown.”
“Why is that important?”
He grinned at her, and this time something feral showed through. “It’s the full moon tonight. It’ll be your first official time hunting.”
The thought sent a thrill through her, and the pounding in her head eased just a bit. Interesting. The more she gave in to the idea that she could hunt or run, the less pain filled her head. Maybe she really had gone crazy. Werewolves, creatures of the supernatural, they were all just rumors, occasionally something popped up about them on the news, but it was still a faraway world, one that she never thought she’d join. No. She was human and would always be human.
The pain crashed into her so hard that she stumbled. Kylian had his hand on her elbow and one on her back to steady her. She took a deep breath. “Okay, please tell me that the pain gets better.”
“The more control you gain, the less pain there is.”
She nodded. “Okay, then let’s work on control.”
“We will when you get back. Control tends to come a little easier after your first full moon.” He squeezed her elbow gently before letting go. “Let me go get Julia. Your room will be the first door on the left, but feel free to look around the house.”
She waited for him to tell her where she wasn’t allowed to go, but all he did was walk out of the house. She shrugged and walked down the hall, peeking in each door. She found what she expected to find in most houses, a bathroom, a couple bedrooms, and at the very back another common room. This one had fewer couches and more bookshelves. Around the room were paintings of old Greek gods in all of their glory. Pictures and articles also dotted the room in glossy frames. She paused at a picture of a statue. A man standing at attention with a spear and shield in his hand, his mouth parted in a war cry.
Ares. She tilted her head and thought that the marble looked vaguely like Kylian. Maybe that’s why the picture had been taken. She ran her hand over the edge of the frame. The wolves were at war with themselves, he’d said, that there were two souls inside one body fighting for control. In a way, Ares was the perfect god for the wolves as a violent, savage, war torn people. She chuckled. Werewolves had a patron god, how funny.
The more she looked around the room, the more she realized she might have been on the right track. Signs of Ares were all over, from other drawings and paintings of the shield and spear to a few books on Greek mythology.
“This room is a quiet place, a safe zone. Sometimes we need time to ourselves, even as pack animals.” Julia’s voice came in from behind her. “You ready to head back to town?”
She nodded. “The wolf pack has a patron god?” she asked, motioning to the walls. “Ares, god of war.”
“Kylian has a thing for him. Since this is his primary residence, he got to choose the decorations.” Julia shook her head. “Come on, let’s go so we can get back in time to hunt.”
The excitement in Julia’s voice made Casey relax a little bit. Whatever was going on, she wasn’t going to be going through it alone, and that was starting to become clear.
Julia had told Casey all about how she tricked Anthony into giving her information and how pissed Anthony was that Kylian had interfered the night at the club, not realizing that Julia was working for Kylian. They spent the car ride back talking about anything but being a wolf. She seemed to sense that Casey wasn’t ready to talk about it, and it was nice to have that respected.
Casey stepped up to the apartment door and hesitated before she unlocked it. “I’m sorry about the mess.”
“Girl, you should see my housekeeping skills.” Julia motioned to the door. “I doubt it could be worse than that.”
Casey opened the door, and they both walked in. Julia raised a brow. “The apartment is spotless, what the hell?”
“Go look at what I did to the bedroom.” Casey looked around for her computer before remembering she left it on the couch. She picked it up and headed to the bedroom. Julia stood there at the doorway, a far off look on her face.
“You did this last night?”
Casey nodded. “Only conclusion I could come to. My window and front door were both locked from the inside. My bedroom door barely held up to whatever happened.”
“I destroyed half my house when I first changed without control, but that was after my first change with the moon. This…though not quite unheard of, isn’t normal. Did you tell Kylian?”
She shook her head, feeling self-conscious again. “No, but you both made it sound like something like this was normal for a new…wolf.”
“Blackouts and fits of rage, yes, but it looks like you actually shifted completely judging by the damage and the footsteps.” She walked out of the room. “Grab your essentials and let’s go.” There was a tone of urgency lacing her words. “I don’t want you away from pack lands longer than we have to be.”
Casey looked over the damage and sighed. “How long do I need to pack for?”
“Just throw a bunch of clothes in a bag, there are a washer and dryer at the community house.” She sounded worr
ied. “We have all sorts of chargers and such. After you gain control, you can start spending more time back here, but it may not be for a while.”
Casey grabbed a bag from the top of her closet and started to throw clothes in it, shaking them out to make sure there were no random wood chips or anything in them. “Why do you sound so worried?”
Julia leaned against the door jamb. “Kylian sent me with you with the intention that if you started to black out and get violent, I could restrain you. I can’t do that if you completely shift.”
“I told you that she’s not going to shift.” Anthony’s voice had both the women turning. “Julia, never thought I’d find you hanging out with my girlfriend.”
Casey snorted. “We’re breaking up. There, now I’m not your girlfriend.”
Julia laughed, and Anthony raised a brow. “Seriously? Why?”
“Because you’re an ass, oh, and you slept with Julia. What kind of boyfriend cheats on his longtime girlfriend?”
“The one whose girlfriend won’t commit and move in so they can actually have a sex life.” Anthony shook his head. “You don’t want to be friends with Julia. If you’re so desperate for help for you imaginary fucking issue—”
“Ah see, that’s where you’re wrong,” Julia cooed. “It’s not imaginary, no matter how much you may wish it was. Why are you trying so hard to convince her that she’s not going to change? Hell, why are you trying to convince everyone else just as much? We all see the signs.”
Casey waited for an answer, but Anthony didn’t give one. He crossed his arms. “Julia, you need to leave. I will take Casey to the Muddy River pack, and we’ll take care of her until we know if she actually is going to change or not.”
“No, you won’t.” Casey stepped between the two of them. “I choose who I’m going with. Not you. You’ve have spent the last couple days trying to convince me that I was crazy and not trying to help me; you cheated on me just last night. I’ll be going with Julia back to the pack grounds of Kylian’s pack.”
The Fall of War (Gods of Olympus Book 4) Page 3
