Marcus had never told Samuel who he was or what had happened, because he was ashamed. How could he tell Samuel that he’d let his big brother die? How could he tell him about Matthew’s horrible final days?
“Eileen’s waiting for you back at your tent. Work’s done for the day; everybody but you is back here now. Well, you and Samuel. Go to your property and stay there until Roman gets back; he’s talking to the sheriff right now.”
“Samuel didn’t do it,” Marcus bit out, and began driving towards his cabin.
He grabbed his phone as he drove and dialed Eileen’s number.
It rang twice, and then he heard heavy breathing and his blood ran cold.
“Hello, Marcus,” Damien said on the other end of the line. “You’re just a minute too late.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Marcus felt a rush of fury so intense that his whole body went furry, and just as quickly he stuffed it back inside him.
Eileen. He’d keep his rage in check to keep her alive.
“Damien,” Marcus said flatly. “Tell me where Eileen is.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Damien taunted. “I’ll tell you one thing. She’s lying in a pool of her own blood. Think you’ll find her in time? I don’t think so. I hid her well.”
No.
Marcus’ head went wolf and his hands turned into paws for a moment and the car swerved on the road.
He quickly stuffed his wolf back inside and steered the car back on track. His rage was so great that it was pure agony to contain his animal. His skin was on fire. His bones felt as if they were splitting.
The cages. The guards. He’d used self-control back then, to contain his rage and unleash it only when he needed it. He drew on every ounce of his self-control as he sped up the road towards his property.
“I told you she’s bleeding,” Damien said sharply, his voice annoyed now. “You don’t care? I’ll go tell her that.”
Damien was goading him, trying to lead him into a trap.
Survive. Survive ’til you can kill him.
He was close to his property now. He pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car.
“So it’s been you all along,” Marcus growled. “Starting fights with Samuel and Casper, stealing Samuel’s stuff. Pretending to be the peacemaker. Who are you? You weren’t one of the guards from the fighting ring, but I know you’re connected somehow.”
“You haven’t guessed?” Damien sneered.
In the background, behind Damien, Marcus heard the distinctive two-note cry of a Mississippi kite. He strained his ears; the bird cried out again. He could also hear it in the woods, to the northwest. Near Marcus’ clearing. There was dense underbrush there, and a clear sightline to Marcus’ tent. Damien would try to shoot Marcus, he was sure; he knew he couldn’t take him in a fair fight.
He began swiftly moving in Damien’s direction.
“If I’d guessed, I wouldn’t be asking you, you mangy little cur.”
“Cur? We’re the Coulsons, you disgusting mutt!” Damien’s voice rose in a shriek of rage, and Marcus kept moving his way. He sniffed the air. Blood. He could smell it.
Was Eileen bleeding?
His whole body shook, and his clothing fell off him as he moved. He almost dropped his phone as his hand turned into a paw again. He stopped for a second and turned human once again.
“Senator George Coulson. Remember him? You destroyed us. You took everything from us.”
Oh, he remembered. He’d recognized Coulson’s gloating face every time he’d been herded into the pit to fight. And now that he thought of it, behind the beard and the shaggy hair, Damien looked a little bit like him.
“Excuse me? I destroyed you?” he growled.
Keep him talking.
Marcus sniffed at the air again. He could pick up Eileen’s scent now, and the scent of fear, but he couldn’t smell Damien. That meant Damien was using some kind of substance to disguise his smell.
What Damien hadn’t taken into account was Marcus’ shifter hearing. Amateur. Marcus was getting close enough now that he could hear Damien speaking even without the cell phone, and he kept moving towards him.
“You dragged our family name into the mud. You weren’t supposed to escape; you were supposed to die like the dog that you are.”
Marcus swallowed his rage and forced himself to sound calm.
“How did you find me?”
“Private investigators. I was looking for a man your age, your appearance, with super strength. You were in the news for lifting a car off someone. There aren’t many shifters in the world who could do that. That led me to your pack.”
“Why didn’t you kill me when you first joined?” Marcus growled. “Why even bother to create a fake name and join the pack?”
“Oh, I was having fun, Marcus. Messing with Samuel. Watching you go slowly crazy. I think it was my scent. Do I smell like my dad, Marcus? Did I bring back memories for you?” Damien let out a shrill, hysterical laugh.
That explained why the nightmares had come back. They’d started a week after Damien had joined. Damien smelled just enough like Senator Coulson that it had brought on those flashbacks.
“I’m going to kill him too, you know. I’ll bail Samuel out after they arrest him, pretend I’m his best friend, and then I’ll take him deep into the woods and gut him. I’ll make it slow.”
Eileen. Samuel. Matthew.
No.
“It’s been eight years.” Marcus followed the sound of Damien’s voice, and moved so he stayed downwind of him. “Why now?”
“Why now? Because you stole all our money!” His voice rose in a scream.
Damien was so close now. Marcus could almost taste his blood. “What money?”
“Reparations. You bastards. All the families of the weak little puppies who died in that ring get reparations. Taken from us. The superior ones. The ones who made you fight. Took all this time, but six weeks ago, the government finally gave in to those whiny little bastards. They took our money! Our house! Our lands! My mother killed herself!” His voice rose to a scream.
Yeah, not surprising that Marcus hadn’t heard about that, since he’d been hiding out in this pack under a fake name. And he never followed the news.
But the money didn’t matter. Finding Eileen and getting her to safety mattered.
Now Marcus knew exactly where Damien was. He smiled, a predator’s smile with no mirth in it.
“I smell you!” Damien shrieked. “And your mate is dying! She’s a bitch in heat! She’s a whore! I gutted her!” His voice rose higher and higher as he struggled to get the reaction he wanted from Marcus.
Not yet. Those years of captivity had taught Marcus how to control his emotions. The tears and the rage and the madness would come – as soon as he’d killed Damien.
“One less problem to deal with,” Marcus said coldly. He was goading Damien now, with his icy calm.
“I’ll tell her you said that! I will! I will!” Damien raged at him, and Marcus stopped in his tracks. He was picking up the faint scent of pepper spray.
Eileen carried pepper spray. Hope surged through him.
“You keep saying that. But you don’t know where she is, do you? My mate is fast. She got away from you.” That had to be true. Had to be.
“No! I ripped her open with my teeth!” Now Damien sounded desperate.
“Eileen!” Marcus bellowed. “Stay where you are! I’m coming for you!”
“Marcus! He’s behind the tall fir with the broken branch! He has a gun!” Eileen yelled.
Damien burst out from behind the tree and went running straight towards the sound of Eileen’s voice.
Marcus finally let himself shift and tore after him.
Damien pelted over the fallen leaves and Marcus followed, his blood boiling with fury. He could hear his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. Eileen was the most beautiful, most precious thing he had ever had in his life. He would have moved mountains and torn down cities to protect
her. He wasn’t going to allow a spoiled senator’s son to take her from him. If a single hair on her head had been harmed, he would take it out of Damien in flesh and blood.
Just feet from where Eileen was hiding, he threw himself onto Damien’s back, bringing him down. The gun went skittering from Damien’s hand. The scent of his expensive cologne was overlaid by the sour, acrid stench of fear-sweat.
Even though he was in human form, Damien was strong. He struggled beneath Marcus’ weight and scrabbled for the gun, cursing and spitting. Then, realising he was hopelessly overpowered by Marcus’ enormous wolf, he shifted. Bones cracked and lengthened and fur burst out all over his body, his ranting transforming into a clotted snarl.
He threw Marcus off and they circled each other, lips drawn back over their teeth and hackles raised. Marcus feinted at Damien, darting forward to snap at him and then retreating, hoping to keep the mad wolf’s attention focused on him so Eileen would have a chance to get away. He hoped Damien was angry enough to let himself be distracted from his goal.
Relief washed through him as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a silvery blur – Eileen, in wolf form, running full-pelt towards the camp. Smart girl.
But Damien took advantage of his momentary distraction and leaped.
They rolled over and over, snapping and snarling at each other. Damien’s anger gave him strength, and he pinned Marcus to the ground, a string of drool hanging from his jaws and a gloating, triumphant light in his eyes. It wasn’t enough for him to win – he wanted to revel in his opponent’s defeat, bathe in it, lap it up and savour its taste.
He wasn’t going to get any of those things.
Matthew’s face flashed in Marcus’ head…Eileen’s face…Samuel’s face…Casper’s face… The face of poor Alex, driven mad with guilt by the fiery deaths of their fellow captives… Even the faces of his packmates. With a mighty heave, he threw Damien off him, the other wolf landing on his spine with a sickening thud. As Damien lay struggling, winded and disoriented, Marcus stalked over and, without ceremony, without gloating, with no sense of satisfaction, tore open his belly.
He was sitting by the cooling corpse when a sharp bark announced the arrival of the other members of the pack. For the first time in a long time, Marcus was glad to have other people around him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Seriously, it’s just a flesh wound,” Eileen said as Marcus hovered over her anxiously. They were in Silver Peak, sitting in the examination room at the clinic. It seemed like half her pack was there, pacing around the waiting room.
Her pack.
She was home.
Valerie, Chelsea, Roman and Erika had crowded into the room with her and Marcus, and they were standing by as the doctor cleaned the cut on the side of her head.
“Be careful with her,” Marcus growled at the doctor.
“Welcome to my world,” Chelsea said to Eileen. “Roman wants to roll me up in bubble wrap and keep me in a safe room.”
Roman brightened. “Bubble wrap! It’s actually a great idea. I mean, just until after you have the cub. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“You’re hurt worse than I am,” Eileen pointed out to Marcus, wincing slightly at the doctor’s ministrations.
“Used to it.” He shrugged.
“How did you get away from that psycho?” Valerie asked with a sympathetic shudder.
“Well, he came strolling into the cabin, and it looked like he’d just been in some kind of fight. He told me that Marcus was hiding out because he’d killed someone, and I had to go with him to meet Marcus right away. When I tried to call Marcus, Damien grabbed my phone and hit me in the head.”
Marcus let out a snarl of fury, and Eileen said soothingly, “He’s dead. You win.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “I pepper-sprayed that sumbitch right in the face, then ran for it. Marcus and I have been running all over these woods these last few days, so I’m starting to know them really well, and I was able to stay ahead of him. I finally lost him.”
“So, tell us again how you’re like a hundred-millionaire,” Erika said to Marcus.
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t really care. I said don’t hurt her!” he growled again at the doctor when Eileen grimaced.
“Marcus! Stop that or wait outside,” Eileen chided him. “He’s putting a bandage on me. We’re done. It’s all good.”
“Did they find Samuel yet?” Eileen asked Roman. “Is he all right?”
“Yeah, he went into town and turned himself in. Of course, they let him go again right away,” Roman said.
“I want to know what he’s going to spend his hundred-millions on,” Erika complained.
Marcus flicked her a look of annoyance. “My life-mate,” he said.
“Ooh, really?” Eileen grinned at him. “Your life-mate is going to be super rich? I should probably make friends with her, then.”
Marcus gave a snort of amusement. “I could buy you a really nice wedding ring.”
Eileen shook her head. “No. I do not want to wear your wedding ring.”
Marcus’ eyes went wide with dismay. “You don’t?”
She stroked the side of her neck. “Human tradition,” she said dismissively. “I have something else in mind. A nice Mate Mark, right about here, where everybody can see it.”
“I can do that.” Marcus relaxed and his mouth curled into a big smile, and Eileen realized that she had never seen him smile like that before. Actually, genuinely, relaxed. The darkness was fading from him.
* * * * *
Three months later
“You are one stubborn son of a bitch,” Eileen said, watching as Marcus’ packmates set the windows in place in their new cabin.
“Me?” he said, looping his arm around her waist. “I let the pack help me build the house!”
“True, true,” she mused. That was huge. He was actually, voluntarily hanging out with the pack several nights a week – as long as she was there with him. Of course, he could only stand so much socializing. He spent the rest of the time in his workshop, hand-carving signage and furniture for Mr. Rosemont.
It was enough to satisfy the council. And his nightmares were gone. Vanished the day he killed Damien.
“But you could have hired your very own construction crew to build your house for you,” she pointed out.
“You could stay home all day long and have maids bring you chocolates.”
She shuddered at the thought. “Been there. You’re right, there is a certain satisfaction in doing things for yourself.”
She was still working for Mr. Rosemont – the temperamental, annoying bastard.
Ironically, because of the government reparations, Marcus was now as rich as her own family. Her father had contacted her to let her know that he would consider resuming contact with her, since Marcus was no longer a down-and-out bum. First Marcus would have to submit to etiquette training, and— She had cut her father off at that point, with a few choice words and a rejection of his offer to “forgive” her for her behavior.
Samuel, who also had received money for reparations, had proposed to Lily, and he had applied to and been accepted at a new college. He’d never really fit in with the rough-and-tumble Kincaid pack, but he was grateful to them for taking him in and kept in regular contact.
Beacham, Marisol and Ambrose were all on probation after entering pleas at the local courthouse.
Chelsea was going to give birth literally any day now, and everyone was on pins and needles. Roman was fairly unbearable to be around at the moment, but as soon as Chelsea had her baby, everyone figured he would relax.
“Just think,” Eileen mused. “We’ll have a real bedroom this time. Like normal people. And tables with multiple chairs. Madness, I say!”
“Don’t you start with me,” Marcus said in a gruff voice, but with a hint of a smile and a gleam in his eyes.
“You know what?” Eileen said, glancing over at the nearly completed cabin. “I think the crew could spare you for
a little while. Don’t you?”
“Why? What did you have in mind?”
“Bedrooms are nice, but they’re kind of overrated. Remember what we told Verity? How we have that fetish for doing it outdoors? Remember that spot where we did it outdoors for the first time?”
Marcus broke out in a huge smile.
“Race you,” she said, and shifted in the blink of an eye. As she dashed off towards the treeline, she felt Marcus’ hot breath on her heels, following close behind.
THE END
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Shifters of Silver Peak: Mate For A Month Page 11
