The fourth attacker on the other side of the river finished her change back to human form and jumped into the icy river to swim to the other side.
"Damn it, he got away!"
"Doesn't matter. You know him, he'll follow this one no matter what," Jared's captor said. His voice was amazing, dark and sultry and thick as toffee, and it crept through Jared's limp body like a shiver.
"Gorgeous, but him following this one doesn't help us do our job. Which was to bring Darwin, not everyone else. Carl will be so pissed!"
The breath Mr. Sultry— as Jared decided to call his captor for now— took lifted Jared's whole body up an inch, not a small feat considering Jared was near double his mass. Maybe it was a good thing he hadn't put up more of a fight, this guy had more strength than his exterior let on.
"Don't bicker with me, it doesn't suit you. We're taking him and I'll handle Carl when it's necessary. Greta, go get the car, bring it down to Fortunis Bridge, we'll meet you there."
Jared watched the ash-blond girl jog into the woods through sensibly slitted eyes, but closed them when the remaining group turned and started walking, following the river downstream. When he felt safe, he opened one eye occasionally to look for Darwin, but the black wolf had wisely disappeared.
Jared hoped it would stay that way.
Harry
Things upstairs had been silent for too long. Something was going on, Harry was sure of it. His new 'friend', Rayne, had foretold another visit by either himself or— much worse— Carl, but it had been hours since then and nobody had come. Which meant that they probably had managed to filch the information about Jared and Darwin from his phone, broken or not. No need to talk to him when they could go directly to the source.
He had heard faint movement upstairs some time ago, but now there was nothing but silence and darkness and, quite honestly, Harry was sick of it and sick of being scared.
His hands were bound together behind his back but his legs were free, meaning he could sit up without any trouble, but he had yet to dare stand and walk around. Fear was an awesome thing, able to keep a person glued to the spot for a long time, but fear's power was starting to lose its influence on Harry. Now light and a plan to escape began to look more promising than waiting for fate to come get him.
Harry got up with a silent grunt. The echo of his own sound made his heart pound fiercely, but when a few seconds went by without the world exploding, he decided to keep on being brave. Slowly, Harry felt his way forward, heading for the spot where he had seen the light switch before, careful not to run into a wall. Every step and every sound felt magnified a thousand times, but that had to be nerves, just nerves.
Darwin wouldn't flinch and simply walk over there if he were in his place, Harry mused and suppressed a squeak when his shoulder hit the wall next to the door. Whatever problems Darwin ran into, he always flew through without a second thought, consequences be damned. And here Harry was, kidnapped by Rayne the Walmart werewolf, afraid of a dark cellar with the light switch but a step away. He felt pathetic.
Hesitantly feeling his way along the crumbling wall, he first reached the door, which of course was locked because that would have been too easy. One more step to its left he found the cover plate of the light switch, and after a bit of balancing on the balls of his feet and fumbling around bent forward like a human hook, he finally found the switch itself.
The room instantly brightened with dim yellow light that hurt Harry's eyes. He closed them and waited until they adjusted to the brightness, then took a glance around.
The cellar wasn't as grand as Harry had imagined, but still pretty spacious. Definitely big enough to fit a dozen small wine barrels, or six tall ones, like the one standing on the far side of the cellar. Harry could have easily hidden in it, but since it was the only obvious place to hide, it wouldn't do him any good. He did spot inclined air vents on the right wall of the cellar and though they were covered with old metal hatches, he would probably be able to tear one of them out. Fitting through the air vent and climbing up the steep funnel was a whole different story, made impossible by the shackles on his hands.
Harry didn't want to give up that quick though. Doing something, anything, to help himself felt great. Maybe Darwin was already on his way to rescue him, that was if he had forgiven Harry for the whole 'Jared-incident', but Harry was fed up with waiting for other people like a maiden in distress.
With an audible sniff, he walked to one of the hatches because he was already sure that plans weren't made in one go but instead came to people as they went. The hatch sat a good foot above his head, unreachable with bound hands, so he went to the barrel next. The lid was missing, but the walls were massive and the whole barrel probably weighed enough to not move if he tried to stand on the rim. If he climbed onto the barrel and balanced on the rim, he could reach the hatch on the wall and maybe tear it open... as soon as he managed to untie his hands, that was. What to do after that would be a problem to solve when he came to it.
Harry felt exhilarated as ideas streamed into his head, all by his own doing and without any help from anyone. Nobody criticized him or talked him out of it, nobody had a better idea, forcing him into the position of a silent follower. No. For the first time in his life he did his own thing.
The moment he began the complicated climb up the side of the barrel with his back wedged against the cellar wall, he heard steps from the stairs behind the cellar door. Someone was coming!
He quickly wiggled out of the tight spot between the barrel and the wall, hurried back to the middle of the room and sat back down, trying to look inconspicuous. Not a second too soon, because as the dust settled around him, the lock groaned, the door opened, and in stumbled...
"Jared?"
Darwin
Following the scent of his mate wasn't much of a challenge, not even when they piled into the 4x4 and accelerated. Forgetting how Jared smelled would have been harder, the scent having burnt itself into the mind of both human and wolf. Darwin's wolf kept himself to the bushes and far off to the overgrown sides of the path, always keeping an eye on the small group and staying downwind and invisible.
When the car zipped away he fell into an energy saving canter, following the road on a parallel trajectory a few feet into the woods for as long as possible. They did at one point go through the outskirts of the city, which the wolf didn't like at all, but since the neighborhood seemed quiet and wide-spread, he finally followed them with ears flattened to the head and tail tucked between his legs.
A few children were out playing, but didn't pay him much attention-- they probably couldn't distinguish him from any other dog. Luckily, they also didn't try to run up and pet him, because that would definitely have led to an uproar.
One of the elderly neighbors watering his lawn didn't stay quite as calm as the kids. He took one look at the wolf, dropped his hose and sprinted back to his front door, simultaneously yelling at the children on the other side of the road.
The sudden commotion provoked Darwin into a short sprint back the way he came and he only stopped when the houses disappeared behind trees, wild hills and bushes. Had he been a real wolf, he probably would have tried his luck again after dark, but Jared would be dead by then.
It was the first time Darwin's conscious mind left his dark place and tried communicating with the wolf instead of screaming mentally and shying away from the strange presence. He wouldn't have tried for anyone else, but this was Jared. Jared who'd rescued him— essentially saved his life— without blinking an eye, twice.
He had to save him, there was no other way, no compromise around it.
The two minds touched each other, after years and years of trying so hard not to, and only Darwin's insistence and unwillingness to delay any further allowed him to finally convince the wolf to cut through the woods and go around the suburbs instead of single-mindedly following the scent trail.
The reflections of red and blue lights of a police car entering the neighborhood he had been to just
a few minutes before glistened on roofs and foliage, but his minds still didn't communicate quite as well as they should. The human mind knew that the police and wildlife rangers would come into the woods looking for them and tried planning ahead for that, the wolf didn't see any immediate danger and wanted to follow the route his mind was mapping out for him.
The cornucopia of smells distracted Darwin incessantly. The smell of rotten wood and leaves, the stink of mice and wild rats, fox markings, deer droppings, the sharp scent of freshly distilled moonshine somewhere uphill, and the stinging pang of fuel following the tracks of motor bike routes, enticed him to drift away from his path, to stop, snuffle, investigate. The wolf just went with all the distractions, having coped with them his whole existence, but the human got lost and confused so often it affected them both.
Most surprising about this experience was actually being conscious and able to remember it at all. Darwin didn't notice that big difference until he reached the gravel road leading towards the pack meeting house and when he did, he panicked instantly. Losing control and conscious thought once more, he retreated into the dark, quiet place inside his mind.
The wolf was on his own again. Shaking himself to fend off the unsettling sensation of not being alone in his body, he started walking again, keeping himself to the ditch next to the road, following the scent of Jared. He was close, so close, no doubt about it.
Jared
They didn't cover his eyes for the trip and they didn't stop him from looking out the car windows. The gesture was a very subtle one, but also hard to misinterpret— they would kill him. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but they didn't plan on letting him get away. His hands were shackled together behind his back with a pair of silver and titanium infused handcuffs, but otherwise he was free to move around as he pleased.
They had put him in the rear trunk of the car and he understood that choice, too. With a normal human being, seating him in the middle seat and having someone sit left and right from him to cover the doors would have sufficed, but a werewolf's mouth was just as dangerous as his hands and much so harder to control. Having him in the cargo area cut him off from direct access to the car doors and the necks of his captors.
The four werewolves stayed silent throughout the drive, which was kind of unsettling. They didn't whisper to each other, they didn't discuss directions or later tasks or the weather, and they didn't turn on the radio.
It felt like a trip to a funeral for a body that was still breathing.
Mr. Sultry, the dark skinned guy— Arabic heritage mixed with something darker, Jared guessed— who had landed the winning blow to his head, was driving and now that Jared had the chance to watch him, he was even more impressed. His white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and a tight expression around his jaw were the only signs of his nervousness. The unhappy expression around his eyes and brows was much more obvious.
Was he unhappy about how the hunt had ended? That he couldn't kill Jared? About the task he had gotten? Impossible to guess, but still quite interesting.
When the ringing sound of a mobile phone disrupted the tense silence, everybody except the driver jumped. He pulled the phone out of his pocket, answered the call with a single, sultry, "Yes?", and then listened to a distinctly angry sounding rumble coming from the speaker. Jared couldn't understand what the other voice was saying, but from the changing expressions on the driver's face he got the impression that they didn't like each other very much.
"No sir, we didn't capture him, just his companion."
A short pause followed as Mr. Sultry listened intently, then his eyes met Jared's icy blue ones in the rear view mirror. Testing. Frowning.
"No sir, I don't think he's an Alpha. We had him in mere minutes."
The voice on the other end of the line got louder for a moment, loud enough for Jared to hear something about, "what use is a foot soldier to me? I need Darwin and I need the Alpha!" and some more swearing. The driver kept his cool, though, and only the groan of the faux leather covering the steering wheel betrayed his temperament.
"We'll be at the pack house in about ten minutes, sir. I'll see you then," was the last thing Jared heard before the call ended. 'Sir' the driver said, so Jared guessed he had been talking to his Alpha or a high ranking enforcer. He assumed the mentioned pack house was the same house he had visited— and killed at— before.
Jared wanted to ask his lovely companions so many questions, but he didn't. This was neither the time nor the place to play word games with a bunch of aggravated werewolves. No, Jared had to bide his time, the right mood, or he wouldn't get any answers at all. After all, there was still hope; his captors hadn't realized yet that they had already found what they wanted.
As they reached the city outskirts, he saw a black shadow making its way through the bushes on the side of the road and nearly cried out in surprise. It was a wolf, Jared had no doubt about it, and the only possible candidate he could think of was Darwin. But Darwin had told him that his wolf was out of control, dangerous and unpredictable, so why was he following the car?
Jared hastily turned his eyes away from the window, hoping no-one had noticed him stare. His captors wanted Darwin, not him, which in itself was strange enough. Recognizing an Alpha for what he was as a normal, dominant werewolf was nearly impossible if he chose not to show his powers, but to not recognize Darwin's submissive status was equally impossible. You didn't need to capture a submissive as long as you had its Alpha or a dominant pack member, they just followed wherever they went.
It reminded Jared of the story Darwin had told him about his Alpha, about the way he hid what he was for fear of getting killed. Maybe his charade had payed off? Jared tried to find a more comfortable position in the cramped space and his head throbbed.
Wanting to catch or kill an Alpha intruding on pack grounds was reasonable, traditional really. Getting rid of his dominant followers or simply catching them and bringing them over to your own side was just as reasonable, but to even think of harming the submissives was practically a sacrilege. Jared would have understood hurting one's own submissives much easier than the mere idea of hurting another pack's submissive members. It would be like kicking a pregnant woman in the belly, mindless and senseless violence.
What the hell was going on?
The urge to break his silence and just ask the three werewolves was nearly overwhelming, but luckily the car made a turn into a familiar road before Jared gave in. They were back on the gravel road that lead to the house Darwin had fled from two days ago.
They also passed five or six people walking by the road with firearms— mostly hunting rifles— who were obviously watching the woods for uninvited intruders. Jared's heart jumped and for the first time, he hoped not to find Darwin following the car.
Did the others hear his pulse race? They didn't look at him as the car stopped near the almost picturesque doors of a big, classy holiday cabin, but that didn't mean they didn't notice his sudden increase in anxiety.
All four of them went around the car to the rear hatch. In the background, Jared saw another guy aim his rifle at him. To make sure he didn't bolt, he guessed, as the rear hatch was opened and four pairs of hands grabbed him.
They didn't care if he came willingly or not, Jared was pulled out of the car with brutal force, thrown to the ground without a chance to catch himself, and dragged to the entrance of the cabin.
His feet scraped over the gravel, his knees were cut open, but he didn't make a sound. This was a spa treatment in comparison to the things his family's pack had done to some of their intruders.
A dizzying cloud of werewolf-scented air washed over him as they pushed him through the front door, clogging up his senses as they kept dragging him through the tastefully decorated house. Breathing through the dozens of different scents as they coated the insides of his nose and his throat almost overwhelmed him, but breathing through his mouth only brought a short respite. Dazed, he let them drag him along, watching a few unknown faces pass by.
"Bring him down and throw him in with his pack mate", Sultry said.
He was dragged down a set of concrete stairs, his legs hitting each and every one of them with a painful thud. Another door at the bottom of the stairs was opened just as Jared found his footing, then he was pushed inside, stumbling into a nearly empty cellar and into the arms of Harry.
Rayne
Six months had come and gone since Rayne had joined the Banes pack. He would have left the minute he realized that the local Alpha was a bag of crazy and nothing more, but he had always known he couldn't. There was no place left to go to for a wolf like him.
He tried to fit in, kept his head down and his mouth shut, but keeping a low profile got harder and harder every week. It was his curse, or to be exact, the curse of his upbringing.
When Rayne had been young, packs had been rare. Hunters— not the normal kind, but the metaphysical kind— had kept their numbers low with society none the wiser about their existence, but modern age made killing citizens a hard and dangerous field of work. Add to that the security cameras, the internet, linked databases for everything, intense finger printing for every offense,...
Hunters were a dying breed.
With the rise of packs, another 'breed' had started dying. Rogue wolves, werewolves who didn't commit to a pack but instead kept themselves to small family groups, had been hunted and killed or forced into communities for the last decade, although nobody actually wanted them. A rogue wolf faced two choices: join a pack and be treated like garbage, or run and be killed eventually.
Rayne's parents had chosen road number two. Rayne had chosen road number one after their deaths.
Unwilling: a shifter romance Page 12
