The heavy steps and rustling of the others veered away until only the hurt one was left stumbling after them, slower and slower, groaning and gasping for breath his lungs just wouldn't hold. He would have been halfway through the healing by now if he'd just laid down and preserved his energy, but whatever force was riding those three, it had him in its grips even in his dying moments.
Darla ducked, tensed, and pounced.
It was so easy— too easy. There was no fight left in the man, no challenge as she covered his mouth and wrapped her other arm around his chest to drag him into the underbrush. He waved his arms and scratched at her hands, but his movements were sluggish, his skin pale and pasty from the blood loss. He was such a sad sight, Darla let him go as soon as they were far enough away from his friends. Off the trail and out of sight, she threw him to the ground and he fell, rolled a little and lay still, squirming and groaning. The thought of killing a helpless man tasted like ash on her tongue. But maybe if he struggled, who knew?
That spark of hope was enough. Darla prowled around her price, growling through an all too human throat, circling the gasping wreck of a man. If he'd just jump up and do something, run, attack her, anything, she would remember the flavor of murder and then everything would be alright again. He didn't. The way he clutched his stomach, lying there, bleeding and groaning, hinted to the kind of exhaustion even a werewolf didn't just recuperate from with a few moments of peace. If she hit him, he'd probably flip over and huff out his last breath. Fuck. Hitting trees was more fun than this. What am I supposed to do now? If I leave him there, he'll come after me as soon as his wounds heal, but if I stay here until then, those others will reach the cabin and do god knows what to Rayne and Harry.
This sucked. "Fuck!" she screamed, kicking a rock the size of a baseball downhill and swearing under her breath. Okay, so yelling wasn't the best of ideas in her situation, but who cared! Maybe those two would hear her and come here? At least then the others would be safe and she'd get her fight at last.
"You're not one of the roadhouse people, are you?"
Darla whirled around and balled her fists. Judging by his breathy voice, her victim hadn't hurt his lungs after all, and that meant there was hope for a real fight. He was still lying there, still clutching his bloody belly, but he had turned his face towards her, watching her with a pale, bloodless stare. Frowning, Darla crept closer. "No. I'm with Jared and Rayne," she replied, cocking her head. "What roadhouse people?"
"The local pack. My Alpha made us attack them when he found Darwin's scent there." He hesitated, laughed, and raised his head to look at his destroyed belly. "Wasn't the best of his ideas if you ask me."
"And still you come here. You must have one hell of a grudge against Darwin to risk your life like this," she sneered, tilting her chin towards the carnage that was his body. Not that Darla didn't believe that someone might hate Darwin enough to come after him, but the way the Banes pack acted was strange. From what Darla had heard about Darwin's old Alpha, crazy was right up his alley, but why anyone would follow him down the rabbit hole she couldn't fathom.
The man let his head sag back and sighed. "He used his Alpha voice," he said. "We didn't have a choice or I wouldn't have come, and not because I'm hurt. Darwin's dad saved my life a few days ago, I really don't want to repay him like this."
"What's 'Alpha voice'?"
He snapped his head to the side and threw Darla a look. "You don't know?"
"Would I ask if I knew?"
"Are you this new to the whole pelt thing?"
Darla took a threatening step closer, fists at her side. "Either tell me or shut up but if you mock me again, I will split you open like an overripe grape." The sudden rush of rage left a coppery taste on her tongue as it crawled through her body, but at the same time she felt more in control. Powerful. Grounded.
The man smiled and writhed, his face twitching as his movements renewed the pain. "We don't have enough time for me to give you a lesson in pack dynamics, but let's just say an Alpha is more than a chosen leader. They can make you do things you don't want to do, that's what they're made for."
Darla allowed herself a look towards the cabin, grinding her teeth at the sudden feeling of worry. "Does it work on everyone?"
"Yes and no. If you don't have an Alpha, nothing will protect you from it. If you're with your Alpha, it depends on their relative strength. A weak Alpha won't be able to protect you, but a strong one might."
A thread of icy fear worked its way up Darla's back, broke through her rage and took hold of her racing heart. "And what if you have an Alpha, but he's somewhere else?" she asked, licking her lips with a too dry tongue.
The man coughed a dry laugh. "Then you'd better hope you can surprise Carl, because he won't give you a second chance if you fail to overpower him at first try."
Darla swiveled and ran, ignoring his next shout, muscles straining as she climbed the steep hill with big leaps, dodging branches and jumping over ditches until she spilled into the artificial clearing. The cold night air stung in her lungs like it hadn't before, fueled by her panic. She barreled toward the house, almost somersaulting as the wolf jumped her out of nowhere and dug its teeth into her leg. It snarled and shook her leg until even shock couldn't dampen the pain anymore and Darla screamed. But with the pain came back the rage, more powerful than before, and the hurt prey noises morphed into a growl and finally another— this time angry— scream.
She kicked at the wolf's muzzle, grinding her heel into the splintering eye socket her foot connected with, and the beast yelped and let go, shaking its head and stumbling to the side. There was no time to change now, but that didn't matter. She had fists and legs and enough anger to make it work anyway. Instead of jumping it, she slithered closer, putting her weight on the unhurt leg as she swung and kicked the wolf's side, catapulting it towards the edge of the clearing with enough force to send it sprawling and crying into the bushes and out of sight. The impact drove daggers of pain through her torn flesh and muscles, drawing another harsh moan out of her, but there was no time to tend to her wounds. No time for anything else but to hobble towards the cabin and the increasingly worrisome sounds of wood breaking and glass shattering inside.
The cabin was trashed, but at least it hadn't caught fire yet. Someone had upended the table and the couch, smashed the chairs and thrown them through the front windows where they had gotten stuck like pieces of modern art. The bedroom doors were nothing but smithereens dangling from torn hinges. Darla spilled into the chaos like a rabid dog, charging through the carnage with more momentum than balance and trying to get her bearings more or less on the fly. The sounds of breaking glass and ripping cloth came from Jared's bedroom, intermingled with shouts and the meaty cracks of fists on flesh. Darla all but jumped into the cramped room, only to be sent flying when Rayne was thrown into her. Something pierced Darla's side as Rayne's weight rode her into the splintered furniture, but the dull, deep pain was quickly forgotten when she saw movement in the bedroom.
The old man from the woods prowled out, licking his split lip with a sneer and not looking all that human anymore. His eyes only grazed their heap of limbs and not even Darla's struggle to move the bloodied body of her pack mate off her seemed to capture his attention as he stalked over to the bathroom door and listened. His lips contorted into an ugly sneer. "I can hear you in there, little wolf! Come out before I come in," he roared through less-than-human teeth and dragged his claws across the wood.
Harry whimpered behind the door. Rayne twitched at the hollow sound, groaned wetly and tried to stand up, but the crunching sounds coming from his ribs told Darla enough. He wouldn't get up any time soon, maybe never again if she didn't do something right now. "Sorry," she murmured, then shoved Rayne to one side, using what little progress he had made to free herself. A piece of splintered wood was sticking out from her side, embedded deep enough to rake at her core muscles and make her stumble before she found her footing. It wasn't enough to stop her, though. The old ma
n, Alpha, whatever he was, still stood by the bathroom door, jiggling the handle and grinning broader and broader at the sounds of panic from inside.
At the renewed surge of adrenaline, the pain in Darla's side subsided enough to bring her ever-simmering rage back to the surface. She charged again, snarling through the utter joy of ultimately having found a target she could kill, no regret or restraint necessary. Her fingers found purchase in the cloth of Carl's shirt and she twisted, pulled and threw him over her shoulder and towards the door. Something popped inside her as the weight of his body rolled over her and suddenly the pain was back, harsher and sharper and breathtaking in its force. It made her freeze, gasp, leave the otherwise flawless move incomplete. What should have ended with ducking and an upward push to give him momentum, stopped with her head in the path of danger. Carl's claws caught her face as he flew, splitting it open and partially blinding her as blood flooded her right eye.
As Darla sagged to her knees, leaning her back against the bathroom door to keep herself from falling face down, she caught one last glimpse at the old fart as he tumbled through the door and outside. She closed her eyes, twitching through the waves and waves of searing pain that wracked her body, and smiled. He'd be back. He'd finish Rayne, then her, then Harry, but it didn't matter. At least she had fought, hadn't rolled over and died.
The rage was gone, leaving only serene exhaustion.
Jared
"You have to understand my position here, Jared. You know I'm willing to help, you know I've already done a lot to support you with your problem, but there's a difference between teaching you how to use your powers and using my powers for you. I can't do that."
Jared bit down a rude retort and took a deep breath. Sure, it had been risky to drive all the way to Chinkope and ask Hector for help, and yes, he hadn't thought he would get an army of well-trained Alphas to come rescue his pack, but facing the fact was angering and disheartening at the same time. In all their training sessions, he had never come this close to actually losing his temper with Hector. Here he was, arguing with his teacher about semantics and details, not knowing if he had a pack left to rescue at all.
What if Carl had reached the cabin by now? Was Darwin still alive? Was his family dying right now, screaming for him while he spent precious minutes with a man who had previously told him no?
Jared clenched his fists, growling softly as he fought against the tingling in his eyes, against the change tugging at him. "If you're not going to help, what the fuck am I supposed to do, huh?" he asked, holding on to his temper with the last shreds of self-preservation.
For the first time, Hector didn't react to Jared's growl. He did cock his head and frown, but what would have ended with a fight for dominance on any other day didn't do so much as elicit a huff from the smaller man. "I know you don't feel like you're ready to handle these things, Jared, and maybe you really aren't," he said at last. "But this isn't a question of winning or losing. It doesn't matter if you're ready and able to win every fight down the line. You just have to decide you want to fight this fight, or run from it, tuck tail and hide, leave your people to fend for themselves. You wouldn't be the first Alpha to break under the responsibility, and you wouldn't be the last. These things happen."
The need to protest and deny, to bristle at the idea of running away, came, tugged at Jared's tongue and left again. Was he ready to die? Above all, was he ready to die even if it meant leaving behind Darwin to fend for himself? The possibility towered over him like a pale, clawed hand, ready to crush his heart and grind his being into nothingness. His car was outside, the tank was full, the threatening border a few miles away. If he ran, he was sure to escape unscathed. Nobody would know. The only people who might care would be dead, if they were still alive at all. Could he bear rushing home to find their corpses? Or worse, to get there a second too late, just in time to watch Darwin gasp his last breath? His heart lurched at the idea.
Jared turned his straying eyes back to Hector, ignoring the numb feel of his paling face. "I'm too young to die," he husked, then clenched his fists again. "But I'm not leaving them behind. Which means I'd better be ready to win, with or without you."
Time lurched and sped up, slapping him with the sudden urge to run, sprint, hurry like he'd never hurried before, and Jared obeyed, haunted by Hector's call. "Instinct, Jared! Use it!"
Please let me be on time. Please let me be on time. Please...
Jared tore through the twisting roads like a madman. His heart was pounding painfully hard against his ribs, begging him to go faster, faster, but he couldn't. Already the bulky car swayed and reeled through the turns like a cutter in distress, blurring the trees zipping by in the near-blackness of night. He was almost there, almost far enough up the hill to see the cabin, but that voice in his head still wouldn't shut up.
Such a small change in attitude, so many revelations. Only hours ago, Jared had felt stressed and overburdened with the responsibility of safekeeping the members of his pack, the pressure to become a better Alpha, to reach some convoluted goal he hadn't really believed in. That old Jared would have frowned at him now. Maybe even laughed. The new Jared felt more like crying with frustration and fear.
Besides the harsh purr of the engine the cabin was silent, too silent for the spiraling thoughts in Jared's head, or for the thump of his heart, the twitching in his fingers, the shudders in his flanks. The scent of new car, a mixture of untouched leather and plastic, burned in his nose as if taunting him. It was wrong, too clean, too innocuous, like he was supposed to preemptively smell the carnage he feared coming home to. Something was happening, something bad, and without him there to stop it people would die. The knowledge bit his neck and drove his foot harder against the pedal.
Tires screeched as he took the last few switchback curves, spewing pebbles as the big car skidded across the two parking spaces in front of their cabin and finally ground to a halt. Jared jumped out of the car and ran towards the open door, hissing at the crashes and screams coming from the living room. He threw the gaping door open all the way, ready to storm inside, when a body sailed through the opening, wiping him off his feet and throwing him backward. Groaning with pain, Jared stumbled to the side, grabbing the door frame to keep himself from following the man-turned-projectile down the stairs and into the gravel below.
The stranger tumbled down the few steps and out of reach, but the slipstream accompanying him brought the scent of blood. Familiar blood, pack. Rayne. Darla.
Rage bloomed inside his chest, blossomed, and became a monster of its own.
My pack.
The scent of earth and decomposing needles became overpowering as the twilight around him grew lighter, more contrasted. The banister splintered beneath Jared's claws, complementing those wild mountain scents with that unique note of dry, broken wood and bent metal. The cold from before faded away beneath the shiver of bloodlust accompanying the partial change.
Their blood on his clothes.
A more civilized part of Jared's brain recognized the leathery old man down on the gravel, knew that this was Carl, that Carl was dangerous, an Alpha, the person he had been worrying over for weeks. Another, wilder part didn't give a shit about who or what that creature was, as long as it could bleed and die. Jared ripped his claws out of the broken banister, snarling through his elongated muzzle. Cloth ripped with a light, whining sound, mixing perfectly with the more guttural sounds of the changing werewolf.
Carl shuffled through churned gravel, finding his footing far too quick for a man of his build and height, growling through the wet, sharp sounds of breaking bones. His eyes blazed yellow, catching and breaking what little light the cabin fixtures threw through the windows. He smiled through bared teeth, lips quivering as the flesh surrounding them changed before Jared's eyes, a wide, murderous grin dripping with blood that was not his own. "Oh, I've waited so long for this moment," Carl growled with a voice that wasn't human anymore, but still carried obscene glee.
He plainly thought he
'd win this fight, even though Jared was rested, unhurt and younger. Something about Carl's grin, the way he eyed Jared like an insect, enraged him more than the scent of pack blood on Carl's clothing, mad enough to throw caution in the wind. Jared charged, propelled himself off the stairs and barreled into Carl while his face was still in that half-finished, horrifying stage between shapes. The impact sent dull shockwaves through his bones, rattling his brain and stunning him just enough to make him slow as Carl twisted through the fall and slammed him into the gravel hard enough to break his skin and bury a handful of pebbles in his flesh. Then the older Alpha was off, skittering back like an evil, leathery crab as Jared's claws ripped through the thin air where Carl had just been.
Groaning, Jared staggered back on his feet. Hector would have cuffed him over the head for this, for charging blindly, for treating this like a bar fight, for underestimating another Alpha simply because he was old. If this fight kept going like this, Hector wouldn't get the chance to cuff him ever again. He couldn't let that happen.
"What's wrong, boy? Has Darwin's influence castrated you? Are you afraid?" Carl taunted, still grinning that ungodly, bloody grin, still warily treading backward and away from the cabin, taunting him to follow. "That's what he tried to do to my pack, him and the others. They are a plague, those submissives, and you're infected. Sick is what you are. Sick in the head!" Carl twisted one of the mirrors off Jared's car and threw it at him, hitting him square across the face and staggering him again. Too slow, Jared. Move it!
This time, Jared did move. He raced forward, prepared for the punch Carl tried to land against his chest and dodging it with the ease Hector had pummeled into him through their training. He also didn't wait to finish his flourish, but brought his elbow against Carl's face as quickly as he could, tumbling out of reach as soon as he heard the crack of a breaking nose.
Unwilling: a shifter romance Page 29
