by Kimber White
“Then I’ll make it my purpose to help you get there.”
Warmth flooded through me as Alec kissed me to seal the deal. But, even as he said the words, something flared in my heart and quickened my pulse. No sooner had our lips parted than I felt Alec’s body go rigid.
Something was wrong. Something was coming.
The door flew open and Harold walked in. Alec pulled the sheet up to cover me, even though Harold couldn’t see.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking from Alec to Harold then back again. “Is it Kane?”
“Not yet,” Alec said, hopping out of the bed and to his feet with agile grace. “But the packs have arrived.”
My heart went into my throat. “Beer court?”
Alec smiled as he slid his jeans over his hips. I heard the rumble of car engines and tucked the sheet around me as I slid out of bed and went for the window. Four black SUVs came to a screeching halt in front of the barn.
“Beer court,” Alec said as he kissed the top of my head. “Get dressed. We could be in for a long day.”
Chapter Seventeen
It’s one thing to stand in a room with one full-blooded Alpha wolf, the call of the shift making his eyes blaze and his muscles ripple. Standing in a room with three of them? My pheromones went into overdrive. The air in Pat’s front room grew thick and my knees swayed. She put a glass of ice water in my hand and shot me a comforting wink.
Alec paced in the middle of the room, his hands tearing through his hair, making it stand up in peaks and cones. The three Alphas stood in a semi-circle around him, listening to him plead his . . . or rather, my . . . case.
I didn’t like how it was going. At all. If I heard the phrase pack law one more time, I thought I might scream.
I took a sip of the cool water and it helped settle my nerves considerably. Though, I had a feeling dumping the thing over my head would have made the most efficient use of it. Alec talked mostly to Bas Lanier, his Alpha. Tall, like all of them, with broad shoulders and ice blue eyes almost like Alec’s. But, Bas had a ruddy complexion and streaks of red through his hair. I’d seen his red wolf charge down the hill first, with the rest of Alec’s pack—all ten of them—close behind. I felt them now, lining the woods holding sentry with the other packs. It gave me an odd mixture of relief and new anxiety. Kane was coming. They readied themselves for a battle.
Bas’s pack was joined by Derek’s. He stood at Bas’s right leaning against the wall with his arms crossed in front of him. Derek scared me at first. Handsome and rugged, he had fierce amber eyes and dark brown hair. But, he had a cruel, jagged scar running through his right brow and down the side of his cheek. The five members of his pack joined the remaining nine from Bas’s, forming a circle of threat around the perimeter of Pat’s property. Bas promised her no one would get through without them knowing it.
Pat’s son Luke stood in the far corner of the room full of silent menace. The lone wolf of the bunch, Pat told me he’d suffered mightily under a cruel Alpha like Kane once upon a time. Since then, he’d shunned pack life but would take up arms with the rest of the packs whenever they needed him. It made me shudder to think of what was to come.
Luke was the only one to ask me a question directly. He pushed himself off the wall and squatted down in front of me as I sank into Pat’s plush couch cushions. I flinched but didn’t pull away when Luke curled his fingers around the back of my neck and touched the mark for himself.
“I’m sorry that happened to you. You know we don’t condone it.”
I searched Luke’s shining green eyes. They were Pat’s eyes, though they flashed fierce and all wolf. Luke had a haunted look about him. As he smiled and took his hand away, something passed between us. A shared trauma. I could never hope to understand whatever Luke went through, but he’d been strong indeed to survive it. He didn’t say the words, but I knew he meant to tell me that I could survive it too. And I had.
“Thank you. I know that. And thank you for coming.”
Luke nodded and stood up. Pat caught my attention. She stood in the hallway just over Bas’s shoulder and motioned for me to come join her. When I looked at Alec, he nodded too. Whatever happened next, it was purely pack business. I shot him a weak smile and followed Pat back into the kitchen.
“What do you think they’ll decide?” I asked her as I took a seat on one of the kitchen stools. Pat leaned down to open the oven door. She had fried chicken warming and a vat of waffle batter on the counter ready to pour. She’d told me the wolves would come in hungry and she’d make enough so they could have seconds and thirds if they wanted it.
“Oh, they’ll do the right thing. Not saying it’s going to be pretty or easy, but it’ll be right.”
“What’s the right thing?” To me it seemed simple. Kane was a cancer among the Wild Lake packs. They needed to take him out. But Pat had hinted that’s not how it would likely work.
She didn’t answer. She just shot me a tight-lipped smile and went back to stirring her batter. Pat opened her mouth to say something then clamped it shut when the house shook. Her hanging pots swayed and clanged together as something pounded against the wall. Not something, someone. Growls and raised voices vibrated through the floor boards.
Pat shrugged and set her bowl down. “I was afraid of that.”
“Of what?”
“Alec. He’s not going to like it.”
“Would you please give me a clue what to expect here? Right now it seems like your son Luke is the only one out there who has a full grasp of what Kane’s capable of.”
A shadow crossed over her face, and I regretted my choice of words. But, she shot me another wink and put a hand on my forearm. “You’re right. That’s why he’s here. But Luke’s not worried about Kane so much. He’s worried about the members of his pack. He’s been where they are and worse. He spent a decade under the control of his half-brother, Asher. A tyrant just like Kane. I almost lost him because of it. But it’s also the reason why I don’t want him anywhere near Kane. He’s put all that behind him and found a life for himself. This dredges all that bad stuff back up for him.”
“I hate that I’m thinking it. But why can’t the rest of the packs just kill Kane?”
Pat slid onto the stool next to me and handed me the batter bowl and mixing spoon while she rubbed the swollen joints in her fingers. I started stirring, instantly grateful for the task. I realized in the seventy-odd years Pat had dealt with pack drama, cooking and baking must have been a very effective coping mechanism.
“Well, like I told you, taking out an Alpha is one prickly little problem. It comes with responsibility. You break the pack, you buy it. Know what I mean? And Kane’s got those boys locked down. Luke says he probably went full Tyrannous Alpha when you left so they wouldn’t break ranks. So, whoever goes after Kane is probably going to have to go through them first.”
I swallowed hard. “And they’ll fight to the death to protect him. That’s what you’re saying. There might be no good way to take Kane out without killing the pack with him.”
Pat nodded. “I know maybe it’s hard for you to see it after what you’ve been through, but there are some good hearts in that pack.”
“I know. Cole and Christian. Daniel too, I think. They’ve been kind to me when they could.”
The Wild Lake packs’ dilemma crystallized in my mind and turned my heart inside out. It was between Kane’s pack and me. The rest of the packs could gang up and outnumber Kane’s pack, but they wouldn’t all survive. Cole, Christian, and Daniel would surely die. Suddenly, I didn’t like my odds. The lives of at least three Wild Lake wolves against just me.
“And even if somebody does manage to kill Kane without taking out the whole pack, then they’ll need an Alpha. If it were only one or two wolves, that would be one thing. But trying to assimilate five wolves into an existing pack? That’s a nightmare.”
“God,” I set the bowl down and rested my forehead on my arms. “It’s so much easier with bears.”
Pat let out a soft chuckle. “Maybe. Except I think bears are even more stubborn than wolves are. They never compromise because they rarely ever have to.”
“And Kane’s got leverage over my father. So if it comes to a fight, he may have the bears protecting him along with the pack. God. Pat, it’ll be a bloodbath.”
Pat squeezed her eyes shut and tried to force a smile. “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe Caleb and the rest of them will stay out of it for just a little while longer.”
More wall thumping and growls from the other room. My pulse quickened as the loudest growl came from Alec.
Pat shrugged. “I think they might be coming to a compromise.”
“What? How can you tell? They sound like they’re about to rip each other’s throats out.”
“Oh, I expect that’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“Ugh. Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Quick, throw salt behind your shoulder or spit three times. We can’t handle worse, Pat.”
The ground shook beneath our feet and the windows rattled. I put a hand up to stop one of the copper pots from swinging right off the hook. Pat’s eyes widened and she mouthed an obscenity I won’t repeat.
My pulse quickened, and it felt like my heart was about to erupt from my chest. My mark flared to life. Somebody had shifted. A howl rose loud and piercing. I covered my ears. Derek’s gray wolf tore through the kitchen, knocking plates and papers off the counters as he crashed through the back door. Someone went out the front. Then, Alec burst into the kitchen, eyes blazing.
“Patsy!” Harold bellowed from upstairs then came stumbling down the steps, holding two shotguns by the barrels. He tossed one to Pat. She caught it neatly and turned to me.
“Too late,” she said. “I think worse just showed up on my doorstep.”
Chapter Eighteen
White fangs, gleaming eyes, and chaos surrounded us. Harold pulled another shotgun from the closet in the front hall and handed it to me. “You know your way around one of these?” he asked, his sightless eyes still managing to look like he was staring straight through me.
I took it from him, letting my fingers curl around the cold metal of the barrel. “It’s been a while, but I can shoot straight if I don’t have to shoot too far.”
“Same here,” he said. Incredibly, Harold took a position on his knees at one of the front windows and racked a round.
“Is he serious?” I whispered to Alec at my side. His chest heaved from the effort of staying in human form. His Alpha had already shifted and tore across Pat’s lawn toward the rest of the pack hidden in the trees.
Kane was close. I felt him in the heated scar at the nape of my neck and the feverish way he made my pulse race. He was back. He had a claim on me. He meant to take it.
I felt the rest of his pack too, fanning out to the eastern and western border of the Bonner property. Kane was heading this way, about to break through the line of wolves behind the barn.
Alec gripped me by the shoulders and turned me to face him. His wolf eyes had taken over completely, shining silver and blue as his nostrils flared. “You are not going back to him. Do you understand? No matter what.”
I nodded and swallowed hard. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt . . . or worse because of me.”
“This isn’t just about you, and you didn’t cause it. This has been coming on with Kane for a long time. You just helped us prove what I’ve suspected for a while. He’s trying to weaken the Wild Lake packs. I think he wants to take over as some kind of chief pack. He’s crossed every line there is, and he needs to be dealt with.”
“By who? You can’t get to him without going through the pack. And they’ll die trying to protect him. Tell me what the good outcome is here. Tell me what winning looks like.”
“You leave that to me. Don’t leave this house. You hear me? Not for anything. This is neutral ground.”
“Pack law,” I spat. “Right. And you’ve just told me Kane’s violated just about every other one. What makes you think he’ll honor that?”
“Because the packs will defend Pat and Harold over everything. No matter what.”
My mark burned like the hot brand it was, nearly driving me to my knees. But Alec still had a hold of me and gave me the strength to stay on my feet. He growled low, sending a vibration through me as I turned and faced the window.
Kane.
He came through the tree line toward the house. He walked tall and straight, his eyes blazing red fire, but he hadn’t shifted. He wore black jeans and motorcycle boots and carried a heavy chain in his hands. The pack flanked him, fangs bared and dripping.
Bloodlust. Alec had talked about it. I’d felt it when the pack hunted. But I’d never actually seen them in the throes of it. I did now. All five members of Kane’s packs’ eyes had gone blood red as they stalked forward. They weren’t human. They weren’t even pure wolf. They were monsters.
“Shit,” Alec muttered. He’d done it. He’d gone completely Tyrannous and turned the pack into his personal beast army. I could only pray there was something left of the men inside them worth saving.
“They can’t think for themselves anymore.” Luke appeared. A muscle twitched in his jaw as he stood beside me and passed a look to Alec. “They never will again while Kane lives. It’s too late to do this any other way.”
Cole and Christian walked beside and slightly behind Kane. Now, they stepped aside and my heart dropped to my knees. I could see what Kane held on the end of the chain.
“Jaxson!”
Oh, God. My brother! My poor, poor brother! He wore a collar around his neck and his hands were bound in front of him. His clothes hung off him in rags and most of his skin too. My brother was big. Six foot three and two hundred pounds of burly muscle and strength of the grizzly inside of him. But all that was gone now. He looked skeletal with hollowed-out cheeks and soulless eyes that pleaded toward the sky as he struggled to stay on his feet.
Alec said something, but his words came to me as if I were underwater. I acted. Didn’t think. I ran out the front door, bounded down the yard, and raised the shotgun, bracing it against my shoulder.
It would be so easy. He was only fifty feet away from me. I had him in my sights and imagined the cloud of red I’d see when I blew his fucking head off. But even as I thought it, I knew in some far corner of my brain I’d never get the shot off. Wolves couldn’t outrun bullets, but they could sure as hell outrun my trigger finger. Wade and Brandon charged me, teeth bared and red murder in their eyes.
I heard the wolves shift behind me. Bones and sinew tearing and reforming. But they weren’t what stopped Wade and Brandon’s homicidal advance.
No. The earth shook. The trees swayed. Fur and fangs burst through the trees all around us as wolf after wolf made their presence known. But, they weren’t alone. They turned and stood their ground, assuming battle stances with their tails high. Right behind them all hell broke loose.
Something broke through Bas’s line to the right of us, and that’s what made me lower the shotgun. He ripped a small maple tree straight out of the ground and hurled it at least forty feet in a spray of dirt and mangled roots.
The Lord of the bears had come down from the hillside, and he hadn’t come alone. All around us, bears advanced behind the wolves, forcing them into a narrowing circle with Jaxson, Kane, his pack, and me at the center of it.
Jax looked back and finally collapsed.
Those few seconds played out in my head a thousand times, ending in a thousand different ways in my imagination. I raised my shotgun again and blasted a hole through Kane’s chest. Or, I missed and hit Jax. Or, my father broke through Kane’s pack and ripped Kane to shreds. Or Alec leaped over me and got to him first. Or Wade and Brandon finished their advance and brought me down. Wolf against bear. Wolf against wolf. Blood everywhere.
I imagined it all within the span of an instant, and I could see no good end to any of it. I had asked Alec a moment ago what winning looked like. He had no answer
because there wasn’t one. Not now. This could only end with me losing someone I loved or my own life.
A siren call slammed me back to reality. It came in the form of Pat’s shrill whistle as she stepped off the porch and put two fingers in her mouth. I can’t say her whistle had the power to tame the shifters, but it sure as hell had the power to make them stop for half a second, and that was all it took.
Alec got to me, pulled the shotgun from my hands and pushed me behind him. He held his hands out away from him and shouted to Kane.
“Stop! Call them off.”
Kane smirked, but a simple jerk of his chin made Wade and Brandon’s wolves halt where they stood. But Kane had no power over my father or the rest of the bears. They broke into a run and headed straight for all of us. My eyes caught Jaxson’s. He was broken, glassy-eyed, but enough of him was in there to make a difference.
The sound of his tattered vocal cords ripped through me as he let out a wail. It wasn’t a human sound, or bear either. It was something in between. But it was enough. My father’s bear reared up on his hind legs; his black paws clawed the air and he let out a keening growl that cut through me and nearly took my legs out from under me.
My brother and father looked at each other, and I was gutted. Jaxson couldn’t find his bear. My father didn’t seem able to find the man inside of him. They were two halves of a broken whole with Kane at the center of it. My fingers itched to raise the shotgun again.
Pat came to my right side. Alec’s wolf came to my left. Jax’s call had prompted him to shift. I put a hand on his back, my fingers sinking into his snow-white fur.
“Son,” she called to Jax. “You still got enough left in you to call to them? Tell them to stand down for now?”
