“Banish him,” Stray said. “I know from experience, living without support is like a death.”
“What’s to stop him from taking another job in the limelight?” Vice argued. “He’s already weaseled away from us too many times. Gave up his kingship.”
“Rifter, you were always stronger. I couldn’t do it,” Harm told him now. “It was all too much, and they’d never have let me give up the crown any other way. The only thing I wanted to do was the music.”
Gwen remained silent during this exchange. Now the men looked at her when she asked, “Tell us more about the FBI.”
“I found out that the current killings match a similar rash when I was touring in the eighties. An agent named Angus Young’s been tailing me, and it’s only a matter of time before he figures out I’m the same person—he’s already asked me about it. And then he’ll wonder why the hell I haven’t aged.” Harm looked at them. “I mean, plastic surgery makes people look good these days, but no way would he believe that I’m human.”
“The problem is, I don’t think they believe you’re human at all,” Rifter said.
“We’re going to have to move,” Jinx said. “I don’t see a way around this.”
“Not until this supernatural shit’s under control.” Local papers were reporting increasingly weird things in the area. Weres were affected—leaving now would be akin to desertion, and Dires didn’t do that.
“You surrender once and you’re fucked.” Vice stood firm. “Even Gwen instinctively knows she was born for retribution.”
Gwen nodded, that need hot in her blood. She had a family to defend, and she would never go down easily. But the fact that her blood could kill them… “How can my blood hurt you?”
“It’s not as simple as you spill blood on us,” Jinx explained. “It would have to be transfused in great quantities. That’s why they wanted you—they could study your blood and re-create it in order to fell us.”
“How do you know this?”
“I went through Mars’s house, hoping to find the grimoire—the book of spells. Mars had it written down as part of his battle plan.”
“We’d have to start killing the humans,” Jinx said. “And that’s a slippery-assed slope, even if they want us dead first.”
“Then we need to find the other Dires the Elders were talking about,” Vice said. “Obviously, one of us knows something.”
They all turned to Stray, the obvious choice. He didn’t deny anything, stopped typing and shoved the keyboard away. There was a stubborn set to his jaw, and Rifter fought the urge to punch the hell out of it until it dislocated.
“How many are there?” he demanded instead.
“I only know one. My brother, Killian,” Stray said through clenched teeth.
“After fifty years, you couldn’t trust us?” Rifter asked.
“I respected his wishes. He’s not out getting us in trouble or hurting people. But his ability will help us.”
“And he’ll do that?” Jinx asked.
“He owes me. He’ll come when I call to collect,” Stray assured him.
Rifter didn’t want to ask any more, but Stray continued, “If I thought he could’ve helped Rogue, I would’ve called him back already. But his talent lies in another area of importance to us.”
“What’s that?” Vice asked.
“His ability allows him to plant suggestions inside people’s minds. Kind of like hypnosis, the suggestion remains there and becomes more than a suggestion. Only works on humans.” Stray paused, as if waiting for Rifter to question him further.
There would be a time for that, but it wasn’t now. Instead, Rifter just growled, “Get him here.”
Chapter 51
The ceremony formally mating him to Gwen took place during the waning moon. Since the police and the FBI were watching the property attached to the house carefully, Gwen, Rifter and his Dire brothers, along with Liam and the twins, traveled to the underground compound. On the other side of the place, there was a stairway that opened to a patch of nearly deserted woods that ran along the river. The moon shimmered, making everything look unreal, but Rifter knew how real it was. How much danger they were putting themselves in to make him and his mate one.
Under that moon, where the Elders could see and bless the union if they so desired, he and Gwen spoke in the ancient language, the promises of love and devotion the Dires used back in the old country.
It had been so long since he’d heard it, but Rifter made sure he’d never forgotten it. He had a feeling none of his brothers had either. And when the words were spoken and he and Gwen embraced, they shifted together, Gwen still taking longer than he did, making him hold his breath with anticipation.
And when they howled jointly, the rest of the men shifted as well, and he and Gwen ran together along the river, with the Elders, the Dires, Cyd, Cain and Liam watching over them. Howling at the moon as they returned.
After going back inside, shifting and heading to the house, they ate a meal together. Then Rifter watched Vice wield the tattoo gun easily in his massive hands, knowing from experience the buzz of the needle wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation.
This was his brothers’ present to her. Gwen understood the honor, and she’d been the one to insist that it be done that very evening.
Her tribal tattoo was smaller, more delicate, drawn along the inside of her wrist by Rifter and inked by Vice.
She’d chosen that spot purposely. “Where I can always see it,” she told Rifter after he’d carefully drawn the marking.
She’d been marked in so many ways over the past weeks.
She was accepted, and that made Rifter’s pride swell.
Liam, Cyd and Cain were equally marked—symbols of solidarity and protection. They were considered part of the Dire tribe, even though they would branch from it. With Liam as king and alpha, Cyd as an emerging alpha, and Cain as omega, the New York City pack would have a powerful new beginning.
It would be necessary to defeat the monsters headed their way in the form of the spirit army. The Dires had never had to fight against themselves.
Harm was there, although he hadn’t been accepted back into the Dire pack—or forgiven by any of them. But he recognized that he needed to stay out of the limelight and away from the FBI, so he had little choice.
The tabloids were having a field day, calling Harm a recluse. His manager called nonstop.
Until Rogue woke, nothing could ever be the same.
So much unfinished. After living so long with so many loose ends, you’d think Rifter would be used to it by now.
When Gwen came and embraced him, he pushed aside those thoughts. “It looks beautiful, just like you.”
“I love you so much, Rifter. Love you… forever.”
For the first time ever, he was able to truly believe that was possible.
Epilogue
He’d gone into hibernation mode for most of the winter, waking only to run during the hot nights of the summer months along the shores of the old country. So alone, the way he’d wanted to be, needed it to be, for everyone’s safety.
Now he was needed. He heard the call from deep inside, a blood bond of family unbroken by time.
His brother never called to him, not once in all the years since they’d separated. But there was trouble now, and Kill rose to his feet and prepared to make the long stretch to find Stray.
Acknowledgments
Writing a book is never a solitary experience and as always, I have many people to thank. First, to Irene Goodman, for listening. For Danielle Perez and Kara Welsh, for giving the Dires a home and for loving them as much as I do. For everyone at NAL for being so welcoming.
To my go-to people, Larissa Ione, Maya Banks and Jaci Burton. I couldn’t do this without you. For Lea F., who’s supported me from the start. For all my readers, whose e-mail and posts on Facebook on Twitter mean more than they could possibly know.
For my family—Zoo, Lily, Chance, Gus—thank you for letting me follow
my dreams, and for understanding when it takes me a while to return to earth.
Don’t miss the next novel in the Eternal Wolf
Clan series by Stephanie Tyler,
DIRE WANTS
Coming in November 2012 from Signet Eclipse
Two Dires will be born to aid in the great
war between wolf and man. One can hear,
the other influence. Brothers who, if they
don’t turn their wrath on each other, will
cause destruction and ruin outward.
—Prophecy of the Elders (circa tenth century)
The prophecy that Stray had grown up hearing about him and his brother, Killian, was coming true. Now Kill was coming to town and would be expected to live up to his name, and Stray needed to run to lose himself. To hunt instead of brood, to stop trying to figure out if the prophecy wanted him dead or alive.
As part of a pack of what was believed to be the last six remaining Dire wolves, he was feared and revered. Currently, they called the Catskills in New York home, had come back here months earlier to aid the Weres and had found themselves embroiled in a shitload of trouble.
Still, in the woods outside the Dires’ secret underground lair, there was laughter under the glow of the moon. Even if it was foggy, the moon shone to them as bright as the sun did to humans on a hot summer’s day.
The nightly run would happen on the plot of land that was protected by unshifted Weres. Under normal circumstances, the Dires changed their locale as often as possible, but this was anything but normal. The safe place was at the end of a tunnel that let out into a thicket of woods that was nearly impossible for most humans to pass through. Rifter, their leader, was there, with Jinx and Vice.
Jinx’s brother, Rogue, remained in a supernaturally induced coma back at the house, along with Harm, the Dire who’d walked away from the pack thousands of years ago and had come back a week earlier, bringing nothing but trouble with him.
Gwen was with them as well. Rifter’s mate, a half Dire, half human. Harm’s daughter.
Stray watched Vice rib Jinx for picking up a werechick the night before. Rifter and Gwen were nuzzling each other. Business as usual, despite everything.
Except Stray had an even bigger secret than the brother he’d been keeping under wraps. But tonight he was determined to shake off the maudlin shit and let his Brother Wolf run wild. And Brother growled in agreement, barely waiting for Stray to strip before the shift began. It was a pain-and-pleasure kind of thing, a change that pushed Stray to his limits every time his wolf took over.
“Stray’s gone!” Vice called behind him, and Stray knew his shift would pull the others along. Sure enough, he was soon surrounded by the wolves as they disappeared into the woods, camouflaged in safety.
Stray wasn’t the name he’d been given at birth. He’d adopted the moniker after he left his pack, because he refused to use or even think about his given name. Kill refused to change his. Maybe he was too proud or too stupid—or a combination of both. Stray could be stubborn too, but living like a hermit was his gig, not Kill’s. He couldn’t imagine how his brother had fared alone all these years.
Being a hermit was okay for Stray—it had been lonely as shit, but it was easier than reading people’s goddamned thoughts all the time, which got old and exhausting very quickly.
The Dires had never pushed him to reveal his ability, nor had they mentioned the prophecy, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know about it. Fact was, Rifter and his Dire brothers might have suspected there were more of their kind out there after they discovered Stray. At one point, Rifter had asked him outright and Stray had denied it. But now that they knew about Killian, would they make the connection about the prophecy as it related to them? And when would he have to admit that there was another Dire pack, not immortal, living quietly in Greenland?
The Elders had never forbidden him to speak about them, but he was oddly protective of a group that had been anything but kind to him.
Stray had already given up more in the past few days than he’d ever planned to. But this Dire pack had kept him safe, had treated him like a brother for the past fifty years.
Maybe he should’ve let them in on all of it—the other pack, the prophecy—before now, and he couldn’t tell if it was his guilt or their possible unspoken disapproval weighing heavily on him. And so he ran faster, breaking away from the pack, Brother Wolf craving a solitude he hadn’t gotten since all the shit started raining down on their heads.
He felt his brother drawing near as surely as he felt the moon’s pull. There was a darkness in Killian, one that Stray brought out—and was pretty sure he shared as well.
And soon, the pack that took him in would know too.
They all have abilities, he reminded himself. But putting his together with Kill’s could turn the brothers into beings beyond all control.
Power was a damned dangerous thing, but not as much as the freedom he craved. Freedom was as dangerous as shit these days to seek out, but Brother Wolf wanted to hunt. To seek, to stalk prey while relishing in the game of the chase.
He lost track of time and the trails, knew he was pushing it by running this close to the highway but didn’t care. His Brother Wolf moved fast, paws crunching the packed snow.
He was searching. Scenting. The full moon had passed, but a second called the blue moon would happen in less than a few weeks. His body felt hot and tight and every run made things worse, not better.
Brother Wolf ran, paws treading the wet earth until he couldn’t hear anything but his own breathing. Everything inside of him relaxed and he melted into the forest surroundings, because that’s where he belonged.
He scented his prey and stalked it for miles. Sometimes, the thrill of the hunt and the chase were better than the catch.
This time, the catch was pretty damned good too.
Stray would be the last one in tonight. Vice shifted back and prepared to wait for him to show through the thicket of trees sometime before dawn.
Stray would come back bloody, the way Vice had. Not unusual, but since he’d confessed how young he was—seventy-five to Vice’s centuries—Vice was impressed at Stray’s self-control.
The kid was really a goddamned baby.
“We’ve got to find out more about Killian, ’cause I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” he said to Jinx, who’d come up beside him.
“You shouldn’t fuck with him,” Jinx said after a long pause. “This brother thing… it’s no joke.”
He knew Jinx was speaking from experience, since his twin was currently all fucked up and lying in some kind of supernatural coma. Only the death of the witch who’d cursed him could break the spell—and since that witch was immortal, they needed a hell of a miracle.
He leaned against the gazebo that was directly over the tunnels the Dires utilized. The protected underground lair was built beneath hallowed ground. There had once been an old church here, razed before the Dires purchased the land. Even though the building was gone, the consecration would always remain.
Vice figured there had to be some religious types flipping in their graves over the fact that wolves were living on church ground. He wasn’t sure why, other than the fact that they weren’t human. But he’d never understood any organized religion. He’d fought in the Crusades, not just because he liked to fight, but also because he liked the idea that everyone deserved freedom.
Well, most everyone. The weretrappers had to get over themselves. Centuries was too long to hold a grudge.
This vendetta on the part of the trappers wasn’t about what the Dires once did—over the years, they’d saved a thousandfold more humans than their packs had killed. It seemed like it would never be enough. But he’d be damned if he let those fuckers use the wolves to kill.
Because of that, the hunt for the witch who could save Rogue was on. The sky remained unnaturally dark, as it had been for days. The supernatural influence pulled at all of them, made them uneasy. Growly. Shifty. The pull would get more
intense as the blue moon neared.
The supernatural storms that had invaded the town weeks earlier had receded, but they were all still vigilant, awaiting the storms’ return. The weretrappers weren’t about to give up this easily.
But Jinx hadn’t been able to contact the Dire ghost army again—and they didn’t content themselves that it had been disbanded. No, there was no doubt a far more sinister reason the army could not be reached, and the Dires were grateful they’d been able to make the initial contact at all.
Vice especially was getting tense—his shifts from one extreme to another would happen so fast his own head spun, and although he was never even close to being politically correct, the things that came out of his mouth surprised even him.
And Jinx was getting nowhere, except more pissed that he couldn’t find a witch to help Rogue even though he claimed he felt her—and that she was close.
Stray, who had been getting more and more agitated as his brother got closer, found himself pulled out of the house during the daylight, as if searching for something.
Vice had taken to trailing him to make sure Stray wasn’t getting himself into trouble. Between watching over him, training Liam and ghost hunting with Jinx, Vice barely found time to get into any trouble of his own. And hell, that in itself was too unnatural for him to deal with for much longer.
“Fucking witches,” he muttered.
“Tell me about it,” Jinx said. “Stray’s coming—he just shifted.”
They watched him turn from wolf to human about thirty feet from them, still covered by the surrounding foliage.
“You’re sleeping out here with him?” Vice asked.
“Yeah, think I will.” Jinx motioned to the covered porch. “We’ll be all right.”
Vice didn’t think any of them would be, but for once he managed to hold his tongue.
*
Vice and Jinx were waiting for him. Neither said anything when Stray walked back to them in the field with blood still smeared on his chest. They were all predators, believed in survival of the fittest and enjoyed the hunt as much as he did. Wolves were meant for this, and as long as they were taking down animals and not humans, they were well within their rights.
Dire Needs: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan Page 32
