Pack Violet Shadow

by C. M. Stunich

  Julian slid his attention from the sun to my face and smirked.

  “What's the connection between the two?” I continued.

  “Eat shit, you arrogant bitch. You and your idiot mother really think the other packs are going to roll over and accept you as alpha? That's a fucking pipe dream.”

  Anubis grabbed a handful of the vampire's hair again and slammed his skull into the wood with a sickening crack that I couldn't quite identify as wood … or bone.

  “Crown Aurora,” I said, very carefully, putting a single hand on Montgomery's shoulder. I took zero fucking pleasure in Julian's plight, but my people were being kidnapped, drained, eaten. Goddamn fucking eaten. And who knew what else was happening while they were in captivity. Rape? Starvation? Torture? I'm sure what we were doing to Julian now was nowhere near what my people were suffering.

  Montgomery's father, mother … his little sisters. Fucking pups.

  “Tell me what their involvement in this is about? I know Ironbound has been kidnapping wolves and selling them to Coven Triad for the daywalking potion”—total lie, but I didn't want to give away all that we knew in case someone else was listening—“but what's Crown Aurora's hand in all this?”

  “Hand?” he asked with a sharp, manic sounding laugh. I kept my gaze trained on his face, studying each twitch of his brows, the wrinkling of his mouth, the blinking of his eyes. A good portion of communication is relayed through body language, and there aren't many species—Numinous or human—that are as good at reading it as a werewolf. “They don't have a hand in shit. They're nothing. Some piece of shit family of backwoods cousin fuckers.”

  I knelt down next to Montgomery and looked up into Julian's face.

  “If they're nothing, then why are you so angry with them?”

  The vampire moved to spit in my face, but I had superhuman speed, too, and I simply moved out of the way. With a fresh meal in his tummy, time to heal, and a little training, he could probably match me … or with enough years, kick my ass. For now, I was much faster.

  “If you're looking for an ally in Crown Aurora, you're barking up the wrong tree, bitch. They won't work with anyone for any reason. A mountain of gold couldn't sway them. Go to their door and try if you want; they don't want or care about what we have. They'll slit your throats like they did to my cousins and they won't bat a damn lash.”

  “Cut his whole finger off,” I said aloud, and then in wolfspeak added, 'don't actually do it; follow my cues.'

  Julian just flared his nostrils at me and wrinkled his lips up enough that I could see the sharpness of his canines peeking out.

  “Do it,” he challenged, narrowing his eyes at me, the scent of mint and apples hanging heavy and cloying in the air. Now that he was undead, that smell would slowly mature into a deeper, darker smell, like the heavy wetness of decaying leaves. “It doesn't matter anyway. I was dead the moment your boyfriend lost his shit.”

  Julian let his lids fall closed and leaned his head back against the wooden chair, ignoring the burn of the wood against his neck and scalp. I had to wonder as I watched him, what his purpose had been all along. To get close to me? To keep an eye on me at school? Or had he made a serious error in letting me escape yesterday?

  It was a mistake that might be worth his life.

  If there'd been other vampires on campus—a definite possibility with the witch hazel—then they hadn't followed us in an effort to save their colleague, hadn't jumped in when Silas had attacked him in the hall.

  They'd left him for dead.

  “That's enough,” I said to Montgomery, moving my hand to his head and resting my palm on the crown of his shock-white hair. It was even paler, even more pure, than the piles of virgin snow dotting the shadowy forest floor. “He's not going to tell us anything else.” I pursed my lips tight. 'Move slow, play along,' I added in wolfspeak. And then … “Kill him and bury his body in the woods.”

  “Yes, Alpha,” Montgomery said, standing up and moving behind Julian with the wooden knife.

  The vampire didn't move, didn't open his eyes, but he did move his lips.

  “Dark Goddess watch over me,” he whispered, and I saw then that he really was prepared to die to protect his Kingdom's secrets. I waited, watching as Monty put the knife to the daywalker's exposed throat …

  “Let's give him a message and send him on his way,” I said, just as the front of the blade drew a trickle of blood from Julian's neck. A hot crimson drop slid down his skin and mixed with the red spatter from our earlier fight.

  Julian cracked his eyes and smiled wickedly at me.

  “Letting me go,” he said as he ran his tongue over his lips. “Would be a huge mistake on your part.”

  “Would it?” I asked with a smile of my own. “Oh well. I guess it's my mistake to make then. Go home, tell your queen that I want my people back and that I'm willing to negotiate. I'll expect you to bring me her answer on Monday, in the math building's study lounge. If I don't get one, I'll assume she's more interested in a full-scale war.”

  I stepped back and crossed my arms over my chest.

  'That's what they want, isn't it?' Jax asked as Monty sheathed his knife and Aeron watched the whole play-through with that dark, mysterious gaze of hers. 'A war? Coven Triad didn't make you eat the flesh of your own people because they wanted to talk.'

  'You're right,' I said as Montgomery carefully opened the wooden shackles and stepped back. The rest of the boys followed suite and we all watched as Julian fell forward with a groan and crawled away from us on his hands and knees, careful to avoid the bright shafts of sunshine. 'I think they want us to come after them with everything we've got, full force. Clearly there's already a plan in play here. That's why Nikolina and the alphas … they can't find out about this.'

  I watched Julian go and I hoped the 'message' I sent actually bought us more time rather than less. At any moment, Allister could tell the rest of the North American Convocation what he knew. How he'd explain how he knew was another story, but he could get the cavalry moving before I had a chance to stop the avalanche.

  'Sending Julian with this message should buy us the rest of the week to figure this out. If they think we're already committing to war, then that should keep Allister from moving when we're not ready.'

  I took a deep breath and glanced over at Montgomery.

  He was shaking. It was slight, but I could see the waver in his hands and fingers. I wondered if I'd made a mistake by letting him put his knife to Julian?

  “Let's go home,” I said as I backed away and turned, starting across the wet, icy pavement with my heart in my throat.

  Vampires, witches, faeries … and boy trouble.

  It was hard to say which of those was the worst.

  We took the back road through pack property and showered off first thing when we got to the house, then scrubbed down the SUV and burned our clothes before Nikolina or Majka could come sniffing around. There was still a very good chance that they'd smell the overwhelming stink of vampire blood, but I had an excuse ready, another lie tucked into the deep recesses of my mind, ready to be wielded at a moment's notice.

  I didn't want lying to become a skill of mine … but it looked like it was well on its way to being honed.

  If only I could find a trustworthy witch as a contact. I would kill for some of that witch hazel in my life, I thought as I leaned back in the wooden rocking chair on the Pairing House porch and stared at the forest. I could call the Maiden—Whitney was her name, wasn't it?—and ask if she'd be willing to supply us some, but I couldn't figure out her angle and that bothered me. What kind of witch goes against their own coven? Considering their species seemed inclined to consume the flesh of my own, it was rather unlikely I'd find a true ally in any member of Coven Triad.

  “Lucky you with all those mates,” Aeron purred as she came up the porch steps and stared down at me, glamour in place, dark hair braided and hanging over one shoulder. She smiled at me with a wicked twist of lips. “Must be nice, havin
g all those males around to slake your thirst.”

  “Ready to tell me what you're doing here?” I asked with a sigh.

  Part of me was … well, fucking thrilled at what'd happened with Silas. The rest of me was a mess. Not only had my mate attacked a vampire on a campus literally crawling with humans, but he'd also made me and Nic miss a day of class.

  That was going to be a definite hit to both our grades.

  “I told you,” she repeated, sitting down in the chair next to me and folding her hands neatly in her lap. “My mother kicked me out for trying to help you.”

  “The Unseelie Queen,” I said slowly, the creak of my rocking chair a lullaby that mixed with the sweet songs of the forest. “Kicked you out … out of where?” I glanced over at her, trying not to look at the guys who'd been on SUV cleaning duty as they shuffled past me and into the house.

  Somehow, I managed to snag Silas' eye and felt my breath catch.

  He even paused on the deck and tucked his fingers into the pockets of the jeans he'd borrowed out of the duffel bag. They were even tighter on him than usual. I think Nic was a bit skinnier than Silas.

  “That date,” he said after a moment, exhaling and raking his fingers through his espresso-brown hair. “Is the offer still open?”

  I forced my lips into a smile and felt my heart beating rapidly inside my chest. Oh, God. I just had sex in a bathroom?! Faith is going to freak all the way out.

  “You know it is,” I said quietly as Che walked by and purposely used his shoulder to knock Silas out of the way. The Obsidian Gold Alpha-Son snarled at the screen door as it swung shut behind his rival, but didn't move off the porch. “Just as soon as I hear back from Aurora.”

  After what'd just happened at the university, a meeting with the Crown Aurora Blood Queen was absolutely vital. I'd sent Nic's mom, Lana—who was tentatively assigned as my guard, even though I didn't actually need one with the boys around—with word and hoped that she really did care more about her son and me than she did Nikolina. Her loyalty should be to the alpha, but I was technically next in line. I trusted her as much as I trusted anyone outside the circle of my mates.

  Montgomery's pack had disappeared in Ironbound territory; Coven Triad didn't want us to know about Kingdom Kindred. The rest of the disappearances were scattered so randomly, it was hard to say who else might be involved. More than one Blood Kingdom sure, but if Crown Aurora wasn't in on it, it didn't seem to be a coup.

  At least, I hoped not.

  I had no idea what the Blood to wolf ratio was in the United States, but with the Coven on their side? The odds weren't good.

  I needed to ensure that Crown Aurora was as against Ironbound as we were. And I had to find a way to manipulate them into helping us without revealing the fact that our blood was a magic rich elixir that allowed them to walk in the daylight.

  Fuck my life.

  “Pick a place,” I told him, ignoring the sideways smirk on Aeron's face. “And we'll make a night of it.”

  Silas' nostrils flared and he nodded, giving me a look that said he was desperate to talk, but giving me the space I needed anyway.

  “Juggling seven lovers,” Aeron said after he went inside, her voice a liquid purr that brought to mind nightmares and freshly dug graves. Her people were, after all, stewards of the dead and dying, a home to unwashed souls and wicked hearts. “It's hard, but not impossible. My mother has ten men in her harem.”

  “It's not a harem,” I said, leaning my head back against the wood of the rocking chair, flaring my nostrils to take in the scents of the forest.

  “It's not?” Aeron asked, her laughter like rough nails raking down my spine, painful but almost … pleasurable at the same time. This girl was terrifying. “It sure seems like it is. You have seven males in your stable, ready to mate, willing to die to protect you. A harem.”

  “Where, exactly, have you been kicked from?” I repeated and felt the shift in mood, like a cold, wet fog rolling in from nowhere. I opened my eyes and looked over at the princess of the Unseelie court, her sloe-eyes downcast, ebon colored hair draped over her nearly exposed breasts. The dress she was wearing was as thin as fog, that was for sure. As soon as we'd gotten back to the house, she'd stolen a party dress Faith had bought me and that I'd never worn, and slipped into it. “Your house?”

  “From Faerie,” she snapped at me, flashing teeth as she turned a rictus snarl my direction. “I was banished across the Veil for trying to help you.”

  I blinked at her and curled my fingers around the knees of my lint covered sweats.

  My body felt … like it'd come awake recently, welcomed this new phase of my life as a sexual being with open arms. I wanted more. Having sex with Silas hadn't quenched my thirst; it'd made it worse.

  I'm horny, I thought, and the idea might've made me giggle if I hadn't just been told by fae royalty that she'd been banished from her own kingdom.

  “Why would your mother banish you?” I asked, trying to puzzle my way through this nightmare. “If what's happening to my people is such a big deal for yours, how could she possibly ignore the threat?”

  “She doesn't think it is a threat,” Aeron told me, leaning forward, the gauzy dress drifting in the wind and sticking to her calves. “She believes you'll all kill each other, that it won't end the way I know it will. You saw the bones, Alpha-Heir. The dead don't lie.”

  I exhaled sharply and stood up from the seat, noticing that Jax was standing at the edge of the clearing, his face lifted, nostrils flaring as he took in a scent.

  “Complete destruction or total salvation, right?” I said as I glanced down at Aeron.

  “I have to be on your side,” she said, following my gaze over to Jax. “Because I know my skills at divination; I'm never wrong.”

  “And the queen doesn't agree?” I asked, feeling myself get tense. The longer Jax stood there, listening, waiting, the more anxious I got.

  'What is it?' I asked him, starting toward the steps of the porch and pausing with one hand resting against the wood column. The lavender bushes perfumed the air with a sweet scent, but when I lifted my own head up, too, I could smell it.

  The metallic scent of witch.

  “The queen is a fool,” Aeron called out as the screen door opened and Montgomery came stalking out, pulling a bone knife from his belt. “But I am not!”

  'It's the Maiden,' Jax said as I headed down the steps and started tearing my clothes off. I ripped the t-shirt over my head, stumbled and kicked my way out of the sweats and panties. The bra was the last thing to go and let me tell you, it was quite the feat to unbuckle it while running.

  Across the grass I sprinted, shifting as I went, letting the change roll over me in a warm, hot wave. My paws tore across the earth, Montgomery right behind me, Jax taking up my other side when I raced past him.

  'Stay here,' I told the other boys, weaving my way through the trees toward the smell. If I didn't get there soon, my mother and her betas would. It was bad enough that we had a fae on the property. But a witch, too?

  If Nikolina found out about this, she'd kill them both.

  We hit the edge of the property and found Whitney waiting, standing just outside the legal border of my mother's land, on the national park side. Technically she wasn't on pack property, but werewolves aren't much for technicalities.

  “You never called,” she said as I came to a skidding stop, kicking up mud and pine needles. I shifted right away and stood there panting, raking bloodred hair back with shaking fingers. As I watched, the Maiden pulled out a small spray bottle from her leather jacket and doused herself in witch hazel.

  Within seconds, her scent was gone, scrubbed like it'd never been.

  My wolf growled and shifted inside of me. She didn't like that, didn't understand it. Smell made the world real; scent was a powerful motivator. And something with no smell? She didn't know what to do with that.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked her, panting and trying my best to catch my breath.


  'Are you alright?' Nic asked, speaking for the rest of the boys I'd left at the house. 'Do you need us?'

  'We're okay,' I told him, putting my hand on the top of Montgomery's snow-white head. He was lighter than Jax, a stark white without a single drip of gray, black or brown. A true white wolf—unlike me with my red and black speckles.

  “I'm glad you figured out the trick with the map,” she said on the end of a long sigh, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one up. I wrinkled my nose and both Jax and Montgomery growled in frustration. The stink of tobacco polluted the air and blocked the sweet smells of the forest from all of us. “The Crone was not pleased.”

  “Why the hell are you here?” I asked her, throwing up a hand in frustration. After the day I'd had, I was just about tapped out. All I wanted to do was collapse in bed and sleep away the rest of the week. That was never going to happen, but I could grab an hour or two, couldn't I? “And please don't tell me you got kicked out.”

  “Kicked out?” she asked, her voice even, almost husky. I had to admit, she looked pretty fucking cool in her dark blue lipstick and black pointed hat, a pink sheath dress and brown boots. Her ebony skin was painted with little silver sigils that glimmered when she moved. “No, not exactly. I'm just … trying to save my people, same way you're saving yours.”

  She locked her eyes on mine, taking a long, slow drag on her cigarette.

  I narrowed my own eyes and crossed my arms over my bare chest, not at all ashamed by my nudity, not in Whitney's presence. The boys … well, I never felt ashamed, but was Jaxson checking out my ass? It was a little weird, considering he was in wolf form and all.

  “Save them from what?” I asked, wondering how much Ebon Red or Ivory Emerald flesh she'd consumed. Maybe a lot … or maybe none at all. Because she was the Maiden, anything that she did that could be perceived as causing harm to others put her at risk. Did eating the flesh of a kidnapped werewolf count against that? I sure as hell hoped so. “Being eaten? Oh, no, wait, that was my people.”