Pack Violet Shadow

by C. M. Stunich

  I found Monty in the corner with a small girl clutched in his arms, his keys now in Tidus' hands as the Amber Ash Alpha-Son struggled to unchain the other wolves. If I had to guess, I'd say there were about thirty of them in the room with us.

  Thirty.

  Out of hundreds of missing.

  This wasn't the only holding location.

  There were more places like this, maybe even worse than this.

  I didn't have time to think about that, not right now.

  “She's dying, Zara,” Monty said as I stumbled over and found a little girl, the same age as Patience, one of the pups from the litter of seven that he'd told me about before. “Her pulse, I can barely hear it.”

  “Let's get her outside,” I said, because I couldn't imagine this little wolf with her cute green eyes and her white fur dying in Montgomery's arms with the smell of meat and death all around her.

  We carried the little girl out into the moonlight and laid her next to the stag's brambles. I doubted I'd get two miracles in one day, but it was worth a try. Putting one hand on her, and another on Monty's bare chest, I tried to summon some of that magic from before.

  But all I felt was … empty. Barren. Drained.

  “We need demon blood,” Montgomery said, his voice strained, choking on his own words. “But I used the last …”

  He'd used his last antidote … on me.

  “I can get you demon blood,” a husky voice said, and I lifted my head to find Whitney … her thighs stained with blood, Aeron held in her arms, a look of tense determination on her face. She walked forward and set the fae girl down, both of them just … covered in blood. And oh goddess, it was just everywhere.

  “You …” I started as Whitney—who was clearly no longer the Maiden—walked over to us, her pelvis soaked in red. She'd given it up to protect Aeron. And now, we had nobody on the inside of Coven Triad to help us.

  Everything was just fucked.

  But I had Nic.

  I had Nic, but I couldn't lose Monty by letting him watch his sister die.

  “I can summon a demon,” she said as Aeron sat breathing heavily on the ground, her hand to her throat, the marks of a vampire bite clearly visible even from here. She'd lost a good portion of her neck. If she'd been human, she'd be dead right now.

  “What's the price?” I asked, because I knew that I wouldn't allow anyone else to pay it.

  A moment later, the Yukon came backing up onto the property, right over part of the dilapidated fence, bypassing the locked chain-link gate completely. Nic and Silas got out and started toward us, but I waved them away.

  “Start loading people in, as many as you can get. We don't know how long we have here before Bloods and witches start showing up in hordes.”

  “We won't know the price until we summon them,” Whitney said, flipping open the top of the leather satchel strapped across her body. She acted like she didn't give a fuck about her Maidenhood, kneeling down beside us in jeans that looked like they'd seen a really bad period. But I could tell from her body language that all she really wanted to do right now was break something—or someone. Hell, she'd probably broken at least one vampire someone in there based on the state of Aeron's bloody clothes. No way all of that was hers, her gossamer robes wet and dripping. “But you can always say no so long as you can give them a night to walk free.”

  “Do it,” I said as Monty opened his mouth to protest and then squeezed it shut again. He looked down at his little sister in her wolf form, her white fur patchy and stained with red, her skin pale underneath and littered with bites. There were so many, I couldn't count them if I tried. Hundreds, at least. And on a child, too. I felt sick to my stomach.

  Whitney pulled a tiny book from her bag, something old and brittle and brimming with magic. She flipped through several pages and then lifted her hand up, waving it dismissively in the direction of the tome. The pages fluttered on their own and stopped at a diagram of a circle.

  As I watched, she reached down, unbuttoned her jeans and dipped her fingers inside, wetting her fingers with a good amount of virgin blood. As Monty and I watched, and the other boys loaded sick and dying werewolves into the SUV, Whitney drew a circle around herself in blood, chanted in the language of the witches and stood up. She stepped back and then bit a charm off the end of another fingernail, putting it on her tongue and swallowing.

  And then she spit in the circle and magic swirled like a living thing, hot and violent and reeking of sulphur.

  “Sutannoc,” she shouted, her voice like thunder, her eyes flickering with a storm of power. I could feel it in my bones and it was a mighty, mighty thing. “Eanimeg.”

  Two names, two demons.

  I sucked in a sharp breath and hoped like hell that Whitney knew what she was doing. To summon a demon, all you really needed was their true name, but a little magic never hurt. If whoever was calling them was powerful enough, the demon had no choice but to come to the summons. That was dangerous work though, liable to get the caster killed. Demons were dangerous as fuck, not a species that should be messed with.

  The circle of blood lit up a strange gold color, and I watched as Whitney drew several different runes in the air with a bloody finger. They flickered like fireworks as she snatched a vial from her bag and drew a pentagram over the circle of blood.

  Contrary to the unfortunate ignorance of some, pentagrams were not evil. They were simply markers of protection. Could they be used by a person with darkness in their heart? Sure. But what in this world couldn't turn deadly in the wrong hands?

  Montgomery found my hand and squeezed it tight, the comfort of our pack connection racing through us as two bodies rose from the ground, bent low, leathery bat wings wrapped around them like cocoons.

  “The Twins,” Whitney said, her black pointed hat lilting to one side as she sagged to the ground and dropped her book onto the dusty earth.

  Montgomery scooped his little sister up in his arms and stood up alongside me, waiting as The Twins unfurled their black and red wings and turned to face us, turning their heads together, so they were both looking over a different shoulder, their cheeks almost close enough to touch.

  “Werewolves,” they said in unison, spreading their wings and turning around to face us together. “Summoned by a witch, but in the company of wolves.”

  “We need your blood,” I said, getting straight down to business. After all, they were right: I was indeed a werewolf. Ritual and tradition we could do, but we didn't do speeches, especially not when the life of a puppy was hanging in the balance.

  “What a coincidence,” the boy on the left said, his red hair spiked up in a mohawk, his dual colored eyes boring into mine, “because we could use some of yours.”

  I had to admit, that threw me off.

  About ninety-nine percent of the time, demons asked for unfettered time in our world. What they did with it, I wasn't exactly sure. There weren't a lot of books written on the subject. Demons existed in a realm separate from Earth, separate from Faerie even. As far as I knew, there wasn't even a name for it that we could pronounce correctly in English.

  “My blood?” I asked and the brother on the right laughed, stretching his wings to their full width. It was an impressive move, I must admit. They must've been at least six feet … each.

  “What the fuck are those?!” I heard Tidus shout from behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see him stumble back and fall on his bare ass in the dirt. “What the … fuck …”

  “Demons,” Anubis said, pausing beside him and glancing over at us warily, “more specifically, muinomeads.”

  “What an astute little puppy,” the first brother said, his right wing black and his other red. The two demons—sorry muinomeads—must've been fraternal rather than maternal twins because they were most definitely not identical. The other boy had a red wing on the right side and a black on the left. He also had one side of his head shaved to stubble, the other half long and hanging past his shoulders. His brother had
a fully spiked Mohawk, his red hair standing up in violent points down the center of his head.

  They were both tattooed, ripped, and wearing … leather pants suspiciously similar to the ones I'd designed for my males.

  “Blood for blood, seems fair to me. Don't you think so, Noc?” Mohawk Boy said.

  “Sounds more than fair considering we were woken up from a dead sleep, Nim.” They both stared at me, their eyes mirror images of their wings—one red and one black for each boy. “A pint for a pint, plus two weeks to wander, and a pound of flesh.”

  “You want flesh and blood?” I asked, glancing down at the little wolf in Monty's arms and laying my hand on her side. Through the strong connection of pack, I could feel her fading away. We didn't have a lot of time here.

  “Enough to cure her ten times over,” I said, just in case we came across another werewolf in as bad a shape as Monty's litter sister. “And we'll match it with our blood. Plus one week to wander and an ounce of flesh.”

  “Enough to cure her ten times over,” the Mohawk boy—Nim—repeated, “plus two weeks and eight ounces of flesh.”

  “Agreed and agreed … but four ounces of flesh,” I blurted as the little girl's pulse flickered dangerously under my palm. I didn't have time to stand here and get a good deal out of these assholes. I had a fucking life to save.

  “Deal,” Noc said, reaching out and grabbing Monty's arm. I just barely managed to catch his sister before she fell. A silver knife flashed in the demon's hand and I watched in horror as he shoved up the black sleeve of my mate's trench coat and cut a chunk from his arm.

  I'd intended for that to be me, but Montgomery stood there, stoic and unmoving, a warrior fighting to save what he believed in most … I almost loved him right then, fell head over heels. Hell, maybe I did? I fell so thoroughly in love with him later that when I recalled the memory, it was hard to say when I started feeling what I was feeling.

  “And the blood …” Nim, the brother with the half and half hair, said, “we'll collect at the end of our two weeks.” He stepped out of the circle and his twin did the same. But the circle itself? It didn't disappear. No, it burned into the ground with the rancid stink of sulphur and ash, the proof of our bargain.

  If the boys and I failed in any way to deliver on the promise … the twins would be given free reign to roam this world for as long as they pleased. As long as the circle was on the ground, we were also safe from them. If we reneged and it disappeared? I'd never sleep another wink without wondering if they were coming for me.

  Noc gestured vaguely in my direction, shirtless and beautiful and alien with his dual colored eyes and whip of a smile. I didn't personally find him attractive—I liked my boys with a little wolf in them—but when I glanced over and found Harlem watching us, I could tell that she, in fact, did.

  So she liked werewolf and demon boys, huh?

  “Where do you want me to bleed myself, Wolf?” Noc asked, crossing his arms over his bare chest. He was literally covered in tattoos, both arms as well as the top part of his chest. As far as I could tell, he and his brother were at least identical in that right.

  “I'll get a bowl from the car,” I said, handing the little girl back to her brother and moving over to the Yukon's open front door. The back seats were already down and filled with unconscious wolves from the warehouse; it smelled like rot and blood and death in there. It was awful. I ignored it for the time being and opened one of the compartments on the ceiling, withdrawing one of the plastic bowls we kept in here for when we were wolfing out—werewolves got thirsty, too, you know.

  When I jogged back and handed it to Noc, he grinned like a serial killer about to take down his one hundredth victim. He looked that excited about it.

  “A plastic bowl?” he asked and looked up at his brother. “It's a plastic bowl.”

  “So it is,” Nim said, eyeing Harlem as she helped carry a large male wolf to the SUV. Her gaze kept flicking in his direction, too. It wouldn't surprise me if they found each other later for sex … “How … unconventional.”

  “Fucking ridiculous,” Noc grumbled, setting the plastic on the ground and reaching out a hand toward Monty. “Ivory knife, please?”

  Montgomery turned so I could pull the knife from his belt, passing it to the demon and watching as he slit his wrist from the base of his hand all the way down to his elbow. When demon blood was fresh, it only took a small amount to counteract the poisons in vampire blood. But later, if we dried it into a powder like the one Monty had given me at the school, we'd need a hell of a lot more.

  As soon as the blood hit the bowl, Montgomery laid his sister down on the ground, smeared his fingers in the red-violet liquid and rubbed it along her tongue.

  “Please, Virtue, please,” he whispered, and if the situation hadn't been so dire, I'd have thought that her name was cute—Patience and Virtue from the same litter. “Come on, honey,” he whispered, tears falling down his cheeks. He dashed them away with an angry arm, blood dropping down his hand from the demon's wound.

  I knelt beside him and reached out, putting a comforting hand on the back of his neck. As soon as I did that, magic swirled between us in a gust of fresh air, bringing leaves and bits of the dried stag's bramble along with it.

  Montgomery continued to transfer blood from the bowl to his sister's lips. I watched Noc carefully until he pulled his arm away and closed his fingers around the bleeding wound, his black and red nails long and pointed.

  “All done,” he said as he stood up and moved back a few feet from us.

  “A tenth, Monty,” I said, taking the full bowl in my hands. “I asked for ten times what we needed. She's going to need a fuck of a lot more than I thought.”

  My mate hefted his sister's little body in a better position, her head up, wolf muzzle open as far as we could get it. I poured the warm blood into her throat as fast as I could without choking her, pausing and letting Monty pet her throat, encouraging her to swallow.

  “Come on, Virtue,” he whispered, his eyes wide, his skin pallid but sallow. He looked physically ill, sitting there with his dying sister in his lap. More blood, more petting. And again. I judged about a tenth of the liquid and then added some extra, just in case. Too much and we'd make her sick; too little and she'd died.

  “We have as many people in the Yukon as will fit,” Nic said from behind me, his voice strained and distant. “You want Silas to drive them to the Hall.”

  “Not to the Hall,” I said, knowing that as long as Allister was on pack property, they weren't safe there.

  “Why not?”

  I heard my mother's voice before I even registered her presence.

  Chills broke out all over my skin as I glanced back and found her there, naked and dressed in silver, a fur coat hanging half off her shoulders. Her face was an impenetrable mask, beautiful and terrifying all at once.

  She looked like a goddess.

  A goddess whose dark eyes flicked over to the dead brambles with a start of recognition before she managed to school her expression, turning her attention back to me.

  My head whipped around when the little wolf coughed, shuddered, and then came to with a yowl of unhappiness.

  It was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard in my life.

  Monty and I locked eyes before I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his, kissing him as fully and deeply as I could before I pulled away and stood up, turning to face my mother.

  “The Hall isn't safe,” I said as she moved closer and stared down at me like I was … less than an alpha … but more than a pup. It was an improvement, that's for sure. “Alpha, there's a traitor in the Convocation.”

  Back at the Pairing House, I leaned against the tiled wall of the shower and slapped the faucet onto the hottest possible setting. Obviously, as a werewolf I wasn't cold … not physically. But on the inside, I was a twisted, tangled mess of emotions.

  Some of which here happy … some sad … and then there was this righteous anger inside of me that burned so hot
that it felt cold.

  All those werewolves, bleeding and chained, covered in bite marks, hunks of flesh missing, leaving nothing but glistening white bone and the pink-red of muscle tissue.

  Putting my hands over my face, I dragged them down and watched as the boys filed in beside me. Some of them started to shower right away … while others just sat in the hot water like me, staring at each other … or over at Montgomery.

  Frankly, I was surprised that he was still here.

  “You sure you wouldn't rather be with your family?” I asked as he stripped off his bloody clothes—he was the only one of us who hadn't shifted to wolf form during the fight.

  Poor Monty … Although he'd gotten his sisters back, there'd been no sign of his parents.

  Clearly, Kingdom Ironbound and Coven Triad were keeping the alphas elsewhere.

  “I am with my family,” Monty said, his voice husky and thick as he moved over to me and put his big hands on either side of my face. His green eyes locked onto mine and for several moments, we just looked at each other. After a moment, his white hair wet and plastered to the sides of his face, he leaned in close and kissed my mouth, soft but firm, like a confirmation of our bond.

  He pulled away and turned to grab some soap, lathering up the bloody spot on his arm where Nim and Noc had carved their bit of flesh. The wound was healed now, but the dried rust brown flakes of blood remained.

  Turning my head to the side, I found Nicoli Hallett, my childhood friend, my bodyguard, my lover … He was looking at me with a very curious expression on his face.

  “We should tell them,” he said, and I nodded, pushing up off the wall and making my way toward him, toward the shuttered darkness in his eyes. He'd died today, literally died. He'd passed away right in front of me and yet … here he was? I kept having to pinch myself to make certain I wasn't fucking dreaming.

  “We will,” I said as Anubis squirted shampoo on his hands and looked at me inquisitively. I nodded and he came up behind me, lathering my hair from roots to tips with sweet smelling soap. “Just not now.”