Her mate moved around until he wrapped an arm around her waist. “Sleep.”
The world went black.
She woke up with her head ringing, the way it always did before the Moon bloomed high in the sky. Once a month she lived with a constant headache. Sydney groaned and the morning rushed at her like a bad memory revolting out of her brain. What had he done?
Sydney looked around. She was in the heat cage, the one her parents put them in before they were true mated when they’d gone into heat. The bars, which Savage had bent to get her out, were fixed.
No. She growled. He’d locked her in. Why would he do this? A scent reached her. George. He sat on the floor on the other sides of the bars staring at her.
“Ma’am? You’re awake.” His neck muscles were strained. The Moon had to be riding him, too. “I wondered if you would wake up before the change. I think the Alpha hoped you wouldn’t.”
She crawled toward the bars. Her legs, not wanting to work. “Why am I in here?”
“To keep you safe.”
Anger made her roar. She grabbed onto the bars and shook them. “No.”
“Listen, you can still let yourself out. The Alpha would never lock in you if you couldn’t get yourself out. We’re hoping you’ll trust you are safer in there.”
“The Garto got to my cousins when they ran away. Locking me in here doesn’t make any sense. He’s only going to come in the basement.” She’d be behind the bars, release latch or no release latch, in her Wolf form, unable to get out.
“There are seventy Werewolves from four packs out there between you and the Garto. Your family, well, the grown males. We sent your mother and the girls off. He isn’t getting in here. My Alpha and the Alpha from Boston have been reading on this extensively. The Garto is going to appear in that field. When you’re not there, he’s going to come looking. He can get anywhere, obviously. Over great distances. Only he isn’t getting out of that field. End of story. Five Alphas. None of them have to shift. If the Garto somehow gets away from the Alphas, we’ll know. I promise you, Sydney. I will not let anyone harm you.”
Savage was on that field, waiting to face her greatest fear with no idea how or if he could kill it. He had to get her to morning, that’s what he’d told her. With no kiss from her to tell him good luck, or that she believed he could make the impossible possible.
He’d worried she wouldn’t forgive him for knocking her out and locking her in. Her mate had to know she’d have said no. How was she supposed to keep him safe from inside the cage?
“Savage doesn’t have to worry about me if I’m in here.” She sniffed the air. “Milo and Barrett are upstairs.”
George nodded. “They’ll get a call if things get out of hand on the field.”
“Unless they’re all too dead to ring.” Of course, if Savage died at the hands of the Garto she wasn’t going to care one way or another how things went. Although…. She placed a hand on her stomach. The baby everyone kept insisting was in there but she didn’t feel counted on her to take care. Why did everything have to be so complicated?
“There are lots of ways to call. Wolves have communicated with each other over great distances since well before the advent of cell phones.”
She raised an eyebrow. “What do you do when you’re not doing this?”
George shook his head. “Why do you ask?”
“Before the advent of cellphones. Funny way to say that.”
He laughed. “I teach. English. To really obnoxious adolescents all sure their change has made them the hottest werewolf alive.”
She leaned her head against the bars. “I never went to school out of the house. Never learned anything without my brothers and sisters around. Sorry. You probably don’t want to be talking about this. I…my head feels fuzzy.”
“The change.” He nodded. “The Moon calls for me, too.”
“I’m not usually so out of it.”
“It’s pack life. Took me some time to get used to it. We’re both going to suffer from not having the Alpha near. The whole pack in San Francisco is going to feel like hell tonight. If he were in the room with us, you’d feel better.”
Another responsibility Savage lived with, whether or not his pack got through changes with or without pain. Why on earth did anyone ever want to be Alpha?
Her bones ached and the ringing in her ears intensified. “It’s coming.”
The first shift as Savage’s mate and he was nowhere around. The first time she wouldn’t follow her father into the woods. The night the Garto wanted her.
George reached through the bars to take her hand in his. “You’re my pack. I feel for you what I feel for the Alpha. Even those who haven’t met you yet, who are in California waiting on the moon, they’re all here with you tonight. Feel them with you, Sydney.”
Her bones broke, and her muscles tore. Even the way she could see the world changed. Colors faded, and yet the world became more vivid. Her skin was sticky before the fur pushed outwards covering her body. Once a month since she changed, and she never got used to. The whole experience took less than a minute…a lifetime.
The howl started in her throat. She was Wolf. There was danger, and she wanted her mate.
George nodded to her, still in his human form, before the change moved him. He was big, brown, spotted. His eyes were solid. Friend. Pack. Family. She howled, and he grunted, pawing at the cage.
She wasn’t alone. He was with her.
But she wanted Savage. Alpha. Mate. Hers.
He waited for the Garto. Enemy. Death.
Sydney howled again.
Chapter Eleven
Savage knew the second Sydney woke up. The sense of her intensified—a strange feeling. As Alpha, he was somewhat aware of his pack members when they were around. But, the sure sensation of being acutely surrounded inside by her wakefulness was an entirely new occurrence. Then again, he’d never had a mate during a Full Moon before. Who knew what was normal and what wasn’t anymore?
She’d be changing, and so would all of his and the other Alpha’s guards. Alexei, Jesse, Barrett, Milo, and himself would stay on two feet unless the situation called for it. Alexei and Jesse were with him in the field. Barrett and Milo stayed at the house. The pack guards were divided, and, as long as the Alphas held themselves together, their packs would not lose themselves to their wolves nor forget their goal was to kill the Garto. And protect his mate.
“Savage?” He turned to regard Sydney’s trembling father. Fear was present, but so was the scent of resolve. Savage was surprised. The man had balls, and not only when he was taking the rod to his children.
“Shift. It’s okay.”
He didn’t really know if it was, but lying to his pack members to reassure them was something he did more regularly than he’d like. Savage imagined parents who didn’t hate their children sometimes did so too.
Children, like the one in Sydney’s belly. Yes, they were living through the night. He would destroy the world for them.
Hopefully all he needed to do was take down one mythical Garto Wolf.
Sydney’s father stepped away, and he felt the shift in the air as the other man transformed. His own wolf prowled at his skin.
Out. Out. Out. Mate. Mate. Mate.
Yes, he knew what the canine wanted. He wanted to shift, and he wanted Sydney. Well, both of those things weren’t going to happen—at least not yet. If he had to resist the urge to transform for the whole night, he’d be suffering for it all month.
Small price to pay to put the threat behind them.
Alexei stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, while Jesse remained a hundred yards out, between the field and the lake where no ducks flew. The air was surprisingly still. No noise. No animals talking. No movement at all.
Like Mother Nature knew who was coming.
“What we’re doing.” Alexei’s breathing was even; an outsider would think he was bored from the way he kept his tone dull. “Lucian never dreamed of it. All that time, the Garto was her
e. Causing havoc in the lives of the people here, and he never fathomed stopping it. I didn’t know. I’ve only skimmed a small portion of his writings. He rambles. Waxes philosophic. I can only manage to read him in bits and spurts. But you said Garto, and I flipped through. Pages on this.”
Alexei had asked him to start to forgive. He was working on it, and some of his anger must be waning. He didn’t want to punch the Alpha from Boston every time he spoke anymore.
“Hayden says Lucian saved me. Maybe he did. But….”
Alexei nodded. “But indeed.”
“Tobias was going to bring my mate here tonight. He would have stood back while whatever is coming killed her. No one would have tried to stop it. And tomorrow they’d all go on as if the routine were perfectly normal.”
He knew her father could hear him, and he didn’t give a fuck.
“The True Mates who are showing up to mate the Alphas…they’re special.”
Savage couldn’t agree more. Only he didn’t think Alexei meant Sydney’s soft soul, healing touch and propensity to know exactly the right thing to say at the right time. “What do you mean?”
“Lily….”
Savage never got to hear what Alexei would have said as a giant gust of wind filled the air around them.
“Heads up.” Jesse called from across the field.
As though he’d miss the sudden change. Behind him his wolves howled. They wanted blood. So did Savage only he couldn’t fight the wind.
“This is your show, Savage.” Alexei growled. “We’re all here to help.”
His phone pinged, and he looked down. Who the fuck was texting him? A message from Hayden popped on the screen.
The Garto made a deal. Years ago. With the great-grandfather whoever. That means he can talk. Or at the very least he can understand.
Savage shoved the phone in his pocket. “My brother is a really smart wolf.”
Savage wanted to kill. Hayden figured out how to think. No question his brother should have been the Alpha instead of him. Lucian had been nuts.
“Share.”
“It can talk. It made a deal.”
Alexei turned to him, his eyes wolf. “That’s not good news. An ancient creature, from the time of Lily, who’s still here and can communicate. This is going to be old magic. Moon magic.”
One second the field was empty, the next a giant figure appeared. Savage pushed down his wolf’s need to charge ahead and kill. He needed to at least see what he was dealing with.
He stretched his head to stare upward at the beast. Bigger than any creature Savage had ever seen, the monster who wanted to eat his mate stood over ten feet tall. He looked like a wolf some human would put in a monster movie. Big, bulging yellow eyes, gray matted fur, and claws with eight nails each, and its teeth hung past the upper lip.
No one moved.
Don’t do bad things little boy; the Garto will come and eat you.
The creature sniffed the air and then sniffed again. Big boy wanted Sydney.
Savage stepped forward, and Alexei grabbed his arm. “Old magic, Savage.”
Old Magic. A phrase he’d not heard since the farm days with Lucian. As though they all might someday have to learn how to deal with things which went beyond their realm of understanding. Savage had rolled his eyes.
He wished he’d paid better attention. Of course, his polite discourse with a creature of old only mattered if he could get what he wanted. Otherwise, old magic or no old magic, the Garto was dying.
“Hello.”
Alexei shook his head, apparently Savage had already done wrong. Oh well. Fuck it.
“You.” He pointed at the Garto. “Big guy.”
The giant monster wolf sniffed in his direction before staring down at Savage. “You are not who I am here for. Although I smell her all over you.”
The creature’s voice was low, growly. He spoke as a man although he had an animal body. Savage had never seen anything like it. Savage had a tattoo on his chest of a wolf with red eyes. The choice had been deliberate. It was to remind him to always keep his eyes open when it came to death, to blood, to not see the world with his heart.
Sydney had changed that for him, simply by existing in the world.
Savage didn’t care how physically imposing the monster in front of him was. He’d not be getting anywhere his mate.
His one. His only. The reason his heart beat.
“Good nose.” Savage walked closer. “That’s my mate you’re talking about. And you aren’t going to eat her. Not her or any more females from this family. Or any other family for that matter. Your days of terrorizing are over.”
His wolf howled, and, although Savage kept the noise inside, it moved through him pouring power through his veins which would feed his whole pack. He was done playing games.
“Or there’s that approach.” Alexei spoke behind him. “I can get behind ‘slash and burn.’”
The Garto crouched down. “Are you Alpha of all Alphas? Are you Alpha Male?”
“I am who I need to be, and you need to be somewhere else.”
“I am death. I am the eater. I have been as I have always been and always will be. I slept. There was darkness and then the man woke me; a deal was struck. The land flourishes. I will have what is mine.”
Savage shook his head. “You will not.”
“If you stand in my way, you will die first. Then I will have what is mine. And more for the trouble of it all.”
He swiped one of his large claws in Savage’s direction, and he had to jump back to avoid getting hit. Seemed the thing was done talking.
Savage was done being on two legs. He wasn’t as tall as a werewolf, but he was stronger. He rushed forward, shifting in mid-air before he leapt on the back of the Garto. Howls and growls sounded behind him. The other Wolves knew their roles.
The sheer numbers of werewolves together would have to overwhelm him. Garto was going down. Savage tore into its skin even as the beast roared to the Moon.
****
Sydney paced her cell. Mate. Mate. Mate. She panted. She growled, and sometimes George growled at her. Neither one of them wanted to be stuck in the basement.
Upstairs, she heard talking. The Alphas remained in their human forms. George panted hard while he paced back and forth from the stairs to her cage. She could feel what he did—battle.
Her mate was there. She was in the cage.
The world shifted sideways. One second she was in the cage, the next…somewhere else. Or at least her mind moved. Her body, it stayed where she’d been. She blinked and tried to go back to herself, but nothing happened.
She was in the woods; she’d been there before. When? Her head hurt. A dream. Somehow she was seeing a dream she’d already had once.
Why was this happening? Didn’t she have enough stress without hallucinating?
“I prayed for the moon for you. Don’t you know me? I licked away your tears.”
“What you’re saying isn’t possible.” She spoke again. “A wolf licked my tears.”
“Yes, exactly.”
She looked around and grabbed a large stick off the ground. “I should be dead. I don’t know why I’m not. I’m not going to let you do to me what those other men did. If you come near me, I’m going to hit you with this stick. I’m going to hit you hard.”
Dark-haired sort-of-Savage raised his eyebrow. “I’d like to see you try. I must beg you, my Lily of the Moon, don’t go any further. If you do, you’ll wake the Garto. I hate the Garto. I wouldn’t want to have to put him to sleep.”
This conversation. Sydney had had it—heard it—whatever—before. She wasn’t dreaming as much as she remembered. Sexual knowledge wasn’t the only thing she’d picked up in her sleep.
The Garto was important.
“What’s a Garto?” Lily ran backward some more, still holding her stick. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Because no human who meets him ever comes to tell the story. It takes a Wolf to manage a Garto.”
Behind the man who stalked her were two more equally huge guys. They hung away but Lily could suddenly smell them as though they were right up against her. What was going on with her senses?
“Lily, please.”
She didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to know. This man, he’d done something to her. What was happening and why wouldn’t it stop?
Lily rushed further down the path. The woods were old, she wasn’t supposed to be in them, particularly not late at night. She’d been tricked in coming and the men from her village had done terrible things to her. Unspeakable, unthinkable.
Then they’d left her to die.
All of that felt distant, as though it had happened to someone else.
“Lily.” The shouts behind her, three-fold. All the men wanted her attention. She was faster than she’d ever been, and she knew if she ran and kept going they’d never catch her.
She was faster than they were.
Jumping in front of her was a creature the likes of which she’d never seen, never imagined seeing. Taller than she could make out, it was a monster. A real true…evil thing. She screamed and fell to her knees seconds before it picked her up.
So this would be how it ended. After everything, this hell beast would eat her….
“Stop.” The man again. The one who said he licked her tears. “I charge thee to stop.”
The monster snarled. “Why should I? I don’t take direction from you.”
“I’m afraid you do.” His hand became a claw, and a second later he slashed his wrist. “I cannot kill you but I order you to sleep.”
Sacrifice….
The word pushed through Sydney’s brain, and she jolted back to herself. George whimpered next to the cage, pawing at the bars. He must have known something was wrong.
Sydney knew what she had to do. Jumping up, she knocked at the lock until it came free and pushed through the doors. On four feet it was harder, but not unmanageable. She’d always been capable in her werewolf form.
It helped she wasn’t as lost to the wolf as she usually was. If that was a pack thing, she’d thank them all later.
Mate. Yes, her wolf wanted Savage, and that was where they were going.
Alpha Enticing (Fallen Alpha Book 3) Page 13
