“We’re lucky we haven’t been taken out already,” Jay added.
Mayhem regarded him with a stern look. “It’s my job to protect the pack.”
Raven stood. “And it’s our job to protect you.”
Mayhem scoffed but his features softened enough to pass for acceptance. “We start training hard then.” He nodded toward the weapons. “The girls do too.”
“We need to figure out how to come into our beasts if we want to stand a chance against what’s out there already.” Raven was the only one so far who’d been able to transform from wolf to man and man to wolf at will. It had taken a lot of power to do it and he’d been wiped out for hours afterward, but he’d managed to break the cycle that typically bound them all. Daylight was the wolf time, night was his. If he could harness that consistently, it would give him an advantage in battle.
“We need to step up our game,” Mayhem agreed. “Starting now. I’ll go get the girls. We have training to do.”
“And begging for forgiveness too,” Dy added with a wink.
“Yeah,” Mayhem grumbled as he left the gym in search of redemption.
* * * * *
There was only so much Hannah could teach them. They’d been drilling the basics for weeks. Nights spent together as a pack. Sparring, grappling, weapons training. Raven wasn’t that great at any of it. He could throw a mean punch but he just wasn’t that proficient with anything else. The girls, though, were picking up on the training like they were born to it. Which he supposed they kinda were.
What Raven was good at was harnessing his aggression. He was damned good at getting pissed. It felt like chaos, like his wolf spiraled into a furious animal that was very hard to control. Chaos felt good.
His wolf roared from within as he faced off with Mayhem, circling, growling, both in human form, both trying to get the other on the ground using one of Hannah’s many grappling techniques.
“That’s it, Raven. Keep your eyes on him. Keep him moving.” Hannah was circling with them, watching every move, every muscle twitch. She was a relentless instructor, with eyes of a hawk. “Don’t you dare flinch this time.”
Sweat dripped down Raven’s face. His muscles spasmed from adrenaline and exhaustion. This was practice, yeah, but it wasn’t like there hadn’t been injuries. Mayhem was hard to take down. Raven was pumped to do it this time. What he couldn’t figure out were his alpha’s tells. With Jay, there was a subtle shift in his posture. With Dy, a flicker in his eyes. But Mayhem was elusive. And no one could drop him to the ground.
Raven’s wolf pushed forward, urging him to go for the shot, bloodthirsty and ready for a fight. He’d already taken a hit to the face, his nose bleeding a slow and steady drip; his lip was busted up too. Nothing that Bree couldn’t fix in a second or two, but still, it stung like hell and amped his anger.
Raven growled, the timbre that of his wolf. A ripple of tension vibrated along his spine.
Attack, his wolf urged. Fight. Bite. Conquer. Raven pushed back. Control. This was not the time to go wolf. He needed to master his transformation and not be so governed by external factors. Fear, rage, possession: all motivated him to turn. He could not lose control.
Mayhem dropped, taking Raven down with him, body barreling into body, Raven’s back hit the floor with a thud. His wolf punched through and Raven roared, yanking back as if it was tethered by a leash. Not now. Keep control. He raged from within, warring with his wolf to stay back. His distraction was costing him.
Mayhem pummeled his side, and a rib cracked. Pain radiated and his wolf howled.
Take the alpha, claim your role.
He locked eyes with Mayhem, aggression flashing like an explosion. Both men curled their lips. Raven’s gums flared with the burn of his fangs punching through.
Mayhem slammed his head into Raven’s face, the crushing sound of his nose crunching again drowned out by pure fury. He felt it rise like a storm of lava, white-hot rage. He leveraged his body, torqueing so he could get Mayhem under him. He drilled his head into Mayhem’s jaw, a counter attack that the alpha was expecting, distracting him as he punched his fist into Mayhem’s side. They rolled. Raven’s heart pounded in his ears. A rush of hot adrenaline.
Take what’s yours. Maim the alpha. Make him submit!
He raised his fist, intent on clobbering Mayhem in the throat as they landed with Raven straddling his waist.
“Holy shit!” Dy yelled. “Guys, stop!”
Caught up in the frenzy, Raven barely heard Dy’s words, the urgency in Dy’s voice doing little to knock back Raven’s need for blood, for power, for control.
Rip his throat out! Raven’s wolf howled.
Mayhem’s eyes, wide with shock, locked not on Raven’s but above him, tempting Raven to look over his shoulder.
Defeat.
Weakness.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
Raven curled his fingers, ready to attack. To take Mayhem out, to claim his role.
Something caught his arm. He roared as he tried to tug free, using all of his strength to complete his attack. His arm wouldn’t budge. He growled as he glanced up to see what the problem was, fangs bared.
His gaze met Jay’s. Yellow eyes, just like his, flaring with panic, confusion, fear.
“Stop, Raven!” Hannah’s voice burst through the thud in his ears.
He shook his head, focused on where Jay was looking. At his fist, which wasn’t actually a fist but a gnarled and furry clawed appendage. Like the beasts he’d seen at the bar. A werewolf’s distorted paw.
“Breathe, buddy, stay calm,” Jay said.
Raven gulped back his shock, sucked in a deep breath. More breaths followed.
Keep control. Don’t freak out.
“You good?” Jay asked as he slowly released Raven’s arm.
He deflated as he slumped to the side, sliding off Mayhem, staring at his deformed hand.
“What the fuck?” he stuttered.
Darcy ran over to him, hands on his face, turning him to look at her. “Are you okay, Rav?”
He gulped, nodded, brought his hand down. It was three times the size it should be. Monstrous.
“You did it!” Darcy whispered. Her voice held none of the fear that he felt. “You released your beast.”
With a painful contortion, he willed his hand to return to normal. Focused on the muscles, the tendons, everything moving back to the way it should be. No one said a word. It seemed like no one was actually breathing. It took a while, but he did it.
“Holy shit, man!” Dy helped him sit up, then thumped him on the back. “You gotta teach me how you did that.”
Raven looked up, offered a weak smile. “Yeah, sure.” The rage he’d felt, the need to take Mayhem out, to maim him and claim his role—all he’d seen was black and all he’d felt was brutal anger. He would have crippled Mayhem if he’d had a chance. He would have made him submit. Mayhem couldn’t beat him in that form. Not with that kind of rage propelling his actions.
With a frown, Raven gave his head a hard shake, the bitterness of betrayal slamming him with guilt. He closed his eyes and felt for his wolf.
Leader, his wolf said. Lead the pack.
Raven pushed that thought away. Not now. Not ever.
Mayhem is the alpha, not me.
Mayhem is weak. You are strong. The beast rages within. Lay claim and be triumphant.
Raven opened his eyes and met those of Mayhem’s. “I’m done.”
Mayhem gave a slow nod, unspoken words passing between them. Mayhem had seen him touch the darkness before. He’d helped Raven come back to sanity after years of being feral. Mayhem’s bite had worked to calm him. Although this time it felt different, more in Raven’s control, he wasn’t interested in revisiting that kind of chaos. Not if it would cost him everything he loved. And it would, of that he was certain.
“Let’s call it a day, folks.” Mayhem reached out and offered his hand to Raven.
Claim your role. Take the alpha.
Raven forced his crazed wolf back. Never.
And then he took Mayhem’s hand.
Chapter Five
Darcy ran her fingers through Raven’s Mohawk, his cheek pressed against her stomach, one arm draped across her hips. He hadn’t spoken a word since he’d gone beastly down in the gym. When she’d tried to put the moves on him, he rejected her outright. He could be a moody fuck at the best of times but this was different. This ran deeper. She could feel it.
“Sun’s going to come up soon, baby,” Darcy whispered. “It’s kind of hard to talk about things when you’re a wolf.”
He’d been able to transform from man to wolf and wolf to man out of the normal cycle, but it always took a lot out of him. She knew that whatever was bothering him was going to get locked up inside his wolf for the day if she didn’t pry it out now.
“What’s got you so spooked?” She knew it had something to do with his beastly transformation. Maybe he was just freaked out, not sure how to deal with the power of turning into something other than a wolf.
“I never told you how Mayhem and I met.” His voice came out like a croak and he cleared his throat. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
Darcy’s heart ramped up and she held her breath, not wanting to disrupt the magic of the moment. This was gold. Raven telling her something about his past was a wish she’d never had the nerve to voice, knowing from the others that whatever had happened to him was taboo territory. She let her breath out slowly, waiting. Hoping and waiting.
“I don’t remember why I was in the forest. Don’t remember much of my life before being turned.” He reached up and snagged her hand, pulling it to his lips for a kiss before entwining his fingers with hers. “I must have been in the forest for a reason, hunting or camping maybe. I remember feeling terror. I came face to face with a monster that I couldn’t comprehend. It had yellow eyes that radiated pure evil.”
Darcy felt him shudder. She coaxed him to move so she could hold him. He reluctantly did, pulling her into his chest this time, her ear against his heart, the vibration a rapid beat of unease. Without saying anything, not wanting to discourage him from talking, she curled her arm around his waist and slipped her leg between his so they were glued together. One body.
He ran his fingers through her hair and kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”
She gulped, nodded. “I love you too, Rav.”
He was silent. She only heard his heart beating rapidly in her ear and his breath moving in and out as he ran his fingers through her hair. She thought he was done. The disappointment stung.
“I remember chaos, you know? After the bite. I had these dreams, so vivid, running, hunting, killing.” He cleared his throat. “There was no one there to help me understand, and my wolf, it was too wild, too confused, too powerful. So I just gave up control and let the cycles take me. I knew on some level that I was a monster. That I’d become something supernatural. Something that shouldn’t exist. But all I felt was rage. Pure, uninhibited rage.”
He was silent again, just stroking her hair. She could fall asleep in his arms like this. Just drift off and feel safe. Whatever he needed to tell her, no matter what it was, would never change how she felt about him. She opened her mouth to say that very thing when he cleared his throat again and spoke.
“I stumbled upon Jay one day. Both of us were in wolf form. Both of us feral. We fought viciously. Maimed each other bad, but neither one of us could dominate the other. It was like we were equally matched.”
“You were bitten by the same wolf?” Darcy gasped as the story started to click together. Both Raven and Jaylon had those golden eyes when they were in their werewolf form. They both had come to Mayhem at the same time, she knew that much.
“Yeah, I guess so. That’s what we figured, anyway.” Raven chuckled. “Would have been good if one of us knew what the fuck was going on.”
Darcy knew what it was like to be thrust into a world you didn’t understand. She’d grown up most of her life knowing she was a witch, born into a witch family. Her aunt, Annie, whom she loved dearly, had tried to teach her the spells and whatnot that she needed but nothing ever worked right. It wasn’t until she stumbled into Raven, after delivering a lust spell to him in her previous occupation as a Vengeance Dealer, that she’d really understood what was going on. It turned out she wasn’t just an everyday, run-of-the-mill witch. She was actually a Huntress, and after she received Raven’s mating bite, had become one of the more powerful spell casters around. She didn’t know shit about what it meant to be an actual Huntress. What she knew of the Order had been hearsay and myth mostly. She read about them but had always considered the Huntresses mythical, having never met one in real life before being thrust into their world. Dumb, right? She was a witch, for fuck’s sake. She should have been more open-minded about the possibilities. But according to the legend she’d known growing up, the Huntresses, centuries before, had been nearly wiped out by the very men they were supposed to trust, their Hunters, and were deep in hiding. It was unlikely they were just going to walk around exposing themselves for her sake.
In any case, she knew what Raven meant about not understanding what the fuck was going on. She had no idea what to do with her powers, not really, and it was maddening to think that somewhere out there were people who did.
“We did some bad things, Darc,” Raven said, his voice a husky whisper, like his throat was all clogged up. “We did things that I’m not proud of.”
She nodded, squeezed him tighter. “We’ve all done things we regret. I cursed you, remember? Or, at least, I tried to.” She’d blown a pile of ash into his face seconds before he’d turned into a huge wolf. Biggest mistake of her vengeance-dealing life. Or best mistake, depending on how you looked at it.
He chuckled and she loved the feel of it against her cheek. A low rumble that made her smile. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
She pulled back, extracting herself so she could look up at him. “No judgment, Raven. Whatever is going on, whatever you want to tell me, I won’t ever judge you for it.”
He tried to smile but it didn’t reach his eyes. He kissed her forehead then nudged her back into place against his chest.
“There was a lot of rage, anger that I didn’t understand, and power that I couldn’t control. We hunted. Like a game. We taunted. We killed.” He paused, shifted, wrapping his arm tighter around her, clenching his fingers into her hair, like he was scared she would bolt. “Not just animals.”
Darcy gulped. Her eyes welled. She kept her goddamned mouth shut.
When she didn’t move, he relaxed a bit, loosening the tension. “We were fucking monsters until we found Mayhem. Or he found us. He had control that we didn’t. He’d mastered his wolf somehow and could control the rage. He beat the shit out of us both as a wolf and as a human, dominated our sorry asses. It took months, maybe even a year.” He shrugged. “It’s all a blur. When he decided we were ready, he bit us formally, inducting us into his pack, and we pledged our undying allegiance to him.”
“Sounds easier than it was, I’m sure.” Darcy looked up at him again, stroking his cheek. “You battled it, that darkness, didn’t you? Even after Mayhem’s bite.”
There were streaks of yellow in his eyes, his wolf present as the night started to turn into day. She didn’t fear his wolf. She’d always been fascinated by it. She’d grown accustomed to its ways, its signals, and sometimes how it liked to tease her. The wolf she was glimpsing now was different somehow. A spark of something that was unfamiliar to her. She narrowed her eyes, studying it. The wolf was hidden in Raven’s shadow until its time came to be free.
“Whatever happened downstairs earlier, it will never happen again.” Raven nearly spat the words, his voice full of venom.
&n
bsp; Darcy flinched, pulled back a bit.
“I tasted that chaos again, Darc. I saw that darkness, that rage. My wolf wanted me to do things. Terrible things and I will never go back to it.” He lifted his hand to her face, ran his fingers along her cheek. “Yeah, I battled that fucking darkness every day after Mayhem’s bite. But it got easier as time went on. Until today.”
“When you touched your beastly side?” Darcy whispered.
“I’m done with the training. I will never come into my beast. If that makes me weak. If it makes me…” His voice caught. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath, letting it out slowly as he gazed down at her again. “If that makes me less of a partner to you, if you want to find your Hun—”
Darcy stopped his words with a kiss, her heart pounding with sorrow and fear and pity. When she pulled away to look at him, all she saw was Raven, the man. Her man. “I will never choose him over you. No matter what happens.”
He gave a nod, his eyes holding some doubt still, at least until she leaned up and kissed him again, her tongue in his mouth, rubbing her body against his crotch.
“Darcy,” he moaned as he matched her thrust for thrust.
She unzipped his pants and stroked him, letting him pump into her palm as she curled her fingers around his dick, her tongue still probing his mouth. He cupped her breast, teasing her nipple though the fabric of her clothing. She ached for him, but right now, he needed this more than she did. She ran her fingers down his length and gently massaged his balls.
“Come for me, baby,” she purred against his lips, loving how his eyes shone with need—that golden streak of his wolf warned of the limited time, heightening the urgency.
“No time,” he said as he arched back on an explosion of breath, his cock pumping a stream of come against her stomach, the heat of it penetrating her tank top. “The sun…”
She’d seen his transformation many times. A burst of light, radiant and vibrant. One minute he was a man, the next he was a wolf, golden eyes staring at her.
She smiled. “Rain check, then.”
Beast Rising: The Order of the Wolf, Book 7 Page 4
