by K. N. Banet
I wondered for a moment if Heath was afraid. I was, but the werecat body didn’t give off emotional scents the same way as a human one. It would be masked. Heath’s scent was just gone, as it had been for days. Sergey wasn’t just trying to keep his pack strong the way Alpha Vasiliev had built it. He was trying to expand their reach and rule and dismantle any powers that might stand in his way.
Suddenly, his ability to blackmail me if we took the trade went from dark to downright villainous.
Behind him, a post was put up and on it, Iosif’s body, wrapped in rope to hold him. It dropped a couple of feet as if it had been fitted into a hole and held straight up, showing everyone. A male speaking in Russian came over an old intercom system. Lights turned on in the houses beyond Sergey and werewolves shuffled out of their homes, guards shoving them to keep them in line.
Sergey wanted us to see this. Maybe not me or Hisao, but he was definitely rubbing salt into Heath’s wounds. Heath’s strong profile was shadowed and angry as the werewolves were led to see Iosif’s body. A woman’s scream filled the night, rising over the shuffling of feet and angry orders from the guards. The scream pierced ears, a deathly wail of grief and pain. A sound no one needed to hear in their lives.
Sergey spoke sharply in Russian.
A gun went off, and the screaming ended.
Iosif’s cousin had just been murdered.
Every second that rolled by looked more hopeless as grief and anger swirled in the night air and not even the breeze could send it away. It saturated into the very ground and the surrounding buildings. It was the essence of this place.
These werewolves needed to take the anger they had and fight. If anyone could change the very essence of this place, it would never be an Alpha like Sergey. Every single werewolf with him probably saw his vision as a grand thing.
But the werewolves looking at Iosif, the others huddled around a woman’s dead body? They could change it. They needed to change it. They needed to rise up. They needed to be defiant. They would never survive in this world if they didn’t fight for themselves.
Gwen, you said I would make a good politician. The mark of any good politician is the ability to move a crowd. Let’s see how good I am.
“Heath, Hisao…I’m going to do something insane. Iosif knew English, and I think a lot of people here might.”
His breathing changed, but I didn’t look at him, focusing on the crowd. Hisao shifted his weight between his front paws but made no other movement.
I needed to get my family out. I needed to see Sergey and his werewolves go down. I needed to see another sunrise for Mischa because, apparently, she cared more for my life than I did.
And Heath—I needed to get Heath back to Carey.
“Werewolves of Russia!” I called out mentally. “You have been oppressed for too long!”
Sergey’s eyes went wide. He looked around, wondering who was speaking, then turned slowly back to my group.
“What is this?” he demanded softly. The gun in his hand lowered just enough in the shock of what was happening.
“You’ve been subjugated and beaten. You’ve been chained and whipped. You’ve lost the rights you have as living, breathing werewolves and humans. You’ve had your lives stolen from you! And you’re angry!”
“Which one is it?” Sergey demanded, waving his gun between Hisao and me. “Which one?”
“Werecats can’t speak mentally,” Heath whispered, reminding Sergey of what every werewolf knew. “That’s pack magic.”
Sergey stepped forward another few feet, closing some of the distance. He lifted his gun and pointed it at Heath. I had to fight my instincts to react to the threat.
“Tell me,” the Alpha growled.
“Fight back! Defy the powers that be and prove you have your own!” I roared in their heads. “Don’t let there be another Iosif! Don’t let there be another Devora and Ivan! Now is your chance!” I roared and leapt forward, landing on Sergey as his gun fired, sinking claws in his chest. I felt fire on my side, but I had come for Sergey at an angle, so whatever he hit wasn’t my center of mass. The bullet also wasn’t silver…a wonder. Was it too hard for them to acquire here?
A deafening roar of the crowd followed suit as I ravaged Sergey’s body.
“Hisao, get my family out of here!” I ordered mentally as I jumped for another of the high-ranking werewolves near me, who were too surprised to lift their weapons. I didn’t have much of a chance. The crowd was now rowdy. Guards were being tackled to the ground and assaulted. Some were firing back, taking out the uprising of the younger, lower-ranking werewolves.
With a second werewolf dead, I lashed out at a third, scoring his leg with my claws and exposing his femur. He screamed, and I reached out, biting down on his arm, yanking until I felt tendons and muscle rip, and a joint pop out of socket. I tore his arm off and threw it to the side as he screamed and fell to the ground. Gunfire and screams of both victory and pain were all I could hear. The wave of rage I had unleashed was all I could smell.
I dove into the crowd, taking down werewolves, trying to control my instincts to kill all of them. I didn’t want to kill the innocent.
Teeth entered my back leg. I turned and swiped at whatever was back there, hitting a werewolf in wolf form, sending it flying into a mass of people, who beat it to death. I was able to separate my friend from my enemy as some cheered me as I prowled in the fight, while others raised their weapons on me. I leapt for a guard and landed on him after another werewolf was able to yank his gun away.
That werewolf didn’t last very long underneath me.
Finally, a hand touched me, and I nearly lashed out, but I saw grey-blue eyes when I turned.
“We need to go. Hisao is getting a truck ready for us.” He was practically yelling to be heard over the crowd.
I nodded and created a path out of the madness. Once we were free of the riot, he began to jog, and I followed, finding Hisao naked as he hotwired an old truck.
“Let me finish,” Heath said, patting my brother on the shoulder. “Change back and cover our exit.”
Hisao jumped away and started his Change without missing a beat.
I turned and saw a group of werewolves running for us. I didn’t know if they felt we needed to die or if they were following orders from Sergey before he died, but they were coming on four legs, ready to fight.
I blocked my brother and family from them and met the first head-on. With a hard bash from my paw, a skull was crushed. One latched teeth in my shoulder. I shook hard and tried not to fall from pain as something dragged the wolf off me, its teeth taking some of my flesh.
A truck started up behind me.
“Let’s go!” Heath yelled. “Let them chase, but we need to move!”
“Go!” I screamed, directing it at him, so only he heard it. “Just go, Heath!”
The sound of the truck slowly started to fade. Hisao and I fought hard, dispatching werewolves as quickly as we could, then started running before another group of them could come after us. We got out of the village, trying to catch up with Heath and the truck. My shoulder screamed in pain, and I was bleeding in more than one spot, but the pain wasn’t enough to stop me. I needed to run.
Howls filled the night air, overriding the sound of chaos in the village. As we ran for the trees that were our way home, a large pack ran out of the very woods we needed to enter. There had to be over a dozen wolves.
All I could think was that this was the patrol, waiting for us to try to leave. They didn’t know what the chaos was in the village. They had their orders, and now, they could use their mission to earn favor with the werewolf who took control once the revolt was put down.
Or they just saw two werecats and escaping prisoners and wanted to stop us. Sometimes, things were just that simple.
Hisao and I picked up as much speed as we could while Heath simultaneously slowed down and let us pass him. We launched into the pack and started tumbling, trying to kill all of them, so Heath could get throu
gh without risking the members of my family.
It was bloody but effective. They tried to dogpile us. Hisao was cleaner and more efficient, bigger and stronger, but I held my own, tearing limbs off when I got a hold of them.
The truck passed us as Hisao raced after the last werewolf and crushed its life in his fangs. We followed the truck, running behind it, our noses to the air, waiting for more to follow us.
An hour later, none came, and we were home free. Hisao and I ran behind the truck for the entire journey. My legs were on autopilot, even as my injuries healed. I couldn’t ask Heath to stop and let me in because we needed to be vigilant. If another group of werewolves somehow pursued us, Hisao would need help. None of my injuries were bad enough that I needed to worry about losing too much blood. They just made me sore and my muscles stiff.
I was limping at the end. My body was depleted, and the pain was gone, but only because I had run until my legs were numb. When the truck we had taken from Mischa was in sight, I nearly collapsed, my body trying to give out a little too early. Heath pulled up beside it, and I went around to my clothes.
Next to my ride home, I began to Change, not thinking about anything but potential sleep. I didn’t think about the humans in our group or the werewolf, Ivan, though I could smell all of them.
I finished the Change and sighed, unable to stand, so I leaned against the truck, legs stretched out. In my human form, I could feel how much the run had torn up my feet. I looked at my hands and saw the scrapes and raw sections on my palm and fingers. My shoulder was on fire again, but I was too tired to think about it. My ribs stung from that initial gunshot.
A gasp made me look up. Helene Duray was standing in front of me, her mouth agape, her face pale.
“Hey, Mom,” I whispered or tried to.
A scream was my lullaby as I fell to the side, unconscious.
30
Chapter Thirty
I woke up in a bed. My body was stiff, and I felt like a mummy as I tried to bend my limbs and met resistance from tightly wrapped bandages. I could smell someone in the room with me and blinked, trying to wake up more and clear my vision.
“You and Hisao slept the whole way home,” Mischa said with a touch of humor. “Heath called, using the satellite phone I gave him, telling me everything that happened. Since then, Father has been talking to Callahan and Corissa. No decisions have been made yet since they want to speak to you, Gwen, and Heath.”
“Does it look good?” I asked, hating how dry my throat was. “Water?”
“It looks good, better than you, for sure.” Her voice was closer this time. Grabbing my wrist, she guided my hand to a glass.
Once I had it in hand, I tried to drink and realized I was still flat on my back. I dumped water all over my face, making me shoot up, which sent more pain through me, but Mischa laughed.
“Works every time,” she said, all too pleased with herself.
“You do this often?” I asked, glaring at her.
“I did it to Hisao not but an hour ago,” she said with a grin. “You’ve been back for just over an hour. I did it to him in the back of the truck.”
“You are evil,” I accused, shaking my head as water dripped off me.
“I’ve been told this before,” she said, taking the glass. She put it down on the side table and grabbed a second glass. “Here.”
I chugged the glass of water, with Mischa holding it for me, her free hand on the back of my head. It was tender and loving, something I didn’t expect after the prank she had just pulled, but I appreciated the sentiment. I felt like a child, but not in a bad way. She was my older sister, and she loved me. I had just been through something hard, and she wanted to care for me. That was all.
“Thank you,” I whispered. She kissed my forehead and backed away, her smile fading.
“So, what do you want to talk about first?” she asked.
“Well…when do I see Father?” I asked in return.
“After you have a proper meal,” she said. “I told him I wanted you and Hisao to have half a day to rest and continue healing. Heath as well. He drove back, with no help from either of you. He only got to sleep when he got here. He got out of the truck and nearly fell off his feet. My people had to get him inside.”
“Thank you,” I said again, so grateful for how much my family really cared. We didn’t agree about much, ever, but when one of us was down, we cared. It felt like I was always the one down, and recently, that was the case, but I knew from their histories, they had all probably done this for each other, and one day, I would probably do it for them. Not that I wanted trouble for them, but it was inevitable.
“We need to talk about something else,” she said, sighing as she sat down on the bed next to me.
“Them,” I guessed.
“Yes, them.” She nodded and licked her lips. “They’re in the entertainment room, talking to Gwen. From my understanding, things are very tense. I know they saw you on the trip back.”
“My mother watched me Change, and I said hello. Then I passed out,” I explained, groaning. “Oh, I can only imagine how she felt. Actually, I kind of know. She screamed. I remember her screaming.”
“Okay, we can handle this. Do you want to talk to them?”
“I think I need to,” I whispered, rubbing my hands together and chewing the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, I’m going to talk to them. The sooner, the better, right?”
“If that’s what you want. I’m more than okay with hiding you from them.”
“No…I need to do this.” Standing, I smiled sadly at my sister. “For closure.”
The pain I saw reflected back was too intense. Standing, she grabbed my hand.
“Then let’s go. I’ll take you to them, my brave little sister.”
She led me through the house. Hisao saw us at one point, and Mischa told him where we were going. He only gave me a solemn nod of respect before going into his room. Mischa took me down two flights of stairs into her basement and stopped at a set of double doors.
“They’re in there.”
I listened, not moving, barely even breathing.
“Gwen, I can’t believe you kept all of this from us,” my father said, his tone the same as I remembered—hard, strict, and a bit overbearing. He didn’t have the soft, gentle patience of Hasan. Maybe he used to, but I knew this Michael Duray, the one who was hard on his daughters because he ‘wanted what was best for us.’
“I couldn’t tell you. You would have had me committed. And I don’t regret any of it. I don’t regret working for the supernatural species. I regret so many things in my life, but that isn’t one of them.”
I smiled as I grabbed and turned the handle, slowly opening the door to give the people inside time to realize I was coming. Gwen was the first person I saw, and her smile was bright.
“Jacky! It’s good to see you awake.”
“It’s good to be awake,” I replied as she met me halfway. The hug was tight, metaphorically bone-crushing. “I’m happy to see everyone is here, safe and sound. I couldn’t stay awake to see the rest of the journey home.”
“You did great, sis,” she whispered, her arms refusing to budge. “You were so amazing.”
“Thanks. It means a lot to me to hear you say that.” I lowered my head to her shoulder and just held her. Twins torn apart by life and change, brought back together by the weird ways of the universe.
I’m not letting you go, sis. Not again.
When the hug finally ended, Gwen turned back to our family, moving an arm around my shoulder as we looked at the family.
“You…” My father was still trying to process what he was saying. Looking at my mother, I noticed she was pale again. Daniel said nothing, his eyes narrowed on me. His kids were asleep on the couch next to him. I still, after everything, didn’t know their names. I would ask Gwen the moment I had the chance.
“I’m a werecat,” I confirmed for the room. “Shane and I got into a car accident on our honeymoon. Through sheer luck,
a rich man on the island, who often hung out with tourists, found our vehicle and us still inside. Shane didn’t make it, but the man made the decision to save me. He Changed me right there.” I pulled away from Gwen as I stepped closer to them, clasping my hands. “Twelve years ago, I made the decision to cut off contact with all of you because I was going to have to live a new life. I don’t age anymore. I haven’t aged since that day. I’m…immortal unless something kills me. I thought it would be easier to never go home. I didn’t want to watch all of you…”
“Grow old,” Gwen finished for me, her tone giving away the step after that. She stayed back, but her presence was supportive.
I didn’t want to watch all of them grow old and die.
“You were always doing your own thing,” Helene said, looking away. “I never thought you would become a…”
“A monster?” I asked, feeling the blow cut open my wounded heart.
“Yes. You knew how we felt about werewolves, witches, and faeries. And you…”
“What did you want me to do, kill myself?” I lifted my hands in defeat. “I did what any sane person would do. I made do. I learned. I adjusted. I continued on with my life, except now, I don’t lock my door during a full moon. I’m the reason people should. And let’s get to that. We’re not monsters. We don’t attack people at random for no reason. There are some cases of werewolves losing control, but there are…thousands of good werewolves. Things are going to happen, so let’s put the misguided prejudice to the side for a moment.” I wanted to rant at them, but cut myself off before I let it go on too long.
Heath. Landon. Iosif. Devora. Ivan. Ranger. Sheila.
I didn’t need to fight for them, but I wanted to. I never knew my mother believed werewolves were heinous monsters, but it was clear in her scent.
“I…I can’t deal with this,” she decided, standing up.
“Mom!” Gwen stopped her from leaving. “We can finally have Jacky back!”
