[Hinterland 02] - The Wolf's Quarry

by K. T. Harding

  Bishop turned back to say something to the driver when a shadow flickered across the sky. Before Raleigh could turn around to react, a body hurtled off the roof and struck Bishop side on. At the same moment, the carriage shot forward. The driver laid his whip across the horse’s back, and the animal’s hooves hit the cobblestones flying. The carriage streaked around the corner and out of sight.

  Raleigh launched herself at Bishop in time to see him grappling on the sidewalk with the long, lanky figure of Layton lying on top of him. A terrible gash cut down the side of Bishop’s face, and Layton laid into him with both fists. His blows thumped Bishop’s ribs and jaw. Bishop struggled, but he couldn’t rise under Layton’s weight.

  Raleigh reacted faster than thought. She put her hand into her vest and pulled out the first thing she touched. A cold metal cylinder fitted into the hollow of her hand, and she clubbed Layton across the back of the head with it.

  She laid him low with a single blow. Layton toppled over on the sidewalk and lay still. Raleigh fell on her knees next to Bishop. She would give anything to take him in her arms right now, but she dared not move him. “Bishop! Just hang on. I’ll take you home, and Mrs. Mitchell will fix you up.”

  Bishop groaned and rolled onto his side. “Leave me alone. I’m not going home.”

  She covered his forehead with her cool hand. “That’s a nasty gash. You shouldn’t be out when you’re injured.”

  He fought his way to his feet and batted her hands away. “I am not injured! We’re going. I’m not going home until I find the twen.”

  Raleigh stood back. He couldn’t annoy her more if he tried. Why did he have to be so monstrously stubborn? The more she tried to help him, the more recalcitrant he became. In front of her eyes, he strode into the street and hailed a cab. He got in it and bellowed through the window at her, “Are you coming or not?”

  She climbed into the cab. “Where are we going now? I thought you wanted to go through the Gingerbread House.”

  “I just remembered. I want to see somebody at the market before we go back. I should thank Layton for jogging my memory.”

  She cocked her head to examine him. The gash looked even nastier in the light coming through the window, but he tossed his hair out of his eyes and settled his hat back into place like nothing in the world could bother him.

  Maybe it didn’t bother him. Maybe the pain only made him mad. He left the house ready to attack the Guild of Martial Arts. He wouldn’t let a little thing like Layton hitting him over the head stop him.

  She lapsed into silence. That’s when she happened to glance down and see the cylinder still in her hand. It was a grenade. She’d clubbed Layton with one of them, and it didn’t go off. “Are you sure you programmed these things right? I thought you said they detonate in the heat of battle.”

  He sniffed. “It will only detonate when you want it to detonate. You didn’t imprint it hard enough to detonate it, and the program detects your intention to set it off. You didn’t do that, but just the same, maybe you should put it away now.”

  She crammed it into place and wiped her sweaty palm on her pants. If the adrenaline of hitting Layton didn’t set the grenade off, maybe nothing would. How could she go into battle against the Guild if she wasn’t supremely confident in her weapons?

  Bishop shouted directions to the cab driver, who dropped them off under the stone bridge. He didn’t wait like Dax would have, but drove away and left them alone in the falling dusk.

  Chapter 22

  Raleigh hopped down into the streambed next to Bishop and unhitched her throwing blade from her belt. “The wolves didn’t attack us last time, so they’re bound to be here this time.”

  “Maybe not,” he replied. “Maybe they’re too busy with their own business to patrol this tunnel anymore.”

  She peered at him in the dim light. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Well, no, but I can pretend. Maybe we’ll get down to the market and back with no trouble.”

  She thumbed her blade edge. “Yeah, right.”

  He looked her up and down. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready. I’m just not sure you are.”

  He humphed and turned away to head down the winding path. Raleigh unslung her crossbow off her back. She fitted a bolt to the string and held three more between the fingers of her left hand, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

  She swept her bow back and forth across the forest on either side. She picked her way after Bishop on their way to the hidden tunnel to the underground market, but she didn’t see anything. What if he was right? What if internal conflict occupied the wolf people so they no longer posed a threat?

  Bishop came to the curtain of vines covering the tunnel. He pulled it back and jerked his chin to signal Raleigh inside when a feral screech made her blood run cold. Five wolf hybrids dropped out of the sky. The first one landed on Bishop’s shoulders and sank its teeth into the same place Layton just hit him. Another landed right next to Raleigh.

  She swung her bow around and fired, but the wolf was too close. He rushed her from the side and knocked the bow away before he closed on her. His fangs snapped and his black lips snarled in her face. She brought her bow back around, but she couldn’t pick up enough momentum to club him off.

  At the same moment, the other three darted in to fill the gap. Two hit Bishop in the back. They knocked him flat on his face with their comrade still clinging to his neck. The other joined in attacking Raleigh. They dragged her to the ground, and razor-sharp teeth pierced her hip where the muscle connected to the bone.

  The pain sent her into a rage, but she couldn’t fight them off. She fumbled for her pistol. That was the only thing she could reach with those creatures in her face and pinning her arms to her sides. She did her best, but she couldn’t bring it up. She couldn’t raise her arm more than a few inches, so she turned the pistol around and aimed its barrel at the wolf’s back. She tilted her head aside, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.

  The lead ball zinged past her ear and thunked into the dirt. The stricken wolf pitched forward and landed across her face and neck so she couldn’t breathe, but it couldn’t fight back anymore. Its weight disabled her more than it had when it was alive. Now she couldn’t move at all, and the other wolf flew in to avenge his companion.

  Raleigh opened her eyes to see another seven wolves streaking along the ground on a beeline for the fight. If they got here, she and Bishop were finished. She had to find a way to get rid of them and get away.

  She couldn’t see Bishop at all under a pile of bodies. He must be having the same trouble she was. She groped around her clothes, but the only weapon she could reach were grenades. Even if they worked, she couldn’t detonate one of them close enough to get rid of these wolves. She would blow herself to kingdom come at the same time. She couldn’t find the cube at all.

  A thunderous roar caught her attention. She glanced over to see the wolves covering Bishop fly off faster than anyone could imagine. A shaggy outline of bulging muscle reared up out of the space where the wolves used to be. It shattered the skyline, and a great snout full of slathering teeth split to bellow to the skies. She recognized it. Bishop had taken his potion and changed into a wolf.

  Raleigh patted her pockets one more time. She found the vial of potion Bishop gave her. Did she dare take it and turn herself into that gibbering beast? What if she got stuck like that? What if she liked it so much she wanted to stay a wolf forever?

  Another three wolves pounced on her. They knocked their dead companion away, and more teeth broke her skin all over. One drove for her throat, and she had no way to fight him off. That vial gave her one chance to get out of this with her life.

  She dug the vial out of her pocket, but she couldn’t get her hands near her mouth. She wriggled over on her stomach. She no longer cared how many times they bit her or where. She tucked her chin into her neck and forced her hands up. She popped the
vial into her mouth and bit down hard.

  The glass cracked. She shut her lips on the broken glass to trap the liquid in her mouth, but she couldn’t swallow like that. She turned her head to one side. She squished the liquid back on her tongue and swallowed. Then she spat out the empty vial. To her amazement, the leftover glass in her mouth seemed to disintegrate once the vial had been broken.

  How long would she have to lie here before the potion took effect? They might kill her, and the potion would be wasted. She heard more bellowing. She tried to raise her head to catch sight of Bishop, but her head swam and black blotches burst in front of her eyes.

  All of a sudden, a massive force exploded out of her. She had no idea where it came from, and she had no control over her arms or legs or body. She could only gasp in awe as it flung her backward off the ground.

  She watched herself from the inside, but everything happened at a remove from her. Sheer rage and bloodlust overpowered her senses. She wanted to rip open the first throat she got hold of and taste that hot blood on her tongue. She wanted fresh meat torn from the living bone. She wanted organs and brain gumming up her jaws. She wanted something to die to satisfy the insane rage welling out of her soul.

  Did the wolf hybrids feel this way all the time? Was this the horror the Guild of Husbandry bred in their secret labs? No wonder the wolves attacked without provocation. She wondered if they could think at all with these wild emotions fighting and tumbling through their souls.

  She rocketed to her feet, and the hybrids sailed off in all directions. Her muscles swelled, and her breastplate snapped off. Bishop raging through the thickest clumps of his assailants a few paces away. Bodies fell right and left, but she wouldn’t satisfy her hunger on Bishop.

  She whirled around and snatched the first hybrid off the ground. She circled her clawed hands around his arms and yanked. She gave every scrap of her power to her muscles, and his shoulders dislodged from his trunk. He went limp in her grasp, and blood spurted from his shoulder sockets.

  That could never be enough. No amount of mayhem and destruction would ever be enough. She plucked up another wolf trying to scramble away. She took hold of his legs and ripped his body in half. She would have thrust her tongue into the exposed meat of his insides, but that unstoppable urge drove her forward. She had to kill. She had to destroy. She had to make the biggest mess possible in the shortest amount of time.

  Another five wolves loped out of the forest, but when they saw her coming toward them, they skidded around and made for the trees. She rushed them with blinding speed. She scooped up the whole bunch and smashed them with all her strength against the nearest tree trunk. She flattened the whole pile under one hand, and their blood and brains and urine and feces squished together just like the juices of the hamburger she ate back in Pernrith.

  That squishing sensation under her hand filled her heart and soul with magical satisfaction. She wanted more. She wanted to fight for the rest of her life until she killed every living thing in sight. If she squashed a bug under her heel when she took a step, the knowledge of its death made her happy beyond measure. She delighted in stepping when she thought she might be killing something.

  She didn’t bother to count the number of wolves coming at her from all sides. She gave vent to her lust and let her muscles do their worst. She crushed their skulls when she bonked their heads together. She shattered bone when she slammed her hand against them. She kicked in their brains and pounded them to mincemeat under her foot.

  Only a few short minutes passed, but no more wolves came out to attack her. She pulverized the last wolf clinging to Bishop’s back and flung the dead carcass into the stream. She wheeled around with a vicious snarl and found herself face to face with Bishop.

  He stood as tall as she did, and the shaggy fur breezed around his muscled body when he breathed. His lips curled back from his lips, and his nostrils flared when he sucked in his breath. His beady black eyes swept over Raleigh. He saw her the same way she saw him.

  At that moment, all the rage and blood in her changed into a different kind of lust. Instead of killing, she wanted to devour. She wanted to taste and feel and consume him. She couldn’t stop her insatiable greed. She had to grab him.

  Maybe experiencing this madness so many times prepared him to feel this way. She didn’t know. She only knew her own rabid hunger for him. She charged him and struck him full force in the chest. She knocked him over backward and jumped on top of him.

  He tried to rear up to meet her, but she pushed him down. She tossed his arms above his head and, with one yank, she ripped his pants open. His already hard cock sprang out to aim at her, and she leapt on it with all her maniac passion.

  She snarled and snapped in his face, and he growled back at her through bared teeth. She could never remember afterwards how she got her own clothes off. Her limbs didn’t fit them anymore. She only knew the animal madness of her flesh slotting down over his shaft and it sinking to her deepest insides.

  The mind-blowing intensity of their bodies fitting together dwarfed anything she ever experienced with him before. That sensation of his meat filling her aching hole made her hungrier than ever at the same time it satisfied her insatiable need for him. It starved her and nourished her at the same time.

  There was no love now, no gazing into each other’s eyes or mingling of souls. This was pure, raw ravenous conquest. She flung herself down on his shaft to slam it into her guts. She had to have more, more, and still more. She bounced on him as hard as her distorted muscles would let her, and it still didn’t come close to quenching her desire.

  Bishop fought back with all his strength. He wrenched his arms off the ground, but she thumped him down with a roar. If he tried to touch her, she went ballistic. She wanted one thing, and that was the deep strokes of his cock inside her.

  Her climax came faster and stronger than ever. It smashed her against the rocks, but it wouldn’t let her jump away. It ripped her apart, but she just kept pumping harder, so hard it hurt. The pain fueled her horrendous attack. She had to destroy him with her body. She had to crush him so he never rose again.

  His cock scorched her insides like she couldn’t believe. The harder she pounded him, the harder he got. He thrust his hips in the air to plunge his cock against her. He knocked her upwards so gravity pulled her down on top of him. He craned back his head and bellowed out loud.

  In the very center of the hurricane, Raleigh’s consciousness wanted this to end. She didn’t want to be this beast anymore, but she couldn’t stop it. Once it started, it took hold of her and wouldn’t let her go. It took on a life of its own and turned her into something unknown.

  The climaxes kept overpowering her. They rolled on ever-increasing waves, one feeding into the next. The pounding thrusts blasting up into her hurt, and the pain made her ride him even harder. Her pussy scraped against his rough fur until she bled, but she just kept climaxing again and again.

  She didn’t like this. She wanted to stop climaxing and rest. She wanted Bishop, her own Bishop. She wanted to curl up in his arms and love him, but her heart wouldn’t feel those emotions. She hated him. She wanted to rip his throat out and drink his blood. She wanted to leave his rotten corpse on the ground for the maggots to chew.

  The biggest, most devastating climax of them all crept up on her. She couldn’t check its advance. It threatened to blow her apart, but her corrupted body wouldn’t stop rocking on Bishop’s prick. Was he wishing in his heart of hearts he could go soft and end this?

  The climax crashed over her. She screamed and clawed his chest to bloody ribbons. She kicked her feet into the dirt to smack her bones against his pelvis. All of a sudden, he yanked his arms out of her grasp. He shoved both hands against her shoulders and flung her away with all his strength. She sailed off him and hit the dirt some twenty feet away.

  Chapter 23

  Bishop crawled through the dry leaves and gathered Raleigh in his arms. Her head flopped against his ches
t, and he brushed the curls off her sweat-drenched forehead. “Are you okay?”

  She coughed and turned her face into his coat lapel. “I’m okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  He tried to pull her toward him, but her limp body drooped in his hands. “Don’t be sorry. You won. They would have killed you otherwise.”

  A broken sob tore from her ragged throat. “I didn’t want to do it.”

  “Shhh,” he soothed. “Don’t talk.”

  She rested against his chest. He petted her forehead. When she pried her eyes open, the very first thing she saw were the bloody shreds of his shirt where she scratched him. She clamped her eyes shut, but a tear still squeezed through. She would have apologized again and begged his forgiveness if he hadn’t just told her not to.

  The heat of her transformation and her murderous rage dissipated and left her chilled. He tugged the remnant of her clothes around her and pulled her pants up over her legs. She submitted to his hands. He had her. He was taking care of her. Everything would be okay.

  She didn’t dare look around. She didn’t want to see the mangled bodies of the hybrids she killed. Shooting them with guns, cutting their throats with blades, or porcupining them full of her bolts was one thing. Ripping them apart limb from limb? She never wanted to be that kind of killer. She never wanted to thirst for living blood like that again.

  A few minutes went by before he laid her down to straighten his own clothes. She couldn’t look at that, either. Somehow, he fixed his pants so he covered himself up. All this mayhem and destruction, all the trouble of cleaning up the mess—this was all her fault. She never should have taken that potion, and she would never take it again.

  Bishop came back to squat down next to her. “Can you walk? Are you injured?”

  “I’m fine. I can walk.” She sat up. “Do you still want to go down to the market?”