But she’s answering her bloodmate’s call.
My claws lengthen. Only a half inch, but enough to maim.
Maybe even murder.
Longing swells in my chest.
Maybe he’s stronger than I imagined. Maybe the One We Answer To rules as apex alpha in this land as well as the warm—
Then the howl abruptly quiets.
The rabid dogs chuff and growl.
Aaron’s howl stopped so quickly for a moment I’m convinced he’s been murdered. Maybe Opiyel loosed my brother on him.
The hope vanishes, replaced by dread foreboding.
The dog pack begins stirring. They shuffle to the side until a long, straight path emerges, leading directly to the gates of the Dog God’s palace.
The gates swing open.
Opiyel strides into his dog pack, his Doberman snout lifted high.
He’s wearing his black satin robes and a crown of rusted black metal. HIs stride is imperious. Regal. The dogs whimper and lower their heads as he passes. He’s carrying something.
My breath catches. I tear at the shackles once more, enraged and desperate and filled with bottomless loathing.
The Dog God is carrying my swaddled, infant son.
The Purebloods trapped in the Cliff of Cages burst into a tremendous wall of furious sound when they see Opiyel.
Opiyel makes it halfway to the dais before lifting my son in his arms. Several dozen rabid dogs break from the pack to nip and yelp at Opiyel’s feet, begging their master to feed them.
The caged Purebloods quiet instantly.
They scent who my son is.
Child of a Risen and a primal Pureblood alpha.
Opiyel pauses. Stares at the Cliff of Cages, then at me. He’s considering something. A flicker of doubt clouds his eyes. Then he storms forward, leaps onto the dais and says, “Kneel to me now, my queen. Or your child feeds my hounds.”
I can’t help myself. The bastard has my son.
My beautiful baby boy.
My kneels buckle.
CHAPTER THREE
ANIK
MIA AND I are hiding from the afternoon sun in the scant shade offered by a saguaro cactus when a hot breeze carries an unfamiliar scent to our noses.
Mia puts her finger to her cracked and parched lips.
Silence.
It’s been our ally these last few days.
Silence and the night shadows we stalk through.
We’re traveling south. Toward the Pyramid of the Sun and the traitor Shiori and, hopefully, my sister Pimniq. The thought of finding my sister alive is all that sustains me.
I glance at Mia, suddenly feeling guilty.
Mia has also sustained me.
Her indomitable spirit. Her honed survival instincts. We haven’t been intimate with one another since that first night in the canyon, but each day brings a new closeness. I only wish we’d met in a different time. A different place. My heart feels…closed off. Walled in with grief.
I lift my head and smell the air.
The unfamiliar scent is gone.
My neck aches from lying for hours on rocky soil. My mouth is so dry it’s a struggle simply to swallow. The water that ran cool through the canyons vanished long ago. The time I spent swimming with Mia feels like a dream.
“What was it?” I whisper.
Mia’s eyes flash. “Stricken. What else?”
“It didn’t scent like Stricken. It scented…like your kind.”
Mia shrugs.
“If it was a Pureblood maybe he knows something. Maybe he can help us.”
“Not all Purebloods are friends,” Mia scoffs. “Last thing we need is another weak-assed, half-starved mongrel trailing at out heels. We travel faster when it’s just the two of us. And besides, handsome, I like having you all to myself.”
“You don’t trust your kind,” I say, reaching out to hold Mia’s hand. Her skin is sunburned and warm.
“It’s the end of the world,” Mia says. “Only thing I trust is my fucking Glock. And I don’t even have that.”
“You trust me?”
I didn’t mean to make it a question.
Mia sighs. “You trust me?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t. Who says I won’t hand you over to the Fallen? Buy myself a free pass into the Age of Discord.”
“He’d thank you, then feast on your beating heart.”
Mia flashes me a wan smile. A family of gilded flickers begins chirping from a nest burrowed into the saguaro. “He wouldn’t even bother thanking me,” Mia says.
Off in the distance a wall of black-bellied storm clouds is gathering. Red lightning flickers down, then a few seconds later thunder booms across the desert. The firestorms bring no rain, only cruel lightning and an oppressive humidity that clings to our clothing and makes every breath feel like it’s being drawn through a wad of wet cotton.
My stomach growls. We haven’t eaten since the ravine in the canyonlands. Mia pats me and says, “Tonight we hunt.”
“We should keep moving.”
“Could you summon Tornarsuk if you had to? If we’re attacked?”
“No.”
“Because you’re too weak. We have to feed, Anik. We need to stay as strong as possible.” Mia raises her arm. Silver-blue scales shimmer on her skin, then slowly fade. She looses a disgusted burst of air. “I’ve never been so far from my animal,” she says, worry softening her voice. “A part of me worries she’ll never return, and I’ll be trapped in this pathetic sack of skin for the rest of my very short and terrorized life.”
I watch the sun slowly lengthen the saguaro’s shadow, then say, “I was wrong to abandon Lily. Even if Shiori does have Pim. I should’ve stayed loyal to my alpha.”
“Shoulda woulda coulda,” Mia says. “You did what you felt was right. And besides, last I remember it was you swiping a paw and smashing Lily through the forest. If she’s gunna claim alpha the bitch needs to act like one. No one can fault you for leaving her.”
Mia’s fingers trace over my stomach, across my pecs and over my nipples.
“Aaron was right to go full animal when she burned the collar off him,” she says quietly. “At first I hated him for it. Called him a chickenshit. But he was right. I’d give anything to roam free just one more time.”
Another wave of guilt washes over me. It’s my fault Mia’s out here, hiding in the desert like frightened prey, instead of staking a claim to a territory. There’s another feeling mixed in with the guilt. Something even more barbed.
I’m angry. No, I’m furious at myself for my weakness.
First I permitted the bear to run wild over me. I lost control in the forest. I could have killed someone. Lily. Mia. Even Pimniq. My spirit animal is a mad beast when he’s angered. And now I’m furious at myself for not being able to summon him. In my spirit animal form I would’ve reached Pimniq by now. She would be safe—
“You think Aaron’s alive?” I ask, turning closer to Mia.
“No. Even if he is he’s lost to us by now. Words fall away fast when the wildmind takes over. Then the memories go. Until finally all you have is whatever instinct’s driving you in that moment.”
“I spent my entire life fighting to keep the bear hidden. At bay. Under control. Now I wish I’d welcomed him.”
“You know what they say,” Mia says as she touches her hot lips to my stomach. “Life’s a dick. And then you marry one.”
***
A thunderous boom, so loud the ground shakes, startles me from a restless sleep. I reach out, feeling for Mia’s warmth.
She’s gone.
It’s nearly night. The wall of storm clouds has drifted closer. Soon the lightning will fall in the desert overhead, charging the air with violent electric energy. The gilded flickers dart from the hole in the saguaro cactus, hurrying against the storm, searching for nocturnal insects to feed their brood.
“If it was me I’d stay inside,” I mutter, sitting up and wincing against the pai
n in my stiff shoulders and neck. But I know what’s driving the birds from their nest. An old enemy, stronger than fear.
Hunger.
I lean to the side and rake my tongue across my teeth. My mouth’s coated in a thick, foul paste that comes from having little water and no food.
A sound hurls me from my groggy, half-awake state.
Branches snapping. Footsteps crunching through brittle leaves.
There’s something sneaking up the sandy wash toward the saguaro.
I reach into the bundle of clothing Mia left behind. My hand closes around the handle of an eight-inch hunting knife. I press the clothing over the knife to muffle the sound of the blade slipping from the leather sheath, and when it’s free I spring into a crouch and listen.
Nothing. Only the storm rumbling a few miles away.
My heart’s racing in my chest.
I’m tempted to dismiss whatever I heard.
Maybe I’m imagining things. Jittery.
Then I hear the rustling leaves.
This time I rise to my feet, conscious of the direction of the wind and the fading light that might give me away. I take a soundless step and hide behind the saguaro.
The footsteps are closer now.
Only a few yards off.
I scent the air.
My nose is clogged with sand. I can’t smell a thing.
The knife is cool in my hand, but my palm is slick with sweat.
If I’m lucky it’s only a frightened, half-starved deer wandering lost up the wash. The thought makes my mouth water.
I hear whatever it is take another step.
Then another. It’s close now.
My blood’s thrumming in my ears.
Every muscle in my body’s tight. Coiled. Ready to—
I leap from behind the saguaro and see movement directly in front of me.
I loose a roar and arc the blade out, hoping to end whatever it is that’s hunting me. The knife glints in the pale, reddish light.
“Fucking shit, Anik!” someone screams.
The knife whistles through the air.
Momentum carries me to the left, and in that instant my attacker punches me hard in the jaw, dropping me to my knees.
Before I can spring to my feet I finally register the voice.
“Mia?” I say, dropping the knife in the sand as my cheeks burn red.
“It’s me, you dumbass,” Mia says. “Fucking hell. You nearly gutted me. Thankfully you’re slow as all fuck.”
“You should have…I didn’t know. You should have said something.”
“I planned to. Then I saw you were gone. Thought maybe you’d run off or been taken—”
“I thought you ran off.”
Mia’s smile flashes in the darkness. “Took what I said about not trusting me to heart, handsome?”
I wipe stinging sand from the corners of my eyes. “How long was I out?”
Mia bends down, picks up the knife, sheaths it and tucks it in the waistband of her jeans. “Long enough for me to get hungry. Thought I scented game.”
“Did you?”
“Apparently not. But I think I found something better.”
“You should’ve woken me.”
“Couldn’t do it. You need rest.”
Only then do I hear Mia’s words. “Better than game? What’d you find?”
Mia tosses me my jeans, then hands me my sweat-stained t-shirt. Red lightning flashes overhead, and for the first time I notice Mia’s skin is covered in scales. One of her arms is twice as long as the other and ends in a snake’s head.
“How’d you call your animal?” I ask, mesmerized by the slow sideways motion of the snake as it flicks its forked tongue in my direction, scenting me.
“I didn’t,” Mia answers. “My alpha did. The fucking outlaw’s still alive. Now lets get moving. We don’t want to miss them.”
***
“This is the wrong way,” I say once we’ve been walking for so long my legs are cramping. “This is west.”
“It sure is.” Mia stops and points to a low rise of boulder-choked mountains in the near distance. “You know what’s just beyond those hills?”
“No.”
“The interstate.”
“Thought we were avoiding roads.”
“Trust is a must.”
Mia stalks up the dry wash. I follow, suddenly suspicious again, then race to catch up. I grab Mia by the elbow and say, “Something’s changed. Tell me what.”
“You are a stubborn bear, Anik.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t say exactly. But all I know is…I heard howling, carried on the wind. It woke me up last night. It sounds ridiculous. I can’t even promise I’m not imagining it. Fuck, maybe I’ve gone batshit insane. Hunger like this will do that. Trick us. But the howling…it sounded like Aaron.” Mia stares directly at me. Her eyes glitter violet and green. “Truth is, it sounded like more than Aaron. Or at least more than he ever was. So. You got a choice, big guy. Either follow me on this wild goose chase and prove once and for all that I’m fucking nuts, or head off alone.”
Alone.
The word rings in my mind.
“I’m not leaving you,” I say.
Mia flashes me her drop-dead gorgeous smile, then squeezes my hand. “That’s nice to hear, Anik. But promise me something? If I am imagining things…promise you’ll leave me then? To hunt your little sister?”
“No.”
“Dumbass.”
But I know by how she says it that she’s relieved. I don’t understand the bond that’s building between us. Maybe we’re just scared is all. Maybe if we were both whole we wouldn’t need one another. Maybe when this is over, and if we survive, we’ll forget all about what happened out here in the red-tinged desert. But as I take a few more staggering steps west I realize I hope that doesn’t happen, and I get the feeling Mia’s hoping the same thing.
***
From the top of the hill the interstate is a long line of perfectly straight darkness carved across the desert floor. It’s strange seeing it with no headlights. Like a night sky with no stars.
We make our way through barrel cactus and scrub oak down the other side of the hill, and soon we’re crawling up the embankment and onto interstate. We stand in the middle of the road for a long while, listening and scenting.
“It’ll be gone in less than a hundred years,” Mia says, kicking at the pavement. “Same with the buildings. Mother nature’s taking over.”
“Good riddance.” I think of the roads snaking across the continents. Scars the Skins made to hurry from one place to the next. “The world’s better off without the newcomers.”
“Maybe,” Mia says quietly. “Do you remember what it was like before the Skins crawled from their caves?”
“I remember being free.”
Mia smiles. “I remember that too. How every scent had its place, you know? A million scents, all of the earth, and every one of them recognizable. Then the Skins arrived. Started breeding like fucking rabbits. And suddenly the world scented different. Unnatural. Chemicals and pollutants and garbage. We gave the Skins fire because they were weak and wretched and shivering, but they harnessed it to send a rocket to the moon. They invented a bomb that could end all life on earth.”
“Exactly. This is nature’s revenge.”
“It’s our revenge,” Mia hisses. “Our rise. Pureblood or Stricken. Either way the Skin’s are gunna understand they’re not calling the shots anymore.”
I look down the empty highway, remembering the lines of traffic heading north from the cities. “I think they understand that already.”
Mia nods. “About fucking time.”
A red flash strikes the hills we just hiked through, lighting a small forest fire. Grey-black smoke drifts toward us. The night glows crimson, illuminating Mia’s face, making her scales glow red.
“You think it’s really him?” I ask once the thunder passes. “Aaron Arud?”
Mia stares down the
highway and mutters, “Fucking hell could I use a smoke.”
Then I hear something. Far in the distance.
I tilt my head, straining to listen.
Could have been the storm clouds rumbling.
Mia and I glance at one another.
She flicks her forked tongue out, teasing me. I can’t help but smile.
I hear it again.
A rumbling, roaring sound.
I stare down the deserted highway. The ground dips and rises in a series of small hills, then the road vanishes behind another mountain range maybe fifty miles off.
I reach down, lay the palm of my hand flat against the pavement.
The road’s trembling. Vibrating.
Like a train track miles before a train—
Mia and I meet each other’s eyes.
“Harleys,” we both say at the same time.
Mia gives an excited little hop, then frowns and puts on her hard face. I love that about her, those moments when she lets her guard down and I see the woman beneath the scowl.
“Could be any crew,” I say, standing and raising my hands overhead and cracking my knuckles. There’s an odd energy coursing through me.
A kind of pent-up buzzing.
A wildness.
I lick my lips, remembering the taste of black blood.
“Could be,” Mia answers.
“Could be a pack of Stricken.”
“Yup.”
“But you think it’s the Pureborn Predators.”
Mia nods.
She’s excited. Wants to be reunited with her crew. Part of me understands. But another part…hopes she’s wrong. I liked traveling alone with her. And how her eyes lit up when she mentioned Aaron, her old alpha? I don’t like that at all. Something scratches at me, deep inside. Then a low, rumbling growl.
Tornarsuk.
My shoulders ripple and bulge. My jaw cracks as it elongates and my fangs drop and when I lift my hand I see my claws curling into the warm night air—
Now the rumbling and shrieking engine noise is audible even when I’m not straining to hear. My animal spirit feels the energy of this approaching pack. He also feels my fear, my jealousy about losing my mate. Fucking shit! She’s not even my mate. I should have marked her. Bit her wide open. Proved she’s mine so if Aaron Arud tires to make a claim…but I was weak. Like a Skin. Robbed of my animal. Now he’s with me—
The All Consuming: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 4) Page 3
