The All Consuming: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 4)

by Ellis Daniels, May

  Rodas and I share a glance. Good.

  At least me and the Stalker are on the same page.

  None of these fuckers lives.

  The ground beneath the approaching pack glitters with blue-white frost. Behind them, a Stricken army marches toward the pyramid. They’re being attacked by the spear-wielding Skins, but wherever the First Fallen’s cold falls the Skins flesh goes blue-white and they slump to the ground, their heart’s stopped by the deadly chill.

  Lily steps to the edge of the pyramid and unleashes a shimmering wall of murderous heat right at her brother. The heat-wave rolls out from her jaws, widening as it travels. Shiori and Lachlan bank away. Vuk faces Lily’s attack head-on. I wait, my breath caught in my throat, as the heat washes over Vuk.

  Nothing happens. His wings don’t even slow.

  “Shitballs,” Lily mutters.

  “He’s immune,” Rodas scowls.

  Maybe to heat. But I know the fucker will bleed with my claws buried in his flesh. I know—

  A sensation unlike an I’ve ever felt makes me waver. Like a needle drilling into my mind. Making my wolf whimper and howl. My jaw drops open. Terror grips my throat. The pain’s driving my animal away. My claws and fangs retract. Lily catches the horrified look on my face and says, “What is it? Aaron? Aaron? What’s happening?”

  “He…he…”

  The words tumble from my lips.

  “He’s in your mind,” Lily says, her face a mask of horror. “Fight him, Aaron! Push him out!”

  Vuk’s triumphant howl crashes around me while thunder rolls overhead and lighting arcs from the sky and my wolf’s turned away from the pain, he’s sprinting through the forest, fleeing, desperate to escape—

  The drilling pinprick of pain is growing larger, and behind it a blackness settles in, a malicious void, and I feel Vuk’s diseased will spreading through me, banishing my animal, and then a command pounds through my mind:

  Murder Rodas.

  “No,” I moan.

  Murder the Spotted Stalker.

  I stare out over the ruined city. Vuk’s only seconds away. I see his black fangs gleaming. Lily’s screaming at me, trying o draw me back, but her voice is weak and whispery beneath the pounding in my ears.

  Murder Rodas.

  Yes. Murder Rodas. He’s the true enemy. The traitor.

  My hand reaches for Rodas’ neck.

  His attention is riveted on his enemies. He doesn’t notice me.

  Rip his throat out.

  Images roar through me. An army bending at my command. The earth consumed in fire. Black-blooded roaming the earth, murdering the last of the Skins and Purebloods. And worst of all, the images make my skin tingle…with excitement.

  These are Vuk’s desires. Pushing me out of my wildmind. His grip on my animal tightens. I can no longer remember my name. My purpose. All I have is a sinking feeling spreading from my belly. I was too proud. Too arrogant.

  Rodas senses my hand reaching for his throat. Whirls, knocks my arm down. And in that instant of distraction the giant wasp ploughs into him, carries the Spotted Stalker into the air—

  I blink, not understanding.

  Then another voice booms in my mind. My brother Sorry’s voice.

  Control, brother.

  My wolf howls. I’m being rent in two. I focus on my dead brother’s voice. It’s strength. How he loved me. How the Fallen corrupted him, turned him against his own kind, and the hatred that brings gives me the strength to force Vuk back. A piercing pain makes my vision flash red. I cover my head in my hands and rip at my hair. It feels like my skull’s splitting open, but I feel Vuk retreating. I’m pissing sweat, near passing out, and then he’s gone.

  My wolf roars back to reclaim my mind.

  I have just enough time to thank my brother and take a shaking half breath before the One Without Value barrels into me with the destructive force of a missile roaring toward its target—

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  LILY

  VUK SLAMS INTO Aaron and lifts him into the sky. My brother passes so close I smell the reek of ash and blood and triumph on him. Aaron was a fool. He’ll never defeat the Fallen. Vuk rips the turquoise amulet from Aaron’s neck and hurls it down the pyramid.

  The shadow wolves vanish.

  Shiori and Rodas tumble down the side of the pyramid, locked in a vicious battle for survival. They disappear beneath the pyramid. Their war cries rise on the frigid wind, but I turn my attention to my brother and my bloodmate.

  If I believed in god I’d pray for Rodas.

  I’ve suffered the creepy chick’s bite.

  Vuk rises high into the rolling clouds, then drops Aaron. My bloodmate plummets from the sky. Vuk in his wildborn animal is a sight of such overpowering beauty and horror it makes my legs weak. His fractal insect eyes reflect the simmering storm clouds and alternate between luminous red and orange and deep, boundless black.

  Aaron crashes into the pyramid platform. Inch-wide cracks spread through the stone. He’s in his half-wolf form. He pushes to his knees, spits a mouthful of blood, curses, clutches at his head.

  My brother was in Aaron’s mind. Commanding the Pureblood alpha.

  Anik’s dead. It doesn’t seem real. I have nowhere to put that pain—

  Then I hear something that makes my heart stop.

  My bloodmate’s laughing.

  The crazy bastard.

  Lachlan settles on top of the burning pole pyramid. His eyes bore into me. He’s waiting for the outcome of the blood challenge. Waiting for his father to triumph. My heart cracks, seeing my son witness to such violence. Then I remember my father. How he was tortured before he died. That was Lachlan’s doing. My son’s heart has been corrupted black by his father’s evil.

  But I refuse to lose hope.

  I won’t let him go.

  Not without trying, one more time, to save him.

  Vuk swoops from the sky, his three reflective eyes focused on Aaron.

  Aaron’s shaking his head, trying to stand.

  I scream a warning as Vuk dives low, his claws slicing through the air, straight at my bloodmate’s back. Aaron waits until the last possible second, then rolls to the side. Vuk screeches in fury as he misses, his mantis-voice driving into my skull, making my animal howl and rage.

  “Come here, you sick motherfucker,” I scream.

  Vuk banks hard left, flies out of sight below the level of the platform.

  Aaron and me stare at one another from across the pyramid. It’s a look that speaks volumes. My heart swells in my chest, making my throat tighten. This gorgeous man. This foolish, proud, arrogant and gorgeous man.

  Then Aaron grins. His dimples wink. His fangs sparkle pure white. His icy blue eyes are sharp and focused. His tats ripple in time with his taut muscles. A powerful aura of energy focuses around him, warping the air, making it pulse and shimmer cool blue. He is the One We Answer To. A Pureblood apex alpha at his peak.

  And right then, I know my man’s going to die.

  The truth maims me worse than a knife in the back.

  “No,” I whisper.

  Aaron chuckles, flashes me the peace sign.

  He knows. But he’s going to go out fighting.

  A predator always does.

  My lips flicker into a smile. “You crazy bastard,” I breathe.

  Vuk rises over the side of the pyramid, slowly, almost lazily. He sees the look Aaron and me are sharing. His mantis face is hideous to begin with, but it turns even uglier as hatred and envy twist in my fallen brother’s gut.

  “Love is weakness,” Vuk hisses.

  “You keep saying that,” Aaron says, his voice rumbling and firm. “But I’m in mad love. And I’m still fucking standing.”

  Vuk roars, flaps his wings twice and launches at Aaron.

  I take a running leap and summon my animal.

  Aaron stands his ground while Vuk flies at him.

  I smash into Vuk’s flank at the precise second he hits Aaron. We’re tossed in
a snarling heap of fang and claw, each of us lashing out, snapping and biting and clawing and gouging, our movements so fast the fight becomes a blur. We roll across the pyramid platform, nearly topple over the edge, then roll back into the middle. Blood and kill-lust fills my nostrils. I slam my fangs into Vuk’s side while his claws rake across my neck. I see Aaron’s still in half-wolf, his powerful arms wrapped around Vuk’s neck, squeezing my brother’s throat, holding Vuk down while I bite and rage. Black blood splatters my fur, sending me wild with hunger. I want to feed on this shitbag’s heart. After all he did. I want my brother’s beating heart in my clawed hands—

  Something swoops from the sky.

  Lands beside us.

  At first I think it’s Lachlan, but then I catch a blur of white feathers.

  Pimniq?

  The white raven’s darting around the three of us, sinking her sharp beak into Vuk. Seeing Pimniq healed floods me with strength. I clamp my jaws into my brother’s back, aiming to sever his spine. He roars and rears up, nearly tossing me off. Pimniq flies away, then attacks once more, her eyes pure white and her feathers streaked in Vuk’s black blood.

  Aaron looses a mountainous roar, the kind that commands armies. I hear the power in his voice, the predatory dominance. He’s still clinging to Vuk’s neck. My brother’s mandibles are cutting into Aaron’s side, ripping through flesh and ribs, but he’s still holding on—

  My teeth grind into something hard.

  Vuk’s spine.

  I clamp down, focusing all my will into this single killing stroke.

  He’s finished.

  The thought is a momentary distraction.

  An instant of weakened focus.

  I bite down still harder, stabbing my brother with my scorpion tail while his claws dig into me. There is no pain.

  I’m too far into the hunt for pain.

  There’s only life and death. Kill or be killed.

  An elemental truth.

  Suddenly Vuk tenses like he’s caught in an electric surge. For a second I think we’ve been struck by lightning. But then a horrible, pain-wracked wail splits from Vuk’s lips.

  A keening death call.

  Furious now, maddened by the closeness of the kill, I grind my fangs into Vuk’s spine so hard I feel the soft marrow beneath. A bit more and his spinal cord wil be severed—

  I feel something flap against my back, then a shattering pain.

  Something’s tugging at me, pulling me from Vuk.

  The white raven caws. I snarl and glance up.

  Black vultures.

  They slam into me, tearing me from my kill. I rage and thrash and bite. Kill hundreds with shimmering blasts of heat from my throat. But still the vultures come, innumerable, an endless Carrion Cloud.

  Then I’m in the air, my prey far below. The vultures carry me into the sky, flinging me every direction, piling into me, a living mass that stinks of rotting meat.

  But they stop biting and clawing. They’re simply holding me.

  Forcing me to watch.

  “Lachlan!” I scream. “Lachlan!”

  The boy is down there. In human form. Half hidden behind the stone slab where Rodas beheaded the Stricken woman. My son looks up at me, his expression blank and unreadable.

  “You fucking release me!” I yell, knowing it won’t do any good. My son has chosen. He’s lost to me.

  I feel my animal slipping away as my wounds leak blood and heaviness builds in my limbs and behind my eyes.

  Far below, Vuk rises.

  Aaron’s beneath him. Sprawled flat on the ground. Unmoving.

  I see everything. Rodas and Shiori battling one another at the base of the pyramid. The Stricken and Skin armies clashing. Anik’s corpse. Trish crouching behind the lip of the pyramid, a tiny mouse among hungry cats.

  Vuk turns to me and smiles.

  Lifts his lethal paw.

  Slams it down, opening a fist-sized hole in my bloodmate’s chest.

  “No!” I shriek, eons of suffering burning through me.

  Vuk’s about to strike again when the white raven slams into Lachlan’s face. Instantly, the Carrion Cloud loses focus. The raven flutters against Lachlan, claws at his eyes, gouges his pale cheeks.

  The vulture’s release me.

  In a heartbeat I’m diving at my brother.

  My heart’s beating an insane, irregular rhythm in my chest.

  Vuk’s killing blow falls.

  I smash into my brother’s backside, bowling him forward over Aaron.

  I land hard, crushing my right shoulder.

  For a second I’m frozen with pain, and in that time Vuk is on me. He wraps his hooked forearms around my throat and lifts me into the air.

  “You thankless little bitch,” he hisses. “I offered you a place among We Who Rule. A place at my side—“

  I swing my scorpion tail around and stab him in the gut. Pump him full of poison. But he shrugs it off. The motherfucker.

  His forearms tighten on my throat. I see myself reflected in his black eyes. My face contorted in pain. My arms flapping madly around my head as my animal retreats.

  “You deserve nothing,” Vuk spits. “You’re a fucking feed. A womb for my offspring, and a meal for me.”

  Pools of blackness coalesce behind my eyes, run into one another, grow larger. Something’s prying against my chest. There’s no pain. It’s Vuk’s claws, digging for my heart—

  Something springs onto Vuk’s back.

  A scent of warm pines.

  Aaron latches his jaws onto the tender spot between Vuk’s mantis head and his wolf body.

  Vuk drops me to the ground. Spots explode in my eyes and for a minute I’m confused, disoriented, I’ve forgotten where I am and what’s happening.

  Vuk’s furious screech brings me back. He’s spinning on the pyramid platform, smashing into sculpted stone obelisks, careening through the burning pyramid poles, trying to shake the silver-black wolf.

  But the wolf’s fangs have sunk deep.

  Black blood arcs from Vuk’s neck. He’s stabbing backward, sinking his sharp forelegs into Aaron’s back, shoulders, neck. But still the wolf holds on. I feel my bloodmate’s power, his final reserves of strength.

  I make to attack my brother.

  We can murder him. My bloodmate and me.

  Overcome the One Without Value.

  Banish the Stricken armies. Mend the broken world.

  I scent our victory.

  I take a step forward.

  Lachlan, his face scratched and bleeding, walks between me and my kill.

  “Stand aside, Lachlan,” I say, my voice harsh and raspy.

  Lachlan shakes his head. “No, mother. You’ve interfered enough. A blood challenge was issued. Let the wilds decide.”

  My animal rages. It takes everything I have not to attack my firstborn son. But instead I snarl, “What if your father loses?”

  “Then he is not who he claimed to be.”

  I glance behind my son. Aaron still has Vuk in his jaws. I scent Vuk’s weakness. It would be nothing to murder him now. My animal’s shrieking at me to shove Lachlan aside and rip the Fallen’s heart from his chest.

  But my son. My son?

  I won’t harm him. I can’t.

  The boy’s suffered far too much already.

  Lachlan lifts his hands and holds them outstretched. A challenge, or a gesture of welcoming? I can’t tell. I don’t know him at all. The thought makes my chest tighten. I draw a slow breath and turn away, choking on frustration and guilt and an overwhelming sense of loss, leaving my bloodmate to finish murdering my brother.

  There’s a wasp I need to kill.

  ***

  Shiori has Rodas surrounded in a cloud of swarming black-yellow wasps. They’re pouring into the Stalker’s nose, ears and mouth, strangling him. I give Lachlan one last glance, then summon my animal and nod at Trish. She jumps from her hiding spot below the pyramid and hops onto my back.

  I leap into the sky.

 
The feeling of flight is intoxicating.

  The freedom reminds me of being on a bike, nailing the throttle and saying fuck you to the world. My animal’s senses are razor-sharp, honed by blood. A red haze gathers at the edges of my vision. Aaron might have fucked up, but he was right about one thing.

  Survival is all that matters.

  Trish lets out a thrilled scream as we swoop through the sky.

  “Crazy times, girlfriend,” she shouts. “Now where is that bug-eyed bitch?”

  Man, do I love her.

  Shiori’s buzzing through the clouds, her wildmind focused on commanding her swarm to kill Rodas. I fly wide around her, struggling against the icy wind, trying to stay out of sight. When I’m directly over my prey I tuck my wings in and dive, remembering how the creepy bitch betrayed me in the woods, how she hurt little Pimniq—

  I slam into Shiori at full speed, wrapping my tail around Trish’s waist to keep her from being flung off. Dig my claws deep into the soft tissue between Shiori’s armored plates. My sister’s red blood leaks out and spills into the air. She looses a choked screech. The swarm enveloping Rodas bursts into a million fragmented insects, buzzing around the pyramid madly, lacking their queen’s command.

  Shiori and I are locked in a plummeting death spiral.

  Trish’s screams sound very far away.

  I lance my poisoned scorpion tail into the bitch’s side, then again, feeling her weaken with every blow. Shiori wrenches free from my claws and flips upside down so she’s facing me, her deadly stinger curling up under my belly. I jerk to the side, avoider her stinger, then snap at her neck.

  Miss.

  Shiori gets a chunk of my chest between her pinchers—

  It’s my turn to scream. The wasp’s pinchers saw into me, opening my flesh. I snarl and spit and slam my tail into her again. She looses a high-pitched squeal as the ground races to meet us. Her powerful mandibles are forcing me down, holding me while her stinger arcs up. I scratch at her chest, desperate to gut her before her stinger sinks home. There’s a gruesome tearing sound as one of her plates tears free from her body. I roar in kill-lust, sensing her exposed heart beating only a few inches from my fangs.

  We’re only a hundred feet above the ground, whirling in a quick circle, both of us flapping our wings madly, desperate to gain advantage—