by Laken Cane
He frowned, his eyes dropping from who knows what on my face to the fresh blood staining my shirt. “How do you know that? And…” He nodded at my chest. “How does a spirit make a person bleed, Kaitlyn?”
I wasn’t going to tell him I knew the demon, that the fucker was killing because I’d destroyed his body and trapped him here. It wouldn’t change anything and also, the moment had passed.
“Some of them,” I told him, pulling my shirt away from the strange wound, “are powerful enough to physically touch something here. Not often and not many, but it happens. He probably scratched me.”
Why the hell do I keep lying about the damn demon?
“I have to go,” I said abruptly. “You have my number. Call me when he turns up.”
“Kaitlyn.”
I opened my car door but turned my head to look at him. “Yeah?”
“Are you all right?”
“I…yes. I’m fine.”
Then I climbed into my car and went to meet the alpha of the Stone Moon Pack.
Chapter Nine
He was pissed.
Shocker.
His guards—enforcers, warriors, mean damn wolves—were waiting at the gates when I arrived. Jared owned around eighty acres of land, a lot of it wooded, all of it private. All of his wolves lived in the town, though they went to the city for work, school, and shopping. It was necessary that they maintain the human illusion and most alphas forbade homeschooling children because the baby wolves needed to know how to hide in plain sight with the humans. There were many rules when you were part of a pack. You came when called, showed up for meetings, and were never away from the land for more than a day—with the exception of scouts or warriors—unless there were very good reasons for doing so.
Jared’s town was a small, quiet village, its perimeter protected by scouts and closed by fences and walls wherever possible. Security guards were always on duty. The houses were similar, the streets were quiet, there was a shared pool, community center, park, and other shared amenities. If an outsider were peeking through the gates, they’d see only a very nice little village in which they might be tempted to live. They’d be told, of course, that there were no available homes to buy or rent there.
For a second, longing squeezed my heart and my stomach hurt and I was reminded so vividly of my own lost pack that I wanted to howl with sorrow. Twelve years I’d been without a pack, and the need to belong never left me.
“Three weeks ago,” Jared started, after I’d been shown into his office in the rather large administration building, “I had sixty-two wolves. I now have fifty-five. In three weeks, something has killed seven of my people.”
I took the chair he offered. “Where do you find them?”
He clenched his fists as he paced. “In my woods.” He inclined his head at a tall black man standing quietly against the wall, and that one went to the desk, picked up a tablet, and carried it to me.
I waited as he flipped through it, then he reached it to me. I couldn’t stop my gasp as I stared down at the screen, horror squeezing my heart. I tapped the screen and went to the next picture, and the next, and the next. They were all the same. Images of dead people drained of all color, their eyes slitted and white, their mouths open in silent screams. Even their hair was white.
“Did it take their blood?” I whispered, horrified.
“No.” Jared took the tablet from my frozen grip and handed it back to his beta. He would understand that despite the lack of blood and guts and open, seeping wounds, what I’d seen would have a profound effect on me.
Those were wolves, and I would feel their deaths, even if they weren’t my wolves.
He blew out a deep breath, taking a moment to calm himself before he continued. “It takes their life force. Sucks it out of them like a vampire stealing blood.”
“Does he take them as wolves or as people?”
“I believe he takes them as wolves.” His voice was hard, but the pain beneath that hard crust was a simmering soft mass. “Each one killed had gone into the woods to hunt when he was taken. I believe he needs them as wolves, and that they shift to human form when he’s finished.”
“He’s taking their magic,” I realized. “He’s stealing the part that makes a shifter shift, and…” I shook my head, talking more to myself than to the alpha. “What does he do with it, and why haven’t we heard of something like this before?”
He nodded. “A monster like this wouldn’t just suddenly exist. Unless…”
“Unless,” I said, “he existed in a different realm. A different world. The way the demons do.”
“And now he’s come to ours.”
We stared at each other for a few quiet seconds as it sank into my overwhelmed mind that something had come to our world to kill our wolves.
“How do you want to start the investigation?” he asked me, finally. “Whatever you need, you have only to ask. I have forbidden my wolves to enter the woods shifted until this is over.”
“But they can shift here in town?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“You need to forbid that as well,” I told him, climbing to my feet. “If you don’t feed it in the woods, it’s going to come here looking for what it needs.”
“Fuck,” he whispered, then stared unseeingly over my head for a few seconds. Finally, he sighed. “Eli.”
His beta gave a nod and left the room.
I climbed to my feet. “I’ll need to get outfitted. My things are in my car.” I didn’t know what I was up against or what I’d need to fight it, so I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d take everything I had. Surely something in my kit would kill the asshole.
“Kaitlyn,” he said.
I turned back before I reached the door. “Yes?”
“Your money,” he said, somewhat dryly, and strode toward me, and envelope in his hand.
“Thanks.” I slid the envelope into my pocket without opening it. I knew the alpha wasn’t going to cheat me. “I’ll come back to report after my initial look.”
“You don’t believe you’ll catch him tonight?”
I shrugged. “Anything’s possible.” Then I hurried through the doorway and out of the building, eager to get started. As always, the pain was there, but it was eclipsed by my excitement. It was time to hunt, and my entire body was lit up.
Several wolves watched me as I jogged to my car. Not one of them called out a greeting or offered a polite smile. They just watched, dark, suspicious, and contemptuous. I’d never live down my father’s betrayal or my banishment.
Fuck ‘em.
When I reached my car, there were two wolves leaning against it. Young males, one with thick, dark blond hair, the other with bright red hair cropped short. Late teens, early twenties, and apparently in dire need of a lesson in obedience. The alpha had assured me none of his wolves would mess with me, and I didn’t believe they would. Actually, he’d said none of his wolves would touch me. I guess that didn’t mean they wouldn’t harass me.
“Get the fuck off my car,” I told them.
They laughed and pushed themselves away, but their laughs weren’t nice or apologetic. I sighed. Those two assholes were going to cause me a little trouble. Not that I couldn’t handle two dumb males.
I lifted the hatch and reached in to drag my kit toward me, already in work mode. I completely ignored the two wolves as they walked casually over to stand at my back, much too close. I wasn’t a fan of strangers getting in my space, and I definitely wasn’t happy with two hostile wolves at my back.
“What are you doing there, sexy?” Red asked, his voice low.
“She’s sexy all right,” the blond agreed, “but she’s still a traitor. We don’t like traitors.”
I slid my somewhat bulky coat from my shoulders—as they catcalled like a couple of morons watching a stripper—and pulled on a thinner, longer coat with many pockets and a split back hem. Not only was it fine to fight in, but its many loops and pockets held extra items. Also, my specially made ite
ms belts fit well over it.
As the young men watched, I buckled on the belts. They crossed over my chest and fastened at the sides, and had loops and compartments for small vials, packets, and other necessities. Then I buckled my stake belt across my hips. I dropped a silver cross necklace over my head, despite the cross tattooed on my left hand.
“Why are you dressing for a fucking vampire hunt?” one of the wolves asked. “Vampires don’t fuck with this pack.”
I scoffed. Boastful lies. I knew very well how vampires would creep into pack territory to cause trouble.
“She doesn’t know what goes on in the packs,” the other said. “Banished wolves are as ignorant as humans.”
There was a cruel anger to their taunts, as though someone had pissed them off most of their lives and they’d decided to take that anger out on me. I continued to ignore them as I concentrated on getting outfitted for my hunt.
I thought maybe if I spoke to them, explained what I was doing, they might lose some of their hostility, so I gave it a try. “We don’t know what’s waiting in those woods, so I want to be prepared for anything. It could be a—”
“The alpha has his own people to chase down and kick the killers ass,” Red muttered. “We don’t need you here. We don’t want you here. You’re tainting Gray Shadow land by stepping foot on it.”
The blond pushed a little closer to my back, his body brushing mine. “You should probably leave before you get hurt,” he said quietly.
I stuck six stakes into my belt—three on one side, three on the other. Three were silver and sharp, three were old and made from wood. I preferred the wooden ones, honestly. The feel of them in my hand, fat and warm and deadly, couldn’t be matched by the cold silver.
I slipped a long, powerful flashlight into a loop on my belt and then filled every pocket, compartment, and loop with items I might need. Salt, holy water, blades—my boots had not so secret sheaths on the outer sides for small blades—a small stun gun, baggies and tweezers, my cellphone, of course, a compass, lighter, a small axe, even a syringe filled with holy water and miniscule silver particles.
My long hair was already in its customary braid and hanging down my back, and when I stepped back, as prepared as I was going to be, and slammed shut the hatch, one of the wolves grabbed that braid.
For a second I was too stunned to react, unable to believe that one of them would do something so…stupid, but then he tugged on it, and not gently, and I lost my shit. I was aware I had anger issues, but I’d made great strides over the years in controlling it. But a guy pulling my fucking hair?
Yeah, that was going to piss me off.
I turned on them then, nearly yanking my hair out at the roots but barely feeling it as I—and my hobbled wolf—snarled in rage and pulled the heavy, spiked truncheon from my belt. I was taller than both by an inch or two, and despite the fact that I didn’t have the full weight of my wolf to aid me, it didn’t matter. I was strong enough, and I was certainly mad enough.
When it was over—in less than a minute—the two of them were spouting blood from their broken noses and swollen lips, and one of them knelt on the ground, shaking his bruised head while the other…well, the other began to do something that made me drop the baton and reach for my silver blade.
He began to shift.
Hurt, enraged, humiliated wolves were hard to reason with, and he wasn’t going to be thinking with his human brain. He would try to kill me.
But then the alpha was there, and all of our anger combined was no match for his.
I’d grown unaccustomed to a wolf pack’s violence in my twelve years away. And even as my two attackers caught sight of the alpha and found the sense they’d apparently lost when I’d arrived, my own rage melted away. Jared Walker was…terrifying.
Wolves gathered, some of them unable to control their shifts as their alpha’s fury touched them, rushing through the crowd like an emotional, uncontrollable wind.
The beta—Eli—was suddenly at my side. He took my arm. “Come away, Ms. Silver,” he said. “You’ll want to go on with your job.” He didn’t have to convince me. He jogged at my side as we left the street and headed for the woods.
Still, the sounds of the furious alpha disciplining his recalcitrant wolves continued to follow me long after I’d found the sweet silence of the woods.
Chapter Ten
The beta led me to the pack’s seer, Lennon. She stood in the woods, dressed in black leather, her long, red hair waving gently in a nonexistent wind. Her eyes, when she turned to watch me approach, were starkly green and vividly contrasted against the flawless ivory of her skin, and though I’d seen pictures of her before, her stunning beauty in person was…well, stunning.
“Wow,” I whispered, as Eli and I approached her, causing him to chuckle.
I wasn’t sure why she’d wanted to meet with me in the dangerous woods instead of behind the relative safety of four walls, but when I’d walked into the alpha’s office and no seer had been in attendance, Jared had informed me she was waiting for me in the woods.
I’d lifted my eyebrows. “I’m shocked you’d allow one of your people in the woods right now.”
He’d given me a wry smile. “The seer does as she pleases.”
I’d only shrugged, but I was slightly intrigued by a wolf who wouldn’t be bossed around by her alpha. Though I was sure if he’d seriously commanded her to do something, she would have done it. It was the wolf pack way.
“With Lennon, I pick my battles,” he’d said, as though he’d plucked my thoughts from my head.
I would have thought keeping one of his people safe from whatever was roaming these woods would have been a battle worth fighting, but he knew what he was doing. I was also surprised that he’d cared to explain himself to me.
When I stood in front of her, we simply stared at each other. I didn’t offer my hand or open my mouth as we took each other’s measure. One had to be careful with seers. An uninvited touch could lead to dangerous things—for both parties. I’d once seen my own pack’s seer experience a violent seizure when someone had grabbed her hand, and I’d seen a pack member knocked out for two days after an unintentional touch. He’d awakened with no memory of the previous year.
It wasn’t uncommon for a seer to see the deep dark secrets inside a person she touched, and that had gotten a wolf banned before. And worse.
So I didn’t touch her, and while I patiently waited for her inspection, I made sure my own walls were high and strong. Just in case.
At last, her features softened and she leaned toward me, her lips tilting in a small smile. She started to speak, then darted her eyes to the beta. “Eli,” she said sharply, and though he sighed, he moved a few yards away.
“He’s a nosy beta,” she murmured. “And I never allow my business to be carried back to the alpha unless I want it to be.” She held out her hand. “Don’t worry,” she said, when I hesitated, “I’m well secured. It will hurt neither of us.”
I refused to be afraid of the Gray Shadow seer. I was stronger than that, and I was well secured against a touch as well. I took her hand.
And it didn’t matter how secure we’d thought we were against that handshake, that first touched kicked both our asses.
Eli came loping toward us, ready to defend his seer against me, but Lennon managed finally to jerk free—God knew I couldn’t find the strength—and Eli was there to catch her when she reeled backward.
In the back of my mind was the cold realization that Jared’s beta was in love with the seer. It was said that seers could never love. Their heads and hearts were too full of their visions and knowledge, and they didn’t see romantic love the way others did.
Too bad for Eli.
“What is she,” Lennon whispered, and I wasn’t sure she was exactly present in the moment. Finally, she focused on me and pulled away from the beta. She didn’t offer me her hand again, and I was betting she probably never would.
Her eyes held something strange, something I
couldn’t parse, but her voice was full of pity and sorrow when she spoke again. “The wolf’s screams and torment,” she murmured. “How do you bear it?”
“I’ve grown used to it,” I told her, smiling grimly, though I really didn’t want to. “You’d be surprised at the kind of agony you can bear when your only other choice is death.”
She shuddered, her luminous eyes full of tears that never fell. “It won’t always be this way. I see…I see many things.”
“Your alpha has promised to free my wolf,” I told her, “if I hunt the creature killing your pack.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, he can do that!” She reached out, excited for me, but quickly dropped her hands. “You must understand what will happen when you’re free. You’ll need the alpha to control your wolf, to teach you to control yourself, to help you through the first hours, days, and maybe even weeks. Kaitlyn, you understand that Jared will be your alpha? He will be there to take care of you, to subdue your wolf when she refuses to return to human form—and she will refuse.” She peered out of those haunting green eyes, and it was all I could do to stand my ground against them.
I recoiled, already fighting those words, then realized there was really nothing to fight. I needed an alpha. I needed a pack. I needed my shift. More than anything, I wanted my shift.
“I’ll do anything to get my freedom,” I said.
Lennon nodded. “You will belong to the alpha but…”
“But?” I was aware that I wasn’t really giving that fact the attention it deserved. I didn’t want to think too hard about Jared becoming my alpha, because I was afraid it would take away my joy.
