by Woods, Erica
For a second it looked like Ruarc was going to attack Lucien, but after a particularly scary growl, he trotted away, jaws clapping together inches away from Lucien’s throat. If the other male hadn’t moved as fast as he did, Ruarc would’ve been left with pieces of skin and blood in his mouth instead of a tuft of fur.
Despite his violent tendencies, I couldn’t quite suppress the laugh bubbling up in me when Ruarc sneezed, looking mightily annoyed while attempting to rid his mouth of Lucien’s fur by repeatedly sticking his tongue out and dragging it back in across his teeth.
All eyes snapped to me, but I couldn’t tear myself away from Ruarc. He used his foreleg to rub across his face, his tongue poking out while he glared at everyone and everything.
“Ruarc you’ve got some fur in your mouth, did you know?” I asked, doing my best to appear innocent and not on the verge of hysterical giggles.
While Ruarc glared at me, the most amazing sound I’d ever heard suddenly erupted to my left. Gasping, I turned and watched in amazement as Ash’s normally blank face split into a wide smile, eyes sparkling with mirth as he laughed. The sound was hoarse, almost as if that part of him was unused and forgotten, but it was no less beautiful.
An answering smile tugged on my lips, breaking free when Ash kept laughing. I’d never seen him like that. He looked so young all of a sudden. Carefree and just . . .
So handsome.
Joy fluttered to life in my heart, and soon I was laughing too. Jason joined me, his booming laugh mixing with Ash’s hoarse one and my light, making a melody of unfettered happiness I wouldn’t mind waking up to every morning.
I was fiercely glad I’d brought this out in him. In both of them. So glad, in fact, that the way Lucien crept out of the room didn’t bother me as much as it usually would. Ruarc ran after him, throwing a heated glance my way before disappearing out of sight.
As abruptly as it had started, Ash’s laughter stopped. He looked at me. Tipped his head. Crossed the small distance between us and cupped my face between two calloused palms.
Once more, he captured my gaze, only this time . . . This time when I drowned, it was with a hitch to my breath and an endless, stark blue staring back at me.
“It will be okay,” was all he said, and then he walked away, taking the magic of his laugh with him.
5
Ash
Despite the brief respite our bright Hope had brought us with the thrill of her laughter a few hours earlier, my spirit existed on a plain of gray with no color in sight. Dwelling on the danger—Hope surrounded by lycans. Hope being subjected to their form of justice. Hope dying and my brothers dying with her—was too dangerous, and so I focused on what I could. What I should.
After dinner, I closed myself away in my office, imagining all the problematic scenarios that could arise, determined to find a way through each and every one. But though my mind stayed busy, I could not let go of the question tapping at my skull like a blunt claw rapping at rocks.
Who and why?
“Are you brooding?” Lucien leaned against the doorway, ankles crossed, head cocked, gaze filled with ice as it swept across my desk.
Was I brooding? Silent, locked away in my own head, I supposed it was not far off, but brooding seemed too mild. Too futile. Not the actions of a male responsible for keeping his pack safe.
No, I was not brooding. I was thinking. Thinking cold, speculative thoughts that left me disengaged from my body; the road back littered by the mouths of dozens of gaping silver traps. Had I been in my wolf form, I would have given myself a good shake.
“No,” I said and judged it as truth.
Lucien arched a brow. “I would not begrudge you. This has been a strange day.”
“In more ways than one.”
He went quiet for a moment. “She surprised me today.”
“And that is a bad thing?”
“The worst.”
If I were not weighed down by the thousands of worries building bricks upon bricks on my shoulders, I would have laughed. Lucien was changing, and change was seldom painless. “Had she not surprised you, I think you would have felt worse.”
“Perhaps.” He moved away and let me walk past before falling in step beside me. “She carries too many secrets.”
“So do you, niijikiwenh.”
“To protect our pack.”
“Who is to say she is not protecting us the best she knows how? Not that it matters now,” I said, an icy frost spreading to affect both blood and limbs. “Whoever her enemies are, they are not at the Assembly.”
“She’s deceitful. She lies.”
Ah. If there was one thing Lucien could not stand, it was dishonesty.
“Come,” I told him, knowing he did not expect an answer.
Lucien waited for me to push outside—gravel crunching under our feet—before he spoke. “Where?”
With Hope safe in our brothers’ care, there was no better time to seek the answers we would need to keep the little human alive. “I wish to talk to Nadir.”
“Nadir? He will not be pleased with an unexpected visit.”
I stopped next to the car. In this mood, concentrating on anything except keeping my beast contained was inviting trouble. “You drive.”
“Ash . . .”
Nightmares. Our Hope already had so many nightmares swimming in her eyes. I longed to erase them, not give her new ones to battle.
She could die.
Metal creaked, and when I looked down, the door handle fell to the ground in crumbled pieces.
Lucien followed my gaze. “I’ll drive.”
* * *
Nadir lived in a secluded area, far away from any road or human settlement. An hour drive would be followed by several miles of hiking through dense forests and steep cliffs. It was both a blessing and a curse. I used the time on the road to meditate, to calm the tempest of razors slicing through each thought, each breath. It was not the cuts I could not bear, but the look on the face reflected in their shiny surface. A look filled with trust. With understanding.
She trusts me to keep her safe, yet I will bring her into the den of the lycans, to the heart of those wishing to annihilate every one of her species.
“What are you thinking?” Lucien asked as he guided the car up a narrow dirt road. All around us, trees protruded from the ground like giant swords raised in protection of all the life that called this forest home. “Why Nadir?”
The car came to a stop where the road ended. There were no signs, no place to turn, simply an end to a man-made creation that was not welcome farther into this sanctuary.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out. The cool night air carried the scent of deer, of critters and birds and flowers and predators. This was life beyond civilization. This was lycan grounds.
“He has connections to the vampires.”
Lucien leaned against the door he had just closed. “The vampires? You think . . .” A vicious curse. “Kieran?”
“I do not know, but we have to start somewhere. Someone is coming for us, Lucien. For us, or for her. And we do not know who.”
“Blake was the only one who knew about her.”
I started walking. “Blake wants to end Rederick, and he needs our support. As we need his.”
“Perhaps he is trying to force our hand.”
“We would have come to the Assembly without this threat hanging over our head,” I reminded him.
“You and I, yes. But Ruarc and Jason would have stayed behind with Hope.”
And my heart would have stayed with them even as I fought tooth and claw against Rederick’s law. “It does not matter. As soon as Blake saw what was at stake for us, he knew we would stop at nothing to ensure Rederick’s failure.” We made our way across the river bisecting Nadir’s vast land. The bank was smooth rock, slippery enough to prove dangerous to one with an unsteady gait, while the grass that rose to greet us on the other side was as prickly as thorns. Yes, Nadir’s land was vast. Vast, but not kind to those that did not
belong. “Kieran on the other hand . . .”
“Knew nothing,” the bristling male at my side said. His words could have had teeth with the bite they carried.
Lucien had not forgiven the vampire’s slight.
“He caught her scent—then risked everything to steal her. And yes, I know he gave her back,” I added, as much to appease the quiet fury stroking a seductive hand down my back as to answer Lucien’s unspoken protest, “but his reasons remain clouded in shadows.”
Lucien made a sound that was too quiet to be a snarl. “If anyone who ever scented her is a threat, then you might as well add the Strays to your list. They’ve been roaming far too close as of late.”
“Strays do not plot.”
“Perhaps they have found a master who does.”
“Who would ally with Strays?” Hated by most lycans and banished from their packs for unforgivable breaches, their instincts had them band together in a pale imitation of the packs they’d lost. But whatever corrupted their nature did not allow for true bonds to form. They were forever fighting, forever yearning, forever lost.
Though, as with everything, there were exceptions.
“One lacking both intellect and morals,” Lucien said.
“Hmm.”
The next few miles passed in thoughtful silence. Being outside, surrounded by nature, soothed the part of me that chafed at the bonds of humanity, at the four walls surrounding me when I slept, ate, washed, and strategized.
Working with horses had the same calming effect.
Sighing, I loosened the reins on my wolf. Allowed him use of my eyes and ears and nose. My hands and feet and legs and arms. Soon, he was driving while I sank deeper into my own mind.
Moments like these were rare.
There was no frost blowing its cold breath down my lungs. No detached calculation or disjointed hissing in my ear. It was only the wolf and I, and right at this moment, as long as my thoughts did not stray to Hope or the danger our pack faced, he remained calm.
We ducked under a branch, the heavy moon’s touch weaving between the tree line, caressing and beckoning. This Assembly’s hunt would fall when the moon was full, and all the lycans would feel her pull.
I pictured Hope’s face bathed in moonlight, her eyes glowing a pale gold, so different from her normal brown. The image seemed so real that ice prickled along my skin, and I had to remind myself she was human. If she were not, there would have been signs by now. Fear was a powerful motivator, and no young lycan—nor any other supernatural—could resist the change or control their reaction while that bitter emotion lashed their backs.
Even Lucien could not stop his eyes from glowing when properly provoked.
I emptied my mind and walked on. Crickets sang. An owl hooted. Two foxes yipped in the distance.
Mother nature never slept.
Lucien brushed past me. “How much shall we tell her?”
Peace shattered and my beast bristled. “Enough to make her wary. Not enough to make her afraid.”
They would scent her fear; use it against her. And if she knew the risks, if she knew what we risked . . . Our stubborn human would not sit idly by and await fate’s indifferent hand.
She’s weak of body, but not of spirit.
Heat wove through me. If I closed my eyes, I could almost feel Hope’s hand closing around my heart. Owning it with nothing but a gentle touch.
Dangerous.
When I was away from her, I ached. When she was near, I felt the stirrings of peace, of comfort, of things I had not felt in centuries. She was fragile; her body could be broken with less effort than it took to snap the trunk of a tree. But her spirit would not bend, would not shatter. She had proven her strength, her resilience, her bravery. And it came as a shocking lack of surprise to feel my beast’s respect when we looked into her eyes. To feel my own admiration.
I had never thought a female could accept my beast, could stand up to its will. Yet Hope did.
She is mine.
The thought came unbidden, unhurried, unyielding. For weeks, I had walked the path that could only ever end with this; with the claiming of the only female to have ever truly touched my heart. It was not fair to her, to her youth and the life she had yet to live, but neither could I push her away. That would wound her. And I could no more cause her pain than I could walk away from the gifts she had given me. The gifts she continued to give each day, with each piece of herself that she freely gave to those she deemed deserving.
And to those she did not.
Yes, she had secrets, and yes, the darkness of her past hovered forever near. But I had never met a female who gave of herself with such fierce, selfless joy as our Hope.
Lucien’s voice drew me out of my thoughts. “If we lose the vote . . . They will not stop at Hope’s murder.”
“If we lose, I will challenge.”
“You will be killed.”
I glanced up at the moon. It did not matter. I would not fail to safeguard those under my protection. Not again. “So be it.”
A loaded pause, then a quiet, icy whisper. “The human has brought nothing but trouble.”
“That is untrue,” I said, remembering the startled sound of Ruarc’s laugh, the flicker of light nipping at the shadows in Jason’s eyes, the softening of a brother who feared to let himself feel. Life had returned to our pack. Returned, when we had been unaware it had ever left. “And niijikiwenh, I think you know it.”
“What I know is that I knew this would happen. From the moment the bedraggled, bothersome human stepped in front of our car, I knew.”
“You could not have predicted this.”
An arched brow, a swift step, and Lucien walked ahead, shooting his words over his shoulder like bullets from a gun. “Could I not? Was this outcome not one of the risks of bringing a human into our home? Perhaps we could not have foreseen her discovery this soon, but you had to know her presence would not stay secret forever. Or did you intend to send her away as soon as she was able to leave?”
The beast’s hissed denial echoed through my skull.
“No,” I replied. The forest thinned as we went higher. Bristling bushes replaced the soaring trees, the pines that remained up here shorter. Compact. With hard rock immediately after the first layer of earth, roots found little purchase, and trees that exceeded their limits would fall at the first brisk wind. “But we should have had more time. If this had happened six months from now, she would no longer have been at risk.”
“At far too steep a price.”
“For you, perhaps. I think not for Ruarc. Not for Jason.” Not for me.
“Madness!” Lucien cut across the path in front of me and veered to the west. We would begin a descent soon. Nadir’s cabin lay nestled deep into the woods, surrounded by mountains. Even in his old age, the former alpha chose security over comfort.
“What one person sees as madness, another is willing to die for. That is the beauty of this world, is it not?”
“Spare me.”
A deafening boom above our heads. Startled birds rushed for the sky as we threw ourselves flat to the ground.
Another gunshot exploded above us.
“Damnation!” Lucien cursed and the scent of blood washed through the air. A bullet had grazed his shoulder, now embedded in the tree behind him.
Everything went silent.
Cold filled me. My heart slowed. And my beast pushed to the surface. I looked at my brother; smelled the silver burning his flesh; heard his near silent grunt of pain as he slapped a hand over the wound to stop the bleeding.
“I’m fine,” he said. “The loon has a gun.”
“Take cover.” I waited for him to move before blending in with the shadows.
Nadir had a gun. Nadir, who had once pronounced them humanity’s cruelest invention. Nadir, who had always relied on teeth and claws, never weapons. Nadir, who was no cowardly Stray but alpha.
Chasing the wind so it could not reveal my scent, I moved in a half circle until I was behind the
other alpha’s cabin. My feet stepped soundlessly over grass and roots and rocks, until a lone figure cloaked in darkness came into sight.
With a burst of speed, I shot forward and grabbed the figure by the neck. Startled, wide eyes blinked up at me. Not ones belonging to Nadir, but a female.
I drew in a deep breath.
A human.
“He said to shoot at anyone who got close,” she whispered, lifting her chin.
It trembled.
I yanked the shotgun out of her hands and folded it in two. I did not let go of her neck. “Where is he?”
“Gone.” Her shoulders drooped. She threw a quick glance at Lucien as he walked up behind me, eyes widening for a brief second before she averted them. “What . . . What will you do to me?”
‘To me’ rather than ‘with me.’ One word, one minuscule choice. Did she know how much she revealed with so little? “Nothing,” I said, and released her. She was no threat. “We are friends of Nadir and require his help. Do you know where he is?”
“He . . . he’s hunting with the vampires. I thought he’d be back by now . . .”
“Hunting what?”
“Their Blood.”
“Kieran,” Lucien hissed.
I stepped back, allowed the human female more room to breathe. “For how long?”
“They . . .” She cleared her throat and rubbed at the spot my hands had lain—for something to do rather than by necessity; my grip had been mild enough she would not so much as bruise. “They left a little over two weeks ago.”
Lucien stilled. “He came straight here.”
So he had. I did not know what to make of his behavior. If he had meant us harm, enlisting Nadir’s aid in hunting his brother’s mate would not further his agenda.
A phone rang, and the female visibly jumped.
Lucien cursed and fumbled around in his pocket. He was the only one of us who always carried the human device.
After snapping a hello and listening to the reply, he turned to me. “It’s Trey. There’s trouble with some Strays.” Lucien handed me the phone. “Perhaps Ruarc can catch their scent. Our territories are close enough that we may share some of the same pests.”
