by Woods, Erica
“If they’re honorable,” Ruarc muttered, glaring at a group of fringe wolves who stared at Hope. Stared with the wrong kind of hunger glazing their eyes and forcing their jaws apart.
I wrapped my arms around my female and pulled her against my chest, turning my back on their hunger. It served the dual purpose of showing them I did not fear them, as well as saving Hope the sight of my wolf tearing them to shreds.
She deserved a life of peace. Not violence.
But of course, this was the Assembly and these were lycans, and violence was as inevitable as rain after a drought.
It began with a taunt.
Something about it made me want to prick my ears and bare my teeth. Ruarc heard it as well, for he stepped forward, standing half in front of me to protect the bundle of vulnerable skin and breakable bones I held within the circle of my arms.
Ahead, lycans shifted restlessly. A few had clumped together while others, like us, watched with narrowed eyes and sharp attention.
Those with females to protect edged away.
“W-what is it?” Hope asked.
I tightened my hold. “Hopefully nothing.”
Jeering voices now. Three of them. Then Lucien pushing past the crowd, the beginning of a fanged smile glittering in his eyes.
“Halflings,” he said, tipping his head in a way that was far from casual. “An enforcer took offense when they failed to show him due respect.”
A snapping, snarling fire sparked in my belly. “Their pack?”
“Have elected to remain on the sidelines.”
Had my beast not remained uncaring of the situation, my control might have broken. As it was, I forced a cleansing breath and stared down at the top of Hope’s head.
I did not want her to see this.
The fire whipped around my ribs.
Yet I could not do nothing.
It engulfed my heart.
Fate. Fickle, fallible fate. One side of her taut thread birthed predators, the other spawned prey.
Flames licked up the inside of my throat and tried to escape in a roar of rage.
I swallowed the sound, extinguished the fire, and reminded myself what had been taken from me the last time I had lost control.
I turned my female to face me.
Her eyes were too big, too wide in her heart shaped face. That pointed chin, the one that so stubbornly jutted out when she was determined to protect us, trembled. I leaned down and silenced the question I could see forming on her lips by brushing my mouth over hers.
Sharing her breath.
“Do not be afraid,” I whispered, and before she could protest, I passed her to Ruarc and turned to face the crowd.
“Wait—”
It parted when I approached, the sea of lycans spilling to the sides to make room for me and Lucien.
It did not close behind us.
So be it.
“Ash!”
What came next happened fast.
A male and a female on the ground, a big enforcer looming above, one hand on each of their throats. The halflings were thrashing, eyes glowing with the wolf they could not call on for help, the sour scent of fear mixing with their sweat and the aggression peeling off the enforcer like strips of flesh ripped from the bone.
Rage tightened my throat and burned in my chest, and I was ashamed that the reason had nothing to do with the strangers on the ground, but rather the faces that overlaid theirs when my vision darkened. Others that shared the genetics this enforcer would eradicate.
First, my mother as she writhed on the fire. Burned, not because she was human, but because she had a son that was not.
Then, Jason. Jason who had known enough pain to break a lesser male, and still did everything he could to make others smile.
And lastly, Hope. And as soon as it was her face I saw—helpless, pushed down into the dirt like an animal brought to heel—the cold presence of my beast expanded, filled the space beneath my skin.
“Release them.”
The enforcer jerked as though the whispered command had burrowed under his ribs. He turned his head, looked over his shoulder, and such was my control over my beast that when his eyes landed on me, they narrowed instead of widening.
“They need to learn their place,” he said.
“Which is?”
“Anywhere I say it is.”
I walked around him until we were face to face; the halflings now thrashing weakly near my feet. There, I lowered to my haunches—a position so similar to the one I had been in just a few minutes earlier; the reason behind it vastly different. “You will let them go.” Cool, dispassionate, the predator in me moved, and I felt my head angle to the side. “Unless you want everyone to see you for the coward you are.”
The enforcer leaned back, as though needing distance in order to digest the insult.
He studied me, failed to see the power I kept contained.
Muscles bunched, claws flexed, and a growl spilled from his throat. The minute shift of his shoulders and the expansion of his pupils warned of the violence to come.
He struck, and I did not move. Not when I needed him to draw first blood.
Flesh tore beneath his claws. Four deep gashes furrowed my stomach. Deep. Deep enough to tear muscle, but not deep enough to be a deterrent.
Blood spilled down my ruined shirt.
“Ash!” A feminine half moan, half shriek.
My head whipped around, neck aching with the force, and I found her pale face in the crowd.
Safe. She was safe in Ruarc’s arms.
Another strike, this to my chest, but instinct spun my body to the side, and his claws only grazed my flesh.
I looked back at the enforcer, saw the arrogance, the victory he took for granted. If I were Lucien, I would smile, and the other male would know fear. But my anger was a quiet, cold thing. It was not fit for smiles or roars or heated emotion.
So when I struck, I knew my expression was calm and collected. And I knew it remained that way through the loud snap of his arm breaking and the howl that followed.
The female on the ground gasped with her first breath of air, and then the male did the same as the enforcer stumbled back, clutching his arm.
“What . . .” He shook his head, and whatever shock he felt gave way to rage. “You fucking lithbhár!” The hissed insult gave life to the crowd gathered around us—some echoing his sentiment, others moving away, not wanting to draw my attention.
“Come, then,” I said, getting to my feet and blocking the two halflings from his sight. “Let me show you which of us are less wolf.”
The furious enforcer tucked his chin and charged like an out-of-control-bull. I sidestepped, put my hands on his shoulders, and used his own momentum to throw him away from the still-coughing figures that had yet to move.
He sprang to his feet, spun around, snarled.
I waited.
A second.
Two.
Three . . .
But he had learned, and now he took his time. Circling. Judging. His gaze honed in on the blood trickling from the wound in my stomach.
A weakness.
A rush of cold energy filled me, my beast stirring.
Enough.
If I did not end this fight soon, the enforcer would die.
Hope does not need to see more needless violence.
It was decided. Calm descended and gave me focus. The sights, sounds, and smells of the crowd faded. I saw every minute tensing of the enforcer’s muscles, saw the small hairs rising along his bare arms, saw his pupils expand, shrink, then bleed out into the green of his irises until black was all that remained.
I prowled toward him, scented unease mixing with his anger. His chin jerked—fighting the impulse to tip his neck and bare his throat—his eyes fluttered close before widening, and then claws flashed.
I caught his right wrist in my hand; ignored the other, the broken one, as it came up and clawed at my neck.
Scrapes. It left only scrapes.
My other hand shot out and closed around his neck, and then he was on the ground in the same position as the halflings had been.
I was vaguely aware of Ruarc cursing, of Hope’s scent too close, of her voice, high and thin and fearful. It scratched at my mind, poking through my calm, and when I spoke, it colored my voice so it was no longer unaffected, but vibrating with the strain of not turning, not finding the female I knew to be safe, just so I could pull her close and destroy the source of her fear. “Yield.”
The enforcer thrashed.
“I said, yield.”
He stilled, even though his lungs would have been burning with the need for air, and let his broken arm fall to the ground.
I loosened my grip on his throat; allowed him a breath.
“I yield,” he rasped, and when I removed my hands he tipped his head all the way back.
“I will not ask that you apologize to those you misused,” I said, knowing it would mean nothing; only damage his pride in a way that would make him dangerous to the weaker members of his pack. “But know this . . .” I did not raise my voice. I did not crush his windpipe. I did not threaten or tear or terrify. But I did loosen the hold on my beast and let him witness a truth that would haunt and confound him as much as the one I spoke next, “You live only due to the mercy of a halfling.”
The enforcer went taunt, his eyes bulging as fear and confusion mixed, each emotion pulling his face in a different direction until it seemed he wore a mask that was cracking down the middle.
I withdrew my hand and rose, done with the male who chose to brutalize rather than protect. When I turned, I saw the halflings had gotten up and stood huddled together; too scared to leave, too terrified to approach.
They did not deserve this fear they lived with. “If your pack does not defend you, they do not deserve you.”
They exchanged a quick, darting glance, then the male took a stumbling step forward, stared at my feet, and whispered, “No one else will have us.”
Anger rose, but the heated emotion crashed against my beast and was swallowed whole. “Do you know Trey, the alpha of Red Rock Mountain pack?”
“Y-yes.”
“Speak to him. He will help.” Trey’s half sister was a halfling. One he had not known existed until he found her beaten half to death by her former pack. He had helped her heal and when she wanted to leave, he had found her a new pack. A good one.
Trey was a good wolf.
The female bent her neck and grabbed at her friend’s elbow. They both refused to meet my gaze, whispering their thanks to the ground and studiously avoiding looking at the enforcer who would not get up until I left.
Since the halflings, too, seemed unable to leave, I jerked my chin, indicating I would not keep them here. After a brief hesitation, the male thrust out his hand, tilting his head so far back in the process that his throat seemed an obscene stretch of vulnerable flesh.
A tired sigh.
Did he think I would punish him for offering gratitude?
I closed the distance between us, pretended not to notice the way his arm shook, clasped his wrist, and nodded at the female who knew better than to touch me, knew I would not tolerate another’s scent but that of my chosen.
“Thank you,” they whispered in unison and scurried away.
Watching them disappear between the trees, a hollow twinge gnawed at my gut. Even the weakest halfling carried a strong, lycan scent—ensuring they could never pass for human among the supernaturals. They were forced to seek the protection of a pack or risk ending up as pawns for lycan enemies.
These two would be at the mercy of others for the rest of their lives.
I drew in a deep breath, forcing a calm that came too reluctantly. Another. And a third, for good measure. Only when the air settled smoothly in my lungs—no longer burning—did I step over the enforcer.
He scrambled to his feet and pushed through the lycans, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Once he had been swallowed by the crowd, I turned to find Lucien only to be hit in the chest by a flying female.
Her scent hit me first—warm. Female. Mine—then the feel of impossibly smooth skin beneath my palm, a curious tug on my heart, a quivering, gasping, worried bundle of feminine dismay clinging to me as though worried I were a mirage.
“Ash!” she cried, patting frantically at the scratches on my neck before moving her small hands down my chest, hovering helplessly above my stomach and its bloodied gouges. “You’re hurt!” A strangled moan fell from her lips. “God, you’re bleeding . . . Ruarc!”
“Right here, mo chridhe.” One hand on her shoulder, the other curling around her neck, he shot me a look over the top of her head. A look that told me I better fix this before our female shed a single tear.
“Get help! A hospital, or . . .” She searched the crowd—for what, I did not know, but the few that remained stared back with wide eyes, either transfixed or horrified at the scene playing out before them.
“Hope. Hope, see me.” I caught the hand she waved around as though she could capture magic from the air and pour it into my wounds, and brushed my lips across her wrist, tasting her erratic pulse. “I am fine.”
“No, you’re not.” Her lips trembled, but when no others rushed forth to help, she shook her head and tore off her thin jacket.
Ruarc stiffened. “What’re you—”
“Put that back on,” Lucien snapped. He had stayed back and watched for cheaters during the fight. Had any other lycan attempted to affect the outcome, he would have stopped them.
Hope pushed her jacket into Lucien’s arms. “Tear that into strips.”
“Put it on,” he repeated.
Our little female acted as the bird I had nicknamed her after, fluttering her hands like the beating of tiny wings, gaze flitting between my stomach, her jacket, and Lucien. Seeing the worry reflected in her open, expressive features had my heart crack down the middle.
She worried. For me. I, who was responsible for the safety and wellbeing of everyone in my pack.
Including her.
“Banajaanh,” I murmured, drawing her close. The crack in my heart widened when I spotted the wet track of tears trailing from the corners of her eyes and down to her jaw. Before I could kiss them away, reassure her that I remained unharmed, she tore away with a gasp that was eerily similar to a sob, and yanked at the jacket in Lucien’s arms.
“I can’t rip it,” she whispered. “I’m not strong enough. Please . . .” She dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. “Can’t you do it?”
Lucien stared at Hope’s wet cheek, and with a silence that said more than words ever could, he did as he was asked.
Hope turned back to me, strips of cloth clasped tightly in her shaking fists. “Lift your shirt.”
I did, regretting it as soon as she blanched, another moan spilling from somewhere deep inside her.
“Ash, why . . . Why did you let him do this to you?”
“I could not draw first blood.” I had not been sure how the fight would go, and I could not have risked killing him while being the aggressor.
Hope gently felt around the torn skin. Proving the disarray of her thoughts, she did not question my response, for which I was grateful. “Why was he attacking those . . . those other lycans.”
“They are halflings,” I said softly, knowing she needed a distraction. This wound was nothing, but she would not feel better until she had done what she could to help. She was softhearted, our Hope. Protective and compassionate and not willing to watch anyone she cared for suffer. “Born to human women and lycan fathers, they sometimes have a hard time in our world.”
“Sometimes?”
I watched as her eyes narrowed with concentration, the tip of her tongue pressing against her top lip while she focused on attending wounds that would heal on their own in an hour’s time. “If their heritage is known, they are looked down on”—and worse—“by those that hate humans.”
“But why?” She reached blindly behind her; Lucien plac
ed another strip of her torn jacket in her hand. “Why does it matter?”
“Most of them cannot shift,” Lucien said. He stood at her back, shoulder to shoulder with Ruarc, staring down at the top of her head as though he was trying to penetrate her skull and see the thoughts inside. “The majority of lycans do not consider a non-changer part of our kind. You are either wolf or you’re not.”
“Oh.” An exhalation, barely a sound, it contained such heavy emotion that I ached for her.
How to ease this sadness?
“There are those that are able to shift,” Lucien said before I could.
Hope wrapped the first strip of cloth around her finger and gently used it to soak up my blood. “And the ones that can’t?”
“They have some abilities,” I told her. “They heal quickly, their senses are much above average. And though they do not share our longevity or strength, they are stronger and faster than humans.”
I exchanged a look with Lucien. Neither of us told her the rest, the itch the halflings had to shed their human skin, the need they felt to be around pack, the urge to run, to hunt, to be wolf. They were locked inside their human bodies, and though they possessed the soul of a wolf, they did not have its powers.
Except for on the night of the full moon, where they were all forced into a shift that was not quite wolf, not quite human, but something in between. A shape that was to blame for the monstrous drawings and the majority of the werewolf myths.
If she knew this truth, our tenderhearted female would only feel the bite of helpless compassion.
“It stopped bleeding.” She stood with her head bent, clutching at the soiled piece of cloth. “It just . . . stopped.”
“That is a good thing, banajaanh.”
“I . . . It looked so deep and—” She yanked her head up and turned to pierce Ruarc with a glare. “He wouldn’t let me go to you!”
“Wouldn’t let you step into a fight between two lycans, you mean?” Ruarc growled back.
