Rosko, Mandy - The Wolf's Pack [Sequel to Mate of the Wolf] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Mandy Rosko

After everything that had happened, Shelley had forgotten all about him. Michael, Alex, and Cal stared as if they thought they might’ve been hallucinating.

  Another bout of blood spattered from Chris’s mouth, followed by a low wheezing. Not even the three men with her seemed to hear him, or even know he’d spoken, with their attention being on something else.

  Shelley had to get down on her hands and knees, tilt her head to the side, and put her ear to his mouth to understand what he said.

  “He’s her mate.”

  Shelley’s heart fell and then shattered like the glass from the trucks. Chris hadn’t known. He hadn’t known and Shelley did. Chris must’ve tried to attack Pearl as well as that one vampire standing beside her, and Jake would have reacted. Chris wouldn’t have seen it coming from what was supposed to be an ally. What made it so much worse was that by the time he’d transformed back into a man, he still wouldn’t have known because his memories did not transfer from wolf to man. He would have continued to take on the attacks from Jake by the time he’d figured it out.

  That made every scratch on his body entirely her fault.

  Jake had done this to Chris, and he’d done it because Pearl had ordered him to.

  All of Shelley’s self anger turned toward Pearl and boiled her alive from the inside out. “You fucking bitch.” Shelley shot to her feet.

  Jake stepped forward, his whole body going into the pouncing position, hackles raised and lips lifted to reveal his jaws. The fur of his chest rustled with the rumble of his growl.

  Michael was in front of her in an instant. “Don’t run,” he said, keeping his voice quiet and his eyes on Jake. “If you run, he’ll chase you.”

  “You can’t control him anymore?”

  “Not if he thinks Pearl’s being threatened,” Michael said, eyes on Jake. He might not’ve heard Chris’s gurgled voice, but he was observant enough to know what he saw. Cal and Alex must’ve seen the signs, too, as both were staring at Jake with a mix of shock, anger, and a boatload of other things she didn’t have the writer vocab to describe yet.

  “I can beat him, but he’ll go wild first and fight me to the death.” Michael said.

  Terrific.

  “Alpha, I’ve had enough of this,” Pearl said, taking position behind Jake, her other minion staying to her right. Her already-pointed nails became longer, like skewers, reminding Shelley of the first time she’d ever seen them. The only thing missing was the bat wings.

  When she got down on one knee, just behind Jake, and put the tip of her index fingernail just under the gray hairs at his neck, Michael growled.

  Jake returned that rumble.

  Shelley’s heart was pounding like a blacksmith was going at it in her chest. That fingernail was as tough as metal and would go through Jake’s throat and punch out the other side if Pearl really wanted to do that.

  Jake stood in front of her, protecting her, in attack position, staring and growling at his friends with the utmost distrust, while the woman he defended threatened his life.

  “You can’t kill him!” Shelley exclaimed.

  “And I will not,” Pearl said, her smile flashing her fangs, “so long as he surrenders peacefully and ends this.” She pointedly looked at Michael as she spoke.

  “That’s not going to work, Pearl,” Michael said.

  Her brows shot up, the victory smile vanishing completely. “You would put your safety above those you are charged with protecting?” Her nose crinkled, disgust vibrating from her. “Shameful, dishonorable creature.”

  “That hurts me in here, Pearl, it really does,” said Michael, knuckle tapping the spot over his heart. “But I’m being serious. He will never abandon you, not after this. So you really have nothing to bargain with.”

  Shelley was still standing behind him, being protected by him, but she could still see the way his back muscles tightened.

  “But make no mistake, if you kill him, I will give you a life worse than death. I’ll rip those wings of yours right out of their sockets so you can never fly away from what I will do to you. I’ll break your hands so you can’t defend yourself and throw you to my pack as a chew toy.”

  “My father—”

  “Will send no one to avenge you because you’re just his little half-breed bitch.”

  Pearl’s eyes went to Shelley, and her lips thinned as her eyes narrowed. Shelley half expected Pearl to start threatening Shelley’s life now, but she didn’t. Her nails returned to their normal size, however, and Shelley was able to breathe again.

  “I allowed you to goad me once before, and that battle ended with a knife in my back, a coward’s attack.”

  This time Shelley was the one to snarl, as though she herself was a wolf.

  Pearl ignored it. “End this, here and now. My father will send no one to avenge me, but he will send others for the silver pelt. He will always have what he wants. Fight me now. If I lose the battle, I will leave and your comrade can be seen to by a healer,” she said, not even sparing a nod to Chris, who was still choking back gargled breaths on the ground. “And if I win, I will take you as my prize.”

  Michael shook his head. “Still not going to work. Do you really think he’ll allow me to fight you?”

  Pearl sneered down at Jake, then kicked him in the ribs, eliciting a shocked whine. “Be off with you, creature!” she snapped.

  Jake looked at her like a puppy would after being abruptly struck by a beloved owner for no reason. His ears were down and his brushy tail curled between his legs. Shelley’s heart lurched.

  Pearl stomped her foot when he didn’t move, producing a flinch out of the deadly werewolf. “I said begone!”

  Then it clicked for Shelley. Right, she’d totally forgotten. Pearl didn’t know. She didn’t have an inkling of a clue. “You can’t order him away like that. Why do you think he’s betrayed his pack and helped you?”

  “Because he is an idiot canine beast with no sense of loyalty.”

  That last bit was so off base it wasn’t even funny. “He’s so loyal that he turned against his family for you. You’re his mate.”

  Pearl’s face jerked up to Shelley, who put all kinds of serious on her mug.

  Pearl’s jaw dropped, cheeks becoming a shade of white that Shelley hadn’t known was possible. Then, in her rage, Pearl lunged out in attack, claws extended toward her prey. Shelley’s neck.

  Chapter Nine

  Michael intercepted Pearl before she could reach Shelley with those eagle claws of hers, all stretched out and dripping that horrible pink venom. Michael avoided those by simply reaching out and grabbing her small wrists as quickly as a striking cobra, but in turn, Jake was thrown into a frenzy, leaping into the fray all muscles and teeth and claws.

  A gust of wind whooshed past Shelley as Alex and Cal flew forward at speeds that kicked up the wind and her hair to defend their alpha. Pearl’s vampire guard stood around like some kind of useless accessory, watching the ball of creatures roll around, claw, bite, and hiss at each other.

  Cal cried out from a slash wound inflicted by someone Shelley couldn’t even see, and then another massive ball of fur was rolling around in the mix as he lost control and transformed. Shelley could hardly watch as she winced again and again at the low-pitched, angry barking, snarling, and the flash of several pairs of knife-like incisors pulling at any exposed flesh.

  Way too much. She couldn’t watch Michael or Alex take quick claws to their faces in their free-for-all. Shelley had to focus her eyes on something else, so she looked at the vampire to be sure he wasn’t up to anything.

  He still hadn’t moved. Not a muscle. He was like a lizard staying motionless on a rock or something.

  Maybe he’d had orders from Pearl to keep out of the fighting, because, for whatever reason, he didn’t offer any help to the woman who was his princess.

  Shelley didn’t want to take her eyes away from him, so she began to inch back toward Chris. She needed to sit with him, be with him until help could arrive, but she couldn’t t
ake her eyes away from the only other vampire standing.

  Then the hand of a giant clapped over her shoulder from behind, and she screamed, fist swinging out.

  Another hand caught it before she could do any damage. The face was barely familiar, but the full head of shaggy hair, lightly sun-gold skin, and entirely naked body suggested this man was not a vampire. He was part of Michael’s pack.

  Shelley suddenly felt like she was about to drown in stupidity. Right, like she could’ve done any damage.

  “Sorry,” she said, pulling her hand away.

  The were in front of her only nodded.

  A shout sounded as the other members of the pack, all untied and sober from the vampire drugs, arrived. Some gathered around the fighters in a circle, trapping everyone within the space they created.

  Every face was serious, searching for the moment when they were needed to jump in and start ripping limbs off, but so far they all stayed put, observing the winning team, much the same as the creepy vampire guy was.

  Shelley turned her eyes back to the fight, but Michael’s attention was on her and not his opponents.

  What the hell? Don’t look at me! she yelled into his head.

  It shook him, but she’d still gotten the wash of confusion coming off him in waves, and the sound of her own previous scream echoed in her mind.

  Shit! She’d completely distracted him. Well, now that he knew that she wasn’t in harm’s way, he could go back to—

  Pearl’s dagger-claws reached through the swarming bodies and caught Michael across the face in a downward diagonal pattern.

  “Michael!” Shelley screamed, but his focus was back on the fight and he didn’t hear. Shelley bit her lips together to keep from crying out again as Jake managed to wiggle through Alex and Cal’s hold enough to put his whole mouth over Michael’s forearm, incisors ready for a bite that could probably take off the whole arm.

  Alex tightened his arms around Jake’s neck, pulling the wild werewolf back just as the teeth came down, but Jake still managed to rake them across Michael’s flesh, leaving so many lines in varying sizes that it looked almost like a cheese grater had gotten him.

  The werewolf who’d halted her punch turned her back to face him and not the wild fight. He now had a grip on both of her shoulders. Because of his size, he had to bend his knees a little to look her in the eyes. “Are you all right?”

  She looked past him. The other members of the pack who weren’t caging the fighters with their bodies were behind him, some clothed, some not, all ready to stand by their alpha. Some of them twitched and physically trembled, struggling with the urge to transform, the scent of blood and the sight of fight itself going straight through them to ramp up their adrenaline. Shelley was impressed with the level of control they displayed.

  Maybe that explained why that one vampire was so afraid to move. The guy was as trapped as Pearl, and he knew it.

  “I’m—What about Chris?”

  She shoved past the hulk of a man in front of her but went no farther than that. Deena was here, having come with one of the others.

  Shelley nearly breathed a relieved sigh at the sight of the woman, but Deena was not facing her. She knelt in front of Chris, her back to Shelley and the fight going on behind her, rubbing Chris’s large hand with her much smaller ones.

  Shelley’s heart got that horrible, fluttery feeling, like needles pricking at it from every different direction, with the realization that she wasn’t administering first aid, and Chris looked deathly still.

  Then Deena sniffed, wiped her face with the back of her hand, and then pulled the blanket up and over Chris’s face.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  This time Shelley did step forward. She got one foot in front of her before she fell to her knees next to him. “Chris?”

  What the hell did she expect him to do? Get up and answer her? His wife wasn’t a human doctor, but she sure as shit wouldn’t have covered her husband’s face with that hideous blanket if she wasn’t a hundred percent on the fact that he was dead, that there was nothing she could do about it either, because she had tried everything.

  She wanted to reach out and touch him, put her hands on his neck and wrists to check for herself that he was gone, even though she had zero idea about how to go about something like that.

  She kept her hands to herself, and not because of the whole lack of medical training thing. Even had that not been the case, her body was screaming at her to go to her almost big brother and…and…do something. Kiss his forehead, give him one last hug, even hold his hand. Fuck, she wanted to shake him and scream at him until he woke up or something.

  She didn’t touch him, because despite how much she’d grown to love Chris, he wasn’t hers to cry over. That was for his wife, and Deena must’ve been going as psycho-crazy on the inside as Shelley was because all she did was kneel at Chris’s side, hands fisted on her thighs, lips thinned so tight it looked like she was biting down hard enough to take them off.

  Her whole body was trembling like she was on permanent vibrate.

  It was only then that Shelley took note of how the other naked werewolves behind her were either on their knees or still standing, protecting Chris’s body even in the face of the fight in the middle of the lonely highway. Half the pack was with Chris, and the other half circled around the fight.

  A canine howl pierced long and high, faintly echoing before it disappeared into the night. It broke through the growling and shouting ball of chaos behind her, and Shelley abruptly turned her head to make sure that Cal wasn’t the one to make that noise.

  No. It was Jake. Michael was on his knees and had his arm wrapped under the wolf’s throat, his other hand adding strength by pulling back on his own wrist so that Jake’s back was pressed into Michael’s bare chest, his hind legs barely supporting him as he was held in a vertical position, his front paws reaching out and finding nothing to steady himself against.

  He, Alex, and Cal had finally managed to separate Jake from Pearl. They’d taken control of the situation.

  Michael was whispering into Jake’s bent ears. “That’s enough. Calm down. You know who we are. Stop fighting us.”

  Jake’s body lurched and he shook his head, attempting to wiggle or muscle his way out of Michael’s hold, but Michael wouldn’t let up, wouldn’t release one of his own even though the position could potentially strangle Jake.

  Pearl was pinned chest down on the gritty asphalt. Cal, still in wolf form, stood on top of her back. Alex panted heavily, gripping Pearl’s wrists behind her with the strength of iron shackles.

  Both wolves far outweighed Pearl’s vampire abilities, and while there was nothing to stop her legs from kicking out in retaliation, Cal’s teeth around her throat, biting down only enough for droplets of her blood to speckle the wolf’s mouth, was all the incentive she needed to keep still.

  Shelley smiled. Checkmate, bitch.

  In about a half a second, one of the wolves behind Chris’s corpse rushed forward to add her own strength to the mix. She was the female who Alex had bested in that battle. She was all soldier then, and she was all soldier now. Even though all she did was hold on to the vampire’s legs, she really looked like she wanted to rip them off.

  “Fight with me, you idiot! Defend me!” Pearl screamed, twisting her head as much as she dared to bark at her lackey, the only other vampire still alive and standing.

  All at once the entire pack seemed to recall he was there.

  The guy might have looked impressive with his MIB suit and shades, but he was not looking down at her, only at the three wolves coming for him, one of whom was cracking his knuckles as though readying himself for a beat down.

  A gust of wind kicked up, and black, leathery wings exploded from the vampire’s back in a loud ripping sound that could have been his flesh and his suit and cloak turning to shreds.

  His wings arched out, catching the wind and sending him backward into the sky just as the three wolves ran for him, realizing too lat
e that they should have taken him down sooner.

  One man with a shaved head vaulted after him with all the energy of a sprinter, running after his prey while the vampire violently flapped his wings in an attempt to launch himself higher into the sky where he could not be followed. The werewolf kept his pace even while he was on foot, leaped into the air, reached out with his hand…and missed.

  In a complete stroke of luck, that suit-wearing bastard made it high enough to avoid the claws that reached for him. Baldy landed on his feet, knees bent, back arched, and released a tortured roar after the prey he’d lost.

  “Traitor!” Pearl screamed into the sky.

  Shelley could no longer make out the retreating shape in the black, starless sky, but there was no doubt in her mind that Pearl could clearly still see the last of her cavalry escaping without her, leaving her to the very people she’d come to attack.

  She was toast.

  Despite the near hopelessness of her situation and the multiple incisors that were ready to add several brand-new throat holes in her neck, Pearl twisted and screamed in a rage that Shelley had never seen before, adding more blood to Cal’s muzzle as he did not pull his teeth away.

  Cal’s front paw pressed hard on Pearl’s cheek so that her face squished into the road, not quite silencing her screams, but definitely keeping her still and twisting her snarling lips so that what came out wasn’t as hard on the ears. Despite the awkward position, her eyes were still capable of sending spears of hatred at everyone around her.

  “Kill him! Don’t stop, kill him!” She shouted at Jake this time, her last sliver of hope.

  So much for wanting to get at Michael’s silver pelt. Survival was her only issue now.

  Jake obeyed the command from his…mate. Shelley could hardly think the word without a creepy shiver passing under her skin. Despite her disgust and the twisted and uncomfortable looks being passed around the other members of the pack, Jake still fought.

  Michael’s grip tightened, but now it looked like the wolf was almost as wild with the need to defend and escape as the vampire was.