Knowing that her movements could not be masked by any stealth or discretion, she scurried across the floor and took of the rifle that had been knocked from her hands earlier.
The hunter returned to the room and she swung the muzzle at him like a club. But the man caught it before it could make contact. Once more, she was deprived of her only weapon and he kicked her to the floor. Eleanor caught herself and tried to rise, but his heavy boot dug into her back to keep her still.
“If you had just told us where they were, this would have been so much easier.”
Still playing her part in the scheme, she pretended to not understand. Instead, she continued to resist him and groped around for furniture legs or anything she could even remotely use against him. It was to no avail and when she felt the cold barrel of the gun press against the back of her head, she finally went still.
She wouldn’t let her emotions betray herself. She could have cried, screamed, given in and told them everything they wanted to know, just so she might be spared, but she knew it would do no good. These men were out for blood and if the rumors were true, they would destroy everything. But how much did they know? Was the pack in Bordeaux also in danger? If Lucy could manage to hide in the swamps and find her way back to the Couture Manor, would she even be safe there? Or was it all a lost cause? What had given them away?
Eleanor balled her hands into tight fists as she let her head rest against the floor. If only Darren were here, then perhaps these men wouldn’t have gotten so far.
A child’s scream pierced through the still air. Eleanor’s heart shattered and those tears she had been holding in poured down her cheeks.
Darren was sure his paws never touched the ground. He certainly didn’t feel the branches and brambles that raked across his fur as he sped through the forest, his muzzle pointed north toward Bordeaux. Dustin tried to keep up, but he didn’t possess the added motivation that Darren had. They were linked by the pack bond and the Irishman could no doubt feel his alpha’s distress when he heard his daughter’s cry float on the wind.
Some might have tried to reason that it couldn’t be Lucy. They were miles away from Landes Forest and even with his keen ears, there could be no possible way he would hear her from that far away. But he did, and he knew instinctively that it was his daughter. This wasn’t some hallucination brought on by anxiety because he had left his family alone.
When the odor of smoke assaulted his nose, Darren pushed himself faster than he had ever gone before, somehow managing to avoid the trees and obstacles that kept him from returning home. But no matter how fast he ran or how hard he tried to cover miles upon miles of woodlands that separated him and his family, he was still too late.
He didn’t even register that he had shifted back into his human form until he saw the flickering red flames ahead of him in the clearing. He stopped, the amber glow of the fire washing over his naked body as he stared at his home, engulfed in fire.
He panted for breath, but he knew he couldn’t rest. He stumbled forward until the heat on his skin knocked him out of his daze. He called out his wife’s name, then Lucy’s, but he heard no reply. Without any thought to himself, he charged forward and knocked through the front door that was rimmed in flames. Through the haze of smoke and taunting fire that was slowly consuming everything he held dear, he saw her.
Eleanor was on the floor, untouched by the destruction, but motionless. Dark blood pooled around her, reflecting the dancing light of the fire that nearly covered the walls and ate through the ceiling above. Darren ran to her side and dropped to his knees before scooping her into his arms. The bullet wound in her chest was all he needed to see to know that nothing could be done. She had lost too much blood and he couldn’t hear her heartbeat over his own. Her nightgown was soaked through, plastering the material to her curves.
This couldn’t be happening. He had to be imagining all of this somehow. How could everything have been so fine and then shift into life-ending chaos within just a few hours?
He touched her cheek that was darkened by the cinders floating through the air. Her eyes fluttered open as he tried to shake her awake. Her lips moved, twitching as she tried to form words. Darren’s face twisted in agony, acrid smoke seeping into his lungs.
“You’re going to be fine,” he kept saying, knowing that it was a lie. She was dying. He could sense the life slipping from her. She was too weak to even reach up and touch his cheek, but he grabbed for her quivering hand anyway when she tried. Her skin was cold, despite the raging inferno around them.
Rafters collapsed in various rooms across the house. Walls began to crumble under the voracious hunger of the flames that sought to turn everything into ash. The home he had built for them, would be reduced to rubble by dawn. Everything, gone.
The moment he saw the light fade from her dark eyes, Darren felt their mating bond completely severed and dissolved into dust. Embers floated from the ceiling and singed his skin, but he didn’t feel it. He felt none of it except for her lifeless body going limp against him.
He held her tight as he cried and shuddered under the weight of the grief that descended like a sudden summer thunderstorm. Darren had only cried like this once before when he was a young man. Even then, he hadn't gotten to experience death so close, so personal.
Outside the home, he heard Dustin pace back and forth nervously in his loup-garou form. Rational thought couldn’t penetrate through this sorrow. He didn’t care that the house would break down around him and his wife if he stayed a moment longer. But the wolf, who still clung to life and had a shred of its own instinct still left, prodded him to leave.
With his wife’s blood dripping from his forearms and down his shins, Darren carried Eleanor’s body outside and away of the flames. Soot and smoke had blackened their faces. He crumbled back to his knees, now a safe distance from the wreckage. It was only when Dustin came up beside him and licked at the scorched skin on his arms and shoulders, that Darren realized how long he must have been inside the house with Eleanor in her final moments.
Patches of skin all across his body had been charred to the point of bleeding, leaving behind burns that would have left eternal scars on a human. But his loup-garou nature was already healing him, mending back the seared flesh until it was as if none of this had ever happened. If only it could do the same for his heart.
Too many thoughts crowded in for him to even begin to sort through. Who had done this? Why? Where was Lucy? If he had been here, could he have protected them? Who was responsible in the end?
He continued to sob into his wife’s dark hair, his nose searching for any last trace of her unique scent through the smoke and blood. After some time, Dustin trotted off into the woods, but Darren didn’t care where he went. Not right now.
Behind him, the house burned, the flames climbing high into the early morning sky. Dawn was stealing up on them and the sun would illuminate the pandemonium that had erupted within Landes Forest.
Some distance away, he heard Dustin shift back into his human form. He would need help to cope with what he had experienced with the breaking earlier that night, but Darren couldn’t bring himself to move or loosen his hold over his wife’s body. He couldn’t leave her.
He was only vaguely aware of Dustin calling out his name and the oaths he didn’t bother to conceal with a whisper. He returned to the clearing and Darren refused to look up. He knew who Dustin was holding in his arms. Her scent wasn’t screened by smoke, but it was certainly poisoned by the stench of blood. No heartbeat.
Darren convulsed with the last of his sobs. His family was gone, murdered by some stranger who might have known too much. Only one clear thought remained. Hunters.
He could smell them now. Their trails that snaked through the woods. They were out there somewhere, fled to the north toward Bordeaux. The wolf roared against the impulse to pursue and do even worse to them than what they had done to his family. Darren wanted to dispense justice and taste their blood in his mouth.
But
the wolf rebelled, the only sensible one of the two. It knew that vengeance would not bring his wife and daughter back. It would not make any of this right again, or reconstruct his house. Nor would it allow him to go back in time and change what had happened. It was done, and if it were hunters who killed his family, there would be more. He couldn’t take them on alone and Dustin wasn’t up to the task. If they were in Bordeaux, if there were more, then his father-in-law’s pack wouldn’t be safe either. It might have been safe to assume that Gustave and the rest of his family were to be murdered just as Eleanor and Lucy were. No place was safe for them now.
Dustin gawked at the destruction, oblivious to all that had taken place before he shifted back. There would be time to explain it all, but they couldn’t stay there.
With scars of tears cutting across his dusty cheeks, muddying his face, Darren pressed one last kiss onto his wife’s forehead and summoned what little strength of will he had left. This was the life of the loup-garou. Death and tragedy were constants. Families would pass away, friends would leave, hunters would dismantle packs. After living for over one hundred and sixty years, he should have known that. But never had he felt this crippling anguish, as if he were the one who was shot, as if he were the one slowly dying at the hands of a cruel fate.
He didn’t know how his legs could still carry him, but he was on his feet and walking to the south, away from Bordeaux and the burning cottage, with Eleanor hanging in his arms. His new pack mate followed, confused and just as devastated as Darren.
Couture Manor, Bordeaux France
“Tell us where he is!” Phillip shouted down at the captive alpha of Bordeaux.
Gustave Couture, unlike the three other pack members who had been brought to the manor for questioning, didn’t portray even a hint of pain as the silver chains soldered the skin on their bare chests and arms. Bound in the hateful metal, they couldn’t move without suffering from its effects on their supernatural bodies.
Tobias and Oliver watched from the sidelines, their loaded guns trained on the subordinate pack members, ready to fire the silver bullets when given the signal. It had been a long night and an even longer morning. They only came back to Bordeaux in the hopes that someone of Gustave’s pack would disclose the hiding place of Dustin Keith. Darren Dubose, they didn’t care so much about.
“Even if I knew who this Irishman was, do you think I would tell you anything?” Gustave growled, his golden eyes locked onto Phillip, the one who had massacred his entire pack – save for the four still in the room.
“And what about your son-in-law?” the hunter questioned. “He wasn’t with your daughter. Where is he?”
Once more, Gustave remained the silent, stoic alpha. He didn’t even show the slightest bit of concern for one of his own kin when she was mentioned. Either these beasts were more heartless than Tobias ever imagined, or braver than any human father could ever be.
When the alpha didn’t respond, Phillip went to one of the younger members of the pack and pointed his pistol at the boy’s head. He couldn’t have been more then sixteen, but the silver burned him all the same. Freshly turned.
“Tell me where they are or I’ll shoot your son!”
Once more, Gustave didn’t budge and blood ran down his lower body to drip in puddles on the floor around him. “You’re going to kill us all anyway. Why should I tell you?”
Tobias smirked at the man’s remark. He was completely right. Not a single werewolf would be left in Bordeaux by the end of the night. But Phillip surprised him.
“I’ll spare your son’s life if you just tell me where to find Darren and Dustin. Ambroise can go on to join another pack or be a loner after this is all done. Your legacy will continue if you just tell me where to find the others.”
Gustave’s glare went unfeeling and cold. “Why don’t I believe you?” he asked scathingly.
The other two werewolves looked from their alpha to the boy, and then to the hunters who controlled their fate. Surely, they didn’t believe that they could escape this.
One must have.
“They might have gone to Albi!” one of the werewolves proclaimed.
“He lies!” Gustave denounced fervently. “There is nothing in Albi!”
Phillip looked intrigued and turned to the prisoner who was so willing to give up his own kind. “Albi?”
He nodded. “Yes, there’s another pack there and – “
“There is no pack in Albi!” Gustave insisted, his body tensing as if he were about to shift right then and there.
Beside him, Oliver tightened his hand over his gun and his eyes shifted between the talkative werewolf he was guarding and the furious alpha. He couldn’t possibly follow the conversation, but the tones were enough to set the hunter on edge.
“Shut up!” Phillip shouted. “Would Darren and Dustin go to Albi? To this pack?”
The werewolf looked to Gustave and finally held his tongue. After a moment, Phillip pulled back the hammer on his pistol and pointed at the young Ambroise’s forehead.
“Answer me,” he demanded.
Ambroise, too stunned to speak, only looked to his father, the man who could have saved his life. Tobias watched the scene unfold as father and son exchanged some silent, heartfelt communication. Eyes softened as if to convey some apology on Gustave’s part.
When Phillip pulled the trigger, Ambroise had quietly accepted his fate. The other two werewolves jumped at the gunshot and the boy fell to the floor. Oliver looked away, but Tobias continued to study the frozen expression of the son who forgave his father for letting him die. At least it might have been painless.
Phillip walked to the werewolf who had been so eager to talk before and threatened the same execution upon him. “What’s the name of the alpha in Albi?” he asked.
Hardened by the hunter’s broken promise, he only straightened, making the silver chains shift a little before he leaned his head forward into the gun. He was asking for death and would say no more. Phillip obliged him and Oliver slid out of the way so his body could fall to join Ambroise’s.
“We’re done here,” Phillip grumbled in frustration. “Your Irishman is in Albi, and it looks like I’ll be going there myself.”
Gustave bellowed, “There is no pack in Albi! He lied!”
Phillip produced a long dagger from the sheath tied to his belt and approached the alpha. The silver blade glinted in the dim candlelight. “If there was nothing, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to convince me.” He flicked the tip of the blade at Gustave’s temples. “For all this gray in your hair, you certainly aren’t too wise.”
Tobias pulled the trigger to kill the remaining werewolf. He looked up just in time to see Phillip grab at Gustave’s scalp and plunge the dagger through his throat. Blood gushed from the wound and spilled over the alpha’s chest. The last werewolf to die in Bordeaux.
The other hunters in the room moved forward, all looking just as tired and weary as Tobias and Oliver, but not disturbed at all by the onslaught that had taken place. They collected the bodies for disposal. However much Tobias didn’t enjoy working alongside Phillip, he had to give his men credit. They knew how to efficiently clean up a job.
Phillip took out a rag from his waistcoat pocket and cleaned off the blade before coming to speak with them. “So when can you two be ready to go to Albi?” he asked.
“We’re not traveling with you,” Tobias maintained. “We will go to look for Dustin on our own. There’s no reason for us to believe he would go to Albi.”
The senior hunter looked up, giving them an identical glare like he had given Gustave just before he killed the werewolf. “Loups-garous who are left stranded after their pack is killed often go to seek out a pack they are familiar with. If this pack in Albi was so well known by Gustave’s pack, then it’s reasonable to think both Darren and Dustin would flee to the south. No doubt they’ve stumbled upon your handiwork at the cottage and will be seeking shelter. Albi is your best bet. If you want to keep searching around France for w
eeks, be my guest. But you will be wasting your time.”
Tobias stared down Phillip, matching his glare. If they were alone, he would have consulted with Oliver. He should have done that before he ever agreed to partnering with Phillip’s team. But necessity drove him to make this decision alone. And there was soundness in his assessment of werewolf psychology. They had only ever taken out lone wolves, never entire packs. Phillip had too much experience to ignore.
“Fine,” he said. “But Dustin is ours. If he’s killed by one of your men, then you will pay us double what Mr. Flanagan would pay us for delivering him back to Ireland.”
Phillip let his smile curve into a satisfied grin. “Agreed. We leave in one hour. I suggest you settle things at the inn and get your bags.”
He strode away to shout orders to his men. The place had to be cleaned of the blood before any associates of the late Gustave Couture came to call on him. As far as any other citizen in Bordeaux knew, the man along with his family and closest relations, left town on an unexpected emergency and had little intention of returning. The forged letters had already been sent out earlier that morning.
Tobias wouldn’t look at Oliver who pinned him with a begrudging look as Ambroise’s body was dragged away, leaving a long, grisly trail of blood behind him.
“This is going too far,” Oliver protested. “Let’s just go to Albi on our own.”
“And risk Phillip’s interference? No. We’ll play along and when we find Dustin, we’ll leave. But no sooner.”
Oliver shook his head. “I don’t like any of this. Killing the girl was bad enough.”
Tobias holstered his gun. “You didn’t have to do it yourself. Why are you complaining?” He finally turned and saw the troubled look in his partner’s eye. “Don’t tell me you’re growing a conscience.” He jabbed his finger toward the dead alpha on the floor, golden eyes staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. “These are not men. Their souls can’t be saved. They’re just animals.”
The Irishman (A Legacy Novella) (The Legacy Series Book 7) Page 12
