Holden's Mate

by Meg Ripley

  They made only one brief stop, to gather the supplies, and reached the cabin in just over an hour. Stephanie pulled off the road and parked in the woods about a half-mile from Dwight’s driveway and killed the engine. “I think you should stay here while I do some recon. Maybe I can pick up Seth’s scent or find his car.”

  “Be careful.”

  Stephanie nodded and began to undress. Sera averted her eyes while Stephanie disrobed and shifted, turning into a sleek, golden wolf. Sera reached over without thinking, her fingers seeking the thick, soft fur. Stephanie whined and pawed at the door, prompting Sera to lean over and push it open. The wolf disappeared into the trees, swallowed by the shadows.

  Sera didn’t waste a second. She put together the decoy box and slipped on an apron she lifted from the grocery store. She wasn’t sure if that’s what a delivery girl normally wore, but she thought it lent the entire enterprise an air of authenticity. And certainly every little bit of authenticity could only help.

  Her attention returned to the phone again and again, afraid she would miss a call from Seth or a text from Stephanie. Each second felt like a minute and every minute like an hour while she waited for Stephanie’s return, her nerves multiplying on themselves until she thought she would scream, and still, there was no sign of either wolf.

  A sudden knock on the window made her nearly jump from her skin, and it was so dark outside she couldn’t tell right away that it wasn’t Stephanie trying to get her attention. The second she unlocked the door, it was ripped open and a strong hand grabbed her by the shoulder and hauled her from the seat.

  “What are you doing here?” Seth demanded in a furious whisper.

  “I...I’m looking for you. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been in the top of a tree, scoping out the asshole. What are you doing?”

  “I...you never replied or sent me a text or anything.”

  He looked over her shoulder. “This is Stephanie’s car. Where is she?”

  Sera nodded towards the shadows. “She went that way. She said she’d be right back.”

  Seth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He caught the scent he was looking for and his whole body turned in that direction. “Stay here. I’m going to get her and we’re going to get the hell out of here.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “Just stay here. Get in the car. Don’t unlock the door for anyone but me.”

  She nodded numbly and slipped into the car, locking the door as instructed. She was relieved to see him yet felt sick with guilt and worry. She’d panicked and potentially put them all at risk. It felt like the right thing to do at the time, but maybe that was why the road to hell was paved with good intentions. She unconsciously held her stomach, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth until she tasted a hint of copper.

  It felt like an eternity passed before Seth and Stephanie returned, both of them running on two legs. Sera unlocked the doors just as they reached for the handles, and Seth dove behind the wheel, keys already in hand. He peeled out without a word, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrow as he navigated his way along the dark, winding road.

  “I don’t think anyone saw us,” he checked the rearview mirror as he spoke, “but we may have tripped a motion sensor.”

  “Motion sensor?”

  “Yeah, he’s got motion sensors, silent alarms, cameras, floodlights. And guards. Lots of guards. All of them wolves. About what I expected.”

  But nothing like Sera expected. She’d actually thought they would be able to drive right up to the cabin and walk right up to the front door. She opened her mouth, but was unable to find her voice. She wanted to apologize, to explain, to try to make him understand that she was only doing what she thought was right. Only doing what she had to do to keep him safe.

  Stephanie remained silent in the backseat. Perhaps she was feeling the same shame over taking a foolhardy risk.

  “There was something I wasn’t expecting, though.” Seth looked at her from the corner of his eye. “I saw Dwight. He wasn’t alone in there.”

  “Who was he with?”

  “Aiza.”

  “What? What? What are you talking about? Did you just say you saw him with my sister?”

  “I saw Aiza with him,” Seth confirmed.

  “You saw somebody who looked like Aiza. We...we dug up her body, Seth. How could she be in that cabin?”

  “We dug up a body,” Seth corrected grimly. “It wasn’t her.”

  “You saw somebody that looks like her,” Sera said again, feeling faint. How could that possibly true? How could her sister have faked her own death? Why would she go to such great lengths? And even if she had the perfect reason, how could this possibly be true? Confusion and anger hit her in matching waves and then fell away as she realized she could see her sister again. She could touch her and embrace her and tell her that she loved her still, had never stopped loving her.

  “We have to go back.”

  Seth shook his head. “No, we don’t want to do that.”

  “We have to! If she’s there, like you said, we have to go back. I have to see her.”

  “Sera, you don’t understand. She doesn’t want to be found out.”

  “He doesn’t want to be found out. She’s probably his prisoner. She’s probably waiting for somebody to figure it out and come for her. We can’t just leave her there.”

  “Sera, listen—”

  The sudden flood of bright headlights filled the car and cut off whatever Seth wanted to say. He pressed on the accelerator, but the truck behind them sped up as well.

  “What the—”

  Stephanie screamed and a second later, the truck slammed into the rear of the car. Seth fought to keep control, but the truck hit them a second time and sent them flying off the side of the road. Everything went bright—brighter than the sun—and then everything was black.

  9

  Sera came to slowly, her head spinning as she tried to focus. Gradually, the blobs started to take shape, and she blinked the moisture from her eyes until she finally recognized the form standing in front of her.

  “Aiza?”

  “Oh, little sis, why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?”

  “You’re alive?”

  “Yes, but you’re going to get us both killed if you keep this up.”

  Sera wanted to reach out to her, but her hands were stuck at her sides, held in place by the rope tying her to the chair. She pulled against the rope, straining to break free, but the knots wouldn’t budge. She collapsed back against the chair, the throbbing in her head making it difficult to concentrate. She recognized her sister’s face, her sister’s voice, but there was something off about her. Something wrong that Sera couldn’t quite grasp.

  “Why am I tied up?”

  “So you can’t run away, silly.”

  “I’m not going to run away. I came here to find you.” Which wasn’t quite right, but it was true. “Aiza, please tell me what’s going on.”

  “The perfect crime. Well, it was, until you started sniffing around. Why did you have to care so much? You didn’t care for years and years, and now suddenly, I’m the most important person in your life?”

  Sera blinked. “You were always important. I always cared. You’re the one who stopped calling me. You’re the one who started a new life and cut everybody out.”

  “So why didn’t you take the hint? Why didn’t you just go home, like everybody else?” Aiza asked harshly.

  “I couldn’t do that. Not when I thought you needed me.”

  “Well, I didn’t need you. I don’t need you. You’re just getting in the way of everything.”

  “Okay, well, let me go home and I won’t get in your way anymore. I’ll just...I’ll just act like everything’s the same.”

  Aiza laughed—a cold sound—and shook her head. “What do you think? It’s up to me? I couldn’t let you go, even if I wanted to.”

  “Even if you wanted to? Aiza, look at me. Why can’t you let
me go?”

  “Because we have to tie up all the loose ends. And you’re a loose end.”

  “I’m not a loose end, I’m your sister! And I don’t even know anything. All I know is that you’re not in the ground and that’s enough for me. Please, just let me go home.”

  Aiza’s face softened, and for the first time, Sera didn’t feel like she was staring into the eyes of a stranger. She held Aiza’s gaze, hoping she would see what Sera meant every single word. It truly was enough for her to know that Aiza was not in that cold grave. She wouldn’t press for more details or bring this meeting up to anybody.

  “Sera,” Aiza sighed. “I wish you had just gone home.”

  A crash outside the door stopped Sera’s response. Another crash was followed by a howl of pain, quickly cut off with a wet, crunchy sound. Sera began struggling against the ropes again as Aiza went to the door, her hand going to the holster under her arm. Sera didn’t know enough about guns to recognize the caliber, but the caliber didn’t matter. She was armed and clearly prepared to use the weapon against whoever was on the other side of the door.

  Who could it be but Seth?

  The thought of Aiza putting a bullet in Seth’s unsuspecting head drove Sera to her feet, despite the chair attached to her. She launched herself at her older sister, slamming her into the wall with enough force to put a dent in the plaster. At that moment, the door burst open, and both Sera and Aiza froze, their own skirmish forgotten.

  Seth was still on two legs, but he was completely naked, covered in scratches, bites, bruises, and blood. Sera tried to say his name, but two wolves jumped on him in that moment, claws extended and teeth bared. Seth turned at the same moment they jumped and knocked one against the head with a closed fist. It hit the ground with a low whimper, but the other wolf was undeterred; it managed to seek its teeth into Seth’s arm, ripping a chunk of flesh from his bicep.

  “Seth!”

  The sound of her voice may have broken Aiza from her trance. She sprung forward, the gun dropped and forgotten, her body morphing into that of a sleek, gray wolf, her mouth gaping open. Seth shifted just as she reached him, dropping low to the ground and allowing her to sail overhead. She couldn’t stop her momentum before slamming into the wall, but that barely stunned her. She shook her head and jumped back to her feet, wheeling to face Seth again.

  Sera had seen dog fights before, but she’d never seen anything like the brawl before her. The wolf that had attacked Seth first quickly fell away, a vicious bite to the ribs taking most of the fight out of him. But Aiza was brutal and she was fast. She moved like a gray blur, her lips curled all the way up to show her long, gleaming teeth. Seth was bigger, though, and he managed to stay out of her reach.

  “Stop!” Sera shouted. “Stop, stop, stop. Please.”

  They may have heard her, but they were the past the point of understanding her. Blood had been drawn, and they were both wild with it, vicious and hungry for more. Still bound and tied, Sera began slamming the chair against the wall, doing her best to break it apart. She felt each blow all the way to her bones, but that didn’t stop her from slamming her full weight into the chair again and again. Before long it cracked, and then it splintered, and the ropes holding her to the back began to loosen.

  “Come on, come on,” Sera muttered, slamming the chair into the wall again. Only feet away, her sister and her lover were tearing each other apart. Neither of them gave any sign of backing down, but both of them were dripping blood all over the floor. Their growls were loud enough to split her skull, and each chomp of their jaws sent a shiver down her spine.

  Finally, the chair cracked and fell apart and she allowed the rope and wood to fall to her feet. Once she was free, she dove for the forgotten gun and fired it directly into the ceiling, hoping the unexpected explosion would shock the two wolves apart. The shot drew Aiza’s attention long enough to give Seth the opening he needed, and he snapped forward as quickly as a snake, closing around her throat.

  Sera fired again. “Stop! Let her go! Seth, let her go.”

  Sera had no idea how much Seth understood her when he was a wolf, or if he’d choose to listen to her even if he did understand. But she still had to try.

  “Seth, please, she’s my sister.”

  Seth relaxed his jaw and allowed Aiza’s body to drop to the ground at his feet. Sera bent at the knees, reaching forward to touch the blood-matted fur. She felt her sister’s pulse and she could only hope that she stopped Seth in time. She didn’t care what her sister got herself into, or even that Aiza might have intended to kill her.

  “Sera!” Stephanie’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. “Sera, come on. We have to keep moving.”

  “Seth…”

  “I got him. Come on. The front door is just through there.”

  The gun felt hot and heavy against her palm, but she clutched it like a lifeline. She could see the front door, maybe thirty or forty feet ahead of her. It felt like thirty or forty miles. There were bodies on the floor. Some of them were clearly only injured, but a few were not moving at all, and Sera had a flash of understanding—Seth had done that. To get to her. He’d torn through all of them like they were made of nothing more than tissue.

  Gotta get to the door, gotta get to the door, gotta get to the door.

  She was so focused on the end goal, she didn’t see the fist flying at her from the left. Stephanie’s shout didn’t give her enough warning to avoid the blow altogether, but she did duck enough that it caught her temple rather than smash her jaw. She dropped to one knee to avoid the next blow and slammed her elbow up, catching her assailant in the groin. The man groaned and dropped down, level with her. She drove the heel of her palm into the man’s nose before he could get his bearings, and blood erupted from his nostrils.

  Once Sera was on her feet, she saw the attacker was the infamous Dwight.

  “Sera, let’s go,” Stephanie bit out.

  “Wait.” She leveled the gun at the man still lying at her feet. “I want an explanation.”

  “We don’t have time for explanations,” Stephanie protested.

  But Sera wasn’t listening. She didn’t want to hear that. All she wanted to hear was why. Somebody was going to tell her the why of it before she stepped out the door. She grabbed the man by his collar and hauled him to his feet, giving him a good shake, the gun still pointed at his head.

  “Dwight, I presume?”

  “Bite me, bitch.”

  Sera reached without thinking, as though somebody else had taken over her body—a very, very angry somebody. She slammed the gun against Dwight’s jaw and pulled the barrel back, leveling at the spot between his eyes.

  “Why attack me? Why fake Aiza’s death?”

  “I was trying to save your sister’s life,” Dwight said, his words slurring around broken teeth. “The Brotherhood had to believe she was dead. You got in the way.”

  “How did I get in the way?”

  “Sera, come on,” Stephanie said.

  She heard the panic in Stephanie’s voice and she understood they needed to hurry, but she couldn’t pull herself away from the question. Her life had been flipped upside down and turned inside out. Everything had gone topsy-turvy since the news of Aiza’s death, and now she stood there with a goose-egg developing on her head and a queasy feeling in her stomach and a gun in her hand, and dammit, she wanted to know why.

  “You attract the wrong kind of attention,” Dwight said.

  Sera wanted to scream. That was no answer. But she didn’t have the chance to force an actual answer. Stephanie shouted and then Seth made a high-pitched sound that might have been a cry of pain. Sera turned to look just in time to see Aiza throw herself at Seth’s bleeding body. Dwight took advantage of Sera’s distraction and tackled her, driving her to the ground. Sera grunted, the air driven out of her lungs, and the world dimming around the edges. For a moment, she thought she would black out, but another howl from Seth pulled her back to reality.

  She felt Dwigh
t’s weight shift and realized he was becoming a wolf—a wolf that could rip her throat out. Rip her stomach open. Rip her entire world apart. The gun was still in her hand, and she knew what she had to do. She never once thought of herself as a killer. She’d never imagined herself in this moment or even believed she would ever face the choice between her life and another’s. But this wasn’t about her life. This was about the life of her child. About the life of her lover. This was about the life of her pack.

  Once the decision was made, there was no thinking left to do. Only action. She shot her elbow backwards, trying to connect with Dwight’s ribs. The dull thud reverberated through her funny bone, but she didn’t let that slow her down. She did it again, forcing the wolf back only a few inches, but it was enough. She rolled onto her back, lifted the gun, and fired at point blank range.

  Sera had never fired a gun at a target. She’d never fired at a living being. She didn’t even know how to aim, but at that distance, she could have fired with her eyes closed and hit the wolf in the face. He made a final yelping sound and then collapsed on her with his dead weight. Sera pushed the corpse away and jumped to her feet, the gun hotter than ever against her palm. She leveled the sites, but she couldn’t get a clear shot at Aiza as she and Seth continued their earlier battle.

  Sera was almost ready to shoot anyway when Seth finally struck the final blow, sending Aiza to the ground in a lifeless lump. The second her sister fell, Stephanie scooped Seth up in her arms, unmindful of his size and the blood and raced to the door, pausing for a moment to look back to Aiza’s still form.

  “Sera, come on. We have to go now.”

  Even now, she wanted to voice a protest, wanted to gather her sister up in her arms and carry her to the nearest hospital.

  “Sera!” Seth called her name, and it was only the sound of his voice that pulled her from her fantasy of finally saving Aiza. She let the sound of his voice lure her away from the cabin and she stumbled down the walk after him, groping for him in the darkness. When he caught her, his hands were slick with blood, but his grip was strong and she knew he wouldn’t let her go.