by Anya Byrne
The Fire of a Lone Wolf's Heart
A Lone Wolf Pack Ripples Short Story
Anya Byrne
Copyright 2015
Chapter One
Run.
Perry sped through the alleys of the busy city, barely allowing himself to breathe, studiously not looking behind. His pulse thumped in his ears, heart beating a million miles a minute. A human cursed at him as he rushed by, but Perry ignored him.
Run.
He knew he was probably going too fast for a human, but he couldn't stop himself. The city didn't allow him to use the full extent of his abilities anyway. Not to mention that he'd been running for so long he'd forgotten where he'd begun. He could barely even think anymore. His instincts had completely taken over, and he allowed them to, because if he let himself dwell on his situation, he wouldn't even be able to do this anymore.
The now-familiar squeal of tires filled him with renewed terror, and he ducked into yet another alley, trying to avoid his pursuers. He jumped over a fence and landed safely on the other side. A stray dog barked and lunged at him, but Perry was already moving again, and the beast was left clawing at thin air.
Run. Dodge. Swerve. Jump. Run.
It went on and on, Perry's flight fueled by the knowledge that if he stopped, it would be all over. The city was a maze filled with confusing scents, and more than once, he had to backtrack because of running into dead ends. The delay always made his instincts scream harder, but he never stopped, always kept going. And every moment, he was keenly aware of the squeal of tires, the quiet men in dark armor chasing after him.
They weren't faster than him, he knew. Few people—few creatures in this world—could hit his speed. Unfortunately, they had equipment, vehicles and heavy numbers on their side. It was really only a matter of time.
At the end of the day, even a shape-shifter had his limits. As he crossed a particularly busy street, a van ran straight into him. Perry rolled off the dashboard and landed on the sidewalk, but he was dazed and in pain. If the driver of the van had been one of his pursuers, they'd have caught him, but fortunately, that wasn't the case. The man was human, and he opened the car door, presumably to inquire into Perry's well-being.
Perry didn't wait to see what the human had to say. He stumbled to his feet and headed onwards. The van had hit him pretty badly, and while normally, he could have shrugged off such an injury, now that he'd actually stopped—forced by circumstances—he could feel exhaustion creeping over his muscles.
Perry still tried—but it was useless. It only took a few minutes for his pursuers to catch up with him. They cornered him in an empty, dirty alley, and he tried to back away as far as he could go, but there was no longer anywhere to run.
The men surrounded him, the dimming light of twilight glinting off their goggles. One of them actually smiled at Perry. "There you are. You've led us on quite a chase, but if you come along quietly, no one has to get hurt."
Despite his terror, Perry still found strength to shake his head. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
Blindly scanning the alley, he caught sight of an emergency ladder and made for it. He gathered what little power he had left and summoned his magic.
The pixie light rushed his pursuers—good enough for a moment's distraction. It couldn't actually hurt them, not anymore. The goggles made their eyes immune to it, and while the photons could and had burned other humans in the past, Perry was too tired now to muster that kind of energy.
It did give him the boost he needed to climb up the ladder and make for the roof. He had no idea where he'd go from there, but he could improvise.
He never got the chance. He was halfway up the ladder when a screeching horrible sound assaulted his hearing. The staircase rattled with the intensity of it, and Perry couldn't keep his balance. He stumbled, tripped and fell, the metal of the stairs not enough of an anchor to keep him from falling.
He hit the ground with a dull thud, pain exploding over every inch of his body. If he'd been human, he would have surely broken several bones, but for Perry, it was the sound that made it all agonizing. He whimpered and curled into a ball, trying and failing to shield his ears, the agony too much to withstand.
By the time the noise drifted away, all the fight had drained out of him. When they reached for him again, he didn't try to struggle. He was dizzy and as weak as a newborn calf.
"There you go," the man said, grabbing his arm and pulling him upright. "Wouldn't it have been better if you hadn't forced us into unpleasantness? I never realized deer could be quite so stubborn."
Perry wanted to spit in his face, but even that would have required more strength than he had left. Oddly, his lack of energy almost seemed to be contagious, because all of a sudden, the man holding him paled, skin going pasty. The hands holding him up dropped limply, and Perry crumpled to his knees, more confused than ever.
Despite his fatigue, he couldn't miss the obvious fact that all the humans in the alley were suddenly lying on the ground, motionless. Perry couldn't tell if they were breathing or not. He just knew they were out for the count.
This was his chance. If only he could actually make himself walk instead of lying here like helpless prey.
The sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears, and the distinctive click of heels let him know the new arrival was most likely female. Indeed, seconds later, a beautiful woman knelt next to him, facing him with a smile. A soft warm hand settled on his cheek, while the other caressed his hair. "It's okay now, young one. You don't have to be afraid anymore. You're safe."
Perry didn't know if that was the case, but he didn't have it in himself to question the words. Everything that had happened suddenly became too much. He allowed himself to take comfort in the soft touch and drifted into unconsciousness.
****
Clay was angry. He didn't remember the last time he'd felt so furious and restless. No, cancel that. He did remember—and it made no sense, because he'd thought he'd left it all behind.
He wasn't due at the club until later, but he couldn't stay at home. He roamed through the streets for a while, but that made him even more anxious, almost as if something peculiar and scratchy was crawling under his skin. Despite the distance between his apartment and the club, he ended up walking there, distantly wondering if his employer would even let him in.
Much to his dismay, V intercepted him the moment he stepped into the building. Clay wondered if he'd broadcast his emotions so loudly that he'd bothered her, because the way her fingernails dug into his skin was distinctly alarming.
"Come with me," she said. "I need a word."
Clay scowled at the seriousness in his employer's voice. "V? What is it?"
"Not here."
She pulled him out of the main corridor and toward one of the private staircases that led to the upper levels of the building. Few people ever came here—they were V's private rooms, and she didn't take kindly to being interrupted here. Clay went along with it, though, since V always had a reason for everything she did, and he owed her a lot.
He was halfway up the stairs when he felt the burn that had been bubbling under his skin flare up again. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, a nearly maddened desire to search, to protect, to scour every inch of this place until he found his target.
He pushed past V and ran up the stairs, blind to anything except the emotion, the feeling that guided him. V didn't stop him, which was a good thing since he didn't know what he'd have done if she'd tried.
There were many rooms at the superior levels of the club, but it was easy for Clay to find the one he wanted. He followed his nose, his he
art and his wolf and stepped into the third room on the second floor.
Instantly, his gaze zeroed in on the sleeping figure on the bed. He almost stopped breathing as his world tilted on its axis and reoriented.
How was this possible? He'd next to given up on finding a mate. Not even V had been able to help him with that, and he'd resigned himself to the solitude. Loneheart—that was what the customers of the club knew him as. He'd told himself that what he had here was enough. After all, V's power kept him from being noticed by silencers or enforcers, and prevented him from losing his wolf identity due to not having a pack. He was luckier than most lone wolves.
It was only now that he realized how empty his existence had been, now that he looked at the slender man lying on the mattress in exhausted sleep. His skin was pale and he had dark circles under his eyes. At times, his body twitched slightly and he curled into a ball and whimpered as if trying to escape nightmares Clay couldn't see.
Clay had no idea if this beautiful stranger was in any way related to what V had come to talk to him about, but he didn't care. When his muscles finally started to work, he walked into the room like a man in a dream and knelt next to the bed.
V finally appeared in the doorway, although she didn't actually come inside. "Well, this changes things," she said, an amused smile on her lips.
Clay rubbed his eyes, wishing not for the first time that V could for once in her life stop being so enigmatic. "What happened?" he asked. "Is he going to be okay? Who is he?" Other than Clay's mate, that is.
"He'll be fine. He's a half-breed," she replied. "Half-deer, half magical creature. A pixie, perhaps. I'm not quite sure."
She didn't have to say anything more. Since the whole debacle with the grandson of the Folk's queen, human hunters had been tracking down half-breeds of all kinds. It wasn't exactly common knowledge, but V had eyes and ears everywhere, and as such, Clay had found out as well.
He clenched his fists and took a deep breath, doing his best to restrain his wolf. "The hunters?"
"They're no longer a problem." V's lips twisted into a wicked smirk. "They attacked him with a sonic weapon, and you know I don't take kindly to people who abuse those weaker than them."
"Did you kill them?"
V shrugged. "Close enough. I took their minds. They won't remember anything about who they are, or what they were doing."
That was one of V's favorite methods to handle difficult situations. True, Clay would have liked to get his claws dirty and bury his fangs in some throats, but he had to trust V had enacted vengeance in his stead.
This wasn't why she'd called him here, though. She hadn't known the hybrid was Clay's other half, which meant she wanted him for another reason.
Given everything he knew, it didn't take a genius to extrapolate and reach a rational conclusion. "You can't keep him here, can you?"
V shook her head. "I can cast a spell to cloak him well enough, but this place is too close to where he was last spotted. I can't afford risking everyone else I have here."
She also couldn't risk herself, since her existence danced the edges of the rules paranormals used to regulate themselves. Clay could understand and appreciate that. "I can watch over him, but we have to wait until he wakes to decide."
Clay's mate was a deer-shifter, liable to spook easily. He'd have no reason to trust Clay or V. He would undoubtedly be scared, more so since the last time he'd been conscious, he'd been attacked by human hunters. Where would he want to go? Would Clay even be welcome to come with him?
Clay shuddered as the thought crossed his mind. He had no idea if deer-shifters mated like werewolves. V might, but he was loath to ask. It felt... wrong, somehow.
In the end, he didn't have to. When he turned toward his mate once more, he found wide brown eyes fixed on him. "Decide what?"
****
As a deer-shifter, one of the first things Perry had learned was the value of speed. His herd was nowhere near as reliant on such skills as their animal counterparts, but they were still far more vulnerable than other shape-shifters and they had to exploit their strengths if they wanted to survive in such a harsh world.
The second thing he'd been taught was that sometimes, a member of the herd had to be sacrificed so that the whole could prosper. In the wild, this happened when predators hunted deer down, and the weakest, slowest or sickest member was caught. As shape-shifters, Perry's family and friends had naturally taken a softer, less Darwinistic and more humane approach—until the time had come for that rule to be upheld, and Perry had been hit in the face with the truth that he was a danger to his herd. For their sakes, he had left and drawn the hunters away from the others.
Which brought him to lesson number three. Playing dead. This—like running—had served him well as he'd done his best to escape the hunters. For a good while, they'd underestimated him because of his smaller size. More than once, when it seemed like he would be cornered, Perry had deliberately stopped and then proceeded to blind the humans using pixie fire. It had been quite useful, even if eventually, the hunters had adapted and brought equipment to counter his skills.
It was this latter lesson that made him remain completely still as he listened to the exchange between the two people in the room he currently found himself in. One of them was a woman—the same one who'd rescued him from the hunters—and the other a man he didn't know. The strange male was seated awfully close to Perry's bed, and his proximity made a peculiar heat swell through Perry, down to his very core.
That was the only defense he had as to why he didn't shy away the moment the stranger became aware of him. Instead of doing so, he repeated the man's words inquiringly. "Decide what?"
The man froze like a deer in the headlights, which given the circumstances—and the fact that Perry was the deer—seemed far too amusing. He made a noise that sounded like a choked growl, but wasn't quite there, and clenched his hands into the sheets.
The woman rolled her eyes and grumbled something unintelligible under her breath. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind herself. "How are you feeling, young one?" she asked instead of addressing his own question.
There were many things Perry could have said to that. Tired, hungry, confused, achy. Instead, he chose, "Not hunted."
It was, perhaps, the most important thing out of this new situation he was currently in. Whoever these people were, they didn't mean him any harm. He stole a look at the man, and bit his lip as that jolt swept over him again. "Who are you?"
The stranger finally snapped out of his trance and offered him a small smile. "My name is Clayton Reynolds, and this is my friend V. V was the one who found you and rescued you from the hunters."
As names went, V was quite weird, but Perry didn't ask. There was something about the woman that told him the inquiry would be rebuffed, and possibly unwise. The part of him that was magic shied away from her, and given her earlier display of power, that wasn't exactly surprising.
Whatever the case, he owed her and was intrigued by her companion. "I'm Perry Waters. Thank you for saving me."
"Don't mention it, Perry," V answered. "As for what Clay and I were talking about earlier... We were trying to figure out what to do once you woke up."
"Ah." Back to the second lesson then. He would draw all the wrong attention if he stuck around for too long. He smiled weakly and nodded. "I understand. I can go."
He rolled away from the pillows, planning to do exactly that. The last thing he wanted was to become a burden for people who'd helped him. Of course, he wasn't counting on running straight into Clayton. "You're not going anywhere without me," the man said.
A proverbial light bulb lit up in the back of Perry's mind. Werewolf, his animalistic instincts screamed. Mate, his magic whispered. It was all there, in Clay's stance, in his deep green eyes that glittered with something wild and fierce. He was a big man, and when he moved in even closer, he practically dwarfed Perry. Usually, in such situations, Perry's instinct would have been to fall back onto his fir
st lesson and run. Instead, he desperately wanted to stay.
Ironically, it was that very desire that gave him the strength to pull away. He ruthlessly reminded himself that now was not the time to dwell on romance. "I'm being hunted. They'll catch me again eventually. There's no reason to drag anyone else down with me."
Let alone his fated mate, the man with whom Perry could have had a life, a family, love. It hurt that he was so close to it now, and yet, couldn't reach for it, couldn't risk Clayton's security. But if he stayed, it would only hurt more when the separation unavoidably came. Even if the hunters didn't harm Clayton—which was doubtful at best—perpetuating closeness between the two of them would make Perry's eventual absence an agonizing wound for the werewolf. Unacceptable.
"You know I'm right," he insisted. "The most I can do is delay them and give my herd and other half-breeds time to take refuge and find cover. Beyond that... I have no real future."
"Perhaps." V hummed thoughtfully. "But no matter what you say, you won't dissuade Clay." Her expression softened to something that was almost motherly. "You can't stay here, Perry, no, but that doesn't mean there's no place for you."
Perry laughed, and the sound came out embarrassingly wet and choked. "Where else could I go?"
"I contacted the Folk on your behalf," V replied. "They've agreed to provide shelter for you. You just need to travel to the closest fairy circle, and they'll take over from there."
Clayton's face shut down, as if he'd just realized something. "That was why you wanted me here, to escort him to the fairy circle."
V nodded. "I'm sorry, Clay. If I had any other ideas, I would try something different, but..."
Perry should have been relieved, since if there was any place where he could find safety, it was with the Sidhe. But the Sidhe were notorious for their dislike of shifters, to the extent that the daughter of their queen had received no support whatsoever when she'd mated a werewolf. Her death had been a blow that had softened Sidhe rules, but that didn't mean the Folk would accept werewolves anytime soon. Perry was only welcome because of his pixie heritage.
