by Megan Morgan
“Are you okay?” Her voice shook. She smelled like the woods. “Are you hurt?”
He pulled back to look at her. Leaves and twigs were caught in her hair, like she’d been on the ground, and her cheeks were flushed.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She clutched his face and stared into his eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m great now.” He pulled her against him again and stared in disbelief at the trucks in the yard. “How the hell did you guys know what was happening here?”
She clung to him. Something opened inside his chest, a connection unlike anything he’d ever experienced, as if their minds were one. The feeling blocked out everything around them, all the commotion and carnage, and kept them safe in their own little bubble.
“I felt it,” she whispered against his shoulder. “I felt you were in danger.”
He swallowed hard, still holding her tight, so tight. He couldn’t let go, even if he wanted to. His arms were locked around her of their own volition.
Then, a terrible notion stole over him, a sick, hot realization that unfroze his limbs. “Hold on.” He gripped her shoulder and peeled her off him. “Hold on.” She stumbled back a little. “These guys gotta get into town. They gotta go right now.”
Lorena furrowed her brow. The man who had spoken to them walked over.
“You gotta get into Blue Ditch,” Deacon told him. “If they’re swarming us here, they could be swarming the whole damn town. You gotta go help!”
Lorena gasped. “Oh my God.”
The man stared at him a moment, then his expression hardened. He turned and walked toward the vehicles. “Move into town! Anderson, radio and see if they can move any of the units out of the valley. We might need backup.”
Deacon stood tense, barely breathing, as the soldiers jumped back into the trucks and Jeeps. He kept one arm around Lorena. Zeke stood on the deck stairs and watched the scramble in the yard. Jack continued staring at the house, his hands still fisted in his hair.
However, when Jack realized the soldiers were leaving, he looked out at the yard and dropped his hands, his hair sticking up wild. Deacon would have laughed if the situation weren’t so dire.
“Wait!” Jack shrieked. “Are they just gonna leave all these things here in my yard?”
“We’ll take care of them,” Deacon said. “They gotta make sure they’re not attacking the town.” He had the notion to follow in his truck and help them. Damn if they would stop him, either.
He moved to go in the house and get his gun, but Lorena stopped him with a hand on his chest. He immediately hit an invisible wall and couldn’t move without her say so.
“No.” Her voice had a desperate edge. “Let them take care of it. I can’t let you endanger yourself, not again.” Her eyes were bright. “I can’t handle that feeling.”
He gazed at her, then yanked her to him and kissed her hard.
The air around them was electric. Deacon could have swept her up right then and there and had her, among the stinking carcasses and with his cousins looking on. He needed to possess her, mark her.
Then Zeke spoke. “Better late than never.”
Deacon broke the kiss. The trucks and Jeeps were pulling out, but other trucks came trundling down the driveway. Familiar ones.
Deacon licked his lips. Despite all the urges in his body, he’d have to put crazy lovemaking off for a bit.
He squeezed Lorena’s waist. “You’re about to meet my family.”
Chapter 14
Lorena sat on the hood of Deacon’s truck, her phone in hand. Several people dragged Wolvite corpses across the yard and heaved them into the beds of trucks. She’d been introduced to so many people in the past fifteen minutes she couldn’t keep them all straight, but the tall handsome man with silver hair and solid arms of thick muscle was Deacon’s father, Ray. He directed the cleanup effort.
A few soldiers had stayed behind to help out. Their radios went off occasionally, and each time a voice came across she tensed, fearing the worst.
Deacon strode over. He wore work gloves and his skin shone with sweat in the headlights.
“How come we ain’t heard nothing yet?” He grabbed a bottle of water from the case on the hood, which his father had pulled out of his truck. “Seems we should know something by now.” He twisted the cap off.
“I don’t know.”
He drank half the bottle down in one long series of gulps.
“Holden’s on his way,” Lorena said. “Dr. Winston wants us to grab some hair and blood samples. There’s no way we can drag this many corpses back to the farm. There has to be at least fifty of them here. What the hell happened?”
Deacon lowered the bottle and wiped his forearm across his brow. “I don’t know.” He dropped his arm. “You sure you’re okay? You’re walking a bit stiff.” He looked her over.
She smiled faintly. “My back hurts a little. Some strange stuff happened out in the woods, but I’m fine.”
Concern filled his eyes. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you about it later. We’ve got bigger concerns right now.” She jerked her chin at the house. “Jack looks like he’s going to have a meltdown. Is he okay?”
Jack wandered around the yard in a daze, just staring at the Wolvites.
“Reckon he’ll be okay, he’s just in shock. I can’t wait till the sun rises.” Deacon set the bottle on the hood. “And this hellish night is over.”
“I know what you mean.”
A vehicle rumbled down the driveway, a truck she didn’t recognize. She tensed again, but when the truck stopped, a middle-aged woman got out, along with Melanie. Lorena relaxed. Melanie walked by, slumped in her hoodie, her hair hanging around her face.
Jack pulled Melanie into his arms. “Don’t look, baby. It’s awful. Just fucking awful.” He addressed the other woman, “Mama, I don’t know who the hell to call. Insurance ain’t gonna cover this. Ain’t nothing gonna cover this.”
“Don’t panic,” Ray said. He had a deep voice like Deacon’s. “We’ll fix this. We’re as handy with tools as we are with guns. Ain’t the first time I’ve had to patch a bullet hole.” He patted Jack’s shoulder.
Melanie snuggled against her husband, face pressed to his chest.
“It’s a lot of bullet holes,” Jack moaned. “A hell of a lot.”
Lorena imagined someone shooting up her apartment building and leaving Wolvite corpses littered around outside. It didn’t compare.
Holden arrived a short time later and brought their field kits with him. He stood gaping at the house, one in each hand.
“That’s a lot of Wolvites. Jesus.”
She took one of the kits. “Yeah, I think we pissed them off. Any word what’s going on in town yet?”
“No. I’m out of the loop right now.”
They suited up—gloves, masks, protective aprons—and started collecting samples. Blood was easy to get, as it had puddled up everywhere; also tufts of hair, saliva samples, and chunks of tissue. The process was a dirty disgusting business, and she held a permanent grimace behind her mask. Her back and shoulders ached, but she tried not to move funny, lest Deacon’s concern deepen.
Everyone stayed out of their way, though they were watched. As she plucked hairs off a Wolvite in the back of a truck, a man stepped up beside her.
“Nasty buggers, aren’t they?”
Deacon’s grandfather, Clem. He was balding and gray with deep wrinkles on his face. He still seemed solid and hardy though, a strapping man like the rest of them. No glasses, no hearing aids. Lycan senses stayed keen even in old age. So she’d read.
“They are.” She nodded. “I’ve had my fill of them.”
“I’ve had me a lifetime of them. Whereabouts you from?” His tone was polite and inquisitive.
“Chicago.” She dropped the hairs in a sample bag. “They sent a Wolvite expert from DC, though. We’re getting samples for him. Hoping to get some answers to th
is invasion.”
“Oh, I know the answer.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“This is what they do. They get all het up and come after us, every other decade or so. Get their backs up and think they’re gonna run us out. But we ain’t going nowhere.”
“Have you ever seen this before? This kind of swarming?”
“Can’t say I have, but then, I never put nothing past them. I’ve seen them do all sorts of crazy things when they’re desperate, or starving, or scared. They’ll come at you all kinds of ways when there’s a fire lit under them.”
“This isn’t any kind of behavior I’ve read about.” She added quickly, “Of course, I understand you’ve had more hands-on experience with them.”
He chuckled. “Oh yeah, hands-on is right. My family has been dealing with them for centuries. But there’s still plenty we don’t know. We’re on the same side, you and I. Just trying to figure out what these critters are up to.”
She marveled at how he could have such a different opinion than his wife; but then, he knew more, had seen more. Maybe he had seen something like what she’d seen in the woods. She nearly asked him, but she wasn’t sure how to phrase it without sounding completely insane.
“Deacon told me about your family,” she said instead. “About your history. I think it’s heroic.”
She made sure Deacon wasn’t looking in her direction and dug her hand into the small of her back and stretched, with a wince. She didn’t have any major injuries, but the soreness would suck for a few days.
“You like my grandson?” Clem asked.
She tugged her mask down.
“I can tell he likes you.” He smiled widely, to show white, good teeth, a little too imperfect to be false. “The way he introduced you. He wears his heart on his sleeve.”
“We’ve been enjoying each other’s company. He’s a good man.”
“You’re a witch, ain’t you?”
She lifted the gate of the truck and slammed it closed. “You can tell?”
“It was in his voice. I never heard him say a woman’s name that way. You gotta be a witch. He’s fond of the code. Believes in it, in a way his cousins don’t.”
“I am a witch.” She stepped back from the truck. “Not a very good one, though. Not nearly as good as your wife.”
“Few witches are.” He smiled again, fondly. “She’s something else. The most beautiful woman in Appalachia, and smart as a whip. The definition of what a witch should be.”
“Deacon mentioned the code. He said it’s a set of rules that Lycans live by. I’ve never heard of it before.”
“Ah, they don’t live by ‘em like they used to.” He folded his arms and sighed. “It’s a bit old-fashioned now.”
A shout sounded from the other side of the yard. One of the soldiers had his radio out. “I got word!”
Lorena’s stomach tightened. She walked over with the rest of the group.
“All’s clear,” he said. “The town’s quiet. No Wolvites.”
Whoops and shouts went up. Lorena looked at Holden and frowned. He knitted his brow above his glasses.
“The town’s clear?” Lorena asked the soldier.
“Not a Wolvite in sight. The squad is coming out of the valley now. They’ve killed off everything, no Wolvite left standing.”
The celebration intensified, the group around her cheering and hooting.
“Thank God.” Ray clapped his hands hard. “Maybe we’ll get some peace for a while, huh boys?”
Deacon walked over to Lorena, grinning. “That’s damn good news. Maybe I can focus on something besides wielding a shotgun for a while.”
“Like fixing this mess,” Jack said miserably.
“Least we got us a project.” Zeke adjusted his baseball cap. “Reckon we need to have us a celebration, too.”
The group dispersed. Ray shook hands with the solider.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Lorena said.
Melanie peeked out from under her fringe of hair, her eyes and expression sullen.
“What do you mean?” Deacon asked.
“If they’re not attacking anyone in town, this was an isolated incident.”
Deacon grunted. “And a damn good thing it was us, instead of someone who couldn’t take care of themselves like we did.” He turned sheepish. “With a little help, of course.”
“You were targeted.” Lorena shook her head. “Just like at your house. No one else has been attacked, just you three. And you said they ambushed you on the road the other night.”
“That’s true,” Zeke said. “Don’t know why they got a particular taste for us, though.”
Lorena turned to Deacon and Jack. “Don’t you think it’s strange no one else has been attacked? That they ganged up on you tonight? That they ganged up on Deacon last night?”
Jack and Deacon looked at each other. Melanie ducked her head again.
Deacon touched Lorena’s arm, gently. “Wolvites ain’t smart enough for that. They don’t get all organized.”
The image of the blond man blazed in her mind. The words he spoke echoed in her ears. “You keep saying they’re not smart enough. Are you sure about that?”
Jack shrugged. “Maybe it’s because we’re Lycans. Maybe they can smell us.”
You reek of Lycan.
“They ain’t never come after just us before, though,” Zeke said. “And we been picking them off since we were teenagers.” At least he had the good sense to question it too.
“All I know,” Lorena held her hands up, “is that this is strange, to put it mildly. It can’t be just a coincidence they’ve ganged up on you three times now. I think we need to consult Dr. Winston.”
Ray walked over. “We’re gonna get these bodies to the pit and burn them, before they start stinking worse than they already do. We’ll start hauling them off here shortly.”
Ray walked away and Lorena asked Deacon, “What’s the pit?”
“Big hole on my Daddy’s land.” He peeled off his gloves. “We burn all the carcasses there.”
Such a task sounded like it would take a while, maybe the entire night. “I guess I should go back to the house and start debriefing.”
Deacon jerked his head toward the house. “I’ll drive her over,” he said to Holden. “You go on ahead.”
Holden’s gaze turned icy, but he didn’t protest. He untied his apron. “I’ll take the kits back, then.” His voice was clipped. “Don’t be long. We need to get started on this.”
Lorena removed her protective gear, handed her kit to Holden, and followed Deacon into the house.
Glass littered the kitchen floor, the cool night air flowing in a broken window over the sink. They picked their way across it to the darkened living room.
“What a damn night.” Deacon pulled her close and enveloped her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m so glad to see you in one piece.”
“Same with you,” she murmured against his chest. “I was so scared.”
“How the hell did you convince them to come save our hides?” He drew back. “That was one hell of a superhero rescue.”
“I don’t know. I came out of the woods, I was frantic—I was about to steal a truck, if I had to. I was going crazy and they agreed to send some people this way. When we pulled up, the Wolvites were all around the house, all over it, just swarming.” She shuddered. “It was insane, I had never seen anything like that.”
“You felt I was in danger?” He stroked her cheek. “All the way out there in the woods?”
“It was like the other night, but stronger, more urgent.” She tightened her arms around his sides. “I was beside myself.”
“We got some kind of crazy connection going on.” He lowered his voice. “What else happened out there? How’d you get hurt?”
She hesitated. “I want to tell you about it, but—are you coming back tonight? Will you be all night, burning the Wolvites?”
“Hell, no. I ain’t sticking around to watch Wolvites
burn. I’m going back to my house. It’ll only take a few hours. I want you to come spend the night with me.”
“That’s what I intend to do.”
“Tell you what.” He let go of her and delved into his pocket. “Soon as you’re done with what you gotta do at the farm”—he gripped her hand and placed something in her palm: a key—“you head over to my house. Make yourself at home. If you’re hungry, there’s leftovers in the icebox. Whatever you want. Get cozy and wait for me.”
She squeezed the key in her hand. “Thank you.” She slipped it into the pocket of her jacket. The stone was still in there and the key clinked against it.
“Be careful though.” He reached for her again. “Just in case there’s strays out there.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
“Come here and sit down,” he murmured against her lips. “Daddy will holler when they’re ready to go.”
He guided her to the couch and they sat down, close together. Muffled voices filtered in from outside.
“Poor Jack.” She looked around the room. “Maybe the agency will pay for some of the damage.”
“We’ll get it fixed up, don’t worry.” He wrapped an arm around her. “Ain’t nothing some hammers, nails, and caulk won’t fix.”
She settled against his side, and for the first time that night, she was calm. She rested her hand on his knee. “I can’t believe it’s over.”
“I’m glad it is.”
“I still think there’s something strange about the way they targeted you, though.”
“Ain’t no telling the minds of Wolvites.” He placed his fingertips beneath her chin and urged her face toward his. “I’m just glad we both made it out alive.”
They kissed, deeper and more heated than they had outside, the kind of kiss she’d been waiting for. Even after dragging Wolvite corpses around, he smelled good. She caressed up his thigh. She wanted to climb in his lap and wrap herself around him. They couldn’t have sex with his entire family right outside, though. Instead, she pressed her palm to his denim-clad crotch.
“I owe you something,” she whispered as he broke the kiss. “From earlier.”
He made a rumbling sound in his throat. “That so?”
