by Star, Amy
Gavin drove Blake to the edge of town again where his bike was hidden and he hopped off, groaning. He had borrowed a first aid kit from Jimmy and wrapped his ribs again, but it still ached like fire every time he bent or breathed in too deeply. If it came to an actual fight, he’d be at a disadvantage, but he’d almost gotten used to that at this point. The borrowed plaid shirt smelled like Jimmy and was a little too tight, but at least it was clean and not covered in blood. His own face hurt in several places, and he had taken the discomfort for granted. He looked like some sort of post-apocalyptic survivor in his leather jacket over top, and the analogy wasn’t lost on Gavin.
“Take my shotgun, Mad Max,” he joked, “you’ll need it more than I.”
“Thanks,” Blake said, catching it in the air and pushing his bike up out of the ditch and onto the road, and strapped it across his back. His Harley growled as he kicked the ignition and it growled to life.
“Where are you going to go? We have no idea where Connor went.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Blake replied. “Besides, there are only a few places that he’d run to if he was really afraid of having his little conspiracy unveiled. I have to believe that Lily threatened him, and that’s why he took her. Which means I don’t have much time, and neither does she. But Connor isn’t dumb—he would have also guessed that she wasn’t the only one who had figured it out. He can’t just kill her off.”
“He’s panicked,” Gavin said.
“Aye, that’s what I’m counting on. As long as he stays that way until I can get to him.”
“We’ll try to hold things together here as long as we can.” Gavin gave a little salute and without another word turned his bike back and headed into town. Blake watched him go until he was out of sight before turning his Harley in the opposite direction and taking off with a growling yip of rubber and engine smoke.
Ever since Sarah had told him that Connor had gone missing, his mind had been racing, trying to predict his opponent’s stance. If their positions had been reversed, what would Blake do? Knowing that a human had managed to link him to a murder, he would have been faced with a dilemma: first, eliminating the human. But before that, he would need to know if there were any others who had found out, and what sort of evidence they had against him. But Connor clearly hadn’t suspected Jimmy, which meant he’d had to go back to square one.
So where? Blake growled, turning up the RPMs on his bike. If I was trapped, then I would flee—try to recollect my senses, make another plan, another stand. There weren’t a lot of places someone could hide in Beaver Creek, and even fewer outside of it. In fact, there was really only one place, and it was a location that was familiar to Blake, if only because he’d woken up in it this morning.
He growled and slammed on his brakes, just as he passed the turn-off onto one of the dirt bike paths and pointed his front tire down it. In minutes, he’d reached the old back-road and turned toward the rickety old cabin. The forest flew by him, but he had tunnel vision and could only focus on the road directly in front of him as the tires ate it up. The shotgun against his back felt more than normal, like an omen. It butted into his lower back each time he hit a small bump, as if trying to punctuate some foregone conclusion. I don’t want to kill again.
As the forest thinned into an opening in the valley, Blake saw the squat black-raftered shack in the distance, as if floating on a sea of yellowing grass. Sure enough, there was a bike haphazardly parked against the ditch, and as he drew nearer it was very clearly Connor’s. Blake pulled in behind and turned off his Harley. As he came around, he looked again at the front of his enemy’s handlebars—the skull motif stared straight ahead, single-mindedly. Blake tried to visualize the bruises again. Yes, it was definitely a match. Connor was involved in his father’s death. Directly or indirectly, it didn’t matter. He’d taken Lily, and that had crossed the line between the things Blake was willing to do and not do. He pulled out Gavin’s small pistol and held it with both hands as he walked across the field, trying to lighten his footsteps.
There was no distinctive smell, but it blended together. Two scents, one male and one female. Blake growled, the muscles on his forearms tensing as he bore down on the shack. There was no sound, but that didn’t mean anything. He approached the door and turned abruptly, raising the gun and scanning the interior. Cautiously, he took a single step in. Nothing. It was almost as if he’d simply stepped out for a minute and returned—the blanket and the mattress were just as he and Lily had left them.
“Damn,” he said, lowering the gun and blindly took a step back out.
How he managed to avoid the swinging arc of the heavy piece of rebar, he had no idea. His body ducked of its own will as he stepped, and he couldn’t understand why until he heard the metal clip the wooden door frame, followed by a grunt of exasperation behind him and something heavy hitting him in the back. Blake flew through the door into the shack again but caught himself with one hand and rolled, avoiding the shock. The sidearm clattered against one wall.
Two shifters came in. More of Connor’s, Blake could tell. The second man had kicked him hard in the back, and both had crude weapons: a piece of rebar wrapped with duct tape and a baseball bat. Blake reached for the shotgun on his back, but they advanced quickly, and it was all he could do to meet them both head on. Blake used the shotgun to block the first one into the room and felt the shock of the baseball bat through his hands.
“Bastard!” one of them grunted, forcing Blake back against the wall. Blake saw the wall coming up fast behind him and dropped down onto his back. It surprised the shifter who fell forward on top of him. Using his feet, Blake heaved upward and kicked him over his head. The shifter somersaulted through the air and landed hard against the wood, causing the whole foundation of the shack to shake.
The second shifter brought down his piece of rebar toward Blake’s head and barely missed. Blake swung out with the shotgun like a club, taking out his knees, and rolled to his side again. The first man had regained his position and was trying to pick up the baseball bat again.
“Stop!” Blake said and cocked the shotgun, aiming it toward the ceiling. He pulled the trigger, intending to scare them into submission. The gun made a perilous click. Blake squeezed it again, still nothing. Another click. “Ah, goddamn it,” he said.
Blocking the first attack had warped the muzzle, preventing the shells from getting to the barrel. The gun was useless now, just a piece of metal. The first shifter grinned and advanced again, trying to stab with the blunt end of the bat. Blake ducked again and swiveled, spinning and bringing the butt of the shotgun around in a wide arc that hit him in the jaw. The shifter grunted as he hit the floor, blood fountaining from his mouth where a sharp tooth was dislodged and plinked onto the floor.
“You’re in shit now, Blake!” his compatriot replied and lunged forward with the rebar.
This time there was no way to completely avoid it. The blow hit him by surprise and pushed him back toward the opening in the doorway. As he was being thrust back out, an idea popped into Blake’s head and he lowered his guard. Just as he reached the door frame, he spun the shotgun laterally so that both the end of the barrel and the end of the butt jammed against the sides.
The impact almost caused him to let go of the gun, but he used his own momentum to “swing” back into the shack. His feet slammed into the shifter’s ankles, causing him to fall forward. The shifter didn’t see it coming and let out a surprised exclamation as he landed on the pinned shotgun, clotheslining himself. Gasping, he rolled to one side, and Blake grunted and kicked the rebar away. The second shifter was still unconscious.
“I’ve been in shit my whole life,” Blake said, making his way to the end of the room and reclaiming the small firearm. At least this one still worked. He pulled back on the muzzle and rolled the second shifter over with his foot, who was still coughing and trying to regain his breath. “Now, I think I need some answers.”
“Fuck you,” the shifter spat, holding his chest
. “You can’t do anything to me.”
“Sure about that?” Blake asked, leveling the gun at him.
“You-you wouldn’t kill me,” he retorted, but there was doubt in his face.
If Connor has truly gotten through to some of his comrades, than there’s no telling what sort of lies he’s told them about me—I hate to validate rumors, but it might be to my benefit this time, Blake thought and closed one eye.
“Sure about that?” he repeated carefully.
The shifter hesitated. “What he said about you was true, you’re mad.”
“Just mad enough,” Blake said. “Now, where did he go? If you lie to me, I’ll know you’re lying, I’m taking out your knee cap. You’ve got two of those, so that’s two chances to tell me the truth. Lie to me a third time and I’ll consider it more efficient to go looking for him on my own. So, let’s expedite that process. Where… is… Connor?”
The threat was so casually given, so coldly issued, that the shifter opened his mouth almost too quickly to give in. “I, I don’t know, not really—he just told us to stay here, in case you came. He knew you’d come here, for some reason. That’s all I know!”
“Bullshit,” Blake bluffed, and brought the gun down square against the shifter’s knee and pulled back on the hammer.
“No! Please!” the shifter groaned. “I’m telling the truth! I don’t know, neither of us did—he took off into the woods, north. He had a woman with him, I don’t know what he wanted to do. He just told us to stay here, that’s it!”
Blake eyed him squarely, and only after a long pause did he pull the gun away. “Describe the woman,” he said.
“She-she was young, thin. Looked hard, I don’t know! Black hair, glasses, I think she was a human though—it was weird for me and Jake there, we didn’t understand why Connor was interested in a human,” the shifter said, leaning his head back on the floor. “She had her hands tied. That’s all I know, Blake, please! Don’t kill me!”
The Beta stood up and looked out the door to the north. So he’s gone on foot, he thought. That was a sign of desperation. Blake looked back at the shifter and stubbornly offered him his hand, pulling him to his feet. The shifter gave a respectful nod as he turned back toward his companion.
“He left a few hours ago, has a good head start. If you want us to—”
Blake’s hand came down swiftly on the man’s unprotected neck and he never saw it coming. The shifter made a grunting sound as he crumpled forward like dirty laundry. The Beta flexed the pain out of his hand. “Nothing personal, my friend,” he said, “but until I clear my name, I have a few more crimes to commit, and I can’t afford to have you following me. Sleep well, and I don’t envy the headache you’ll have when you awake.”
It sickened him that he had fought so many of his brothers and sisters lately. This was precisely what he had hoped to avoid, what Damian had always feared. I let you down, old friend, he thought grimly. It had been Blake’s responsibility to hold the tribe together, but instead he had wavered—if he had been as merciless, as pitiless as Connor, than perhaps none of this would have happened. But he had tried to abide by diplomacy.
Was I so foolish? he wondered.
He checked the clip on Gavin’s sidearm. Full magazine. Next he picked up the baseball bat and unlatched the sling on the broken shotgun, fastening it around both ends of the tempered wood instead. Outside, the day was on its way out, coming slowly to an end. Twilight would soon be lighting up the eastern mountain range, that lovely pinkish alpen glow as it crossed against the blushed face of glaciers in the higher peaks. Night would dampen the scent of Connor and Lily, so he started off at a slow jog—a few hours and they could have gone kilometers already.
But she’s alive. Lily was alive, at least the last time the shifters had seen her. That confirmed it—she had put Connor in a bad position, between being unable to let her live but also incapable of killing her outright. The word hostage came to mind, and felt raw against the back of Blake’s throat. His legs carried him over the fields and toward the end of the valley where the thicket of conifers grew thick again and closeted a special darkness under their canopy. He’s expecting me, Blake realized. He’d even gone so far as to leave the last few loyalists to stop him.
“If you’ve hurt her, Connor,” he panted, wanting the words to live outside his own head, “I’ll break my vow one more time, even if it kills me.”
The Alpha had trespassed every tenet of the Ursa Majors. He had killed, had committed conspiracy, brought the tribe to the edge of war, and betrayed everything they stood for. But that wasn’t what Blake held him accountable for. No, it was something far more personal.
He had threatened the woman he loved.
The woman I love, he repeated. If it was a fact he’d been avoiding for fear of what it would mean for him, both as a man and as a leader, it no longer mattered. Every time he blinked, the cold air rushing up against his face as his legs pushed him harder and faster, following the faint scent and tracks of his mark, he pictured Lily. Her small, beautiful face smiling out at him. He pictured himself beside her, both of them at the edge of a lonely lake.
His hand against her belly where a new life was blossoming.
I’m coming Lily, he thought. I’m coming.
CHAPTER NINE
It was cold by time they finally stopped, and by then, Lily had all but lost track of where they were. All she knew was that she was exhausted. They had been walking for what seemed like hours, and without food or drink. Thankfully, Connor had let her stoop and quench her thirst at a small creek, but her throat was burning again and she felt the dry air sting her nose. Her wrists were bound with a piece of rough rope, and during the long march from the old shack it had gradually wound its way into the skin until it bled. Her hands didn’t even feel like her own anymore—they were just figments of pain, an agony that burned like a match head behind her eyes every time she closed them.
She had pleaded with her captor to let her go, and when that had failed at least to unbind her, but he was resolute. She had been terrified at first, back in town. She now saw why the other Ursas had fallen so easily into his sway, and why only Blake seemed able to stand up to him. There was a callousness in his eyes, a weariness watched with a calculating mind that was menacing. She rubbed the bump on the side of her head where he’d smacked her. Everything else had been blurry, until she woke up back at the shack. He must have knocked me out back at the house, then somehow carried me on his bike out here, she realized.
“We’ll stop here,” Connor said abruptly, indicating the small, flat space surrounded by pines. It wasn’t huge, but it was protected on one flank by a huge boulder. They had been steadily climbing until it became almost cliff-like, and through a hole in the trees she gasped when she saw how far they’d actually come.
The valley yawning before her was totally foreign to her. Did we really come all that way? she wondered. She couldn’t even make out where the shack was supposed to be. For all she knew, they’d circuited around to another valley altogether. She fell to her knees gratefully and gasped for breath, trying to slow her heart-rate. The smell of dust and pine sap was heavy, fragrant.
Opposite the valley were more trees and the dark sloping upward face of another cliff. Even from here, she could see the tops of granite spires to their right. The air had gone colder and she shivered as the sweat dried on her breast and forehead, and flinched when Connor came over to her again. He had a knife in his belt and he held it out at her. She flinched again, her eyes wide with terror.
“Bind,” he said, single word. She took his meaning and carefully placed her wrists on either side of the offered blade. With a single sweep of his wrist Connor sliced the rope off, and it fell softly onto the forest floor, covered with pine needles.
Lily rubbed her wrists. They’d gone red and purple with bruises and abrasions, and as blood flowed back into them it was almost unbearable. She resisted crying out as she held them in her lap and tried not to make a sound. Conn
or put the knife back in his sheath at his belt and sat down on a small boulder several meters away, setting his rifle down against a nearby tree.
When she’d first been captured, she had thought about resisting—being with Blake had taught her to think quickly in such situations, but also to act. Even when an opportunity wasn’t obvious, that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. She’d been looking for that opportunity ever since they’d started out. Down the valley she made out the orientation. The sun was quickly declining, slipping down between another range of hills. The sky became a beautiful ribbon of alternating dark and light colors, and she could almost enjoy it if it weren’t for the mad shifter in her company.
She looked back at him, trying to take stock of her situation.
Since leaving the shack, when he’d told her to walk, and prodded her with the barrel of the high caliber hunting rifle, she had dared to look back at him only a few times. Each time she did, he was either sternly staring straight ahead, watching his prisoner, or casting a suspicious eye over his shoulder, like he expected to be followed at any instant. A few times, she’d tried to slow him down, stall for time, pretend an injury, but he’d seen through it and threatened to kill her right there and then.
Reluctantly, she had continued on. I’m still alive, she mused, which means he still needs me—or thinks he does, anyway—best to let him keep believing that. But what was he so afraid of? Yes, she had accused him outright of killing his father, the previous Alpha—she couldn’t have predicted he’d have acted this way. Was he so afraid of what she had to say, her a mere human, that he had gone this far? She thought of the two other shifters he’d called to the shack, how scattered he had seemed as he waited with her at gunpoint for them to arrive. Even when he gave them orders to stay there, to stop anyone who came, especially Blake, the looks in the eyes of those Connor thought were closest to him were wary. The other Ursas are beginning to doubt, she grinned.
