by M. L. Briers
Nothing about this wolf was right. Nothing about either attack made much sense to him. But then he wasn’t a rogue, he was still in full control of his brain, unlike their white wolf predator.
If he could just figure out what the damn thing was up to, then maybe he could understand what his next move would be.
If it was him, he would have high tailed it off pack land after the first run in with Cassidy and Chase. This guy had an agenda. Connor just needed to get inside his head, but that was a dangerous place to be. Rogue. Not an attractive prospect for any sane wolf.
Connor bit out another dark curse as he lost the scent again. The rogue was taking a chance in his pattern of movement. Cutting back and forth over pack land could bring him into contact with any one of the pack out on patrol. But then he didn’t seem particularly wary of fighting any of them.
Now he would need to spend valuable time picking up the damn scent again. This was as annoying as it was exhilarating. He liked the hunt. He liked to track and he liked to fight. But he still wanted this to be over.
This white wolf was a force to be reckoned with.
Cassidy snapped the top on the kettle to secure it and returned it to the base to heat the water. She didn’t much like being stuck here alone, not after the last time. But the idea of Chase leaving her with a babysitter irked her even more.
If Nathaniel was right, she was fated to cross paths with the white wolf at some point again. So if that was correct, and there was no reason to assume it wasn’t, then they would come up empty on the hunt tonight. Because she knew that if Chase found that wolf, they would kill him, and Nathaniel hadn’t said anything about her and a dead wolf.
But then Nathaniel hadn’t really said much of anything at all. Only that they should be bonded. Her hand absently went to the spot on her shoulder that ached. His mark was deep within her skin. It was proof to the world that they were mated. Well their little corner of the world at least.
Her lips started the climb upwards in a smile, but that smile died on her lips with the sound of splintering wood that came from the far end of the room. Cassidy let out a scream as she turned towards the naked man stalking towards her. His eyes were all she could see, obsidian black, with a glare that caused her heart to pound to its own beat, as her stomach felt the tight clench of doom within her.
Rogue.
There was no time to pull on her magic, no time to even lift her hands in front of her. The blow to the side of her head took her clean off of her feet and propelled her across the room. Her body slammed into the kitchen counter as she folded in on herself, slipping from the side and landing in a heap on the floor, unconscious.
Connor lifted his muzzle in the air and tried once more for the scent. It was getting to the point where he was almost ravenous with the need to sink his jaws into the rogue’s neck, just on the sheer fact alone that the guy was pissing him off.
He had the feeling he was being led on a wild goose chase again, and that thought had been niggling at him since he first lost the wolf’s scent. This rogue was different. This rogue held enough of his humanity to be able to throw them off the scent like this, literally.
‘Chase, I’m liking this less and less with every step. I think he’s pulling our chain. You should go back to Cassidy…’ Connor was even more certain with every word he spoke.
‘You got that itchy feeling in your spine again brother?’
‘My damn tail is twitching. My ears are itching and my gut is telling me in no uncertain terms that this… is wrong.’ Connor pawed the ground in frustration. It was Cassidy, he was almost sure of it. The wolf was leading them round in circles while he went for the prize.
‘Let’s go.’ Chase felt the anxiety that was coming from his brother in waves. He trusted Connor’s gut more than he wanted that wolf right now. If Cassidy was in danger, he wasn’t going to take the chance. If Connor was wrong, then it was a good wrong. At least his mate would be safe.
‘I got your back brother.’ And he did. He would protect his Alpha and his Alpha’s mate with his life. He just hoped he was wrong about this, because the amount of time that they had spent out here chasing shadows, might just have given the white wolf the time to double back on himself.
‘Chase, put the wind at your back and get to Cassidy. I got a really bad feeling.’ Connor growled in now near certainty. His new sister’s life could depend on them getting back to her now.
‘Tuck.’ Chase called to the young wolf within the collective mind, as his claws tore up the countryside. His heart was racing within his chest with as much anxiety for Cassidy as Connor was giving off.
When there was only silence, Chase growled with the desperation to be where Cassidy was. He had done it again. The one thing he had sworn to her and himself that he would not do. He had left her side. Left her unprotected. He should have known that Tuck would not be enough to hold off an attack by the rogue. The beast had taken Ethan down. His Beta.
He was making nothing but bad choices lately, especially where his mate was concerned. He was Alpha, he should have the wisdom to protect his pack, and instead he was distracted with mating and bonding.
He cursed Nathaniel for bringing his mate to him now. Now of all times, when there was a threat to the pack. To her. What the hell was the old man thinking?
He should never have joined this hunt. He should have been at his mate’s side. Protecting her. But Connor was adamant that he had the wolf’s scent. The last damn sighting of the beast was too far away from Cassidy to put her in any danger. He had been complacent that they could trap him.
They were wrong. He was wrong. He just hoped to hell that his mate didn’t pay for his stupidity.
Sasha had heard the call from Chase and had gone to investigate why Tuck wasn’t answering. She had offered her services in the hunt for the rogue and had been told that she should patrol a wide perimeter around the houses instead.
She could fight with the best of them, she told herself as she sped around the outside of the property. Maybe not Chase or the Beta’s, but she was a damn sight better in a fight than they gave her credit for.
Sasha scented the Lycan blood in the air long before she came across Tuck’s battered and torn up body lying prone in the snow behind Chase’s house.
‘Chase. Tuck’s down.’ The moan from her pack mate’s lips gave her pause for thought. He was alive, at least. The same couldn’t be said for Chase’s mate. The rogue wolf could be inside now with her.
She made the snap decision to try to help Chase’s mate rather than see to Tuck’s injuries. Tuck wouldn’t live or die with anything she could do for him. Chase’s mate on the other hand just might. At the very least she might be able to buy his mate some time for Chase and Connor to get there.
Sasha carried on past Tuck. The scent of the inside of the house was strong from the far corner of the house. Sasha knew the back door was located there and hoped she would find an entrance into the building that was open for her.
‘My mate?’ Chase’s hard growl almost echoed through her mind as she rounded the corner. She could almost see his dark eyes glaring at her, as his hard words bit into her subconscious.
‘Not sure. Back door busted up. Going in now.’ She answered her Alpha, but knew her words were no comfort to him. She wasn’t considered the first choice to defend his mate, and her uncertainty of what had befallen his mate surely didn’t fill him with hope.
The scent of human blood hit her first. Stronger than the familiar scents that filled the kitchen of Chase and Connor, as she tentatively walked into the room. Her eyes searched around the empty room for a clue as to what had happened. Looking for signs of the human, while she listened to the silence of the house for a heartbeat, a breath, or just a sound that someone was home.
There was only silence.
Sasha eyed the blood on the counter top, her senses telling her that it was the source of the human blood that she could smell. No human body though. She carried on towards the hallway, seeing if she
could pick up the blood scent further into the house. Nothing.
Whatever happened here, one thing was certain in her mind. His mate was no longer at the house. The scent of her blood was only in the kitchen, and she wasn’t that meant she had gone out the back door.
‘Chase. She’s gone. There’s blood, it’s hers, but not enough for a kill.’ Sasha would bet her life on that information being right. And she might just have done that. But if Chase had that information then he shouldn’t come back to the house. That time would be wasted; he should run the area, see if he could pick up her scent outside.
Chase didn’t answer her. She suspected he was in no frame of mind to right now. Connor’s voice floated through her mind instead.
‘Got it Sash. Thanks. See what you can do for Tuck…’
‘I’m good Sash…’ Tuck growled out. The pain in his voice was more than evident. ‘See if you can pick up her scent. Direction he took her…’ Tuck breathed out on ragged breaths.
Turning around, she walked back through the kitchen, raising her muzzle and taking a good long scent of the human’s blood. The smell of Chase’s mate was now consigned to her memory, she would know it anywhere.
With a determination that propelled her through the house and back out onto the frosted earth outside, she hesitated only briefly as she caught the scent in the air and started after it.
Chase would not lose his mate. Not if she could help it.
Chase turned left and Connor turned right. They knew two things. That Cassidy had been taken by the rogue, and that Sasha had the scent. She was headed on the exact same path that the white wolf had taken the mate, so it was the Alpha and Beta’s decision to flank him on either side, and hopefully get ahead of him with a pincer movement that should box him in.
He was on Lycan legs, not paws and that would make it easier to get ahead of him. And he couldn’t mask Cassidy’s scent the way he could his own. For whatever reason he had chosen the path of life he was now on, one thing was certain. It would mean the end of him.
Chase was almost frantic within his own mind. He could not lose his mate. It would surely be the end of him. What purpose would life serve him when he had lost her? He couldn’t imagine life without her now. She was a part of him and to have that part ripped away so cruelly after such a short time…
It was beyond torture. It was beyond betrayal that the fates would be so cruel, so heartless, so unfeeling as to put them together just too then rip them apart. He would not allow it to happen. He would give his very soul for one more day with her, let alone a lifetime with her curled inside his arms.
Cassidy felt the pounding inside her head and knew she was still alive. She wasn’t entirely sure she was happy with that scenario, not right now. Not when the pounding seemed ingrained into her very bones.
She felt the strong arms about her, the warmth of his naked chest that her cheek was pressed against, and she instinctively knew that this was not her mate.
It was instinctual. Her body didn’t hum with the vibe it had when she was in Chase’s arms. And she couldn’t feel this man, not in the way she could feel Chase’s emotions since they had bonded.
It came to her in another thump of her head. The white wolf. The human version. Trying to open her eyes was akin to walking through quicksand in cement boots. Tried and failed. Tried and failed. This just wasn’t working well for her.
She moaned with the pain it caused her to move her head away from the warm press of his skin, but she really didn’t want to be that close to him. Especially when he was naked. She berated herself, tossing over the insanity of her thoughts in her own mind.
Here she was being carried off by an insane rogue, who had attacked her and was about to do Goddess knows what to her, and she was objecting to the fact that he was naked. She would hit herself upside her own head if she could, but right now she didn’t feel as though she had the energy to lift her damn arm.
“Do not try to use your magic on me witch. It will not end well. For you.” The deepness of his voice wound itself into her mind. The demanding nature of his voice compelled her to open her eyes and look at him. He was Alpha alright.
Cassidy forced her eyes open. Trying to focus on her captor took a little more effort, but when she did manage to get her eyes to work, she saw him through a slight fuzzy quality that she assumed was a by product of her head injury.
Long black, straight hair fell around his shoulders and down his back. The olive skin gave his almond shaped obsidian eyes a deeper set. He was a handsome man. The muscles in his shoulders and arms telling her that he was so obviously Lycan by nature, and spending so much time in his wolf form meant those muscles were even more powerful.
He walked with an ease of grace that told her he didn’t even feel her weight in his arms, in the same way as Chase could carry her. Her mind flashed to thoughts of Chase and sadness ached within her heart, for the mate she might never see again.
“Why did you come for me?” Her voice was scratchy, but it was there. She might as well get the answers she was seeking as they walked, because when they stopped walking, she just might not have the time to find out why he was determined to kill her.
“Because of your kin’s sins.” There was hatred within his tone that told her all she needed to know. She wasn’t going to ever see Chase again.
“What happened to you?” She wanted to move, she really did, but he had such a hold on her that she knew even if she tried to get away, she would fail.
“Be silent.” He growled down at her without even looking at her. The beast within him was so close to the surface that it threatened to shift at any moment.
“You’re going to kill me either way.” It was the truth as she saw it. That damn defiant streak struck again. If she was going to die, well, she might as well irk him to hell first.
He starred down at her then. The dark black pools of his eyes swept over her face in a hard glare. She wasn’t immune to the fear that was coursing through her veins. She wasn’t trying to rush head first into that sure death, and yet she wasn’t going to go down without holding her head high.
“Are you going to beg for your life?” His tone was laced with the cruelty she was sure resigned within his heart. His humanity had long since gone.
“Would it help?” She shot back. Not lowering her eyes from his in her own little show of defiance. He was an Alpha, so that probably annoyed the hell out of him.
“No.” One growled word that he seemed to roll around his tongue with a relish that had her heart doing the two-step within her chest.
“No point in wasting the words then.” She watched as he narrowed his eyes at her. The brain was obviously working overtime behind the scene. Perhaps he wanted her begging and weeping for her existence. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
He returned his eyes to the route ahead of them that he was taking. If only she knew these woods, she would have a sense of where he was taking her. The question had to be now, why was he taking her anywhere? Why had he not just killed her back at the house? The longer he stayed in human form, the easier he would be to track, the slower he would be.
“Why didn’t you kill me at the house?” Did she really want an answer to that question? What if he intended to feast on her? Did she really want to see that end coming?
“I need.” Cassidy’s eyes widened in horror at those simple words. She hoped to hell that she had a dirty mind, and he didn’t mean what she thought he meant.
“Oh hell no!” She found the energy to move. Trying to squirm away from him as her nails dug deep into his flesh. The feral growl that escaped his throat, as she tore down his flesh, hit her self preservation button in a heartbeat.
Two seconds later she had been thrown to the ground and he was above her. His fingers bit into the flesh of her wrists as he slammed the backs of her hands down into the snow. His lower body held hers to the hard ground as she tried to thrash beneath him.
“Kill me. Eat me. But I am mated…” She bit out. Still try
ing to claw him, but he held her firm, the only thing she was clawing, was the cold night air.
CHAPTER TEN
“I do not take mated women.” He growled down at her in disgust. His face was twisted in anger as he glared at her. Those black eyes held a rage that he was barely holding onto.
“Define take…” She snapped back at him. Trying to kick her legs out, but she failed miserably. He was just too damn strong.
“I can scent the Alpha on you…” There was that look of pure disgust again. “He has marked you as his.”
“We are mates. Bonded.” She gave him her own look of disgust. At least she hoped she did. That look was in there somewhere mixed with the fear and the emotional turmoil she felt at being so damn helpless beneath him.
His eyes flared. In one swift move he had forced her wrists up above her head with a force that yanked the very sinews of her shoulders and caused her to grunt in pain. Forcing both hands together, he held her with one large hand. His other hand found the baggy neck of Chase’s sweat top and he yanked it down.
The sound of the material ripping filled her ears and kicked her brain back into gear. She was naked beneath that top and she wouldn’t be on show for his eyes. Trying with everything that she had left within her to kick out her legs, did nothing. Her hands were still helplessly pinned above her head.
She didn’t take her eyes from his, until he gripped her chin and yanked her head to the side. The long disapproving growl that left his lips, as he took in the bonding mark, left her in little doubt that he now knew his fate. Chase would hunt him down and kill him.
Good.
“Hate to say I told you so Alpha…” She couldn’t help that little smirk to her voice. That little victory over him for what he had done. She might die here tonight, but he would be following her soon after.
