A Wolf's Oath

by Alli, Jennifer T.

  “You were the one that told me to run from him in the first place. You didn’t do it for me, you did it for yourself. Everything bad thing that has happened to me since then has been because of what you convinced me to do and you call yourself my friend?” She shook her head in confusion. “Never mind, it isn’t important, where is he Anna? Tell me where you told him to go.”

  “No Eric, I won’t. You only think you’re happy because you don’t remember what you actually want. I’m doing this precisely because I call myself your friend.”

  “My memory is just fine,” she scoffed. “Now tell me where he is.”

  “I’m doing this for your own good Eric. Once it’s done, you’ll thank me. I know you will.”

  If she doesn’t want to tell you willingly then force it out of her! her wolf snarled.

  Erica’s hands clenched into fists and she swung them connecting with Anna’s jaw. A loud crack echoed through the hall as Anna was thrown backwards. She landed on the floor with a satisfying thud. “Tell me where he is Anna.”

  “No,” she coughed, spitting out blood onto the floor.

  “I don’t want to hurt you Anna, just tell me.”

  “No.”

  Erica's eyes narrowed and she walked towards Anna, picking up a nearby chair with both hands and waving it threateningly as Anna staggered to her feet. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me?”

  “This is for your own good.”

  “Cut the crap Anna. This is just you being selfish. Tell me where he is or I will hurt you.” Anna’s lips closed and she pursed them to emphasise her point, she wouldn’t talk. “If that’s the way you want it, then fine.” Erica lifted the chair and swung hard. The wooden seat shattered moments after it connected with Anna’s head but it had achieved it’s objective. There were now a series of rapidly healing cuts on Anna’s face. Anna staggered, falling to the floor once more and Erica leapt forwards landing hard against her stomach causing Anna to grunt in pain. Erica gripped the collar of her shirt with one hand and waved her fist at Anna. “Tell me where he is,” she hissed, enunciating each word. Anna turned her head to the side, still refusing to speak. “You brought this beating on yourself.”

  Erica's fists worked rhythmically, pounding against Anna’s flesh. She didn’t want her dead, she wanted answers. Blood was beginning to coat the floor beneath Anna’s head but Erica wasn’t worried, Anna was still healing. Her next punch didn’t connect as thickly muscled arms hooked themselves under her arms and lifted her bodily away from Anna.

  “What’s going on?!” Michael demanded, his voice booming throughout the room.

  Anna began to stand and Erica instinctively began to struggle against Michael's grip desperate to reach her target. “Let go of me.”

  “No, you were hurting my mate, I should have you imprisoned. If it were up to me I would inflict equal damage on you! In fact if it were up to me, you’d be dead, friendship or no.”

  “Let me go,” she repeated, continuing to thrash wildly.

  “Anna, what’s going on here?” he asked, ignoring Erica's demands.

  Get her, the wolf hissed. It doesn’t matter how you do it, but get her.

  An idea occurred to her and Erica went limp within Michael’s arms. The abrupt cessation of her struggles caught him off guard and his grip went lax. Taking advantage of the opportunity, she jerked her elbow straight up. It connected, creating the intensely satisfying sound of bone breaking and she leapt out of his arms and landed once more on Anna. She raised her fist, but upon seeing the defiant look on Anna’s face she stopped, shaking her head as she stood.

  “You’re not even worth the effort. If you don’t want to tell me where exactly you sent my mate to die then fine, I’ll find him myself,” she stated defiantly, turning to walk from the hall.

  “Eric!” Anna called staggering to her feet with Michael's assistance.

  Erica stopped and turned her head to look at Anna, hatred blazing in her sapphire eyes. “My name is Erica. It’s the name my mate uses for me and it’s what I’ll be going by from now on. Eric is dead along with our friendship.”

  “Erica,” Anna called again. “Wait, he’s going to Larive lake.”

  She inclined her head in acceptance of the information but the anger in her eyes and demeanour was undiminished. “This changes nothing,” she hissed running out of the room and changing into her lupine form as she ran towards her mate.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  While having the chance to run so free, without any forms of constraint would normally induce a feeling akin to euphoria within Sebastian, that wasn’t the case today. His body seemed to be failing him. No matter how hard he pushed it, he couldn’t make himself go any faster. His mate needed him and he was failing her, his lips curled back in a snarl of disgust aimed solely at himself. If I can’t go faster, Erica may very well end up in the hands of the hunters again. I can’t allow that to happen, not again. She might not survive this time. His paws pounded hard against the cold earth as they had done since he received Anna’s phone call. Exhaustion was a luxury he couldn’t afford at the moment and he pushed any thoughts of fatigue from his mind as he continued running at a punishing pace.

  What the hell is wrong with that woman? he cursed, spurring himself on with anger. She should have told me rather than just running off to get herself killed. What ever happened to ‘we need to share the burden because this is a relationship?’ I swear when I next see her I’m locking her away within the clans. It’s for her own good. His limbs were shaking with a combination of fear and rage and his teeth were bared in a savage grimace. The urge to rip, tear and maim was alive and well within him and he knew very well that he had a legitimate target for his need for violence. Vincent.

  He couldn’t be sure that the man who had spoken to Erica was the lone survivor of the attack he and Ryan had initiated against the hunters but at this moment in time he didn’t care. Any hunter would do, they were all equally guilty in his eyes. The intention of harming his mate was as much of a crime as the act itself. The hunters he was rushing to meet were already condemned men, living on borrowed time. He’d always considered himself to be calm, reasonable even but at the moment he was like every other werewolf he knew, fiery tempered, quick to anger and even quicker to resort to violence when his mate was threatened. He couldn’t however bring himself to care about the changes he was experiencing, Erica was in danger and needed his help.

  The landscape around him passed by in a swirl of varying colours, the different shades becoming increasingly monotonous as his journey continued with seemingly no end in sight. The snow had now melted and the ground beneath it was surprisingly green though it was occasionally covered in thin layers of ice that had yet to melt under the sun’s rays. The trees that flanked him were typical for the area, thick dark brown trunks and emerald green leaves that seemed to stretch forever skywards. He was therefore reasonably shocked when a streak of black entered his peripheral vision, the colour distinctly out of place. As the colour edged further into his line of sight, he saw that there was another wolf running beside him. The wolf surged forward with a burst of speed and came to a halt directly in front of him. A growl slipped past his lips and thrummed through the air. Things weren’t going to end well if this wolf didn’t move out of his way. The wolf before him seemed undaunted by his anger, continuing to stand its ground.

  A gentle breeze stirred the air, bringing the wolf’s scent to his nose and his face contorted into a mask of confusion. Erica? At first he wrote the scent off as his flustered mind playing tricks on him but as he continued to inhale deeply, it became increasingly clear that that wasn’t the case. He had only seen his mate once in wolf form and he took the opportunity to examine her now. Her body was completely covered in a thick black pelt that stretched from the tip of her tail to the end of her muzzle, the only spot of colour on her entire body was her left ear which was a shocking white. Even in this form she was starkly beautiful to him.

  His growling stopped ab
ruptly as he continued to examine her and Erica realised that Sebastian had finally recognised her. She breathed a sigh of relief that she had caught up to him before something terrible had befallen him and began the transition from wolf to woman. As Erica stood before him, her long black hair gentle swaying in the breeze, his thoughts as to the wolf’s identity were confirmed. Padding across the short distance that separated them, he transformed into his human form, wrapping her in his arms as soon as he reached her.

  “Erica,” he sighed into her hair, holding her even tighter as relief poured through him.

  Returning his embrace, she nuzzled into the heat of his chest; relieved that Anna’s plan hadn’t succeeded. “Sebastian, I’m so glad that I managed to catch up with you.”

  He revelled in her presence for a moment before remembering their situation. “Erica, what are you doing here? And in wolf form no less.”

  “I got my memories back Sebastian. I remember everything.”

  He pushed her away from him, his eyes wandering frantically over her form. “What? How?”

  “Anna,” she stated simply.

  He growled in response to her statement. Just because she helped me this one time, it doesn’t mean that I like her. “What did she do?” What did she do to help you that I couldn’t? he added silently.

  “She set you up Sebastian.” Her voice was muted, her tone distinctly saddened. The anger she had felt when she had initially found out about Anna’s betrayal had dissipated and she was now left with a felling of intense sorrow. She had lost her best friend and the knowledge hurt. “You were running into a trap. Anna’s convoluted sense of logic blamed you for surviving an attack by the hunters while her brothers died. She hated you and didn’t even have the courtesy to show a modicum of guilt for potentially sending you to your death.”

  “So you weren’t heading to meet them?”

  “I’m not that stupid Sebastian,” she laughed. “I wouldn’t just go off and meet a stranger in a very secluded place. That’s the sort of thing that gets a person killed.”

  He pulled her back to him, pressing a scorching kiss against her lips but in the back of his mind something she had just said was processing and he pulled away when he realised what it was. “How much do you remember?”

  “I already told you, I remember everything Sebastian, absolutely everything.”

  “Oh god, Erica, I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”

  Her brows drew together in confusion. “For what?”

  “I claimed you.” His hand rose to the slender column of her neck and he ran his thumb against his mark, gently tracing the ‘S’ engraved on her pale skin. She surprised him by leaning into his touch rather than pulling away and so he continued to caress her as his apology flowed from his lips. “I couldn’t help myself. I knew it wasn’t what you wanted. I tried to run, tried to fight the instinct but then you were there, waiting for me in the moonlight. I couldn’t stop myself.” And I didn’t want to either. “And Dylan and Wyatt? They found out about us being mates by themselves. People on the estate need to learn when to be quiet and I had to tell my family –”

  He was cut off abruptly as Erica placed her hand over his mouth, quickly and effectively silencing him. “Sebastian, my mate.” As soon as she referred to him as her mate, she had his full attention, his gaze riveted to her face. “You don’t need to apologise, you have nothing to be sorry for. I don’t regret a single minute of our time together, there’s nothing I would change. I know that you did your best to be true to the things I wanted before my fall but I’m glad that you failed. I’m happy that you claimed me. I’m glad I claimed you in return.” Her hand rose to his neck, gently running over the ‘E’ she had seen that morning, now with the full knowledge of what it was. “Getting my memories back hasn’t changed the way I feel about you. I still love you, I always will. If anything, regaining my memories has only intensified my feelings towards you. I don’t know how you put up with all the trouble I caused you,” she laughed wistfully. “First I run away from you when your instinct was screaming out to you that I was yours, then I get captured by hunters and forget everything that’s important to me and make it so you have to pretend to be human.”

  “Pretending to be human is definitely something I never want to do again so try to keep your memories this time around. But sweetheart, if I had to, I would do it again in a heartbeat. There isn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for you, you know that right?”

  She couldn’t look him in the eye, how he could feel this way towards her after everything that had happened was beyond her. “I know Sebastian, I just don’t understand why. I was horrible to you.”

  “All that happened is in the past now Erica, it isn’t important anymore. I’m willing to do these things for you because I love you. I love how fiercely loyal you are, how courageous you can be in the face of the unknown, your kindness, your warmth. I love everything about you, the essence of who you are never changed. The instinct is never wrong after all. You’re the only woman in the world who can pull feelings like that from within me.”

  She turned her face away from him, looking instead at the scenery that surrounded them. “It might sound strange but I’m actually very glad that I had amnesia. If I hadn’t, I might never have given us a true chance to be the mates that we are now. I might still have been looking at all your actions and you as a person through tainted eyes, linking you with my father. Maybe I should go and thank the hunters, after all if what happened didn’t happen, we might never have been.”

  At the mention of the hunters, his hackles rose and anger filled him. A low growl rumbled through his chest, quickly gaining Erica's attention and she turned her head back to him. “Sebastian?” She cupped his cheek, forcing him to look at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “You said Anna set me up, so that means she lied about you seeing a hunter right?”

  She wrung her hands nervously. “Well she didn’t lie about that. I did meet a hunter, his name was Vincent and he was, he was…” she began to hiccup as the memories of what she had suffered at Vincent's hands returned to the front of her mind. These were definitely memories she could do without but she doubted she could remove those select ones without forgetting everything again.

  Sebastian's eyes turned amber as the scent of fear began to roll off his mate in waves. “He was what sweetheart?”

  “He was the one that caught me and did all those horrible things to me. He hurt me Sebastian and he had the audacity to sit next to me and talk to me as though he was innocent. My God, he saw Dylan and Wyatt, he knows all about them now.”

  Sebastian pulled away from her, his decision made. “Go back to the cabin Erica, I’ll come and join you as soon as I can.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to meet this Vincent and tear his throat out,” he snarled, relishing the idea of causing the man much pain before he let him slip into oblivion. He turned from her as though to run in the direction that Anna had indicated but Erica stopped him holding tightly onto his wrist. “No Sebastian, you can’t.”

  “Why not? He hurt you, it’s only fair that I return the favour. Don’t worry sweetheart I’ll make him regret ever setting eyes on you.”

  “Sebastian, it’s a trap. You can’t knowingly walk into it,” she retorted, angry at the cavalier attitude he was taking with his life

  “For you I can and I will. It’s the least I can do.” His response was calm and that was more worrying than it would have been if he had shouted. He had somehow decided that this was the reasonable course of action and seemed to care little for how illogical it was.

  “Sebastian, listen to me. It’s a trap. They will capture you and they will kill you. I can’t let you go.”

  “Erica,” his tone of voice immediately told her that he was going to attempt to mollify her and persuade her that his decision was the right one and she snapped.

  “Shut up! Don’t say another word. I’m not going to let you wander into a trap. Your life is worth some
thing Sebastian. I can’t let you just throw it away. You once promised me that if anything happened to me you wouldn’t do anything reckless, that you would stay behind and take care of our family. I’m not sure that I could make the same oath Sebastian and that scares me. I love Dylan and Wyatt, I do but I’m not sure how I would manage to overcome the grief, if you died, to be able to function. You can’t put us in that position Sebastian, you can’t.”

  Tears had sprung up in her eyes at her angry declaration and they affected him deeply. Reaching for her face, he gently wiped them away before taking a final look in the direction that Vincent was meant to be. “Let’s go home Erica. We can take care of Vincent and his ilk another time. I don’t want to upset you.”

  “Do you mean it Sebastian? Are you really willing to just walk away?”

  “Nothing is more important to me than your happiness, revenge can wait.”

  “Thank you Sebastian, thank you.” Wrapping an arm around his waist, she began to lead him away from the trap that Anna had set and back home. His body was tense, she could feel how much not going after Vincent was costing him but he continued to put one foot in front of the other, following her lead. “Don’t worry Sebastian, I have the bastard’s scent. We can track him later, there’s nowhere in the world he can go to get away from us but we couldn’t just walk into a trap. Trust me he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

  His body instantly relaxed. “That’s good to know. We can’t just let him continue to pose a threat to our family. He’ll definitely get what’s coming to him.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Vincent had long since passed the feeling of mere irritation at his prey’s tardy behaviour and moved straight to fury. His hands were clenched into tight fists that were balled at his sides. The more time that passed, the more certain he became that the wolf wasn’t coming. He had factored into his plans the amount of time he thought the wolf would need to arrive at the specified location and it was now hours later. The men he had positioned around the tranquil waters of the lake were beginning to get restless and he couldn’t blame them, he did however envy them the ability to feel such an emotion. As the leader he could show no weaknesses and any and all failures were solely his responsibility. And the likelihood of the mission that he had so carefully planned succeeding was withering away with every second. He had planned to distract the wolf while his two snipers, hidden amidst the rocks above them were to shoot and incapacitate him.