“I don’t know if Darren will agree,” Logan intercepted before Katey could reply. “But it’s worth asking if you feel up for going, Katey.”
She still felt a little jolt of pleasure when he said her name. “I’ll have to remember to ask him when we get home today.”
They chatted for a little longer, mostly about the fact that Lily’s parents would be out of town for the next two weeks on an extended anniversary trip to Europe. Lily would be spending most of her time with Forrest, of course, but Katey wondered if her short burst of freedom from her parents would mean they could hang out more as well. After they had finished talking, Lily broke away to go to her first-period class on the other side of the school.
Katey and Logan were about to round the corner when Katey caught a whiff of something that didn’t seem familiar. It was a wonder she could detect it in this crowd, but Katey was sure she smelled something like dog. This wasn’t the faint scent of dog hair on a student’s clothes, as she sniffed that many times throughout the day. This was much stronger.
They turned, and Katey froze. Halfway down the hall was a man dressed in an officer’s uniform, holding a leash for a German Shepherd that was vigorously sniffing the base of the lockers. It was something she had seen many times before at school. It was practically routine for the police station to check for illegal drugs at the high school. However, this didn’t seem right somehow.
Logan stopped too, and Katey felt his grip tighten and tremble. She looked at him and saw an emotion she had seen so often in him. His blue eyes, usually so calm and loving, turned cold as he glared at the officer and his dog. His body went rigid, every muscle tensing as if ready to fight or run. Buried deep within his fiery stare, Katey could see a twinge of fear leak through.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. They had been around dogs and policemen before, and Logan never reacted this way. “I’m sure it’s just drug dogs. They make the rounds at public schools every few months.”
Logan didn’t respond, and she looked back to the dog and its owner. The animal lifted its brown muzzle and sniffed the air. The shepherd’s fierce brown eyes locked on them and went into a barking frenzy that startled everyone in that hallway. Students jumped away, and a few girls shrieked as the dog strained against its leash. Jaws snapped and growled as it stood on its hind legs, eager to charge Logan and Katey.
Katey flinched and felt the unmistakable urge to run like a frightened deer.
Logan wasted no time and bolted into a run down the hall in the direction they came from. Katey kept pace with him, too confused and startled to ask Logan any questions just yet as they bobbed and weaved through the throng of students and faculty who shouted at them to slow down.
They arrived at Darren’s classroom and thankfully it was empty. They stood at the threshold as Darren was already making his way to meet them. She could tell that even he was a little confused by Logan’s intensity.
“They’re here!” Logan barked out.
Darren went still at those three simple words. His face held no expression at first, but when he turned away to retrieve his briefcase, Katey felt the same paroxysm that radiated from Logan, come barreling from Darren. The empathic vibes were dizzying.
“We’ll meet back at the house,” Darren said as he joined them at the door. “I’ll tell the others. Keep Katey out of sight.”
The three entered the hall, leaving the classroom unattended.
“What’s going on?” Katey demanded, wrenching her hand from Logan’s grasp.
“I’ll explain when we get home,” Logan replied. “If there’s a home to go back to.”
Katey’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean? What’s happening? Who was that guy?”
Darren looked up and down the hall. “There’s no time to tell you everything right now.”
Katey stamped her foot and dropped her book bag like an obstinate child. “I’m not going anywhere until someone tells me what’s going on!”
Logan moved in front of her, consuming her entire field of vision. He held her face in his powerful hands. “Katey, one of the things I love about you is your stubbornness, but you’re going to have to give that up for just a few minutes. We have to get out of here.”
Darren had already left them and was practically jogging down the hall with his cellphone pressed against his ear. Katey looked behind them as she heard the sharp tips of nails scraping the tile floor, almost lost in the din of shuffling feet.
Logan grabbed her hand and swept up her bag onto his shoulder before pulling her toward the nearest exit.
“Can you talk while you walk?” she asked, still lagging a bit.
“Hunters,” was all Logan said.
Katey nearly tripped over her own feet as soon as he spoke. The reality of their fear finally hit.
Hunters. Loup-garou hunters. Katey remembered when Logan explained to her about the town of Devia and how hunters had nearly completely wiped out the loups-garous there. Forrest was with those who managed to escape over a hundred years ago, but she recalled the gravestones of so many more who had fallen as prey to the hunters.
Without the help of her empathic abilities, their resolve became her own and Katey matched Logan step for step as they escaped outside.
They mounted Logan’s black motorcycle and peeled out of the parking lot speeding and snaking through traffic as if death itself were chasing them. As far as Katey could tell, no one was following them, but that was no excuse to slow down. Logan constantly looked around and behind them as they flew down the highway, and she could feel the tautness of his body between her arms as she hung on tightly.
They were the first ones back to the house, miles away from civilization and tucked into the backwoods outside of town. Besides a narrow dirt path that served as their driveway off the main road, no one was likely to find them. The pack built this house here for that very purpose. It was secluded enough for when they took their monthly turns changing into their loup-garou forms, and away from the prying eyes of the human world.
Logan pulled her off the bike and led her inside where he ordered her to stay on the main floor while he inspected every room of the house, sniffing and scrutinizing everything as if he were looking for something out of place.
“Do you think they were here?” she asked, trying to hold onto any bit of composure she could muster.
Logan returned from upstairs and stood beside her, a little of the edge chipped away now that they might have been considered in a safe place. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m going outside to search the property.” He shot her a stern look. “Stay here and wait. If someone comes in, yell, and I’ll come back. I’ll hear you.”
With that, he darted out the back sliding glass door.
Katey paced the living room floor, biting her thumbnail while she listened to Logan searching the forest, keeping track of his swift pace as he encircled the house.
Her mind raced to a million different worst-case scenarios. What if hunters were watching their home right now? What if they were to capture Logan? What if the others didn’t get out of the school in time?
Would hunters openly fire silver bullets on loups-garous in a public setting? Or would they bide their time and stalk them like predators waiting for the right time to kill? Katey knew nothing of hunters or their tactics, even less than she knew of vampires. However, Logan and Darren did. That might have been comfort enough, but as long as her betrothed wasn’t within her sight, Katey wouldn’t feel at ease for anything.
Logan returned shortly and met her in the living room. Even though all she wanted to do was hold him until this was all over, she restrained herself and silently pleaded for answers.
He ran his fingers through his hair, taming a few long strands that had worked themselves out of the short ponytail at the base of his neck. “That man in the hall was a hunter,” he began, his voice audibly shaking and Katey wasn’t sure if that was from the exertion of energy during his run outside or the fear that still lingered under his tou
gh exterior.
“How do you know?” Katey asked, trying to force herself to remain calm when that was the last thing she truly felt.
“Some things are just instinctive.”
“We just left school and raised a level ten alarm to all the loups-garous in town over a hunch?” she asked dubiously.
“A hunch is not the same thing as instinct,” Logan snapped, a new fire blazing in his eyes.
Katey recoiled but kept her feet firmly planted in place. “I didn’t feel anything. Don’t you think Darren or someone else might have sensed the same?”
“I don’t know why they didn’t sense it.” Logan looked away, and Katey saw a glint of doubt in his eyes as he must have been mentally retracing what had happened in the hallway. “That’s a common strategy hunters use. Dogs and other animals can tell when a loup-garou is nearby, so they train them to hunt us down. They must have used the drug-dog cover to get into the school. Hunters haven’t come this close to Crestucky in over a century. Our presence here isn’t significant enough to rouse suspicion.”
Katey crossed her arms over her stomach, willing it to stop doing backflips. She took a few seconds to reach inside herself and consult with her wolf. It was just as nervous as she was, but Katey couldn’t recall if she felt this same hesitance in the hall when they saw the dog. She should have sensed it too, just the same as Logan did. She recalled feeling like something wasn’t quite right about the scene, but the feeling couldn’t express itself as anything more than that.
Logan turned toward the back sliding glass door that opened out onto the back porch and gardens beyond. Dustin was there, knocking the mud off his shoes before he came inside.
“Are you two all right?” he asked, sounding a little breathless. Katey hadn’t heard a car pull up, meaning he ran here from the school.
“We’re fine. Where’s Darren?” Logan asked, guiding Katey to sit on one of the sofas.
“He should be here soon,” Dustin replied as he joined them in the living room. From what Katey could read, he wasn’t nearly as concerned as Logan or Darren had been, but there was an undeniable current of apprehension. “He’s calling the local alphas to let them know about the hunters. Ben left shortly after I did, but he’s taking his car. The fool wouldn’t listen to me when I told him he could get his car later. I didn’t want to risk taking too long to book it out of there.”
As the two men stood side by side, Katey couldn’t help but notice the uncanny resemblance between them. Same eyes, same jaw, and same hair, only Dustin’s was much shorter and not streaked with blonde like Logan’s. It still amazed her that two people, so unlike in their personalities, could be related.
“What are we going to do?” Katey asked softly, looking back and forth between the two older, more experienced pack members. There had to be a procedure or some list of guidelines for this kind of situation, though Logan just admitted they hadn’t encountered a hunter this close to Crestucky since the eighteen hundreds.
Dustin took a deep breath and went to the kitchen. “For now, we do nothing. Darren will be here soon with the plan.” Katey watched him take down a plate from one of the cabinets and begin to fix himself a snack of raw deer meat from the fridge, even though they had breakfast less than two hours ago. Between all of them, Dustin had the most voracious appetite.
“How can you eat at a time like this?” Logan asked with more than a little impatience.
“Very easily,” Dustin replied as he poured himself a glass of water. “I feel hungry, I pull out a plate, and I eat. Hunters will not keep me from feeding myself.”
Rage flickered on Logan’s face. “Don’t you care that hunters could be closing in on us right now? We should be out there!”
Dustin slammed his hands on the countertop. “Thank you for reminding me, Logan,” he replied scathingly, his voice shifting into his Irish tongue. The heavy inflection of his native accent came out every so often when Dustin became overly excited or angry. “Yes, I care deeply, but until our alpha comes waltzing in here with a plan, I’m going to eat my snack and wait.”
The pack beta tore off a chunk of deer steak from the slab and chewed on it, giving Logan a challenging stare. Logan let out a subdued growl and began to pace the floor like a caged animal.
Katey leaned on her knees and tried to make sense of it herself without inciting further conflicts between them. Logan’s argument made the most sense to her. If the hunters were a true threat, they should have been confronting them head-on. In the same train of thought, Katey couldn’t deny the tremor of fear for the safety of her pack and the longing to have their leader close by.
Dustin finished his snack and retreated to the back billiard room, where he spent most of his free time. Ben came through the front door moments later as if he were coming home from a usual day at work. Katey sensed no agitation in him whatsoever. No worry, no panic, nothing. He was simply indifferent to the danger.
“Have you heard from Darren?” Logan asked as soon as the omega set down his briefcase by the front door.
“Sooth out your hackles,” Ben quipped flatly. “I called him as soon as I left and he assured me that he would be back shortly.”
“Did he manage to get a hold of the Devian alpha?” Katey asked, thinking of how Forrest’s pack would survive another onslaught by a group of hunters.
Ben turned to her with patient eyes. “He contacted several alphas within a fifty-mile radius. That’s all he would tell me. He will be here soon to—”
They all turned to the dull roar of an engine plowing up the path to the house. A car door slammed in the driveway, and the front door opened just seconds later. Darren came charging into the living room, passed them all by and hurried up the stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor. The other three remained silent as she listened to him gather up something and then returned to the living room.
Between his arms, he toted a wooden sea chest that looked to be a couple hundred years old. Darren slammed it down on the wood flooring just as Dustin came into the living room holding a pool stick in one hand and a cue ball in the other. Along with the others, billiards was a favorite pastime of Dustin’s. He once remarked how it helped him focus in challenging times. They had played billiards quite often in the few weeks since Katey had been changed.
She watched as Darren threw open the trunk lid and began pulling out pistols, sheathed daggers, and short barreled rifles. Some were new, and others looked as if they had been sitting in the chest for decades or longer. All, however, were in mint condition. Katey thought she had smelled something like gun oil late at night when everyone else should have been asleep. Darren must have known this day was coming and wanted to be prepared.
No one spoke as he began to stack the weapons on the opposite sofa, enough for all five of them to arm themselves with – and then some. Then, he closed the trunk and stood up straight to regard each of them with a deathly serious stare. His guard was as high up as Katey had ever seen it, projecting a full spread of authority that held everyone’s attention.
“From what we can determine, the hunters have been sending out feelers to the surrounding counties. Small scouting parties have been sighted in almost every town, but no kills have been reported. They’re making their way east and north from what other packs can gather.”
“How do you know that much?” Katey asked, feeling lost in the midst of it all.
“Word has been trying to get around. Jacob, the Devian alpha, has known that hunters were nearby and has been slowly evacuating his pack out. He didn’t want to raise any alarms until he knew for certain the hunters would be coming here and what their intentions were, but he’s taking no chances. He may be a second generation Devian, but he knows the dangers when hunters are concerned.”
“What about the rougarous?” Dustin asked, his grip tightening and loosening over the pool stick.
“When I tried to contact Gregory, he said his pack had left a week ago. It was a mass exodus, and that might have raised suspicion—exactly w
hat Jacob didn’t want. They’re in another state, but Gregory wasn’t interested in chatting to tell me much of anything else.”
Katey thought it strange that Erik hadn’t shown up at school in a few days, but she wasn’t going to be overly worried about the loup-garou who had almost killed them all during the Alaskan incident. It was his fault the vampires knew where to find Katey and her pack on the night of the great gathering of the loups-garous. Although she had forgiven him for his foolishness, they hadn’t spoken since. His father, the rougarou alpha, must have given him a severe reprimand about his betrayal when they returned home.
“Did they know the hunters were coming?” Katey asked.
Darren shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me much, and I had other alphas to call. They’re safe for the time being.”
“What do we do now?” Ben asked, his arms folded across his chest.
Darren was silent for a moment, but Katey could see the gears of his mind hard at work. He had been prepared, that was for certain, but he might not have had time to come up with a plan for all the possible scenarios.
“Under different circumstances, I would say we need to evacuate with the Devians. Jacob has accelerated his plan to get everyone out of Crestucky, but now that they know the hunters are here, they will need extra protection.”
“Are you hinting that we go help them escape?” Katey asked, feeling a new, heavy dread settle in her stomach. She could picture convoys of loups-garous and their families leaving Crestucky, trudging through the woods like refugees under the surveillance of an armed escort. Was that too old fashioned? Or would they leave in caravan style with their belongings piled high on top of their vehicles as they took the interstate out of town?
Darren gave her a stern look. “You aren’t stepping foot out of this house until the hunters have passed through. Logan, myself, and Dustin will accompany the Devians and their families as they make their way out of town. They have a safe house in central Alabama they can go to during times like this.”
Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3) Page 3
