Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3)

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  “There was,” Logan stated. “But Anton stepped in before it could get worse.”

  Katey looked away and held her lover tighter. Gregory could only guess what kind of trouble would have befallen them if Anton, the fierce and deadly vamp assassin, hadn’t jumped in to save the day.

  “We wouldn’t have had Anton to save either of us if a hunter came waltzing down Bourbon Street,” Dustin scolded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Logan didn’t get the chance to explain before a pair of swamp wolves came peeling up the porch and barged through the doors. Teddy came to them, looking up and down at their tattered and torn clothes.

  “What in the Sam hell have you boys been doin’?” Teddy inquired.

  The two boys, younger than either Logan or Forrest by several decades, stared with unblinking eyes and mouths agape in shock. “We… We just found Bo and Atticus. They’re dead.”

  Teddy opened his mouth to speak, but the words were lost on his tongue. Uriah was the first to ask as he stood beside his alpha, “How? Why didn’ ya’ll bring ‘em back?”

  The second boy swallowed. “I dunno. They were just out huntin’, and we went to check on ‘em. I dunno what killed ‘em. It wasn’ silver, that’s for sure.”

  The first stepped up. “They were ghost white, and their veins were popping out and blue all over. It looked like they were just shriveled up, like a raisin.”

  “I did see a dart pokin’ outta their necks, though,” the second one added.

  Teddy looked to Darren and the others behind him, entreating for an answer to the strange evidence, but they were too dumbstruck to say anything.

  Such a horrific description was enough for Gregory to straighten and grip the railing in his powerful hands. “Wolfsbane,” he said.

  A ripple of shock seemed to shake the house as wolves turned to one another with frightened and disconcerted looks. The symptoms and nature of the attack could only mean the wolves were shot down with the deadly poison. Silver, even liquid silver as the vamps used, wouldn’t make the body dry out like a lizard who had died in the hot sun.

  “Wolfsbane?” Katey questioned, looking to her pack.

  Ben came forward, his feet dragging with each step. The weight of their flight must have been taking a harsher toll on Darren’s pack than any of the rest. They had been on the very brink of danger for over a week, and now, they were in the heat of it again after they had thought they had escaped at last.

  “Wolfsbane is one of the oldest ways to kill a loup-garou,” Ben explained. “If it’s made into a poison, just the touch of it can cripple us. The pollen alone can make us have a severe allergic reaction. It can still hurt a vampire, but it’s deadly to us. It’s lethal in large amounts to humans if they consume it, but for us, it only takes a little.”

  “It’s the one poison we all fall prey to,” Dustin added.

  Katey’s expression hardened. “If it’s deadly to everyone, then who would have used it?”

  Will rubbed the back of his neck. “Hunters would be the logical answer, but I’ve never heard of them using wolfsbane recently. It’s too dangerous for them to handle.”

  “Neither have I,” Darren said, a severe look in his eye as if he were ready for battle. “I’m learning not to underestimate the hunters.”

  “What do we do?” several wolves hollered from the crowd, their pleas sounding like a child’s cry for help.

  Darren looked over his shoulder to the swamp wolves that had amassed in the foyer, all eyes looking to the alphas for guidance and protection. Gregory stayed at his post, high above the assembly. They weren’t his pack, and this wasn’t his concern. If hunters were closing in on the mansion or even suspected the former plantation as a hideout for the wolves, Gregory would do what he had always done. He would fight until it was no longer logical to continue.

  Darren turned to Teddy and Uriah, whose effort to resist the urge to mourn was prevalent in their stares. “We have to get your pack out of Louisiana,” he announced as if he was the only voice of reason left in the room.

  Teddy balked. “We can’t just leave our homes.”

  Darren marched forward, the very epitome of leadership in the way his shoulders were back and chest out with confidence. “You can return when the hunters are gone.”

  “They won’t leave until they get what they’ve been searching for,” Will told Darren. “And they’ve been tracking a wolf from Florida. If they’ve shown up here after all this time, then the one they’re looking for must be here too.”

  Darren paused in thought, but nothing in his face would betray exactly what he was thinking. Yet, that question was on the minds of Katey, Logan, Ben, Dustin, and Forrest. How did Gregory know? Because they were all from Florida, just as he was, and he wondered it too. Were the hunters after one of them?

  “All the more reason for you and your pack to leave this place,” Darren answered.

  “What about my nephew?” Will asked Teddy. “Can we risk taking him with us?” They understood the connection too. Forrest had also come from Crestucky and was now a suspect in deducing who the hunters were after.

  Forrest barged forward, crashing through the other werewolves who were standing idly by and whispering their dissensions about leaving Louisiana.

  “If you don’t take me, at least take Lily with you,” he pleaded. “Then, I know she will be safe.”

  Teddy nodded. “We can do that much for you, cousin,” he agreed, slapping Forrest on the back.

  As if the very mention of her summoned her from the recesses of the mansion, Lily – Forrest’s blonde mate – came running down the stairs.

  “Katey!” she cried.

  Wolves let her by and the two - and only - girls in the mansion hugged one another. They exchanged some whispered words, talking about the night before and the plans hereafter while the other wolves made their arrangements to leave. It was clear the human had recovered from the shock of seeing her best friend change into a cantankerous beast.

  With the help of the two boys, they were able to reason that the hunters must have been coming in from the south, closer to the city and swamps beyond. Teddy’s wolves would take the northern route and leave within the hour. Just another pack jettisoned from their homes and comfortable – but oddly detestable – lives living in the backwoods.

  While the swamp wolves went north, Darren and his pack, along with Forrest and Gregory, would stay on the plantation to face the hunters as they closed in on the wolf they had been tracking across state lines.

  Gregory’s gaze jumped between each Floridian present. He knew he couldn’t be the one the hunters were after. They had struck too recently for there to be a connection. If they were after him, they would have come onto the property shortly after he arrived a few days ago. They wouldn’t have stayed in Crestucky to wreak the kind of havoc that they did with those Devians and their families still left. They most certainly wouldn’t have gone after the fleeing Devians into Alabama.

  Forrest was a likely choice. The destruction had followed his pack all the way to Louisiana, but from what Logan had told them the night before regarding the burning of homes just after they left Crestucky, a day or so after Forrest had, the timeline didn’t make sense. Why would the hunters stay in Crestucky if their target had moved on to Alabama? Then there was the question of, why didn’t the hunters attack the swamp wolf colony in the bayou if Forrest was there before moving to the mansion?

  Katey and Logan were personally attacked by a sniper in Crestucky and left just as soon as the hunters emerged from their hiding spots to strike against the Devian families, but they weren’t present for the Devian massacre in Alabama. They had arrived too late for that.

  Then there were the three remaining wolves, brothers in all but blood. They were in Crestucky at the time of the strikes, but not for the attack in Alabama. However, they were the last to arrive at the mansion, and if this new strike by the hunters coincided perfectly, then it might be assumed one of them were to blame. But, it migh
t have been impossible to tell which of them was the target.

  If only they knew more, then they could go about this plan of defense better.

  Amongst them all, Gregory watched Katey, studying her face and the way her countenance shifted from fear to uncertainty. When she looked to Logan, when she was in his arms, none of it showed. Neither did any of the prior anxiety she felt about being amongst the wolves that she hurt the night before. What emotional resilience she must have had. Or did her strength come from the wolf she esteemed so highly as to claim him as a mate?

  There was a new light in her eyes when she gazed up at him, so willing and trusting. No, Logan didn’t deserve her love, but neither did Erik in the end. No one deserved to belong to a thing as wild and powerful as Katey. Too bad none of them fully understood that.

  Chapter Twenty

  Teddy’s pack had pried up their stakes and moved north. Carrying their children and women upon their backs - they must have reached the Missouri state line by now. The sun was making its final descent over Louisiana and within an hour or so Michael and the other vampires would awaken from their sleep.

  Until then, Katey and the other loups-garous were assembled and ready to defend the plantation. They didn’t have an army to guard their perimeter and the hunters who were on their trail knew that perfectly well.

  Katey, presumed to be the most defenseless, was kept inside with Ben and Forrest to protect her. Darren and Dustin stood on the back porch, their senses straining to the north, while Logan and Gregory were teamed up to watch the south side of the property.

  Seated quietly on the velvet sofa, Katey’s hands fidgeted in her lap. The whole pack was tense, not just because of the hunters but because none of them could predict what would happen. If the hunters came blazing in with wolfsbane darts, there was little they could do to defend themselves. Silver bullets could be ignored for a time while they continued to fight, cuts could always heal, but wolfsbane wasn’t something they could get up and run away from.

  The loups-garous were hunters themselves, in a sense, with acute senses and faster reflexes than a normal human, but how would they detect the hunters? From what Logan had told her, the vampires were better equipped to hear the hunters coming through the woods than any of them. Now that the hunters had no scent and their dart guns didn’t need black powder to propel the ammunition forward, how could they smell them coming?

  They were going into this defense strategy nearly blind, but there was nothing they could do until sunrise when Michael and the other vampires could assist them.

  Katey had heard talk about taking the fight directly to the hunters, but Darren was still the voice of reason and insisted they stay low and keep their defensive position until they knew more. Anton and his operatives would have to yield more information once they woke up before they made any such offensive moves.

  Katey looked to Ben, who stood by the fireplace, his elbow propped against the mantel and facing away from the others. There was a calmness in his façade, but Katey could practically taste the expectation in him.

  The soldier would be thrown into another battle, and she knew he wasn’t looking forward to it. He might have been the one best equipped to fight, but without the aid of a gun, perhaps he wouldn’t fall into autopilot like he might if he had a rifle or pistol in his hand.

  Forrest worked at unlocking the shutters of some of the windows that looked out over the front lawn of weeping myrtles.

  “Tell me it’s going to be okay?” Katey whispered, hoping her intrusion wouldn’t throw anyone’s concentration off.

  Ben glanced in her direction. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” She gulped.

  “I can’t lie to you,” he replied and looked away, the back of his hand rubbing against the underside of his chin.

  The strong chord in Ben’s voice wasn’t fooling her.

  “Just say it, even if you’re lying.”

  Ben bowed his head and took a deep breath. “It’ll all be fine in the end, Katey.”

  That’s all she wanted. Just to hear the words no one else was willing to speak. It might have been a jinx and too soon to tell, but Katey needed something to hold onto, even if no one else believed it.

  Darren’s eyes searching the horizon and around the edges of the slave shacks in the distance, waiting for any sign of a hunter. The waning light wouldn’t keep them from spotting anything unusual in the woods, but Darren despised the disadvantage of having a useless nose. Sight and sound were the only senses he could rely on. Yet, the sheer population of wildlife in the area threw off his judgment. A squirrel scurrying through the underbrush might have been a hunter moving into position. A bird coming in for a landing on a branch might have been a sniper perched in the treetops.

  Dustin stood at the other end of the porch, just as vigilante as his alpha.

  The trip from Florida to Louisiana had been longer than expected, since Darren, Dustin, and Ben had taken different routes and had to coordinate with one another to arrive at the right place. Since the plantation couldn’t be found on any map, Darren had to use geographical coordinates to find the place.

  No one could imagine his surprise when he felt in his soul that Katey was changing. The bond they shared as alpha and subordinate were still green, but something in the connection they shared at the wolf preserve had strengthened the ties. Through their pack bond, he felt her pain and fear. To his benefit, it gave him time to formulate a plan and tell the others just what he intended to do.

  Sure enough, his tactics worked, and Katey was broken. From what Will and the other loups-garous had told him, it was no easy task in the beginning. They told him of the destruction Katey had nearly caused and Darren wasn’t sure what to think.

  He wasn’t going to reprimand her, but neither did he want to coddle her. Her nerves and psyche must have been raw from her breaking. It shocked him most of all when she was so willing to stand in the middle of the assembly in the foyer and speak as an equal with their eyes watching her so attentively.

  It only made Darren respect her strength even more.

  Dustin stiffened and crouched low, his eyes fixated on something in the tree line.

  “I see a gun. The sunlight’s shining on the – “

  His report was abruptly cut off by the whizzing of a bullet toward the house. The bullet, presumably silver, shattered a boarded window that opened into the kitchen.

  Darren spotted the glint Dustin spoke of and took off toward the trees. A few more bullets were fired, but none of them made contact. He found the hunter and launched himself on the human dressed in traditional camouflage with a black mask over his face.

  Out of sight, the human must have pulled a dagger. The silver blade lodged high in his left shoulder. Darren’s flesh burned against the merciless metal. He felt the pressure of a gun barrel against his chest.

  In the midst of blinding pain, Darren’s hand wrapped around the gun and wrenched it from his hand to cast it aside. He heard the snap of tiny bones in the hunter’s hand. Darren’s left arm was useless as the effects of the silver spread through his nerves and muscles.

  The human took advantage of Darren’s crippled arm and kicked the alpha off. With the knife handle protruding from his shoulder, Darren rolled away and clenched under the excruciating pain. His free hand grabbed the knife and eased it out of his body as the human stood and retrieved his gun amongst the leaves of the forest floor.

  Another loup-garou, Gregory, crashed through the bushes and tackled the hunter before he could take the time to aim the gun with his only good hand.

  The stench of blood met Darren’s nose, his first smell of the hunter in the entire engagement.

  He stood and regarded his fellow alpha. Much to his surprise, the human’s blood was not slathered over his mouth and chin. Instead, his hands and claws were coated in the crimson liquid.

  Darren nodded his thanks to Gregory and tossed the knife to the side. Taking one look at the hunter’s filleted body, it was clear
he wouldn’t harm another loup-garou again. The wound began to slowly heal, but Darren’s mind was as alert as ever.

  “Where’s Logan?” he demanded. “You two were supposed to be together.”

  Gregory wiped his hands on the seat of his pants. “He regrouped with Dustin. They’re at the front.”

  A cry split the air, and the alphas looked to the mansion, nearly a half mile away.

  Forrest pulled Katey away from the front window as Dustin came staggering backward on the porch, his hand gripping his side. The bullet had passed through, but she could see the blood begin to seep through his shirt and spread downward to his pants.

  Ben took her from Forrest and dragged her to the center of the parlor, just as Dustin backed into the window and slid down, leaving a messy trail of blood on the glass.

  A second shot rang out, followed by a grunt from somewhere beyond her line of sight. Katey pushed against Ben’s arm, trying to get around him to see how badly Logan was hurt. Tears stung at her eyes, thinking the worst. “No!” she screamed.

  Through what she could see out of the window, she saw the two hunters race down the drive between the myrtles. Ben forced Katey to stand behind them as the hunters crashed through the front doors, splintering the timeworn wood.

  They came into the parlor, guns blazing, peppering the room with bullet holes. Glass shattered and antiques like vases and marble statues crumbled into pieces on the floor.

  Ben and Forrest charged forward to attack, but the silver bullets brought them to the ground. Katey watched them writhe and growl at the pain in their legs, arms, and chest. Blood oozed from their wounds.

  Standing alone, facing the hunters for the first time, Katey found herself paralyzed. These may not have been the exact men that killed some many of her kind in Alabama at the compound. They might not have been the ones that burned the houses in Crestucky or even murdered the loups-garous on the edge of the property earlier that morning.