Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3)

by Sheritta Bitikofer

  Anton, like all natural born vampires, could sense the feelings of others. From what she confessed earlier, they now suspected she had empathic abilities as well, just like her mother.

  Thoughts of Jane arrested his thoughts from the present moment.

  Anton had only known Katey for a short time, but it was long enough to see everything he loved about Jane manifested in her attitude. No one would have known, save for Michael, all of Jane’s little quirks that seemed to pass on to Katey. Her strength being one of the qualities, but the way she walked and spoke like a woman unafraid of the opinions of others.

  Jane was a remarkable vampire. They grew up together, Anton and Jane. Not from childhood, but they served side by side for many centuries. Although she had turned him down to be his blood partner on more than one occasion, Jane still held a special place in his spirit.

  That’s why, when the coven found out she had been seeing a werewolf, Anton hurt more than any other vampire could have. Their love was an abomination. It went against every principle they had been taught and lived by for millennia. When he confronted Jane’s father about the crime, Michael privileged him with the knowledge of the prophecy.

  Since Anton held no personal bitterness toward the werewolves besides this one thing, it was easy for him to accept Jane’s social transgression. Some time later, Jane went missing, and it was rumored she had left with her new mate. Michael covered for them but told Anton she and Adam, the werewolf, had eloped.

  For months, Anton kept the truth from the others of their coven and diverted their suspicions when possible. When scouts located them, there was nothing Anton or Michael could do. Anton had a right mind to turn down the offer to lead the mission to capture Jane and Adam, but he understood the ramifications. It would jeopardize his life, just as much as Jane’s. They might suspect him of being in league with Jane, and therefore, her crime would become his.

  He accepted, but afforded them more time by leading the troops on wild hunches, tarnishing some of his own reputation as a master tracker. There came a point when he couldn’t stall any longer. He sent a private message to Michael and informed him to get the couple out, but there wasn’t enough time since Jane was in labor.

  After the child was born, they stormed the cabin and took them. Anton was well aware of the child’s presence beneath the floorboards with her nursemaid but hurried the team out before they could realize there was a child amongst them.

  Anton rubbed at his face, wiping away the image of Jane brazenly facing her executioner, ready to embrace the deadly force of the sun like the bold vampire she had always been. To this day, he wished he had taken the shameful path and defended them. He would have given anything to have Jane by his side in combat again.

  He looked up and saw Katey staring at him with probing eyes as she slowly sat up in bed. Anton couldn’t save Jane, but he could save Katey and her pack. As long as he had the choice, we would always take her side, and that’s why he was here tonight.

  Anton held a finger to his lips, beseeching the utmost silence from her, and beckoned her out to the balcony. He would not be able to speak his plan until they were far from the mansion, but Katey was clever enough to know exactly what he intended.

  Using the same deftness, Katey joined him on the balcony, and they ran together to the woods, evading the guards and slipping past their ranks. A hunter may not have known their patrol patterns, but Anton knew exactly where the gaps were to allow them passage for escape.

  Once they were halfway to New Orleans, Anton turned to Katey and said, “I suppose you know where we’re going?”

  Katey let out a nervous breath. “Yep,” she replied.

  “I’ll stay close by. If there’s any trouble, you know I can’t help.”

  “Why not?” she asked, looking at him with a raised brow.

  “I will be severely outnumbered, and with their possession of wolfsbane, they can still harm me. I do not normally conduct missions on so small a team, but Michael would know something was amiss if we left with half of his forces.”

  She was silent as they ran around New Orleans and through the dense swamps and bogs. “Is what they say about you true?” she finally asked. It had been the question he was waiting for since the wolves had joined them at the mansion.

  Anton smiled. He had heard the rumors and exaggerated stories about his missions through the ages passed down to children as bedtime stories or told around campfires to frighten other wolves. “Some are, but some are not. Do not believe everything you hear, unless you hear it from the source.”

  Katey, so trusting and eager, nodded and they continued for miles until they arrived. Anton had little to go on except for the images in the hunter’s head of how to get to the headquarters.

  Easily bypassing the guards that patrolled around the site, they crouched in the bushes outside of a massive clearing. Ahead, was an abandoned sugarcane mill that had been commandeered by the hunters. It had been renovated since it was first left for nature to reclaim decades ago, and now its several buildings accommodated the hunters, their families, and their operations. From the lights shining through many of the windows in each building, Anton knew the compound was humming with activity.

  This was not the only headquarters used for hunter operations. There were dozens, one in almost every state, dedicated to the eradication and systematic killing of werewolves. Each compound was run by a leader, a boss or head of the clan with a hierarchy of soldiers that carried out different tasks. Their field hunters were the ones who did the dirty work, while the others conducted remote recon or scouted for potential targets.

  This compound was different than all the others he had known of. These hunters had a leader but never showed his face except to his most trusted operatives. Hence, the reason many of the field assassins knew nothing about their leader’s reason for wanting the fulfiller of the prophecy. Not even Anton’s operatives had seen the face of their leader, the one they called Andrew.

  Once Anton had completely debriefed the compound’s assumed floorplan and regular guard rotations, he turned to see a focused look on her face. She was ready for this and Anton couldn’t help but wonder if she knew exactly what it was she was getting into. Hunters were not the humans to trifle with, but she must have known that after all they had been through already.

  “Remember,” he warned. “You’re only going in as a representative to find out their demands. If you are captured, I’ll bring back reinforcements.”

  He felt her confused eyes bore into him. “I thought you said you couldn’t do anything?”

  “I can’t do anything alone, but I can bring back others to help.”

  “What if you get in trouble for letting me come?”

  He slipped her a sly look. “Better to ask forgiveness than beg for permission.”

  Katey returned his look with a devious smile of her own. “Thank you for being on my side,” she said.

  Anton was sure Jane had said something to that effect once before, centuries ago. A little bit of Jane shined through in that wicked grin. If they had more time, he would have told her everything regarding her mother. He would confess his sin to Jane’s daughter, plead for absolution for allowing her parents to be carted away like criminals, and then he would tell her of all their fantastic adventures. But this was not the time. When this was all resolved, he would tell her everything that weighed so heavily on his mind.

  Without a proper farewell, Katey stood and walked to the compound where two guards, armed with repeating rifles, stood at attention. They saw her coming and pointed the barrel in her direction.

  Waving the white flag of surrender and peace, Katey lifted her hands and announced as loudly as she could, “I’ve come to speak for the loups-garous.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The chilling scent of gunpowder and steel met Katey as she was escorted into the compound. Pendant lights hung from the high ceilings of the entry corridor where four more guards bearing automatic rifles joined them and surround
ed her on all sides. The question was whether they huddled around her to protect her from outside threats, or if she was the threat.

  Luckily, none of them had supernatural senses as she did. Otherwise, they would hear her heart pounding away like a jackhammer in her chest. She mimicked their cold, disconnected expressions, but inside she knew how dangerous her situation was.

  Katey held onto the security that Anton was right outside and would be there to greet her when she was done talking with the hunters. Appreciation for the vampire spilled over in her heart when she realized exactly why he had brought her here. No one else understood that she needed to do this, not just for her new family, but for herself. Katey so desperately wanted to prove to herself that she could do this, just like when she disobeyed Darren and ran away to change on her own.

  If she couldn’t convince a band of vengeful humans to give up their mission, then she had no business coordinating peace agreements between the feuding vampires and loups-garous. Everything that happened over the last week told her she wasn’t good enough; wasn’t capable of the role she had been born into. She needed just one thing to go right, and that would be validation enough.

  In the corridor, the guards searched her from head to foot. They even asked her to remove her shoes to show they were empty of anything deadly. It was clear they didn’t realize what she was. To them, she was just another human, but she didn’t need explosives or guns to cause significant damage.

  Once searched and found to be free of any weapons, they led her into a large open area that smelled of moldy brick and fresh oak. Judging from the patched up and new-looking ceiling, the hunters must have renovated recently. Anton said this used to be an abandoned sugarcane factory and the residual sweet aroma that must have been instilled into the bricks had confirmed it.

  Katey thought the room to be bigger than her high school’s gym back in Florida, but the hunters didn’t play games here. This was their training facility. The floor was covered in padded foam to make it safe for the trainees to tumble and throw one another to the ground in their martial arts exercises. Did they really think martial arts training would help against a loup-garou?

  Along the walls were racks of swords and other medieval weaponry that made Katey inwardly squirm. She didn’t have to touch the blades to know they were coated in silver.

  On the other side of the room from the entrance was an area that had been sectioned off specifically for gun and fire weapons training. Katey could see the plastic handguns lined across a metal table. A doorway just beyond that area led into a room with a viewing window that revealed where the real guns were kept, along with a lengthy firing range for the hunters to practice their aim.

  It didn’t take her long to realize she and the guards were not the only ones in the room. To the far left of the table loaded with plastic guns, were a group of four humans. Two adults and two children. Katey watched with engrossed fascination.

  From what she gathered by their similar features and the whispered endearments, they were one family. The mother was down on her knees, bracing a tall kick bag against her shoulder and instructed her son - a boy of thirteen perhaps - on the proper technique for a roundhouse kick. His brows and jaw were set in such a way that Katey could almost feel his dogged determination in her soul each time he threw his foot at the bag and tried to get the movement right.

  The father’s fists were wrapped in athletic tape and threw punch after punch at a mannequin punching dummy, switching up combos and bouncing on his toes like a boxer.

  The girl was the only one unoccupied by the art of fighting. Her long dark braid was swept over one shoulder while her eyes slowly scanned through a picture book between her hands. Sitting cross-legged against the wall, Katey wondered if the younger sibling even cared about what her family trained for so diligently. It was the age of princesses and fairy tales for that little girl, and she was surrounded by violence and death.

  Katey’s heart bled for the innocent as she was led toward the center of the room, the bright lights above glaring down on her.

  The mother of the group looked in her direction and stood to her feet. The boy turned, his face dripping with sweat. She called to her husband and he, too, stopped to regard the cluster of guards. As one, the three put up their training equipment, gathered their things together and fled to a pair of double doors that led out of the room.

  They were about the exit when the mother turned and shouted at her daughter. The little girl looked up as if awoken from a dream and scuttled to her mother’s side with her book tucked safely under her arm.

  As the family left the training hall, another group entered. At first, Katey thought they were more guards, but not all of them carried weapons in their hands.

  The guards stopped her and Katey’s eyes fell upon the man who led the approaching group.

  Drake came forward, a smug look on his face and long, proud stride. Katey wasn’t surprised. Ever since she found out hunters were using scent cloaking technology, she made the connection back to Drake from the dance studio. What she didn’t expect was that he would be of some importance.

  The hunters behind him followed like bodyguards, revering him as some superior officer amongst their own order. At first, she had thought him to be nothing more than a spy or scout, but no. She had the honor of dancing with the leader of the hunters.

  More than that, Drake was the instigator for all the chaos that ensued from the past week. He was the reason she had to drop out of school and off the radar. He was the reason families had to evacuate their homes. He was the murderer of the Devians in Alabama. It was his orders to follow Logan across state lines and try to capture him. Those two loups-garous from Teddy’s pack died a horrible death because of Drake’s demands. He was the cause of so much misery and panic. For that, she wasn’t sure if she could ever forgive him.

  Katey’s lips pinched together in rage and Drake simply chuckled.

  “And I thought you’d be happy to see me again,” he laughed.

  She refused to respond to his arrogance which contrasted his polite guise so well from a couple of days ago. Katey was in no mood to play his game anymore. With her chin lifted high, she glared as his entourage drew closer.

  “I take it our operatives weren’t successful in their mission. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

  Drake waited, but Katey didn’t make a peep.

  “You said you came here to talk?” Drake asked. “Then let’s talk.”

  Katey took a deep breath through the nose and let it out slowly. She couldn’t let her anger get in the way of her job. Somehow, she had to call on the spirit of Tanatia to get her pack through this. “What is it you want from the loups-garous?”

  Drake snorted. “Loups-garous? What an archaic name for those animals. I suppose that’s the name they told you to use?”

  “It’s the name they prefer,” Katey snapped in defense.

  “It’s a softer name for them,” Drake replied. “That’s all. They’re still beasts on the inside, no matter what name you call it.”

  Katey understood. Darren had made that clear the first time she called them werewolves. Although not everyone used the term “loups-garous,” she preferred it too, and it had grown on her ever since that day she first found out about this other world of monsters and magic. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Drake unclasped his hands behind his back, and the smug look vanished. “It’s not me that wants your boyfriend. It’s my father.”

  Katey blinked. “Your father?”

  A flash of something unrecognizable came to Drake’s eyes just before he explained. “My father is still the leader of this clan. I’ve been acting in his place for a year now. My authority is as good as his, but we’ve been looking for Logan for over six months now.”

  “Why do you want him?” Katey questioned, narrowing her eyes on Drake. He might not have been the one who ordered the troops out, but acting as second to his father, it might as well have been his doing to begin with.
His father gave the order, and he carried it out.

  “That’s for my father and me to know. And I’m sorry, but there is no negotiating. We need Logan and only him.”

  Katey knew it had been a mistake to speak his name that night at the dance studio. It gave Drake and the hunters a level of power they should have never had.

  “How did you even find him?”

  Drake grinned. “We have our ways. We can tap into any security system on the planet. We just have to know where to look. After interrogating some of the beasts that witnessed the appearance of the one who would fulfill the prophecy, we knew he must have been in a pack somewhere in the southern part of the country. They wouldn’t give us a name, so we sent out scouts to find him.

  “When we came to Crestucky, we saw a white wolf on a property security footage.” Drake shrugged. “Now, we know there are no white werewolves unless they’re very old and most of the time, they don’t reach that age anyway. Plus, the white wolf on camera was smaller than two other wolves that joined it later in the footage. So, we knew it had to be younger.”

  Drake began to circle around Katey and her detail of guards, but she wouldn’t follow him with her gaze. “After some deep research, we found out who all was living in that house where the white wolf was wandering around. You’ve been living with four werewolves, and we know all their names and aliases. Logan was the youngest, so we naturally assumed he was the one on camera. And since he has white fur, we knew he must be special. That’s how we found him, and that’s why we’ve been following you.”

  Katey’s body went cold and rigid. They didn’t know it was her they saw on the cameras. They didn’t know there was a female werewolf in existence. She closed her eyes and tried not to let the guilt set in. If she had never gone out that night, the hunters might have passed over Crestucky. It wasn’t Drake and his father who killed the Devians and burned the homes. It had been her fault.

  She couldn’t slip into despair. Katey opened her eyes and looked to Drake who had almost come full circle in his stalk around her. “If you knew Logan was in Crestucky, why did you murder the Devians in Alabama? You had your target. Why kill them?”