Savage Instinct

by Anwar, Celeste

  SAVAGE INSTINCT

  Celeste Anwar

  Copyright by Celeste Anwar September 2013

  Cover art by Eliza Black, copyright September 2013

  www.celesteanwar.com

  Also on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Celeste-Anwar/544142812323946

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  Someone or something followed him.

  Nerves twitched along his spine, making his grey fur stand on end in warning. Aiden Kinsey turned his muzzle to the sky and sniffed the air as he crouched in the shadows cast by poplar trees along the mountain pass.

  Aiden learned long ago to trust his natural instincts and to never throw caution to the wind. He didn’t have the comfort of a normal human. He couldn’t just call the cops because he was in trouble. In the shifter world, trouble usually got you killed if you weren’t careful.

  A cool breeze disrupted the quiet of the night, ruffling leaves like a cheerleader’s pompoms. The heady aroma of mountain flowers mingled with the earthier scent of the forest floor, and another faint trace of someone Aiden didn’t quite recognize.

  Wolves.

  He couldn’t tell how many tracked him, who they were, or who they were with.

  Under normal circumstances, Aiden would have his pack at his back, hunting alongside him beneath the full moon. He’d howl long and loud, and they’d come running to his aid.

  Tonight, he was on his own.

  With the coming of spring and the lure of the powerful full moon, however, his brethren had left Tennessee to attend a festival in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Aiden declined to attend the festival where many of his kind would mingle with packs from surrounding territories. His second in command, Malik, said they needed new blood and new females if the Misty Springs pack was going to continue to grow and thrive. Acquiescing to the wisdom of the move, Aiden sent Malik to go on a recruiting mission with the others.

  He’d been craving solitude for a while now and wasn’t sure why. Something had put him in a foul mood and he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling. He thought it’d been because he’d resisted shifting and hunting through the winter.

  Maybe it was because he hadn’t chosen a mate.

  He’d taken a lax view of their mating rituals. If that’s what the others wanted to do, it was fine by him. He’d stay close to home. When the time came for him to find a mate, it would happen. If it didn’t, that’d be fine too.

  He was comfortable in his life and didn’t need a woman except to warm his bed on occasion.

  A muscle cramped in his leg. Aiden shifted his weight on his haunches and sniffed the air again. The scent remained faint and distant.

  For a moment, he wondered if some of his brethren had returned early from their Georgia festival and came out to hunt here near the lake. The area was generally an excellent place to find a deer or other small game when they came down to water. Rare occasions might bring a bear amongst them, proving a challenge.

  The proximity of the lake provided the shape shifters with the ability to clean up the evidence of their kill and thus keep neighboring humans from questioning their existence. All shape shifters knew that the fewer humans they revealed their existence to, the better.

  He’d rather them think something as crazy as aliens had marauded the countryside than to think that their town was infested with the supernatural.

  Which it was, but they didn’t need to know that.

  Tearing through the underbrush, Aiden launched from his hind legs into a run. Almost in sync with his movement and barely perceptible, his ears detected the echoing crash of someone following his moves.

  Blood pounded his veins, heightening his excitement and senses. His eardrums twitched with spasms as he cocked his ears. Beneath his paws, the flattened grasses felt soft against the leathery pads. The cool night air ruffled through his fur, increasing as he ran the trail.

  Who the fuck hunted in his woods? He wondered.

  Weeds hugging the game trail smacked his forelegs as he loped along the worn path.

  Confront the trespasser or flee?

  Aiden had never been one to run from an attack.

  By now, had the tracker been one of his own, they would have revealed themselves. The question in his mind was why would they follow him rather than just attack?

  Maybe they thought his pack near at hand?

  Aiden ducked his head low to the ground, sniffing for the foreign scent.

  They weren’t ahead of him, not yet. Which meant if he took off through the thick underbrush, he might have enough time to circle back around and come up behind his adversaries without being detected.

  He’d avoid being boxed into the valley and still have access to the mountain road.

  Aiden considered himself capable of handling three or four opponents, but more than that, and he might be in deep shit.

  Decision made--and he hoped it was the best one--Aiden maneuvered through the brush, his movements slow and deliberate for stealth. Moving downwind, the intensity of the foreign scents increased, masking his position.

  Moonlight filtered through the canopy of trees, glinting like shards of silver on the dark path.

  Aiden circled back and positioned himself just past a curve on the trail and waited. He realized after a moment that the others had changed their movements. He surmised that this meant they could sense where he was and were almost ready to make their move

  Aiden crouched near a small pine tree. Prickles of excitement ran up his spine. An adrenaline spike could make him lose control over his beast, turning him into a mindless animal seeking only to kill. He gulped air, forcing his nerves to steady, regulating the rapid pulse thrumming in his veins.

  When the stranger rounded the curve, Aiden had twenty or thirty seconds to size him up before the other shifter could fully see his position.

  He didn’t wait long.

  Within moments, the shifter tracking Aiden turned the curve in the path, revealing himself to Aiden’s view. Shoulders bunched with muscles. A stocky body with too short legs, and a snout scarred from fighting. With a brief look, Aiden knew the wolf hailed from a rival clan that had been inbred too often.

  The members were dull witted and not exactly prime examples of quality stock.

  Big, stupid, and mean made for a helluva combination. And dangerous, given the situation.

  Sensing Aiden’s presence, the wolf spun around and froze, capturing Aiden’s gaze. He howled once, loud, and behind him his brethren gathered to the call. A half dozen pairs of eyes peered at him from the darkness, glowing with inhuman malice.

  Aiden felt his adrenaline jumpstart his heart. Blood roared in his ears.

  He was outnumbered.

  As one, they dropped their heads and shook all over, muscles twitching with spasms. One of them howled as if pained.

  The change wasn’t supposed to hurt. He only imagined with their inbreeding, they’d lost some of their natural ability. He wasn’t a scientist, so he could only speculate, and it didn’t matter anyway.

  They could all bleed.

  Skin replaced fur in a bizarre reversal of wolf to man that looked like something out of the Howling or some other shitty werewolf movie. Disgust made his thin lips curl over his fangs. His nostrils flared, scenting the sweaty musk of their bodies as they contorted on the ground.

  Finally, they stood, human once again. A few of their number remained in wolf form, guarding the perimeter to prevent his escape.

  Those who’d retransformed stood naked, their bodies as bulky and odd as they were as wolves.

  The leader, short an
d stocky, with a head that seemed too large for his shoulders. His hazel eyes looked half an inch too close, and his fiery red hair stood on end. A sheen of sweat coated them from the effort of shifting.

  The leader flexed his chest and arms, making fists and breathing so hard, his chest visibly rose and fell and his muscular belly contorted. A belt tied around his waist with a knife handle poking from a holster looked more ridiculous than menacing.

  Aiden dropped his head, allowing the change to come over him. The shift felt fluid, like water washing over his skin, seamlessly flowing from fur to skin. Senses, heightened as a wolf, dulled as he became a man once more. No longer could he smell the forest floor or his adversaries. The dark seemed thick as a witch’s cauldron.

  He stood erect, stretching the kinks out of his body and cracking his neck before facing his enemy.

  “We got us a purty boy!” the red headed shifter shouted, glancing behind him at the others as he sneered at Aiden.

  Aiden remained quiet, darting a glance around to make sure they weren’t closing in on his back.

  “I seen you hunting all alone. I thought you Misty Springs shifters were too scared to hunt all by yerselves.” He sauntered forward, looking like a fighting cock ready to pounce.

  Just beyond the stunted grass and shelter of the pines, he knew the safety of the road beckoned. The tree line bumped right up to the edge of the road. It wasn’t well traveled, but the chance for aid lay closer in that direction than any other. There were plenty of neighbors living up in the mountains and the valley. The kind that didn’t take well to strangers. Most of them had guns and a lot of them.

  That might be his best bet, given the odds didn’t seem to be in his favor. Especially since he was too far from his own place right now to get a weapon.

  Aiden thought bravado and bluff might work in his favor. Tension tightened his muscles, ready to spring into action. He straightened his spine and squared his shoulders. “You’re trespassing on private land. Who are you and what the hell do you want with me?” Aiden asked, narrowing his eyes.

  “Lee Riker’s the name,” Lee announced. “These are my brothers. We came here to get yer women.”

  Aiden snorted in derision. “It look like I got women with me?”

  Lee blinked then flared his nostrils and frowned. “You being sarcastic with me?”

  “Not at all,” Aiden said, furrowing his brow.

  Lee stared at him a long moment. “I ain’t got time for bullshit. We want your women and your pack to join us. But mostly just yer women. Ways I figured it the only way that’s gonna happen is to kill you and take it over,” Lee said. He reached down to his side to the ridiculous looking holster Aiden had noticed earlier, withdrawing a long toothed knife that glinted silver as he palmed it. “So I’m about to do just that. “

  Didn’t look so silly now.

  Aiden weighed his options, deciding in a split second that he needed to shift if he had any chance to make it through this.

  His beast swelled inside him, pushing through the muscles of his body, distorting his form. Shivers rippled across his skin as fur popped along his length. His back bent. His arms and legs shortened.

  Lee, seeing the change beginning, rushed forward, plunging the knife into Aiden’s chest while the shift absorbed him.

  Aiden snarled, snapping his teeth at his opponent’s hand, losing control of his human mind at the most vulnerable stage in the cycle.

  Lee held strong, refusing to release his grip on the blade. The teeth ripped through Aiden’s flesh, halting him mid-transformation, halfway between wolf and indescribable monster.

  As soon as the metal punched a hole in his chest, he knew it wasn’t steel.

  Silver.

  A burn like a thousand wasp stings reverberated inside him. His flesh felt shredded, ground into hamburger. Mind numbing pain threatened to swallow him whole.

  He tasted blood in his mouth and realized he’d bitten his tongue.

  One thought remained when all reason fled—get the blade out.

  Aiden twisted, slashing at Lee with his claws, attempting to grab the handle and rip it out of his body.

  The silver poisoned his blood. With every heartbeat, he could feel himself getting weaker and weaker. His movements were sluggish, as if through water.

  Lee pushed him backward, determined to take him to the ground to finish the job.

  The pair skidded through the pine sentinels, out onto the blacktop road. Beyond them, headlights rounded the curve as a car approached.

  Aiden scarcely noticed the tarmac beneath his feet or the lights coming towards them, only the pulsing pain in his chest. He swiped at his opponent, landed a blow that rocked him backward. The blade moved by degrees then snapped as Riker gave a vicious twist.

  The wolf pack yelped with excitement around them, nipping at his back and legs, eager for blood.

  When had they changed back to wolves? He wasn’t sure and didn’t care. Knew only that he couldn’t get a grip on the blade lodged in his chest that was slowly killing him.

  “Guess I win, purty boy,” Riker said, grinning with yellowed teeth.

  “Fuck you,” Aiden grit out, his hand on the seeping wound. Labored breath made his chest ache and cramp.

  “Another time,” Riker said.

  The road flooded with light around them. Riker, still grinning, pushed Aiden directly into the path of the oncoming vehicle.

  Chapter Two

  Nydia Williams stood outside of the massive log home belonging to Richard’s parents, crying.

  Unwilling to let those little blonde bitches see how much they’d hurt her feelings, she wouldn’t go back inside until she regained her composure. It was a matter of pride for her. She hated for anyone to see her emotions out of control. And, if she and Richard were going to make things work between them, she’d have to put up with his family even if she couldn’t stand them.

  And that included the twins from hell: Alice and Alex.

  Tired of waiting for her to return, Richard finally came outside. He leaned on the support beam of the porch, watching her a long moment before descending the stairs.

  Gravel crunched under his boots. Dusk closed in on the mountaintop, and a yellow moon rose on the horizon. A security light blinked on, illuminating the growing darkness that seemed to close in on the wild property from all sides. Above, at the top of the lightpole, she could hear the tinkle of moths fluttering against the bulb housing.

  All her bad thoughts about his unwillingness to defend her disappeared when she saw his long, lean form sauntering down the porch and approaching. His sandy blond hair ruffled in the pine scented breeze.

  Her heartbeat quickened, and relief flooded her that he must care about her if he’d leave the dinner table to check on her well-being.

  “Nydia” Richard said as he walked up, “what on earth is the matter? Why are you standing in the yard crying?” He glanced back at the amber lit windows lining the front of the house. “Everyone is starting to ask questions in there.”

  Stopping in front of her, Richard put his hands on her shoulders.

  She tilted her face up to him, meeting his gray eyes.

  “Richard, I can’t go back inside right now,” she said, wiping her angry tears away. She’d always had a habit of crying when she got really angry and hated when people got her to that point. People tended to get smug about the fact that they’d made her cry—they didn’t realize she was on the edge of wanting to pummel them for making her so mad she cried. Her daddy had always said to control her temper and count to ten, but that’d never worked for her.

  He gave her a smug look that radiated superiority.

  Nydia frowned, getting the distinct feeling she was being admonished even though he hadn’t said a word.

  “Your sisters are being so snotty and mean, and I don’t know why.” Nydia dried her eyes in irritation and looked up at his face.

  Richard sighed. “What are they doing to you that is cruel?” he asked.

 
“You’ve heard their whispers. Don’t act like you haven’t. They keep making sarcastic comments about what I do for a living. They said my hair looks like a bottle brush and my elbows and knuckles are just so black and ashy, that I need some lotion.”

  “They generously offered you lotion and you took offense to that. I heard it. They did not say you were ashy.”

  She clenched her jaw. “You just pretended you didn’t hear them. Alex said it under her breath. And they keep saying I’m a germaphobe and--” Nydia bent her head, “--I know this sounds like Junior high drama, but I get the feeling they’re deliberately making fun of me and trying to let me know that I don’t fit in here and never will.”