by A. J. Downey
“Shut up, or I’ll tase your ass again. And this time? I’ll keep doing it every hour on the hour until you’re either a vegetable or until we get there,” she hissed in a low, dangerous voice. Whippy and Tubby exchanged nervous looks and shifted on their feet where they stood by the door. They obviously weren’t so sure about that, but Ava was just as obviously in charge. They couldn’t exactly go challenging her authority in the field.
She was their Alpha. I almost laughed as the thought occurred to me but I bit it back and laid my head down, letting my throbbing cheek rest against the cold metal. The ceiling above me was nothing but fiberglass, letting the natural daylight through and the sound of the truck hummed through the metal against my chest.
In no time I was lulled to sleep. My body needed to heal. It needed to repair the damage and I really needed to eat. I was so hungry. I hadn’t eaten in a while. But my exhaustion overcame the hunger and out I went, despite my best efforts to stay awake.
Chapter 6
Ava
Hours passed. I sat still with my arms crossed my over my chest and my legs crossed at the knee. I knew I was glowering at him, that my scowl had done nothing but deepen as the miles rushed past beneath the wheels of the truck and the daylight came and went.
Donnell huffed a clipped laugh, which he quickly silenced when my cold, furious gaze snapped from our quarry to him. Donnell held up his hands and wouldn’t meet my eyes and I couldn’t say that I blamed him. I had a certain… reputation. Because I was a woman, because I was lithe and was somewhat blessed with a halfway decent rack, men automatically assumed I was both weak and only good for my mouth or my cunt. To remedy the misnomer, I had cultivated a certain amount of ruthlessness among the Crusaders.
If a man wanted to think with his dick around me, I wouldn’t hesitate to use it to drop him. I fought with calculated and underhanded maneuvers. When someone wanted to whine about such ridiculous notions as ‘fair’, I was pretty quick to point out that the dogs we were up against didn’t give two shits about what was and wasn’t fair and neither should we.
All these animals cared about was kill or be killed and the systematic destruction of the human race. The Crusaders had spent thousands of years protecting humans from these creatures. I belonged to a sacred order charged with the protection of humans against extinction. Thus far we had been exceedingly successful, but there was always a danger of these animalistic bastards going feral or rogue. Of biting or breeding to the point they turned the tide to where they could outnumber us. Spreading their disease, their epidemic of rage and lack of control.
“You should try to get some sleep, Ava. It’s out and we’ve got a good few hours before we get there.” Mason interrupted my thoughts and I glanced up the length of the dimly lit shipping container we travelled in.
“You sleep, I’ve got this,” I told both him and Donnell.
Donnell snorted and settled back against the pallets, “Suit yourself.”
I returned my gaze to the broad back of the sleeping giant, chained to the stainless steel table, bolted in the center of the cargo container. It was so damn freakish how human they looked. It could sometimes be easy to forget what they changed into. The strength… the claws… the teeth.
I didn’t close my eyes. It only made the vision of my brother’s sightless staring more vivid. The blood staining his pale skin, his throat reduced to so much raw, bloody meat. Below his throat had been much worse. The creature, Romulus Reese, A.K.A. Roman Dulcet, had sunk claws into my brother’s chest, gripped his ribs, had fucking pulled him apart while he’d screamed. They’d ripped out his throat last, to silence him.
And now, one of them was here in front of me, and I had just dug a slug out of the back of his leg… saved him from a slow agonizing death that he richly deserved.
“Do it.” The voice was a derisive sneer.
“Ava, come on! Seriously? Don’t go ‘own fucking program’ on us now.”
“Come on, Ava, pull the trigger,” the creature taunted.
I pressed the barrel of my Glock into his back, between his shoulder blades.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I asked him.
“Ava…” Mason’s tone was equal parts nervous and warning.
Just to keep my people on their toes and to prove to the animal that I wasn’t playing I lifted the Glock from where I was pressing it against him, instead pressing it against the bandaged wound in the back of his leg.
“How do your healing abilities stack up? Huh, Big Boy? Think if I blew your leg off at this close a range with a couple of silver rounds you could heal it?”
He grunted and gave a strangled laugh, “Think that I’ll beg you not to? That I’ll cower, and say ‘please don’t?’” He snorted like it was both the funniest and most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “You got another thing coming, Babycakes. Pull the fucking trigger, see if I care…” I pistol whipped him in the back of the head behind the ear but he was a tough bastard and didn’t go lights out. Instead he laughed. A harsh, half barking mad sound that sent a chill down my spine.
Defiant to the last… I guess we had at least one thing in common. I holstered my gun and returned to my stack of pallets and jumped back up, resuming my earlier post while Remus, A.K.A. Remy laughed until tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes.
I ignored him, while the rest of my team back here in the semi’s cargo container shifted uneasily in their seats. Eventually he and I settled into a defiant locked stare. His dark eyes smoldering and impossibly deep. Hatred radiating out of them and spiraling all the way to the very bottom. What do you know? It looked like we had something else in common.
The remaining hours dragged on impossibly long in the back of the semi’s cargo container after that. Our captive had closed his eyes again but I doubted very much that he slept. I was growing weary from the constant uncomfortable jostling but I would be damned if I would show it. Finally the truck pulled up and stopped. Voices shouted back and forth and the semi lumbered to life, lurching forward, pulling into a smooth turn before stopping again.
The animal was alert alright. Eyes open and pinning me where I sat. Wheels turning, almost visibly, as he thought through what was happening. The loud, even, backup tones sounded from outside the truck as we backed into what I knew was a loading dock. The distribution center we used as a cover was still an active one for the American Red Cross, but we’d dug deep and the tunnels beneath it ran quite a ways out. We still had a ways to go, about an hour’s worth of a ways to go, underground.
First things first, though. We had to safely get Fido down there. I didn’t much feel like leaving anything to chance. The intelligence sparkling out of those deep dark eyes of his was two points past terrifying.
“Get me the tranquilizer kit,” I ordered.
The wolf-man’s gaze splintered with rage before simmering down to flat and unfriendly. Interesting. This one had some serious control then. But, then again, the dossier on the twins had stated that Remy had always had the cooler head. Roman was the bat-shit one. It’d also stated the two were damned near inseparable and it was assumed that Roman was dead when Remy started showing up around the country flying solo.
I never took my eyes from his as Harper shuffled around us, digging through a pack by another ratchet strapped stack of pallets to find the small zippered case containing the Azaperone I needed. It was an elephant tranquilizer… literally, and one of the few tranqs effective for longer than twenty minutes when it came to these things.
I took the case from Harper as the big rig shuddered and hissed to a stop. The brakes fully engaged. The sound made the wolf-man wince and that made me smile, a nasty quirk of my lips that made Harper shift uneasily beside me. Again, Donnell wouldn’t look at me, and I really didn’t care. My eyes were kept steadfastly on the very still, very real threat in front of me.
Even strapped to the stainless steel table like he was with reinforced, heavy steel chain, I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure that he couldn’t
or wouldn’t break free.
I unzipped the sleek black leather case and laid it open. Vial of drug on one side, a row of capped hypodermics on the other held in by black elastic. Irony of ironies… I hated needles, even when I was shooting up one of these damned beasts.
I set the case on the nearest stack of pallets and slid the ampule of tranquilizer free, swirling the yellowish liquid in the glass vial. I judged there was enough, even for this big fucking brute; I set it to the side. Next I slipped one of the needles free. Uncapping it, I raised and upended the vial. Plunging the needle through the rubber stopper made my skin crawl but that sensation was about to get worse when the needle met flesh.
I measured out a dose of the tranquilizer and stopped the precision pull of the plunger on the syringe. I flicked my eyes back to the obsidian stare Remy Dulcet had fixed on me and looked him up and down one more time. Compressing my lips into a thin line, I drew more tranquilizer into the needle. I didn’t trust the initial math and it was better safe than sorry with how quickly these bastards metabolized this crap.
I slid the needle free of the little bottle and stepped in Remy’s direction. He snarled at me and jerked against his bonds. The metal groaned, and my heart seized up hard in my chest at the sound.
“Jesus!” Mason cried and leveled his assault rifle in the general direction of the wolf-man’s head.
“Hold your fire!” I snapped.
“You better fuckin’ kill me,” Remy taunted, “I break this shit, I’m tearing you in half first, then I’m gonna fuck your boss ‘til she fuckin’ bleeds.”
“Charming,” I said dryly.
The look on the animal’s face was savage, but beneath that, a very real, very unsettled emotion slid behind his eyes. He didn’t like being out of control of the situation and the drugs in my hand promised that and so much more: total helplessness. I could almost sympathize with that, but not enough to not dose him.
“Just a little pinch,” I soothed mockingly and he growled and snarled again, he jerked at his chains and metal screamed but I wasn’t afraid. I should have been, but I was a woman of action. I stepped forward and plunged the needle into the nearest bit of exposed muscle and flesh at the beast’s shoulder and with a surety I didn’t exactly feel, smoothly depressed the plunger at the back of the syringe.
I didn’t watch the elephant tranquilizer go in, all that golden liquid disappearing. Instead my gaze was locked on the wolf-man’s, a mixture of hatred and pleading in his eyes that I found curious, before the sharpness faded, his eyes unfocused and the snarl left his lips. His eyes fluttered, his head drooped and without thinking about it my hand shot out as his head fell into it. I kept him from cracking that handsome face into the stainless steel table and I honestly couldn’t tell you why.
“Ava, come on. Mathias is waiting and there’s no telling when this douchebag is gonna come out of it.” I took a step back from the table and looked up at Logan, back lit as he was from the lights behind him. I hadn’t even heard him and Jordan roll up the truck’s back door.
“Right,” I uttered and hit the catch locking the wheels into place with my booted foot, disengaging the brakes so we could roll him freely. The boys pulled the gurney over and heaved Remy’s dead weight up onto the ramp after releasing some of the chains we’d used, bolted into the floor to hold him in place during the drive. After he was released from the truck floor and we’d ensured he was strapped down with the reinforced nylon, more to keep him from sliding off the gurney than out of concern he would wake and try to escape, Donnell pushed and Mason pulled and the table rattled over the diamond pattern of the industrial dock plate. I walked alongside the gurney, handgun at the ready, maintaining dual focus. One foot in front of the other, don’t trip, but also, making sure Remy stayed knocked the fuck out. He so much as twitched, I’d put another round in him so help me fucking God...
No one was going to die on my watch. My brother James shouldn’t have died, but then again, that hadn’t been on my watch. Cocky son of a bitch.
“Ah, the prodigal daughter returns…”
The voice was smooth and rich and I glanced up at the sound of it, my lips pressed down into a thin line.
“Good to see you too Mathias,” I lied, because it wasn’t. It really wasn’t. However long the both of us lived it would never be good to see him. Because Mathias Young had been the man to send my brother to his death.
Chapter 7
Remus
Waking can be many things. It can be a slow and gradual process… One where you rise gently from the depths of sleep into an ever increasing state of wakefulness until you find yourself conscious, rested, and alert. Or, it can be the groggy awakening after a night of too much drink or too little sleep.
It can also be abrupt; brutal, painful.
I experienced all three. There was a terrifying sensation, that teetering on the precipice about to fall for just a moment. Then the balance tilted and over I went. My eyes shot open, my arms flailed out trying to grab something, anything, to catch myself to stop the fall. But it’s not the fall that hurts, is it? It’s that sudden stop at the end that usually does it. And this case was no exception.
There was a loud clatter and my abused body met a solid surface with enough force that I tasted blood in my mouth and stars bloomed across my vision as my head bounced off the concrete floor. Pain flared in my leg from my wound, and a low groan escaped me despite my best efforts to contain it. Barking, mocking laughter erupted from behind me followed by a rattling noise and I rolled, pushing myself over with my hands just as a loud clang echoed through the space.
The door slammed shut with a degree of finality that I am sure I will remember for the rest of my life. My vision was blurred, body sluggish, still feeling the effects of whatever drug it was that fucking bitch had shot into me. But it was rapidly wearing off, and by the time I managed to scramble awkwardly to my feet I was feeling stronger and clearer by the moment.
“I must say, you are a difficult... man... to locate.” The word man was said with a distinct sneer and I glared, turning my head just enough to spit to the side, but not enough to break eye contact.
“Mathias Young. I really could have gone the rest of my unnaturally long life without ever seeing you again,” I snarled and he shrugged, completely unfazed. He stood at parade rest, his feet shoulder width apart and his hands clasped together at the small of his back. Black, military issue combat boots covered his feet, laces perfectly straight with a pair of BDU pants bloused at the tops of his boots. A black, button down shirt was tucked into his pants and the butt of a pistol could be seen protruding from beneath the edges of his calf length black overcoat.
Steel grey eyes peered out from beneath thick, bushy eyebrows gone grey with age. A short cut beard covered the lower half of his face and his hair stuck out in all directions. Kind of reminded me of a lion’s thick mane. He had a distinct grace to him, even standing perfectly still. Somehow, the predator in me recognized the predator in him and I am not ashamed to say that I felt cowed by it. I did my best not to let my fear of him show though. It would only increase the already substantial power that he held over me.
“It seems to me that you would want to meet with me, after that unfortunate business with your father.”
I snorted, not even trying to hide my disgust. “‘Unfortunate business’” I sneered. “You mean setting it up so you could murder my father? He may have been acting strange the last few years but I’ve been starting to think that I overreacted in thinking we needed to remove him from his position as Alpha.”
He shrugged again, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Be that as it may, with how that situation ended, and with you being ostracized from your pack, one would think that you would be compelled to seek out some kind of ally in this world.”
“You are no ally of mine,” I snarled and fought the urge to leap at him. With the metal bars between us and the distance he stood from my cage I would never be able to reach him. Didn’t stop me from w
anting desperately to tear his throat out though.
“We were, at one point, working together.”
“My father was bringing the pack to ruin. We just want to live and raise our families. He was going to see us destroyed at the pace he was going...” I trailed off and bit my tongue. Damn I was tired. I would never have run off at the mouth so much before but obviously exhaustion and weakness were getting the better of me. I tasted blood in my mouth but refused to let up.
“You can’t honestly expect us to believe that you fucking animals just want to be left alone in peace. That’s why you filthy mutts attack innocent people? That’s why you kill and hunt people, just for the fun of it? Left in peace you’ll get stronger and your numbers will grow until you can kill every last one of us at your leisure.”
I couldn’t believe it. Seriously, that was how the hunters saw us? That was really what they believed? I stared at Ava, completely dumbfounded and confused all at once. How does someone come to believe such vitriol about a people she knows nothing about? How doesn’t she see the comparison to basic racism and bigotry? How can the human race be so damned blind to their own atrocities but so quick to point out others?
I was so fucking glad I was never human to begin with in that moment. In fact, I was pretty sure it would have killed me.
“You don’t have the slightest understanding as to what you’re talking about,” I growled, ignoring the way a trickle of blood escaped my mouth and ran down my chin. “Wolf-kind are nothing like that. And you humans kill yourselves more than almost anything or anyone else.”
She glared at me and I saw a hint of steel growing in Mathias’ gaze. I was bothering them so I grinned, a blood filled rictus, and pushed forward. “The Romans conquering the Druids, The Crusades. The Spanish Inquisition. Slavery in the American Colonies. The Salem Witch Trials. The Holocaust... Do you really need any more than that to tell you that humanity is the real monster here?”
