“You have to be careful with all of them. They are triplets, but they are as different as night and day. There’s one thing they agree on and that’s Adrienne and their family or pack,” Robert said his voice subdued. His tone signaling, like a sign that said, beware of dogs.
John strolled in with Robert and stopped before they reached Lycell’s room. Rubbing his hands together he said, “I can’t wait for this assignment.” He didn’t say it because he was excited. It was because he was terrified and wanted it all to be over. What had he gotten himself into? He questioned.
As Robert and John entered the oversized room much like a large bedroom with double beds and a large flat screen television on the wall, Lycell feeling almost himself sat up engrossed with the local news station.
“Well, who have we here, Robert? That is your name, Robert,” Lycell said as if he wanted to remember who is friend and who is foe. “And is he another friend I should know? Or is he the person you said would diagnose me?”
“Mr. Samsa. It’s a pleasure.” John held out his hand once again.
“Well, that’s makes one of us.” And Lycell looked up at the television without shaking John’s hand or acknowledging him.
“There’s something on the news I’m interested in,” he said looking to Robert. “I remember traveling on that road. It’s not far from where my truck went over the railings.”
Then the reporter came on with his mike introducing himself before going into commentary. “Three men attacked, heads torn off, and hardly recognizable. Killed by a pack of wolves. That could have been me,” the reporter said. “I travel that road every morning. We’re getting too many of these strange killings. News at ten.”
Robert glanced at John. They were thinking the same thing. The problem was the investigators didn’t put it together. The police appears to believe that the dead men stepped out of their car because they hit something on the road. Then they were attacked when they went to remove it.
Maybe the investigators didn’t release all the evidence, for example, why wasn’t there greater damage to the SUV? Maybe the investigators weren’t good enough to do a thorough job, Robert thought.
“Probably a wolf belonging to a pack and the pack attacked, and the one in the car got off four shots before he was ripped apart,” the lead investigator said on the next channel after Lycell clicked to hear another report. “That wolf went off in the woods to die. There’s no way anything could survive four shots and all that blood loss and survive,” the detective added.
“Could have been werewolves,” John said making light of the conversation.
“Everyone knows that’s ridiculous,” Lycell said frowning at John. “There’s no such thing as werewolves.” And then he threw off the covers and stood up.
“You can’t do that. You’re still weak and your chest hasn’t healed,” Robert said trying to force Lycell back into bed. But that was useless. Robert couldn’t handle him weak or strong.
“I feel better than I’ve ever felt and I don’t want to be questioned by this person while I’m lying in this bed. Have someone bring me some clothes. Ask my wife to send me my clothes. It’s time I take care of her. She’s pregnant you know.”
“Yes, I know,” John said.
“I was talking to Robert not you. And when did you see my wife?” Robert closed his eyes for a second. Oh fuck, he thought.
“When we were coming she was leaving the hospital,” John said his voice light. He thought Lycell was warming up to him and he would engage him in a conversation about his family. Maybe ask to see pictures of her and the children. Make this conversation all about him then Lycell would open up. That was human thinking.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Lycell glanced at him trying to ensnare him.
“I can see why you and your brother’s share her.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Lycell’s eyes narrowed. His eyes jerked around and he stared at Robert. “What does he mean, Robert?” He took Robert by the neck. Lycell’s eyes glowed. His eyes then turned to John who had cowered behind a leather sofa.
“Put him down, Lycell.”
“Who are you?”
“One of your brothers. Can’t you see the resemblance,” Drayton said. Lycell slowly set Robert down but never leaving his eyes. Robert turned and reached for a needle and while Lycell had been distracted by Drayton, Robert gave him a shot.
He crumbled to the floor.
“I can’t work with Lycell. Not with him like this. You will have to tell him who he is. He’s more dangerous when he thinks he’s a human. I can’t keep him sedated,” Robert said winded looking to Drayton.
Drayton leaned down and picked up Lycell as if he was a baby and dropped him in the bed.
“Keep him medicated for now until we decide what to do,” Drayton said looking to Robert. “I’m here because you have to see about Adrienne. She read that news story. One of the guys that was killed was Paul.” Robert and Drayton’s eyes met. They knew what that meant.
“I’ll stay here with Lycell, father.” Robert turned to see who was talking in a small voice. It was Saadia. She stood at the door. Then when she entered the room, John’s face brightened.
“And who are you?” John said.
“My daughter,” Robert turned to John before leaving with Drayton. He watched at John.
“Are all the women in Samsaville as pretty as the ones I’ve seen so far?”
“Yes and they are either married or promised to a Samsa,” Saadia said. Her smile wide and her eyes bright.
“Do you still do that kind of thing? I mean have arranged marriages.”
“No,” Saadia said smiling back at John.
As Drayton and Robert walked into the ranch house to see to Adrienne. Damon was preparing for a hunt for fresh food.
Chapter 19
“You can’t go with me,” Damon said. His voice commanding. I’m your Alpha and you should be submissive to me.
“I’ve been hunting on my own since I was very young. Is that why you wanted, to mate with me and treat me like a beta? If I’m your mate then I’m Alpha too just not like you.” And she crossed her arms and stared at Damon. “What about your brothers? Didn’t they hunt with you as a pack?”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant...”
“I know what you meant. You don’t want a female along on the hunt. Does it make you insecure?”
“The only thing that will make me insecure is to have to worry about you.”
“Then don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. I think I survived out here in the wilderness alone without parents. You had a mother and father and a pack to feed you. I didn’t have that, so don’t tell me I can’t go with you. Anyway you will soon leave me out here. I’ll be all alone.”
“Do you think I would leave you?” He pulled her to him.
“I heard your uncle tell you that I have to go back. You can’t disobey him. He’s the Alpha and you are nothing but the beta in your father’s and uncle’s pack.” Damon didn’t like hearing that word. He was the beta under Wilder and the beta under Tracker and Thorn. The only way he could pull away was to go on his own.
Damon grabbed the girl by the arms. “If I breakaway from the pack then I can be with you.”
“How can you do that? You need them for protection. If the Alaskan pack discovers that Wilder didn’t return me to them, there will be another threat of war. I heard him tell you he had worked hard for this peace treaty,” the girl said.
“I don’t care.”
“You have to care. They will be vulnerable.”
“Let’s discuss that later. I’m hungry,” Damon said turning and heading for the entrance to the cave.
“You never want to discuss anything. I need to know how I fit into your life when you can’t have me around your family.” Damon didn’t answer. He discarded his clothes and shifted into a handsome white wolf.
“Are you coming?” He asked.
“Yes, if you stop calling me girl.”
> “What do you want me to call you?” He sauntered up to her. He moved close. A sensuous light passed between them. He wanted to claim her in the cave at that moment but maybe he would wait and make love to her in the woods in the snow against a tree if the snow wasn’t too deep but it was.
“Call me by my name,” she said looking up at him. There was a tenderness of his gaze. There was a sexual magmatism that flowed through him to her with him standing so close. She blinked, “Naja. My mother called me Naja.”
“That’s a strange name. But a beautiful one. Does it have a meaning?” Damon said before trotting out of the cave. Naja shifted into a small white wolf. She caught up with Damon and he turned staring at her. “I thought you would be a gray wolf.”
“I’m like a chameleon, my fur will take the color of the environment. In the snow I will be white and among the trees it will be the color of the bark in winter or summer.” He stopped and nuzzled against her and then smelled her. She nudged him away with her nose, and trotted off into the thick wooded area.
They were playful. He nipping her neck, and him running from her and stopping to wrestle with her. They rolled over a glen and down a white thick leaf carpeted hill, and landed at the bottom near a lake. Still they didn’t notice the pack of werewolves watching behind the trees and because Damon enthralled with Naja’s scent and playfulness, didn’t notice they were in grave danger until the pack of six werewolves surrounded them.
Snarling and biting at the air, they came closer and closer to Naja and Damon before they turned to see them. Damon was able to get off one howl in hopes that Tracker or Hunter someone in the pack would hear him.
Two of the wolves tore into to him while the other two circled Naja. She bit and snarled at them when they approached her and smelled her. But the largest of the four kept Damon busy as they bit him and he protected his neck.
The biting and snarling, tearing of flesh went on for fifteen minutes before the two wolves dropped on top of Damon. He had bitten one around the neck and lanced the other’s Achilles heel where he couldn’t move, and then Damon showed his muzzle and tore a gash in the last wolf’s hind leg where he dropped on Damon bleeding profusely.
His father had taught him there was more than one place where the werewolves were vulnerable and make sure to protect those areas. Maybe these wolves hadn’t been taught that.
When Damon woke, he was missing an eye. One ear was severely lacerated and there were paw prints the length of his neck to his shoulder. He was lying in a river of blood. The blood came from more than him.
Blood was everywhere and Naja was missing.
The pack or what was left of them had taken her. He raised his head, and to his right and left and on top of him with Damon beneath them, lay two young dead werewolves. They had bleed out. He remembered that the two attacked him first probably trying to prove something to the alphas. It was clear that they wanted Naja and they wouldn’t risk the loss of anymore in the pack.
Because he was lying beneath the two, the others assumed he was dead too. Obviously they were young and inexperienced.
Maybe a group of lone werewolves had band together to establish their pack and they needed a female. They had sacrificed so the pack could exist. Or the fight was too intense and the others thought it best to take the female and leave. At any rate, they had left Damon alive out of sheer inexperience.
Damon knew from his father’s teachings that he had to find all of them and kill them. He pushed the two dead werewolves off of him. He tried to get to his feet, but he was weak. He lay there until he could feel his legs, and then he rose. His body had been bloodied with cuts and bites, but his jugular was intact. One bite there and it all would have been over.
Watching at the two lifeless werewolf bodies covered in blood, Damon drew in a sharp breath. He had been lucky because according to the size of their teeth they were pups. Not yet yearlings.
The first thing Lycell taught his sons, protect their throats because they were exposed to the sharp teeth of any animal out to take their lives.
Trying to shift back to human form, Damon didn’t have the strength. If he didn’t have the strength to shift, he wouldn’t have the strength to engage four matured werewolves. He would go back to the cave and wait until he was strong enough. He thought about calling Tracker because he was the only one who didn’t have a family, but he didn’t want to admit to him that he needed help.
How could he start his own pack and be the Alpha if he had to accept help from one of his brothers. Thorn would come, but he hasn’t healed from the previous problems and he had a family coming.
Was that the lesson his father wanted him to learn? In this world of men and werewolves, he needed the safety of his pack and the safety of his family.
Damon found himself back at the cave. When he entered, he found Saadia sitting waiting. “I was wondering when you would make it back. I heard your call and I wasn’t doing anything but taking care of your cantankerous father and I don’t know where Tracker is so I thought I would let him worry about me.”
“Tracker worry. Now that’s a good one.” Saadia rose and rushed to Damon who fell into her arms.
“They really did you in. How many?”
“Six.”
“Six? You’re lucky you’re alive.” Saadia looked around. “Where is that girl you left with?”
“Naja. Her name is Naja.”
“You sound like you have found your mate.”
“They took her.” Damon’s voice unsteady.
“You won’t be able to travel for a day and let me look at your eye. There’s blood all over it.”
“I can’t see in it. What kind of werewolf am I if I’m blind in one eye? What kind of mate am I going to make if I can’t hunt.”
“You’re not living in the middle ages. You’re rich. You don’t need to hunt. Let that little werefemale hunt for you.” Saadia didn’t say that to make Damon feel better, but he did.
Saadia dropped him into bed and rushed to the medicine kit and found something to clean his wounds. She examined his eye. There was no way to tell him what he already knew and that was he wouldn’t be able to use it again.
“Sometimes when you lose a sense the others become sharp. Take your ears. I bet you can hear better than before. And your manhood. I bet it gets larger,” she said trying for a much needed laugh.
Damon looked up and smiled broadly even though it hurt all over to open his mouth. “That’s not a sense.”
“Don’t tell that to Tracker because all his senses are there,” Saadia said with a small laugh. Then she gave Damon something to make him sleep. She knew he would feel better after he accepted what had happened to him.
When Damon closed his eyes, Lycell’s eyes opened.
He searched around the room like a hungry dog who had missed a meal. His body healing and his energy returning and he needed to get out of that bed and get to Adrienne.
Chapter 20
He blinked his eyes and looked over at Adrienne sitting near his bed. “I thought I heard, or dreamed of a pack of werewolves attacking me. And I heard a familiar cry. A kind of howling like my son asking me for help, and I couldn’t help him.” He sat up. I have to go to him,” Lycell said.
“Which one of our sons?”
“I don’t know because I can’t remember them being born or playing with them. All I can hear is their voices in my head. They sound like little pups whining. But the sound that woke me was of a full grown wolf.” He held his head where the bandage is. He reached and tore it off.
“What’s happening to me, Adrienne? I only remember you. I don’t remember you being pregnant.” His eyes narrowed. He took a longer look at Adrienne as if he was seeing her for the first time.
He reached her hand and placed it to his mouth. He kissed her hand with a soft warm kiss. He held it to his mouth. Kissing one finger and then the next. His mouth trailing from her fingertips to her wrist.
“Help me, Adrienne. Tell me what’s happening to me,” Lyc
ell said. His voice low and pleading. It was the first time Adrienne had seen Lycell really helpless. He had been the one who never showed how vulnerable he was.
Only Adrienne knew the true Lycell. She knew them all. She knew all the Samsa men. Their weakness and strength.
Then he glanced up and Wilder stood in the doorway. “Why is it when I see Adrienne you are always somewhere lurking around like a shadow in a shadow. Come into the light. They say we look alike, but I can’t see it.”
“It’s because you haven’t been shaved yet. I came to shave you,” Adrienne said soft and low.
“And why is he here?” Lycell said pointing at Wilder.
“To make sure you don’t freak out after I tell you something,” Adrienne said. She reached for Lycell’s hand.
“What is it you expect me to do? Tear his throat out?” Wilder locked eyes with Lycell. Never has he been more right than he is now.
“Then get on with it. I’m not planning on staying in this bed forever. I’m feeling well enough where I want to sleep with my wife,” Lycell said with a smirk. And he passed his hand over Adrienne’s stomach. He glanced at Adrienne.
“How far along are you? Why am I hearing babies?” Lycell looked up in Adrienne’s eyes, confused.
“Your name is Lycell Samsa. Your father’s name was Harper Samsa and your mother was Emily Samsa. Your father was a werewolf and your mother a human.”
“Stop right there. I think I have to laugh.” And he opened his mouth wide and showed his perfect white teeth. A loud laugh burst from him deep in his throat. “There is no such thing as a werewolf.”
“You have to listen, Lycell,” Adrienne murmured. Her face sympathetic but serious. “We decided not to tell you earlier because we didn’t know what you would do, but it became essential that I tell you now. And I’ve never lied to you.” Her eyes met Lycell and it was filled with tears.
“What’s so important now that didn’t exist before?” Lycell glanced at Wilder.
Wilder took a deep breath and said, “Because the men you saw on the news. The ones lying on the road with their throats torn apart and hardly anything left of their bodies...” Lycell didn’t let Wilder finish his conversation.
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