"You can't be here," Reaper spat. "You need to run."
Jamie reared on Reaper. "What did you do?"
"I…" Reaper staggered back. "Zeke…"
Jamie's dark eyes sparked bright amber, her pale skin sheet white.
"I tried to keep you safe—"
I wanted that Were drug.
"I had no choice—"
Begged for it.
Reaper bit down on the lie.
She knows.
He dropped to his knees.
"I fucked up." He slumped back, tears streaming down his face.
Jamie sucked in a breath. "Oh, God…" She reached a shaky hand out and touched the angry pink scars covering his skin. "Look what they did to you."
"My fault…" Reaper sobbed. "All my fault."
"No. Can't be." Jamie pulled him to her.
"Forgive me," Reaper choked out and wrapped his arms around her slender waist.
"I should have left when you said." Jamie cradled him to her breast. "I should have listened."
Reaper clung desperately to his mate. Soaked in her form — the curve of her hips. He inhaled deep, Jamie's scent draining all his fear away. All that he needed — wanted — was her.
She's still mine.
"I love you."
Jamie crushed her mouth to his.
"I…was so…scared," she cried between kisses, tears falling from her eyes and onto his ruined chest. "I thought…I wasn't…gonna see you…again."
"I'll never leave you, baby." Reaper stood and swept Jamie up into his arms.
"Well, that was just beautiful." Zeke's deep voice boomed from behind Reaper.
Fuck!
Reaper pulled away from Jamie.
"You've been holding out on us, Haywood."
"It'll be okay," Reaper whispered. "Stay behind me."
Reaper turned toward Zeke, careful to keep his body between his mate and his Alpha.
Zeke stood at the edge of the clearing with hands clasped behind his back, his broad chest puffed out like an army general. His eyes blazed like blue fire.
Reaper shuffled himself and Jamie back against the redwood. Jamie clung to Reaper's back, twining her fingers through his belt loops, and poked her head around.
"Zeke, man—" Reaper started.
"That's one mighty fine bitch you got there," Zeke cut him off. The Hell Hound Alpha tilted his head, looking amused. "Dicer didn't do her justice." He wiggled his fingers at Jamie. "Hi, Strawberry."
Jamie whimpered.
"Leave her outta this." Reaper's voice quaked. "Please."
"You gotta learn to share, boy," Zeke tsked and stepped closer.
Reaper threw his arms wide to shield his mate, his razor-sharp claws instantly flicking outward like switchblades. "Don't take another fucking step!" he growled.
"Look at you. All grown up." Zeke barked out a menacing laugh, his long braid whipping back and forth.
"She's mine!" Reaper roared.
"Kid, everything you got is mine!"
"She's not." Reaper snarled through gritted fangs.
"Everything is mine!" Zeke roared back. "I am your Alpha!"
The Alpha's power pressed down on Reaper. His knees started to buckle. He fought to stay standing.
Protect mate!
Reaper straightened up and stared defiantly at Zeke.
"You challenging me, boy?" Zeke snorted a low growl, his claws glinting in the firelight.
Reaper crouched down ready to pounce, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.
Zeke bounded toward Reaper, but stopped short and scented the air. He combed a claw through his long greying beard.
"Interesting."
"What?" Reaper huffed, his emotions seesawing between rage and confusion.
"Never fucked a pregnant bitch before."
"What!" Reaper looked at Jamie. Fear filled her chestnut-colored eyes. "Pregnant?" he mouthed to her. Her body trembled violently, but she managed to give him a small nod.
"Looks like you're gonna be a daddy," Zeke howled. "Little Reaper Grimley!"
Daddy?
The image — dream — of Jamie laughing in the snow as she held her swollen belly flashed through Reaper's mind.
"You won't fucking touch her!" Reaper sprang at Zeke, shifting in midair. He rammed his full Werebeast weight into the Alpha, tackling him to the ground.
Zeke tumbled into the shrubs. Reaper reared up and swiped at Zeke's chest. Four bloody gouges sliced into the Alpha's Hell Hound leather cut and across his wolf skull tattoo. Zeke howled and flung Reaper head over paws behind him and into the brush. Reaper landed with a thud, all the wind knocked out of him. He whined and rolled to his side.
Zeke bucked and thrashed — his body contorting, changing. He wailed and yowled in deep agonized bursts. He wobbled onto all fours. He dug his grey-black claws into the mossy dirt and pushed himself up. His neck bones cracked as he shook out his long braided mane.
"Reaper!" Jamie cried out and ran to him, fluidly shifting into her glistening white Werebeast form. "Run!" she howled and pulled Reaper back through the woods toward Oz.
Chapter 13
Muir Woods
Oz
Right now
"Over there!" Lucy pointed needlessly as they sprinted toward the blast.
"Finally," Xochi panted. "My thighs are on fire!"
Grey and black smoke billowed from a source not far ahead in the forest and spread across the darkened sky, blotting out the stars.
Lucy and Xochi hurtled ahead as fast as their feet could carry them, heedless of the racket they caused.
Run. Fast. Danger.
As if an alarm were continuously reverberating in her head, Lucy tensed into high alert. Adrenaline pumping through her limbs, senses focused, and gun already in hand, Lucy effortlessly leaped over fallen tree stumps and twisted past densely spaced redwoods, Xochi close at her side.
The wretched smell of a house on fire became thicker, and the rushing of an eerie muffled din rolled toward Lucy.
She knew they were close when a young, dark-haired woman, clothes in tatters, face tear-streaked and filthy, hands bloody, stumbled out of the bushes and nearly fell to her knees in front of them.
Hysterical, the girl babbled in rapid, slurred Spanish: "¡Mataron a todos! ¡Son inhumanos! ¡Son animales!"
Lucy looked to Xochitl.
Even in the shadowed moonlight, Xochi's face looked peaked. "They killed them all," she translated in a stiff monotone. "They're inhuman. They're animals."
There was no need for the girl to clarify. Lucy and Xochi had already seen too much.
Hell Hounds.
"Ask her name," Lucy prompted, reaching out to steady the girl.
"Alma," the girl answered in unaccented English, though shock still had a stranglehold on her. She tried to gather herself but avoided Lucy's touch. "My name is Alma."
"What happ—"
"Oz," Alma sobbed, snot bubbling out of her nostrils. "Oz."
She's gonna lose it.
"We have to—" Xochi started.
"We can't." Lucy cut her friend off. She hated herself for making the merciless call.
Greater good. If we help Alma...
"Alma, do you know Granny?" Lucy asked quickly and pointed in the direction of Granny's ranch.
Alma nodded.
"Find Granny, tell her to call the sheriff." Lucy nodded, hoping to elicit agreement from the traumatized girl.
Alma didn't move.
"You have to be brave," Xochi added softly. "Braver than you've ever been. Other people are counting on you. ¿Entiendes? You have to warn Granny. ¡Ándale! ¡Date prisa!"
Without a second's hesitation, the girl spun and bolted in the direction of Granny's as if wild coyotes were after her.
Lucy and Xochi ran the opposite way, through the woods, toward the smoke, toward Oz.
From the darkness of the dense forest, Lucy e
merged in Oz a few steps ahead of Xochi. Despite all Lucy had concluded and feared, she had not been prepared for the scene before her.
Built around a natural clearing, the little commune had been nothing more than three shops and a few small homesteads — wood, hand-built, not to code. The largest of the shops, Morey's Metalworks, burned brightly. Tall flames licked its pitched, corrugated roof and threw a hellish cast over the circular commons where a dead man hung tied to a large metal statue, his head tilted to the side, his face rendered unrecognizable by deep claw slashes.
Lucy's nose caught faint whiffs of mildew and garbage marinating in the even heat of the blaze.
In the doorway of another shop — Patty's Herbal Apothecary, Lucy noted in the back of her mind — a hunched-over figure fussed over a long, dark shape. The still form could have been a display mannequin, vaguely female, dress hitched above the waist, limbs bent at awkward angles, but the thick reek of coagulated blood and vomit made the horrific reality all too clear.
The hunched figure contorted snake-like, turning his head to face them while still in a crouch. His face split into a toothy smile, thick lips colored in streaks of dark liquid. He raised his bloodied knife, then deliberately plunged the serrated blade back into the dead woman's stomach, keeping his eyes locked with Lucy's.
Psycho.
"They aren't Weres," Lucy said quietly. "A command won't do shit."
"Luce," Xochi murmured, her voice rough. "Over there."
Lucy's eyes cut to another part of the commons. The ruin of a body lay flat on the ground, its middle torn out and its bloody intestines trailing away from the abdomen like ropes. A lanky man spattered with fresh blood picked at the open corpse, ripping out chunks of flesh with his teeth and spitting them in a pile on the ground. He hummed a tune Lucy recognized but couldn't place.
Xochi racked her shotgun.
Immediately from a dark, out-of-the-way corner behind some rain barrels, two more figures sprang up, yowling and snarling, and madly raced toward Lucy and Xochitl. One brandished what looked like a long club.
Berretta already trained, finger on trigger, Lucy froze for a moment, her senses overloaded. Out of the corner of her eye she registered a large, brown Werebeast running not toward her but away from her and into the woods.
Xochitl's shotgun boomed through the night several times, and one of the men rushing them crumpled to the ground. He dropped his weapon.
Not a club. An arm.
The other man didn't stop, but zeroed in on Lucy, plunging ahead to tackle her. As his feet left the ground, Lucy let out a steady breath and fired multiple times. Her attacker went down inches away from her.
Only seconds had passed since Lucy and Xochi had arrived on the scene, and the impact of what was pitilessly unfolding right before them snared Lucy through the fog of combat.
The quaint little hippie commune looked hellish, like set dressing straight out of an unrated torture porn flick.
Lucy felt her anger viscerally rising up through her chest and over her skull. Her hands twitched, and in an irrational moment, she emptied her gun into the two Hell Hounds already crumpled on the ground.
"¡Carajo!" Xochi shouted. "Three o' clock!"
The man with the flashing knife had abandoned his kill. He sprang up from his crouch and bolted toward Lucy at a dead run. Completely out of control, he slashed his blade in wide figure eights and caught Lucy across the back of her arm.
Lucy hissed.
The cut burned, but it didn't impede her reaction. Instantly, she stepped into the path of her knife-wielding attacker, clamped her hand down on his wrist and upper arm while simultaneously sliding her leg in front of his. She pivoted sharply, sending him crashing to the ground. The bones around his rotator cuff crunched, and he screamed a curse in Spanish.
Xochi, still holding her shotgun, moved in with the grace of a cat and stomped her boot down on his hand. He cursed again and made a grab for Xochi's leg.
But Lucy had no time to intervene. A blood-covered nightmare, the rawboned Hell Hound who'd been snacking on the dead, hurtled toward her and clocked her in the side of her head with a closed fist.
Lucy staggered, her empty gun dropping out of her grip. Between the older burn on her calf, the cut arm and the intense ringing in her ears, Lucy had had enough punishment. Even as pain exploded in her head, she rammed her full weight into the Hell Hound, sending him stumbling back. She pursued and landed two square punches in his face. He shook, disoriented at first, but then he looked up, a vicious grin spreading across his face.
At the outer boundaries of her peripheral vision, Lucy saw Xochitl wrestling with the other Hell Hound, her own Karambit knives a good match for the man's serrated blade.
Lucy was desperate to help her friend, but the blood-covered Hell Hound in front of her landed a solid punch to her shoulder. Lucy stumbled back, one hand searching for the ground. She managed to stay on her feet, but the man threw one arm around her waist and planted her into the dirt. She kept her head tucked, but searing pain detonated when her tailbone landed on a rock, absorbing the brunt of the fall. She cried out as agony rocketed through her lower back and legs. For a moment nothing existed but the trauma to her back, then the man's beefy fist smashed into her mouth. She tasted her own blood as her lower lip ruptured. The Hell Hound's other hand squeezed her arm; she thought the bone would snap.
Grunting, Lucy slapped wildly at him with her free arm, connecting with his neck once. He dropped down on her stomach, sitting on her with his full weight. She howled and flailed. He punched her in the chest hard three times. She wheezed and coughed. Both of his hands shot to her neck, and he choked her with powerful jerking motions. His face was distorted with fury, his mouth open, drool falling in spatters and mixing with the blood caking his chin.
At the very edge of consciousness, Lucy snaked her hands around the Hell Hound's moist face and drove her thumbs into his eye sockets. She squeezed with every bit of strength she had left. Squishy glops oozed down her thumbnails. Gurgling and cursing, the Hell Hound tightened his stranglehold around her neck; she thought she could feel tendons giving way under the strain.
Boom.
The harrowing pop of a gunshot ricocheted through her ears.
The Hell Hound's grip relaxed. The man's bulky body fell forward, onto Lucy.
She pushed at his mass with thrashing hands and rolled out from under him.
The muscles of her neck felt like custard, and she could feel a tender bruise blossoming under her skin. On her hands and knees, she coughed and retched uncontrollably while her lower back and tailbone erupted with pain at the slightest movement.
Screaming and roaring sounded through the commons. Lucy wasn't sure if the noises were all hers.
She turned her head. The dead Hell Hound was missing a chunk of the back of his skull. She looked up. Standing in front of the burning metalwork shop, Granny stood like an avenging angel. She held Clint in both hands, the gun still pointed at Lucy.
Chapter 14
REAPER
Muir Woods
Oz
At the same time
Reaper scrambled back into Oz after Jamie and was hit by the overwhelming sweet smell of burning pot. He snorted gruffly and shook his mane.
Morey's crop.
The raging fire had jumped from Morey's Metalworks and streaked like red lightning through the marijuana field. Small greyish-black clouds of smoke swirled upward into the night sky — Morey's ravaged body a limp shadow hanging from Tiny Tin.
Reaper forced his eyes toward the outskirts of the village.
Don't look.
Guilt threatened to crush him as he rushed past Morey and Meadow.
Don't look.
Past Sugree and Patty.
Don't look.
"Keep moving!" Jamie shouted.
Reaper pushed his legs harder, coming up alongside her.
Zeke roared. His hot breath huffed angrily on Reaper's b
ack. The Hell Hound Alpha clipped Reaper's rear hock with his claw. Reaper stumbled and fell onto his stomach. Zeke yanked him violently back by his hind leg.
"Jamie!" Reaper howled — his razor-sharp nails frantically clawing at the ground, carving deep gouges into the dirt as his Alpha dragged him to the center of the commune.
Zeke flung Reaper up and over his head by the leg. Reaper slammed onto his back and skidded into Tiny Tin, ramming his head against the metal This Ain't Kansas sign. The giant tin sculpture crashed to the ground.
Reaper's head throbbed as he struggled to push himself up.
He caught sight of Xochitl Magaña's small frame swiveling around Poncho like a tornado, mounting him and pinning his arms with her knees. She drew a long Bowie knife from a thigh holster. "¡Vete al infierno, culero!" she grunted, pressing her whole weight against the knife, driving it into Poncho's neck. Blood gurgled from the Hell Hound's gaping mouth.
Zeke roared again and pounced onto Reaper's chest.
Reaper sucked in a painful breath as the massive grey Werebeast pressed down, snarling and snapping at his neck. Drool and froth dripped from Were Zeke's fangs onto Reaper's golden fur as he strained and fought against the attack.
"Reaper!" Jamie thundered and launched herself through the air, landing on Zeke's back. She thrust her claws into the Beast's withers and chomped down on his shoulder; blood splattered across Reaper's muzzle.
Zeke reared up, wailing a high-pitched howl. His braided mane whipped back and forth as he desperately tried to pry Jamie off him.
Jamie bit down harder.
Slicer grabbed Jamie from behind and wrenched her off Zeke.
"No!" Reaper yelped.
Jamie snarled and flailed in Slicer's grip, a chunk of Zeke's back muscle clenched between her jaws — her silver-white fur scarlet red.
The Hell Hound Alpha let out another ear-shattering yowl.
Jamie spit the piece of chewed up Were meat in Slicer's face.
Slicer smacked his enormous paw against the side of her head.
Jamie yelped. Blood seeped from her snout.
"Jamie!" Reaper howled and scrambled onto all fours.
Slicer grabbed Jamie by the scruff and smashed her face-first into the dirt. "You like it from behind bitch!"
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