by Danae Ayusso
The rushing of water filled his ears, the first set of grade five rapids quickly approached, and Damian fought to grab onto something, anything they passed, but he couldn’t get a handhold. “Forgive me,” he whispered before the whitewater consumed them, smashing and pulling at the couple, throwing the two into large rocks as they went.
Damian struggled to catch his breath each time his head broke the surface, but every time he opened his mouth it was flooded with icy water. The feeling in his body went from unimaginable pain accompanied by burning from the strain on his muscles as he struggled to hold onto the woman in his arms, to numb from the icy river that was sure to be their watery grave. He hadn’t completely recovered from last night, and his wolf was barely able to keep up with Adam and the others, but he had to try, even if it killed him.
The next boulder they were thrown against, his back cushioned the blow, and it was accompanied by a large, strong hand grabbing his arm when they started to roll past it. Damian looked up, struggling to wrap his hand around the thick arm trying to pull them from the water, but he couldn’t see past the darkness he was shadowed in.
“Take her,” Damian stammered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably from the cold.
“Shut up,” Varg growled, struggling to pull them up.
“Take her!” he repeated, hoisting Akia’s lifeless body up within Varg’s grasp.
As much as Varg wanted to, he couldn’t live with Akia hating him for allowing her annoying boyfriend of the moment to die.
But then again, it would get rid of the competition…
Varg growled and released Damian, grabbed Akia by the arm and pulled her up on the boulder, and Damian lost his hold on her and disappeared under the water but quickly resurfaced when he was pulled up by the hair. The large hand knotted in his water logged curls and nearly ripped them out—which Varg would have enjoyed immensely—before Connell and Ulrik finally joined them and pulled Damian from the water and up onto the boulder.
Connell started cardiopulmonary resuscitation on his baby sister.
Damian coughed and gasped, struggling to expel the water in his lungs. Absently he slapped at the rock until he found the ice cold hand of the woman he loved and squeezed it. “Come on, Latria Mou, wake up. Please wake up,” he whispered as Connell continued to do chest compressions and breathe for his sister. “Please wake up, Latria Mou,” he pleaded over and over.
The soft sob that was followed by a choked gasp was the sweetest sound he had ever heard, and it echoed in his ears as the darkness of unconsciousness consumed him.
“And everything is taken care of and contained?” Arno Manikas asked, checking his reflection in the tinted window of his private car.
“It was,” Superintendant Manning said, his voice echoing throughout the interior of the car through the blue-tooth handset. “The body of the real Officer Clarence Leclair was located in the chest freezer in the garage at his home.”
“I do not give a damn about some human that was stupid enough to get himself killed by a talentless Stray,” he interrupted.
Manning wasn’t amused. “The body of the Changeling, as your son coined him, wasn’t recovered, but it was completely incinerated in the blast that effectively covered all proof of the crimes. The survivor of his last abduction attempt confirmed that he was victim to his own means of defense and was killed by them prior to escaping.”
Arno rolled his eyes; his son was still on his shit list for the lack of containment. Damian was supposed to supply proof of death, that was, after all, why he was sent to Haven. Instead all Damian did was nearly get himself killed and is now indebted to the wolves of Haven, a pack of inferiority, yet are vastly connected in the old world. “You know that what I am asking is if the problem has been effectively dealt with, contained, and that the humans are none the wiser?”
Manning growled under his breath; he did not appreciate his tone or the fact that Arno made him do his beckoning from the shadows, moving pieces around a chess board that went beyond their pack’s borders and authority, and now he was undermining him and his position on the force and in their pack. “It was contained and nearly cost two of my best their lives.”
“You were the one that allowed that woman to put her nose in a case that she should have never been permitted to participate in,” Arno retorted.
“de Wolfe would have been suspicious if I had pulled her from the case she stumbled across while on vacation, and yet forced her superior to assist in that very case,” Manning said with a bit of amusement. “The FBI and RCMP were more than happy with the work the two did, and it will look favorably on your son’s resume for future advancement in his career.”
“My pain in the ass son will be lucky to see retirement,” Arno scoffed. “His term in the light will approach its end much faster than he is prepared for it to, but that is for me, as the Alpha, to address with my heir. If there is nothing else,” he said, disconnecting the call.
“We’re here,” the driver said, coming to a stop outside of a mansion in Beacon Hill.
Arno nodded and stepped out of the car when the doorman opened the door for him. He smoothed his suit jacket down as he headed through the front door, and waited in the grand foyer for the butler to return from announcing him.
William Winterfeld the Third joined him. “Arno, please tell me you come bearing proof,” he said, shaking the retired Police Superintendant’s hand, then motioned him towards the study where they could have privacy. He closed the doors behind him as his guest made himself comfortable in one of two leather chairs across from the oversized desk centered in front of the back wall.
Arno sighed, shaking his head. “I am so very sorry for your loss, my old friend,” he said, his tone soft and flooded with concern. “How are you and your lovely wife handling Arianna’s death? Do you need anything, anything at all? The pack is here for you both, as am I.”
William sat, pushing his hand through his thick, gray hair. “My wife isn’t handling it well. We knew Arianna would not out live us, her heart was progressively getting weaker and weaker, but this… You have proof of death?” he asked, changing the subject, so he didn’t appear weak in front of the Alpha.
“The Stray that killed your precious Arianna, he was contained,” Arno confirmed. “My own blood took care of it, ripped his heart from his chest while the vile low life watched. I can confirm that life visibly extinguished from his eyes, my heir witnessed it.”
It wouldn’t bring his daughter back, but William found a sliver of comfort knowing that the bastard who killed his precious little girl was killed by someone of his pack, someone that made sure he suffered as his daughter had.
“The heart?” he asked, holding his hand out. He would devour the heart of the beast that took his heart from him.
Arno shook his head. “There were complications with containment,” he explained. “The Stray had rigged the building to blow, and I nearly lost my son as a result.”
William softly growled; that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but the favor he asked from the Alpha was a personal one, a favor that nearly cost the Alpha his heir, which would have resulted in a forfeit of his own life if the Stray had claimed just one more soul. “I am sorry to hear,” he eventually said, trying to maintain a strong front; his reputation was that of a business savvy, take no prisoners man that was fearless. The only weakness he had was his daughter, his little girl, the first child he had ever had. She was his world and made him believe that he wasn’t as big of a bastard as everyone had said he was; in her eyes he was perfect and could do no wrong, just as she was perfect in his eyes.
But now he didn’t have his precious daughter to reassure him that he wasn’t the big, bad wolf of real estate as the media had coined him…
Now he was simply the big, bad wolf.
Arno reassuringly patted William’s hand. “I am sorry we weren’t quicker,” he said. “If only we would have had more guards with her, those that were soldiers in both worlds, this might have been avoided. Those
that failed you?” he asked.
“They have been dealt with accordingly,” William said in a cold, detached tone. They were now two wolves down in the pack. He got to his feet, signaling that their business was done and Arno’s invitation, regardless of being the Alpha, was revoked for the evening.
Arno nodded then headed for the door. “Again, my friend, if there is anything that I can do, anything at all, please let me know.”
William simply shook his head, his attention across the room to behind his desk where framed pictures of his daughter covered the built-in bookcases behind it. “You have already been more than generous with me. It is I who should be asking what it is that I can do for you since you dropped everything to help bring justice to my precious Arianna, and in the process nearly lost your own child.”
Again, Arno nodded. “We are a pack, and the pack sticks together. I will be in touch to check on you and your wife. Please, if you need anything at all, let me know.”
William closed the office doors behind his guest then returned to his desk and looked over each picture of his daughter, and the strong front he had struggled to maintain crumbled, and he screamed, swiping his arm across his desk, sending the items once covering its surface flying across the room before flipping the granite and oak desk up in the air. His howl of anger and rage quickly turned into sobbing that dropped him to his knees.
Arno heard the agonizing howl of anguish as he climbed into his car, and it took all of his conscious effort to keep from smiling.
When his driver turned back onto the freeway, heading away from Beacon Hill, he raised the privacy screen separating the backseat from the front.
Arno pulled his cell phone from his inside jacket pocket with a smile and thumbed through the files until the molten amber and gold eyes looking up at him with a demonic smirk pulling at the corner of her bloody mouth filled the display. “Yes, I do believe that introductions will be made, and soon,” he said with a smirk.
Coming Soon
Wolves of Haven: Bitten
