If it worried him—which it often did, as he felt the blackness swell and ebb in Jamie— he was guilty of his own secrets by not letting Jamie know his secret wasn’t a secret.
Jamie shifted into a beautiful brown wolf without another word and trotted over to rub against Luuk’s legs. Sometimes his mate acted more like a cat than a wolf, and Luuk found it endearing. He reached down and scratched behind Jamie’s ears before bending more to receive a faceful of licks.
“I love you, too, Jamie. So much.” So much his eyes burned and he had to squeeze his eyes shut tight to keep the tears back. Although why he bothered… It wasn’t like he couldn’t be himself with his mate, but Luuk was the Alpha Anax.
Or had been. He still considered himself the rightful AA, anyways. And years of being the alpha, of being all strength and power and leadership—well, Luuk rarely let himself cry, although sometimes in the darkness he had to give in.
Luuk shifted, immediately feeling a hundred times warmer. His own coat was thick and pale grey with flecks of cream and black in it. He tended to blend in better than Jamie’s lovely brown, which worried him to no end.
Together they cautiously began to descend the snow-covered slope. A third of the way down, Luuk stopped and turned to his right, leading them over rough and sharply angled terrain. The rocks beneath the snow were dangerous. One slip and Jamie could be seriously hurt.
By the time they reached the other side of the mountain, having stayed off all paths, it was almost dark and the sensation of being followed had only grown stronger. Luuk had hoped to put some miles between them and that feeling.
He and Jamie hadn’t even bothered trying to find food, and now he was worn out, and Jamie was moving sluggishly. Luuk was afraid Jamie’s black mood was more responsible for that than the lack of food.
“We can’t stop yet.” Luuk shared the thought with his mate, adding a mental caress as well as nuzzling Jamie’s nape.
Jamie gave him a dull look before shaking out his coat and apparently shaking off his mood. It was just appearances, perhaps, but it did make Luuk feel a little better. How long could Jamie keep living like this? How long could he?
They trekked on, Luuk keeping a conversation going with Jamie telepathically, knowing they both needed it. The moon had risen high and bright by the time Luuk caught a whiff of civilisation. It was hard to describe it except as an end of the pure, clean air.
“Where do you think we are?” Jamie asked.
Luuk racked his brain. “We were in Austria months ago. Slovakia, maybe?” Luuk snorted delicately. “We could even be in Poland, or further even. It feels like we’ve run the whole globe.”
“No kidding. Do you think…?” Jamie looked away, towards the direction the not-so-clean air had come from.
Luuk wished he knew. Jamie was afraid to hope that they could actually make it to civilisation, and Luuk couldn’t blame him. Even if they did make it, what then? It was a sure bet every hidden stash Luuk had in banks around the world had been compromised. If not, they were almost certainly monitored. All his accounts, all the information for them, had been at his residence, which had been taken from him.
Every bit of personal information that could have helped him—names of people he trusted, escape routes and plans, money—all of it had been lost to him. It didn’t matter right now, though. What did matter was getting his mate somewhere safe and warm, and making sure he was provided for.
“I’m not helpless. I can provide too.”
Jamie’s calm statement was true enough, but Luuk tried to explain his reasoning. “Yes, but I want to take care of you. I need to. One day, we can be as we are meant to be.”
“I still feel like we’re being watched,” Jamie shared.
Luuk lowered his head and listened so hard the silence made his ears burn. He sniffed, raising his nose into the air. Nothing unusual caught his attention. Still, had he been human, his skin would have prickled with goose bumps. As it was, his fur was nearly standing on end.
His instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong. Luuk nudged Jamie hard on the shoulder right before a bullet whizzed through the silence. He didn’t have to tell Jamie to run.
Luuk stayed behind Jamie, hoping to shield him as they ran full-out towards whatever city or town lay ahead. More bullets were fired, one singeing Luuk’s fur and making his skin burn along his left hip. Luuk stumbled. Jamie slowed and Luuk nipped his heel, too scared for his mate to be gentle. He forced himself to run, knowing if he fell, Jamie would stop, and they’d both be dead.
Chapter Four
I am not helpless! I don’t need to be rescued like some pathetic princess in a fairy tale! Jameson was scared, though, because Luuk was hurt and yeah, this might be it for them. All his dreams of having a normal—whatever that meant, considering they were shifters—life with his mate, or at least a life where they weren’t constantly trying not to be killed, began to evaporate with each whiff of his mate’s blood.
Then anger came, blowing through Jameson with the force of a volcanic eruption. He was so fucking tied of running!
“Jamie…”
Even Luuk’s mental voice sounded weak, drained, too close to hopeless, and Jameson had just outright had it. He spun on his back paws, pivoting around Luuk in a blur of movement. Jameson clipped Luuk’s hip with his head, knocking him behind a jagged boulder partially covered with snow.
“Stay safe. I love you.” Jameson put every bit of the love he had for Luuk in the thought. He clamped his mind shut to his mate, and doing so brought out what he’d tried to keep back.
The darkness inside him, the insidious black mood he knew was depression, suffocating all the light, was now pouring through him. It didn’t blanket his anger, instead twining with it in a way to strip Jameson of concern for himself. All he wanted was for Luuk to survive and for this to end. He was so tired. So very tired.
Jameson remembered his grandma telling him God watched over fools and babies, which had seemed contradictory to the Bible—at least the fools part did. He wondered if anything out there in the universe would watch out for him.
Bullets hit the ground beside his front paws, sending up chunks of snow and rock. Pieces of the latter pelted his coat but Jameson didn’t give a shit. Every leaping stride he took fuelled his anger, his determination to protect his mate. Jameson had never killed before, but he knew he was going to this time.
Something inside him was breaking. Luuk had been hurt before, they both had, and Jameson just couldn’t. Deal with it. Accept it. Let it go unpunished. Fail my mate.
Whether it was his will or luck or skill, he didn’t know or care, but Jameson avoided getting shot as he ran, swerving and jumping, pushing his wolf as far as he could. An outcropping of rocks up on a slippery ledge was where the shots were coming from. Jameson was almost there. He put his nose to the ground and tried to keep his body compact now.
The temptation to check on Luuk was strong, but Jameson was afraid of becoming distracted. That couldn’t happen when he was trying to save Luuk.
Rocks and snow skittered down the slope and it took Jameson a few seconds to realise no more bullets were being fired. He lifted his head and dared to look. Fury spiked his chest when he saw his prey jumping up and taking off. The dark-haired man shifted in mid-stride, turning into a lean black wolf.
Jameson howled his promise of retribution for Luuk’s injury, for years of having to run and hide and barely get by. He dug his nails into the ground with each step, propelling him forward with more force than he’d known he had.
Inside him was the staccato beat of kill him kill him kill him, Jameson’s wolf tromping over the man and devouring his morals and qualms. Jameson didn’t fight it. The man in him was too soft, too fucked up to do what needed to be done. He closed his spiritual eyes and let his wolf observe.
The black wolf snarled and came to a skidding halt. He turned and put his ears back. His lips pulled up, exposing long canines and saliva dripping from his muzzle. His dark eyes flashed fear and hat
red at Jameson.
Jameson was surprised by the stop, but he quickly saw the reason why. Whether by error and panic or deliberate cunning, the black wolf had brought them to a ledge. Jameson thought it was the former. The black wolf could either go down the mountainside or through Jameson, since he blocked the only path to freedom that wouldn’t kill them.
The black wolf reacted as cornered wild beasts do, anger and fear pouring from him as he howled and charged Jameson. There was no skill, no honour—this was a match of death and neither wolf wanted to lose.
Jameson surged up, locking his front legs around the black wolf’s shoulders. They bit and tore at each other, catching lips and cheeks and ears. Jameson managed to get a mouthful of the other’s shoulder but quickly let go when he felt teeth scrape the side of his neck.
They separated and moved back, eyeing each other. Jameson could smell the fear and the blood on his opponent. His own blood had been spilled, but not like the black wolf’s, whose fur was soaked at the shoulder and glistening in the moonlight.
Jameson saw the flicker of the wolf’s next move before it happened. His instincts seemed to be at their prime, perhaps because he had stepped back as a man and given over to his primeval nature. The black wolf came at him fast, but Jameson was already moving, angling his body, baring his teeth.
By the time the other wolf realised what was happening, Jameson had hopped aside just enough to be able to turn his head and bite deep. Pain shot through his side as his opponent retaliated, tearing at him. But Jameson only growled, his heartbeat calm as blood flowed into his mouth.
The man in him completely shut down as his wolf clamped his jaws tighter and shook his head. The resulting damage to the black wolf was fatal and messy. His wolf didn’t care. The threat was gone, at least the threat to his mate was. For now.
But what price would his human half pay? His wolf howled again, scared and aching, calling out to his mate.
Chapter Five
Heart sputtering in his chest, Luuk stumbled as Jamie’s howl rent the air. He hadn’t been quick enough, good enough, alpha enough to protect his mate. The failure tore at him, more painful than the bullet had been.
Luuk forced his legs to move. He didn’t think the shot had been fatal, and he should heal quickly. But not as fast as he used to. Luuk had noticed that the last time he’d been injured, but now wasn’t the time to worry about it.
Jamie had done something Luuk very much feared would scar him in a way no amount of shifter healing could fix. There was nothing wrong with killing for defence—hell, in the shifter realm, they often killed for reasons that made Luuk fear for all shifter-kind. But Jamie was a gentle soul, or he had been, before Luuk had dragged him down.
Another howl, this one tinged with more desperation, less hope. Luuk willed his body to mend and he found a burst of energy and strength only Jamie could have inspired in him. Luuk wasn’t particularly steady on all fours when he ascended to where Jamie was sitting, nose up to welcome the night sky as he cried out in misery.
The stench of blood and death was strong, and while Luuk could handle it, he wanted Jamie away from it immediately. He reached for Jamie, first with their mental link, relieved to find Jamie’s resistance there easily bypassed. Jamie lowered his head and refused to meet Luuk’s eyes, whining piteously when Luuk rubbed against him.
Luuk lapped at Jamie’s muzzle, then at his wounds as he tried to coax the man out from the beast. Jamie’s wolf was at the forefront, protecting the more fragile human psyche. Luuk reached inside to his mate, finding Jamie and encouraging him to come into awareness. The pain he felt rush into him told him, as surely as the tears that spilled from Jamie’s eyes, that the man was now back in control of the beast.
Instead of words, Luuk sent every bit of the love and comfort he had in him to Jamie. There were times when no words were the right ones, and only actions and emotions could help. Luuk gave Jamie everything, shifting even in the freezing temperatures so he could embrace Jamie with his arms, cuddle his body close.
Luuk’s own pain was forgotten as he held Jamie, letting him howl and cry through some of his agony. Jamie’s physical wounds were minor compared to what was going on inside him. In fact, Jamie was already healing, much quicker than Luuk. It was one less thing for Luuk to worry over right then.
When Jamie had calmed somewhat, and his tears and sobs had ceased, Luuk shifted back into wolf form. The cold hit him then, oddly enough, and he shivered so hard his teeth ached.
“Luuk, I’m sorry…” Jamie began, but Luuk stopped him.
“No, Jamie. I should have handled this. It never should have been your burden to bear.” Especially not when Luuk wouldn’t have felt any guilt over protecting his mate, or himself. Sadness that a life was lost, anger at the one who’d sent the would-be assassin, but nothing more. It should have been him who’d torn the wolf’s throat out.
Jamie didn’t argue, which was worrisome. Mentally, Jamie was putting out what Luuk called ‘static’, a cacophony of thoughts shooting about like debris in a tornado. Jamie was trying desperately not to think about what he’d just done. Luuk wasn’t normally the evasive type, but he knew Jamie was straddling a fine line and might topple over it if nudged at all. Added to that was the fear that the shooter might not have been alone, not completely. There could be more shifters coming or waiting further up near the town ahead.
“We’ll need to go in a different direction,” Luuk thought, and Jamie’s panicked mind quieted for a moment before he nodded. Luuk wanted to keep him thinking in a calmer manner. He needed Jamie to be alert, and that wouldn’t be the case if Jamie was battling mental demons.
Jamie took a deep stuttering breath before blowing it out slowly. “I’ll get it together. I can’t promise I won’t break down when we make it to safety.”
The honesty of Jamie’s words made Luuk’s eyes burn and he wished again that Fate had given Jamie a mate who wouldn’t have put him through this hell. Luuk would give anything to have a better life for Jamie, even though thinking about them not being mates hurt as if someone had poured datura down Luuk’s throat.
Luuk reminded himself he was an alpha, and he wasn’t going to let the circumstances take that from him any more than he’d let them take Jamie from him. Fuck those who would see him dead. Luuk would get him and his mate through this, then he’d tear the head off every traitor who’d had a hand in Jamie’s suffering. Luuk had spent the past years trying to survive, trying to sneak by and living on the defensive. One look at Jamie, one touch of his emotions, and Luuk saw clearly how stupid he’d been. In trying to keep Jamie safe, he’d put him even more at risk. How many shifters now thought he was a coward, unworthy of the Alpha Anax title? Luuk had truly fucked up, but no more.
It was time he remembered who and what he was.
Chapter Six
As if his determination had brought about the unexpected, Luuk and Jameson encountered no other would-be assassins on the way into town. It was a good thing, as, despite his spirit’s willingness to kill anything and anyone who got in their way, Luuk’s body was not up to the task. And Jamie… Jamie was there, but part of his mind was a thousand miles away—or more likely, thousands of miles away, back where he’d once been safe.
Even though he felt on the edge of collapse, Luuk did keep his senses alert to the best of his ability. Jamie’s life depended on it. Trudging through the dark, cold night, Luuk was inspired to keep on by thoughts of finding a warm place to rest up with his mate. He didn’t know where they were going, but somehow he’d find them a place to recover, mentally and physically.
He was going to come out swinging, as the saying went, even if he did it quietly. He’d still be deadly and effective, and get his position back so he could take care of his people. In order to do that, he needed to recuperate, and so did Jamie. Maybe, if he could find a way to get a message to Jamie’s friend, Adam, that would help his mate. Adam had been a nice guy, loyal to Jamie and guarded around Luuk—as it turned out, rightfully so
. Look at the mess he’d got Jamie into.
Wallowing in guilt wasn’t going to help them right now. Luuk buried it along with the pain from his injury. He moved closer to Jamie, rubbing against his side with every step. A warm blast of affection from Jamie filled Luuk with more hope than he’d had in a long time.
Perhaps Jamie had worked through his black mood for now. Luuk knew they’d have to deal with that particular issue when they could, which meant stability and complete removal of fear and struggling for survival daily.
“Almost there.” Luuk stopped at the edge of a lightly wooded area. The snow was not quite as deep as it had been and for that he was grateful. He sniffed, caught the pungent scent of civilisation and all the poisons man made in the name of progress. He also caught something else, the faint whiff of shifters, some unfamiliar in a way he couldn’t name.
Jamie scented it, too, growling low and looking at him. “It’s a few days old, and I smell blood. Not yours or mine.”
Or the other’s, the one Jamie killed. Luuk wouldn’t add that, and was glad Jamie didn’t think it either. But it was the truth. “We need to check it out before we seek shelter.”
He wanted safety, warmth, a meal and time to love on his mate, but the unfamiliar shifter scent was bothering him. It wasn’t as if he knew the individual smell of every shifter; that was ridiculous. But something about the odours he was picking up was just…different, and he didn’t know why.
Luuk turned them back and into the wind, following the scents. The path he picked was narrow enough that Jamie had to stay behind him, which was safer, Luuk hoped. After about ten minutes, he stopped at a small clearing. Very small, which was likely why the signs of a fight were very obvious. Broken limbs and torn plants, gouges in the ground—and wolf bodies, with very little flesh left on them despite the cold. Even here there were predators that ate the dead.
“Shifters, right, Luuk?”
“Yes, Jamie, but not the ones whose scents seem…off.” Luuk walked over to the closest body, ignoring the grossness of what he was seeing. He couldn’t tell much other than the obvious—this shifter had fought another one or more shifters, and lost. As had the other two who lay dead.
Bailey Bradford - Southwestern Shifters 07 - Revolution Page 2
