“Wasn’t it?” Brenna brushed a long cluster of dark strands away from Baylee’s face. “You and I know what the alternative was, Daxon. These wounds will heal. Baylee will be fit and healthy again, will carry more children. None of that would be possible if she was dead.”
“None of it would be an issue if it wasn’t for me,” he said bitterly.
“Beat yourself up over it, Dax. Go on,” she said flatly. “That shit’s gonna get old fast. You fucked up; she fucked up. Blaming yourself or each other will do nothing more than break the pair of you apart—are you willing to risk that after everything you’ve lost? Are you going to leave her again, let her salvage some remnants of her life?”
His fists clenched. “If I could undo what’s been done, I would. If I’d known what a clusterfuck I’d make of her life, I never would have pursued her. She could have met a nice, normal guy and had a nice, normal life.”
Brenna sighed. “She was never meant to be normal. How fucking blind are you? What are the odds that you stumbled across your mate in a remote town in the middle of Montana? Not just that, consider the fact you changed her. She became what you are, Dax. You did what no one else has ever been able to do—you turned a mortal woman into a shifter. That’s not good luck or chance. It’s destiny. Her destiny.”
He sucked in a breath. That was a possibility he hadn’t thought of. Stupid really, it should have occurred to him. Perhaps he’d been looking at the situation in the wrong light, assuming Baylee was simply a human female. “What do you know of her family?”
The look Brenna gave him spoke of satisfaction. “Not much of the family history, really. Genetic linage isn’t really my thing; there are a couple of town elders who devote their considerable time and energies into exploring the family lines of everyone in town, however.”
He began to pace, his mind turning things over to look at them from a fresh perspective. “Before I came along, were there ever any rumors, any stories or myths about anything like us in the area?”
“This is Hangman’s Haunt—we have folklore and legends dating back centuries. Everything from Big Foot to ghosts to werewolves. Witches,” she added with a smirk. “I’m sure there’ll be someone in town who’s sure they’ve seen someone who can turn into an animal prowling about.”
“Could have been years ago,” he muttered to himself. “Decades, half a century ago or more. The shifter has the dominant gene, or should have. Maybe it could skip a generation or three, lying dormant until the reactive agent encourages it out of hibernation...”
“You’re thinking what? One of her great-great grandparents bumped hips with one of yours?”
“That’s about the only plausible explanation that makes sense. Her family gets involved with a shifter, a baby is created but the genes swim past. Keep swimming past until it reaches one of the grandchildren—Baylee. I come along and bite her, activate the dormant genes, and hey presto...”
“Instant evolution.”
Daxon only nodded, distracted. “I need to go see what Caleb wants. Are you okay to stay with Baylee until I get back? I shouldn’t be long.”
“Sure thing. I’ll make some calls, see what I can find out about Baylee’s family tree.” Brenna’s eyes softened as Daxon knelt on the mattress beside Baylee and kissed her oh-so softly, Prince Charming-style. “God, if only I could find a guy like you.”
His eyebrow lifted a fraction. “Give me some specifications and I’ll see what I can do.”
She laughed lightly. “You have more important things to deal with right now. Off you go before your brother dissolves into a nervous wreck.”
His eyes lingered on Baylee for a moment. He shuffled off the bed and headed for the door. “You know, all joking aside, Brenna...Caleb’s a good guy. A bit shy, maybe, but his heart’s in the right place. Might do him good to socialize with the locals, maybe make a friend or two...”
Her amber eyes glowed. “All in good time, Dax. All in good time.”
With some of the weight off his shoulders, he managed to whistle under his breath as he crossed the living room and shoved his feet into the sneakers he’d left by the front door. He crept down the stairs and out the front door, easing it closed without disturbing Colleen or her current caretaker.
Baylee was awake, she had all her functions. Once she was fully healed, Daxon had every intention of asking her to marry him. That had been his plan when they’d gone to California. But, he thought, the less they spoke of that, the better...at least for now.
He headed for the road out of town—his brother had decided to stay with the clan members too wary to integrate with the local population. It pleased him that Caleb was stepping up to the responsibility of leadership, just as it made him proud to see several of the Californian clan already mingling.
He lifted his hand in greeting to a family he’d known all his life as they paused just outside the grocery store. He knew they weren’t accustomed to the luxuries that waited for them here—the commodities Shax provided in the valley were limited, controlled by his father’s paranoia.
“Daxon! Hey, Daxon!”
He turned, acknowledged the short, aging man who hurried toward him with a grin. “Reed. Goddamn, never thought you’d be one to leave the valley.”
The shifter had once been highly regarded by Shax, a vital member of the inner circle of power. Around the time Dax turned twenty, Reed had edged into his middle-fifties—not a debilitating age by any stretch—but Shax decided the man had surpassed his usefulness. Bit by bit, Reed’s involvement within the Council became restricted, his responsibilities shared out between Tristan and his brothers.
Hazel eyes, haunted by shadows, regarded Daxon warmly. The bushy silver eyebrows above them matched the thick pelt of hair on Reed’s head, and the sleek goatee on his weathered face. “A wise man doesn’t waste an opportunity, Daxon. The dream that was once the valley no longer exists, I think we both know that.”
He couldn’t disagree. “I could’ve changed it, Reed. Made it better.”
A wrinkled hand clapped down on his shoulder, squeezed hard. “No, boy, you couldn’t. Things were happening, brutal things. Things not even you were aware of.” Those eyes turned sorrowful. “How’s that lass of yours?”
“Alive. Hurting, broken, but alive.”
“Shax is a vicious creature, Daxon. Has been since the day he was birthed. Cruelty has always been his forte, something he reveled in whenever the opportunity arose. Some of your siblings have followed in his footsteps, carving the same path of destruction.” The hand on Dax’s shoulder flexed. “There were orders put out the night you met with your father.”
Daxon glanced around but the street was empty for the moment. “I know, Reed. He told me.”
“No, he told you what he had to for you to capitulate. The girl was never going to be handed over to Zara; a team was in place to extract her from the medic hut and take her to Shax’s private facility within the forest. He would have tortured her, done unspeakable things to her, then disposed of her where he disposes of all his failed experiments.”
Sickness rose in Dax’s throat. He tried to clear his throat but it lodged there, waiting to tear him in half. “I would’ve known—”
“No, boy, you wouldn’t. He’d have used her as a leash to keep you in check. When your suspicions grew and you snapped the leash, you’d meet with a nasty, fatal accident. I’ve seen it happen before.”
He closed his eyes and willed away the images of Baylee, trapped and tortured, while he dangled like a puppet on his father’s strings. “I’ve started a war, Reed. One I don’t know if I can win. I don’t have his brutality, his experience, his outright disregard for life.”
“No, you don’t,” Reed agreed readily. “What you have is loyalty, a good eye for strategy, and a woman who single-handedly tore apart your father’s team of personal bodyguards. Believe me, Shax is reevaluating the situation right now, based on your woman.”
“I hope she’s put the fear of God into him,” Daxon gr
owled.
Reed grinned, showing a mixture of white teeth and gaping holes. His time in the inner rankings had cost him more than one tooth in his prime. “Boy, she’s done more than that. She’s made him question his own mortality. If one she-panther can rip three men asunder, what’s to stop her from going after him?”
“Something to think about,” Dax murmured.
“Been a long time since someone showed him his vulnerability. Wish I’d seen his face when he found out his triumvirate of destruction was ended in one fell swoop.”
Dax remained silent, remembering the look of grief on his father’s face, the fleeting sheen of tears. His father had loved that triumvirate, perhaps more than he loved his children. At least, the children who showed no aptitude for violence. “We’re going to heal here, Reed. Baylee is going to heal, and we’ll grow stronger as a clan. No more dictatorship, no more medieval traditions where our children lose their childhoods before they live them. If war means we have our freedom, so be it.”
“I’ll stand with you. They’ll all stand with you. I don’t think you quite realize the effect your woman’s sacrifice had on the people following your leadership. An outsider, one treated heinously by the controlling power, didn’t bow down and surrender. She fought, she won, and they know now that Shax is not all they feared.”
“Too early to let their guards down.”
“They’re not stupid. They know he’s coming—the eldest of us know him better than you ever will. I’m also aware of the connections he has outside the valley, Daxon. Connections he will use, strings he will pull. He’s not going to barrel in and go straight into the fight.”
Well shit, Dax thought wearily. “Connections?”
Reed’s eyes searched the growing shadows even as his voice dropped to almost a whisper. Dax swore he saw the elder’s ears extend, twitch. “Vampires, Daxon. A few of the lone wanderers who have begged shelter and blood on their way through. There were rumors of pacts with the ogre tribe of North Dakota, the trolls from San Francisco.”
“Fuck. Werewolves?”
“Shax always considered them inferior, tied to the waning of the moon. That’s not to say he won’t enlist them if he thinks he needs them.” Reed shrugged, his gaze still flicking here and there. “He has all manner of creature at his beck and call, Daxon. It won’t be an equal fight by any means.”
Dax blew out a breath. “Come with me. If we’re going to get into the intricate details of supernatural war, Caleb needs to be in the loop.” He started walking toward his original destination, pleased when Reed fell into step beside him.
“Caleb can’t lead,” Reed said quietly.
“I put him in charge, I made him leader of this new clan and I have to give him a chance to prove he can do it—for himself, more than anyone.”
“You designated the position in the event of your death, which admittedly, was looking promising. There were very few, no more than a handful, who believed you and your mate would come out of this alive. Proving us all wrong has elevated your status, boy, as both leader and as a reigning couple. Handing control over to your second-in-command opens up perceived weaknesses, and you can’t afford those.”
Dax mulled that over, his gut twisting nastily. True, he’d put Caleb on the leadership pedestal, believing himself to have an incredibly short life span. His brother had taken the position seriously, maturing faster than Dax believed possible.
But Dax had been molded into the heir, had protocols and rules and responsibility drilled into his head until he was, essentially, a ruler without a kingdom to govern. The move to Hangman’s Haunt changed things, opened up the doors to give him people to lead, a land to maintain and protect, and most disturbingly, a town full of oblivious mortals who now came under his purview.
“I don’t want Baylee caught up in the politics. I don’t want her to be stuck in the same life my mother’s suffered with my father.”
The last of the light dipped away, easing from deep shadow into full night. The temperature fell another couple of degrees, enough for Daxon to see his breath furling hotly into the night air. Darkness never bothered him; as a partnership, he and Vex worked better under the dark cloak, more at home in the black.
“Politics be damned. Taking a beacon of hope and hiding it away won’t change what it is, Daxon. Your people see her as the woman who made their world a better place. She’s their idol of freedom and free speech. You want any shot at winning this war, ending Shax once and for all, you wrap her in armor and stand her in front of the crowd. She fights, they will fight for her, and for you. Just as they once did for Shax and Delia, when times weren’t so fraught.”
They left the town behind, following the road into the forest. Daxon lifted his head and sniffed, scenting the tracks of the guards Caleb had placed on boundary watch. Clever boy, he thought with an internal grin. Caleb wasn’t letting anything through the cracks.
“That’s her decision.”
“One you need to make for her. Persuade her, Daxon, otherwise she’ll lose more than a bellyful of bairns.” Reed stopped, cocked his head as they stepped onto the path leading to the clearing. “Someone’s here.”
Daxon had already tensed, his body as alert as his senses. He sniffed again, pinpointing the trail. He gestured to Reed and they stalked quietly along the path, ears cocked. “Human. Female. Fresh tracks—she’s not much further ahead.”
As if on cue, he heard the rustle of something big rushing through undergrowth only forty or fifty feet ahead. More than one something, he realized as his hearing picked up near identical rhythms. Moving fast, powering after their prey.
The scream that shattered the calm night would have broken glass.
Daxon ran, sprinting along in the dark like he was running along the beach at noon. He heard commotion, fighting, and a stream of curses shouted in a threatening tone. Definitely female.
He skidded to a halt, aware of Reed drawing up beside him, and watched as a slim blonde tackled a puma like a football player. His eyebrows lifted in surprise when she gripped the cat by the sides of its neck and snarled into its face.
The other two guards circled her warily, unsure of her and her actions. Three pumas, one woman, and the woman had either lost her mind or thrown all caution—and common sense—to the winds.
“I knew he’d be trouble when he first came here,” she snapped, staring into the wide eyes of the big cat. She seemed undaunted by the gleaming white teeth bared at her, completely unaware that she could be torn apart from fangs or claws at any given moment. “I want to know where that bastard is, what he’s done with my friend!”
“I think the lady’s looking for you,” Reed said with a smirk.
“The lady’s about to have her head bitten off,” Dax retorted grimly. “Who are these three, Reed?”
He frowned, eyes narrowing. “Jace and Fritz,” he said, pointing to the two big cats closing in on the woman. “The female she has hold of is Chloe, Jace’s mate.”
Just what he needed. A rogue human infiltrating the clan’s camp—he would like to know just how she knew how he’d be here, and where she got the courage to take on a puma—and holding a mated guard essentially hostage.
“Jace,” Daxon called out as he walked into the firing line. “Fritz. Both of you stand down, please. Allix won’t hurt your mate, I promise you. It’s me she’s after.”
Allix’s head whipped around, her green eyes narrowing on his face before rage blanketed her pretty features. Her hands released their hold on Chloe, and the puma didn’t waste a second in scrambling away. But Allix’s attention arrowed onto Dax like a laser beam and locked on tight. “You arrogant sonofabitch! Where the hell is Baylee?”
“Calm down, Allix. I’ll give you the answers you need. This isn’t the way to go about getting them.” He held his hands out to his sides as if to say, look, I’m unarmed. “Why don’t you tell me what you think you know, and let’s work from there.”
“Like I’d trust anything coming from your mouth,�
� she spat.
He rolled his eyes. “Reed, would you go with Jace, Fritz and Chloe back to camp please? Tell my brother Allix and I will be along in a few minutes. Evidently, we have some trust issues to hash out,” he finished in a mutter.
He waited until the group headed back toward the clearing, then faced the furious, long-limbed blonde with the utmost calm. Her temper flared, and if his rose to match it, things could go ridiculously bad in moments. “Go ahead and do what you have to do, Allix.”
She didn’t hesitate, and he gave her points for that. There was a cockiness in her stride, a determination he might have found sexy if not for the murder flashing in her eyes. She strode up to him and clocked him clean on the jaw.
The force of the blow snapped his head back. It was only pride that kept him from taking a step back to keep his balance. Tentatively, he wiggled his jaw to make sure she hadn’t broken it. “Good shot. Want another?”
“Don’t tempt me. I want to rip you limb from limb and beat what’s left of you with them.” Her hand flexed, no doubt easing the ache of contact. “You took one of my best friends from me; I want her back.”
His face throbbed but Daxon would cut his tongue out before admitting it. “What do you know?”
She shook her head, then flicked back her blonde locks with an irritated flick of her wrist. “I know what Brenna’s told us all is bullshit. There was no psychotic break and Bay’s not in Helena or Billings being treated as a psych patient. You did something to her in here,” she threw her arms out wide to encompass the woodland, “and Bren helped you cover it up. Now there’s strangers moving into town by the dozen, more living wild out here, and people turning into animals everywhere I damn well look.”
Fuck, that was bad. Very bad. Who the hell had been so careless as to expose themselves that way in view of the public? He cocked his head in interest and hoped to God his shock didn’t play over his face. “People turning into animals?” He gave a quick, dismissive laugh. “Crazy must be in the water up here.”
Wild: Hangman's Haunt Book 1 Page 30
