He toppled back, hands automatically releasing her to staunch the bleeding and the pain. Profanity filled the air along with Allix’s desperate gasps.
“Bitch. Fucking bitch.” Gregor got to his feet and booted her in the side, flipping her over onto her back. His words were slurred, blood bubbling over his lips.
Damn it if she didn’t grin up at him. Pain scored her face but that damned grin never wavered. Breathing labored, she stayed where she was, catching her breath. Daxon could all but see the cogs turning in her brain as she assessed the situation.
Gregor stretched, and Dax heard the subtle popping of joints snapping and reforming, the nasty crunch of bones breaking and fusing into an entirely different shape. Wicked orange and black fur spread over his skin like a rash as he fell forwards onto his hands, his body quickly taking on the tiger’s form.
He reached out with a paw, extending claws a few inches long and ridiculously sharp. A hunter’s tools, made for rendering flesh, ripping and cleaving its kill.
Allix’s eyes widened in surprise before they became narrow slits of speculation. “T-there you are, big boy. In all your n-natural glory.” Her words were hoarse yet still carried that cocky edge. “Y-you’re going to l-look fabulous in front of my f-fireplace.”
Gregor roared, and the circle roared with him. Frantic, Daxon pushed for his own shift, abandoning the panther and calling for the Siberian. Adrenaline surged through his blood but he knew he’d waited too long, caught up in watching Allix take on Gregor without a qualm.
One bite, one swipe of that massive paw, and she’d be dead before she could scream.
Gregor finished his transformation with a languorous stretch before he paced around the prone woman with careful precision. He bared his teeth when she rolled onto her side, an audible hiss of pain escaping her with the move, then struggled to her feet. She swayed a little, finding her balance a few moments later.
“I won’t die on my back,” she said breathlessly.
Daxon felt the last changes click into place and sank back on his haunches, prepared to leap forward and deflect Gregor’s attack. Reed bent to his ear, murmured, “Just wait, lad. That girl has a trick or two up her sleeve yet.”
Growling, Daxon jerked away from Reed’s restraining hand, eased forward. He didn’t see how Allix had anything up her sleeves; she just stood in the middle of the clearing, her body turning slowly as Gregor circled around her, weighing her up.
“So,” Allix asked the tiger in a friendly tone, “do I skin you whole and have you as a rug, paws and all? Or should I hang your head on my wall and use the rest of you as a jacket? Not really a fan of fur,” she added wickedly, “but I’d sure as hell make an exception for you.”
Tension snapped the air in two.
Gregor and Daxon pounced at the same time, two massive lithe bodies hurtling through like striped missiles on a collision course for the same target. The sound they made together could have put a thunderhead to shame.
Even as he threw himself at her, Daxon wondered why the hell she just stood there, body relaxed, one hand at her hip. A cocky stance, he had time to think, then in the briefest flash of time saw her hand slip back under her shirt.
She stepped into Gregor’s leap, hand outstretched, and for a moment they looked like they were hugging each other. Daxon’s paws hit the earth and he twisted to dig his claws into the ground to slow his skid.
Gregor screamed. Screamed long and high, the tiger reeling in pain. Blood splattered over the clearing; the scent of it permeated the air like a heavily spiced incense. And the tiger kept screaming as it hit the earth and rolled in an ungainly heap of limbs and stripes.
Allix rose from where she’d dropped to her knees, blood glistening wetly. Warrior fire burned bright in her eyes as she clutched the hunting knife in her hand and stalked over to where Gregor lay whimpering on the ground.
“Change back to yourself, coward. I won’t kill something as beautiful as a tiger when you hide your ugliness beneath it.”
Daxon shifted, his eyes on the ten-inch blade in her hand and the thick droplets of blood plopping from the lethal tip. “Where the fuck have you been hiding that?”
Allix smirked and flipped up the back of her shirt to reveal a sheath hooked to her belt. “Didn’t think I was going to walk in here unarmed, did you? Wouldn’t be my smartest move.”
He walked to her, body sagging in relief. “Are you okay? You took some nasty hits there, maybe you should go get checked out by Zara.” He took her hand, felt the quick nervous tremor run through her. “You don’t have to kill him, Allix. You proved your point ten times over.”
“No prisoners, Daxon. They just bite you on the ass.”
He closed his eyes with guilt. So much death already, how much more was to come? Weariness leeched into his bones. “Good point. I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t. You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.” Responsibility, why did everything come back to that?
Allix stepped over the tiger, used her foot to turn it over. Gregor’s body flopped loosely over, and his insides gushed out in a steaming mass of blood and organs. “Job’s already done.”
“Holy shit,” Dax murmured, feeling his gorge rise. The smell was...disturbing. But he couldn’t help crouching to study the fatal wound one woman had inflicted on one of the greatest cats to walk the earth.
The wound started between Gregor’s front legs and opened him up all the way back, almost to his hind legs. One long, deep slice. As he studied it, the tiger’s form shriveled, became Gregor’s naked human form with all the same damage.
Daxon rose, conscious now of his own naked attire, and stepped back. The women of Hangman’s Haunt were starting to show their true colors, and those colors were dark. Vibrant, beautiful, but Jesus, they were dark. A witch, a shifter and a warrior who surely had the blood of something else running in her veins. Not once had her cool composure wavered, even with violent death at her feet, caused by her steady hand.
“Where did you learn to do that?” He cast an assessing gaze around the circle, noted several people had dropped back in shock. Pale faces, shocked faces, and more than one person regarding Allix with reevaluating eyes.
She wiped her blade clean on the leg of her pants, slotted it back into the belt sheath with the easy handling of someone who knew knives, respected them and the damage they could reap. “I used to hunt, for a long time. Bear, moose, deer, wolves. Whatever was in season. Had a talent for it, liked the praise and the attention my father and his friends gave me for being skilled at it, but didn’t have the heart to keep killing things. He had to be the exception,” she said, eyeing the dead man.
“He’d have killed you.”
Now something flashed in her eyes, something miserable and tainted with self-loathing. Dax knew that feeling all too well. “I know. I value my life a lot more than I valued his. And he posed a risk to Baylee, to everyone I know and whose lives I definitely value more than his.”
He nodded and turned away from the mess. “Sika, Galvez, you two have the strongest stomachs of anyone I know. Would you mind...”
Two butch men, alike enough to be twins, broke out of the crowd and regarded the gutted man with calm eyes as though he was merely an interestingly dead specimen rather than someone they knew.
“Thought he was prying a bit too much,” Sika muttered to Galvez.
“Into things not his business,” Galvez agreed with a brisk nod.
“Serves him right,” they said in unison, then grabbed Gregor’s wrists and ankles and began to lug the dead body out of the clearing.
For a few moments, Daxon stared at the pool of rich blood seeping back into the earth, then roused himself enough to send a hard glare around what remained of the circle. A life had been taken and it wouldn’t be wasted.
“Does anyone else object to having humans on our side?” Dax asked, throwing his voice out in a booming baritone. “Anymore moles who’d like to come out and confess before my frien
d here,”—he gestured to Allix—“starts ferreting you out and putting you down? This shit is getting serious, people, and blood is going to spill. Lives will be lost, and most of them will be ours if we don’t start pulling together and accepting the help we’re offered.
Gregor’s death should be a reminder; even the best of us fall, can fall, at the hands of not only our own kind but at those of humans. Mortal women,” he added with a surprised smile. “They are not a weakness in our defense; they’re going to be an asset Shax wished he’d thought to add to his arsenal. So, any more protests?”
Voices erupted with excited chatter, an undertone of anxiety running beneath the debates. But one by one, his people came out to shake Allix’s hand, study her with watchful eyes.
There were, Dax thought with relief, no outspoken protests. The vibes coming from the group were positive, could only grow more so with the vile negativity Gregor had exuded gone from the equation.
Dax wondered what the hell he’d gotten Allix involved with, but when he looked at her, she glowed with an inner fire that set his worries aside; she could and would handle herself, no matter what came next.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Six weeks later...
She took her first unsteady steps into the outside world and wanted to crawl back inside. The sunlight was too bright, made her squint and turn her head away. Her body shivered in the cool breeze despite the thick down jacket Daxon bundled her into before he helped her out onto the porch.
For weeks, her existence had been confined to her apartment. Days rolled into each other until they became an unending cycle of pain. Even the lengthy visits from her friends, the unwavering support from Dax, couldn’t pull her out of the rut.
“I’d like to go back in now,” she said quietly.
Daxon’s arm tightened briefly around her waist. “Why don’t you sit out here for a few minutes, baby? Get some fresh air, some sun on your skin.” He pressed his lips to her hair. “You’re too pale, Bay.”
Baylee shook her head. Staying outside meant seeing people, and people meant too many questions she didn’t have the energy to answer. She was carved out, hollow.
He’d been so good to her, helping Zara tend her wounds, holding her when the nightmares came and brought the morning in the woods screaming back to reality. He kept her up to date on all the happenings in town; how the clan had settled so well into the Haunt, how businesses were flourishing—including her own—and how the influx of new bodies was affecting the overall economy and town spirit.
He made her drinks, snacks, changed DVDs at the end of every movie. Movies she couldn’t focus on, had no interest in. He was the perfect attentive partner.
She sat at his urging on the porch seat and didn’t resist when he drew her against him. Her head rested on his shoulder in defeat; Dax wouldn’t let her sneak back to the comfort of familiar four walls and she was too weak to defy him by walking away.
“I wish I knew what to do for you, baby. It’s killing me, not knowing how to stop you fading away.” His cheek pressed against her hair, and Baylee leaned into him. “Tell me what to do to make things better.”
She sighed listlessly. If she knew what the problem was, she’d tell him. But she couldn’t pinpoint any one thing; they were all rolled into one big knot she couldn’t unravel. She struggled to sleep, afraid of falling back into the abyss, being locked eternally in the nightmares. “I’m fine, Dax.”
“No, you’re not. You’re slipping away from me, bit by bit every day.” His arms came around her, hitched her onto his lap. “You don’t want to sleep, or eat, or talk. Vex tells me you’ve shut Sheba off completely; she’s going crazy without you, Bay, and not in a good way. You need to come back to us.”
Baylee let her gaze drift out over the street. A small pack of children, at her guess only eight or nine years old, ran down the sidewalk laughing and playing, carefree. Her heart wept even as her womb ached with the loss of her own babies.
Not far behind, a familiar figure walked briskly, turning up the path leading to the house. Just what she needed, Baylee thought dully. She loved her friends, all three of them, dearly but she couldn’t bear their upbeat perkiness. Yes, they were only trying to pull her out of her funk, she knew that. Wanted to entice her to engage in conversation, find the key to fit the lock of her happiness.
“Oh, hey,” Cassie’s young face seemed ridiculously innocent; the cold wind had whipped some color into her cheeks. A long green scarf wound around her neck, with a matching knitted hat covering her short brown bob and gloves protecting her delicate hands. “I didn’t expect you to be up and about today.”
“Me neither,” Baylee muttered.
“Behave,” Dax admonished gently in her ear. Then he raised his voice to include Cassie. “Have a seat, Cass. Coffee?”
Cassie’s dark eyes met Baylee’s. “That’d be nice, Dax, thanks.” She made her way up the steps, stripping her gloves off and shoving them into the pocket of her puffy jacket. “How are you feeling?”
Baylee clutched weakly at Daxon as he slipped her off his lap and rose. She felt a horrible sense of discomfort when left alone with her friends, and she didn’t know why. “I’m fine.” She didn’t miss the look her lover and her friend exchanged in silence.
Daxon’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “Tea?”
“No, nothing for me.” She huddled into the seat and tried not to whimper when he walked into the house. Her eyes dropped to the floor as Cassie sat beside her, focused on a tiny knot in one of the floorboards.
“I spoke with Zara this morning,” Cassie said without preamble. She spoke quietly, gently as was her way in everything, but firmly. “She’s pleased with your progress. By the end of the week, she hopes you won’t have to see her every day anymore. I think she’s a little bit impressed by how you’ve healed.”
“She’s done a wonderful job. No one could have tried harder.”
“You could,” Cassie said bluntly and shocked Baylee into lifting her gaze to meet her friend’s. “You could try harder, Baylee. We’re all so worried about you and not one of us knows how to crack through this impenetrable wall you’ve erected. But enough is enough. You have a gorgeous specimen of a man in there, doting on you, loving you, and you’re turning him gray.”
Baylee blinked. Daxon, going gray? She hadn’t noticed. “Oh.”
Cassie shook her head. “You do know he wants to marry you, right? He’s desperate to ask the question, but what’s the point when you’ve detached yourself from everything, everyone, including him? How much more do you want to punish the guy?”
Shocked, Baylee felt the first flush of emotion push through her veins. Guilt, shame, regret. Negative emotions, but tangible. “I’m not punishing Daxon.”
“No? Maybe you should tell him that.”
“What should I tell him, Cass? I made a decision to leave him and it backfired to the point I nearly died, and killed the lives of our babies in the process. I murdered people; I can’t just get over that.”
“You’re still alive, Baylee, but only if you keep living. I’m so sorry you lost the babies, I really am, and I can’t pretend I know what that’s like. I can’t. But you have a man who adores you; there will be another chance for you to conceive, I promise you.” Cass reached out and snagged Baylee’s hand before she could pull away. “From what I’ve heard, the men you killed were bastards. Complete and utter, with more atrocities under their belts than a stripper’s tips. They operated on orders and under bloodlust; if you hadn’t killed them, they wouldn’t have shown you mercy, Bay. Forgive yourself.”
A tear slipped down her frozen cheek. She tried to swipe them away, remove the evidence of her weakness, but Cass grabbed her other hand as well, holding them tightly.
“Let them fall, Bay. Let them come, let them fall, and let them go.”
She couldn’t. Once they came, they would never stop, and she would drown in the flood of them. She tried to swallow around the hard lump in her throat, choked on a sob. A
horrible, keening cry erupted from deep within her.
“That’s the spot,” Cass murmured.
The spot was a cesspool of violent emotion and deafening screams, the place where repressed memories and feelings went to hibernate. And now that damned pool bubbled to life, sending the deepest and darkest vestiges of her pain shooting to the surface. Spilling out, spurting free on a horrible wave of sound as her heart seemed to rip out of her chest.
Baylee struggled when Cassie moved closer, wrapped her arms around her. She didn’t want to be touched, didn’t deserve comfort. The pain she bore was a savage weight, one she wouldn’t wish to share with her worst enemy.
It was killing her.
The front door slammed open and Daxon stepped onto the porch with blood in his eye. Fists balled and ready to use, he stood as proud as any soldier and surveyed the situation. Then everything softened, relaxed, and concern marred his brow with a frown. “Baylee?”
“Don’t,” Cassie ordered softly as she rocked Baylee. “She needs to do this, Daxon. This is the first step. Once she bleeds these wounds dry, she’ll be able to heal.”
The sounds wrenching free from her soul trickled into the first wretched sobs. The dam burst and she pulled away from Cassie, pushing to her feet and stumbling along the porch to bull her way past Dax.
She couldn’t break this way, shattering into pieces in front of her friend, her lover. It was too open out here on the sunny porch on a chilly day, too many people could witness her vulnerabilities laid out and bare. Inside, she could hide—from the pain, from her loved ones, from herself.
Daxon caught her, gathered her up and carried her inside. Up the stairs, to her bedroom. He kicked the door closed behind him, shutting Cassie out, and sat on the edge of the bed with Baylee curled into a ball against him.
“Don’t coddle me,” she sobbed against his chest. She could feel the wetness against his shirt, the dampness she transferred from her eyes onto the soft material that smelled like him.
Wild: Hangman's Haunt Book 1 Page 32
