by C. T. Adams
He dropped his head before her and tentatively flicked out his tongue to touch her hand. Submission… from Luis?
“Miss Cara?” A dozen pair of eyes turned to the brush, where a ghostly figure wearing pale blue sweat pants stood, her scent hidden in the strong juniper scent of the trees. Adam snarled and crouched, but held himself and the rest of the pack back.
Cara patted Luis’s head and stood up, stared into the trees and let her eyes glow above her naked body. “Yes. It’s me. But why are you here, Missy? And where is Brittany?”
Will was in the air and nearly to them, but the shock of hearing the woman’s name made him slam against an up-draft and tumble for a moment.
Missy Foster’s voice took on a panicked tone. “No! I would nevuh… she’s with Mama… hidden where they can’t find her—I think. I didn’t tell you before, in the hospital. But I’m so tired of running. They keep finding us, Miss Cara, it’s why I found you to tell you. But I couldn’t just stay away. Only ways we’ll ever be safe is when all dem birds is dead.”
The pack was getting restless, circling the trees and growling, and Missy backed away with wide eyes. But Cara had a feeling this would be important. Ten Bears said it would come back around. There wasn’t time to explain it to them, even in her head. They’d just have to trust her. She slammed out stinging energy and a word. “Enough!”
The wolves flinched as a unit, as though struck, and backed up enough that Missy stared at her wide-eyed. “Are these yo’ dogs? Booray, they’re big ’uns!”
Cara stepped forward until she was right under the woman and looked up with hands open wide and pushed forward a bit of warm magic, trying to use the persuasion Will could do so well. “Yes, they’re mine. You shouldn’t even be out of the hospital, Missy. How did you know where to find me?”
“I wasn’t lookin’ for yo, Miss Cara. I came here to kill those blasted birds, once and for all! Yo gave me a second chance, ma’am, and that means I need to follow my heart. I ain’t gonna let them torment ma baby no more. Yo showed me not all yo animal people is bad, even though they said—”
Had she been in contact with the birds since the accident? How could Cara have missed the scent in her room, or was she speaking from further back in time? “We’re not bad, Missy. Not all of us. But the men in those caves are bad. They kidnapped my niece Gloria, even took a little girl away from her mama in Oklahoma. We’re here to make sure those girls get home… just like I made sure Brittany got home. But we know where they are. You need to go home and let us take care of it.” She paused and watched emotions chase each other on the woman’s face, streaked with bruises and tears. “You need to go be with your little girl.”
“No. I know what they planning. They took me from my mama, too—got me with child. The things they did… nobody else should have to—but Brittany’s mine. She’s ma baby… not theirs. She won’t never know ’bout them. Not every girl wants babies, but I did. Eileen didn’t and she let them take it. Not me—I ran, with my belly full of my little girl, so they couldn’t take her. Couldn’t ever do to her what they did to me.” She paused and then the cold steel scent of determination chased away the sorrow. Missy’s face grew defiant and she pulled a shotgun from among the branches of the juniper and threw it at Cara’s feet. “I ain’t got nothing to offer you ’cept my own life to help, Miss Cara. But I know all ’bout them birds and every nook and cranny of that ’ole cave. This has been goin ’on too long and I wouldn’t be able to look ma baby in the eyes again iffen I don ’help.” Missy’s words swam through her brain. Brittany was at least seven. How in the fuck long had this been going on—right under her nose?
Cara smiled, though—a baring of teeth shared by her pack members, and by the woman in a pale blue jogging outfit. How could she turn away help, when the person knew the consequences? Would she do any different in the girl’s place?
“Ecouté ! Let’s you and me and your wolves go do us a little bird huntin’, so I can hold ma head up to ma baby.”
Chapter 32
ANYTIME TWO PREDATOR species meet to battle, things are bound to go badly. Add in supernatural strength, and the stakes are raised. The night erupted into the hellish stench of blood and gunpowder brief moments later, accompanied by anguished howling and unearthly screeches. The kidnappers had released the feral birds and they followed the scent of blood straight to the pack—to Luis.
There was nothing so dangerous as a feral Sazi, in Adam’s opinion. With the mindless rage of a rabid animal, and the power to turn flesh and bone to ribbons, they were something even trained Wolven agents feared to face. Coordinated attacks could drive them back, but they had no fear; felt no pain and lived for nothing except to feed and destroy.
One was difficult to handle and usually two or three agents, fully armed, were sent to take it down. But here there were six.
Adam heard Cara cry out in pain and panic as Luis was pulled into the air and literally ripped apart before the startled eyes of the pack. There was no running, no time to fight. He felt the line to his new pack mate shred and fall away from his mind. It happened so fast there was no response possible, other than instinct He leaped into the air and grabbed one of the birds by the talons—pulled it down to earth with muscle and magic. The entire pack attacked as one. Fangs and teeth flashed in the moonlight as the beautiful snowy owl became nothing more than meat and feathers, as they took revenge to struggle past the pain of Luis’s loss.
He was gone… just like that—and his new pack felt anguish, remembering the soft-spoken, loving father of three. Despite Luis’s wolf forcing him to attack Adam, Luis had actually championed Adam’s plan to make Cara his coruler, even shouting down the dissents of some of the others who didn’t believe she’d earned the right to rule. But there would be time for tears and remembrances later. Now, Adam had to focus their minds.
Will arrived and their collective eyes took on a new perspective. He attacked the second bird from above, just as Missy’s shotgun roared again. She clipped a wing of the great horned owl and sent it spiraling into a tree for the pack to take down, then turned the barrel toward the massive bald eagle, jacking another round into the chamber as she smoothly swiveled her shoulders.
Cara shouted to her. “No, Missy! Not Will—the bald eagle! He’s with us!”
The woman in blue turned her head in exasperation and shot a different bird full in the beak, then pumped a second round into the chest—as though she knew exactly how to kill their kind. Her voice had taken on a thicker accent during the fight, as though she normally struggled to make her speech fit in better. “Well, hell’s bells, Miss Cara. You gots to tell me that stuff! Lessen dey talk, I don’t know the difference. The wild birds, dey don’t talk.”
Adam raced by her on the way to finish off the wounded owl. “You’re damned good with that thing.”
Another shell loaded and was fired, just missing Will’s tail feathers, but hitting his opponent in the leg. She didn’t seem at all startled by a talking wolf. But then, he had no idea what sort of strange things she’d seen in her young life. “I’ve had to be. Daddy taught all us girls how to bring home dinner for when there was no money. Coon, deer, cocodrie… you name it, I can hit it.” She ducked under a branch and fired off another shot as swooping talons took a handful of hair from her head. “Galee, but I hate these wild ones!” She tapped Adam on the snout and pointed to the other end of the bluff. “Dere’s a second entrance back dat way. Look for the hose pipe going inside. You can’t see the windmill, but it’s dere. It’s how I got out tonight after they grabbed me at the Town and Country store. I bet yo girls are inside, but I’ll bet with all this ruckus, dey’ll be moving dem. Dey’ve got a Hummer back there—not the sissy ones you find in town—but the real thing, so dey won’t need no roads.”
Adam suddenly felt his heart race as blinding pain and rage filled his mind. Cara was hurt! He turned and bared his teeth as a massive golden eagle rose back into the air. He raced to his mate’s side but she was already on her
feet, hopping on three legs toward the shelter of a massive oak, and smelling of pain and anger.
“¡Madre de Dios, but that hurts!” She reached back to lick the twin holes in her thigh and pushed healing magic into the wound while Adam stood watch. Their wolves were fighting well, and Will’s contribution was invaluable. But they were grinding down and hadn’t even reached the cave. Mike was panting heavily and Eddie had collapsed under a thick stand of mesquite, where the birds couldn’t reach. And neither he nor Cara had any idea what they still had to face.
Cara nodded her head and he heard frustration play through her voice. “We’ll have to go alone—split our attack. If they keep sending waves of feral birds, they’ll eventually pick us off, one by one, while they escape with the girls.” She looked at the three dead birds already on the ground and let out a sound close to a sob. “Is it horrible of me to feel proud for making it this far—knowing that they were once human girls who were loved by their families as much as we love ours?”
He walked over to her and rested his forehead against hers for a long moment, letting his magic soak into her to ease her heartache. “We didn’t make them this way, Carita—and there’s no way to bring back a feral Sazi. You know that. We’re upholding the First Rule, and doing our duty as Wolven agents.”
She sighed and then they winced in unison as Penny’s ear was cut by a slicing beak. She howled and snarled and pulled out a mouthful of tail feathers, and they felt that, too. There were as many disadvantages as benefits to being bound in a full-out fight.
With a mental instruction to the pack to keep fighting until the birds were down and then follow, he and Cara headed toward the cliff. He marveled at her resilience as she pushed past the pain in her leg to easily race ahead of him.
Just as Missy promised, there was a rubber coated canvas hose threading through the brush on the other side of the bluff, and a primer gray Hummer, covered by camo netting, weeds, and mesquite cuttings. It appeared to be a firehose that had been modified down to fit on a windmill irrigation pipe. There was a leak at the connection and Adam took a moment to lap up some water from the deep puddle that had formed. Cara happily joined him and they drank from the cool mineral spring until they could stand no more.
They looked at each other and tried not to think about what was to come next. Like any crisis situation, all they could do was focus on the goal and take things as they came. Adam suddenly realized there wasn’t anyone else in his life he would trust more to fight at his side, except maybe David. A ghost of a smile passed through his mind as he remembered his brother’s words in the cab of his pickup, and how he would now respond. It was during that battle to save the girls in Texas last spring for me.
A slippery slope indeed.
ADAM SMELLED OF amusement, but was keeping his thoughts to himself and just shook his head when she gave him a questioning look. But there was no time to ask, because they heard movement from the mouth of the cave—a dragging, scraping sound, accompanied by muffled yelling.
Cara recognized that particular string of curse words—the ones Gloria used when she knew her mother wasn’t around to slap her on the back of the head with a chancla. When they finally came into view, she recognized another person. The man dragging Gloria and Ziri by their arms was the snake from the canyon. He was alone. Obviously he didn’t feel threatened by the girls, but Cara wasn’t a girl. She was the Alpha Female of the Texas pack, and this time, that snake was going down.
She didn’t wait for Adam. He’d follow along… or not. But she couldn’t pass up the element of surprise. She raced forward at top speed, faster than she ever had before and hit the snake full in the chest with teeth and claws, mere fractions of a second after she bolted from the brush.
His hands were torn from the girls, taking along part of one sleeve as they hit the rock cliff together and bounced apart. The snake had expected resistance, though, and was as fast as Cara used to be. He turned in an instant, rising up to his full height and sizzling his rattles with fangs bared. It pulled a scream of terror from both girls and the overpowering scent of ammonia terror flooded the air. She could sense Adam in her head, moving the girls to safety and then turning back human to remove their gags and the ropes securing their hands and feet.
She didn’t have time to concentrate on them, though. The snake struck, but she easily avoided it and took a bite from where his neck should be. He hissed with virulence as she spit out the vile, bitter-tasting meat that burned her tongue.
“So, you’ve improved since our last meeting, muchacha.” He struck again, just barely missing her leg and then tripped her with his tail. She tumbled and heard Adam call out to her in panic.
“Stay with the girls unless there’s no other option! They have no protection!” It was an order; a command and she feared he might ignore it. The mating tie might be too strong to resist. She rolled over the back of the snake and dug in claws, ripping long bloody strips through his thick hide.
“You’ll pay for that, puta! I’ll make your death so slow you’ll beg.”
“I’ll never beg to the likes of you! But you will be telling me every single secret about this place, and why you’re kidnapping humans.” She spun and dived under another strike, but the wounded leg gave out for a moment. It was enough. One fang scraped along the leg, adding burning venom to the talon holes and she screamed.
She heard a howl of rage and then Adam was on the snake, tearing at its body while it thrashed and tried to spin to strike. The scent of rattlesnake venom was enough to choke on and even its blood was pungent and bitter.
Cara knew Adam wasn’t fast enough for this battle, but the distraction was enough. She launched herself at the snake and tried the same trick that had worked before Yolanda arrived in the truck. She gathered her strength and pushed moon magic through him. He was expecting it this time, and fought back, but the strength of one lone snake, however alphic, couldn’t overcome the power of her pack. With Adam still riding him, she pulled on his power—added it to her own, and the snake turned to man with a scream that sliced the night air. The human neck snapped under the grinding pressure of the predator’s teeth and when the head severed from the body, there was silence—save for the frightened weeping of the girls under the tree.
A moment later, the sobs turned to screaming. She and Adam turned as one. A new man with olive skin was standing behind the girls, a machete held to their throats with one hand while the other held a fistful of hair. Their eyes were wide with panic, contrasting sharply with the slightly amused expression of the man. But they weren’t so much as breathing. He was holding them magically so they would remain still and not struggle.
That expression… the way he holds himself —
Cara took a step toward him, over the body of the other man. She searched the new man’s slender bare arms for a tattoo similar to the one on the arm of the man under her, but they were clean of ink. She deliberately flared her nose, then huffed out air from her side nose slits to gather the purest scent possible, pushing away the warm copper that filled the air. Definitely Sazi, and another snake. A viper, too, but she couldn’t figure out the species. “Do I know you? You seem familiar.”
He smiled now, patient and slightly pleased. His voice had a slight Middle Eastern flair that she couldn’t place. “You know someone I used to be. But I’m not that man anymore.”
Adam came to stand by her side. “Who are you, and what do you want? You know we’re not going to give up the girls. I can have the rest of my pack here before you could getaway.”
The man shrugged fluidly. “Things aren’t going so well for your pack right now. You know it as well as I do.” And he was right. Several of the pack—Tommy, Sheila, and Carmen, were struggling desperately against horrifying injuries. Fortunately, they had released more birds… one of which was Ume, who was now battling on their side. Between she and Will, two more birds had gone down. “Frankly, I think you should get back there to help them.”
Adam spoke up. “You’d li
ke that, wouldn’t you? But you’re going to have to go through all of us if you expect to get out of here alive—because there’s no way we’re leaving without our family. You will not take our girls.”
Now the man’s face went pleasantly blank. Only his eyes held a small amount of amusement. “I think we need to make one thing perfectly clear.” A wave of magic began to flow from him. It roiled around them like hot steam, burning them enough to drop them both to the ground howling—screaming in pain that was everywhere at once. The pain began to flow through the pack connections and Cara desperately fought to close down the binding, separate themselves from the whole. They could all die if the pack leaders did.
The man left his spot behind the girls and was crouched down in front of Adam so quickly that even Cara’s eyes couldn’t follow it. He spoke quietly, with all the politeness of discussing politics at dinner while they thrashed on the ground in such intense pain that Cara felt as though her eyes were going to explode. “I can do whatever I want to. If I wanted you dead, you already would be.” He lifted Adam’s muzzle so their eyes met, and she couldn’t do a thing to stop him. “But I don’t want you dead, Alpha Mueller.” He flicked out his tongue to taste the scent of their surprise. “Oh yes, I know who you are. You just did me a favor by eliminating Manuel here. His taste for young American girls was becoming a nuisance. And your pack is destroying those abominations made by another traitor to the cause, saving me the trouble.”
With a breath of a thought, he released his magic and was standing by the girls again, twirling the sharp blade, before either of them could catch their breath. “You’ve probably already noticed that the three raptors who attacked you the other day haven’t joined the frey. That’s my contribution to the operation.”
Adam finally managed to struggle to a sitting position and shook his furred head. “Again… who in the hell are you and what do you want?”
