“Why are you giving her false hope?” Hayden asked.
“Because I have to believe it’s not too late,” Blade said.
Tess turned back to face Hayden. “I don’t mean any disrespect to you and your authority, but I’m going to try. I don’t care if you order me not to, Hayden. I’m not officially part of this pack.”
“She’s got you there,” Frank said, a slight smile curling on his face.
“If there’s even a slim chance she can pull Damien back, Hayden, we have to let her try. I’ll track him, get her close,” Blade said.
Tess approached Hayden and searched his face. “Blade’s the best tracker there is, and yet you didn’t send him with the shifters hunting Damien.”
“I sent whom I thought best,” Hayden said, confessing nothing.
“Thank you,” Tess said, finally understanding. If he had sent Blade, then Damien would have been found and put down. Hayden was giving Damien a fighting chance.
“This may end badly in front of you.” Hayden’s eyes reflected his worry. “If Blade and Frank take you, and you’re unable to convince Damien to shift back, they’ll have no choice but to put him down.”
It was an opportunity… with a death sentence for Damien if she failed. She nodded.
Blade placed both of his hands on Tess’s arms, squeezing gently. A show of support. “Once I find him, Tess, the rest will be up to you. Do you really think you can convince him to shift back to human form? Because I have to tell you, when you give yourself over to your wolf, when you lose more and more of who you are each day, the bridge you walk between man and wolf becomes harder and harder to find, let alone cross. Damien’s wolf pulled him across that bridge, to a side where Damien no longer rules. He may see the bridge, but he’ll have to fight his wolf—really fight—to cross back to his human side. You’ve got to make him want to cross back.”
“I don’t know what to do or say, but I have to try.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.” Blade turned to Hayden. “I’ll find him.”
“You mean he’ll find you,” Hayden corrected. “Damien’s not one that will allow himself to be hunted. If he locks onto her scent and you two are anywhere near her, he’ll attack you first. She might survive, if his wolf recognizes her, but you two will become the hunted.”
“They’ll leave me, the second they scent him near.”
“And if I’m wrong, and he doesn’t recognize you? You’ll have no one who can stand up to him. You may not survive.”
“I’m going,” Tess said again, putting as much conviction into her words as possible. “He didn’t leave me behind in that cage, Hayden. Now, he’s in a cage. I won’t leave him. I can’t. I just can’t.”
“You’re as stubborn as he is. Do you know that?” Hayden let out a long breath. “Fine, Blade and Frank can take you. Keep in mind that I have no way to call in the shifters hunting him, if they’re still alive.”
She understood perfectly. This was a race against time. Even if Blade, Frank and she found Damien before the other shifters killed him, they’d be fighting an uphill battle for their own survival as well as Damien’s.
Chapter Twenty-Four
DAMIEN
Damien crossed the river, disregarding the fresh scent markings, warning him that he’d trespassed into another’s territory. His instincts told him to return across the river back to safety, to territory he recognized, territory he controlled. A deeper instinct demanded that he enter the enemy’s territory. There was something here that belonged to him, that had been taken from him, though he could not remember what it was or where to find it.
The pack that held this land had already sent two weaklings against him, and they’d limped off, their ears pinned back, licking their wounds. He could have killed them easily enough, but he let them live, so they’d warn their packmates not to interfere. That had been a mistake, the human in him had weakened him. Now he had to be quick, to find that which belonged to him.
A howl sounded in the distance. Damien scented the air, again. He couldn’t tell how many approached until the wind shifted toward him. Waiting gave them the opportunity to mass, to surround him, to hunt him.
No one hunted him. He’d retreat, wait for conditions to be right, and then he’d return.
* * *
TESS
Hiking through the forest was hard work, really hard. Tess had never felt so out of shape and dejected as she did now. Her wolf was gone, and Damien’s had taken control of him. If ever there were a time to shift, it was now. She needed to communicate with him, wolf to wolf.
Frank stayed at her side, guarding her while Blade scouted ahead, scenting the air, the ground, the trees for any sign of Damien. Frank then followed Blade’s trail. There was no talking, not while Frank was in wolf form. Not that there was much to say at this point. They all knew the stakes, the risks, the odds of being able to turn Damien back.
While they hiked, she thought about what she would do and say if given the chance to speak with Damien. Nothing came to mind. She had been a fool all along, afraid of what blood-bonding would do to him, meanwhile not seeing with her own eyes what he’d been trying to tell her for so long—that he would go feral.
The solution had been so obvious to her, help Damien find another shifter. Not once had she considered what he was feeling. Or what she was feeling, for that matter. She had pushed him away at every chance. Why? Because she hadn’t known who she was inside.
Frank’s tan wolf suddenly stepped into her path, stopping her. His right ear turned to listen ahead. Then he nipped at her, to move her off the trail and behind a bush. Positioned in front of her, Frank crouched, ready to defend.
The brown and tan wolf silently padded down the trail, stopping precisely in the spot where they’d stood moments before. His fur disappeared into skin and bones. Muscles elongated, shifted, and reformed. In seconds, Blade stood before them, worried. Frank shifted, as well.
“I picked up his scent half a mile east of here.”
Relief and trepidation washed through Tess. “Thank you, Blade. Both of you. I guess this is where we separate.”
Blade and Frank traded a look that she’d never seen before. “Shit,” Frank said and put his hands on his hips. “This changes things.”
“She should still try,” Blade said.
“What’s going on?” Tess demanded, her worry getting the best of her when she unintentionally raised her voice loud enough to attract the wrong attention. They were on the border of Drake’s territory, and there had been a number of border skirmishes recently, according to Hayden.
Blade suddenly shifted to his wolf form and ran in the direction from which he’d come. Her knee-jerk reaction was to follow, but Frank’s hand locked onto her wrist. “The scent he picked up was blood. Damien’s been injured.”
A muffled cry tore from the back of her throat. “Is he alive?”
“Blade would have said if he had known. He probably didn’t want to get close enough.”
“Did he go back to check?”
“I’m not sure what he’s doing, now. We’ll wait.”
Waiting was nearly impossible, but Frank didn’t give her a choice. She didn’t need to tell him that Damien could be dying, and they were standing there, doing nothing. From Frank’s expression, he already knew.
A howl sounded in the distance. And another.
“Shit. One of those was Blade. We’re going to have to run, Tess.”
“I’m staying. I have to.”
Frank got in front of her, the amber in his eyes shimmering. “Remember, his wolf’s in control now, and he’s injured. If any part of Damien is still in there, he’ll fight to reach you. Talk to Damien, not his wolf.”
Frank flashed her a warm smile, seconds before Blade burst into view running at a very fast clip. One bark to Frank, and Frank shifted and ran, stopping only briefly to glance back at her. Then they were both gone, and she was standing alone in the middle of a forest that stretched on forever in all dire
ctions.
Tess smoothed out her shirt, which she knew was silly, but nervous energy had to go somewhere. She turned and waited for Damien. And waited for what felt like an eternity. Nothing was coming from the direction Blade had fled. If Damien were injured…
Shouldn’t she have heard Damien by now? God, what if he was so badly injured that he had collapsed? She had to find him. As soon as Tess started walking, she thought she heard a branch snap to her right. The woods fell silent. Even the leaves stopped moving as the wind died down. Trying to calm her breathing so she could hear was hard, but not as hard as figuring out if her brain was playing tricks on her.
A magnificent silver wolf with blue-gray eyes stood in her path. Blood coated his front left shoulder, his fur a matted tangle of twigs, leaves, and blood. She couldn’t tell if his injury was from one of the shifters sent to hunt him down or a hunter.
At the moment, it didn’t matter. Damien was alive and well. As a shifter, he’d self-heal with time. Her worry faded until Damien bared his teeth. Looking him in the eyes too long would be seen as a challenge, and she had no way of knowing if he recognized her. He hadn’t attacked, yet.
“Damien.” She wasn’t sure what to say. All the obvious words seemed trite. “You can shift back now. Your pack needs you. I need you.” They were all true, but would they be enough? Would they stir the man within?
“I’m sorry, Damien.” She was sorry, more than she could ever explain to him. “Please, Damien, I need you. Will you come back to me?”
The wolf snarled. Feral. A shifter with little or no control. A wolf, through and through. No, much worse than a wolf. A wolf would run unless it sensed danger. A wolf didn’t kill for the sake of killing. It hunted, protected, survived. Feral wolves weren’t predictable, they were confused and misguided remnants of the shifters they used to be.
When the wolf standing before her strong and commanding pulled back its gums, baring his teeth at her, she felt awe instead of danger. She was sure her Damien was still in there. Regardless of whatever display of domination he’d ever shown to her, he had always protected her, even when his wolf had been the one threatening her. This would be no different.
Tess knelt down and sat back on her heels. The snarl grew louder as he showed more teeth. Sharp teeth. If he sank them into her throat, he’d crush her like a beer can.
“I messed up bad.” Tess bent her neck, staring into her lap. The position left her neck prone, but she was already vulnerable. If Damien’s wolf attacked, she wouldn’t survive.
“I pushed you away when you needed me, and then I left. I was scared the blood-bond wouldn’t work—even more scared that it would, that I wouldn’t be enough for you. A shifter who can’t shift, can’t lead, can’t defend her mate, can’t even run with the pack. I thought I was handling it, but it turns out I wasn’t. I was ignoring my feelings, my anger, and frustrations of not being the shifter I used to be.
“I’m tired of running from what’s happened, living in the past. I need to move forward, toward the future. That’s what you’ve been trying to get me to see for so long. It’s taken a while, but I finally understand I’m more than my ability to shift. I’m so much more, and I’m yours, Damien, if you’ll have me. I want to blood-bond, to see if my blood can stabilize your wolf, but you have to shift first, big guy.”
His eyes gained an intensity, a wildness she had never seen in them before. She could see the anger and pain swirling there, and those raw emotions were directed at her.
The cold, hard truth struck her like a falling tree. There was no recognition in his face. Even his body stood rigid, head lowering, as if he were preparing to attack.
“Please, Damien!” she said, unable to choke down the cry that escaped her. “I love you!”
From his neck down through the length of his tail, his hackles rose, ramrod straight. There was nothing left of Damien inside of the wolf. A ferocious growl erupted from the wolf’s throat, just as he lunged straight at her.
* * *
DAMIEN
Their scent was strong on the wind. Two males were invading his territory. He couldn’t allow that. The wolf in him wanted to hunt, despite the injury to his shoulder from a human. Damien followed the scent trail of one wolf, which led to the other. They were working together, to hunt and bring him down.
Another scent, sweet, like the flowers, tickled his nose. Female. A part of him stirred, telling him he had a mate once, and she was taken from him by the enemy. Now, a female had left her pack, seeking a strong male.
The closer he got, the stronger her scent became. It seemed familiar, and somewhere inside of him a memory stirred. The sensation of him licking his mate, her arousal on his tongue, strong, sweet—his. He slowed at the sound of breathing up ahead. A large animal, standing taller than his shoulders. It was standing in the direction of the female he scented, the one he’d come to claim as his own.
Damien stopped. Another human. This one smaller than the one that had wounded him, but human, nonetheless. Damien bared his teeth, to warn it away. Better not to fight when injured, but the human stood between him and the female he sought.
“Damien.”
The sounds the small human made were familiar, ones he’d heard before. He was about to bare his teeth again when the wind changed, and the sweet smell of flower wafted toward him. The scent came from her, the human.
He snarled, not liking this trickery. Humans hurt wolves. They had hurt him once, and they’d hurt him again.
The human spoke again. He pitched one ear toward her, recognizing the sounds but not their meaning. Her scent, the more he inhaled of it, the more familiar it seemed. It reminded him of the sun warming his coat, of grass tickling his belly, of having another at his side, to play with, love, and protect.
More sounds from the human who smelled so familiar. Except now she placed herself on the ground, below his level, submitting to him. This human was no threat to him. The sounds she made were not howls, but they called to him. That presence that he had squelched long ago, the one deep inside him, wanted to respond, to howl back at her.
Her scent changed. Fear, but not fear of him despite how he bared his teeth. She feared something else. His ears turned left, then right, checking for the two males he had scented before. No, it wasn’t fear he smelled. Sorrow. That’s what he smelled coming from her. Loss of a pup or a mate perhaps? That he understood. It angered him that his mate had been taken from him. He could no longer recall his mate’s scent.
Both ears pitched forward suddenly. The sound from earlier grew louder, clearer as she sat in the dirt. The female was vulnerable now, easy to kill. The desire to taste blood in his mouth and defeat this intruder surged. Nothing would stop him.
Damien lowered his head, leaned back on his back legs, and leapt as hard as he could.
* * *
TESS
With the glint of a killer in his eyes, Damien’s wolf leapt right toward her. Tess brought her hands and arms up to protect her head. Fur brushed her hair as his enormous torso sailed over her and slammed into a large brown wolf who had snuck up behind her.
Damien’s wolf knocked the intruder to the ground, but the wolf recovered quickly and leapt for Damien’s neck. Damien dodged, and within seconds the two wolves were biting and growling as they circled one another. Then another wolf, a dingy white jumped on Damien’s back, causing Damien to drop his chest under the brown and twist away from both.
Damien yelped as the white wolf bit his leg. As Damien snapped back at the white, a set of cold, yellow eyes trained on Tess. She slid a knife from the sheath at her side and held it out in front of her, both hands shaking as she gripped the hilt and firmly planted her feet in the dirt.
“I know you can understand me,” she said to the shifters. At least she hoped they were shifters. A human wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a shifter and a pure wolf, but she had grown up around both. Shifters were usually larger, though not always. What gave a shifter away though was how it respon
ded to words. There was always a slight tilt of the head, followed by a quick adjustment, a straightening as the shifter listened to the words and comprehended them as a man would. A wolf might tilt its head if it found her pitch or tone curious, but it would never achieve that look of comprehension that currently washed over the brown wolf in front of her.
The brown took two steps forward. Off to the side, she could hear the sounds of snapping jaws and growls as Damien battled the white wolf. Despite her fear for Damien, she couldn’t take her eyes off the brown for even a second.
The brown growled, not a warning, but a promise. She hadn’t come this far to give up on Damien or succumb to another shifter, especially not when she was sure Damien had recognized her.
“You may get me, but that will only ensure your death. My mate will finish your friend there, and then he’ll tear you to shreds.” The brown stopped advancing. “That’s right. He’s my mate. And he’s feral, which makes him extra dangerous. But he knows who I am. This is your chance to leave because he won’t leave me to pursue you. But if you stay, he won’t stop fighting until you’re both dead.”
As if on cue, Damien appeared between her and the brown, a tremendous growl coming from Damien, who had blood on his barred teeth. Somewhere to her right, she heard the pained cries of the white wolf.
With a low growl, the brown backed away from her and disappeared into the woods. The knife shook in Tess’s hands as she turned. The white wolf had disappeared as well. Damien circled her, his ears upright, listening for the intruders. The beautiful silver wolf in front of her finally turned to her.
Damien’s Dilemma Page 33
