Before Nova could process what had happened, another body launched from the window with a great deal more control. Nemoy soared earthward, landing light on his feet and curling into a roll before stopping a few yards away. He took a moment to survey his body before looking to Nova.
“You alright?” Nemoy asked.
“Arm’s shot,” Nova replied, nodding to his left arm.
“Shit,” Nemoy responded, glancing back up at the window.
“I’ll be fine,” Nova said. “Amara?”
Nemoy nodded up at the window as he made his way around the guard’s corpse. “Any moment now.” Tentatively, Amara peeked her head out over the windowsill. In the distant recesses of the office above, Nova could hear Jaden’s vicious growls as he fought off the remaining guards.
“Come on, Amara,” Nemoy called up to her and held his arms wide.
“I-I’m not…” Amara stammered, looking down at the brothers with nervous unease.
“Get it together,” Nemoy barked. “Now’s not the time to play damsel in distress. Stop being a coward and jump!” Nemoy’s words were harsh, but Nova knew that it was just what Amara needed to push forward. As he watched her closely, he both felt and saw the progression of apprehension, fear, and then finally determination take over her features. With one final, centering breath, she propelled herself from the window’s edge. Nemoy caught her effortlessly, and Nova allowed himself a moment of jealously at the way Amara clung to his brother’s throat for protection.
As if sensing his envy, Nemoy shot him a quick grin. “Hey, this was supposed to be your job, but you ruined it by busting your arm. Don’t get mad at me.”
Chapter 17
Amara didn’t have much time to recover from the terrifying jump before the battle propelled them back into action. She heard the final shot from her gun go off in the office, hopefully to kill one of the final three guards that Jaden was holding back. She didn’t know how much longer he’d last against three, and maybe even in her older age, Neveah could help even the odds against one less wolf.
Nemoy lowered her so she could stand on her own feet. “We need to get moving, find some of our own.”
“I need my guns,” Amara said, shaking the final remnants of her fear from the fall off and replacing it with hardened determination. Now wasn’t the time to fall back into her old habits.
Nemoy nodded his agreement. “Nova should escort you back to the guesthouse to get them,” he said.
Amara shook her head. “I’m assuming by the distinct lack of dead Alpha body that Callahan is alive and has escaped somewhere. Go find him. I have three knives, I should be fine as long as our wolves are keeping the Valley pack occupied.”
“Don’t be foolish Amara, we’re vastly outnumbered,” Nova growled, holding his injured arm close. “We don’t have enough men to keep them all occupied.”
Amara shot him a defiant glare. “You forget I’m prey to them. They don’t see me as a threat. They’ll be more worried about the other wolves than me.”
“You forget that you’re the human wife of the Mountain Beta,” Nova shot back. “The second most powerful wolf in the pack. If they get to you, they get to me. You may not be worth much to them as a human, but as the female Beta you’re worth more than you think.”
“I can take care of myself, Nova,” Amara assured in an annoyed tone.
“We don’t have time for this!” Nemoy interjected. “Nova, come with me. Even injured, I may need you on assist. Callahan is a wolf that none of us can take down solo.”
“Nemoy—” Nova began, his expression a shocked disbelief, but Nemoy cut him off.
“Amara is one of the pack’s warriors now, Nova, and as such you trained her yourself,” he interrupted. “At some point, you’re going to have to trust your training expertise and allow her to fight on her own. If you can’t do that, then your doubt only proves that you are no longer fit to train my men as Protectors of the Mountain Wolf Clan. Are you willing to admit that before your Alpha and immediately denounce your title as Leader of the Guard?”
Nova held his head high, and for a brief moment Amara saw a glimpse of the strong, confident man she’d fallen for over and over peek through his battle wary guise. “Of course not,” he replied without an ounce of hesitation.
“Good,” Nemoy declared. “Now do your job and cover me so we can kill this bastard once and for all.” He turned to Amara. “Go get what you need quickly, then find Nate or Ian or anyone else as soon as possible. You’ve had training, but you’re still only human. You won’t stand a chance alone versus an ambush, no matter how many guns you have.”
Amara nodded. “Got it.” She turned to leave.
“And Amara?” Nemoy called before shew took off.
She turned around expectantly. “Hm?” she asked.
“Be careful,” Nemoy said at the same time that Nova breathed, “I love you.”
The run back to the guesthouse felt like it was going quicker than earlier. She thought back to how frigid and slow-going the procession to Callahan’s mansion has been, and it made a bit of sense.
Very little action had made it to that side of the compound, but little bits of spattered blood and the occasional distant howl or scream told her that the war between packs was in full swing. She kept her gaze high, glancing upward as she passed a thick patch of trees and shrubbery, recalling from the night before how the Valley wolves liked to perch high up on branches to scope the area below them.
She finally made it to the cluster of guest houses, face tilted to the sky as she slowly crept across the lawns. They were cool from the shade of the large trees that were scattered throughout, but they made the last stretch of the journey stressful with all of the places for cover that Valley wolves could hide.
As her guesthouse came finally came into view, she thought she’d actually be able to make it without incident when a nearby mass of bushes and foliage began to rustle. Her heart immediately leapt into her throat, flashes of an impending Valley wolf ambush flitting through her mind. She raised her knives high, mentally preparing to fight even if she had no hope of winning. The bushes rustled again, more violently this time before a body jumped aggressively out of them in a daunting attack stance.
Amara let out the breath she’d been holding in a whoosh. “Oh, thank God, Ian, it’s just you,” she sighed.
Ian looked distressed, but otherwise relieved. “Hell, Amara. You scared the crap outta me.”
She looked around. “Where’s Nate? Weren’t you two together when you left Callahan’s?” The troubled expression on Ian’s face doubled in strength as he glanced back at the shrubbery behind him. Without a word, he motioned for her to follow.
Behind the dark cover of the undergrowth, Ian had an unconscious Nate propped gently against the thick trunk of a great Oak. Blood stained the right side of his face from a large gash in his forehead, but he looked otherwise unharmed.
Amara gasped. “What happened? Is he okay?”
Ian looked grim. “I think he’ll be fine, though only time will tell for sure. But I’m more worried about…” He seemed hesitant to continue, but pressed on anyway. “It’s Kal. We were headed to drop him in the basement until all this blew over. Then all hell broke loose and we figured the rest of that meeting didn’t go so well after we left. A couple Valley wolves popped out on us and while I was fighting them off, Kal somehow wiggled out of Nate’s grip. Slammed him hard with a shoulder and ran him face first into a tree trunk. He’s been out cold ever since.” He gazed worriedly down at his best friend. “I could have caught him, but I had to make a choice. Chase Kal or make sure Nate was okay. I… I’m sorry, Amara.” He really did look like he regretted his decision, and it hurt Amara’s heart.
“Hey, now, don’t feel bad for even a second,” she consoled. “Your pack comes first. I’d have made the same decision.”
Ian looked up at her with a hopeful expression. “You think so?” In that moment he looked far too young to be a soldier of war.
Amara nodded. “In a heartbeat,” she confirmed with a smile. “Go ahead and keep Nate safe. I gotta head back to the guesthouse and grab some more weapons since I don’t have those fancy wolf claws. I’ll be back in a jif.”
Ian nodded, turning his full attention back to Nate’s unconscious body. “Thanks, Mara. See you in a bit.”
Amara made the jog back to the house in a hurry. With Ian and Nate out of commission, she made it her duty to get them to safety before she rejoined the battle. Keeping Mountain casualties low was her primary concern.
She threw the front door wide, already mentally picturing the location she’d stashed her duffel bag in when a bag was suddenly shoved over her head. She didn’t have time to be shocked or afraid before the assailant slammed her head into the doorframe and everything went black.
Amara didn’t know how long she was out before she finally came to. She was coherent enough to notice that the bag had been removed, and when her mind finally cleared itself for her to catalogue her surroundings, her blood ran cold with raw terror and regret. All around her were the dank dark walls of some place without windows. There was harsh fluorescent lighting shining down on her sensitive eyes, making it harder to focus in her still dazed state. She tugged franticly at her wrists and ankles to find them manacled to the chair she was sitting in. She looked down at her chest and saw chains snaked across her torso and bound tightly around the back of the chair as well.
She knew she was trembling; her battle ready determination had crumbled weakly under the crushing weight of helpless reality. Panic bubbled up her throat and urged her to scream. Her mouth fell open in preparation, but before she could call for back up or cry for help, the cool steel of a sharp blade pressed up against the puffy silvered tissue of her collarbone scar hard enough to draw a small drop of blood.
“Make even the smallest sound and I’ll slice your pretty little neck open.”
Her blood curdled almost instantly, her vision beginning to fray and blur in the beginnings of a faint. She was bound to a chair in a windowless room lit by harsh fluorescent lights while a psychotic Kal Vann held a knife to her throat. Utterly alone, she was left with a foreboding sense of familiarity.
This was just like the Second Trial.
Only this time it wasn’t a safe illusion. It was real life, real danger, and unlike being under the illusory guise of a Shamanic potion, there was no guarantee that Nova or anyone else would be there in time to save the day.
Chapter 18
Nova had a bad feeling as Amara jogged away into the thick of war. Every fiber of his being wanted to stay by her side and never let her out of his sight. Unfortunately, his alpha and brother had given him a direct order to shadow him in their pursuit of Callahan, and he was bound by pack law to oblige. So all he could do as his wife, mate, and love of his life ran off toward unknown dangers was stare despondently after her.
Nemoy allowed him a few moments to worry before giving him a pat on his uninjured shoulder. “Come on, brother. Callahan’s trail runs colder by the second. We can’t allow him to get too far.” Nova nodded, finally pulling his eyes away from Amara’s departing frame. He had a war to win.
“I don’t know if you saw, but Callahan and I fell out the window together. I must’ve blacked out for a moment or two, because when I looked around, Callahan was already long gone and I had this neat little present waiting for me,” he said, tapping lightly on his injured arm.
He nodded his head toward the corner of the Alpha’s house. “As injured as he was, I’d say he probably found cover in the forest beyond the border. Less of a chance of randomly running in to one us or our wolves since majority of the battle is taking place somewhere within the compound.
Nemoy nodded. “We’ll check this area around perimeter first then. I’m gonna need you to change, by the way.”
“Does that really seem like the best idea with…” he indicated his injured arm again.
“Definitely,” Nemoy answered. “Since you don’t have full use of both your hands, I’d rather you have claws and fangs readily available to attack and defend. You also move fastest in wolf form; even on three legs you’ll be faster than your human form on two. Plus, it’ll be easier to track Callahan’s scent with your wolf’s nose to guide us. Time is of the essence.”
Nova nodded and began to strip. “Points taken.”
Under the thick dim shade of the forest trees, Nova’s black and silver coat was barely visible as he darted in a three-legged sprint around low hanging branches and fallen tree trunks. Even injured, his movements were fluid and instinctual, his hurt leg barely factoring into his proficiency. He was in charge of tracking scent while Nemoy used wilderness tracking skills in human form to check broken branches and crushed leaves for a fresh visual trail.
Nova was pretty sure that he had caught wind of a fairly recent trail made by Callahan, but given how close they were to his house and compound as a whole, Callahan could have run through the trees several times that day and Nova would never have known. But despite this fact, he kept following the fresh trail closely, bounding off deeper into the trees and hoping for the best. Nemoy followed suit behind him.
As they ventured further into the winding expanse of woodlands, other wolf scents began to weave and intertwine with the trail Nova was following. He stopped short for Nemoy to catch up, and then rooted his nose in the damp cool leaves on the ground.
Nemoy looked in the direction he pointed. “If you’re asking if I found a visual to track, yes and no. There’s definitely been some activity here recently—within a few hours, at least—but it’s not exactly a trail.” He took another glance around the area he was standing in. “It’s like this entire area was trampled through; too many trails to see where one ends and the other begins.” Nemoy shrugged hopelessly. “Maybe this is where they get in their exercise as a pack. Maybe they’re planning to ambush us and are terrible at covering their asses. Who knows?” he finished with a frustrated sigh. Nova huffed, feeling much the same way. But wait… since it was a trail that was too difficult to follow, then there was also a good chance that Callahan might be using it to throw them off…
Hopeful once more, Nova took off in the direction that the scent medley flowed.
The trail party was lengthy and vast, oftentimes branching off in a small bundle of three or four scents before converging with the mass of ten to fifteen scents once more. It threw Nova off the main trail many times, to both his and Nemoy’s chagrin, but after some effort and both of their tracking skills, they were ultimately able to stay on the core path.
Eventually, their persistence paid off, and it seemed like all of the scents Nova had logged in his mind all led in a straight path forward. The path charged straight for a break in the trees where it opened into a field. In the moist dirt a few steps from his paws was the heavy footprint of a large man that was much too tired to properly mask his trail. He turned to alert Nemoy, but his brother was nowhere to be found. Figuring his brother found his own lead to pursue, he gave a light bark to let Nemoy know that he found something, soft enough so that it wouldn’t carry past the trees, and then took a tentative first step forward.
He moved slowly and with purpose, making sure his advance was completely soundless as he inched closer to the tree line. Compared to the heavy cover of the forest, the field was blinding in its brightness, the sun free to shine at its brightest down into the grass. Nova squinted his eyes and took another step. Finally he was at the edge of the trees, and what he saw made him jump into action almost before thinking.
At the far edge of the field opposite Nova, Callahan Vann was crouched in the shallow shade of the tree line as well, almost completely shifted into the massive russet wolf that Nova knew he could become. With a roar, Nova launched himself out into the field, charging fearlessly at Callahan with a speed that only a shifter could achieve.
Callahan was nearly finished with the change, the last tufts of tannish red fur springing up over his body, when he noticed Nova desc
ending upon him. Nova saw shock and maybe a bit of fear flash in his eyes, possibly worried for a moment that he may not finish the shift in time to evade Nova’s pursuit. Unfortunately, Nova wasn’t fast enough in the end; Callahan barely finished the shift as Nova cleared the tree line, narrowly diving out of the way as Nova’s final bound landed right there he’d been shifting less than a second before.
In his haste to catch the Valley Alpha, Nova neglected to check his balance distribution and landed on his injured paw. He tried to hide his pain, but the yelp that escaped his muzzle betrayed him. He recovered quickly, redirecting his chase towards the newly changed wolf that had stopped momentarily to observe him. As soon as Callahan noticed Nova’s pursuit was on again, he took off back into the forest in a blur of red and brown.
They were soon deep enough in the forest that the thick leaves of the trees blocked out nearly all of the sun. Without the light glinting off the red highlights of Callahan’s fur, the Alpha shook Nova easily enough.
Frustrated, Nova halted his sprint, knowing that moving further would only succeed in getting him lost in an unfamiliar forest. This was Callahan’s home. Nova knew he was at a disadvantage from the jump; he needed to stop running around aimlessly and wait for the Alpha to reveal himself. So in the darkness of the forest shade he stood completely still, lightly favoring his injured paw, and waited.
It wasn’t long before Callahan took the bait. Out of the corner of his eye, Nova caught a glimpse of russet blurring through the dim forest air. Sadly, Callahan was expertly soundless for a wolf his size; even with planning, it proved too difficult for Nova to react precisely. The large wolf arced downward toward Nova, his sharp fangs grazing the tender, swollen meat of Nova’s injured arm before he could dodge the attack.
Mountain Wolf Protectors Complete Series: Books 1 - 4 Page 40
