Only after a few more paces, do I understand why no one seems to be following us. I slow to a bemused walk, while at my side, Noel does the same. He lifts an eyebrow at me and reaches into a pocket low down on his thigh. He fishes out two magazines and tosses one my way. Though I catch it and reload my gun, I really can’t see what difference it will make.
Our car is thirty feet away. Thirty impassable feet. Between it and us is a large crowd of at least twenty werewolves, with Aleksandar smiling at us from the centre. He straightens his ruffled clothing and smooths at his hair, but otherwise looks calm and collected.
“They weren’t attacking,” Noel mutters, holding his own weapon close. “They were herding.”
Jadz, still guarding our rear, lets out a rough grunt of agreement. The four wolves she has been keeping off our backs also stop to form a small but undeniable blockage back the way we came.
“I do enjoy a good hunt, Agent. It whets the appetite wonderfully. And I think the best way to reward my loyal pack is to give them some fun. You don’t mind, do you?”
The butt of my gun seems to burn in my grip. “Eat shit, Aleksandar.”
He tuts at me. “Oh, I intended to, but really, is that any way to talk about yourself? I never knew you had such terrible self-image.”
Noel chuckles, deadpan and without mirth. “Oh, he’s funny, Dee-Dee. So fucking funny.”
“You I have no quarrel with, Human. If you make it out of our territory then you’ve earned my…not respect…let’s say applause. Yeah, applause for amusing me. But that’s all. Same with you, Grey Tail. Leave us to our fun and you’ll not be harmed.”
Jadz sniffs the air. “Huh,” she gruffs. “At least you believe that’s true.”
“Dire Wolves have always had good relations with Grey Tails. Why should that change now?”
“Because you tortured and murdered the best thing about this pack of slimeballs and alcoholics.”
Growls. Snarls of anger. Aleksandar lifts his hand, but several seconds pass before the rumble of disquiet stills.
“I defeated Wensleydale in a fair dominance battle. Anybody here will attest to that.”
“Bullshit,” I yell. “It can’t have been fair.” I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. “He was drugged. He wasn’t himself and you must have known that. Any one of you must have seen that something wasn’t right.”
Surprise flickers through Aleksandar’s eyes. Or at least I think it does. The emotion is so quick that I’m immediately unsure it was there at all. His next words reinforce my doubt.
“He challenged me, Agent. I had no choice but to fight him after that. I’m sure you know at least that much of our culture.”
I do, but it rocks my understanding of Wendy to the very core to hear it.
He had been alpha. Without a direct challenge from a subordinate, that position was safe and secure. For him to issue a challenge to someone lower in the pack was to give up the position of alpha until he regained it. Like a defending boxing champion fighting a contender to maintain their belt.
“He wouldn’t do that. He…he could have banished you. He could have stripped you of everything and made you leave. He didn’t have to fight. Why?”
“Perhaps he had something to prove? Boredom? Who knows how that fool’s mind worked?”
“No. No, you’re wrong, you must be. He had all the control, you were just making trouble. Why would he take that risk? What did you do to him?”
“I? Not a thing. Agent, Wensleydale Gordan was an arrogant fool who clearly thought there was no risk. How wrong he was. Now do you see? An impulsive, reckless man like that has no place guiding a pack like this. They need strength, wisdom, and careful thought. They need me.”
Noel touches my arm. “The sedative drug. It must have clouded his thinking.”
A stray tear slides down my cheek. Why? Why did I let Maury force me into pumping that evil stuff into my friend?
“You took advantage of him.”
“Of a situation turned expectedly to my favour?” Aleksandar shrugs. “Yes. Of him? No. He did this to himself.”
“But you…you didn’t have to kill him. If you won, it was over. Why did you have to kill him?”
He grins. “We’re not mundane wolves, agent. While wild packs need the strength of every single body that joins them, we don’t. I simply culled the chaff.”
My hand is wobbling again. I can only tell because I’ve lifted it and the gun, to aim right between his smug, smug eyes. “You’ll pay for this.”
“And who’s going to make me? You? Surely not.”
“Believe it.”
“We’ll see.” Aleksandar lifts his voice. “Change of plan, friends. Here are the terms of my new game.”
“I’m not playing any games with you—”
Jadz snarls and steps up to my side. A strange ripple begins at her head then works down, fluffing out her fur as it writhes through every scrap of skin. It’s accompanied by the creak and crack of morphing bone and the wet slicking-sucking sound of sliding muscle. And instant later, she has achieved her fully changed form, a huge grey-white wolf with the same tufted tail and gleaming blue eyes.
Her massive paws are light and soundless, each easily the size of my face. When she drops to her belly, the top of her head still reaches my ribs with space to spare. She nudges me with her muzzle.
Aleksandar chuckles. “Hear me, Dire Wolves. This here is Danika Karson, once declared pack-friend. Know she is no longer and that I…well, I want her heart. Whole, in pieces, I don’t much care, but I want it in my hands. Tonight.”
Curious murmurs. Shuffles and whispers.
Shit.
“The one to bring me her heart will have my personal thanks and be under serious consideration for the honour of being my second. Consider it an application for the position.” Another chuckle, then he steps back with a sweeping “after you” gesture. “Go.”
* * *
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I steady my grip on my gun, aiming outward even while my head screams in terror. My mind is racing, plotting escape routes, counting enemies, but none of my calculations have any good news.
Then something hard closes around my forearm. Teeth. Fuck, it’s huge wolf teeth.
I twist, ready to fire the gun, but it’s just Jadz. She’s pulling at me, first gently, then roughly, yanking me down toward her back.
“You’re sure?”
I can read the dry look she gives me in return, even through lupine features, so I obey the command and clamber onto her back. Then she’s up and the ground disappears beneath my feet. Jadz leaps forward with a flex of her back legs, a bump that rocks me forward into the fur around her neck. I lean low and cling to the thick ruff of fur there.
This is nothing like a horse, or a pony. Jadz may be close to the size of one of those elegant creatures, but her body is built differently. Her sides are thick and powerful, and even through the dense fur, the flex of every muscle is tangible against me.
She dashes straight at Aleksandar, snarling furiously, and though several others clutch and snap at us, the move is too unexpected and downright bizarre. That and only that saves us from immediate death.
“Wait, we can’t leave Noel.”
Jadz gruffs again and keeps going, a speedy sprint that uses ground, buildings, and parked cars in equal measure. She seems unconcerned and I’ve no choice but to tell myself that every wolf within a half-mile radius is now more interested in me than a lone SPEAR agent with an accent and an attitude.
I’m riding a werewolf. I’m riding a fucking werewolf. My insides threaten to flop out my mouth, but this is still miles better than flying. All I can do is cling tight and hope I don’t fall.
The braying, snarling pack behind us is a fair distance away. Many have paused to shift from human forms to full wolf ones, opting for speed over power. With this head start, we may get away, but others in hybrid form are keeping pace with us in a series of leaps and bounds.
“Do y
ou even have a plan?”
No answer. Of course Jadz can’t answer in this form, but I hope she has some sort of idea. Sure, getting out of the Bowl might help, but there’s no way of knowing how attractive Aleksandar’s prize is. Enough for them to follow us? Maybe, but I’d rather not find out.
The wolves following move exactly as I imagine their natural, mundane counterparts would. They follow, but at a measured distance, some on the flanks actually outpacing us to block off retreat via the sides.
More than once, Jadz dives at a bisecting street, only to skip back and out of reach when her way through is filled with enemy bodies. This happens three more times, each time forcing us to turn rather than continue our route. By the fifth back-tracking two-step that snaps my teeth together, I’ve no idea if we’re running deeper into the Bowl or out of it.
“We can’t keep doing this. We need a better plan. Jadz?”
She ignores me, focused on running and avoiding enemies. Beneath my thighs her flanks are heaving and her tongue lolls from the side of her mouth. She may be edane, but with my added weight I don’t know how much longer she can run.
I check my gun again. Then my sides. I have one magazine of silver bullets left, which is by no means enough. But I also have a couple of little throwing disks made of silver and some—
A misstep in Jadz’s stride snatches my attention. She’s panting harder than ever and her steps are weakening.
“Jadz? Hey, Jadz, come on. We just need to get out of the Bowl. Then—”
A soft rumbling sound catches my attention. Then a buzz like a small engine.
I look left and right, but there’s nothing to see except more wolves, keeping pace with us and herding us where they wish. Nothing behind either and nothing ahead except for a dark, swift-moving streak topped by two bright white points.
What the hell is that?
The streak swishes past me, hard and fast enough to lift my hair and ruffle my clothes. I turn in time to see it strike a wolf sneaking up on our left, hefting it into the air and hurling it several feet. The startled werewolf yips like a puppy and crash-lands into several others, scattering them like bowling pins, but the streak doesn’t stop. I lose it, then catch it again, only when it performs the same motion with another wolf, this time punting it across the ground where it skips like a fleshy, furry stone.
Jadz wheezes one last time then slows to a half limping walk, with ears and tail turned down.
I slip off her back and cradle her muzzle in my hands. “Jadz? Can you shift back? Hey, look at me?”
The blue eyes close, then spring back open before she turns her head to my left.
I follow her gaze and catch that streak once more, darting back and forth between the stunned wolves. Everywhere it moves, red splashes up in short, sharp fountains until at last it stops outside an abandoned storefront.
There, fingers dripping, fangs exposed, eyes bright with vampire silver, is Rayne.
* * *
My heart leaps hard, a rush of relief and joy rapidly replaced by a sinking sensation when I recognize the glow in her eyes.
It’s a brighter, sharper silver, one I’ve seen hints of only a few times in the months we’ve known each other. Her fangs are long, extended past their norm to drip a slick mix of blood and saliva against her blouse.
In one hand she holds something soft, red, and dripping, and in the other, the buzzing remnants of what appears to be one of the military drones.
She swings it in an arc before her and a spattering of some thin clear liquid flies through the air. Where the drops hit the confused and bewildered wolves, yips, howls, and snarls of pain spring up.
“Rayne? What are you doing here?”
Her head snaps toward me. “Followed. Help.”
“Yes, but—”
“Help. For Danika. Must help.” A growl follows on the end of her words, roughening them into something dark and feral. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
At my side, Jadz gives another low wheeze. She stands but seems to do so with a struggle and nudges her way forward to stand between me and Rayne.
“Wait, wait.”
Too late. Rayne has already seen. She parts her lips and screams, a shrill, bone-chilling exhalation of pure rage.
The drone whines in her grip and spits a white gout of pressurized gas. The wolves close by back up at once, but not all of them are quick enough to avoid the fumes so dangerous to their kind.
Some fall, some stumble, all of them toss their heads to and fro and stop any sign of aggression. Many of them begin to whine and paw at their eyes, others loll their tongues and retreat into neighbouring streets.
“It’s okay, Rayne. You’re here. I’m fine.”
Another shriek, and she hurls the remnants of the drone at my head. The machine is small and most definitely broken, but still large enough that I really don’t want to be hit by it. I duck with my hands over my head, but Jadz leaps up to snatch it out of the air.
More gas erupts from the mangled piece of a machinery and she gets a mouthful that immediately has her whining, wheezing, and coughing. She spits it to the ground and leaps on it with all four paws, using her impressive weight to pound it into fragments.
Good. Those things are a menace.
“Rayne, you need to listen to me. You need to stay calm, please.”
The uninjured wolves, after seeing the drone dispatched, begin to creep around Rayne. They want me, I know they do, but the presence of a vampire on their territory is just too much for them. If not already fired up by Aleksandar’s horrific “game” this would have been enough to whip them into a furious rage.
The wolves surround Rayne in a tight circle. They act just like wild packs do, constantly moving, searching for weak points, each taking cues from the other as to when to stand, when to retreat and when to attack. It’s a strangely beautiful, if deadly dance…that lasts all of three seconds.
Rayne dives into them like a scythe, using fingernails and teeth in equal measure to tear into the wolves like so much paper.
The first succumbs to a bite to the throat, not enough to tear out flesh and fur, but plenty to send a jet of blood firing into the face of one of the others.
As that one falls, Rayne moves again and drives both hands into the flank of another wolf. Her fingers sink as far as the third knuckle and even from my position, the wet squelch of tearing flesh is sickening.
She lets the beast fall then turns again, now crouched low to sweep beneath the belly of another and punch with all her might.
Bones crack, probably ribs, and the huge wolf yips helplessly as it dangles five full feet off the ground.
“Rayne. Rayne, please, stop. You can’t do this.”
Jadz is pulling at me again. I’ve no idea what her growls and rough barks mean, but the terror in her eyes is easy enough to read. She wants me on her back again, and while part of me longs to hop on board and flee, the rest of me knows I can’t. Not with Rayne in full-blown mania.
By the time I look back to Rayne, she has three more wolves down, not cutting or biting, just pulling with raw strength. A severed tail twitches on the ground near her foot, while an ear lies nearby in another puddle of blood.
Seconds later, she slams the wolf she holds over her knee, snapping several more ribs and surely the spine as she goes.
“Rayne, snap out of it. Please, I’m okay. I’m honestly okay.”
But the wolves won’t let her stop. Enraged by the maiming and murder of their pack mates, those remaining continue to attack, with more rushing up every second.
The new arrivals have to choose between capturing their prize and defending territory, and many of them do indeed choose to help their brethren against Rayne. One or two, however, clearly savvier than their companions, spot the distraction as an opportunity to capture me.
I fire the reloaded gun, trying as much as possible to injure rather than kill. But as they inch closer and closer and my ammunition drops ever lower, I know there isn’t much choice lef
t.
Again Jadz pulls my sleeve. Her blue eyes are watery and cloudy, long pink tongue dotted with blisters and sores. Yet still she pulls me on.
Fuck.
I know she’s right, but I can’t leave. Can I? Can I really go knowing Rayne is still fighting in the middle of this madness?
A wolf snaps at my leg. The attempt misses, but my dodge backward takes me right into the claws of yet another paw and agony sings across my left arm.
The pain is unreal, like a flash of fire across my chest. The world swims before me in a dizzying swirl and I’m falling.
Instead of ground I hit something warm and soft. Something furry and solid.
Once more, Jadz lowers herself, this time to shuffle herself beneath me and carry me away. I don’t know where she’s going, but it’s not happening fast, her cautious pace interspersed with a limping hop at every third step.
Blood trickles down my arm. It’s not a bad scratch, not deep, but the pain is incredible, like liquid fire scorching across my skin. Is this what it feels like to succumb to the werewolf virus?
I’m still distantly thinking of that when I notice that the yips, growls, and snarls of one-sided battle have ebbed.
I look back.
Rayne is still there, but none of the werewolves are. She stands in the middle of a bloodied, furry pile of death, holding one of the fallen against her lips to suck at one of the numerous wounds littering the body.
“Oh, fuck,” I murmur.
Rayne’s head snaps up.
My chest constricts.
Surely she couldn’t hear me? Not from this distance?
Regardless, Rayne dumps her prize on the ground and starts after us, legs pumping, arms swinging, eyes ablaze with silver.
“Faster, Jadz. She’s going to catch us.”
There’s no “going to” about it. No sooner are the words from my mouth than Rayne’s flash of vampire speed has caught up. She snags Jadz by the tail and an instant of confusion follows in which I realize that though Jadz is no longer moving, I certainly am.
My body is flying, sailing through the air like a kicked ball. Then the ground is coming up to meet me, my arms are flailing, legs pedalling, and there’s nothing I can do except—
Moon Fever Page 22
