Storm (Rise of the Pride, Book 12)

by Theresa Hissong

  How the hell was she going to try? The other being inside her mind resisted, trying to push her thoughts silent.

  “Force your wolf to stand down,” he ordered. “I need you to be human again.”

  Emery tried to push at the other voice in her head, again. This time, it gave a little room. She felt her mind clear more and more, but to shift? How did she do that?

  “Tell it to let you be human again,” he urged.

  Digging down deep, she thought about her human body, forcing the wolf mind away. Pain blossomed in her face as the animal receded. She moaned, and it sounded human, as sharp pains wracked her body. Within a few seconds, she lay naked on the cold tile floor, but she was quickly covered with a soft blanket by the doctor.

  “Ow,” she moaned as the pains in her jaw slowly subsided.

  “It only hurts the first time,” he stated, but his voice was calm and caring.

  “What happened?” she asked, even though she remembered everything he had said. “Who did this to me?”

  Okay, now she was angry. “Was it the woman?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he replied. “We need to transfer you to Colorado.”

  “Colorado?” she gasped. “I’m not going to Colorado. I have a job here. My family is here! I want to go home.”

  The sound of a door opening and closing cut off anything else she was going to say. A man, tall and very handsome, entered. He nodded at the doctor and moved closer to her. She tightened the blanket around her naked body and shivered when his eyes narrowed on her.

  “My name is Talon Shaw, and I am the alpha to the Shaw pride,” he introduced. The name sounded familiar, and it only took a few seconds to realize it was the man who’d been on the television, explaining that they were not a threat to the humans.

  “I know who you are,” she snarled. “What I want to know is…who did this to me, and when can I go home?”

  Talon grabbed the rolling stool in the corner and took a seat. She pulled her knees up to her chin to keep from being so close to him. The voice inside her pushed at her skin like it wanted out again.

  “First, I need to explain how our species works,” he offered. “You are now a wolf, and need to be bound to an alpha or you will grow weak and die in less than a month. The government has set up a place for those of you whom we have saved from the rogues. There is an alpha there who will take you in and teach you about your new life.”

  “Colorado?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I have family here,” she sniffled. “I won’t leave Memphis.”

  “Then you will die,” he stated, and she cowered when his icy blue eyes sparked amber. “We cannot change what happened to you, but we can help you live. You need the blood of an alpha soon.”

  “Blood?” she asked. What the fuck was going on? She thought they were shifters, not vampires.

  “The blood of an alpha will keep you alive,” he reminded her.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she cried, wiping her tears with the corner of the blanket.

  “First of all, I need to know your name,” he ordered. “Your identification was nowhere to be found when we saved you.”

  “Emery,” she swallowed. “My name is Emery Lane.”

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Lane.” He nodded toward the doctor. “This is Harold Blackwell, and he is our healer…a doctor to humans.”

  “I want to go home,” she ordered.

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t right now.” The alpha to the panthers stood up and wiped his hand over his face. “You need to be flown to Colorado to learn how to live as a wolf. The government has set up a place for you there.”

  “So, you’re going to fly me to Colorado and make me drink some dude’s blood so he can teach me how to be a monster?”

  “You’re not a monster,” he sighed. “The wolves have a long history as being the worst of our kind, but we’ve been capturing others like you and sending them to the mountains where they can begin their new life. I’m sure you want to see your family, but if you do not take an alpha’s blood, you will die, and you won’t be seeing them anyway.”

  “Why can’t I take your blood?” she blurted. “Or do I only have one choice?”

  The two men exchanged looks, and Talon returned to the stool, sitting down hard. “I really think it would be in your best interest to take the offer to move to Colorado.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the woman who turned you is here on my land, and she is a part of my pride now,” he began, but when Emery’s eyes started glowing a weird, hazy yellow, he held up his hand. “She was being brainwashed by the wolf alpha. The alpha’s blood in her body allowed him to control her. She didn’t want to change you, but once the alpha gave her an order, she couldn’t stop herself.”

  “Oh, great! Now they can control my fucking mind?” she barked.

  “Yes, they can, and I can control my pride’s actions, as well,” he began. “But I would never force them to do the things the wolf alpha is doing. That’s punishable by death in our world.”

  “I still want to see my family…before I make the decision,” she begged. Her mother would be worried sick if she just up and disappeared. But how would her family take the news of her being turned into a shifter? They’d not been very open to the panthers when they’d been outed to the humans.

  “We can make arrangements for you to see her, but you cannot stay for long.” Talon removed his phone from his pocket. “I can let you call them now, if you’d like.”

  “I don’t know what to tell them,” she mumbled. “They were not one of your supporters when the news broke of your existence.”

  “It’s your existence now, too,” he reminded her. “I can send a Guardian with you to protect you.”

  “A Guardian?”

  “We have men and women who protect our pride,” he stated. “They are highly trained in protection, and they won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “I have a lot to think about,” she sighed. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “Why don’t you come to the kitchen and get some food?” Harold offered. “You need to eat after your experience, and my mate has made a meal. We will give you your privacy to think through everything.”

  She didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. Emery followed the man into the kitchen where his beautiful wife was plating a mound of food. Her stomach growled, and she covered it with her hand, taking a seat at the old wooden table by the back door.

  “Eat and take your time,” he reminded her as he stepped into an office just off the kitchen. He left the door open and sat behind a desk covered in files and paperwork.

  Emery dug into her food and wondered what the hell had happened.

  Chapter Seven

  Storm watched as the beautiful grey wolf pranced down the trail. He’d never thought he would be saying that about the enemy. Historically, the wolves were always evil. Stories of their dirty deeds had been passed down for thousands of years, but times were changing. Amaya was no longer an enemy.

  She was a member of the pride now, and he wanted to help her learn to live her new life away from the bastard who had brainwashed her. He wanted to get to know her before he approached the subject of mating. It was obvious she was reserved, and he wondered what had happened to her in her human life to make her that way.

  He remembered Landon talking about her once. The male had been telling his mate, Noah, that the female worked the overnight shift at the vet to care for the animals, and she wasn’t one to hang out often with friends, preferring to work alone with the animals. Of course, Storm was eavesdropping, but that was before he’d ever laid eyes on the female.

  The desire to just touch her was there, and boy was it strong. He knew it was a bad idea to force the contact. He wouldn’t disrespect his mate that way. No male would do that. It wasn’t in their nature to take a female’s choices away from them.

  His panther snarled to get his attention, pushing at his human mind so the beast could h
unt. He wouldn’t unjustly hunt an animal, but he would teach her how to use her senses to seek out the prey.

  With a shift to his human form, Storm stood in front of her and squatted down so he was eye level with the wolf. “I’m going to teach your wolf to hunt. Use your senses…smell, taste, hearing. We will not kill an animal today, because it is not the equinox yet. But I want you to try to find something. We have deer, rabbit, squirrel, and coyotes. Occasionally, you’ll run across a skunk. Leave them alone.”

  The wolf nodded as if it understood, and Storm took that as a good sign. He let the panther take over his human body, shifting again within seconds. It was easier for him to shift since he had been born a panther. He’d heard it was a bit harder for those turned to switch between the two. He hoped the pain of transformation for Amaya wasn’t as rough as it was after waking up from her change.

  On the trail, the wolf stopped, slowly lying flat on its belly. She’d scented something. Storm’s beast lifted its nose just slightly. There was a faint scent of a rabbit or two somewhere close, but the heaviest scent was a herd of deer off to the south.

  He snarled at the wolf to get its attention. At first, the wolf paused, looking over its shoulder for guidance. Storm’s beast looked toward the scent and waited. Amaya’s wolf took a hesitant step forward, and once it realized the animal didn’t make a sound, it took another.

  The wolf darted through the trail, heading straight for the pond. Storm knew the land and the scents that permeated every inch of the forest. The herd of deer were at the water’s edge. They were unaware of the wolf’s presence as it gained speed toward them.

  Amaya’s wolf was on the hunt, and as much as he wanted her to learn, he also knew that a new shifter didn’t have control over their animal. He pushed his panther to get ahead of her before the wolf took down one of the deer. As he reached the clearing, they scattered. He spun and swelled his chest, snarling at the wolf as it came face to face with him. He roared when she tried to move around him. The return snarl brought the animal up short when her human mind cleared enough to realize what had just happened.

  Amaya’s wolf was in a hunting frenzy, and while it was perfectly normal, her human side was in shock at the feral need to kill the defenseless animal. When the wolf’s eyes cleared, it turned on his hind legs and ran back up the trail leading to the main house. Storm followed as close as he could. The last thing he wanted to do was to plow into her to stop her from hunting an animal, but he would if it came down to it.

  When they arrived at the training facility, the wolf lay on the concrete walkway that ringed the building. She was panting heavily, but it looked like the human was in control. He left her alone so he could shift and grab his clothes. When he rounded the corner to tell the wolf to shift, he stopped dead in his tracks.

  Amaya had shifted and had begun to dress, her back to him…but what he saw sent his beast back to the surface. His canines thickened in his mouth and the urge to hunt pushed to the forefront of the panther’s mind.

  “Who did this to you?” he bellowed.

  “Storm!” she gasped, spinning around with her long-sleeved shirt pressed to her bare chest.

  As if her back was bad enough, the front was even worse. There were scars all over her back; up and down her arms, too. Straight scars, just slightly lighter than her already ivory skin, were scattered everywhere. Each one varied in length. Some little, some four times as long. He narrowed his eyes when the worst scenario finally registered.

  “Were you stabbed?” The animal inside him began to vibrate. His mating scent filled the air so thick, he was sure the entire pride could scent it. She wasn’t speaking…just staring in shock. “Tell me!”

  “Please don’t ask, Storm,” she begged, pulling her shirt over her naked body.

  “I’m going to ask, and I want to know who the fuck I need to kill,” he growled, his canines punching through his gums so fast, he tasted his own blood. The coppery essence only made his beast crave its teeth around the male’s throat who had hurt her. “Was it your ex-husband?”

  “How do you know I was married?” she gasped, her eyes widening.

  “I told you. I searched every hour of the day until I found you. In my search, I scoured the internet to get photos of you to show the rogues we had captured. I wanted to know if they’d seen you, and in that search, I saw the pictures of him.”

  “He’s gone,” she replied. “He won’t hurt me anymore.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “No.” Amaya scoffed. She shook her head while she finished dressing and looked up at the sky, blinking away the tears that were forming in her eyes. “I wouldn’t wish that on him.”

  “Then he’s not gone, and for the record, he should be,” Storm growled, his chest swelling as her words sunk in. Why would she want that son of a bitch alive, anyway? He deserved to be put down. “Where is he?”

  “He’s in prison in Louisiana for attempted murder, and he won’t be out for a long time,” she replied. The beautiful wolf came closer, her eyes softening. “Look, I don’t like showing the scars. It’s my weakness. I’ve learned to ignore them so I don’t think about that night, and I ask that you respect me by not bringing it up again.”

  “I want to know what happened,” he pushed. If she thought this conversation was over, she was fucking wrong.

  They stared at each other for the longest time; neither one of them breaking. It was a battle of wills, and Storm was learning the female was stronger than she gave herself credit for. Once she accepted her new status as a shifter, she would be unstoppable.

  “If I tell you, will you drop it?” she cursed. “I really don’t like talking about it.”

  “Let’s go somewhere private,” he offered, pointing toward his home. “We can go to my place.”

  Amaya nodded and waited for him to take the lead before falling in beside him. He wanted to tuck her against his chest to give her the comfort she obviously needed. By the time they reached his cabin, he was a ball of anxiety with all different scenarios bouncing around in his head.

  “Would you like a beer? Whiskey?” He walked over to his tiny kitchen and pulled out a bottle of beer for himself.

  “Whiskey…on the rocks, please,” she sighed. “I’m going to need it.”

  He nodded and quietly grabbed a whiskey tumbler from his cabinet and reached into the freezer for two ice cubes. The clink on the glass walls echoed in the room as the female sat quietly waiting for him to return. Storm took a deep breath and poured the double shot over the frozen blocks. His hands tightened around the glass as he made his way back into the living room.

  Amaya’s head tilted to the side as he set the tumbler on the side table instead of handing it over. He knew the females had given her some information on the rules of being a shifter, but he wasn’t sure if she had any other questions. And being the inquisitive female he thought her to be, she proved that immediately.

  “Males don’t touch females, do they?” She reached for her glass once his hand was safely away.

  “It’s part of our nature,” he agreed and cleared his throat. It made Storm a little nervous, because this talk would surely roll into the mating talk, and even though he was a Guardian, and had been for a long time, his strength was limited to his muscular abilities. His strength over keeping his hands off his possible mate wasn’t as healthy. Not that he would touch her without her permission. More like he’d drive himself insane thinking about the moment they did touch each other’s skin.

  “The Protectors told me a little about it,” she blushed. “There’s a lot I need to learn about what I have become, Storm.”

  “And the pride will help you,” he said, then cleared his throat. It was closing up on him at the thought of everything she’d been through. “Just take it one step at a time.”

  “You’re very patient,” she observed.

  “I can be, but on the inside, I’m wanting to kill your ex-mate,” he admitted, taking a long drink from his beer. “Now, are you going to
tell me why he stabbed you?”

  The shiver rolling down Amaya’s spine was involuntary, and there was no way she could make it stop. Talking about that night just over a year ago still caused her a bit of anxiety.

  Hence the reason why she tried to block it from her mind.

  But Storm was right. Since she had chosen to live on the Shaw pride’s land, her scars would be seen by someone before too long. She couldn’t hide behind long sleeved shirts and jeans for the rest of her life.

  “Well, I guess I will start at the beginning,” she said with a shrug. “I just don’t like talking about it much. I learned that my scars and my abuse doesn’t define who I am. I keep myself covered so people won’t gawk.”

  “I assure you, no one at the pride will look at your scars with disgust,” Storm vowed in his deep voice. “What happened to you will only be seen as a strength and not a weakness.”

  “That’s good to know,” she chuckled.

  “Give me the shortened version if it’s easier for you,” he offered, and in that moment, she wanted to hug him for his respect. It wasn’t very often she’d had that from anyone except Landon.

  “I married Sam five years ago,” she sighed and folded her arms across her chest in a protective gesture. It bugged her that the move was so natural. “The night of our honeymoon, I didn’t pour his wine correctly, and things got bad…really bad. We had to extend our trip to Hawaii an extra five days so the bruise to my eye was healed enough we could fly home with just makeup covering the damage to my face.”

  She stopped to take a healthy gulp of her whiskey. Whoever came up with the term “liquid courage” hadn’t been wrong.

  “Things got better over the next eight or nine months,” she admitted, and it wasn’t a lie. Sam had been a wonderful, caring husband. “Until we had an argument. He beat me unconscious, and the next day, he called my job and told them I was quitting. He forced me to stay home after that so he could keep an eye on me. Like I was going to cheat on him or something.”