Chapter 23 - Kane

They had been in the middle of coming up with a plan when Kane had heard the commotion coming from inside the farmhouse.

Sensing Miley"s fear and anger, knowing all too well what that first shift felt like, his instincts had taken over.

Whether she lived or died during this first shift, there was no way he was going to let her get to the end of it alone.

And he was already yanking off his leather jacket in order to shift when he heard the loud banging sound that suggested wherever Miley was, she was trying to escape.

A newly shifted, out of control werewolf was dangerous. And if the guys creating them were ruthless enough to steal humans right off the streets to do so, he wouldn"t put it past them to end the ones that caused too much trouble during their first shift.

"We have to get in there, now!" Kane snarled, throwing his jacket down.

"Kane, no! We stick to the plan!" Jack protested, stepping forward.

Kane was already too far gone. His shift was already coming. He couldn"t have stopped his wolf even if he had wanted to. And as he shifted, he easily slipped past Jack, darting from their hiding place before anyone could stop him.

"Fuck!" Jack exclaimed.

"Looks like we"re going in!" Hanson added. For the newest member of their group, he was always the readiest to fight for the pack. And that was just what Kane needed right now as he was met in the yard by two enemy wolves who had charged off the porch, shifting as they went.

Yet more streamed right around the back of the building as if they had sensed the danger from a mile away.

One raised their head, howling at the sky, and Kane knew exactly what that sound meant. He was calling for backup.

Every second counted, and so he threw himself at the closest wolf, aiming directly for the throat.

There would be no time to waste, no opportunity to maim and injure rather than kill.

In a situation like this, it was kill or be killed. And so Kane snapped the neck of the first wolf just seconds before his companion landed on top of him.

He and Kane rolled end over end, clawing and biting at each other until Kane finally managed to get a grip on his throat, too.

The wolf whimpered as if begging for mercy, but Kane was past that. All he saw was red as he clamped down hard, feeling the breath caught between his jaws.

The second the wolf"s body went limp, he turned to look for the next.

And it was then he was lost in a sea of opponents. Overwhelmed, he was pinned to the floor, the breath knocked out of him by the sheer weight of his enemies.

Still, he battled on, determined not to be stopped. For each one he managed to knock away, another one took its place.

It was hopeless. It didn"t matter how much anger and adrenaline coursed through him. He couldn"t fight them all on his own.

Then he heard the panicked howling coming from somewhere off in the distance.

The pounding of human feet slapping hard on the floor seemed to distract his opponents momentarily.

Kane took his opportunity and knocked a couple away with well-aimed blows from his paws before he grabbed a third by the throat and rolled, dragging the wolf beneath him to finish him off.

Several of the other wolves had already turned and fled by the time he looked up to figure out what was going on.

He chuckled a little when he saw Jack and Will"s wolves chasing humans from the barn before they turned and came running back the other way, snapping at the wolves who had been hot on their heels, clearly displeased by having lost their terrified flock.

Kane took a second to breathe with relief. A distraction was just the thing they had needed.

Jack and Will letting the newly shifted out of the barn had worked to take the edge off, and glancing around, Kane saw that Hanson, Eddie and Zander were already making quick work dispatching those left behind by the wolves who were more interested in reclaiming their progenies.

Seeing that the enemies in the yard were being taken care of, Kane whipped around and continued on his way up the porch steps.

The commotion in the house had quieted. He was terrified for what might have become of Miley.

Throwing himself through the open door, he was met by several more wolves who had clearly hung back to defend the house.

Kane killed the first one easily, but the others were much more difficult.

There seemed to be an endless number of werewolves coming out of the woodwork of the house. He managed to kill only two before he was overwhelmed all over again, pinned to the floor by the weight of several wolves.

Feeling teeth meet in the back of his neck, he forced himself to relax, whimpering as if to surrender.

And when he felt the fangs loosening once more, he surged upwards, sending his opponent flying.

Just as quickly, another took his place. This one would not be so easily fooled, and though Kane fought hard, knocking the new wolf backwards several times, he was quickly overpowered by the other wolves coming in from all sides.

Just when he thought there might be no hope left, a streak of dark ash-blonde fur streaked past him.

Then another, darker wolf pounced right over his head, knocking another of his opponents away.

Hanson and Eddie gave Kane just the relief he needed, parting their enemies like a sea of fur to enable Kane to charge his way down the hall and up the staircase.

Miley"s scent was faint on the stairs, but it was there, and he took the steps three at a time, pounding up onto the landing.

It didn"t take much to know where she was being kept.

The door at the far end of the landing was heavily guarded, four men in total. And, as if they had believed their friends downstairs could hold off whoever was attacking the farm, they had failed to shift.

Fucking idiots, Kane thought, snarling as he darted down the hall towards them.

Cockily, the first two bared their fangs and extended their claws, as if they thought that was all they needed to dispatch him.

Kane, sensing what they were going to do before they even did it, darted out of the way, twisted, and kicked off from the wall, sending the first man in his way flying down the hall with a powerful kick of his hind legs.

Then, he was on the second, knocking him easily to the floor with his powerful wolf muscles.

You should have shifted, Kane thought as he sank his teeth into the man"s pale throat.

It seemed the other two had at least a little more sense than the first two, and they were already in the process of shifting when Kane turned his attention on them.

With the metallic taste of blood hot on his tongue and adrenaline coursing through his body, he met his next two opponents in the open hall, making quick work of taking them down.

They really were beginning to make this way too easy on him. If he hadn"t known any better, he would have said that all of these guards were newly made werewolves. They seemed to have so little control over their shifts, so little fighting skill, that it was actually pathetic.

He thought little of it as he threw himself hard at the bedroom door. Whether it was locked or not, he did not have the time to shift in order to open it, and he wasn"t about to waste any more time trying to flick the doorknob with his nose or even a paw.

For once, brute strength would simply have to suffice.

And luckily for him, it appeared that the bedroom door wasn"t as well-made as it appeared to be. In fact, it was quite hollow, crumbling easily beneath the force of his weight.

It burst open to reveal four wolves inside the bedroom, three of which were holding the fourth down.

And though Kane had yet to see her in wolf form, he recognized Miley immediately. There was no mistaking that flaming red pelt of hers for anyone else"s. It was the same intense, fiery shade as her human hair, and even surrounded by other wolves as she was, Kane could easily recognize her wonderfully fragrant scent.

Two of the wolves pinning her down came at him almost instantly, giving him little time to react.

Miley"s pain and fear was palpable. He could practically taste it, so much so that all he could think about was getting to her, making her safe, ensuring she was okay. It didn"t matter what happened to him. All that mattered was her.

And so, he fought on blindly and with practiced ease, remembering all that his time in the army and black ops had taught him.

In less than a minute he killed the first wolf. The second took slightly longer. The third was the most difficult, but in the end, he brought him down, crushing his windpipe.

And the next thing he knew, he was standing in the middle of the bedroom, surrounded by the dead human bodies of his victims.

Miley sat, human once more, against the edge of the bed. The way she stared at him wasn"t entirely terrified, as he might have expected, but he hesitated.

She was still new to this. He remembered all too well how he had felt when he had tumbled into the supernatural world, when he had been bitten one night after running away from home for the hundredth time, the last time.

Carefully, he crossed the distance between them and pressed his nose against her cheek, relieved when she didn"t pull away or attempt to run.

He closed his eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief, taking in her scent.

The only blood he smelled was that of the dead behind him. He breathed another sigh and started to shift.

It was only when he crouched before her, human and naked as the day he was born, that he opened his eyes again and pulled back enough to look Miley in the face. "Are you okay?"

Though she was trembling, she appeared otherwise unharmed. Still, Kane needed to hear it from her own lips to be sure.

Yet, she didn"t speak. Instead, she surged forward, grabbed hold of his face in her hands and kissed him.

It was such as shock that Kane almost fell backwards. He barely managed to catch himself, grabbing the footboard of the bed to steady himself as he wrapped his other arm around her waist and pulled her to him.

"You…you came for me," she whispered, stammering as if she could barely manage to speak. Her forehead pressed against his, her nose nuzzling his as if she couldn"t care less about the blood that smeared across his face.

Kane shrugged. "I didn"t have much choice in the matter."

Miley pulled back to look at him, her head cocked to one side. "What does that mean?"

Her tone was defensive. Kane gritted his teeth, feeling like a fool. Why did he have to go and say it like that? Of course she would take offense.

"What I meant was, it was instinctual," he said through gritted teeth, hoping he could salvage the situation. "I didn"t even think. I just did."

"Why?"

The question hung between them for several moments. Kane stared into Miley"s gloriously green eyes and said, "I think you know why. You can feel it too, can"t you?"

Even now, he could feel the physical pull towards her that made him want to take her right there on that damn bed behind her, to claim her and finally have it known that she was his and he was hers.

"I…I…yes, but I don"t understand it," Miley said, shaking her head. "I"ve never felt anything like this before."

She pressed the palm of her hand against his chest and Kane gasped. Electricity surged between them. The warmth of her hand was so intoxicating that he almost forgot entirely about everything else that was going on.

She looked at her hand as if she had felt it, too, as if she could physically see the bond forming between them.

"I"ll explain everything," Kane promised, leaning forward to press his lips to Miley"s forehead. "But for now, we need to get you out of here. It isn"t safe."

It took everything he had in him to grab a blanket off the bed and wrap Miley in it.

As a werewolf, he was used to being naked—hell, he"d seen almost every female member of the pack naked at one time or another, it was nothing new to him—but seeing Miley naked as she was right now was more than a little distracting.

"Come on," he said, urging her to her feet. "We need to get you out of here."

Pulling the blanket a little tighter around her, he wrapped her in his arms for one more time, drinking in the scent of her again to give himself strength for what he was about to do next.

When he pulled back again, he held her at arm"s length and looked her in the eye. "I"m going to shift and get you the hell out of here. You need to stay close, but if I"m forced to fight, I need you to get the hell out of the way. Do you understand?"