Chapter 18

18

I was ankle-deep in a water filled mangrove stand at the edge of the bayou, using my seeker’s intuition to search for the final piece.

Thorn, who had expressed confidence in me, insisted I could do this alone. Basking in his good regard, I agreed. But now I wasn’t sure, because something was wrong.

The piece called me, but stubbornly remained out of reach. And I was very exposed out there, on pack land. And since it was the final piece, I had to bring the others with me.

Last night, after the gala, over drinks, then takeout, and more drinks, Thorn explained to me that the last rune was lost in a turf war between himself and the previous Syndicate mob boss.

As it turned out, and much to my surprise, the last boss used the wolves to amplify his power to win against challengers. Thorn had gotten wind of it and decided to level the playing field.

When I asked how the confrontation went, Thorn glowered, and I got the message it was something he didn’t want to talk about. And I got it. There were levels of shit here that I had zero clue about.

And I understood something else. Thorn knew about me since I was a teen, at least before he reached out to me to find the Hand. He was unwilling to tell me more about my parents, and I got the impression that if I had a crowbar, I couldn’t bash it out of him. Since he wouldn’t spill anything I wanted to know, when he propositioned me again, I did us both a solid and turned him down.

It had about killed me, but nope, I needed more from Thorn than pretty words.

But Thorn’s intel clicked new facts in place. As a new Alpha, Kye must have learned that the artifacts could strengthen him. That explained why I had found him hunting for this Hand now and why he had lusted after it.

The last rune had disappeared in the middle of the fight on the night the Syndicate attacked our pack and tried to run us out of Baton Rouge.

As with so many things I had thought were true growing up, I was forced to admit that “werewolves as hired guns” was far more believable of the pack than their version of “we were innocently sitting around a campfire when the evil Syndicate attacked.”

But that mattered little to me as I sat in a tree, pushed my toes under the Spanish moss, and checked the wind direction every minute.

The waning moon had hung over the open field beyond the grove I hid in, illuminating the tall, waving marsh grass and the fireflies dancing and blinking in the boughs. It had been a beautiful night. I would’ve once been happy to patrol and make love in the grass under that moon.

Thorn’s words had haunted me.

Many creatures were more powerful, beautiful, and compelling than shifters. Why are you so dead set on being one?

Why, indeed? My ex-pack had despised me for reasons I had never understood. So, I hadn’t shifted. It was the only thing I hadn’t done. I was right with them—patrolling, hunting, and acquiring, okay, thieving, resources. But I wasn’t “good enough” for them. And Kye had been more concerned about his position as Alpha than the love we supposedly shared.

Betrayal.

Its bitter taste had lingered in my mouth, and it had hit me that the life I had yearned for had always been a lie. So I had sat and waited for my senses to sound the all-clear so I could steal what the wolves wanted most from under their wretched muzzles.

My one looming disadvantage had been if the wolves smelled me coming, they’d flank me and kick my ass. I was sure they’d prefer to shred me than take me prisoner.

They were the only family I’d ever known, and I knew they would kill me.

Family. Can’t live with ‘em. Can’t kill them either…Unfortunately.

One would think that I wouldn’t feel the tug at my heart, knowing everything I had ever known or believed was, at best, fake and, at worst, malicious and evil. Thorn had been right. I wasn’t a shifter, or at least I was made differently from them. For my pack, it had been a one-and-done thing to kick me to the curb. Me? I still missed, after these few years, the familiar scents of home.

I had licked my finger and rechecked the breeze coming from the northeast, putting me downwind from the pack.

It was time to move.

I had focused on the pack, their collective scent, the movement of the patrols as I remembered them, and the roster of pack members that patrolled on the waning moon. Then I had taken the ‘seeking’ ability, pushed outward, and extended my senses instead of narrowing the power.

I had reached the edge of the land, the mangroves, and all the life between me and that boundary, and just as I had been about to pull back, I had caught the scent of a patrol moving through.

Oh, that was just great.

Marvin and his mate, Peta. They despised me before it had been cool to do so, and they had enthusiastically encouraged hating me. I had followed their path, then stealthily moved from my perch once they’d passed. No problem, except that the rune itself had been mute to me. All around me, the nightlife stirred, and my senses picked up everything except the one thing I needed.

I followed the faint trace to the water and pushed outward to grab the signal. But unlike every other time I’d been seeking this object, the trail ended in the middle of nothing, and I scowled where it disappeared.

The water’s edge carried other familiar scents, but the artifact wasn’t there. It occurred to me that someone wanted me to think it was.

This meant the person who possesses it brought it here to leave a tantalizing trail and make me think it had sunk out in the water. Why? To become supper for the ‘gators in the bayou? Maybe they wanted to drown me? It’s difficult to know. But anyone who knows how my ability works would have figured this ruse would be unsuccessful. This cut Thorn, Chastity, and Kye from the list of suspects. Not that it would stop the wolves from beating the shit out of me if they caught me out here.

I crouched and considered my limited options. And I strained every sense to track Marvin and Peta. Were they alone?

“Well, well, well,” said a voice I knew too well.

I whipped around to see Peta, her blonde hair twisted in dreadlocks, wearing a torn tee and ratty jeans.

“Hey, Peta,” I said. “I see you haven’t made that hair appointment yet.”

“Fuck you.”

I winced. “Sorry. You aren’t my type. Where’s your boy toy? Can’t keep up?”

“I’m here, bitch,” said Marvin from behind me.

I turned to keep Peta and Marvin in my line of sight from either side.

“Well, look at this family reunion,” I said cheerfully.

Peta out–and-out growled at me and bared her teeth.

“Feeling furry?” I asked. “I guess it’s that time of the month.”

“Bitch!” said Peta. She launched herself at me, and I managed to step backward as I watched her turn mid-flight into her wolf shape.

“No, Peta,” said Marvin. “Don’t—”

I wasn’t sure what Marvin was talking about until I saw the tell-tale rounding of her stomach. I gasped. Shifter females, because of the disparity between human-length pregnancies and wolf, shouldn’t shift. Wolf pregnancies are only two months long, while humans—nine. If she were more than two months pregnant, the baby’s volume would tear her apart internally.

Peta fell into the water, thrashing and whining in agony. Marvin knelt beside her and tried to hold his woman, but he couldn’t contain her.

This was worse than seeing a pack hunt a deer and tear it apart. There was absolutely nothing anyone could do.

Finally, her twisting stopped, and she lay glassy-eyed, her fur wet with swamp water and blood pooling around her. I didn’t want to see where the blood came from.

Marvin gave a long howl, filled with grief, and though I hated how he treated me, no one deserved this. I knew the pain of losing a mate.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Marvin’s eyes met mine.

“This is your fault,” he growled. “You shouldn’t be here. She, they, wouldn’t be dead if you didn’t show up where you are not wanted.”

I don’t know what came over me. The most unreasonable rage surged through my body. My breathing chugged like a freight train. I didn’t just want to—I desired to tear Marvin apart, not just for the cruelty he had shown me over the years, but for his unrelenting stupidity. He should never have brought his pregnant mate on patrol knowing there was a chance she’d get startled into the change.

And I want to yell this at him, but I can’t speak.

And then the answering cries of the pack in full furry mode swept over the swamp, and I see them in my mind’s eyes practically flying over the mangroves, paws unerringly touching the roots to spring to the next tuft of land.

They would be here soon, and I couldn’t be here when they arrived.

Marvin stared at me with such hate that he would have killed me with that gaze if he could. And as he clutched his fallen mate, shaking with rage, it struck me.

The Hand of Belial carried the essence of wrath. And it was wrath that gripped Peta and startled her to change. Marvin now shook with rage, and if he didn’t want to keep holding his dead mate right now, I’d be lying shredded in the mangrove swamp.

But there was no use denying it. My presence killed Peta and her child.

The pack’s howls were closer.

“Marvin, I’m sorry for your loss.”

And I wheeled and headed northeast from the swamp as fast as possible. My feet pounded through the water with a surety I never had before. I ran more swiftly than the baleful moon that had just witnessed death following my tracks. And I swear I heard the pack trail me, and though it shouldn’t be possible, I outran them.

My feet took me to the one place I called home, even though it was a twenty-mile run. Chastity had warned me not to return, but I had no choice.

So I found myself at my apartment, hoping that Chastity didn’t kick me out on my ass. Because, despite the tragedy of the evening, I still needed to find that talisman, and she was the only person who could help me do that.