Chasing Shadow (Shadow Puppeteer) (22 page)

“Belen McKnight?” he asked.

“Sonya sent you?”

He tilted his head and sniffed the air.

“You were in my territory. Come to play with my wolves? You know how that story ends, don’t you?” he asked. His smile exposed his nicotine stained teeth. “The wolves always win.”

I didn’t understand a lot about the werewolf hierarchy, but I knew the alpha was responsible for Rex’s scars. He was also the bane of his pack. This man hurt his people.

“You’re the alpha in Rex’s pack.”

He chuckled. “You called it, princess. Now let’s go.”

D was unzipping his coats and pulling them off. He kicked his shoes off and was wiggling out of his jeans, which left him in a long white shirt and white pants.

“You’re kidding right? Little pup, I will eat you for breakfast,” the alpha said.

The air rippled with static. The two behind him were doing the same. Someone was going to get hurt and it was probably going to be us. I pulled the gun from its holder and pointed it at them.

“Stop!” I ordered.

“If that gun doesn’t have silver bullets, you’re just going to piss me off,” he said.

He gave a signal and the woman with him dropped on all fours. Her skin burst under the pressure of fur, ripping the rest of her clothes off. She rushed at us and D shoved me out of the way, taking the brunt of her tackle.

Their bodies slammed and he was airborne. By the time I pointed my gun, she was on him. He lashed out and she yelped, jumping away. Blood slid from the dark fur on her maw and D’s sleeve was stained with blood, but he didn’t have a weapon in his hand.

“Kill him,” the alpha ordered his second man.

The minute the guy fell to all fours with his skin rippling, I fired the gun. The first bullet struck him in the shoulder, forcing him back a few steps. I kept pressing the trigger until the gun clicked empty in my hand. The man fell low to the ground, as blood poured from his wounds, but he wasn’t down like he should be.

D pulled himself from the ground, holding his arm where the sleeve was soaked in blood. Spots of red marred the other parts of his white clothing. I was shaking, but he appeared calm. He was fast, but it didn’t mean he could defend himself if last night was an example.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He nodded and swayed. I caught him with my free hand, tucking the gun away and grabbing my bone knife. The alpha bent down to touch the wolf I shot. I appreciated the second it gave me to regroup. My nerves were going to make me less efficient.

The female kept close to her alpha as blood dripped from her jaws. The cut must be deep, but the fur hid it well.

“Sonya never said she wanted you whole,” he growled. His pupils went dark, and his animal spirit made his skin ripple underneath.

“Run,” D ordered. He stepped in front of me, blocking my view.

Run and leave him? Not going to happen.

I held the blade so hard my fingers ached.

The man I shot started to shake violently. It lasted for a very long couple of seconds, right before his skin burst with fur. He rolled onto all fours, tilted his head and let a howl rip from his throat. I took a step back, but D held his ground. For someone so dazed, D had a backbone of steel.

The alpha grabbed the center of his wife beater and the fabric ripped under his force. His movements were ruled by anger. He was scarier than the doppelganger. We needed to finish this before he did. I reached for D, but he stepped forward, ready to meet them head on.

“Come on D,” I said.

Where was this bravery coming from? He didn’t even have a weapon.

D pulled his shirt hood over his head and it fell low just like his coat hood. The energy that tingled off him was similar to the energy I felt when I stepped onto the temple’s porch. His sleeves went straight and it had nothing to do the body within the fabric.

My shadow heart was beating as rapidly as my regular heart. Adrenaline made every nerve in my body feel light as air.

The alpha’s change was just as forceful as the other two. He was huge in wolf form, just like Rex. His lips pulled back, exposing sharp canine teeth.

Both wolves leaped at D and he whipped his sleeves at them. The female was too slow and D got her in the throat. She fell back, but the other wolf was on him. The alpha growled low, approaching me with caution. Maybe he thought I could do what D was doing.

This close, I couldn’t help but notice that my entire head could fit in his jaws. My hands were sweating so badly that even the grooves in the handle made it difficult keeping a good grip on the blade. I needed fingerless gloves.

The alpha hunched back and leaped. Fear was a bullet in my heart, lacing my body. Every nerve ran cold with dread and that’s when my shadow heart beat faster. It pulsed so hard that I thought it was going to rip right out of my chest.

The alpha shadowed the sun. I held my knife upward; expecting it to break on impact, but a burst of energy pulsed from me, sending the alpha flying hard into the building. Brick tumbled around him, knocking his head.

One wolf was down, looking diced and sliced, but the other viciously shook D’s arm. D raised his other hand and string strands shot from his shirt and went straight into the creature’s neck. It whined and I had to cover my ears and turn away, but I wasn’t fast enough. There was a lot of blood. The wolf’s cry went straight to my heart.

It was better them than us. They were going to tear him apart. Still, I couldn’t help the grief that quickly filled me. It was going to drown me in its weight.

I was stronger than this. I really was. So why was I grieving so hard—

D!

It wasn’t my emotions, it was his. He was trying so hard not to grieve for these creatures. When I turned to look at him, his hood was pushed back and the wind played through his curls. His shoulders were down and his hazy eyes glistened. I needed to get him out of here.

I gently took his arm, which was wet with blood, his or the wolf, I didn’t know. The edges of his eyes tensed, and I could only guess the pain was too much for him.

“We need to go,” I said.

D wasn’t ready to take his eyes off the two that lay before him.

“I should heal them,” he said.

“D, they’re dead. There’s nothing you can do for them,” I said.

As hard as I stared at them, their pelts never rose to breathe. D swallowed hard and I tried again to get him to walk, but his feet were planted. His sorrow was starting to choke me up. There was enough to feel sorry about and I didn’t want one ounce of it to go to someone who tried to hurt me, but his mourning dredged up Ms. Sable and the boatman to the forefront of my mind.

“I need to try,” he said, pushing his sleeves up.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

This time when I pulled, he followed me like a little sheep led by a rope. He was solemn as I dragged him to the nearest alley.

“What was going on with your clothes?” I asked.

“The light,” he said.

That made about as much sense as the shadow that followed me. I had so many questions to ask, but a howl broke my shell of confidence.

“I thought werewolves only changed at night during the full moon,” I said.

D answered me, but his accent was so heavy, I only caught a few words: turned and born. Did that mean werewolves could give birth to other werewolves? The books only talked about the werewolves who were turned due to a bite.

I needed another weapon, one that would kill the alpha at a distance. I heard him, racing up behind us. I pushed D against the wall and turned, ready to stab the creature. At that instant, I knew he had no intention of taking me to Sonya. He was going to kill me.

My shadow heart was pounding and every part of me was tight. It was going to happen again. In the shadow of the two buildings, the pulse was strong. Something within me was responding and I couldn’t stop it. He didn’t leap at me, but he didn’t have to. I was surrounded by shadow and that was all I needed for the inner darkness to respond.

It pulsed from me, knocking me back on my butt. The alpha’s yelp drew my attention. The darkness curled around him, lifting him off his feet. I could feel his fear. It was pungent like a sweaty body. His eyes were wide, watching me, begging to be let go. The shadows were feeding off his fear.

My legs were numb, but I managed to stumble over to him. His eyes begged me to stop this. I raised my hand to touch the shadows, but I wasn’t brave enough. I tried to pull that energy back within me, but my shadow heart didn’t respond.

“I’m sorry.”

The shadows tightened and his bones cracked to comply with the pressure. His shallow breathing made his chest rise and fall quickly. I pressed my hand into the shadow, expecting them to crawl up my flesh and latch around my body. It tickled my fingers, but didn’t attach to me.

I couldn’t save him. The shadows tightened and something vital snapped. When it released him, he was boneless. I couldn’t breathe.

“It just came out of me. I couldn’t control it,” I said.

D didn’t move.

I had to kill him or he was going to kill me, but I didn’t want it to be like this. This took no effort and if you were going to kill someone, there should be an effort. The weapon should be heavy with the weight of the dead.

The shadows shot from my hands and twisted his body. It broke his spine. I shuddered. Guilt surged through me. I killed Rex’s alpha. What did that mean for his pack?

D came up behind me. I couldn’t help but notice he kept his distance.

“Come. We leave.”

“I need to bury him,” I said.

At D’s silence, I glanced at him. He was watching the end of the alley and I followed his gaze to the forest wall. The brush moved far too violent to be caused by the wind. The tension in his shoulders said danger was coming. I couldn’t deal with anything else. I couldn’t trust those shadows to come back.

I pushed him ahead of me, rushing us back to the main street.

T
he thumping upstairs jarred me awake. I raised my hand to wipe the plaster from my face and found that my arm wasn’t the only muscle that ached. Muscles protested the smallest of movements. Quick inventory of my training session with Jose said I had some nice size bruises. Despite all that, my cheek throbbed from sleeping on the edge of the book.

It looked like dawn through the missing plank in my window, but it had to be sunset. My timing was off after the night I had. I threw on a pair of black knee high tight pants and a black sleeveless low cut top. Before this week, I never wore solid black, but now I liked the way it looked. I felt dangerous.

The apartment was full of dinner scents when I opened my bedroom door. D was at the table dishing the food out while Katrina filled glasses with bottled water. I took a place at the table as Katrina approached. I wanted a moment alone with D so I could ask him about the light and how he controlled it.

“I see you’ve been studying hard,” Katrina said.

“There’s a lot to learn,” I mumbled.

“It seems like a lot because this is new, but in a few months, you’ll see how quickly you catch on,” Katrina said.

There was a brief silence as D shoveled food into his mouth. Rex ate like he had a bottomless pit of a stomach too. I really missed him, but the possibilities of what would happen when he found me didn’t lead to romance.

“You know, when I was your age, I already knew this,” Katrina said. “However, when I was your age, I’d also done some traveling.” She got misty eyed. “Those days, I was treated like a diva.”

“Diva?” D snorted and shook his head. He didn’t look up to meet her eyes as he kept shoveling food in his mouth.

Katrina gave him a warm smile. “Well you know how the saying goes, make a good situation out of the bad.”

“It was bad, Katrina, for both of us,” D said. He looked up for a brief moment before his eyes went back to his bowl. Pink colored his cheeks.

I lowered my metaphysical shield and felt a hint of shame from D and a stirring of guilt from Katrina. They both buried themselves in their food.

“You’re a werewolf, aren’t you?” I asked.

D glanced up at me. His eyes weren’t nearly as intense as Rex’s, but that otherworldliness that made his pupils sharpen, spoke volumes.

“Yes, and a rogue is open game to packs. A lone wolf can get ripped up if they cross another pack’s territory,” Katrina warned.

The tranquility was broken by rapid beating on the door. Katrina and I jumped.

“It’s probably Jose,” I said.

“It doesn’t smell like Jose,” D said.

Katrina pulled away from the table and started towards the door. Their combined tension made me uneasy. I took my knife from the table and stood. My gun was in the bedroom, but Katrina had her gun in hand.

D shook his head at me. “If it gets violent, I will not let anyone hurt you, but that blade will give the wrong idea. You should put it down before someone finds you hostile.”

I didn’t want to give up the blade so I sat it down at the edge of the table for easy access. I was bothered by all this caution. I stopped just at the couch, less than five feet from Katrina and the bat that stood beside the door. She glanced into the peep hole and relief eased in her shoulders. Everything in me was too tense to let go, but I dropped back as she jingled all the locks free and swung the door open.

The woman slid into the room without an invitation. She didn’t look at Katrina or me as she drifted across the room to fall at D’s feet. It was odd watching an older woman clutch at D. I couldn’t follow the language she spoke. The woman was moaning unintelligently as she made hand movements.

“Don’t touch her,” Katrina warned.

D’s knuckles went white from clutching his chair. He was trying hard to resist what compelled him.

“What’s she saying?” I asked.

It happened so quickly. The woman took the blade I left on the edge of the table and drew it deep along her arm. The skin split and blood immediately rushed down her arm to drip on the floor. Katrina cursed when D reached for her.

The blood stopped flowing from her arm, but it continued to drip from a higher source. Katrina moved past me, grabbing a fresh kitchen towel to wrap around D’s arm. I knew the injuries transferred to him, but I didn’t realize the extent. If he tried to heal the chopped up wolves, the injuries would kill him.