Half Wolf (Alpha Underground Book 1) (17 page)

I could neither smell nor see Hunter, but I got the distinct impression that he was out there four-legged, watching and waiting as my pack and I moved into position. His presence was akin to a tingle at the base of my spine, the same sensation that I’d experienced over and over again during the last twenty-four hours of jittery anticipation. I’d kept looking over my shoulder all day long, in fact, expecting Hunter to return for his clothes, wallet, and SUV. But instead the uber-alpha appeared to have turned wolf and disappeared from our lives as quickly and as thoroughly as he’d come into them.

And yet, if my overactive nerve endings were any indication, Hunter hadn’t really abandoned us at all—just taken a step back until we couldn’t quite see him out of the corners of our eyes. Whether the sensation was the work of the pack bond or just wishful thinking on my part, though, didn’t really matter. Either Hunter really was my mate and we were in good shape—with five able-bodied shifters and a recovering getaway driver toeing off against two SSS members—or the uber-alpha was merely waiting to turn the tide of the battle in the opposite direction and ensure that we all perished.

Regardless, I couldn’t do anything about it now. In fact, as soon as I set eyes on my youngest pack mate, I immediately forgot everything except the urge to rush closer to the girl as quickly as possible.

Lia had already been pulled out of one of the cars by the time I caught sight of her and she was now being dragged over to where the other outpack male waited with his hand firmly clamped onto the shoulder of a second prisoner. Our youngest pack mate had every right to be cowed after days of confinement, but Lia was instead holding her shit together with a strength of will that would have made her cousins proud. The girl’s cheeks were tear-stained, but her chin jutted skyward as she dug her heels into the dirt and roundly refused to give in to her captor’s attempts to move her along.

Savannah, on the other hand, looked nearly comatose. Or at least I assumed the other girl was Savannah. I wouldn’t have recognized the teenager from her photo, smiles and youthful charm having been completely obliterated by dirt and bruises. And unlike Lia, Savannah was hunched over as if her kidneys hurt. Her wolf was clearly too quiescent to give the girl the boost she needed to survive any further ordeal.

I wanted to swear and then tear into the two males who were manhandling the kidnapped girls with such disregard for their captives
’
humanity. But that wasn’t the plan. Instead, Quill and I paced forward, purposefully coming upon the group aslant and from downwind, so the enemy wouldn’t notice us until we were almost close enough to touch.

The night before, the pack and I had gone back and forth over the issue of Quill’s presence on the front line of the upcoming showdown. Would the outpack males who we were hoping to ambush have been in the bar Tuesday night, meaning they would have seen the cowboy shifter leave with us? Or could he pass as just another SSS member that Lia’s captors didn’t happen to know personally?

“I’ll make them believe,”
Quill had promised, raising one eyebrow at me as if asking my future permission to knock his new pack leader around. Now he made good on that past promise, loudly rebuking me for my supposed dilly-dallying, then shoving me so hard that I nearly fell to the earth at his feet.

The abrupt greeting appeared to have worked. I couldn’t actually see the SSS males’ faces since my bound hands prevented me from catching myself before I slammed into the side of the nearest car. But the strangers’ voices were congratulatory as they greeted what they assumed was another halfie-hunting shifter showing up with his catch at the usual Friday night watering hole.

And even though I’d banged myself up good during our introduction to the scene, I was glad that Quill’s quick thinking had kept my face averted from the SSS crew. Unlike the cowboy shifter with his impressive acting skills, I has having a hard time maintaining a disheartened demeanor. Instead, I felt triumphant as I realized that our plan was actually going off without a hitch.

This was it. We’d edged ourselves close enough to Lia and Savannah so we could now pull the girls out of harm’s way before the rest of our pack mates joined in the fight. Soon, both kids would be tucked away in bed with soup and hot chocolate and whatever else we could think of to lull them back into a very real sense of security. Soon, our entire pack would once again be fully united.

But then the shifter holding Lia burst my bubble with a single word. “Nice work, Talon,” he said. “I didn’t really think you could do it, but you managed after all. A halfie alpha!”

Talon!
Absurdly, I wasted a split second thinking I must have been mistaken. Quill was a nice guy, a thoughtful member of our crew. He was here to help Lia escape.

To help Lia who had formed a supposedly irrational dislike of our newest member as soon as he entered our lives? No, Quill/Talon was present for one purpose and one purpose alone. To increase the SSS’s weekly haul, bringing in not only two weak girls but also a third half-blood shifter whose wolf was equally lily-livered but who had been granted an unusual power by a friendly pack leader.

If, as I suspected, the SSS was somehow stealing their prey’s lupine capabilities each time they murdered a half-blood, then I was the holy grail. A halfie weak enough to easily sacrifice on the altar, but with a hidden strength that would boost the outpack males’ own wolves far more effectively than the spirits of the other two girls currently in their grasp.

“Glen, Ginger, attack!” I screamed, struggling against my captor’s grasp and hoping my pack mates would be able to descend upon the enemy quickly enough to wrest the two teenagers out of the outpack males’ control. But instead I heard Lia’s shriek of rage becoming muffled as a car door slammed and shut her away from the outside world. Then I felt the prick of a needle invading my bicep as the world turned fuzzy around me.

“You were so easy to manipulate,” Quill whispered in my ear. “So easy to catch.”

And then the world went black.

I awoke in a hole in the ground. And, in case you’re a
Hobbit
fan, let me assure you—it
was
a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell. Plus, my prison was as dark as the grave.

Perhaps it
was
my grave.

The image of dying there, with no pack mates around to mourn me, filled my mind. I’d rot alone in this hole, my bones jumbling together as carrion beetles rolled my flesh into tiny balls to feed to their offspring. Snakes would slither down to capture the tiny critters drawn to feed upon my decomposing flesh and tree roots would eventually invade the pockets of fertility left behind.

At least then I’d be good for something.

I shuddered, my head pounding as I tried to push through the drugged fog and remember what had happened back in that farmer’s field. The turncoat, the needle prick, the car doors slamming...I’d obviously been captured, but surely Lia and Savannah had gotten away?

No, I distinctly remembered my youngest pack mate’s screams as she was forced into the vehicle nearest me. Thought I might have recalled her cradling my comatose body against her own slender form as we sped out of the lot, my head jiggling nervelessly on my neck just before unconsciousness fully claimed me.

If Lia and Savannah were prisoners like I was, then I needed to find and help them.

“Is anyone there?” I whispered into the darkness, reaching my hands out in search of other living beings. One arm grazed a skinny, damp object that might have been a root...or a severed finger. I jerked away, hitting my head on a protruding rock in the process of reeling backwards into the void.

My stomach was too queasy to risk opening my mouth even so far as to swear. Instead, I held perfectly still, listening to the way my breathing echoed within my ears. Hyperventilation was soothing in its own way, I decided. The heaving breaths proved I was still alive, that the earth hadn’t yet swallowed me whole.

Get it together
.

My wolf’s whisper shook me out of the mindless terror I was falling into, and I didn’t even care that she’d joined me behind our shared eyes without invitation. It wasn’t as if there was anything for her to see in the pitch black hole anyway.

“Look for escape,”
she whispered aloud with my lips. And I nodded, proving that I really was crazy—not only talking to myself but replying as well.
Right, escape.

I patted myself down first, finding that I was still wearing the clothes I’d started out the day in. Or perhaps that had been the day before? With no light in my hole, I didn’t know if it was today or tomorrow—and now I was just confusing myself with my own words. The pounding headache didn’t help matters either.

Focus. Surely I have some weapons left.

My trembling fingers brushed across jeans and t-shirt, found Crew’s collar still stashed away in one bulging pocket. I’d never gotten around to examining the item, I now realized, never taken the time to decipher the source of the rotten-banana odor that had allowed the SSS shifters to break through Hunter’s iron grip.

Well, now I’ve got all the time in the world.
That wasn’t really true—even in my somewhat altered state, I realized that Quill wouldn’t just leave me down in this hole to molder. No, the outpack male had likely stashed all three of us halfies away for safekeeping until the time was ripe to rip out our hearts like he’d harvested organs from the unfortunate Daisy Rambler. I might have days, hours, or only minutes alone. Best get to the task of escaping.

This would have been easier in daylight,
I grumbled. But the wolf only snorted within my skin and brought our shared hands up so we could sniff at the collar while running light fingers down its length. There was the faintest hint of rotten banana yet present, the odor emanating from a little plastic indentation that currently held the smallest iota of moisture.

What do you think?
I asked my animal half, then waited what seemed like an eternity for a reply that never came.

She was gone, I realized. Even the barest essence of rotten banana remaining had been enough to momentarily banish my wolf. Which meant I
did
have the tiniest ace in the hole—a way to force myself out of an alpha compulsion, if necessary.

Assuming, of course, that I was able to pull the collar out of my pocket and bring it up to my nose while a shifter stronger than me tried to force my muscles to act otherwise. Not likely.

Pushing the collar back into my pocket, I fought down the terror that threatened to rise back up in my throat now that my animal half had gone missing. Wolf or no wolf, I wasn’t a damsel in distress and the collar wasn’t my only possible escape hatch. There was the tracking device for one....

Fingers slipped down toward my left sock, seeking the tiny sliver of plastic and metal that Glen had purchased as an auxiliary safety measure.
“We’ll be able to find you anywhere there’s satellite reception,”
my stalwart second had promised, his veiled eyes doing their best not to ask me to think up a strategy that didn’t involve being taken back to the enemy’s lair as bait.

In all fairness, that hadn’t actually been my plan. The tracking device was for backup only.

Or it
had
been for backup. Because my frantic fingers found no bump beneath my left sock. And when I tried the other ankle, hoping my drug-addled brain had just forgotten precisely where I stashed the device, no chunk of plastic turned up there either.

I closed my eyes, allowing the voluntary darkness to erode away the newfound rush of adrenaline that was threatening to turn me into a quivering mass of jelly.
Breathe
, I reminded myself, wishing my wolf would show back up to keep me company.

It was no big surprise the tracking device was gone. After all, Quill had been privy to its installation just as he’d been privy to every other aspect of our planning process.

Won’t Ginger be pissed when she realizes she went after the wrong outpack male after all?

I tried to smile but was pretty sure the expression on my face was closer to a grimace.
Okay, so no one will be riding to the rescue. No biggie. I’ll just find my own way out.

I stretched out a tentative arm once more, this time steeling myself to face the slimy, unknown objects that met my touch.
It’s like being in a haunted house, I told myself. A kid plunges his hands into a vat in the dark and is sure he’s fingering entrails. But the lights come on and it’s just spaghetti.

Somehow, though, I didn’t think the nasty, slithery objects around me were spaghetti.

Not the point
, I rebutted my own rebuttal.
The point is to figure out where my prison cell starts and ends so I can find a way out. Remember—it’s up to me to rescue Lia.

Even the faint memory of the girl’s prideful chin as she was yanked away from the SSS member’s car made me smile. And my upturned lips in turn gave me strength to reach out again to feel the walls of my prison.

I didn’t even have to stretch, it turned out, because the hole I was imprisoned within must have been dug in a hurry. It was rounded at the bottom, with clods of dirt littered here and there, and the total width was less than the length of a single arm.

That’s a good thing
, I told myself, ignoring my childlike fear of the close, dark space.
It means I can brace myself against the far wall and climb back out.

I straightened, preparing to suit action to words...and hit my head painfully on a wooden ceiling.

Could it really be so easy? Just push off the lid and pop up like a jack-in-the-box? Putting my back into it, I spread both hands across the damp boards and pushed with all my might.

The ceiling didn’t so much as budge. The hatch was either locked tight or covered with an object so heavy there was no way I could dislodge it.

Or maybe I really am buried alive.

My heart rate began to pick up, but I refused to be defeated so easily. Taking a deep breath, I decided:
So I’ll carve my way out around the edges instead
.

Glad my fingernails were cut short, I scrabbled at the earth beside the wooden ceiling. Dirt fell into my hair, caught in my eyes, and settled around my feet. Blinking painfully against the invasive particles, I cupped my fingers into mole-like claws and dug yet harder.

A tiny stone tore at the soft flesh of one cuticle, but I paid it no mind. Splinters embedded themselves in my skin as I continued to disinter more of the wooden boards that topped my lair, but it was too dark to see if I bled. I yanked the offending slivers of wood out with my teeth and kept going.

Further and further I dug. I
would
break through.

Only when I’d filled the entire bottom of my prison cell with six inches of debris and the air had grown decidedly moldy from a dislodged I-didn’t-want-to-think-about-what-it-was did I pause. I’d carved out an indentation on one side of the wooden ceiling large enough to fill with my head and shoulders. In other words, I
’
d created just a hair more breathing room...but there was no sign of daylight creeping through the cracks and the boards above my head felt never-ending.

I’ll never see daylight again.

I tried to breathe, tried to swallow down the massive knot in my throat. But I couldn’t even force myself to bend my knees and settle back into the dirt. Instead, I shifted forms without meaning to, my wolf emerging tangled in a mess of human clothing.

Caught, tight, stuck.

Terror-stricken, I lashed out at the bonds that held me in place.

Then, relief, as my animal spirit woke and pushed my human brain aside. Pushed my consciousness back down into her lupine belly. Took complete command of the body that we no longer shared, that she had instead claimed for her very own.

Happily, I sank into a new kind of darkness.