Heart Of The Wolf (24 page)

He fixed his
gaze on Selena and advanced.

With her
strength renewed, Lydia yanked that god-awful collar from around
her neck and brought herself to standing, drawing the storm down
automatically.

“Lydia…”

She turned to
Lawrence.

Stricken, he
shook his head. “Hurt him and you'll hurt her; you might kill
her.”

God … Selena
was her least favourite person in the world. She had 'unmated'
herself and Taylor, and Lydia was still unclear exactly how, but …
this…

The lightning
filled her palms, aching to be released. Others had lost their
mates and survived, hadn't they?

Lawrence
seemed to read her mind. He answered her question with his own.
Males can survive the death of their mate; I know of no females
that ever have. We believe it's something to do with the gene that
prevents them from shifting before mated in the first place. It's
why you were so affected by what was done to Taylor; Ryan and I,
less so.

Jesus
Christ…

Aside from the
fact that her numb brain all at once understood she was going to
have to find a way to keep all three of her mates permanently safe,
what was taking place now was horrendous.

The Trident
passed by her on his way to Selena.

“I meant what
I said,” Lydia told him, quietly. “I'll find a way to kill
you.”

He turned on
her suddenly, gnashing his teeth.

Lawrence raced
to her side and pushed himself in front of her to meet him head
on.

“I'm ready,”
cut in Selena's hushed tone.

The Trident
growled a low warning at them, and then pulled back.

She stepped
forward, shaking all over. “I'm ready now.”

He took a step
towards her.

Selena stared
at Lydia. “Nightstand. Top drawer.”

Then on a cry
of victory, she was hauled upwards and over his shoulder. He sped
away with the two Tridents who had survived the slaughter, both
Ryan and Pete straining to keep Richard from chasing after them …
and then the old wolf broke.

He de-shifted,
collapsed in on himself and howled out sobs of anguish.

“Lydia.”
Taylor came up behind her.

Her own tears
fell as he took her in his arms. He was shaking slightly.

Lawrence
placed a kiss on the back of her head, and then he let his hand
fall on the side of Taylor's neck; squeezed gently… “Are you
okay?”

He nodded. “I
think so.”

“Stay with
Lydia. The moon's up – the change can happen any moment now. We'll
regroup as soon as we can.” And Lydia knew he was referring to the
four of them. She pressed herself further into Taylor. Nothing
would be better right now than being wrapped up in all three of her
mates.

“Okay,” he
replied.

Lawrence
turned to Ryan who was rocking Richard in his arms like a baby.
They exchanged a look, and nodded.

Lawrence
addressed the pack. “Is everyone here?”

The figures
all robed in white pulled down their hoods – some males, some
females – all of them werewolves, but none that she had seen
before. Ryan must have brought them back with him. Were they part
of his previous pack?

The members of
their own pack who had shifted during the fight, now changed back
into their human forms. She let her eyes fall on them all, as she
curled into Taylor's embrace. She wasn't letting him go any time
soon.

Everyone was
accounted for, including the females, and everyone looked aggrieved
at what had just taken place.

Finally, she
let her gaze fall on the dead Tridents littering the ground. While
werewolves turned into wolves upon death, Tridents, unless turned
to mush by Datura, reverted back into their human forms. The whole
area looked like a murder scene from some Tarantino film.

“Good. The
meeting takes place now. We—”

“Wait!”

Taylor gripped
her tighter at her exclamation.

She
reluctantly wriggled out of his arms, scanning the ground
frantically, panic rising…

“Lydia?”

One, two,
three, four … shit!
“There's one missing.”

“What?”

“There's a
Trident missing! I counted eight when we were attacked. Three have
left and four are dead – there's one missing.”

Lawrence's
face grew pinched with anger. “Did anyone see it escape?”

Among shaking
heads and blank stares, he bellowed a curse into the air. “Humans.
Why else would it run away from its pack during a much loved
slaughter on a full moon – it caught the scent of humans!”

The penny
dropped for Lydia, a second after it dropped for Pete.

Before she
could blink – before she could even twitch a muscle – a giant,
black and white bundle streaked past her so fast, she felt the
breeze of his fury as surely as that Trident would meet it head
on.

She looked at
Taylor and her heart dropped.

“Lydia, what
is it?”

She reached up
and kissed his mouth, relishing in the softness of it, blinking
back new tears at how close she'd come to losing him. At knowing
she might lose him all over again.

“It's Sarah.
Sarah's here.”

~*~

Her first
thought should have been that a great, big, ugly monster had just
broken down the door. Turned out, that her first thought was, in
fact, that it was now dark outside and the full moon was both
beautiful and visible. The storm had mostly cleared up.

This
irrational line of thinking was a sure indication that she had just
lost her mind, but she wasn't the only one. Holly stood to the
right of the room screaming her lungs out. Beth stood to the left
of the room, stock still and gaping. And she, herself… Well, she
was staring death in the face because that monster was staring
right back at her, and it looked hungry.

It charged at
her.

And then, it
came to an abrupt stop and … sniffed her.

Holly was
still screaming.

The monster
seemed confused.

Sarah was also
confused, and oddly calm. And it
was
odd, because deep down,
she knew she was afraid – could feel the fear, tight and coiled
inside her, ready to spring up at any given time – but something
else, and she had no idea what, suffice to say that it felt like
instinct
, told her the monster wouldn't hurt her.

To her left,
Beth suddenly seemed to come to her senses and remembered the gun
in her hand. She raised it, but her hands were shaking and she was
too slow. The … thing … caught onto her movements in a flash and by
god, did it move fast for its hulk.

It backhanded
Beth across the face and she flew across the room and crashed into
the mantelpiece, dropping the gun in the process.

“No!” Sarah
lunged at the thing, unicorn in hand, unwittingly repeating the
exact same actions she had just a few nights ago. But whereas the
dog she'd attacked at the theatre had collapsed when stabbed by the
unicorn's horn, this thing didn't even seem to feel it.

It swivelled
around, bared its teeth at her, and for a second, she thought her
instincts were all off and it was, in fact, going to pounce on her
and eat her alive. It certainly looked like it wanted to, but
another flare of its nostrils stopped it. Apparently, she didn't
smell like dinner.

Unfortunately,
Beth did. She groaned, trying to move. There was blood on her
forehead from what looked like a cut; how deep, she couldn't
tell.

The monster
landed on her with thought-out precision, demonstrating the ability
for intelligence: its front legs pinned her arms, its lower half
crouched on her legs, holding them down, and protruding from under
its belly was…

Holy Mary,
mother of God – guess it's male.

Beth saw what
she saw and
now
she screamed, taking over Holly's screech,
which had died out due to either lack of oxygen or loss of
voice.

Sarah's brain
stopped malfunctioning and kicked into gear:
the gun!

She dropped
onto all fours to where she thought she'd seen it fly out of Beth's
hand, and caught sight of its handle, sticking out from under the
sofa. She launched herself at it, grabbed it on the first go,
rolled onto her back, took aim and—

The panda from
hell came flying through the door.

Sarah
blinked.

No, not a
panda – a dog. A huge one – bigger than the one at the theatre –
and it went straight for the beast.

The monster
spotted it too late.

The dog sank
its teeth into its neck.

It howled – a
bloody awful, heinous noise – and then punched its paw into the
dog's underbelly; claws extended.

The animal
yelped, lost its grip and was flung to the ground.

Beth had
always been an animal lover and dogs were her favourite. As she had
pointedly reminded Sarah earlier that evening, it didn't matter if
it was a little terrier, or a great big Alsation, or a
scary-as-shit Rottweiler – if it had fur, a tail and a lolling
tongue, she somehow lost her brash exterior and became the softest
touch you'd ever meet. So, it didn't surprise Sarah – because the
whole day had been fucking weird anyway – that the dog's cry of
pain reached a part of her best friend that almost nothing else
ever did.

Her face went
red with fury in an instant, and she hauled herself to a crouch,
wincing slightly, and then sprinted towards the gun that Sarah
still held in her outstretched hands.

She didn't
bother taking the gun off her, but moulded her hands over her own,
marking her target as she did so.

The monster
charged at the dog and leapt.

Beth rammed
her finger into the trigger guard, right above Sarah's, and
squeezed.

The dart made
no noise on firing. That didn't mean its impact was unnoticeable –
anything but. It caught the brute of a thing in its side, and
Beth's face fell because the dart seemed to do sod all as the
monster landed hunched over the dog.

But then, it
wobbled.

And then it
whined.

Then it looked
like it was shivering, but on closer inspection, its skin was
actually undulating under its fur.

It whined
again, turned to look at Beth and Sarah, its forlorn gaze almost
pitiable, and then it exploded.

Blood and guts
went flying, although, thankfully, not too far. The dog got the
brunt of it.

Beth raced to
the canine's side, seemingly not in need of taking a fucking second
like the rest of them to understand what the hell just
happened.

Sarah slowly
lowered the gun and turned to find Holly.

She had
collapsed into the corner of the room, by the bookshelf, and looked
to be on the verge of catatonia.

Like you were
last year.

What? Where
had
that
thought come from?

The dog's
belly had suffered, but looked to be healing. Beth took its head
and placed it on her lap, and Sarah frowned.

Because one
half of the dog's face sprouted no fur, as if it had been damaged,
or mauled … just like…

She suddenly
felt exhausted and kinda queasy. Not just exhausted, but completely
fatigued, as if the life had been sucked out of her. Nausea rose
from her stomach, and the image of whatever that thing was,
sniffing at her, appeared sharply in her mind.

Her hand went
straight to her abdomen, a dizzy spell sweeping over her and
causing her to drop the gun and reach for … anything to hold her
upright.

“Sarah?”

Beth's voice
came from really far away.

And then,
there were suddenly many voices. Lots of pairs of eyes stared at
her from the open doorway. She recognised the green pair from the
photo album.
So he
does
exist…
She should probably be
wondering why he was naked, but there was no room left in her mind
for more questions.

She also
recognised the red-haired woman: she'd been at the theatre.

A devilishly
handsome, yet equally hard-looking blond man stepped into the house
in front of them all, and she was praising herself for holding it
together. The waves of dizziness kept coming, but she was still
upright.

She should
have known it wouldn't last much longer.

The red-haired
woman from the theatre suddenly let out a little gasp – it sounded
like it could have been from pleasure – and clutched her navel. A
look of wonder crossed her face.

The green-eyed
man –
Taylor –
rested his hand on her back, concern and
expectation playing across his smooth features, and…

The woman
turned into a dog.

Wolf,
whispered her mind.

She looked
back at Beth who, despite looking bewildered at witnessing the
exact same thing, was still stroking … Pete.

That's
Pete.

Everything
suddenly made sense, even though the sense, itself, was made up of
an outrageous conclusion:
they're wolves.

The world
swayed, and tipped, and then grew dark.

Chapter Seventeen

There was a tug
on the nipple of her left breast. It was warm and wet, and
delightfully teasing.

Consciousness
prodded her, and although she didn't really want to come out of her
blissful rest, the glorious smell of Taylor, and of her and Taylor
bonded, invaded her senses and had her reaching for him. Her
fingers found his hair; curled into it; and she smiled. Relief
washed over her once more…
Mine…

Lydia let out
a little moan as her right nipple was clamped between another set
of teeth, the feel of rough stubble and enthusiastic movements so
familiar to her …
Ryan.

“Welcome
back,” came his deep rumble – more of a mumble with her boob in his
mouth.

She grinned.
“Well, this is a bloody nice way to wake up.” She was in her bed
and the sun had risen, spreading warmth around the room.