Savage Hunger: Savage, Book 1 (37 page)

Images of Quinton, bloody and dying, flickered through her head and she gripped her knees, sucking in deep breaths.

That raw, primal feeling inside her grew, and her vision sharpened. As she stared down at her hands, she saw her nails lengthening. Sharpening.

Rafferty slid out of the car and jerked open her door. “Get out.”

Sienna slid out of the car, her body trembling.

“Now,” Rafferty brought the knife up between them. It was still shiny with Quinton’s blood. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that you make this easy on me?”

“Yeah.” Fight or die. She’d been here before. Just days ago. Only this time she knew Warrick wasn’t going to save her. She’d have to do it herself. “That’s way too much to ask, asshole.”

His mouth twisted into a humorless smile. He pressed the knife against her chest, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to indicate a warning.

“Turn around and walk into the woods.”

She could either get stabbed right now, here on the side of the road, or try and make a run for it in a few seconds. Uh, no brainer.

Sienna turned and stepped off the road into the trees. There wasn’t a clear path, but she narrowed her eyes, amazed at how much she could actually see. Part of it had to be because of the moon, but more so, she suspected it had to do with the drug having wakened her shifter genes.

“Any last words you’d like me to pass on to Warrick?” Rafferty smothered a laugh and cleared his throat.

The bastard thought this was hilarious.

A tingling swept through her body, and it was almost as if she floated up, staring down at herself as something else seemed to take over.

“No? Well then. I’ll think of something creative.”

Red swept through her vision and something exploded inside her, even as she heard the blade slicing through the air.

Instinct took over and she lunged forward and away from him. Running. Harder. Faster than she ever had in her life.

A thick, heavy fog filled her head. Threatening her as her legs carried her between trees and deeper into the woods. Pushing at her ability to think, threatening to take over.

Until it finally did.

“There’s my car.”

Kevin had barely put the van in Park before Warrick was out the door, shifting and tearing into the woods.

He didn’t need the telepathic connection anymore. He was wolf and was all over Rafferty and Sienna’s scents like white on rice.

His paws tore over the earth as he followed their trail. Dimly, he noted the bloody knife on the ground, but ignored it as he sprinted on.

The urge to kill filled him. Already he craved the tang of Rafferty’s blood in his mouth. Wanted to stare into the listless eyes of the man who’d tried to kill Sienna multiple times already.

Fuck
. He should’ve seen it coming. Should’ve realized who was the traitor among them.

The sound of snarls and fighting came from up ahead and his heart twisted with the sharp terror that he was too late. That Rafferty had shifted and was tearing the life from Sienna.

He crested a hill and froze, the moon above illuminating the sight below. There was a break in the trees and in the clearing not one, but two wolves struggled to the death.

Was it possible?
The thought barely flickered through his head before he tore down the hill, ready to defend his mate. Kill for her.

When he reached the clearing, though, one of the wolves had already delivered a fatal blow.

He stumbled, almost numb with dread at the possibility that Sienna was the crumpled animal in the shadows.

But then he saw her, shifting slowly back to human and collapsing naked and pale to the ground.

Jesus Christ.
What everyone had thought impossible had just happened. Sienna, someone who was only half shifter, had just morphed into wolf.

Warrick shifted quickly back to human, closing the distance between them and kneeling down. Relief sagged his muscles, had a gasp fleeing his lips.

“Thank you, God,” he muttered raggedly. “Thank you.”

She was out for the count, her breathing shallow and her body too still. But not as still as Rafferty’s. The treacherous shifter was dead, his throat ripped out by Sienna. Or Sienna in wolf form.

The thought boggled his mind, was almost too much to comprehend right now.

“Is she all right?”

Kevin crested the hill, before he began to scale downward, slowly and carefully.

“She’s fine,” Warrick murmured, lifting her into his arms, reassured at the feel of her weight and curves in his grasp. “We need to get her out of here and call in the cleanup crew.”

“How…?” Kevin’s gaze and the flashlight he held slipped over to Rafferty. “Did you do that?”

“Sienna did.”

“What? She…?”

“Shifted,” Warrick acknowledged, adjusting his grip on her.

“Absolutely remarkable. I’ll head back to the van to call for help.” Kevin scurried back up the hill, leaving Warrick alone in the darkness.

Sienna stirred in his arms, her lashes fluttering open. “What are you doing here?”

A soft laugh built in his chest. “Baby, I came to save your ass. Turns out you did a pretty good job saving your own.”

“I did?” Her brows drew together. “What happened? I remember Rafferty forcing me into the woods and then…nothing. But oh my God, my body hurts.”

“You shifted into wolf.”

She made a strangled noise and her eyes rounded. “The hell I did.”

“Shifted. Fought Rafferty. Ripped his throat out.”

Disgust swept across her face and she struggled in his grip. He lowered her to the ground but didn’t let her go.

Her gaze scanned the area, before landing on Rafferty’s crumpled form.

“I really shifted?” she whispered.

Warrick kept an arm around her waist, sensing she could collapse at any moment. “Sure did.”

“Wow.” She winced. “Maybe that’s why I feel like I just visited the chiropractor from hell.”

Amusement pricked, but it was quickly swallowed up by another emotion that swelled his chest and filled every inch of his body.

Warrick turned her to face him, catching her chin gently in his hands. “I thought I’d lost you. You have no idea what that did to me, Sienna.”

A tremble rocked her body and she lowered her gaze. “How did you find me?”

“You’re my mate, Sienna. I connected telepathically with you.”

She tensed, before trying to pull away, but he tightened his grip.

“That can’t be possible.”

“Haven’t you realized that phrase is overrated by now? We’re bonded, Sienna. And that bond will only grow. I heard you calling for me. I saw what you saw. Ask yourself how else I could have logically found you in the middle of the Fells?”

She was quiet for a moment, then, “It doesn’t really matter anymore.”

Warrick stilled, tension racing up his neck. “What the hell are you saying, Sienna?”

“I’m saying I release you from the bond,” she whispered, avoiding his gaze. “I’m pretty sure a memory wipe is useless at this point, but—”

“You
release
me?” he repeated, barely containing his savage reaction. “Like hell.”

“Warrick, please—”

“You love me, Sienna. I heard your thoughts.”

She flinched, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth. “You’re right. I do. Which is why I can’t let you give up everything to be with me.”

Shock slammed into him, then relief. He gathered her close, burying his lips against her neck and kissing a path up to her mouth. She resisted at first, before surrendering with a soft moan and responding to his claiming kiss.

When he lifted his head, he found her eyes closed and her breathing unsteady.

“Sienna, you’re shifter.” He pressed another light kiss against her lips, murmuring, “I can now keep you as my mate without repercussions from the elders.”

“But…I’m only half shifter.”

“It doesn’t matter, baby. Shifter blood is shifter blood.” He lifted his head enough to press his forehead to hers. “And for the record, even if you weren’t shifter, Sienna, I would still keep you as my mate.”

She shook her head. “Warrick…”

“You mean
everything
to me. My existence would be meaningless without waking every day and being allowed to love you.”

Sienna’s breath caught. “You love me?”

“Did you ever think otherwise?”

“I didn’t want to. But I know what an amazing man you are. How you might’ve felt honor bound to stay with me.”

“I would never have marked you if you weren’t my future. My heart.” He kissed her again. “My soul,” he finally whispered.

Sienna choked on a sob and wrapped her arms around him, clinging. “I love you so much. I never wanted to lose you.”

Warrick closed his eyes against the surprising wetness that filled them.

“You never will,” he whispered. “Never.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The church overflowed with shifters from end to end. Men women and children of various ages reminiscing, mingling and mourning.

Sienna stood alone in a corner of the room and stared down at the picture of Quinton Meyers. She tried to figure out why her heart felt a bit pinched, why she could be affected by a man who’d ruined her mother’s life. Had turned hers upside down.

So much had happened in a week. So many changes and adjustments. The feral shifters had all recovered within days of being given the antidote. They all seemed to be physically healthy, some remembered almost everything that had happened, but some remembered nearly nothing.

Sienna glanced over at Grace, the lone female who’d been feral. She stood away from her fellow P.I.A. agents and kept a haunted gaze on Quinton’s casket. Sienna suspected Grace remembered more than she wanted to.

But at least some good had risen from the awful situation. Her father was exploring the use of the original drug developed by Feloray Laboratories. Testing it on the members of the community who were only half shifter. Those like her. It seemed that the drug, delivered just once, awakened the dormant genes and gave them nearly the same powers of the full-blooded shifters.

Acknowledging who she was came a little slower. Her new reality still felt surreal, but each day she struggled a little less to accept it. And true to Warrick’s words, the shifter community had welcomed her into its fold. A gesture that both warmed her heart and made it ache a little.

The ache was for her father. Even if his blood didn’t run in her veins, Kevin would always be her father. And she’d worried how he would adjust to the discovery. But to her surprise, he’d taken it relatively well, looking at it logically and without resentment. Had even blamed her mother’s infidelity on the fact they’d married too young and without the love that could sustain them.

He hadn’t come to Quinton’s memorial tonight, but she suspected it had more to do with wanting to avoid gossip than resenting the man. Everyone knew the story now. Knew why Sienna had been embraced into the community’s folds so immediately.

“Despite how it seems, Quinton was a good man.” Warrick’s words tickled warmly against her ear as he sidled up behind her.

He slid a reassuring arm around her waist and she leaned back against him. Taking a moment to absorb his strength. His love.

“I know he was,” she said, her throat tightening. “All these people wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t. The community loved him.”

“And he loved your mother. Probably as much as I love you, Sienna.”

“He didn’t love her enough. What he did—”

“Was terrible. Nobody is disputing that. Not even he did. And he had to live with that decision the rest of his life.”

Which had ended last week when he’d saved hers. Again her heart pinched and she closed her eyes, fighting back tears she didn’t want to feel. Part of her wondered, maybe even hoped, he was in the afterlife with her mom. That they’d been reunited. And both had finally found the peace they’d never had on earth because of his choice.

Wanting to change the subject, Sienna sighed and turned in his arms, sliding her arms around his waist.

“Has the P.I.A. had a response from Jocelyn Feloray?”

Warrick’s gaze clouded over and his jaw hardened; she could see the response would not be what she’d been hoping for.

“Let’s walk outside for a minute.”

Sienna nodded and allowed him to escort her through the throng of people and out into the summer sunshine where it was much quieter.

Warrick turned to her and jammed his hands into the pockets of his black suit. “I wanted to discuss this later, but yes. We have. All shifters who were present in the lab were there of their own accord.”

Sienna’s lips parted in dismay. “What? That’s impossible.”

“Unfortunately it’s true. We’ve interviewed them. They were paid quite well to participate in a ‘study’ and even signed contracts.”

“Have we had our lawyers look at it?”