Savage Instinct (15 page)

Lee, the man outside the vehicle, switched his grip from
her elbow to her wrist and started to squeeze.  The delicate bones ground
together, popping under the strain of his superior hold.

She gasped in pain, forced to release the wheel as he
dragged her back out of the car and into the road where the rest of the men
gathered around her.

Unwilling to make it easy on him, she kicked and scratched
every available surface she could reach.  He grunted with every impact, but
nothing seemed to faze him enough to release her.

The men were excited and making noises that really didn’t
register as human to her.  She looked around and saw that not all of the men
were the same.  Some of them had elongated faces like the snouts of dogs, and
some of them had hair on the backs of their hands that looked like fur.

They looked like monsters.

Nydia choked back a scream, going rigid with fear but
unwilling to show it.

Inside, her mind wailed.

She realized Aiden had been telling her the truth when he
said he was a shape shifter.  She couldn’t deny the fact that these men weren’t
human, and by the way they were acting, sniffing the air as if looking for
something, they had to be the rival pack that had attacked him.  They were in
the middle of transforming from human to beast as she watched.

“I smell his stench all over you and your car.  Where’s
Aiden?  We been waiting on him almost a week,” the man named Lee said, sniff at
her hair like a dog.  He gave her shoulders a shake when she didn’t answer him
right away.

Her mind raced, trying to figure out what she should do.  Should
she stall them?  It wouldn’t take much effort for them to figure out she’d
dropped Aiden off at his cabin.  She knew that as much as she tried, she
couldn’t fight off these creatures because their strength was clearly greater
than her own, plus, she was badly outnumbered.

Lee caught her around the waist and swung her around for
his men to see.  Nydia gritted her teeth, playing along until she could see
what their intent would be.  “Well, well.  Looks like we got ourselves a new
woman!  Aiden Kinsey’s human concubine.”  Lee buried his face in the back of
her head, drawing in her scent.  Feeling him behind her made her want to
wretch.

Nydia stood rooted in place.  As much as she didn’t want
to, she knew she’d have to cooperate if she wanted to make it out alive.  She
couldn’t fight them all off.

“Boys, I believe we have just exactly what we been looking
for.  When Aiden finds out we got this purty little piece of ass in our
possession, he’s gonna come after her.  And we’ll be waiting when he gets
there.”

Lee whipped her around, grinning at her with his yellow, plaque
covered teeth.  She twisted her head back, trying to escape the smell of his
breath, and breathed through her mouth to avoid the stench.

“I don’t want no one to harm a hair on her purty head
before he gets to us.  When we got him in our grasp, I’ll let everyone have a
taste of her while he watches before we slit his throat,” Lee said with a
laugh.

The other men laughed and howled along with him.

Lee pointed at two of the men. “You two push that car out
of the way.  Just push it off of the road and into the ditch for now.” He
pulled Nydia by the arm. “The rest of you come on, we have to go get ready ‘cause
we got visitors coming tonight.”

Nydia was scared to death as Lee dragged her through the
woods to some unknown destination.  Briars snagged at her clothes and her legs
as they ran through the woods.  She wanted to leave some clues so that Aiden
could follow them, but then she remembered that her scent would be enough for
him to follow.

If she’d never fought with Richard and his family, this
never would have happened.  Now she was caught up in a fight between two
opposing forces she wanted nothing to do with.

She could only pray that Aiden would read the warning signs
and not fall into Lee’s trap.

Chapter
Fifteen

Aiden walked around his house, surveying the damage to his
property.  The other pack had pretty much destroyed anything that could be
broken.  All of his belongings were torn apart and strewn around the rooms.

It looked like a pack of wild pigs had ravaged his home. 
Rotted food and urine permeated the space, making him wonder if the stench
could ever be removed.

He’d probably be better off burning it to the ground.

Disgusted and sick of looking at the mess, Aiden waked
outside and sat on a large rock beside the small lake.  He loved this place and
this lake.  He always felt at peace when he was here, but Riker had stolen that
away from him, tainting his oasis.

The sky was dark save for the twinkling stars above.  The
full moon phase was over.  The situation wasn’t ideal, but they didn’t have
much choice in the matter.

Timmy and his partner Lila were the first to show up. “What
the hell happened here?” Timmy asked, stepping over trash that littered the
grounds.

Lila flipped her black hair over her shoulder, leaning down
and putting a hand on Aiden’s arm.  “Aiden? Are you okay?”

Aiden sighed.  “I’m fine, Lila.  Another pack came and
ransacked my house after leaving me for dead.  I just got home today.  Have you
spoken to Malik and the others?”

“They’re not too far behind us.  We were trying to get home
before dark.  I heard you calling us through the Mindspeak and we decided to
head here first.  I’m glad we did,” Lila said.

“Someone has to pay for this,” Timmy said, smacking a fist
into his palm.

“I don’t want any bloodshed if we can help it.  God knows
we don’t need a half dozen dead bodies to dispose of.  You know there’ll be
questions.”

Timmy scowled.  “Can you at least tell us what happened?”

By the time Aiden finished telling Timmy and Lila what he’d
gone through in their absence, about Nydia and her hiding him and caring for
him, Malik, Abel, and Hudson pulled up in their car. 

Aiden didn’t tell them that he had deep feelings for the
human girl, but he didn’t have to tell them.  Shape shifters have keen senses
and the others picked up on the way his voice changed when he spoke about her. 
They knew that she meant something to him.

Malik jumped out of the car, trotting over to Aiden.  “Had
the cops following us for a while, and I was just sure they were going to get
us for speeding.  It was hard not laying the pedal to the metal the whole way
back.”

Aiden nodded, clapping his brethren on the arms, glad to
see they’d finally arrived.

Abel and Hudson joined them.  “What’s the first round of
business?” Malik asked.

“Where’s everyone else?” Aiden asked, looking to Malik.

“Driving slow as hell.  Do you think we have enough or do
we need to wait?”

Aiden sighed.  “I think so.  Just as long as you all can
remember that they tend to fight dirty.  All right.  We track them from here. 
It should be pretty easy to follow.  And we’ll have the upper hand since they
don’t know you’ve all come back from the festival yet.”

The group nodded.

Malik cleared his throat.  “I hate to ask, but…do you know
if they brought a car up here?  We caught sight of a silver bumper in the ditch
just past the dirt road.”

The moment he heard the description, his stomach dropped. 
“Did you see anyone inside?” Aiden asked.

Malik shook his head.  “No.”

Aiden’s mouth and throat went dry.  He felt his beast
uncurl inside him, rising to the surface as rage flooded his veins.  “They’ve
taken her.  She drives a silver car.”

Everyone knew who Aiden spoke of—the human woman, Nydia.

“If they’ve hurt her, I don’t care what I said about
bloodshed…we’ll kill every single one of them.”

Malik’s eyes widened.  Abel and Hudson looked worried.

“Let’s go.  We’ve wasted enough time,” Aiden said, shedding
his clothes to begin the shift into wolf.

“Let’s try to keep our heads straight, Alpha,” Malik said
to his leader.

Aiden nodded, feigning a calm he didn’t feel.  Blood rushed
to his temples, making them pound.  The world colored red.  If they’d hurt
Nydia, nothing anyone said or did would save them from his wrath.

The brethren shed their clothes and shifted into wolves. 
Anyone privileged to bear witness to the shift would have found the effortless
melding from human form to wolfen amazing and beautiful at once.  Aiden had
always enjoyed the shift.  He’d never been pained by his transformation, but
then, he’d been born unto their kind.  Others, who were turned, tended to have
more pain and irritation.

The Riker pack were an anomaly that needed to be
abolished.  He would have to resist his inclination to wipe them off the face
of the earth.

Transformed into the wolf pack, Aiden and his brethren left
the cabin and followed the scent of the others down the winding dirt road. 
They were sloppy, leaving broken limbs and tracks easily followed by a novice. 
They easily found Nydia’s abandoned car, right where Malik had seen it.

The hope that she hadn’t been taken was dashed.  Aiden
traced around it, smelling Riker and Nydia but no blood.

Aiden threw his head back and howled in protest.  It was
obvious that his attackers had ambushed her and removed her from her car.  The
rest of Aiden’s brethren caught up to him and they had quizzical looks on their
faces.

Two pack members who’d joined them as they traveled down
the road, Santos and Carmen, came to stand with Aiden and Malik, sniffing at
the prints along the side of the car.

“I smell four different men and a woman.  Maybe more,”
Santos said, growling with his hackles raised and his tail extended.

“As do I,” Carmen agreed.  She looked at Aiden and saw the
pain in his eyes.  Carmen had been his lover once upon a time, but she’d been
too wild and free and uninterested in settling down.

“We will find your human, Aiden,” Santos said, sensing
Aiden’s mood.

Carmen looked at Aiden and saw the pain in his eyes.  She
let out a long howl and in a growling voice said, “We will find them and we
will make them pay.”

Before Aiden could take the lead Carmen caught the scent of
the pack and their captive.  She started off in the direction they had traveled
and the rest of the group fell in behind her.  Those members that had not made
the change at this point started to transform from two legged men to four
legged creatures.

The fact that the rival gang had attacked their Alpha while
they were away was something the pack could understand.  They would seek
retaliation for it, but they knew why the others did it.  Involving an innocent
human wasn’t understandable or forgivable, especially since Aiden had formed an
attachment to her.

Aiden and his brethren didn’t believe in involving humans
in these matters and it was an unwritten code that the partners of other shape
shifters wouldn’t be harmed in retribution.  They’d broken a code that most shape
shifters followed.  Lee and his men had committed a crime and they would face
judgment and punishment.

The pungent, unmistakable scent strengthened in intensity
as they followed, luring them closer and closer to their quarry.  The urge to
burst upon them surged to the surface, pushing them harder and faster along the
distance.

Aiden reigned them in, keeping them from an all-out attack
until he could see what they’d done to Nydia.  His nerves were as taut as a piano
wire.

Easing up to the edge of the clearing, they surveyed the
area, keeping their heads low to the ground.  A breeze rustled the brush around
them, rattling leaves and basking them in the smell of their foes.  There could
be no doubt that the other wolves lay in wait somewhere in the valley.

Aiden knew the area well, as did they all.  If Riker
thought to use his lands against them, he was badly mistaken.

The kind of fishbowl made a narrow pass at the front, but
they knew of access to the rear through a descending creek formed by a mountain
spring.  They tended to avoid the area in the spring and summer, since it was a
favorite spot of moonshiners, and who were inclined to shoot first and ask
questions later.

Now, however, moonshiners were the least of their problems.

“Let’s go around this ridge through the back.  Down the
creek.  They shouldn’t be able to smell us from there.”  He lifted his head,
testing the wind.  “If we hurry, we should still be downwind of them and they
won’t see us coming.”

Picking a path through the woods, up and around to the
spring, the new direction added another hour to their time.  Every passing
minute made Aiden grit his teeth.  He despised not knowing how Nydia faired,
but he couldn’t risk the lives of his people by being foolhardy.

They moved in a single file line, the water of the creek
babbling around their paws.  Mossy rocks formed a slippery, treacherous path.

Soon, it came to the point where they could go no further
without being amongst Riker’s midst.  Aiden sent Santos ahead to scout the
area.  It didn’t take him long to return, his tongue lolling from his mouth as
he eagerly padded up to them.

“Six men plus the leader.  I didn’t see no guards posted. 
They look sloppy as hell.  One woman.  She’s in the center.  She’s not tied up
or anything and looks scared, but okay.  She a tough chica, Alpha?”

Aiden huffed through his snout.  “Yeah.  She can handle
herself if she ain’t in tears.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to waste your time on nuthin else,”
Santos said.

“Okay,” Aiden said, making them gather around. “Charge at
full speed.  Hold nothing back.  Malik, you stay with me in the center.  I’ll
take Riker, their Alpha, while you get Nydia to safety.  Lila and Abel will
flank them on the left.  Carmen, Santos, and Hudson will flank their right. 
Move as one, keep your head low, oh, and try not to get killed.”

The group huffed and pawed at the ground, amused.

“Seriously, try not to die.  If you can take your opponent
down without killing him, do so.  Like I said, I don’t want to spend all night
digging graves all over the countryside.  They’re strong, but they ain’t
working with a whole lot in the brain department.  Malik,” he turned to his
second in command.  “I’m counting on you to get her to safety.”

“I won’t let you down, boss,” Malik said.

“Good.  You need to transform when we go so she doesn’t run
from you.  She won’t know who’s good and who’s bad at first.  We’re all wolves
to her.  Get her to her car as fast as you can.  Go through the front if you
have to—it’ll be quicker.”

Moving with their natural instincts and the direction of
their leader, each group followed the course set to them by their Alpha.  The
moment they entered the clearing, Riker’s pack reacted to the attack.

Malik transformed into a man, naked and bald, he headed
straight for Nydia in the center.  Aiden focused on Lee Riker, who turned to
greet him with a snarl, half wolf, half man.  The combination of the two in one
were enough to make a lesser man sick.

Aiden snarled and leapt for Riker, hitting him in the
chest.  To the left and right, he caught glimpses of the others tangling.  Some
stayed wolfen, others shifted back to human with elongated teeth and claws.

He couldn’t pay attention to them.  When he saw Malik
heading for Nydia, he could only pray that she would be safe.