Guardian (5 page)

“What are you doing?” Peter came as close to shouting as I’d ever heard him, the anger palatable on the words as he reached me.

“Doing what you won’t.” I kept my back to Peter, a slight I knew he would have to accept or go back on his whole peace-keeping werewolf schtick. He pushed past me, shouldering me, and I shouldered him right back, putting him off balance. He stumbled a couple of steps and then stared hard at me, the brown in his eyes bleeding into a definite gold.

“I may not be a wolf, but I am a fucking alpha,” I said, calm as could be.

The old wolf faltered. Peter was playing right into my hands. He just didn’t know it yet.

Chapter Five

Peter took a
deep, shuddering breath and the gold evaporated from his eyes. Too bad, I was kinda hoping I wouldn’t have to go and do this behind his back. So be it.

Two steps and he was behind Dimitri, cutting the ropes I’d bound him with. “We do not condone violence or torture, not even to our enemies, and while you are here and guests of our pack, you will follow our rules.”

Dimitri stumbled forward, his hands still dripping with salt water. They wouldn’t freeze right away, but it would be fucking cold on those digits of his. As if reading my thoughts, he tucked his hands into his armpits.

Peter made a shooing motion at him. “Go. I will not allow them to harm you anymore.”

“Aren’t you going to give him food and water for his journey? Turn the other cheek and all that shit?” I batted my eyelashes at Peter, saw again that spill of gold through the brown of his eyes. Yeah, I had a knack for pissing off those who could kill me.

Let’s call it a talent. One I employed with relish.

Without another word, Peter strode away from us, pushing Dimitri ahead of him. Twenty feet away from us, they stopped, or at least, Peter pulled Dimitri to a stop. I couldn’t hear them, but I doubted they were speaking English anyway. Not that it mattered; I didn’t need to know what they were talking about.

Liam wrapped his arms around my waist and tugged my back tight to his chest. Dropping his head, he placed a kiss just below my earlobe. A shiver ran the length of my body and my hands found his, lacing our fingers together.

“You Tracking him?” Liam asked, his voice not even a whisper, it was so quiet.

“You bet.”

“Smart lady.”

The threads Dimitri gave off were complex, like all adults. Hatred for the werewolves—and me, no doubt—relief, fear, and a healthy dose of confusion. As he and Peter wrapped up whatever they had to say in their heated tones, Dimitri glanced back at me.

I smiled and wiggled my fingers at him, calling out, “See you later.”

Peter whipped around and glared at me. “You will not.”

Oh, Peter didn’t know me that well. Not that it mattered. Dimitri ran off, and I held onto his threads tightly so I wouldn’t lose Track of him, not even for a moment.

Without saying anything else to me or Liam, Peter headed back to his people. I hoped that Elena gave him hell, hoped she tore him a new asshole. Or two.

“Who’s Elena?” Liam asked as we slowly followed Peter’s footsteps.

I let out a breath and leaned deeper into his arms, letting him take my weight. “Sorry, didn’t realize I was talking out loud. She’s the one whose daughter was killed.” Gods, the image of the little girl flopping in her mother’s arms, her eyes forever closed, pigtails dragging in the wind. I had to grit my teeth against the tears that threatened. Not tears of grief, but of pure, righteous anger. She should never have been killed; her mother should have fought for her.

Should have at least tried.

“He’s trained them all too well to be submissive.” Liam’s voice was thoughtful and I knew he was going through the ramifications as well as I was. A whole pack of werewolves just primed to be killed and wiped out by these hunters.

Did they deserve it? No, but it would happen either way.

Unless we stopped the hunters.

“Killing them all won’t work.” Liam let go of me, the heat of his body gone. I touched the opal through my shirt. It would keep me warm until I took it off, but I still preferred Liam’s arms when it came to generating heat.

“It will work.” I headed toward the river.

“Temporarily. And then someone else will decide that Peter and his pack are easy targets and they will all be in danger again. There needs to be a more permanent solution.”

“I’m all ears.”

Except Liam didn’t have an answer. Neither did I. The first step was finding the hunters, something I could do now through Dimitri. He was heading northeast at a steady pace, and the speed with which he was moving meant he had either found a ride or was somehow using magic to move faster than his body should have allowed him.

At the edge of the riverbank, Peter’s pack was putting their gear together, their bodies mostly healed from the attack now that they’d had a chance to rest. But they moved as if they were half dead, their spirits broken, their hearts aching for their lost loved ones. I sought out Elena with my eyes, found her at the back of the camp, sitting against the icy rock. Her head was down, long blonde hair in two braids just like her little girl’s had been. She looked like she was sleeping, her body hunched against the cold. Fucking hell, why hadn’t she gone after Peter? Why hadn’t she demanded to go after those who had killed her child?

I made a beeline for her, not caring when I got in the way of those who were packing. “Elena.” I called to her softly as I drew close, but she didn’t lift her head, her hands remained clutched to her chest. She just sat there, unmoving.

Some part of my brain tried to tell me what I was seeing. That I didn’t want to get any closer. But I couldn’t listen to that part; I had to know. I crouched beside her and brushed a hand against her ice-cold cheek. I touched her hands and they slid off the hilt of a dagger.

“What the fuck is going on here?” The words slipped out of me and for the first time, a wolf other than Peter or Elena answered me in English.

“They are afraid to become the monsters they once were. So they run away. And when they can’t run, they end it themselves.”

In my squat, I turned on my heel to stare up into the eyes of a very old woman. She had silvery white hair braided up into a crown on her head and light green eyes full of intelligence. And anger, lots and lots of anger.

“They can’t control themselves?”

The old woman, I scrambled to remember her name, crouched beside me. “They can. But at one point, they couldn’t. So now they believe Peter when he tells them they should not fight. That it will bring back the monster in them all and doom them to always walk in darkness.”

I snorted. “That’s bullshit … Gizla.” Ha, I knew I could pull that out.

She tipped her head to one side. “Yes, it is. But they have made a vow to not fight, to never fight again.”

“Tell me you didn’t do that.”

Gizla shrugged and gave a half-smile. “To be a part of this pack, you must vow no violence, only empathy and kindness. Do you not see how few men are here?”

I put distance between myself and Elena’s body, then slid to my butt on the hard, cold rocks. “I just assumed they were always out hunting. Doing other stuff.”

“Thirty-seven pack members, only seven are men. Six now, after this last fight.”

“That wasn’t a fight,” I snapped.

Again, she shrugged. “You call it what you want. Men do not like this pack. They are made to fight, made to keep packs safe. And here, Peter hamstrings them for his belief that peace will come.”

I waved a hand at Elena’s body. “At the cost of what? Do you not know how many will die? Because I do.” Her green eyes flicked to mine and I stared her down, knowing the colors in my eyes would be swirling with my emotions.

Liam stepped between us and said what I had been about to. “All of them. They will all die.”

Gizla stood slowly, her eyes never leaving mine. “You are strong, and your mate is stronger yet. The two of you, you are what we need. Find us a way to be safe, Rylee. We cannot go back on our vows. Not, and stay within this pack.”

Around us, the packing had ceased and even Peter had stopped what he was doing to watch and listen to my conversation with the old lady.

Liam held his hand out to me and helped me to my feet. I brushed off my pants. “Just how the hell are we supposed to keep them all safe?”

“I guess we’re going to have to find out.”

“You think this is a part of your training?”

He looked past me to Peter, who was still watching us. “No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good thing. These hunters, they have to be stopped.”

On that I agreed; there would be no way either of us could walk away from this pack knowing we were essentially leaving them to die. To be wiped out.

So much for a vacation.

Chapter Six

We went with
the pack for the first day after the attack. I easily Tracked Dimitri, and as much as I wanted to call Blaz and have him blast the shit out of the hunters, I knew that wasn’t right. We needed to make sure we stopped them all, and the only way to do that would be to go into their fortress, or stronghold, or fucking condo unit where they were staying and take them out one by one.

Peter led us to a thick part of the forest that looked as though humans hadn’t come through in about a thousand years. The trees were huge and the undergrowth was a fucking nightmare to push through. Then, of course, was the attempt at hiding our back trail. I watched the women brush tree branches through the snow and tug the undergrowth back into place. But they didn’t notice the tiny pieces of cloth caught on twigs, nor the bits of people’s lives they dropped that fell into the snow.

With a sigh, I went along behind with Liam, cleaning up after the pack’s miserable attempt at a cleanup.

“What a fucking gong show this is.” I bent to grab a thin white ribbon that had fallen out of someone’s hair.

“No wonder the hunters find them so easily.” He took the ribbon from me and shook his head. “They leave a trail as wide as a highway and as easily found.”

Within the undergrowth, the pack made camp. Like refugees from a war, they hunkered down wherever they could, some of them shifting into wolf form to sleep in the snow.

Peter found us at the edge of the ‘camp’ near where the undergrowth thickened again. “I am sorry this has happened, that you have had to see such horrors.” He was genuine and I knew whatever grievance he had against me for tormenting Dimitri had been forgiven. He was just that kind of guy. “Liam, there are still things you need to learn. Are you willing to do so?”

Liam nodded. “Of course. But not until this hunter situation is cleared up. I won’t put Rylee at risk.”

My eyebrows shot up. Since when was I at risk from a bunch of half-assed magic users I could take out with my bare hands?

Yet, Peter nodded gravely. “Of course, you would not want her to be hurt. I understand. But we cannot condone violence within our pack boundaries.”

I couldn’t hold back the laugh. “Oh, so the violence that the hunters bring you is acceptable, but Liam and I protecting you is not?”

Peter’s eyes were sad. “Many of those here cannot control themselves. That is why they ran from the other packs they were a part of. There is no other pack like this in the world. One that centers around peace and harmony.”

Gods, he was so fucking blind. Peace and harmony did not include regular raids where your people were blown to bits and pieces in front of you.

Liam, though, didn’t seem perturbed by this. “Then we will go and come back.”

“Where will you go?” Peter frowned. “In all of Russia, how will you find the hunters? They hide their scent with magic.”

Ahh. So the pack had people who went after the hunters at one point. Maybe Elena had been one of them. I wanted to believe that, wanted to believe a mother would fight for her children. A distant pang in my heart reminded me that my own mother had given up on me, but I pushed that thought away. Or tried to. No need to rehash old wounds, certainly not right at that moment. I touched Liam’s arm and we started toward the northeast, where I sensed Dimitri. He wasn’t really all that far, maybe a hundred miles.

“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine,” Liam said with the confidence I knew he’d earned. He was right. A few supposed badass hunters were nothing compared to the monsters we’d faced down together.

Peter let out a heavy breath. “I do not wish ill on anyone, but if you can stop them from hunting us ….” I suspected he trailed off to avoid telling us to wipe the hunters out. That would go against his whole peacekeeping shit.

Without another word, Peter walked away, going to each member of his pack and speaking softly to them before moving onto the next.

We watched for a moment, silence stretching between us.

“If we sleep for a bit, I think we could make it to them by tomorrow night.” I stared at the canopy above us. “Faster if Blaz were here.”

“You going to call him? It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have some backup.”

The concern in Liam’s voice was obvious and I ignored it. I knew he had an overly strong protective drive, especially when it came to me.

“No, we don’t need him. You didn’t see the hunters; they were fucking useless the minute someone fought back. Scattered as soon as I killed a couple of them.”

Liam frowned. “You don’t think they pose a threat?”

I shook my head. “Only to those who let themselves be killed.”

On that pleasant note, the pack settled down around us for the night, no fire for fear of being spotted, no shelter, and only what little food they’d been able to carry when they’d left.

We found a slight depression in the ground between two trees. Without a word, Liam stripped naked and shifted into his wolf form. With his size and the thickness of his fur, I knew warmth wouldn’t be an issue even if I didn’t have the fire opal. I curled up with him, the black fur surrounding me. There were moments that being the mate to a werewolf was good. This was one of them.

Time passed and the echoes of broken sleep and nightmares came to haunt those who’d survived. I wished Liam and I could speak mind to mind like Blaz and I, so we could talk in private without fear of being overheard.

I settled for whispering my thoughts to him. What had happened to the pack, I would never allow. Not as long as I had breath in my body.

Liam curled his head around me and I fell asleep.

“I love you and will always fight for you. I will never give up on you like these fools have given up on one another,” Rylee whispered softly, her fingers digging deep into his fur. He curled around her, a broken sigh slipping out of him as she drifted off to sleep.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep quickly, though he knew when he opened his eyes that he was dreaming. He stood in a valley of great beauty, the sound of birds and insects filling his ears, the trickle of a creek somewhere nearby calling to him. A deep breath and he sneezed, the heavy pollens and scents of spring and life. A pleasant shudder slipped through him. This was surely a form of heaven.

“Yes and no. This is a resting place for wolves.” Peter stood across from him in his human form, still wearing his heavy fur robes and looking distinctly out of place. “I want to explain to you why my wolves will not fight. You need to understand this if you are to go after the hunters.”

Liam shifted into his human form, somehow keeping his clothes in one piece. “I understand that fear rules you and your pack. It makes you weak.”

Peter smiled, though there was no humor in it, and he held out his hand. “Come here. Let me show you.”

He drew close to see what the old man was pointing at. A shallow pond, murky and dark, and full of oozing black sludge, rippled at their feet, moving as if with an unseen wind. The water didn’t fit in that place anymore than Peter did in his furs.

“This is the heritage to the darkness inherent of the werewolf. More to the point, it is the past of the wolves who call my pack theirs.”

Staring into the murky depths, Liam felt his consciousness tumble into the darkness and, though he fought, the memories of the wolves held him tight and bound to them. He knew it wasn’t real, but it felt real, felt like it was truly happening.

Running, he was running behind a human, the scent of fear and blood drove him. With a single leap he took the human down, but didn’t kill her right away. No, this woman he flipped over and dug into her belly with his teeth and claws while her screams ripped at his ears, like sweet dinner music. She lived a long time, but he didn’t care. He wanted the soft pieces, the organs, and finally the heart. Her death and pain was nothing to him. All that mattered was his need for what she could give him.

There was a shift and he was standing on two legs, beckoning to a handsome young man, drawing him close. When the young guy bent in to kiss him, his hands shot out, part claw, part human, nails painted a deep cherry red. Digging into the man’s throat, he ripped out the trachea and swallowed it whole. The hunger in him demanded human flesh. Now.

Over and over again, he decimated humans, never animals, never another wolf. Just humans. Their flesh was sweet and well-fed, the blood tangy and life-giving, their bodies soft and ripe for the plucking, like plums hanging heavy on the tree at the end of summer. His mouth watered as he pulled down men and women.

But then a child came into view and he saw her terror. Saw her fall under his weight as his teeth snapped forward, breaking her delicate skin, a scream of terror erupting from her tiny throat and he yanked himself out of the thrall of the memories.

“ENOUGH!” He stumbled back from the pond, soaking wet and struggling to breathe. Struggling to understand what his mind had just gone through. He fell to his hands and knees and heaved up the contents of his stomach as the horror hit him, twisted his guts into knots.

“You see now why we don’t fight?” Peter asked him softly. “Why we would rather die than allow that side of ourselves to come to light again? It is not the wolf in us that we fear, but the blood lust. That lust is why the hunters take us captive. If they can leash the hunger and use it for their own desires ….” His eyes filled with sorrow
,
as if imagining just how very bad it could be.

Still, Liam knelt, his mind reeling. A pack full of monsters, indeed. These were the werewolves who stained the human collective with how very bad a monster could be. They were the stuff nightmares were made of.

“Then you don’t want to be saved.”

“No, that is not true. I believe the next generation will be free of these addictions, but only if we live in peace. I do not know how more violence can be of help to that end. The violence around us will push us back to our pasts. We have seen it. In the beginning, we fought back. It was … not good.”

Pushing himself to his feet, Liam drew himself to his full height, his proverbial hackles rising. “What I saw wasn’t simple violence. It was the memories of broken minds, of desires twisted beyond repair. Peter, surely you can help them, you can heal them of this sickness.”

Peter’s eyes dropped from his. “I am one of them, Liam. I am just like they are. It was the guardian wolf who stopped me. But I am the only one free from this addiction, truly free. I do not know how to keep it from rearing its head within the others. So we keep away from people; we keep away from the cities. We do not kill except to nourish our bellies. And even in that, we take turns so no one will gain too much a taste of fresh blood. We never eat raw meat. We don’t kill as wolves even, but hunt as men and women hunt. Each of us made a decision to stop the violence, binding ourselves to the earth as our vow. We literally cannot fight back.”

“What do you mean you bound yourself to the earth?”

Peter’s lips tightened. “I cannot tell you the details. What I can tell you is this: there are supernatural
elements
that are kept mostly hidden, even from us, from the supernatural world you know right now. These elements have the power to bind, to make vows, to keep our world in check. Our pack bound ourselves to one such element, and if we renege on our vow, we will be destroyed. It is the price we pay for the horror we have heaped onto the world.”

“Fucking hell,” Liam whispered, unable to keep from stepping back. Not in fear, but shock. How the hell were he and Rylee supposed to help these wolves?

Because Rylee was right, killing the hunters wouldn’t end this for Peter and his pack. No, it would stave off one problem, but they still would be forever segregated.

A hand seemed to brush along his cheek and he knew that in her sleep, Rylee reached out to him. Her love flowed through him, under his skin, and filled his heart. Faith, he had to have faith they could figure this out.

“Peter. I do not know how, but I know there is a way to make this right. And if anyone can find the loophole in a seemingly impossible situation, it is Rylee.”

Peter slowly lifted his head. “You would help us still?”