Half Truths (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) (39 page)

Vaile looked
back at him. ‘What are you going to do with her?’

‘Fuck her. Kill
her. Disembowel her while she’s still alive. Maybe all three. Who knows,’ he
laughed maniacally, ‘there are so many options, aren’t there?’ he asked like
they were friends.

‘You know we
were never going to give up the félvair to Marcus. She belongs to us.’

Connall’s face
lost all humour. ‘She belongs to us,’ he hissed. ‘And you’ll give her to us if
you know what’s good for you.’ He ground the gun into Eaton’s skin.

Vaile barked a
laugh. ‘You can’t have her.’

‘And why not?’
he asked back sarcastically. ‘I think I’ve got the upper hand here, if you
haven’t already noticed.’

Vaile’s lips
peeled away from his teeth. ‘Because she died earlier today,’ he said in a calm,
cool voice.

‘She
died?
’
Connall asked, easing up a little on Eaton’s temple.

‘Yeah, she died.
Couldn’t feed properly.’

‘But she was the
last of her kind. How can she be dead?’

Vaile shrugged
and took a casual step towards them. Connall swung the gun from Eaton to him,
training it on his chest. He smiled. ‘Silver bullets. They’ll rip you apart
faster than you can say “fuck me”. I’d stay where you are if I were you,’ he
warned.

‘So what are you
going to do now? Keep us out here in the cold?’

Connall sneered.
‘No. I brought some friends with me.’

Vaile rubbed his
hands together. ‘Oh good, I love meeting new people,’ he replied in a sarcastic
voice.

‘Aubrey, Cole,
Reade, Lucas, Chase. Get out here. Now!’

Vaile’s eyes
swivelled to the front of the cabin where five more wolves were now standing,
waiting. Their eyes were shifting colours quickly, so Vaile already knew they
were young. And youth meant just one thing to him: inexperience. He was
suddenly looking forward to teaching them a lesson … with his fists.

‘What kind of
operation are you running here, Connall, a crèche? Didn’t Dorian and Charles
trust you enough with better wolves than their newest additions?’ he taunted.

Connall’s eyes
switched colours, burning yellow orbs on his shadowed face. ‘Don’t worry,
Vaile. They won’t make you suffer too long.’

Vaile flexed his
lips into a smile. ‘What makes you think I didn’t bring my own friends to the
party?’

Connall’s eyes
widened, searching the swallowing blackness at his back. Vaile whistled and
Rhett and Brax marched out from the shadows of the trees, growling and snapping
at the Dragos wolf. They flanked Vaile, saliva dripping from their gums, lips
peeled back from dagger-like teeth.

‘Don’t come any
closer, or I’ll kill her,’ he screamed, putting the gun to Leona’s temple this
time.

‘Fine. Kill her.
We don’t have any need for her anymore,’ he said with a shrug.

‘Vaile, no!’
Leona screamed, trying to break free from Connall’s grip. Connall’s focus
slipped, and Vaile made his move. Leona had managed to slip out from under
Connall’s arm just as Vaile lunged for him, pulling out his blade. Connall
aimed the gun frenziedly, squeezing the trigger without lining up properly. The
bullet grazed Vaile’s bicep, awakening his wolf. He felt his eyes slip, and he
smiled sadistically at Connall.

The five enemy
wolves poured off the porch, landing onto the frozen ground with a
thud
.
Rhett and Brax charged into the group, snapping their teeth at the young
wolves. Vaile whistled again, hoping Colton and Sabel didn’t take too long getting
there, but Connall took the distraction and turned it to his advantage. Vaile
turned back to Connall only to find himself staring down the barrel of the
Browning.

‘I’m going to
enjoy this,’ he sneered, squeezing the trigger. The gun went off loudly. Vaile
squeezed his eyes shut, knowing his time was up. His thoughts automatically
went to Larissa. He’d only just found her and now he had to leave.

He waited for
the bullet to rip through his chest; to hurtle through flesh and bone until
everything that came into contact with it was destroyed. He waited also for the
inevitable pain to course through his body. But none of that happened. When he
opened his eyes, he found himself thrown back away from the van, a good six
feet away from where he’d been standing.

The tang of
blood was in the air. He glanced over. Leona. The bullet had hit her square in
the chest; blood creeping out from the wound too quickly. It was a fatal hit.

Vaile looked up
at Connall who was staring down at them both, the gun trained on Vaile again,
but his eyes on Leona.

‘Fucking
heroics, huh? Look where it gets you, Lover,’ he spat, his eyes shifting back
to Vaile. ‘Now, before I was so
rudely
interrupted, I was just about to
put you out of your misery. Are you ready, Vaile? Are you ready for—’ Connall’s
words were cut off as Sabel’s huge jaws clamped down on his body.

Connall wrenched
around Sabel’s head; attempting to ram his fingers into the dark brown wolf’s
eyes. Sabel yelped, but didn’t let go. With a growl that Vaile could feel down
to his bones, Sabel clamped down harder on Connall’s torso. Connall screamed
out, still trying anything to get Sabel to let him go.

Blood spurted
out from between Sabel’s jaws, splattering to the ground and melting the snow
instantly. The smell of raw meat and sewer filled the clearing then. Connall’s
intestines drooped from his body, scraping along the snow as Sabel continued to
shake him.

With one
powerful jerk of his head, Sabel threw Connall’s limp body to the ground,
tearing the opening he’d already made in his gut wider before feasting on the
entrails. Connall was still screaming.

Vaile looked up
at the battle. Colton, Rhett and Brax were fighting a wolf a piece—the other
two torn apart at their feet. The sound of feeble gasping distracted Vaile
then. He looked down at the pink snow. Leona was lying a few feet away from
him, her mouth moving soundlessly. Dark red blood foamed from her mouth,
running down her cheeks. Dropping down onto his knees, Vaile lowered his ear to
her mouth.

‘E-Eaton,’ she
gasped.

Vaile looked up
at the van. It was empty.

‘Where? Where is
she?’ he asked her urgently, shaking her shoulders gently.

Leona’s mouth
opened and closed slowly, trying to form the words but without the voice to
sound them. Vaile leaned in closer until he could feel her shallow breath
against his face.

‘F-f-forest,’
she finally said before finally falling silent.

Vaile looked up,
searching for a patch of undergrowth that had been disturbed. There, about one
hundred yards away from the van. He stood up and jogged over to the spot. And hidden
in the underbrush was Eaton—still unconscious—but otherwise unharmed. Leona
must have moved her when he had been fighting with Connall.

Picking Eaton
up, Vaile carried her back to the cabin where Sabel, Rhett, Brax and Colton
were finishing up the last wolf. Every single one of them had blood matted in
their thick coats and dripping from their lips. Vaile counted the bodies: ten,
including the two from the van that Leona had dispatched. He looked over his
pack mates for injuries.

Rhett had a gash
above his right eye that had gushed with blood, but was now well on its way to
healing. Brax had a bite on his left forepaw, which he was now favouring
gingerly. Sabel and Colton had a few bites to their bodies, but nothing more
serious than that. They got lucky with the new pups. If they’d been more
experienced wolves, things wouldn’t have ended as well as they had.

‘Let’s go,’ he
told them all, walking back into the forest with his pack mates at his back.

Sabel and Colton
shifted back and rode ahead on the Ducati to let Antain know what had happened.
They arrived back at the farmhouse a little after two-thirty in the morning.
When they pulled into the drive, Antain was waiting anxiously on the front
porch with Laithe.

Vaile parked the
Jetta and got out, jogging around the front of the car to open the passenger
doors. Rhett and Brax—still wearing their wolves’ skins—jumped out, leaving
Vaile to carefully extricate Eaton from the back seat. Antain walked down the
stairs to meet Vaile at the bottom; his arms out to take his precious cargo. Seeing
his alpha’s mate returned to him gave Antain new life. This is what it meant to
be mated.

Vaile handed
Eaton over to Antain and ducked into the house. He stopped by the kitchen, made
a couple of sandwiches and found the first aid kit, taking them upstairs to where
Larissa would be waiting. He pushed the door shut with his leg, dropped the
food and went to her. He kissed her hard, crushing her to his body. She pulled
back with a smile on her face until she took in all the blood, even if most of
it was Leona’s.

‘What the hell
happened?’ she asked, touching him everywhere there was a smear of dried blood.

‘It’s a long
story. Can you help me undress? I need you to dress a wound for me.’

‘Of course,’ she
replied, already pulling his weapons from his body and tugging his shirt above
his head. ‘Where are you hurt?’

‘Arm,’ he winced
when the fabric of the shirt rubbed against it like sandpaper. It still hurt
like a motherfucker, but he hadn’t been able to show the weakness in front of
the others.

‘What happened?’
Larissa asked, her hand over her mouth.

‘Gunshot, but it
only grazed me so nothing to worry about,’ he replied dismissively. Larissa
opened up the first aid kit and slid a pair of rubber gloves on. She pulled the
saline solution out and some sterile gauze from the massive stash the pack
always had on hand.

‘Is this the
worst of the injuries?’ she asked, concentrating on cleaning the wound.

‘Yeah, but it’ll
heal once it’s been cleaned. The bullets were silver.’

Larissa’s eyes
widened. ‘I thought that was a myth.’

‘Afraid not.’

After Larissa
patched him up, they ate the sandwiches he’d fixed for them both. Vaile loved
watching her eat. She seemed to have an appetite as big as his when he wasn’t
being careful in front of humans. He brushed some crumbs from her lips and
kissed her.

‘What was that
for?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘Because I can,’
he replied, and kissed her again.

‘Will you tell
me where you were tonight?’

He was about to
tell her not to worry, but she was his mate now which meant that he shared
every dark detail of his life with her. ‘My alpha’s mate was taken about a week
ago. A rival pack took her.’

‘But why?’

‘They wanted
something we have.’

‘What was it?’

‘Remember how I
told you that humans and werewolves can’t breed?’ She nodded. ‘Well, it’s a
little difficult for werewolves to breed with each other too. We can have
children, but only one in ten are female. In order to keep the pack numbers up,
we need the blood of a félvair.’

‘A fel—what?’

‘A félvair—a
half blood. They’re half human and half vampire. They’re born from an Incubus
impregnating a human female. Their blood is the only thing that can guarantee
wolves to have female children. Six months ago, we won the rights to her. The
Dragos pack wanted her, so they took Eaton, and were only willing to give her
back if we gave them the félvair.’

Larissa’s hand
went to her mouth. ‘You didn’t give her up, did you?’

Vaile shook his
head. ‘No. We wouldn’t give her up. Eaton wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. But
tonight we ambushed them while they preparing to move her. We got her back, but
they had given her a tranquiliser and she’s still unconscious.’

Larissa’s mouth
thinned. ‘Where is she now?’

‘With my alpha, receiving
medical attention.’

‘Will she be
alright?’

He sighed. ‘With
any luck, she’ll be moving around tomorrow, but I’m sure my alpha won’t let her
out of bed until all her strength returns.’ Vaile stretched out his tired
muscles. ‘I need to take a shower. Will you join me?’ he asked. Waves of lust
came off her body, and he knew her answer before she gave it.

Vaile had her
naked in a heartbeat, securing her long legs around his waist and carrying her
through to his bathroom. He’d never given the marble shelf in there a second
thought before, but with Larissa naked and wrapped around him, his imagination
went into meltdown.

Gently, he
lowered her onto the cool stone and turned on the shower. He let out a primal
growl when she reached around him and cupped his balls.

‘Are you sure
you want to play that game?’ he asked in a purr. She squeezed his sac
teasingly, keeping it just this side of pleasure, but dancing so very close to
pain.

‘Are you sure
you don’t?’ she purred back at him. Vaile turned around to face her, but
Larissa wasn’t staring at his face. She was staring at his hips. If it was
possible, he stiffened even further. Wrapping her warm palm around the bottom
of his shaft, she began pulling gently. Her tongue flashed out of her mouth,
swiping at the head of him. Vaile shuddered, throwing both his hands out to
keep him upright. She was a goddess with that tongue of hers.

Hot and wet, her
mouth covered his cap, her lips sliding down along his shaft until they met her
fist which was pumping slowly. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He moaned,
and she rolled her green eyes up to watch him. He wasn’t going to last very
long if she kept it up.

He pulled away
from her gently, sliding down onto his knees in front of her.

‘You know I had
a dream about this once,’ she said. Water was running down her chest, between
her breasts. Her dusty-pink nipples were hard and just begging to be sucked.

‘You did?’

‘Yeah. You came
to me while I was in the bath then you picked me up and were about to make love
to me when …’ she smiled a secret smile.

‘When?’