Keeping Secret: Secret McQueen, Book 4 (18 page)

No wonder no one wanted night tours. The swamp at night was fucking scary.

Mosquitoes buzzed around our heads, hungry with a bloodlust that would put the most menacing vampire to shame. Holden didn’t seem bothered by them, and I wondered if his absentee pulse had a role in that. If avoiding bug bites was a perk to the immortal hereafter, I might have to consider my destiny a bit more carefully.

From the dark spaces the spotlight couldn’t penetrate, night birds sang to each other, calling out warnings over our intrusion into their peaceful evening. More unseen animals slid into the water, and I wasn’t sure if they were doing it to escape us or to follow us more closely.

The farther into the swamp we drifted, the quieter and quieter it became, until all the calls and answers were distant echoes, and all I could hear were Arnie’s raspy breaths and the slice of the paddle in the water. For half an hour those were the only diversions in an otherwise eerie silence.

“’Ere,” Arnie announced as the skiff bumped up onto something solid. He added, “Out.”

“Out?” I looked to Holden. “We can’t be done.”

Arnie spit into the water and grunted. “’Splore.”

A dark mound of an island unfolded from the night air once I blinked away the haze of the spotlight. “You want us to go exploring?”

The guide shrugged a bony shoulder up, and it sank down immediately like his strings had been cut. “’Ave fun.” A suggestive wink to Holden.

He had to be kidding.

“What harm can it do?” Holden said before I could throttle Arnie. “We might find something to point us in the right direction.”

Since neither of us had the foggiest clue in hell where to look for
La Sorcière
, I had to admit touring the small island out of reach of Arnie’s beady little eyes was as good a place to start as any.

Holden climbed ashore first then helped me out.

“’Ifteen minutes. Here.” Arnie tapped the boat with his oar.

I led the way, even though Holden’s nocturnal eyesight was better than mine. Finding Eugenia was my task, and I felt it was essential I lead us to her. Besides, it would be good to know someone who could see in the dark was walking behind me if any unexpected surprises popped up.

After five minutes of weaving through overgrown vines and slipping on the stinky muck covering the ground, I lost sight of the spotlight on Arnie’s boat.

Had we gone that far? The island didn’t seem big enough for us to wander so far we’d be unable to see the million-watt bulb.

A few yards ahead of us the bushes rustled. Twigs snapped as the weight of a body in motion bent them underfoot.

Holden and I stopped walking simultaneously.

“Shit,” I said, before stumbling backwards into Holden’s arms. “Go back.
Go back
.” I didn’t want to know what was hanging out on a pitch-black island in the middle of a swamp. We made it towards the shore at a run. I was in the middle of shouting a warning to Arnie when we cleared the thin tree line and came upon emptiness.

No boat.

No Arnie.

I scanned the shoreline for the light from his skiff, but there was nothing there. We’d been abandoned.

From the heart of the island the sound of one creature walking was joined by a chorus of more footsteps. A half-dozen distinctive individuals were moving in our direction from various points in the brush. Holden pushed me behind him, and my foot splashed into the murky water. A few feet to my left something huge slipped into the abyss.

“Holden,” I whispered, “we need to get away from the water.”

He allowed us a foot or two of clearance, but it wasn’t enough to make me feel secure. I watched the Discovery Channel. In this scenario I was the stupid gazelle bending over to get a drink right before the monster jumped out of the water and ate me headfirst.

In the trees, the movements stopped as suddenly as they’d started. The thrashing sounds of predators on the hunt died away, and all I could hear was my own breathing and the chirp of nocturnal insects.

We had to get off this island somehow, and swimming sure as hell wasn’t an option.

The first man materialized from the woods as smoothly and soundlessly as a ghost. Except he reeked of wolf. He skin was almond brown and streaked with a brackish green mud. The same mud caked his hair into a makeshift mohawk. At some point, probably years ago, his pants had been jeans, but now they resembled a denim grass skirt that barely concealed his privates. The shredded jeans were the only clothing he wore.

Down the shoreline another man appeared, his hair caked into dreadlocks by the same muddy goop. He was wearing a loincloth fashioned from a pair of LSU sweatpants. Dark patterns were smeared across his chest in a display that looked like it had been drawn by a five-year-old.

Another two men appeared behind the one with dreadlocks. If I hadn’t been able to smell the wolf scent coming off them, the yellow glow in the eyes of the newcomers would have been a pretty obvious tip-off as to what they were.

Four-on-two was nothing. I didn’t care how tough these guys looked. I had a vampire sentry with me and I probably could have handled these guys on my own. There were on the sickly side of skinny.

I was still more concerned about the alligators in the water and how Holden and I were going to get back to the mainland. That was until another six men emerged behind the guy with the mohawk. This new development skewed the odds a little.

“Arnie brought us a present,” the one with dreadlocks said. “And dinner.”

All ten moved forwards as one.

“Get back, you mange-infested freaks,” I said, and snarled at them.

This gave them pause. “She smells like wolf,” Dreadlocks announced.

“Keen nose, doggy. You guys smell like shit.”

Mohawk smiled and stepped closer. Holden and I had nowhere to go unless we wanted to take a moonlight swim with some hungry reptiles. I was thankful for the cover of Holden’s body. It meant the mutts couldn’t see me un-holster my gun.

“You’re a long way from the pack,” Mohawk said, and laughed. “You’re with the
Loups-Garous
now.”

“I don’t care who you are. Let us leave and no one gets hurt.”

They laughed in unison. If they didn’t smell lupine, I would have guessed hyena from the mad chuckling they were doing. I slid around Holden and put my loaded gun in the open laughing mouth of Mohawk.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think you took me seriously the first time I said it. You
will
let us go.” My tone was pure threat.

One of the wolfs let out a short
yip
, and I made the mistake of believing it was a sound of concern until more rustling from the woods broke my concentration and another dozen wolves—all men in various states of undress—joined their brothers on the beach.

The
Loups-Garous
now outnumbered us on a level that put Holden and me in a position where we couldn’t win. I could blow off Mohawk’s head right now, but the clip didn’t hold twenty-two bullets, and I couldn’t reload and achieve perfect aim fast enough to take down the ones closest to me before someone took me out.

I pulled the gun out of Mohawk’s mouth and returned to Holden.

The new arrivals all had eyes that gleamed yellow, barely concealing the beasts within. They looked hungry, but the kind of hunger varied depending on whether they were focusing on Holden or on me. I held my gun ready even though I doubted I’d get a chance to use it.

“Now would be a good time to start humming the
Deliverance
theme.”

Holden’s arm snaked around my waist, and he pulled me close, showing possession. I don’t think these guys cared if he called dibs.

“What’s the plan?” he whispered.

“Don’t die.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

One day, provided I lived long enough, I was going to make a list of the top-ten worst experiences of my life. Being dragged by my hair through the mucky, disgusting swamp underbrush while listening to a pack of feral werewolves talk about who would rape me first was a sure contender for the number-six spot on that list.

Number five if they let the one who kept talking about giving it to me up the ass got first crack.

Considering a vampire sadist had once gotten his jollies by sticking a finger in my open neck wound, it took a lot to break into the top five. Not to mention, if any of these
Mad Max
ian savages so much as pulled out their dick in my presence, they wouldn’t get it back.

They could kill me—or they could try—but I would make the
Loups-Garous
a pack of eunuchs before I let them go balls deep.

“She’s scrappy,” Dreadlocks said.

“She’s trouble. We’re leaving her for Carn.”

Carn? What the fuck was that short for? Carnie? Carnivore? Carnal? “I hope Carn likes it rough,” I snapped, my fangs showing. Mohawk and Dreadlocks exchanged looks, but the guy dragging me couldn’t see my mouth and kept right on ripping my hair out by its ends.

I’d been able to partially shift myself once before. How had I done it? I tried to concentrate on the shape and configuration of my bones. Could thought alone help me twist and change myself into some half-wolf abomination? Last time it had happened my life had been in immediate danger.

I don’t think my brain understood that this situation was as bad—if not worse—than having an overweight Greek vampire going for my carotid. I stretched my fingers, envisioning them bursting into claws. My muscles twinged with the effort and my face felt hot from struggling, but nothing happened. Unless breaking a sweat counted.

“Take them to the pit. We’ll let Carn sort them out.”

“But I want to
touch
her,” one of the other wolves whined.

Mohawk backhanded him. Even if he wasn’t the leader, it was obvious the spiky-haired bastard was high in their ranks. I should have shot him when I had the chance, but now my gun was tucked in the front of his jeans.

Good luck, buddy. I turned the safety off. I hope you blow your nuts to pulp.

Apparently my telekinetic powers were as rusty as my shifting was because the gun did not fire even though I was giving it the evil eye with all my might. Where were
my
hereditary witch skills?

The wolf dragging me pulled me over a crop of sharp rocks. To show my appreciation, I pushed off the ground with both feet. Had I not been tethered to someone by my hair I could have done a nice kick up onto my feet, but his hold would just drag me down. Instead I put too much weight into it so my legs went right over my head and connected hard with his skull.

He dropped me. “
Son of a bitch
,” he screamed. The hand that had once been in my hair flew up to cradle his injured noggin.

I straightened into a standing position and dusted the moss and mud off my jacket casually, like nothing had happened. “My legs work. I can walk.”

The wolf I’d kicked made to grab my hair again, and my elbow flew back, breaking his nose.

“I said I can walk.”

Mohawk stared at me. “You think you can do it without breaking any more bones?”

“That depends. Do you think your puppies can keep their paws to themselves the rest of the way?”

The group who had been bartering with each other about who would ride first suddenly didn’t seem quite so interested. I wasn’t stupid enough to think they wouldn’t still try, but for now I wasn’t as inviting as I’d once been.

“I make no promises,” Mohawk said.

“Then neither do I.”

We arrived in a small encampment about fifteen minutes later, having never left the island. The place was much bigger than I’d anticipated, making me wonder if the
Loups-Garous
were the only inhabitants. I wanted to believe someone out there might be able to save us, but who was I kidding? Who could stand against a pack of feral wolves almost as large as Callum’s whole crew?

Small campfires littered the main living area and little wooden shacks appeared to be the sole form of shelter. A woman heavy with pregnancy stepped out of one shed and caught my eye. I didn’t miss the flash of pity in her face. She rubbed her big belly, and a small child dashed out from behind her. They both looked wild, hair sticking up, rigid with muck.

The child was barely six, but the smell of wolf was unmistakable.

They were changing the children.

Changing children before they came of age was forbidden by werewolf law. Most children couldn’t handle the change at an early age, and the transformation into wolf form would more often than not kill them. This was why born werewolves were so rare and why seeing one in adulthood was almost unheard of.

It took a really sick animal to turn a child, and I was surrounded by a whole pack of them.

Another woman—hardly old enough to be called an adult—was sitting next to a fire. She scampered out of the way when the men arrived back in the camp. Her belly, too, was large.

Jesus Christ. They kidnapped women and made them into living breeding machines so they could expand their pack through the offspring. This was what they had planned for me.

As it turned out, the pit wasn’t a cheeky nickname for anything. It was literally a giant fucking hole in the ground, about fifteen feet deep and just as wide across. Mohawk let the wolf with a broken nose and a goose egg on the back of his head have the pleasure of shoving me into it. Holden was tossed in next, and his bulk landing on top of me sucked worse than my fall.