Lone Wolf (The Westervelt Wolves, Book 8) (16 page)

A commotion of noise followed by a wolf’s howl filled the air. Gabriel. She’d know that sound anywhere. Had he shifted?

“Let’s go,” Theo called out. “Elizabeth, make it happen.”

The world whited out around her until seconds later she stumbled, finding her feet beneath her on the ground outside. Tristan stood over Gabriel, who had remained in his human form. He’d fallen to his knees.

She rushed to his side, throwing her arms around his body. He felt warm and solid. “Do you know who I am?”

“I-I…” he stuttered. “I’m so confused, surrounded by this haze I can’t get rid of. It doesn’t let me think.”

“Gabriel,” Kendrick growled, Tristan answering his threat with his own. Carrie could only focus on her beloved. She had to get him back; she wouldn’t lose him to this. “There is no curse on Westervelt. Ashlee and Tristan cleared it years ago. Your father and Drea freaked out when it happened. This is Tristan’s island. He can’t control you here.”

“Brother.” Tristan’s voice sounded more wolf than human. “Stop punishing yourself. We’ll figure out how to make you pay later, if that’s what’s required.”

Gabriel grabbed his head. He shook it left and right before howling again. Something had to be happening inside him. She wished she could read minds, to know his struggle. With Elizabeth’s help she’d reached him earlier. But they didn’t have the right circumstances to make that happen now.

Ashlee dropped to her knees next to them. Tristan hadn’t wanted her anywhere near this situation. She’d refused to comply. Tristan’s mate did not wither when faced with his temper.

“I can see it, but it’s lessening. Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Liz can’t take this off him and keep Drea from popping Kendrick out of here at the same time.”

Tristan kneeled down in front of Gabriel. “He has no control here that you don’t give him. Tell him and his curse to go to Hades.”

Gabriel screamed and Ashlee gasped seconds before grabbing onto Tristan. “He’s throwing it off. Gods, the curse had such hold on him. I’ve never seen anything so fluid before.”

He shuddered and Carrie gripped him tighter.
“Rid yourself of it, my love. Come back to me. We’ve earned it.”

He collapsed in her arms, his eyes closed, his body dead weight in her embrace. “Gabriel.” She shook him and he didn’t respond.

Ashlee placed a hand on his face. “It’s gone. He’s clear. I think the process must have overwhelmed him.”

Kendrick roared to his wolves. “Attack.”

Growls sounded everywhere, answered immediately by Westervelt’s own angry snarls. Michael called the shift onto himself. Theo did the same.

Gabe’s eyes darted open. He jumped to his feet so quickly Carrie almost fell backward from the abruptness. She scrambled back to where Ashlee stood. What the hell was about to happen?

“Gabe?”
She called to him and he looked at her. His gaze told her nothing. She shivered.
“Answer me.”

He didn’t. Instead he turned back to the pack. “Everyone stop fighting. Stop right now.”

Tristan growled. “Did you hit your head when you blacked out?”

“Stop attacking my wolves.” He whistled loudly and the made wolves ceased attacking. The whole area fell quiet until Kendrick howled.

“I said attack and I meant it,” the former Alpha bellowed.

Gabriel sighed loud enough for everyone to hear. “They don’t belong to you anymore. Now they take orders from me.”

“That’s not likely. I
made
them.” Kendrick walked to one of his wolves and grabbed it by the neck. “Now you will attack Tristan and his wolves and you will do it right away or I will break your necks one by one.”

“Put down my wolf,” Gabriel roared, and Carrie shivered. First he wouldn’t answer her telepathic pushes, and now he came across as more aggressive than she’d ever seen him before. If this were any other time, she might actually have liked it.

Tristan moved until he stood next to Gabriel. He didn’t utter a word. There must be some sort of male shifter thing going on that she couldn’t understand.

“He’s my wolf.”

The creature in question began to violently shake in Kendrick’s arms.

“You made him what he is, that’s correct.” Gabriel worked the kinks out of his neck. “You took a person who was either mentally or physically too sick to fight you, or maybe he just did something to someone who you owed a favor to, and you made him the creature before us. But he doesn’t belong to you anymore.” Her mate tapped his own chest. “He belongs to me and, therefore, he’s actually Tristan’s wolf since I belong to him.”

“That’s all nonsense and you know it. These creatures respond to their drugs and my voice. That is all.”

The wolf in Kendrick’s arms growled at him, struggling to free himself. With a whack of his tail, he twisted enough until Kendrick dropped him on the ground. The made creature ran to Gabriel’s side. She watched as her love gave him a pat on the head.

Kendrick snarled. “You think you’re so smart. None of you will outsmart me. I will keep coming at you. There will never be peace. Your children will never be safe.”

He stared at Drea, whose face had turned bright red. She resembled an overripe tomato.

“What’s the matter, Drea? Can’t escape?” Elizabeth walked forward from the crowd. “For years you had me bespelled, cursed so no one could look at me. But now you’re the one powerless. On our island you have no power. You and Kendrick aren’t going anywhere.”

Carrie would have grinned if she had any sense of what Gabriel had going on in his head.
“Hey. Look at me.”

Maybe she finally sounded stern enough. He turned and stared at her. She gasped, covering her mouth. Agony radiated in his gaze. He still hadn’t answered her telepathically. Once, they’d been so connected they sometimes forgot to speak aloud. He had his wolf back. They were reunited, but he seemed to want to keep her at a distance. Why did he look like he held so much pain inside?

They also happened to be in the worst possible moment in the world for her to back him against a wall and ask him about it. Or demand an answer, whatever worked.

“Well, Kendrick.” Tristan grinned from ear to ear as the wolf Kendrick had held ran to him. “I’d say there isn’t a person here, except your woman who held my brother’s mate in a state of agony for years, who you haven’t harmed. I’ve been trying to figure out who should have the right to kill you. It would be easy to say me. Wouldn’t it, Dad? Isn’t that what you would have done as Alpha? Everything came down to you. But I think I’m going to handle things a little differently.”

“Whoever you send over here will have to beat me. None of you can do that.”

“That’s not true,” Carrie called out. She walked toward her mate and took his hand. “Gabriel beat you in sparring. More than once.”

Gabe stared at their joined hands for a second before looking back up. “I did.”

“You’re weak right now. I can smell your lack of energy all the way over here. You’re beaten. You come over here and I’ll wipe the floor with you.”

The Gabriel of old would never have let that stand, exhausted or otherwise. She’d watched him during training tear through wolves twice his size after hours of working them out. It had always driven her crazy. He had no sense of weakness, no idea he could be bested.

“Tristan, he’s not wrong. I’m a mess.”

What? Did you hear that?

Her wolf nodded, also stunned silent.

“I know.” Tristan smiled. “I’ve been where you are, remember? Our father was once responsible for cursing me as well.” Tristan took another step forward. “So who should it be? Cullen? He’d kill for the chance. My guess would be that he dreams about it nightly. Or maybe not. See, Cullen has been mated long enough now that his priorities have rightly shifted. That’s why you killed all the mates years ago.”

“You know nothing.” Was it Carrie’s imagination, or had Kendrick paled a little?

“I know quite a bit.” Tristan nodded. “A mated pack is a strong pack. The mates remind us to value family, tradition, safety. Only unmated males would follow you to certain doom with a wolf army and the destruction of the human beings whom we share this world with.”

“Gabe.”
Bad time or not, Carrie needed some answers from him.

“Carrie, please stop talking in my mind. I think it might kill me.”

She jolted. He’d whispered his words and her wolf ears had let her hear them perfectly well. He didn’t want her speaking telepathically.
It might kill him?
Anger rocked her body. After years of waiting for him to tell her it was time to leave the hell he’d negotiated for her, he couldn’t tolerate her voice in his mind? Did he have so little care for her needs?

Clawing out Gabriel’s eyes wouldn’t solve anything, but it might make her feel better. She dropped his hand.

“Carrie.”

She waved his words away. “I shouldn’t have brought this up now.” He’d broken her heart. For forty years she’d held on and he’d squashed her resolve. When this was over, he’d have to answer for it. Her mate. The giant asshole.

Tristan advanced on his father. “Shall I ask Michael to end you? Theo? Malcolm? Az? Rex? Ben? I know Matthew would like to take a swing at you.”

“I’m getting enough of these games, boy. You come at me yourself, or are you afraid?”

Her Alpha shook his head. “As a matter of fact, I’m completely calm. I’m not even really angry. Do you want to know why? Because I’ve made a decision. I know exactly who should take your life away. And then you’ll get to meet our Makers and my mother. My feeling is that your suffering has not even begun.”

Drea launched herself forward. Carrie had spent enough time watching the woman that she knew exactly where the witch intended to go. Elizabeth’s throat. Rex saw it too.
Thank the gods for all of Gabe’s early training
. Rex grabbed his mate and shoved her out of the way, putting her behind him.

Carrie moved at the same time. Shifting as she bolted through the air, she landed on top of Drea’s body. The wicked woman hit the ground with a loud thump, at least three feet before she would have reached Elizabeth.

This time her wolf did not present her with any compulsion to stop attacking the other woman. She didn’t have to endure any longer. The woman needed to die. Tristan could figure out Kendrick’s death.

She’d earned the right to Drea’s death.

Her fangs dug into the woman’s throat, tearing the skin from her bones. Blood splattered everywhere and in the distance she noted that Kendrick had roared. He couldn’t reach her and she had no interest in turning around to see why.

She destroyed Drea until she felt the woman’s life slip from her body. Even then she couldn’t stop obliterating what remained of the woman’s shell. Drea’s soul had moved on somewhere else. Hopefully to someplace very uncomfortable.

Carrie raised her head. Elizabeth stood in front of her, a hand raised in the air. It took a moment to register what had occurred. Rex’s mate must have constructed some kind of barrier around her. Kendrick pounded on the invisible wall but couldn’t get through.

Well, that explains why he left us alone
.

Gabriel caught her eyes. He stood right behind his former Alpha. Earlier he’d claimed to be exhausted but now the red glow of his eyes said he’d end Kendrick if he made one move through the barrier toward Carrie. Tristan stood next to him. He gave Carrie a quick nod, which made her heart swell with pride.

She’d never killed anyone before. Animals were another thing altogether. Hunting prey in her wolf form had always been as natural as breathing. But killing a person fell into an entirely different category. She had no idea how she’d handle the idea later. Right then the adrenaline surged through her body, making her hands shake and heart beat fast. Nothing bothered her at all and she didn’t mind the temporary reprieve from any distress she might feel later.

Of course, the possibility remained she wouldn’t care then either. Drea had needed to die before she could cause any more trouble.

I liked it
.

She grinned.
I know you did
.

“Carrie.”
Gabriel spoke in her head.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”

She ignored him. When she’d spoken in his head earlier it had caused him so much distress he’d thought it might kill him. He could wait his turn for her attention now too.

Tristan advanced on Kendrick. “Now I guess you’ll have lots of people to see on the other side. Let’s hope our gods are more forgiving than I am.”

Tears swam down Kendrick’s face. “She was my mate. You should have treated her with more respect than that.”

“And you shouldn’t have murdered my mother.” Tristan turned to the crowd. “Gabriel, I think our new wolves should get a chance to tell Kendrick what they think of their new, shortened lives. Maybe they’d like to personally thank him.”

Gabriel pointed at Kendrick and the made wolves growled, some of them snarling at the same time. “Kill him.”

Even as it happened, Carrie knew she couldn’t fully digest what she saw. She called the shift onto herself and moved out of Elizabeth’s protective barrier. Liz nodded at her and Carrie smiled.

Kendrick’s creations leaped into the air knocking Kendrick down on the ground as they went. The man who had tormented her for so many years, who had killed her parents, destroyed the pack, and tried for so long to take what didn’t belong to him died without uttering a word. In retrospect, it was fitting for a wolf to go out that way. He’d been mated, or so he claimed, to Drea. To live without his mate would be unbearable. In the end, Kendrick went as a wolf should, without complaint to follow his other half.

Pieces of his skin flew everywhere. Blood splattered on the ground and the sound of hungry wolves finally being given their just deserts made all the noise she could hear.

Angel Kane moved next to her. “I suppose any way he died would wind up being anticlimactic. I expected him to fight back. Didn’t you?”

Carrie shook her head. “For what? Drea died. His wolves abandoned him for Gabriel. In no scenario would he make it out of here alive. Plus, your father turned out to be a big coward in the end. Plenty tough when others could do his bidding. No honor where it counted.”