The Last Werewolf (The Weres of Europe) (13 page)

Rik turned around, his brow furrowed and his lips a tense line, ready to argue. But then he heaved a resigned sigh and nodded. “You lead.”

The soft humus of the ground was covered with moss and dirt, pine needles and cones, and since there was no clear path—just one only shifters could smell—every step could mean a fall down a moss-covered hole, or a trip on a tree root. With broken ankles they wouldn’t get very far, even if they did heal fast.

Spring heightened the smells of the earth, and all that new life gave a bounce to Leevi’s step and yet distracted his wolf, who wanted to run amok in the wild woods. Birds chirping, minks running around, badgers digging, foxes dashing—too many scents, too much noise. Leevi had to shake his head to clear his senses from the overload. Shifters tended to avoid all-out nature during this season because the instincts of the animal within were too strong to counter.

“How much longer?” Rik whispered, and Leevi heard the same strain in his voice as he too struggled for control of the beast.

They had been on the move since before first light, for an hour, and they were closing in on the rocky hill where the fort was.
Finland
was riddled with wilderness structures, from Bronze and Iron Age to Medieval and later. However, a hill fort like theirs was different from others as it was intended to keep things hidden instead of acting as a warning. A refuge from the outside world, the old fort was used primarily for emergencies, general storage, shifter women giving birth, raising cubs to control their animal instincts, and to interrogate renegade wolves, outsiders, or lawbreakers.

Soon the fortification came into view. Invisible to all those who weren’t aware of its existence, the tower peeked from the top of the rock face, just barely visible now when the deciduous trees didn’t have leaves and there was no snow to block the sight. The natural, rough contours of the granite hill acted as defensive walls around the underground hideout that held most of its space deep beneath the ground.

The rocky rampart stood over forty feet high and would be hard to climb. The main entrance to the fort was at the peak, the path following the rocky ridge high up, easily defended and concealed. If the two of them approached from that direction there would be zero chance of succeeding undetected, Leevi knew. Their only two other chances included the drain pipe—but they had installed bars there during the First World War—and the lower entrance situated in the hard-to-see crevice along the cliff wall. There were arrow slits and murder holes there, but they had never been used, and Leevi seriously doubted Jaakko had that kind of manpower or defensive inclinations.

The top of the tower-hideout was a crenellated lookout post with a view in all compass points, and it was usually manned, so Leevi was well aware that their approach could be noticed, not by them being seen, but by being heard. The woods and the hills carried sounds almost as well as water.

Crouching down behind tiny pine saplings, Leevi sniffed the air. It had rained a bit during the night so the soil was wet and the strong, pungent smells of the woods would mask their scents. A familiar manly whiff reached his nostrils. “They seem to have Kari on guard duty. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. I think I can handle him with some subterfuge.” Turning to Rik, who had knelt behind him in mimicry of Leevi’s actions, Leevi said, “Could you distract him as I talk to him? I need to get the drop on him, and all I need is a second.” Rik nodded. “Go on then. And Rik? Stay downwind,” Leevi told Rik before the guy headed out into the underbrush.

Rik’s lips pouted. “I know. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

Leevi snorted. “You’ve never been to a rodeo in your life.”

About to start arguing, Rik must have caught the twitch of Leevi’s lips and understood he was being made fun of. In general, it was uncharacteristic of Leevi to joke so easily, but when they had been together, rapport had always been fluid and smooth between them. Rik seemed glad that Leevi felt comfortable enough again to engage in some harmless banter with him. Rik’s face flushed, and he growled. “Asshole,” he mouthed, and flipped Leevi the finger before disappearing into the green. But not before Leevi had spotted the grin Rik had been sporting. Yes, there were still things the two of them were good at. Leevi was glad that their relationship wasn’t broken beyond repair, no matter what the circumstances.

Leevi made sure to shake his clothes a bit to bring out his scent before getting up and approaching the lower entrance, hidden from sight by rocks. He kept his gait firm, fast, and steady to let the guard know someone was coming, and not stealthily either.

And sure enough, a burly man with thick, coarse black hair and copious stubble stepped in his way. His right hand rested on the handle of a hunting knife attached to his leather belt, but as soon as he saw who was advancing, surprise and confusion twisted his face and stilled the motions of his hand. After all, even though the relationship with the Prime Alpha and his former Beta were on the fritz, clan lands were common and neutral ground, and as the leader he could go wherever he pleased. And, as far as Kari knew, perhaps Leevi had come to make amends with Jaakko.

Walking steadfastly right up to the man—and inching closer to the ridge so that the guard had to turn sideways, his back now to the forest—Leevi nodded a silent greeting, his narrowing gaze leaving little doubt of what he was expecting from the lesser wolf. Swallowing, the man bared his neck, a submissive gesture, and then he blinked hard, not having had control over the instinctive move.

Gotcha
.

“Kari.” Leevi spoke quietly, almost inaudibly. The low tone forced Kari to lean closer to hear, and it was then that a tiny sound of a breaking twig came from behind them.

The guard turned on his heels, swiftly, like a tornado, but Rik was well out of sight.

And by then it was already too late as Leevi wrapped his arms around Kari’s neck in an unrelenting chokehold. The man gurgled something and tried to grab the powerful arm with its fierce hold on him, attempting desperately to dislodge the hand, but unable to do so. Soon his hisses quieted, and his flailing arms slowed and then fell as he slumped down, heavy, unconscious.

Rik emerged from behind a tree, not even close to the general direction where the broken twig sound had come from.
Good boy
. Leevi admired Rik’s collected movements for such a muscular man, and when Rik saw his unabashed expression, Rik’s face flamed.

“Let’s move him away from the entrance,” Leevi suggested. Together, Leevi holding the unconscious man under the arms and Rik grabbing his legs, they carried the guard down to the blueberry bushes, dumping him unceremoniously in relative hiding. He’d be out cold for an hour or two, which had to be enough. Leevi would not kill a man for no other reason than disagreeing with him.

Nothing but a thin, tight crevasse in the steep cliff face rising from the woods, the lower entrance looked like a giant had taken a knife and cut an opening into the side. Only darkness bid them welcome. Small birch saplings, wood anemone, and hanging moss hid the rift even more. Without knowing of its existence one could easily pass it without a second glance. A few rivulets of groundwater had found an opening and trickled down the rocks, and Leevi shuddered as some ice-cold drops landed on his neck and slid down his back under his shirt.

Muffling a curse, he heard Rik’s gloating chuckle behind him. Growling, he chose to ignore it, and together they ventured into the depths of enemy territory.

The crack in the rock face was just that, the smallest opening that forced them to slide sideways past the first corners into the dark shadows. There were no lights here, nothing man-made that could give away the presence of a fort, let alone shifters. Sand rasped under their feet even though they tried to proceed with the silence of mice, and sharp rocks chafed their clothes as they passed by the narrowest sections. If it weren’t for their wolf vision, they would not have been able to see a damn thing.

“We’re close now,” Leevi whispered, slowing, and crouching a bit, ready to leap into action in a moment’s notice.

As the inclining, twisting tunnel stopped it looked like a dead-end covered by a thick veil of hanging moss and faintly glowing stone, but behind it lay a hidden metal door. Leevi knew that it had to be unlocked since Kari had not had keys on him when they searched his body, and the winding path up to the peak would take a quarter of an hour. Quietly, Leevi pushed the door ajar, letting a sliver of light come through which made his wolf vision turn back to human so he could see, and he took a whiff to ascertain if anyone was in the room just beyond.

The change happened in an instant.

Leevi’s eyes changed back to grayish wolf vision so fast that he felt dizzy and disoriented.

A sweet scent overpowered his senses. It was floral, sugary, and decidedly feminine. Never had Leevi smelled anything so perfectly honeyed and delicious. He heard himself making a strange contented purring sound, and he was practically foaming at the mouth, drooling.

Shaking his head furiously, Leevi gripped onto his control and pushed the sensations down as best he could, his eyes returning to their human vision. No other scents came through, nothing fresh anyway, so it appeared no one was in the immediate vicinity.

Opening the door, he slipped into the empty common room lit by electric mine lamps, powered by the fort’s own generators, their greenish glow eerie in the underground room without windows. The large square room had two run-down couches, three wooden tables, dozens of chairs, closed cupboards, ragged tapestries, and open doorways leading to stone stairs, one going up, the other down. The smell of moldy bread, grilled sausages, and stale domestic beer dominated the air here, so Leevi couldn’t understand where the overpowering scent had come from.

“Would they hold a prisoner up in the tower or down in the lower levels?” Rik asked, even his muffled whisper loud in the empty room, startling Leevi out of his reverie.

“Cells are in the lower levels where there’s less of a chance outsiders hearing,” Leevi replied, inspecting the exits, straining his neck this way and that to try and hear if someone was near or closing in on them. But rough-hewn stone walls and heavy wooden doors blocked any sounds that might have been heard.

As they made their way to the winding spiral staircase going lower and deeper into the belly of the beast, new sounds and odors drifted toward them.

Leevi’s blue eyes shifted again to wolf eyes, and even though the view had previously been dominated by gray granite, now the gray indicated a lack of colors. Cursing silently to himself, he puzzled what could be causing the effects.

Like a shadowy after-image, another vision superimposed itself over his view of the staircase. A huge figure of a man was holding on his shoulder another more slender person who was struggling fiercely, but unsuccessfully, as he descended the stairs with his burden.

Gasping, Leevi stopped mid-step, blinking hard, and the image evaporated into thin air, like a column of smoke. “What the hell?”

Rik’s warm hand gripped his shoulder, grounding him. “Leevi, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He tried to sound casual, calm, and composed, yet he felt anything but. He forced his wolf vision to return to human sight because that way he could control his beast better.

He had heard the wild stories when he was but a cub. The older and wiser wolves had spoken of the great shifter clans where the Prime Alpha drew power from the other pack Alphas and all wolves in the clan, as though this force was raw energy coursing in his direction, or liquid fire he siphoned through his very being. Primes like these were told to possess powers beyond human and shifter alike—supernatural abilities, like telekinesis and clairvoyance.

But Leevi was the Prime Alpha of a clan torn in dissent and lacking cohesion. For the life of him he could not have imagined a less likely Prime to gain such powers.

And yet he had just seen a temporal echo of an emotionally potent scene, filled with violence and danger. Why here and why now? Why him of all possible Primes?

Whatever the reason, it was more powerful than he was.

Continuing their way down in the dim glow of the mining lamps lining the walls at specific intervals, Leevi suddenly saw something on the floor, shimmering in the electric light like a ray of pure sunshine. Hunkering adeptly, he bowed until his nose was all but pressed against the stone step where a few strands of strawberry blonde hair were attached to a crack in the stone.

The sugary sweet scent assailed his senses again, and he knew whoever was the owner of this hair was also the source of the intoxicating fragrance. Leevi felt himself grow hard, and the smell of lust filled the air.

Thankfully Rik didn’t notice since he grabbed Leevi’s shoulder hard, pinching, and nodded toward the end of the stairs. Behind the round corner of spiral staircase’s column was an open landing, and Leevi could hear two men there. From the scraping sound of wooden chairs they were sitting around a table, from the plastic slapping noise they were playing cards, and from the clink of glass bottles they were drinking beers.

Ah, the favorite pastime of Finnish men, drinking. Leevi thought glumly of the soiled reputation of the whole gender by a few drunken oafs. The same food odors as in the common room washed over him, and he knew these men were as distracted as they were going to be. It was now or never.

Even if the men had been drunk, the same method he’d used with Kari wouldn’t work this time, so their only option was a swift and decisive frontal assault.