The Legend of the Werewolf (28 page)

Anne bent her head, trying to shield
Gordon's body. She’d forgotten about Hadrian. In their loss, it
seemed they all had. She and the people mourning around her sat too
close to run and shifting back into wolves would take longer than
it would for him to blast them. They had no way to defend
themselves. The second he turned his power on them, they were all
dead.

Hadrian stopped and looked at Zeke. A
red glow surrounded his body, the crazed glimmer returning to his
eyes. "Your hair. It's the same color."

"No!" Fanny tried to push Zeke out of
the way of the blast but Zeke dug his fingers into the dirt and
took the brunt of the hit.

Anne shielded her eyes against the
light, the piercing scream the only confirmation that her friend
had been fried. When the light died she blinked her eyes open, half
afraid of what she would see.

Fanny wept above Zeke's body, shielding it
with the way she half lay on top of him. She stroked his jaw and
kissed his face. Blood seeped from an open wound in his chest,
smearing Fanny's skin and breasts, slipping into her brown hair as
it tumbled on his chest while she sobbed.

"Please, lord Hadrian."

Hadrian snapped his head down. Bill
stood on his knees, holding out the glowing orb for him to
take.

"Take the stone. It was wrong of us to
take it from you. Please, I beg that you spare the people here.
They mean no harm. Hurt no one else."

Anne inwardly shrieked. That stone
meant everything to her grandfather. If Bill gave it to him then he
would never see Luna again.

Yet, he was offering to give it up. The
fact that he was willing to draw attention to himself and risk
being recognized made Anne's heart swell with love and
fear.

Hadrian snatched the rock and cradled it
to him like an infant. Its delightful glow snuffed out the second
his hand made contact. He didn’t seem to notice as his eyes
remained fixed on Bill.

They turned into perfect circles as he
studied the old man before him.

"Your eyes. They're the same as his.
You have the same eyes!" Hadrian raised his hand again, intent on
destroying anyone who so much as had any minor resemblance to
Edward.

Anne screamed and launched herself across
Gordon's body, throwing her arms around Bill's neck. He tried to
push her away but she locked her fingers together and refused to
let go.

The blast she expected never came. She
looked over her shoulder. The red glow Hadrian produced whenever he
prepared for an attack disappeared as he stared down at
her.

The soft, hurt look in his dark eyes
stunned her. His whole face seemed to drop along with his hands
that fell limply to his sides. She sensed sorrow radiating from him
and puzzled over it.

"Why? Why do you always chose him? I
would have offered you everything your heart desired."

The answer clicked in her head,
the solution following quickly. Hadrian might believe she was Luna.
And, while Bill may actually
be
Edward, Hadrian still didn't know that for sure.

"This isn't Edward," she said, forcing
her swollen tongue not to block any of her words.

Bill's hands gave her a pleading
squeeze. "Annie, please,"

"This is my grandfather," she went on,
ignoring the pain she felt crashing over her like ocean waves over
jagged rocks. Just like those rocks, Anne remained firm and strong,
refusing to be moved. "Edward left here. He's not coming back. I
love my grandfather. Spare him and I'll go with you."

Hadrian looked from her, to Bill, and
back again. Anne felt the heartbeats of every listening pack member
speed up in anticipation.

"But, his eyes ..."

"Are not the same," she insisted. "You
promised me whatever my heart desired. I desire this." For added
effect she released Bill and stood up. Bill grabbed the fabric of
her jeans, but she yanked her leg away and approached
Hadrian.

She kept her back straight and arms stiff.
If her breasts were any more noticeable then she wanted to use that
to her advantage as well.

Her hands shook, but she forced them
forward. She slid her palms over his hollow cheeks. Hadrian's
breath shook as he put both his hands on top of hers, as though
savoring the feel of her skin.

Anne fought to keep from making a face
as he pressed his pointed nose into her hand and sniffed
loudly.

"You'll come with me?"

She swallowed. The action hurt her
tongue and her throat. “Yes.”

He gripped her harder. “Tell me you
love me.”

She might have felt sorry for him in
this pathetic state. She reminded herself that he caused her
grandfather a thousand years of heartache, murdered countless men
because they happened to resemble her grandfather during his
younger years, and maimed and killed at least one member of her
pack.

Vision blurred, she nodded her
head. “I love you.”
Oh God
.

Hadrian curled his long arms around
her. He stroked her hair and rocked her against him. For all that
was at stake, Anne couldn't bring herself to hug him
back.

"Thank you, thank you," he muttered. “I
love you with every fiber of my being, my beautiful
Goddess.”

"Lord Hadrian, she is not Luna!" Bill
shouted.

The red light appeared again. Orange
fire replaced Hadrian's black eyes as lightning shot from his fist.
"Silence!"

The strike engulfed Bills entire body.
He fell backwards and clutched at his chest.

"Bill!" Anne struggled to run to him, but
Hadrian's hands became as strong as iron shackles, his nails like
eagle talons sinking into her flesh. "Grandpa!" She
shrieked.

There was no wound and no blood on the
spot where he'd been struck. For a moment a spark of hope burned
inside her. She then realized that the hand clutching his chest was
not doing so because of the pain of the blast, but because the
blast brought about a heart attack.

Brock rushed to his aid, but it wasn't
enough. Anne needed to hold his hand. She wanted to call an
ambulance. She had to do something! She put all her weight and
strength into pulling away, flailing her shoulders and yanking her
body. It didn’t help.

"Let go of me! Grandpa!" She yanked one
hand free, turned it into a fist and punched Hadrian in the eye.
His outcry satisfied her for only a second before he struck her
back.

Anne's head flew back, the sky darkened
above her, and her entire body tingled. Did he really hit her so
hard?

She opened her eyes. She wasn’t on the
ranch. Hadrian teleported her off the ranch.

He was taking her to some unknown place
with the moonstone. Before she passed out, she registered that
there was nothing she could do about it.

FIFTEEN

The door to Gordon's home burst inward
as Fanny's foot smashed the knob. She clutched Zeke over her
shoulder fireman style and ran for the nearest guest bedroom. She
eased him into bed with the tenderness of a porcelain
doll.

“I got you, baby. Everything’s
alright.”

He coughed and moaned unconsciously. Fanny
pressed the bed sheets against his middle where he'd been blasted.
"It's going to be okay, baby. You're going to be fine."

Her heart pounded faster when she pulled
the soiled quilt away. Now that the blood could no longer spoil the
view, she needed to inspect the damage.

T
he burn from the blast removed the skin
like melting candle wax, but the damage was not deep. Fanny was no
doctor, but she knew her bonded one would make it.

She bent over him and kissed his cheeks.
Breathing deeply through her nose, she tried to inhale the scent of
him without smelling blood.

A pack brother stood behind her, she
didn't remove her eyes long enough to look at him, or spare her
sense of smell to identify him. Instead, she got down to business.
"Where did Brock take Gordon?"

The man whimpered at the mention of his
dead pack master. "To his room. I left when he started to wrap him
up. Couldn't watch it."

It was Paul. She knew him by the sound
of his voice. He was born a wolf but he was no warrior. He was a
family man. The fact that he could still think properly after the
attack was impressive.

Fanny nodded. Paul stuck a first aid
kit by her hands and she ripped it open, snatching the gauze and
anything else that would prevent infection. "Is Westley with
him?"

"No. We can't find him."

Fanny's blood froze. An image of the heir
to the pack lying dead somewhere flashed in her mind. There were so
many dead, even those precious little horses had been attacked, and
a boy no one knew was injured as well. "Was he one of the men who
defended the ranch when Hadrian attacked?"

"No," he said. Fanny didn't know
whether to let the relief or disbelief take over.

She looked over her shoulder. Paul’s
hair was matted with dried blood from where his head had been
struck. Dirt and leaves stuck to the blood like paste and blotched
his skin in random areas of his naked body. "Why did he not come to
help defend us?"

"He wasn't here. Randy saw his truck
driving out of the garage only a few minutes before it happened.
The dragon was in the back."

"Then I'll have to contact him and get
him to come back." She got to her feet and stared hard at her pack
brother as she pointed behind herself to Zeke. "Take care of him.
I'm going to go and find the others."

She ran out the room and went to where
Gordon's body would be.

Paul was right. At the far end of the
spacious room on the king sized bed, Gordon's body had been wrapped
in a spare white sheet, contrasting sharply with the brown blanket
beneath him. It was eerie and reminded her of a mummy.

Brock knelt beside the bed on one knee
with his back slouched and head bent, though it didn’t hide the
swelling and gash on the one side of his face. Thankfully, it was
already showing signs of healing.

His fists pointed down into the rug. In
that position he resembled a statue she’d seen somewhere but
couldn’t remember. Honor, pride, and strength lay inside
him.

A few other pack members stood around
the bed or in various other parts of the room. They either looked
blankly out the windows or consoled each other. No one touched
anything.

Their bodies—bruises, burns, blood—told
her they had all experienced the heat of Hadrian's fire. Brock
still had yet to get dressed, but it seemed that most everyone else
in the room found time to at least throw on a pair of jeans before
entering Gordon's room to mourn.

Fanny's face heated since she was not
one of those few. Her humiliation left her when she finished
scanning the faces of every man and woman in the room.

Michael was not among them.

"Where is he?"

The panic in her voice caused the faces
of every werewolf to snap their heads at her. They looked amongst
themselves, then down at Gordon's covered body with
sorrow.

"Not him!" She snapped. "Where is
Michael? The reason we're all here to begin with?"

Awareness seemed to surge throughout
the group as everyone took another look at themselves and realized
that he was not among their party.

"He's not here. He left us."

All heads, including Fanny's, snapped
to Brock. He raised his copper head to stare up at everyone with
his ruined face. "I was assigned to watch over him, protect him, by
Gordon. I watched him enter this cabin with Westley and when
Westley drove off in his truck with the dragon in the back, I knew
that he was with them."

A betrayed murmur ran through their
group.

"The first, he left us."

"Why?"

"We said we'd protect him."

Fanny could take no more. "Stop this
instant!"

All eyes focused on her. She kept her
fists clenched. Without a master to guide them, the people in this
room were as likely to start panicking like a group of children
lost in a mall. She refused to let that wizard do that to her
family.

"If Michael left then that's a good thing,
it means Hadrian didn't take him when he took Anne."

Another wail of despair sounded through
the room.

"He said she was Luna!” One man
shouted. “I heard him! He took Luna!"

Fanny exploded at the show of sheepish
panic. They were supposed to be wolves for God's sake! "Shut
up!"

A pleased ripple shuddered through her
when the panicking man fell silent. He stared at her with
frightened eyes, as though seeing her for the first time. Everyone
else's look mirrored his.

Fanny breathed deeply. "The fact that
he took Anne is one more reason why we all need to stay calm.
Someone get me a phone so I can call Westley's cell. With Gordon
... gone, he's going to have to lead the pack."