The Lord of Near and Nigh: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 2) (30 page)

“I…I didn’t want this for you.”

“You wanted it for yourself. Wanted to believe you were the only one.”

“No. It wasn’t that. It’s just…my animal…you saw him. He’s a killer. I…I hate him.”

“So? We’re all killers. That meat you ate? Did that meat fall from the sky? No. An animal gave its life. I hunted it through the forest, dove from the sky, snatched the hare in my talons and screamed at the sun as I rose. That’s the way.”

I turn back to the fire. “You don’t understand. He’s different. All he wants is to feed. His hunger is endless. He’s ugly. Monstrous.”

Pimniq laughs. It’s not a kind sound. “I don’t understand? See? Even now you talk down to me. Like I’m hardly here. Even now you refuse to
listen
.”

“I always tried to protect you. I thought…I don’t know. I thought that was my role. My duty as your older brother.”

“I never asked for your protection. Never needed to be protected. What I needed was a friend, Anik. A friend and brother. Someone close to trust. After mother and father…and instead you were silent. Went about your business like nothing was wrong. Ignored me.”

“I was afraid you hated me.”

“I
do
hate you.”

Pimniq stabs a stick into the fire, sending a swirling cloud of yellow sparks into the sky.
 

“You were with us all along,” I say.

“Since your escape from that concrete bunker. I tracked you there. But I couldn’t enter.”

“Flying above. The raven cawing.”

“Yes.”

We’re silent as the wind picks up and whistles through the trees, then Pimniq says, “I was above the hunter when he shot you. I could have…I could have stopped him sooner.”

She’s ashamed. Blaming herself.
 

“You have every right to be angry. For what I did to mother and father. And for not seeing you all these years. For not…being there as a friend when you needed me most.”

“Did you need me?” Pimniq asks. “Did you also need a friend?”

“Yes,” I say, my voice cracking.
 

Pimniq gives me a fierce glare. “As a young child I listened to our people’s stories of families turning against one another during winter’s long hunger. Brother against brother. Brother against sister. Kin against kin. And I thought that could never happen. Not between you and me. I was too young to understand the lies we tell others are dangerous, but the lies we tell ourselves are deadly. You’ve lied to yourself for a long time, Anik.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I
murdered
them, Pimniq,” I say, my voice rising. “Murdered them and
feasted
.”

“You need to forgive yourself for that,” Pimniq says, so quiet I almost don’t hear her. “Before it destroys you.”

“Do you forgive me?”

“For that, yes. For not having the strength to confront what you did? No.”

I blink back my tears, stare at the fire for a long while, then say, “You don’t fear your animal spirit?”

“No.”

“How? How can you not fear it?”

“I give the raven what she needs. Freedom to fly now and then. A kill. A feed. You hate and fear your true spirit and he hates and fears you in return.”

My little sister. When did she grow so wise?
 

Perhaps she’s always been.
 

She’s right: I don’t know her. I never have.
 

I crafted a role for her to fill, then slotted her into it. The weak one. The vulnerable one who needed protecting. But I’m beginning to realize…it’s me who’s weak. I’ve been at war with my true spirit since he first broke free. And the thought of living in peace with him…it’s terrifying…but also…I want it more than anything.
 

“I’m sorry I’ve never known you,” I say. “I’m sorry I never tried.”

Pimniq sniffles, wipes her nose and says nothing.
 

I want to hold her. My strong little sister. I want to hug her close. I know I should wait until she’s ready to forgive. But I need to say something. Say how I truly feel for once. “You being here…what I mean is…Pimniq…I’m happy to see you.”

“You
are
stronger than me,” she says after thinking on my words.

“What do you mean?”

“Tornarsuk. The three-eyed bear of myth. He cannot be killed.”

“You can?”

“I think so. Yes.”

I can tell there’s a world of questions she wants to ask, and I realize I’m likely the first person she’s ever talked to about her spirit, so I say, “It’s strange, isn’t it? This…gift?”

Pimniq grins. “It’s
awesome
.” Then her face grows troubled. “What are they? The things that came for us? And what is…she?” Pimniq gestures at Shiori.

“She’s like us. Only more. A swarm of creatures instead of one. And I think…she can do other things as well.”

“That’d be cool.”

“Would it?”

Pimniq glares at me. We feel so differently about our animals. Perhaps we won’t be able to speak about them after all.
 

“Shiori saved me from the prison beneath that concrete bunker,” I say. “I was lost in a very unhappy place.”

Pimniq studies me, as if deciding whether to ask more, then says, “There are others like us?”

“Yes. Many more. Packs.”

Pimniq's eyes brighten. “Packs? Do we…have a pack?”

“I think so. That’s where Shiori’s taking us. To the leader of our pack.”

“You don’t seem happy about that.”

“I’ve never been much for joining clubs.” I smile at her. “Not much of a people-person.”

Pimniq chuckles and stokes the fire. “I think it’ll be good for you, brother.”

“Did you kill them?” I ask. “The ones who came for us in Pangnirtung?”

Pimniq nods. “I killed two of three. The last fled. They should have sent more. And they bled black, Anik. Do you know this? They bled black, and their blood…it drove me into a feeding frenzy, and when I ate it I felt—”

“Strong.”

“Yes!” Then she quiets. “How did they take you? I thought there was no way they could take you.”

“I was already weak. Near death. Like when I met the hunter. I couldn’t free him.”

“Really? That’s different than me. Even weak my animal spirit arrives.”

I smile, but I wonder if Pimniq's ever been close enough to death to know otherwise.

“Will there be more in the south?” Pimniq asks. “Black blooded ones?”

“Yes. They’re growing more powerful. Their pack leader has returned.”

I lift my nose into the air. There’s something out there. Several miles off. Nosing cautiously through a blackberry thicket toward a brackish swamp. A moose. It’s scent makes my animal paw at my stomach, reminding me I’m still famished. I slip Pimniq's hand into mine and say, “Sister? Will you hunt with me?”

Pimniq looks startled, then grins in a way I haven’t seen since before our parent’s death. “Can you call him?” she asks. “Are you strong enough?”

“We’ll see.”

I
GOT
N
ASH
vibrating like an industrial dildo behind the wheel.
 

Lily clucking and fretting in my ear.
 

A Skin cop and a dying brother in the back.
 

So let me tell you, when I see the local whack-jobs chose to make their final stand against the evil forces of living free and easy in one of the best nations on earth at the fucking local gas station, well, lets just say I’m left feeling a little…edgy.
 

Which ain’t good, considering the fuckers are dug in deep. A few fat guys sit high on the gas station roof with heavy calibre automatics that make me wet my lips a little, thinking how they can saw through a man. There’s a roadblock of piled cars just beyond the gas station, and a troop of those all-terrain mud vehicles parked in front of an entrance just wide enough for a single vehicle to sneak through. More yokels lined up in the woods on the far side of the road.
 

I count maybe forty inbred-looking Skins, and that starts me wondering on whether they have a leader, and what kind of Skin could keep these meatheads under thumb, and that makes me think Stricken, of course.

And that makes my stomach rumble.
 

Trouble is I’m alpha, and that means I’m responsible for my pack.
 

Usually that’s no thing, since my pack does a fucking fine job of taking care of themselves.

When they’re whole.

But what I’m most worried about as Nash eases the van into the gas station is
time
.
 

That old motherfucker.
 

How much longer is he gunna let Sorry hold on? It’s damn hard to kill a Pureblood, but a catastrophic heart injury and a gallon of fat beetle bitch poison might do it.

Especially now that we have no idea how strong Stricken poison is. Their blood nearly burned Nash’s arm off, for fuck sake, and that was after touching it for a few seconds.

The poison’s been coursing through my brother’s veins for hours.

What I should’ve done is stopped and had Lily try her hand at healing Sorry right when we got out of town. But I got paranoid, worrying about useless shit, like maybe the Stricken tracked us and were chasing us down.
 

Now I know they don’t have to chase us.
 

They’re fucking everywhere.

So yeah, I’m hoping to avoid a full-on OK Corral style shootout.
 

If at all possible.

I tell Nash to whip the van around when he parks so we’re facing back west and when he asks why I tell him so the van’s sliding glass door is close to the gas station door, then I turn at Tate and say, “You’re out the back door, into the gas station and onto the roof. They got fucking cannons up there. I want that shit aimed in the right direction, got me?”

“Got it, Prez,” Tate says. He may be a pachouli reeking rasta motherfucker, but at least he knows how to take an order.

“Hey dude,” Nash says, nodding toward the barricade up ahead. I’m about to tell him to be quiet when I see three shining Harley hogs all itching for a ride. Course there’s also three tattooed, beefed-up bikers sitting on them.

“Recognize the cuts?” Nash whispers.

“Death Riders.”

“Pussies.”

“Yup.”
 

“Dibs on the royal purple bike,” Nash says.
 

“Piss off. We got
Sorry
—”

Nash cackles and slams his fist into the dash. “He’d be the first to say we nab those bikes, Prez. And you know it.”

“What’s going on?” Lily asks.

“Bug flew in,” Nash says. “I smashed it.” Then he fires me a look that says don’t be a pussy-whipped motherfucker.

I sigh as Nash stops beside a gas pump and throws the van in park.
 

They
are
nice looking bikes.
 

Tate could drive the van while Nash, Trish and me flank it—

Don’t know what I expected to come out of the gas station, but it sure as fuck isn’t the cutie blonde strolling out with her hips swaying and flashing us a gorgeous smile. She’s wearing flip-flops and
short
jean-shorts that show off her long, tanned legs and a white dress-shirt with turquoise buttons that’s tied in a knot around her waist like a cowgirl chick. The top three buttons on her shirt are undone. She’s braless and displaying plenty of cleavage, and then she’s leaning into the driver’s side window and Nash is licking his chops and humming and twitching, barely keeping it together—

“My lucky day,” the blonde says, studying me and Nash with a coy little grin. I notice she has a fresh-looking scar running down her jaw, back near her ear. “You boys need a fill-up?”

“I need something from you, sweetie,” Nash says.

The girl smiles.
 

Leans in. Runs her fingers down her chest.
 

I’m about to tell her to step the fuck back when I feel a cold metal barrel pressed to my temple.

Fucking hell.

“You like what you see, asshole?” a man says.
 

The girl giggles and steps far enough away to be out of Nash’s reach.
 

I make to turn and look at the dude holding the gun to my head, but he says, “You stay real still, asshole. Just lift your hands up where I can see ‘em. Real slow and careful-like.”

“You fucking
idiots
,” Mia hisses from the back.

The blonde girl throws a set of handcuffs on Nash’s lap and says, “Put those on, handsome.”

Nash picks up the cuffs. Dangles them in the air. Grins and says, “Anything you say, ma'am.”
 

“Idiots!” Mia says.

Out of the corner of my eye I see what I’ve got pressed to my head.
 

A fucking shotgun. Damn.
 

That’ll make a mess.

“Put the fucking cuffs on,” the man says.

Nash hesitates.

The dude presses the shotgun hard into my head, forcing me to lean sideways into Nash. “Figure a single shot’d kill you both,” he says. “Save me some ammo.”

“Just a tank of gas,” I say. “A tank of gas and we’re on our way.”

The dude laughs. “Uh-huh. And how you figure to pay for that gas? Money ain’t worth shit no more.”

My wolf’s snarling and howling. But I don’t scent any Stricken, and I’m getting the feeling maybe I was wrong. Maybe they’re just a bunch of redneck Skins—

“What should we do, daddy?” the girl asks.

“Daddy?” Nash says, clicking the cuffs on. “Shit, girl. It’s a bit early to meet the family.”

“Shut-up,” the man with the gun says.

I could snatch the gun from him. Blow him in half before he knows what happened. But there’s those fucking dudes on the roof. They’d shred the van apart before I could get Sorry out. Nope.
 

“Gotta play this one cool,” I say to Nash, real quiet. “You hear me?”

“Yeah,
real
cool,” he answers in a way that makes me think this is going to go to shit in a hurry.

“Say we shoot ‘em,” the blonde girl says. “Shoot ‘em and take the van.”