The Lord of Near and Nigh: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 2) (8 page)

***

 
I wake entombed in snow. My first full, panicked breath draws ice crystals into my lungs. My arms are pinned at my sides. I struggle and thrash until the snow opens enough to show me the stars, then I thrust a hand out into the night air.
 

It’s snowed several feet.
 

Anik is buried in the snow beside me.

Something feels wrong.
 

I dig at the snow, trying to uncover Anik. My skin sloughs from my bones, but I scarcely notice. Anik, Anik, I cry. My fingers graze him, and a surge of need gives me strength. My leathery wings flap overhead. Noting them is troubling, but in the distant way that an unwanted noise is troubling when I’m asleep.

I uncover Anik’s chest first, then gradually his face emerges.
 

He’s nearly as white as the snow.
 

He’s gone.
 

Which means he’s mine.

I beat my wings, rise a few inches in the air, desperate to feed on his heart. I try to tear open his chest, see that my fingers are missing.
 

Sedna. Sedna.
 

I scream, knowing who I am.

***

“Shh, Shiori. Shh. Shh. They’ll hear you.”

I open my eyes. Anik has his hand clamped over my mouth. He looks afraid. Snow clings to his eyebrows and dark hair.

“Are you okay? Will you stop screaming?”

I nod my head yes.

He releases my mouth. I take a gasping breath and struggle to sit. The snow has buried us. That part of the dream was real.

“You were screaming,” Anik says, “the same name over and over.”

I look in Anik’s eyes and don’t need to ask what name.

I check my skin. Still pale and warm.
 

But the thought of her spirit growing in me is terrifying.

“We…fuck!” Anik says, shaking his head. He looks furious. “We fell
asleep
. Don’t you see? I should never have sat beside you. It’s too easy to drift off…”

Anik struggles to his feet, then looks down at me. “You were dreaming of her?”

I nod.

“Why? What was the dream?”

I should lie. He shouldn’t know. So I say, “She was…consuming you. In her lair.”

“Yeah,” Anik says, running his hand through his hair. “I have that dream too. It’ll take a while, but it’ll fade. She’s gone.”

No,
I think.
She’s right here. Inside me.
 

“We have to get to the All Encompassing, Anik,” I say. “She will help us. We don’t have much time.”

“You’re stronger than you realize. We
will
survive.”

He doesn’t understand what I mean, so I say, “She needs us. We need her.”

Anik sighs. “A part of me hopes you’re right about her. And the other part hopes—”

“I’m still crazy.”

Anik smiles. “I
know
you’re crazy.”

“Are you going to steal for us?”

Anik checks the sky, mutters something, then says, “Yes. Whether this woman you talk about is real or not, we need to get out of this forest. And walking…we could be lost here until summer.”

“Take me with you.”

Anik sniffs the air. “They’re not far off. A mile, maybe less. I’ll hear you if you call me.”

“Please. We need to stay close. If we’re apart…we’ll lose the warmth we have. I sense it. We’ll both die.”

Anik offers his hand, and when I rise he lifts me across his shoulders and begins trudging down the frozen stream. The moon is out, glowing red against the snow, a light brighter than the weak sun of this land.

A Blood Moon, Anik called it.
 

He said that in his people’s stories it heralds a time of great upheaval.
 

This red moon makes me smile.
 

“I’ll take you to within half a mile of their camp,” Anik says. “Then you stay put. Deal?”

I don’t answer. I’m thinking of how right it felt to feed on his heart, and I’m thinking that in this moment…I want to taste him.
 

I drape my hand across his chest, feel his heart beating strong beneath my palm.
 

It’s right there. Everything I need is right there in my hand.

I only have to take it.

A
WOLF
IS
born to pursue.
 

The chase lives in his blood and bones.
 

It’s in how he’s built: low to the ground, sleek, powerful.
 

Other animals might be faster in a flat-out sprint. But a wolf can run at speed for hours. Through snow and wind and biting cold that’ll freeze a lesser animal’s lungs. His stamina is otherworldly. He finds a rhythm in his stride that becomes meditative. His mind sinks into the motion until only a single thought remains: run.
 

Run
.
 

And he does. Tirelessly.

Then he kills.
 

I’m running up the driveway now, already dropping my packmates, my feet soundless as they hit the gravel. The cats—Soren and Annie—are fast for the first half mile but soon tire. Only Sorry and one of the new SoCal boys, a raver-looking douche with spiked green hair, keeps up. He’s a wolf as well. But Sorry is out of practice and oversized, built bulky instead of lean like me. And the other guy? He’s a weak-assed bitch, plain and simple, and as soon as the run becomes hard work he begins to fade. Soon they’re lagging behind with the rest and it’s only me and the cool night air and the sound of my breath in my lungs and the scent of Stricken blood hot in my nose.

Darkhounds burst out from the side of the house, yellow-eyed and snarling froth. They pause when they see me, and that’s all I need: I sweep the first dog in my arms, making sure to keep the stinking motherfucker’s snapping jaws away from my face, then snap its neck and hold him under an arm as I keep running.
 

I leap up the flight of stairs and then I’m on the front porch, stopping only long enough to hurl the darkhound through the front door. The door shatters, torn halfway off its hinges.
 

Knock-knock, motherfuckers.
 

More snarling and yelping behind me as the rest of the crew deal with the remaining hounds. I howl and leap inside the house, land in a massive oak entryway framed by a grand curving staircase.
 

Sorry’s right behind me, my brother, my packmate, and the stench of human blood and an active Stricken hive is so powerful it makes my wolf scream and tear into me. I sight a few moments into the future and there she is: not Moby Dick but one of her Stricken lackeys, a slim woman in some sort of black robe wielding a meat cleaver and sneaking up on us from the left corridor.

I move beside the corridor, and when she’s real close I punch a hole through the wall, grip her stinking throat and tear it out. She doesn’t even have time to scream.
 

I step around the corner and catch her before she falls to the floor.
 

Every nerve in my body’s on fire. There’s black blood everywhere, a fucking tidal wave, and the smell drives me wild: I take a deep, solid bite of the Stricken bitch’s neck and fling her wrecked body behind me for the crew to feed on.
 

There. See what a nice guy I am?
 

They can have her. I want the big one. Moby fucking Dick.

“They’re downstairs,” I growl, barely able to speak my wolf is so heavy in my throat. “In the basement.”
 

Sorry comes with me as we search the house, ransacking room after room of thick wool carpets and plush satin furniture and walls lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. But there’s no door leading downstairs, and I’m getting impatient. I can scent them down there, cowering in fear, knowing a killer has sniffed them out.
 

Knowing they’ll never outrun me.
 

We wind up in some sort of music room, shining brass instruments lining the walls, when Sorry throws aside a grand piano and stomps on the floor.

There’s a hollow thud.

I fucking laugh, so excited I could almost hug him.
 

I lean down, tap on the trapdoor.
 

“Yoo-hoo!” I scream as the rest of the crew who didn’t get dropped outside pile into the room: Soren and Annie and that pansy-assed wolf from the SoCal crew, and there’s a tickle at the back of my neck that should make me slow me down, take a breath, sight into the future and figure out exactly what the fuck is going on before I make my next move.

But I don’t.
 

Blood-haze fogs my vision. Clouds my mind. All I want is to bathe in black blood and fuck caution, fuck restraint, fuck giving a shit about anything other than this kill, because this is what I was made for, this is everything I am.
 

Death. It’s in my bones. My blood. I’ve hunted since the dawn of time and I’ll be fucked if that’s going to stop now—

I scratch at the edge of the trapdoor, dig my claws in and tear it off its hinges.

Cold air wafts up, smacking my face with the sweet reek of a Stricken hive. The
mother
of all Stricken hives, my wolf is telling me. The fucking sick bastards.
 

I throw my head up and laugh, right out of my mind with bloodlust, then I lean over the darkness and scream, “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf!”

“I’m sorry, brother. I really am. I wish it didn’t—”

Sorry. My little bro.
 

The man who apologizes in the instant before a kill.

And that means—

“No!” I scream at the same moment my brother’s hands slam into my back, and then I’m falling head-first into the black pit, and that LA cocksucker Soren screeches in triumph.

I hit the ground hard.
 

My world goes blinding white.
 

I
T
’
S
EASY
TO
steal a wallet, and it’s even easier to boost a car.
 

I’m driving southeast out of Seattle in a stolen late nineties Prelude, eating an oily hamburger, trying to remember when I last ate a proper meal and the route Aaron took to the MC safe house outside Renton.
 

My cell phone’s sitting in my lap. It feels like lead.
 

I should call him. But I sure don’t want to.
 

I go back and forth in my mind until finally I slam my hand on the wheel, pick up the phone and call Mr. On-Again-Off-Again.

It rings a few times, long enough for me to have second thoughts, when suddenly the ringing stops and Connor’s saying hello, his voice guarded because he doesn’t recognize my number. I take a quick swig of lukewarm Diet Coke, feeling like I’m about to be sick, then say, “Hi Connor it’s me Lily I’m sorry I just want to say I’m all right—”

My words arrive in a breathless rush. I pop a cardboard french fry between my teeth, realizing I sound anything but all right.

“Lil?” Connor says, clearly surprised.
 

I hear street noise in the background. Connor sounds slightly out of breath.

“Yeah Connor. It’s me. I can’t talk long…I’m…I’m driving. I didn’t wait for the car you sent. But…I guess you know that. Ha. Ha. I’m sorry. That was shitty of me.”

“Shit Lil I’ve been so worried—”

I squeeze my eyes closed. Damn. I’m such a bitch. “Okay. Thanks again. I should go—”

“Wait!” Connor shouts. “Lil? Are you
sure
you’re okay? I mean, your apartment—”

A car horn blasts, interrupting him, and suddenly I’m not quite ready to get off the phone. It feels…kind of good talking to Connor. I dunno. The concern in his voice. I crumple the remains of the burger and fries into a grease-stained wrapper, toss the mess on the passenger seat and flick my bangs out of my eyes, as if he can see me looking like, well, a thief on the run.
 

“I can talk a bit,” I say, hoping he doesn’t hang up. “Where are you?”

Connor laughs. He sounds more relaxed than a second ago. “I’m…I’m late.”

“For a very important date?”

“Ha. No. A new class.”

I grin and slide the beater Prelude out of the fast lane, wondering whether I should ask him about the woman named Star who claimed she was…no. I’m definitely
not
going to ask him that. “So what’s it this time? Calligraphy?”

“Promise not to laugh?”

“I do not.”
 

“Well…I mean you have to try it. Seriously. It’s awesome.”

“Just tell me already!”

“Hammock yoga. I’m taking a hammock yoga class.”

I can’t help myself. I burst into peals of laughter. “Is that…please tell me that’s
not
what it sounds like.”

“It’s
exactly
what it sounds like,” Connor says, his voice pretend serious.

“Yoga? In a fucking hammock?”

“Exactly.”

“Underwater?”

“No, Lil. Not underwater.”

“With dolphins?”

“No. Shit. You’re such a cynic—”

He’s right. I am a cynic. Normal people have to be, or we’d be broke all the time. Only rich people like Connor can throw their money after every half-baked gimmick that comes along, and then I realize—

“What’s up, Lil?” Connor asks when my laughter finally fades.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just…hammock yoga? I can’t believe…sometimes you and I…we just lead very different lives is all.”

“You’d love it. If you let yourself.”

“Maybe.”
 

“Great core workout.”

“I’m sure it is.” I picture myself trying to do downward dog on a fucking hammock. The thing wrapping around my legs and flipping me flat on my ass. I’d look like a fish flopping in a net.

“Super relaxing as well,” Connor says, ignoring my laughter. “My instructor, Aubergine—”

“Wait. Hold on a second. Aubergine?”