The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (14 page)

I think about the wings sprouting from my back.
 

The freedom they promise.
 

I could summon my creature and fly away from here. It doesn’t matter where. Just leave the bullshit and madness behind, and then I remember Aaron, his sparkling blue eyes and quick, all-too-rare smile, the feeling of his skin close to mine, how he smelled, so warm and woodsy and strong. How he kissed me, like our time together
meant
something, and suddenly I miss him more than I ever imagined possible, and with the missing comes a flood of emotion I sure-as-shit don’t want to deal with right now: grief and guilt and self-hatred at what I did to him, because the truth is he didn’t know—

He didn’t know.
 

I believe that much.
 

I believe he didn’t know she was my mother.

But in that moment after killing August Lerrick, with my creature raging so close, and feeling tired and scared and uncertain, when Connor told me what Aaron had done…I just…lost it.

I lost control.
 

I’ll go to my grave carrying this grief.
 

Some mistakes don’t fade with time. Some mistakes stick with you, toxic, hurtful, year after year. Some even grow worse as you age and your life seems to fold around their memory, like a tree folding around a fencepost.
 

I don’t want to live with this mistake eating at me for the rest of my life.

I need to see my bloodmate.
 

If he’s still alive.

A loud buzzing sound brings me back to the here and now, then the door opens and there’s Shiori smirking and offering me a snide little bow.
 

“Search the place,” I say as I step inside.
 

The air in the house is hot and smells faintly of PineSol and the sickly fake-lavender stink of air freshener.
 

I wrinkle my nose. Something’s wrong.
 

“Anik! You stay at the door,” I say. “Anything comes, you call that beautiful bear. Understand?”

Anik nods but says nothing, and I take that to mean he doubts if he can.

***

It doesn’t take us long to find them. An entire family, parents and their three children, all huddled close to one another in the middle of the master bedroom. The room’s been lined in plastic sheets, the kind used to wrap house insulation. Plastic’s draped over the furniture, the windows, even the people themselves are layered in it, wrapped up snug like they’re in bed. There’s a few belongings scattered about: a well-worn doll; a skateboard; some family photos.
 

Trish wraps her hand over her eyes and sobs.

“It’s like how the Egyptians used to bury their dead with the belongings they wanted to carry into the afterlife,” Pimniq says, and when she catches my questioning glance she blushes and says, “Did a school project on Cleopatra.”
 

Pimniq’s so quiet and skilled at staying out from underfoot I didn’t notice her coming up the stairs behind me and Trish. But she’s little more than a child herself.
 

She shouldn’t have to see this, and I tell her so.

“I’ve seen worse,” she answers in a way that makes it clear she resents being babied.
 

Damn. Kids grow up quick these days.

“Murder?” I ask.

“No,” Trish says in a tone I recognize from our days with the Seattle PD. “No sign of struggle. Looks like they took something, then laid down for the long sleep.”

“Not an irrational choice, given the circumstances,” I say, stepping carefully forward and listening to the plastic sheeting crackle underfoot.

“No,” Trish says, so softly I almost miss it. “Makes damned good sense to me.”

“What do we do with them?” Shiori asks.
 

“Nothing,” Trish says. “Leave them be. They wanted it this way.”

I imagine the despair that drove this family to their deaths. The hopelessness.
 

And it’s only been a few weeks since the world came unglued.

It will get worse.
 

Unless I manage to stop him.
 

Suddenly a shooting pain lances through my head. How many have died already? How many more will die? And somehow
I’m
supposed to prevent that? Banish the Blood Moon? Right the ocean tides? Kill or banish the First Fallen and his fucking Stricken army? The terrible weight of responsibility crushes into me, and then I’m on my knees, gasping for air, with Trish leaning over me, talking me through the panic attack, her voice garbled and distant but still helpful, a lifeline keeping me tethered to fragile sanity.

Shiori watches me sputter and wheeze and choke. Her black eyes bore into me. Observing my weakness. Judging me. The malicious little bitch. True strength isn’t about being cold-hearted. It’s about being honest with how you feel and working through it. Otherwise you end up like the Stricken. Twisted. Vile. Evil.
 

Trish helps me stand, and I’m about to say we should head to the basement when something changes. At first I can’t put my finger on it, but then I know: the gunfire’s stopped.
 

The vulture’s death calls have quieted.
 

“It’s over,” I whisper. “She’s won.”

“Who?” Pimniq asks.

“Mi…I mean…Admah and the New World Order. They’ve defeated the Stricken vulture flock.”

Trish gives me a look to let me know she also knows Admah’s true identity.

“The prisoners. The Stricken chained to that truck? They’ll scent us hiding in here,” Pimniq says in a high-pitched voice. “They’ll reveal us.”

“Maybe,” I say. “But there’s nothing we can do now. If we were going to keep running we should’ve done it when they were distracted.”

“Let them come,” Shiori says. “I do not fear stinking Skins.”

I resist the urge to backhand her.

We hurry down the carpeted steps to the landing where Anik’s guarding the door.
 

“You hear?” he asks, and when I nod he says, “I don’t think I can call him, Lily. He’s still with me, but he’s far away.”
 

Anik hangs his head in shame.
 

I reach out and hold his shoulder. He stiffens at my touch, as if he doesn’t trust me quite enough for me to be this close, and I quickly release him. “Don’t blame yourself, Anik. My animal’s also weakened. It must be the First Fallen’s power.”

“What do we do?” Pimniq asks, fear making her voice tremble.
 

Silence. They’re waiting for me to say something.
 

Waiting for me to lead.
 

All I feel like doing is downing some Adderol, getting drunk and hitting the clubs with Trish. Maybe picking up a cute guy and taking him home. Y’know. All the silly bullshit I used to do before I became this big thing that everyone keeps telling me I am, the All Encompassing, the savior of the world.
 

My packmates are still silent.
 

“I hate being holed up here,” I say slowly. “But I don’t think—”

“Lil!” Anik whispers. “Shh!”

“What is it?” I ask.

“They’re here,” Anik says, fear and defeat darkening his soft voice. “They’re coming—”

“No one makes a sound,” I whisper.
 

A few rumbling Harley’s roll into the driveway. Their engines cough and spit, then stutter to a halt. A car door slams closed. Boots ring on the paving stones just outside.

“You sure you want to go in without the rest of the crew?” a man’s voice calls out.
 

“You sure you like that crooked little pinkie you call a prick?” Mia answers. “Cuz if I have to say it again I’ll rip it off and stuff it down your throat. The three of us are going in. Doubt there’s anything worth killing in here anyway. The fucking freaks were probably smelling their own dead.”

“Anik!” I whisper. “Get Pimniq out of here. Now!”

“I’m not leaving you—”

“Now!”

Anik and Pim flee from the entryway.

“Just us girls,” Trish says in a way that lets me know she wishes it were just she and I.

The footsteps stop outside the door. I can scent Mia now, her sweat and strength and anger, and the two men with her, both Skins.

“Kick it in,” Mia snarls.

“Come to me,” I whisper to my animal, hoping she’ll respond. “Come to me now.”
 

My fangs and claws drop and my skin warms but that’s all, and even that little bit makes my legs nearly buckle with exhaustion.
 

“We’re fucked,” Trish says as she sees me fail to change.
 

She slips her Glock from her holster and raises it at the door.

“Shiori?” I whisper.

“Yes, alpha leader?” Shiori says in a mocking, falsely obedient tone.
 

“Are they with you?”

“Always.”

I have just enough time to wonder if that’s good news or bad when there’s a mighty crash against the door.
 

It splinters but holds.

“That’s it?” Mia screams. “That’s all you got?”
 

“Fucking solid door, Admah” a man says, clearly pained and embarrassed.

“Try it again, pussy,” Mia says.

Another crash, and this time the hinges rip from the wood and the door crashes open and I’m staring at two ugly, heavily-built bikers, each splattered in black blood and gripping machine guns.
 

Mia’s standing behind the two men.
 

She gives me a sly smile.

“Don’t shoot, Trish,” I say. “Lower the gun.”
 

“Ah,” Mia says. “Looky here. Gentlemen? Meet the good housewives of armageddon.”

“Holy fuck they’re freaks—” the first guy says when he sees Shiori’s face ripple, but Mia flicks her wrist and his voice becomes wheezy and gurgled.

He falls to the floor at my feet, a serrated blade stuck in the back of his head.
 

“Hey!” the second guy says in a way that’s so shocked and stupid-sounding it makes me laugh. “What are you doing, Admah?”

“Killing you,” Mia says with a brutal grin as her face scales over.

“You fucking bitch I knew it I always thought—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mia says, sounding as snarky as ever. “You thought and you thought, you stupid asshole. But you
did
nothing. And now you’re dead.”

Mia winds a blue-green snake arm around the guy’s neck, pulls him close, sinks her curving yellow fangs into his neck, drinks deep, then tosses his lifeless body aside.

“Don’t fucking move!” Trish screams, her Glock shaking in her hands.

A loud buzzing fills the room.

Shiori.
 

“Call off your girls, Lily,” Mia says, stepping over the corpses of her men, strolling inside, lowering her mirrored shades down her nose and looking me right in the eye. “We need to talk.”
 

A
BLUE
-
MISTED
jungle beneath a carmine morning sky. Birds singing in the canopy overhead, carefree and cheerful as always, secure in their winged freedom. My paws soundless in the thick blanket of leaves and moss on the jungle floor.

I scent the air. My prey is close. It’s a human. A Skin male. He is not of this land. He reeks of fear and weakness and death. He might not even run. He might freeze when he sees me emerge from the undergrowth, my black and sun-yellow rosette patterned fur shining in the jungle’s dappled light as my jaw widens in a fierce blood-roar.
 

The Night Stalker.
 

My prey may even soil himself.
 

Fall to his knees. Beg for mercy.

I lick my lips and press on. Silent through a swift-flowing mountain stream. The air a flurry of scent. I take my time. I’m in no hurry, nor am I frightened.

There’s not a creature alive that can harm me.
 

I pause in a fern thicket. Listen. Wait.
 

I hear him now.
 

In a clearing formed by the dense canopy of an ancient mahogany just ahead.
 

He’s sobbing.
 

Wailing.

Crying out to someone, cursing someone else. His words tumble into themselves, a long, rambling wall of incoherent sound. Sometimes he pauses, then laughs wildly. Sometimes his ranting is interrupted by a wracking cough that scents of tainted blood. His voice rises and falls at random, sometimes screeching and high-pitched, sometimes low and wicked-sounding.

Skins. A hideous, unnatural animal.
 

The man screams something, then a fleshy thwacking sound echoes into the jungle.

I creep forward a few paces, so low my belly brushes the jungle loam, afraid the Skin is dead, and when I see him moving I freeze, knowing I’m invisible in among moss and fern.
 

No. The Skin is alive. Barely.

He’s naked.
 

The thwacking sound is the naked Skin man smashing a stone into his forehead. Trying to bludgeon himself to death.

This animal is ill. Mad.
 

The Skin reaches down, grabs a handful of dirt and flings it at the sky while screaming something I don’t understand. He does this several times, then he grabs his penis and tears at it and points it at the sky, then spits and digs his fingernails into his face, raking long scratches down his cheeks.

Then he laughs. A despairing, joyless sound.

My Skin prey embraces a palm tree. Presses his face to it in that odd way Skins do when showing affection. Rubs his penis against it. Then another, angrier-sounding scream, then a vicious sob that ends in tears and whining and blubbering, then another long, rambling curse directed at the sky.

The Skin’s face is smeared in blood. It takes me a moment to see the blood has dried down his neck and shoulders and chest.
 

Layer after layer.

This man has been bleeding for a very long time.