The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (33 page)

“Con explained it. Said you freaks couldn’t resist a feed. So we set out bait like he showed us. Drew the freaks in. Then…” Friday smashes his hands together. “Boom! Another dead honkey.”

“Those were my
packmates
,” I say, my voice flat and even.

“Don’t regret what I did,” Friday says, brushing a speck of dirt from his suit collar. “End times, bro. The whole world up for grabs. I made my play.”

“No,” I say, nodding to Nash. “You
got
played. We all did. Only difference is…we’ll survive.”

Friday’s dead before I make it three steps toward my feed.
 

***

“What the fuck
was
that thing?” Nash screams over his Harley’s roaring engine.
 

It’s pissing rain. We’re picking our way through Seattle’s ruined streets, dodging chasms spewing black smoke and and burning vehicles and dead bodies. The city’s oddly quiet. The dead scattered around and the fires are the only signs of the mayhem that hit not too long ago. It’s almost like the Stricken have moved on to more fruitful killing grounds. Or maybe they’re gathering forces somewhere. I’m sighting a bit into the future to make sure there’s no black-blooded pack about to pounce out of an alley.
 

So far so good.
 

“Vulture,” I yell to Nash. “A fucking big one. Like we saw in the sky when we were heading to Tate’s den.”

Blue’s riding on my left. “Didn’t scent like a normal Stricken.”

No, I think. It didn’t. It scented a fuck of a lot stronger. And not like a Minion, either. More like…a Risen. But unless the vulture was that dude from Mexico City coming up for a joyride that doesn’t make any sense.

There are only five Risen.
 

Who would want to keep Connor Lerrick alive?
 

Collazo, for sure. But beyond him? Fuck knows.

I pull up beside the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
 

Like the rest of us, it’s seen better days.

“Looted,” Nash says.

I nod. The church’s carved wooden doors have been smashed in. A few corpses are sprawled up the entry steps, all Skins, the desperate and devout seeking holy sanctuary during end times. Smoke’s spilling from a blackened corner of the church’s roof. I hop off my Harley, dig in my pocket for my Zippo and light a smoke.
 

Where’s your almighty god now, you greedy, polluting motherfuckers?

A shadow slips across the church entrance, then disappears into the darkness. I wipe the rain from my eyes and order my MC to wait outside. Everyone but Nash and Blue. Those brothers I want with me. Could be old Father Andres survived the Stricken packs.
 

More likely he didn’t.
 

But I’m not leaving Seattle without reaching out to the wily old wolf.
 

I hop off my bike and summon my shadow-wolves. They slink inside and then I’m living through them, seeing and scenting as they do. The church pews are burned to ash. The altar ruined. Statues of Christ and the rest of the holy rollers have been smashed up and tossed around. Empty idols at the end of the world.
 

My shadow-wolves slip through the church, scenting, seeking a Stricken ambush. There’s nothing. Then one of them hears a wheezing breath. My wolf slinks down the center aisle, stepping carefully over shards of stained glass.

Something’s hiding behind the altar.
 

I send the other two wolves to join the first. They ring the altar, then press forward. Glide around the pulpit—

“Fucking hell,” I mutter.
 

I sprint up the steps and slip inside, then race toward the pulpit. Father Andres is there, lying crumpled on the ground, his chest torn open, his skin sallow and slick. He looks so much like a corpse for a second I think the old man’s already gone. But then he wheezes and turns his head, wincing against the pain the motion brings, and his priest’s cassock falls open and I see his heart is still beating where it should be.
 

Old dude might have a chance.

When the Father sees me he gives a faint flicker of a smile and reaches a hand up. His eyes burn like someone well into a deathly fever.
 

I bend beside him, take his hand, tell him its not too bad, he’s going to make it, he just needs a feed is all.
 

But the words ring hollow.

Father Andres makes to speak. Blood bubbles between his lips.
 

“Help me carry him outside,” I say to Nash and Blue.
 

We lift the old man up. He feels weightless. His bones as thin and brittle as a bird’s. Father Andres’ burning eyes never leave me as we make our way outside, onto the manicured church grounds.
 

The Father tries to speak again.
 

I tell him to be quiet. Conserve his strength.
 

The old man tightens his jaw. Something’s nagging at him.
 

We set the Father down between the roots of a gnarled oak tree. Raindrops cascade through spring leaves, run through my hair and down my Pureblood MC cut. The air is crisp and cool. First rain in a long while for this time of year. It’ll wash the blood from the streets, at least.
 

Father Andres’ wolf is roaming close. The old man’s brow deepens and his fangs drop and he reaches up and rips his cossack down, exposing his neck as it swells tight against the iron collar—
 

He’s too exhausted to keep his animal caged.
 

Its roaring to the surface, eager for a final moment or two of freedom.

“It’s okay now, Father,” I whisper. “You’re fucking
free
. You don’t have to fight him anymore. The woods await. You’re free to run and hunt.”

The Father’s eyes lose focus.
 

Blood leaks from the collar cutting into his neck.
 

He’s slipping away—

Then Father Andres coughs, shakes his head, grips a tree root in one hand and my wrist in the other. His skin is burning hot. He tries to speak again, fails, slumps his head into the soaked grass.
 

Takes a few long breaths.

The old man’s a fighter. He’d have to be, to make it this long.

I’m looking down at Father Andres, then a moment later I’m lost in my wolfmind. Prowling the sandbank along a slate-blue mountain river. Late autumn leaves glow the golden-red colors of a sunset. I’m hardly more than a yipping pup, a child, dutifully following my alpha. The rest of my pack is fanned out behind us. I sense my brother Sorry stalking at my side. Sometimes the fucker even brushes against me, pretends to trip me up. I snarl and spit, but our struggle for ascendance is still many years off.

My pack is traveling swiftly, noses bent to the riverbank, stepping over water-worn stones. Our alpha is setting a grueling pace. We’ve been on the move for weeks, stopping only to drink and eat decaying salmon. He hasn’t even permitted us to hunt. We’re racing across a broad mountain range. Something’s driving our alpha, an unspoken instinct or ancient bloodlust, and now I scent it, the primal, unmistakeable reek of pack war—
 

Father Andres’ words arrive. So quiet the rain drowns them out when he first speaks. I lower my head close to the Father’s lips and listen.
 

“The One We Answer To,” he whispers.
 

His voice is paper thin.

I try and hold on to what Father Andres is saying.
 

Try and make sense of it.
 

But my wolfmind is too powerful. I lose my grip on this world and then I’m with my pack as we switchback up a steep mountain slope. Our alpha pauses on a ridge overlooking the next valley. There, gathered in the swampy valley bottom, is the largest animal pack I’ve ever witnessed. Thousands strong. Not only wolves, but creatures of every description. Deformed, misshapen things with the bodies of two or three animals crushed together. A flash of stark, instinctive fear makes me plop on my haunches. This ambush is the first foray that will begin the One War. The animals below scent…unnatural. Stricken by the Atrocity. My alpha turns to survey his pack. He’s everything a pup and heir alpha wants to be. Strong. Confident. But most of all:
just
. His pack follows him because they love and respect him, not because of fear. Their loyalty is unquestioned—

“The One We Answer To,” Father Andres repeats.

I shake my head.
 

“Don’t call me that,” I say. “You’re wrong. I don’t want it.”
 

I feel torn between two worlds, two truths.
 

Dizzy and tight of breath. Disoriented.
 

My head’s pounding, my mouth bone dry.
 

Blue gives me a look like: I fucking told you so.

I smile at the Father in a way I hope is benign and helpful, trying to ease his last few moments, but really I’m thinking he’s delusional with fever and pain—

“The One We Answer To,” Father Andres whispers again. “Admit who you are, Aaron of the Mountain River.”

“No.”

The ancient wolf memory takes over. Our alpha has a thick coat of blue-white fur. He stares at his pack, searching for weakness and cowardice. Any who might abandon him during battle. I know he’d rather murder them here than watch them betray his pack. Finding none, he turns and sprints down the mountain, straight at the advancing Stricken army. My brother and I race to follow, trying to catch up, but he’s too fast, he drops us easily, and then I’m on the valley bottom, leaping through a waterlogged marsh and then there’s a pained shriek followed by a long, bloodthirsty howl—

The One Who Struggles has led us to war.
 

I burst from a stand of stunted alder and straight at my prey, a horned cougar that outweighs me by a hundred pounds. The cat screeches and bares its fangs and for a moment I hesitate, my legs weak with terror. Then I hear my alpha’s howl echoing through the valley and the sound steels my will and I rush at the cat, sidestep its claws and sink my teeth into its neck. My mouth fills with black blood and the taste sends me mad with hunger and I’m snapping down on the cat’s neck while it rakes and scratches at my sides. Its claws dig into my hind quarters and the pain nearly makes me release my jaws but I hold on, and soon the cat’s legs give out and it slumps to the ground and I’m tearing into my first Stricken feed—
 

The rain comes down.

I brush my fingers across Father Andres’ sweat-soaked brow.
 

He doesn’t have long.
 

Nothing to fear in death. It’s natural law.
 

Only Skins, who live a life that violates natural law, a life of self-interest and waste, are burdened with a morbid fear and fascination of death. We Purebloods are immune to their sickness. Our animals force us to live clean, in the eternal now.

I grip Father Andres’ hand and close my eyes.
 

My wolf leaves the dead black-blooded cat and prowls deeper into the fray. I’m scenting for my brother. An enemy wolf with a snake for a tail makes to flank me. I tear him apart, then aid one of my packmates in murdering a hissing monkey-creature. I hear a sound like a locust swarm settling onto a crop. A quick clicking sound. There, in the middle of the brackish swamp, is a massive three-eyed red wolf with the head of a praying mantis and a pair of fluttering eagle’s wings. A half dozen of my packmates have surrounded the mantis-wolf. He’s fighting them off, knocking them back, murdering them one by one.
 

My alpha charges at him, leaps into the air—
 

A growl rumbles deep in Father Andres’ throat.

I growl I recognize.
 

“It’s
you
,” I say in awe. “I remember you now. Your wildborn name is Aker. Aker…Arud. But I thought…everyone said—”

My grandfather squeezes my hand. “You can stop…calling me Father Andres,” he whispers in a weak, pained voice. “My Skin name…always made me feel…weak.”
 

“What’s up?” Nash says, lighting a smoke. “You fucking know this guy, Prez?”

“He’s my grandfather,” I say, my voice raspy.
 

“Oh, shit,” Blue says.

“But why?” I ask my grandfather. “Everyone thought you were killed. Why hide—”

Suddenly I’m
seeing
things. Only not a vision of the past through my wolfmind. It’s more like a thousand different movies playing in my head at the same time. I’m seeing through other eyes. Like I do with the shadow-wolves. Except the eyes I’m seeing through…they’re living Purebloods.
 

My packmates. My kind.

There’s a snow leopard perched on a rocky outcrop, glaring through wind-whipped snow, waiting for an ibex that’s wandering up a narrow ravine to walk under the outcrop so the leopard can pounce—

A great white shark cruising along the edge of coral reef off the South African coast, following a blood trail, narrowing in on a kill—

A python winding around a wild pig deep in the Amazon—

A wolf, no, a dozen grey wolves loping through snowy woods, tracking prey, twelve minds joined as one by eons of evolution—

“Do you feel them, grandson?” Aker asks. “The lives you were born to lead?”

I blink, not understanding.
 

Or refusing to.

“Do you see them?” my grandfather asks again.
 

“I see them,” I whisper. “I see them all.”
 

Aker grins. “Then summon your Pureblood packmates.”

I reach my wolfmind into the Purebloods, and one by one they lift their heads and listen, and then I’m howling, my head raised toward the old oak, my wolf roaring in triumph, neck thickening and silver-black fur rising from my skin, all the raw, pure and elemental energy of earth’s wildest lands surging through my howl, the sound rising into the overcast sky and carrying around the world, to the ears of each and every Pureblood, and in my mind’s eye I see my brothers and sisters stand and begin moving toward the direction of my howl, apex predators of every kind, from every corner from the globe, my motherfucking animal army, and a part of me understands they’ve been waiting to hear my call, waiting to rise against the Stricken and the First Fallen, waiting to be
led
.