The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (39 page)

My spirit bear is in physical pain. He’s starving. His paws rubbed raw. His muscles burning. But his pain is nothing compared to the wracking, torturing pain in my heart.

Whatever happens to Pim is my fault.
 

Mine alone.

I should never have heeded Lily’s call.
 

The All Encompassing? Alpha of the Risen?
 

No. She’s a failure.
 

I should have sensed it. Should have
scented
it. But I was blind. And I guess…I wanted to believe. In something greater than myself. I was lonely. The thought of finding a pack to run with…the thought of friends and maybe even a bloodmate—

I was selfish. When those Stricken cops arrived to take me from Pangnirtung I should have slaughtered them, then found Pim and lifted her onto my back and headed further north.
 

We would’ve been safe in the far north.

Could’ve waited out the Age of Discord.
 

And if the Stricken packs did eventually find us, at least we’d have each other. We would’ve died in the cold, where we belong. The air crystal clear. We would’ve died knowing who we are and where we stand. But now? Down here in the newcomer’s land of lies?
 

We’ll die knowing nothing.

I scent someone following me. The snake-woman. I reach far into my mind to try and remember her name, but it’s gone. Only two names mean anything to my bear now.
 

Pimniq. Shiori.

Over and over as I run.

Pimniq. Shiori.

Like a merciless chant. One name brings sadness and loss and grief worse than I ever imagined possible. The other brings hatred and rage and revenge-lust.

Those two names. Beating through my spirit animal’s skull.

Pimniq. Shiori.

Life. Death.

Love. Hate.

Booming. Pounding. Beating.
 

Smashing me outside myself. Maddening me.
 

The snake’s been following me since the beginning. Staying a day’s distance behind. Tracking me. That hasn’t been hard, I know. My animal’s not one for stealth or ambush. I’ve left a path of death and destruction larger than most armies. And there will be more.
 

I’m running down a highway. Heading south. Shiori and my sister are long gone, but I know where they’re going. Shiori mentioned the Temple of the Sun. Mexico City.
 

My wounded paws smash through the pavement with every stride, leaving great stains of blood that dry quickly in the harsh sun. I pause and sniff the air. In my northern home I’m nearly invisible, my white coat vanishing against the snowdrifts.
 

But in this dry, waterless land my coat shines like a beacon.
 

Stricken are drawing near.

I hurry off the road while a fierce wind blows dust and grit into my eyes. The wind rattles a broken sign hanging above the parking lot of a burned out motel. The Sleep Well Motel, the sign says. The words irritate my spirit animal. I swipe a paw out, take down the sign and the rusted steel post it’s hanging from. The sign clatters to my feet.
 

Water
.
 

 
My world’s narrowed to these: one-word commands driving me to act.

Water. Food. Sleep. Kill.
 

Soon I’ll lose the words entirely. There’ll be only action. Impulse. Instinct. Part of me is looking forward to that day. There’s simplicity in action, even if it’s wrong.
 

Words complicate. Words lie.

Words like: I love you.

I paw and scratch at the pothole-riddled parking lot. There’s water running beneath me, but it’s buried too deep. The motel’s well, maybe. Or an underground stream. I pace across the parking lot toward the L-shaped motel. My tongue is dry and swollen to the roof of my mouth.
 

Water
.
 

There’s water here as well. Maybe enough to make it through another day. I just have to find it. I’m beginning to learn the nature of my animal spirit. He can’t be killed in battle, but he’ll die of hunger or thirst like any other creature.

I run my black tongue across my fangs. Blink against blurring vision. Try and focus. The relentless sun has heated the black pavement hot enough burn. I’ve come to loathe the sun. I miss the twenty-four hour twilight of a northern winter.
 

The motel’s roof has been burned to charred girders. The room’s doors torn away and cast aside. The contents of each room thrown into the parking lot. Rusted bed-frames bent into twisted shapes like abstract sculptures. Mattresses cut open, spilling white entrails. Dressers emptied of drawers. Piles of stained and torn linens lifting in the wind, impaling themselves on thorn-brush and cactus.

I imagine the gangs that’ve been through here, ransacking the place, searching for something valuable in this dying world. Food. Water. Gold. Weapons. Women. Anything that can be consumed or bartered.

I look back to the highway. Paw the ground restlessly. Standing still makes my animal anxious. I should get moving.
 

But I scent it.
 

Water
.
 

I take a few steps toward the gutted motel. Lift my nose and sniff. There. The room at the end. I make my way over. Stop. Sniff the air. It reeks of dried blood and melted plastic and ash. Slowly, cautiously, I step onto the splintered wooden boardwalk that runs along the front of the building. Stick my nose through the door and into the motel room.
 

The interior drywall have been torn out. There’s a large red stain on the filthy carpet. Spray paint covers the walls in words I don’t bother straining to read. A shredded suitcase in the corner. A few odds and ends scattered across the floor: a child’s toy train, a hairbrush, a scrap of newspaper, a teal beach towel, a pair of men’s sunglasses with the lenses shattered.
 

A family spent their last night alive in this shitty motel. Maybe they were happy. Maybe they held one another close when the gangs kicked the door in and dragged the mother and daughter kicking and screaming into the night.
 

These things we own. We believe they define us. But they’re nothing.
 

Nothing at all.

I hear a sound that makes me lift my ears. Is something approaching?
 

A growl builds in my throat.
 

No. I hear the sound again.
 

Dripping.
 

In the far corner of the room, partly hidden behind a shower curtain, the bathtub faucet is dripping.
 

Plop. Plop. Plop.

The water’s leaking over the side of the bathtub.
 

Fresh, crystal clear water.
 

I’m about to smash down the front wall and take a step into the room when a woman’s voice calls out from behind, “Step in that room and you die, Anik.”

I scramble backward, whirling to face this stealthy threat.
 

There, standing in the middle of the rubble-strewn parking lot, is a lean, strong-built woman wearing a studded leather jacket. She has purple streaks in her hair and a thin, almost sad smile.

“Anik?” the woman says, lifting her gloved hands and taking a few steps away. “It’s me. Mia. Do you remember? I’m your
friend
, Anik. Remember?”

The woman’s voice is calm. Lilting.
 

Her tone tells me I have nothing to fear.
 

Mia. Friend.

I don’t trust her.
 

The words mean nothing.

“You don’t remember? Fuck sakes.”
 

The woman sighs, twirls her mirrored sunglasses between her fingers, then says, “Fine. You don’t trust me. I can’t blame you. Okay, try this: put a paw down on the floor in that fucking fleabag room. But do it
gently
.”

I look back into the room. The water dripping into the bathtub rings loud in my ears. Sweet, fresh water. Thirst tightens my throat, makes my stomach roll. A moan escapes my blistered lips.
 

“Do it, Anik,” the woman says. “Carefully.”

She’s standing very still. I don’t want to turn my back to her. But I decide she’s not an immediate threat. If she wanted to attack me she would have done it before announcing herself.
 

I look in the room again. It looks…wrong. Arranged.

I lift my paw through the door. Set it on the filthy bloodstained carpet. Lean a fraction of my weight onto it—

There’s a loud cracking sound as the floor buckles and gives way and my foot falls into empty space. For a moment I’m out of balance, teetering on the edge, looking into a pit nearly twenty feet deep. The bottom of the pit is lined in sharpened metal spikes.

I scramble away from the trap.
 

The woman’s violet-green eyes flash in the bright sunlight. “Trust me now?”

I lift my lips over my fangs and growl at her.

“You still hear me, Anik. I
know
you do. If you’d gone all the way into your animal you would’ve charged me. I want you to know I’m here to help. I want to find your sister, Anik. Pimniq? I won’t try and take you back. Fuck Lily and her alpha bullshit. Bitch can’t tie her own shoes, nevermind lead a pack of wild animals. I want to help you find Pimniq. All right?”

Pimniq. Shiori.

I run a paw over my dry, too-hot nose.

The woman’s face softens. “Yeah. It’s hot out here, big guy. You fucking ran me ragged.” She breaks into a wide grin. “Would love to put that endurance to better use…”

Something in the woman’s voice makes me look at her again. She’s not only lean…she’s thin. Her cheeks sunken and hollow. The skin across her forehead stretched tight, then sagging slightly over her upper arms. She’s wasted away.

The woman flicks me an odd smile, half apology, half shame. “Let me help you. Although, yeah, I’m not sure how much help I’ll be—”

The woman’s violet-green eyes flicker, then she wavers in a circle and takes a staggering step forward to steady herself. Blood squishes from the top of her boots and runs onto the dusty pavement.

“They live underground…” the woman says as she slumps to her knees. “Stay in your animal, Anik. Stay in your animal. I’m too weak to call mine…”

A sound in the near distance.
 

A rusty squeak, nearly lost in the wind.
 

Then another. And another.

“Run, Anik,” the woman whispers while the hot wind blows stinging dust into my eyes. “Run south. And listen…in the future, if you find something too good to be true, you can bet your ass it damn well is.”

Another sound. A quick clicking.
 

They emerge from their underground lair about fifty yards away. Dozens of them. A Stricken pack. Human heads perched on writhing orange-black centipede bodies. They lift their antennae to the air, then turn toward me and the woman.

The clicking sound grows louder.
 

“Run now, handsome,” the woman says again, slipping her mirror shades on and retrieving a light green cylinder from beneath her leather jacket. “I’ll distract a few.”
 

Pimniq. Shiori.
 

I take several long, shuffling strides away from the motel, still thinking about that tub full of fresh water—

“C’mon, you ugly motherfuckers,” the woman says. “Now’s as good a time as any.”

Mia
.
 

That’s her name. Mia.
 

She was there when the Guardians slit my sister’s throat.
 

She was there with Lily and the rest of my pack—

Pimniq. Shiori.
 

Lily brought us back.

Gave her unborn child for our lives. And this woman? Mia?
 

She helped us too.

I stop. Turn.

Mia’s dragged herself in a half circle to face the approaching Stricken. There’s a small army of them, so many they stretch clear across the abandoned highway, close enough for me to see their human faces: mouths open wide, revealing rows of shiny orange teeth. Stingers curled above their heads waving like wheat in a strong wind. The way the centipedes move is mesmerizing, almost hypnotic: a rhythmic, undulating wave of death, and now they’re screeching, a horrible wail like metal being torqued beyond the breaking point.
 

The sound sets my hackles on end.

Quickly, without thinking, I race to Mia. Snatch her in my paws and toss her on my back. I can only hope she’s strong enough to hold on, but then she unleashes a half-mad laugh and says, “Not how I imagined riding you, bear, but I’ll fucking take it!”

I take three leaping strides and we’re on the road. The Stricken draw close, bringing with them a reek of death and corruption so strong I’m forced to breathe through my mouth. Their scent weakens my knees, and I realize it’s a kind of foul poison.
 

My heart hammers in my chest. My tongue hangs from my mouth. My legs are rubbery and my paws raw and bleeding and they’re gaining, the horrible screeching sound growing louder—

“Faster, Anik!” Mia shouts.

I roar and lower my head and plough forward, tired now, too tired. The desert passes in a blur of sand and dust and stunted juniper. A hot headwind picks up, blowing against my face, drying my eyes, slowing me even more.

“Faster!”
 

I’m too tired. Too thirsty.

“Anik look out—”

Something stabs into my hind leg, then searing pain as the Stricken’s poison leeches into my blood. I stagger to the left, dangerously close to collapsing, then fear and anger flood through me because Pimniq’s out there, captive to Shiori’s insect swarm, and I have to reach her, I have to help—

Something explodes right behind me.

There’s a tremendous blast and a heat that singes my fur and a screeching sound from the Stricken as Mia flings the…the
grenade
at the Stricken pack.