The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (46 page)

The boy in the window.
 

He’s there all right.
 

Watching the carrion flock land. Waiting.

The vultures settle over the fields and parking lot. Over our gleaming Harleys. Still more land, then more, until the vultures are draped like a foul black blanket over the entire complex. Perched on fences and guard towers. Covering courtyards and roofs.

“Holy fucking hell,” Nash mutters.
 

The cawing and screeching quiets.
 

The birds are so thick I can barely see the ground.
 

Then, as if they’re obeying a secret command, every single vulture turns toward the forest and peers at us. They don’t make a sound…and that’s the creepiest thing of all. A vast flock of carrion birds staring us down, their beady eyes absolutely empty.
 

And the silence? It’s of the grave.

A long growl bursts from my throat and meets the growls and snarls of my MC. Every single one of us feels it.
 

An unnatural power.
 

Sickness and perversion.
 

I’ve never believed much in what the Skins call
evil
. Skins like to label anything they don’t understand as evil. It seemed like a lot of cowardice and dull-witted superstition, all wrapped up in the Skin’s unnatural fear of death.
 

But now, looking out from the forest at that silent carrion flock?
 

And the black-haired boy watching us from the window?

That’s the only word for the feeling I’m getting.

Evil.

Death never frightened me. It’s not good or bad.
 

Death just is. It’s natural law.
 

But these birds? They aren’t natural.
 

They’re something much worse.

“I have to go inside,” Lily says, taking a few steps toward the complex. The frosted ground crunches under her feet. “I have to see him.”

Nash and Blue share a look like, uh-oh, bitch gone crazy.

Maybe they’re right.
 

I’m about to protest when I see the look in Lily’s eyes, her stubborn will, the determined set of her jaw, and I know it’s useless.

There’s no changing my bloodmate’s mind.

I lower the M16 and walk to Lil.

We stand in silence for a few moments, then she says, “I have to speak to him.”

“Who?”

“The boy.”

I’m about to ask why when she says, “I want you to stay here with Trish and the MC.”

I can’t help it. I fucking laugh.
 

“Not gunna happen, girlie.”

Lily tosses me a scowl. “I could command you to stay.”

I grip Lily’s elbow and turn her to face me. “We don’t work like that. I’m not your dog.”

“Is that right?”

“Not anymore.”

“You were never my dog. Just
a
dog.”
 

I crack a smile.

Lily gives me a lost look, then brushes her fingers over the smooth burn scar on my chest and says, “I’m sorry, Aaron. For what she…for what
I
did to you.”

“I would’ve done the same.”

“Really? I wonder. I think you’re more loyal than me. More devoted to those you let in your circle.”

Lily tugs free of my grasp, stares at the silent flock and wraps her arms around her stomach. When she speaks her voice sounds very far away. “He needs three at his side.”

“The Fallen?”

“Yes. Don’t you feel his presence here? He needs Shiori. Rodas. And a third.”

“Who? There’s only you or Anik.”

“Maybe. But don’t you feel those birds?”

I do. I feel their power.
 

But instead I say, “What if you’re right? What if the Fallen’s in there? Your Risen pack…don’t you need them to defeat him?”

“I think so. But my pack’s gone…” Lily trails off into a bitter laugh. “Truth is I’m shit at being alpha.”

“Me too.”

“No you’re not. You were born for it. The One We Answer To. I believe that.”

“You’re not going in there alone. You’re not going anywhere without me.”

Lily flashes me a broad smile, and for the first time in a long while the worry and fear and hopelessness in her face lightens, and for a moment she looks like the same girl who walked into my bar and joked about hating douchebags bikers while hitting on me.
 

I’m about to say as much when a hollow-sounding moan escapes Lily’s lips.
 

“Lil? What is it? Lil? Lil!”
 

My bloodmate doesn’t answer.
 

Instead she takes a slow, determined step toward the open field and the carrion flock. She’s mumbling something, so quiet I can’t tell what she’s saying.
 

“Lil!” I yell, trying to get her attention.
 

She either ignores me or can’t hear me.
 

My bloodmate’s a few steps into the field, heading for the parking lot.

The entire empty-eyed flock watches as she approaches.
 

My crew hustles in behind us while Lily takes another step, then another, and suddenly she’s free of the woods, standing at the edge of the frozen field, unprotected and vulnerable.
 

“Lil get back here!” Trish screams.

“We’re going in. Alone,” I yell at Nash. “Nobody comes inside. You got me? Nobody. No matter what happens—”

“No way Prez we ain’t—”

“That’s a fucking
command
, VP,” I shout. “No one comes inside the complex. You hear gunshots you stay put. You hear screaming you stay put. You fucking stay put, is that clear, VP?”

Nash looks pissed, but I get a solid nod from him.
 

I glance at Trish.
 

Fuck sakes.
 

She shakes her head. She’s having none of it.
 

Blue sweeps Trish up in a massive bear-hug. She screams at him to get off her, smashes her boot onto his foot and thrashes, trying to free herself.
 

But I’ve been trapped in that bear hug.
 

No way the Skin bitch is getting free.

Then I’m out of the forest, running after Lily. Her arms hang limp at her sides. Her lips are thin and bloodless, her face drained of color. She’s still mumbling, the same words over and over, like some kind of ritual chant or prayer, and when I look up at the window I see the boy.

Only it’s not him.
 

I blink, trying to clear my vision.
 

The child’s still standing away from the window. Still cloaked in shadow. Only…something’s different. His face is the same. Pale. Almost glowing. But his body? His shoulders are hunched up high—

But they’re not shoulders.

They’re wings.
 

Black-feathered wings folded up behind him.

Lily moans again, and now I understand it isn’t terror in her voice.

It’s grief.

The boy peers out the window. Slowly, so slow I’m not even sure it’s happening, the boy’s eyes grow wide and jet black, and the blackness…leaks from his eyes, traces through the veins in his face, and as I watch a pair of curling ram’s horns grow from the boy’s head—

A growl rumbles in the back of my throat.

The boy is a Stricken. Or worse.
 

Lily takes an unsteady step.

The vultures study us.
 

Silent. Unmoving.

One command. That’s all it would take. One command sent through the boy’s animal mind and the carrion flock would leap into the sky and descend on us, a thrashing, sharp-beaked cloud of death.

One word.
 

But the vultures only stare.
 

Silent. Accusing.
 

Lily falls to her knees, cradling her arms around her belly, and when I bend down to lift her I hear what she’s muttering, and for the first time since seeing the child in the window my heart starts hammering in my chest, because my bloodmate’s prayer isn’t a prayer at all.

It’s an apology.

Lily’s whispering, over and over, “My beautiful boy I’m sorry I’m so sorry my boy my beautiful baby boy…”

“H
OLD
MY
HAND
, Aaron,” I ask as I stumble across the frosted field toward the waiting vultures.
 

Aaron says nothing, just grips me in his heavily calloused hand, and I do love him, I do, even though it will take a long time to truly forgive him, and the thought crosses my mind that I should tell him, just fucking blurt my worst fear out, even if the timing
sucks
, because I’m fairly certain we won’t have another chance—

The boy in the window stares down at me. His eyes pierce my heart. The window frosts over. A hairline crack splits the frozen glass from right to left. Then another. Suddenly the entire widow is webbed with fractures, and then there’s a cracking sound as the window shatters and falls to the ground.

The boy is gone.
 

Lachlan?

I can’t be sure. He was hidden in shadow. But for a moment I had that same overwhelming feeling of loss and grief I have when I emerge from the nightmare, trapped between waking and dreaming.
 

For a moment I
knew
.

We reach the parking lot and the first of the black vultures. They stand taller than my waist. Their eyes are small and black and perfectly empty. My stomach rolls at their smell. They stink like meat sealed in a mason jar and left in the sun. They reek of rotting flesh and death.

The vultures bob their heads and peck at the ground and shuffle around so they’re always facing us directly. Their eyes never leave us, but they don’t approach, and I wonder…if I reached out to touch one would it snap out and bite me, or cower away?

The birds are so thick we have to weave left and right to get through. My hand slips from Aaron’s and an unaccountable terror rises in my throat because suddenly I’m convinced that the only thing keeping the vultures from eating me alive is my bloodmate’s touch. I snatch his hand back into mine, barely stifling a scream.

Sometimes I catch Aaron looking at me like I’ve changed.

He’s right. I have.

But unlike him, I haven’t changed for the better.
 

What I did…to myself?
 

I never imagined I’d be capable of such a thing. But at the time, with the guilt and anger eating me and seeing Aaron’s justifiable rage…I just took it all in. All the hurt and pain. And it was too much.
 

It pushed me beyond myself.
 

Destroyed me.

We have ideas about who we are. We try to live up to that image. But we never really know until we’re tested. I’m not who I believed I was. I’m not as strong. I need…help. My bloodmate. Trish. Even the Pureblood pack. I need them all.

I can’t do this alone.

I rub my left forearm with my right hand. The cuts are healed but still tender. I remember how it felt to rake my claws through my flesh.
 

The hair rises on my nape.

It felt…
right
.
 

That’s the scariest part. It felt like an answer to a question that’s been tearing me up: what can I do with all this suffering?
 

Bleed it out.
 

Watch it flow onto the ground.

I wasn’t hysterical or mad with grief. No. I was perfectly rational. I had to let the hurt out…or I was going to murder myself. The cutting…was a kind of therapy.
 

I squeeze Aaron’s hand.
 

He’s…stronger. More assured in his role. Sure, he still jokes about being a shit alpha. But only a person confident in what they are could joke about something so important.
 

I see it in his crew as well. How they look at him. With newfound respect. I don’t know if he did something to earn it or if they just sense something’s different in him, but I find myself hoping Mia’s all right, and that she and Aaron meet one another again when I’m gone.
 

She deserves to see him like this.
 

To know who he’s become.

We pass carefully through the vulture flock until we reach the psych hospital’s outer gate, a chain-link fence crowned with razor wire. So many birds surround us I can hardly see the ground. It feels like we’re adrift in a deathly black ocean.
 

The gate’s unlocked.

“Something wants us inside,” Aaron says, pushing the gate wide open and scattering a few vultures. “Fucking filthy things,” he mutters.

“Shh,” I say, without knowing why.

I guess because the silence feels…sacred somehow.
 

Like that hush you feel entering an ancient cathedral.
 

Like words can only defile.
 

We enter the hospital grounds. The main building is an old Eighteenth Century stone and brick behemoth that sits squat and ugly on top of a small knoll. The windows are mostly broken out. I see a few blackened and spray painted walls inside.
 

“It’s been looted,” I say as we walk up the wide stone entry steps.

“Probably from within,” Aaron says. “Imagine the shit storm when the guards didn’t show up for work. Or the cooks.” He flashes me a wicked grin. “The moon rising red probably didn’t help with these folks’ mental stability.”

“I don’t think it helped anyone’s.”

I’m not paying enough attention to where I’m going. My foot catches on the top step and I stumble forward. Several vultures hurry out of my way, but my leg brushes against one. Searing cold seeps into my bones, stealing the breath from my lungs.

“Lil? You all right?”

I put a hand over the side of my leg.
 

The skin under my jeans is frigid and hard.