The One We Answer To: A Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 3) (9 page)

“C’mon,” I say, motioning to the group. “She’s tired too. We all are. Let’s wait a minute.”

“Bad idea, boss lady,” Wes says, stuffing a handful of pills in his mouth. “Keep moving to live. Keep running never stop.”

Shiori’s standing directly under the skylight, staring upward, her arms hanging limp at her sides, her eyes wide.
 

See? Fucking strange.
 

“Smell him?” Shiori whispers. “I do. And I can taste him…his beating black heart…”

“Shiori, let’s move,” Connor says. “Now!”

Shiori ignores him. “A feed…I scent him…his warm black blood…”

Anik and Pim are tugging at Shiori, trying to pull her down the corridor, but she’s rooted to the spot.

There’s a burst of gunfire overhead, then a spine-chilling animal shriek.

Shiori begins humming. It’s a frantic, high-frequency hum that makes goosebumps rise on my arms. She sounds like a wasp swatted from its nest, and then her entire body’s vibrating and long tendrils of spittle leak from the corners of her mouth and down her chin and her skin begins to change under the surreal purple glow of the skylight, becomes shiny and plated—

“No hunting, Shiori,” I say, trying to keep my voice measured and remain calm. I’m supposed to be her
alpha
, for fuck sake. She has to obey. Isn’t that how this works?

Then I realize: I have no idea how this works.

 
“We’re all hungry,” I say. “No hunting. Not now! We don’t know what’s up there—”

“I
scent
what’s up there,” Shiori says. “And I
will
feed.”
 

Something heavy drags along the sidewalk above.

I reach out to grab Shiori’s shoulder. I’ve barely touched her when something awful lifts from the back of her neck, a hooked leg or antenna, and swats my hand away. Tiny stinging barbs pierce my skin, drawing several drops of blood.

“Do
not
touch me,” Shiori says in that horrible humming voice while still staring up at the skylight. “None of you. Ever again.”
 

So much for being the all-commanding, all-awesome alpha of everything.
 

“Show her,” Trish says from behind my right shoulder. “Make the nasty little bitch remember who you are.”

“No Lily,” Anik says, his eyes wide. “They’re drawn by your creature…and my spirit…Shiori saved me…the bear is fond of her. I don’t know what he’ll do—”

“Holy fucking hell,” Trish spits. “So much for pack loyalty.”
 

The rotten wooden rafters holding the sidewalk up overhead creak as something very heavy moves over us. Shiori’s skin is fully plated, her cheeks elongating, the barbed antenna that swiped at me now four feet long, with several more sprouting from the back of her neck, each moving upward toward the skylight, waving in the air, scenting.

The reek of Stricken blood fills my nose.
 

My chest tightens in fury.
 

Trish is right.
 

Apparently I have a lot to learn about pack dynamics, and if I allow Shiori to undermine me now…next it will be Anik. “I’m going to ask you once more, Shiori,” I say, my voice very calm and controlled, “and then I’m going to
show
you why you need to obey when I command.”

Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know if I’m strong enough. Shiori and Connor are the only one’s among us that still seem close to their animals. Maybe Shiori knows that.

I feel like a fucking impostor, and suddenly I want nothing to do with any of them. My packmates. Connor. Even Trish. Suddenly all I want is to be on the back of Aaron’s bike, arms wrapped around his waist, feeling his muscles tense and leaning hard into the curves—
 

“Anik…” Pimniq says, her glance lifting to skylight as a shadow blocks the sun streaming into the tunnel.

“Shiori! Let’s move! Now!” I shriek, dropping my claws, summoning my creature’s wrath, grabbing the disrespecting little bitch by the neck and tearing her to the side as the skylight bursts in and glass shatters around us and a long, six-inch thick spike slams into the floor where Shiori was standing only a moment ago.

I saved her life. What a shame.

Shiori digs her barbed hind legs into my back as we thrash and struggle, her face twisted in a horrible half-insect howl.
 

I throw Shiori into the wall so hard the brick cracks and the roof shudders, and at the same time a Stricken drops into the dimly-lit corridor, shining in a ray of dusted sunlight, a horrible goat-lizard monster with a fan of colored feathers arcing from its shoulders and a long, curled tail that ends in a vicious stabbing spike.
 

Shiori sees the Stricken and lets go of me. Her back bends and snaps and a long, curving black stinger drops between her legs.

My creature’s furious, both at Shiori’s disobedience and the Stricken so close its scent is making me choke. My skin hisses and burns while I fight to keep her caged—

The goat-lizard sees us, lifts its head and looses a frenzied bellow.
 

Heavy thudding on the sidewalk above.
 

“He’s calling his bros!” Trish screams while Anik slams his bare fist into the Stricken’s face. The creature’s goat head whips to the side and smashes into the wall while its spiked lizard tail arcs around and slices through the air an inch from Pimniq’s neck.

“You’re too weak to call her,” Shiori says, turning to stare at me with her fractal insect eyes. She doesn’t sound angry. Or frightened. In fact she doesn’t sound
anything
…just…empty. “You’re too weak to lead.”

Shiori glances at me, then at Connor and Trish, and I know she’s scheming, calculating the odds of her challenging me right the fuck now and coming out ahead.
 

I snarl and unleash a little more of my animal.

A red-plated scorpion stinger unfolds over my head.

“Lily no!” Connor screams, leaping between me and Shiori.
 

“This way!” Wes yells, eyes wide as he tugs at me and Trish. “We gotta move, boss lady! Now!”
 

The goat-lizard lashes its tail out again, the spike whizzing past my head and slamming into the wall. My creature’s raging in her cage, demanding to be freed, but I know if I do I won’t be able to chain her and my son Lachlan will be lost.
 

She cares nothing for him.
 

He’s a Skin.
 

There’s only her animal will, her desire, her need.

If I loose her she’ll never let me back.
 

I lean forward and roar, inches from Shiori’s ugly plated face, and roar out a little heat, just enough to make the bitch understand who she’s fucking with.
 

Shiori withers from the white heat escaping my lips. He hair singes. She staggers a few steps back, lifts her hands in surrender, like she’s finally realized who’s boss and turns to face the fucking Stricken.

It’s not over between me and her.
 

Not by a long shot.
 

And something’s telling me I better heal and get whole real quick, because the first challenge to my alpha status is already here—
 

Connor smashes into the goat creature, only half-wolf, his powerful jaws snapping at the thing’s scaled neck. Black blood sprays across the corridor and for a moment I want this fight, this kill, want to feed on the Stricken’s sweet blood, but three more hideous animals leer down at us from the hole overhead, their jaws leaking spittle…and I know they have the same idea.
 

Eat or be eaten.
 

Anik and Pim are trapped in the narrow corridor behind Connor and the goat creature. Shiori’s flicking her barbed legs up at the Stricken piling around the hole.
 

“Anik!” I scream as Connor and the goat creature tumble to the floor in a blur of teeth and claw.

Anik leaps on the goat-lizard’s back, grabs its tail in both hands and somehow manages to wrap it around the thing’s neck, strangling it.

“Run!” Connor yells, slamming his clawed hand through the creature’s chest while Anik hops off the thing’s back and toward us.
 

But Pim’s standing frozen, pressed into the wall, her face pale and slick with sweat, mumbling something I can’t hear.

“Run Pim!” I scream again, and this time she startles and leaps over Connor and the dying goat-lizard as another Stricken, a hissing fanged monkey, drops into the corridor. The monkey lifts Connor by the throat and slams him into the wall, then stabs his clawed hand deep into Connor’s chest.
 

Connor’s eyes widen in shock.

The monkey creature hisses and spits in triumph.
 

A third Stricken drops into the corridor and leaps at Connor.
 

I choke back my fury. My creature’s raging in her cage, mad with blood-scent. She loathes me, despises my weakness and hesitation, hates that I’m stunned motionless, horrified, watching Connor sacrifice himself as Anik, Pim and Shiori race past me.

I can’t do this.
 

My creature’s right. Shiori’s right.
 

I’m not strong enough.

I’ve failed my pack.
 

Trish wraps her arms around my shoulders and pulls me a few steps down the corridor.

My world slows.
 

Connor slices into the monkey’s neck, nearly cutting its head off with a single swipe and I fight against Trish, almost lash out and open her wide and then three more Stricken drop from the street above and Connor looks at me and yells for me to go, that he has this covered—

The man who can’t decide if he loves hammock yoga or bonsai. The charming, arrogant, silly, carefree billionaire who can’t figure out what to do with his life. The guy who dropped a knee and fucking proposed to a former street kid named Lily.
 

The guy I almost loved.
 

A beautiful, flawed and fucked-up man.

Connor’s on his back now. Soft belly exposed to the brutal and bloody death spitting and snarling and barking over him—

But the Stricken aren’t murdering Connor Lerrick.

I’m murdering him. I failed him.
 

Anik and Wes join Trish in pulling me down the hall while the Stricken pounce on Connor. His wolf howls and wails in terror and fear and then he turns to me, looks me straight in the eye and shrieks, “Go Lily run please…go! I’m sorry please run!”

My heart shatters.
 

He’s apologizing to
me
.
 

The Stricken bite and claw and cut into him, overtaken by their feeding frenzy.
 

Connor howls and thrashes against the monsters. He’s close to his wolf now, a beautiful animal with crystal-white fur with a patch of brown on his back and for an instant I wonder what it could have been like, Connor and me—
 

Claws and fangs dig deep into the wolf, opening his chest and silencing his howls.

I could call her. She could help. But the price she’d extract…we’d all perish.
 

“You gotta listen to him, Lil,” Trish screams in my ear. “You gotta listen, girl, and you gotta
run
.”

Bones snapping and sinewy muscle being shredded—

More Stricken drop down from the street.

They turn to us, eyes blazing with hunger and hatred.
 

Their roars echo down the corridor.

“Lily?” a tiny voice says.
 

Pimniq.
 

Waiting for me to lead. Waiting for me to make the call.

I glance at Connor once more. He meets my eyes. Tries to smile through the pain. Then he lashes out, kicks one of the tunnel’s support columns. The wood buckles and cracks, then gives way. The ceiling collapses, crushing Connor and the Stricken in a mountain of rock and concrete and blocking the tunnel.
 

“Connor!” I cry while Trish and Anik grip my elbows to keep me from running to the rubble and pawing through it. Dust fills my lungs and nose, stings my eyes and I can’t hold this grief, there’s nowhere for me to put it, first my son Lachlan, then Aaron and now Connor, and suddenly I despise myself, truly and completely, because all of this is my fault, if it wasn’t for me—

“No, Lil,” Anik says. “It’s
his
fault. Vuk’s. Our brother’s. Not yours.”

Vuk. My brother. A new hatred is being born in me—
 

“There’s an army of the motherfuckers,” Trish yells. “That rock won’t hold them long.” Then she takes my head in her hands and says, “He’s done, Lil. Connor’s gone.”

“This way, boss lady,” Wes says, slipping through a drainage hole in the corridor. “This way and don’t look back.”
 

T
HE
R
ISEN
ALPHA
is weak.
 

Perhaps her creature is strong. But the woman Lily? No.
 

There is a deadly weakness in her.
 

A weakness this pack cannot afford.
 

We have arrived at the end of days.
 

I now understand Priest Gabriel and the Guardians did not lie to us Accepted about everything. They mixed truth and lie. But they did not lie about the end of days. The scent of blood, both black and red, hangs heavy in the Absent Land. The reek of madness and destruction. There will be a war to end species.
 

Stricken. Pureblood. Risen. Skin.
 

One or many will be extinguished.
 

This Lily woman isn’t strong enough to lead this pack in war.
 

Even Anik sees it. I can tell by the way he looks at her. His beautiful brown eyes lowered because he knows she’ll fail us. My poor Anik! I think about the days we spent together in the freezing wind and snow-draped forest. How he carried me across his strong shoulders. How it felt when he kissed me when we were dying, only once but perfect and…happy in that brief kiss on the icy riverbank. I know he desires to kiss me again, but his young sister is here, and we’re surrounded by treacherous strangers.