Chapter 21 #2
Shifting, I cross the border in pursuit of the others, but my thoughts remain as murky as the foreign woodlands as I run. I usually liked to drag the kills out, but it’s late, and the last thing I want is Julian heading out to look for me. If he found out I’d lied to him …
My chest tightens around my heart, but I use the upset to let old habits fall into place.
I run hard and fast, letting instincts be my compass until finally, I smell them.
A rogue’s scent is distinctly bitter—the pungent smell of a rotting soul that sticks to them all.
It rises into the air like smoke, only as I get closer, I realise … it actually is smoke.
Steps slowing, I ease myself into the sounds of nature, soundless as I follow the strange glow of light in the otherwise dark woods.
When I get close enough, the sight incapacitates me. What the fuck.
Instead of wolves curled into their matted fur, men and women sit huddled around a small fire. Their arms wrap around themselves as they shiver. Rogues. Shifted and trying to keep warm?
I blink, but the scene doesn’t change.
Most rogues lose themselves so deeply, that they can’t claw themselves out of their own minds. That’s where the madness stems from. They don’t shift and talk quietly. The only ones who do, hold scalpels too.
My vision darkens, and the red haze returns as I scan the warped hoard one by one. He’s not here. Of course he’s not here.
It’d be so easy to run out and take them all. They might shift and I might get hurt, but it’d be worth tearing them all apart first. But I’m not the only one out here. Members of my pack are out here too, and they at least are doing this for more noble reasons than revenge.
When feigned hoots fill the night, affirming they’re in their places, I shift and return the sound. I add another, lower, so they know there are more than we expected, because as I circle the trees, I count eight.
Eight wolves—no children, no women, but eight shifted, bulky, male rogues.
Rogues don’t look like this. Rogues don’t stay shifted this long. They’re usually scrawny, barely carrying any meat on their bones, but these look well-fed. Maybe what they gorged on out here was enough, but Goddess—how are they shifted?
I pocket the unease and centre my thoughts. I could worry later, but I needed to deal with them first. My claws slide free, and I scrape them down my chest and arms, letting blood spill. Then I step into the open light of the fire.
The rogues are on their feet in a heartbeat, some already shifting into the mangled beasts I’m more familiar with, others stay upright, claws bared, red eyes glowing.
“Who the hell are you?” one asks with a gravelly voice that distorts his words. He’s so close to madness that it’s a wonder he can talk at all.
“I’m on my own. I-I’m a rogue,” I rasp, forcing my eyes to flare red. They relax, discarding their common sense with their fear, disarmed by the one thing that unfailingly meant rogue. “I got too close to the Dark Woods pack. They chased me out here—”
A chorus of curses rises up as they peer into the dark, shadowed woods, forgetting all about me. I’m no longer the threat. I’m a rogue like them, covered in blood with a chest wound that looks fatal, and would be, if my body wasn’t so familiar with claws to the chest.
“I came from—” I point behind me and they take off in the opposite direction, heading straight into the jaws of my waiting wolves.
They leave me alone in the glow of the campfire, and I straighten once they’re out of range.
While they head to their deaths, I toe around their makeshift campsite.
There’s nothing but skinned bones of whatever dinner was.
I shove them into the fire with my foot, and then dirt too, smothering the flames. The calm of darkness folds back in.
The scent of their fear carves a clear trail through the trees, easy to follow until I fall onto the scene where my wolves are already ripping them apart.
Blood sprays as muscle and flesh are torn, splattering against the surrounding trees like paint.
Their blood isn’t red, but a deeper burgundy, and almost tar-black. Sickly.
We left you two, Mads says through the link.
The two wolves dart from the bloodbath, choosing to run instead of fight.
Only two? I reply, and take off after them.
It’s too easy catching them, and it’s barely a fight when I do. Even when they both try to fend me off, it’s child’s play. There’s the excitement though. The adrenaline rushing into my veins to tear skin apart, to break bone and taste blood, but it’s gone before I even truly begin.
I sink canines into one’s neck and slash my claws across the other’s ribs. The first dies pitifully fast, but the second staggers, flank torn wide, still trying to bare its teeth at me. Pathetic.
For its efforts, I take my time. When I get it on the ground, I set my paw over its bottom jaw and sink my teeth into its snout, then I pull them apart.
The sound of bones cracking, separating, is disturbingly familiar, but it’s music to my ears.
Hot, thick blood drips from my maw, coats my fur, and I feel the tightness in my chest ease.
It lulls me in a way I know it shouldn’t, but I’d long stopped fighting the peace this gives me. Rogues are unhinged, awful, fucking unnatural creatures. They need to be wiped out, so it doesn’t matter how I do it.
None of them matter. They all just need to die.
When we trail back into our packlands, I don’t linger with the others like I usually would for cleanup. That bliss has already started to fade, leaving something inky behind instead, and I’m not in the mood to chat and catch up. I sure as shit am not in the mood for my dad.
He always tries to talk after these hunts, whether we were good or not. It’s like he felt guilty for doing it, and wanted to soothe us both. Sometimes I let him. But I can’t deal with that right now.
I just want to go home.
I clean up on my own, stealing a shower in one of our packhouses. The blood and evidence of my demons disappear down the drain, and I slip back into the clothes I’d left in. With only my exhaustion left as proof, I make my way through my own packlands, and into Julian’s.
I barely even notice the difference in scent as I cross over, only that my mate is near.
It’s past midnight by the time I walk into the house, and I expect to find it dark and quiet, but the living room light is still on. I frown, wondering if he left it on, but Julian comes rushing out a second later.
He sways, rubs at eyes heavy with exhaustion, and my mind stalls at the sight of him.
“What took you so long?” he asks, stumbling over to me.
“I …” I struggle to clear my suddenly tight throat. “Samson likes to talk,” I whisper as he falls against me. “Why didn’t you go to bed?”
“I tried. Couldn’t without you,” he mumbles as he wraps his arms around my neck and hugs me close. He’s too busy breathing me in to notice how those words make my heart jerk against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, apologising for so much.
But Julian doesn’t know that, so he only hums and snuggles closer. He slumps as if he could fall asleep right here, and as warming as that image is, I feel cold for keeping him waiting while I … it’s not so easy to remember why with my mate in my arms.
I lift Julian up, and to my surprise, he doesn’t complain. He wraps his legs around me and settles himself in the crook of my neck, staying there while I walk us to our room. The lights are on here as well, and I turn them off before I lay Jewels down.
He barely lets me strip before he pulls me back to him and plasters us together.
I breathe him in, and as his arms come around me, I finally relax.
“How was it?” he whispers into the night.
“Huh?”
“Your dad,” he mumbles against my neck. “What did he want?”
Violent strokes of red, tarred blood in the air fill my mind. I open my eyes.
“Nothing,” I rasp, tightening my hold on him. “He … he just wanted to bug me about what type of alpha I should be.”
“Whatever he said, ignore it. You’re better than that.”
Minutes later, his breathing evens out, and he drifts to sleep, leaving me with only those parting words and the weight they dropped on my chest.
I should be out cold too. I’d gone on a hunt, and those always made it easier to sleep. And now, with Julian curled against me, it should be even easier. And yet, I still can’t find peace.