Chapter 21 - Aris
Let’s go, I send. We have one second to prepare, then everyone gets up into the trees. We’ll make them think we ran. We move in unison, tossing what’s left of our dinner into the fire. I watch Percy stand and grab the bundles of herbs Linnea prepared from behind the tree stump, dumping them into the fire with the herbs and letting them burn for a moment. Byron and Eva race around the perimeter, their bandanas covering their faces as they dump bleach and ammonia into the dirt and grass.
Bigby, Ado, Percy, and I also affix our bandanas. They’ll help while we’re in our human forms, but once we shift, we’ll have to deal with the stench.
I watch my delicious cornbread catch fire, sincerely regretting its loss. It’s the best thing we’ve had to eat since we left D.C. It makes me wonder about what else Linnea can cook, but I don’t have time to think about domestic life, and I snap back into action, grabbing a jug of vinegar and dumping it out.
Put out the fire, I project. Be as quiet as you can.
Ado puts out the fire, and we all scramble into the trees, me pulling Linnea’s mostly limp body up after me. She seems to understand what I’m doing and tries to help, but her attempts are feeble at best. This vision really took her out, and it makes me nervous about what the next one might be like.
I imagine what it will be like to be on the lookout for her visions for the rest of our lives and wonder if there’s something we can do to ease her pain or remove the visions altogether.
After hauling her up onto the platform, I stare down at her. Would she be sad to never have a vision again? She told me they were mostly terrible, so surely it would be a benefit if they were gone.
Once we’re hidden in the trees, we all collectively hold our breath, watching the area below. Though our scent is hidden from the rogues through the magic of the scent-cover, I can smell them clearly—an unfamiliar, sharp smell that wafts up as soon as they come close. It’s strange how a pack’s scent can change depending on the alpha. I think about the pack’s smell when my dad was the leader and wonder how long it will take to change back once I’ve taken over.
I glance at Linnea again, who’s struggling to sit up, her arm shaking under the weight of her torso.
“Shh,” I say, leaning down and kissing her forehead. “Stay here, stay quiet. They won’t find you with the scent-cover.”
She nods once, then lays her head back down. I feel the urge to tell her that I want to stay in Rosecreek—that I want to raise a family with her. I feel more protective over her now than ever, and I wonder if that’s because of the current threat, the mating bond strengthening, or being back here on my family’s land.
I’m still looking at her when we hear the first scream—a shifter has fallen into one of the spike traps. I watch Linnea smile weakly and feel a rush of pride in her. She’s as smart as Bigby and as cunning as Eva. She’ll make for a great luna.
A moment later, the rogues come sneaking into the area, inspecting the remains of our fire, sniffing around, clearly puzzled that they can’t smell us.
Hold, I instruct, watching them slowly, second after second, let their guard down. Right when it looks like the rogues are going to turn and leave, heading back the way they came, I jump from my post in the tree, shifting in mid-air and taking down three shifters at once.
My team follows a second later, the ripping and tearing of death filling the space around the cabins. I keep my back to the spot where Linnea is hidden, knowing that if I glance at her, I’ll give away her position. If a single rogue so much as looks at her, I’ll rip their throats out without a second thought.
At first, it looks like we’re going to make quick work of the battle. Bigby, in his wolf form, is able to take on several at once, and Ado, who is still in his human form, is threading through the crowd. I watch shifters, both in human and wolf forms, falling in his wake. He’s the kind of enemy who slashes your Achilles on his way through, then your throat on the way back.
I can feel Linnea’s heart racing as she watches us. Something about it feels different than normal, almost like it contains an echo of itself, and I assume it must be beating extra hard because of the violence taking place just below her.
Linnea wouldn’t be much of a match for a shifter in a head-to-head battle, but in her state right now, she’s a sitting duck.
I blink as a body slams into mine, knocking me to the ground. I’m too distracted, thinking about Linnea and her safety, so I’m not at the top of my game. I growl, thrusting another shifter off of me and jumping on him, trying to get my teeth in his throat. We roll again, and he snarls down at me.
Another rogue in his human form takes advantage of our tussle, slicing me across the arm with a silver blade. It stings more than normal, but silver itself isn’t the weapon people think it is against shifters.
“What’s wrong?” the rogue sneers, coming at me again with the blade as I push the other off me again. “Miss your daddy?”
I roar, whirling and grabbing the blade, ripping it out of his hand. Fear flashes over his face as I snarl, whipping him to the side with my claws just as his friend advances on me again. I turn to take him out, but Eva is there, sinking her fangs cleanly into his neck.
A throwing knife whistles past us, and we watch it bury in a rogue shifter, dropping him immediately. I don’t know where Byron is, but he’s taking care of his fair share of rogues, and none of them have seen it coming.
More coming from the south, Bigby sends. Byron sends a moment later, And the west.
I turn, catching a rogue in the side just before he can leap on Percy, who’s already fighting two rogues of his own. Even taking out dozens of them with the traps, confusing them with the scents, and with each of us being able to take on several of them at once, it’s still not enough.
Move into a circle, I project, getting my claws into the belly of the shifter I’m tussling with before backing up, creating a fighting circle with the team. The only agent not here with us is Byron, who’s still in the trees, sending his flying knives down into the clearing, taking out rogues before they can blink. I wonder how many knives he has and how long it will be until we lose the benefit of his attack from above.
Boss, Ado says. Should we launch the bombs?
I give the affirmative, and a moment later, each of us throws a smoke bomb away from us, shrouding the entire area. Because we know it’s coming, and because we can smell them, we have the upper hand, and we’re able to break away again, taking out scores of the rogues swarming the area.
The smoke from the bombs is suffocating and coats my throat in a thick, dry powder. I can hear my team coughing, the rogues hacking and vomiting up the stuff. Maybe six smoke bombs at once was too much, but they’re hurting them, too, so it can’t be all bad.
I keep fighting, letting my body take over, my claws and teeth flying, slashing, and sinking into rogue after rogue. Where did Varun find all these shifters? For a town as small as Rosecreek, this is an unbelievable number of bodies to fight. It makes me wonder what kind of alliances he’s created since becoming alpha, and if he’s calling on them now.
I can’t help but notice that Varun hasn’t shown his face yet, and I have the suspicion that despite his apparent admiration for the old ways, he’s not going to follow the one honorable rule and fight with his pack. Rather than leading these rogues out here to battle us, he’s sent them in blind, likely not knowing we’re an elite group of highly trained agents, and stayed back in his bar, waiting for the news that his guys have finished us off.
Anger builds in me as I turn the thought over in my head, imagining him sitting on his ass while his men are dying. I wonder if Varun would have Linnea killed, too, or brought back to his pack center. The thought fills me with so much rage that I practically rip a rogue in two, barreling toward the center of the clearing, looking for another enemy I can take my anger out on.
These rogues may not be upstanding citizens, but with an alpha like Varun, their lives are wasted here. There’s no reason to fight, to sacrifice shifter lives like this, especially when we’re already hunted enough by humans who believe anything “other” is evil and deserving of eradication.
I picture Varun showing his face and imagine what it will feel like to sink my teeth into his neck and rip out his throat. I’d lay it at Linnea’s feet if I could. I think of her, and my chest clenches, but I can still feel her heartbeat there alongside mine, beating in double time. I can sense that she’s unharmed, just scared.
My body is weary from lack of sleep, lack of nourishment, and the constant stress this mission has brought on us so far, but I don’t waver, keeping eyes on my team and moving as fast as I can. I think of Linnea, of protecting her and telling her that I want a life with her. I think of my father, who died at the hands of another man, not even getting the rightful death he deserved at the hands of his son late into his life. I think of my mother, the dependable and gracious luna she was, dying at the hands of Varun, and I rage, throwing bodies like they’re nothing more than sacks of sand.
Bigby and I end up back to back.
All good, Brother? Bigby sends, and I wonder if he can sense my rage.
Never been better, I respond, before growling and ripping my claws through a shifter in human form, watching him lurch forward and fall into the grass, unmoving. It seems like their strategy is for half of the rogues to shift and the other half to stay human so they can use weapons against us.
But they’re only using daggers so far, and they aren’t well-trained with them. None of the team has even seen a scratch from a blade besides me.
A brief hush falls over the clearing and I turn, wondering if we’re finished, if we’ve cut our way through Varun’s entire pack. I’m just about to send an order out to my team when another rogue comes bounding out of the trees, catching Percy and dragging him to the ground, teeth and claws extended. Several more follow him, and Bigby and I exchange looks.
If they keep coming at us at this rate, eventually, we’re going to tire out. Byron has, apparently, already run out of throwing knives and is moving through the bodies littered around the area, picking up discarded daggers and whipping them through the air, doing what he can. When a rogue gets too close, he executes a series of moves to immobilize them, but he clearly prefers to fight at a distance, just as he does with his laptop.
Ado and Eva are both breathing heavily, having covered more distance since they can’t just use sheer size like Bigby and I. Percy has turned over the shifter he’s fighting with, and Eva is helping to finish him off, but more rogues are surrounding us every second.
It’s at this moment that I smell smoke and turn, watching the first cabin go up in flames. Two shifters are standing next to it, and one is holding a gas can. I run in their direction, hoping I can stop the destruction before all the cabins are lost, but I’m too late. Even as I tackle them to the ground and kill them quickly, the fire has already caught and started spreading to the next building.
Mixed with the chemical smells and the powder from the smoke bomb, this fire just adds to the chaos in the air, and everyone around is hacking and coughing again, our enhanced senses aggravated by the intensity of all the combined scents and the substances in the air. My lungs burn and I make eye contact with each member of the team, ensuring none of them have somehow gotten caught in the fire that’s now blazing across all the cabins.
If people didn’t know the location of my family’s property before, it’s been fully revealed, with a huge, fiery beacon anyone can follow to find the house.
Our team is waning. It takes considerable energy to fight like this, and we’re all short on sleep and energy in general. We’re not at our best, and yet we’re taking out an entire army of shifters. I can practically hear Bigby’s mind whirring, strategizing, thinking about our team, our resources, and the energy we’ve already expended on this fight. I already know the conclusion he’s coming to.
If Varun’s force is unending, we won’t be strong enough to hold them off. If he has even twenty more shifters to send our way, we’ll fall to them, one by one, until the team is gone and Linnea is left stranded and defenseless in the trees.