Chapter 27
Weak
Saul
There were no stars over the bayou as I moved through the shadows of Eli’s property. Beneath my feet the sandy soil was damp, cool against my skin. No crickets sang, no breeze whispered through the understory.
Eli’s home was a beacon in the night, the soft yellow of the outdoor light cutting through the dark and illuminating my brother where he stood on the porch.
Cady cut a small figure beside him, her chin tilted up like he hung the damn moon. He lifted an arm, curling it around her and drawing her closer to block the chill of the night.
I didn’t know what Isaac and Tara were doing inside, and I didn’t want to. He was in bad shape, but I understood the bond enough to know that wouldn’t stop him.
It would motivate him to keep living. That was all that mattered to me.
When I saw him in the back of Eli’s truck tonight—it was close. Too close.
And it was my fault.
None of this business with Jacques would have happened if not for me. If I had handled it better—differently.
I spilled Barbeaux blood, and now we were all paying the price.
It wasn’t right. Wasn’t the way my father taught me to be.
But that man only knew death. To bleed your enemies before they bled you. Or because you wanted to.
Because you were stronger.
That was why we never formed a pack. Why the Barbeaux line never accepted the lesser wolves—mutts, as my father called them.
They were weaker than us, and my father abhorred nothing more than weakness. Jacques’s father too, which was why he tormented my cousin until the day he died.
Jacques was an optimistic fool with a head full of fantasies. He thought there could be a better world for our kind. That maybe we didn’t have to live like this. Hidden. Shunned.
What my cousin forgot was that we were made in the shadows. Born of magic darker than the sky above me—not love.
Love was a dangerous sentiment. It twisted people, made them believe they were right in every unspeakable act they committed. Men justified all kinds of terror in the name of love.
That was how we came to be.
And that was why we would never change.
Love didn’t make us better. It made us unstable.
My brothers didn’t see it that way. They didn’t understand how fragile it all was. Didn’t feel the razor cutting into the soles of their feet as they walked the edge of it.
I saw it. I felt it.
Every damn day I was bleeding. My feet were raw. The space in my chest was empty. It had to be. For their sake and for—
For everyone.
I was the First of the First. King of death and ruin. I couldn’t afford to be weak. Couldn’t allow even an inch of my life to be fragile. Eli and Isaac created enough fragility for all of us.
Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the chill in the air. I stepped further into the bayou, leaving my brothers and their bonded at my back.
I felt like I was carrying armfuls of glass. Perfect and clear. Pure. It caught the light, tempting me to touch it. To carry more.
But if I stumbled, it would fall, shattering into pieces. There would be no fixing it. No saving it.
No stopping my brothers if something happened to either of their mates.
Isaac and Eli were always under my protection. No matter the cost. Now Cady and Tara would be too.
I inhaled, tasting salt and mud on my tongue.
I wanted to be happy for them. Wanted to see them live those impossible lives Jacques dreamed up for us.
I just couldn’t swallow past the lump of dread in my throat. The certainty that this was only the beginning. That pain like we’d never known was coming. That there was nothing I could do except stand in the way of it, bearing the brunt of it.
Like I always did.
Like I should have done for the lesser wolves the way Jacques was trying to do.
Those wolves were out of control, though. Untrained or unwilling to hold themselves back. One messy fight away from exposing themselves and the rest of us.
That was why my father had no tolerance for lone wolves in our territory. It wasn’t worth the risk.
In my nightmares, their bones washed up on the shore. Carried upstream in the river, polluting the bayou with the empty eyes of their fractured skulls.
There would be no more werewolf blood spilled on this bayou, if I could help it. We were kin, if only distantly, and they didn’t deserve to die like that.
My brothers and I had a choice. The lesser wolves never did. They had no property, no heritage, nothing but the clothes on their back—if they were lucky.
Many of them had no idea how they came to be. They were only boys, feral and angry and left to figure it out alone.
My cousin thought I was the one to teach them.
He didn’t understand that I couldn’t. That no one could. That we weren’t made for that.
We destroyed. I destroyed.
I didn’t know how to be any other way. Not anymore.
A gentle wind shifted off the bay, weaving between the branches and finding me. I froze, nostrils flaring, as the acrid scent it carried sank into my lungs.
Smoke.
Electricity crackled in the air, like a thunderstorm waiting to rain down on me. Except the storm overhead was passing.
I knew what I would find as I cleared the trees, slipping from the edge of Isaac’s property onto mine. A barrier of magic slithered across my skin as I crossed the last line of the ward, and I shivered in disgust.
It was only a matter of time before they came for me, but I didn’t think they would come tonight. Jacques was one to lick his wounds.
Or that was how he used to be. Before I killed him, and he was reborn as the vengeful monster he was now.
I had to stop expecting him to be the same. He wasn’t, and it took me so long to realize it that I gave him the upper hand.
Six sets of eyes glowed in my direction, reflecting the flames that were devouring the remnants of my house.
Some of the men standing boldly in my territory were battered from their battle with Isaac, but it hadn’t weakened them enough to make this an easy fight. If anything, it strengthened them, fueling them with a rage I was all too familiar with.
“He sent six of you to handle one of me?” I asked, fingering the hem of my shirt and deciding if it was worth keeping. It wasn’t new, but it was now the only one I owned, seeing as the rest of my belongings were up in smoke.
“One-on-one wouldn’t have been a fair fight,” one of them spat.
I crossed my arms. Eli’s shirts would probably fit me just fine. “Who said anything about a fight?”
A series of furious growls answered me.
“You fixin’ to run back to your brothers with your tail between your legs? We haven’t found ‘em yet. Doesn’t mean we won’t.” I recognized the one speaking. He was there at the old boat launch when we went after Cady.
One of his eyes was so swollen, it could barely open. There were deep gouges across his cheek. The injuries didn’t disguise the hollow expression on his face. The way the beast in him had devoured the human parts of him, leaving a cruel and soulless monster.
That one might not be worth saving. I wasn’t sure there was anything left to save.
I could see the hesitation in the others, radiating off them like heat waves. They didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to be foot soldiers in a war they didn’t understand. A war that wasn’t theirs to fight.
“You don’t have to do this,” I told them calmly. “This is between me and Jacques. Tell me where he is, and I’ll find him. We’ll settle this the way it ought to have been settled from the start.”
The ringleader snorted. “Think you can’t take us?”
I ignored him, almost pleading with the others. “Look at him. Look at me. You don’t want to be this. You won’t come back from it. None of us do.”
One mutt shuffled back a step. He quickly found his place again when the mean one snarled in his direction. “Coward!”
I sighed, walking confidently into the open space between the bayou and what used to be my home. My arms flung wide, posture relaxed as I waited.
“Go ahead, then.”
None of them moved. They were sure this was some kind of trick.
“I don’t want to kill any of you.”
Even as I spoke, I could feel him rising inside me.
The beast.
My greatest nightmare. My greatest strength.
He had no problem shedding blood. Craved it, even.
The mean one finally stepped forward, taking a swing at me. My jaw cracked sideways. Blood pooled in my mouth.
I smiled at him, moonlight blazing in my eyes and reflecting on his ugly face. “I don’t want to kill you, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.”
They descended on me then, drawn to the scent of blood. They weren’t controlled. Weren’t able to hold their beasts back when they heard the challenge in my voice.
Howls shattered the night like a battle cry.
I answered them, shaking the bayou with my own unearthly voice.
I didn’t want to fight. In the end, I had no choice. Had no more control than they did as fangs tore into my flesh.
I was strong, but the beast would always be stronger.
By the time I shifted, towering over the rest of them with the power and strength of the First of the First, it was too late. The soil was soaked with my blood. Stars dotted the horizon, false lights flashing in front of me.
They were going to win.
I was going to let them.
Maybe then we would be even. Jacques would leave my brothers to their peace, would move on with his miserable life.
I closed my eyes, lowering my arms. Fisting my clawed hands and taking every blow with a sudden sense of peace.
“When I’m done with you,” a garbled voice growled behind me, his arm locking around my throat, “I’m going to find that pretty little redhead your brother is hiding, and I’m going to make her scream.”
My peace slipped away, lodging in my throat.
“Then I’m going to pay your other bastard brother back for the kindness he did to my face.”
“No,” I answered him, my voice as deep and dark as the bay, “you won’t.”
My arms moved easily as I twisted, breaking free from his hold. The strength of my movement surprised him. Not as much as my claws as they buried in his chest.
Chaos erupted from the others as their ring leader fell. Some backed away, losing the shape of the beast and running into the shadows. The others came at me harder, tearing at every inch of me in a desperate attempt to take me down.
I didn’t fight back, staring at the bloody face of my wounded enemy—my fallen kin—as red encroached on my vision. I wasn’t sure if it was the blood loss, or the madness.
I couldn’t let death take me yet. My brothers weren’t safe.
Jacques wasn’t going to settle this the right way. He wasn’t going to settle this at all.
It would be me. It was always me.
First of the First.
Protector.
Executioner.
I was out of time, though. The world was a red blur. My arms were moving, claws slashing, and I couldn’t control them. Couldn’t stop them.
The madness was overtaking me, and there was only one way out.
I dove into the furthest depths of my mind, conjuring the faintest image of moonlight on black hair. Brown eyes. The scent of Jasmine and coffee and blueberry muffins.
Suddenly, I was running.
Away from the others. Away from my home. From Isaac’s territory.
From the bayou.
From everything except—yes.
There it was. A sliver of scent.
That uncomfortable wave of magic washed over me, Celine’s ward wrapping around me. Hiding me. Confusing my enemies as they ran up and down the roads of the bayou, following a trail that led everywhere and nowhere.
Until tonight, I wasn’t sure Celine kept her word. Had been too afraid to check the ward myself and lead Jacques straight here.
He didn’t know to look here. None of them did.
But it was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.
I crawled beneath the stilts of the small blue house, taking shallow, pained breaths. Blood left an ugly trail on the concrete behind me.
I couldn’t hide it now. Couldn’t do anything but staunch my wounds and curl protectively around my abdomen as the beast faded from my skin. Pale scabs formed across my body as he vanished.
I found the darkest corner beneath the house, between a plastic Adirondack chair and a kayak propped against the wall.
Soon the sun would rise, and I would have to leave. To make a careful journey to Isaac’s house to clean up before the others found me.
Before she found me.
My wounds were already closing. I should go now. While the others were confused. While my brothers were distracted.
I couldn’t move. Exhaustion was a weight on my body like I’d never known, and for once, I was safe to let it take me.
To come apart.
To be weak.
And I was weak. Weak for fighting. Weak for not fighting. Weak for the madness that was always right there at the surface, waiting for more blood. More death.
Weak because no matter how many times I forced myself away, I came back here, settling into the shadows beneath the house. Inhaling that comforting scent and dreaming of a life I couldn’t have.
I closed my eyes, weary to my bones, and let myself dream just one more time.
Thank you for reading Haven of Shadows!