Sneak Peek of Wolfsbane
Chapter One
Viktor
The light slanting through the trees said the sun would soon be gone for the day, but that was fine. Perfect, even. The waning light was plenty to see by, not that I needed it to find my quarry.
The woods were silent, and that was all I needed.
Because woods were never supposed to be silent.
There should be birds and squirrels making constant noise.
Their silence meant both that their territory had been invaded, and that those doing it were clumsy oafs.
The silence of the smaller animals made it easier for my ears to pick out the sounds of my prey.
Breathing.
The shuffling of feet, impatient for action, waiting to dishonorably involve themselves in a challenge fight.
It would have offended Aleks to know what they were doing. My brother was a creature deeply invested in the idea of honor. In the belief that we were supposed to be something more, something higher than the basic beasts we had come from.
Breaking rules and ignoring the notion of honor didn’t offend me so much. It simply didn’t fit into my plans for the future, so it needed to be stopped.
Adam was the first, and his heart was beating so fast and loud I was surprised that alone hadn’t led me to him. He was grinning like a jackass, peering around the side of the tree he hid behind. So desperate to involve himself in a fight he hadn’t been invited to, he was practically panting.
He didn’t even hear me approach.
He wasn’t looking for threats at all.
I let my claws grow out as I stepped in behind him, taking care not to so much as rustle the leaves on the forest floor.
He never saw death coming.
The only indication he understood what had happened at all was the surprise in his eyes as he lost the strength to stand, falling to his knees in front of me.
The gurgling noise in his throat as he tried to breathe through a trachea that I had neatly severed, blood bubbling out and down his neck as he stiffened and fell forward, onto his face.
I stilled, going completely silent as I returned to listening.
There was another. Odd, since I thought there should have been two more, but for the moment, I had to focus on the ones I could locate.
Besides, if Ajax Fyse weren’t capable of killing three wolves to defend himself, was he worth helping? Five was perhaps too many, but three? Any leader worth his life could handle three.
Aleks could, I was sure.
Well, in a fair fight.
My brother, innocent that he still was, believed all fights should be fair.
There. A twig broke in the distance, too loud to have been any small woodland creature, even if they hadn’t been tellingly silent.
My head snapped to one side and I sniffed the air. I stalked through the falling twilight, letting my ears and nose guide me. It wasn’t hard. Grant’s lot weren’t terribly efficient at bathing, so I could smell them yards away.
I wondered sometimes if they were lazy or afraid of washing their own asses.
Maybe both.
John was worse than Adam, not even looking for the fight. Just hunkered down behind a tree, drinking from a small flask that constantly stunk of foxglove. So desperate was he to feel something, that he poisoned himself.
Weak.
The pack would be better without him.
He was taking a long swig from his flask when I reached the opposite side of his tree, his head leaned far back, exposing his throat for my claws. He fell even easier and faster than Adam, his life blood spraying out in an arc when my claws bit deep enough to sever his carotid artery.
When I closed my eyes and listened then, I heard nothing. No more wolves lying in wait to ambush Fyse during the fight.
Now, there was birdsong in the distance.
Turning, I jogged back toward the clearing, taking care to keep an ear out, just in case. There were two more goons, I knew. I hadn’t found Marcus or Dave, and they were constantly at Grant’s side, so they had to be somewhere.
Halfway back, I heard a sound of pain, but I knew the throat it came from, and it wasn’t Grant or one of his assholes.
No.
I would know that voice anywhere.
Aleks.
Without thought, I started wrenching my clothes off, tearing the shirt in my rush, but it didn’t matter. A few seconds later, I was streaking through the woods in my wolf skin, as fast as four legs could carry me.
There was no Grant in the clearing, though.
There was only Aleks, on his knees, and for a moment, the pose mimicked too closely the men I had just killed.
But Aleks wasn’t bleeding from the neck; he was holding his belly.
I rushed to his side, taking only a moment to note the body of Marcus lying beside him, because of course my brother hadn’t gone down without a fight, not even to Grant, who was one of the dirtiest fighters I’d ever known.
No surprise from a man whose own brother had maimed him.
Perhaps he hid it well from the rest of the pack, but I wasn’t like all of the others.
I wasn’t innocent. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the effects of such a wound.
I recognized the way Grant moved. The way he’d gotten soft curves around his face and middle.
No doubt Reeve hadn’t wanted any nieces and nephews competing with his own line for control of the pack.
I sniffed at Aleks, trying to assess how deep the wound went. If his innards had been opened up, or if this was a wound he could heal.
Suddenly, though, I smelled strangers. Crescent wolves.
Without my permission, I was growling, baring my teeth in the direction of the newcomers.
Heel, dog, the voice of my trainer filled my mind, and I jerked back a step.
The wolf wasn’t so willing to back down, though, not even at the memory of the electric cattle prod they had used to punish me when I didn’t rein in my instincts.
Aleks was in danger. Aleks was brother. Alpha. Friend.
Aleks was my only hope for a better, brighter future.
Without him, there was nothing.
But then Aleks was stopping me from attacking, and then there was Grant.
Grant.
I snarled, and had to work to hold myself from jumping right into the fray, because Grant smelled of Aleks’s blood. Him. He had attacked Aleks, had tried to—
Movement snatched my attention off the fight and Grant, and there was a man trying to approach my injured brother. I growled, deep and long, baring my teeth at him. He would not hurt Aleks. No one would—
“Viktor,” Aleks choked out, around a mouthful of blood that made something inside me curl up and whine. Fail. I had failed. Aleks was dying and—“The city wolves do not mean us harm.”
I backed into Aleks, continuing to face the strange wolf, until the scent of ozone filled the air like a malignant cancer. Magic. I growled despite Aleks’s reassurance, especially when he gasped.
But then . . . the scent of pain faded almost completely between one breath and the next, and I realized that the strange wolf had healed my brother.
Witchwolf, what was left of my frayed mind supplied. The witchwolf had healed Aleks. The whole reason we’d been sent here; Ermengarde’s lust to have a witchwolf of her own.
I suspected, somehow, that she didn’t want this one.
He was too clever, too confident, and most of all, he had a mind of his own. He would never follow the orders of a power-hungry witch.
Behind me, Aleks moved, and it snatched my attention. He was . . . he was standing. He was well.
More, he was staring at the fight, his eyes aglow with the most rage I’d ever seen on my brother.
When he jumped into the middle of the fight between Grant and Fyse, well .
. . I couldn’t have been more proud. Sure, Grant might have injured him before, but I had no doubt that had been something underhanded.
In a fair fight, Aleks could handle Grant easily. And he did, in under a minute, forcing the now former alpha to submit to him easily, then walking away, as smug and pleased with himself as he deserved to be.
As he should always be.
Aleks was smarter than Fyse, though. He didn’t turn his back on Grant, who naturally attacked the other alpha from behind. When Fyse killed the man and then seemed to have a mental breakdown over it, I was once again grateful for my brother.
Aleks was innocent in many ways, yes, and he’d never been one for unnecessary violence, but he wouldn’t mourn killing a monster. He had killed Marcus, after all, and didn’t even look for him after the fight.
I helped the Crescent enforcer with that part. He and I dragged the bodies into the clearing, along with some excellent branches, and burned them. He looked at me across the blaze, his eyes dark and knowing, and nodded.
He knew what it was to protect one’s alpha from his own weaknesses, even more than I ever would.
I wasn’t the Crescent enforcer, so my job was easier than his, but this moment dragged things into perspective for me. I had important people to protect. I couldn’t ever allow anything to happen to Aleks. Or Leo. Or Mama. Or Evie or Cash or Henry or hell, even that useless lump, Tommy.
I had a pack to protect.