Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
NIK
Finding the fence line was easy enough, especially when we have the captives’ erratic heartbeats leading us to them like a school of distressed fish.
Natalia and I scale our way in first, followed closely by Clément and Jade.
Under any other circumstances, I might’ve waited for the rest of his pack to make the climb before pushing forward, but not tonight. We don’t have time for that now.
“In position,” he says through the earpiece static. Alexey. While the soldier I stumbled across all those years ago may have many, many flaws, there’s always one thing I can count on. His unnatural ability to never disappoint.
I don’t respond. Not that Alexey would expect me to inside enemy lines.
He knows more about our kind than some of the pups climbing into the perimeter.
How susceptible wolves’ hearing can be. It’s not surprising.
After years of studying my father’s pack not even ten kilometers away undetected, I’m sure he could teach a masterclass on werewolves and the art of avoiding them.
It isn’t until we reach the edge of the tree line that I’m able to make out the hooded silhouettes in the distance. Each of the four guards has a torch, adding flickering light to the otherwise darkened property.
Four wolves guarding the captives? My wolf adds to the silence of my mind. Something doesn’t seem right about this.
Back from your nap? I retort, using the closest tree for cover as I get a better look.
You crammed us not only on a plane, but a vehicle filled with silver. You’re lucky I came back at all.
He has a point. My wolf has mentioned the strain silver might put on our connection before, I just never thought enough of it would block him out completely.
You have your guards, young Vostik, and I have mine. Next time, we travel alone.
I nod absentmindedly and continue to survey from the outer walls to the front doors of my childhood home. My wolf is right about one thing. There should be way more readying themselves for the hunt this close to dusk.
Can you sense my father? My brother?
A low growl rumbles in the back of my mind. Our trip here has left me weakened. But no. Not yet.
I peer back at the wolves taking position, nodding Clément over and away from his pack.
“What’s the holdup?” he asks in a hushed whisper.
“Something is wrong. I can’t sense my father, and there should be more than just four wolves getting ready to hunt.”
Clément considers this for a moment and shrugs. “Maybe we’re early. The moon isn’t even out yet.”
I draw in a breath. “I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.
” I’ve been to more hunts than I’d care to admit.
By now, the entire pack should be lined up, eagerly awaiting the transformation and the opportunity to claim their prey.
But they aren’t. Worse than that, the wolves within view aren’t any I recognize.
They’re pups. Newly turned from the look of it.
“You said this is our best chance at taking down your father. I didn’t come all the way to Russia to turn back now.
” Pointing at two wolves from his pack, he gives a signal and motions them forward.
“At any moment, dozens of your father’s wolves will spill out of that den and who knows how many humans will die while we sit here and do nothing.
This is our one shot. I say we take it.”
I don’t argue. He’s right, after all. We have our best chance to get those people out before the red moon even rises.
But for some reason I can’t quite explain, there’s an eerie sense of alarm settling in my bones.
There’s no way my father could’ve known I’d come back here tonight, especially with the Duval pack in tow.
So why do I have this unnerving sensation pitting my stomach?
Is it because I know my father better than most?
That Vlad Vostik treats the world like a chessboard and he’s always ten steps ahead?
It is not just you, my wolf says, his voice laced with suspicion. I feel it, too.
At Clément’s instruction, the two wolves make their way to the tree line, each armed with a crossbow and silver tipped arrows. They take aim for the unsuspecting guards, sights lined up on the ones nearest our position.
“Clément. Let me have Alexey do another sweep of the property first. We could’ve missed something.”
He doesn’t respond. No, the alpha crosses his arms and nods at his archers.
I don’t have time to stop them. Arrows split the air, disrupting the silence of the woods. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Five. And the next sound we all hear is the stomach-turning crunch of the arrows landing true.
Before their bodies even have a chance to fall, the drawstrings slam forward again, sending another set of arrows for the two remaining.
One yelps as it rips through his chest, and the other does little else than slump forward and drop to the ground, limb body twitching.
No howls for reinforcements. No alarms. It’s quiet.
A satisfied grin slithers across Clément’s face, and he gives me a quick I told you so look. The two Duval wolves advance into the open, carefully making their way to the group of captives bound by chains.
“Are we going off script, Nikolai?” Alexey says, fighting the frequency static. “You were supposed to give the signal before you engaged.”
I know I need to respond. To tell him and Dimitri to just hold their positions, but I can’t.
Not as I watch the armored wolves draw closer to the first row of captives and begin sniffing the air around them.
Another step forward and one raises his crossbow, aiming it not at the doors of the den like I expect him to, but at the hooded human a couple of yards in front of him.
“What is he doing?” Natalia asks at my side, noticeable strain in her voice.
I’m asking myself the same thing. I can’t make out much besides the way both of the soldiers heartbeats skyrocket.
And that’s when it happens. Two rows of serrated metal teeth lift out of the earth and clamp around the wolf’s leg, pinning him in place.
An agonizing howl escapes him, and when the other lifts his crossbow, a spotlight shines down from the highest point of the mansion.
My father wasn’t preparing for the hunt.
He was springing a fucking trap. And we walked right into it.
Clément roars a battle cry and charges forward, Jade and the rest of his pack following close behind him.
More bear traps emerge from the ground, claiming a handful of the wolves sprinting from the trees.
Sharp yelps fill the air. Some more painful and torturous than others.
They try and free themselves, tugging at the chains buried deep into the dirt.
It doesn’t work. The Duval wolves are left thrashing against the snares, unable to keep up with the rest.
“Nik …” Natalia says, her voice trembling. “I’m—I’m …”
When I turn back to her, she isn’t watching what is happening beyond the tree line anymore, she is staring down at her forearms. Tiny cracks appear on her skin, and with each lesion growing, a new wave of terror forms in the soft lines of her face.
Her eyes well as they begin to glow a beautiful shade of brown.
It’s happening. Gods. She is transforming and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
“Look at me,” I say, grabbing her by the wrists despite the skin splitting beneath my palms. “Breathe. You have to breathe.”
She manages a nod as tears streak her cheeks, but those are starting to crack, too. Pain takes over her features. Pain and the unmistakeable sounds of her body ripping itself apart.
When I glance back at Clément and his forces, they also fall victim to the rising red moon.
Arms twisting. Bones cracking. Skin falling off in chunks to reveal the fur hiding beneath.
All except him. No, Clément stands in front of the captives, eyeing them curiously.
He sniffs the air the same way his archer did, tilting his head but keeping distance.
Those aren’t humans! my wolf screams in my head.
Before I can even ask what he’s saying, the chains connecting the captives drops to the dirt with a heavy thud.
One slowly removes their hood until they all do the same in a chilling sequence.
Clément takes a step back, horror trampling his face.
One of the captives steps forward, skin pale under the spotlight and a snake-like slit in each pupil.
Under the moon shining a horrible shade of red over the Vostik property, Clément Duval yells something impossible. Something most of my kind considers a myth. The same word my father dismissed for all those years, killing any wolf who dared to speak of it.
“Soulless!”