Gilbert (19 page)

Jihu nodded. “Yes, we can. But did you notice their scent is leading us away from the burned area? We’re almost out of it. See the green?”

Gilbert put his hand on his brow to shade his eyes as he looked. “I’ll be damned. Some alert guy I am. Guess I was too busy making sure I put one foot in front of the other to notice that.”

“It’s okay. I think we’re both worn out. I wonder if there’s a river or creek the way we’re headed.” Jihu dug around in his bag. “I have a map somewhere—here!” He held it up and grinned. “Let’s see, we’re here, somewhere…”

There was a river a few miles or away, but those few miles were going to be a total bitch, Gilbert figured. There was part of a mountain to climb, and if Esau and Ye-sun didn’t head to the water, well there was no telling where they’d end up.

Jihu tipped his bottle in the direction they’d be heading. “I think Ye-sun escaped, maybe after the other shifters left the lepe holdings, and he found his way through here. Probably headed for water, in case the fire blew back or… I don’t know. Maybe he just was thirsty, like we would be if we hadn’t brought drinks.”

“Sounds right to me, but whatever his reasoning, I just want to find him, and Esau.” Gilbert put his empty bottle into his bag and stood. “I wonder why Esau went after him? Seems strange. I mean, if he knew it was Ye-sun, then I’d get it.”

“Who knows. Esau seems like a mystery to me. I don’t think I’ll have the nerve to ask him why he did it once we find him, either.” Jihu shouldered his bag. The radio squawked and Gilbert plucked it up to answer, thinking Bae had news for them.

“What ya got, Bae? Anything?” Gilbert asked.

“What I have is Bae,” said a familiar voice that would haunt Jihu’s nightmares for years. “I also have three others who are…disposable, which you would do well to keep in mind.”

“Chung-Hee,” Jihu whispered, dizzy with fear. If Chung-Hee would kill his own people, like Chul, there was nothing to stop him from doing the same to others he considered ‘disposable’.

“Chung-Hee,” Gilbert growled, his knuckled going white with the force of his grip on the radio. “If you harm any of them—”

“There would be nothing you could do to stop me. You would do well to remember that. However, Jihu has the power to save some, if not all, of my captives. Do you hear me, Jihu?”

Jihu gestured at the radio. Gilbert held it out to him but didn’t hand it over. “Yes, I understand.”
All too well
.

“I am certain you do. You will be at these coordinates within three hours,” Chung-Hee gave the information and Jihu burned it into his memory. “If for some reason, you have difficulty following such simple directions, there have been scent trails left for you, should you search for them. Three hours, Jihu. No later.”

“We’ll be there,” Gilbert gritted out.

“You matter not at all to me,” Chung-Hee informed him. “Jihu, however, I have need of. If he cooperates I might let him see you as a reward. You’ll come with him, or I will contact you through this so you can hear your brother and cousins die.”

Gilbert had worried he’d be burdened with guilt over having killed the guards earlier, but now he knew better. “I’ll kill Chung-Hee, Jihu. I swear it, here and now. I’m going to put an end to him.”

Jihu’s eyes were hardened and almost as black as obsidian. “Not if I get to him first. We have to hurry.” Jihu turned and ran.

Chapter Seventeen

One of the things that gave Jihu hope was that Chung-Hee hadn’t mentioned the other wolf shifters. He’d threatened Oscar and Isaiah. But he had said cousins, so did he have Josiah and just think he was related by blood somehow? Did he know Josiah was a wolf shifter?

Gilbert was wondering the same things, and they bounced questions and plans back and forth as they ran, pushing their bodies to the max. Chung-Hee had set a barely attainable limit, and if they paused for more than a few minutes every now and then, they’d never make it on time.

Jihu had to stop once it occurred to him to check the coordinates. He’d run in an almost panicked state at first. At least Esau and Ye-sun were safe, he hoped. There’d been no other shifter scents around theirs. He had to have something positive to hang on to, because the idea of Chung-Hee getting a hold of him, of being used and treated like nothing more than a slave, being raped, and, if Chung-Hee had his way, being forced to do the same to some poor female who didn’t want him? No, Jihu would die before he allowed that to happen. And Gilbert would be hurt, possibly more than he could stand.

“So don’t let it happen. Don’t even think about the possibility of failing. Set your mind to doing what we promised—taking Chung-Hee out and being free from his crazy shit, keeping Daniel free of it.”

Gilbert’s advice firmed up Jihu’s resolve.
“You’re right. We won’t lose. Bae, Oscar, Isaiah, Josiah, even the other wolves and Esau and Ye-sun, we’ll bring them all home safely.”

“Damn right we will.”
Gilbert surged ahead and Jihu pumped his legs faster to catch him. They stopped one more time, only because Jihu thought he’d better go ahead and double-check the coordinates. “We’d have hit it.”

At almost exactly two and three-quarters hours later, Jihu and Gilbert slowed, almost to the designated spot. Jihu froze as the wind blew. Something was off, there was no scent, not even the burnt odour was detectable.

“What the heck, Gil? Stop!”

“I don’t know. There should be the stench from the fire. How can there not be?”
Gilbert sniffed quietly, then he leaned in and sniffed Jihu. He jerked back and worry widened his eyes.
“Nothing, Jihu! I can’t smell you, me, anything!”

“What—oh my God.”
Jihu looked around them. Shifters could be anywhere nearby, hidden from sight and now, hidden from scent as well.
“Has to be some sort of chemical. I’ve never heard of—”
Jihu’s eyes felt like they almost popped out of his head when he saw the brief flit of a familiar face not ten feet away behind a copse of heavily damaged trees.
“Gilbert! I saw Bobby!”

“We have right at ten minutes, then we need to hustle.”
Gilbert nudged him and they ran over to the trees. Bobby grabbed Jihu and someone else grabbed Gilbert, but they all wound up hidden for the moment.

“My friends,” Bobby whispered so softly Jihu’s sensitive ears could barely pick it up. “Chinghua or whatever the fuck that soon to be dead asshole’s name is has my brother, your brother, and your brother,” he added as he peered at Gilbert. “Fucker’s dead. You two might have been arguing over who gets him, but I’m telling you, as the future alpha of my pack, it’ll damn well be me that tears his fucking throat out.”

Jihu hadn’t heard so much cursing from one man since he’d—well, since never. “Okay, if you get to him first.”

Bobby looked like he was trying not to throttle him as he rumbled out another string of bad words. Jihu stopped being shocked after the third or fourth one. “And I
will
find him first. We’ve got the de-scenter shit my shaman sent with me, and it worked, didn’t it? So we are going to spread out around you two, and when Chung-whatever the hell his name is shows up, it’s on. So be ready.”

Jihu nodded, because what else was he going to do? It was a much better plan than his and Gilbert’s, which had been—none. They’d thought they would be winging it.

“We need to go now,” Gilbert bit out. “And I’m going to beat the shit out of you, Bobby, when we’re done here, you better count on it.”

Bobby nodded. “Whatever. I didn’t treat your mate like a delicate little doll, sorry. He’s a man even if he looks like a hard fuck would break him.”

Jihu slammed his heel on Bobby’s foot, and smiled evilly, when the wolf had to bite his lip to keep from yelping. “Fuck you,” Jihu tried out, and he liked it, but doubted he’d use it again unless he was telling Gilbert what he wanted to do to him.

Bobby released him and Jihu and Gilbert bolted, Gilbert glaring daggers for a split second until he had to turn his head around or risk smashing into something. They skidded to a halt at the assigned place, which was nothing more than a clearing in the woods. Jihu hadn’t expected anything else, considering Chung-Hee’s lepe had been displaced by the fire. They wouldn’t have had time to build anything more than the crudest shelters, he’d imagine. He stood with Gilbert and listened for the approaching shifters. They didn’t have long to wait before Chung-Hee himself appeared.

Jihu forced himself to look at the man when he wanted to avert his eyes instead. Chung-Hee was old, and he looked it, his leathery face lined with wrinkles. He wasn’t much taller than Jihu, and the top of his head shone bald, gleaming almost in the sunlight. Long, stringy hair hung from the sides of his head, and a wilted thick moustache covered his top lip. Perhaps none of that was too different from many other old men, but the look in Chung-Hee’s small, ink-black eyes, that had to be something no one else had. There was so much anger and madness there, Jihu felt sick. He turned his gaze away and felt a jolt of fear when he counted not six, but ten guards.

“Keep positive. Eleven against six, that’s nothing, baby. We can do this.”

Well, with Gilbert sounding so sure, how could Jihu doubt?

Chung-Hee looked down his old, drooping nose at Jihu. “You have caused me so much trouble, I am tempted to let my guards have you.” He shot his gaze to Gilbert. “Or perhaps, I shall give them your mate. He
is
your mate, isn’t he?”

“Can’t you tell?” Jihu asked.

Chung-Hee sniffed and didn’t seem to realise there was no scent around them at all. But the largest of his guards, a brute named Tiko, caught on with one inhalation.

“Chung-Hee, there’s—” And Tiko got no further as a large black wolf leapt on his back. Blood spurted out and an awful gurgling sound left Tiko’s mouth, and chaos erupted.

“Grab the boy!” Chung-Hee screeched, and Jihu assumed he was the boy, even though he wasn’t. Jihu shifted, and he willed Gilbert to shift faster. The time it took him was too great—there had to be a way to help him free his leopard quicker.

Jihu sent visuals of Gilbert in leopard form, and it seemed to help because he yowled and his bones snapped, tendons changed, warped, reshaped, and Gilbert’s man was inside his cat. There was no time to marvel over it, either. Jihu attacked the nearest Amur and tore at him, giving his instincts full rein and pushing his human qualms aside. They couldn’t interfere with his leopard’s drive for survival.

Jihu ripped and bit, clawed and shredded every Amur he could reach. Gilbert stayed at his side, not letting anyone separate them. Jihu couldn’t tell who was doing what, because he was too busy trying to stay alive and wipe out the enemies. He heard howling and yelping, mewling and death throes.

He caught sight of two of the guards on either side of Chung-Hee, one at his front, the other at his back. They were trying to shepherd him away from the vicious war around him. Jihu wasn’t having it.

With Gilbert beside him, he leapt over the Amur in front of him, catching the cat with his back claws and drawing feline screams from him. Jihu landed almost at the feet of the first guard, still in human form, the fool.

Until he shifted in an instant. Jihu attacked, knowing the slightest hesitation could mean his life. He knew Gilbert was circling around to the other guard, felt the moment when their fight began.

Jihu didn’t cry out when claws caught his already sore shoulder. He didn’t cry out either, when the fucker—he might not say it, but he would think it—bit his paw. That agony infuriated him and he came at the bigger Amur, hissing and spitting, saliva flying. The other shifter seemed to laugh at him, and Jihu wasn’t having that. He dipped low then sprang up, and with a mid-air twist he came down on the Amur’s back.

One deep bite, minutes of shaking his head, growling as blood and fur filled his mouth, coated his throat. Then the Amur stopped moving, and Jihu spat out the dead cat’s flesh. He stood and shook from head to toes, then froze when he saw the big black wolf morph into Bobby.

Bobby, who with one punch twisted Chung-Hee’s head around at an unnatural angle. Chung-Hee dropped on the spot, and the few Amurs who’d been fighting stopped, their leader dead, unable to command them.

Bobby turned and pointed at Jihu. “Go find them. We’ll be right behind you after we take care of these bodies. This will be twice I’ve fucking cleaned up one of y’all’s messes. Dead leopards in the burnt woods, like that shit ain’t suspicious. Even a Texas boy like me knows that’d set off all kinds of alarms.”

Jihu quit listening to Bobby’s griping. He ran to Gilbert, who looked like he’d fared better than Jihu. Gilbert only had one spot on his back where he was bleeding. Jihu’s paw was throbbing like mad and his shoulder hurt like a…
like a bitch.

“I’m okay. Nothing fatal.”
He waited until Gilbert acknowledged that then they turned tails and ran. It was several hundred feet before they could smell, so it was a good thing the Amurs had left a blatant trail. Jihu bounded after it, and soon they came to a ledge that fronted a small opening on the side of the mountain. Jihu had hardly even realised they were running uphill, or up-mountain. He’d been focused on finding their family members.

“Careful, we don’t know who all is in there.”

Jihu heeded Gilbert’s advice, creeping along the edge quietly. He stopped and sniffed the air close to the opening. The nappy tang of the old shamans made him want to puke, but Jihu clamped down on the urge. He smelt their family, including Chul. There were other scents, but Jihu didn’t recognise them.

“What do we do now?”
he asked Gilbert.
“If we go in and they’re hostile…”

“Then we fight.”

What other choice was there? Jihu counted to three, then he bounded through the cave’s entrance, ready for whatever came their way.

Chapter Eighteen

Except for what he found. The old woman, Hye, was pulling a syringe from Bae’s arm. Bae didn’t move and seemed to be unconscious, as did Oscar, Josiah and Isaiah.