Savage (27 page)

“So you’re just going to roll over for the rest of your life? That’s no way to run a pack.”

“You all cowered in fear from Lee Fenner. If we live by our laws, the Hellhound will have no reason to bother us.”

Justin clamped his mouth together in a tight line. Frustration boiled off him and he averted his face, walking in silence beside her. She started to explain herself, but she realized that the more explaining she did, the weaker she would appear to him. She had made her decision. That should end the discussion.

He hung back slightly, and she moved ahead of him into the dominant position. But she could almost feel his laser-like stare on the back of her neck. For a few seconds all her muscles tensed for fight or flight and images of herself battling Justin in wolf form flashed through her mind like an anime movie. When she heard his distant footfalls speeding to keep up with her she realized she was almost running through the twists and turns of the Madre Vena. She had forgotten that they were there to seed the mine with explosive charges, and she stopped and turned around.

She said to him, “Are we good, Justin?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “Gotta admit, this is a little more than I bargained for, but no regrets, Kat.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Soon they would reach the silver heart of the mine and Justin would see the arsenal the Hellhound guarded. His reaction would tell the tale of his real loyalty. Seeing all those guns and other weapons, those boxes and boxes of silver bullets, might be too great a temptation for him. Sure, he couldn’t hold them now but the world had changed since they’d been forged. He could wear special protective gear. They could create weapons out of materials that would shield the shooter from the silver projectiles.

I can’t believe how my mind is working
, she thought. Mistrust everywhere, even toward the people she claimed to love. But who in her life had been trustworthy?

They hit the tunnel. Her vision revealed rats scuttling out of their way; her wolf brain registered
fresh
and she grimaced but ignored the thought. At the far end, she saw the dangling corpse, and the quick image of it blowing up along with the mine made her grimace again.

“Justin, there’s a hanging body at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “It’s someone who was looking for the mine a long time ago. Just warning you.”

“Did the Hellhound do it?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’d think a werewolf or a Hellhound would just rip the person apart. It doesn’t matter right now.”

“Got it,” he said.

They reached the body and as they passed it, Justin gasped. It was a gruesome sight, and it still made her insides twist.

“I smell the silver,” he said. “I
feel
it.”

She inhaled experimentally, catching maybe a metallic tang, but nothing like what Justin must have been experiencing. He leaned against the rock face, took off his cowboy hat, and wiped his forehead.

“I can’t go any farther without a gas mask,” he said.

In the bayou, Cordelia had offered Kat her own mask; Katelyn wondered now if her friend had suffered as much discomfort back in the forest. It made her sacrifice all the more precious to Katelyn.

“Well, we’re here now,” Katelyn said. “Let’s go back as far as you need to and I’ll learn how to rig the charges and go on into where the silver is.”

“Okay.” His forehead beaded with sweat as he wrinkled his brow. “Can you take some pictures with your phone so I can at least see it?”

“Yes,” she promised.

They doubled back until Justin was no longer quite as bothered, but she could see that inhaling the silver in the air was still affecting him. Together they set a charge at their end of the tunnel. Moving backwards again, she put the next one into place while Justin checked the directions. And then a third even closer to the entrance, all on her own.

“You’ve got the hang of it,” he affirmed. He was wearing a watch; she reached out and looked at the time. They had been in the mine for over an hour. They had less than two more hours before the summit meeting.

“I want you to set a few more back here,” she said. “Take pictures with your phone so you can show me where they are. When you’re done, go back to the woods outside my grandfather’s cabin to meet up with everyone. I’ll go into the silver room and prep it. I’ll meet you back here in two hours, okay?”

“Leave you here alone?” he said, sounding massively unhappy. “What if Arial comes for you? Or Dom?”

“If I can’t take them down, I’ll go to the silver room and wait for you to come back,” she said reasonably, although he made an excellent point. She decided that as soon as he left, she was going to make a beeline for the weapons and arm herself to the teeth.

“Before I go, let’s make sure you know how to use the detonator,” he ventured, and she nodded. Another good suggestion. Justin was smart. She was really glad he was on her team.

Once they were both assured that she knew now to set off the blast, they said their goodbyes near the entrance of the cave, out of sight and hopefully downwind of any newcomers. Justin gazed down at her as if he were memorizing every square inch of her face, and she resisted an urge to cup his cheek. She couldn’t read the succession of emotions moving across his features, but when he bent to kiss her, she offered her cheek. He did the same.

And then he was gone.

19

AFTER JUSTIN LEFT
, Katelyn’s vision shifted back to normal human range and for a moment she panicked. Then she took her phone out of her pocket, flicked it on, and held it up. She could see ahead for only a couple of feet but she couldn’t let that stop her. She had a job to do and it was always possible that her wolf-vision would return.

As she shuffled forward, something tickled the back of her neck. She jerked so hard that she nearly dropped the gear in her arms.

“Trick? Grandpa?” she said. Icy sweat broke out all over and made her hands clammy. The light from her phone stuttered against the craggy rock.

No one answered. She whirled around. Her light fell on empty space.

Just her imagination, then.

Still, she was so freaked out that she broke into a trot. After a few minutes she began to worry that she’d take a wrong turn — surely it hadn’t taken this long to get there last time? — and she thought about turning around a second time. But when she checked her phone, she was surprised to see that only ten minutes had elapsed since Justin had left. It seemed like forever.

Doggedly she went forward, everything looking foreign, and just as she was about to completely give up, she turned a corner and saw the shape of a paw on the wall. It was identical to the one she had seen the day she had arrived in Wolf Springs and on some of the trees in the forest. She didn’t think it had been there before. She came closer, examining it, and then she saw below it some writing, all of it in glow-in-the-dark paint:

K: YES.

T.

T for Trick. In Trick’s handwriting.

“Are you here?” she said aloud. “Trick?” She put her hand over the back of her neck, remembering the sensation of breath on it, and steadied her nerves. He was somewhere close by. Watching her.

No. Looking out for me.

A fleeting smile passed over her mouth and she continued on a bit more confidently. After a minute of walking, she found another paw print on the wall and on impulse turned off her phone.

This print also glowed. He had placed them there to guide her, and had clearly assumed that she might not have a light source and that her enhanced vision might not have kicked in. Even though it frightened her to do it, she left the phone off to save the battery and trailed her hand over the rock to keep herself oriented. The darkness felt heavy and if she listened hard enough, she thought she heard sighing. Breathing. She called out a couple more times, but there was no answer.

Turning another corner, she saw light, and as she drew near, she was dazzled by the reflection of silver against several battery-powered camping lanterns that had been strategically placed for maximum effect. She hurried into the chamber and set down her burden on a wooden crate. Moving from lantern to lantern, she searched hopefully for a note.

She found two. One was from Trick:

The second was from her grandfather:

The notes gut-punched her; her knees buckled and she fell to the ground, crumpled the papers in her fist and tried to breathe. Then she smoothed them out and re-read them several times over. The old Katelyn would have broken down. She would have completely lost it. But it was a luxury she couldn’t afford now. Pushing down her emotions, she got back up and carefully folded the pages, placing them in the pocket of her jeans Then she set to work.

She saw paw prints in strategic spaces around the cavern and quickly understood that that was where she was to place the charges. Then it was done. Stepping back from her handiwork, she took a moment, standing in silence as she worked up the courage to move on. Weariness pressed down on her shoulders; she slipped her fingers into her pocket and touched the edges of the papers there.

After a moment’s thought, she placed one of the detonators within easy reach on a wooden lid. Trick had given her two — one for her and one for Justin? But she was going to leave one there for safekeeping.

She wished Trick and her grandfather had been waiting in the silver room themselves. Checking the time on her phone, she saw that there was only an hour left before the meeting.

Only?

As she went back toward the entrance, she occasionally caught sight of the charges she and Justin had set, and then more at the entrance to the cave that he had placed by himself. Had they used too much? Too little?

What are we doing?
she thought as she stood at the mouth of the cave and looked out at the forest. The treetops cradled the moon in the deep black sky. She breathed in the piney scent and closed her eyes. The woods smelled like home.

Trick
, she thought.
Trick. Always yes.

Her heart would always know that Trick Sokolov loved her, and in her soul there would be a soft, quiet nighttime where his arms would be around her and her head would be on his shoulder. They would be a world of two, and that world would have no end.

But here, in the outside world, she called out quietly, “Trick?”

The trees to her left rustled as if in answer, and she left the mouth of the cave to investigate. As she approached, she thought she heard . . .

Chanting?

She hesitated, wondering for a moment if her uncle Jack had brought some of his crazy Inner Wolf Center executives to the party. But he didn’t know anything about this meeting.

She thought next of Magus and Daniel and the rest of their hooded brethren. In their monk-like robes they looked like the chanting types. They were the wild card in this whole game she was playing.

She knew her grandfather and Trick had her back, but what about the Hounds of God? Would they even care if the other two wolf packs made peace or would they just seize the opportunity to try to exterminate them both and claim their territories for themselves?

She could see it happening so easily. And what would Trick and Grandpa do? Would they stop it or stand back and let it happen, making sure to save her in the end?

She slipped through the trees. A branch cracked under her foot and she silently cursed. The chanting was growing louder and she hoped that it covered any sounds of her approach. She thought about all her lessons in the woods with Justin and she circled around slightly so she’d be approaching downwind, so they couldn’t smell her coming. She was getting closer and she did what she could to control her breathing, to keep her pulse steady and slow even though it kept threatening to skitter out of control. Her nerves were fraying. It had been a terrible day of revelations and revolutions and all she needed was a rest, to curl up and go to sleep and recharge so she could face the new challenges coming her way.

But resting wasn’t an option.

She’d only been alpha a few short hours but she respected and pitied Lee Fenner more with every passing moment. As alpha, you were responsible for the lives of hundreds, and yet you constantly had to watch your back to make sure someone you were taking care of didn’t try to kill you. It was enough to make the sanest person crazy. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to do this job when you were losing your mind on top of it. What had it driven Lee to do?