Savage (8 page)

But he hadn’t come to her mother’s funeral. Why was that?

She put all that aside for the moment, trying to concentrate on what she was doing. The cardboard boxes in question appeared as dusty and untouched as the night Katelyn had stumbled upon them. She had done everything she could to avoid tipping off her grandfather that she’d found them. Setting down her flashlight so that the light bounced off the ceiling, she explored several boxes new to her. She found more baby things of her father’s and a photo album filled with old black-and-white pictures of her grandparents. There were no more boxes of silver bullets; she had begun to despair of ever finding another gun when she smelled a hint of silver. Eagerly she moved aside a light blue crocheted baby blanket and looked down at a gun very like the one she’d lost. Cracking it open to see if it was loaded, she smelled more silver and figured it for residue from the silver-laden bullets.

She slipped it in the pocket of her jeans and carefully put everything back the way it had been. Then she boldly went to the ammo box and gathered up several handfuls of bullets. She’d been afraid to disturb anything last time. But now she loaded the gun slowly, deliberately, defiantly emphasizing the fact that the silver didn’t bother her at all. Justin had had trouble holding the gun even though the firearm itself wasn’t made of silver — the bullets inside were enough to bother him.

She took another handful of bullets and stuffed them into her jeans. She’d taken enough for her grandfather to notice, which was foolhardy. But necessary.

The stakes were higher now. The threat was closer.

And for all she knew, she was arming herself against him.

Her phone rang, the ringtone the dog bark she’d assigned to Justin as a sort of in-joke. She took the call.

“Hey,” he said. “Who died?”

“Inner Wolf guy.” She heard how shaky she sounded, how needy, and cleared her throat. Werewolves despised weakness. “Where are you? What’s going on?”

“We’re still on the road. We think the Gaudins are trailing us and we’re resting up in case they launch an attack. They rammed my truck and Al got killed.”

“No,” she began. She’d seen what happened. It had been the Hellhound, not the Gaudins. But how could she tell him that without revealing that she’d run from him?

“Don’t shed tears for that one, darlin’. He was no fan of yours,” he said. “Where are
you
? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

She had prepared for this. “I’m back home. I started running and I wound up on this road. A trucker pulled over and I-I tried to call you but I guess it didn’t go through. I went to your house but no one was there. So I came back to my cabin.”

“Huh,” he said, and she realized he’d bought it. “There’s a power vacuum now, with Lee gone. It’s making everyone insane and folks are gearing up to issue challenges for dominance. You best stay away.”

“No problem,” she said tartly, and he chuckled.

“Kat McBride, respectful as always.”

“Don’t start. Please.
Sir
,” she added in the same acidic tone.

“You’re right. Now’s not the time for an etiquette class. We’re in crisis. Let me tell you what’s going on. I sent Lucy and Jesse away to a hunting cabin way up in the hills to keep them both safe and out of things. I don’t know how Jesse will take Lee’s death. He loved that man.”

He wasn’t a man
, Katelyn thought. Then she had a sickening thought: that Jesse may have already found out, and broken someone’s neck in his rage. That he might have transformed — he was older than Justin, and physical maturity determined when you could will yourself to change — and killed the Inner Wolf attendee.

That the hunting party might find him.

“Are you sure they reached the cabin?” she asked.

“What’s this? Concern for the welfare of fellow pack members?” he asked softly. “Are you finally getting it?”

“These being the same pack members who stood by while Lucy nearly killed me in a challenge,” she retorted. “The same ones you’ve sent Lucy and Jesse away from, because you’re all running amok without someone to tell you what to do. The same werewolves who were cheering her on when she was trying to kill me could turn on her at any second.”

“Kat, I’ll excuse that because you’re scared. You’re new at this,” he said.

“I don’t care. I never want to get used to this. It’s sick and you’re all crazy. I hate this. I hate you!”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re stuck with us. And with
me
.”

“No,” she said, and before she could stop herself, she disconnected the call. For a moment she was breathless, realizing how disrespectful it had been, and then she was fiercely, exuberantly glad she’d done it. She was immune to silver. He wasn’t. The Hounds of God had come to her, not to him. And she had a garage filled with silver bullets, and another gun that shot them. She wasn’t going to be some wimpy little coward sniveling at his feet.

“Bring it, Fenner,” she sneered at the phone.

Then she shook a little, because she wasn’t stupid. Justin might become the new alpha, which meant that she might have just pissed off the most powerful werewolf in Wolf Springs. She might have a gun with silver bullets, but he would have an entire pack of werewolves to do his bidding.

And he had her other gun. He had only been able to hold it for a couple of minutes, but it had been long enough to take down Luc Gaudin.

“Yeah, with what, three bullets?” she muttered, and got herself another handful. But he would never actually hurt her, would he?

Once everything was back in place, she crept out of the garage and was heading for the porch when she noticed a shadow stretched against the wall. She sucked in her breath and flattened herself against a darker section of the wood siding as she tried to force her werewolf senses to kick in. Adrenaline seemed to activate the change. But nothing happened.

It’s just a tree
, she told herself, but the same feeling of dread that she’d experienced when the Hounds of God had formed a line earlier stole over her. Ice pellets slapped at her cheeks and wind buffeted her ears. Then a metallic creaking noise jerked her attention to the right, to the porch. The wind was pushing on the front door, which was open.

A butterfly lodged itself at the base of her throat.

I shut it, didn’t I? Is there someone in our cabin?

She scrutinized the door, dialing back mentally, replaying her actions. No. She
had
shut the door tightly, carefully.

There was someone in the house.

Her phone rang with Justin’s ringtone. He probably wanted to read her the riot act for hanging up on him. Fumbling in her jeans, she tried to turn off the ringer but succeeded only in declining the call. That meant he would probably try again. Panicking, she turned off the phone, not meaning to, but it was too late.

The wind caught the door and slammed it against the front of the house. Then a gust blew it the other way, and it crashed shut.

Now there was no way to quietly sneak in the front door. She licked her lips and her heartbeat kicked into overdrive, pounding so hard she could feel the pressure in her head. She transferred her gun to her left hand and wiped the icy sweat off her right palm, then gripped it and held it close to her chest, pointed upward, pushing the air from her lungs slowly, her body so taut it was nearly impossible to make herself exhale.

Maybe it’s just the thief who took our stuff.

She didn’t believe that.

The best course of action was to wait.

Except . . . she heard a rustle in the shrubs along the garage. So there was someone in her house, and someone behind her. A wave of fear made her sway. She pressed her lips together to keep from making a sound and forced herself to think. Whoever was outside with her was closer, more dangerous.

She snaked her hand up the side of the gun to prevent it from glinting in the moonlight as she cautiously swiveled toward the sound. Bushes rustled again. The wind blew her hair in front of her eyes and she shook her head to try to clear her vision.

A stronger wind blew snow around her ankles. The ice pellets tinked on the garage roof.

She heard a footstep. Another.

Directly behind her.

A hand came over her mouth. Something hard — the barrel of a gun — pressed against her temple.

She had miscalculated, badly. Somehow someone had concealed themselves between the cabin door and her. The roof. She forced herself not to whimper as the voice of an older woman rasped into her ear:

“Arial Fenner sends her greetings,” she said. “And she sent me, too. To kill you.”

6

“
YOU’RE MAKING A
big mistake,” Katelyn managed to get out. Was there just the one or were there more werewolves? Her own gun was in her hand, but she would never be able to move it in time before the woman shot her.

“I don’t think so,” the woman said with a short, sharp laugh that sounded more like a hyena than a human. It set Katelyn’s teeth on edge.

“The new alpha wants me alive and wants to see me now.” Katelyn deliberately refrained from identifying who that might be.

The woman laughed harshly. “There is no new alpha yet, and if you think for a moment that Justi—”

“Regan,” Katelyn interrupted. “Regan is the new alpha and she knows I risked my own life to save her husband, Doug. She knows the value her father placed on me and why. And she understands that I’m the pack’s best weapon in this war.”

“You’re lying. When Arial sent me here she was very clear that no one had won, no alpha exists. Yet.”

Katelyn continued to lie through her teeth. “Arial’s dead. Justin called me and told me just before I came back outside. Regan fought her and killed her.”

It was plausible. After all, Katelyn had no idea which of the sisters would have the upper hand in a fight and she was hoping that the woman holding the gun to her temple wouldn’t either.

“So I’d distance myself from Arial and anything she told you to do as fast as I could,” Katelyn pushed, sensing hesitation and seizing upon it. “That’s the losing side. You need to honor the new alpha.”

“You’re lying,” the older woman retorted.

Katelyn felt the gun barrel move a fraction of an inch. Good. She had the other woman off balance and distracted, which was exactly what she needed her to be.

“Oh, come on. Surely you know the secret,” Katelyn pressed.

“What secret?” the woman asked. The gun barrel wobbled slightly more.

“I can’t be killed by bullets.” Katelyn let herself fall, straight down, sliding through the woman’s grasp. She threw herself back, slamming into the woman’s knees and the woman tumbled with a gasp. The gun discharged harmlessly in the air, then hit the ground and Katelyn kicked at it, sending it skidding away. Miraculously her own gun was still clamped in her hand. She twisted around and pointed it at the woman’s head, but something was wrong. She was having a hard time holding it, as if her fingers were too short. She tried to wrap her index finger around the trigger but it was also thickening.

She brought her other hand up to keep hold of the gun when she got a good look at it — it was turning into a paw tipped with razor-sharp claws.

The woman was terrified. “You-you shouldn’t be able to change!”

Katelyn opened her mouth to say that there were a lot of things she shouldn’t be able to do, but all that came out was a hideous growl.

The gun fell from Katelyn’s fingers. Her bones snapped, reformed. Before her eyes the older woman began to shift in response.

With a roar Katelyn leaped on top of her, trying to keep her pinned to the ground. Pain seared through her body and instead of screams, howls tore loose.

She was changing, all the way this time. She waited for the inevitable, where her humanity slipped away from her and only the wolf was left.

Save your life
, she told herself as the pressure in her head mounted and her thoughts squeezed together into a tighter and tighter ball.
Survive
.

And then . . . the squeezing stopped . . . and she was still herself. Or rather, she was still aware of her human self, even as the wolf switched into high gear. She exulted, alive, vibrant, stronger than ever before.

It felt like . . .

. . . freedom.

She stared in fascinated horror as the other woman finished her own change. Katelyn snapped at her, teeth grazing her cheek. It was a warning:
stay down
.

But the other wolf wasn’t heeding it. Instead, she wriggled below Katelyn and champed her fangs down on Katelyn’s left front paw.

The yip of pain was ripped from Katelyn’s lungs even as hatred surged through her.

Must kill.

The other wolf kicked out with its back legs, catching her in the stomach and lifting her up and off. She contorted in midair and landed on her feet, snarling, even as the older wolf struggled to her feet.

They circled each other, snapping, feinting, looking for an opening.

The throat could be torn out and that would be a kill, Katelyn knew, understood on a deep level. The same was true with the soft belly.

Brown eyes glared at her. Brown. Not the wolf who had bitten her.

The attacker lunged forward and Katelyn leaped to the side, spinning and slashing at the other wolf’s flanks as it overshot her. The smell of blood filled the air and it stirred a hunger deep inside. Time to kill. Time to eat.

Her foe yelped, a cry of injury, and more, of fear. Yes. It was afraid. It reeked of it. Katelyn would teach it to fear. She would make it sorry it had ever set eyes on her.

The other wolf attacked again and Katelyn vaulted over her, but then tucked her head and bit into the other wolf’s back, fangs puncturing skin and cracking bone.

More blood, more yelping, as Katelyn landed safely on the other side. She turned and looked back at the other wolf, daring her to take it one step farther, daring her to attack again.

And Katelyn’s challenger stood, whining, uncertain.

Its mistake.

Katelyn leaped forward. She was going to rip out her enemy’s throat. She could do it, she had closed on her, and the stupid wolf was holding her head too high, leaving her throat exposed.