Savage Surrender: A Dire Wolves Mission (The Devil's Dires Book 1) (3 page)

T
he retching started shortly
after the sun set. Sariel was already prepared, ready with the bucket she’d been forced to urinate in and a towel. The cloth was filthy, as was everything in the nasty prison, but it was the best she could do.

“Easy, now.” Sariel poured clean water from the pitcher their captors brought in every day onto the towel to dampen it, then placed it against the back of the girl’s neck. “Don’t fight it. You’ll feel better once you’ve gotten rid of the drugs.”

The girl cried and coughed, clutching the bucket as she emptied her stomach. The sounds, the smell, all of it reminded Sariel of her own first few days on the boat. Of the sick feeling as the drugs her captors had forced on her worked their way through her system. The fear of not knowing where she was or who the men guarding her were. The terror at what their plans were. She remembered every second, but she’d been forced to handle it all alone. The girl at least had Sariel on her side, and she would do everything she could to protect her.

“Shhhh.” Sariel ran a hand over the girl’s back as the vomiting slowed. “It’s awful, I know. Give it a minute and it’ll stop. Then you can have a drink.”

The girl choked, a sad, coughing noise coming from her as she fought back her sobs. Sariel remembered that, too. Though she’d let her tears fall those first few days. And been punished for them.

“Don’t cry. I’m here, and I’ll help you. Just don’t cry.”

The girl quieted before taking a deep breath. “Where am I?”

“Some sort of swamp. I don’t really know much more than that.”

The girl sniffed and raised her head, taking a look around. She had huge, dark eyes that were red-rimmed, but pretty. Sweet-faced and petite, she looked like a teenager. A thought that turned Sariel’s stomach. She was just a kid.

The girl sat quiet for a few long moments, doing nothing more than breathing, it seemed. Sariel waited, watching her. Hoping she would stay calm as the reality that had been thrust upon her truly settled into place.

“Not Florida,” the girl said, her voice soft but sure. “Bayou, maybe.”

Sariel cocked her head, her brow tightening. “What?”

The girl shrugged and pulled her ash-colored hair away from her face. The strands caught the little bit of light pushing through the windows, practically glowing. Sariel had never seen such a color on a human before. Brown and gray and black, all woven together with streaks of silver interspersed throughout. She bet it was gorgeous when it was clean and brushed.

The girl nodded toward the window. “It doesn’t smell like the Everglades, so if it’s a swamp, my guess is bayou country. Louisiana, more than likely.”

Sariel huffed a laugh. “Well, you’re certainly smarter than I am. I couldn’t have told you a thing about this place other than the air is as heavy as a wool blanket.”

The girl’s mouth tipped up in a tiny smile. “My mom has family outside of Miami. My brother and I spent a lot of time in and around the Everglades.”

She grew quiet again, pensive, probably stuck on thoughts of the family and pack she’d been taken from. Thoughts Sariel knew too much about.

“I’m Sariel,” she said, trying to draw the girl out again. To give her a sense of normalcy in this unusual situation. “I’m an only child and one of only three shifters younger than eighty in my pack. I grew up in the desert outside Yuma, Arizona.”

The girl stared at her for a long moment, those dark eyes going from near lifeless to filled with a rage that took Sariel by surprise. “I’m Angelita, and I had a little brother who was my world back in Texas. But he, my parents, and my pack are dead. Those bastards who took me killed them all.”

B
ez stood
in the kitchen of the hunting cabin he’d been holed up in for the past three days, sipping coffee and looking over emails on his phone. The house was one of Blaze’s property holdings. The man had little cabins to large mansions scattered across the country and beyond. All in secluded locations, all stocked to the rafters with weaponry and supplies in case he needed a place to hide, most with shifter-proof safe rooms as added protection for his mates. The president had a plan for almost anything, and the Dire Wolves were the only men on his private security team to not only have access to each property but to have the passcodes and weaponry inventory for each and every house. Something that came in handy when they were hunting down a target. Or trying to get one to talk.

A gurgle from the living room alerted Bez to the start of his workday. Another session, another fight not to kill the fucker in the other room before he got what he needed. And he would get it—he never fucking failed a mission.

Bez put his phone back in his pocket and drank down the last of his coffee. He washed out his mug in the sink, making sure to dry the heavy ceramic vessel and place it back in the exact spot where he’d found it. A second gurgle and a moan sounded as he wiped down the counters, but Bez stayed focused. He had to remove all traces of his presence in case he needed to make a quick exit. There was a precision to this job, a methodology learned over centuries of training. He would not be rushed.

Humming while he worked, Bez cleaned every inch of the kitchen until it sparkled. When he finished, he reached into a drawer and grabbed what he needed before turning toward the space most people would use for a living room. Bez had used it in a bit of a different way. Of course, his job wasn’t what most people would call a job.

“You ready to talk yet?” Bez looked over at Harkens. The shifter hung midair, suspended by a chain around his ankles and secured to the ceiling. Head down, arms tied to his chest to keep from dangling, Harkens rocked slightly over the tarp Bez had spread across the hardwoods to keep the floors clean.

A job well done, but he wasn’t finished yet.

Shifters were a hard breed to kill, though not as hardy as some of the monsters Bez had hunted over the years. Still, shifters had a regeneration ability that defied human logic. To kill a shifter, you needed to stop his blood from flowing. There were two ways Bez preferred to accomplish that task. The first—tearing out the heart of the aforementioned shifter—offered a quick and relatively painless death, though it wasn’t really a choice if you needed information and the target refused to speak. Like Harkens.

The second way had been Bez’s only option given the situation.

Bez had been bleeding the shifter slowly over the three days he’d had him suspended from the ceiling, killing him bit by bit, a handful of strategically placed slashes and artery nicks added every day. It looked like a gory and painful way to die, but that tended to make lips move. And Bez’s mission was to find the Omega, not to help his informants make a peaceful transition to whatever afterlife they were due.

Harkens coughed, spraying blood across the tarp below him as he did. Bez glowered at the mess until a weak whisper reached his ears.

“Attakapas.”

Bez moved closer, circling Harkens. His wolf perked up and pushed against his human mind, finally seeing an end to the wait for the real mission in sight. “What’s Attakapas?”

“Camp.” Harkens coughed again, choking this time on the blood pooling in his mouth. “She was to be taken to a camp near the Attakapas Refuge. Please. Please let me down.”

“How many men?” Bez waited for an answer before using his foot to swing the man around. He squatted and tilted his head, growling as his wolf wrangled for control. The beast was ready to end this…to kill the weaker animal and move on to the next hunt. But Bez still needed information. “How many men guard the Omega?”

“A handful. Spread thin. Five, maybe.”

“That sounds like bullshit to me.”

“The camp is in the swamp, deep in. Boss thinks no one can find it, plus he sent—” Harkens coughed again, his entire body swinging and jerking with the force.

The blood hit the wall, making Bez twitch. Harkens would be dead soon, of that he had no doubt, so cleanup would have to wait. No matter how much he hated to admit that.

“Who’s this boss? What’s his name?”

“Don’t…know. Call him…The King.”

“Someone thinks highly of themselves.” Bez stood and circled his prisoner, considering his options. “So that’s it? Attakapas, somewhere in a bayou that stretches over what…probably a hundred miles? Five men guarding the Omega. Anything else?”

Harkens hung quiet, eyes open but unfocused. Alive and yet…not.

“Your usefulness has ended.” Bez struck fast and hard, brandishing the knife he’d been palming and slitting the other man’s throat in a single swipe. What little blood was left sprayed toward the wall, but Bez ignored it. The thrill of the hunt was back, and that meant he needed to move. Without a pause, he dropped the knife and grabbed his phone, pressing a button as he walked out the front door.

“Attakapas Refuge,” he said when Dante answered. “That’s the holding spot—some camp in the swamp. Five guards, tops.”

“Need backup?”

“Not for the initial mission; I should be able to handle that hunt alone. Alert Levi just in case, and call Mammon to put the Dires on standby for the phase-two hunt. Last I heard, he was over in Fort Worth keeping an eye on that new pack of shifters. I want men no more than four hours away before I get back from the field.”

“On it.”

Bez strode across the lawn toward his Jeep, taking one last look over the property. “Also, I’ll be selling the house at my current location.”

“Selling?” Dante’s voice carried a bristle to it that Bez didn’t often hear. Though, he rarely made messes that warranted such an action. “May I ask the reason?”

“It’s not clean enough.”

Dante didn’t answer, but the sound of clicking keys told Bez he was typing. “Tracking you now. Take care of the sale; I’ll handle the residual paperwork.”

“Understood.” Bez ended the call and gave himself one final moment to look over the property. He always loved their version selling a house, though it wasn’t something they did often. That would attract too much attention, as would a man standing in the driveway staring at a house that was about to disappear. It was time to go.

Eyes on his phone, looking up the closest property to Attakapas Refuge, Bez hopped into the Jeep. He cranked the engine while reaching for a black remote in the glove box, having already set up everything he needed to “sell” this place before he’d even walked in the door three days ago. When he reached the end of the driveway, Bez grinned and pressed the single white button on the face of the little device.

After a moment’s delay, the cabin exploded, the resulting blaze hot enough to burn the inside of Bez’s nose as he inhaled. He dropped the remote, grabbed his shades from the visor, and turned onto the main road. Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area was a little over six hours away. The Omega was within grabbing distance.

S
ariel woke
from her nap suddenly, her heart racing in her chest. God, her dreams…such wistful, heartbreaking visions of the past playing out as her mind surrendered to fantasy. Pictures of home dancing through her head, the feel of hard earth under her paws, and the exhilaration that only came from running in her wolf form across the harsh yet beautiful terrain. She missed it, missed everything terribly. In her dreams, she was home in the desert, surrounded by her pack. But when she woke up… Well, that was when she fell into an entirely different reality. One that had been forced on her. One she didn’t know if she could survive.

The sound of sniffling from across the room whispered in the thick, humid air, just loud enough for her sensitive ears to pick up. Angelita was crying again. The little shifter who’d been tossed into the houseboat only a week before had been doing that on and off for days, hiding her face in her pillow and sobbing, thinking no one knew. But Sariel knew… She heard the muffled cries, and she worried for the young girl. Possibly even more than she worried for herself.

The teenager had woken up terrified, screaming and crying on the floor of the houseboat not long after their guard had left. It had taken Sariel almost an hour to get the girl to calm down enough to speak. Another two to get her to tell Sariel her name. It took Angelita three days to finally admit how the men, assumedly the same ones who had whisked Sariel away in the middle of the night, had attacked her pack and killed her family. The little girl had been made an orphan and a prisoner within a matter of hours, and Sariel’s heart broke every time she saw the overwhelming grief on Angelita’s pretty face.

Sariel ran her hand over her eyes and sighed, somewhat frustrated. She couldn’t blame Angelita for being upset, but tears did nothing but make the men around them want more. And the animals that’d kidnapped them both—that had swooped into their regular lives and dragged them away to this humid, stinky hell in the middle of a fucking swamp—would get those tears from the pup one way or another if she didn’t stay quiet. They considered it a game, one they played with their captives whenever they got bored. And the bastards got bored often. Sariel had learned that quickly, and she’d make sure the young one knew it too. Buck up, don’t give them anything to work with, tuck your emotions under your inner strength, and pretend to be submissive to their wolves to keep them from trying to prove their dominance. She would make sure Angelita learned how to survive this place without the harsh lessons Sariel had endured.

As another sob wrenched through Angelita, Sariel glanced at the chair by the door. Empty. She turned back toward the young shifter’s cot, thankful their guard had left them alone for the moment.

“Angelita,” she hissed, keeping her voice as soft as possible. “Honey, you need to calm down.”

The girl went silent for a minute, trying hard to obey, but then a choked sob broke through the thick afternoon air. The sound tore at Sariel’s heart, reminding her of just how young Angelita was. More so than her fifteen short years would indicate, really. The girl had been sheltered by her pack. Protected. Sariel was a mature shifter who’d seen the good and bad of life come her way, and she could barely hold herself together under the constant fear their situation blanketed her in. Poor Angelita didn’t have a chance…not alone, at least.

Sariel slid out of her bed and snuck across the wood planks, praying she didn’t hit a squeaky spot. The last thing she needed was to draw the attention of the men keeping them in this fetid trash dump they called a houseboat. When she reached Angelita’s bed, she knelt on the rough floor and pulled the sheet back from over the girl’s head. Even in the dim light the filthy windows allowed into the room, Sariel could see the puffiness of Angelita’s eyes, the angry red streaks burning paths down her cheeks. This cryfest had been going on for a while.

Placing a calming hand on Angelita’s shoulder, Sariel leaned over her and whispered, “If they hear you, they’ll come in here. And then things will be worse.”

Angelita nodded and sniffed. “I know.”

“Then why are you crying?”

The girl was quiet for a minute, only the sounds of insects Sariel couldn’t even identify invading the still, humid air. Thick…she’d never known air could actually feel thick. Good Lord, it was like trying to breathe through a wet blanket all the time.

“I’m scared,” Angelita finally admitted. Sariel rubbed her shoulder and inched closer. Angelita’s eyes opened wide, staring at her, making Sariel’s chest hurt with the amount of pain she could see carried within them. Angelita was afraid, alone, and grieving… Sariel could at least try to help with two of those.

“I’m scared too, and with good reason. But tears won’t do nothin’ more than make you weak, and we can’t afford to be weak. We have to be strong right now, little one. Stronger than those men out there.”

“I’m trying. But sometimes…” The girl trailed off, looking at the ceiling. Sariel waited for her to finish her thought, rubbing a hand over her hair to try to calm the young one’s nerves. The weeks spent trapped in this place had been hell on earth for Sariel, but to the girl, who’d lost her entire family and pack when the men holding them had raided her home to snatch her, it must have been pure torture. She had nothing here to cling to and nothing from where she’d been raised to go home to. That thought always made Sariel’s protective instincts surge, made the motherly feelings she thought had skipped past her come roaring to the front of her mind. Everyone deserved a place to call home.

After several quiet moments, Angelita took a deep breath, her voice stronger as she said, “Sometimes I remember what they did to my mom and dad, and I can’t decide if I want to hurt them or cry. So I cry, because I can’t hurt them.” Her eyes met Sariel’s, glowing brightly, the power of her wolf pushing through her human side. “At least not yet.”

“That’s right,” Sariel said, wishing she could let her own wolf peek out of the cage she’d been keeping her in. She’d learned the hard way not to shift in this place, not to even let her wolf senses free. If she wanted to stay alive, she’d have to do it in her human form, without the help of her greatest ally. “We’ll get them back for what they did to your family.”

Angelita wiped away the last of her tears, sounding small and shy as she whispered, “We’ll get out of here eventually, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sariel said, fighting back her doubts. “There’s no way I’m staying in this hellhole forever.”

“But what about the alligators? That one guy said gators aren’t afraid of wolves.”

Sariel rolled her eyes. “Honey, I’m afraid of a lot of things. Uncontrollable male shifters, knives being thrown, tight spaces, fire ants. But I’m not afraid of some prehistoric throwback swimming around out there in that murky water. I’m from the desert; we’ve got nasty stinging critters and snakes galore.” Sariel pointed toward the far window, the only one that opened to allow fresh air in. “But that swamp? That’s our escape, our way to find a new home, our only shot at survival. That’s freedom out there. And no way is some reptile getting in the way of me and freedom.”

“So what do we do?”

“We listen…and we watch. Knowledge is our most powerful weapon, little one. We keep our eyes on these men and figure out what’s what. Like that the dark one can’t smell his own scat, or the tall blond seems to have a little hearing trouble. Stuff like that can be used to our advantage, right?”

Sariel smiled as Angelita nodded. “A little bit longer, and we’ll have our chance. It’s just a matter of time. Those boys out there think they have a couple of delicate petals on their hands. They’ve never truly seen what happens when one of us shows our claws.”

Angelita was quiet for a moment, her lips pursed. “What if they come for us before then, or they split us up?”

Sariel’s stomach dropped, but she held her tongue. She’d heard a conversation about just that thing the other day. They needed Angelita somewhere up north, and Sariel wasn’t needed at all anymore. She’d never thought her being sterile would be a good thing, but having been kidnapped by a group who only wanted her so they could breed her had changed her mind in a hurry. Every day, she thanked the stars for that little biological defect. But Angelita wasn’t as lucky. The men had left her alone so far, other than to tease and torment the child, but she knew that would end once they got her to wherever they were planning to take her. Angelita was in serious danger, and Sariel could only hope they’d be able to escape together before it all came to a head.

Doing her best to keep her face calm and clear of the worry eating her up from the inside, Sariel tucked the dirty sheet around Angelita’s shoulders. “Don’t go borrowing trouble, now. We have three things to do—watch, wait, and plan. If we do that, we get out. Period.”

Angelita nodded, snuggling into Sariel’s side. The two lay quiet and still, listening to the chorus of insects buzzing away. Frogs croaked and splashed, birds screamed, and alligators roared in the distance. Noises Sariel had somehow gotten used to. And by the gods, wasn’t it a sick, sad fact that she’d been there long enough to get used to all that?

“What do you want to do when you get out of here?” Angelita asked, breaking the heavy non-silence.

“Besides shower for a whole day?” Sariel winked and smiled, the two of them both uncomfortable with their lack of bathing options. “I want food…real food. And I’d like to find myself a handsome shifter to hold on to for a few hours.”

The girl giggled, reminding Sariel of how young she really was. Not just in years, but how inexperienced and immature she could be. The princess of her pack, Angelita was the epitome of a sheltered young woman. Too old to be a child, not yet ready to be a woman. Trapped in the in-between where emotions ran strong and every disappointment seemed to bring on the end of the world. Sariel hoped she could help her get out of this place, to give her the chance to grow up a bit more somewhere safe and secure. Somewhere they’d honor her and protect that innocence as they introduced her slowly to what it meant to be a woman.

But even knowing how careful she needed to be, Sariel wasn’t going to lie to the girl. Not about her hopes for when they escaped. If it made Angelita blush, so be it. She’d understand the draw of big, strong arms wrapping around her one day.

“And when I’m clean,” Sariel said, grinning at Angelita’s blush and looking up at the ceiling. “When my belly’s full and I’ve kicked that nice shifter back to where he came from, I want to go north.”

Angelita snuggled closer, tangling their legs together for the comfort of touch. “Why north?”

But, oh, there was danger in that answer. Sariel shrugged, trying to hide the wet burning in her eyes and the way her hands shook. “I’ve never seen snow, and I think I might like to.”

Angelita grew quiet, her face serious as she stared at Sariel in a way that made her think the young one knew why she wanted to see snow. Just once. Because the fact that she’d been kidnapped and brought out to this hellhole in the bayou had put the possibility that her life may end on the front burner in her mind. She was in trouble, and so was Angelita. If Sariel got out of this mess, she was doing all the things she’d put off before the night those men stormed into her home. She was doing all the things she’d ever wanted to so that she didn’t feel as if she was missing anything. She was living the life she’d always dreamed of, whether her pack liked it or not.